Last night I was on Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein about Matt Nelson, who is by all indications the person who immolated themselves across from the Israeli consulate in Boston on Sept.
There is a substantial difference between “being suicidal” in the clinical sense and having decided to commit suicide. We have no reason to believe, lacking an avenue for the “self expression” of immolation, that he would have jumped from a bridge or hung himself in the attic. As far as we can tell, he looked at the present political situation and judged that the most effective thing he could do to accomplish what he believed had to be accomplished was by doing something that required the investment of dying. That’s not the same thing as “being suicidal”, though you and I both disagree with his choice for our respective reasons.
There is a substantial difference between “being suicidal” in the clinical sense and having decided to commit suicide. We have no reason to believe, lacking an avenue for the “self expression” of immolation, that he would have jumped from a bridge or hung himself in the attic. As far as we can tell, he looked at the present political situation and judged that the most effective thing he could do to accomplish what he believed had to be accomplished was by doing something that required the investment of dying. That’s not the same thing as “being suicidal”, though you and I both disagree with his choice for our respective reasons.