“We are all culpable,” Matt Nelson said before lighting himself on fire. This is the third such incident in a year.

“We are all culpable,” Matt Nelson said before lighting himself on fire. This is the third such incident in a year.

  • @drjcha
    6•3 days ago

    This isn’t true.

    I am a rape survivor who hasn’t dated anyone in a very long time. The person who hurt me was not prosecuted. I don’t like being touched anymore. I am probably going to kill myself within a few years. I don’t think this is a mental health issue that I want to die; I think this is a valid choice, and no, I don’t want big pharma drugs, religion, or people talking to me to try to make me feel better. I just ultimately want to die and just meed to get my affairs in order.

    The person who lit himself on fire and me are not the same. He wasn’t someone who wanted to die, he was someone who wanted people to realize the level of suffering that Palestinians are experiencing.

    He didn’t want to kill other people to make his point because he wasn’t violent. He was willing to die himself however. That’s self-sacrifice. More people are noticing what is going on because of what he did. It was not pointless or meaningless.

    There are people who commit suicide because of temporary mental health issues, those that end things due to persistent despair, which are not a mental health issues but valid feelings, and neither of these things are the same as self-immolation as political protest.

    I know it makes people in society FEEL better to say that people who choose actions that lead to their own death are all mental and just should have called a hotline so they could be locked up by police and force fed or injected with psychiatric medication until big pharma made everything better, but reality isn’t always fairy tales and happy endings. Gross simplifications that push drugs and involuntary hospitalization are an extreme illogical form of reductionism like flat-earthers who deny climate change but feel better as a result.

    • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
      3•3 days ago

      Gross simplifications that push drugs and involuntary hospitalization are an extreme

      Yes agreed. We have mental illness due to fascism and authoritarianism, it doesn’t help to then dial that up to 100000 via forced institutionalization

      You can be in your right mind and kill yourself, I truly believe this. Whether he was in particular, idk. But we allow 18 year olds to sign up for the military and don’t medicalize them, so society has some concept of this.

      Personally, I have deep respect for people who protest in this way.

      • @[email protected]
        0•2 days ago

        I think the only counter argument really is that if you protest like that, you can’t protest again in the future, usually.

        I would hope that he could have done more net good with the remaining 80 years of his life if he had dedicated it to the causes he believes in.

        They also run the risk of there being zero coverage when it happens, which makes it a regrettable decision. I didnt hear about the second person who did this, just the first and third.

        • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
          1•2 days ago

          I think self inmolation protests tend to linger for a while. While you personally may not know every person to do it, I do think it gets attention and I remember them. I dont think i couod ever forget the videos ive seen. Certainly the witnesses and people who cleaned up the remains will remember forever.

          None of us have a guarantee of life. We aren’t entitled to life. There’s nothing saying he wouldn’t have died of cancer in 3 years anyways. This is similar to people saying “what if you aborted the future scoentist to cure cancer?” It’s nonsense based on an intangible future.

          None of us are entitled to work from another person. I mean this really sincerely, the state believes we belong to them and forces work out of us because we live in a giant work camp. So that’s the legal basis for why the state stops us from self harm - denying them the economic advantages of my labor.

          He did dedicate the rest of his life to causes he believed in.