Public Suicide is Not a Selfless Act
Readers—I’m sorry to have to do it, but comments are turned off to prevent ugly conversations that inevitably arise when the subject is Israel or Gaza. Thank you for understanding.
Let me tell you a story about my babysitter when I was eight.
Theresa was a woman in her mid-60s who took in neighborhood latchkey kids after school. There were usually at least five of us at her house after school. Though she liked children, Theresa was extremely disturbed.
When we kids would get too raucous, too loud, or would accidentally step on her flowers, she would call us all in to the living room. She told us to sit on the floor in front of her while she sat on the couch.
Theresa would then start beating her inner thighs. Hard. There were always black and blue bruises on them. She would shout "Stop making me hurt myself! Why do you kids make me do this to myself?"
That is an expression of Borderline Personality Disorder, on the smaller end of the scale (yes, it was child abuse, and that's not small, but I'm doing relative comparisons).
Burning yourself alive on camera is also an expression of Borderline and/or related personality disorders. It doesn't matter what "cause" it's for. It is not really “for a cause.”
And yes, I'm referring to your favorite self-immolating monks, too. Yes, I mean they're deranged, not holy.
This behavior comes from severe psychopathology, and adults need to be able to recognize it for their own good, and for the good of people they care about. People who commit suicide do not became saints, secular or otherwise. They have not displayed an act of selfless devotion.
Do not mistake me. Those who are suicidal are indeed suffering; I’ve been there. I’ve known many who have been there. But they are not the only ones suffering. And they are not excused from moral judgment for the suffering they cause the rest of us they leave behind.
And those who do it dramatically, or publicly, or messily in a way that will forever scar their loved ones who find them, have committed an extreme and immoral assault against others.
Aaron Bushnell’s suicide was an act of blind narcissistic rage. It was a fuck you to the world, to his family, and to his friends. It was evil.
I once read an interview with Frances Cobain in which she summarily rejected the idea of her father’s suicide as something somehow related to his genius. She said people forgot what it meant to her: She didn’t get to have a father, and there was nothing cool or artistic or poetic or inspiring about it.
Your courage and moral clarity are a beacon in the night of the utterly deranged world we are living in. Thank you.