I was listening to a podcast the other day (It’s called Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, and if you have any interest at all in human nature or war history, I would highly recommend it). At the beginning of the very first episode I listened to, he asked the question “What would you die for?”
As this is a fairly typical question, echoed in other forms as ‘until you know what you would die for, you’re not really living’ and so on, it is something that I’ve thought about in since I was a teenager. This contemplation was also probably sparked around the time of the Columbine shootings. As a teenager, the things on my list were straightforward and idealistic. The first three items, for instance, would have been something like: Faith, Family and Freedom. It could’ve been one of those rustic country signs that are so popular for fans of Magnolia Farms. And the things on that list are pretty standard. They are also extremely vague.
As a sidenote, I rather romantically wanted to add Love to that list, but even as a teenager, I never was that romantic. I mean, what is the point of being in love if one of you is going to die right away? That loved and lost stuff is nonsense. Anyway, moving on…
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognize, at least to a point, that I couldn’t possibly know the truth of what I’d be willing to die for unless I was put in the position of actually dying for it. This has nothing to do with bravery or even, I think, resolve, as the brain has an amazingly selfish desire for self-preservation. Some circumstances might make it possible for me to give up my life, but I don’t know if throwing myself into a hail of bullets in order to protect someone, or something, would actually be possible. For example, I was in Guatemala when someone lit a string of firecrackers outside the women’s bathroom, where I was showering. I was crouched down on the tile floor before I even really registered what the noise was.
Currently, I suppose my list would be much like many people’s. It’s a little less vague, but not much more developed. I would die to protect members of my family, or rather than renouncing my faith, and I’m certain there are cases where I would die rather than submit to some form of evil ideology. There are other circumstances as well that are harder to define. I was willing to die when I went to work in Iraq. To be honest, something of the danger made that trip that much more exciting, and I don’t know exactly what made that choice so clear to me. In the normal course of the day, I’m not willing to die in order to do my job. But then again, it isn’t normally asked nor expected either.
So think about it for a moment. Wherever you are in life, whatever is most important to you at this time, what would you considering worth dying for?
After you’ve thought about it and made your list, here is the follow up question that he asked, which intrigued me even more. Having already thought about this second question before I wrote the section above may have changed my own answer to the first questions by proxy. It was just that powerful. His second question was this: What happens when the things on your list clash? In other words, what things on your list would you sacrifice to protect other things on your list?
For example, if you say you would die for freedom, what would you sacrifice in order to secure that freedom? What if it wasn’t just your life you were risking in your fight? What if your choice to fight put your family in danger, or made them exiles? Would you sacrifice your home and your family’s lives for that same freedom that you would risk your own life to protect?
At what point, do the items on your first list begin to outweigh one another, and at what point do you draw the line?
This made me think. As Americans we are obsessed with the idea of freedom. Everyone’s freedom looks different, which makes it hard to pin down, and that’s why I call it an idea rather than a fact. In America, we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to act as we want, to travel where we want, to live where we want, freedom in person and in business, to the point that the idea of dying for freedom is sort of a national catchphrase. But what would I sacrifice to keep say my freedom to choose my own profession? If the alternative was a life in prison, or financial punishment, or consequences for my family, would I be willing to fight the idea that the government could tell me where and how I should work? Would I be willing to lose my life just so I can work where I want? I think not.
And that is where it becomes especially interesting. Because freedom, in the modern age, is unlikely to be lost all at once. Unless we were to be taken over by a neighboring country, say Canada suddenly decided to invade and enslave all Americans. In that case, all freedom would be at risk and fighting and dying would seem a reasonable alternative to simply watching the world be overturned. Also the amount of emotion and turmoil in such an invasion would fire up those sentiments of ‘live free or die’. But what if the world is overturned slowly? That’s harder to imagine, because it’s nearly impossible to visualize what the grinding away of any one aspect of freedom looks like and the course it will take. It’s harder still to make a particular stand and draw a certain line when you aren’t entirely sure if it is worth upsetting the status quo. To make it slightly easier, take for example, the idea that one day freedom of speech is taken away all by itself. People would be outraged, certainly, but is that one simple piece of freedom something I personally would be willing to die for all on its own? Are there more important things? And if so, what are they?
Living without the freedoms we have today would be unpleasant, and more so by comparison to our current state, but it would not be impossible. Of the freedoms that exist today, I believe that only the freedom of religion is one that I would fight for with all my heart. That is certainly something I would die for. One of the worst things I’ve heard about North Korea at this time is that parents who are secretly Christians never share their faith with their children for fear of either being reported by them, or of putting them in danger themselves. I don’t want to judge them in the least, but it makes me extremely sad, because I know that those children are in far greater danger if they don’t know Christ. Fear the one who, as they say, who can destroy the soul.
Of course, all of this is only speculation. And there is a difference between fighting and dying for a cause, and living and suffering for that same cause. Death is easy. Suffering, however, gives ample opportunity for one to change their mind.
All this in the podcast was in the context of what he called the “Celtic Holocaust”, or the destruction of the Gauls by Julius Ceasar. The Gauls, amid a whole mess of historic points that you’ll have to listen to the podcast to learn about, decided that fighting Rome was better than living under Roman rule. And Rome absolutely annihilated them, destroying not only the men who stood against the Romans, but starving out all the people and utterly destroying their way of life.
So I ask you again, what is worth dying for? And what is worth losing everything for?
