Early Christianity had a problem. When life was hard but afterlife supposedly awesome, why do the hard part and not just skip ahead? Oh, but then who will toil in misery and pay tithes and be serving the kings army? Ey, presto! Tell everybody that suicide is a mortal sin with eternal suffering and all that jazz! (That in turn sprouted workarounds like killing somebody else and be forgiven for your sins before execution.)
The moralism lives on that life is holy and you leave others to struggle in their misery while you take the easy way out. And this is why it is taken to absurd lengths that people are kept on life support that only serves to prolong their terminal suffering against their own will.
My take on this is that people assume suicide is the easy way out. That one is not considering the feelings and hurt it's doing to the surroundings and loving people.
My own opinion differs vastly from this. No one wants to die, but suicide sometimes is the only viable escape from the pain or situation one might find themselves in. Suicide is self care. Anybody who calls it selfish is incredibly selfish itself (you need to live and suffer because I don't want to lose you).
Suicide never is easy, nor should it be, but it should not be crininalised or stigmatized. Who's life is it anyways?
I honestly came here to say the same: It really isn’t any less selfish to require or demand someone to suffer and remain, just because you want them to.
However it’s still vastly more complex than that. From an utilitarian perspective there would usually be many individual povs like that one, where there are great many people wanting you to remain, while you alone want to cease being. And subsequently the harm caused by the act alone would often have wide impact on several individuals, whereas you remaining would be only one person suffering.
But this isn’t me saying suicide is selfish or shouldn’t be done. This is just me trying to make sense of it as someone who’s struggled with these weighings and dilemmas recurringly in my life when I’ve been at a point where I couldn’t continue, but was kind of forced to. Not by anything concrete, but these exact consequences and this entire struggle to try and work out a way to see it through with clean conscience.
I never could.
But I do know this: Both sides are selfish. And that’s only natural. I don’t think being selfish is necessarily a bad thing. Often it is not. It’s all just a balance in a chaotic, complex world, that can’t ever be estimated well enough to gain any amount of confidence in the things you do. It’s all just too chaotic, too dynamic, too multi-layered and tangled together, to make sense of. All you can know or estimate with any level of certainty, is your own self, and what others present of theirs at any given time. And the time is continuously changing, marching on, and the presentations remain as fluid as the life itself.
You can’t really not be selfish. That’s all you have, if you need to ground yourself in some certainty.
Exactly. Even though they rarely admit it, people who have to watch an elderly relative slowly die are relieved when it finally happens (because they're not suffering anymore).
I watched my grandmother as her brain slowly melted over 2 years due to Alzheimer's. At the end she could barely move on her own, shitting herself constantly, and had no idea what was going on around her. I hate that our healthcare system forced and pressured her into going through that.
If someone has Alzheimer's, they should be allowed to pick a day of clarity where they can do their favorite things one last time before going out by OD'ing themselves with heroine. It'd be far more peaceful and dignified than what they go through today.
Alzheimer's is a hell of a disease. I have worked with people who have Alzheimer's for decades now. I am always hoping they are going to be able to reverse or even stop the damage. They are closer than ever before, but the reality of all those people I had hope for have already passed.
There are no easy answers here. I knew an elder who always said if he got Alzheimer's he would take himself out. Guess what? He got Alzheimer's and forgot to.
Another lady I worked with was pretty far into her dementia. I was sitting with her in the morning and she was drinking coffee. Suddenly she made eye contact and said, "I am scared because my mind is going, things I used to remember are gone and I struggle to realize all the people I have lost." She lost focus after this and started staring off into space.
They are still in there, I know it. I will never forget this one elder I had been working with for awhile. Their son came to visit and we were all sitting there talking about their care. The elder forgot who their son was and said that I was their son and starting arguing with them. Seeing their actual family member realize their grandmother no longer recognized them sucked so bad.
The Swedish linguist Adolf Noreen started questioning the myth at the end of the 19th century,[5] and it is now generally accepted among researchers that the practice of suicide precipices never existed.
It's a really complicated issue once you take religion out of it, at what age is it ok? does someone have to be in poor health? are they leaving friends and family who love them? MAID when someone has a terminal illness is a mercy, but it's not for everyone.
However, when I think of my friend's death, she was healthy and only 45 when she left us. I'm an atheist who's read enough existentialism to respect her wishes, but I'm also sad for it. I don't believe her decision was selfish, she was obviously dealing with things she couldn't resolve , I just wish she could have found some sort of contentment in her life.
edit and to add to my thought here ... I also hope that it's what she wanted and she didn't instantly regret it, though I don't believe she had much time to do so. Ultimately we own our bodies outright and no one other than us has any right to say what we do with them, it's just tough when something is so irreversible.
