America 's Attitude Toward Violence And War

“The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

Violence is an unavoidable terror that has played one of the, if not the most, important roles in all of history. Without violence, lands wouldn’t be conquered, empires wouldn’t fall, and people wouldn’t have any limits or restrictions. The French Revolution is one example of a violent uprising because the people of France revolted against the rule of King Louis XVI by raiding, storming, and slaughtering for their natural equal rights. The revolution marked the end of a government ruled by monarchy and the start of the Republic of France. One important reason of why the revolution was successful in bringing political change was because it was violent.

There can be many causes of violence that affect a person or a group of people to carry out acts of violence targeting specific people or a specific institution. There are dozens of potential triggers. The main one to focus on is violence in the media. The media is able to portray violence all day long thanks to social media, 24-hour news channel, newspapers, radio broadcasts etc. It is easier for the media to use these various outlets to broadcast violence because we are always plugged in via our phones, tablets, laptops, computers etc. It is often said that the United States of America was conceived and nurtured by violence. Americans not only engage in violence; they are entertained by it.

I strongly believe that America has a culture of violence. Just think; since 1966, a whopping 889 people have died during mass shootings. In 2015, there was over 25,000 gun related injuries in America. As of yesterday, 776 people have been shot and killed by police this year. Although many of these casualties were not innocent people, there was numerous innocent people who were killed this year who did not deserve it.

America’s Uncivil Wars is a book written about the sixties era that captures that provides understanding of how and why events occurred during this period, as well as their historical roots from the time since the Second World War. The author, Mark Hamilton Lytle, used a chronological approach to explain the era by dividing the sixties into three separate phases. The first is the era of consensus, which starts approximately around 1954 and includes the years up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. From there, Lytle talks about events in the second phase: the years from 1964 to 1968. These are the years after Kennedy’s death until the

Tyler Bonin’s The Atlantic article “The Challenge of Teaching War to Today's Students”, published in November 8th, 2017 addresses the “Challenge” of this article with “I realized that it was not simply a matter of disinterest, but rather that the subject only existed to them in an abstract manner”. Tyler Bonin, in his Rationale, interprets this challenge as a congestion to the future of the current generation in America as today’s students will be “exposed to an entirely new set of policies and institutions have been developed in the name of the “War on Terror.””. Thus in Bonin’s postulation, ultimately it is the civic responsibility of today’s students to understand and assess violence being

This paper reviews America’s paradoxical love-hate relationship with war and how this relationship influences American warfare through the research and study of the interpretation and analyzation of American military models, policy and goal changes, the use of military technology, “American way of war,” and the relationship with, preparation for, and application of war.

ugard offers an admiring, blow-by-blow account of one of the most shameful wars of aggression in American history. The tight-knit West Point “brotherhood” who served during the Mexican War—which included the illustrious names Grant, Lee, Jackson, Davis, Bragg, Beauregard, Sherman, Pickett, Burnside, Longstreet and Hooker—would meet again in more dire, momentous circumstances during the Civil War. Dugard works backward from Appomattox, 1865—when generals Lee and Grant recognized each other from their stint in Mexico some 18 years before—and follows their dissimilar early military careers from West Point. Lee, an exemplary student who graduated second in his class of 1829, was the gentleman son of the famous Revolutionary War hero. Grant, who

Although, on the home front the United States is a peaceful place to be, in fact the United States is not a neutral peaceful country. The United States has actually to date been engaged for the last 13 years in the longest war it has ever been involved with. The next two longest wars the United States has been involved with were the Iraq War (2003-2011), and the Vietnam War (1964-1972). In all three of the past longest wars, the United States has been involved with, there has been no clear victory, and the same can be said for the Afghanistan War. However, the pride and reverence for the military is still ever present from the American people, and it is still a popular held attitude that the United States military is good, and most of the time a necessary evil.

Violence in America America is a violent nation. Many people think that America is full of freedom and democracy. Do these people actually see what happens in America? Do they see the violence in schools, the crime in our society? Most likely, no, these people have loosely seen our society, the violence and the frauds that plague America's history as well as the present.

As Americans, living in a egotistical and self centered society, we often think that we are the best, the top 1 percent in every aspect. However, When compared to other countries of the world, America is ranked 14th in education, 44th in health care efficiency, and 101th in peace. But it ranks first in incarceration, 2nd in ignorance, and 3rd in global competitiveness. One can see how the rankings that America is top in are those that promote violence in one way or another. In the book Violence and Culture: A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Approach by Jack David Eller, the author discusses violence in American society in one of his chapters. In this chapter, he mentions some social characteristics that represents and plays a role in

War and violence are major problems. It does not matter in the world where someone lives, War and violence are always seen and heard. War and violence can affect people in different ways. Humanity has gotten so used to seeing people massacred, murdered, and killed. The young generation are growing up being taught that the best way to solve something is to go to war and kill people. War and violence are making society fall to little pieces.

To Bakar 's point, public figures, such as President-elect Donald Trump, through fear inciting speech, has created a social "us" versus "them" social binary. His call to ban all Muslims is not only distasteful, but he makes an ignorant, un-presidential blanket statement that harms the global perception of Muslim Americans. Last year, it was recorded that 78 mosques had been attacked and 2016 is on track to reach these number of attacks. As a direct result of the recent election, there has inevitably been an increase in anti-Muslim rhetoric and one can only assume that the projection of hate crimes committed against Muslim Americans will continue to rise. People of color are regularly targeted victims of Islamophobic rhetoric—not by these "terrorists"—but instead by those who perpetuate and act on white supremacist misconceptions. These racist groups dehumanize Muslim-Americans for "looking like terrorist" (as if terrorism can be personified) and are wrongly scrutinized based on mere appearance. Even as participants of western democracy, Muslim-Americans often question their role as citizens in a society that has cast them as the "feared other."

Famous Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz said that "war is the continuation of politics by other means." which supports the idea of war as a culturally influenced situation that is determined by the political power in control. War is a tool in the arsenal of a successful power to use when debating and non-violent persuasion fail to achieve the goals of the power. War is always waged for a reason, war is not a random act of slaughter. It is consequential to both the attacking and defending parties and no matter the amount of casualties, war comes with a heavy price. The financial cost of war is astronomical and the effects of war can be damaging to the political power. This is why war is usually a secondary resort instead of an impulsive decision coming from instinctive biology and not rationale. Biology has shown us that we do have reflexive, self defense mechanisms built in that serve the purpose of defending us from predators. But instead of fighting for a cause initiated out of respect for our self defense, we find these mechanisms being manipulated by the political power in order to gain public support for a war waged for entirely calculated reasons and not based on emotional expression. Denis Diderot, a French philosopher, elaborates on war as a

  Conflict and differences of opinion exist in every healthy organization. Americans need to try to take control of today's youth and the violence that is and has been developing in this country for many years.  Although violence will never be extinct, there are many different ways to reduce violence.  Each school and student population has different ways of dealing with and helping to curb the need for violence in schools.