Not sure whether any of your ancestors ever believed that glorious death was a worthy goal - I don't think any of mine ever did. However, the drive to glorious death is either built into some or maybe there is a strong meme that drives some. It doesn't seem like a survival trait, so I'd guess it's a meme.
At any rate, lots of people in the Middle East believe in glorious death. Something we just can't comprehend.
Maybe they are like the worker bees that protect the hive by stinging intruders. Unlike wasps, which can sting repeatedly without suffering any injury, bees sting once, and their stingers rip out, and remain in the body of the intruder, pumping poison, and they die.
Maybe we have people like that, too, but the hive hasn't been threatened enough to produce them? We do have warriors, who will fight to the death, but don't go around talking about how it is glorious.
My sons attend a high school named after a local man who died in combat in Viet Nam. There is a little shrine to him in the hallway - just photos in a case and his medals, maybe I am stretching things a bit to call it a shrine. So he's a hero. But his mother preferred him alive to dead. |
