Legally, I support euthansia. I don’t, generally, believe the coercive force of the state should be used to stop consenting adults doing things and, mostly, I despise, loathe, and hold in the most abysmal circles of contempt the coercive force of the state when used on private citizens. I don’t view what should be legal in the lives of private citizens based on how I believe they should conduct themselves and determine what I believe should be legal, in our current system, at least, on whether more harm than good will be done by sending the kinky bouncers of the state in. That’s my reason. The rest of the left, however, doesn’t believe that nearly as much as they used to and they have other reasons.
They take a much less libertarian view of what the kinky bouncers of the state should be used for. Their views on euthanasia are pathetic. Firstly, they tend to call it “death with dignity” which associates them with the most famous suicides in literary history by inserting the eigth word of that play into it. While dignity is a relatively common word, it is not common enough in daily parlance for that literary association to not be made. It also seems to be the opposite of dignity because it implies that dignity is absent from the old and the sick. While it is not, ostensibly, about aesthetics, aesthetics are, ultimately the reason they saw their lives as lacking dignity.
There were other words they could have used like comfort or peace but they used dignity. Ergo, if someone decides to fight on and not die then they are a pathetic husk of a human being who is sad and sorry. What is worse is the warm fuzziness which they afford to suicide. At least Romeo & Juliet, who they inadvertently allude to in their slogan for this, made their final scenes epic, romantic, and poetic. It wasn’t warm and fuzzy, it was hot and passionate. That may or may not be appropraite which is why, possibly why, Taylor Swift and myself have rewritten their fates in our respective artistic canons. It is, however, more approriate than the teddy bear approach the left takes.
Yet, the rest of Taylor Swift’s canon might suggest less of an aversion to suicide. I have used her as an example of interpersonal hatred a lot because this blog has a worldwide audience and I need an example everyone from Pakistan to Chile will understand and being hated is one of the major contirbutors to suicide. While she probably hasn’t pushed anyone over the edge, herself, I can only imagine some of her millions of fans burning someone they don’t like in effigy and writing revenge anthems about them. It is a culture that doesn’t lend itself to people being accepted and loved but rejected and hated over minor shit and my guess is there is a body count of strange fruit in laundry closets owing to to her canon. Her only real defense is John Rawls, saying that it is her right to do whatever she wants, including to indirectly contribute to the suicide rate, since it does not violate negative liberties.
Returning to euthansia, the left treats it as an identity politics issue, about the sacred right to express oneself. Those are not their words but that is their sentiment. To be more specific, they tend to make the philosophical argument that life has no inherrent value and its value derives from what one can get out of it. If life is about thriving and the thrill of living then clearly it has lost any purpose in such a wretched state. I obviously disagree with that since I rescue earthworms when I see them drying on a sidewalk even though I know they won’t get much out of life just because I see their life as beautiful. Their use of the term dignity, their treating life as a utility to satisfaction as opposed to having inherrent value, and therefore treating euthanasia as the retiring of the metaphorical easle of the artist who can no longer make art is what disgusts me.
My issue with the left’s approach to euthanasia is less the suicide, itself. If someone is suffering enough and for long enough or in a vegetative state, I may not be against it. Yet, their arguments and approach to it greatly concerns me since it implies that life has no inherrent value and the seemingly decrepid have no dignity. I rescue earthworms from sidewalks because all life is beautiful and no life is too ugly to possess dignity. And if someone is suffering so greatly that it may be warranted, I am not going to be huggy and fuzzy about it and gently cheerlead them into the hereafter. I will keep my tongue in my cheek, a bitter and resentful countenance, and an air of realism and saltiness. I say that as a member of my family who voted to pull the plug, that is to cut life support, to his own mother on June 25, 2020. I regard it less with gushing tears as much as with scathing and cold fucking sobriety.
The Autistic Resistance 