{"id":11372,"date":"2010-08-24T16:31:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T16:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/08\/24\/more-on-suicide-bomberhomicide-bomber\/"},"modified":"2010-08-24T16:31:41","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T16:31:41","slug":"more-on-suicide-bomberhomicide-bomber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/08\/24\/more-on-suicide-bomberhomicide-bomber\/","title":{"rendered":"More on ‘Suicide Bomber’\/’Homicide Bomber’"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been receiving e-mail about <\/font>my earlier post<\/font><\/a> on this topic.  Here is one letter:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

I fear you may have been a little harsh on Bill Keller in your recent post about the virtues of calling suicide bombers 'homicide bombers'. Whilst I accept the conceptual and definitional analysis of the terms, surely the simple point is that ANY bomber who kills other humans is a homicide bomber, but it is only the suicide bomber who kills himself\/herself and other humans. The term 'suicide bomber', in my opinion, is perfectly apt as it emphasises that this individual was prepared to kill himself\/herself in the pursuit of killing others (rather than planting a bomb and detonating it remotely, for example). It may not be conceptually neat, but it's a worthy distinction to make, and one that is obscured by the term 'homicide bomber'.<\/font><\/p>\n

Since the point I have just made is so simple and luminous, it is reasonable to conjecture that you were blinded to its alethic luminosity by your right-wing bias, a bias that is reinforced on a quotidian basis by the crowd you run with.<\/font><\/p>\n

I really enjoy reading the blog.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Very clever.  I see your point, but let's think about it a bit more.  There are three cases: (1) the bomber who kills himself while killing others; (2) the bomber who kills himself without killing others; (3) the bomber who kills others without killing himself.  In all three cases the bomber is a homicide bomber.  In the first two cases, the bomber is a suicide bomber.  Because 'suicide bomber' applies in both the first and the second cases, the term 'suicide bomber' does not distinguish between them.  To that extent 'suicide bomber' is not sufficiently precise.  <\/font><\/p>\n

You write, ". . . it is only the suicide bomber who kills himself\/herself and other humans."  Not so: you are ignoring case (2).  Case (2) splits into two subcases: (2a) the bomber intends to blow only himself up and succeeds; (2b) the bomber intends to blow himself and others up, but succeeds only in blowing himself up.<\/font><\/p>\n

Consider an example.  A Palestinian Arab walks into a Tel Aviv pizza parlor and detonates his explosive belt killing himself and 100 Israelis.  It would be misleading to say that this man has committed suicide even though he assuredly has, given that suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life. It is misleading because he hasn't merely killed himself, he has killed himself in order to commit mass murder.<\/font><\/p>\n

As a conservative, I detect left-wing bias in the use of 'suicide bomber' in a case like this.  It is biased because it plays down the element of mass murder of others. It puts the emphasis on the poor terrorist — a product of oppressive circumstances we will be told — instead of where it belongs, on the slaughter of civilians.  So from my conservative point of view, 'homicide bomber' seems more apt.  This is reinforced by the linguistic fact that when one hears 'suicide' one does not usually think of homicide even though suicide is a form of homicide.  The word 'homicide' in ordinary English carries the connotation of the killing of others.  If a man commits suicide we typically do not say that he committed homicide, and if a man commits homicide we do not normally think of the case in which he commits homicide by committing suicide.<\/font><\/p>\n

I will concede to you, though, that since 'homicide bomber' covers all three cases, it fails to convey the notion that the terrorist killed himself in order to kill others.  So we may have a stand-off here: neither of us can compellingly show that the other's usage is incorrect or to avoided.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been receiving e-mail about my earlier post on this topic.  Here is one letter: I fear you may have been a little harsh on Bill Keller in your recent post about the virtues of calling suicide bombers 'homicide bombers'. Whilst I accept the conceptual and definitional analysis of the terms, surely the simple point is … Continue reading “More on ‘Suicide Bomber’\/’Homicide Bomber’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-leftism-and-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}