Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It

by Jennifer Michael Hecht

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.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, History, Mental Health, Audiobook, Death

280 pages, Hardcover

First published November 12, 2013

About the author

Jennifer Michael Hecht is a poet, historian, philosopher, and author.

Reviews

[Ursa · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are interested in the history of suicide but cannot afford time to read all the major literature written about it, or don’t know where to start, this book might come in handy. However, it does NOT offer a proper perspective on this delicate subject, and it stigmatizes people who attempt or die by suicide. For a better understanding of suicide, please visit suicide.org or read the entry on "suicide" on Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

In her preface, Hetch asserts that she ultimately aims to revivify "a secular, logical anti-suicide consensus" by first establishing a historical context for the discourse on suicide-dated way back to the ancient world of Roman Republic, then presenting the reader an accumulation of unflinching and impassioned philosophical arguments against suicide.

I'll make no comment on the historical section because I'm not knowledgeable enough on that aspect. On the other hand, I've got a lot to say about her reasoning against suicide and the way she addresses it. Before we go further, I also want to make it clear that I am not supporting suicide as problem solving, with the exception of carefully advised and monitored euthanasia for extreme cases (such as terminal illness).

The book perplexes me on many levels. Why? Let’s break it down!

Despite her statement that she passes no judgment on those who did or contemplate the act, Hecht’s arguments stigmatize suicide and the suicidal all the same. She equates suicide with delayed homicide, even alludes to it as self-murder at times; presumes that suicide is a choice made in a lucid state of mind; and worst of all, puts a partial blame on people who die by suicide for triggering chained suicides, also known as suicide clusters.

I think the problem is that Hecht has spent an intensive amount of time researching historical materials but not enough on contemporary debates and conditions of the subject.

First, by definition, homicide or murder is the premeditated killing of another person, done with malice intention. People who choose to die by suicide want their suffering to stop, thus suicide cannot be considered a crime in the same sense murder is.

Second, the current consensus is that suicide is caused by different reasons—-depression, insanity, abuse, drugs or substance abuse, extreme loss, existential crisis, etc. The number one cause of suicide, however, is untreated depression. 90% of people who died by suicide suffering from excruciating physical or/and emotional pain which caused them the impulses to end their life. Most people are not in a stable or coherent mentality when the thought of suicide occurs. Therefore, suicide--while preventable--is not a choice.

Furthermore, even when suicide is contagious, it is should not be one of the arguments for anti-suicide. It is nobody’s fault that some mind is vulnerable or susceptible to external influences. And, really, people should not be responsible for others when they can’t even function for themselves; I also think that telling people their decision to live or die can cause or hasten others’ demise usually only fuel more anxiety and distress.

Her appeal to suicidal people who are, and I quote, “sufficiently lucid as to be available to be reached through argument”: Live because we owe it to the community, family, and our future self.

I found this argument terribly trite because, to me, those are all common senses. One does not need to read philosophical literature to arrive at this idea. The concept that our life intertwines with those around us is neither new nor forgotten, it is ingrained in many cultures. At least, in my culture, we’ve always been taught that we owe each other to live. Same for the idea that perseverance will yield rewards.

However, this brings us back to the assertion that, in most cases, thought of suicide occurs when the mind is muddled and distorted, and there is no outside intervention. Thus, such reasoning might not be effective at all.

In a section of her book, Hecht cited Anne Sexton’s heartfelt writing on her despair, and then asserted that her crisis wasn’t uncommon. And if the writer understood she wasn’t alone, she might have not chosen to die. This whole part perplexed me because Hecht seemed to either fail to grasp or choose to ignore the fact that Sexton clearly suffered from severe depression.

I applaud Hetch for her intention and intensive research. I also agree with her that we need to strengthen the bond between community and individuals, as well as among individuals. However, with all due respect, I disagree with her view on suicide and her conclusion on the subject.

Again, suicide can’t be equalized with either delayed-homicide or self-murder. The number one cause of suicide is untreated depression. Depression, as well as suicide, is not a choice. Depressed and suicidal people need to get medical or psychiatric help, not a philosophical lesson.

Most of all, suicide, like depression, should not be associated with any stigmas.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadful, simply dreadful. The author spends nearly every chapter adding to a horrific and dangerous stigma that portrays suicide as a cowardly and immoral act. What's worse, she states in no uncertain terms that people who commit suicide are effectively murderers, labeling suicide as "delayed homicide" due to the effects of emotion contagion and suicide clustering.

Throughout the book the author's biases are clear. Self-righteousness, moralizing, condescension, smugness, intolerance for alternative viewpoints, invalidation, crassness, and anger seep from her writing.

Because the work is secular, the author loses sight of how dogmatic her arguments are. She contrives the existence of what she terms a "human project", insists that we all participate in said project regardless of our individual circumstances, and then tirades against suicide for robbing the project of another warm body to fill its ranks. Simply put, this book will not convince anyone who is "on the fence" with respect to right-to-die issues. Rather, "Stay" serves only to contribute to an irresponsible stigma surrounding the suicidal. While the author pats herself on the back for being uncompromisingly on the side of life, she loses sight of the very real potential for suicidal readers to suffer alone due to the very kind of shame that the author peddles.

