Stay
A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve. Despite distressing statistics that show suicide rates rising, the subject, long a taboo, is infrequently talked about. In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht channels her grief for two friends lost to suicide into a search for history’s most persuasive arguments against the irretrievable act, arguments she hopes to bring back into public consciousness. From the Stoics and the Bible to Dante, Shakespeare, Wittgenstein, and such twentieth-century writers as John Berryman, Hecht recasts the narrative of our “secular age” in new terms. She shows how religious prohibitions against self-killing were replaced by the Enlightenment’s insistence on the rights of the individual, even when those rights had troubling applications. This transition, she movingly argues, resulted in a profound cultural and moral loss: the loss of shared, secular, logical arguments against suicide. By examining how people in other times have found powerful reasons to stay alive when suicide seems a tempting choice, she makes a persuasive intellectual and moral case against suicide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Suicide as a concept has been praised, defended, and vilified in various contexts throughout history as poet and scholar Hecht (Doubt: A History) painstakingly illustrates in this nuanced and unsettling work, whose title acts as a rallying refrain throughout. Hecht's scrutiny of "despair suicide" begins with the personal the destabilizing deaths of two poet friends in quick succession. Though the word "suicide" wasn't invented until the 17th century, the discussion carefully follows attitudes from myth, religion, philosophy, and literature as Hecht welcomes the voices of an impressive cast of thinkers. Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is examined as well as the thinking of Socrates, John Milton, and Anne Sexton. While the statistics are harrowing one suicide can influence others as research emphatically shows the book's conclusions are hopeful. Gratitude is owed to those who reject suicide, according to Hecht, not only by the community but also by one's "future self" who may be days, months, or years away. Like death, life can inspire, because one's "ideas matter."
Customer Reviews
Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
As a survivor of suicide, and one who has researched suicide since 1985, I find this book to be accurate in its’ reportage, insightful in its’ findings and conclusions, clear and engaging in its’ presentation, and moves to a position among the top 10 of the 70+ books sitting on my office shelf. I recommend it to anyone dealing with any aspect of suicide. Strictly from the survivor’s perspective, it provides a useful and necessary balance to the pro and con of religion-secular points of view. There is comfort in the breadth and historical development of the subject. Robert M. Hubbard, Ed.D., M.A., M.B.A.