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.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
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