Collateral damage is defined as damage that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome. To me that is a very broad view of this topic because there can be so many different types of collateral damage, affecting people, places, things, the environment, animals, etc. The extend of things that can be damaged is infinite. Originally, the term was used in the military and was defined as inadvertent casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations. But because there was collateral damage does that mean that it was actually unintended?
In my opinion, if the damage that is done is actually accidental and was not meant to harm or endanger anything other than its intended purpose then it would be forgivable, not necessarily morally justified. There are so many times however where collateral damage takes place and sometimes people do not know that there is any damage at all. For instance, what if collateral damage takes place outside of a war zone? When your talking to you're significant other? When you're talking to you're friends or your family? What if there is unintended damage that happens through words? I'm sure pretty much everybody has been in a situation where someone said something to them, not intending to hurt them at all and did. This could happen when you are joking with someone or having a serious talk with them, our words don't always come out the way we want them to and people get hurt. There are also many other kinds of inadvertent damage that people suffer from, the list could go on an on.
On the other hand, what if someone intends to infict damage on someone else, or to hurt them? Morally justified? I think not. Maybe there are a few situations where people have good intentions but end up hurting someone accidentally, but you know what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. What about when someone is just plain mean? When they like to hurt people or things, just to do it? A perfect example is World War 2, when the Nazi's were trying to take over Germany. Those soldiers meant to take peoples lives, meant to hurt people, meant to starve and to kill. Is that justified? No, it is clearly plainly immoral. These people were just plain vicious and there actions are not justifiable in the least.
All in all, there are so many different kinds of collateral damage that it is hard to put an exact definition to it and when collateral damage happens how can we really know the intentions of the person inflicting it?
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I agree that there are different situations where collateral damage can occur. There is a broad range of where collateral damage can happen such as, military, businesses, and also words. It just depends how you define it. I mainly focused on armed conflict or military caused collateral damage. I think military caused collateral damage can be justified. For it to be justified it would have to occur in a legit war where the damage was truly unintended. This could happen when a soldier shoots a target he believes is a threat and it turns out the target wasn’t a threat. This is where it could be justifiable because he is protecting himself and others in his troop. Where I think collateral damage is not justifiable is when there is a militia battle in another country and they are fighting in or near innocent towns. This is when innocent civilian casualties can occur, and these militia battles are usually over nonsense like greed or territory. All in all, your blog was informative.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you went outside the military term and used it in other situations. That is so true that it can happen in our daily lives with the people we interact with. I have been in numerous situations when I hurt people with out intending to. There has also been situations when people have hurt me and I later find out that those are their intentions. Although as far as collateral damage in war that is one thing I find hard to justify. The whole purpose of war to me is to kill and destroy. Which I don’t believe you can justify even if there is unintentional killings inside the actual war itself. Far too often people die as a result of reckless actions or decisions. I found that quote that you used very intriguing and I can see why you used it but, I’m curious. I’m curious as to what you personally think about that quote outside the context of collateral damage. I don’t think I’ve ever heard if before and I would like to have your take on it. Overall I really liked your views on collateral damage they were very well thought out and organized.
ReplyDeleteI found your post to be an interesting one. I had written about the same thing, because I find the topic to be important, and it probably should be discussed more often. That was a good question that you posed. How can people say that collateral damage is always unintended. I guess that in many ways it would be pretty near impossible to know for sure in some cases. And like you said, these things should be forgivable, even if it were to be intentional, as difficult as it might be, I think that it would be highly noble of a person to find forgiveness in their heart for these things. But l agree with you when you say that these things cannot be morally justified. Accidents do happen in life, but that does not always mean that they can be justifiable. That was a good analogy on the use of words and their unintended damage. It make a lot of sense to me. I think that at times we tried to find justification in the things that we do to help ourselves feel better about what we have done, but that still does not make it right. Better to think before we act.
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