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Title Culture, suicide, and the human condition / edited by Marja-Liisa Honkasalo and Miira Tuominen
Published New York : Berghahn Books, [2014]

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Description 1 online resource (x, 219 pages .)
Contents Culture, Suicide, and the Human Condition; Table of Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Varieties of Suicide; Part I. Suicide; Chapter 1. The Construction of the Suicidal Self in Phenomenological Psychology; Chapter 2. When It Is Worth the Trouble to Die; Part II. Ancient and Medieval Approaches to Suicide; Chapter 3. "Tell Him to Follow Me as Quickly as Possible"; Chapter 4. Free Philosophers and Tragic Women; Chapter 5. Moral Philosophical Arguments against Suicide in the Middle Ages; Part III. Morality, Politics, and Violence
Chapter 6. "She Kissed Death with a Smile"; Chapter 7. "When We Stop Living, We Also Stop Dying"; Afterword; Notes on Contributors; Index
Summary Suicide is a puzzling phenomenon. Not only is its demarcation problematic but it also eludes simple explanation. The cultures in which suicide mortality is high do not necessarily have much else in common, and neither is a single mental illness such as depression sufficient to lead a person to suicide. In a word, despite its statistical regularity, suicide is unpredictable on the individual level. The main argument emerging from this collection is that suicide should not be understood as a separate realm of pathological behavior but as a form of human action. As such it is always dependent on the decision that the individual makes in a cultural, ethical and socio-economic context, but the context never completely determines the decision. This book also argues that cultural narratives concerning suicide have a problematic double function: in addition to enabling the community to make sense of self-inflicted death, they also constitute a blueprint depicting suicide as a solution to common human problems
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Suicide -- Social aspects
Suicide -- Philosophy
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Security.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare.
PSYCHOLOGY -- Suicide.
Suicide -- Social aspects
Form Electronic book
Author Honkasalo, Marja-Liisa.
Tuominen, Miira.
ISBN 1782382356
9781782382355