Death Beckons

[Syne]

Really? Are you making the opposite claim, that mental suffering in the Holocaust wasn't so bad? How exactly would you say the Holocaust compares to the present day US?

Hey you're the one making the claim that mental suffering isn't so bad when it happens in present day U.S. Where's your studies to back up this load of bullshit? What magical power does the U.S. land mass exert on people so that their mental suffering isn't so bad?

The US was only an example. You can substitute the EU or any other non-barbaric country you like. But again you didn't answer the question. Was the Holocaust worse for mental suffering than modern day Western countries? No studies needed if you know a bare minimum about what happened in the Holocaust. Or are you a Holocaust denier as well?

[Magical Realist]

Really? Are you making the opposite claim, that mental suffering in the Holocaust wasn't so bad? How exactly would you say the Holocaust compares to the present day US?

Hey you're the one making the claim that mental suffering isn't so bad when it happens in present day U.S. Where's your studies to back up this load of bullshit? What magical power does the U.S. land mass exert on people so that their mental suffering isn't so bad?

The US was only an example. You can substitute the EU or any other non-barbaric country you like. But again you didn't answer the question. Was the Holocaust worse for mental suffering than modern day Western countries? No studies needed if you know a bare minimum about what happened in the Holocaust. Or are you a Holocaust denier as well?

LOL! And so he changes his whole position once again. Don't waste my time troll..

[Syne]

The US was only an example. You can substitute the EU or any other non-barbaric country you like. But again you didn't answer the question. Was the Holocaust worse for mental suffering than modern day Western countries? No studies needed if you know a bare minimum about what happened in the Holocaust. Or are you a Holocaust denier as well?

LOL! And so he changes his whole position once again. Don't waste my time troll..

If you had an ounce of intellectual honesty, you'd know that it was only an example to counter: "The Holocaust wasn't permanent." You see, I agree that the Holocaust wasn't permanent, but the Holocaust also generated vastly more suffering than we see in modern Western countries today.

You're just pouting because your red herrings and strawman arguments aren't fooling anyone. Grow up.

[Secular Sanity]

This is something that I want to understand, Syne.   So can we please have a conversation rather than a debate?

The aim of suicide is always some extreme form of selfish escapism, no matter the justification.

I think "selfish" is an inaccurate term for suicide and depression.  It can just as easily be assigned to the bereaved.  

It’s frustrating to think about because it’s not one size fits all.  It’s a product of both nature and nurture.  However, the right to live and die all boils down to individualism, does it not?  Who are we kidding?  To live or die is an individual choice.  If you have the right to die then surely you have the right to live, and that's where the focus should be.

It’s obviously a method of escape, but an escape from the self—a motivation to escape from aversive self-awareness. They may be self-absorbed, but a more appropriate term would be egocentric tunnel vision.  

I really liked this article.  Will you read it and tell me what you think?

Being Suicidal: What it Feels Like to Want to Kill Yourself.

Sacrifice is in terms of achieving a goal, while suicide is in terms of escaping all goals. Very different motivations. While the sacrifice may make the death mean something, the suicide seems to be the assumption that life is meaningless.

Meaning in death—in remembrance? I don’t know.  Somehow finding meaning in the minds of others doesn’t sound right to me when you're dead.  Promoting a virtuous life through public service sounds like a selfish manipulative tactic to me.  

Honored Glory—God...pfft!

Douglass Adair argued that "the love of fame is a noble passion because it can transform ambition and self-interest into dedicated effort for the community, because it can spur individuals to spend themselves to provide for the common defense, or to promote the general welfare."

Without a public to serve, the individual would be without an audience for his deeds.  The individual would necessarily be unable to obtain glory, honor, and everlasting memory, and a man’s life would lose meaning.

Alexander Hamilton cynically suggested that, above all, it was vanity that ensured that there would "be some public fools who sacrifice private to public interest at the certainty of ingratitude and obloquy."  Heroic individuals, whatever their motivation, and the larger public were therefore tied in a symbiotic relationship in which each, in its own way, served the common good.

The elites slowly came to accept that "the pursuit of fame" was an almost painless way of transforming egotism and self-aggrandizing impulses into public service.

The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American
By Barry Alan Shain


BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD
Nor shall your glory be forgot
while fame her records keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

The propensity for war lies in all of us, and glory and honor are extremely seductive, but both are nothing more than social constructs, a perceived quality of worthiness.

"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory."

So much so that Arlington is running out of space.

[Syne]

This is something that I want to understand, Syne.   So can we please have a conversation rather than a debate?

The aim of suicide is always some extreme form of selfish escapism, no matter the justification.

I think "selfish" is an inaccurate term for suicide and depression.  It can just as easily be assigned to the bereaved.  

It’s frustrating to think about because it’s not one size fits all.  It’s a product of both nature and nurture.  However, the right to live and die all boils down to individualism, does it not?  Who are we kidding?  To live or die is an individual choice.  If you have the right to die then surely you have the right to live, and that's where the focus should be.

It’s obviously a method of escape, but an escape from the self—a motivation to escape from aversive self-awareness. They may be self-absorbed, but a more appropriate term would be egocentric tunnel vision.  

I really liked this article.  Will you read it and tell me what you think?

Being Suicidal: What it Feels Like to Want to Kill Yourself.

Selfishness, or self-absorption if you prefer, is a primary factor in both suicide and depression. Both are extreme navel-gazing, where we externalize the self as a source of blame or discomfort, while being too myopic to notice that we've made a strawman of that self that we no longer perceive as our own center. The self we seek to negate is not the self we perceive as passing that judgement. Even if the two are only separated by mere fractions of a second, they are cognitively dissociated.
The bereaved have a rational, objectively identifiable reason to be experiencing acute self-absorption, and it's important to remember the distinction between rational and irrational emotions.

