Burningbird: Touching the Untouchable

July 10, 2002

Touching the Untouchable

At what level of discourse will I step over the boundary of comfort? I came close with the postings on anger, but thankfully, we were able to box these in with an objectively intellectual viewpoint that pushed the topic safely and correctly back into manageable bounds.

So now, let us up the ante on human emotions and see if words can truly strip away all context and feeling and pain until nothing else is left except a black and white description of an act.

In a posting today, Jonathon talks about attending a Japanese film festival and the increasing discomfort of the audience when the expert who introduces the film abruptly stops speaking about Japanese morals from an 'intellectual' perspective, and begins to speak of them from an experiential one.

This expert, Donald Ritchie broke the taboo'd boundaries of an intellectual discussion with a story based on humor, and real life, and actual sensuality. And the elite, the intelligencia, reacted in open and overt hostility. Jonathon writes:

But for the majority of his listeners he had already said far too much. The forced atmosphere seemed to choke off any further questions and soon the audience was filing out, a restrained silence replacing the excited chatter that followed most screenings.

I found Jonathon's posting to be eerily timely and apropo for me because I had spent last night and this morning wrestling with whether to talk about Gene Kan.

I wanted to talk about Gene because if nothing else, we owe him that. And I didn't, because I was brought up in a society where one doesn't do certain things. Such as get angry. Such as admitting going to a Japanese brothel.

Such as talking about suicide.

Gene Kan killed himself. He was 25 and he took a gun and he killed himself. He did not have an "accident" as the Sun spokesperson described. And we can't bury his final act with a recitation of all of the accomplishments of his very short life.

Gene's final act is one few of us would contemplate; yet it is the one act - the only act - over which any of us could have ultimate control. To deny this act is, in many ways, to deny the actor.

I said earlier that I was angry that Gene had killed himself, and I am. Incredibly angry. But I'm also angry that we've euphemized his suicide, boxed it in with platitudes, and reduced it to a sound bite.

Kent (fishrush) found Gene's last resume (thanks Kent), which I've copied to the bottom of this posting. Read it.

Gene Kan

Summary:

Sad example of a human being. Specialising in failure.

1990-current Failure specialist

Executed numerous technical, commercial and personal
projects, typically resulting in failure.

References available upon request.

And that's all I have to say, now.

Posted by Bb at July 10, 2002 02:42 PM

Comments

I'd like to post something to my site, but I just don't know how to say it. It's terrible.

Ya know though... my generation (Gen X - damn I hate that name) had Bud Dwyer and especially Kurt Corbain. We also had the movie Heathers. Ever see that movie?

It made a great case for *not* talking about suicide in a certain light.

Here are some statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm

More people die from suicide than from homicide. In 1998, there were 1.7 times as many suicides as homicides.

1998, white males accounted for 73% of all suicides. Together, white males and white females accounted for over 90% of all suicides.1 However, during the period from 1979-1992, suicide rates for Native Americans (a category that includes American Indians and Alaska Natives) were about 1.5 times the national rates.

Nearly 3 of every 5 suicides in 1998 (57%) were committed with a firearm.

Persons under age 25 accounted for 15% of all suicides in 1998.1 From 1952-1995, the incidence of suicide among adolescents and young adults nearly tripled. From 1980-1997, the rate of suicide among persons aged 15-19 years increased by 11% and among persons aged 10-14 years by 109%. From 1980-1996, the rate increased 105% for African-American males aged 15-19.1,8
For young people 15-24 years old, suicide is the third leading cause of death, behind unintentional injury and homicide. In 1998, more teenagers and young adults died from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease combined.1
Among persons aged 15-19 years, firearm-related suicides accounted for 62% of the increase in the overall rate of suicide from 1980-1997.1
The risk for suicide among young people is greatest among young white males; however, from 1980 through 1995, suicide rates increased most rapidly among young black males.9 Although suicide among young children is a rare event, the dramatic increase in the rate among persons aged 10-14 years underscores the urgent need for intensifying efforts to prevent suicide among persons in this age group.

Posted by: Karl on July 10, 2002 06:45 PM

btw - i didn't bring up Heathers to say there shouldn't be discussion :) It did have a very interesting take on it all though.

