1. Approaches to Suicide. Death is inevitable, yes, but there are many ways to die. One of them is suicide. The first question is essential: does suicide constitute a form of failure? On the one hand, suicide can be understood as the failure of a life voluntarily cut short, as the failure of a life worth living, as irrefutable proof that something has failed, or that society has failed. Globally, this is how it is viewed today. It is no coincidence that the World Health Organization (WHO) is responsible for addressing this issue of “mental health.” This same organization estimates that around 800.000 people commit suicide each year, which means that every forty seconds, someone takes their own life on Earth. And for every completed suicide, there are more than twenty attempts. The WHO periodically launches prevention campaigns, considering it a socially preventable “behavior.” On the other hand, suicide can have an attributed meaning, both by the person committing suicide and by others, which, under certain circumstances and in certain contexts, can be understood as “not a failure” or even “successful.” Suicide can be considered an escape from a painful situation such as unbearable suffering, incurable illness, dishonor, or... defeat military, tiring old age, etc., or a model or exemplary act towards other people.

According to some interpretations, suicide is an “animal” matter in the broadest sense of the word, since some non-human animals also “practice” it. suicideWe can hardly know their motives and their level of awareness of ending their own lives, but it is undeniable that some animals kill themselves and are left to die. Several examples are found in ancient texts, perhaps as mythical accounts: Aristotle mentions in the Animal research (Book IX, 631a) the curious and Oedipal story of a colt who, after having slept with his mother without knowing it, commits suicide; and Claudius Aelianus, in his History of animalsPreti cites twenty-one examples of animal suicide (Preti, 2005, 551-552). In current scientific terms, the voluntary death of some non-human animals has been observed (Preti, 2007, 842-844). One could go further and examine the issue at the cellular level with apoptosis—a form of programmed cell death caused by internal processes within the cell itself in multicellular organisms—and even at the bacterial level, since some bacteria commit suicide when infected by a virus. In short, it seems that suicide is not a specifically human phenomenon, but rather a part of the human experience. continuum of life. However, since the origins of the great Axial civilizations, some philosophical and religious currents have considered the possibility of suicide, and even the act of suicide itself, to be the highest expression of human freedom. Whether or not it is an exclusively human act linked to free will, what is clear is that it is not a reality specific to or monopolized by certain cultures. Suicide is a theme present in practically all cultures or civilizations. To cite a few examples: sati, jauhar, and self-immolation by burning oneself alive in India; harakiri, seppuku, and kamikaze pilots in Japan; or the Nahuatl nenomamictiliztliuna, among many others. Although the percentage of the population that commits suicide may vary enormously between different cultures or societies, suicide occurs wherever there is a human group.

2. Definitions of suicide. In the previous section, we started with a broad and general definition of suicide that, however, cannot be so easily defined as a scientific concept. Perhaps this is an impossible task. In his classic study Suicide Durkheim, after considerable difficulty, outlined a concept of operative suicide as “any case of death that results, directly or indirectly, from an act, positive or negative, carried out by the victim himself with knowledge of the result” (Durkheim, 2012, 14). But are suicide, voluntary death, self-inflicted injury, self-destruction, letting oneself die, euthanasia, etc., all the same thing? Are there egoistic suicides and altruistic suicides? Does every suicide have to be carried out by the victim himself? Does voluntarily choosing a sacrificial death constitute a suicidal act (Mauss and Hubert, 2010, 165)? Is a spy who takes a cyanide pill to avoid being tortured for information committing “voluntary” suicide? Let us first spell out the word, in case we find any clues in its history. 

Although it may sound ancient, almost immemorial, the term “suicide” did not enter the legal vocabulary of European languages ​​until the 17th and 18th centuries (Andrés, 2015, 42-43). In Spanish, it was not included in the Dictionary of Authorities (1726-1739), but rather appeared for the first time in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1817 (Sandoval Parra, 2017, 15). Does this mean that before the word “suicide” there were no suicidal behaviors or “realities”? Not at all. But the emergence of this word is indicative of a subtle shift that places the focus on the individual who commits the act… against himself (the “sui” in “suicide”). In times of greater awareness and proximity to death (Aries, 2000, 23-24), it was probably more difficult to define this way of dying so clearly. In Greek and Latin, there are numerous turns of phrase and linguistic constructions for what we will later call “suicide.” In these two classical languages ​​alone, more than 300 expressions have been collected (Van Hooff, 1990, 243-250), although many of them refer to the manner of doing it. Let us look at some examples translated into our language to capture this atmosphere: voluntary death, free will, to take one's own life, to get rid of oneself, to die by one's own hand, to end one's life, to make the final decision, to procure death, to withdraw from life, to take refuge in death, to commit cruelty against oneself, to expire or exhale one's soul, etc. In Latin, numerous expressions are constructed with the form “to put one’s hand against oneself,” while in Greek, formulas with the prefix “auto” predominate (Van Hooff, 1990, 140). This diffuse, undefined, and broad semantic field probably suggests that the idea of ​​“suicide” in Greco-Roman antiquity, as well as probably in other cultures, was much more open than in modern society. continuum violence might not be so clearly defined, labeled, and conceptualized.

