Suicide: the result of a psychological condition — or a fleeting impulse?

[Zach]

As many of us know, there have been several posts here at IHD about the issue of suicide.  The Sunday New York Times magazine had an interesting article about whether suicide was the result of a psychological condition — or a fleeting impulse.

I posted this web link in the Off-Topic area because of the general issue.

--Zach



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html?ref=magazine

July 6, 2008
The Urge to End It All

By SCOTT ANDERSON
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem,” Albert Camus wrote, “and that is suicide.” How to explain why, among the only species capable of pondering its own demise, whose desperate attempts to forestall mortality have spawned both armies and branches of medicine in a perpetual search for the Fountain of Youth, there are those who, by their own hand, would choose death over life? Our contradictory reactions to the act speak to the conflicted hold it has on our imaginations: revulsion mixed with fascination, scorn leavened with pity. It is a cardinal sin — but change the packaging a little, and suicide assumes the guise of heroism or high passion, the stuff of literature and art.

---to read more, click on the link---

[Hawkeye]

Wow, thats a really deep article and makes you look at suicide in a whole different manner.