Eroos
All these mentions of death in the military chapters made me reflect once again on this subject Is killing wrong? Is it a sin? Is it immoral? These and many other questions flooded me, but I came to the same answer as always, which is what I would tell Christian if I were Dimitri: Every life has its value, whether it is the smallest of microorganisms or the most evolved of beings. The act of feeling bad for killing someone is hypocritical. The life of all beings is surrounded by death, whether it is a cow killing grass to eat it, a lion killing to feed itself and its pack, and we humans who live our whole lives killing something. Insects that annoy you, a simple plant that you plucked for nothing, or even killing for food, all of us, without exception, have killed something in our lives. So why don't we feel bad about it? We take it as right to kill the mosquito that annoys you, but why do we take it as wrong when, for example, it is a dog? Or another human, as in Christian's case. This fact shows the pure hypocrisy of the human being, a conscious and unconscious "quantification" of the value of lives. Some say "everyone has the right to life, so we should not take it away from them" and yet they kill a simple insect that they found in their house, but where did their "moralism" go? Others say "it is wrong to kill another person" because it is their belief, what they have learned since they were little, the teaching they grew up with, but they kill other "worthless" beings without feeling anything. But why is killing humans, animals with a higher "quantification" of the value of life wrong, and beings with lower values not? But even the "killing is wrong" speech has its hypocrisy. Why, when we see news about the death of strangers on TV, don't we feel anything? It is always the same reaction of "gee, poor guy" and we go on with our lives. Why, when we see reports about cow slaughterhouses, don't we feel anything in particular? But if we see reports about dog slaughterhouses we get indignant, we think "heartless"? What is the difference between the value of the life of a cow and a dog? Rationally, a cow is much more valuable than a dog, so why is one "normal" and the other "wrong"? We can invalidate this question by saying "cows in slaughterhouses were raised for this purpose" and dogs are pets, but okay, so why is it considered wrong for me to raise a dog and slaughter it? It is the same logic as with the cow, it was bred for that and not to be a pet, so "it is not wrong". That was a practical and objective example showing the hypocrisy of the "it's wrong to kill" saying, unlike the previous ones that were "specious". In short, my point is, you don't feel bad for the act of killing something, you feel bad for killing something that you thought was of greater value and importance. We regard the lives of strangers as "just another one" by watching them die as a bystander, but we assign greater value to that life when we are the ones who take it, so we feel bad. So stop using robotic and hypocritical arguments like "killing is wrong because yes" when taking a life and accept that you feel bad for assigning greater value to it. We are all hypocrites in something, so we should try to change or just accept it.