I’ve suddenly found myself becoming a prolific anti-war blogger and I didn’t really mean for this to happen. But, I have a severe tendency to play Devil’s Advocate and with it being Remembrance Day as I write this, I suddenly seem to have become left wing.
So, I was just wondering. Remembrance Day. My question is, what exactly are we remembering?
I think the answer is, we’re remembering those who gave their lives in war, but I think a more accurate way to put my question might be, what is the purpose of remembering?
It isn’t to honour the dead, really. No remembrance ever is. Because they’re dead, so it doesn’t benefit them. Funerals are a great example of this, we don’t hold a funeral for those who have sadly passed away, we hold it for the people left behind to help them move on with their lives. A funeral is to give ourselves closure and help us to deal with the loss.
So perhaps the answer is to give ourselves some closure about the whole incident.
However, I’m not sure that is the case because we do it every year. I think, actually, Remembrance Day has a far more important purpose. We remember to remind ourselves that this should never happen again. Although clearly, we didn’t remember hard enough the first time, so more accurately, this should never happen a third time.
That I think is a worthwhile and noble purpose, one which the tradition of Remembrance Day is well worth dedicated time and effort to. It makes the world a better place.
Unfortunately, when I look at this, I wonder how much good it actually does. We don’t even have pictures of some of them.
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Tags: death, military, remembrance day, war
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 4th, 2011 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Religion & Politics, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.