Saturday, August 29, 2009

Freedom vs. Survival

Lily Tikijian
August 28, 2009
Great Books Period 5
Mr. Priest

Which is more important - freedom or survival?

Freedom and survival are two extremely different things. Freedom is the ability to act freely or it could mean to be released from captivity or slavery. Freedom is a huge part of being an American; we have freedom of speech, free will, and freedom of press. As Americans we fought long and hard for our freedom. During the American Revolution, we fought for our freedom against the British. We wanted to have our own laws and rule our own nation. We also fought against each other in the Civil War. One half fought for the freedom of slaves and the other fought for the right to own slaves. Americans have been through a lot of fighting and wars to try and keep our country’s freedom, and I believe this to be very important, but not as important as survival.
Survival is more important then freedom because it is the act of staying alive and in some cases, fighting to stay alive. We have to survive in order to live and exist on this planet. Without survival, there wouldn’t even be such a thing as freedom. Mankind has survived through numerous of natural disasters, countless wars, and endless diseases. If men didn’t have such a will to live and survive we might not be in the place we are today. As we have learned from Sigmund Freud’s writing, we have a natural instinct to fight; we also have a natural instinct to survive, For example, if for some reason you are stranded on an Island out in the middle of nowhere with another person and there is only one piece of food left and without eating that food you will die. What would be our natural instinct? It would be to survive and if that meant killing the other person, that’s probably what we would all do. We have such a strong will to live that it would overcome our of our other instincts and believes. I believe survival is more important then freedom because survival is the key to what has been keeping mankind alive for this long. Without survival we wouldn’t have freedom.

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