Some of you are really lucky you've never seen a loved one die of a painful terminal illness. Counseling a family member that it's relatively normal to feel relieved in that kind of situation is actually a pretty common thing in hospice. Depression is a lot less plainly visible as both the symptoms and root cause are almost entirely internal or at least largely conceptual vs cancer cells you can conclusively test for or watch some one's eyes sinking back into their head and hair fall out in clumps while they puke everywhere. It's a lot harder to empathize with the depth of the suffering when you're unable to perceive it. When people are able to perceive and as a result more fully empathize with their loved one's prolonged suffering it's actually completely normal to be relieved when they're not in pain anymore.
“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it” -Frank Herbert
I don’t think suicide should be considered selfish regardless of age or physical ailment. We are all built differently. It is entirely possible someone could have a life I think is great but they find it absolutely hellish.
While I think there should be buffers in place like mandatory counseling to prevent rash actions and treatable psychological issues, the idea that anyone contemplating suicide is just mentally ill or “doesn’t understand how it will affect others” is incredibly niave even if it seems to be the common sentiment.
Would you tell a person to stay in an unhealthy relationship because it might make their partner(s) sad? No. Is it selfish to leave a job that destroys your mental health because your coworkers might miss you? No.
People’s lives belong to them. Not their friends or family or the government. Them alone.
Because people forget that the ultimate expression of body autonomy, of self determination, is the right to death.
That and grief making it hurt like ten hells when it happens to someone you love. Grief generates anger sometimes, and that anger gets directed at the deceased rather than the situation that made them want to exercise their right to death.
What you're describing is called senicide and is seen acros various cultures in history. It is a specific form of suicide where an elderly person sacrifices themselves to not be a burden on the clan. (Source: @[email protected])
Suicide is not sacrificial. It is often caused by mental illlness, like depression, or other forms of unbearable suffering in the eyes of the victim, like financial problems or drug abuse.
I know people are citing Christianity a ton which has huge part in it but the concept is way older.
The Hippocratic Oath already touches on the subject: "I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.[4] Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.".
The concept is way older and tons of medics still take that oath
It might be a burden off of them, but would being relieved of that burden outweigh the added burden of being without you? The reason suicide is selfish isn't because there aren't reasons you being gone might benefit someone, it's because you're making the assumption on their behalf that your absence would be better for them than your presence.
Your life is part of other people's lives, just like their lives are a part of yours. Any unilateral decision to suddenly end those relationships is selfish. Imagine if someone you loved just stopped talking to you out of the blue. Even if the relationship had been strained, they're still someone you love and now they're just... gone. It sucks, and knowing it was a conscious choice they made makes it suck even more.
That's not to say there aren't reasons to be selfish sometimes (though such reasons are few and far between in a situation as absolute as suicide), but being selfish for a good reason is still being selfish.
It might depend how many parasites vs how many symbiotic relationships you have. Parasites are quite easy to acquire and harder to shake off, and often have powerful institutions on their side like courts and police or gangs or economic power.
Conversely it's quite easy to accidentally fuck up a symbiotic relationship. Or for a relationship to degenerate due to any wavering trust level.
If someone suddenly stopped talking to me because I was being a dick I’d at least hope i have enough self-awareness to put the blame on myself. People don’t have to put up with unreasonable levels of dick-ish behaviour. They should have a way out. The pity for the suicide ones is that they couldn't find a better way out.
I'm highly sceptical of those calling it selfish; were they really in a give and take relationship, or were they taking more than they gave - only they know that of course. Though I suspect people often lie to themselves about such things.
Conversely if some of the worlds major parasites suddenly committed suicide then I might call that a rare moment of selflessness.
There best way to understand suicide is as a form of intimate partner violence: suicide is a form of murder in which the relationship between the victim and their killer is that they are lifelong partners who share a body.
Imagine if you learned that your grandmother had been shot and killed in her bed by your grandfather, who left a note explaining that he had determined that this was in the best interest of everyone involved and then surrendered himself to the police.
The sense of shock and loss would be tremendous. The fact that the killer is someone close to you, who insisted that the killing was intended to be merciful doesn't alleviate the sense of betrayal. You would still be hit with the trauma of great, sudden, unexpected loss.
That's what suicide feels like to those who witness it. And it's so painful that it's widely recognized as an act of cruelty to those who knew the victim.
28 replies
Early Christianity had a problem. When life was hard but afterlife supposedly awesome, why do the hard part and not just skip ahead? Oh, but then who will toil in misery and pay tithes and be serving the kings army? Ey, presto! Tell everybody that suicide is a mortal sin with eternal suffering and all that jazz! (That in turn sprouted workarounds like killing somebody else and be forgiven for your sins before execution.)
