Suicide As Unfreedom And Vice Versa

P.Madhu*

1.1. Introduction

In this paper I problematize that the

suicides out of despair

(hereafter

sod) as

statements of unfreedom

. The paper is divided into six sections. The first section

introduces the problem and locates it within the existing scholarship. The second

section puts forward first of the two problems the paper engages: suicide as

unfreedom. In this section, the situational and essent′ial ontology of suicide is

briefly discussed and proceed to categorize two major forms of unfreedoms

emergent from the historical ontology of human social life: slavery and bare life.

The third section of the paper problematizes unfreedom as freedom corrupted both

from the perspectives of Heideggerian essent′ial ontology and Badiouian situational

ontology through set theoretical models of freedom/unfreedom. Subsequently three

sets of unfreedom: heteronomy, atomy and bare life; and one set of freedom vis-à-

vis autonomy is logically derived and discussed. Freedom is presented as a

directive idea helpful in doing away with unfreedoms. Then the second of the two

problems ­ unfreedom as suicidal- is briefly discussed. The concluding section

delineates that despite the emergent historical reality having constituted human

social life as unfree, we could still be hopeful in recovering freedom as the essent′ial

ontology of the human species and the evental potential of the situational ontology

of life is not fundamentally unfree.

In the following two paragraphs I discuss the classifications of

sod

and

suicides out of choice (hereafter

soc

) and then I discuss how suicides are accounted

in various disciplinary and theoretical positions. After the brief discussion on

various approaches to suicide, I elaborate what I hold as unfreedom, contrasting it

from freedom, from the positions of situational and substantial ontology. Through

the discussion I arrive at a thesis that not just

sods

are impelled by conditions of

unfreedom but problematize the unfreedoms as suicidal.

Suicides can be broadly classified as the

suicides out of choice (hereafter soc)

and the

suicides out of despair

.

Suicides of choice

differ from that of despair as the

sod

is resentment over the victims′ status of unfreedom to live1, whereas the

soc

are

expressions of freedom to die. The

sod

victims would not have committed suicide

had they either got habituated with the situations of despair or felt that the

* I can be contacted at: madhu.mes@gmail.com

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situations are being subdued or overcome. If suicides happen in clusters among

marginalized communities it could probably be the

sod

.

Sod

could be final

statements of suffering, despair, grief, frustration or anger by its enactor and often

it is the voice of despair from the victim community.

Soc

on the other hand need not have been prompted by any conditions of

unfreedom, but by a decision to end one′s life due to unwillingness to continue

living because of either personal reasons or social conditions. The personal or

political reasons for soc can be ranging from loss of interest to live or just to express

her freedom over terminating her life or it could even be a spiritual or political or

ideological decision to end her life.

Soc

could also be expression of her resistance to

certain conditions of social life against which she could express her protest with her

self-inflicted death.

Socs

can be distinguished from

sods

as under the conditions of

socs

there would be no suicidal unfreedoms. The

Soc

were even prevalent among

prehistoric communities and they have their prevalence among late modern

individuals too2. For instance, the suicides of suicide bombers are mostly

socs

.

There can also be fuzzy categories of suicides, which are both

socs

and

sods

in

degrees as in the cases of euthanasia, which falls outside the gambit of this paper.

The

Sods

, especially those occur in clusters, it is argued, take place under the

conditions of unfreedom. The suicides reported among aboriginals, small and

marginal farmers, manual labourers, unemployed and other marginalized

communities could be mostly

sod

. It is not accidental that in countries like

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA suicide trend among the aboriginals are

about three to five times higher than that of the mainstream3. Most of the

aboriginal victims of suicide are reported to be either adolescents or persons from

their early youth4. Unlike the predictions5 made by Durkeim, the rise in rural

suicide rate is higher than that of urban suicides, throughout the world, compared

to the rates of earlier decades6 however, not without meagre exceptions. Studies

suggest that the rate of suicide from the rural areas of the third world countries

steeply rose from initiation of structural adjustments of late 1980s and early

1990s7. It is observed that the rates of growth of rural suicides are nothing

`normal′8. If we take India as a case point for third-world suicides, it can be

observed that among the Indians, suicides are highly prevalent among lower middle

classes of people, small farmers, and manual labourers and among other

populations that is

being

marginalized. Though unreported, suicides progressively

increase among adivasis9, dalits10 and poorer sections of India11. Indian rural

suicides, for instance, are on the sharp increase since 1991 onwards, the year which

coincides with the beginning of the structural adjustment regime12. Increase in

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suicides among already marginalized communities is an indication of the

acceleration of their experience of despair. The studies of suicides in the third

world countries reveal that humiliation, loss of honour, economic failure,

indebtedness, crop-failures (especially while using genetically modified seeds),

rising cost of agricultural inputs disproportionate to the return of income, inability

to meet marital expenses of one′s daughter or sister, chronic medical illness etc.,

individually and combined with other factors such as disputes with spouses and in-

laws, internal migration and its associated discomforts etc., are the immediate

reasons for suicidal decisions. The recent suicide studies, in general, observe that

the pattern of suicide among economically affluent societies is demographically

different from those of the poorer ones. Among the middle class populations of the

