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How dare you say I'm wrong!!!!! (Even though I am.)
LOL!!!!
I keep forgetting about the age restriction mentioned!!
I DO think about it when I go Googling, but then I get sidetracked and forget the main point!!! LOL!!!
Um, I'll still stick by saying the stress the country was under and the vets who DID fall into that age category is significant in the initial spike.
And I saw what it did to my mother when my brother was in Cambodia (when we supposedly weren't there) and we didn't hear from him for months at a time.
Perhaps how whole families were affected and forever changed by the war, nay, even the country as a whole played a contributory role long after the war itself had ended.
Perhaps the effect the returning vets had on the young men who never went somehow factors into it.
As to the drugs, I did think of that.
But I thought that while it probably accounted for a hell of a lot of accidental overdoses, I was less sure that it deeply impacted the rate of suicide for the young men.
I wonder what the breakdown is as to the mode of suicide during that time period and amongst boys and men in that particular age group. Do you think there were more guns available because of the returning soldiers?
Guns have the highest 'success' rate when it comes to suicide.
Drugs really don't have that 'great' a track record for committing suicide. A lot more 'fail' when using this method than succeed. But just because the majority who try to exit this way don't get there on the first try, there may be subsequent attempts and sooner or later they get the desired effect.
@ GoodKidMaadCity --
What was happening to the suicide rate of men 25 and up, during that same period?
Is a graph for that available?
What's the source of the graph you showed!!!? I'd like to look over whatever site it came from!!!! It's very interesting!!!!
This has nothing to do with a spike starting in the late 1960s. No question men have always had a higher suicide rate than women, but the issue raised by the graph is a sudden spike in young male suicide rates beginning in the late 1960s and dramatically rising through about 200 or so and then leveling off a bit. Prior to that men and woman s suicide rates rose and fell roughly together. Suddenly form a late 1960s a massive spike in young male suicide rates with no corresponding massive spike in young female suicide rates. So far most poster are simply ignoring the question that started the thread. There are a lot of things that can be said about suicide generally. But this thread is about the sudden spike, which is very interesting, does anyone have anything to say about the spike?
In the late 60s, liberalism/feminism, civil unrest, drugs, broken families. At least women had something to be happy about with the hope of having many more choices for their lives, but men must have started feeling less stable.
In the late 60s, liberalism/feminism, civil unrest, drugs, broken families. At least women had something to be happy about with the hope of having many more choices for their lives, but men must have started feeling less stable.
The fall of the family in the US could be a substantial contributor. THe timing works and I can see where for a guy, not having the support of a family can make things more difficult and depressing. I wonder though whether the fall of the family in the US is a symptom of the same cause or a cause?If it is a cause, then men are creating their own suicide condition by choosing not to be part of their family.
Illnesses could be a big contributor. I lost a friend to suicide over 11 years ago and today is his b'day. He had MS and had a 2nd divorce before he decided to end it all.
Several factors off the top of my head, not to be taken as anything seriously academic.
-Globalization and modernization of the economy, displacing a huge number of blue collar jobs to places like China and India.
-Education inflation- many men found themselves no longer qualified for the jobs they had been doing for years.
-Destruction of the union and the labor system from the late 70s, through the Reagan era until now. General wealth inequality worse in the US than it has been before the New Deal.
-Economic crash of 2008.
-The role of the man has become murky at best, dangerous at worse (according to some feminists.) Masculinity is seen as archaic, a joke, violent, unintelligent, so on.
-Longest running war in US history is leaving alot of soldiers coming home from Iraq/Afghanistan with PTSD.
There's also a lack of male mental health professionals.
I read an article recently (I think in WSJ?) about how so few men seek counseling because they would rather confide in someone of the same sex than a woman. I do believe some people find it hard to believe someone of the opposite sex can empathize with them.
But that would not explain why the rest of men men who had nothing to do with the Vietman war commit suicide.
Why would the Vietman war have any effect on a 20 yo man who decides to jump off the Golden Bridge?
I don't know the appropriate term for gen a,b,c. Millennial and Gen Y the same thing? Regardless, I fall in the Millennial generation, which this graph hits. I don't know what's wrong with my generation, but I know suicide is always in the back of my head, maybe theirs as well? Normal Darwinism right?
I'll be as bold to say that even if 75% of men in developed nations killed themselves, there are still plenty of people to reproduce, so I am unsure why this is even a big deal. Switzerland legalized it, why can't everywhere else?
I don't know the appropriate term for gen a,b,c. Millennial and Gen Y the same thing? Regardless, I fall in the Millennial generation, which this graph hits. I don't know what's wrong with my generation, but I know suicide is always in the back of my head, maybe theirs as well? Normal Darwinism right?
I'll be as bold to say that even if 75% of men in developed nations killed themselves, there are still plenty of people to reproduce, so I am unsure why this is even a big deal. Switzerland legalized it, why can't everywhere else?
Not everyone that reproduces is a productive member of society or a fit parent which is why social Darwinism is not as effective as some people would like to believe it is, especially when talking about suicide.
social Darwinism is not as effective as some people would like to believe it is, especially when talking about suicide.
Me thinks people love suicidal people, in the fact they kill themselves and in some cases their spawn, deleting that genetic defect. Interesting perspective.
What Switzerland legalized was rational suicide -- the right to die with dignity at a time and in a way of your choosing when you are going to die anyway, likely in a very slow and miserable fashion. This is not the same issue as depressed people offing themselves, other than some coincidental overlap or some overlap with reactive (as opposed to clinical) depression. Most places that legalize assisted suicide require things like multiple doctors agreeing that you have a medical diagnosis that is either fatal or condemns you to protracted suffering, require that you have appropriate counseling to insure you're not clinically depressed and/or under duress, etc.
Rational suicide is simply extending the same mercy to ill humans that we commonly accord to ill dogs and cats and we should never confuse that with suicide due to clinical depression.
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