Why did the view of suicide change?

[Laststop]

I've read that other cultures in times past didn't look on suicide so negatively? Geeks and Romans come to mind. Many years ago, that is. I guess Rome isn't around, and I don't know, but I would guess Greeks frown on it now? I suppose we have the Christians to thank?

 

[Mr2005]

There's some alterior motive behind everything and it's always self serving

 

[Stan]

Great question! All comes from religion. Back in ancient times there were no things such as police to keep civil order, just some form of military that didn't have a much of a middle ground between taking a bribe to ignore the crime and execution. So the religious leaders of many of the world faiths created a bunch of rules to assist 'civilisation' The ancient gods had bunches of human sacrifices attached to their religion so the concept of human death wasn't a big priority. But the Abrahamic religions, Hindus and Buddhists seem to come up with things such as murder, stealing etc and put it into their doctrine. I believe the Christians say you will go to hell or purgatory and the Hindus and Buddhists say you might be reincarnated as a herpes coldsore or equivalent. So they did it as a way to stop people doing it and using the celestial boogeyman to frighten people not to do it. The catholic church still wont do things like last rights and funerals for suicides as they believe that the soul isn't going to heaven and that they committed a cardinal sin. Some countries still have outdated laws today regarding what people can do in their own home with other consenting people because of religious biased laws

Another classic example, its off topic but relates to how religion effects society is with Hindu's and cows. A few thousand years ago, great food shortage. People killed cows, someone realised that there was a benefit to keeping the cows alive as they were a source of dairy products. So all of a sudden, some priest said it was the favourite animal of one of the gods so everyone stopped killing them and eating beef. Hold true today, still a revered animal.

 

[Lookingforabus]

I've read that other cultures in times past didn't look on suicide so negatively? Geeks and Romans come to mind. Many years ago, that is. I guess Rome isn't around, and I don't know, but I would guess Greeks frown on it now? I suppose we have the Christians to thank?

We have government and politics to thank... well, mostly. Also people in general being generally shit.

Once upon a time, there may or may not have been a Jewish guy in the Middle East named "Jesus", who may or may not have done some notable things, may or may not have had some relationship with a supernatural force that may or may not exist, referred to as Yaweh/God/Allah. He may or may not have inspired contemporary disciples who may or may not have spread his message and passed it down through the generations, but we know for sure that about a couple hundred years after Jesus may or may not have died, written records of his exploits began circulating. For various reasons, one of the Roman Empire's leaders converted to a particular version of the belief system based on Jesus' teachings and exploits (which again, may or may not have taken place), and deemed it the official religion of the Roman Empire. This created a bunch of problems, most importantly that Christianity was viewed as (and probably was) something of a death cult. Life being shit, and Christianity promising a fabulous afterlife, Christians tended to have serious death wishes and rush off to get themselves martyred in spreading their faith to people who didn't want it, or otherwise get killed and suiciding and so on to ditch shitty life for euphoric heaven. Because it was the official religion of the world's largest, most powerful empire (and was enforced by the government at penalty of death), Christianity spread and became a major religion.

A large number of powerful people back in the day essentially owned other people, made their wealth and owed their lifestyle (and even their very lives) to the labor and taxes extracted from lowly plebes and peasants and serfs... so having them rush off to die was a bit of a problem for political and religious leaders. If all the serfs did that, then the leaders would have to till fields and such, rather than just sending their thugs out to extract taxes. And, really, *any* piece of human property destroying itself weakened the leader who basically owned that self-destructed person, so a new rule was proclaimed that suicide was a mortal sin that kept people from getting to heaven... and also, anyone who committed suicide who have his property forfeited to the king, have his or her family made homeless and so on. This created a very anti-suicide tradition that lasted many centuries in areas with strong Christian influences, which eventually was most of the world thanks to European colonialism and empire building.

That's basically the history of how suicide came to be regarded as evil in most of the world, to this day. (Though, for the record, since the suicide ban does not come from the holy book of the Christians, there's always been a minority of Christians who believes differently, and these days, even the Catholic Church, which originated this idea so many centuries ago is changing it's views, albeit slowly.)

However, before we blame this on Christians or white people, we should look around the world a bit, at cultures that haven't had much (or any) contact with the Christian ethos, and while we find a larger variety of views on suicide, we also find a lot of societies that condemn suicide very strongly, including a large number that do the same things those older Christian kings and rulers did - seizing or destroying property of the person who suicides and shunning or exiling the family members. And, in these societies that have avoided Christian influence, there is a correlation between the level of the society's level of collectivism and how suicide is viewed - the highly collectivist/communal societies (where most things are "community property") tend to treat suicide very harshly, while the more individualistic societies tend to be more accepting, or at least less punitive about it.

Which all suggests that a society's stance on suicide has more to do with whether people are viewed as individuals, or as owned/part owned by the community or a ruler/leader. As I said at the top, because in general, people are generally shit, a lot of them feel entitled to have a say in the lives of others, if not some degree of ownership stake.

 

[Tom9999]

And, really, *any* piece of human property destroying itself weakened the leader who basically owned that self-destructed person...

Which all suggests that a society's stance on suicide has more to do with whether people are viewed as individuals, or as owned/part owned by the community or a ruler/leader.

