Suicide
What is suicide?
• Suicide represents the depth of despair and anguish felt by the victim, who sees no way out other than ending their life to escape unbearable suffering. Every life has intrinsic worth, and all humans share a fundamental connection in our ability to feel, hope, and dream. The death of anyone by suicide causes sorrow that ripples through society, touching even strangers.
• Each suicide signals the state's failure to secure the basic conditions for human dignity and livelihood, whether for farmers penniless in the face of calamity, students unable to see a future, widows marginalized, or girls subject to violence without recourse. When life's burdens outweigh coping means, the light of hope is quenched within - calling for compassion that arrives too late.
• While personal qualities matter, the ability to persevere depends greatly on an enabling environment. Where support and opportunity are lacking, hardship erodes courage and stoicism. Unmet expectations arising from values promoted yet denied in practice sap life of purpose and meaning for some.
• Inadequate access to mental healthcare and the stigma around seeking help allow distress to fester into despair. A crisis eased in time through ready aid or a willing ear may pass, but left without recourse the last escape from suffering untenable becomes death. Each untimely end is an indictment of apathetic witness to sorrows multiplied for want of wisdom and will to lift another's load.
The reason I'm posting this blog is to talk about the various aspects of suicide and to let my readers know what intellectuals have said about suicide also I personally feel that our generation needs to know about this issue in greater depth than they usually know...
• Do you think taking one’s own life is morally justified?
• Why are there high suicide rates among youths?
• Why do developed states in India also have high suicide rates?
• What steps can be taken to stop the youth from taking such extreme steps?
a) Do you think taking one’s own life is morally justified?
• Jeremy Bentham's hedonistic calculus: you may conclude that although suicide offers utility by ending personal suffering, the grief it causes others may outweigh its utility.
• Kant:- "He who contemplates suicide should ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself."
• The social contract, according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is such that every man has "a right to risk his own life to preserve it."
• Hobbes and Locke reject the right of individuals to take their own life. Hobbes claims in his Leviathan that natural law forbids every man "to do, that which is destructive of his life, or take away the means of preserving the same." Breaking this natural law is irrational and immoral. Hobbes also states that it is intuitively rational for men to want felicity and to fear death the most.
• Aristotle in his 'discussion of courage, maintains that committing suicide to avoid pain or other undesirable circumstances is a cowardly act. Aristotle concludes that self-killing does not treat oneself unjustly so long as it is done voluntarily because the harm done to oneself is consensual. He concludes that suicide is somehow wrong for the state or the community.
• Herodotus wrote: "When life is so burdensome, death has become for man a sought-after refuge"
• Stoicism: Marcus Aurelius—maintains that death by one's own hand is always an option and frequently more honorable than a life of protracted misery. The Stoics accepted that suicide was permissible for the wise person in circumstances that might prevent them from living a virtuous life.
• Confucianism holds that failure to follow certain values is worse than death; hence, suicide can be morally permissible, and even praiseworthy, if it is done for the sake of those values.
• David Hume:- suicide can be compared to retiring from society and becoming a total recluse, which is not normally considered to be immoral.
• Leonard Peikoff:- Suicide is justified when a man's life, owing to circumstances outside of a person's control, is no longer possible; an example might be a person with a painful terminal illness, or a prisoner in a concentration camp who sees no chance of escape.
• Bioethicist Jacob Appel has criticized "arbitrary" ethical systems that allow patients to refuse care when they are physically ill while denying the mentally ill the right to suicide.
b) Why are there high suicide rates among youths?
1. Social pressure and stigma: Youth face intense pressure to succeed and social stigma around failure or mental health issues.
2. Anxiety over uncertain future: Youth harbor anxiety over unknown future prospects in education and jobs, unable to see hope or alternatives.
3. Psychologically, youth are in a stage of identity development and shaping life goals, as Erikson's stages of psychosocial development outline. Failure to navigate this stage successfully due to lack of support can lead to role confusion, low self-esteem, and suicidal ideas. Providing guidance and encouragement helps youth discover their identity and purpose.
