I wrote this after reading an article posted to Hubski. Suicide has always intrigued me intellectually; especially the gender disparity between rates of male and female suicide. So I did some research. It was a cathartic experience.
I'm not much of a fan of evolutionary __________ unless the blank is algorithms. The idea that you can look at an organism and say, "Well, maybe we have a female orgasm because we have big heads!" is as much a fantasy about the past as flying cars are a fantasy about the future. There are plenty of things to learn from evolution, and precious few things it can explain in retrospect. We're not perfectly crafted beings, everything doesn't make the best sense, and it doesn't have to because we keep fucking successfully.Among evolutionary scientists suicide is an extremely complicated and controversial topic. Not only is suicide difficult to study, it also appears to contradict basic evolutionary theory. If evolutionary processes program organisms to survive and reproduce, how could something as detrimental as suicide be selected for?
This kind of thing strikes me as a sort of basic misunderstanding a lot of people have about evolution: not everything about an evolved organism has been separately selected for. For instance people fall over all of the time. It happens. We trip. It's hard to see how tripping could be selected for, but the simple answer is that legs are selected for. Tripping is a byproduct of legs.
Personally I don't think suicide evolved or was selected for in humans in the same way that it may have been in social insects. I think what has been selected for is misery and unhappiness as the basic human condition. Look at the number of great thinkers who were also depressed, alcoholic or suicidal. The mere fact of unhappiness makes one want to change his environment. Unhappiness can act as a force or gradient to try to improve oneself or one's station, or, by extension, the condition of society via inventing, improving and innovating. The difference between the strident man and the suicidal is hope versus despair. Unhappiness plus hope is a recipe for positive change and success, and something that absolutely could be selected for, because every woman wants to score a winner. Unhappiness plus despair apparently can be disastrous. It seems, then, that perhaps despair is a disease of civilization, as they say, much like cancer and hypertension.
This was not a basic misunderstanding on my part. I concluded this paper by explaining that current theory indicates that suicide is a by-product of adaptation for other things. I was using this paragraph as a way to draw the reader in because those questions did confuse evolutionary theorists for a long time.
Right. I finished the article before posting. I should clarify that I didn't mean you, I meant most of the evolutionary scientists I've read. That said, I think the only thing I found new or interesting in the post was the quote about chimps not jumping. Most of the examples for suicide have stark differences from human suicide, since I'd say the overwhelming majority of those 51,401 don't commit suicide to save everyone else from a threat. And the conclusion that "suicide itself is not adaptive; it seems to be a last resort effort for us to reach out for help" is somewhat less than shocking.
Perhaps it is not shocking. But I think it is interesting that our current understanding does not support the idea that higher rates of male suicide than female suicide are not inevitable. And furthermore, it is useful to social scientists to understand that suicide itself has not been selected for. Both of these insights can help our society realize that we can bring the suicide rate down by creating the right cultural environment and institutions to deal with depression.
I think this article does a good job of explaining the phenomenon in new words. I agree with the article referenced, but I definitely see where this one is coming from as well. I think it is still rooted in many of the same problems in either interpretation of the data - men, in western society, are expected to perform at a higher level than women, in general. Not universally, and not across all disciplines - men who suck at dancing, art, or writing are considered normal, for example - but in terms of general ability to succeed in life, men face a lot more onus than women, because women are generally treated as inferior. This means that from the pressure to succeed, follows greater despair over failure. It reconciles the knowledge that, for example, in the Middle East women's suicide rate is higher, because women are expected to perform at a high level, socially, and the cost of failure is massive shame on herself, her family, and possibly her death. Essentially, suicide, in this way, is a social mechanism to reduce shame, stigma, and major life-failures. The higher the social requirements, or onus to succeed, on a group, I bet the rate will always go up. Once again, the gender disparity in suicide is something which we can address from a feminist perspective - relieve the onus on men to be masculine and succeed, treat women as equally able to live up to high standards, and the rates, I imagine, will normalize towards equality.
What a phenomenal point. Thanks for your comment. I completely agree.pressure to succeed, follows greater despair over failure.