First of all we should say that euthanasia is the act of killing someone painlessly, especially to relieve suffering from an incurable illness. It is also called as mercy killing. We should say that today Euthanasia is a legal practice in some countries. For example it is legal in Britain. There are many different points of view on this problem. Some people think that it’s almost impossible to accept it. Some people think it should be legal and widespread because there are many situations when it is really necessary. For example In medical practice there are different situations when it is the only way. And very often euthanasia activists have dropped references to terminal illness, replacing them with such phrases as "hopelessly ill," "desperately ill," "incurably ill," "hopeless condition," and "meaningless life." According to the following text we can single out two main questions. These are Why should euthanasia be allowed? And why it should be forbidden? Those who are for it argue that our modern, civilized society should admit people to die without dignity and without pain and if people can not manage it on their own, others can help to do it. This approach means to allow people to live as they want. Those who are against euthanasia and among them are religious opponents think that our life is given by God and only God should decide whether the person should live or not. They also believe that it seems inhuman and our life is wonderful thing. More over we should add the following thing legalization of euthanasia can fundamentally undermine the relationships between elderly or dependent relatives and their families. It also can fundamentally undermine the basis of trust between doctors and patients that is at the heart of effective medicine. Of course this question is very difficult to answer. I believe that still euthanasia should be banned. First and foremost it contradicts our morality. Euthanasia is a rejection of the importance and value of human life. With euthanasia no one's life is being saved people’s life is only taken.
I would like to speak about euthanasia now. First of all, I would like to state that there are two contrastive points of view. Euthanasia as a very complex, problematic and highly disputable issue has of course its adherents and its opponents. Some people claim that euthanasia should be accepted. They regard it as a merciful act and are adherents of the idea that human beings should have a right to decide themselves when and how to die. They also speak about death-sick people for whom life is unbearable. Therefore, they say that indirect euthanasia is not a bad thing at all. If a person is anyway to die soon, why not help him or her live the rest of his or her life without pain and suffering reducing though the life span from a couple of months to several weeks? Opponents of euthanasia provide counter-arguments. For example, religious people are strongly against euthanasia because they say that it is only the God who can deprive people of life. According to them, suffering has also its value. Furthermore, voluntary euthanasia is the start of a slippery slope that leads to involuntary euthanasia and the killing people who are thought miserable. As far as I am concerned, I do not belong to any of these opposed groups. Therefore, I am also in two minds. On the one hand, making killing people legal sounds absurd. But on the other hand, helping death-sick people is merciful. But I do not want to be driven to extremes. Our life is not only black or white. Everything has its own merits and drawbacks. That is why the only conclusion I will make is that euthanasia may have a right to be legalized but we should never forget which consequences it may lead to. Euthanasia should have boundaries anyway.
Today euthanasia can be considered as the most debatable and urgent question. Is it right to take somebody’s life? Who is responsible for euthanasia? Does the phenomenon of euthanasia break all moral barriers? Unfortunately, these questions still have no answer. But our society increasingly faces euthanasia cases.
Euthanasia is in fact a murder. It manifests itself in different forms, such as active or passive, indirect or involuntary. On the one hand it seems to be an ethical catastrophe. But let’s take a look at it from some other perspective. Does euthanasia have positive sides? Of course, yes. In any country there are a lot of incurables. They cannot contribute to the development of their state, besides this they live in pain. The maintenance of their existance costs much money. If people have a right to pass away in such case, this influences the improvement of the economic situation and gives an opportunity to spend more money on those people who still can be cured. From the political point of view legalized killing can become a sign of a firm political system. If this phenomenon alongside with the death-penalty can be constantly maintained by the government, this means that there is no disagreement among the authorities.
One point I would like to mention is an orthodox church’s attitude. Assisted killing is as strictly forbidden as suicide. Such ways of dying are unnatural and contradict God’s will.
In any case euthanasia has positive and negative sides. It is one of the components of the modern concept of life, and we have to live with it. How will we do this? Whether it will be legislation or a prohibition, it depends on the government and the society.
I believe that human being’s life is the most valuable thing. So one must protect and save it.