3. Representations of suicide in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. In early modern Europe, we can identify two major approaches to the issue of taking one's own life: the prohibitionist theological-legal approach and the exemplary political-moral approach.

a) From the prohibitionist theological-legal perspective, suicide constitutes a crime and a sin—and, therefore, a failure. In this Christian legal and theological literature, the suicidal act is equated with homicide, constituting a kind of qualified homicide, a crime against oneself, a peculiar crime due to the subject's position within it (Sandoval Parra, 2017, 12). The murderer kills another person's body, but not their soul. However, the self-murderer—that is, the person who commits suicide—not only loses their body, but above all their soul, and is left without the possibility of access to divinity. By rejecting the most precious gift that divinity has offered them—life—they arrogate to themselves the right and position of God, they attempt to become their own judge, their own minister, and they commit the most serious of crimes, the most nefarious of acts. For all this theological and legal literature, no context, no situation, no suffering can justify suicide. Considered a crime more serious than homicide, suicide is categorized as an affront to divine, natural, and positive law. It constitutes not only a betrayal of God, but a crime against the human race and against the order of the community. Ultimately, suicide is identified by this literature with Judas, the betrayer of Jesus Christ-Messiah. Moreover, this treatment of suicide has its origin in the legacy of the great Christian intellectual for the medieval and early modern Church: Augustine of Hippo (Zambrano Carballo, 2006, 16). Although during the first centuries of Christianity martyrdom and violent death were positively sanctioned, Augustine of Hippo, in The City of God against the pagans, a fierce critique and condemnation of the supposed virtues of exemplary suicides in pre-Christian Antiquity.

b) From the second perspective, the political-moral exemplary one, suicide does not necessarily constitute a failure, but rather is transformed into a pedagogical commonplace, a repository of moral examples, or a treasure trove of lessons for political life. This theme is present in the texts and narratives of Greco-Roman antiquity, in the Christian Bible, and in some philosophical texts of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

b1) In the texts and narratives of Greco-Roman antiquity, suicide is a relatively common practice, imbued with political or philosophical significance, and motivated by reasons as diverse as the defense of one's honor, romantic passions, the protection of the homeland, or liberation from miserable suffering. Examples of both forced and voluntary suicides abound; mythologies offer suicidal examples, and numerous ancient philosophers, such as the Stoics, argued that suicide was proof of human freedom. During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, we find pictorial representations of ancient suicides, such as the deaths of Socrates, Cato the Younger, Seneca, and perhaps the most famous, the death of Lucretia, depicted by Raphael, Botticelli, Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Titian, Rubens, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Rembrandt, among others. Nor should we overlook the numerous suicides for honor and love—in Shakespeare's works, for example—as well as other suicides with enormous political content, such as the mass suicide in The Siege of Numantia of Cervantes or the one defended in some passages by writers such as Machiavelli or Montesquieu among others, who, following Horace's verses on the pro patria moriThey offer arguments in favor of collective suicide for political reasons.

b2) In the Christian Bible, especially in the Old Testament, we find several accounts of suicides committed by prominent figures, such as Abimelech and Saul—gravely wounded in battle—or Samson—a prisoner. However, during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, we find few pictorial representations of these figures in such situations, but rather in others. For example, Samson (with Delilah) is the subject of numerous works of art—by Andrea Mantegna, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Michelangelo, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Luca Giordano—but none of them depict his final suicide scene. The New Testament recounts the story of a suicide: Judas, a representation of the people of Israel according to the Christian community and a model for the theological and legal approach to the phenomenon of self-destruction during this period.

