This post pays tribute to Lawrence Oates (17 March 1880 – 16 March 1912), “a brave man and an English gentleman.” Oates was a war veteran and Antarctic explorer, and a member of Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole.
100 years ago today, he walked from a tent into a blizzard, with the immortal words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Aware that his ill health was compromising his three companions’ chances of survival, he chose certain death.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (KJV)
That is one of my fav verses in the scriptures. I think of it oft when I read of the Heroic deeds of People whom risk death/ sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. They move me to the core. I was thinking we should do a ‘Hero of the week’ spot on our blog and post a worthy story of such exploits that has grabbed our attension. It could be a News Item, or historical. What do you think?
(Of course this exposes how empty and cowardly Objectivism is … yet they deny this obvious corollary of their ‘Egoism’ and shamelessly say oh thats not ‘self sacrifice’ but selfishness!!!! ( Their Absurd definition of sacrifice being sacrificing a higher value for a lesser one! *Pathetic*)
Excellent idea, Tim. But what to do about you-know-who? When it comes to slagging socialists, second to none (not even you). When it comes to poor philosophy, second to none (not even Peikoff). Have a think and get back to me!
Read my comment on your Proverbs post. Some things we must pray about and commit to God.
Read 1Corinthians 1vs17- 2vs16.
We have the Mind of Christ… the word of God.
We must Sow the seed…
“And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, paient.
In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves ; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;”
(2Tim2vs25)
Man O Man I fail miserably on that account! I need to take stock of myself.
This Idea of Hero of the week could be a way of exposeing the delusions of Randoidism esp if we write smart observations, and add verses. Perhapse they could be a means of breaking though the Delusions ?
(Of course this exposes how empty and cowardly Objectivism is … yet they deny this obvious corollory of their ‘Egoism’ and shamelessly say oh thats not ‘self sacrifice’ but selfishness!!!! ( Their Absurd definition of sacrifice being sacrificing a higher value for a lesser one! *Pathetic*)
Um, semantics, isn’t it? I’m an Objectivist, if I must be labelled, and hold great store in loyalty to one’s friends. No disagreement at all that Oates was a hero, and certainly in Objectivist terms. I like Lindsay Perigo’s term ‘selffulness’, so as not to get all bent out of shape with ‘selfishness’, which people don’t want to understand.
From the end of Atlas Shrugged, where Galt, on verge of being captured, tells Dagney:
There is no middle for you to take. And you cannot take my side, not so long as we’re in their hands. Now you must take their side.”
“What?”
“You must take their side, as fully, consistently and loudly as your capacity for deception will permit. You must act as one of them. You must act as my worst enemy. If you do, I’ll have a chance to come out of it alive. They need me too much, they’ll go to any extreme before they bring themselves to kill me. Whatever they extort from people, they can extort it only through their victims’ values — and they have no value of mine to hold over my head, nothing to threaten me with. But if they get the slightest suspicion of what we are to each other, they will have you on a torture rack — I mean, physical torture — before my eyes, in less than a week. I am not going to wait for that. At the first mention of a threat to you, I will kill myself and stop them right there.”
He said it without emphasis, in the same impersonal tone of practical calculation as the rest. She knew that he meant it and that he was right to mean it: she saw in what manner she alone had the power to succeed at destroying him, where all the power of his enemies would fail. He saw the look of stillness in her eyes, a look of understanding and of horror. He nodded, with a faint smile.
“I don’t have to tell you,” he said, “that if I do it, it won’t be an act of self-sacrifice. I do not care to live on their terms, I do not care to obey them and I do not care to see you enduring a drawn-out murder.
There will be no values for me to seek after that — and I do not care to exist without values. I don’t have to tell you that we owe no morality to those who hold us under a gun.
Note the ‘I do not care to see you enduring a drawn-out murder’ …
Oates, Galt: noble men, prepared to die for people ‘they value/love’, or for a principle they think worth it (such as fighting fascism in WW II). I have nothing but respect for that, and would hope if it ever came up I would be so brave (and worry I wouldn’t).
Here’s an interesting aspect to this though. From the AS piece, ‘we owe no morality to those who hold us under a gun’: if Oates were an Objectivist he would not ‘leave the tent for some time’ were the men in the tent his jailers, no ‘value in that’, for point of example, but what if he were a Christian? Lay down his life for his enemies? Why?
Mark that speil was make believe…and is quite frankly a joke! It is an absolutely Fake Heroism. No one has gone to war against Fascism for those ‘Selfish’ reasons. That there are ‘Values’ that people are willing to die for just goes to prove how vacuous Rands claim that a mans own life is the highest value!
Plenty of selfish Cowards have run away from the front, and submitted to slavery, betrayed Comrades, family and friends because they put their *own lives* to be the highest value! That crap is not at all like someone whom jumps into the water to save a child from a shark attack… someone who has much to live for… yet is willing to lay down their life for another human being… *Self sacrifice*. Laurence had plenty to live for… but did not wish to endanger his friends. Rand is Rubbish and her condemnation of Chrsitain values of Self-scarifice and service to others is vile and weak, and only swallowed by those who want to delude themselves that Christianity is not the Highest Moral code of Humanity. Objectivists Are Full Of hot air they blow up their own arseholes! They wont even sacrifice a weekend to stand up for freedom in the face of Racists and lefties! *Bogus*. Thats why The Libertainaz Party Is Full to the brim of Objectivists yet they *DO NOTHING* but talk and quote Rand… and drive everyone else away from the Party and Philosophy of Liberty.
And before you cry victim of irrational Religious Zealously remember that ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’… Ie My rage against Objectivism is not merely religious ‘sour grapes’, but springs from enduring years of Objectivist Guile, Anti-Libertarian bigotry, and Hypocrisy. Reap what you have sown Tis Just!(I speak of Objectivism… not you Mark because I dont know you… you may be one of that small minority of Objectivists whom are not so Rabid in their Anti Christ leanings…I hope so)
Richard, you can tick this one up as another *fail* on my part to live up to The teaching of St Paul.
Mark, If you were a Police man, yet you saw a young Mongel mob member drowning in a river…. would you not try and save his life? Have you ever watched a MASH episode where they are frantically trying to save the life of a North Korean? That is what valuing of humanity is really all about, not Objectivist nosense.That is what it means to ‘love your enemies.’
My rage against Objectivism is not merely religious ‘sour grapes’, but springs from enduring years of Objectivist Guile, Anti-Libertarian bigotry, and Hypocrisy. Reap what you have sown Tis Just!
Tim, it’s all well and good to put on the whole armour of God and wield the sword of the Spirit … but RTFM! It says, “Warning: Cuts Both Ways!”
Mark’s rage against Christianity is not merely Objectivist “sour grapes”, but springs from enduring years of irrational religious zealotry.
Two heroes.
Two men to whom we owe respect and gratitude.
Please read my tributes here and here.
Paradoxically, I listen to one lot of music a week: Choral Evensong on BBC4 🙂
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01d0yfg/Choral_Evensong_Guildford_Cathedral/
Oh, I just don’t listen to the talky bits.