Is that you John Wayne? Is this me?
In creating a blog for Humanities Core at the University of California Irvine, a course in which the theme is war, I find myself identifying with Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket. In the famous war film, Private Joker begins to mold into the frame of a "soldier," adopting a nature that is "born to kill." While his humanity is stripped away in a cold and sterile boot camp for soldiers, he struggles to rid of his innate compassion. Going to war and killing men in order to achieve peace; this he attempts to explain as "the duality of man." I identify with Joker for this reason, for the duality of man. In a sense, I too have no idea what the hell I am doing, what I am fighting for. Put into war, would I pull the trigger? Studying the art and ethics of war, pulling the trigger begs at one of two intentions: to kill my enemy or to put my enemy out of misery.
Ultimately, because the ultimate job of humanities is to interpet, staring at the abyss that is war, I hope to see its truths.