Though the author knows her history, she is sorely wanting for education in mental health. This book is not the way to convince someone to "stay".

[Jack Fenwick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read Stay last December. About a month or so after it was published after a review popped up in my Twitter feed. I found myself immediately nauseated by the selected blurbs and quotes engendering Hecht's argument; however, I nonetheless did Hecht the courtesy of a full reading and a throwing of twenty bucks her way to see what on earth she thought she was bringing to the philosophical table to justify such flimsy premises into an eternal debate that is only in the last few decades being approached with a genuine sense of rationality after centuries of taboo and reprehensible ignorance.

As a brief, pedestrian look at the history of attitudes to suicide, it is perhaps a reasonable effort, as far as any piece of writing goes, though much of it was inaccurate, wrong and biased. If this were the aim of the book, it would have been given a more neutral rating, however seen as it manifestly wasn't, and Hecht attempts to piggy back her own arguments off these histories, it has been rightfully cast to 1-star hell, which I will now justify. Pertinently, as a philosophical argument (which Hecht attempts) into the moral philosophy against suicide in a modernist, secular context, (the book's reason d'etre) the verdict is quite clear - it is unequivocally terrible and arrogant failure. Let me explain thusly. From the number of questionably sourced, gushing and saccharine 5-star reviews, one would be initially forgiven to believe that this is a worthy book, but this is far from the case in reality.

A rational look at suicide is like studying philosophy writ small; much of the time, it forces us to concede to conclusions that we may not want to hear or have preference for, but are true nonetheless.
Hecht proves herself fantastically inept at this sort of inquiry. In fact, the problem is that she hardly even attempts such an honest an enquiry in the first place.
Instead, she just merely begs the question (in the informal fallacy sense) and arrogantly asserts: Suicide is wrong because it somehow betrays the supposed sacredness of being alive in the communal milieu with which the individual is a part of. Stripped bare, that is the totality of her argument throughout her book.
This is an awful, wishy-washy pretence that tries to be both a deontological and a consequentialist objection but immediately falls flat on both accounts and just descends into the most banal of solipsisms and special pleading in an attempt to justify itself.
Deontological arguments become very weak without meta-physical starting points to buttress them - which is why we've mostly shedded religious and Kantian-esque objections to suicide. Hecht rather bizarrely concedes this very obvious fact, but at the same time tries to inject her own have-her-cake-and-eat-it deontological objections which end up looking and sounding like nothing more than typical, vacuous new-age bromides. E,g,

"We are indebted to one another and the debt is a kind of faith -- a beautiful, difficult, strange faith. We believe each other into being."

One only has to look (for both prudent example and cursorily investigations) at the phenomenology of suicide and the resultant support - for just one example - on utilitarian grounds to see why her argument is torpedoed out of the water from the start. Think about her above quote (the book is littered with similar platitudes) and compare it to the brutal descriptions of suicide from writer David Foster Wallace, who died by suicide in 2008 after a life-long struggle with depression:

"The so-called `psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote `hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling `Don't!' and `Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

Some suicides are rational, some are not. Some are a result of a tragic, temporary impulse, but many are also done out of cold realization that the suffering of life far out-weighs any pleasure, if any are indeed being experienced at all. The majority are also not whimsy mental abstractions can be easily bargained with - they are the result of some very real suffering which is often intractable. The bottom line is that Hecht et al simply can't answer this existential reality adequately, so instead they merely hide away from it or attempt to explain it away which aforementioned bromides - as Hecht has done with ungracious aplomb here. A fortiori, and with Hecht's silliness promptly and correctly discarded, the real question becomes, who on earth are we to demand that someone continue to live when their very sentience is little more than a conduit for suffering?

This is the real dark underbelly of the cognitive motivation behind Hesch's objections, and needs to be further explored. Suicide is perhaps the ultimate reminder of the 'badness' of life. Forcing us to acknowledge that extreme states of suffering exist - and cannot be easily palliated against - in turn forces us collectively to question the supposed 'sanctity' and 'goodness' of life. The fact that these extreme negative phenomenological states exist - and thus a person will quite justifiably want to end them - forces us to come to some uncomfortable ontological conclusions, i.e. life is not always good or sacred and is actually very bad for the many individuals unlucky enough to have to experience them. Life does have many good things, but it also has many bad things. It is disingenuous and profoundly intellectually dishonest to ignore the latter. However, this hyperbolic discounting of the bad is precisely what Hecht is after and thusly reflective in what she writes. Hecht argument effectively becomes "your suicide - much like AIDS, pediatric brain cancer, homelessness, massive death by natural disaster - is a pertinent reminder of the intrinsic negative qualities of existence and we would rather not be reminded of this reality. Because suicide has a small and varying amount of agency and volition, as opposed to dying directly from a disease such cancer or ALS, you should go on living to not remind of us of how bad things are or could potentially be.". Make no mistake, this is the real objection here. It is one procured out of entirety selfish motives. It is much like reminding someone that the material goods they are enjoying at a cheap price are only possible through exploitative slave labour. 'Don't you dare talk about that.....I...I love my Iphone! What's more I want to love it and not feel guilty about it! "
That's it. She - along with cultural milieu that would support such a view - has the gall to throw out words like 'duty' and 'sacredness', but this is mere camouflage and is actually an exercise in preserving their own hedonistic impulses.