affluent society suicides among elderly is on the rise where as among the people

living in ghettoes and also among the lower middle class of the affluent societies

the youth have higher share of suicide victims. The studies of suicides in the west

show that largely youth suicides have familial precedence13. In the `developed′

nations, unlike the `developing′ ones, schizophrenia, drug abuse, recent economic

loss(es), limited social support for aged persons′ isolated living etc., are cited as the

reasons for most of the suicides14. The point I drive home is not a case for

increasing rural suicides but to figure out that more than rurality or urbanity it is

the actual and perceived unfreedoms that lets one to

sod

. Though suicides are

committed in the affluent north and the impoverished south for different

immediate reason, the

sods

globe over

have the same underlying reason15: the

unfreedom. The recognition of the underlying cause is important because, that

which triggers suicide among the dead and gone could probably have its resonance

among the living too.

1.2 Approaches to suicide in academic literature

Suicide studies, often referred as

suicidology

is a vast academic field with

conflicting and complementary theoretical establishments. Most of the recent

studies of suicide are from the field of epidemiology16. Epidemiologists view suicide

as a contagious psychiatric disorder17. Psychiatrists focus on the aspects of adverse

childhood18, mood disorders19 and other clinical psychiatric aspects. Psychiatric

research into suicide is dominated by diagnostic systems20. The sociological studies

concentrate on the collective aspects of suicide such as its statistical pattern of

recurrence21, social fact22, shame23 , excessive individualism24, and social

exclusion25. Psychological theories of suicide on the other hand focus at the

personal dimensions of anomy, guilt, despair or exclusion26 . Psychological theorists

also ponder upon developmental27, familial28, stress related29, hopelessness30

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interpersonal31 and rational32 dimensions of suicidality. Psychological studies often

concentrate on the variables such as depression, self-esteem, locus of control,

emotional disturbance and recent stressors33. The Contemporary sociologists

belonging to the varieties of schools of generative structuralism, unlike their

predecessors integrate the agency centred psychological and micro-sociological

aspects with their structural counterpart and probe the `structurational′ aspects of

suicide34. Trying to explain suicides sociologically, Giddens hybridizes Durkeimian

sociology of anomie and Halbwashsian psychology of the individually experienced

′social isolation′ of the suicidal persons and comes with his theory of structuration

within which he identifies the psychological and sociological factors non-dually

culminating in suicides35. There are also sociological studies concentrating

dimensions of media contagion of suicides36. Studies from gender theorists reveal

how the gender disparity and the social construction of masculinity having its

suicide toll among the men37. Suicidology also has a wide reserve of contributions

from psychiatrists, biologists, neurologists, and geneticists. Neurologists explore the

brain processes such as serotonin dysfunction, which finally culminates into

impulsive suicide38. There have been occasional attempts to demonstrate that

suicides have genetic basis39. There are also attempts by economists to theorize

suicide. Economic theories mostly draw their logic from the philosophy of utility

and rational choice40 . However, the studies despite their breadth, they have a

either serious limitation as individually they limit discipline bound enquirers to get

stuck within their discipline or baffle trans-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary

enquirers with their sheer multifarious dimensionality.

2.1 Suicide as Unfreedom

In order to bring clarity I have categorized suicides as

soc

and

sod

.

Irrespective of suicides happening out of choice or despair, to use the language of

structuralism, the statement of suicide has morphology, syntax and structural

aspects of grammar at its broadest level. Looked from its generative angle, it has its

contextual meanings, praxis, generative grammar and micro aspects of practices. In

other words, there are structural aspects, facticities41 and the particularities of

contexts specific to the suicide and the exchanges between the aspects mentioned

above42. However, studies conducted from the perspectives of structuralism, post-

structuralism or those weaved from the micro-sociological aspects leave us astray as

they do not help us to understand the underlying factors that let such a structure or

non-structure to emerge.

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The cluster suicides43 of despair happen among the sections of people

thrown out of time and space. Throwing out the politically disadvantaged of place

and time happens, as the space and the time in the social contexts are political

constructions construed disadvantageous for the outliers within the history-power-

state regime44. Time, as Negri puts it, is not merely a measure but `the global

phenomenological fabric′, the base, the substance and the flow of production, the

production of the social, in its entirety45 .

Mostly suicides happen because of intense subjective sufferings. The intense

sufferings though could least be attributed to the conspiracies of their

dominant
alterity

- the others - to hurt someone, ironically, the suicidal `intense suffering′ is

not altogether unrelated the horizons, the existence, and the processes of the love of

the

dominant alterity46

. In other words, the play of the

politics of jouissance

of

the

dominant alterity

and its instruments of power47 could not be written off as clean or

unconnected

.

Suicides in cluster happen among the victims during their acute transition

into unfreedom. It is the figuration48 effect of the adventitious unfreedom49. The

global progression of unfreedom let the suicide too to be a global phenomenon.

Fundamentally, Suicides are both the statements of protest and despair in reaction

to the lives being turned into unfree bare life50 . Reducing a human into bare life is

to equate her with the simple reality of her living being, contemptible, quite

opposite to what the principle of life implies51.

