Monday, September 26, 2011

Human Progress?

Respond to the following statement by reflecting on what you have read and reviewed about Cortes and Columbus.

"If there are sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves?"

8 comments:

  1. Some people sometimes say that before something gets better it has to get worst first. If you make some sacrifices, you progress further into human civilization. The native Americans and aztecs didn't choose to die, but if Cotrés and Columbus didn't kill them, then we probably would not be here today. Columbus and Cortés thought that they were doing the right thing, wich they kind of were, but, they were also taking lives of innocent people. I think that Cortés and Columbus could have easily made peace with the indians but they choose the easy way out and simply ended all their lives, one of the greatest civilizations ever was ended, and a new one was started

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  2. It is important to let the sacrificed decide to be left behind because it would hurt to be killed off without wanting to even though it was for a good cause. If you let the sacrificed choose to be left behind they have their own decision. But if you let them decide, if they say no there would be no progress because nobody would be willing to sacrifice themselves. You would have to force someone eventually to give themselves up. If nobody was willing to be the change, then there would be no change in society and the world would be the same. It is crucial to have people be the difference that makes a new path for the others and the rest to come.

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  3. When Columbus and Cortés came into foreign lands, as guests none the less, and slaughtered entire cultures for their own power, they believed it was for human progress. Would these cultures have willingly given up their lives for other cultures to progress in life? In the situation of Columbus, they stopped producing children to stop their lives from being in control and full of pain. They did sacrifice their blood lines, and it was their choice. When Cortes came to the Aztecs, they were never given the change to willingly sacrifice on their year of death, because they were viciously attacked. If they were given the choice to die on their own choice, or to be killed trying to live, they would probably choose to die on their own. But if they could fight for something they believe in, for their own rights, many would do that too. The choice is theirs, and the most important.

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  4. The people who are going to be sacrificed should make the decision themselves. If the superiors were going to kill them off anyways, why not just do it voluntarily for the advancement in human progress? For example if Columbus came over on the Santa Maria and the ship was densely packed, people should voluntarily jump off the ship so the ship wouldn't sink. By doing so Columbus could reach the new land and there would be human progress.

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  5. It is essential to sacrifice yourself for human progress. But if should be your decision. In the cause of Columbus and Cortes they killed people for human progress. They never thought of the natives who were the ones being killed. If they wanted to die for the sake of human progress. The days that we celebrate about columbus would have been more sacred if he had let them decide to die for human progress.

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  6. There was no choice for the people. They did what was best for the civilization and to get progress. If people were on a boat. They needed people the smartest and strongest people to work on sailing the boat. If the there were to many people on the boat they would need to sacrifice enough people to make the boat go. Would they sacrifice the strongest or smartest or the weakest? They would need to consider. The people would need to decide on whether they would chose to die or other people making them die. They should chose for themselves.

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  7. It is essential that only they people that want to be sacrificed should be; however, if someone is asking other people to be sacrifice they should be the ones to be sacrifice. But if you are the one to be sacrificed then everybody will remember you and it could help the whole world instead of everybody else dying.

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  8. In situations where people need to be sacrificed, it is better for someone to step up and say that they will sacrifice themselves rather than have other people saying who needs to go. However, sometimes no one will say that they will be sacrificed to help everyone else and then someone has to choose who needs to die. No one has the right to point at someone and say "you're going to be sacrificed first" and then kill them, but there is a better way to choose than have people demand and have the call. What's that better way? How could situations be solved when people don't choose to sacrifice themselves?

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