France/Spain 2011 - Day 5, Part 4 - Paris: Musée Guimet - India

France/Spain 2011
Day 5 - 21st March - Paris: Musée Guimet - India (Part 4)

Next it was the Indian galleries. The Indian art was amazingly well preserved, being the best I'd seen. I wonder what I will see when I one day visit the Land for All Seasons.

The museum informed us that Indian art was passed on through the ages until its meaning had been forgotten. I wonder if scholars of Indian art would dispute that.

There was a collection of Greco-Buddhist art in the Indian section but most of it wasn't that interesting in the contex of the other stuff (the really exciting stuff will come later).


Nagaraja, Serpent King. Uttar Pradesh, 2nd c.


Buddha, Uttar Pradesh, end of 1st c./start of 2nd c. ; Bringing of offerings, Uttar Pradesh, middle of 2nd c.


The start of Indian art. Apparently before Buddhist art, art had not existed in India. I kind of agree - Indus Valley Civilization artefacts are noted for their practical value. Early Indian art (3rd-2nd c. AD) did not show the Buddha's person - only symbols representing him (or his presence). He appeared around the 1st century (blame the Greeks).

Sime Indian earlobe hole enlarging discs have been found on the Palatine Hill in Rome, dated to the 2nd century BC.


Multi-storeyed sanctuary. Andhra Pradesh, end of 1st/start of 2nd c.


The Grand Departure. Andhra Pradesh, 2nd c.


The Assault of Mara. Andhra Pradesh, 2nd c.
Mara sent his daughters to seduce the Buddha and unleash wars. He was not distracted.
You will notice that as per the previous note about early Indian art, his presence is indicated by the throne, Swastika and footprints. He is not there himself.


The life of Buddha: "Having finally realized the inanity of ascetic practices, he sat down to meditate under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya"
Ascetics must've been offended at their religion being belittled, and tried to start a racial riot.

As Buddha lost his humanity, Buddhism became more abstract. This also saw the rise of Mahayana Buddhism.


The Sleep of Women and Avadana of the Man in the Wells (Avadana = story). Andhra Pradesh, 3rd c.


The conversion and ordination of Nanda, and scenes of combat (the War of the Relics?), Andhra Pradesh, 3rd c.

According to the Musée Guimet, Varna (Brahmins, Kshatriya [warriors], Vaishyas [peasants] and Shudras [labourers]) is not the same as caste.


Two Scenes about the Grand Departure of Buddha. Andhra Pradesh, 3rd c.

According to the Musée Guimet, Brahma is rarely worshipped. There is only one temple to him, at Pushkar in Rajasthan. According to Wikipedia this is not correct.


Vidyadhara, spirit supporting Science. Uttar Pradesh, 5th c.


Head of Buddha. Uttar Pradesh, 430-435


Head of a woman in a turban. Akhnur. 6th c.
I really like this.


River God (Yamuna?). Madhya Pradesh or Rajastan. 8th-9th c.


Woman with child. Orissa. 10th-11th c.


God with tree (vriksaka or salabhanjika). Rajastan. 10th c.


Goddess. Rajastan. 10th c.

There're two terms for goddess here: déesse and divinité féminine. The former is a term used for female pagan deities, whereas the latter is neutral. Hurr hurr.


Brahma. Madhya Pradesh. 11th-12th c.


The tirthankara Risabhanatha. Orissa. 11th-12th c.


Goddess Khadiravani-Tara. Bihar. 9th c.


Goddess Tara. Bihar. 9th-10th c.


Buddha taking the earth in testament to his victory over Mara. Bihar (?). 10th c.


The Bodhisattva Sugatisamdarsana-Lokesvara. Kashmir. End 10th-Start of 11th c.

New blog picture - 16th September 2011

If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings

Modes of Feminist Rhetoric - Redux

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire

***

Another amusing exchange (see also: Modes of Feminist Rhetoric):

@MizHalle on the Old Man's latest rant on "diseducating" or "uneducating" women: Nice to know that some would have us wimmen back in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, if only it didn't affect the GDP, oh noes!

Me: @MizHalle Asking women to have children is not the same as wanting them in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant

@gracechua: @gssq But wishing you could 'diseducate' them is. @mizhalle

Me: @gracechua That's why I was very amused when AWARE claimed sexual equality is the way to boost birth rates. Au contraire. @mizhalle

@Mizhalle: @gssq your male privilege is showing. Just saying,

Me: @MizHalle Hurr hurr. Internalize my dominant paradigm!

