From: euclid@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Saint Joan of Arc)
Subject: Re: sdf.lonestar.org:/u/df/suicide_quux
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 20:48:53 GMT

dennis@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Thomas A. Dennis) writes:

>In <BvwzDF.G4q@news.cso.uiuc.edu> euclid@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Saint Joan of 
>Arc) writes:

>If this is another "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" 
>rationalization... The mother in your anecdote may not have been EE-vil, but 
>she sure was careless.
   Yes, she was.  And that's part of the point; overall i'm getting the   
impression people think people deliberately make others miserable...which makes
them (the 'oppressors') "EE-vil".  Some people are malicious, but not all.
Perhaps this is not germane to the point people are making.

>>  That (most) societies condemn suicide could be the result that those that
>>don't die out. 

>What--like Japan, for instance?
    Sigh.  Historically, suicide was committed as a matter of honor in Japan.
Samurai men committed seppuku (is the spelling correct, Underdog?) for sundry
reasons, some of which our culture considers outrageous (like killing yourself
*just because* your lord tells you to!!), but which fall under the rubric of
honor/loyalty.  It was also considered preferrable to kill yourself than to
be captured/tortured/executed by opposing forces. Samurai women also had a
ritually prescribed form of suicide (jigai) which even prescribes how one
is to tie the ankles together so that the body does not thrash about in an
unseemly manner when the woman is in her death throes.  HOWEVER, Japanese
religion is dominated by Buddhism and Shintoism.  I can't speak for the latter,
but the former warns that people who kill themselves shall reincarnate *at least
* seven times.  That's a real bummer when the idea is to escape this world
for good, not keep coming back and getting screwed over again.  Even in Japan
then, there are cultural elements which discourage suicide...if you don't have
a *culturally* accepted reason for doing so.  Perhaps our resident Nihon-phile
Gai-jin would like to elaborate on this and how matters stand in present day
Japan (my own knowledge is largely limited to historical matters).

>>No moral judgment here, only an application of meme theory.

>Please forgive my regrettable lack of an adequate liberal arts education, but 
>what the hell is "meme theory"?
   You read a tad testy,here.  Meme theory is a fringe-idea that is often
seen in magazines like "Omni", and not likely to be found in the curricula of
the humanities (or for that matter, an engineering class) any time soon. It 
treats ideas like they were discrete objects...sorta like viruses.  In the
interest of shortening this long post, i'll defer further explaination to
e-mail (if you care to hear it, write me).

>>It also hold for individuals; those with firmer desire to live than those that
>>don't and off themselves are the ones left over to reproduce.

>Which goes on to support one of my original points: society doesn't need to 
>"condemn" suicide if most individuals are dead-set against it in the first 
>place.
       Yes...but how did they come to be "dead-set" against it in the first
 place?  Social conditioning is a major influence on what people believe and
 how they behave. (e.g. when was the last time you had a guest for dinner...
 literally?)

 (yes, Kali, i used too many words)  

--
St. Joan of Arc ,euclid@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (preferred)
standard disclaimers apply
Hold fast to the center --Tao Te Ching