Further small-caliber ammunition against the act in one chapter consisted of quoting the heavy-weight philosophers who she thinks supported her view and passing them off as such. I found her selective quoting of both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (and in some cases proffering outright non-sequiturs) to conclude that these men were ultimately against suicide to be especially infuriating and disingenuous. Again, this is just a half-baked attempt at appeal to authority on her part.

There was another chapter espousing evidence of a supposed 'contagion' effect. This is often touted, but despite the pleas for validation from some psychologists who have a vested interest in passing themselves off as experts, there is no conclusive evidence it exists as a discrete phenomenon. It just feeds in and is buttressed by the preferred social narrative of suicide. It is ideology over empiricism.

All in all, Hecht makes such a hatchet job of this subject that it just doesn't deserve to be read - least of all if you want an objective discourse on the moral philosophy of suicide and any ethical discussion that follows. She ultimately trivializes, belittles and further ostracizes the suffering of the suicidal by failing to show either nuance or insight into what is a very complex subject, and instead opts for her hopelessly self-indulgent aesthetic preferences and a very cruel and self-serving crypto-guilt trip.
The bottom-line is that suicide will always be entwined with the human experience because the human experience has every chance of turning into a very real living nightmare - it is, in fact, written into the very fabric of sentient life. There are limits to what any person can, will or should stand, and no amount of guilt-trips nor should deny that person the right to end their suffering. As a society, we unquestionably have a duty to help those in despair (and to perhaps intervene in circumstances where it is a temporary impulse), but we most also concede that a person does have both the right and the rational capacity to choose to end their life if they ultimately wish.

As for 'Stay', it should have stayed as an unpublished document on Hecht's Macbook.

[Emma Sea · Rating 3 out of 5]

More than a summary of historical attitudes to suicide, Hecht's book is a really plea for those considering suicide to decide against it.

Hecht's point is that "It is an intellectual and moral mistake to see the idea of suicide as an open choice that each of us is free to make" (p. 215).

Rather, because of the statistical likelihood of suicide clusters, each of us owes it the other members of our society not to kill ourselves. We should "consider it a pact of a sort to stay alive to spare the other" (p.173-174).

We should instead commit Camus's everyday bravery: to live without hope, without illusions, embracing the absurdity of life.

In the short chapter discussing contemporary philosophy in support of suicide, she is rather judgmental.

I find much of Foucault's writing very persuasive, but I question his conclusion on this particular subject. It is one thing to try to free the human being from social constraints and to defend difference of all types; it is another thing to help usher people into the grave.(p.228)

That seems like a cheap shot against a carefully considered personal philosophy against which she can find no counter-argument. Especially when this is a woman who quotes Dr Phil (!) and It's a Wonderful Life in her anti-suicide arguments.

The summary of various historical attitudes to suicide was excellent, but I found Hecht's arguments against it unconvincing and unhelpful.

2.5 stars

[Laura Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very powerful. You should read this book if you are a parent, or if you or someone you love:
* has suffered from depression
* has had suicidal thoughts
* knows someone who has died by suicide
* is in a profession with a higher risk (medical, military, first responders, etc.)

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first 100 pages or so were very interesting and provided an interesting and thorough history of suicide and suicide culture. Beyond that, the book is almost un-readable. The arguments put forth by the author are weak, and rather than elaborating, she simply restates and restates her central point- that one must not commit suicide, because one owes it to the community to stay alive. I find it difficult to believe that the suicidal person owes anything to the very community that failed him/her. Furthermore, she appears to have very little understanding of the suicidal person, and many of her views are deeply stigmatizing. At one point she describes the suicidal person as someone who is "healthy but sad" (Ch 10, pg 224) and uses this in contrast to someone with terminal cancer who chooses to end their life, which she argues may not be regarded as a suicide, but rather a way of managing the death that cancer made inevitable. Believing that a suicidal person is simply "healthy but sad" completely disregards the agony that some suicidal people feel day after day for prolonged periods. Saying that suicide due to a "physical" illness such as cancer is legitimate, but someone suffering with "mental" illness owes it to the community to stick around is deeply stigmatizing to anybody struggling with mental health issues. Furthermore, she states that even when one feels that one can no longer contribute to the community, one should stay as an example of courage and patience (presumably patiently waiting to die?). I find it deeply upsetting that someone who is interested in the delicate topic of suicide could take such a surface and stigmatizing view of the suicidal person.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fast run through the history of thought on suicide, written as a polemic. It has admirable intentions that I doubt will be realized: to present the intellectual arguments against suicide so that people considering suicide will have a bulwark when the urge presents itself most strongly. There are a couple of problems with this project, not the least the notion that people that desperate are going to be weighing Cato versus the categorical imperative. The arguments that have swayed people have been emotional arguments--the fear of being exposed after death versus the romance surrounding young Werther. While Hecht is clearly emotional about the subject and for good reason, the marriage of research and emotion doesn't seem to be a happy one. She's not sure whom she's writing for: as the New Republic reviewer pointed out, there's an awful lot of summary, some of which would be unnecessary for an even minimally educated reader. Also, she sometimes takes whacks at thinkers who disagree with her on an emotional level that I didn't find persuasive ("cold," "not compassionate"). Note: I did NOT think she was stigmatizing people who did commit suicide--I thought she was pretty careful not to do that. Her whole point is to say "you're not allowed," to prevent the suicide, because those lives are so valuable, and to steer away from the hellfire and damnation.

