Cry Like a Man

Originally submitted to the Elie Wiesel Ethics Competition 2019. Didn't win!

---

Anthony Bourdain in France. Kate Spade in New York. My father in Chicago. Countless others in between. 2018 was wrought with suicide. In 2017, seventy percent of them were white men. Guys just like me. This needs to change.

As the debate about suicide and mental health ebbs and flows, usually rekindled by the loss of a celebrity in the international realm and close friends or family on a personal level, it’s tough to understand how we’re supposed to feel when tragedy strikes. Plenty of philosophical literature examines death and suicide, with Camus famously writing, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide” (Myth of Sisyphus, 1).

But do we really see these lessons, philosophies, and maxims manifest themselves when our lives are afflicted by suicide?

Few of these were of any use when my father drove himself into Lake Michigan. Only one stood out. After my father passed in April and the headliner suicides followed in subsequent months, I began studying David Hume. It started as a part of my philosophy curriculum but happened to help me cope as the months went by–and more stories hit the news and college campuses. What began as an attempt to reason developed into a better sense of understanding.

This essay explores ideas of death, grieving, and toxic masculinity in the West, so that men of all ages can become healthier in dealing with tragedy.

Asking why

One Tuesday in September, I happened upon an article that clashed with my studies of Hume. It also coincided with the discussions of mental health and masculinity that had been growing on my college campus following the suicide of a prominent football captain.

In his essay “Against mourning” for Aeon, Brian Earp argues that the Stoics offer valuable lessons in mental preparation for mourning, as the title suggests. He opens with moving imagery of parents at their child’s funeral before going on to argue that “what’s done is done. There is nothing you can do to change the situation–so move on” (3 Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon). The Stoics, he asserts, would urge us to understand that:

There are certain feelings which claim their own rights. Tears fall, even when we try to suppress them, and shedding them is a relief to the mind. What is it, then? Let’s allow them to fall, but not summon them up… Let’s not add anything to our genuine mourning, increasing it to follow someone else’s example. (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon)

Earp–in line with Stoical notions–then asks:

How hard is it – really – to avoid falling into despair, or dragging out one’s grief after a loved one has died, and for this to still be compatible with having truly loved that person while he or she was alive? It might not be as hard as one thinks. (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon)

Reading this, a few months ago, I cocked my head sideways and narrowed my eyes. Earp wasn’t there when they pulled my dad’s lifeless body from the bottom of the lake. He wasn’t there with my grandparents when they identified their son’s body. And he certainly wasn’t there when I stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, with my three brothers and looked down into his casket.

The audacity, I thought. I paused to take a step back. I realized Earp, along with the Stoics, introduces an unsurmountable flaw: he relies on reason as a motivator. He tries to reason his way through an unreasonable situation. He forces mourning into a box that it will never fit in. I tried to sympathize with him: Was he working through something painful?

This is not to claim that the Stoics, nor Brian Earp, are entirely wrong; in fact, they may well arrive at solid conclusions, but they misunderstand the motivation of mourning and of our natural inclinations. This becomes clear when Earp asserts:

In other words, Stoics can ‘afford’ to grieve as little as possible–that is, as little as nature will allow – because they have spent their lives training in philosophy. And that means: ridding themselves of false beliefs, learning how to face the inevitable, and carefully matching their desires with the will of Zeus. (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon)

And when he concludes that:

[The Stoics] just take ‘strongly muted’ and go running with it – consciously and deliberately exercising the adaptive coping mechanisms with which we are all equipped, speeding them up and fortifying them with practice and rational judgment [my emphasis]. You don’t have to be some sort of alien creature, then, to be or become ‘Super-resilient’ in Moller’s sense. You just have to be a human philosopher. A Stoic. (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon)

I did not want to become “super-resilient,” nor did I want to use rational judgement; I just wanted my dead father back. How could I even begin to project rationality onto his actions?

Moreover, would this resilience bring me peace? Earp sorely misinterprets my situation.

