Manifesto
With this piece, George Saunders talks about PRKA (People Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction), and how its individual members avoid committing malicious acts towards other people based on an intangible belief. In reality, many of us are part of this organization, whether we realize it or not. He mentions that members of the group have chosen not to do terrible things, such as flying planes into buildings or bulldozing homes. Instead, members have done reasonable human acts, such as feeling admiration for small things after the sudden death of a kitten. Saunders writes this to make people realize that causing harm to other people based on some belief or idea is not the way to obtain a peaceful society. In today’s world, extreme, violent acts are done upon others simply because of various groups’ extreme beliefs, so Saunders is trying to argue against that idea. He does this by not explicitly naming any groups that we assume may choose to do these harmful acts in the beginning before suddenly associating individual people from different places with actions that are more human-like towards the end. In this way, he touches on human emotions to get his point across.