There's an awful lot that's interesting in here--I count any book a success that makes me want to read more books on related subjects, and she's very good at making Schopenhauer sound like a great read. And some of this is fascinating and powerful--the material on the sociology of suicide, for instance. But it feels like part of another book.

Shorter review: fascinating concept, glad I read it, too much going on, feels underwritten.

[xenia · Rating 1 out of 5]

mf truly thinks we should keep suicidal people alive, no matter their suffering, so that those around them don't have to suffer their deaths.

why is it that those who label suicidal people selfish are some of the most self-centred and victim-blaming people in existence?

my body, my right: nobody consents to life, to suffering without purpose, to trauma and crisis. instead of guilt-tripping and gaslighting the people you supposedly love, how about you support them in their autonomy to be whatever the fuck they want to be?

these moralisers are part of the reason i was so suicidal in my 20s. their endless invalidation of my experience, their empty words about the sacredness of life, their authoritarian hatred for sickness and sadness. they tell you to reach out when you're down, then attack, dismiss, and stigmatise you. they surveil and force you back into their idea of normality under threat of imprisonment.

get tf away from them and find people who care about you—for your sake—not theirs. maybe then you'll find a life worth living for.

[Menna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew about this book from Brain picking's review: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.ph...
It's too beautiful!

[Ron Christiansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard Hecht interviewed on Radiowest and had to order the book--even for the big bucks in hardback. Why? Because I was impressed with her goal for writing the book: having had two poet friends commit suicide she decided it was vital to give a secular defense of living, of staying, without the "aid" of religion, sin, and eternal damnation.

Also, because I was absolutely enthralled with her earlier book, Doubt: A history: The great doubters and their legacy, which had helped me form my own identity as a doubter. Lastly, and most importantly, because while I've never been suicidal, I do know despair and futility and therefore I crave insights which will convince me it is a good idea to keep up the good fight.

The first two chapters--one on the views of the ancient world and another on religion's historical rejection of suicide--didn't do much for me. These ancient views seem so distant and strange, especially the notion of a noble suicide. I get it: she sets up these views so as to contrast and reach back to them throughout, but I'd vote for 10 pages worth. At any rate, I kept on in good faith and I'm glad I did. Chapter three on modernism's view of the issue picked up substantially. After that each chapter gave invaluable and resonant insight:

*We don't always know where we are in our story
*He who destroys himself destroys the world
*No one should be left alone...without the benefit of all the great minds (back to her overall thesis here)
*The you in anyone moment should not have the authority to end life for the many yous of many other moments (177)
*utilitarian John Stuart Mill: "any choices that deprive a person of all further choices must be rejected" (177)
*Levinas: The pain of existence is inexorably connected to our love of being (189)
*Camus: "Life in the face of its pain is the ultimate revolt"

Overall Hecht clarifies that many modern thinkers who have defended the right of people to take their own life are often actually more interested in critiquing the extreme positions of religion who resort, as they so often do, to motivating through fear, humiliation, and the promise of suffering (nothing like taking money and a proper burial away from those left behind). That is there are coherent and moving defenses to stay in this life from the best thinkers and philosophers of the modern and postmodern era, thinkers who believe that this world is our only world and yet still a world worth fully living.

REREAD: I read the intro, skimmed ch 1-4 and then carefully reread ch 5-10

I reread in desperation. Not because I was suicidal, but because I was/am feeling deep despair about the world and what my life actually adds up to. I needed some honesty. I needed to again hear these philosophers who know crippling despair yet still chose life. And it brought me a modicum of peace and at this time that's worth more than you can imagine. Just now realizing that it was exactly 8 years ago to THE day when I first finished this book. Not all that surprising as I often struggle with depression during my semester breaks. Still, on the same day...crazy!