A human alternative: sympathy

It seems people even loosely connected to philosophy have heard of the Stoics, whether it be through The Meditations or an article about Elon Musk. It seems to make sense to most people. I get it. I thought the same thing. Yet, and unfortunately, far fewer people seem to know about Hume’s alternative to Stoicism and “super-resilience”: sympathy.

Scottish Philosopher David Hume, in both A Treatise on Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, argues that it is not possible for humans to use reason to motivate action–grieving, for example.

This came up for the first time in a classroom discussion in the semester following my father’s suicide. Hume gives a moving argument, one that resonated with me, in favor of universal feelings of humanity. I gravitated toward this, seeing its application as a way to help me cope. And it actually worked.

This tension between Earp and Hume becomes clear through examination of the Copy Principle. Hume maintains that “all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent,” thus not allowing us to fully interact with the feelings that arise from a suicide beforehand (Treatise, 11-14).

While guesses can be made, there is no corresponding idea and impression. Earp, on the other hand, suggests reasoning works in a contradictory manner. In the Treatise, Hume recognizes this often-seen mistake. He suggests thinkers like Earp make the following assumptions in asking us to train mentally:

1. I have observed that one thing always goes with one effect.

2. I predict this correlation will continue.

Although inferences about a suicide may be correct, as many of Earp’s are, it can never be from reasoning. To move from one to two, we would have to predict a uniformity about the future. However, we can’t make that prediction without there being said uniformity.

Using reason to envisage the logic and all possible outcomes involved in every potential suicide will not work. In other words, we can’t foresee impressions we’ve not previously had, and, as such:

The conclusions [reasoning] draws from considering one circle are the same as it would form after surveying all the circles in the universe. But no man, having seen only one body move after being pushed by another, could infer that every other body will move after a similar collision. All inferences from experience, therefore, are…not of reasoning. (Treatise, 17)

Using reason retrospectively to understand a sequence of events that led to a suicide is equally impossible. You could never have the idea of how you would feel at the loss of a parent before it happens–as the Copy Principle suggests.

As such, the mental preparation that Earp suggests is a waste of time. Most of us would rather spend it with those we love, anyway, which is more in line with our natural inclination.

Moreover, Earp notes, “It’s just that you have to spend your life, to the day, to the hour, mentally preparing for such potential losses,” and this is where the Stoics were commendably better than us normal people (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon).

This introduces something important, on Hume’s account: all experience comes from impressions (that is, sensory interactions with the world) and from those impressions we get ideas–less intense versions of those moments (for example: in our memories). This also corresponds with the Copy Principle.

Earp wants us to train for, to spar with, the idea of a child–or father–dying. How can we do this when we cannot predict these outcomes? Intellectual ideas, complex ideas even, are not equivalent to the feelings of grief I encountered.

I argue that the emotions raised by a suicide can only come to fruition after we have experience with death. Sure, we can have the abstract idea of death, but this is not what Earp suggests training for. He suggests, instead, we train for the feelings.

Before we’ve sympathized with the effects of a death, or had the experience, we aren’t able to know these feelings. Even the general sentiments of sadness do not come close. Yet, Hume himself notes that “every rational creature, ‘tis said, is oblig’d to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought to oppose it” (Treatise, 413).

This seems natural to how we perceive ourselves as all-powerful, large brained rationalists. Hume pushes back on this. He instead introduces what is now known as the belief/desire model, arguing that our belief directs our desire. For example, if you are thirsty, you have a desire to drink. You must also, however, believe you will find a drink. This combination, driven by desire, motivates action to get up and grab a drink, or to spend time with someone you love.

What’s important here is that we are driven by our desire and passions. They form sympathy and motivate our actions. Hume believes passions to be the formative elements of motivation, where a passion is “the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body, or new perception of our mind” (Treatise, 215).