`Injustice is clear, justice is obscure,′ observes Badiou52. Also, he observes,

"That it is easier to establish consensus regarding what is evil rather than -

regarding what is good". Similarly, while

sod

clearly instantiate unfreedom,

freedom is obscure as it is about life and the rightful living. Life is obscure; death is

clear. Unfreedom is concrete and observable as unfreedom has its effects: suffering,

revolt, and habituation. Unfreedom, as Zizek puts it is being caught into a forced

choice53. The idea of freedom is abstract but politically directive. Freedom is an

axiom with which we recognize unfreedoms.

2.2 The situational and `essent′ial ontology of freedom/unfreedom

Freedom, is situationally emergent and sustainable through human action;

nevertheless it is fundamental property and

active aspect

of the human species and

its praxis54. Freedom has its foundation in human care-structure and its

engagement. In this regard quoting from Heidegger Dallmayr observes:

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"Freedom," ... "is not merely what common sense is content to let

pass under this name: the caprice, occasionally present in our

choosing, of moving in this or that direction. Freedom is not mere

arbitrariness in what we can and cannot do; nor, on the other hand, is

it the mere submission to a requirement or necessity (and thus to an

ontic standard or object). Rather, prior to all such ′negative′ or

′positive′ construals, freedom is engagement in the disclosure of

beings as such"55

Heidegger further clarifies "freedom is not governed by human inclination"; and

"man does not `possess′ freedom as property," on the contrary "freedom, or

freedom, or existent revelatory

Da-sein

possesses man"56.

Also, freedom is emergent from situations and our activities. Badiou non-

substantially conceptualizes freedom as a contingent reality emergent out of the

situational elements constituting it in infinite ways57. However, it can also be

observed that the situational ontology of Badiou and `

essent

′ial58 ontology of

Heidegger share their meaning as Heidegger too construes freedom as condition or

grounding of the possibility of

Dasein59

.

Also, for Arendt, freedom is the

condition

and

objective state of human existence

that makes politics possible60.

2.2 Forms of unfreedom: pre-capitalist slavery and late capitalist bare life

Slavery in the historical past and bare-life in the late modern present are

major genres of unfreedom. Both unfreedoms, though emerged under different

historical ontologies, separated by epochs and episteme they share a commonality:

the state of exception. Slavery is a status where the slave has no right or ownership

while over whom any or all of the powers connected to the right of ownership are

exercised. Bare life on the contrast a redundant life that has lost its utility for the

dominant and hence excepted from the political life. Slaves were not considered

`fully human′61 on the other hand bare life remains included in politics in the form

of the exception, that is, as something that is included solely through an

exclusion62. While slavery and colonial dominance were impetus for the

development and sustenance of capitalism in its formative phase63, the modern

form of bare life is its repercussion in its late phase. Both under slavery and bare life

the sufferings the bearers of hardship undergo have its expression in suicide and

also in various forms of `spiritualities′64, especially before the victims got habituated

within the conditions govern them. Both under bare life and slavery suicides are

rare and often unrecognised as one, as the life of the victims is hardly counted as

valuable. However, the social group that is

about to enter

or

just entered

the bare

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life, and the slaves who find slavery unacceptable commit suicide65. Suicides under

slavery and bare life happen and counted as one when the suicide victims are not

fully habituated within such a life. For instance, suicides were relatively more

prevalent among the first generation African- American slaves for whom "suicide

was the result of a preference for death over slavery ... or undeserved

punishment"66.

2.3 unfreedom globalized, futurized, time-space distantiated

In the late capitalism bare life is globalised. Bare life is a consequence of the

spatially globalized and temporally futurized neo-liberal world order. `Time-space

distantiation′67 and `colonizing the future′68 are much avowed characteristics of the

historical ontology of global capital. `Time-space distantiation′ is Giddens′

euphemism for the implosion and sustenance of global capital into the remotest

corner of the globe wherein the localities face the global on a larger time scale and

get spatio-temporally distantiated. It is a process that involves stretching the

relations of power and dominance over time and space so that relations can be

controlled and coordinated globe over for longer periods69. `Colonization of the

future′ is a strategy Giddens prescribes for those involved in their survival games

and `life politics′ towards `creation of territories of future possibilities.′ Bare life is

the other side of the coin: that of the colonizing life-politics. Bare life is being

produced as colonization of future progresses. In this regard, Barbara Adams

observes:

industrial societies today the present is transcended and the future as

last frontier colonized with enduring things, belief systems and

institutions, with cultural and technological products, with insurance

and economic practices. As such, the future is pursued, prospected,

produced, polluted. It is thus traversed in the dual sense of being

`travelled′ and negated... the industrial extension into the future is

characterized by parasitical borrowing from the future, by prospecting

and plundering it for use and benefit in the present without regard to

time-space distantiated effects, that is, globalized impacts now and in

the future.70

2.4. Unfreedom: subversion of citizenry

Bare life is a form of unfreedom; it is the state of exception71, being exepted from

the totalised empire72. By the phrase `state of exception′ I would like to indicate the

subversion of citizenry and withdrawal of citizen rights especially that of the people

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