[Glass River · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm actually yawning with all the preachings right now. Yeah I get it. We have to live for the community and for our future self. Anything else? Why the hell do I have to wade through so many walls and walls of boring text just to get multifarious reinterations and rephrasings of the same old ideas? And these are not even groundbreaking ideas. They are just common sense. Everybody already knows it, without reading philosophical texts. Problem is, they don't work. Firstly, because when people are contemplating suicidal thoughts, more often than not, they are not in a clear, sound, lucid state of mind. Their whole consciousness is oriented towards trying to escape the suffering they are in. Thus they are often incapable of forseeing a better happy future for themselves. And by "they", I mean "me". Yes, I am a suicide survivor. I have lived through that godawful stage. I know how my thoughts were muddled and confused. So much so that I lost the ability to imagine any alternative ways to proceed with life other than seeking the comfort of total darkness. Secondly, while suicide clusters may exist, which I'm still in doubt (because of the author's habit of cherry picking arguments that conveniently suit her biased agenda), it is simply wrong to ask a suicidal person to assume responsibility for other people's vulnerable minds. The suicidal could barely take care of themselves, much less take care of others, and others' minds at that. Asking someone to prolong their existence, when that existence consists of only painful experiences for them, so that there's some chance some abstract others may not think of killing themselves, is a demonstrably flimsy and selfish argument. One doesn't have to be a philosopher to understand that.
-
The author is frankly a bad writer. Too much preaching and no empathy. She chooses to tackle a very complex and nuanced subject with absolutely no complexity nor nuances. She bulldozes great literatures of suffering with her biased and narrow-minded interpretations. Somehow the depressive state of Anne Sexton and DFW just curiously flew over her head. She offers no insight, absolutely no insight into the many facets of human sufferings that may lead a person to commit suicide. She belittles any such painful experience with some superficial generalizations and then buttresses her condescension by cherry picking quotes from great philosophers as if they condoned her attitude. It's like watching someone nonchalantly giving life advice to the entire humanity without basic understanding of what it means to be human. When she's a historian, it's remotely interesting. But when she gets into the preacher mode, which unfortunately is very often, it's insufferably cringy.

[Carolyn Zaikowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most nuanced, important take on suicide I've ever read, and perhaps the most original synthesis on the topic I've read (in terms of analyzing different philosophies and evidence and history and bringing it together to show a clear path for our future and our present.) It is at once entirely logical and profoundly compassionate. I also suggest ignoring most of the negative reviews. I believe people prickle at this book because of how good and nuanced the points are. We default into saying she's shaming suicide survivors, even though she presents an endless parade of compassionate statements including her own experiences with loved ones dying this way. I've taken to not really listening to people intellectualize about suicide (including researchers and professionals) who've never had a close loved one do it, and/or who have never truly been there themselves. Unfortunately, many reviewers have never lived this issue in any real way.

The problem with some of the more heated reviews is that I'm not sure we're ready as a society to have nuanced conversations about suicide--we think we're having them by saying "don't shame survivors" or "people get to choose what they do", but that's not nuanced. Nuanced means holding the big "both/and" of ideas like: care about suicide, don't shame people, help people, pray for the dead and fight light hell for the living, hey maybe also don't shame people who have PTSD from a loved one's suicide, and let's maybe try to agree to not kill ourselves for about a hundred different self- and other-oriented reasons. It's possible to hold all these things simultaneously, and that's what Hecht does, but I think she might be a few decades ahead. None of the negative reviews are holding these things in a real way. Right now most of us are just in either/or mode of "you're going to hell if you do this" vs. "this is an individualist human right." That's a false dichotomy and not useful.

Finally, I also know for a fact that this book has saved lives--people have said so publicly--and I'm not sure how we can say with a straight face that that doesn't matter, or that the book isn't getting anything right.

[Arni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, thought-provoking and above all powerful book about suicide and against suicide. Starts out as a history lesson and morphes into a sustained argument against killing oneself. As a religious reader, I found the chapter on religious thought about suicide especially interesting. And while I didn't, so to speak, have need for the secular arguments against suicide in the final chapters of the book, I could appreciate them for what they were employed to do. I agree with the author that our culture, having left religion behind to a significant extent, is left without the conceptual resources required to argue persuasively against suicide. The author's attempt to erect such an argument is to be celebrated. I hope it is heard widely.

[Po Po]

Although Hecht presents both pro and anti-suicide arguments through a historical perspective, the perspectives provided are heavily weighted toward anti-suicide.

Offers the opinions of: Socrates. Aristotle. Cicero. Epicurus. Kant. Hume. Berkeley. Voltaire. Hobbes. Wittgenstein. Montaigne. Shakespeare. Rousseau. Keats. Milton. Aquinas. Schopenhauer. Mill. Freud. Nietzsche. Sartre. Camus. And many more.

This is an exceptionally thorough work. It is dense; it is fact-full. It is also dry and intensely academic.

Took me 3 + months to finish reading.

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

not convincing, came to conclusion life sucks, then you die but wait it out until you die

[Steve Donoghue]

Jennifer Michael Hecht here writes a remarkably sweeping and empathetic book about a dark and eternally-sensitive topic: suicide. Her compassion in these pages is refreshingly smart and free of condescension. Here's my full review: https://www.stevedonoghue.com/review-...

[Gicu Gicu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great book. Worth reading.

