At what point is self sacrifice necessary? At what point is it foolish?
Need logic be mutually exclusive from and take the back seat to chivalry?
It seems history paints and perpetuates a romantic picture of those who willingly accept defeat, capture, and death when in times of war. Setting the stage for the silent acceptance of small, every day self-sacrifices in the battles that are waged across the generations-long war of attrition between "us" and "them". Whichever us and whichever them may be en vogue at the moment.
Talk about patriarchal conditioning --> men start war, men defeat and starve a city, men demand a humiliating and fatal sacrifice, woman spares their lives, men idolized for their acceptance of "fate", and the kings and conquerors and fools continue their Hundred Years Wars for hundreds of years to come.
And repeat.
Anyone stop to think that maybe the emperor has no sword?
Rodin's Burghers of Calais
Stanford, CA
