DEAR Yong,

On the 18th of last month, you published two pieces on the recent death of Ms. Gillian Bennet — by Peter Singer and yourself — to which I have found my thoughts often returning since. You, in particular, raised many interrelated issues of the most profound kind.

For instance, you wrote: “But was there more than courage? Was there hope in her mind for an eternal soul beyond death? In Peter Singer’s article, which focuses on her ‘rational and ethical’ decision to end her life, I see no answer... I don’t know what was really on her mind, but in Peter Singer’s article, I see a Gillian Bennett lost in ‘rational and ethical’ consideration of costs and benefits. Although her courage to die commands unconditional salute from every soul, her death and our memorial words partake of crude Darwinism: survival of the fittest — if you’re no longer ‘fit’ for living, die. In Bennett’s courageous mind, was there a bit of regret? We are not sure. To die or not to die, that’s not the question. The question is how to die: with or without regret.”

At age 71, I no longer see death as an “enemy” or the fact of dying as “sad” or “tragic,” except insofar as it discomforts those who survive. Clearly, dying is an integral part of living; in this we share the fate of all living creatures. Death is not abnormal, nor should it be feared.

As in the case of Ms. Bennet, there does come a time for many people when life is no longer “worth” continuing. Such a judgment is profoundly personal.

While we can listen to someone describe their reasoning in reaching such a conclusion, their reasoning process will not always be something we can easily understand, let alone endorse.

‘Ending it all’

When I was 23, I seriously contemplated committing suicide. For reasons that I can only vaguely recall now, but which were intense at the time, I thought that “ending it all” was an attractive option to continuing on the course of my life. What was so terrible? I’m not sure, but I think it was because my idealistic vision of how the world “should be” (if it were to function “rightly”) had been dashed.

I had at age 23 undergone some painful rites of passage: the deaths of two beloved uncles, the multiple assassinations of prophets of peace and reconciliation (including John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy), the death of Pope John XXIII, the deepening mire of the Vietnam War (in which some youthful friends died), and the growing bitter divide between those who supported and opposed that war.

Important pillars that had made my world “right,” safe, and navigable had all seemingly turned to dust. I had come to realize both how little I could affect change for the better as well as how much the power and allure of greed, envy and hatred drove human behavior.

Well, what I learned that was worth keeping from this scary period was both how susceptible young and sensitive people are to such a danger and a true awareness of how people can arrive at a rational decision to end their life rather than continue. From the inside of that person’s head, ending one’s life can appear the best (or, at least, the better) option because it promises the end of pain.

Courageous conviction

Whether or not Ms. Bennett had some “hope” for some kind of continuation of her being after her death is not apparent from Mr. Singer’s article.

Her reported words do not, however, strike me as those of despair but rather of intimate self-knowledge and of courageous conviction.

Only someone who has lived deeply can understand the preciousness of loss. Not wanting to experience her own pitiless “slipping away” strikes me as a form of intimate self-respect and love.

When I was a boy I thought that such clear-headedness and calm could only come from one anchored in faith; but I now know that it can also be voiced by persons without a “faith-belief” system, at least as we understand that term, if they have lived an integrated and balanced life (as taught by Confucius, the Buddha, and Jesus, among others).

Like you, I hope she entertained some yearning for continuance, but such is not necessary for a “good” death.

Then, in your column, you also mused about Darwinism: “To a Darwinist, life is reduced only to so-called science, and the meaning of life must be mathematically measurable. But in the great debate between Darwinism and Christianity in America in the 1920s, William Jennings Bryan said: ‘Man is indefinitely more than science.’ In ‘Summer for the Gods,’ a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History, author Edward J. Larson wrote: ‘As Bryan had warned, Darwin’s dreadful law of hate was replacing the Bible’s divine law of love as the origin of humanity.’”

‘Law of hate’

Now that I have read Elizabeth Johnson’s “Ask the Beasts,” I better understand the difference between the awe and reverence of Darwin in his actual book as contrasted with how others interpreted — even twisted — his theories. I do not believe Charles Darwin himself believed in any kind of “law of hate.”

Nor did he condense it simply as some kind of “survival of the fittest,” another interpretation frequently given it by others. Ms. Johnson argues that he saw evolution as a fascinatingly complex process of adaptation in which species changed (or died out) in response to changes (many of them relatively sudden in geologic terms) in their environment.

Ms. Johnson asks us to imagine an incredibly large “tree of life” containing hundreds of “branches,” each representing a form of life as evolved over hundreds of millions of years. She says that many of those branches have obviously come to an end, but that many others — of which we modern humans are but one part — continue on in fascinating convolutional development.

In her book she actually attempts to show how this can be truly read as an unfolding of “God’s love” (whether we interpret this to be some kind of entity which can only be described as mysterious, or whether we see this as evidence of the universe unfolding as it intends).

Evolution is not a law of hate, but a process of life enduring and always striving towards greater complexity.

In this context, I think it makes sense our own species (with, clearly, the need for much greater evolution in matters of ethics and morals) can come to better understand the mystery, gift, and wonder of life, from which to reach a respectful and holy conclusion that — for good reasons — the time has come to choose to bring a life to a close, rather than suffer witnessing their own diminution.

‘Prophets for our time’

Perhaps such people are a form of “prophets for our time” as they do teach us something about the value of life, which, at least for humans, is distinct from just the continuance of existence.

As more human beings live longer, in effect, exceeding our species’ “design warranty period,” we can expect that more people will face the kind of daunting challenge Ms. Bennet faced. Many diseases of aging will likely be ameliorated by medical science, but we will all, nonetheless, face our own cycle of ending. If we are fortunate, we will pass away in our sleep, or be struck down suddenly by a heart attack. Many of the rest of us, though, will experience a process of slow diminishment.

For myself, I do hope I am spared having a disease which means the loss of personhood, as contrasted with the inevitable frailty of old age. I do not know whether I would have Ms. Bennet’s courage. All the more reason to choose to live fully now, while we still can. The title of one of the most-loved songs by rock group Crosby, Stills, and Nash is “Teach Your Children.” Indeed! If humankind were truly wise, we would be cultivating spiritual beings rather than materialistic copies of our present selves.

In friendship,

Greg

Greg Cusack has been a college teacher of American history and political science and director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference; he served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.