My only real qualm about cannibalism (granted, I wouldn’t care to partake except in extreme survival emergency, due to my own cultural conditioning) would be whether or not the prospective entree was being murdered for that purpose. If it’s limited to those who died on their own (illness, injury, old age, etc.), I think you have a point that the taboo is mostly a cultural thing.
Oh, it is. I’ve been given to understand the Aztecs’ sacrifices were largely eaten by the priesthood, as protein sources were very hard to come by.
:eek: Um, so is the Spanish word for “feminism” (el feminismo). So is the Spanish word for “polytheism” (el politeismo). So is every single freaking Spanish word for ANY abstract noun that ends in “-ism”.
Cripes. That has got to be about the dumbest thing said in this thread so far, and the bar was set pretty high from the get-go.
ETA: Or perhaps I was whooshed. I hope I was whooshed.
Looks like it.
What if there were two of you starving, and the other guy was planning to kill you to eat you, and so you had to kill him first before he could get you? And then you’d eat him, of course. Would that count as self-defense or a “cannibal killing”?
Well, I wouldn’t kill someone unless he was attacking me, so it would have to be self-defense in that case.
What if you knew he was planning it but had not acted yet? And you didn’t dare fall sleep while he was alive?
I’d first try hiding or simply leaving the area. For me, killing another person would definitely be a last resort.
I certainly agree with you, as an earlier post of mine stated.
Nope, that would be my position too.
And just because apparently some Republicans are ideology-bound (though I find that unlikely) that doesn’t change my opinion. Why should it? Not a rhetorical question.
You’re taking my ‘real men eat human flesh’ joke too seriously is all. I mean, a Spanish word ending with ‘o’? What are the chances? :dubious:
I’ve been around people who talk about how the pioneers were tougher than us moderns- they had to travel by wagon, rode horses, slept outside, dug mines by hand- generally macho types. I dunno though, I wonder if ‘tougher’, ‘more stereotypically masculine’, ‘less educated’ and ‘from a long time’ actually are correlated. But see above. I guess this one was too much of a stretch to be funny.
But the thread was more focused on Jamestown cannibals. And they make more sense in the context of my wider musings. I don’t know if it would be my place to call out Siamese cannibals at all.
And, what does, “I’ll swan” mean?
Why should it? Well, the ethical point I’m drawing from this example is that it shouldn’t. I assumed people generally frown on cannibalism, but under certain circumstances the opinion is pretty much, “go for it”. The guys in Jamestown certainly seemed to think so. This seems like an “extreme” example, so the notion I had was that if ethics are situational in this case, ethics must be (if we’re looking at them correctly) more generally situational. The ideological view would be that cannibalism is wrong in itself and therefore we don’t even have to know the context around it to know it is wrong. The evidence suggests that people in real life, even ones that have no reputation for cannibalism i.e. the Brits, don’t adhere to the ideological approach but instead will resort to cannibalism if they feel they must. So in a nutshell, when it comes to decision making, perhaps the situational approach is better than the ideological approach.
I wonder if this is a useful insight. For example, the Republicans today, on a number of issues, definitely appear to be taking an ideological approach to defend their positions. Going back to taxation, they are up in arms about the deficit and debt, they like to cast themselves as business types, yet they behave as if it would simply be morally wrong to raise revenue via tax rates as a solution. Maybe my little insight about cannibals can be used to build the case that the Republicans are wrong, that their ideological approach reveals that their policies are not appropriate to the current circumstances.
And I guess it is interesting too that these are, if not exactly Founding Fathers, certainly something along those lines for being among the first to settle in America. Presumably the Republicans (or at least the Tea Party types) would look up to them. But, well, the settlers weren’t ideological when it came down to it, and they weren’t especially apt at dealing with this place if you ask me. So the message the settlers would be sending to the right-wingers whose tax policy I am criticizing would be, “you’re wrong.”
I guess it is all a little out there, but I wouldn’t want to come on here and post my shopping list. It is a little confusing since I personally am taking something like an ideological stand on cannibalism itself: I think I might just rather die, which isn’t consistent with what I’ve just tried to spell out. So, maybe I don’t know myself, or maybe I am wrong, or who knows, maybe I really would die instead of resorting to eating somebody else, even after having spent this thread suggesting that the ideological approach isn’t accurate. Hopefully I never have to find out!
Thread. My grandmother in rural Arkansas used to say it all the time.
So this is about the Republican party then?
Well, there were some dots to connect along those lines. But surely these ideas could be applied more broadly.
Dude, just stop. I’ve done this too. You said something stupid without thinking it through, and now you are trying to cover your ass by changing the meaning. There is no way your original post was a denouncement of absolute ethics. You were disgusted by the cannibalism, and thus you didn’t think it through. You’ve had a problem with this sort of thing before, like with the BP thing where you hated Britain even though Britain has nothing to do with BP. You tend to get stuck on feeling bad and have trouble reasoning through it.
If they died from illness, throwing them in the stew might not be the brightest of ideas (depending on the exact disease).
I’m drawing the line at vivicannibalism though.
it would make a great theme restaurant.
How does the OP feel about self-cannibalism?
I asked him. He said “Bite me”.
Regards,
Shodan
Obviously I’m against it. I already referenced Siamese cannibals, which is pretty much what self-cannibalism is. Cosmically speaking, all cannibalism is self-cannibalism, and that’s really why it is wrong. Be the Self; don’t eat it.