On schadenfreude and suicide

I'll keep this short, mostly in part because I don't have a ton to say on the matter but I think it's important and should be said.

With the recent suicide of Tyler Clementi, the homosexual football player from Rutgers who was lead to the act because of bullying, I've been thinking about how society views suicide. Not only have I wanted to use schadenfreude in something, but I think it certainly applies in part to how the media portrays suicides. I mean, schadenfreude is German for a concept that means to delight in the pain of others. Now I'm certainly not saying anything like the media is delighting in the pain of Tyler and his family, but LGTQB groups as well as the media are jumping all over the over-arching themes behind the suicide such as LGTQB bullying. And yes, of course, this is important. We need to learn from tragedy and things like that, but it was really hard to find this kid's name in the news. I mean, they've completely forgotten about him. Most people have. They only remember now that bullying is bad. Again, a good thing to remember but I think it's kind of disrespectful to the victim. Now LGTQB groups will forever put his face on a collage full of people who have been victims to bullying and he's just going to be a statistic for their cause.

Again, it's important that people learn from the tragedy, but does anyone really think that this guy killed himself so people would use him in their campaign against bullying? I just think the whole system is kind of messed up. What should they do instead? I don't know. Talk about it. Tell people what happened. Just inform the public that he did this because of bullying. Don't parade it around.

Maybe there isn't so great of a point here (and thus merits another use of the word schadenfreude), but take it for what it's worth.

Again though, society feeds off this stuff. Stories based off pain and suffering are incredibly popular. There are entire genres of music dedicated to pain and suffering. As John Cusack puts it in High Fidelity:

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

So potent.

On the other hand though, I think the actual act of committing suicide is very interesting. In fact, the phrasing I just used is interesting: committing suicide. It makes it sound the crime goes way beyond the victim. The interesting thing about the "crime" of suicide (among all the others), is that the victim and the suspect are the same person. To commit murder involves at least 2 people. To say that someone committed suicide, at least in context, makes it seem like there are more victims than the person who did it. Now obviously everyone around them are affected and maybe my tone sounds like I disagree, but I don't. Suicide, in one respect, is the most selfish thing you could do. But it's also fascinating when you think about what it takes to do it.

I mean, people have a biologically driven desire to further their own lives. To end it by your own hand must take an extraordinary amount of desperation. I mean, if you can rule our intrinsic motivation by the idea that one is biologically pre-determined to preserve one's own life, then you must say that it takes at least 1000% more extrinsic motivation to get them to actually do it.

What makes life not worth living anymore? When the things that you're living for don't matter? Think about homeless people. They spend the latter part of their years in the streets begging for money. Most of us, having lost everything, would really think about just ending our lives. I mean, why don't they? You've got nothing left and you're reduced to begging. And to what end? To make another day of life possible? And then when you think of these college students who end their lives because of bad grades... it's just incredible. To be under such pressure of performance that when you have an inkling of failure, your life is suddenly less worth living than if you were homeless. Again, maybe suicide is incredibly selfish. And maybe it's stupid. Life could always be worse, right? Maybe.

This whole post feels really scatterbrained so if you are shaking with rage by now because I didn't make any sense, I sincerely apologize. I think it made more sense in my head.

Next time--something that makes sense.