Christopher Okigbo’s Poetics and the Politics of Canonization
Heroic Drive to Martyrdom
Download 153.51 Kb. View original pdf
|
| Heroic Drive to Martyrdom Suicide and martyrdom, to be sure, may go beyond the question of dying to the problem of laying one’s death dramatically at someone else’s door. Immanuel Kant, in The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, discusses the ethics of morality in relation to man’s duty to himself and to his body and argues that, generally, every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by the will of others. The nature of a rational being already marks him out as something that is not to be used merely as a means; hence, there is imposed thereby a limit on all arbitrary use of such beings, which are thus objects of respect Following Kant’s teleology as regards the concept of necessary duty to oneself, the man who contemplates suicide will ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. The first duty of man to himself as an animal being is therefore the preservation of himself in his animal nature. The opposite of such self- preservation is suicide (autochiria; suicidium), which is the deliberate total destruction of one’s animal nature. Thus, suicide involves a transgression of one’s duty to other men by forsaking the station entrusted to him in this world without being recalled from it: To destroy the subject of morality in his own person is tantamount to obliterating from the world the very existence of morality itself but morality is, nevertheless, an end in itself. Accordingly, to dispose of oneself as a mere means to some end of one’s own liking is to degrade 11 Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue Part ii of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. James Ellington (Indianapolis in Bobbs-Merrill, 1964): 83. Excerpt repr. in Margaret Pabst Battin, comp, The Ethics of Suicide Historical Sources (London: Oxford up, Downloaded from Brill.com06/12/2023 10:27:53AM via free access christopher okigbo’s poetics and the politics of canonization 265 Matatu 49 (2017) the humanity in one’s person (homonoumenon), which, after all, was entrusted to man (homophaenomenon) to preserve.12 Kant raises three important questions Is self-murder intended to save one’s country Is martyrdom—the deliberate sacrifice of oneself for the good of mankind—also to be regarded as an heroic deed Is committing suicide permitted in anticipation of an unjust death sentence from one’s superior For Kant, it is no suicide to risk one’s life against one’s enemies, and even to sacrifice it in order to observe one’s duty towards oneself: The sovereign can call upon his subjects to fight to the death for their country, and those who fall on the field of battle are not suicides, but the victims of fate. Not only is this not suicide but the opposite, a faint heart and fear of the death which threatens by the necessity of fate, is no true self-preservation; for he who runs away to save his own life, and leaves his comrades in the lurch, is a coward but he who defends himself and his fellows even unto death is no suicide, but noble and high-minded; for life is not to be highly regarded for its own sake.13 The man who shortens his life by intemperance is guilty of imprudence and of his own death, but his guilt is not direct he did not intend to kill himself; his death was not premeditated. He is not a suicide, because what constitutes suicide is the intention to destroy oneself. Although intemperance or excess may shorten life, if we raise it to the level of suicide, we lower suicide to the level of intemperance. Imprudence, which does not imply a desire to cease to live, must, therefore, be distinguished from the intention to kill oneself. Serious violations of our duty towards ourselves produce an aversion accompanied either by horror or by disgust, and by it man sinks lower than the beasts.”14 And while the suicide is looked upon as carrion, our sympathy goes forth to the martyr. There are instances of heroic suicide, but the rule of morality does not admit of suicide under any conditions, because it degrades human nature “below the level of animal nature Thus privileging martyrdom, Kant notes 12 Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, tr. James Ellington, 83. Excerpt repr. in Battin, comp, The Ethics of Suicide, 427. 13 Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics Duties Towards the Body in Regard to Life, excerpt repr. in Margaret Pabst Battin, comp, The Ethics of Suicide Historical Sources (London: Oxford up, 2015): Kant, Lectures on Ethics, excerpt repr. in Battin, comp. The Ethics of Suicide, Kant, Lectures on Ethics, excerpt repr. in Battin, comp. The Ethics of Suicide, Downloaded from Brill.com06/12/2023 10:27:53AM via free access 266 abba Matatu 49 (2017) that if a man cannot preserve his life except by dishonouring his humanity, he ought, rather, to sacrifice it. St. Augustine’s formulation of the suicide-martyr model anticipates Kant’s stance. For him, the acts and the ends toward which the acts themselves are directed must be considered Is the act in doubt ordered to the voluntary death of the individual or not Is the act a successor a failure if the individual lives While the act of suicide itself is ordered to the death of the individual, the act of the martyr itself is not ordered to the death of the individual. That is, the suicidal act is programmed to the death of the individual, perhaps to end suffering or shame, but in the case of the martyr, his action is not ordered in such away that death becomes the ultimate objective. Though it is true that one is not a martyr unless one has died, most martyrs hope to live, which differs from the objective of the suicide. Slavoj Žižek typically supports Kant’s thesis that martyrdom maybe an ethical act motivated by a supreme disinterestedness that sets aside personal interests in the name of a higher duty. And for him also, subjective destitution is death, for only when one considers oneself dead to the existing order will one be able to actually act freely with regard to it A martyr wills to give up his life as that which he conceives as precious. Although he does not seek death directly, death becomes the unavoidable consequence of his action. Thus does he make a statement out of his dying that his death may hasten the emancipation of his people. The greatness of the martyr’s action lies in the preciousness of life: If nothing is meaningful enough to die for, what is the point of living In dying, you force a contrast between your own mortality and the imperishability of what you die for. […] You do not die after all, since this incorruptible Cause is the kernel of your own existence, the form in which you will live forever.18 In this way, the martyr differs from the suicide who engages in self-contradic- tory actions, proclaiming that even death would be preferable to his wretched form of life. For Terry Eagleton, therefore, death is a solution to his existence as well as a commentary on it. And by affirming his absolute sovereignty over himself, he wipes himself out of existence and the price he pays for his supremacy 16 Father Ryan Erlenbush, The difference between martyrdom and suicide The New Theo- Download 153.51 Kb. Share with your friends:
|