In "Star Trek: First Contact" Captain Picard utters this famous line when he explains to the 21st century Lily why he is so reluctant to surrender his ship. Lily holds to her own assertion that he is deluding himself and makes a simile to Ahab chasing his whale.Defending something you cherish is a long held human trait. But depending on what it is you cherish so much has also played into some pretty big setbacks over time.
Throughout the millennia of man's existence, how many wars have been fought to hold on to possessions which seemed, at the time, inconceivable to fall into enemy hands? I used to think, and still do frankly, that it's futile anyway.
Like another ST:TNG quote: "Resistance is futile."
In the end, we always lose.
Entire civilizations have faded into mere memories, and countless others don't even have that anymore. Nation-states fight fiercely, no matter how small, to gain, assert and maintain independence, all to eventually fall. No country, as no man, is immortal. Religions fervently prosteletize to sway the masses only to have new belief systems usurp their efforts as mankind develops new ideas and embraces change.
On an individual scale, every human loses what they love. Their youth, their friend, their lover, their job, their home, their health, their life.
So why fight the inevitable?
I must say I really don't know.
But I do know that whatever we do have, in the here and now, would be significantly diminished if we all believed the fight was unworthy of fighting...if we all just gave up.
So if for no other reason, the struggle must prevail for that.
And that which seeks to deprive us of whatever it is we so dearly wish to defend, today at least, should be held at bay and driven back.
Huzzah! Man the ramparts! To arms! To arms!