Metahistory Summary

In Chapter 5 of The Morality of War, Brian Orend discusses the particular case of supreme emergencies, hereby defined as a state of war during which an aggressor state comes dangerously close to overpowering the victim state militarly, probably followed by extreme brutalization of the victim state's population and various violations of human rights, such as rape, slavery, mass murder and so on. The concept of supreme emergency has caused controversy in the discourse about the morality of war, regarding both what constitutes a supreme emergency and how supreme emergencies are to be addressed within the context of just war theory. In this essay, I will review Orend's exposition on the matter and follow with an introduction of elements that

Humanitarian interference positions a hard trial for an international society constructed on the doctrines of sovereignty, intervention, and the use of force. Directly after the holocaust, the society of states recognized the laws prohibiting genocide, forbidding the exploitation of civilians, and identifying plain human rights. These humanitarian values often clash with doctrines of sovereignty. Sovereign states are required to perform as protectors of their citizens’ security, but what happens if states act as villains towards their own people, treating power as a pass to kill? Should dictatorial states be recognized as valid members of international society and permitted the protection afforded by the intervention norm? Or else, most states loss their sovereign rights and be exposed to reasonable intervention if they aggressively abuse or fail to protect their citizens? Connected to this, what responsibilities do other states or organizations have to enforce human rights standards against governments that vastly violate them?

History has been, and continues to be, revolved around the concept of violence. Violence is an unescapable subject that people, leaders, and countries are faced with whenever any conflict occurs. Everyone has their own opinion on whether or not violence is the solution to every problem. Specifically looking at Mohandas Gandhi’s Satyagraha, Frantz Fanon’s chapter titled “Concerning Violence” from his novel The Wretched of the Earth, and Benito Mussolini’s “The Doctrine of Fascism”, we gain a clear understanding whether or not they supported the use of violence and what their objectives were within their time period. Although Gandhi, Fanon, and Mussolini acknowledge violence as a widely used force to deal with political, social, and economic

Throughout Literature the reader often finds themselves thrust into the world of its author, this world relies heavily upon imagery to assist in the formation of this world. In saying this, however, a significant amount of this literary world derived from text is lost due to it being written from the point of view of the recorder, this is even more true in regards to history. Narrowing down the notion of historical point of view, the reader must often times seek out information from both sides to get a pure account of the past and are scarcely ever given a completely unbiased historical account due to the primary ascender being given free reign as to what will be recorded. This idea of the victorious being the recorders of history connects

In the first part of Pinker’s book, he presents six major decline trends of violence in the historical view; they are the pacification process, the civilizing process, the humanitarian revolution, the long peace, the new peace, and the rights revolutions. In each case, Pinker provides us the immediate cause or called historical cause and then point out the ultimate cause which is about our nature interacting with historical cause. In the pacification process and the civilizing process, he invites us to look at violence in the anarchy (without central government) and in the Middle Ages. Pinker uses two methods, forensic archaeology and ethnographic vital statistics, to measure death rates in the societies before states showing that non-state societies outstrip state societies in their rates of violence death. The evidence from archaeological sites of hunting and gathering societies estimates that roughly 15% of the populations were killed violently. By comparison, rates of violent death in state societies normally run in the range of 1% to 3%, and even the most liberal estimates for the most violent periods in civilization’s history, for instances, the 17th

War is the fuel that ignites chaos, death and destruction throughout the world. Novelist Michael Marshall wisely stated in his book Blood of Angels, “There has been no war without atrocity. War is atrocity, pure and simple: only greed, nationalism and faith help us pretend otherwise.” The quotes anti-war stance accurately details wars horrific nature and the unjust circumstances endured by the innocent. Furthermore, it reflects on the idea that patriotism blinds people and significantly contributes to men feeling obliged to join the fight. Finally, it refers to the lust for power and wealth that particular countries possess and how it drives them to make barbaric decisions.

This paper explores the use of legal excuses for genocide that is presented on the world stage and the social excuses for genocide that is presented and carried out by civilians. A country that involves itself in the genocide of another group of people usually has civilian support that stems from the respective leader. Civilians, whether small or large in number influence the effectiveness of genocide through the military, weapon ownership, social attitudes, and the love or fear of a leader. The leader of a country or group in power passes policies, makes speeches, circulates propaganda, and can influence what is seen as morally right or wrong. The leaders of other countries usually ignore crucial warning signs, miss them altogether, or naively believe sweet and deceitful words of other leaders who work for the “wellbeing of the people”. Examples can be found in Nazi Germany’s Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, Aboriginal Genocides in Australia and the Native American Genocide in the United States.

