The suicidal person at the house party

[Jorje]

Imagine an insecure person hosting a house party. There's a suicidal person who wants to leave the party, but the owner of the house is keeping a close eye on the exit, and locks the door. As we all know, a good party has a lot of people, and we cannot afford to lose people when the party is just beginning! We need to keep this party alive, packed, and bumpin!

The host talks to the person who wants to leave and asserts that there must be something wrong with them if they can't appreciate how fun this party is. The host goes on to suggest that this individual is redeemable, and will surely come to see the light of day and appreciate how awesome and fun this house party actually is. The host tries changing the person's mind. The host tries offering drugs and alcohol. The host asserts that this person *MUST* sit down and try a game of monopoly (for 70 years) before they're allowed to walk out the door. Surely a good fun game of monopoly will change their mind!

But the individual keeps losing at the game, they suck at monopoly and keep going bankrupt very quickly. Instead of letting this person leave the game, the host offers to loan them out more money to keep them going. But what if they don't want to keep going? They can't get out the front door. The music is blaring and everyone else is trying to have a good time. They are left with desperation and sometimes in desperate times people take desperate measures. The individual sneaks up to the second floor of the building, smashes out the window and jumps through the window to escape this "fun" house party.

Now the party is ruined. Now the mood has died and this is what the host was afraid of...just like the window, their inflated perception of the house party was shattered. No matter. The solution is obvious: bolster the window with reinforcements and create another barrier. Anyone who decides to follow the first individual is now faced with a locked door and a reinforced window that can't be shattered. The music is cranked up a notch, and everyone is told to forget about the broken window. The reinforcements are there to protect people from "accidentally" falling out. Forget the issue. Party on. We are freely participating in this house party....whether we like it or not.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I'm with you! An ancient school of philsophy is, too! The Stoics would be pissed about locking the doors and blocking all exits.

The Stoics likened life to a party, and determined there were five reasons to rationally exit the party (suicide):

1. In service of one's country, i.e., an old friend shows up to the party and requires your services.

2. The arrival of rowdy revelers, i.e., tyrants who force us against our will to say or do disgraceful things at the party.

3. Protracted illness that prevents the soul from the use of its tool, the body, i.e., spoilage of provisions for the party.

4. Poverty, i.e., scarceness of party provisions.

5. Madness, i.e., drunkenness at the party. In Buddhist terms, intoxicants lower one's inhibitions against doing no harm to others and, by default, to the self. In Stoic terms, this equates to lowering the inhibitions put in place by practicing virtue. According to Epictetus, the purpose of practicing virtue is for life to flow more smoothly, and as social animals, virtues directly impact our interactions with others. This agrees with the purpose of the Five Precepts of Buddhism, considered gifts to others for the good of social order (no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sexual misconduct, no intoxicants).



Source: Griffin, Miriam. "Philosophy, Cato, and Roman Suicide I," Greece and Rome, vol. 33, no. 1, 1986, pp. 64-77. Original source cited by Griffin, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, a 1903-1905 collection by Hans von Arnim of fragments and testimony of the earlier Stoics. The Buddhist/Stoic commentary under madness is mine.

The source article and article II by Griffin are available for free online viewing at JSTOR.

If interested, see the thread for quotes and discussion about the freedom provided by death and suicide from a Stoic perspective. Others on this forum have discussed the philosophical perspective of suicide from Camus, Epicurus, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc., and can be found using the search function.

 

[FreddieQuell]

Imagine an insecure person hosting a house party. There's a suicidal person who wants to leave the party, but the owner of the house is keeping a close eye on the exit, and locks the door. As we all know, a good party has a lot of people, and we cannot afford to lose people when the party is just beginning! We need to keep this party alive, packed, and bumpin!

The host talks to the person who wants to leave and asserts that there must be something wrong with them if they can't appreciate how fun this party is. The host goes on to suggest that this individual is redeemable, and will surely come to see the light of day and appreciate how awesome and fun this house party actually is. The host tries changing the person's mind. The host tries offering drugs and alcohol. The host asserts that this person *MUST* sit down and try a game of monopoly (for 70 years) before they're allowed to walk out the door. Surely a good fun game of monopoly will change their mind!

But the individual keeps losing at the game, they suck at monopoly and keep going bankrupt very quickly. Instead of letting this person leave the game, the host offers to loan them out more money to keep them going. But what if they don't want to keep going? They can't get out the front door. The music is blaring and everyone else is trying to have a good time. They are left with desperation and sometimes in desperate times people take desperate measures. The individual sneaks up to the second floor of the building, smashes out the window and jumps through the window to escape this "fun" house party.

Now the party is ruined. Now the mood has died and this is what the host was afraid of...just like the window, their inflated perception of the house party was shattered. No matter. The solution is obvious: bolster the window with reinforcements and create another barrier. Anyone who decides to follow the first individual is now faced with a locked door and a reinforced window that can't be shattered. The music is cranked up a notch, and everyone is told to forget about the broken window. The reinforcements are there to protect people from "accidentally" falling out. Forget the issue. Party on. We are freely participating in this house party....whether we like it or not.

Epic first post. Welcome to SS

 

[miguel6565]

I loved and cannot be more agree whit this post,great way to start in SS!

 

[Ghassane]

I'm with you! An ancient school of philsophy is, too! The Stoics would be pissed about locking the doors and blocking all exits.




If interested, see the thread for quotes and discussion about the freedom provided by death and suicide from a Stoic perspective. Others on this forum have discussed the philosophical perspective of suicide from Camus, Epicurus, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc., and can be found using the search function.

I've been reading about stoicism thanks to ur reply here i found my self not only in love with this philosophy but i was also doing some of it for the longest time (thinking that im just crazy) even without knowing that is actually exists.