I like Washington Postcolumnist Michael Gerson. He writes movingly today about preventing suicide. From his column:
Suicidology is a well-studied academic field. Suicide is most prevalent among the young and the old. It is associated with depression, feelings of hopelessness, substance abuse and low levels of serotonin in the brain. Females attempt suicide more often than males. Males complete it more often than females. Suicide rates are higher among people who are divorced, separated or widowed, and lower among the married. But such quantification provides only the illusion of control. The mind does not experience itself as a scientific object but, rather, as an interpreter of reality. One’s brain can contemplate one’s spleen objectively. One’s brain cannot consider one’s brain objectively, because its judgments seem real even when they are distorted.
The rational arguments against suicide are compelling. It causes intense suffering for loved ones that few would intend in their right mind. It is not a valid expression of autonomy or choice, because it ends all autonomy and choice. It represents the tyranny of one moment of hopelessness over every future moment of possibility.
But it is the peculiar cruelty of hopelessness and severe depression that they attack insight and perspective. People can experience themselves as someone they hate and cannot escape, except by shedding the self. In “The Savage God: A Study of Suicide,” A. Alvarez argues, “The logic of suicide is different. It is like the unanswerable logic of a nightmare, or like the science-fiction fantasy of being projected suddenly into another dimension: Everything makes sense and follows its own strict rules; yet, at the same time, everything is also different, perverted, upside down. Once a man decides to take his own life he enters a shut-off, impregnable but wholly convincing world where every detail fits and each incident reinforces his decision.”
For those who yield to the logic of the nightmare, it is difficult to be harsh or judgmental. Empathy, like grace, can reach to the grave.
Absolutely.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t criticize those pushing suicidal people toward different conclusions about self destruction. And that’s where Gerson misses the obvious–as so many similar articles do these days. There is a multi million dollar suicide promotion campaign ongoing in the country and around the world–aided and abetted by the mainstream media–that says that if you are sick, or disabled–suicide is empowering and rational. Indeed, it claims that such suicides are so right and worthy of being honored that the state should permit third parties to help make sure the suicidal person is made dead. As far as I am concerned, that is the express and implied fundamental message of assisted suicide advocacy.
It seems to me that society can’t be half against suicide and half for it. You can’t have suicide prevention and assisted suicide promotion at the same time. The former message is subsumed by the latter. Suffering suicidal people don’t think that the quality or reasons for other guy’s suffering makes suicide okay, but theirs does not.
March 3rd, 2010 | 5:02 pm
We’re already committing suicide – albeit slowly.
Our inability to confront and solve clear and present problems is leading to our demise.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:08 pm
David. That’s silly alarmism for someone so tied to pure rationality and scientific data.
March 3rd, 2010 | 6:01 pm
No; the outline is as follows:
There are 6 billion+ homo sapiens on Earth.
We need various limited natural resources for all of us to survive – sustain ourselves to procreate.
We are leading to our demise (death, but not total extinction) by not addressing issues conflicting with tenant 2. Some of these issues are: agricultural sustainability, biological sustainability, climate change, water availability, war, economic viability, terrorism, etc.
Comet impacts do not pose a clear and present problem, for example.
Really, Smith, the issue is the definition of ‘suicide’.
I don’t think rightly pointing out emerging problems that few may consider is alarmism. It is a weird definition of suicide, though.
And I need to ad Orcas to the list of threats; fortunately, we have a solution (I recommend granite over limestone):
http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147492239
March 3rd, 2010 | 8:56 pm
Wesley,
At the risk of sounding like a dittohead, I very much agree with the last sentence of your column. People who contemplate suicide are influenced by the suicides of others. It is a copycat, social phenomenon, and for someone inclined to commit suicide, it does not matter if someone else who took that step had supposedly “valid” or “rational” reasons.
