Two paths to death

リーブ氏の死と
集団自殺事件

Death is death, no matter how it is reached, and it generates the same awful sense of loss for those left behind. But what a contrasting view of life these particular deaths offered.

Reeve, of course, was well known — so well known that many people reacted to his death as that of an intimate rather than a stranger. They had seen his movies, perhaps read his memoirs Still Me and Nothing Is Impossible, and watched him on television giving interviews, speaking at the 1996 Democratic National Convention or testifying before Congress.

His work to advance research on spinal-cord injuries was so familiar that even some doctors expressed surprise that the 52-year-old actor had died before his dream of a cure was realized. He willed himself to live — and someday to walk. His steely optimism had become part of his legacy.

The nine people who chose to die in Saitama and Kanagawa, on the other hand, preferred to remain anonymous, their lives and motives a matter of speculation. Their actions tell us they felt sad, frustrated and without hope. Still, not one of them could have had more cause to feel that way than Reeve did. Job loss, peer pressure, generational angst — whatever lay behind the death pacts — it could not have approached the horror of Reeve's inability to move and, often, even to breathe unassisted. His wealth and celebrity underplays the bravery it must have taken to claim a new public image that made many people feel embarrassment or, worse, pity just to look at him.

Yet it was Reeve who said of his misfortune: "You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile." And on another occasion: "A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." By that definition, most suicides are the opposite of heroic.

The question raised is simple: What is it that enables one person to persevere and causes another simply to give up? The honest answer is that we don't know. Perhaps some people are genetically wired to be optimistic. Money, connections and a supportive family obviously help. All we know for sure is that despite his near-total incapacitation, Reeve found the mental strength to live out the maxim attributed to the English essayist Joseph Addison: "Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are: something to do, something to love and something to hope for."

There has been much discussion in the media about why those nine young Japanese, and thousands more like them in recent years, were unable to do likewise. Perhaps it is true that joblessness left them with nothing to do, an unsatisfactory family or social life left them with nothing to love, and a feeling of malaise common in affluent and stagnant societies left them with nothing to hope for. We can only speculate. Their burdens, whatever they were, were obviously heavier for them than Reeve's was for him.

More useful, probably, is discussion of why Japanese seem more willing than people of other cultures to see suicide as a solution to despair. Some note the lack of religious strictures and the fact that seeking psychiatric care may be considered more of a social taboo than suicide. Others point to a long tradition of multiple suicides, citing celebrated cases such as the 47 ronin and the "love suicide" of novelist Dazai Osamu. And in the last few years, the Internet has facilitated such pacts by creating a virtual community of like-minded but otherwise isolated people.

As with so many other social ills, education is surely the key to bringing down the suicide rate. There will always be despair. That can't be changed. What can be changed, with time, imagination and planning, is the idea that suicide is an acceptable way out of it.

The Japan Times Weekly
Oct. 23, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

      リーブ氏の死と日本の集団自殺事件は、生きることに対する対照的な立場を象徴している。

      多くの人たちは、リーブ氏の主演映画を観たり、伝記を読んだり、米民主党大会（96年）での演説や議会での証言を記憶しているだろう。事故で脊髄を損傷したリーブ氏は、自分が再び歩けるようになることを願い、同じ症状の治療の研究を支援する役割を果たした。

      埼玉県、神奈川県で集団自殺を遂げた9人について動機などは解明されていない。失業、社会適応への圧力、若さゆえの悩みなど問題はあるだろうが、全身麻痺で自発呼吸も困難だったリーブ氏が経験した苦難には及ばないだろう。

      リーブ氏は「英雄とは、極度の逆境に耐える強さのある普通の人間だ」といった。大抵の自殺者は英雄の正反対ということになる。

      近年は多数の自殺者が出ている。自殺の動機については不明な点が多い。先進社会にありがちな不安のなかで希望を失った人たちも多いだろう。

      日本人は他国民に比べ、絶望の解決策として自殺を選ぶ傾向が強いとされる。自殺に対する宗教的規制がなく、精神科で受診するより死んだ方がましと考える人もあるだろう。また、日本では四十七士の敵討・切腹、小説家太宰治の愛人との心中など集団自殺・心中の歴史が長い。最近はネットの「自殺系サイト」が自殺志願者を募集している。

      自殺率を引き下げるには、啓蒙が必要だ。人生に絶望はつきものであり、それを変えることはできない。しかし、時間をかけて、自殺は絶望の解決策として容認されるという考え方を変えることは可能だろう。