Right to die? That presumes competence, as MR seems to, in almost all cases. Obviously the OP case was not competent to make the decision, seeing how she changed her mind once it went beyond her own weak attempts.

As for that article... They should be falling short of ideals, attribution to false-self, low/false self-awareness, and from 2 on can basically be lumped under extreme dissociation. The problem with our language is that we equally define past and present as "self", so dissociation is not always expressed in easily identifiable ways.

Sacrifice is in terms of achieving a goal, while suicide is in terms of escaping all goals. Very different motivations. While the sacrifice may make the death mean something, the suicide seems to be the assumption that life is meaningless.

Meaning in death—in remembrance? I don’t know.  Somehow finding meaning in the minds of others doesn’t sound right to me when you're dead.  Promoting a virtuous life through public service sounds like a selfish manipulative tactic to me.  

I didn't say remembrance. The goal and meaning is only relevant to the one making the sacrifice, and that's so for sacrifices short of death as well. Otherwise it's just a grand justification for seeking death or adulation.

[Secular Sanity]

Right to die? That presumes competence, as MR seems to, in almost all cases. Obviously the OP case was not competent to make the decision, seeing how she changed her mind once it went beyond her own weak attempts.

Agreed.

"Contemporary proponents of 'rational suicide' or the 'right to die' usually demand by 'rationality' that the decision to kill oneself be both the autonomous choice of the agent (i.e., not due to the physician or the family pressuring them to 'do the right thing' and commit suicide) and a 'best option under the circumstances' choice desired by the stoics or utilitarians, as well as other natural conditions such as the choice being stable, not an impulsive decision, not due to mental illness, achieved after due deliberation, etc."[1]

I didn't say remembrance. The goal and meaning is only relevant to the one making the sacrifice, and that's so for sacrifices short of death as well. Otherwise it's just a grand justification for seeking death or adulation.

Yes and goals such as freedom are necessary to live a rational life, increase our lifespan, and allow us to pursue our values, which are worth defending.

Nice job!

Thanks!

[Ben the Donkey]

Do you agree with my conclusion?
There is no peace in death.

Essentially, yes.
It's a ludicrous belief to hold, because it simply relies upon the assumption that one will be able to observe or feels the effects of death post-mortem. A belief in some form of existence after death is absolutely mandatory under those circumstances. Someone brought up O'Leary early in the piece, but that guys just an over rated hack (I don't necessarily either believe that or discount his importance to the progression of society, just sayin'). See, the problem with O'Leary is that the particular quote mentioned is simply bringing up the old argument of "If a tree falls in the forest..." under the guise of quantum physics. It's like Warhol trying to convince us that a painting of a coke can was Art.

The Church (pretty much all of them) have always argued against suicide primarily because after millennia of trying to convince people that some form of paradise awaits after death, they are now faced with the conundrum of having to prevent people from wanting to go there a little earlier than intended. Which, you know, if you think about it, would be exactly what all believers would want to do... were they not informed it was a heinous sin. Don't eat the apple, bitches.


...I've just read this entire thread and my response would probably amount to a couple of pages of writing. So I'm not going to, that;'s just too much damned effort.

[Zinjanthropos]

The Church (pretty much all of them) have always argued against suicide primarily because after millennia of trying to convince people that some form of paradise awaits after death, they are now faced with the conundrum of having to prevent people from wanting to go there a little earlier than intended. 

So succinct and dead on (pun intended). 

There are people who pray to have a deity arrange their deaths. It's along the same lines as actually doing something personal to speed up the process. 

My M-I-L before she died in a nursing home had a 100 year old neighbor who would tell me every time I visited that she would wake up and ask God why He didn't take her during the night. So not only do we have people committing suicide but there's a whole other group too afraid to do it but wishing it nonetheless.

[Syne]

The Church (pretty much all of them) have always argued against suicide primarily because after millennia of trying to convince people that some form of paradise awaits after death, they are now faced with the conundrum of having to prevent people from wanting to go there a little earlier than intended. Which, you know, if you think about it, would be exactly what all believers would want to do... were they not informed it was a heinous sin.

That's both oversimplified and a gross generalization. Suicide is most often associated with depression...not hope for an afterlife. Knowing that the motives for suicide are generally unhealthy, most religions rightfully denounce it. And considering that acceptance of suicide positively correlates to suicide rate, it is justified objectively.

"Classic work in suicidology neglected suicide acceptability. It focused
instead on explaining suicide rates per se (Durkheim, 1897; Stack, 1982,
2000a, 2000b). In the past 20 years, however, there has been a multitude of
investigations on the culture of suicide or suicide acceptability (e.g., Cut-
right and Fernquist, 2004; Stack, 1998a, 1998b, 2002; Stack, Wasserman,
and Kposowa, 1994). These two research traditions are merged in the pres-
ent analysis. The present investigation provides the first analysis of the
influence of macro-level conditions on individual-level suicide acceptability.
It finds that, controlling for a variety of sociodemographic individual-level
variables, persons nested in countries with relatively high suicide rates are
significantly more likely than their counterparts to approve of suicide."
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication...l_Analysis

So if you're raised in a high suicide rate culture, you're much more likely to approve of suicide...and perhaps consider it yourself.

[Zinjanthropos]

I think feelings of guilt/shame/embarrassment would likely inhibit the devoted theist from admitting they had considered suicide as a way to meet their maker or open a door to the afterlife. Since most religions frown on it then I think it would be prudent for most to declare otherwise if in that situation. 

Depression as a motive, not so sure about that. It's a mental illness. People say they'll kill themselves because they're depressed? Don't think so. Associated with suicide? No doubt but it is not the motive IMHO.