Monday, May 3, 2010

Right to life? If you're a good guy

I recently viewed a threat on my facebook between two friends. One had made a joke about killing Hitler in a comical way mainly because he was evil and deserved it. The other friend, who is against capital punishment in all forms, became offended and stated that no one deserves to be killed based on their moral alignment. In truth, I believe many of us don’t mind seeing Indiana Jones push a Nazi off a tank or James Bond shoot an arms dealer. It is interesting that the reason we hate such people is because they violate the right to life of another, yet we feel this right should be stripped from them. This phenomenon seems t have occurred in Children of God. Although the Runa try to spare some of their oppressors, they still drive them to near extinction, violating the Schmittian policy of only driving an enemy back within their borders. This paradox seems to occur a lot in speculative fiction. Has anyone thought about an orc’s right to life? I believe Buffy can also be used as an example of this. Buffy’s actions are not viewed as murder when she slays countless demons and there is only one episode in which a demon’s right to life was brought up. Ironically this was only done because the demon was a humanoid Native American ghost. This is not to critique Buffy’s heroism or altruism, but don’t vampires have feelings too? In Angel this sort of thinking led to Angel killing a heroic and righteous warrior from a stereotypically evil race. It would be unfair to note that when such creatures are killed it is mainly to save innocent lives and combat an existential threat, thus making right to life a secondary concern. Nevertheless, it is food for thought. Perhaps orcs view us as evil.

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