Jerome,

People take or try to take their own lives for all kinds of reasons,
but very often because of great distress. And in any case when people
decide to end their life in this way, it is because they no longer see
any value in their life (unless the suicide is a way of escaping
torture or a manner of dying seen as worse than suicide). I don't
think that we should ever dismiss a suicide as a "normal" and even
mundane event, especially if we don't actually know why a person took
such a decision and how the person felt in the last days of his or her
life.

I don't think that suicides are seen as something normal in Sweden.
Certainly not in the case of younger people. And even if in a culture
such a decision is indeed seen as "normal" in the case of a person in
their 70s or 80s, this means that older people tend to be perceived as
"useless" in this culture - as people who may even be secretly
expected to "politely" disappear and leave their property to their
children or grandchildren. Such an attitude towards suicides of older
people reflects deeply ingrained (and in many cases internalized)
ageism.

Anyone who is looking from a critical perspective at some aspect of a
society or culture can be easily perceived (and even denounced!) as
"judgmental" or too influenced by their own society/culture. However,
the fact that both me and the author of this docu, Erik Gandini (who
actually lives in Sweden) did not see this Swedish man's suicide as a
"normal" event does not mean that we are "judgmental". We have no
reason to assume that this man did not feel deeply unhappy.

It is true that all kinds of things can be "normalized" in societies,
but this does not mean that we should regard them as normal unless we
want to be seen as judgmental. In fact, we all know that even the most
cruel and barbaric things can seem completely "normal" to many or most
people in a society or community. And Sweden tends to be wrongly seen
as an enlightened, progressive paradise. Sweden actually had a eugenic
sterilization programme in the years 1934-1976! And racism is a
problem there, too, which is shown in Gandini's film.

Regarding the fact that so many Swedes live on their own, I am
absolutely not saying that living on one's own is a negative thing or
that it necessarily means lonelines... However, there is no reason to
assume that there are no painfully isolated people in Sweden; and the
risk of social isolation and loneliness is much greater when people
live on their own. If we are to believe Erik Gandini and his film,
there are Swedes who are extremely isolated, without any real
connections to others, and whose deaths go unnoticed for a long time
by other people. Of course this phenomenon is not limited to Sweden,
but the very large number of Swedes who live alone might mean that
there are more extremely isolated people there than in other
countries.

Joanna




On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 10:58 PM Jerome Krase <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> As with so many other peoples who seem different from ourselves, we fail to recognize community when it acts differently from our expectations. They seem to have a shared culture of what you might see as isolating and which among many of 'us' is a negative characteristic. Notice that when mediterranean cultures are stereotyped they often seen as 'too family-centric' even though nowadays the families are so small. their coronavirus problem was that even though 'it' is small, they still required closeness; and i might add families are liable to have foreign-born home care helpers for the large elderly population. there is a beauty to being along without being lonely.... and suicide, is not as painful to those for whom not it is socially accepted but almost normalized.
> the data would support many interpretations, as would be true in Italy or the much less culturally homogeneous USA. one might consider related issues such as abortion-right-to-life, right to die, etc.... my wife was/is a bioethicist and i've learned from her to be less judgmental about attitudes toward death and dying; my own and that of others for whom decisions are made.
>
> btw: she feels the need to often visit the graves of her parents, while i don;'t think of my parents as being where their bodies were buried. she is of italian extraction on both sides and i of sicilian and rusyn extraction but not raised, as i can recall, in any recognizable ethnic culture.
>
> let us agree that the lives of some people in the usa are valued less by those in charge than others....
>
> Jerome Krase, Ph.D.
> Emeritus and Murray Koppelman Professor
> Brooklyn College
> The City University of New York
> Seeing Cities Change: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409428787
> Website:  http://brooklynsoc.tumblr.com/
> Co-Editor Urbanities: http://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com
> Editorial Bd. Cidades: http://cidades.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/index.php/CCT/index
> Academic.Edu: http://brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/JeromeKrase
> Editorial Bd. Visual Studies: http://visualsociology.org/journal.html
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Joanna Tegnerowicz [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 12:56 PM
> To: Jerome Krase
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Coronavirus Briefing: Sweden's high-stakes gamble
>
> CAUTION: This email is from outside BC, so examine it closely before opening attachments or clicking on links
>
>
> Jerome,
>
> I wonder if it's actually true that today's Scandinavian countries are
> more communal than the US. One thing is certain: they are much more
> equal societies with a much better-developed welfare state and - as
> you have pointed out - their populations are healthier than the
> American one.
>
> At the same time, it seems that many Swedes lead quite isolated lives
> and this may largely explain why the number of deaths from Covid-19 in
> Sweden is not much higher despite the lack of a lockdown. The
> percentage of people who live on their own is allegedly the highest in
> the world in Sweden - 52% of households in Sweden were single-person
> households in 2017
> (http://www.euronews.com/2017/09/05/people-living-alone-europe-solo-living).
> And it seems that many of these people have no contact with their
> family members and at the best only very superficial contact with
> neighbours etc.
>
> A few days ago I watched the 2015 documentary "The Swedish Theory of
> Love" by Erik Gandini which addresses the problem of the extreme
> social isolation of some Swedes. In the docu, we discover the stories
> of two men who were living alone when they died. One of them had
> accumulated a huge sum of money on his bank accounts, but had not been
> in touch with his only child (his daughter) for many years and had no
> friends. Another man was found dead in his apartment only when the
> neighbours had noticed an unpleasant smell; he took his own life. And
> again, he did not stay in touch with any family members and had no
> friends.
>
> The docu also suggested that many Swedish women actually prefer to use
> sperm donors instead of getting involved in a relationship. Of course,
> this is only a documentary and the image of Sweden it depicts may be
> distorted. However, the very high percentage of Swedes who now live on
> their own is an undeniable fact - and probably at least some of them
> don't socialize with others or only to a very limited extent.
>
> Joanna
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 4:09 PM Jerome Krase <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Sorry for all the typos:
> >
> > RE: Sweden, as well as other national cultures that differ from out own. Allow me to overgeneralize, but many Scandinavian cultures are communal, meaning the feeling that individuals are part of of a whole. This 'herd' instinct will result in a higher death toll, but a lower total societal-wide impact. Not unlike people volunteering to fight in a war to defend their nation. Another important factor is that the population is more prosperous, healthy, and better-served from the central government. In the same edition of the NYT there are stories about the response of the 1% to recover vs the 'rest of us' and the attitude of our government and oligarchs about who shall be served in a time of not so collective crisis. Frankly-speaking, if I felt that increasing my exposure (not committing suicide) would enhance my children and grandchildren's likelihood of survival, I wouldn't wear a mask. Given that our country is an everyone for itself nation.... no thanks!
> >
> > Jerome Krase, Ph.D.
> > Emeritus and Murray Koppelman Professor
> > Brooklyn College
> > The City University of New York
> > Seeing Cities Change: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409428787
> > Website:  http://brooklynsoc.tumblr.com/
> > Co-Editor Urbanities: http://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com
> > Editorial Bd. Cidades: http://cidades.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/index.php/CCT/index
> > Academic.Edu: http://brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/JeromeKrase
> > Editorial Bd. Visual Studies: http://visualsociology.org/journal.html
> > Now you can check us out on Facebook
> >
> > please go to..
> >
> > https://www.facebook.com/Humanrightsandsocialjusticenow/
> >
> > and tell all our friends..
> >
> > thanks..

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