b3) Although some philosophical texts from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries constitute direct challenges to the theological-legal approach (such as Biathanatos by John Donne, published in 1644 and conveniently subtitled Statement of the paradox or thesis that self-destruction is not so sinful by nature that it can never be anything else, in which the nature and extent of all the laws that this act seems to violate are diligently investigated. or the treaty Exercitatio philosophia de morte voluntary, by Johann Robeck, published in 1736), the most outstanding representative of a properly philosophical reflection on suicide (understood as a human matter outside the realm of Theology and Law, but in dialogue with the texts and accounts of Greco-Roman Antiquity, with the Christian Bible and with new information about the New World) is probably Montaigne, who in chapter 3 of Book II of his TestsIn his essay “Customs of the Island of Ceos,” Montaigne defends, without glorifying it, the validity of suicide in certain circumstances: “God grants us sufficient permission when He places us in a situation where life is worse than death” (Montaigne, 2009, 506). Echoing some of Seneca’s arguments, Montaigne acquiesces to a dignified death in the face of unbearable pain or the prospect of an unbearable life: “This is what they say: that the wise man lives as long as he must, not as long as he can; and that the most favorable gift that nature has bestowed upon us, and which deprives us of any possibility of lamenting our condition, is having left us the key to freedom. She has prescribed only one entrance to life, and a hundred thousand exits. We may lack land to live on, but land to die on, we will never lack” (Montaigne, 2009, 504-505). In the circles surrounding Montaigne, we find reflections with a similar tone and scope in the In Praise of Madness of Erasmus or in the Utopia Thomas More and some eminent representatives of the European Enlightenment, such as D'Holbach in France and Hume in Great Britain, took up Montaigne's torch in a sober, humane, and warm defense of taking one's own life under certain circumstances: “A person who withdraws from life does no harm to society. He merely ceases to do it any good. Which, if it amounts to any harm, would be minimal” (Hume, 2012, 500). Hume's text, published only after his death, is simply titled About suicide, accurately summarizes this reflection launched to modernity by Montaigne: suicide does not constitute “a transgression of our obligation to God, to our neighbor, or to ourselves” (Hume, 2012, 495).

4. The literary treatment of suicide and suicide as a social issue. Shortly before this text by Hume was published posthumously (1777), Goethe sent his novel to the press. Young Werther's Sorrows (1774), which triggered the so-called Wertherfieber and that generated a true mass phenomenon. Werther's suicide for love —in line with much of previous European literature and expanding on the previously established connection between melancholy and suicide—, it nevertheless became an archetype for later generations, especially for Romanticism (Minois, 1995, 298). With the transition from the 18th to the 19th century, we enter an era in which the self—the on The concept of suicide—acquiring an increasingly prominent voice—brought the act of taking one's own life closer to illness, individualism, and, especially, creative genius. Along with murder, suicide also became one of the fine arts, and a new literary and aesthetic sensibility completely transformed its framework of understanding. It is within this newly opened field that we must situate the texts, reflections, and lives of authors as diverse as Madame de Staël, Schopenhauer, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, Mainländer, and Nietzsche. Many of these texts, as in Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, reflect concerns linked to theology or the death of God—and even to the suicide of God himself—culminating in the complete lack of meaning that pervades the 20th century and the "suicidiological" reflections of authors such as PersonCamus, Cioran, Artaud, Jean Améry (and his Raising one's hand over oneself. A speech on voluntary death) or Hermann Burger (and his Tractatus logico-sucidalis. Killing Oneself), among others. In painting, previously little-explored biblical or Greco-Roman themes were expanded, such as Sappho's suicide by Ernst Stückelberg (1897) or the canvases depicting the act of suicide by Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (ca. 1836) or Manet (ca. 1880). In this new atmosphere, not only was suicide explored as a literary and philosophical subject, but also its practice among writers and philosophers. Even a small list of suicides must include Larra, Von Kleist, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Hemingway, Pizarnik, Pavese, Deleuze, Paul Celan, Primo Levi, and so many others… The burning issue is not only the fact that “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem: suicide. Judging whether life is worth living or not amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy” (Camus, 2006, 13), but rather that the vital question is “why I'm not going to kill myself“If I knew exactly what was preventing me, I would have no more questions to ask myself since I would have answered them all” (Cioran, 1974, 73); or even “I live only because I can die whenever I want: without the idea "I would have killed myself a long time ago" (Cioran, 2007, 71).

