No New Tale to Tell

Greed is a hard topic to talk about. Of course we can simply define greed as "desiring something you don't have", but is that completely accurate. When we apply greed to human nature and modern society it manifests itself in very different forms. Greed doesn't necessarily need to be for yourself, greed also doesn't need to be for a bad cause. Greed is a wide and far-reaching subject that is not so easily classified by the definition we are pursuing. For instance a mother sending her child to a selective enrollment school is greedy because she desires her child to be more successful than others and have advantages that others do not. By that child taking a seat in the school, it means some other child is denied that future. Greed is present in almost all human actions. Desire for pleasure, the ultimate goal in life is only attained by greed. Everyone wants to feel pleasure in their own respective way or form, and this desire is greed in essence. Greed is as natural to humans as breathing and is ultimately inevitable. Because of this greed really isn't such a bad thing after all. Greed saves people from dangerous situations, it allows people to think rationally and make good decisions, it lets us advance further as a species and has helped the human race more times than ever would be countable. There are very important events in human history that have been caused by greed, that resulted in general good. For instance, when the US entered WWII out of desire to keep its control over the Pacific it resulted in the end of the Holocaust, the destruction of the Nazi regime, creation of the United Nations, liberation of millions of people, saving the Chinese-Sino people from Japanese torture, and establishing a new world order of democracy. At the same time this greed for territory led to 2 atomic weapons being used, widespread genocide, destruction of families, property and lives. I do think there is merit to an argument that greed causes evil, but it is definitely an overstatement to say greed causes all evil. In fact, greed alleviates much evil in human lives and is an essential part of our existence.

Truth

Truth is an important concept to keep in mind while reading the story of Grendel. While I read this story and hear the discussion in class I can't help but feel that everyone gives Grendel a little too much credit. The guy is definitely lonely and confused, but you mean to tell me that his situation justifies his systematic murdering of hundreds of people, torturing humans like the hero, and his self-pitying and "I know everything" attitude really annoy me. It seems to me that the truth in the story of Grendel will never truly be known to anyone besides the dragon. The dragon is a really mysterious character, and I think in some ways represents a "God" figure or at least a deity of some kind. His attitude of world-weariness, omniscient knowledge, and unbelievable power makes me feel he is some sort of representation of a god, good or bad. He tries to teach Grendel of the truth, but he simply can't understand, and I think the minds of Grendel and the humans are doomed to misunderstand the truth as they only care about surviving and benefiting themselves. The truth is why both sides fight. Grendel fights for his "rights" so to speak. In other words he fights the humans because he despises them for rejecting him and hates their attitudes towards the world and each other. He justifies his "stupid war" with these claims and thusly justifies massive, uncontained genocides of the other species. This to me is probably the worst thing that has happened in the story, and pretty much destroys any credibility Grendel would have had otherwise. I get where he's coming from but his means do not justify his ends. The humans fight to protect themselves at least from Grendel, but they also fight their own, out of mindless desire to gain more pleasure for their own use. But if Grendel never interfered with their business in the first place they would never attack him anyways. For instance, after that run-in with Hrothgar and his men in the forest the humans never came after Grendel again. In fact, they never even came into contact with Grendel until he came over to them. And he thinks they are barbaric and evil but what would you do if a 12 foot monster carrying a dead naked body with him, roaring at the top of his lungs came over to your front door. Grendel should have thought this out before going over to them. Even more so, instead of taunting the hero at the mead hall after he discovered Grendel could speak, he should have tried to communicate and understand the "truth." In the end no side is right, and no side knows the whole truth about the other.

Modern Grendel

I think the modern day Grendel is very subjective towards change, and usually it isn’t represented by just one person, but rather a collective, country or group. Not only this but the perspective and “sides” so to speak is very important. I think a very interesting area for this Grendel situation is the US and Western Powers or the “good guys” or “Beowulf” so to speak and then the “Grendel” figure of the Muslim Middle Eastern countries. Due to biased and misinformed observations and generalizations by our governments, media sources and age-old opinions fueled by ancient feelings of racism, anti-muslim, and a whole lot of misunderstanding the general Muslim collective there has been demonized by the West and portrayed as our “enemy.” One country specifically demonstrates this demonizing process the best; the country of Iran. For over a century Iran has been a victim of foreign powers, whether by the hands of their fellow Muslims or by some strange and distant Western colonial government. Before the 20^th century they were ruled by the Ottoman Empire. However once the great liberators of the UK and France defeated this regime it seemed that they would finally achieve freedom, right? Wrong. They simply traded one overlord for an even worse one. The UK ruled Iran without really showing much care for the people and extracted oil relentlessly to fuel their own interests. Then WWII strikes and the UK goes bankrupt, so they are forced to dismantle their magnificent empire and release most of their former colonies and territories. Iran is once again put into a false sense of freedom. Post-WWII the US is in desperate need of oil, so the leaders of the US take advantage of the disastrous political system of Iran and force in their own puppet figure to rally support and take over. They, no we, fuel this power-hungry dictator’s efforts by supplying him with weapons, money, soldiers and international recognition. This leader would become known as the “Shah” of Iran. He and his son would rule Iran until the 70’s. The US used this puppet as a tool to ruthlessly force Iranians to extract oil year in and year out for the new US leisure life style and war machines. Not only this, but the Shah maintained his power by having his soldiers (armed with US issued weapons of course) inhumanely control his citizens and enforce violent military rule. This made anger quietly brew within Iranians for decades until finally they revolted and a massive, and incredibly violent civil war broke out, followed by worse wars with Iraq and continued rioting and confusion. Eventually the people, tired of war and violence, rallied under their common banner, one that to them represented peace. The National Islamic Party won the election in Iran and turned the country into a Islamic Republic. Now not only on top of all the crimes the US has dealt to them, they also support Israel, which is an entirely separate but just as serious crime. But now that they’re no longer firmly under US hegemonic influence, they are considered a loose cannon. So the governments of the West label them terrorists and dangerous, unstable powers pursuing dangerous weapons with monstrous mindsets bent on destruction of all that is good and holy to us. Both Grendel and Iran are pictured by the “good” and “innocent” citizens of Denmark and the US as horrible monsters with no reasoning for their destructive tendencies. The truth behind their pain is forever lost though, as they are butchered by our armies and “heroes” defeating evil once again, preserving our regime of lies for a little longer.