suicide

Social Media Makes Us Miserable

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how … Read more

Why Apps Cannot Replace Temperance in Preventing Suicide

In a fast-paced world, everyone wants everything instantly and effortlessly. This desire is part of a culture in which happiness and pleasure are expected yet not always delivered. When people inevitably fail to obtain all that they want, they suffer from stress and depression. No one should be surprised that they then also want instant … Read more

Why Are We So Unhappy?

The recent spate of suicides by the rich and famous is a symptom of our growing sense of gloom. We enjoy social, technological, and economic conditions that would have been considered utopian less than a century ago. Yet, unhappiness, and even depression, are at record levels. Why? In his impressively researched book, The Progress Paradox, … Read more

Good Food is Not Enough

I was saddened by news of the death of Anthony Bourdain, reported as an apparent suicide. While I’m always surprised and saddened by news that a person has opted out of life, unfortunately our collective shock has perhaps been lessened by other high profile suicides among pop stars, and by our intuitive recognition that a … Read more

“Get Back in the Car”

In Massachusetts, a young woman, Michelle Carter, has just been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because, by verbal encouragement—numerous emails and other communications—she aided in the suicide of Conrad Roy III in July 2014. Mr. Roy had stepped out of the cab of a vehicle, filling with lethal fumes, only to hear Ms. Carter tell … Read more

Thoughts on Suicide

Hamlet. O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!  Hamlet, Act I, Scene II In his groundbreaking study of … Read more

True and False Freedom

It has been said before but it bears repeating: the progressive ethos of liberation of all, from all, is death. The progressive worldview has at its core but a single guiding principle—libertinism; that man should endure no restraints and suffer no constraints save those that upon himself he enforces. In a word, he should be … Read more

A Suicide in Brooklyn Raises Questions about Parochial Education

The Wednesday before last, the liturgical Ordo exsequiarum (Order of Christian Funerals) was celebrated in Staten Island, New York for a Brooklyn Catholic school boy who took his own life last month. Thirteen-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick was laid to his earthly rest just weeks shy of beginning what would have been this month the start of … Read more

Desperate America

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” True in Thoreau’s age, perhaps, not so much in ours. It seems the decibels of desperation have increased since Henry David’s days near Walden Pond. And not decibels only, but desperation. Nowadays we take our desperation at alarmingly acceptable rates. How often we merely “consume” media … Read more

Suicide, Homicide, Verbicide … “Dignicide”

Mercatornet, a pro-life blog about end-of-life issues, has just reported the latest doublespeak percolating among the anti-life crowd: “dignicide.” How to describe killing yourself, or getting somebody to kill you? “Murder” is so gauche in our voluntaristic, nominalistic culture in which the will defines reality: can you really be murdered if you agree to being … Read more

The Lighter Side of Suicide

“People rarely joke about suicide.” ~ Dr. Aaron Kheriaty The whole world is mourning Robin Williams. He was a gifted comic; he made people laugh and smile, think and squirm; he shared his talents with the world and the world is better as a result. Williams’ gift for comedy makes it all the more startling … Read more

Suicide’s Tormented Souls

The story couldn’t have been more tragic. Twin brothers, born deaf, with a genetic disorder that was causing them to go blind at the age of 43.  After a lifetime of communicating by signing, what were they to do?  The twins would have been cut off from each other, it seemed. It was simply too … Read more

Ireland: The Victim of Orwellian Deceit

Ireland is currently the victim of an astounding deceit, the Orwellian “Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill.” It passed the Irish lower house or Dáil Éireann, and now goes on to their senate, which lacks the power to reject the measure, and on for signature from the, largely honorific, president who is in any case … Read more

Choice and Repercussion

Jean Bethke Elstain, an author I greatly admire, made an astute observation when she remarked that “much that comes parading through town under the banner of ‘choice’ is actually a new set of constraints and compulsions.”  “Parading” is an appropriately descriptive word since this new attitude toward choice does not come to us through a … Read more

Suicide at Notre Dame a Warning to the West

The mainstream American right has remained almost entirely silent about the recent suicide of the French historian, Dominique Venner. The reasons for this, I do not know—perhaps it is a squeamishness about the symbolism of his final act, or a lack of understanding of it. Perhaps it is a refusal to see what the people … Read more

Suicide No Way to Go

Suicide and the legalization of physician assisted suicide seem to appear in headlines more and more. Elected officials such as Peter Shumlin, governor of Vermont, increasingly favor legalization of physician assisted suicide as “the right thing to do” with promises that “we are going to get it done.” Mainstream media addresses suicide positively. Consider the … Read more

Item added to cart.
0 items - $0.00

Orthodox. Faithful. Free.

Signup to receive new Crisis articles daily

Email subscribe stack
Share to...