What is a conflict? To my mind it is a scandal situation between two or more persons. The theme of the scandal can be different: family relationships, friendship, economy, policy or religion, etc. Sometimes conflict can’t bring you harm for example when you quarrel with your friends or relatives because you came back home too late. But sometimes this scandal situation can be a destructive thing. It can be the beginning of the war or some terroristic acts. In this case we speak about exposure, death, humans' tragedies. To my mind there are no positive forms of conflict because rude behavior always accompanies a conflict. And we can mark it as a positive thing. That is why I think that conflicts are destructive. Let me speak about one reason for a conflict - religion. Religion gives a birth for hope and it is an inner state of each human that helps him/her to cope with difficulties. But with the help of religion crime and terrorism can influence our youth. Drugs, crime, terrorism, death and dying - all from these notions influence our society and make a great problem for us and our children. Some of them influence us inside and they are more terrible. Sometimes even one foolish thing can become a reason for the scandal and a confrontation. Is the confrontation inevitable or not? I tend to believe that the confrontation is the lightest form of a conflict. Nowadays we have a confrontation between our country, Ukraine and Belorussia. The aim of the confrontation was gas. Nowadays Russians prefer to buy goods in Belorussia and sell it in our country but the price is bigger. That is why there is a kind of collapse in Belorussia and their president decided to put a veto on it. It all concerns politics but the confrontation spreads around different level of people's life conditions. According to the last school test pupils want to become politicians or criminals instead of teachers or doctors because the previous ones get more money.
“Democracy does not produce, by itself, a decent way of living; rather, it is decent ways of living that make democracy possible”. That goes without saying. It is not our character that influences our behaviour. But it is our behaviour that lets others judge what kind of people we are. Democracy is quite an understandable notion. Even children realize what it is. But at the same time it seems to be unattainable. At least in Russia. We can’t but admit that there are certain democratic tendencies in our country. But can a country where people simply do not have an opportunity to choose and influence the government be called democratic? The presidential campaign has not started yet, but we all already know who will win it, don’t we? There are different political parties in our country. But even before the elections we may say it for sure that there will be one party that will win the State Duma elections no matter how people really vote. Formally we are a democratic country. But de facto we are not. And that’s not about the regime itself. That’s about decency. As our German teacher has said, “The thing that is important is not about how people vote. The way the votes are counted is much more important”. That is why I completely agree with the statement that democracy does not necessarily result in decency. But it is decent ways of living that make democracy possible.
“Democracy does not produce, by itself, a decent way of living; rather, it is decent ways of living that make democracy possible”. Democracy is not the reason for inevitable social flourishing. Democracy is not the reason for development and growth. Democracy is not the reason for stability. Democracy is not the reason for a decent way of living. It is the very cause of all these factors, the result of their existence. Democracy doesn't appear when the political leader announces “We live in a democratic country!”. Democracy can't be imposed on people. Democracy is created by the very people. But when most people don't understand what this word means, how can they create it? What does the very word “democracy” mean? According to Collins dictionary this definition stands for: 1)government by the people or their elected representatives; 2) a political or social unit governed ultimately by all its members; 3) the practice or spirit of social equality; 4) a social condition of classlessness and equality. So, democracy manifests itself not only as a political system, but as a state of society. It is a system where people KNOW what is going on around them and can INFLUENCE the situation when something goes wrong. When they TAKE PART in political life and can CHANGE the situation for the better. When they have rights not DE JURE, but DE FACTO. Analyzing current situation in our society we can't but use the notion “democracy” IRONICALLY. The way we live now and the way of life in a real democratic society seem to be two parallel realities. When will they intersect? If ever...
What is conflict? For some it means
simple confrontation of interests, which is not simple at all, as far as
confrontation usually happens because of a long row of preceding factors, such
as hatred, different views on the world, or simply a fight. Conflict means negative attitude of any two sides
towards each other. For the reasons of
its elimination, theses parties are trying to solve the conflict and the only
way they find is violent or aggressive one. Here, the most important is that
any conflict seeks for solution. Why do we create conflicts then, if solutions
are usually connected with some negative consequences? I believe this lies in
the nature of our civilization.
There is also another form of conflict – an inner
conflict, which has become a milestone for many writers and artists throughout
the history of the humanity. This presupposes a psychological conflict, which usually
occurs within a character or sometimes between two or more characters. Here we
examine the conflict within one personality. We see that if solved it can lead
to apparently positive things, but if not, it can bring about some
irretrievable alterations in what they call psychological state of one’s personality,
or even some changes in his/her future fate. So, now let’s try to see what lies
in the nature of any conflict.
As far as we know, any small
conflict evolving into a larger one begins with tiny things, usually arguments between
people or groups of people. Many small conflicts by the way grow into bloody wars
with thousands of victims. People are blinded by their rage or frustration,
which causes them to slay other people in holy wars of interests. What should
be changed in order to avoid these conflicts to happen? It’s very hard to
control a 7-billion population of the world. What I came to while speculating
about the notion is that conflict is an uncontrolled state of the world’s mind,
which is believed to be a great part of human nature. Searching for ways to
elude it seems useless as humanity without conflicts is like a dog without
nose.
