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On Friday, June 8, Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef turned convivial diner to the world, was found dead in Kaysersberg, a small village in the Alsace region of France. He died by suicide at age 61.
His death partially eclipsed the apparent suicide of Kate Spade, the fashion designer, especially famous for her accessories.
The June 25 cover of People magazine was entitled “Talent and Tragedy.”
It was shared by glossies of these two “beloved icons.”
The media was suffused with tributes to the two.
They were well deserved.
How one dies does not delete how one has lived.
One can certainly complain, however, that these tragic celebrities were turned into commodities, marketed by the media.
Yet that is the very nature of modern media.
People and events are products, ever more so in a modern, information-based economy.
June’s most famous media commodity was, without doubt, the little refugee girl, crying in terror at being separated from her mother.
That this did not actually happen—at least to this particular little girl—is, from an economic point of view, irrelevant.
Packaging is not always precise.
No commercial enterprise begins with a business plan to market evil.
All businesses seek to make a profit. Positive effects are almost always conjoined with some negatives, and so the modern media, just before it profits from tragedy, reminds us not to imitate what they present to us as titillation.
Even more challenging is offering tribute to a life without encouraging imitation of a death.
That is, as we say, the cost of doing business, in this case, media business.
Yet the question should be posed: Are we doing enough as a society to discourage suicide?
Perhaps human nature lacks the ability to maintain balance.
Maybe equilibrium belongs only to the deity. For centuries, Christians, Jews and Muslims did not permit “suicides” to be buried in common, consecrated land.
At least among Christians, these souls were thought to have committed the unpardonable sin. In killing themselves, they had despaired; they had closed themselves off from God.
In “Hamlet,” when the body of Ophelia arrives at her grave, the priest says:
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her (V.II.251).
Having evolved into societies where individuals are considered more sacrosanct than communities, we find such a policy to be harsh and punitive.
Our ancestors, however, saw it, along with other forms of social coercion, as necessary to preserve and enhance life.
- Suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death, for all ages, in the United States.
- Every day, 105 Americans die by suicide, about one every 12 minutes.
- For young Americans, ages 15 to 24, suicide is now the third leading cause of death.
For young Americans, it vies with accidents and murder.
It is time for us to think again about communities.
Some evils, indeed most evils, transcend the individual.
They do not begin or end within a single soul.
That is why community among humans has always been and will always be a life-giving necessity.
We cannot adequately nourish, heal, protect or educate ourselves as individuals.
We cannot save ourselves from suicide that way either. Continue reading
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