@CharlesNeo: @Mizhalle of course the women bit is rather insensitive. But men are a horny bunch and very frankly don't need the prompting imo

@mizhalle: @CharlesNeo why are you talking about sex? The issue isn't about having sex, the issue is about RAISING KIDS.
plus please don't say things like "men are naturally horny". Women have sexual desires too thank you very much.
if women appear sexually repressed its because we have been SHAMED from a young age about expressing our sexualities
Man enjoys sex? What a stud. Woman enjoys sex? OMG WHAT A SLUT. Effin please.
how can you say "I don't blame women" on one hand and then finish with "BUT MEN ARE HORNY REGARDESS OF EDUCATION"? srsly?

@CharlesNeo: @mizhalle its not. Its about having kids. We are talking Birth Rate not abandonment rate. We ARE talking about sex.
hmmm lets take this offline. People are getting affected.

@MizHalle: @CharlesNeo are you kidding me. Low birth rate ISN'T caused by people not having sex. It's caused by people NOT WANTING CHILDREN.

Every time I get upset about feminist issues on Twitter I end up having an online shouting match with people. Goes to show I never learn.

Me: @MizHalle It's not a shouting match if you're the only one shouting

@MizHalle: Or rather, they're not listening RT @illyrica: @MizHalle No, goes to show THEY never learn

I think I spend too much time in social activist circles. I often forget that most of the population isn't even at 101 levels yet.
I should really just shut up and stick to the places I know share agreement with me. But then what would be the point of that?
It would just be a giant circle-jerk. No engagement, no education.
But then again, trying to educate those who don't want to be educated is counterproductive and will only fuck with your blood pressure.
Therein lies the dilemma of the progressive...

Me: @MizHalle If you assume you have the gospel truth, you will be upset when people disagree with you

@MizHalle: Just blocked somebody (whom I unfollowed a long time ago) because I've had it up to here with his trolling. Good riddance.


This hereby brings down to a grand total of one the number of feminists who are capable of disagreeing civilly with me; disagreeing civilly with feminists is apparently considered "trolling".

Oops, that must be my "Privilege" talking again.


"It is a thing exceedingly difficult to do and not often done well, and I for one have little hope of doing it even tolerably well. The difficulty was expressed to me by another convert who said, "I cannot explain why I am a Catholic; because now that I am a Catholic I cannot imagine myself as anything else." Nevertheless, it is right to make the imaginative effort. It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong" - GK Chesterton

"How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was - such was the effect of them; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth"


Me: yay I pissed off another feminist

Someone: congrats
young or old?
principled radical or unprincipled hypocritical?

Me: young

how do you tell the two apart

Someone: typical sg women are unprincipled hypocritical
at heart they want to be princesses to be fussed over... but demand power

principled radicals are those who claim all forms of penetrative sex is rape, for example
those you don't want to reason with. the other group, you can't reason with.

On what constitutes Outrage of Modesty (Molest) in Singapore

"In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while the article is still on the presses." - Calvin Trillin

***

Just a touch and you're in trouble: Expats prime targets in molest scams

"There is rising concern from some quarters that women are making false claims of molestation in order to extort money from foreign men.

At least two foreign missions here, the British High Commission and French Embassy, have issued grim warnings on their websites...

Even popular Australia-based travel websites such as World Nomads have warned of such scams...

Western men 'tend to be more tactile and flirtatious', he noted. They are also 'totally unaware of the Singapore High Court ruling that any form of physical contact can amount to molestation so long as the woman complains', he added...

Faced with poor chances of persuading a judge of their innocence, the humiliation of a public trial, the stress on their families, and the very real danger they might lose their jobs, most men choose to avoid a trial at all costs, said Mr Chia. Some offences, such as simple molestation, can be settled out of court if the offender pays compensation to the victim, usually between $5,000 and $10,000. But Mr Chia has heard of settlements upwards of $15,000. The breadth of molestation laws, the prevalence of large financial settlements, and difficulty disproving allegations may lead some women to take advantage, he noted...

A woman accused [a man] of inappropriate contact. Although his friend protested his innocence, the police arrested him. However, McDonald's security footage proved he was not at fault and he was released the next day"


Why just *foreign men*?

