Kill or Be Killed

So often it happens, it cannot be denied: people will turn against their own beliefs or morals in order to protect themselves. This innate nature of man, to protect one's own life and to survive, has been visible since the beginning. If confronted by conflict, people will attempt to save themselves even if it means taking the lives of another or many. It may be a small conflict with small repercussions, it may be a small conflict with great repercussions. Why do they "strive to survive"? And why can they consciously destroy someone else in order to prevail? The answers are not as obvious as one might imagine. Man has been considered a logical or rational animal, yet he tends to rationalize his own behavior during and after the act. The act itself is caused by fear of his demise and the narcissistic thought that he must survive over the conflict at hand. This behavior is rooted in the Terror Management theory.

The awarness man possesses of hiss own mortality is unique to the animal kingdom, yet the will to survive transcends all species. Therefore, man is capable of fearing his own demise and thusly will act against death in order to survive. This principle illustrates the Terror Management theory (deathreference.com).

In the 1950's, a draft forced young citizens of the US to go fight in the Vietnam war. There were over 350,000 casualties for the US and close to 2 million for the Vietnamese (fsmitha.com). Let's look at both sides:

The US soldier forcibly sent to armed conflict in Vietnam more than likely did not have any interest attached to the defeat of the North Vietnamese. But when engaged by the "enemy," he was quick to kill. Why? because his life was at stake. Ernest Becker's Denial of Death describe man's will to survive a "narcissistic" yet innate behavior. He mentions that people in combat tend to feel that their life is more important than those of their enemies, or even their own comrades, and so lose the moral guilt of murder if it means saving their own skin. Often this will to survive follows their causa sui, as Becker referred to it, or their need to live on and make a legacy to which their name can be attributed (informationphilosopher.com). In this way, they try to deny their own death. Becker argues that all men are constantly trying to deny his death.

On the flip side are the Vietnamese. They are convicted with the will of their race to prevail. When engaged by the US troops, they will fight to their death in order to allow the race to survive. This is a quite different reaction, but it is the same basic principles. The Veitnamese are very collectivist, working together to better the whole, as are many Asian cultures. The causa sui therefore of an individual in such a society would be to protect the whole of their society. They will use deadly force favoring their own causa sui, their own legacy, over that of the enemy. In both cases, the people involved are trying to create a lasting legacy to immortalize themselves, denying the reality or possibility of death.

Because man is trying to deny his own death by means of survival, when engaged by potent conflict, he may drop his moral code to defend himself. In 2007, Joe Horn, a Texas resident, shot and killed two burglers threatening his life and the posessions of his neighbors. He claimed right to use deadly force on the burglers because they threatened him on his own property. It was logically not necessary to take the lives of the two Columbian immigrants, yet Joe's own rationalization made it acceptable to himself (nytimes.com). Man is a very rational animal, capable of using logical progressions to solve problems, but so often the emotional aspect of man, the raw spontenatity of action, produces a rationalizing man (Becker). What ever the conflict may be, people tend to rationalize their actions of defense during and after the action takes place. This makes man potentially very dangerous.

These processes bubbling around in the core of man are paradoxical. Fear of death creates conflict between people, which produces more fear in accordance with the Terror Managment theory, and therefore more aggression and self defense. The cycle has repeated itself as consistantly as history itself.


Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press, 1973.

"Causa Sui." informationphilosopher.com. October 12, 2009. http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/causa_sui.html

"Shootings Test Limits of New Self-Defense Law." Nytimes.com. October 12, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/us/13texas.html

"Terror management Theory." deathreference.com. October 12, 2009.
http://www.deathreference.com/Sy-Vi/Terror-Management-Theory.html

"The United States and Vietnam." fsmitha.com. October 12, 2009.
http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch26.htm