From: SA121@phx.cam.ac.uk (Arrowsmith)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Socratic silliness (was Re: Multiple Orientations?)
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:14:23 GMT
Organization: Surrealists against Lobsters

In article <ZEN.92Sep28165017@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
>
>In article <1992Sep28.223504.4177@leland.Stanford.EDU> mlloyd@westmark.Stanford.EDU (Mike Lloyd) writes:
>   [...]
>> A good point, well made.  In my defense, I'll point out that it is
>> precisely the _death_ part that I objected to.
>> [...]
>> I guess I still
>> see some sacredness, some superb, colossal joke in human life,
>> and it's a pity to throw one away for something as petty as
>> *ideas* ....
>
>  Sigh... I disagree, as usual... *laugh*...
>
Just to add my thoughts, not so much about Socrates as about death and
martyrdom, to the fray.

I disagree too -- human life has gone *beyond* a joke for me.  I look
around and, far from being sacred, it appears eminently disposable. I
can understand people who have some sort of purpose to their life, a
goal they're working towards, a cause they champion, a person who needs
them; but the attitude of "living for the sake of being alive" is one
I just can't get my head around, it makes no sense to me.  In that
situation, what are you throwing away?  Nothing but a drain on human
(and world) resources.  Society instills us, even those of us who like
bucking the system, with the idea that life is precious so deeply that
it is hard to conceive of death being in anyway a good thing.  Why
should it be?  What is wrong with giving up on life, when we have nothing
to give to it, and are just worthless consumers?  Might we not even
have a *duty* to die, when such would improve life for those around us,
and when our own lives are of no further use?

>[...]
>> There is an appropriate
>> time to die in opposition, but it's very rare.
>
>[...]
> but... many people with wonderful ideas did die violently.  I
>wonder what would happen if they had backed down when challenged.
>
Martyrdom.  Give a cause a figurehead who has died violently  at
the hands of the enemy, and it will be much stronger than one
without.  Death of a leader gives the followers anger (if the next
leader handles them correctly) and a deepened sense of injustice
for their cause.  I don't think the "whatif" can be expressed so
simply, there are many other factors, but the impetus and justification
a martyr can provide cannot be dismissed easily.

>  In a sense, I can see your point -- *you* don't want to die, and
>wouldn't, for such things.  But saying it's foolish, say, for socrates
>to do what he did?  I don't understand. 
>[...]
>
People do foolish things -- but perhaps it wouldn't look so strange if
we could see it with ancient Greek, rather than modern Western eyes.
If death were not such a potent force of fear, might we not more readily
accept it when we grew tired of living, when there was nothing more for
us to do?

(I'm not sure what this has to do with soc.bi, but it's good stuff....)


--
\S
SA121@phx.cam.ac.uk           | There's nowt |"Stormy weather turns to blue;
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