From Peter H.
Would you eat a person if you wanted to survive?
I would rather die than eat a human. I could never live with the guilt. The crew of the Essex faced cannabalism amongst themselves when they were trying to avoid it from the people who inhabited the islands off South Aerica in the first place. The crew must have been delusional or their determination to survive must have been very strong to drive themselves to eat each other. If the crew had only been able to predict what might happen if they ran out of food, then they might have brought more survival tools, like fishing pools, fishing nets, etc.
Your thoughts?
3 comments:
If I was dieing and I had the option to eat a person, I think that I would. I might feel guilty that I was eating one of my own, but it would be the only chance that I would have for survival. I might not approve of it at first, but if I was getting to the point where I was struggling to survive and the only food that we had was a body, I would probably eat it because I wouldnt want to die so soon and young.
Now, if there was a point where I was going to die and there was nothing I could do to prevent it, then I would even start volunteering myself to die and people to eat me because I was going to die anyways and there would be nothing I could do to prevent it. These are my thoughts on cannibalism.
Any thoughts of your own?
Although I see the altruism in Peter's original statement, I believe that it is very, very rich for any of us to think ourselves in a position to make such a claim.
Cannibalism is a horrible prospect. To eat a fellow human, especially one whom you've known for a while and have faced the struggle of survival against the odds with, is a terrible experience that you can't ever forget. The guilt will stay with you forever. Observers may wonder how they could do something so awful.
But in those situations, humans are mostly reduced to animal behavior, and Nature's basic law rules above all else: "Survival of the fittest." In these situations, as disgusting as it seems, it's either eat or be eaten. It takes a very exceptional person with extraordinary strength of character to say, "I couldn't do this to my companions. I'd rather die." In my opinion, you can't really judge the men too harshly until you're in that situation yourself, which hopefully no one will be.
I don't think I could eat a person if I wanted to survive. Especially if I had live with that person on a ship for a very long time, and got to know them as a friend. I like you couldn't live knowing I had eaten someone I had known, or a person in general. I agree with Isabella's second paragraph, I would rather sacrifice myself for my crew rather than eat them myself because I couldn't live after eating someone I knew...
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