Maybe

by Nats Barretto


"Thou shall not kill."

But sir, we've been told that a million times before in elementary and high school! We know that already! And besides, we haven't killed anyone to be reminded of that!

That was the first thing that came into my mind when I first heard that we'll be discussing this in philosophy class. I mean, it's a very obvious and you-don't-say thing! It's not something that should be explicated and complicated! Why are we discussing this thing!?

I'm not gonna try to give a seemingly flawless rationalization for this dilemma. I don't think I can do that. Rather, I'm gonna present a series of maybes on why I think we're discussing this in class.

Maybe #1
Maybe it's a reminder for us, because though we haven't really killed anyone yet, we still have the tendency to kill someone. As Levinas said, "the prohibition against killing does not render murder impossible".

Maybe #2
Maybe it's to present the 5th commandment in another way, a way wherein we'll be able to see it and understand it in a new light. Killing may not only mean physically causing the death of the Other, it may also mean not doing something to prevent the death of the Other. And that thought actually makes me guilty.

Maybe #3
Maybe it's because, though it's an obvious thing, it's something often overlooked and forgotten. And with the abundance of movies and books rendering killing as something "normal", it's really easy to overlook and forget that "thou shall not kill".

Or maybe, maybe it's a combination of the three maybes I presented above, or maybe it's an entirely different maybe. Maybe...