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Sun Tzu's Analysis

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In 4th century BCE China, military strategist Sun Tzu recognized the need for justice and moderation in war (Griffith, 1971), while Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle discussed the need for a just cause (Sorabji, 2006). In ancient Babylonian times the lex talionis was the means of gauging proportionality between crime and punishment. Today, this ethical dilemna is succeeded by ‘just war’ theory for the moral guidelines regarding the ‘right’ to wage war, via jus ad bellum and jus in bello (Forrester, 2005). Rather than fall into the quagmire of justification as to right or wrong regarding the ethics of warfare, and fall foul of the dualism associated with both just and unjust combatant’s right to kill. Or the contradictions found within …show more content…

This could be argued is where the strength of propaganda lies, as a false truth from a lie is still seen as a truth. This I will sum up with reference to Koa Tzu, who likened human nature to the flow of water taking the path of least resistance (French, 2011). Cavanagh (2012) defines two terms that can help demonstrate this point. The first is cognitive dissonance; whereby a contradiction can cause feelings of distress due to a conflict that arises from holding opposing beliefs. This conflict between harming civilians, and the governing body is always right, has to be resolved. To remove this conflict there must be a change or an acceptance of, in this case, the false premise. Therefore with the aid of the second, pluralistic ignorance; whereby believing that those in authority are more informed, and everybody else for that matter, removes the need to question the validity of the premise. Here the power of authority and the social group adds its weight through a collective consciousness (Zimbardo, 2009). Therefore, the conflicted mind finds itself that tributary of least resistance via social

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