A few weeks ago, I was sent a message containing a possible proposition, which I could not quite swallow. I thought about and came up with what I considered to be a good reasoning to dispute the proposition, here they both are:

Proposition:

"Causing injury to another, whatever the reason, is ultimately counter-productive."

In order to survive we must eat, in order to eat we must kill others, whether they be plants or animals. I believe that both of these things are alive. Therefore whenever we eat we have to injure something else, it is a blatant fact of life. In saying this one could say, 'To survive is to cause injury to another' and therefore from this statement and the one at the top of this paragraph we would get, 'To survive, whatever the reason, is ultimately counter productive.' Now, this could actually be true, but I think almost anyone would balk if you tried to feed it to them.

I won't say why I added the part about plants and animals being alive (feeling entities), but needless to say, this is an important consideration. Heh.

Now, to think and delve into this a little bit further, I will not say that to hurt another is a good thing. I think about it in the same terms that I think of many such things. Is anger or aggression good? Is pain good? Is war good? These are very complex questions and cannot be answered in simple terms like white and black, yes and no. If asked in a general context, most people would say they are bad things, and I would, generally, agree with that decision, but if they are put into a context, it becomes a question with many parts and factors to consider. At such times, these things contain the possibility of being either good or bad, right or wrong.

One who makes war with an oppressor for the purpose of freeing his or her family and loved ones from the shadow of toil, disease and death is doing a good thing. Such a one makes war with a clear purpose and goal. I say this is not an evil thing, it is a good thing. Some people claim that all war is wrong, sometimes I wonder if they've ever found something worth fighting for... However, war can be a very sinister and dirty thing, well, actually it is pretty dirty no matter what its goal is. But it can be used for unnecessarily harmful purposes. At these times it becomes an evil thing. When a tyrant sends the people to fight for him to expand his empire war is a plague upon the land, a disease that spreads and multiplies.

War is war. War is said to be good when it is done for a good cause, i.e. to free the people and restore harmony. It is a blemish on society when it is done for an ill purpose, for unnecessary material gain, to satisfy an ego. This description of war depends on its goal, its purpose. To be able to classify war in this sense requires one to be able to make value judgments on which goals are worthy and which ones are not. While we all make those judgments for ourselves, how many people could actually make such a judgment call that many others would accept as being true? Now, how many people could judge something that everybody could accept?

In this way of thinking, who has the right, who has the ability to criticize another persons judgments? Is it those people who are 'sane'? Those people who have lived a long time? Those with power? Those who study and are experts in the field? In short, how do we judge the value of something, anything that affects the people?

Tell me...