Michael Starr of The Jerusalem Post Journalist Mark Joseph Stern blamed suicide protests on ‘hysteria’ condescending tone “Those who suffer from mental illness deserve empathy and respect, but using political justification to glorify those who take their own lives is so irresponsible.” Mental illness was assumed without evidence.
The rush to pathologize Bushnell’s actions suggests a double standard. After Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, self-immolated on December 17, 2011, at the start of the Arab Spring, no one wondered if he was mentally ill. President Barack Obama praised him as a hero, comparing him to Boston Tea Party patriot and civil rights icon Rosa Parks. We knew little about Bouazizi’s political views or family life, and few people cared to ask. His death was rarely described as a suicide in Western media. After all, his cause was just, and it became even more just because of the revolution it sparked.
What causes some actions to become ennobled and others to become uninhibited? How do we determine what is reasonable and what is not? Unlike Bouazizi, who was reacting to confiscation of property and police abuse, Bushnell thought carefully about his actions. He had apparently warned news outlets about the impending protests hours earlier. As he dozed off, he acknowledged the “extreme” nature of what he was about to do. And it was. In his book on suicide, philosopher Michael Cholbi dryly states, “Suicide is difficult.” Most attempts fail. In contrast, according to some studies, the fatality rate of self-immolation is more than 70%.
Bushnell’s politics were extreme. Many, if not most, of us will find his various views, which he regularly posts on his Reddit, absurd, stupid, and reprehensible. He dabbled in a kind of dorm room Fanonism that sees the world through the simplistic lens of the colonized and the colonized. He argues that it is his position as a privileged white American to ask how Palestinians and other oppressed groups respond to their oppression, even if it means resorting to violence. I believed it wasn’t.
For some of Bushnell’s critics, this privilege was a source of irritation in another direction.a certain critic It pointed out While Bouazizi was protesting his government, Bushnell, 25, was concerned about “distant ethnic and religious conflicts”. He had no family ties to the area. Why should he feel so intensely about other people’s problems?
The issue faces fundamental disagreements over how Americans should interpret the war in Gaza. This is not just a foreign conflict in which tens of thousands of people died. It’s not “far”. The United States is Israel’s major military backer, providing emergency weapons and supplies needed for the war effort. In addition, the US Air Force provided information on the targets of Israel’s large-scale airstrike on Gaza. The United States is directly involved in a way it is not in other conflicts.
Bushnell did not realize that the conflict was remote. He said:
“I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer take part in the genocide. I am about to take part in an extreme act of protest, but I am not going to take part in the genocide that people have experienced in Palestine at the hands of their colonial masters.” That’s not extreme at all compared to what our ruling class has decided is normal.”
You don’t have to like Bushnell’s reasoning or use of the term “genocide” to understand his perspective. Understanding does not mean justifying. To cite a relatively frivolous analogy, political philosopher Santiago Ramos recently argued that “explaining why his uncle voted for Trump in 2020 is not the same as voting for Trump himself.” No,” he said. Thinking this way requires what author Robert Wright calls “cognitive empathy.” This is a conscious effort to take in the perspective of others, even those you think are at fault.
Based on the information we have, rather than speculation about the mental state of the dead, Mr. Bushnell believes the U.S. role in the war that has killed some 30,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. I felt more and more hopeless. A thorough investigation by the Washington Post concluded that Israel’s war in Gaza is one of its most destructive wars. of The most destructive 21st century so far: Israel has “destroyed”[ed] More buildings were destroyed in a much shorter time than were destroyed in the Syrian regime’s battle for Aleppo from 2013 to 2016, or in the US-led operations to defeat Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, in 2017. The building was destroyed. ”
It may be irrational or even insane to think of doing what Bushnell did, but Bushnell, and millions of other Americans, believe that the government facilitated the mass murder of a largely defenseless population. It is not unreasonable to feel helpless in the face of the situation. That’s also impossible. That’s worse than unreasonable.