Seneca

[monk222]

Before leaving Alvarez’s discussion on the acceptance and ease of suicide in ancient society, I will grab his quote from Seneca exhorting the same.

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Foolish man, what do you bemoan, and what do you fear? Wherever you look there is an end of evils. You see that yawning precipice? It leads to liberty. You see that flood, that river, that well? Liberty houses within them. You see that stunted, parched, and sorry tree? From each branch liberty hangs. Your neck, your throat, your heart are all so many ways of escape from slavery... Do you enquire the road to freedom? You shall find it in every vein of your body.

-- Seneca

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Closing the chapter, Alvarez reminds us that St. Augustine and Christendom succeeded in reversing these easygoing attitudes on suicide, going so far as to make it a mortal sin, with suicides even being called martyrs for Satan. He also notes that in modern times, these negative attitudes have themselves been walked back appreciably, though certainly not going back to the times of Libanius and Seneca. Suicide is now more of an amoral proposition and an intellectual curiosity.

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

My take on suicide is that anyone committing it is almost always under so much pressure of one sort or another that it is very difficult to make any kind of moral judgement about it. If it were possible to take it on its own, as an act of free will, then I would say it is wrong; I don't believe there is anyone on this earth who would not seriously hurt someone else by committing suicide. But I think I have only ever read of one case in my life where it appeared to be a true act of free will, and that was so bizarre that it has stuck in my head since. Normally, I believe the closest moral parallel to suicide is that of a person who commits a crime under duress. If you give the robbers the key to the safe of the bank where you work because they will kill you if you don't, it would be ridiculous to argue that you were as morally responsible for your actions as if you were in league with them and performed the act of your own free will.

The exceptional case which stuck in my mind happened in India, as so many strange things do. A young couple, from Mumbai I think, both IT consultants and earning good salaries, committed suicide by hanging themselves together in their flat. Before they did so, they carefully drew up a joint will and deposited a sum of money in a separate account to pay for their funeral expenses. They left a note saying that they were completely satisfied with life, and were committing suicide because of this.

That boggles my mind entirely. I don't know - maybe they thought things couldn't get any better for them, and if they continued to live things could only get worse? But in this case, and this case only, I can be quite definite about saying they did something morally wrong. There was no pressure on them at all (as, sadly, there is on so many less fortunate people in India; the number of poor farmers who commit suicide in that country because of insurmountable debt has reached epidemic proportions), and they will have inflicted pain on their relatives and friends which will take a long time to heal.

Postscript: my uncle, who was what was then called manic-depressive and is now called bipolar, committed suicide. I didn't, and still don't, blame him in the slightest, but I still miss him and I truly wish he could have been better helped.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

It could be that the Indian couple were putting on a brave face, perhaps in an effort to soften the blow to loved ones. If I may, how satisfied can one be in IT? ;)

My own thoughts and feelings on suicide are quite muddled and confused, even more so than is generally the case. Sometimes I wonder why most of us don't do it, but I also reason that life is short enough anyway, so that except for the worst of circumstances, why not ride out this heavy life and savor the little joys along the way?

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Each to their own. If I did nothing but code websites I would be pretty happy. :-)