Why Most People Don’t Believe “Killing Is Always Wrong”

A brief analysis of acceptable violence

Image source freepik free license

Don’t bother telling me that I’m an immoral person, that, of course, killing is always wrong. You’re preaching to the choir. I absolutely agree. No one should be killed. Ever. By anyone. I oppose the death penalty. I believe armies and wars shouldn’t exist. I despise guns and weapons and think no one should be allowed to have one for any reason.

But this is not a universal belief. Most people aren’t pacifists. Heck, even pacifists aren’t always pacifists. Try to harm someone I love in my presence, and you’ll find out pretty quickly that there are limits to my pacifism.

We live in a world full of wars, arms and legal killings. Murder committed at the behest of governments, death penalties, honor killings, mayhem and death.

Obviously, despite all our protestations, we don’t believe that “killing is always wrong.” We’re willing to allow for a lot of exceptions. Whenever it suits us.

People are killed for a plethora of reasons every day. And we don’t bat an eyelid. We even feel these killings are justified.

Why do we feel the need to say that we reject killing?

Over the past few days, in the aftermath of Brian Thompson’s killing, people have been popping up on social media, wagging their fingers at others and telling them that “killing is always wrong.” Insisting others are horrible people for making fun of Brian Thompson’s violent demise or condoning Luigi Mangione’s actions.

Or if they're on the other side of the aisle, they preface their posts with an apology that “of course, they know killing is never the answer, but …”

I’m here to challenge that.

None of us “know” or believe that killing is always wrong - I’ll make an exception for a few truly enlightened people, but they’re a minority, so I won’t bother including them in this discussion. For the rest of us, we don’t believe this. We’ve been conditioned to say we do. Especially those who condemn the general feeling that this was a justified action.

We calm our consciences by saying that killing is always wrong - to feel better about ourselves, not because it is actually true.

Western societies are deeply interwoven with Christian dogma. The sixth commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” is one of the foundations of that belief. Even if you, like me, aren’t a believer, chances are this is part of your social conditioning and lodged deeply in your subconscious.

In fact, all major religions have teachings that prohibit or discourage killing others. For example, in Buddhism, the first of the Five Precepts is to refrain from taking life, promoting compassion and non-violence. In Hinduism, Ahimsa, or non-violence, is a core tenet. Hindus are encouraged to avoid harming any living being whenever possible.

The Torah includes the prohibition of murder within its Ten Commandments, emphasizing the value of human life.

The Quran says, “Whoever kills a person [unjustly]… it is as though he has killed all of mankind.”

Interestingly, Islam seems to have reflected a little more on true human nature. The modifier “unjustly” means killing is discouraged but allowed in specific contexts like self-defense or as determined by Islamic law.

And this takes me straight to my point. Even though we say “killing is always wrong,” we allow exceptions.

In our laws and in our minds.

There are many situations where we condone killing

We say we don’t condone murder, but we have no issue accepting or even celebrating it. In many cases, we even believe it is necessary. Or the inevitable outcome of a situation - collateral damage in battle springs to mind.

Of course, war is the most obvious example of socially approved murder. For millennia, people have waged brutal battles. Usually to protect some rulers’s land or interests.

Killing in wars is not just condoned. It is encouraged. Not just by the government but very often by the people themselves and by the heads of the same Christian church that commands that killings are wrong.

How many priests have blessed armies leaving for battle instead of beseeching their leaders to rethink if killing is the answer?

Even if we’re not in an all-out war, we’re happy to seek out and kill our enemies. Remember the people celebrating in front of the White House when Osama Bin Laden was killed? Not on the battlefield but by Navy Seals in his private compound in Pakistan, where he stayed with his family. I’m pretty sure most people thought this was a justified killing.

No one felt the need to tell the celebrators that killing is always wrong.

The same is true every time our governments take out those we decide are our enemies, a threat to our culture, society or way of living. Killing someone like Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi, Che Guevara, Noriega, Yamamoto or even Hitler is seen as a necessity with little to no regard to the question of whether killing is wrong or if the involvement of foreign governments is even legal.

Legality is a big question when it comes to killing people. We have created a complex framework of situations where killing is legal, or we’re willing to accept extenuating circumstances.

The tip of the iceberg is the death penalty. Luckily, most countries no longer have it, but those who do dole it out for completely different crimes. In some countries, like the US, you’ll be put down for murder or treason. In China, it could be for corruption or other financial crimes like severe fraud.

If you’re a woman in Saudi Arabia, you can be put to death for adultery. And let’s not even start listing the countries willing to kill people for homosexuality.

Police Killings in the US are accepted collateral damage in a way that isn’t common in any other Western country. And the same people who’ll wag their finger at someone for thinking Luigi Magione is a Robin Hood, avenging the wrongs against the people, are quick to blame the victims of police shootings for their demise. The fact the killers are in uniform somehow makes the killings acceptable.

Self-defense is another one of those situations. Again, in the US, self-defense takes on dimensions that are hard for foreigners to understand.

What do you mean you can shoot someone on your property because you feel threatened? How do you measure the belief of imminent harm in a country where everyone has private access to deadly weapons?

But still, a lot of US Americans condone killings in these situations.

We’ve grown up with stories of brutal heroes

Don’t get me started with society’s gusto for revenge killings. Kill someone who raped your wife or murdered your child - presto: killing is no longer wrong.

When I grew up in Nigeria, Marianne Bachmeier lived among the German expatriates for a while. Everyone whispered about how she had publicly killed the man who had sexually assaulted and murdered her 7-year-old daughter in the courtroom. No one thought she had done anything wrong.

Numerous Blockbuster movies glorify such killing (sprees). Death Wish, Taken, Man on Fire, The Equalizer, A Time to Kill. I could fill pages with movies that have conditioned us to believe that revenge and vigilante killings are acceptable.

These stories are hero stories. They are portrayed as heroes, and we perceive them as such: Good vs. Evil, David vs. Goliath, the Rebel Alliance against the Empire, Robin Hood vs. the rich, Braveheart.

The Russian Revolution. The French Revolution. A time of radical societal change where the working class disposed of their rich oppressor with gusto and a promise of Egalité, Fraternité, and Liberté. Didn’t you teach us that Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty are values that justify killing?

The world we live in today was shaped by the people who took it upon themselves to kill those who stood in the way of a better life for all.

We were conditioned to say killing is wrong, while we were fed stories of heroic killers. So, we have all built an intricate internal framework of good and bad killings. Justified and unjustified taking of lives.

And precisely, these hero stories are why it’s so hard to convince people that what Luigi Mangione did was wrong. It’s the story of Good vs. Evil. Because United Healthcare is, and this can’t be contested, an evil corporation. Luigi is David vs. Goliath. He is Robin Hood, killing the Sheriff of Nottingham. He is Luke Skywalker, and Thompsom is Darth Vader.

When politicians like Governor Shapiro stand up to say that we do not kill people in cold blood, all people hear is that they’re either lying or do not understand. For the people, this wasn’t a cold-blooded killing. It was a revenge killing. Thompson was killed out of anger over an unjust, oppressive system.

No amount of media manipulation and political gaslighting will make people forget the fact that healthcare corporations are the ones killing people in cold blood. To save money. The anger over what is happening is real, and it just erupted in one man taking that anger a step further.

So yes, we reflexively say or think killing is wrong. And I’m glad that is the case because it stops us from randomly killing others for petty reasons. It keeps the social peace - most of the time. But let’s not forget that we have also been taught to accept killing if we deem it justified.

And a lot of people feel this killing was justified. What about you?

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