Discussion Thoughts on the recent Dr. K ("life objectively not worth living") controversy?

[Socrates Respecter]

Apparently Dr. K has made a "controversial" statement on X recently

"Most of the suicidal men that I work with - their mind isn't malfunctioning - they genuinely have a life that is no longer worth living" -

I do not understand what is all the fuss about, to be honest. Seems like most people misinterpreted him and thought he was saying that such men have no value as human beings. While he was talking about the quality of life and the fact that life may not be worth living for the person who's living it.

I think it's very hypocritical of people to say that depression is always a chemical imbalance in the brain and/or never has to do anything with bad real life circumstances. On their view, life is always worth living no matter what which seems blatantly wrong to me. This is the objective standard they are using! And it follows from their position that people can be mistaken only when they say life is bad ("Why did he kill himself, he had such a good life ahead of him! Why couldn't he understand it?), and if one says that life is good, they then suddenly become infallible in their judgement (no matter how bad their life actually is!) !

It's like you can only be wrong in one direction! You can only be mistaken when you think that life is NOT worth living, but not the other way round! A blatant contradiction.

I also think that this toxic positivity devalues and dismisses the suffering many people go through. People like most of us here who believe in the right to die are basically hated by any society. I think that's what the self preservation evolutionary bias does to the collective consciousness. Any dissent from life-affirming orthodoxy is not going to be tolerated! Humanity is pathetic...

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I go back and forth between hating this guy and agreeing with him.

In this case though, he's absolutely right. There is no doubt that many of the patients he's referring to genuinely may have had utterly hopeless situations and the people pretending those men can be saved are no better than the typical prolifers we on Sasu regularly oppose. "Oh but I knew someone who fixed themselves". Great! Not everyone can do that though.

This is something that doesn't just apply to suicidal men but I always find it hilarious the cognitive dissonance some prolife people feel. If you try to vent to some people about suicidal problems it's common to get hit with "well you have to want to help yourself first before anyone can help you". And yet when there are people who legitimately cannot help themselves they ignore this and try to intervene in any way to save them even though that's not actually going to help them.

Basically, the people who are mad at Dr. K over this are only mad because he happens to be empathizing with lonely men and that's inherently bad. To them he also appears to be encouraging suicide even though I have no doubt that if he had any SS members as patients he would be no better than any other therapist at spouting typical anti-suicide garbage that wouldn't help at all. I know because I watch his videos all the time and often disagree with them. In one of his videos he expresses shock and disbelief that so many are considering suicide just because they can't find a partner, and yet at the same time he also claims that he gets it.

Anyway, sometimes his singular points are true like in this case but I guess the only controversy comes from his perceived encouraging of suicide which I know he doesn't have the balls to actually do.

 

[leloyon]

I'm rather surprised this thread didn't get a lot of attention, I was actually gonna post about this myself but alas, someone already posted about it. Might as well bump.

It is rather refreshing to see such a take being made by someone who is at least rather mainstream.
It would be nicer to see this applied to people who ARE mentally ill, though. I guess it's a start.
Some people who have "mental illnesses" are still beyond help. Someone can have a mental illness and still be in a situation where life is no longer worth living, whether that's because they'll never recover from their illness or if they're just trapped in a similar situation as these neurotypical men he's talking about, but they just also happen to have a diagnosable mental illness as well as this.

I find it very amusing how pro-lifers talk about empathy so much and yet they can never understand suicidal people. Their life must always be worth living, their problems must always be able to be overcome, you must always be able to get over it. I hate the concept of empathy, but that's probably best saved for another thread.

 

[Pluto]

It can be better to leave gender out of it. If we are serious about acknowledging the legitimate grievances of forgotten and unheard peoples, there's no reason to fixate on any particular demographic.

That said, shit life syndrome, wherein therapists must admit that they are powerless to help certain people, is a recognised phenomenon. However, it in turn tends to emphasise socioeconomic causation. I very much detected 'SLS' when speaking to mental health professionals about my own situation, and I've since given up on doing so.

 

[acephale]

Man, I really hate doctors, let people be free and stop putting your assumption on them.