The Life of David Gore: Do Human Rights Really Need Martyrdom to Be Realized?

The Life of David Gore explores a theme that humanity has been asking for thousands of years: Should the death penalty be abolished? The issue has led generations of scholars, legal figures, and government workers to argue with each other in their respective time and space, and by the end of the new millennium, some 110 countries had abolished the death penalty in 2003. However, the situation is different, there are countries that completely abolish the death penalty, and there are also countries that only abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes in the country, but for major crimes such as treason and military crimes, the death penalty is still retained.

In history, those who were martyred for a certain ideal, far from it, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the six gentlemen of Wushu failed in the Hundred Days Restoration, Cixi wanted to kill the head, Kang Youwei Liang Qichao and other people who changed the law fled to a different place, but Tan Sitong insisted on staying, and left to posterity the heroic poem "I smile from the horizontal knife to the sky, to leave the liver and gallbladder two Kunlun" in the annals of history, so that the world will remember. Unfortunately, two years later, the Wuchang uprising, the revolution was everywhere, the wolf smoke was everywhere, the demand for democracy, and the momentum of promoting republicanism had long since drowned out the voice of "reform" represented by Kang Liang. As long as martyrs have been martyred in the way of justice, the way of human nature, and the way of peaceful development, they must certainly be supported by their great personality and courageous qualities. Their sacrifice, in addition to adding a painful case to the "defense of death" for future generations, in order to motivate future generations not to forget their ideals and spur themselves on.

But the question is, did the martyr really exchange his life for the reform of the system, the revival of human nature? Not necessarily. Before the mystery of the end of the film was revealed, the hypothesis put forward by the reporter did not count David Gore into the scope of the martyrs, it was at best a scapegoat, the reporter's reasoning was that the Jew was a fanatic, and the martyred female scholar may have asked her to bring him the video about a year before her death, but because he wanted to see a more exciting and extreme ending, he wanted to exchange David's death for the shortcomings of the death penalty system to bring people reflection. I think if the ending is really like this, first, it would be too cruel for the protagonist David, because after his death, I don't know what kind of shock his death will bring to the world, and what kind of moral reflection the judiciary will use. Isn't that sorry for your "job"? Second, if the Jew did, then the personality presented in him was split, and what he did was exactly the opposite of the ideas he advocated, of course, you can argue that this is just utilitarian thinking, the pursuit of the maximization of the happiness of the whole, David although sacrificed, but perhaps he will be exchanged for the abolition of the death penalty system by the state government, so that future death row prisoners will be spared the death penalty.

Fortunately, the ending is not as cruel as we think, and when the reporter finally looks at the last part of the video, we find that it was David and the female scholars who planned the "murder" together, and they did the last thing for their common ideals. At this time, I believe that many viewers' tears have come out of their eyes, and they cannot cry, and they are busy singing praises for David's personality. But at this point I think we should think in reverse, isn't David's murder by the state apparatus a paradox with the ideas he espouses?

In terms of the strict definition of suicide, David obviously cannot be counted as suicide, his hands and feet were tied, he could not move, and the executioners killed him. But the reason why the executioners will send him to his death is that he deliberately gave the judiciary and the media a wrong guide. So broadly speaking, this can be counted as David's suicide. Throughout his life, David called for mass demonstrations to protest against the death penalty system in the judiciary, and it can be said that in his eyes, even criminals cannot be deprived of their right to life. But is he right to deprive himself of his right to life? The German philosopher Immanuel Kant said of suicide: "If I end my life in order to escape a painful situation, then we see ourselves as a means of liberation from suffering, but man is not a thing, not something to be used merely as a means." Of course, David's "suicide" can be said to have a noble motive, but we cannot deny the reality, and it is precisely when the years of appeals are not faced up to by the judicial department that he has committed this magnificent act.

Of course, in order to create a dramatic effect, in exchange for the sympathy and tears of the viewer, a film has won the reputation of "the depth of intention", which is understandable. However, the viewer who returns from the situation of the movie may also think rationally, such martyrdom and human rights do not conflict, indeed he touched us, he made us see our own smallness and cowardice, but all the martyrs in history, most of them have never received any immediate results, some just added a case of noble sacrifice for future generations, so that we have the illusion of sitting alone in the dark corner to peek at our own "smallness and cowardice".

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