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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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Muslim Fundamentalists, (we really haven’t as yet come up with a neutral way of distinguishing them), are consciously and with premeditation sacrificing their lives in suicide attacks in different parts of the world. And each is personally answering a serious question: What would you die for? So, what would be your answer, (and please, something more than family and friends, they would too)? John |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
Well, not for religion or politics. I suppose rescuing someone who was not family or friend in an emergencey, though the INTENT would NEVER be for myself to die while rescuing. Guess I wouldn't pass the firefighter or police tests, not to mention the military reqs. |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
Nothing! I love life too much and you said I could not use family as my answer  |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
There's a big difference between risking your life and giving your life, and I honestly don't think either can accurately be answered in the abstract. Until you actually find yourself IN a situation, how you'll react is, at best, a guess. |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
Well now that you say it that way ... I have risked my life a couple of times actually, but giving it is a whole different matter. My answer would have to be as Ron suggests, until the situation arises I have NO idea what I would die for. If you had given me examples, then asked if I would actually die for them, then I could answer more constructively. As it was, the only thing that came to my mind I would actually be willing to give my life for, you stipulated I could not use, see?  |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Ron, “There's a big difference between risking your life and giving your life, and I honestly don't think either can accurately be answered in the abstract. Until you actually find yourself IN a situation, how you'll react is, at best, a guess.” I have to disagree. I think the fundamentalists like the Kamikazes are acting consciously and with premeditation in a process that may take a relatively long time, (unlike jumping on a grenade.). They intend no coming back. John P.S. This seems to get back to the problem of Western incomprehension. In the Pacific, Americans believed Japanese suicide pilots were drugged, chained in their cockpits, mindlessly trained from birth, (not wholly inaccurate), and/or went to their deaths in monkish robes. |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
John, I think it would be better if you qualified your statements with words like 'some' or a 'few' because it's almost never an 'all' scenario, where people act/react as a homogeneous unit as your words often imply. That's nothing short of stereotyping, lumping and dumping, which I don't think you mean to condone or encourage in your posts. Or am I wrong about your intent? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Kacy, Fine, I’m speaking of those who have deliberately died; those who are planning, training to deliberately die. Yes, the rest, are exempt from consideration, ( I said we don’t have a neutral way of distinguishing them). How do you compare? For what, (apart from family and friends), would you drive a bomb laden car into a building or a bomb laden plane into a ship? John P.S. I am going to exploit this opportunity, (pig that I am), to speculate that much of the difference associates with whether one truly, (despite bows and words), believes in an afterlife, and/or believes there are things more important than life. P.S.S. Apart from family and friends, of course... As you may or may not know, the Nazis used to perform experiments on pain tolerance versus social values. In one, that I read of, they connected a mother and daughter in such a way that they could inflict excruciating pain on the other rather than experience it themselves. Guess what they found out. |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
Guess you'll have to do your speculating at someone else's expense, John. I've grown weary, wary, and leery of your approach to socio-economic-religious-historical-political issues. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
I don't know what the Nazis discovered, John, but I know the decision I would make in that mother/daughter situation. And I think it has more to do with genuine love than anything else, even my belief in an afterlife and that there are more important things than life itself. What would I be willing to die for, other than family and friends? I guess I would be willing to die for freedom. To me it isn't just a word, or something that people should have learn to live without, under any circumstance. I heard a news report that before the women in Afghanistan went to the polls to cast their vote in their first ever free election, they went through their cleansing and dress ritual in preparation for death, for death is what they were expecting could realistically happen to them for their actions and were preparing for it. That spoke volumes to me about the importance of freedom to them, the value they placed on it. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: How many suiciders do you think don't make the final leap, John? How many decide not to get on the plane or feel compelled to pull up the nose at the last moment? Do you honestly believe more are willing to die than not? The ones you're talking about, which are typically the only ones you've heard about, have consciously put themselves into a position where they have to make a hard decision. And that alone takes courage and commitment. But they won't, and I believe they can't, make that hard decision until actually faced with it. And many, many who thought they could will find they can't. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Ron, From my reading about the Japanese Kamikazes, particularly The Nobility of Failure by Ivan I Morris, I have to disagree, and this comes back to my comments about Western incomprehension. Our disbelief is grounded in our own cultural valuations even in the face of contradicting evidence. Your incredulity is like that of most Americans apropos of the Kamikazes, and yet the planes came on. There was no shortage of volunteers. Also look at the history of the Pacific campaigns on the ground. Until Okinawa, Japanese soldiers demonstrated in overwhelming numbers a preference for death over defeat let alone surrender, (and even in Okinawa the prisoners were less than ten percent). This experience played an important role in the decisions leading to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. John |
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