The flip side of this literary treatment of suicide, from the 18th to the 19th century, was probably its gradual decriminalization and its rise to one of the essential coordinates of the “social question.” Marx himself dedicated a short piece to this subject in 1846: an annotated translation of a report on suicide written by a Paris police archivist, a text in which he highlighted “the contradictory and unnatural nature of modern life” (Marx, 2012, 63). This approach achieved systematic sociological reflection with Durkheim’s study in 1897, in which he distinguished four types of suicide: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. One of the most incisive aspects of Durkheim's study is his examination of the social characteristics of suicidal individuals. Specifically, he explored whether suicide is more prevalent based on sex (generally, more men than women commit suicide), age (more adults than young people), marital status (more single than married), parenthood (more childless than those with children), income and property (more wealthy than poor), education (more educated than uneducated), place of residence (more urban dwellers than rural inhabitants), religion (more Protestant than Catholic, and to a lesser extent Jewish), or type of society (more common in developed societies than in primitive societies). He also investigated the timing of suicides: according to the French sociologist, they occur more frequently in spring and summer than in autumn and winter, more often during the day than at night, more often from Monday to Thursday than on weekends, and more often in the morning than in the afternoon. Although these results have been reworked, modified, and superseded, they introduced a statistical and sociological bias that has not been abandoned in subsequent studies, such as Halbwachs' continuation of his work in 1930. The causes of suicide or in later studies, more recently conducted from a medicalized perspective (Barbagli, 2015, 176-177) by the health departments of various national and international institutions, by the WHO itself, and by suicidology societies. These latter organizations study suicide and combat the common, erroneous, and romanticized perception of suicide as an inevitable phenomenon, carried out in an altered mental state, an attention-seeking act, abrupt, and always leaving behind traces such as written notes, etc.

Finally, the current debate on suicide addresses different areas, which we could summarize in two and which are linked to the two aspects described above. First, in continuity with the prohibitionist theological-legal perspective, suicide is addressed as a legal matter, as a right in certain circumstances: that is, as a demand for a dignified death or euthanasia. This debate has sparked profound moral and political controversies, and it is not unlikely that legislative developments will occur in the near future that recognize the right to a dignified death. Second, in continuity with the exemplary political-moral perspective, suicide is addressed as a political matter: as a direct political act, and even terrorism, as happens in suicide attacks (on 9/11, for example) or with the Japanese kamikaze pilots (in World War II). as a form of protest, as happens in suicides by burning oneself alive (from the famous image of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, who on June 11, 1963, in Saigon, decided to burn himself alive, to those that started the protests in the Arab world in 2011); or as a supposedly reasonable action within the framework of some currents of anti-natalism.

As has been demonstrated in the considerations developed thus far, and to put it paradoxically despite the seriousness and sadness of the topic addressed, suicide is an issue that retains great vitality and possesses enormous potential. Does suicide constitute a form of failure? Paradoxes emerge everywhere, because if we think that suicide is not a failure, then the act of attempting suicide and succeeding must be considered a successful action; and conversely, if we label suicide as a stark form of failure, then a failed suicide attempt would be a successful failure. The question does not have a simple answer (Álvarez, 2014, 16). Perhaps suicide is a form ambiguous of failure.

Bibliography

Álvarez, A. (2014). The Savage God: An Essay on SuicideSantiago, Chile: Hueders.

Andrés, R. (2015). Semper dolens. History of suicide in the WestBarcelona: Cliff.

Ariès, P. (2000). A History of Death in the West: From the Middle Ages to the Present DayBarcelona: Cliff.

Barbagli, M. (2015). Farewell to the World. A History of SuicideCambridge: Polity Press.

Camus, A. (2006). The myth of SisyphusMadrid: Alianza.

Cioran, E. (1974). The ill-fated demiurgeMadrid: Taurus.

Cioran, E. (2007). Syllogisms of bitternessBarcelona: Tusquets.

Durkheim, E. (2012). Suicide: A Sociological StudyMadrid: Akal.

Hume, D. (2011). On Suicide. In Hume, D. Moral, political, and literary essays (pp. 493-502). Madrid: Trotta [1777].

Marx, K. (2012) About suicideBuenos Aires: The Forties.

Mauss, M., Hubert, H. (2010). Sacrifice: Magic, Myth, and ReasonBuenos Aires: The Forties.

Minois, G. (1995). Histoire du suicide: la société occidentale face à la mort volontaireParis: Fayard.

Montaigne, M. (2009). TestsBarcelona: Cliff.

Preti, A. (2005). Suicide among animals: clues from folklore that may prevent suicidal behavior in human beings. Psychological Reports, 97, 547-558.

(2007). Suicide among animals: a review of evidence. Psychological Reports, 101, 831-838.

Sandoval Parra, V. (2017). The crime of suicide in the Modern Age: Institutional treatment in European moral and legal literatureMadrid: Dyckinson.

Van Hooff, AJL (1990). From Autothanasia to Suicide. Self-Killing in Classical AntiquityLondon: Routledge.

Zambrano Carballo, P. (2006). Literature and suicide: a brief history of the debate. In: Zambrano Carballo, P., Fernández Garrido, MR, Losada Friend, M., Navarro Domínguez, E. (2006). Studies on literature and suicide (pp. 13-41). Seville: Alfar.

https://www.who.int/es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide

Index of illustrations:

Fig.1: Lucrecia dead, Damià Campeny (1804)

Fig. 2: Illustration of The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774)