[extropy-chat] Poverty of Dignity

[The Avantguardian]

--- Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> 
> And Pape seems to exclude the kamikaze bombers
> because they were backed by a
> government, but I think he doesn't need to.  His
> basic claim is that suicide
> attacks aren't abnormal or dependent on weird
> religious ideas, but on group
> support, typically motivated by perceived military
> logic.  WW II Japan would
> fit in nicely.


Actually though kamikaze bombers were
religiously/spiritually/culturally motivated. The
tradition is based in large part on Bushido/Zen
Buddhism with some holdovers from ancient Shintoism.
The Zen Buddhism/Bushido influence is one wherein it
is perceived that for a warrior, death must not be
something one tries to avoid but is instead something
that one faces squarely. There is an old saying that
any one warrior can defeat another of even greater
skill if one is willing to die in the process. Add to
that the cultural tradition of honor, wherein it
preferable to die in the course of a mission than to
fail the mission. The ancient animistic religion of
Shintoism lent the name Kamikaze to the bomber pilots.
Kamikazi means "spirit of the wind". It derives from
ancient times, when Japan was caught completely by
surprise by an invading fleet of Mongols. The Japanese
saw their doom approaching and they could not do
anything about it. Then out of nowhere, a typhoon set
in and dashed the Mongolian ships to pieces before
they could make landfall. They attributed this stroke
of luck as a boon from Kami Kaze the "spirit of the
wind". By calling themselves Kamikaze, the pilots were
essentially settling a debt the nation of Japan owed
to the gods of the wind.  

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com