It was a glorious death. Suicide. History Essay

It was a Glorious Death; Suicide
 It Was a Glorious Death; Suicide
Introduction
Suicide is the act of killing oneself. Suicide is a societal phenomenon cutting across all races, religions, and classes. According to data by World Health Organization, one person dies every 40 seconds through suicide globally (WHO, 2019). The American Psychology Association (APA) defines suicide is as the act of taking one’s own life, often as a result of mental illness or depression. The context around suicide has remained complex, with people having different perceptions depending on the situation in which suicide takes place, perceived reasons for the suicide, and the cultural and religious background of the ones involved. The paper seeks to understand why the idea of suicide exists and why different societies perceive it differently.
Historical Perspective of Suicide
The issue of suicide has received mixed reactions in different societies and periods in the history of human beings. Not only has it been condoned, but it has been condemned in equal measure (Britannica, 2020). Generally, the act of suicide is condemned by the dominant religions in the world, including Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Speaking against suicide, Pythagoras argued that the world has a finite number of souls from which when one is suddenly taken, it interferes with existing delicate balance (Stanford, 2005). On the other hand, Aristotle argued that suicide robbed the society of services of one of its members (Stanford, Suicide, 2004). Western philosophical discourse on suicide has been traced back to the time of Plato, a time when suicide received sporadic rather than systematic attention from the scholar (Stanford, Suicide, 2004). According to Cooper (1989, 10), neither ancient Latin or Greek had a single word that clearly defined suicide.
Plato discussed suicide in several of his works. In Phaedo, Plato seems to agree with Pythagoras in the sense that suicide is wrong because it involves releasing oneself a responsibility placed on us by the gods (Cope, 1875). In another work named Law, Plato explicitly stated that suicide is a disgrace, and perpetrators deserve to be buried in unmarked graves (Jowett, 1892). In his discussions, Plato identified several instances in which suicide would be permissible. First is when extreme unavoidable personal circumstances motivate the self-killing. Second is when an individual is guilty of participating in grossly unjust actions against other people. Further, Plato argued that it was okay for one to kill themself if their mind is irreversibly morally corrupt, and when done through judicial order (Stanford, Suicide, 2004). Despite their stance on suicide, the ancient philosophers were unable to provide a convincing argument to convince people towards a united position on suicide.
Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle are examples of philosophers who were concerned with the impact of suicide on the community. Philosophers, who supported suicide, cited the right of an individual to kill themselves to avoid personal circumstances (Laios, Tsoukalas, Kontaxaki, Karamanou, & Androutsos, 2014). The Stoics, for instance, considered death as a guarantee of individual freedom and an escape from difficult realities (Seidler, 1983). In Ancient Greece, for example, convicted criminals had the option of taking their own lives (Britannica, 2020). This tradition was adopted by the Roman Empire until towards the end when it was no longer economically viable. It made sense for criminals to work as slaves and increase the empire’s productivity rather than let them commit suicide (Garrison, 1991). The empire, however, cherished ‘patriotic suicide,’ an act of death as a sacrifice for the state ( Ruff, 1974). A major motivation factor for suicide in the ancient Jews community was the resistance against the Crusading Knights, who intended to enforce loyalty to the Catholic church (Shepkaru, 2012). To them, nothing was worse than being under the leadership of the Pope.Self-immolation and sacrificial suicides remain part of the history of the Buddhist monks and nuns (Britannica, 2020). In Buddhist’s context, suicide is not only considered in its form but origin as well. They judge whether a suicide case is immoral on a case by case basis based on the complex underlying (and causative) factors (Promta & Thomyangkoon, 2009). For a long time in Japan, the custom of seppuku among the samurai was a common practice and remains part of the Japanese culture (Joseph, 2015). Scholars have argued that the Japanese use of kamikaze suicide bombers was a trigger that resulted in the increased cases of suicide bombings in the 20th century (Msellemu, 2016). Until recently, the Brahmans of India valued and celebrated suttee, which involved voluntary suicide by Indian widows ( Sutherland, 1994).Since the Middle Ages, several laws have been passed and implemented to combat suicide. The Catholic Church’s Canon Laws are among the historical laws that had an impact on matters of suicide (Laschuk, 2019). Canon B 38 states that the minister has to carry out burial rites for those who die in the parish except for those who ‘of sound mind have laid violent hands on self (Wright, 2017). In essence, the Canon Laws consider a sin based on the Catholic Church’s doctrines. In recent years, criminal laws adopted by different countries across the world render suicide criminal but with some restrictions (Norton & Jescheck, 2020). Following the French Revolution of 1789, many Europeans states abolished penalties for attempting suicide. England was the last to follow suit in 1961.. Today, assisted suicide for terminally ill patients is legal in Netherlands and Colombia while in the United States, several states, including Oregon (1997), Washington (2008), and Montana (2009), have legalized euthanasia (Srivastava, 2014). 