However, I disagree with your use of the “Forest” vs. “Trees metaphor in your headline (as I have argued elsewhere, headlines matter both because they shape how we read an article and because many people read only the headline). While the assisted suicide movement is wrong for all the reasons you articulate in your writings, I do not believe it is, as you seem to imply, the entire forest. At the risk of breaking the metaphor, I think the assisted suicide movement is more like an opportunistic species that has spread through the forest. Modern society seems to be designed to deny the need we have for non-commercial human connection and shared meaning. This allows assisted suicide advocates to speak of suicide as a “choice” which somehow does not affect anyone else.
Gershon may have missed an opportunity to speak about the assisted suicide movement, but he did address those deeper, underlying causes.
I read the comments following his article and most were just angry or dismissive (the great vacuum of vicious on-line anonymity), but a few raised a valid complaint that he did not include among his examples of (mostly celebrity) suicides the many Iraq War soldiers and veterans who have committed suicide. They claimed Gershon avoided talking about Iraq because he wrote Bush’s speeches in support of the invasion. I don’t know if that’s true, but regardless, the failure to mention those suicides was a glaring omission.
March 4th, 2010 | 9:15 am
I think for me suicide would be a very dark concept that ignores the place that my spirituality has taken me. I can be happy where others are feeling morose because my spirituality over rides all the negatives of life. Knowing in my Soul that God has put value upon my life to live a life of happiness even when assaulted by the dark moments in life gives me a bond to my Soul that will not move aside for dark depression.
March 4th, 2010 | 9:59 am
[...] then along comes Wesley J. Smith who takes up Gerson’s column and does what he does best: applies absolutist and convoluted [...]
March 4th, 2010 | 2:59 pm
” But then along comes Wesley J. Smith who takes up Gerson’s column and does what he does best: applies absolutist and convoluted pseudo-psychological thinking to conflate the idea of depression (which can cause suicide) and terminal disease.”
Thank you, Ann Neumann, for stating the case so well. I’ve been trying to make the same points for a year or more on Wesley’s website. Unfortunately he not only likes to play fast and loose with language; he misrepresents religious positions as “ethical” rather than doctrinal.
March 4th, 2010 | 6:38 pm
I just read the Ann Neumann post and have this to say:
1) Wesley is quite right to connect clinical depression with terminal disease. Clinical depression, a neuro-chemically based organic brain disorder, is in fact a terminal medical disease. It is always terminal if left untreated (causing suicidal thoughts, plans, then actions), but even with treatment, its progression cannot always be stopped or reversed. It is similar to cancer in this way.
In one of her paragraphs, Ms. Neumann describes what she feels “death with dignity” (i.e. assisted suicide) is. The description fits depression or any other organic mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) just as well: “The patient has endured most likely years of fighting their disease with a concerted will to live. The patient does not want to die but they have accepted the fact that their disease will soon kill them. Their grief at the loss of life has an absolute physical cause. And their simple objective is singular: to end suffering.” It is Ms. Neumann who misunderstands the nature of mental illness.
2) Beck’s Depression Inventory has been used for decades as a psychiatric tool to diagnose clinical depression. One of the questions deals with whether the patient has thoughts or plans of suicide (or homicide).
An intransigent wish to die has long been a marker of clinical depression in the annals of psychiatry ever since the birth of the field 100 years ago. The notion of a “rational suicidal wish” has no basis in medical or social science, but is rather a brand-new philosophical construct.
3) I take issue with HW’s statement that religious positions are not ethical ones. That’s not a far cry from saying that religious views cannot be ethical, cannot be held by rational people in good faith (as it were) – that religious people are all simply idiots. It’s also not far from saying that religious knowledge is not real knowledge (I have a sneaking feeling HW would endorse that). Philosopher Francis Beckwith has done good work of analyzing and critiquing this idea in the Santa Clara Law Review here: http://homepage.mac.com/francis.beckwith/SCLR.pdf
March 5th, 2010 | 12:27 am
Actually HW correctly asserted that religious positions are doctrinal not ethical. He did not assert that religious positions can never be ethical.
