The Vietnam War was an unjustified war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam. Three million four hundred thousand soldiers and civilians died during the twenty years of brutal war. America intervened for seemingly anemic reasons, but most sources indicate that the reason was an anti-communist movement. Brought about by the Cold War between Russia and America, America could not afford to lose Vietnam to the communist government because that, in turn, would bring them into Russia's sphere of influence. So America supported South Vietnam while Russia supported North Vietnam. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay John F. Kennedy sent a team to to report on conditions in South Korea according to the "domino theory." The theory works with a small change that creates larger and larger changes as time passes. In this case, if Vietnam were to become a communist society, it would spread throughout Asia. The Vietnam War was a televised war, the first of its kind in which it allowed citizens to see what was really happening in the conflict. protest America's unscrupulous reasoning in sending military soldiers to intervene. Four texts describe in a complex and detailed way the morality and perspective of American soldiers in Vietnam. The four texts I chose to show this are: The Things They Carried, Platoon, Apocalypse Now and How to Tell a True War Story. All of these texts are written respectively and accurately, describing what it was like, psychologically and physically, in a foreign country that declared war on foreigners for unjustified reasoning. Four aspects presented in all these texts are morality, conflict, dehumanization and brutality. These are primordial themes that all humanity can identify with and understand. The use of these aspects was done brilliantly to truly show the disgusting and horrific conditions that the soldiers were forced to endure. Human beings are attracted to power. With power comes conflict and moral judgment. Personally, I think the Vietnam War had shady political agendas and that the public was misinformed. Because of this lack of clarity, it makes sense that people have carefully scrutinized the US government's choice and future choices. Personally I agree with their reasoning, if only slightly. The cost they paid with 3 million deaths and countless lives they ruined is on the other side of morality, but there is an understandable reason why they did what they did. While most likely fueled by humanity's lust for power, they have their own reasoning, which I agree with and can understand. Through further discussion, I could succumb to the general masses and agree that it was unwarranted. Morality and Conflict The two films, Apocalypse Now and The Things They Carried, both depict excellent examples of the themes: morality and conflict through complex scenes or texts. Morality and conflict are all instinctively within us, we generate conflict and competition wherever we go. It is human nature and a primitive advantage to be victorious. As much as our society has progressed through laws and social progress compared to other cultures and rights, we are still brutal by nature. War, even in decline, is still prevalent and threatens to occur even in today's society. Morality is constantly challenged by conflict and its ability to justify actions caused by the conflict of opposing ideologies. Morality isa subjective principle that concerns the distinction between right and wrong. Right or correct behavior is determined by a "golden rule": treat others as you want to be treated. Fair is generally the benefit of the greatest number of people with the least possible expense to others. The expense is generally determined as damage, psychological or physical, to an opposing person. For example, the 3 main categories of “wrong” are: forced sexual acts, violence resulting from the actions of one individual towards another, and theft of another person's property (theft). These incur great expense for the victim and cause trauma to some extent. , so they are seen as morally wrong. However, giving, love, kindness, sharing, helping, etc… are seen as morally correct acts as they benefit one or more people with little or no expense to anyone else. We can see these two sides collide when the example is shifted to giving your daughter a brand new toy at Christmas, but you had to rob a store to get the funds. It's a kind act, but it comes at an expense to individuals or companies, so it's seen as morally grey, where the mass of a society generally can't agree on whether what they did was wrong or right. Psychologists spend much of their practice studying empathy and morality since they are closely linked (so I will refer to some psychological principles and ideas throughout the essay). Humanity's sole purpose in the animal kingdom has been to gain so much power and the ability to cooperate using empathy (the basis of morality), thereby eliminating competition and enabling progress. Conflict is not just physical aggression, it can be aggravated by simple disagreements to form a clash between two different people or ideologies. Conflict has been widespread in humanity's last 3,400 years, as humans have only been completely at peace for 268 of those years. Humans are drawn to conflict because it is one of our key evolutionary advantages. We may have the smartest brains and the strongest bodies, but without conflict there was no will to act or progress. Watch a movie, for example, can you think of a movie where conflict, whether psychological or physical in nature, wasn't necessary to advance the plot? Conflict is often seen as a primitive remnant of our past that helped us survive, but in the modern era it is only seen as a harmful effect, especially when considering the morality of not maiming or killing another living being without justification . The conflict can be internal, external, against fate, inanimate objects and of course against another human being. Without conflict, there is no story, there is no driving force for progress as everyone is comfortable where they are. But alas, humans are conflicted by nature to allow progression from one medium to another. Morality and Conflict: Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is an ambitious film with bold camerawork, editing, acting, and ambiguous plot points within the film that allow audiences to truly immerse themselves in the Vietnam War. It covers multiple themes and ideas such as the degradation of morality, the internal and external conflict of individuals, the negative view of the American agenda, and the way America operated during the Vietnam War. A quick summary of Apocalypse Now is that Captain Benjamin L. Willard is traveling along the Nong River where most of the film is spent. Captain Willard was tasked by shady American officers with assassinating Colonel Walter E. Kurtz because Kurtz, we are told, went mad by surrounding himself with troops and ignoring military disciplinary action. A psychoanalytic visionof this film allows us to see the descent into madness traversed by the troubled mind of a soldier, a mind degraded by the conflict of