This afternoon, I watched a playthrough of a game called Ape Out. I don't recommend this game to any of you because it's probably far too violent for your tastes, but the reason I want to blog about this game is that its violence makes sense for the story it tells.
In Ape Out, the player controls an ape attempting to escape a lab by fighting its way through a small army of deadly guards. I can sympathize with this ape because its desire for freedom is easy for me to relate to. I would hope that the fight for freedom wouldn't involve any actual fighting, but I understand that that is sometimes necessary, and besides, the ape is mostly fighting in self-defense. As soon as the guards see the ape out of its enclosure, they respond with deadly force, giving the ape only two options: kill or be killed.
On the other hand, I can understand why the guards try to kill the escaping ape. This is a powerful and unpredictable creature. If it escaped, it would threaten many human lives. In fact, at the moment of the confrontation, the ape is actively threatening several human lives, the lives of the guards. In theory, the guards could preserve their own lives by not attacking the ape, and then perhaps the ape would let the guards and the other humans live. Maybe the guards could just let the ape escape, and everything would still be fine. However, it would be extremely selfish and foolish for the guards to take that risk. The only reason the guards are there in the lab is, presumably, that the ape is potentially dangerous, and they may be called upon to contain that danger, by any means necessary.
So, I understand both the ape's perspective and the guards' perspective, and their actions all make logical sense, even though that brings them in conflict with each other. I think that most human conflicts could be understood in such a way.
People are mostly rational. We generally have reasons for doing the things we do. Those reasons may not always be good reasons, but they usually exist. Sometimes, two or more individuals or groups have valid reasons to oppose each other, usually because they have different value systems or maybe just different perspectives. In Ape Out, the ape values its life and freedom more than the lives of the guards, and the guards value their own lives and the lives of the general public more than the ape's life and freedom. Thus, the ape acts in a way that it hopes will bring about some good (it's freedom), and the guards act in a way that they hope will bring about grater good (personal and public safety). Neither side is necessarily evil, and both parties seem fairly justified. Unfortunately, understanding this conflict doesn't get me much closer to a solution, but it does help me think about real-world conflicts from a different perspective.
Just as both the ape and the guards have fairly logical reasons for their actions, so do most humans. Even humans who do things we consider morally reprehensible can have good reasons to do those things. Similarly, we have good reasons to do many of the things we do, even though there are others who disagree with us. It's mostly just a matter of having different values and perspectives. Freedom and safety are both good things. The question of which is more important is a matter of opinion and perspective.
There are an unfortunate amount of conflict in modern society, but I think that the solutions to many of those conflicts can be found by exercising empathy and by considering others' perspectives.
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