Perhaps he did imply that religious positions are taken by religious persons rather than ethicists.
Religious persons are concerned with promoting their religion and promoting their religion is their primary focus.
Ethicists don’t necessarily give primary consideration to a particular or specific religious doctrine and dogma whereas religious persons concern themselves narrowly with their own chosen religious establishments doctrine and dogma discounting, discarding or disrespecting any religious establishment or doctrine and dogma not their own.
Simply stated religious positions arise not from independent ethical analysis and education but arise purely from the dogma and doctrine of an establishment of religion therefore such positions are expected to be fully influenced, informed and directed by dogma and doctrine.
Obviously all such doctrine and dogma ultimately originates from a leadership that fully intends to influence and assert control over its members via dogma and doctrine. Member subscribers are expected to propagate the doctrine and dogma and fully embrace it whether they are completely in agreement with it or not. Members are not free to question or critique the doctrine or dogma.
To say there is no value in religious knowledge would be incorrect since clearly it has the value assigned to it by the person who pursued it which is no different from any other intellectual pursuit. To say it is not “real knowledge” would also be incorrect since the study of religion has existed as long as religion itself and it has evolved, expanded, changed and progressed along with every other area of study in human history.
Organizations such as the various churches are really no different from any other business enterprise with one glaring exception. Those front line members that don’t follow or promote the company policy originating from management are subject to various forms of discipline up to and including the termination of their membership and public censure. Employees on the other hand can violate the policies and simply be relocated to a distant parish without the need for management to notify any of its membership about the employees work history, job performance issues or suspected criminal activities.
March 5th, 2010 | 5:57 pm
Amazed: Thanks for defending my assertion. One needn’t agree with it, but I appreciate it not being misrepresented. Thanks again.
Kathleen L: People who subscribe to idiotic beliefs (including some religious ones) aren’t necessarily idiots and/or psychos. A lot are, I’m sure: look at how many people believe in horoscopes, voodoo and alien abductions, or claim to have and spotted Elvis on a New York subway last Friday. Who was it once said “Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong?”
Now, as it happens I personally have a lot of difficulty keeping a straight face when people talk seriously about biblical infallibility, resurrection of the dead, vicarious atonement, demonic possession and any kind of “salvation” at all — let alone “salvation through grace.” But though I might grimace at the sound of an oxymoron like “non-denominational prayer,” and roll my eyeballs so far up into my head that I look like Little Orphan Annie at the mention of “virgin birth,” please understand that I respect people’s rights to believe things I consider silly — so long as they don’t try legislating those beliefs for my imagined benefit. Thus, the act of suicide (assisted or otherwise) seems to me a matter of personal choice, regardless of whether we detest or revere the actor’s motive.
You wrote: “[T]he notion of a ‘rational suicidal wish’ has no basis in medical or social science, but is rather a brand-new philosophical construct.” If you have any respect for history I beg you to re-think a statement that impugns all those people back in the first century CE who intentionally refused to renounce Christianity, knowing full well that as a result they’d become an afternoon snack for the lions or a torch to light up the evening’s entertainment over at Nero’s palace. Christian folks revere them as “martyrs” although they were committing rational suicide — unless, of course, you think they were IRrational. But then, what would be the point of venerating them?
Then there’s the matter of the Japanese, in whose culture suicide is expected if/when an individual has dishonored himself. Since both my daughters drive Toyota Camrys I was kind of looking forward to Mr. Toyoda doing it live on C-Span after he finished testifying. Oh well.
HW
March 6th, 2010 | 1:04 pm
FALSE: “religious positions arise not from independent ethical analysis and education but arise PURELY from the dogma and doctrine of an establishment of religion therefore such positions are expected to be fully influenced, informed and directed by dogma and doctrine.”
FALSE: “Obviously all such doctrine and dogma ultimately originates from a leadership that fully intends to influence and assert control over its members via dogma and doctrine.”
FALSE: “Member subscribers are expected to propagate the doctrine and dogma and fully embrace it whether they are completely in agreement with it or not.”
