From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [344]
Angelo frowned again. “None, I guess. When you put it that way.”
“Well, would you say the Christian martyrs were wrong?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it must all depend on the circumstances, whether suicide’s right or wrong.”
“But the Christian martyrs were different than Bloom. Or me.”
“Only in the fact that they did it in mass formation for an impersonal ideal, whereas Bloom did it for a purely personal reason that nobody will ever know. And you cant say it was wrong until you know that personal reason.
“Now what you should of asked,” the big man grinned gently, “was is it immoral?”
“Yeah, thats it,” Angelo said, “thats what I meant. Well, is it?”
“Of course,” the big man grinned. “Everybody knows its immoral. To the Romans it was very immoral, what the Christian martyrs did, it was cowardly, and a running away, and immoral. Theres no doubt that suicide, especially mass suicide, is immoral. Because every human society teaches that its immoral. Even in Japan and Russia suicide is only moral when you’re in disgrace with the government; but any other brand is just as immoral as here. How long would a society’s framework hold up if every time there was a Depression all the ones without jobs marched on Washington or London or Moscow and committed suicide on the Capitol lawn? A couple deals like that and there wouldnt be any labor market left. The Russians and Japs, who have utilized it, know that better than anybody.”
“But hell,” Angelo said, “that would be crazy.”
“Sure,” the big man grinned, “but thats just what your Christian martyrs did, citizen.”
“Yeah,” Angelo said thoughtfully, “thats right. But times was differnt then,” he said.
“You mean the people then didnt want to live as bad as the people do now.”
“Yeah. I guess thats it. Sure thats it. We got more to live for now.”
“Movies,” the big man said without smiling, gently, almost lovingly. “Automobiles. Trains, buses, airplanes, niteclubs, bars; sports, educations, businesses. Radios,” the big man said gently.
“Yeah,” Angelo said. “All that. It wont be long till we got television. They dint have none of that stuff.”
“Would you say a man in a Nazi concentration camp had the right to commit suicide?”
“Hell yes.”
“Then why not a man in an American corporation?”
“But thas differnt. He aint bein tortured.”
“You think not? And why not a man in the American Army? Why not a man in the Stockade? Why not any man anywhere, anytime, if he is being tortured?
“Everybody talks about freedom, citizens,” the big man said gently, seeming to draw upon that very sure source of personal knowldege again, “but they dont really want it. Half of them wants it but the other half dont. What they really want is to maintain an illusion of freedom in front of their wives and business associates. Its a satisfactory compromise, and as long as they can have that they can get along without the other which is more expensive. The only trouble is, every man who declares himself free to his friends has to make a slave out of his wife and employees to keep up the illusion and prove it; the wife to be free in front of her bridgeclub has to command her Help, Husband, and Heirs. It resolves itself into a battle; whoever wins, the other one loses. For every general in this world there have to be 6,000 privates.
“Thats why,” he smiled at them, “I wouldnt stop any man from committing suicide. If he came up and asked to borrow my gun, I’d give it to him. Because he is either serious or else trying to maintain that illusion of freedom. If he was serious I’d want him to have it; if he was play-acting I’d want to call him.”
“Thats one way to look at it,” Prew said, somehow carried along into agreement in spite of himself, carried by those long-range-vision eyes and that absolute-tender voice.
“In our world, citizens,” the big man said gently, “theres only one way a man can have freedom, and that is to die for it, and after he’s died for it it dont do him