Back to Elder, suicide, being and human nature

Back to Elder: http://www.arte-fact.org/untpltcl/sclpwrgv.html#7.

This author is not easy to read and I don’t think I agree with him but he’s nevertheless important because he is looking at the question from a place that desperately needs addressing. I’ll try to make comments as I go along.

7. Sharing the truth of being powerlessly in interplay

Is the powerlessness of rhetoric as a technique for bringing the other around through talking, a powerlessness arising in the face of the ontological otherness of the other with whom there must be interchange and some sort of process of recognition — as sketched above in Section 2 and in more depth elsewhere  —, itself related in essence to the powerlessness of being itself? That is to say, is it not the case that the other human being as an other individual site of the openness to being is beyond the reach of technically conceived productive power and machination? Does the merging of the openness of being as shared individually by each and every human being require an essentially different approach to the question of specifically social and political power? Does the question concerning the possibility of constituting a We at all (cf. Chapter 11 of my Social Ontology) have to be posed anew from a perspective that has clearly taken leave of the traditional, one-sided, mono-archic metaphysical conception of power? Within such a conception of power, a social power such as rhetoric is regarded as a technique that (mis)understands its powerlessness over the other as merely an impotence that could be overcome through improvements in technique, and not as an ontological powerlessness.

As Heidegger points out, powerlessness has to be distinguished from impotence. Powerlessness is situated outside the dimension of power altogether, whereas impotence is a lack, a deficiency of power. "Power-lessness is not im-potence that, lacking power and having to do without it, still remains related precisely to power." (Das Macht-lose ist nicht das Ohn-mächtige, das immer noch und gerade auf Macht — sie entbehrend und sie missend — bezogen bleibt. Besinnung GA66:188) Even when an other human being is coerced through (the threat of) the use of physical force to obey a command, such subjugation under duress does not impinge upon the other's freedom, which, as we have seen, remains in essence untouched by such subjugation. Such subjugation through the use of physical force or its threatened use is based on force directed physically, i.e. ontically, against the other's body or property or the bodies of persons close and dear to the other. The other's body or the other's property can be physically restrained or confiscated or injured and damaged, or even destroyed by a superior force, but the other as another human being is situated ontologically in a nothingness altogether outside the realm of exercise of such violent power which is thus altogether powerless, and not merely impotent, in this respect. Why is this? Because the other as another human being is an individual site of the clearing for being. In other words, the other in his or her otherness is essentially, inherently ontological, that is, free in how the world shapes up in their understanding.

The individuality of this site means inter alia, as we have seen in the previous section, that the world opens in its truth individually on this site of the other. How the other holds the world to be in the openness of the clearing for being's truth is essentially individual and therefore untouchable by means of violent force. Holding the world to be within the open clearing for being's disclosure and concealment is constitutive of human freedom, which is always essentially and ultimately individual freedom, even when practical consensus has been attained through some kind of deliberation, or certain truths, as we shall see below, are necessarily shared, 'common property' in any given epoch. The truth of being is situated outside the reach and scope of any possible one-sided exercise of political or other social power, which is directed at another being, but not another being in its being. That is why the means of rhetorical power are primarily words, and these means come up against and are faced with the essential limit of the other's very being in its freedom, i.e. of the other human being's essential individuated situatedness within the openness of being in its truth and its corresponding practical self-movement within this openness emanating from it as a point of origin. All the means and techniques of rhetorical persuasion, no matter whether they reside in the arguments presented to enter and sway the heart and soul of the audience, or in the reputation and charisma of who is speaking and how the speaker projects his character and who-standing to the audience, or in the way in which the arguments are delivered through the tone, inflection and drama of the voice, have to win the confidence and trust of the audience and somehow mesh with its worldview to have their effect. Such winning of confidence and trust is thus always essentially a free reciprocation that depends on the willingness of the audience to go along with the speaker in an implicit exchange of views on how the issue at hand is to be seen.

Elena:

In relation to cults and politics, the above paragraph is faulty basically because we live in a time in which the status quo does not need leaders to maintain itself. People are brainwashed enough to accept the status quo without inspiration and control its reproduction without conscience. A little “comfort” goes far. The questions that the issues raised here should pose are, what is it in us that longs to experience the free reciprocation and trust and go along with each other but the human within our selves? The human essence? Why should we go about the world distrusting everyone and everything? Should children be born distrusting their parents and everything in society? Is that what we wish to impose on the new generations or is that what has been manipulated by some on new generations to justify the status quos deployment of power? 

