I have great respect for Buddhist Monks. I have met many. My wife is Cambodian.
But I still find some of the reports strange concerning Burma. Should a killed monk be treated as more tragic than any other Burmese person killed?
It´s more or less as if they´d be beating up and shooting nuns and priests. It´s one thing to let your henchmen loose on your standard model angry mob, it´s another when that mob it´s made of holy men (in the eyes of Burmese folk anyway) with following a precept of pacifism.
No. But most people are taught to treat religious figures as being more valuable than normal people.
When violence is committed in a targeted way upon a group noted for their inability to defend themselves against it, it’s more disturbing than otherwise, because it seems to indicate some kind of agenda - it’s not that x number of deaths is more or less tragic this way or that, it’s the perception of the nature of the threat that caused them.
Seems like even worse of an atrocity if a monk is killed. Buddhists generally are very humane. It’s kinda like a child is worse than an adult, a mother worse than a single guy, a buddhist worst than your average joe. It’s all bad, just degrees of worse.
It is a more heinous offense to deliberately kill an individual unwilling to engage you in violent behaviour than to kill an armed and combative opponent. Their personal religious philosophy is not relevant. It is hard to make an argument that Buddhist monks represent a physical threat so killing one becomes a clear violation of the normal excuse–“Well, he was trying to kill me…”
I have not seen this situation portrayed in a way that implies an increased tragedy for one pacifist non-combatant over another.
I think we might be safe to assume that you’re not under this impression, therefore, I think it would be interesting to know; do you not think there is anything particularly attention-grabbing or newsworthy about the selection of victims here?
I think this is basically a strawman. I haven’t seen any reports saying that killing a monk, per se, is more tragic than killing some other person. As other posters have pointed out, though, Buddhist monks are presumably non-violent, so if anything, they are portrayed much like civil rights marchers in the US during the 50s and 60s-- people trying peacefully to affect change. Contrast that with the violent types like the Weathermen or Black Panthers of a similar era.
That Cain guy from Kung-Fu kicked all kind of ass.
<ahem> Anyway, we do assign different levels of tragedy based on the death of an individual based on such criteria as race, religion, national origin, the circumstances surrounding their death, etc. Is it really any worse to kill a cop then it is to kill a 25 year old unmarried male? No, not really, but when a cop gets shot there’s generally a whole lot more coverage and sympathy for the officer and his family. Not so much for the 25 year old.
I agree with other posters that it just seems worse to attack people who are suppose to be devoted to peace. That’s really a gut reaction on my part though. Morally speaking I don’t believe it’s any worse to kill a monk than it is to kill any of the other peaceful protestors.
Marc
With some cases of civil unrest, it’s possible to argue that the the downtrodden side is just trying to take over so it can oppress the people who are currently on top. This possibility reduces sympathy for the people being shot by the government because we suspect they would do the same thing if the roles were reversed. When religious figures are the victims, we’re more likely to assume that they were protesting for the good of society as a whole rather than for their own factional gain.
Monks aren’t more human than anyone else. But their avowed nonviolence does make killing them seem especially cold-blooded. And since we keep hearing that they occupy a high place in Burmese society, the deaths are significant that way.
No. Everybody bleeds the same color. An innocent person killed by a tyranny is an innocent person killed by a tyranny. Why is killing a monk worse than killing someone’s mother, say ?
Because being a monk demands a higher degree of personal virtue than, say, having a kid. If you can’t cut being a monk, you drop out. The monkhood is designed to encourage positive human qualities. A person who has been a monk for a sustained period of time has a necessarily proven moral quality that, while other people may also have, isn’t always verified.
There’s a reason why killing a monk is one of the four biggies. Why would you hurt a monk? By their very definition, all they do is hang out, collect alms, and give the occasional sermon. At the very least, they’re on the same level as people who just get in trouble for political speech, and then you add in the monk’s discipline.
That is highly debatable. From my viewpoint they are essentially parasites, at best. I regard them or any other religious figure as less virtuous.
And my point about having a kid is that the kid will be bereft of his mother.
And spread their religion, which I regard as a delusion ( and no, I don’t think that justifies shooting them ). Because they aren’t any more moral paragons than any other self appointed holy men; they have sex scandals, child molestors, fistfights, and so on. And collecting alms to support themselves would get them held in contempt by most people in America if they didn’t put a religious gloss on it.
Maybe so, but shooting people gets you held in contempt by most people unless you’re a cop or a soldier. Spying on people gets you held in contempt by most people unless you’re a federal agent, selling drugs gets you held in contempt unless you’re a pharmacist. I don’t think this proves what you think it does.
I don’t think it necessarily is, but if someone set out to kill lots of mothers (but only mothers), that would be more disturbing, in the perception of many, than if they just killed an equal number of assorted victims.
The point, obviously, is that people give religious figures an undeserved pass on all sorts of behavior that would be contemptible or criminal if someone else did it. If I faked being a doctor and people died, I’d end up in jail. If I claim to be a faith healer I can do the same thing, and get away with it. I can even claim the people who criticize me are bigots and oppressors, and many people will actually buy it !
Yup, pretty crazy. I don’t think religious figures are better than anybody else, but I don’t think they’re worse either.
If a country is religious, then their morality centers around their religious life. If you start killing those that are supposed to be upholding a higher moral standard, then in essence killing them is a symbolic act of killing the moral center of your culture, therefore it is more atrocious in that regard. It’s not really like a capitalistic exchange rate sort of deal, it’s more of an existential cultural thing.
Just thought you might like to know that this thread is about monks being murdered for expressing a dissenting opinion from the government. It isn’t about religious hypocrisy. Knowing this might help you move further so you don’t turn your hatred of all things religious into a diatribe that devalues the death of a human being even if that human being is not worth more than any other.
There is no need to speak ill of Buddhists monks being murdered for speaking out politically just because some Christians beat you up in High School.