On Wednesday, September 9, we held a Socratic seminar discussion about chapter 6 of the Ramayana -- "Vali." If you have comments that you weren't able to voice during the discussion, you may post them here to enhance your discussion credit. Please do not merely repeat ideas already presented in discussion.
Throughout the seminar, many people were saying that Rama was right to kill Vali because Vali stole Sugreeva’s wife. But as Vali tells us, marriage and wedlock are not a part of his culture. Like we discussed in class how many other countries do not have education for women, and we may think that is sexist and unfair. But we cannot push our customs on these countries, because it is not our country. We need to understand that not everyone has the same beliefs, like Rama needs to realize Vali’s monkey culture do not believe in the same things as his human race does. Then Rama said something interesting that Vali needs to live up to human standards because he is an intelligent being, but was Rama living up to these standards when he hunted Vali down? Also, we were discussing how this relates to modern day. I believe like this is just like the moral issue of the war in Iraq. In the war many soldiers kill innocent people and sometimes only know one side of the story. This is like when Rama only knew Sugreeva’s side of the story and killed an “innocent” man. Vali can be argued as an innocent man because the book never told us that he killed anyone, he just got in a fight with his brother and Rama killed him. Rama did not think of the rewards and consequences of his actions. If he only went to talk to Vali, he could of avoided a murder and he could have had more help in finding Sita.
ReplyDeleteVali even told him that if you would of told me, I would of helped you kill Ravana. It think that this teaches us that there are many options to one problem with its own rewards and consequences and to never assume things. I believe that Rama did an unmoral act in murdering and unarmed and innocent man.
In this discussion many people sided with Rama and so did I. Although some of the things Rama did could be seen as bad he did what was right to him. He sided with Sugreeva because they had gone thought the same thing. Also Sugreeva was only trying to help Vali and no matter how hard he tried Vali swore to kill him. This forces Sugreeva into a very difficult situation , either be killed by his brother or hide somewhere where Vali can’t find him and wait tell Vali understands he was only trying to help. Also Vali had no right at all to take Sugreeva wife for his own. Even if this is part of their culture someone bestowed with the power of the god should have the knowledge of gods. So although Rama’s decisions could be view as bad they were actually in intent of good.
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