David Brooks, "The Middle-Age Surge": Or Suicide Is Painless?

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"Your face and body can now be fixed, of course. But it's very different out there now. Your finances won't last long. Your panel of observers are waiting for you to choose."

- Ventura, "Vanilla Sky," 2001

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Middle-Age Surge," David Brooks tackles the topic of middle-age. Brooks cheerfully writes:

"[A]nother profound but more hidden change is the altered shape of middle age. What could have been considered the beginning of a descent is now a potential turning point — the turning point you are most equipped to take full advantage of.

It is the moment when you can look back on your life so far and see it with different eyes. Hopefully you’ve built up some wisdom, which, as the psychologists define it, means seeing the world with more compassion, grasping opposing ideas at the same time, tolerating ambiguity and reacting with equanimity to the small setbacks of life.

By middle age you might begin to see, retrospectively, the dominant motifs that have been running through your various decisions. You might begin to see how all your different commitments can be integrated into one meaning and purpose. You might see the social problem your past has made you uniquely equipped to tackle. You might have enough clarity by now to orient your life around a true north on some ultimate horizon."

Meaning and purpose! A true north! How reassuring, particularly for someone like me . . . unless, nearing 62, I have already voyaged beyond the boundaries of middle-age and passed into the purgatory of  . . . gasp . . . old-age.

But wait! Is middle-age all that Brooks makes it out to be? As reported in a May 6, 2013 Psychology Today article entitled "White, Middle-Age Suicide In America Skyrockets" by Dale Archer M.D.:

"Suicide, once thought to be associated with troubled teens and the elderly, is quickly becoming an age-blind statistic. Middle aged Americans are turning to suicide in alarming numbers. The reasons include easily accessible prescription painkillers, the mortgage crisis and most importantly the challenge of a troubled economy. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims suicide rates now top the number of deaths due to automobile accidents."

A temporary blip owing to the economy? I don't think so. As more recently reported by Gina Kolata in a November 2, 2015 New York Times article entitled "Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds" (my emphasis in red):

"Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.

That finding was reported Monday by two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who last month won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case. Analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids."

The "middle-age surge" or "suicide is painless" Take your pick.

David Brooks, "The Irony of Despair": Living in Desperate Times

David Brooks is back with a polemic against suicide. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "The Irony of Despair" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/opinion/brooks-the-irony-of-despair.html?hpw&rref=opinion), Brooks writes:

"We’ve made some progress in understanding mental illnesses over the past few decades, and even come up with drugs to help ameliorate their effects. But we have not made any headway against suicide.

. . . .

According to the World Health Organization, global suicide rates have increased by 60 percent over the past 45 years. The increase in this country is nothing like that, but between 1999 and 2010, the suicide rate among Americans between 35 and 64 rose by 28 percent. More people die by suicide than by auto accidents."

Regarding persons who reject suicide, Brooks concludes:

"That person can commit to live to redeem past mistakes. That person can show that we are not completely self-determining creatures, and do not have the right to choose when we end our participation in the common project of life.

The blackness of the suicidal situation makes these rejoinders stand out in stark relief. And, as our friend Nietzsche observed, he who has a why to live for can withstand any how."

In response, I would refer David to his own July New York Times op-ed entitled "Men on the Threshold" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/opinion/brooks-men-on-the-threshold.html), in which he noted a steady decline in male labor force participation. Brooks wrote at the time:

"In 1954, 96 percent of American men between 25 and 54 years old worked. Today, 80 percent do. One-fifth of men in their prime working ages are out of the labor force.

. . . .

The definitive explanation for this catastrophe has yet to be written. Some of the problem clearly has to do with changes in family structure. Work by David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that men raised in fatherless homes, without as many immediate masculine role models, do worse in the labor force. Some of the problem probably has to do with a mismatch between boy culture and school culture, especially in the early years.

But, surely, there has been some ineffable shift in the definition of dignity. Many men were raised with a certain image of male dignity, which emphasized autonomy, reticence, ruggedness, invulnerability and the competitive virtues. Now, thanks to a communications economy, they find themselves in a world that values expressiveness, interpersonal ease, vulnerability and the cooperative virtues.

Surely, part of the situation is that many men simply do not want to put themselves in positions they find humiliating. A high school student doesn’t want to persist in a school where he feels looked down on. A guy in his 50s doesn’t want to find work in a place where he’ll be told what to do by savvy young things."

So the next time I encounter a desperate unemployed man in his 50s contemplating suicide, I should read to him from "our friend Nietzche"? Why am I so uncertain that this will change his mind?

David Brooks, "The Confidence Responses": Suicide

Several columns ago, David Brooks asked his New York Times readers for "their feedback about questions having to do with self-confidence," and today, in his latest op-ed entitled "The Confidence Responses" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/opinion/brooks-the-confidence-responses.html), Brooks presents some of their responses.

Perhaps, however, the information contained in an article in today's Times entitled "Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S." (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/health/suicide-rate-rises-sharply-in-us.html) by Tara Parker-Pope is more relevant and poignant. As reported by this article:

"From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, up from 13.7. Although suicide rates are growing among both middle-aged men and women, far more men take their own lives. The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000.

The most pronounced increases were seen among men in their 50s, a group in which suicide rates jumped by nearly 50 percent, to about 30 per 100,000. For women, the largest increase was seen in those ages 60 to 64, among whom rates increased by nearly 60 percent, to 7.0 per 100,000.

. . . .

Preliminary research at Rutgers suggests that the risk for suicide is unlikely to abate for future generations. Changes in marriage, social isolation and family roles mean many of the pressures faced by baby boomers will continue in the next generation, Dr. Phillips [an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University] said."

Confidence among the middle-aged? Shattered.