War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning Summary
I believe that Chris Hedges book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is spot on how war affects a person and a society. Chris Hedges believes that war is negative and that it degrades the ones who participate in it. War changes the people that fight in it and just like a drug war becomes an addiction, once you get a taste of it is hard to stop. War brings out the nationalism of those who fight in it and at the core of nationalism is racism.
How People Change
People change during war, and not in a good way. War brings out the worst in human nature. It shows that people lose their morals just to survive or to show that they are fighting for the right cause. Hedges has seen firsthand that “it takes little in wartime to turn ordinary men into …show more content…
How people tend to be close-minded when a war breaks out (Hedges, 47). People become so invested in their cause that they seem to forget that someone they regarded as a neighbor and a friend before the fighting broke out is now seen as the enemy and after the fighting ends they never apologize (Hedges, 49). I find that an interesting subject because it can be looked at by two ways. One way it can be looked at is that they believed in their cause so much that they do not feel the need to apologize. Another way is that they are so ashamed that they are embarrassed to apologize. Lazreg showed that the French were the only ones that were using torture. It was always the French torturing the Algerians and never the other way around. The French seemed to believe that the Algerians should be thankful to be “French Citizens” and show their love and support for France but instead the nationalist of Algeria were sent to internment camps (Lazreg, 137). The French’s justification for the torture was that it “saves lives” (lazreg , 133). For the German’s their justification for killing the Jews was that the it was saving their women and children from the bombings in the cities as if the Jews were the ones doing the bombings (Browning,
How People Change
People change during war, and not in a good way. War brings out the worst in human nature. It shows that people lose their morals just to survive or to show that they are fighting for the right cause. Hedges has seen firsthand that “it takes little in wartime to turn ordinary men into …show more content…
How people tend to be close-minded when a war breaks out (Hedges, 47). People become so invested in their cause that they seem to forget that someone they regarded as a neighbor and a friend before the fighting broke out is now seen as the enemy and after the fighting ends they never apologize (Hedges, 49). I find that an interesting subject because it can be looked at by two ways. One way it can be looked at is that they believed in their cause so much that they do not feel the need to apologize. Another way is that they are so ashamed that they are embarrassed to apologize. Lazreg showed that the French were the only ones that were using torture. It was always the French torturing the Algerians and never the other way around. The French seemed to believe that the Algerians should be thankful to be “French Citizens” and show their love and support for France but instead the nationalist of Algeria were sent to internment camps (Lazreg, 137). The French’s justification for the torture was that it “saves lives” (lazreg , 133). For the German’s their justification for killing the Jews was that the it was saving their women and children from the bombings in the cities as if the Jews were the ones doing the bombings (Browning,