In our society suicide is considered wrong. I think that may be a religious position though I could be wrong. In other societies, suicide does not carry such baggage. Strange that. It seems self determination is considered important to some people.
When I see the elderly suffer and they are told they have no right to end their own life, it saddens me. The idea that your life is not your own and that you have no right to decide how it will end seems perverse is a society that purports to love freedom. Is it all tied up in the religious superstition that suicide prevents you from getting in to a magic sky land? I donât know.
It now seems we have reached the point where, in our grief, to find comfort in the knowledge that Robin is free from life long battle with depression and to express such empathy is seen as wrong. We are told that such expression may cause others to end their lives because it seems we are required to censor ourselves, suppress our feelings, and deny expressing our own feelings and thoughts because someone somewhere might see our expression of grief as the final straw for themselves.
No. My point was that people who are trying to express empathy in an innocent and heartfelt way (by quoting a Disney movie) are being told that they could be actually causing suicides, which I think is ridiculous. Youâre the one whoâs using that to justify rape. So, again, have fun with that.
The CDC expressed the belief that if people are educated about suicide contagion then they will not want to contribute to it. No one is censoring you or telling you to suppress or deny your feelings. But apparently the CDC was dead wrong about people actually caring.
You think itâs ridiculous, people who study it put out guidelines that say it will do exactly that. All this comes down to is that you are going with your gut and others are going with the CDC (or, more likely, going with theit guts but the CDC happens to say their guts are the in the right).
there is something great about this tweet - itâs opened up a conversation that we otherwise might not be having. Upon reflection Iâd like to add to my original comment that I did not know that this was tweeted by and organization and not an individual expressing their own sentiments. In that light it probably was not the best move. My initial reaction to the criticism of this tweet was because in my experience of depression one of the issues is the overwhelming feeling that oneâs voice and experience and feelings arenât worthwhile and donât matter and no one would want to hear about or even care about what theyâre going through. That is why I felt the need to stand up for this particular expression of grief. Thanks for listening/reading. Sometimes it matters more than you can imagine.
Caring about what? Who decided it was wrong to take your own life? Is it not your life to take? Is it better to suffer without end because iron age superstitions originating from the middle east say you donât get to go to heaven?
Iâm not entirely sure you know what that word âcaringâ means. It doesnât suggest passing any laws or telling anyone what to do. At any rate, this supports my thesis that you very plainly donât care if other people kill themselves. Iâm not going to try to convince you to do otherwise.
But the idea that I need an invisible sky friend to care is obviously untrue. People can do all kinds of things - cut themselves to relieve emotional pain, gamble away their live savings for a thrill, spend all their money on opiates and gradually starve on the street - but I can have compassion for people who do, or to prefer that they didnât.
If you like to reality-test the idea that suicidal ideation and behaviour is a result of rational evaluation of the worth of a life of suffering, you can do so by volunteering at a distress hotline and talking to people who are actually considering killing themselves.
If you want to go with Whose Life is it, Anyway? thatâs certainly your prerogative. Myself, I go lean more along the Cloud Atlas view:
Sonmi-451:
Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others.
Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our
future.
Yeah. exactly. And what makes me grumpy about it, is that with him gone, itâs just that much more difficult for those of us left to get by. That would have been the case if heâd died of cancer or been hit by a truck, but hanging himself felt like a big fat middle finger to everybody.
It makes me want to try harder. Not just to stay alive, but to make a world worth living in.
Iâm surprised no one in this thread has considered this issue from a Darwinian perspective. So with that in mind I ask a few questions:
-Is there research indicating if this proclivity for copycat suicide is likely inborn or due to environmental factors?
-Is everyone equally susceptible to this? The linked article describes copycat suicide as contagion. Is this meant to imply that this is a communicable disease?
-If it is linked to inheritable factors, are we as a society preserving this trait by encouraging suicide prevention?
