Today in class our lesson was about the sociological construction of reality. Our class assignment was to read "Eating Your Friend Is the Hardest: The Survivors of the F-227. This disturbing story is about a rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes Mountains, leaving them the desperate situation of how to find food. Their only solution to this problem is to eat the flesh of the already dead bodies.
Although this story is a disturbing one, what the survivors went through makes it coherent to see that eating the flesh of the other dead passengers was necessary to survive. They most likely would not have survived if they had not practiced the cannibalism, especially after the search had been called off. At first, many of the remaining passengers were completely against this option, saying that it was ethically and morally wrong. Though cannibalism is normally wrong on most levels, as well as not civilized or accepted in society, in order to survive, these passengers needed nourishment, and the only way they could get it so they could continue their search for help, was by using the dead bodies.
This story really makes the reader take a second look at why we believe certain things in society are wrong, such as practicing cannbalism. Most groups of people throughout the world consider cannibalism uncivilized and is not accepted. Just like it is not acceptable to steal from a store. Most times, there is not an excuse considered acceptable to bypass these deeds one has done. However, just like in the case of the survivors of the plane crash, there are excuses that can, and sometimes, are necessary to be made. The plane crash survivors compared the eating of human flesh to communion; saying that it was using another body to keep themselves alive. Stealing from a store or someone's house, one might say that they needed food to survive, and to support their family, but did not have money. Again, this may not convince the store clerk, but the person committing the crime may feel it was necessary to committ the act.
As for the survivors of the plane crash, they may not have been accepting of the idea of cannbalism at first, but eventually their hunger and need to survive won out over their morals and what was considered civilized to the rest of the society. When they finally reached home, they went to church and confessed to their sins, to which the priests told them it was necessary and it was just a body, there was no soul, so it was not a sin. In the face of certain situations, people will overlook what is naturally considered morally and ethically wrong.
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inclass we didi talk about the construction of reality. and the gugbi team that got into the plane crash. i agree that sometimers actions that may be bad have reasons that may justifie the action as being not so much ok but acceptible. i know that if i was starving i know that i would steel from a store like saah has commented on in her blog. im not sure if i would nessicarily eat somone but i have never been put into a situation where i i have had to make that very hard and gross decision.
ReplyDeletei think that when you are faced with something that bends the normal reality that you are used to you are forced to do different things. the problem with that is that it may be something bad in your reality but in someone eleses somwhere in the world it may be completely accepted. like if you eat a dog in the united states it is looked at as a bad thing but if you go to asia you can eat as mant dogs as you want because there reality on the situation is completely different.
i think that being put under the most extreme of conditions is a way that people decide to bend there own reality so that they can survive. our bodie will make us do almost anything if it means that we continue to live. im really not sure what i woukld have done if i would have been in that same situation with those rugbie players but i think that you really dont have a choice but to forgive them given the cercumstances that they were under.
by tom olandese