I was watching Lord of War a couple of days ago, and one scene got me thinking. Nic Cage plays an illicit arms dealer who enters his young son's room, takes his toy pistol, and throws it in the garbage. In the film, it was clumsy symbolism, but I put a lot of thought into people who take that stance in real life.
What is the exact mindset behind telling your children that they should never have anything to do with weapons, especially firearms? I don't know, because my children certainly won't be raised like that, but I am assuming the mindset covers two major points:
1. Safety. People don't want their children involved in any accidents. This, I understand, but can be well covered without hysterically scaring kids into thinking weapons are the devil.
2. Pacifism. Some parents believe that by encouraging their children (boys in particular) to handle weapons, this is telling them that violence is a viable solution to problems.
Of course, violence is a viable solution to many problems. There are times in the world where violence can be used effectively and morally, such as in self-defense, in the pursuit of justice, or most arguably, pre-emption. Yet, the line between those listed options and something wrong can be thin and blurry.
This is the kind of topic I could write about all day and not begin to cover adequately. One question that I would pose to those who act hysterically afraid around firearms and encourage their kids to do the same: why do you find it acceptable for others to have the power and responsibility of handling firearms, but not yourself? Do you really want to live in a society where the only people that can use guns are soldiers, policemen, and criminals? Is that a responsibilty that should only be entrusted to those three groups of people, two of which are beyond the shadow of a doubt wildly irresponsible?
8 comments:
Should write at the end,"I'll let you choose which two." Maybe. Nice post though.
Dustin
You are quite harsh with movies that depict guns in a negative way, and rightfully so. But, keep in mind that guns are a symbol of violence. Analogous to how trains are a symbol for industrialism, or flowers are a symbol of love, or a handshake is symbolic of peace. If Nicholas Cage throws a gun in the garbage, I think this is more of a statement about the humanitarian hope that children never grow up to be violent people. Of course, just throwing a gun away, that is so over-simplified that I hardly consider that to be a clever way of depicting humanitariansm. Also, it perpetuates the negative stereotype of the 2nd amendment.
Another example is "Road to Perdition," when the kid had a gun aimed at Jude Laws character, but Tom Hanks' character killed Jude Law's character so that his son would never have the experience of killing another man. The son finishes by saying, "...and that was the last time I ever held a gun," literally meaning that he didn't grow up to be a criminal like his father was.
This symbolism, is unfortunate but it is a logical extention of the simple fact that guns are designed for one single purpose: to kill things. Now, like any tool, this can be good or evil depending on who is using it. But this inherently destructive purpose of guns makes them symbolic of violence and crime, and that is a basic fact which story writers often utilize without necessarily intending to perpetuate the negative bias towards guns. Though of course, there are many morons out there who mistake that symbolism for "proof" that guns are bad.
Glad you agree with me about the symbolism being clumsy and over-simplified.
Lord of War itself focused very little on the domestic front when it came to guns, being pretty much exclusively about the trafficing of weaponry to delightful places such as the Balkans and Liberia. It didn't even mention the 2nd Amendment, something I find a bit curious upon reflection. Either way, the movie was definintely anti-gun, but in this case, it wasn't really why I disliked it. The film was just too clumsy and simple minded, and squandered its chance to be powerful.
You are very correct about the symbolism of firearms. As both a film fanatic and a gun enthusiast, I can see the power and necessity of the symbol, even while I regret its effect on the public. Then again, I only got into guns because the media made them look cool, so it could be argued that the media actually does more to help gun politics than hurt it. A whole nother' issue altogether, I suppose.
I was thinking, pacifism is a legitimate way of thinking. I think some people think pacifism is only being like Ghandi or something. But I see it more as "using violence only as a last of a last of a last possible resort to solving some problem that you have either thought very very carefully about, or have absolutely no time to think about."
In other words, if you think of violence as a viable solution to your problems you are in danger of maybe using violence to solve your problems too often. Pacifism is, in my mind, trying to establish a way of thinking that minimizes violence to it's absolute minimum.
Like the war in Iraq, I think that is an example of how we Americans didn't think carefully enough about what we were doing and we should have been more pacifist about our solution, and now we have made a mistake and are stuck spending money and resources and American lives trying to fixing it.
I guess I don't really know where you stand on the concept of "pacifism," so I look forward to your reply.
Pacifism seems to me like an excuse not to have to get your hands dirty. Why fight for what you believe in when you can just sit Indian-style and smoke dope all day, right?
Of course, many pacifists have been brave, influential people. I just don't think it is a good philosophy over-all.
I'm not fond of the common statement that Americans are reckless and don't think about things. We are in a position where most countries don't agree with us, but this is the cost of being the lead actor on the world stage. Bush fucked up by pressing WMD as the main reason for invasion, but everyone thought the Iraqi's had them, including the people most opposed to the war! You were for the Iraq war once yourself, ya know.
I was once in favor of the war in Iraq, now I am not. On the one hand, I realize that it seems like I want to back out of the situation and forget about it. This attitude is like what you said, "Why fight for what you believe in when you can just sit Indian-style and smoke dope all day?"
But I of course do not want to back out of the situation. I simply think that this war was a mistake. I consider it a lesson learned. If I were to go back to myself 3 years ago, I would say to myself, "maybe I should be more pacifist about this issue."
The pacifist's question then becomes, "Why fight for what you believe in when what you believe in could be wrong?"
Of course, some situations require decisive action and leave little room for contemplation. For these situations, pacifism must take a back seat to utilitarian decision making. So in that sense, pacifism isn't a universal solution. So I think I see what you mean when you say pacifism isn't a good philosophy over-all.
If you're reading this, you have WAYYYYY too much spare time...
(James, you'd be the exception, because I don't know if you're notified every time someone leaves a comment)
Anonymous, I do get notified when people leave comments. I had forgot this little debate even existed.
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