What makes a martyr a martyr? (This is a word question, not a politics question)

It seems like the definition of the word martyr will answer your question, which is simply “a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs.”.

The key phrase here in the definition is “because of”. If the death of that person had a root cause unrelated to their beliefs, it wouldn’t be martyrdom.

So in situation 1 , yes. Situation 2, no.

Martyrdom needs some kind of devotion like a believe-system or political cause.
Never heard of a martyr who did it just because they not going to show my favorite TV show or he had a bad day at work.

A martyr is someone who is prepared to die for their cause, or is killed as a direct result of their cause.
Being run over by a bus is just pure bad luck, or sheer clumsiness of the highest order.

You can martyr yourself by doing a thing that you know will get you killed, that’s potential martyrdom. But I do not believe that intentional suicides are ever martyrs.

@CWOTUS what about that guy who lit himself on fire as protest. I totally cannot remember the surrounding details, it’s just an image that popped in my head associated with the word “martyr”. Is he a martyr?

@drhat77 and @CWOTUS – that’s really the crux of the question. Can the guy call himself in martyr, or does someone else have to say it?

He’s dead, he can’t call himself anything.

@ucme he could have put asbestos letters on his chest that spell out martyr but that’s showboating at that point.

@drhat77 This is quite true, so few of us are granted such an enigmatic death, tragic really.

I suppose, like the Buddhist monks who would set themselves alight to protest the war in Vietnam decades ago, that a usage of the word does include that kind of self-immolation in protest. I was thinking more in terms of the man who stood up to the Chinese Army tanks in Tiananmen Square during the protests there years ago, an act which, had the tanks proceeded, would have resulted in his certain death.

So I suppose a sufficiently dramatic public suicide is one form of martyrdom.

I do not question the importance of standing up for one’s beliefs, but I have always harbored doubt as to whether dying for one’s beliefs —let alone causing innocent others to die in the process—truly accomplishes anything beyond creating rage and sorrow.

I don’t think anyone, except perhaps for mothers at times, should call themselves martyrs. I think that is a label others put on you.

I agree with @Pachyderm_In_The_Room 100%, and will also add that there are plenty of martyrs in everyday life, from a purely psychological perspective, that revel in suffering for their own personal causes, politics aside. The woman that stays with an abusive or alcoholic partner, a codependent that just loves to talk about how much they suffer in their dysfunctional relationships.
I’ve dumped a few martyred friends in my day…jeez, give up the cross, somebody else could use the wood.
There is no heroism in being a martyr, martyrs always get burned at the stake, and many seem to love it, masochistic comes to mind. lol

@janbb If the martyr fits, wear it. haha

@Coloma I think you are defining martyrdom in the wrong way. Self-professed martyrs who feel personally put-upon are not true martyrs. But people like Thomas a Becket, Joan of Arc,hunger strikers in Ireland and the leaders of the Warsaw Uprising were not standing up for their beliefs because they enjoyed being killed or burned at the stake. Just because you wouldn’t die for a cause doesn’t mean it’s a masochistic thing to do.

@janbb Well if you insist on splitting the martyred hair, A quasi martyr still mimics a real martyr in most every way and sometimes they die too from their own stress induced illnesses. I’ve knwon several modern day Loan of Arcs, the only thing missing in their manifestation was a breast plate and war horse. lol