Hume describes sympathy by asserting that “a cheerful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden damp on me” (Treatise, 317). This is often understood as the as/because model. We feel as someone does, because they do. Hume gets more explicit when he argues that:

When any affection is infused by sympathy, it is at first known only by its effects, and by those external signs in the countenance and conversation, which convey an idea of it. This idea is presently converted into an impression, and acquires such a degree of force and vivacity, as to become the very passion itself, and produce an equal emotion, as any original affection. (Treatise, 319)

While at the same time:

Sympathy, we shall allow, is much fainter than our concern for ourselves, and sympathy with persons remote from us much fainter than that with persons near and contiguous; but for this very reason it is necessary for us, in our calm judgements and discourse concerning the characters of men, to neglect all these differences, and render our sentiments more public and social. (EPM, 212)

This, then, might give us a better way to think about our grief. As noted, it is the effects we observe. When we have these experiences, we are in a position to sympathize with the effects created by death, to see the world through the eyes of the affected and then make moral judgements: the impact that the loss of a family member has on someone close to us, for example.

We cannot train ourselves to sympathize in a lesser way than what comes naturally to us. This, on Hume’s account, is the power of humanity overpowering reason. We must feel what others feel.

However, from our memory we can draw on thoughts of the dead and of our time with them. If they were close to us, these will be stronger and more vivid. We can replay the memories we have of them.

We can see the effect they had on those around us. We can sympathize with those who have lost someone dear. Hopefully, this is how we spend our time grieving–not trying to reason with the unreasonable.

Man-to-man

This situation suggests something troubling about male gender norms, as I noticed back in September and throughout the following months. These Stoical notions that Earp pushes serve as examples of the supposed masculine, the manly, in our society. Stand tall. Stand quiet. Stand strong.

The West has allowed toxic masculinity to fester and seep into our lives, our relationships, and how we communicate. Earp asks us to ignore our humanity, the qualities of us that make us truly who we are. I will not.

Instead, by turning from solitude to community, we would be better off as men. Earp writes that the Stoics “sincerely believed that a perfectly rational being, which is a status they think we should all aspire to, would never give in to sadness at a funeral” (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon).

This is not who I aspire to be. I sat next to my grandfather at the wake and we cried. Hard. I’m not ashamed of it.

If being a rational being means denying myself that process, then to hell with it.

Moreover, the male-dominated conversation throughout Earp’s work indicates his interest in this Stoic masculinity. Earp suggests that “as Epictetus instructs, one should not ‘be unfeeling like a statue’ but rather maintain one’s relations, ‘both natural and acquired, as a pious man, a son, a brother, a father, a citizen’” (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon).

This way of thinking about being a man misses something subtle in modernity. Those “natural” relationships–especially with other men–have been so morphed, so egregiously altered in their fabric by toxic masculinity that they are no longer natural at all.

Still, by recognizing this issue, the hope of being healthy exists; healthy men, healthy communities, and healthy relationships can be saved. Too often men disregard this in favor of an individualistic I can handle anything alone approach, where we must be like the Stoics who can “‘afford’ to grieve as little as possible–that is, as little as Nature will allow–because they have spent their lives training in philosophy” (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon).

* * *

On Thursday nights, I attend a men’s group where I meet with three friends and we work toward being healthier guys. This is the training I subscribe to. It’s not about reasoning or understanding the world, it’s about figuring out how we fit in as men.

Attending a men’s group may not be the perfect solution to such a multi-faceted issue, but it encourages us to lean on one another when the challenges of college and life amount. The shared experiences, the collective sympathy benefit all of us. We each bring something unique to the group that the others draw on.

It’s about persevering and succeeding, individually, sure, but these are only done fully when we let others into our struggle. It’s really about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those around you, so that, together, we can all get through this mess we call life.

We are all part of a collective, of some tribe, and we’re healthier together. Mental health, suicide, depression–these are not areas of life where we should encourage men, college students especially, to recede further into themselves. We need to teach our men a different approach, one of support and of love–one that gets back to the natural relationships Earp and I can agree on. One that embraces the humanity in others.

