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Self-immolation

Self Immolation is...?

  • Brave

    Votes: 4 22.2%
  • Stupid

    Votes: 7 38.9%
  • Crazy

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • Other (state in thread)

    Votes: 6 33.3%

  • Total voters
    18
G

Glycerine

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I think it's sad but brave. It's highly symbolic of their struggle. China supposedly kidnapped the kid who was to become the next spiritual leader and inserted a government-approved "replacement". The kid has never been found. I was acquaintances with a few Tibetans in the Students for a Free Tibet and for the most the part, the culture is really peace-loving.
 

Lark

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I would never commit suicide for a cause, I would never engage in any sort of doomed to failure and in the process death efforts for a cause either.

It wasnt always this way. There was a time I bought a lot of left wing martyrology and its got precident in Irish history and culture too.

Although I decided that its better and also more difficult to live for than to die for what is right, especially when you come to the realisation that some things are not going to be right, the world is imperfect, there are injustices, impossible odds, wrongs which single individuals, even mass movements, time and generational shifts will not put right, even if you life to see the beginning of something meaningful you will not live to see it through (although you will not live to see it betrayed or corrupted or collapse either).

Choosing to live and in doing so letting your own life be some sort of testamony is the harder thing to do.
 

Derpravity

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It's kind of both noble and stupid. I admire conviction, but I feel like their instincts for self-preservation/improving the world to their liking are off.
 

Thalassa

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Mmm...the entire mindset of people who would do this sort of thing is "be the change you wish to see in the world." Meaning you have to change yourself, and some advanced buddhists, yogis, etc. can do things like live in a dark cave without eating or drinking for a week or something, just to prove how much they've obtained mind over matter. That to me is pretty impressive. And highly unlikely that I'd ever even want to achieve it, to me it seems like over-doing it.

So yeah in order to protest they would kill themselves in a dramatic public way while keeping perfect mental self-control instead of killing others or committing violence against others.

It certainly would make certain types of people take them more seriously. However, I'm not really clear on what good suicide ever does. It seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Like it's not as ethical as it appears, because it's still destroying life: your own.

The mentality, though, is probably "I don't matter as an individual because we are all One and I am doing this for the good of all."

I can't say that I really understand this sort of thing. I really don't.
 

Mole

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We are meaning creating animals and we create meanings that reward self immolation.

From the kamikaze pilots of Japan, to the buddhists of Asia, to the suicide bombers of Islam, all are rewarded by their ideology for self immolation.

And we are not immune because our nuclear weapons point in one directon: self immolation.
 
W

WALMART

Guest
Meaning you have to change yourself, and some advanced buddhists, yogis, etc. can do things like live in a dark cave without eating or drinking for a week or something, just to prove how much they've obtained mind over matter. That to me is pretty impressive.


"My master is so strong, he can go a week without eating!" proclaimed one student.


"Well, my master is so disciplined, he can go a week without sleeping!" retorts another.


"That's nothing..." starts a third. "My master is is so wise he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired."






Not often I get to share that one =/

I think I'd think most about my eyeballs popping, just before I set myself ablaze.
 

Derpravity

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From the kamikaze pilots of Japan, to the buddhists of Asia, to the suicide bombers of Islam, all are rewarded by their ideology for self immolation.

And we are not immune because our nuclear weapons point in one directon: self immolation.
Hey, speak for yourself. My country ain't got no nuclear warheads. ;)

But yeah, self-martyrdom is a pretty common human trait. I know plenty of people in my life who'd rather feel vindicated for their suffering than make the effort to get what they want out of life and minimise the suffering (for themselves and everyone else).
 

Mole

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Hey, speak for yourself. My country ain't got no nuclear warheads. ;)

Derpravity's a Mystery Cat: she's called the Hidden Paw--
For she's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
She's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Derpravity's not there!
 

Chiharu

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You have a right to do what you want with your own body, and I do find it tragically noble. But what exactly does it accomplish, other than causing pain and sorrow for those that love you?
 