[Jeff Deck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulously researched and elegantly written.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting, but not convincing case against suicide

The subtitle 'A history of suicide and the arguments against it' is a correct indication of what the author's intentions are: building a case against suicide by exploring how philosophy, religion and science has viewed suicide in Western Europe since against Greece.

She relies heavily on History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture by Georges Minois, which -in my opinion- is a more comprehensive and objective view of the historical perspective. Nevertheless this book offers a well written and concise view.

However the two main arguments against Mrs. Hecht puts in the spotlight, don't sit well with me:

1. suicide is contagious : the evidence that suicides happen in clusters or that there is a "Werther" effect are circumstantial at best. In my opinion suicides don't occur, because a friend, family member, public figure, etc.. took their own life. The author herself relates the case of Kurt Cobain, whose suicide did not cause an increase in suicide in youths. I do believe that there is a genetic component to personality traits that might lead to suicide (mood swings, addiction, impusivity, etc) Hemingway is probably a good example of this. Moreover we can't be held responsible for the actions of others, if we haven't purposely instigated them.

2. suicide is contrary to societal norms and is an evasion of one's responbilities towards family, friends, society. No man ever asked to be born, no man has ever had control over the way he was raised or the environment in which he grew up. We are 'thrown in this world', like it or not. Some people will call this a blessing, but others will call it a curse. There is no right or wrong here. Nobody should feel obligated to live a life of misery, because society says it's the right thing to do. Everyone should have the right to decide for themselves if they find their lives are worth living.

The reason why I still give this book 4 stars is that the author mentions some very interesting and unexpected philosophers at the end of her book: e.g. Emile Cioran (known for his anti-natalism); Albert Camus (the existential philosopher); Arthus Schopenhauer (notable pessimist). All these thinkers had a decidedly negative view of life and the author tries to make the point that even they argued against suicide. However the arguments she quotes are notable the weakest elements of their philosophy. To give Schopenhauer as an example: it is true that he denied that suicide was a solution to a miserable life; Schopenhauers posited that the 'Will' is all encompassing and that one suicide one make any difference. It is better to try to combat the Will by -and this if where his philosophy becomes muddled- adhering to Eastern techniques to try a conquer the Will and all its manifestations.

In conclusion: a challenging and interesting book that didn't convince.

[David Msomba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meaningful,Moving, and Beautifully written!!!!

I knew I was in safe hands with this author on this delicate subject,Her book Doubt:A History,still remains one among the most important book in my life,I ever had a pleasure to read.

So when I saw this,I knew she had something important to add on the on going conversation about suicide.

The thesis of this book,was to bring awareness to philosophical secular arguments against suicide which were made throughout history.

As on Doubt:A History,She gave the history of suicide and people who supported/condemn suicide throughout history,from classical period to enghlithment and beyond,also how religion institution(christianity) changed their position from supporting suicide to condemn it.

But she also raised other arguments against suicide from the psychological and sociological perspective,on how when one person deciding to end their life can lead to suicidal contagion(example,risk factors for many people to commit suicide includes One or more prior suicide attempts,Family history of suicide,Exposure to the suicidal behavior of others),so you are not only owe to the future self to stay alive but to your community too.

I do believe suicide is still a grey subject,we need more conversation,more understanding and hopefully more humanist and compassionate approach/arguments against it and this book is a nice start.

I would recommend this one to anybody who is struggling with dark thoughts,wants to understand the subject,looking for arguments against suicide outside the religion realm.

Btw Thanks for this book and the author,I have found even more reasons why I should fall more love in the Enghlithment.

[Ira Therebel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about a very interesting topic.

The first half is the best it goes through the history of suicide in the Western world from ancient times through Renaissance showing the attitudes from that time and how it was treated. There are religious arguments against it, the views of many philosophers against it with some exceptions and the portrayal of suicide in art and literature of those times.

The second part is a bit less interesting although it still has some very interesting topics such as suicide clusters. But it touches the reasons of why people commit suicide and the treatment very superficially. Would be great to see more of clinical psychology researches and history of how view from psychologists has changed through history. Yet let's not forget that Jennifer Hecht is a historian and philosopher and not a psychiatrist. The book promised us history and philosophy against it and this was fully successful and pretty fascinating. For psychology we should read another book.

Don't really think this book should be used or seen as self help book. When it comes to people who attempt suicide it touched only a very small part who can be simply convinced to stay by knowing they are needed and that life can get better. For the majority it is more complicated.

I do recommend this book to people interested in history and philosophy. For people who want to read more about psychology I would recommend to look for another one or don't get mad that a history book doesn't give a detailed view on psychology of suicide. I will also like to read one as well as a book with history and philosophy outside the Western world in addition to this great book.

[Sucheta]

I’ve seen this book receive a lot of flak from people who probably have first hand experience with mental health issues or suicide. I think it may be because it has been positioned as a manifesto against suicide, when it really is a treatise on the historical and philosophical arguments both for and against the issue.