4. As Victor Frankl theorized based, having meaning or purpose in life is a basic psychological need. Youth in despair often lack a 'why' to continue living and need help finding purpose or passion for strengthening inner resolve, as Nietzsche also reflected.
5. Lack of emotional support: Youth need empathy and a patient ear more than ever in facing life's difficulties. As the Bhagavad Gita counseled, " Having a shoulder to cry on is humanity's greatest blessing." But this support is often lacking for youth in distress.
6. Breakdown of community bonds: Traditional community and family structures are eroding, leaving youth with fewer anchors or the ability to cope.
7. Mental healthcare crisis: India's mental healthcare system requires reform to serve vulnerable
youth, providing accessible support. According to WHO, "There is no health without mental health." Yet this duty to citizens in despair remains unfulfilled.
Why do developed states in India also have high suicide rates?
• Greater social comparison and competition: In affluent societies, people constantly compare themselves with others and compete to achieve material symbols of success like expensive goods, bigger houses, etc. This fuels anxiety, inadequacy, and distress when unable to attain these societal standards of status and worth.
• Individualism and social isolation: Prosperous societies tend to value individualism over community bonds. But weak social connections leave people without adequate support in times of difficulty or crisis, unable to cope due to stigma around seeking help.
• Hedonic treadmill: People quickly adapt to improved life circumstances in affluent societies and constantly seek more material gains to derive happiness. But this 'hedonic treadmill' leaves them stuck and unable to find meaning or purpose beyond consumption and acquisition.
• Existential angst: Some theorists argue that basic survival needs are being met, and wealthier individuals grapple more with existential challenges around life's meaning and purpose. Unable to find answers, this philosophical angst leads to despair and suicidal ideation - as reflected in higher rates of suicide among those with a college education. \
• Neoliberal ethics: The neoliberal ideology of developed societies promotes free markets, self-interest, and ruthless competition. But this also breeds inequality, selfishness, lack of empathy, compassion fatigue, and weariness toward the suffering of others
• Breakdown of traditional structures: Modernization in prosperous societies often disintegrates traditional social and family structures that provide stability, purpose, and care during difficulties. But material abundance alone does not replace the psychological, emotional, and existential needs once met through cultural institutions and relationships. • Mental healthcare gaps: While affluent states may provide advanced healthcare, the stigma around mental illness and lack of accessible psychological support structures lead to many silently suffering without relief or hope until breaking point.
What steps can be taken to stop the youth from taking such extreme steps?
• Inculcate the value of perseverance, tolerance, courage, empathy, compassion, kindness, and integrity in youth, along with ambition and aspiration, builds character and a sense of purpose beyond the self.
• Developing emotional intelligence in youth including self-awareness, managing distressing emotions, and showing empathy equip them with critical life skills.
• Provide youth opportunities to engage in creative or meaningful activities like arts, music, writing,
volunteering, sports, etc.
• Teach youth skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, mindfulness, resilience, and coping strategies to better navigate life's challenges and setbacks.
• Buddhism: Core ideas like impermanence, letting go of attachments, and compassion for all beings help accept difficulties and find peace. Meditation also strengthens the mind.
• Bhagavad Gita: This counsel on fulfilling one's purpose or duty without expectation of results, maintaining equanimity of mind, and realizing the eternal, indestructible nature of the soul - providing solace in times of crisis.
• Promote mental health awareness: Educate youth and families about mental health issues, warning signs of distress, and available support systems.
• Build social connections: Foster strong community and social bonds to provide youth with emotional support. Peer support groups, mentoring programs, and youth forums enable connection to others facing similar issues.
• Improve access to counseling: Provide accessible, affordable counseling and mental healthcare for youth.
• Limit social media use: Reduce time spent on social media platforms that fuel anxiety, inadequacy, and fear of missing out on youth.
• Provide suicide crisis support: Publicly promote and strengthen suicide prevention helplines and emergency support for those at risk.