When defining a meta-concept one should begin with realizing what the word “concept” means by itself. As far as I understand it a concept is a very complex notion. A concept is not only the vocabulary meaning of a lexical unit but also our own, mental associations that we attach to it. A meta-concept is then a group of words, all of them being connected to each other by means of synonymic, antonymic, or causal relations. That is why when describing a concept one can’t avoid adding personal connotations to it. You can find different dictionary definitions of the word “conflict” here: Your dictionary, Merriam Webster, Urban dictionary. For me a conflict means withstanding two or more sides that have opposite attitudes to the problem. It is always negative though it may have positive consequences. For example, when two people are quarrelling they are aggressive (a negative side) but at the same way they may find some way out of the situation during their quarrel (positive consequences). A conflict may occur on different levels. It can happen within a person. And then we are speaking about inner conflicts. For example, one wants to sleep very much but at the same time doesn’t want to be punished for the undone homework. This is a very good condition for an inner conflict to take place. On the one hand, it is better to keep writing an essay in order to avoid being reprimanded. But on the other hand, it is better to quit the work and go to bed as far as our health is more important than our study progress. And here we logically come to another type of a conflict: an interpersonal conflict. A fight. A quarrel. I suppose it is pretty clear and does not require any further explanations. So, we pass on to the next type of a conflict. And that is a conflict between small groups of people, for example, between ethnic groups or social movements like goths versus punks. And the next type of a conflict presupposes withstanding of large groups of people. And here we may speak about wars, especially the World War as its extreme representation.
Conflict is a word which most of us associate with the pain, a great degree of discomfort, anger, frustration, sadness, depression. Itself the term conflict is a very complex notion. The dictionary defines "conflict" as "a struggle to resist or overcome; contest of opposing forces or powers; strife; battle. A state or condition of opposition; antagonism; discord. A painful tension set up by a clash between opposed and contradictory impulses." And no matter how hard we try to avoid it, conflict from time to time enters our lives. We can experience it almost every day in our lives. It exists in all spheres of live, at all levels of society and in all sorts of situations. Conflict can explain many aspects of social life such as disagreement between people, fights between individuals and groups of people. In can cause disagreements in interests. We all are unique people; we have our own thoughts and opinions that's why some times our views and opinions become differ from other. It is interesting to mention that conflict has positive and negative sides. Conflict has a positive side when it can be the start of something new or the end of something that needs conclusion. And of course the conflict means a negative side when it creates more aggression, anger, discomfort, anxiety or mental and physical stress, when it promotes the war. Today there are many different types of conflicts. For example relationships conflicts are always caused by misunderstanding, lack of communication, negative emotions or bad behavior. It often can be between friends of members of family. Interest conflicts appear because of variety of interests and life positions. Another type is value conflict. We all are different and we all understand life values (for example what is good or bad) in different ways. They appear when one person tries to enforce his values on the other. And to conclusion I want to say that first of all it is really important not to know how to avoid conflict situations but to know how to remain human beings in such situations.
Conflict is a many-sided phenomenon. In general in means the kind of relationships between two or more sides, based on the difference of opinions towards something. These sides may be represented by a person, a group of people, a social group, a nation, or just by several opposite ideas in the mind of one person – an inner conflict. A conflict can be a debate, a fight, a cold war or a real armed conflict. Conflict is not bad in any case. For example some scientific discoveries can be made under the influence of the conflict between scientists or the juxtaposition between science and church. Conflict can sometimes be the only way to find the truth but there is a common and obvious rule, that it’s always better to avoid conflicts. Nonetheless this rule is not always complied with.
In practice, confrontation is inevitable, and only the 20th century events prove it. We can mark hundreds and even thousands of conflicts of all kinds throughout the history of the world. The thing is that current conflicts are not as violent and bloody as overpass ones. There are many constraining factors that help us to avoid the 3rd World War. Among them are nuclear weapons. It’s a paradox – a destructive weapon that was created to destroy and annihilate preserves peace. However, there are still lots of conflicts in the world – terrorism, local wars for oil, all these peacekeeping operations and forcible democratization, gas conflicts between Russia and the Ukraine our territorial misunderstanding with Japan – all these conflicts breed a lot of hatred and wait their turn be solved, and we can only believe that our politicians are wise enough to solve them peacefully.