When a partner of Chia Wong LLP confirms what we already knew (with reference to a High Court ruling), that "any form of physical contact can amount to molestation so long as the woman complains" - and further that the man is essentially screwed if accused, the floodgates are essentially open (note that this just refers to "Assault or use of criminal force with intent to outrage modesty" - even if you don't touch her she can whack you under "Word or gesture intended to insult the modesty of a woman")

Addendum: Assault or use of criminal force to a person with intent to outrage modesty is Section 354 of the Penal Code

It was put to me that the least you need to do is to caress a thigh or slap a buttock lightly, but this is not the case since a buttock "caress" during a photo-taking session that could very plausibly have been accidental got Wee Chor Kian a $4,000 fine (as can a man making a woman touch his shoulders).

And the most ridiculous case of all: kissing a woman's hand got Francis Ngien Tai Ho 2 weeks in jail (hand kissing got him a fine previously).

It is one thing to say that you shouldn't kiss hands without permission - it is quite another to send someone to jail for it (even a "stern warning" would be extreme). This is one of those social infractions that is bothersome enough to be a nuisance, but not so horrible as to warrant state sanction; one can look at how Anti-Social Behavior Orders (ASBOs) are abused in the UK (e.g. slapping noisy kids at playgrounds with them) to clue one in on why involving the legal system in areas formerly reserved for social sanction might not be a wise idea.

It could also potentially lead to interesting (if unfortunate) cultural misunderstandings like those previously mentioned; while "kissing the woman’s hand instead of shaking it on that first introduction can earn you OODLES of Romance Points in her book", here it might get you a short jail term.

This is especially interesting, as one would assume that outrage of modesty (assuming, for the sake of argument, that men too have modesty to outrage) can only be done by an inherently sexual act. The implication is that grabbing and kissing someone's hand, then, is a sexual act (but then so too, it might seem, is taking a picture of a female in public in a non-compromising position)

Links - 15th September 2011

"I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine." - Fritz Perls

***

Coca-Cola Chicken Wings - "Many people don’t even realize it’s a Chinese dish, much less a common one. I have never seen it printed on a restaurant menu or in an English-language Chinese cookbook. It does, however, appear from time to time in Chinese-language cookbooks and on cooking shows, sometimes involving as few as three ingredients."

Avoid financial advisers | Tan Kin Lian's Blog - "My advice to consumers - avoid all financial advisers and insurance agents. Do not buy any investment or life insurance product from a person who approaches you. You will never know if you can become the next victim of this type of financial product."

Ursus Wehrli Creates Meticulous Art From The Everyday @PSFK - "Wehrli finds everyday situations of disorder and compulsively organizes them into neat rows according to color, size, shape, and type. Case and point, the pine branch arranged by needle size and an entire parking lot grouped together by color reveal hints of OCD behavior"

The Limping Middle Class - "Some say we couldn't have reversed the consequences of globalization and technological change. Yet the experiences of other nations, like Germany, suggest otherwise... The real reason for America's Great Regression was political... Yet the rich are now being bitten by their own success. Those at the top would be better off with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of one that's almost dead in the water"

High school student sold herself online to spite dad - YouTube - "A junior at a prestigious Taipei high school was arrested after she sold herself online. The girl engaged in relations with six men for US$1.75 a pop. She said she did it to get revenge on her father, who had confiscated her cell phone and forbidden her from surfing the Internet"

Is “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning” true? Everyday Mysteries

What teachers really want to tell parents - "This summer, I met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state. She was loved and adored by all, but she told me she was leaving the profession. I screamed, "You can't leave us," and she quite bluntly replied, "Look, if I get an offer to lead a school system of orphans, I will be all over it, but I just can't deal with parents anymore; they are killing us""

How the World Failed Haiti - "This, then, is the legacy that decades of foreign investment have bestowed on Haiti: a brutal and intractable poverty, borne of a disastrous mix of well-intentioned aid and profit-driven development. Every decade or so, it seems, the world comes up with a bold new plan for saving Haiti — and each ultimately proves as ineffective and fleeting as the last."
Why is the outside world always to blame?

Her art asks: Can you believe your eyes? - "Many artists paint models, but Alexa Meade takes it to a whole new level. She applies paint directly onto living models, then photographs them in a way that tricks you into wondering: Is it art? Or is it real?"

9/11 Truth: Why Osama Bin Laden's death won't kill the conspiracy theories. - "As long as there is public distrust of government—and with the financial crisis, the collapse of the economy, and the recent debt ceiling debate, public opinion of Washington is at a record low—there will be conspiracy theories"

9/11 Truth: How conspiracy theorists react to apostates like Charlie Veitch. - "One man's poison pill is another's smoking gun... the people most adept at weakening the "9/11 Truth" movement were the truthers themselves. Because conspiracy theorists can't just have disagreements. If you disagree with a conspiracy theorist, then you probably belong to the conspiracy."

