well todae was eventful. yest got caught by samuel sim never clear plate so had to find gabriel phee to sign up for CWO. after exams tho. played soccer for the first time in 6 days during recess. played with dc and josh class against sec 2s then after a while 3.13 came which attracted preston and gang. but still ok since they not my team i dun feel pressured to pass to them. b div swimming won. hahaha i was laughing when i read the newspaper report :" By winning 3 out of 4 of their races yesterday." lol. the 4th happens to be cumtell. to be fair to him he was swimming with sec 4s lol. gonna poke fun at him on monday. ;) ethan came into our class and made our chinese teacher so pissed she walked out of class. after sch played street with william all those then with joshua marks gang and of course kenna owned la. my team was leon tay. dint even bother to run. then some guy ask them whether they saw faraaz cos he stole a lot of their wallets and phones. took the chance to leave. i dint noe faraaz was so screwed up. anyway then went to field and played a while with lame kai all those then went home. spent the whole afternoon sleeping. sians. i better work hard. then i can go to express knowing i did my best, just as jian puts it. anyway here's my IHS essay, hope its satisfactory. handed it in late after all ;)
IHS Essay
Question: “Self-Righteousness is the most justified reason for conflict.”
How far do you agree with this statement?
Josiah Tham (28)
3.18 Nathan
I shall start this essay by defining the key terms of the question, stating my parameter of discussion, the assumptions needed to be taken from the question and finally my stand. Self-righteousness is the feeling of smug superiority obtained from a belief that one’s values; actions or associations are of a greater value or virtue than those of a normal person. Next, “most justified reason” is defined as the most suitable or more simply, the best option, while “conflict” refers to a disagreement between two or more parties resulting in friction within them. My parameter of time will be from the Second World War up to the present day while I will be using examples from many different parts of the globe. The assumption of this question is that there is no other alternative besides war and conflict and that a peaceful resolution is impossible. Regarding my stand, I agree to a lesser extent but I feel that self-preservation is actually the most justified reason for conflict. I will explain why this is so further on in my essay.
First, I will account for why I agree to the statement to a smaller extent. Firstly, we can look at the example of America’s entry into World War Two. America’s entering of this war was extremely instrumental in the ending of the war and all its bloodshed. While it is true that the date of America’s declaration of war on Germany was only 4 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbour by the Japanese, the main reason of America’s entering of the war was not to take revenge against the Japanese, but to stop the spreading of the Nazis fascist regime. The United States were democratic and strongly felt that their way of governing the country was superior to the Nazi regime thus they entered the war as they were afraid that the Germans would eventually win the war and cause Nazism to be widespread throughout the world. Nazism was a very damaging belief as it involved self-exaltation, the belief that one is better than another. In this case, it was the Aryan race and the Jews. This resulted in widespread massacre of Jews. Therefore, the Americans wanted to prevent this from happening, thus they declared war on Germany. This is an example where self-righteousness is the most justified reason for conflict.
However, I will now express why I feel that most of the time; self-righteousness is not the most justified reason for conflict. An example is the case of America dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in this case, self-righteousness is not justified as America had entered the war wanting to change the values of the enemy and impose democracy onto them as they believed it was the best form of government, as stated above. Yet the act of dropping the bombs came about as they had wanted to end the war as quick as possible and not because they had wanted to change Japan’s way of life to reflect American values. Thus, in this case, self-righteousness is not justified as America did not drop the bombs in order to impose democracy onto Japan. They simply did not want any further casualties and financial losses.
Moreover, there are several other reasons for conflict, one of which I regard as the most justified, which is self-preservation. In most cases, war comes about through self-preservation. Self-preservation is the instinct for individual preservation of oneself and the inborn desire to stay alive. In the case of war, it comes about when a country attacks another country that did not want to fight a war. Thus, the attacked country has to defend itself out of a desire to stay alive, thus bringing self-preservation into play. There are many examples of self-preservation in war, a supreme example being the Iraq war, where the United States had claimed that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons so as to invade it. Thus Iraq had to fight back, thus in this case, self-preservation occurs. Another reason that can be given for conflict is self-exaltation, a very good example being the tyranny of Hitler in Nazi Germany. As mentioned above, since Hitler felt that his race, the Aryans were superior to the Jews, he attempted to exterminate the Jews from Germany through mass murders. Thus, conflict arose. However, I do not regard self-exaltation as the most justified reason for conflict.
In conclusion, as I have stated above, I regard self-preservation as the most justified reason for conflict as I feel that we should do our best to solve problems peacefully and steer away from conflict as much as we can. Thus, self-preservation is the only reason that can be given in such cases, where one defends oneself out of self-defense and a desire to live and where conflict is a last resort. In self-righteousness however, without that air of superiority and self-belief, conflict will not occur. Thus, I believe self-preservation is the more predominant reason for conflict. However, my conclusion and stands may not be accurate as I have based it on certain assumptions and I am personally against war and conflict and have always regarded it as a purely last resort action, thus resulting in my conclusion. Thus, while self-righteousness is a justified reason for conflict as I have explained above, I strongly feel it is definitely not the most justified reason for it.
(896 words)
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