The moralism lives on that life is holy and you leave others to struggle in their misery while you take the easy way out. And this is why it is taken to absurd lengths that people are kept on life support that only serves to prolong their terminal suffering against their own will.
If I recall, there were still Christians who intentionally tried to get others to kill them so it wouldn't count as suicide.
My take on this is that people assume suicide is the easy way out. That one is not considering the feelings and hurt it's doing to the surroundings and loving people.
My own opinion differs vastly from this. No one wants to die, but suicide sometimes is the only viable escape from the pain or situation one might find themselves in. Suicide is self care. Anybody who calls it selfish is incredibly selfish itself (you need to live and suffer because I don't want to lose you).
Suicide never is easy, nor should it be, but it should not be crininalised or stigmatized. Who's life is it anyways?
I honestly came here to say the same: It really isn’t any less selfish to require or demand someone to suffer and remain, just because you want them to.
However it’s still vastly more complex than that. From an utilitarian perspective there would usually be many individual povs like that one, where there are great many people wanting you to remain, while you alone want to cease being. And subsequently the harm caused by the act alone would often have wide impact on several individuals, whereas you remaining would be only one person suffering.
But this isn’t me saying suicide is selfish or shouldn’t be done. This is just me trying to make sense of it as someone who’s struggled with these weighings and dilemmas recurringly in my life when I’ve been at a point where I couldn’t continue, but was kind of forced to. Not by anything concrete, but these exact consequences and this entire struggle to try and work out a way to see it through with clean conscience.
I never could.
But I do know this: Both sides are selfish. And that’s only natural. I don’t think being selfish is necessarily a bad thing. Often it is not. It’s all just a balance in a chaotic, complex world, that can’t ever be estimated well enough to gain any amount of confidence in the things you do. It’s all just too chaotic, too dynamic, too multi-layered and tangled together, to make sense of. All you can know or estimate with any level of certainty, is your own self, and what others present of theirs at any given time. And the time is continuously changing, marching on, and the presentations remain as fluid as the life itself.
You can’t really not be selfish. That’s all you have, if you need to ground yourself in some certainty.
One doozie of an oxymoron
Have you lost a close relative? Have you personally lived that pain?
When people call suicide selfish, they're not talking about your infirm 80 year old.
I guess watching a 25 year old suffer for the next 55 years is easier to see?
Exactly. Even though they rarely admit it, people who have to watch an elderly relative slowly die are relieved when it finally happens (because they're not suffering anymore).
I watched my grandmother as her brain slowly melted over 2 years due to Alzheimer's. At the end she could barely move on her own, shitting herself constantly, and had no idea what was going on around her. I hate that our healthcare system forced and pressured her into going through that.
If someone has Alzheimer's, they should be allowed to pick a day of clarity where they can do their favorite things one last time before going out by OD'ing themselves with heroine. It'd be far more peaceful and dignified than what they go through today.
Alzheimer's is a hell of a disease. I have worked with people who have Alzheimer's for decades now. I am always hoping they are going to be able to reverse or even stop the damage. They are closer than ever before, but the reality of all those people I had hope for have already passed.
There are no easy answers here. I knew an elder who always said if he got Alzheimer's he would take himself out. Guess what? He got Alzheimer's and forgot to.
Another lady I worked with was pretty far into her dementia. I was sitting with her in the morning and she was drinking coffee. Suddenly she made eye contact and said, "I am scared because my mind is going, things I used to remember are gone and I struggle to realize all the people I have lost." She lost focus after this and started staring off into space.
They are still in there, I know it. I will never forget this one elder I had been working with for awhile. Their son came to visit and we were all sitting there talking about their care. The elder forgot who their son was and said that I was their son and starting arguing with them. Seeing their actual family member realize their grandmother no longer recognized them sucked so bad.
Ättestupa
Not all cultures have considered it selfish or morally wrong. Some have assisted suicide these days and I think the trend for that is growing.
Sigh, once again Ättestupa is a myth.
Source: The very article you posted.
It's a really complicated issue once you take religion out of it, at what age is it ok? does someone have to be in poor health? are they leaving friends and family who love them? MAID when someone has a terminal illness is a mercy, but it's not for everyone.
However, when I think of my friend's death, she was healthy and only 45 when she left us. I'm an atheist who's read enough existentialism to respect her wishes, but I'm also sad for it. I don't believe her decision was selfish, she was obviously dealing with things she couldn't resolve , I just wish she could have found some sort of contentment in her life.
edit and to add to my thought here ... I also hope that it's what she wanted and she didn't instantly regret it, though I don't believe she had much time to do so. Ultimately we own our bodies outright and no one other than us has any right to say what we do with them, it's just tough when something is so irreversible.
That is actually pretty metal. No wonder why it’s a Swedish thing.