THAT IS NOT HUMAN NATURE and the nature of distrust and the foundation of evil as the only reality on which we should base our lives is the justification for the mandatory authoritarianism of power.

Human beings are not evil by nature. Human beings are by nature, loving and lovable.

Crime today, most forms of crime against one’s self or others are coherent answers to a world that in itself is dehumanizing individuals not because it is evil but because it is part of a process. People do not turn criminal overnight and the study of crime would show clearly how the criminals involved were themselves brought up in criminally suffocating environments. That is precisely why it is so important to understand the phenomenon of random suicide and homicide in public places without a political or social agenda, because in these phenomenon we are seeing a social response to the status quo, a “lunatic” response of a mass of vulnerable people who are the first to sacrifice their self in the impotence to deal with it: a mass of victims. If we do not stop this tendency before it acquires real force, it will be much more difficult to stop it later. Self-destruction is a much more powerful destructive force than any other destructive means. Self-destruction in suicides has moved beyond the recognition of itself or the other. That is what we are seeing in cults as organized institutions for self-destruction and what we are seeing in the random deaths. It is a state beyond connectedness, a limbo in which only the experience of pain is a reality that needs to be stopped no matter how. 

Social and political theory can no longer avoid the reality of individual’s psychology to understand the human realm. The different social sciences are One: the human being. All the sciences are One: the human being. Without the human being the sciences are not sciences but instruments at the service of a status quo that is not taking the human being into consideration. Without US, what ever it is that is taking place, will run US over.  

Suicide and the law

226. Elena - November 12, 2009 [Edit]

http://www.realitysandwich.com/are_we_possessed

Jung comments, “…an unknown ‘something’ has taken possession of a smaller or greater portion of the psyche and asserts its hateful and harmful existence undeterred by all our insight, reason, and energy, thereby proclaiming the power of the unconscious over the conscious mind, the sovereign power of possession.” When we are possessed we are not free, we are not masters in our own house. When we are possessed by the unconscious, we become dissociated from ourselves such that, as Jung writes, there is “a tearing loose of part of one’s nature; it is the disappearance and emancipation of a complex, which thereupon becomes a tyrannical usurper of consciousness, oppressing the whole man. It throws him off course and drives him to actions whose blind one-sidedness inevitably leads to self-destruction.”

Aren’t we also talking about cults here?

How about the tendency in the “high” countries of the first world to suicide?

It’s worth wondering why the higher the standard of living, the higher the number of suicides in the western world.

The Canadian teen suicide statistics are alarming. Between 1952 and 1992 the national suicide rate increased by 78%. but by comparison the teen suicide rate for the same period increased more than 600%. If any disease or bacteria was causing such an alarming rise in the number of deaths it would surely be considered an epidemic.

Females account for 75% of attempted suicides, usually by drug overdose. But males are actually six times more likely to be successful and choose more violent methods such as shooting or hanging. About one-third of teen suicides are done by young people who have attempted it before.

Suicide rates are five to seven times higher for First Nations teens than other young people in Canada. The suicide rates amongst the Inuit youth are some of the highest anywhere in the world. They are 11 times higher than the Canadian national average.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Teen-Suicide-Statistics—An-Epidemic-of-Self-Inflicted-Death-Among-Canadian-Youth&id=2046241

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227. Elena - November 12, 2009 [Edit]

Nigel and Dragon,

I realize no one has the time to read the amount of posts that I post for I am in many ways collecting data on the subjects that interest me and that I find directly or indirectly connected to Cults.

That’s O.K.: no need to read

They are all related pieces of information and the more I look at it the clearer it is that I am learning quite a bit about suicide and suicide patterns.

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228. Elena - November 12, 2009 [Edit]

The following article interests me because it touches on the subject in similar ways that I’ve touched on it. The case of this young man in ITT is very similar to my case and a million others in other places but the author points out the tendency of people to reject others on a massive scale so that they feel superior. She calls it a human need to which I don’t agree, radically don’t agree but it is important that she perceives the problem: the tendency people have to reject others so that we can boost our selves up. In terms of the System which I continue to find a perfectly valid structure, people lower other’s image to raise their own imaginary picture. What is interesting about these stories is that we’re verifying how they happen on a massive scale in our societies today.

http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/01/02/a-basic-human-need-is-to-reject-others/comment-page-1/#comment-123709

The last few days the newspapers have been full of the suicide of young Srikant Mallepallu. Not just young, but studying in India’s most prestigious educational institution – IIT.