FALSE: “Members are not free to question or critique the doctrine or dogma.”
Seriously, which planet do you live on? This might apply to those weird cults that lock you up and make you drink the kool-aid, but I have never experienced ANYTHING like the four false statements above in all my decades as a believer.
March 6th, 2010 | 6:19 pm
HW:
Religion-bashing aside, your comment about Japan proves Wesley’s point – when a society condones suicide, it will have more of it. Japan’s per-capita suicide rates are through the roof not because the Japanese are less happy or suffer more, but because their society regards suicide as an acceptable response to a whole host of circumstances.
If we were to start treating suicide as an acceptable action in some cases, it would serve as encouragement for the depressed and unhappy to kill themselves. As the article explains, everyone considering suicide thinks they have a rational, defensible reason for it.
March 7th, 2010 | 8:33 am
Claiming to be a “believer” is one thing.
Claiming your membership,association or subscription to a specific faith or church is something else entirely.
But then you probably fully understand and appreciate the difference.
Lets be honest- do you really think there are corners of this planet EARTH that are unaware of what has been done to people accused of heresy?
Do you honestly believe that there is a school kid in America that doesn’t know the word “heretic” or its meaning?
If you perhaps missed it you can find the info quite readily:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm
March 7th, 2010 | 2:05 pm
SparcVark:
So what? I frankly don’t care how many people in Japan (or anywhere else, for that matter) decide to kill themselves, nor do I care for what reason(s) they do it. The fact was, is and will remain that suicide is a choice some people make. Like it or not. Period. It may not be YOUR choice, but then by what right do you assert that your choice is any more valid than theirs? Because you read it in the Bible? Because your Mommy said “it’s a bad thing?” Because you think it’s inconsiderate?
I think the concern of total strangers with other people’s decisions is presumptuous, meddlesome and downright pathetic. Have they nothing better to do with their time than mind other people’s business.
[Ed. Deleted material as it gets into matters irrelevant to this post and this blog}
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
History Writer: This is not a blog that deals with the veracity of faith. Thanks.
March 7th, 2010 | 4:20 pm
The population of Japan is 51.1% Shintoist and 42.7% Buddhist.
Only 1.5% of the Japanese population are Christian.
http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/pdf/chapter_11.pdf
Which doesn’t necessarily prove Wesley’s point so much as it proves that a non-Christian culture apparently has an entirely different perspective and opinion on liberty and self determination (including suicide or even assisted suicide for the terminally ill).
From certain religious perspectives there is a clear distinction between everyday and ordinary sin and what is termed a mortal sin.
http://www.saintaquinas.com/mortal_sin.html
Suicide is classified as a mortal sin- and perhaps the quintessential heresy- by certain religions.
It would naturally follow that the most well funded religion would be seen to be asserting itself and its doctrine and dogma within the cultures where it enjoys the best media access for its money or where it has the highest membership.
March 8th, 2010 | 8:57 pm
Wesley:
How can you state: “This is not a blog that deals with the veracity of faith” when the positions that many on this website call “ethical” (such as those dealing with so-called “human exceptionalism” and assisted suicide) are so obviously faith-based (i.e., religious)? You seem to be suggesting that if someone’s idiocy is based on a religious precept it should get a free pass. Say it isn’t so.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 8th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
You are the one obsessed with religion History Writer. I never bring it up. Indeed, my fundamental through line is universal human rights. Or do only religious people believe in that?
March 9th, 2010 | 11:10 am
Wesley:
If, as you say, your “fundamental through line is universal human rights” then why do you publish “Second Hand Smoke” on “First Things?”
“First Things” by its own description, “is published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and education institute whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.”
I suppose that’s just a coincidence.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 11:12 am
FT is about both religion AND culture. I do culture. I don’t do religion.
April 6th, 2010 | 8:09 am
That is true. There should be no need for assisted suicide. That just makes the subject more acceptable, which is not.
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