suicide

See, "The Simplest of Pleasures" (Interview, 1979), in which Foucault
comments on a report on homosexuality and suicide, and argue for
suicide as a type of pleasure: "No doubt we've missed out on a lot of
pleasures and we've had some that were pretty mediocre: others we've
let slip by out of laziness or lack of attention, imagination or
persistence. We should consider ourselves lucky to have at hand (with
suicide) an extremely unique experience: it's the one which above all
the rest deserves the greatest attention - not that it shouldn't
worry you (or comfort you) - but rather so that you can make of it a
fathomless pleasure whose patient and relentless preparation will
enlighten all of your life".

Earlier, he had argued against those who commit suicide out of
depression, and consequently tend to leave a bad image of suicide. It
seems that Foucault supported "only those potential suicide which are
committed with forethought, quitely and without wavering. Suicide
must not be left to unhappy people who might bungle it or make a mess
of it".

Ciao
Windsor
================================================================
Each hour of our lives, as soon as it is dead,
embodies and conceals itself in some material object. - Proust.
================================================================
Windsor Shampi Leroke
Lecturer & Research Associate
Department of Sociology and Sociology of Work Unit
University of the Witwatersrand
Pivate Bag 3
Wits
2050
South Africa
Tel: 27-11-716-2953/2942
Fax: 27-11-339-8163
E-mail:
029lerok@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
deleuze@xxxxxxxxxxx

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