As in life, there is a twlight blurring of the boundaries between Hunter S. Thompson as esteemed literary figure, and the actual person who lived on this earth. Even his family participates in the myth-making, buying into — at least publicly — the legitimacy and even heroism of his suicide, seeing it as a form of self-determination and consistent with his esprit de vive.
Among the statements, Douglas Brinkley, a historian and author who edited some of Thompson's work, said the dead gonzo shot himself Sunday night after weeks of pain from a host of physical problems that included a broken leg and a hip replacement. "I think he made a conscious decision that he had an incredible run of 67 years, lived the way he wanted to, and wasn't going to suffer the indignities of old age," Brinkley told AP. "He was not going to let anybody dictate how he was going to die."
So that's a good thing?
His son, Juan, daughter-in-law, Jennifer, and six year-old grandson, William, were visiting from Denver when he shot himself. His wife was at the gym. "He was trying to really bond and be close to the family," Brinkley said. "This was not just an act of irrationality. It was a very pre-planned act."
Again, all of this is good? What nightmares will the little boy have for the rest of his life? How will this influence his views on the sanctity of life. Suicides tend to run in family, you know, it's a very contagious act.
Our Temple Stark tried to make these points in a long running thread about Thompson and his death and was excoriated for his efforts. Are Thompson's admirers so blinded by fandom, by the allure of the myth, that they can't separate the actions of the real person — a person who did all kinds of stupid destructive shit throughout his life (weaponry and inebriation being an unfortunate mix at best) — from the writer's persona?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - RJ
According to a link I found on the Drudge Report, his family apparently had beverages while knowing HST's corpse was stiffening a few feet away from them...
2 - Eric Olsen
either these people were changed by the magnet, or were like-minded souls drawn to it
3 - Rodney Welch
Drudge is a worthless fucking asshole. But Eric, yes yes, you are completely totally, 100 percent right. The suicide bothers me everytime I think of it. I reject it on religious and personal grounds, and all this shit about ending life "on your own terms" is reflective of a culture that is simply infatuated with death. There is nothing to respect about Thompson's demise.
I reprint here something I posted just last night on another site:
Thompson's son and daughter-in-law are "proud" of Dad's exit, which has its own "beautifully dark logic," they say:
"I've known for many, many years that this is how Hunter would go," Juan Thompson said. "There was just no question that when the time came he would choose to do it himself. The idea of Hunter lying in a hospital bed with tubes, gasping for breath, is so contrary to his whole life and purpose and drive.
"It was just a question of when. This was a big surprise and I didn't expect it to be now, but the means was exactly as we expected."
The daughter-in-law is "happy for Hunter. This is what he wanted."
Maybe they're just trying to feel good about it, but they're not alone. You see the sentiment repeated in one obit after the next: he went out "on his own terms." See, these people think it's really, you know, kinda cool that he went out the way he did, a kind of final way of thumbing your nose at God -- I'll decide when I go, old man, not you. It's profoundly contemporary, atheistic, fashionable. Hip, with-it, aware people don't play it out to the end; they grab their coats and go when the fourth or fifth act begins to drag. Our lives are ours. It's a view that turns to life and says "You have nothing more to show me."
I don't know if I can argue against this any more effectively or intelligently than to say I just don't agree. The arrogance of it doesn't impress me. I find myself wanting to write up a will that says "If I ever get to the point where I am physically and mentally incapicitated with nothing but a brain stem left and no chance of recovery whatsoever -- do not pull the plug." I think I'd prefer being a living corpse, if only to piss people off, to remain out of touch with rationalist groupthink to the bitter end. Maybe that, too, has it's own beautifully dark logic.
4 - Dawn
I firmly believe that if you commit suicide you are indeed going to spend eternity in hell, but with one caveat -people dying of a terminal illness get a free pass.
Seriously, how can we know God's plan for us? Who knows what gifts we have left to give or what insight or change we can impart on the world? The reason I have a personal caveat to the "terminally ill" is because they do know God's plan for them and with that knowledge comes a special gift to set things in order, say goodbye and allow loved one's to accept the inevitable.
What Thompson did and anyone who does so is circumventing the natural order of the universe and that has got to have a very dark consequence indeed.
5 - Eric Olsen
well said and I agree with you both, but Dawn even the "terminally ill" matter is a slippery slope. I don't have much problem with what inreality happens all the time: doctors quietly making the decision to not prolong suffering VERY near the "natural" end, but like Rodney, I wouldn't want that to be my decision.
This whole "quality of life" argument is hopelessly arrogant: do all you can to improve your quality of life but don't take the easy way out if you are not satisfied with the result.
6 - Dawn
I guess my opinion about the terminally ill is that until you know the pain and humility that comes with dying and the wasting away, surely even God can spare the beings that he so loves that burden to some degree.
I have seen cancer ravage a person, steal their dignity and cause excruciating pain when all that lay ahead of them is more of the same, at some point, you have to let go and extending that kind of life borders on torture.
That's my perspective anyway.
7 - swingingpuss
Rodney, Somethings are easier said than done. My grandmother actually lived the life of 'living corpse' for six long years.And if you had lived with her you would have known that one doesnt need to die to know what hell is all about.
Eric the quality of life argument is not arrogant.Not everyone like Christopher Reece lead positive lives till the very end.
