should children fight to the death for any reason and should parent lose their children for allowing them to do so [cough][cough]
Interesting question. But my gut says no. It's just wrong to think people should take other's lives, no matter what the reason. But my head tells me it happens all the time. And even some animals do this. I know humans aren't animals, so I won't get to much into this. As for the second question, I think the parent should. What kind of parent would think, "I'm gonna let my kids fight, 'cause I have no time to raise both." How could someone possibly think like that? Well that's my thought anyway.
No, they should not. People, for whatever reason, should not fight until they end up murdering each other. It's basically the concept as suicide, because they are dealing with their problems the coward's way.
Oh, I thought this was something on the food network at first. Edit after reading Ploo's post: Yeah, just going to agree with everything you said. Any parent who would do such a thing to their own child needs to be dealt with in the harshest of ways. It's bad enough that cruel people make dogs and other animals fight each other, but a kid? Unforgivable.
And that is what I would like to hit first. Suicide is, and never will be in any way, shape or form the same concept as fighting. I agree with the fact that people shouldn't commit suicide. It is them wasting a life they could have had away, and hurts both themselves and their loved ones. But fighting, however, isn't wasting your life. At times, it's even inevitable. I hate using this example mainly because it was a horrible event, but look at someone like Hitler. Imagine if no one had gone to war with him? Imagine if the Allies just kept appeasing him throughout the war? The Holocaust was already horrible as is, but if no one had declared war officially on him, it could have, and possibly would have, turned out to be even more horrifying than it is/was. Besides, suicide, believe it or not, is pretty horrifying in itself to actually commit to. I've personally never attempted, but just imagining setting up your own death in that way is just something I am too afraid to even comprehend. /rant But on topic, no one should fight to the death over anything (unless it is a necessary and inevitable circumstance - such as being trapped alone with someone else in another room with no exit and the other person's mental stability has broken to the point where they are planning and willing to kill you.) Most situations can be resolved through diplomacy, justice systems, law enforcement, etc. As for the parents who would allow that, their kids should be taken from them. Their love for their child is ideally supposed to be unconditional. And if having them fight another child to the death is something that they would force their child to do, those parents are clearly not deserving of raising a child or even loving it.
This is a horrible concept and I don't think it's at all right. In the book it's a way of entertainment as well as punishment which is bad. It's like the concept of Schadenfreude (happiness at the misfortune of others) were we delight ourselves in others suffering to make ourselves feel better. As a parent I believe it's important to protect your children as they are young and niave, however it's also important to let them make decisions by themselves so if they were wanting to thrust themselves into such a situation as a fight to the death then I think the parent needs to guide them and make them really think about the decision.
I dislike the idea of 'should'. It implies that there is a proper, intrinsically correct and righteous way for the world to work. That in itself gives rise to the question of why the world isn't already intrinsically like this, or why people cannot agree on a single set of moral laws. I much prefer the view that all people are animals, and there is no single way of 'should'. There is what I personally would prefer happen, and there's what society as a whole influences me to think. In those regards, I would say that children 'should' not fight to the death. On the other hand, if we look through a different lens, we can see that such already occurs. There is the race between sperm cells to fertilise eggs, which, if viewed in a certain way, can be equated to children fighting to the death. in that sense, it can be considered constructive and 'good'. There's also the fact that children compete against each other for education and the like, to succeed in a capitalist world. This can be indirectly linked to children fighting to the death, but it's probably not the same way you think of it. So overall, I feel that I am unable to properly answer the question.