10 Things MASS EFFECT Fans MUST Know From Tie-ins

Successful woman to support house husband, kids - "The well-qualified man stayed at home caring for the kids while his wife worked as an IT manager, earning $12,000 a month. When they got divorced, the court made the woman support her ex-husband and kids. The ex-husband, was also given 40 per cent of the matrimonial assets (valued at about $700,000) as recognition for his sacrifices, though he had contributed only about 20 per cent."
A happy case from 2009
Keywords: alimony, maintenance, richer

Porn Studio Building Massive Underground Bunker to ‘Ride Out the 2012 Apocalypse'

Sex Ratios and Crime: Evidence from China’s One-Child Policy - "High sex ratios imply fewer married men, and marriage has been conjectured to be a socializing force. Our paper exploits the quasi-natural experiment generated by the Chinese one-child policy, a policy which is widely held to be behind the surplus of sons. While a national policy, its implementation was local. We show that the provincial level implementation was unrelated to contemporaneous economic characteristics of the province... Using annual province-level data for the period 1988-2004, we show that a 0.01 increase in the sex ratio raised violent and property crime rates by some 3%, suggesting that the rise in excess males may account for up to one-seventh of the overall rise in crime"

Porn Star Teacher Allowed to Go Back to the Classroom - ""British teacher Benedict Garrett was given a reprimand for working as a stripper and porn star while also serving as the head of personal, social, and health education at a high school in East London. Yup, that's right, the sex ed teacher was a porn star... Johnny Anglais... would be allowed to go back to the classroom if he gave up his moonlighting at bachelorette parties and in dirty movies"

SINGAPORE'S COUNTER-RADICALIZATION PROGRAM CLAIMS - "The RRG is a joke, Israeli Embassy DCM Idit Abu lamented to Poloff. The religious counselors are all either members of MUIS, or are connected to the organization, and at least among ethnic Malays in Singapore, MUIS is tainted, and everyone sees religious counselors as government lackeys... the Government of Singapore does not even have a good understanding of ethnic Malays in the country, let alone how and why some ethnic Malay Singaporeans have turned to religious extremism... "They are like children with guns. It's all a big game to them, and they have only avoided any serious terrorist incidents occurring here through sheer luck"... Many Malays feel marginalized in Singapore... Malays distrust MUIS and avoid expressing any discontentment with the government while attending services at local mosques. It is only privately that the Malay youth express their growing disillusionment, he said. Some disaffected Malays turn to crime... The GOS is not concerned about the up-tick in ethnic Malay criminal activities, because the authorities view the increase as an indication of growing secularity among Malays"

Weathering the Storm - "Failure destroys some people. Others rise from the ashes, only to come back stronger. A guide to surviving tough times."

Why we can never escape our siblings - "Only children tend to exceed other kids in terms of academic accomplishments, sophistication, vocabulary, and often, social skills as well"

Gmail man (Office 365 Advertisement) - YouTube - "Microsoft takes a swing at Google with this funny advertisement"

Facebook accused of covert smear campaign against Google

Chain of Fools : Upgrading through every version of windows (HQ) - YouTube - "The program manager icons created in Windows 3.0, which are still present and functional in Windows 7. This is nearly 20 years worth of application compatibility, and Microsoft should be applauded for their efforts in this regard"

Another Home spoils image of Singapore - "Spoofing is always preferable to what our past NDP songs have been doing all this while: Recycling. I present to you now the most over-used word that is not ‘We’ in the history of NDP songs"

Paleofuture - "Paleo-Future reader Tom T. sent me an amazing collection of postcards from the dawn of the twentieth century that depict what life would be like in the year 2000"

America’s Reactionary Feminists - "Geminism is philosophically as much in harmony with conservative, and especially libertarian, values – and in some ways even more so. The core of feminism is individual choice and freedom, and it is these strains that are being sounded now more by the Tea Party movement than by the left... It is blindness to this perfectly legitimate approach to feminism that keeps tripping up commentators who wish to dismiss women like Margaret Thatcher, or Muslim women, or now right-wing US women leaders, as somehow not being the “real thing”"

Strauss-Kahn and 5 other vexing sexual assault cases - "The “he said, she said” nature of such cases is one complicating factor (as is getting victims to report sexual assaults in the first place). But so are prosecutorial zeal, power politics, personal troubles of accusers, and even false accusation"

