Martyrdom and Ideas

      In ancient Rome, during the persecutions of the early Christian church, hundreds to thousands of Christians were put to death, some in horrific ways, and some for the entertainment of the Roman citizenry. These early victims of fear and hatred formed the foundation of the martyrdom concept. 

    What ended up happening in these early days is that the willingness to die for the cause and the unwavering loyalty to Jesus and his teachings despite the efforts of the authorities of the time only served in the end to garner more converts to the faith.

      There are few things that impact humans in their social and cultural make-up as well as their traditions and mental and psychological states quite as significantly and potently as death. Witnessing death and losing someone has a strong emotional weight to it, even if you don't like the person that much. It will still affect you.

Because of the potent psychological effect death has on people's minds, attaching a set of ideas or a cause to a person who then dies magnifies and amplifies those ideas and that set of information and spreads them to even more potential hosts of that information. In the death of a martyr who dies for a cause, the social and cultural context of that death might serve to spread the ideas even further then they would had they been kept alive. 

     There is something that happens to information like ideas and beliefs when there is a sacrifice made for them or someone dies for them. They take on even more of a life and power because of the emotional and psychological circumstances surrounding the loss of that life. It magnifies the ideas.

      If someone dies in an accidental situation, where it was just unfortunate circumstances and a random outcome, aside from the immediate family and friends the impact of that situation would have a limited reach and fade in memory over time for the broader population. But if someome was murdered for a certain set of circumstances or a cause or belief system, like...being gay or...having a particular religion or political affiliation, the impact of the event is often much more pronounced, much more powerful, and much more volatile.

     If someone dies for a reason, a particular cause or circumstance, and they lay down their life for it, it gives the cause and reason a power and spirit to it that amplifies the mission in a way I honestly don't completely understand.

It affects the minds and hearts of a community significantly, and spreads awareness of that cause or reason to a broader audience.

In a way, that sacrifice or martyrdom makes more people more viable hosts to the ideas that construct the cause and belief system that was died for. Kind of eroding the mental firewall that people often put up against certain ideas and information. Martyrdom acts like a "superspreader" in a way to an ideology or belief system.

In recent years we've seen the weaponization of martyrdom in certain conflicts we've fought and kind of a bastardization of martyrdom in certain cultures. Islamic extremists in the war on terror would often "martyr" themselves by suicide attacks. This had the double effect of killing enemies as well as the psychological and social effect of them being considered martyrs and spreading their ideology through their deaths.

   This is kind of a dark martyrdom. You are dying for your cause while killing others at the same time. Martyrdom was being killed for what you believe in, not so much killing others for your beliefs. 

     The risk of making someone into a martyr makes certain people difficult to kill, not because of a physical difficulty, but because killing certain people would only serve to advance their cause and ideas, not hinder them. Turning someone into a martyr can make their ideas and beliefs more potent, more visible, and more enduring. For a political example, look at JFK and the reverance toward him. Or just look at Christianity. Just look at Jesus himself as an example.