As I write this, the Indiana air is cold in early December, the fog dense on campus. The rock music blaring from my headphones allows me to unwind after a long writing session. I trudge across the grass from Center Hall to the cafeteria. I’m starving.

This is my story. It goes on. Every day is something new, and every day I am prepared to face it head on, knowing my people stand with me. Thursday night, sitting in my men’s group, we’ll discuss this paper.

Standing together

In the Enquiry, Hume argues that “when we are inclined to behave or think in some way” we do so “not because it can be justified by reasoning or some process of the understanding but just because we have behaved or thought like that so often in the past” (EHU, 43).

Hume goes on to argue in the Treatise that “nature is obstinate, and will not quit the field, no matter how strongly attack’d by reason” (Treatise, 215). Stoical reasoning seems no match for the beast that is human nature. Tying it down, forcing it into a cage–none of these will hold.

What Hume offers us is how not to grieve, how not to cope. What we shouldn’t do is allow a false sense of rationality mask or remove our natural inclinations toward grief. There are some things, Hume argues, we just can’t know. And that’s okay. We are controlled by our passions; snuffing them out with Stoical reasoning simply cannot be done.

If we cannot use reason to beat nature, our human nature, then we might as well embrace nature in tough times. We are not super-soldiers.

This is not to say reason has no place in the discussion on grief. In the EPM, in fact, Hume successfully makes the case for reason correcting passions. This is part of the process by which we make valid moral judgements.

Nobody is perfect and sometimes our passions lead us astray. Lashing out, blaming, isolating: these passion-driven actions usually manifest when people grieve. Reason can bring people back to reality when the grip of grief holds too tightly.

For me, reason enabled me to connect with others, to appropriately share my experiences, and to translate the words and practices of others into something I could use to grieve healthily.

Michael Gill writes that “Hume also believes that humans possess “natural” virtues, many of which are inherently sociable,” (Hume’s Progressive View of Human Nature, 90) and Hume himself writes:

’Tis by society alone [that a person] is able to supply his defects. . . By society all his infirmities are compensated; and tho’ in that situation his wants multiply every moment upon him, yet his abilities are still more augmented, and leave him in every respect more satisfied and happy, than ’tis possible for him, in his savage and solitary condition, ever to become. (Treatise, 485)

It seems, then, that we should turn to each other. Our defects, the loss of a person close to us or another tragedy, can only be compensated for by turning to society and social interaction–when those interactions are the healthy, natural versions they should be. We should give way to the emotions that arise from similar experiences, while allowing reason to guide their use appropriately.

Those who have suffered through experiences of suicide or tragedy need to stand alongside those who haven’t, and vice versa. We need to sympathize with others–pulling on our previous experiences to do so–and put ourselves in positions to do so even when it doesn’t seem manly or Stoical. When help others, we in turn can appropriately deal with our own grief.

Earp says that in order to overcome grief, “you just have to be a human philosopher” (Earp, “Against Mourning,” Aeon). So easy. Hume’s counter that we should “Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a [hu]man” is much more appropriate (ECHU, 9).

Reason can guide us, sure, but not drive us. Only the experiences we’ve had, the ones that create our own brand of sympathy, can do that. I didn’t choose my experiences, but I will choose to use them. Whether you choose a men’s group or something else, hopefully it helps you embrace your humanity.

Humanity, after all, will lift us from the rubble of devastation. When tragedy strikes, avoid falling ad infinitum into reasoning and trying to force yourself into a framework of proper methods of grieving or mental preparation.

No mental training–none–could have prepared me for seeing my grandparents kneel at their son’s casket and say their last goodbyes.

Instead, lean on each other and embrace your own humanity reflected in others. Although we may not have experience in dealing with catastrophes, those we surround ourselves with just might. Let them be your guide. If you find yourself the one with experience, let others lean on you.

And spend time with your father.