"Prime Directive"

I enjoyed reading “Prime Directive” by Dave Griffith. I am particularly interested in his thoughts about human nature. The author is very honest about the human capacity for both hate and sympathy. He writes, “this is the part of tragedy that exposes our own violent, desirous, prideful human natures, and also our capacity for true sympathy.” He discusses how many people have moralized the situation at Abu Ghraib as a few “hicks from the sticks” doing what was in their nature to do and that they, “educated, metropolitan people”, could and would never be capable of such atrocities due to their supreme “awareness.” Griffith then states that it is this denial of commonality, of the capacity in each of us to sin, which allows “all that is most despicable and ugly in our nature to thrive.” He wrestles with his own opposing human capacities for sin and awareness. He poses for the photo, which degrades the victims of Abu Ghraib, but the picture also serves to commemorate, it becomes “sacramental, a reminder of my fall from grace”, because Griffith is “mindful” of the basic fact that in some ways he is exactly like Graner. And so we all are.