KDude

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You have a right to do what you want with your own body, and I do find it tragically noble. But what exactly does it accomplish, other than causing pain and sorrow for those that love you?

Better to cause sorrow and pain for those who don't love you. Am I right?
 

Rasofy

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Depends on what is going on in their mind.

Assuming the person was trying to inspire people to join the cause, and that he/she genuinely see their lives as being less important than their cause, I'd say it's more noble than stupid.

Otoh, if the person did that expecting some kind of payoff in an afterlife, then it was totally utterly stupid, so stupid that words can't describe.
 

KDude

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Depends on what is going on in their mind.

Assuming the person was trying to inspire people to join the cause, and that he/she genuinely see their lives as being less important than their cause, I'd say it's more noble than stupid.

Otoh, if the person did that expecting some kind of payoff in an afterlife, then it was totally utterly stupid, so stupid that words can't describe.

This has all happened before many times, so that's where the "stupid" accusation comes from. Why repeat something that doesn't work?

This whole "peaceful protest" thing is not a language the Chinese government understands apparently. Besides the government, the rest of China's population that may be sympathetic is still too busy to fight for Tibetan causes. A lot of the lower classes in China live in literal rabbit cages (and they actually pay rent to boot). Others travel from one end of the country to another to find decent work - and end up away from their families for months at a time. The only thing they worry about is making enough money to send home. Keep your head down, mind your own business. And those in the upper classes definitely don't care.
 

Rasofy

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This has all happened before many times, so that's where the "stupid" accusation comes from. Why repeat something that doesn't work?

This whole "peaceful protest" thing is not a language the Chinese government understands apparently. Besides the government, the rest of China's population that may be sympathetic is still too busy to fight for Tibetan causes. A lot of the lower classes in China live in literal rabbit cages (and they actually pay rent to boot). Others travel from one end of the country to another to find decent work - and end up away from their families for months at a time. The only thing they worry about is making enough money to send home. Keep your head down, mind your own business. And those in the upper classes definitely don't care.
It will certainly have long term effects. Could take a generation or two though.
 

KDude

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It will certainly have long term effects. Could take a generation or two though.

I suspect China will slowly, of it's own will, transition more and more into a capitalist, and even democratic superpower. Places like Tibet will be the equivalent of the injustice done to Native Americans. They'll make some reparations and pay lip service, but never pay back quite enough. They will be the price to pay to get where they're going.

Maybe. Half of the reason America pays lip service to Native Americans now is because of Geronimo. He was a legitimate badass. Tibet has no one like that, no one who shames America into some respect.
 

Bamboo

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It's an impressive display of discipline, but you'd think with all that discipline they'd come up with a focused way of making a statement that doesn't involve them dying, yeah?

I'd describe the idea of trying to barter against someone by saying that you'll hurt yourself unless they do something as a form of emotional blackmail.

I don't think it's all that effective, but of course, we are having this conversation now because they did it. So it worked.

Still, there's probably a better way to go about this.
 

UniqueMixture

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Do you guys think some religions are more likely to do the "sacrifice for a noble cause" thing? Christianity certainly has the martyr motif as well as buddhism (self-deprivation in search of enlightenment) and I suppose honor societies (japanese already mentioned) as well as legends like Dido, Prometheus, etc. I wonder how it is connected to the evolution of morality (specifically altruism).
 

Il Morto Che Parla

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Didn't self-immolation by a Tunisian street vendor, begin the Arab Spring?

I guess it depends on the context.

I am the opposite, I can imagine easily wanting to die for a cause, if somebody took all of your freedoms, this is a quite normal human reaction. .

The unusual thing is to it openly as suicide jsut to yourself, rather than fighting to the death as part of a rebellion, and taking out some of your enemy as well. Even suicide attacks (used by Japanese and Tamils long before Hamas, by the way), make more sense than this, because it is still an act of war.

But purely killing yourself and none of the enemy...it makes it harder for me to understand.
 
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