Many a times those in vegetative condition suffer all kinds of abuse and neglect even if the family members think that the care they are paying for is the best.
I wish there was some way my grandmom's suffering could have been shortened and I hope to god if I was suffer a similar fate my loved ones would have the courage to pull the plug. They would be doing me a big favor.
And Dawn my faith in God was tested at the young age of nine because of my grnadmother's illness. I am an atheist and dont believe in deliverance either by God or Santa Clause.
People committ suicide because they lose hope and dont see anyway out. They need our compassion and not to be shown the fires of religious hell.
8 - Eric Olsen
SP, agreed that those suffering deserve our compassion, but that is not the same thing as applauding suicide. Certainly there is a strong religious component to much of the argument against suicide, but I don't see how it can ever be viewed as anything but the easy way out and I am extremely skeptical that the meaning of life is ease.
9 - Aaman
Hell is other people?
10 - Distorted Angel
I think the 'where' and the 'how' are equally important in comparing circumstances like this. Helping someone in intolerable pain at the tail end of a terminal illness by medical means is really different than leaving your brains on the wall for your loved ones to find.
11 - swingingpuss
I know this sounds callous but if it didnt have repercussions for his family as suicide generally does then it was his life and his to decide what he did with it.
I am not applauding the act nor can I say all people see it as an easy way out. As a teenager I used to suffer from suicidal tendencies and the only reason why I wanted to end my life was because I couldnt deal with the misery after a certain point.
I don't know what was going through Thompson's mind when he did it but saying that sometimes depression engulfs a person to an extent where life seems too unbearable one loses perspective and feel their life is not worth a dime.
And the Japanese were known to glorify suicide take the kamakaze pilots or when the samurais were defeated in indigenous wars.
It is only in the last century with western influence that suicide has become unacceptable in their culture.
12 - Aaman
A piece I wrote on self-immolation may have some relevance here.
HST - Kamikaze pilot!
13 - Distorted Angel
Swingingpuss, I do understand what you're saying. I guess I take the view that once you've enmeshed your life with that of a spouse and/or children, your life actually isn't your own to do what you want with.
14 - Eric Olsen
DA in 10: completely agree.
SP, I don't agree there is such a thing as "right to suicide." I am not trying to imply any of this is easy or that there isn't exceptional suffering that any of us would want to do almost anything to end, but I do think there is no such thing, morally, as nothing left to live for. Pain of all kinds can be mitigated and "miracles" (healing that cannot be explained medically) do occur. Thompson wasn't even close to having a reasonable "excuse" as far as I'm concerned.
15 - Dawn
If I were brain dead - I sure don't want to be left lying in some vegetative state to be robbed of dignity, possibly physically abused and to burden my family with my pointless expenses - sometimes (though rarely) there is no point in going on.
Lucky for me though, my loved ones wouldn't hesitate a second to relieve themselves of the burdens of my existence.
16 - Eric Olsen
are you kidding? laying there all silent and pretty like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White? we'd build you a glass case and sell tickets
17 - Rodney Welch
I'd stay hooked up to the machines so long that the only way you could get rid of my ass is for a massive power failure, and even then I'd still stay on until the back-up generators breathed their last. And then I'd have a huge funeral, complete with a casket and a ferociously religious ceremony with lots of flowers.
This is my idea of "dying on my own terms."
Suicide is for pussies.
18 - Iris
Good for him. Suicide is hardly an "easy way out." Many agonize for years over the prospect, largely due to the tremendous stigma and potential legal ramifications of a failed attempt.
The right to self-determination is about as fundamental of a right as you can get, and the one whence all others derive. (How can you possibly have a right to live without a corresponding right to die?)
Those who demand that another live so as to contribute to the betterment of SOMEONE ELSE'S life are the selfish ones, not he who elects suicide.
Good for Hunter. I am certain, if it is at all possible, he's laughing his ass off at you folks.
19 - Dawn
Whatever - it's a good thing I signed my Living Will - otherwise you people would be selling my organs on the black market and having orderlies molest me for ten dollars a pop.
20 - Rodney Welch
Iris --
"Those who demand that another live so as to contribute to the betterment of SOMEONE ELSE'S life are the selfish ones, not he who elects suicide."
So the grieving families they leave behind are just selfish little shits?
21 - Eric Olsen
Iris, so society would benefit if the "stigma" against suicide was removed? How so? Do you respect and applaud suicide bombers and the 9/11 terrorists as well?
22 - NC
Eric, who cares whether society would benefit? Society might conceivably benefit somehow if Blogcritics were knocked off the Internet; fortunately, society has no say in the matter. It's a question of self-determination. As for your moral equation of people who kill themselves with people who kill others: exceedingly lame.
I agree with you completely, Iris. Well said.
23 - Eric Olsen
there is no such thing as "self-determination" coming in or going out, only while we are here
24 - swingingpuss
Eric, what you are calling "right to suicide" is a right that nature has given human beings along with freedom of choice.
This right is also governed by the fact that we as a society cannot control their decision to commit suicide.
And while I believe in the sancity of life I also know that sometimes one has to live through a certain experience to understand what drove another to take a certain action.
I dont see it as an excuse but as empathy.
25 - Aaman
That statement is indeterminate since we are not 'there'
The undiscovered country, and all that jazz