This thread is a good reminder how conditioned weâve become to polarize at any stressful moment. Losing this asset to our community in this way, hurts a lot. Weâre all struggling to find something to say with which to meet this moment. Somebody says something insensitive, the way people sometimes do.
PIGPILE!
The subtext seems to be, âYou didnât love him as much as I did, or else you wouldnât say such things!â Which is clearly nonsense, but damn it all, this hurts and who is at their best at a moment like this?
While I do think that free genie meme is insensitive and possibly hurtful, There are far worse things that are said in the same tone of voice. Things like, âItâs not that bad, cheer up!â Which to an isolated person sounds a lot like, âshape up or ship outâ.
So what we get to have is a teaching moment that works both ways. Folks who want to defend that kind of thing, have the option to see it from a different point of view. And folks who can sympathize with Robinâs choice, have a chance to see what kind of people they should probably steer clear of.
I care enough about the man enough to also respect his decision. The sadness and loss we feel are ultimately selfish emotions. An alternative view would be a celebration of his passing, recognition of the lives he touched during his short tenure, and empathy for his choice to end his pain.
To admonish those who choose to see his death as a release from suffering would be to discount the viewpoints of many other cultures encompassing millions if not billions of people. Take the work of Jie Zhang, Ph.D. and Cun-Xian Jia, Ph.D. for example. They demonstrated that in China, the attitude among many is that an incurable disease is a valid reason for ending your life.
Mr. Williams had been un-successfully battling his disease for decades. I see it as a tragedy that he had to leave this world alone and in pain. Perhaps we will learn to accept people who decide to exit the grand stage and treat the act with respect.
Darwinâs theory of evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive. When you base your ideas of how people should treat each other on things like âwhat kind of traits should we keep in the gene pool?â then youâre basically just advocating eugenics.
Plus, itâs a bit of a dick move to respond to the tragic suicide of a beloved figure with âbut really, arenât we better off in the long run if these folks kill themselves?â
Taking Darwinâs ideas into the human realm is generally considered a bad idea. Itâs called social darwinism, and it can be used to justify all kinds of nasty things. Go research the history of Eugenics if this sort of thing fascinates you, I think youâll find youâre in good company. (for certain values of good)
On the other hand, social Lamarckism hasnât gotten nearly as much attention as it deserves, and the field of epigenetics puts Lamarck back on the map in a big way.
(If you think suicide is the result of a genetic predisposition, Iâd hate to hear your opinions on homosexuality)
I think it would be unfair to rest the blame for any individual suicide on something as trivial as a Tweet. However, I do think itâs fair to point out that this tweetâwhile probably heartfelt and posted with the best of intentionsâcontributes to a public dialog that often romanticizes suicide at a time when âsuicide contagionâ is a very real and well-documented risk.
No malice intended does not mean no harm done. Itâs important for people to understand the potential consequences of their words and actions.
I think itâs entirely possible to weed out nasty genetic predispositions that hurt quality of life, without resorting to the tactics of Nazi doctors and other prominent eugenicists.
Epigentics is a fascinating topic, I imagine environmental factors play a huge role depression and suicide. I am largely unfamiliar with Lemark and how it differs from social Darwinism, but I will certainly read up.
And since you asked about Homosexuality. I think itâs a good thing. It is likely inborn, and it is a good trait to have present in a population. The fitness of a community depends on diversity, in social perspective, sexual orientation, and a litany of other traits.
Iâm not trying to suggest suicide prevention is necessarily a bad thing. But I am asking if it is sufficient all by itself. I suspect that it may address a symptom of suicide rather than a cause.
If a disposition for suicide is genetic in origin there may be very tangible avenues of treatment that go beyond mental health initiatives. Treatments which might break a destructive cycle (of passing on an illness).
Letâs pretend for a moment that copycat suicide is in fact a contagion. Wouldnât a vaccine be preferable to living in a bubble to avoid exposure?
