Mar 5, 2023 04:52 AM
https://aeon.co/essays/can-a-martyrs-dea...nd-freedom
EXCERPT: . . . The history of Christianity is filled with martyrs like Polycarp, but martyrdom is not an invention of Christianity. In the settled societies of the Mediterranean basin, martyrs challenged repressive political power. Members of various philosophical streams, prominently Stoicism, used self-inflicted and assisted death as a performance of their exalted position over a debased society.
A well-known example is Socrates who accepted the death penalty for corrupting the youth of Athens during the 4th century BCE. Defying death, he reasoned, would have set a negative example to those supposedly ‘corrupted’ youth.
Over the following centuries, as civilisations rose and fell, philosophers and holy men of all kinds used death to symbolically oppose unjust rule – in some circumstances, death became the sole avenue for action. But was it effective?
What may often seem a desperate and futile act can sometimes assume critical political expedience. For this reason, death’s uses have only proliferated since the days of Polycarp. Understanding the political afterlife of death, specifically through martyrdom, has become only more complex and urgent in a world of oppressive state control, colonisation, insurgency and counterinsurgency. While death inevitably brings certain processes to a swift halt, what novel possibilities can it open?
An understanding of death’s political possibilities could be informed by turning to relatively recent examples of philosophers, activists, Marxists, insurgents, paramilitary groups and Buddhist monks who have used death to achieve their goals. But there is a longer trajectory to the political uses of death, one that requires tracing the history of sacrifice in the Abrahamic traditions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all employed death to further their cause and rally members for political ends.
The sacrality of martyrdom and martyrs in these religions cannot be overemphasised. Although these religions focus heavily on the moral direction of quotidian conduct to avoid otherworldly damnation, martyrdom is seen as an extraordinary avenue to achieve communal esteem and ethereal salvation.
One of the inflection points for this longer trajectory begins with Abraham... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPT: . . . The history of Christianity is filled with martyrs like Polycarp, but martyrdom is not an invention of Christianity. In the settled societies of the Mediterranean basin, martyrs challenged repressive political power. Members of various philosophical streams, prominently Stoicism, used self-inflicted and assisted death as a performance of their exalted position over a debased society.
A well-known example is Socrates who accepted the death penalty for corrupting the youth of Athens during the 4th century BCE. Defying death, he reasoned, would have set a negative example to those supposedly ‘corrupted’ youth.
Over the following centuries, as civilisations rose and fell, philosophers and holy men of all kinds used death to symbolically oppose unjust rule – in some circumstances, death became the sole avenue for action. But was it effective?
What may often seem a desperate and futile act can sometimes assume critical political expedience. For this reason, death’s uses have only proliferated since the days of Polycarp. Understanding the political afterlife of death, specifically through martyrdom, has become only more complex and urgent in a world of oppressive state control, colonisation, insurgency and counterinsurgency. While death inevitably brings certain processes to a swift halt, what novel possibilities can it open?
An understanding of death’s political possibilities could be informed by turning to relatively recent examples of philosophers, activists, Marxists, insurgents, paramilitary groups and Buddhist monks who have used death to achieve their goals. But there is a longer trajectory to the political uses of death, one that requires tracing the history of sacrifice in the Abrahamic traditions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all employed death to further their cause and rally members for political ends.
The sacrality of martyrdom and martyrs in these religions cannot be overemphasised. Although these religions focus heavily on the moral direction of quotidian conduct to avoid otherworldly damnation, martyrdom is seen as an extraordinary avenue to achieve communal esteem and ethereal salvation.
One of the inflection points for this longer trajectory begins with Abraham... (MORE - missing details)