Aaron Swartz: Idealist, Innovator—And Now Victim
thedailymuse.com
thedailymuse.com
Suicide is a private whimper that is not made to be heard. Yes, his family's suffering should be the focus now - they are the ones in pain. That doesn't negate Aaron's circumstances. It's still well-worth reflecting on those circumstance. Yes he chose it, some of it (not necessarily the depressive tendencies), but he also felt compelled for moral reasons to take a path. That's less like choice and more like moral imperative. I agreed with his imperative and it's sad to me to think people with those values face disproportionate burdens. It's OK if you disagree with that imperative, but we don't have to throw people we disagree with to the wolves either. That's bitterness, not problem-solving.
Despite what the RCC and the like have drilled into western discussion for centuries, the depressed who consider or commit suicide are victims. Depression is a disease, not a sin, and this sort of stigmatization makes it all the more difficult to treat before it kills.
With no other disease would we term it "inconsiderate" for the afflicted to die.
(That is not to say that depression was the cause in this situation (though I strongly believe it was a contributing factor), but your "ultimate act of self-centeredness" bullshit is not discerning.)
I've had the Black Dog, as Churchill called depression, at my heels since I was a kid. Hereditary type thing, history of suicide in the family. 11 years ago I saw myself headed towards the edge of a cliff and made a phone call that saved and ultimately changed my life.
Having dealt with the type of depression that leads one to that edge, I also know that one of the side effects is extreme self-absorption. You feel so shitty and hopeless that all you can think about is how shitty and hopeless things are, which creates a downward spiral that can ultimately lead to someone deciding to take their own life. Everything becomes about you and your pain, and there is not a way to just "suck it up" and get out of the pit, because depression doesn't work like that. It takes help from without. I.e., counseling, medication, etc, but because the person is so down just reaching out for those things can be like trying to reverse gravity.
But I've also been on the other side of things, where a friend decided to kill himself, and I've seen how his decision emotionally eviscerated the people that loved him. Suicide truly is an incredibly self-centered act; the self-centeredness isn't a character flaw, it's an outgrowth of the disease. But that doesn't make it different from what it is, and it doesn't make the effects of that decision any less devastating to a person's loved ones.
I fully realize that the above two paragraphs are somewhat ambivalent and that's because I'm pretty ambivalent towards those who commit suicide. Part of me feels sorrow that they got to that point, the other part feels like they're selfish a-holes. And somehow each part makes up more than half.
With that in mind, making broad reaching statements "that suicide is always a selfish act" is just out-right incorrect. You are projecting your own feelings, based on your own experience. No one knows any suicide victim's state of mind, so how can we make statements about that state of mind?
I don't buy the idea that a suicide victim "forces" people to feel guilt. That implies we are not responsible for our own emotions and that we expect others to live for our own personal welfare. Believing someone else is obligated to make us happy, despite his own incredible pain, is truly selfish.
There could have been an outcome to this situation where Swartz lives, accounts for his actions, and progress is made towards reforming the laws.
Now instead of having a legitimate debate about the appropriateness of existing laws we are dealing with an endless amount of bleeding heart sentiment that does nothing to correct the perceived injustice.
The set of individuals posting on one thread may have little or no overlap with the individuals posting on another thread.
Note that this doesn't rely on the victim's age: regardless of whether a 26 year old can be blamed more for suicide than a 16 year old, that doesn't change the fact that we should give similar blame to the external factors in both cases. Indeed: most tormentors of teens are themselves teens, so they, if anything, deserve less blame than a sociopathic adult prosecutor hellbent on career advancement, damn the consequences.
Also: the implicit attack on Aaron's character is uncalled for. You know nothing at all about the quality of his character. You should keep in mind that many of us here did know him. If you feel the need to engage in "man up" rhetoric in some pointless display of how hard-nosed and pragmatic you are, you should keep in mind it's a reflection more on you, not the person-object you're leveraging to establish your own status.
I'd also say we are wrong to condemn young cyber-bullies. There are things in life that create adversity, then there are ways of dealing with adversity. I think conflating the two, makes it difficult to discuss.
That said, clearly the two are related, but it is correlative, not causative.
But just because something is uncertain doesn't mean you have to treat the worst case as equivalent to the typical or median case. We treat drunk driving much more leniently than vehicular manslaughter while drunk. That's the lens I view the government's role through.