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Post by cato on Sept 9, 2018 17:52:54 GMT
I put this issue under the Culture section deliberately.
Today is International suicide prevention day , in case you forgot.I saw a little group playing happy music outside City hall in Dublin promoting this effort. It is terribly sad that we need such a day at all but here we are. I won't get into the plague of days for every possible cause imaginable here.
The thought occurred to me about the link between conservative traditional cultures and lower suicidal rates. I know the sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote about the link in his works but this greater risk of self destruction that is such a common feature of post modern existence is now treated as merely a sad thing that just happens every so often.
Is there a link between conservatism and resisting the urge to kill oneself when faced with great emotional burdens ? Conservatives have a generally pessimistic world view. How does this tie in with one's attitude to living the life we have been granted?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Sept 9, 2018 18:36:00 GMT
I put this issue under the Culture section deliberately. Today is International suicide prevention day , in case you forgot.I saw a little group playing happy music outside City hall in Dublin promoting this effort. It is terribly sad that we need such a day at all but here we are. I won't get into the plague of days for every possible cause imaginable here. The thought occurred to me about the link between conservative traditional cultures and lower suicidal rates. I know the sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote about the link in his works but this greater risk of self destruction that is such a common feature of post modern existence is now treated as merely a sad thing that just happens every so often. Is there a link between conservatism and resisting the urge to kill oneself when faced with great emotional burdens ? Conservatives have a generally pessimistic world view. How does this tie in with one's attitude to living the life we have been granted? Great topic. It's obviously a hugely sensitive subject. We hear a lot about the taboo of suicide today. I wonder was the taboo such a bad thing. When someone is extremely distressed and in emotional turmoil. it needs a very powerful deterrent to keep them back from the brink. The social stigma on suicide, it seems to me, was such a deterrent. In the modern world, young people (especially) are constantly being given the message that they are accidents of the cosmos, that life is grim and meaningless (according to most art), and that freedom should be absolute. Then, when it comes to suicide, we tell them it's never the answer and that everybody has value. It seems a mixed message. I wonder, too, if conservatives tend to see life as being as much a duty as a pleasure. Of course, it's hard to distinguish them, because when you are devoted to your duty it becomes your pleasure. All suicide is an unspeakable tragedy-- I'm careful of what I say here, knowing many people reading will have had personal experience of this horrible thing. |
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Post by cato on Sept 9, 2018 19:55:14 GMT
I agree with your comments on the traditional taboo which Durkheim claimed was the main reason catholics had a lower suicide rate than protestants. The Anglican Book of Common prayer as used in Ireland had a rubric forbidding the burial of suicides in consecrated ground so originally all churches presumably held to a common practice.
Still nowadays a funeral is for most people an occasion primarily for the bereaved so one has to be very mindful of their very raw emotions. Like most people I have friends and neighbours who have died by their own hand. It is a terrible terrible waste and our nihilistic society allied with a rather wimped out defeatist church doesn't appear to be offering any substantial help to those in the dark wood of despair.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Sept 9, 2018 20:10:41 GMT
The universal attitude to suicide right now seems to be that it's always a bad thing. I wonder how long that will last. I fear it will not be too long before we hear people saying it is simply a lifestyle choice. If euthanasia, why not suicide?
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Post by Séamus on Sept 10, 2018 6:01:58 GMT
I put this issue under the Culture section deliberately. Today is International suicide prevention day , in case you forgot.I saw a little group playing happy music outside City hall in Dublin promoting this effort. It is terribly sad that we need such a day at all but here we are. I won't get into the plague of days for every possible cause imaginable here. The thought occurred to me about the link between conservative traditional cultures and lower suicidal rates. I know the sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote about the link in his works but this greater risk of self destruction that is such a common feature of post modern existence is now treated as merely a sad thing that just happens every so often. Is there a link between conservatism and resisting the urge to kill oneself when faced with great emotional burdens ? Conservatives have a generally pessimistic world view. How does this tie in with one's attitude to living the life we have been granted? People understand things such as clinical depression a bit more these days, which lessens the despair factor. Also, probably,a lot of people have known a suicide, at least from the distance and realised that the person wasn't inherently evil, and perhaps a lot less evil than persons behind their actions, who will ironically die peaceful deaths. It's interesting that, even going back to the 1800s, we have one case of St John Vianney comforting a widow, telling her that husband made his peace with God between leaping from a bridge and drowning. One of Western Australia's most famous historical figures, certainly one of the main Irish-born figures was Charles 'CY' O'Connor,a Southern Irish protestant engineer. Disliked by many in power despite,or because of, his achievements and perhaps always clinically depressed, he rode his horse into the sea and shot himself in 1902. Legend always claimed that one of his defining achievements, pumping drinking water inland to the goldfields, showed signs of not working and that the water finally pumped through only the day after the suicide. Not true, say historians. I don't know wether, in Perth's small society of the time, being a proud Irishman (the jockeys who rode his racehorses always wore a shamrock) who wasn't catholic may have,contributed to his overall isolation? I hope it's not flippant to add that the fate of the horse is unknown, not even a dead horse was ever found. |
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Post by cato on Sept 10, 2018 14:06:31 GMT
There were two or three suicides in 19th century Maynooth Seminary . They are buried in the college cemetery but in a corner away from the main section of the graveyard. I was surprised to learn that the church in the bad old days could be quite enlightened and "compassionate".
Of course Ireland being Ireland a legend grew up involving a haunted room and a bloodstain on the floor of the room that would never wash out. I think you can still see the room which is now part of the Modern History department offices.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Sept 10, 2018 14:15:56 GMT
There were two or three suicides in 19th century Maynooth Seminary . They are buried in the college cemetery but in a corner away from the main section of the graveyard. I was surprised to learn that the church in the bad old days could be quite enlightened and "compassionate". Of course Ireland being Ireland a legend grew up involving a haunted room and a bloodstain on the floor of the room that would never wash out. I think you can still see the room which is now part of the Modern History department offices. I remember visiting Maynooth in my teens and being told about a college ghost. I was quite struck by the story. But I forget the details. |
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Post by cato on Sept 10, 2018 14:17:45 GMT
The universal attitude to suicide right now seems to be that it's always a bad thing. I wonder how long that will last. I only wish this was true. I sat in on a teachers meeting in the late 1990s in the aftermath of a teenage suicide and recall one teacher saying it was a "choice". Some people can be remarkably crass and insensitive. Funeral homilies often ignore the cause of death in a suicide case and place the deceased in heaven which sends out a very dangerous signal to a confused grieving teenage congregation. Too often there are copy cat suicides perhaps as a way of getting a form of celebrity in death. It is possible to point out the sheer destruction of suicide while entrusting the dead to Christ who descended into hell to save souls. Grieving people need clear direction too to continue living. |
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