Media censorship: us versus them? - "When I was at ST in the 1990s, the working arrangement was clear. Reporters and columnists like me were to focus on being good journalists, write for our readers, and not try to second-guess what would make the government happy. Instead, our editors would shoulder the burden of making those difficult political judgment calls... my editors were actually sparing me from the thankless task of appeasing an impossible-to-please government... Given that the PAP government is not going to revise its philosophy on managing the media, the only other politically viable alternative formula would be for the entire newsroom to internalise the PAP’s thinking. That would be the only way to get rid of the frustration in the newsroom, but it would also kill what’s left of journalism"

The True Cost of the Royal Family - "The cost to maintain the royal family today is 40 million pounds per year. But the revenue paid to the UK from the royal lands is 200 million. 200 million in revenue subtract 40 million in salary costs equals 160 million pounds in profit. That’s right: The United Kingdom earns 160 million pounds in profit, every year from the Royal Family."

Quick note on divorce - "The point of this video – as indeed I did not realize at first – is to make opposition to homosexual “marriage” seem ridiculous through comparison to divorce. After all, no one in their right mind could possibly want to ban divorce, right?... And of course the response to this – and the reason I failed to perceive the satire at first – is to agree. To the folks who crafted that video, I say: yes, you’re right. If we are concerned about “protecting the family”, we should – and do – want to ban divorce as well. I may not have written it here, on this blog, but I have agreed for a long time that compared to divorce, homosexuality is a sideshow. No-fault divorce has wrought untold devastation upon the family and should be repealed at once"

France/Spain 2011 - Day 5, Part 3 - Paris: Musée Guimet - Indochina

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." - Oscar Wilde

***

France/Spain 2011
Day 5 - 21st March - Paris: Musée Guimet - Indochina (Part 3)

It was noon and I hadn't had anything all day. So I decided to sit down for lunch instead of eating on the go. There was a Boulangerie Artisan, but I felt that I deserved meat. So I went to a kebab shop for Pan-European Cuisine.

There was Kebab 'Grec' and 'Chicken'. I asked the guy what the difference was and he said the name. Gah. Then he said it was to con outsiders, or something like that.


This was the best kebab I'd ever had. The meat was awesomely crispy and tasty, and I suspected it wasn't shit


"ARRETE PREFECTORAL DU 9 DECEMBRE 1968
IL EST INTERDIT: d'introduire un animal dans l'enceinte du chemin de fer ainsi que dans les voitures. Toutefois les animaux domestiques de petite taille pourront être admis lorsqu'ils seront transportés dans des paniers convenablement fermés...
se livrer à la mendicité, de troubler la tranquillité des voyageurs de quelque manière que ce soit et de quêter"

("Decree of 9 December 1969
It is forbidden: to bring an animal into the railway and in the cars. However small domestic animals can be admitted if they are transported in properly closed baskets... engage in begging, bother other travelers in any way or to beg")

These rules seemed more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Also, in looking this up, I just found out that I'm not allowed to take photographs in the Métro. In Paris, do as the Parisians do - so I shall honour that spirit and break the rules again in future too.

Next I headed to another museum: the Musée Guimet - housing Asian Art.


"The countries of South East Asia form a homogenous and coherent cultural whole"
O RLY


They have "some of the rare remaining Buddhist images in wood outside Vietnam". I wonder why. Probably because there weren't that many that survived the ravages of the tropics in the first place.

Happily the audioguide was free.


Seven Headed Naga (Cobra) symbolising wealth and prosperity. From the bridge linking the World of Man and the World of Gods. The naga chunred the ocean of milk. It was 200m originally, so presumably the other 190+m is back in Preah Khan. Unless it's already been stolen.
This was one of the first things one saw. Of course, the most impressive stuff (i.e. the best stuff they looted from Cambodia) was the first to be presented to visitors. The plaque calls it the Giant's Causeway.


Lintel, Cambodia. First half of 7th c.
We see Indra the God of Storms and the Guardian of the East, mounting the elephant Airavana. Around we see the Marut, the wind and storm gods.

Nagas, the guardians of the treasures in the bowels of the death, were worshipped by peasants because they brought rain. Nagas baptised Buddha with hot and cold water. Hurr hurr.


Brahmanic Stele. Cambodia. Second half of the 7th c.


Skanda. Cambodia. 6th or 7th c.
Wikipedia says that a Skanda is "a Hindu deity also known as Kartikeya and Murugan".


Hariha. Cambodia. 7th c (?).

