Reply To: Why force feed?

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screwdriverdelight
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NE: As far as your second point is concerned, I don’t think it’s humans’ inclination to feel pity, as much as it is their inclination to feel angry, patronizing, and even jealous. It is well-established that “We process negative data faster and more thoroughly than positive data, and they affect us longer. Socially, we invest more in avoiding a bad reputation than in building a good one. Emotionally, we go to greater lengths to avoid a bad mood than to experience a good one.” In short, it’s easier to have negative emotions than positive ones. Finding others’ faults is especially comforting, as it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Anger clouds judgement. An angry party–or any party with a bias–can choose to ignore logic. Does everyone who gets conniptions over Israel’s killing babies start crying when they hear about Syria’s civil war, killing men, women, and children? Journalists are not particularly concerned about Palestinians. Perhaps some special individuals care about them. Your average BBC host wouldn’t give a flying darn if they all suddenly perished in an earthquake, so long as there’s no way possible in pinning the blame on Israel. This isn’t about pity. It’s about a grudge.

And your calling up a radio station–commendable, but I’m not surprised to hear what happened. Radio host aren’t there for debate. They’re there for their show. There is no earthly possibility in them ranting about something, then answering for a caller and say, “You know, you’re right.” They, not unlike politicians, make it in their business because of their abilities to bluff through anything. If they could, they’ll offer a few buzz words like “Israel murdered babies” before quickly disconnecting; if the caller is more persistent than that, they may have to resort to screaming and cutting the caller off mid-sentence.

In regard to whether this could explain the effectiveness of a hunger stike:

According to all my psychological studies and research, the human mind is capable of ignoring logic, twisting logic, or even blinding themselves to logic. Hence, a biased party can ignore all logic and say, “Israel are murderers because they’ve killed Palestinian babies.” Wrong, irrational, but possible. However, I have never heard of fabricating logic. “Israel are murderers because their Palestinian prisoners starved themselves,” isn’t an irrational statement. It’s incoherent.

However, you said “it is simply because if somebody is dying, passively, for a cause, people automatically take more attention in that cause, and/or feel that cause obviously is worth dying for, and is as such nobler, in some twisted way. We are not talking of rationality here, as PR never is, but of human psychology, particularly group psychology.” that the people dying for the cause strengthens other’s aspect on their commitment.

Let’s get the story. They committed a crime and were imprisoned. They then went on a hunger strike. That can be understood in two ways. 1. As long as they’re not allowed to do X, they don’t wish to live. 2. It’s all a publicity stunt–a way of drawing attention to themselves, the purpose of which is that the public should see that they think X is more important than life. The difference between the two is: would they do the same thing if they hadn’t been imprisoned and there was nobody watching?

If the second way is correct, then all they’ll accomplish is others realizing their conviction to the cause. It won’t cause them to think the imprisoners are murderers, which I think is the understood effect of a hunger strike–to somehow cast the blame on the imprisoners. Do you disagree?

Number 1 is almost disproved by the fact that they didn’t commit suicide before they were imprisoned. Perhaps it’s salvageable; they were hoping to solve the problem without committing suicide; now that that’s impossible, revert to Plan B. If so, it would be a little closer to casting the blame on the imprisoners: If X is worse than death, than the hunger strike is nothing more than continuing a pre-existing tragedy, the death inflicted on them by their imprisoner. However, I still don’t buy it.

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