All sorts of reasons are being given for the suicide – ranging from Srikant’s inability to cope with the workload at IIT and inability to be accepted by his class-mates to his Internet addiction.
That struck me. Internet addiction. X-Men, Manga, anime, blogs and chatting was Srikant’s life. He was on the computer until the wee hours of the morning. These activities of his were blamed for his poor grades…but anyone who escapes into the internet world does it only for one reason: to fulfill a human being’s very basic need – a sense of belonging. What I am saying is nothing new…Abraham Maslow said it years ago. The need to belong is just a little less important than our physiological needs. This means that once a human being has sufficient food, water and shelter – he craves for a sense of belonging. This need happens to be more important than the need to achieve.

In our heart of hearts we all know this…but do we do anything about it? It’s easier to grab a burger if you’re starving. If you are starving for company what do you do?

The need to reject others is strongly entrenched in human beings
Loneliness doesn’t have a simple answer because it is not dependent on just you. And that other might find it far easier to share his burger rather than himself. His need to reject may be far greater than his need to share himself at that point of time.
Human beings find all kinds to reasons to reject others. Social status, background, language, accent, race, grades, looks, manner, religion, sexual preferences, dress, colour, weight, intelligence or simply because of the person is new in the neighbourhood…
Poor Srikant. He was rejected not just because he was a ‘reservation’ candidate (he got admission into IIT because he was of a particular caste, not on merit) but also because of the intellectual snobbery prevalent on the IIT campus. Those with low grades are considered intellectually inferior (which is bullshit) and thus looked down upon. So here was a boy who was unable to walk into an inner circle. Probably his other inner circle (family) might have rejected him if he had not made it through IIT and/or had not got a good job offer. It has been reported that while his other class-mates had bagged several job offers, he had none.
There are too many people like Srikant in this modern world of ours. And there is one sure place to find them…on the internet.
Does Maslow’s Need Hierachy need to be re-drawn?
On the face of it, it looks like Maslow forgot something. This need that human beings have to reject others just so that they get to feel superior and exclusive. I am guilty too. I firmly reject those whom I believe to be dishonest or hypocritical or just plain immoral. They will never ever get into my inner circle. In fact I go a step further. I think my method of filtration is the best. I reject those who use other methods of filtration…like social status or caste or a million other things.

Naturally, Maslow couldn’t have missed this. This need is too important. And by studying his hierarchy of needs a little more closely…I got it. The need for rejection is right there – hidden under all those words in that green band. It says: ‘Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others.’
Ofcourse. Rejection of others and moving around in “exclusive” circles increases one’s self-esteem – in a perverted way.

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229. Elena - November 12, 2009 [Edit]

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that each year approximately one million people die from suicide, which represents a global mortality rate of 16 people per 100,000 or one death every 40 seconds. It is predicted that by 2020 the rate of death will increase to one every 20 seconds.

The WHO further reports that:

In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 (male and female). Suicide attempts are up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicides.
Although suicide rates have traditionally been highest amongst elderly males, rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of all countries.
Mental health disorders (particularly depression and substance abuse) are associated with more than 90% of all cases of suicide.
However, suicide results from many complex sociocultural factors and is more likely to occur during periods of socioeconomic, family and individual crisis (e.g. loss of a loved one, unemployment, sexual orientation, difficulties with developing one’s identity, disassociation from one’s community or other social/belief group, and honour).
The WHO also states that:

In Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, the highest suicide rates are reported for both men and women.
The Eastern Mediterranean Region and Central Asia republics have the lowest suicide rates.
Nearly 30% of all suicides worldwide occur in India and China.
Suicides globally by age are as follows: 55% are aged between 15 to 44 years and 45% are aged 45 years and over.
Youth suicide is increasing at the greatest rate.
In the US, the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention reports that:

Overall, suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death for all US Americans, and is the third leading cause of death for young people 15-24 years.
Although suicide is a serious problem among the young and adults, death rates continue to be highest among older adults ages 65 years and over.
Males are four times more likely to die from suicide than are females. However, females are more likely to attempt suicide than are males.