I've always thought discouraging suicide had more to do with treating humans as a subjective resource to exploit and keep in line (i.e. alive and therefore accessible as a resource), than it ever had to do with viewing human life (or any sentient being) as a precious thing objectively and therefore intrinsically worthwhile simply on its own.

 

[Lookingforabus]

I've always thought discouraging suicide had more to do with treating humans as a subjective resource to exploit and keep in line (i.e. alive and therefore accessible as a resource), than it ever had to do with viewing human life (or any sentient being) as a precious thing objectively and therefore intrinsically worthwhile simply on its own.

Yup. And that point of view fits the evidence better than anything else. Things like the drug war and (part of the) abortion debate and police brutality and government regulation in general make no sense views through the bullshit propaganda of "every life is intrinsically valuable", but make a hell of a lot of sense if you think about it along the lines of "people are government resources to be exploited". (There's a politics component too, but it's hard to ignore the way that governments exploit their human property, use draconian punishments to discourage people from becoming unproductive, and basically destroy non productive human property like it's worthless.)

 

[Fragile]

suicide wasn't exactly ilegal in ancient times, but it was still looked down by the vast majority of people.

there were a lot of different views on the subject and it varies greatly depending on culture, of course abrahamic religions played a major role in painting suicide as something immoral and awful, but even before that there were plenty of people against it.

the only real thing that really changed is that now they can force feed you medicine, give you involuntary medical treatments if you fail and then keeping you alive as a cripple if they want, so in a way suicide only got harder to pull off. there are cases in ancient times of people killing themselves because they "fell on a sword" or drank poisons that at the time were 100% deadly, now you can get resuscitated multiple times, given antidotes and get almost any injury fixed if treated promptly.

also because of our culture and many other factors, there are way more suicides and suicide attempts than ever before so the conversation about suicide is also more present and relevant than ever before.

 

[Laststop]

Interesting views guys, thanks.

 

[woxihuanni]

and the Hindus and Buddhists say you might be reincarnated as a herpes coldsore or equivalent.

Ahah, very well put.

 

[calendulo]

Until now I did not knew that point of view about suicide had changed, I still thinking that is just kill yourself.
If someone gets tools to do it and he or she has will to do it too.
Guess suicide always was on that way.
When one self can not get over a pain or have huge pain. I do not see any relation with ancient times or Rome, Carthago or something like this.

 

[Laststop]

Until now I did not knew that point of view about suicide had changed, I still thinking that is just kill yourself.
If someone gets tools to do it and he or she has will to do it too.
Guess suicide always was on that way.
When one self can not get over a pain or have huge pain. I do not see any relation with ancient times or Rome, Carthago or something like this.

I find it interesting to read about you guys find important to you, and not, in regards to CTB.

 

[Thatdude]

I've read that other cultures in times past didn't look on suicide so negatively? Geeks and Romans come to mind. Many years ago, that is. I guess Rome isn't around, and I don't know, but I would guess Greeks frown on it now? I suppose we have the Christians to thank?

Doing some research. It's only frown on if you didn't have a good reason. If you did, then many times people around you would help. Still, family members and what not would try to stop you.

I don't think religion had much to play in the current role. I think it's political. If someone dies, then that someone can't pay taxes. Like the places that look down on it the most today have things like inherent tax.

Then to top it off you have psychologist backing up the notion that there is something wrong with the person mentally. They might throw out words like depression, but they don't aim to hit the root cause or acknowledge that an adult should have a choice. And anyone who knows anything about psychology will mention how often mental illness gets lump into each other and discarded. While at the same time they thought it was normal to cut off the reproductive organs from people they felt were undesirable, and without their permission. This happened around the 1950 and 1960 in the USA.

I believe it will take radical movement to make it somewhat ok in modern society. Like there is always going to be some push back, and this is a good thing since it should never be taken lightly. But I believe the only way to get this to be somewhat ok is to somehow tie it with "my body my choice", and to have political figures legalize assisted suicide even with restrictions.

If it was simply religious views stopping it, then that wouldn't explain the bulk of no religious people not for it and the few religious people like myself is for it. I believe it comes down to power and taxes.


Note I think it's harder today for the average person to accept it since death isn't in front of them ever. How many dead bodies do you think a modern person seen in real life outside of a funeral home? My guess would be 0. Back in the day it was a lot more in your face. If say your spouse died, you and/or your kids would be in charge of getting the body ready to put into the ground. Where today all of that is subcontracted out. The only time they have to see the body is when it's nicely wrapped up or when it's in the box. Because of things like this people literally say to upset parents where the kid off themselves. "You're giving in to what the dead wants. Death only want to take away from the living." note that they separated the 2 instead of viewing death as a natural thing.


Anyways, that's just my 2 cents.

 

[RightToExit]

Which all suggests that a society's stance on suicide has more to do with whether people are viewed as individuals, or as owned/part owned by the community or a ruler/leader. As I said at the top, because in general, people are generally shit, a lot of them feel entitled to have a say in the lives of others, if not some degree of ownership stake.

This explains why Maoist regimes like the Chinese Communist Party or the North Korean dictators ban suicide rights also (despite being atheist).