Feeding the Fire
I was first confronted with the question of whether it is right to fight violence with violence when I was thirteen years old. My eighth-grade U.S. History teacher, Ms.Vitello, prompted us with the question after teaching the class a unit on World War II. She asked the class if the United States was right in dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The entire class, including myself gave a resounding yes in response. Our reasoning was all the same — Pearl Harbor. Our views could be compared to those of General George S. Patton, after the attack he stated:
The US was right in committing one of the most violent acts against another country in modern history because they hurt us first. By eighth grade, I had adopted our cultural norm of retaliation violence. I didn’t think anything of this question, feeling completely justified in the answer I had given. If someone wanted to attack our innocent civilians, we had every right to attack their civilians in retaliation. I exited the class, and put the question of out of my mind.
My opinions remained dormant until I was confronted with the question again one year later, while reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I was enthralled by the recently popularized books and at the end of the last book in the trilogy, aforementioned ideals were mirrored. At this point in the series, the corrupt Capitol government had been overthrown and the victors were faced with the question of how to move forward with new Capitol and District relations. The previous government held the Hunger Games every year, in which two children were selected from each district, except the Capitol, to fight to the death in a televised spectacle. The Hunger Games was developed as punishment for a revolt against the government. Katniss, the protagonist and former winner of the Hunger Games voted for the new government to host a new Hunger Games to punish children from the Capitol as revenge for the injustices the Districts had experienced. This decision horrified and shocked me at the time. I couldn’t imagine such cruelty and injustice in a fictional world but was fine with it in my own.
This book prompted me to reevaluate my position on violence in response to violence. The book allowed me to separate my personal bias from the situation. I supported the dropping of the atomic bomb because it was a decision made by America and my desire to protect my country override the empathy I usually have for other people. This was the catalyst for my development of a new way of thinking. The Hunger Games was able to show me how violence cannot solve violence but merely perpetuates an endless cycle of conflict. Beetee, another Tribute, recognizes the danger of cyclical violence when he states,
“[I vote] no, it would set a bad precedent. We have to stop viewing one another as enemies. At this point unity is essential for survival. No.”
Katniss’s new government commits the same atrocities they had rebelled against in the first place. The anger they felt for their government will now manifest in the Capitol children and the country will be in the same place it started in. I began to reevaluate my way of thinking and how deeply this cutthroat philosophy pervades our culture. Even when violence is justified by a violent act of another group it only serves to create greater political dissonance. Violence can never address the roots of problems, only the symptoms. It does not solve problems but causes them to recur in different forms.
Reading the Hunger Games created a profound moment of change for me because my opinion on the concept of justice was severely altered. This specific scenario in the series differentiates what is just and what is right, two concepts that are assumed to be linked together. The decision made by the Capitol is just in a Hammurabian sense. Katniss’s decision to hold another Hunger Games forces the oppressors to suffer like the oppressed did. The children in the original Hunger Games were chosen because their parents’ generation rebelled against the government. The children themselves were completely innocent but still had to kill each other in a game meant to amuse the oppressors. Similarly, the Capitol children did not persecute anyone but were merely born into their privilege. These children are also punished for the crimes of their parents. The actions of Katniss are just because their is an equality in the pain inflicted. It’s satisfying to know that others feel the same pain inflicted onto you but in achieving justice all semblance of progress and righteousness is lost. The situation is no more righteous than it is in the beginning. It remains the same, the only thing that changes is who is in power and who suffers. At this point in the Hunger Games, children are still dying in a televised event orchestrated by the government. There is no righteousness in forcing children to kill each other no matter the circumstances preceding the decision. Righteousness is defined by morality and I realized that it is infinitely more valuable than justice. Justice will maintain the status quo and righteousness will change it. I have found that violence is most often the tool used to dole out justice.
One might say that justice has become an over idealized virtue in our Western society, as seen in some of America’s most popular TV shows like Law and Order and Judge Judy. Justice is impersonal and completely devoid of all empathy in its nature. It is this lack of empathy that allows violence to be the administrator of justice. One only has to look at the American Justice System to see this. When a person commits murder in our society, our laws state that the government must kill them. The act of killing a person is not more right, but it is justified. When I look back on my teacher’s question if America had been right in dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in response to Pearl Harbor, I can see that we had already learned to prioritize justice over righteousness.
I did not have to look far to find an example of this in recent history. The way the United States handles Syria is a prime example. President Donald Trump has openly condemned Assad’s regime and his use of chemical weapons against his own people. He laments over the lives of women and children lost in this tragedy. America’s first response to this tragedy was to conduct an airstrike on Syria — an overtly violent act. This was President Trump’s response:
We bombed a chemical plant in Syria, which is a short term solution to the issue. This decreases the likelihood of a chemical attack in the future, but it also displaced the Syrians that were victim to the attack. This is not the first time Assad has attacked the Syrians and it is not the first time America has responded with an airstrike. This is not a judgement on President Trump’s decision but a commentary on the prevalence of retaliation culture in global politics and its adverse effects on blameless civilians. People often jump to violent solutions, however, there are diplomatic solutions to consider. For example, Russia is a heavy contributor to funding Assad’s regime. Therefore, if America were to pressure Russia to stop supporting Assad via economic sanctions against Russia more systematic changes could be made. Assad does not have the funds to continue his chemical attacks without Russia. While this is not a perfect solution, it is still valuable to deliberate all options rather than making violence the default.
The Guatemalan Coup of 1954 also exemplifies superfluous American violence. Guatemala was being governed by their second democratically-elected president, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz. Even his campaign was similar to those seen in America at the time.
President Eisenhower and the American government feared Arbenz because he wanted to seize and redistribute 40% of the land owned by The United Fruit Company (UFCO) and redistribute it to the people because at the time, 97% of the land was controlled by only 3% of the population, mostly businesses. UFCO was an American owned company that controlled most of the land in Guatemala and had close ties to the American government. The CIA covertly bombed Guatemala and overthrew the government. The US established a military state under dictator, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas. An oligarchy largely comprised of officials with stakes in UFCO purposefully maintained poor conditions in the country in order to maximize their profit. At the time of the attack Arbenz turned to the US for help because he believed they were allies. This preemptive violent attack against Guatemala could have been avoided if America spoke to Arbenz about their concerns. There was no imminent threat to the United States and no reason for unnecessary violence. The strike against Guatemala only served to hurt innocent civilians that were not involved with the conflict. While civilians were not killed in the conflict, the violence was still not righteous because we kept the Guatemalans in poverty to protect American interests. Like dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the end does not justify the means because too many innocent people were hurt along the way.
Retaliation violence is prevalent in our culture not because of an innate bloodlust but because it is a tempting solution. Violence presents itself as a cure for all ills, when in fact, violence does not solve anything. Like a fire, retaliation violence only feeds itself. Although I could not see this through the subjective lens of crimes committed against America, I was able to remove myself enough from a situation in a fiction world, to realize that violence is not always the answer.