Saturday, December 15, 2007

Some thoughts on suicide

If someone is suffering so much that they really want to kill themselves, and you pressure them to stay alive, you are essentially advocating their torture. You want to keep them alive and suffering for your own agenda.

Now, if you intend to aid and relieve their suffering, that's a different story. But most people who try to stop other people from killing themselves have no intention to do anything serious to change the other person's life. (or you would have done it before it got that far)
The ethical freedom to take your own life is the root of all other freedom, it is the ultimate act of self-ownership.

Saying "oh it's not that bad" (or something of that sort) is a horrible thing to say.
It shows your own inconsideration of the other person's subjectivity. Their situation might not seem too bad to you, but you have no ethical right to superimpose your values on their condition. It's oppressive and disgusting.

If society had a more evenhanded attitude toward suicide, the power structure as we know it would fall. People would be killing themselves a lot more often than most of us suspect.
I believe this is why most of the "moral" arguments and emotional sentiments against suicide exist. In order to torture and subdue people that are unhappy with the situation to the point where it is intolerable to them. This aids the power structure by creating a vast number of people who are surviving (and thus feeding the system) even though society at large has failed them.

1 comment:

Nick Manley said...

Aggie,

You should read Arthur Silber's essay on suicide.

http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2004/02/roots-of-horror-suicide-taboo.html

It has a similar feel to what you're saying.