A news article starts thus:
On a cold night in a quiet town, 71-year-old Jeff Knaebel crept into the ruins of an ancient Buddhist meditation center in northern India, doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself alight to protest what he called cruelty in the United States and India.
Continue here to read the wonderful story of Jeff Knaebel.
*****
The fact that he killed himself might leave some of you with a bad taste. In this particular case, suicide had the opposite effect on me: I respect him for it.
In life, we admire and respect those who take control of each aspect and decision. Yet in death, taking control seems wrong. The cause might be largely social. Here are some of the reasons why you might disagree with a person committing suicide:
1. Religious grounds: That one might not go to heaven if one kills oneself. I reject religious grounds.
2. The fact that life is special. It isn’t. Life is special to us because we are alive. It is self-selection not unlike religious people who believe their religion is superior.
3. The favourite of optimists: Life is beautiful. Perhaps for you, certainly for me, but it is not true for a large number of people and surely not for the person killing himself.
4. Collateral damage: Dependents. We need to classify dependents into two categories:
a) Dependents who are not in a position to even feed themselves: This is a fair enough reason, but not applicable to most suicides. Even when it is applicable, I am hesitant to judge but I grant that your opinion might be valid.
b) All other kinds of dependents: Suicide inflicts a tremendous amount of pain on children/parents/spouses/etc. It is, however, probably of the same order of pain as breaking up with someone, seeking divorce from a spouse because you don’t love him/her anymore and marrying against the wishes of your parents. If we don’t judge these other scenarios because they are personal decisions, then why suicide.
Let me know if I missed out on any reason or if you have an entirely different perspective on the issue. I’m sincerely curious and hope to hear counter-arguments from many of you.
*****
P.S.: I’m not arguing why you should kill yourself. I’m arguing why someone committing suicide deserves respect — or at the very least no judgment from us — (except 4a) for that decision just like we would respect any other decision of theirs.
11 comments
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January 31, 2011 at 2:24 am
Amna Kausar
I absolutely disagree with your arguments. Number 2 and 3 altogether account for invalid reasons. If such is the case, one needs to see a psychologist or a counselor! There is no way he/she is justified to take their life because ‘optimism has died and life is ugly’! Number 4 can be justified under very specific circumstances. That could actually lead to mercy-killing or so. But it’s highly likely that such a thing is allowed based on number 4, because misuse will follow. Suicide is not justified and in NO WAY respectful and inspirational. It’s cowardly!
January 31, 2011 at 5:05 am
Deepak Iyer
I respect your opinion, but you still haven’t answered the why (except perhaps that it is cowardly).
January 31, 2011 at 4:22 am
Roshni
Does respect imply admiration? And if so, are you “approving” suicide?
How about a man who commits suicide due to “shame” caused by his son/daughter that he’s unable to face the world… Does he also deserve respect? Or condolences?
January 31, 2011 at 5:08 am
Deepak Iyer
Respect doesn’t necessarily imply admiration (the fact that I respect an opinion doesn’t necessarily mean I admire it; I just acknowledge it). To answer your second question, yes.
In this example, it is his decision. So firstly, I have no say in whether it is right or wrong. To repeat, it just deserves as much respect (or acknowledgement, if you may) as any other decision that a person takes in his/her life.
Condolences are reserved for survivors not deceased, no?
January 31, 2011 at 9:34 am
Roshni
Ah…THAT kind of respect. In that case, it’s just like sitting on the bench isnt it..since you’re neither justifying nor denying it as compared to the vast majority who go no no no to the whole suicide subject. So what you’re essentially saying is to let them be…or not be in this case o—0 ..Um…do ethics/morals also come under religious grounds in your books?
January 31, 2011 at 9:36 am
Deepak Iyer
Perfect, that’s what I’m saying. It’s someone decision, and they had every right to control their death. The reasons might not seem valid to you or I, but we can never be in the exact same situation. Even from an exact same situation, if someone chose death and one of us chose life, that’s just because we are each different.
Ethics/morals — depending on the reason you give me why you’re following them, they might come under religious grounds [:)]
January 31, 2011 at 7:30 am
kiran
I think one of the big reasons suicide is a sensitive issue is because of the potential to use it as a threat. The particular example you have quoted does not belong to the category. However, it is not far fetched to say that twisted political groups have used the shock factor from these kinds of news, to drive political agendas. You have to admit, that the suicide definitely drove attention to what is being reported as the reason – “cruelty in United States and India” and there lies the problem with suicide. We, as social beings, value life too much and can not ignore when someone commits suicide highlighting an issue (social, political or personal).
I dislike suicides just because I fear it will lead to eventual rise of apathy, much more than it is prevalent now.
January 31, 2011 at 9:34 am
Deepak Iyer
But I wasn’t talking about the reasons at all, only the consequences. [The reasons may or may not be fair enough to you, but it certainly was to the person committing suicide. Yes, it can be an attention seeking tactic, but attention-seeking is why we post cryptic status messages on Facebook too
]
Also, most of those who threaten don’t usually have the guts to follow through.
As for apathy, what is the exact problem with that happening? The way I see it, apathy will lead to only those committing suicides who think that life isn’t worth living. And it’s their life; they have a right to decide it.
Also, apathy might cause fewer attention-seeking suicides.
It is kinda unfair because birth is not in our control, and there seems to be a consensus that death shouldn’t be in our control either. It’s like everyone who is born is condemned to life their lives, however miserable.
February 1, 2011 at 7:48 am
Binny Francis
I agree about ‘respect’ for an individual’s choice. This is by the way, the basic principle followed by helplines such as Samaritans, Befrienders International, Connecting Pune etc.
It my appear ironic to armchair experts on the subject of suicide that organizations who actually put in time, money & effort to prevent suicides go by the axiom that every individual has the right to decide for themselves about whether to live or die. But then its only when s/he has the right to choose, can a person make a ‘choice’ to live too. What say?
February 1, 2011 at 7:56 am
Deepak Iyer
I didn’t know about this. It does make a lot of sense. The last thing someone contemplating suicide wants to hear is that it is ‘wrong’.
February 2, 2011 at 1:42 am
Deepak Iyer
For some reason, your comment went into Spam, and I deleted it in error. Please repost it.