On Suicide

Brendan O'Neill offers some insights on the strange, au courant way of discussing suicide on the part of the cultural elites. From the Telegraph:

The shift in the way suicide is discussed really reveals a broader, societal inability simply to say: "Suicide is bad." Moral relativism is now so deeply rooted that we even feel bad criticising people who kill themselves and who in the process cause heartbreak and distress. We almost seem to believe they have a “right” to take their own lives, in the same way people have a right to speak their minds or wear funky clothes (indeed, courtesy of the increasingly influential and fashionable euthanasia lobby, the “right to die” has become a cause célèbre in chattering-class circles).

...it is another thing entirely to depoliticise suicide, to elevate it above everyday testy moral debate on the basis that insensitive remarks might cause offence or, worse, bring about further death and sorrow. If anything, it is more likely to be our moral squeamishness about condemning suicide, our collective failure to say as a society that it is a wicked act, which gives a kind of green light to desperate people.