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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32140 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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The trick is that when pressed, they say they're talking about suicide rates, and thus making a veiled threat to kill themselves. As a reminder, this is archetypal abuser behavior.

If a depressed person said if you deny us medication or therapy then more depressed people will kill themselves, is this making a veiled threat or recognizing (what they see to be) factual truth?

If a depressed person said if you deny us medication or therapy then more depressed people will kill themselves, is this making a veiled threat or recognizing (what they see to be) factual truth?

Unironically, I think it's valid as their interpretation of factual truth if and only if they acknowledge that they're mentally ill. Because without that acknowledgment, then they maintain agency for their actions, and their decision to commit suicide is entirely on their own moral ledger. People who aren't mentally ill can get mad that other people are making them unhappy, but crossing the rhetorical line from unhappiness to suicide is just an abusive tactic in that context.

Does it change the argument if I ( a non depressed person) say that I think depressed people are more likely to kill themselves if denied treatment?

There definitely is some kind of line where threats of suicide can be used abusively I agree, but I think in most examples like this it is being used as a guilt trip which can be (but is not necessarily) abusive. I guilt my kids into doing stuff all the time, because it is one of the social tools at our disposal. When it crosses the line into abusive is hard to define I think.

Does it change the argument if I ( a non depressed person) say that I think depressed people are more likely to kill themselves if denied treatment?

Again... this is okay if and only if we agree that depressed people are mentally ill.

There definitely is some kind of line where threats of suicide can be used abusively I agree, but I think in most examples like this it is being used as a guilt trip which can be (but is not necessarily) abusive. I guilt my kids into doing stuff all the time

If you tell your kids that you'll kill yourself if they don't eat their vegetables or whatever, you'd be way over the line into abuse. If you observe to them dispassionately that you are statistically more likely to kill yourself if they don't eat their vegetables, you haven't salvaged the situation. It isn't the guilt trip that (necessarily) puts you over the line, it's threatening suicide.

If you tell your kids that you'll kill yourself if they don't eat their vegetables or whatever, you'd be way over the line into abuse. If you observe to them dispassionately that you are statistically more likely to kill yourself if they don't eat their vegetables, you haven't salvaged the situation. It isn't the guilt trip that (necessarily) puts you over the line, it's threatening suicide.

Right because eating vegetables and suicide are not linked (I assume!). But depression and suicide are. If I tell them "If you don't eat your vegetables I will be disappointed you have chosen not to eat healthily" I am guilting them with a reasonable outcome on my behalf. If they were doing something that actually would increase my risk of death, then it becomes once more reasonable. Don't pretend to throw your brother off the roof, you'll give me a heart attack perhaps?

Don't pretend to throw your brother off the roof, you'll give me a heart attack perhaps?

No sale. This only works because "you'll give me a heart attack" is a figure of speech. "Don't pretend to throw your brother off the roof or I'll kill myself" speaks for itself.

It's a bad example true, but remember the speaker in the original is not saying they will kill themselves, but that others might. So maybe this one is closer:

If my son is a truck driver and wants to call out to play Call of Duty and I say, if you don't deliver that shipment of widgets, the widget factory will shut down and people will lose their jobs, some might starve and some might even commit suicide. I am not going to hurt anyone or myself, I am predicting the potential consequences of his actions. I might be making those consequences up to guilt him, or they may be true or I may be exaggerating them for effect. But we can't tell which without knowing about the widget factory and the financial situation in the town etc. Whether I am correct in guilting him depends on the accuracy of my prediction. If I work at the widget factory myself, that might mean that I am either knowledgeable enough to know it is one delayed delivery from bankruptcy OR guilting him because my bonus depends on being able to de-widget the widgetiser.

But you can't tell which, whether I am doing it for personal gain or to protect the town (or both!),

If my son is a truck driver and wants to call out to play Call of Duty and I say, if you don't deliver that shipment of widgets, the widget factory will shut down and people will lose their jobs, some might starve and some might even commit suicide.

This is stupid. It's telling that this sort of achingly awkward construction is the best you're able to come up with after many attempts. It's fine to tell him that he's going to cause privation and misery by shirking, I suppose. Invoking suicide is a rhetorical record-scratch moment where you immediately sound like you've gone off the deep end. It adds nothing, you'd never include it, and it makes your statement less compelling rather than more if you do, because it sounds so transparently manipulative and irrelevant to the point.

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