A Hard-Line Stance Against Victim Enabling

In the wake of two recent incidents, I need to say something that I probably can't say anywhere else without cutting my own throat, and even saying it here is probably dangerous to my future employment possibilities and such, but I still believe it needs to be said.  We live in a culture of trigger warnings, sensitivity training, and the abrogation of any degree of personal responsibility, and I'm sick and tired of it.  So I'm going to say this, just once, and have absolutely no sympathy for anyone it offends.

If a person commits suicide, the cause of that event is that person's choice, and absolutely nothing else.

Nobody can be "driven" to suicide, and I've had it with society's insistence that they can.  The human urge to survive at any cost is the most powerful force in the universe; it has leveled mountains, conquered the horizon of space, and driven the mightiest (other) predators in Nature to the brink of extinction.  Absolutely nothing can defeat that motivating impulse, other than its own malfunctioning.  If a person does NOT feel the determination to survive at any cost, no matter what happens, then that person is GOING to kill themselves eventually; they will find some excuse, regardless of what anyone says or does to them.  It is absolutely never anyone's fault (not even theirs, since they did not choose to be born with a terminal disease of the mind); no amount of handling that person with kid gloves, respecting their feelings, giving in to their childish demands for attention and coddling and anything else they think might keep their misery at bay, is ever going to stop them from finding some justification for the act that they've been planning their whole lives.

So once and for all, we need to stop trying to silence people who say "mean" and "hurtful" things, because if a person doesn't have a self-destruct system hardwired into their brain, no amount of bullying can possibly change that - and if they do, no amount of bullying-prevention can save them.  This doesn't mean that I'm in favor of actual bullying - it's pointless, disgraceful behavior and it definitely should stop - but what it does mean is that no-one should be mistaken for a bully, just because they fail to walk on eggshells around a mentally fragile person who's trying to get everyone else to act as an enabler for them.  There is a very significant difference between being actively cruel and simply behaving thoughtlessly; the latter is perfectly acceptible, because we don't owe one another anything more than basic interpersonal distance.  And I'm tired of seeing people villified simply because they're not gentle and cuddly enough, when all the sweetness and love in the world can't stop a Robin Williams or the like from doing what their inferior genes have programmed them to do.  We as a species need to face the facts, even when they're painful - life is a take-no-prisoners game, and we cannot afford to waste energy trying to save those who are determined to destroy themselves.  Until we can isolate the root cause of depression, and cure it like any other disease, we need to simply accept that some people are doomed, and it's not worth the effort of trying to protect them, not when it comes at the expense of everyone else who lacks such debilities.

Against the Cowardice of the Corporate World

The modern workaday world is preoccupied, above all other concerns, with the avoidance of conflict, particularly violent conflict.  And I can certainly understand where they're coming from on that; I don't want there to be a great deal of bloodshed and havoc in my day-to-day life either.  But look at the alternative that we have been offered...the hiring process is increasingly done through a series of double-blind third-party contacts, and information is withheld whenever it might be slightly dangerous to admit the plain truth.  As a result, there is no accountability for anything, and the economy spirals ever downward, leaving legions of people unemployed or underemployed, unable to even guess what they're doing wrong in job interviews because they never receive any feedback, as the hiring manager doesn't want to risk upsetting them and possibly causing them to lash out.  Anyone who is perceived as a potential risk is simply shunned, because everyone is terrified of setting them off; rather than take even the tiniest chance of them going postal, society has agreed to give them an extremely high probability of becoming homeless and slowly starving to death.  Would it really be THAT bad to let someone get angry instead, yell and curse and scream, maybe throw a few things or break some furniture?  Even if they wreak violence, even if they kill a few people or blow up a small building - are they not still doing FAR less damage than the system designed to prevent them?  How many buildings worth of people die on the city streets during each harsh winter?  How many people are bottling their rage up inside, then taking it out on anyone who's vulnerable?  Why can't the hiring managers of corporate America just "man up" and take a punch on the chin every once in a while, rather than hiding behind a system that slowly strangles half the population of the entire country?