Sam Vaknin is against voluntary death, why?

[paredler]

Sam Vaknin is a psychologist who wrote and makes videos about narcisissm and the human psychology in general. When talking about human socety and economy, Vaknin admits that poverty is the state of most people and people will be forever poor with no signs of improvement neither in the near future nor in the far future. Vaknin claims that our idea of upward mobility and our yearning for living better than our parents is some modern western belief that is influenced from our "self made man" culture and has no grounds in the real world.

Despite all that, Vaknin is against voluntary death. He claims that when you're dead you have no potential of growth, but when you're alive, you have some little potential. This is bullshit. Even if you do have potential by being alive, poverty will kill it and will leave you no choice but living in pain and suffering with no opportunity of improvement. Actually, social death is worse than physical death because social death is painful while physical death is, at least supposed to be, painless.

 

[Plato'sCaveDweller]

That's entirely illogical. When you're dead, you have no need for growth. That's some stupid bullshit for the living to be concerned about.

I think he's against it for the same reason as the majority of society - they're simply pro-life/anti-choice, and likely haven't fully and meaningfully considered the other side of the matter, or even examined their own side. This is evidenced by his cognitive dissonance. He knows poor folks overwhelmingly remain that way for the rest of their lives, and recognizes the bullshit "self made" sentiment held by society at large, yet his argument against voluntary death is contradicts this position. I think it's clear he hasn't thought about it enough to be logically consistent/homogeneous.

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

I'd have to read or here the context in which he expressed that for clarity. For starters he's a public figure and it would be unwise of him to go against the grain regarding suicide. He's already somewhat marginalized due to his subject matter, past imprisonment and being a self-confessed narcissist.

While he might be astute on the subject of personality disorders, the topic of suicide crosses bridges into ethics, morality, religion, economics, suffering at levels he's not personally familiar with and speculative areas regarding the nature of life and the afterlife. He's not an expert on all these side subjects. Aside from the practicalities on how to facilitate ctb, people can only give their educated opinion at best.

Since his are of expertise is cluster B personality disorders, he should be familiar with cases of suicide by both abusers and their victims. It happens on both ends for differing reasons. I would think because of that he would be somewhat neutral about it.

 

[KillingPain267]

He is inconsistent. He has said that psychology is not a real science and never can be, yet his channel is all about psychology where he uses standard psychology terms and diagnoses. I can't take him seriously.

 

[paredler]

I'd have to read or here the context in which he expressed that for clarity. For starters he's a public figure and it would be unwise of him to go against the grain regarding suicide. He's already somewhat marginalized due to his subject matter, past imprisonment and being a self-confessed narcissist.

While he might be astute on the subject of personality disorders, the topic of suicide crosses bridges into ethics, morality, religion, economics, suffering at levels he's not personally familiar with and speculative areas regarding the nature of life and the afterlife. He's not an expert on all these side subjects. Aside from the practicalities on how to facilitate ctb, people can only give their educated opinion at best.

Since his are of expertise is cluster B personality disorders, he should be familiar with cases of suicide by both abusers and their victims. It happens on both ends for differing reasons. I would think because of that he would be somewhat neutral about it.

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

Thanks for posting the vid. I've listened to it and will share my thoughts and observations.

In the intro he he makes a statement of intent that this video is targeting mainly young people contemplating suicide. He also said has a Phd in philosophy which I did not know about him. He goes on to make philosophical and existential argument to choose life in the face of almost any suffering.

I partially agree with his critique of consumerism and "sex positivity". Many young people express wanting to ctb over their perceived inability to meet artificial milestones set by a diseased culture. But let's face it, not fitting in socially is a pain in itself. There's a reason why groups use excommunication and ostracism to punish people, because it causes pain.

I don't think using the famous author Voltaire as an example to "pull through" life. I think Sam makes a debatably false equivalency between merely existing and living. In contrast, from a Jungian perspective a person needs to do things to become "actualized". Young people aren't going to relate to his example of an educated, well traveled, prolific and self-actualized writer that lived a complete life. Many people contemplating to ctb have been treated like nothing, feel like nothing and know they will be nothing in this world. There are people with trauma, physical or mental issues that make them unemployable leaving them at the mercy of hellish living arrangements.

His admonishment might help a neuro-typical that's going through a difficult spat in life but he doesn't even scratch the surface on the philosophy of whether there are some states of living that could be considered worse than death.

I appreciate his seeming sincerity but some people don't want a change in perspective, they want a way out. And these people are precisely those that have little or no voice in society. Many people that have or want to ctb have tried medications, therapy, hospitalizations, self-medication, change of environment and change of perspective already.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I don't understand why I should have to chase growth. I was born in this world against my consent and yet I'm expected to constantly chase growth from birth to (natural) death? Why? There's nothing in life that I want to do so I shouldn't have to stay alive if I don't want to be alive. I don't see any value in chasing growth and potential. I don't want to grow, I want to stay as lazy as possible and have an easy life. I don't desire challenges or hardship or growth