Objectification of Human Life

Esther Ho

Section A02

Reading Reflection #5

In response to: "The Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence" - Hamamoto

Objectification of Human Life

The article, “Empire of Death” was by far the most gruesome and painful article to read. As I read the continuous vivid and detailed accounts of murders, I questioned whether it could get worse. Sadly, the answer was yes. At some points, I didn’t think I was able to finish the article because the stories were getting increasing gruesome and inhumane. But as I continued, I found myself angered and speechless at the actions that one would commit against another human being.

The account that stood out to me was the one about the 7-year-old child that was tortured, raped, and sodomized. She was only seven! I could not wrap my head around the justification of such action. The other one that I found painfully disturbing was the cases executed by the perpetrator, Richard Ramirez. The fact that he saw the slaughtering of human beings as a form of pleasure because of his cousin’s accounts of rape, murder, and mutilation of Vietnamese women during the war makes me realize the broad spectrum of the aftermath of violence in war and elsewhere. The motives of the murderers were not only linked to immediate experience in the Vietnam War, but also the precipitated accounts of the actions committed during the war.

It was sickening to read that those who are portrayed as “heroic” have committed such crime to the civilians of those of another country. I cannot bear the fact that they take pride in their torturous schemes that they have inflicted on another human being. What gives them the privilege to have complete control and power over someone else’s life?

The continuous accounts of the white male perpetrators’ crimes against “yellow people” highlighted the social distance are held between races. They perceive the “yellow people” as objects, rather than equal human beings. They seem to have projected their mindset of Asians that they have tortured and belittled during the war (or what they were told to have happened) onto the Asians that are in their own country. I cannot help but feel angered that our lives are not treated as anything significant, but rather as an object that could feed into a person’s murderous fantasies.

The fact that “killing” gives the perpetrator a sense that they are “living” is a paradox. Do you think this mindset is nature or nuture?