08-25-2003, 07:19 PM
I would like to point out that different kinds of conflict call for different styles of leadership. MLK and Ghandi were peacetime reformers who took for granted a degree of civility in the society they struggled with, which civility did in fact exist and was responsible for their ultimate victories. Comparing their respective involuntary martyrdoms to suicide bombers or soldiers at war is apples and oranges. They were emphatically not "Victory or Death" personality types.
In what manner can it be said that leaving a legacy behind is humble? Isn't it more humble to die in the anonymity of a private life not wrapped up in some social cause or other? Isn't it more humble to die without a Foundation or Memorial Fund named after you, without your own national holiday? I think those you praise have no claim to humility, but are instead indulging themselves in a particular form of megalomania with the characteristic of wanting to leave a "mark on the world." That impulse can serve good or evil, but I always distrust it.
"Your job is not to die for your country - your job is to make some poor dumb bastard die for his." - General George S. Patton
In what manner can it be said that leaving a legacy behind is humble? Isn't it more humble to die in the anonymity of a private life not wrapped up in some social cause or other? Isn't it more humble to die without a Foundation or Memorial Fund named after you, without your own national holiday? I think those you praise have no claim to humility, but are instead indulging themselves in a particular form of megalomania with the characteristic of wanting to leave a "mark on the world." That impulse can serve good or evil, but I always distrust it.
"Your job is not to die for your country - your job is to make some poor dumb bastard die for his." - General George S. Patton
Growler
"To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions." -- Salman Rushdie writing of September 11th
"To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions." -- Salman Rushdie writing of September 11th