Can society take suicide seriously?
by Gerard Murphy
Recently
in Belgium twin brothers, aged 45, were put down by a doctor, at their
own request. Belgian law allows that kind of thing.
The brothers, both cobblers, were deaf from birth and had been told they had glaucoma which would eventually leave them blind.
They decided they were not going to wait for that to happen, that they would end it all as soon as possible.
Not wanting to botch the job, they hired a killer doctor to give each of them a lethal injection, saving them from the future distress of being both deaf and blind.
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus (died 1960) began an essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, with the statement: “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide.”
Camus was an atheist who had a keen sense of how absurd life is without God. He embraced that absurdity, but could not bring himself to accept suicide, and struggled to make a case against it.
I doubt if the Belgian brothers would have been impressed by his argument.
In Ireland today suicide has become a major cause for concern, especially the number of young men who resort to it.
The Government is trying to work out a response to the crisis, and hopefully it will do some good.
But for officials to treat suicide as merely a social or psychological issue is a seriously flawed approach, shaped by a false, secularist ideology.
Depression, whatever that is, and stress, whatever that is, do not explain why a person commits suicide.
Neither does bullying, nor failure to communicate, nor job loss, nor family breakdown, nor serious illness.
Any of these may be a factor in a particular suicide. But we have to ask what specific role it may have played, rather than simplistically taking it as “the reason”.
At root, as Camus saw, each suicide is a philosophical or, even more, a theological issue. It is about God.
That may make it more difficult for the various “experts” to handle, but society’s response cannot be restricted by the comfort zone or the professional abilities of experts.
We need to ask, for example, whether suicide is an act of despair or an act of hope. Or if suffering has any meaning.
But these are not really questions that fall within the expertise of medics, counsellors or psychiatrists, at least as they presently understand their roles.
Catholic theology has a profound understanding of suffering that can give a whole new vision of life to those in pain. But today’s experts are actually precluded, by the rules of their job, from offering that vision.
Again, suicide is generally seen as an act of despair when, in fact, it is motivated by hope – a desperate hope for happiness or, at least, for an end to unhappiness.
But our society has become afraid of discussing the real roots of authentic happiness because it knows it has no answers.
Better, then, to avoid the issue, pretend that everything is ok and let the most vulnerable go to the wall.
Once again the Catholic Church is the entity that has thought most deeply, over twenty centuries, about happiness and how to achieve it.
It even describes its mission as bringing “the Good News”, that is, the news that transforms society and gives complete happiness and fulfilment to those who accept it.
If we are to take suicide prevention seriously, the Church needs to get out and proclaim the Good News; and society needs to loosen up so that it can hear and welcome it.
The brothers, both cobblers, were deaf from birth and had been told they had glaucoma which would eventually leave them blind.
They decided they were not going to wait for that to happen, that they would end it all as soon as possible.
Not wanting to botch the job, they hired a killer doctor to give each of them a lethal injection, saving them from the future distress of being both deaf and blind.
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus (died 1960) began an essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, with the statement: “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide.”
Camus was an atheist who had a keen sense of how absurd life is without God. He embraced that absurdity, but could not bring himself to accept suicide, and struggled to make a case against it.
I doubt if the Belgian brothers would have been impressed by his argument.
In Ireland today suicide has become a major cause for concern, especially the number of young men who resort to it.
The Government is trying to work out a response to the crisis, and hopefully it will do some good.
But for officials to treat suicide as merely a social or psychological issue is a seriously flawed approach, shaped by a false, secularist ideology.
Depression, whatever that is, and stress, whatever that is, do not explain why a person commits suicide.
Neither does bullying, nor failure to communicate, nor job loss, nor family breakdown, nor serious illness.
Any of these may be a factor in a particular suicide. But we have to ask what specific role it may have played, rather than simplistically taking it as “the reason”.
At root, as Camus saw, each suicide is a philosophical or, even more, a theological issue. It is about God.
That may make it more difficult for the various “experts” to handle, but society’s response cannot be restricted by the comfort zone or the professional abilities of experts.
We need to ask, for example, whether suicide is an act of despair or an act of hope. Or if suffering has any meaning.
But these are not really questions that fall within the expertise of medics, counsellors or psychiatrists, at least as they presently understand their roles.
Catholic theology has a profound understanding of suffering that can give a whole new vision of life to those in pain. But today’s experts are actually precluded, by the rules of their job, from offering that vision.
Again, suicide is generally seen as an act of despair when, in fact, it is motivated by hope – a desperate hope for happiness or, at least, for an end to unhappiness.
But our society has become afraid of discussing the real roots of authentic happiness because it knows it has no answers.
Better, then, to avoid the issue, pretend that everything is ok and let the most vulnerable go to the wall.
Once again the Catholic Church is the entity that has thought most deeply, over twenty centuries, about happiness and how to achieve it.
It even describes its mission as bringing “the Good News”, that is, the news that transforms society and gives complete happiness and fulfilment to those who accept it.
If we are to take suicide prevention seriously, the Church needs to get out and proclaim the Good News; and society needs to loosen up so that it can hear and welcome it.
ALIVE!