On suicide

Ric Maulion .

THE world stopped revolving lately with the untimely deaths of two icons – Kate Spade, a 55-year old celebrity fashion designer, and Anthony Bourdain, a 61-year old celebrity chef and storyteller. The less publicized Ines Zorroguieta, 13 years junior of Maxima, Queen of The Netherlands, suffered similar fate in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Suicide could be traced back during the time of Socrates and yes, Jesus Christ or even much earlier. While they did not take their lives, they could have easily prevented their untimely death. But they didn’t. Socrates was charged with impiety towards the Pantheon of Athens and moral corruption of the youth; Christ was charged with blasphemy and was sentenced to crucifixion via mob rule.

Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were suicide cases. Their charred bodies were discovered in a bunker. This happened on April 7, 1944 during World War II when Russia’s men advanced and was about to deliver an impending defeat on  Germany. Irving Wallace’s “The Seventh Bunker” fiction provides a graphic story of that riveting discovery account. It would simply make your day. Dentures of the couple recovered were clear and convincing evidence that the two burned themselves to death.

Suicide is  a growing problem in the US. The Center for Disease and Control and Prevention revealed that there was a 25-percent increase in suicide cases across the county over nearly two decades until 2016. This translates to one suicide in every 14 minutes!

Is it moral, immoral or neither? These are the questions that didn’t escape  the great philosophers of the past. It’s wrong for Socrates and Aristotle. Plato agreed, too, but with exceptions: individual mind morally corrupted, done out of judicial order, compelled by extreme unavoidable misfortunes  resulting  from immoral action.

Middle Age Christian philosophers further leveled up its irrelevance and therefore considered suicide almost  as a non-issue.

One hand one, it’s an extension of 5th Commandment, St. Augustine cleared, who said it’s contrary to self, injures the community, and rejects God’s gift of life.

David Hume, on the other hand, sees its importance in his Essay on Suicide. It is allowed in some cases like fighting diseases. We also have an inherent power in us to employ some innovations while still in life’s journey. But it’s a rational thing to do if one feels he is a burden to a society.

Libertarians, skeptics and free-thinkers are also amenable. Individuals have rights to suicide and that state response and medical intervention are coercion. Similar arguments are held by social utilitarian perspectives. Suicide is valuable in terms of consequence. Here, the interplay between individual and society plays important role. If society fails its rules nurturing him, then the only way out could be suicide. The act of a soldier jumping on a grenade to save comrades is a heroic act; therefore, suicide is acceptable.

What is your duty towards those who take their lives? This is where paternalism comes as a necessary lift. Medication, physical restraint and institutionalization should be availed and developed.

Whatever reason they have for their courageous act no one knows and we can’t fathom the hurt they feel inside. Suicide could be liberating act from that perspective.