Publish at June 23 2022 Updated July 15 2022
There are as many differences between a human community and an anonymous crowd as there are between a cathedral and a field of stones
St. Exupery
Some parents sacrifice their lives for the benefit of their children. They put all their hopes in the direction of their offspring. Sometimes they even become outstanding educators. Other social figures bring their share of understanding to sacrificial behavior.
The sappers of the Foreign Legion sent to the front lines to build bridges, the first cosmonauts testing experimental pods, the first mushroom eaters daring to taste unknown substances, the navigators pushing their ships beyond known limits into inaccessible latitudes, all these seekers of the extreme take risks in the name of a cause, an ideal, a glory to clothe themselves with.
Like Mother Theresa some make their lives a priesthood, a quest to serve a cause greater than themselves. They are in self-forgetfulness or devotion to others, to a god or indeed to a nation. This ultimate commitment sometimes leads to the sacrifice of their lives. The Japanese Kamikazes (holy winds) sacrificed their lives for the honor of their nation by crashing their planes into American aircraft carriers. The Chernobyl cleaners impressed with their resolve to protect their country from radiation by exceeding the doses of radioactivity bearable for its health.
What makes human beings decide to take the greatest risks, to plunge into the unknown? To dedicate their lives to something greater than themselves? How do they learn this sense of self-sacrifice, recklessness, or absolute courage?
There are many drivers for a human to give the gift of self.
The search for personal glory, the desire to know if one is hero material, a sense of compelling necessity, a search for consistency between one's beliefs and commitments, and the desire to endure over time are motivations that can make one forget about danger. Something greater than oneself sweeps away all barriers and decides what really matters
Integration into an ideal greater than oneself is carried by those who are particularly connected to others :
The fraternity and the sense of sharing pushed into a collective characterized by a high level of cohesion and mutual support engages in overcoming. The main driving force for soldiers on a battlefield is fraternity of arms, even before the nation or flag. Soldiers of all eras and armies share moments in peacetime that teach who the other is, where his talent lies, where each person belongs. When the time comes, the important question is the common destiny and how mutual aid can work in favor of all. When this mutual aid is at its peak, the moral strength of a group is at its highest. The brotherhood of arms is the glue between men, regardless of rank, seniority or origin. Soldiers train before combat. They practice military exercises aimed at acquiring, through intensive repetition, know-how in specific situations, often dangerous situations. It is a hardening that programs conditioned reflexes on D-Day and avoids distraction from the goal. The program is reassuring because all you have to do is follow it and put your fear at bay.
For firefighters the seasoning can start with a theoretical course, possibly a serious online game, by practical exercises of handling a lance or an extinguisher, then the passage in a firebox, an intervention with a seasoned firefighter and a full team intervention. Very gradually, learning about fire, its context, its dangers and the means to protect oneself individually but also collectively becomes more concrete. The aspiring firefighter becomes more professional. He learns that he is not alone and that his company is with him.
Not every sacrifice requires the price of his life. There are dimensions that explain an extreme commitment.
According to these three dimensions total commitment leads to other outcomes than a fatal one.
Learning sacrifice is a gesture against the grain of individualistic values. Pedagogically it is possible to play in escape games, to live immersive situations (discovery of a refugee camp or an abandoned neighborhood). As the military training, combat courses or more simply team projects to face several trials or, as in religious traditions, moments of silence made of prayers, meditation, reading of sacred texts.
Nested in the learning of sacrifice is a taste for risk combined with a sense of life, probably an ability to control his emotions and make do with the moment required. In many sacrifices, the reinforcement of beliefs and values in favor of the collective is essential with the prospect of putting oneself in collective danger so that the group becomes stronger than the individual. Danger transcends, it teaches us to free ourselves from our fears and what we thought was impossible.
Illustration: VadimVasenin - DepositPhotos
Sources
Kamikaze https://youtu.be/Q-6LyiygJ7k
The Internaut. Biography of Mother Theresa https://www.linternaute.fr/actualite/biographie/1776126-mere-teresa-biographie-courte-dates-citations/
Reporter. I am the only survivor of my liquidator team https://reporterre.net/Tchernobyl-Je-suis-la-seule-survivante-de-mon-equipe-de-liquidateurs
Cairn Brotherhood of Arms https://www.cairn.info/revue-inflexions-2007-3-page-173.htm
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