Perceptions of Suicide
An interesting fact about suicide is that it evokes different emotions among people within and among communities. Common reasons for suicide can be classified into state, personal, religious, cultural, and judicial. Suicidologist Edwin Shneidman argued that suicide is an act of psychological pain resulting from thwarted psychological needs like shame, love, control, anger, and grief (Joseph, 2015). Just like in the ancient times of the Greek and Roman Empires, suicide in modern society continues to receive different perceptions depending on the motivational factors behind the act. It is from these perspectives that conversations on suicide tend to be emotional and, therefore, a tricky topic ( Keown, 2002).
Emile Durkheim’s theory on suicide is perhaps the most applied in modern society. In praising the book, Anderson & Taylor (2013) suggested that Durkheim was the first scholar to argue for causal factors of suicide being social and not found within individuals’ personalities (Obasola & Austin, 2014). Durkheim identified four forms of suicide that are a direct consequence of social factors (Kushner & Sterk, 2005). Further, Durkheim argued that the four types of suicide were hinged on moral regulation and social integration (Obasola & Austin, 2014). The four types of suicide are; egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Social integration refers to attachment and how people connect or interact with other individuals within the community. On the other hand, social regulation refers to the attachment of an individual to the norms of society. 
Egoistic Suicide
Egoism refers to a state where an individuals’ ties that attract them to other people in the society are weak (Obasola & Austin, 2014). It is an ethical theory that considers self-interest as a foundation of morality where everything is about an individual’s interests (Gantt & Burton, 2012). People in the egoistic state lack social integration due to their weak ties with society, and therefore, their suicide is considered to have little or no impact on the community. Egoistic suicide can be attributed to the feeling of a sense of personal failure to meet both personal and societal expectations (Gantt & Burton, 2012). Experimenting with unmarried men, Durkheim found that single males have high chances of suicidal thoughts/actions because they lacked the integrating societal norms that tend to bind married people to the fabric of the society (Shaver, 2002). 
In other words, the things that enhance an individual’s ties to the rest of the community include family, jobs, and other social bonds. A weakness in any of these bonds – loss of a job, for instance – may result in egoistic suicide. In research whose findings agree with Durkheim’s theory on selfish suicide, Barkley (1982) found that family integration influences rates of suicide. Barkley found that married people are more integrated into society compared to divorced or single ones. As mentioned earlier, one of the situations in which suicide is permissible, according to Plato, is when an individual is going through extreme unavoidable personal circumstances (Jowett, 1892). Therefore, the demise of Stephanie Adams and Adolf Hitler can be considered egoistic for several reasons. According to reports, Adams was in a bitter feud with her husband for the custody of their seven years old son (BBC, 2018). Hitler, on the other hand, committed suicide because he committed atrocities on humanity and lost the war in the end.
Stoics of today would have considered these two suicides as normal within their precincts. On the other hand, Plato and other Greek Philosophers would have seen the suicides as a cowardly act disturbing the delicate societal balance. Modern Christians consider such suicides a sinful act despite that the Catholic church removed suicide on the list of mortal sins (TAA, 2020). The implication of this is that with the Christian dominion, there is a mixed reaction towards suicide. Islam, on the other hand, would have interpreted these suicides as sinful acts detrimental to an individual’s spiritual journey (MPAC, n.d.).
Altruistic Suicide
Altruistic suicide results from deep integration into a group or community (Obasola & Austin, 2014). Often, the person is deeply involved to the extent that they are willing to kill or die for the course of the group or community. According to Crossman (2013), altruistic suicides are likely to be found in societies where individuals experience excessive regulation by social forces. Such social effects include, but not limited to, religious, cultural, and political affiliations. Abrutyn and Mueller (2015) further argued that too much integration and regulation hurts, resulting in altruistic suicides. Until recently, it was common in some Indian societies for widowed women to throw themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyre because they feared being dishonored (Stack, 2004).
The deployment of Japanese kamikaze suicide bombers set a precedence in the evolution of Durkheim’s altruistic suicide...