Why can’t they spell privilege right?
Yale.
(couldn’t resist)
So you take a man with a 3 a half octave vocal range that has been putting out best selling albums since 2000. With the exception of the one they did with Jay Z, most of them got exactly the response as above, no one but their fans cared. Their fans even rejected the latest, saying the band sold out. One of his best friends just killed himself. He suffered from years of alcohol and drug abuse, and was a victim of sexual abuse. Anyone that has to hear that a Limp Bizkit album was better than one of his own would have to be depressed by that alone. They even moved away from rap metal and made a pretty good rock album with a thousands suns. Again, no one but their fans listened to it. Everybody hates Linkin Park.
The man was really an incredible vocalist, and received little to no respect for it. It’s a sad thing that he finally hit a day he couldn’t get over.
Leaves behind six kids. SIX. And the youngest, twins, are only 7.
If you voluntarily check out and leave behind six kids? No sugar coating it: you failed at the most important thing there is. I really don’t give a fuck about your musical “legacy” at that point.
Mental illness is horrible, but at the end of the day - they are still choices. However diminished the mental capacity one has - it’s still a choice. (He wasn’t schizophrenic.)
Horrible.
Then again, sometimes your kids turn out to be little shits.
A choice, yes, but can people who don’t suffer from clinical depression or other mental illnesses judge that choice?
There are some child sociopaths…
But more likely, they hang out with sociopaths…
Ultimately, you become who you hang out with.
It’s not a sweeping condemnation of any suicide (let alone attempt) that ever was or ever can be.
And let’s not mince words here: it is not a comment on you or anybody else reading this. By definition, it can’t be. This isn’t a proxy microaggression advanced against anybody else. It’s about Chester Bennington. Full stop.
But It IS a condemnation of a man who kills himself while he was a father of 6 with most of them dependent - and a pair of them still twins of tender years. As a society, we need to stop sugar-coating this. Suicide in such circumstances is a wholly deplorable act on ethical grounds and we gain nothing as a society by pretending otherwise.
The devastation it leaves behind cannot be fixed. Ever. And that’s the biggest word there is.
That doesn’t mean we should not have compassion for the victims of mental illness, much less those that the dead leave behind. We can, we should and we must.
But what Bennington did is just not okay. Not a bit of it is okay or forgivable in any manner. And yes, we should both individually and collectively judge it harshly and condemn it.
But on the plus side he probably had enough money so his kids will be properly looked after even with him gone. So some of the force of your argument fails here.
I hope you are right about that. It still doesn’t make it alright, but it would certainly be a better outcome than the alternative.
Well, my dad committed suicide when I was 21 & my brother 25, so we were adults - it was still a damn tough thing to go through though. However I understand he was ill and couldn’t think straight anymore, but if it had happened 10 years earlier, I’m not sure I would’ve seen it that way.
We were only 2 children, can’t imagine how 6 young ones will be able to deal with it and grow up healthy.
(Though on an unrelated note: Who has 6 kids in this day and age?? isn’t 2 enough? My cousin has 4 and that feels like a crazy amount. Though I guess if you have enough money and both parents don’t need to work, it changes things a bit. But it still just seems nuts to me.)
The kind of hell you must be in to kill yourself, I don’t think you can condemn a man.
Eh, some suicides seem to happen when drunk or on drugs. Not the best time to make an irrevocable decision like suicide.
I support the right to suicide, though I think the impact on those left behind should be considered. I can imagine a child wondering if he or she was likely to commit suicide too after witnessing a parent taking that route. I wouldn’t want to burden a child with that.
@wumpus, unrelated to the discussion of Bennington’s suicide, thanks for linking that article. It was a fascinating read, and I’ve forwarded it to my sister, a family counselor, as it is right up her alley.
Yeah I mean I would never do this to my kid, but I’ve never suffered depression… he probably did some stupid shit and he couldn’t forgive himself.
Or he just suffered from depression and other mental health issues. There doesn’t have to be an instigating action, and even in the cases where there is one, it’s often not a direct line.
For those that may not have seen it yet, Chester Bennington and Linkin Park along with Ken Jeong did a Carpool Karaoke 6 days before Bennington’s death, and it’s quite good.