The author has made her anti-suicide views very clear, and writes more strongly in favour of anti-suicide philosophical theories. As a psychiatrist, I can tell you that the book is not a substitute for seeking therapeutic help. It is however, quite a good intellectual exploration of the concept of self-murder for someone not actively dealing with these thoughts. Especially for people new to the study of philosophy, and people like me, who seek an understanding of mental health issues through literature, philosophy, history, sociology, and multiple other disciplines (My day job deals with the very significant biological aspects of severe mental illness- I just think that human minds are more than pure biology).

Like most books from the west, it doesn’t touch upon Eastern philosophies and their take on self-harm, which I believe is a serious oversight. I’d still recommend it to anyone with an intellectual curiosity about the issue. To quote the book:

“If we have done the work of thinking about these things in advance of our dark times, they may become accessible to us when we need them to help carry us through better days.”

If the subject matter is your jam, consider this an inoculation. Not the panacea it promises to be.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The topic of suicide is both important and difficult to sit with. Hecht does a nice job of providing a review of several philosophers stance on suicide, ultimately concluding that the reasons to not commit suicide are both social and personal. Socially, suicides impact us all, even if the person who has committed suicide is distant to us. This kind of social interconnection is something which can be minimized by those who are suffering and considering suicide. The personal argument is one that focuses on how limited our present knowledge is about our future. This logic involves acknowledging that many who attempt suicide and survive are relieved that they were not successful, because they have lived meaningful lives after their attempt. I would recommend this for anyone interested in the topic.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I purchased this book after hearing an interview with the author on MPR. The book reads like a English major's thesis. I photocopied two pages, that had some helpful quotes by Albert Schweitzer and Eleanor Roosevelt on pages 216 & 217 out of 234 pages. I typically read every word of a book, but couldn't bear it in this case. I have a son and daughter-in-law who had first hand exposure to a cousin that committed suicide. With chronic pain issues, my fear is that he may take his own life. The interview I heard was a persuasive case for how we can encourage each other to chose life. If you forced yourself to read every page you might reconsider ;)! Sorry to take such a sarcastic note, but I was sorely disappointed!

[Mike Stuchbery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brisk read on a difficult subject. Fascinating & strangely empowering.

[Saatvik Dutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Convinced me to stay.

[Irena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I appreciate that Jennifer Hecht tried to tackle such an important and difficult topic (I really enjoyed her book Doubt), however I found her whole argument in this book completely uncompelling.

First, she didn’t seem to have any grasp of human psychology. She did not make any effort to learn about clinical depression and what goes on in the human mind, when it engages in suicidal thoughts. For her, it seems that resisting suicide is the easiest thing in the world. Just try to know that you are needed and loved and life has a meaning. Mental anguish is just temporary, all you have to do is wait. Well, if easing suicidal thoughts was that easy, we wouldn’t have a problem, would we?

Second, her main argument, that a person owes in to the community to stay alive and that suicide is an egocentric act, is egocentric in itself. If a person has people who directly depend on them, sure. However, the idea that we ‘owe it to the community’ is a very unhelpful way of convincing someone that life is worth living, even if every second of it is filled with anguish. Why should a person who is ready to take own life care about a community from which that person has been clearly disconnected?

She tries to make an argument that we are all part of the community of humanity. However, the concept is so elusive that I doubt it can be relevant to anyone. I personally think what is important is close connection with a few people, unconditional love and meaningful friendship - lacking those is what leads to all sorts of problems. Her strategy of blaming the victim is simply nuts. If you think that the victim should have been stronger and able to live with their misery, then why shouldn’t the same logic apply to you.

I did like the idea of contagion is suicide that can be propagated by media and can affect young individuals. It is truly tragic when teenages take their own life, as they do not have enough understanding to know that life will get better. I do agree with the author that steps to minimize contagion are extremely important.

She does touch on the importance of asking for help and indeed, I think instead of trying to ‘ban’ and stagmatise suicide, we need to encourage help-seeking. Ultimately, we need to eliminate the factors that cause people to become suicidal to reduce suicide. I am not sure that thinking the other way around is helpful.

[Janani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really well researched and written, but the author clearly has an anti-suicide viewpoint (and makes that explicit at the outset). Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of reasoning errors and an over-eagerness to interpret any and all evidence as supporting their viewpoint.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I find it admirable for Hecht to write about her friends' suicides and how to prevent them, that shouldn't be done at the expense of inaccuracy.

I would at least partially disagree with Hecht, based on what the blurb says, and also, the excerpt I read in American Scholar In the Christian Old Testament/Jewish Tanakh, Samson and Saul both commit suicide without approbation. At the start of the New Testament era, in the Jewish Revolt, Josephus tells us about the mass Jewish suicide at Masada. (And, that's a mass suicide officially lauded today by the modern state of Israel.) And, the Stoics certainly did not have a blanket condemnation of suicide. As a historian of philosophy, she knows the story of Seneca quite well. She also knows that Stoics even had an official checklist of when suicide was morally permissible. And before that, of course, Socrates defends the informed philosopher's right to suicide. (Update: Therefore, her book's title is wrong, at bottom line.)

