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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 8:21 pm Post subject: Are there beliefs to die for? |
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The question: Are there beliefs to die for?
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Can any belief be worth dying for, let alone killing for? Boris Gruschenko, Woody Allen's character in Love and Death, has no doubt:
I don't want to fight. It's no different living under the Tsar or Napoleon. They're both crooks. The Tsar's taller.
Skin for skin, to quote Satan in the book of Job. Compare and contrast the equally unequivocal inscription on the war memorial outside St Mary's Slough:
Who stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?
Rudyard Kipling's "For all we have and all we are" reflects the patriotic ardour that flushed Europe in 1914. Whether or not he would have written it the next autumn, after the death of his beloved son John at the Battle of Loos, is an interesting topic for literary speculation. By then Kipling had published words that caught popular imagination powerfully enough to appear on hundreds of English War memorials.
No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all �
For each one life to give.
Many utopian socialists honestly believed in 1914 that there couldn't be a European war, because working men would refuse to take up arms against other working men. Many utopian socialists were wrong. But Boris Gruschenko would agree with Kipling about the randomness of particular deaths for great causes. |
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ubermenzch
Joined: 09 Jun 2008
Location: bundang, south korea
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 12:57 am Post subject: |
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there are days when i do feel like my life is made the poorer for the lack of ideals or beliefs that i would die for. but none of that *dying for your country* garbage, more like let's rise up and collect the heads of the corporatist pigs and their politician shoe-shine boys. i might be willing to die for that, depending on my mood on the day you're going around collecting names.
there are beliefs such as gay rights and secularism that if pushed too far i might be willing to die for, and kill for, in an organized struggle. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 2:12 am Post subject: |
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| I'm always suspicious of posts where the OP does not express a view. The paranoid in me says the poster with the missing 'u' in his ID does this just so he can argue the other side of the first responder. It's trollish behavior. Sue me. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 2:26 am Post subject: |
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there's no greater cause than to protect one's home and family
many ideas could be reduced to this |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:01 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I'm always suspicious of posts where the OP does not express a view. The paranoid in me says the poster with the missing 'u' in his ID does this just so he can argue the other side of the first responder. It's trollish behavior. Sue me. |
If you are putting BB in that category, I'm dmbfounded. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| Please don't put words in my mouth, ba. I could be moved to connect a conspiracy theorist and his tin foil hat to an electrical outlet for less than that. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
there's no greater cause than to protect one's home and family
many ideas could be reduced to this |
Well, whatever you do, don't bore us all with examples |
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Robot_Teacher
Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Location: Robotting Around the World
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 7:58 am Post subject: |
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While much propaganda surrounds it, freedom has been fought and died for since the beginning. Like ever since way before there was an America. Just what is this F word we've heard so many times surrounding patriotism?
According to Merriam-Webster: The quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care> d: ease, facility <spoke the language with freedom> e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom> f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use <gave him the freedom of their home> |
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Lostone7
Joined: 08 Jun 2006
Location: SE Asia
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
there's no greater cause than to protect one's home and family
many ideas could be reduced to this |
Agreed! |
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Lostone7
Joined: 08 Jun 2006
Location: SE Asia
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
there's no greater cause than to protect one's home and family
many ideas could be reduced to this |
Agreed! |
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Fishead soup
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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There's only two beliefs worth dieing for
Capitalism
Christianity. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Fishead soup wrote: |
There's only two beliefs worth dieing for
Capitalism
Christianity. |
dieting or dying? Which is it, man? |
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Fishead soup
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Fishead soup wrote: |
There's only two beliefs worth dieing for
Capitalism
Christianity. |
dieting or dying? Which is it, man? |
Dieting is only important if you're a big fat pig like Opra.
Die for God, Queen, and county.
That's the British way. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Fishead soup wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Fishead soup wrote: |
There's only two beliefs worth dieing for
Capitalism
Christianity. |
dieting or dying? Which is it, man? |
Dieting is only important if you're a big fat pig like Opra.
Die for God, Queen, and county.
That's the British way. |
Then do learn to spell, man. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Robot_Teacher wrote: |
| While much propaganda surrounds it, freedom has been fought and died for since the beginning. |
You know, the more I hear people talk about freedom, and the more I consider how most people actually want society to operate, the more I disagree with this.
I don't want people to be free to do many of the things they might consider doing, and if we're honest nor do most of us. I don't want them to be free to kill others, I don't want them to be free to steal from others, I don't want them to be free to pollute the air without limits, and so forth.
Rather than freedom, I think what humanity truly strives for -- and what many people have died for, and many people will likely continue to die for -- is justice. People want a just set of restrictions upon freedom, one that works to the benefit rather than the detriment of the common man. When people are confronted with just restrictions upon freedom, their response is generally positive. It's when they feel unjust restrictions upon their freedom are placed upon them that they fight back.
True freedom is only as good or bad as how it is used; it is not good without qualification, and freedom can be used for foul ends. True justice is, without qualification, good in and of itself, because as soon as it is used for foul ends it ceases to be justice at all.
A perfectly just collection of human beings could be allowed total freedom, but totally free people by no means would necessarily be perfectly just. I think it's clear which property is the true virtue, and to answer the question in the original post, if there is a cause worth dying for, it is justice. |
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