I always kind of wonder about Hunter S Thompson. If he had something that would be a burden. The world lost a great mind that day.
The good doctor was in poor health, but he left us his words and we can't let the bastards win.
Some of you are really lucky you've never seen a loved one die of a painful terminal illness. Counseling a family member that it's relatively normal to feel relieved in that kind of situation is actually a pretty common thing in hospice. Depression is a lot less plainly visible as both the symptoms and root cause are almost entirely internal or at least largely conceptual vs cancer cells you can conclusively test for or watch some one's eyes sinking back into their head and hair fall out in clumps while they puke everywhere. It's a lot harder to empathize with the depth of the suffering when you're unable to perceive it. When people are able to perceive and as a result more fully empathize with their loved one's prolonged suffering it's actually completely normal to be relieved when they're not in pain anymore.
“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it” -Frank Herbert
I don’t think suicide should be considered selfish regardless of age or physical ailment. We are all built differently. It is entirely possible someone could have a life I think is great but they find it absolutely hellish.
While I think there should be buffers in place like mandatory counseling to prevent rash actions and treatable psychological issues, the idea that anyone contemplating suicide is just mentally ill or “doesn’t understand how it will affect others” is incredibly niave even if it seems to be the common sentiment.
Would you tell a person to stay in an unhealthy relationship because it might make their partner(s) sad? No. Is it selfish to leave a job that destroys your mental health because your coworkers might miss you? No.
People’s lives belong to them. Not their friends or family or the government. Them alone.
Because people forget that the ultimate expression of body autonomy, of self determination, is the right to death.
That and grief making it hurt like ten hells when it happens to someone you love. Grief generates anger sometimes, and that anger gets directed at the deceased rather than the situation that made them want to exercise their right to death.
its a catholic thing which somehow perpetuated into all media, and society.
I don't think people say suicide itself is selfish, just the way you do it can be, like leaving others to clean up your mess
Or hurting other people in the process.
Or causing massive disruption by jumping off a bridge on to a road or railway
What you're describing is called senicide and is seen acros various cultures in history. It is a specific form of suicide where an elderly person sacrifices themselves to not be a burden on the clan. (Source: @[email protected])
Suicide is not sacrificial. It is often caused by mental illlness, like depression, or other forms of unbearable suffering in the eyes of the victim, like financial problems or drug abuse.
I know people are citing Christianity a ton which has huge part in it but the concept is way older.
The Hippocratic Oath already touches on the subject: "I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.[4] Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.".
The concept is way older and tons of medics still take that oath
It might be a burden off of them, but would being relieved of that burden outweigh the added burden of being without you? The reason suicide is selfish isn't because there aren't reasons you being gone might benefit someone, it's because you're making the assumption on their behalf that your absence would be better for them than your presence.
Your life is part of other people's lives, just like their lives are a part of yours. Any unilateral decision to suddenly end those relationships is selfish. Imagine if someone you loved just stopped talking to you out of the blue. Even if the relationship had been strained, they're still someone you love and now they're just... gone. It sucks, and knowing it was a conscious choice they made makes it suck even more.
That's not to say there aren't reasons to be selfish sometimes (though such reasons are few and far between in a situation as absolute as suicide), but being selfish for a good reason is still being selfish.
It might depend how many parasites vs how many symbiotic relationships you have. Parasites are quite easy to acquire and harder to shake off, and often have powerful institutions on their side like courts and police or gangs or economic power. Conversely it's quite easy to accidentally fuck up a symbiotic relationship. Or for a relationship to degenerate due to any wavering trust level.
If someone suddenly stopped talking to me because I was being a dick I’d at least hope i have enough self-awareness to put the blame on myself. People don’t have to put up with unreasonable levels of dick-ish behaviour. They should have a way out. The pity for the suicide ones is that they couldn't find a better way out.
I'm highly sceptical of those calling it selfish; were they really in a give and take relationship, or were they taking more than they gave - only they know that of course. Though I suspect people often lie to themselves about such things.
Conversely if some of the worlds major parasites suddenly committed suicide then I might call that a rare moment of selflessness.
There best way to understand suicide is as a form of intimate partner violence: suicide is a form of murder in which the relationship between the victim and their killer is that they are lifelong partners who share a body.
Imagine if you learned that your grandmother had been shot and killed in her bed by your grandfather, who left a note explaining that he had determined that this was in the best interest of everyone involved and then surrendered himself to the police.
The sense of shock and loss would be tremendous. The fact that the killer is someone close to you, who insisted that the killing was intended to be merciful doesn't alleviate the sense of betrayal. You would still be hit with the trauma of great, sudden, unexpected loss.
That's what suicide feels like to those who witness it. And it's so painful that it's widely recognized as an act of cruelty to those who knew the victim.