Secondarily, how much research did she do in cultural anthropology? Is suicide always equally mourned? What about environmentally necessitated suicide, such as Inuit elderly deliberately laying down on ice floes? Or, tying back to religion again, suicide bombers? Or, purely anthropologically, seppuku in Japan?

The issue of suicide, around the world and in various religions and cultures, is more nuanced, I think, than she portrays it. History and philosophy tell us more nuanced things than she does. Many cultures see suicide as neither a grievous moral wrong nor as an unpreventable illness.

So does religion. Anything that has ideas of a higher good, whether a metaphysically based one or not, will be open to fostering the idea of a noble suicide. As I noted with the Tamil Tigers (the Palestinian bombers are often driven by nationalism more than religion, too), this need not be a metaphysical motive.

Third, the issue of selecting people like Milton as examples would seem to be good. At the same time, it could be seen as veering close to committing the fallacy of "survivorship bias."

Next, suicide is often rationally planned out, even if one is not a Stoic philosopher. I know this is just an excerpt that I read (in addition to the blurb!), but here at least, Hecht doesn't appear to comprehend that.

Fourth, she indicates, or so I infer, that there's been a surge in suicide rates. But, in this excerpt, there's no statistics cited. Nor is there anything about statistics now in different parts of the world, etc. That's getting even more problematic.

Again, the project is laudable. But, going by the blurb, not necessarily well done in terms of accuracy.

And, more on that issue. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on suicide shows just how much cherry-picking Hecht does on her philosophical claims, and even on her religious ones within the Christian tradition. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sui... (A bit sadly, from the intellectual side, the SEP entry only looks at "Western" philosophical and related thought on suicide. It does have brief comments and a link to more, but quasi-dismissing Eastern thought because it's too complex or outside of Western monotheism, even as the modern West in many places becomes more influenced by the East doesn't come off well.)

Update: Indeed, as I am currently reading "How Not to Kill Yourself," I'm reminded that MANY "non-Western" societies have a more nuanced stance toward suicide. In fact, in many sub-Saharan African traditional belief systems, rather than Pandora's "Hope" being either a blessing or a final curse, people ask the gods to grant them death as a relief from life. Now, that's death in general, not suicide, but should certainly be seen as encompassing suicide.

Update: And, within the US, the suicide rate actually was declining 1981-2000 before starting to rise again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide... A mix of the "eternal war on terror" (which need not be so) and an aging population appear to be primary causes.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” ...”(Sisyphus) is superior to his fate. He is Stronger than his rock.” – Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It by Jennifer Michael Hecht is a history of suicide and the historical views of suicides though time. Hecht earned her PhD in the History of Science from Columbia University and studied at the Universite de Caen and Universite d' Angers. She teaches poetry and philosophy in the Graduate Writing Program of The New School. Hecht has published three other books on history and two books of poetry along with numerous articles.

This is a book that I wanted to read but still harbored some hesitation about reading. Like the author, I lost a close friend through suicide just over six years ago. It is something that changes your views and begin to question many previously held ideas. I makes you think, “How could I have not seen this coming.” and makes you second guess many things. The reason I chose to read this book was on the expectation that a favorite writer's work would be included: Albert Camus's Myth of Sisyphus. Ironically, I first picked this book up at the library on March 14th. It would be a few days later I found out my friend killed herself that same day.

Suicide has been around since man has been around. From Socrates choosing to to drink hemlock before the state forced him to do so, to (although not covered in the book) a soldier diving on a grenade to save his colleagues lives in Iraq; it can be considered heroic. Other times it is viewed as a weak and cowardly act. Seldom it it viewed as a neutral act. Religion has played a role in stopping suicide. Islam expressly forbids it. Christianity has never embraced it except for a few instances. Martyrs who kept their faith rather than denying it and living were embraced. Augustine and later Aquinas both debated that Jesus' death was in fact suicide, since he could have saved himself at any time but chose to give up his spirit. Otherwise suicide is considered stealing from God; God gave you life and only he has the right to take it away. Jews typically forbid suicide, but Masada is an exception. There always seems to be exceptions.

There are more suicides worldwide than murders. It is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. More people take their own lives than are murdered, but the news and TV drama shows are filled with stories of murder, but rarely suicide. When suicide is in the news it is usually a celebrity, which in turn causes a spike in suicides. Suicide Clusters are seen in sociological studies. Where one suicide takes place there is an increase in suicides nearby. There is also a link inside families. Sylvia Plath killed herself and forty-six years later her son killed himself. Likewise, Ernest Hemingway's father killed himself, in 1961 Hemingway killed himself and in 1996 his granddaughter, Margaux took her own life.

Suicide is an issue that although most people, philosophers, and religions find wrong, there are always loopholes. No matter how hard we try to understand or just out right ban suicide, it is still with us. We seem no closer to finding a solution. In fact suicide rates are on the rise; 30% from 1999 to 2010. Hecht brings together some of the great thinkers and religions to bring rational thought to an act that most of us cannot understand and could not go through with. The writing is clear and well documented. Most importantly, she reminds the reader that no matter what, first chose to stay.