View Single Post
Old 18th November 2012, 06:25 AM   #37
HansMustermann
Penultimate Amazing
 
HansMustermann's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 22,331
Originally Posted by Lithrael View Post
Whoa geez I wasn't trying to promote any romanticized ideas. I was only trying to come up with an example where SOME percentage of people meeting awful fate X were in favor of it ideologically and that was the first thing that came to mind. I would imagine even the most gung-ho for sacrifice Aztec would not be so excited about it once the flaying part was going on.
Well, maybe I overreacted a little, but sati is one of the things that make me see red. If I were to make up a religion, it would have a special circle of hell for the berks who perpetrated that horror.

And honestly, I don't think many women were actually looking forward to ending their life screaming in agony on top of a pile of burning wood. Even if you were depressed enough to plan a suicide, you wouldn't choose the most horrible way to die, and it would have to be your choice, not basically mandatory. Because for the upper class women marriage was a delayed death sentence, and pretty much guaranteed to happen. (Judging by the testimony of the Greeks, it seems to have been more widespread, but by the time the Brits got there, the lower classes had already said a big "piss off" to it.) It's one thing to commit suicide because you want it, and it's another thing to have a death sentence looming over your head for all your life.

And sure enough, what we learn from the Greeks is that the Indians did it to deter women from poisoning their husbands. (And I'd add, probably to solve any inheritance problems in one fell swoop too.) It wouldn't work as a deterrent if women were looking forward to it. It's only a deterrent if it's something you'd very much rather avoid.

Plus, about ideological reasons, people tend to favour ideologies that are in their favour, or which they think they can game. E.g., you might have Jews working for the Nazis (and there were a lot in WW2), if they think they're going to get special status for it, or at least delay the inevitable for long enough. You don't see many people looking forward to being themselves subjected to a horrible injustice.

Basically, you'd probably find enough people being all for YOUR being killed, or people going with it so THEY don't get killed, but you won't find many being all for THEIR being killed horribly. E.g., you'll find plenty thinking they should nuke Iran, but none saying, "please someone nuke ME."

For sati there was no such way to rationalize against it. Being all for it and cooperating with it, helped some Jews avoid the Holocaust, but it won't mean Jack Schitt for a woman supposed to be burned alive on her husband's pyre. You can't go "maybe they'll leave me be if I'm their useful idiot", because they won't.
__________________
Springfield Heights Institute of Technology poster child
HansMustermann is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top