I can't help but feel my response to this - which is contrary to logic - anger at the person who did it.

I felt no sympathy for Corbain. I felt angry at the mental health establishment, and I felt anger at him for committing one of the most self-centered acts in the universe.

Posted by: Karl on July 10, 2002 06:48 PM

And one last thing...

Statistically it's a fair bet the most of us here know someone effected by this act.

And that leads me to my deepest feeling I have on it - sympathy for those left behind. Torn with questions that have no answers.

Posted by: Karl on July 10, 2002 07:04 PM

I don't have any difficulty talking about suicide. In the Navy, we have annual suicide prevention training. With the strain we place on young people and their families, we've endured more than our share of suicides.

Karl, I wonder why you feel the mental health establishment might have had something to do with Cobain's suicide?

My impression is that there are very effective protocols and therapies for dealing with people who exhibit the potential for suicide, it's just that we can't get these people to the help they need in time to save them.

Bottom line is, people do get depressed (just like anger, it's "normal"), and we need pay attention to our friends and co-workers when it seems like they might be down. If anyone who seems depressed talks about suicide, even in sort of a "oh, I'd never do anything" kind of way - take them seriously. If they start giving away a lot of stuff, it's a warning sign. If they buy a gun, it's a sign. Difficulty spleeping, it's a sign.

I can understand suicide being a taboo subject for someone with a family member who commited the act, there's a huge amount of guilt and grief and perhaps shame, the survivors have to endure. But in my profession, it was costing us the lives of good people, and we owed them that support. Every suicide was a failure of our organization's core values, we failed to keep faith with our shipmates.

We also had a tremendous advantage in the Navy. I could get someone admitted to the hospital if a doctor agreed they were at risk, and I could compel them to see the doctor. That kind of authority probably makes a lot of you uncomfortable. I'm not sure how much you can do in civilian life. Call the cops? I don't know, whatever it takes I guess. Obviously Gene Kan's friends didn't think they could do much more, or perhaps thought they'd done enough. I don't know.

But I think it's a good idea to talk about suicide, from the standpoint of trying to prevent it.

Posted by: Dave Rogers (not that other Dave) on July 10, 2002 07:21 PM

This seems like a good resource American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and http://www.afsp.org/education/recommendations/1/index.html">here's an interesting article on how suicide reporting might be done to prevent the suicide "contagion."

Posted by: Dave Rogers (not that other Dave) on July 10, 2002 07:50 PM

Oh, crap! (Anger thing).

Article here: Suicide Reporting

Shelley, feel free to edit my careless typing as you wish.

Posted by: Dave Rogers (not that other Dave) on July 10, 2002 07:52 PM

I simply don't understand how thinking adults can have 'taboo' subjects. Perhaps that's just me. Too bad about Gene Kan and all, but he ate a bullet and now he's dead and those are the simple facts. That he was a person that many cared for and many will clearly miss (as shown by the gentle words here and at BoingBoing and AccordionGuy and elsewhere) is also a fact. If I'd met Gene, if I were his friend, I might lament the fact that he is dead. But it'd be no more or less a tragedy because he took his own life.

One wonders if, when the point of no return is reached, a person committing suicide goes 'no, no, wait a second, I changed my mind' or is accepting of the end of life. If the latter, then there is no tragedy, only self-pity in the survivors.

Some people kill themselves.
Some men pay money to get their wingwang squeezed.

That's life. I'm not sure prevention, in either case, is the right approach, but I am sure that acting coy when the subject arises does a disservice to everyone.

Posted by: stavrosthewonderchicken on July 10, 2002 08:35 PM

You're all right - the subject isn't taboo. It was only my own read on the subject that saw it as such.

Time to change subject, and move on to something else.

Posted by: Bb aka Shelley aka Weblog Bosswoman on July 10, 2002 08:39 PM

Actually, Bb, I agree with you about the taboos thing. I just think they're ridiculous.

Posted by: stavrosthewonderchicken on July 10, 2002 09:25 PM

s'cool, Stavros. But I'm depressing myself and need to lighten up. Just a tad.

Posted by: Bb aka Shelley aka Weblog Bosswoman on July 10, 2002 10:03 PM