Application Essay 01.27.09

James Gray
01.15.09
Question A
Instruments of Peace
An Essay on the Decisions between Violence and Nonviolence

All my life, I’ve heard the calls for peace. I’ve watched acts of cruelty; seen slander splayed upon victims, and felt true pain. But even at the youngest of ages we are taught, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” This one quote is at the heart of beliefs for nonviolence and hope for a world with the recognition that we are all human beings. As a boy, I knew to think before I acted, and often, my thoughts led me to believe violence was not the right answer. Whether it was a simple sandbox scuffle or the 9/11 attacks, I had already formed the foundation that if there was a way to avoid all the pain, suffering, and inexplicable aggressions that everyday shocks the world, than that was what I believed in. Mohandas Gandhi once dreamed of a world in which people would not see violence as strength, but rather “Nonviolence [as] a weapon of the strong,” and as an inexperienced youth, I was the epitome of his vision. In the uncorrupted dream that is childhood, I experienced the calm that so many crave, and in doing so, experienced a total sense of equilibrium, of diplomacy, and sought to see these virtues throughout my lifetime.
As a young boy slowly matured into a young man, these views changed. With age, my visions of a peaceful world were clouded by the tales of bloodshed, sounds of mayhem, and my childhood intuition was replaced with knowledge. Violence became more than a decision; it became real. I had seen these things before, but as I got older I started to feel them. A devil’s advocate took voice in my mind whenever the opportunity arose to fight back or strike first; this treacherous manifestation would present some sort of justification before me such as: “[It would be wrong] for anyone being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself.” (Malcolm X)
Throughout my life, I have dealt with the repercussions of violence, and avoided those same consequences through nonviolence. As I grow into the individual I am today, I have sought and thought immeasurably to find the compromise between these. But quite simply, violence and nonviolence are complete opposites. Yet, neither can be completely chosen over the other. Though nonviolence thrives to avoid aggression, it can eliminate opportunity. Impossible times arise in which violence is not only the answer, it’s the sensible decision, the hard choice that must be made for the greater good. And yet we are a world with an agenda, one that often rules out the greater good, looks past responsibilities of peace and only towards progress. Violence, nonviolence, knowledge, intuition, these are my tools of peace, and it is my responsibility as a human being to execute them for that greater good. And I know that neither violence nor nonviolence is equal to strength, but having the heart, mind, and determination to do what needs to be done is what true strength is all about.