IR Theorist, Martha Finnemore, discusses how changes in the norms as to what constituted “humanity” evolved through colonization and decolonization. The pervasive belief of the equality and “natural rights” of the European man did not extend to non-European individuals, and thus colonization was seen as a mission for the betterment of those populations. But as the non-European people began to read, write, and work in Western society they were increasingly viewed as human. Once they “became human”, they were able to serve as activists to further the human-rights movements. Several decades later, the UN Charter now includes the right to self-determination for all individuals. While honor still plays a role in the ideological conflicts in many third-world countries, among the majority of developed states it is no longer a primary motivator for war. This appreciation for all human life, in conjunction with diplomatic mechanisms to protect it, have considerably reduced the ability to obtain honor by waging

Violence seems so intrinsic to history individuals appear desensitized to the implications of subtle, vicious, or aggressive physical violence. Can we challenge emotional reactions or do transcendent principles guide human behavior to justify violence with reason? In early 20th century literature, violent and hostile acts were fundamental to a protagonist's resolution; authors used this theme to illustrate the prevalence of evil and question the effects on society when violence was tolerated. These works profoundly impacted the overall societal view on the implication of violence as evil. Contributed to raising consciousness as well as help change the perpetual discrimination at the time.

The genocide committed during Second World War is one that still scars the human psyche to this day. The horrors of the Second World War lead to Raphael Lemkin’s creation of a new word, “genocide” in 1944 (Conversi 2006: 320). The definition of genocide is still under dispute by academics (Dallaire and Coleman 2013: 778; Manaktala 2012: 179; Hinton 2012: 11). For the purposes of this essay the definition used is the one created by the United Nations following the signing of resolution 240 (Stanton 1998: 1). The definition in the current form reads, “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part a national ethnical, racial or religious group” (United Nations Resolution 260 1948: Article 2). Using this definition, the three best examples of genocide in this era are Rwanda (Magnarella 2005: 801), The Holocaust (Vardejo 2012: 81) and Armenia (Hinton 2012: 13). Using these three genocides, this essay will examine the three key causes of genocide in the modern era. The first being hardships both economic and created by war that ultimately lead to a genocide. The next is the creation of an ‘us vs. them’ ideology which leads to the dehumanisation of the victims. The final cause is the enlightenment concept, which supports the perpetrators belief that they are doing this for a better world.

In this paper, I will argue that Luban’s critique of Walzer conception of legitimacy is misguided. I will first present Walzer’s argument for interventions using the “legalist paradigm,” in particular his conception of self-determination and how the principle of non-intervention may be set aside in exceptional circumstances. I will then present Luban’s critique of Walzer and his argument for developing an account of Just War directly in terms of human rights, before concluding with my own critique of Luban’s argument.

The word evil has many meanings, and could be perceived in many ways, like when it comes to using it ethically, particularly pertaining to social justice and injustice today. That is something I will be discussing in this paper, as well as we, the people, might be wary of the history of violence based on divisions of people into "good" and "evil," for instance, the history of most all wars, in which the enemy must be considered 'evil' so that they can be killed without guilt. Also do we need the seriousness of this term 'evil' to name the severity of injustices today, and if so, how might we better define how 'evil' works? I also write about how we could develop a more ethically and politically useful concept of "social evil" through Arendt's

As mentioned in the Main Thesis, there are three specific sections in “On Violence” book. In section I, the author cites a variety of historically relevant social scientists, with a focus on their thoughts on violence, war, and power. Engels (p. 4), Hobbes (p. 5), Chomsky (p. 7), Clausewitz (p. 8), Mao Tse-tung (p. 11), and Marx (p. 11-13) are cited in an attempt to frame the author’s discussion and definitions about the dynamic of power. In section II, Wright Mills (p. 35), Weber (p. 35), Clausewitz (p. 36), Strauz-Hupé (p. 36-37) and Jouvenel (p 37), Alexander Passerin d'Entréves’ The Nation of the State (37), the author makes it very clear that violence is the opposite of power, in which she will be explaining in section III. During this

The first chapter provides the reader with a brief walk through the history of violence throughout the centuries. Topics he touched on include of the biblical times’ bloody, wrathful written history as a principle even if many of these instances never occurred. Keeping in mind the stoning, beheading, burnings, and mutilation you could receive as punishment for a cardinal sin, torture in general was widely accepted and practiced during

This paper interrogates the various contradictions in Nordstrom's opinion, about the various levels of violence and their interpretations. Culture influences interpretations of events and they are relative to context and individuals or groups. It also interrogates Berkowitz (1978:707) tentative summation of pain as being the source of aggression in man. I attempt to test their ideas using Sapolsky’s research in neuroscience and Eagleton’s literary theory. Nordstrom questions the idea that projects the intrinsic nature of aggression in man against the backdrop of theories in psychoanalysis theories eschewed by Eagleton and Sapolsky. Also, it appreciates the philosophical musing of Nordstrom while she offers a case of "what ought to…." as against "what is" in war and violence narratives.