war. Captain Willard possesses traces of addiction to war, a lack of good morals and a certain degree of madness but none of these traits directly control him but simply guide him towards his destiny. Kurtz and Willard are two sides of the same coin in the sense that they both fully experienced the horrific conflict of war and how their morality was tormented by it. For this reason they support the same evil and the same ideologies. They are the only two characters who have experienced the conflict of the enemy, innocence, and themselves. The only conflict between them is over who holds the hardest and darkest heart. There are three stops on their journey down the river, each implementing a new type of theme shown through an act of morality or conflict that our characters must endure. Our first stage is the dehumanization of the enemy through the love of war. The second arrest is the loss of morality through the conflict of innocence. Finally the third stage which tells the theme of madness through the internal conflict of one's self. For this essay I will focus on our characters' second stage and analyze the conflict and how it interacts with our characters' sense of morality. In the second stage our characters visit a military station in the midst of an entertainment staged for the troops. Here we see a very clear example of the lack of morality and respect for others as the conflict in the film begins to take over. The scene opens with the characters watching the show while some attractive showgirls dance erotically for the soldiers. The showgirls were shown in other scenes in posters owned by the soldiers showing how they idolize them. However, as the show goes on, a fight breaks out among the crowd of soldiers as everyone climbs over each other to get to the Playboy girls. It is at this point that we see their lack of empathy as they internally fight with each other and lose respect for camaraderie. This shows their lack of morality for innocence as everyone on the show symbolizes a general genre of people. The spokespersons resemble the general public at home, which is evidenced by the phrase: "We want you to know that we are grateful for what you are doing for this country." The showgirls are affiliated with the civilians back home and the people the soldiers fight for. This means that this analogy shows soldiers endangering innocence and themselves for stupendous reasoning due to their lack of clarity. So far it has been established that these soldiers were brothers in arms who cared for each other and had decent morals. Here we begin to see the iceberg tip as we begin to see their selfish nature and lack of respect or care towards their fellow soldiers or disciplinary commands. We see how the soldiers progress deeper into the story, metaphorically they are digging deeper into themselves to explore their own evils. Another scene worth analyzing analytically is with Captain Willard on the boat as they have just captured some civilians on their journey. This scene really highlights the progressive degradation of Captain Willard's morality as he proceeds to murder a civilian, simply because she wouldn't stop crying. All the other soldiers stand still in silence as they are exposed to what has just happened and what, as a unit, they have become. “Your conscience is measured by the honesty of your selfishness.” The Things They Carried - Morality and Conflict They Things They Carried is an exceptionally well written noveldeveloped by Tim O'Brien, which depicts a gritty and realistic retelling of the journey undertaken by soldiers in Vietnam. whilst having a fictional twist to draw the reader deeper into the story. Different themes such as escapism, acceptance, morality, dehumanization and conflict are all explored with layer upon layer of complexity. The degradation of morals is explored through the characters as they find themselves in the gray area of ​​morality. It is a common occurrence in the novel for characters to ask each other "What's the moral?" for they too are not sure of themselves. In the scene following Ted Lavender's death, Mitchell Sanders recalls the memory of finding a young Vietnamese boy, “...badly burned, with flies in his mouth and eyes... He put his hand on the dead boy's wrist. He was silent for a while, as if counting his pulse, then patted his stomach, almost affectionately, and used the Kiowa hunting hatchet to remove the thumb. “This scene perfectly highlights the degraded morality of the soldiers. Here Mitchell Sanders was holding the severed thumb of a Vietnamese child passing it to the group as if it were a souvenir. A clear lack of respect for his fellow man and a clear violation of his same morality. It is almost as if the soldiers are playing with the idea of ​​morality, mocking it. This could be evident from the fact that they almost mock the idea of ​​a story that always needs a moral. Tim O'Brien uses this technique to support the idea of ​​a story that does not require a moral compass develops a very simple yet intricate concept; as Hollywood has saturated the market and the minds of viewers with a status quo narration, Tim O'Brien ignores this and simply tells the reader what war is like. Ted Lavender's death cleverly highlights this, "just then Ted Lavender was shot in the head while returning from pee.. . Oh shit, said Rat Kiley, the guy's dead." The use of suddenly killing off a character accompanied by a character simply responding with "Oh shit, he's dead" is an excellent way to subvert the reader's expectations by immersing themselves in the story. same time in history. By subverting the genre of generic war stories, Tim O'Brien inadvertently shows the harsh reality of war. The external conflict of the war has distorted their perception of reality, bringing it to a childish vision, incapable of understanding the gravity of what has just happened. the end of a human life. In conclusion, The Things They Carried suggests that the distinction between good and evil in a civilized society cannot be implemented here. The constant brutality of war causes the concept of morality to elude them as nothing more than a distant ideology. If anything, Tim O'Brien forces the reader to question whether morality is real or simply an ideology that humans use to remain civilized. An objective truth that Tim O'Brien highlights is that morality is malleable to the scenario and therefore is not a universal truth. Thematically, The Things They Carried embellishes the idea of ​​external conflict by reflecting the internal struggle that soldiers carry within. To realize this idea of ​​internal conflict, Tim O'Brien cleverly lists the objects each soldier carried throughout the war to serve as a physical symbol. for their pain but also as a gateway to see into the mentality of the soldiers. We see the physical cost, but also the emotional cost. Initially the text can be seen as a classic example of escapism, however I think there is an even deeper meaning to the conflict of the story. The Things They Carried depicts two conflict scenarios of man against man and man against self. The most obvious example of conflict between men.”