Suicide

 

A Brief History of Western Suicide Ideas

As a free enterprise suicide cleanup business owner (not a crony coroner company), I have an idea about suicide and our economy. From my experience, it does seem that suicide cleanup calls increase in poor economic times. Crime Scene cleanup calls continue at about 1 to 10, crime scene cleanup to suicide cleanup, that is.

Yesterday, (July 30), I received a suicide cleanup calls from Fontana and one from Winston, California. Of course, I've received zero from Orange County since 2005. Anyway, suicides calls from around these United States have gone up.

Homicide and unattended deaths remain about the. I can imagine that some of my unattended death calls were actually suicides that decomposed. So with this surge in suicides, I thought a brief history of Western suicide would be in order.

Everyone considers suicide sooner or later. Everyone since our beginning of time gives suicide a thought, at least, unless they're very young. Imagine our world today had Adam committed suicide instead of serving as our archetypal homicide victim. How would we view suicide? How would we view ourselves?

Until modern history began, after 15th century modernism began, "Self-murder," "self-destruction," "self-killer," "self-homicide," "self-assassin," "self-slaughter, " described suicide. We can see suicide as an abstract, latinate word. In Latin, su refers to self, and of course cide means the same as it does in homicide and insecticide.

As we would expect from early Greek history, silent grandeur and quiet nobility, moderation guided philosophic discussion of suicide. As with other weighty subjects, suicide found lively debate within boundaries of proportionately detached, balanced discussion. Wanton disrespect to gods exceeded Greek "balance and nothing to excess" principles.

In moderation, Plato would argue, a more rational justification for suicide arose as many find today. Inescapable pain from disease or intolerable oppression gave cause for suicide under reasonable conditions. Zeno's crowd, his Stoics, came to see suicide in more favorable terms then we care to think about today. For them, suicide because a most reasonable and desirable way to exit.

Image early Christian followers influenced by these same and similar ideas. Add Jesus Christ's willingness to die on a cross, and we can see early Christians finding peace before their time. Add baptism to this notion of joining God, and suicide becomes a great promise of freedom. Once baptized, some motivation for a quick exit arose to cash-in on a newly cleaned life-slate.

Before a reader casts doubting glances at these ideas, remember, just because pre-modern ideas gained popularity long ago, does not mean they vanished. An inquiring, disquieted young mind may find so peace in such ideas.

Besides many variations on so many suicidal thoughts and patterns of thinking, there's an internalization of suicidal justifications. Whether or not one should follow personalities to their grave, bravery, dignity, and style became concerns. In the later Roman Empire, suicide reached intoxicating heights:

"Foolish man, what do you bemoan, and what do you fear? Wherever you look there is an end of evils. o see that yawning precipice? It leads to liberty. You see that flood, that river, that well? Liberty houses within them. You see that stunted, parched, and sorry tree? From each branch liberty hangs. Your neck, your throat, your heart are all so many ways of escape from slavery . . . Do you enquire the road to freedom? You shall find it in every vein of your body?" Seneca

This neat rhetoric becomes a pace setter for ages. To die nobly topped-off a nobly lived life, all under a controlled, rationally derived plan. Freedom followed freedom to chose one's exit, and under rational conditions.

Early Christians found escape from life's woes by suicide. Before long church leaders, Aquinas, turned the tide by condemning suicide. Suicide soon became a crime, and suicide cleanup became crime scene cleanup. Suicide victims lost their right to a "proper" burial.

Many became display settings against suicide. Hung from trees at crossroads, dumped alongside crossroads, passing a crossroads soon became an education against suicide. Ironically, attempts at suicide by hanging became a criminal act. In consequence, perpetrators of attempted suicide were hung as worse than common criminals.

At an extreme opposite, we find suicide to escape slavery and irrational conditions. Deep in slave ship holds of colonial slave traders, black slaves died in crowded, sewage like conditions. Packed like canned sardines, taking one's life became a rational choice, if we can all it a choice.

Besides Greek quiet grandeur and silent nobility in suicide, African terror in slavery, love served as an explanation for suicide. Romeo and Juliet's star-crossed love as crazy love lead to suicide as may show roots to some suicides, but romantic "love" arrived late on our historical scene. Relationships generally revolved around economic needs. When love madness struck a 13th century note in Troubadours' free-love movement, love rarely came between two mates.

Strong passions arising from love gone wrong sometimes help to explain suicide, we believe. The truth points elsewhere. Suicide arising from love passions arises more by accident or mistakes in many cases.

Police, coroner, and medical examiners know who jumps from bridges to a watery death in serious and in a moment's silliness. A look at suicide victim's hands sometimes reveals scratch marks from pier pilings covered by barnacles. These victims had a change of mind, but too late. Really serious jumpers go straight down without hesitation.

I'm reminded of a young couple in San Francisco in the 1990s. They stood on a San Francisco bridge, hand-in-hand, as morning, rush-hour traffic sped by. A rope around each of their necks combined their minds as one suicidal focus. Their jump signified a fear of homelessness and economic distress, not a lover's quarrel. Motorist drove by this scene in awe.

Perhaps their lives were disastrous experiences after more disastrous experiences. No one will ever know. All that we can know is that they chose the one, unforgiving act they could equally succeed at. It seems to me, had they been in "love," each would have salvaged something from one another for both's survival.

So love had little to do with anything before "To be or not to be" became a concern for the "why" of suicide. In 19th century social science, Socrates' "Know thyself" as a philosophical notion became a scientific focus in our emerging sociology, psychology, and anthropological studies. Before long, suicidology entered our quest to understand human behavior by studying suicide. Philosophy's quest to "Know thyself" dwindled into analytical and linguistics pursuits.

Social science struck down love as a serious contender for a significant number of suicides. Now, hard numbers quantified in statistical models allowed for solid reasoning based on reproducible findings. Scientific method began to show religion, employment, and demographic variables as stuff for suicide studies. The "why" of suicide found hard facts rather than internal passions.

Although suicide remained a crime, our turn from religious persecution in the middle-ages to humanistic perspectives brought attempted suicide to a "cry for help" understanding rather than a criminal complaint outcome.

In crime scene cleanup, I find a high number of suicides by elderly, white men. Some live in cramped, dirty quarters showing little resources. Others live in middle-class homes, well kept by maid services, but a lonely life. Where we expect serenity in old age, we find suicide in notable numbers.

We cannot disprove that serenity exists in old age. We can prove specific conditions more likely lead to suicide than others. Economic distress, pain and disease in old age, and one's religious ideology may play big roles in suicide. We have numbers showing what's going on over more than a century.

From statistical models we deduce certain conditions influence more or less suicide. We know that a higher density of alcohol outlets engenders a higher number of violent crimes. We know unemployment in such areas exacerbates violent crimes.

We have similar facts showing relationships between parent-offspring relationships. Sadly, we know for a fact more orphans commit suicide than others. Alienation as an idea helps to explain these unfortunate acts by those abandoned alone early in life.

Some would look to weather patterns to explain suicide, but weather has no numerical basis for serious explanations. If this were true, we would expect similar suicide rates in Norway and Sweden. Actually, Sweden's suicide rate often doubles Norway's. Seasons do show fewer suicide in autumn in some countries. This conversation remains for later, though.

What does appear on our radar for finding variables in suicide comes from the Age of Reason itself. As industrialism crossed our globe, enriching some nations, impoverishing some, and ignoring others, suicide rates followed. Hungry, Sweden, England, France, and our own United States suffer a greater number of suicides than countries like Italy, Ireland, and Egypt.

I'll soon turn my attention, again, to murder suicide in crime scene cleanup