What is the importance of a human life? Can one place a value equal to that of a living human? Is the death of one human worth saving a thousand animals? These are questions that remain controversial to this day. Should human beings abuse the autonomy allowed to them through such things as technology, or should all beings be treated equal? Although everyone has there own way of classifying individual beings through observations such as race, age and intelligence, shouldn't the fact that a life is a life have any relevance? Regardless of how you might value the human race it is possible that any other species could have become the Alfa-species thousands of years ago. Throughout the books Dispatches and Batman: The Dark Night Returns, the characters are constantly placed in classifications of varying value, putting one being above the other. We will look at how and why these characters are placed where they are and if this is a valid observation.
Harvey Dent gets half a faceful of acid in Batman:...
Batman with his sidekick Robin. Painting by Alex R...
Gotham City as shown in Batman Begins.War is a time of political disagreement. Do soldiers feel no real hostility towards opposing soldiers, besides the initial fear of my life before yours? Or is the life of an American more important than that of a North Vietnamese. Certainly it seemed that US forces viewed the death of even certain Americans more important. All through the War, Vietnamese were referred to as gooks, and other derogatory terms classing them through race. "I don't give a fuck, that's a fucking gook!"(Herr, 161) The view of the opposing enemy was commonly seen as worthless; many American soldiers mutilated the dead Viet Cong taking souvenirs such as ears for a necklace. One would never consider doing that to one of there own, so why is it accepted when done to another human? Total disregard and disrespect was...