Why Think? > Why Think?

Words on Suicide by Friedrich Engels

(1/3) > >>

raul:
For suicide’ ‘formerly the enviable privilege of the upper classes, has become fashionable among the English workers, and numbers of the poor kill themselves to avoid the misery from which they see no other means of escape.

Taken from Author Marzio Barbigli

Nation of One:
This idea continually presents itself whenever the will is thrwarted.  I think I may reread Alverez's The Savage God.

In the meantime, I did find Farewell to the World: A History of Suicide by Marzio Barbagli at Library Genesis

Thanks Raul.

There is a review of Barbagli's book: Putting an End to It All: Understanding Suicide.  The essay explains how Barbagli's approach differs from Durkheim's.


--- Quote ---Farewell to the World begins by breaking down what Barbagli considers to be the flaws in Durkheim’s original theory of suicide. In brief, Durkheim held that all suicides fall into one of four categories: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. All four types of suicide, according to Durkheim, were ultimately caused by a lack of social regulation and integration. In other words, suicide came about as a result of pathology, a fatal mismatch between an individual and environment. When Durkheim conducted his study of suicide toward the end of the 19th century, he was responding to a very particular set of cultural concerns. Europe had recently seen a sharp rise in voluntary deaths, leading many observers to fear for the welfare of society as a whole. Durkheim had personal motives as well: he wanted to legitimize sociology as an academic discipline. “The first led him to view suicide as a symptom of the ills of society,” Barbagli writes, “the second to explain it using only (some) sociological categories and to ignore the contribution of other human sciences.”

Unsatisfied with Durkheim’s pathology-based theory, Barbagli argues that the broader culture that surrounds an individual has more of an effect on their decision to commit suicide than any other factor. It’s not those who are mismatched to their cultures who commit suicide; it’s those who fit right in. In particular, Barbagli argues, Durkheim’s theory does not explain why, “over the past forty years, thousands of people … have sacrificed themselves for a collective cause, to help their own people and to fight their enemies.” To prove this point, he takes on the enormous task of sifting through the entire recorded history of humanity in order to examine changing cultural attitudes to suicide. Claiming that “social integration and regulation are … neither the only nor the most important causes of changing suicide rates over time and space,” he all but eliminates anomic suicide and fatalistic suicide from Durkheim’s original schema and adds two new categories: aggressive suicide and suicide as a weapon.

As might be expected from the addition of these categories, Barbagli focuses heavily on the rise of the suicide bomber. He began his research on Farewell to the World in 2001, shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and the ensuing media attention to the culture of Islamic jihad has clearly influenced his research. It is in discussing suicide bombers that Barbagli is at his most thorough.
--- End quote ---

Nation of One:
I am rereading The Savage God for the first time since around 1996.   I am discovering where I may have gotten some of my ideas.  Schopenhauer would have loved this book.

The readers of this message board who are drawn to the antinatalistic spirit of our contributors might be interested in researching the Tasmanian aborigines (of Australia).

They felt tthat being hunted down like kangaroos (for sport) by the "white settlers" was intolerable, so they proudly committed suicide as a "race" by refusing to breed.   

Fucking awesome, no?

Note:  I am printing out the thoughtful message posted by Holden as I am not really in the mood to sit at the computer.   I am not so much restless as claustrophobic.  I wish to be outdoors drinking some cool water, feeling whatever breezes I might be blessed with.   My female squirrel friend can tell when I am depressed, and she seems to be in the mood to make me laugh by jumping around like a crazy idiot.   She makes me laugh.

I will definitely be staying in touch as I have suddenly rediscovered (through desperation) my love for good literature.

Holden:
I think, then,I would go a place, which is rather secluded.
A place with dancing squirrels ,but, not draconian sociopaths.



(Illustration by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam.)

Nation of One:

--- Quote ---For suicide’ ‘formerly the enviable privilege of the upper classes, has become fashionable among the English workers, and numbers of the poor kill themselves to avoid the misery from which they see no other means of escape.

Taken from Author Marzio Barbigli
--- End quote ---

I can see why ... I feel it, myself.

A look at Dirty Jersey:  Suicide rates for NJ’s Black teens point to treatment disparities

Suicide is already the second leading cause of death in New Jersey for young Black men and women ages 15 to 24, English said. And those rates are likely to increase after the pandemic ends.

In 2018, a national study said Black children between the ages of five and 12 were twice as likely to die by suicide than white children in the same age bracket. For Black children, racial inequities and intergenerational trauma are driving forces in suicide risk, according to New Jersey experts.

It is the need for approval that must be done away with.  It is important not to give a **** about "approval" ... So tired of being "judged" myself, and I am neither a youth nor a Black man. 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page