Finalist, 2004 Kids Philosophy Slam
Nicholas Post, age 15
Bethpage, NY
Why do we slow down at traffic accidents? Why do we make executions
public? Why do millions of television viewers around the world
tune in every night to be enveloped in hours upon hours of violence?
Mankind loves bloodshed.
Since the first pair of grunting Neanderthals to walk the earth
bashed each other over food, humans have not ceased to kill each
other. The amount of global peace since the beginning of civilization
is limited to days. And as time goes on, we reinvent our means
of killing each other. When the wooden club failed, we used the
mace. When the mace failed, we used the sword. When the sword
failed, we used the rifle. And now, in an age when any individual
with a phone line can order a high-powered assault rifle, designed
to kill a person as efficiently as possible, where governments
are just a button away from destroying entire cities, where fighting
extends beyond conventional means into using chemicals to destroy
the enemy biologically, society's passion for war and death is
all too obvious.
Ancient Rome is an example where we can see that mankind has
always loved blood and gore. Those that managed to survive the
carnage that is war with the Romans were doomed to an even more
bloody fate. Prisoners of war were pitted against each other
in the merciless spectacle that is the gladiatorial combat.
The Coliseum in Rome considered a triumph and symbol of man's
power, shows us that even in a time of peace, our human nature
embraces violence. Is it any wonder why today's society is immune
to the way we treat each other? Are today's video games and
spectator sports any different than the mob mentality of The
Coliseum?
Human beings have two responses to danger. Fight or flight. Based
on this alone, one can conclude that every human is constantly
flipping a figurative coin when in a tense situation. It is shocking
that we have the capacity to restrain ourselves as much as we
do. But war is not only man's primal response to threat. On a
more sophisticated level, humans use violence as an outlet for
internal frustration. Anger, hate, racism, envy--these are all
caused by a feeling of insecurity, an unavoidable feeling felt
by all men and women. This insecurity manifests itself as the
dogs of war, a temporary release for the pressure of being born
a person. Society's drug of choice is violence.
Man is a bloodthirsty, destructive war machine. As advanced as
society grows, as sophisticated as one gets, no human can deny
this quality.
