When I think of the word peace, I think of hippies and Volkswagon buses. I guess that I think of these things because it has been a part of our culture for a long time. Movies such as Forrest Gump and music such as The Mamas and The Papas and the Beatles, etc. have been in our lives, or at least mine, for as long as I can remember. Visions of this hippy subculture in San Francisco and other parts of the west always come to mind. I think of the rallies and demonstrations and boycotts that these “hippies” put on to show that they were all for non-violence. Also, I think of soldiers in Vietnam who opposed being in a war that they felt they had no reason to be in. I remember seeing pictures of soldiers with flowers in their helmets to symbolize their desire for peace. Or, they might even have a peace sign sticker affixed to their helmets. They did not wish to be in a different country at war with people that they felt had not done anything to them.
When I think of the word peace, I also think about the hand signal itself. It’s amazing to me how pointing the “V” can mean totally different things. These hippies used to make the peace sign with their palms facing out, which meant “peace” as in “give peace a chance”. Apparently, if you do this in England and a few other countries, they find it offensive. Nowadays, in the US at least, the signal is more popular with the palm facing in. It is used more now to part ways. You put up the sign and it means “peace out” or “see you later”. Nowadays, instead of people even saying “peace out”, they are saying “deuce”, as in the two fingers that are used. Chris Brown’s song “Deuces” is a good example of this. By chucking his “deuces”, he is saying “peace out” or “I’m out of here”. I find it kind of ironic that the hand signal is used to mean “peace” because it used to be utilized in a war setting. According to legend, the index and middle fingers use to be cut off of soldiers so they would not be able to fire their bows with that hand. When victors would flash the “V” hand signal, it was kind of a taunt; used to show that they were victorious since they still had all their digits.
In general, when I think about peace, I also think of something that I feel is unattainable in a worldly sense. I seriously doubt that there will ever be true peace in this world, at least, not in my life time. I also find it ironic that most religions preach peace yet most all wars are started in the name of religion. There is always inner peace that can be attainable and that is always a good place to start.
Your interpretation of Peace makes total sense, and I agree with most thing you said. Peace was believed to be a cliche from the sixties, that is the sad fact about Peace, hardly anybody wants to talk about it, and kids of this generation are saying Peace and using it's symbol as a fad. The reality is,Pece is a more universal, and very contraversal word. It not only means Peace within countries, but also means within ourselves. How are we suppose to live in Peace if we can't live in Peace within our own minds?
ReplyDeletegreat paper the only thing is that the letter font type its a little to rough and its true we might never find true peace but again peace is different for different and most of us look and find it in different places or different ways.
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