The Cambodian adaptation/version of Indian sacred texts don't survive.


Buddha (made of wood!). Vietnam, 6th or 7th c. (?)
I'm very impressed that this survived somehow


Bodhisattva Maitreya. Thailand, 8th c.


Bodhisattva Maitreya. Cambodia, 8th c.


Bodhisattva Lokesvara. Vietnam. 7th c. (?)


Goddess. Cambodia. 8th c.


Goddess in Dance posture. Cambodia. Second quarter of 10th c.


Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, Phnom Bok. End 9th/early 10th c. Trio in stone.
On the left we have Vishnu and Shiva combined. On the right, Vishnu with a cylindrical mitre and a disk (if I read my scribbling right). In the middle is Shiva with his Third Eye. (I think both these two lines refer to this duo of pictures)


Lintel. Cambodia. Last quarter of 9th c.
In the centre we see Vishnu mounting Garuda between two monstrous heads
At the sides we see Garuda mastering Nagas


Pediment. Cambodia. ~967.
This is a scene from the Mahabharata and is about how the Only Folly of Man is Women


Vajimukha. Cambodia. Third quarter of 10th c.
A Vajimukha is a horse-headed deity


For some reason, on one of the trains I took on Line 2 of the Métro you didn't need to press a button or pull a handle to open the door. Was this an experiment? A tender error?

The Paris Métro has the most ads for arts events of any subway system I've been in. London has somewhat less, and New York even less than London.

My favourite Métro name: "Bonne nouvelle" ("Good News")

There was to be some 'Excalibur' show from 23-24 September at a stadium. Turns out it's to be a Middle Ages show. Perhaps it's a hidden jibe at the imposition of German fiscal austerity through tightening the rules in the Eurozone.

Schopenhauer on Suicide

"An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly." - Edwin P. Whipple

***

"As far as I know, none but the votaries of monotheistic, that is to say, Jewish religions, look upon suicide as a crime. This is all the more striking, inasmuch as neither in the Old or in the New Testament is there to be found any prohibition or positive disapproval of it; so that religious teachers are forced to base their condemnation of suicide on philosophical grounds of their own invention. These are so very bad that writers of this kind endeavor to make up for the weakness of their arguments by the strong terms in which they express their abhorrence of the practice; in other words, they declaim against it. They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice; that only a madman could be guilty of it, and other insipidities of the same kind; or else they make the nonsensical remark that suicide is wrong, when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person...

It must be understood that it is arguments we want, and that we will not be put off with mere phrases or words of abuse. If the criminal law forbids suicide, that is not an argument valid in the church; and besides, the prohibition is ridiculous; for what penalty can frighten a man who is not afraid of death itself? If the law punishes people for trying to commit suicide, it is punishing the want of skill that makes the attempt a failure.

The ancients, moreover, were very far from regarding the matter in that light. Pliny says: Life is not so desirable a thing as to be protracted at any cost... Not even to God are all things possible; for he could not compass his own death, if he willed to die, and yet in all the miseries of our earthly life this is the best of his gifts to man Nay, in Massilia and on the isle of Ceos, the man who could give valid reasons for relinquishing his life was handed the cup of hemlock by the magistrate, and that, too, in public. And in ancient times how many heroes and wise men died a voluntary death... And we find that the Stoics actually praised suicide as a noble and heroic action as hundreds of passages show; above all in the works of Seneca, who expresses the strongest approval of it...

The reasons advanced against suicide by the clergy of monotheistic, that is to say, Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt themselves thereto, are weak sophisms which can be easily refuted. The most thorough-going refutation of them is given by Hume in his Essay on Suicide...

In my chief work I have explained the only valid reason existing against suicide on the score of morality. It is this: that suicide thwarts the attainment of the highest moral aim by the fact that, for a real release from this world of misery, it substitutes one that is merely apparent. But from a mistake to a crime is a far cry; and it is as a crime that the clergy of Christendom wish us to regard suicide.

The inmost kernel of Christianity is the truth that suffering - the Cross - is the real end and object of life. Hence Christianity condemns suicide as thwarting this end; whilst the ancient world, taking a lower point of view, held it in approval, nay, in honor... [Perhaps] the voluntary surrender of life is a bad compliment for him who said that all things were very good? If this is so, it offers another instance of the crass optimism of these religions - denouncing suicide to escape being denounced by it.

It will generally be found that, as soon as the terrors of life reach the point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his own life...

When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream; when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens.

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment - a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer."

--- On Suicide / Arthur Schopenhauer