I turn off from the main square, loaded with bubbling tourists, I'm like a branch cast into a stream, first rushing along with the current, now thrown down an offshoot, away from the crowd. No self-direction. I'm in a dark tunnel, where only a pinpoint of light, and what sounds like a murmuring at the far end, confirm that this is a tunnel, and not dark oblivion. Down the passage and I find another public square, smaller than Piazza Erbe, but, disconcertingly, packed with rows of silent people. They're watching a film of a Shakespeare play, projected onto the far building's wall, and they're watching it, not just with attention, they're watching it, with rapture. Since we're just two steps from Juliet's balcony, I'm glad that it's The Comedy of Errors and not you-know-what. I breathe in some communal peace before tiptoe-ing back to Erbe, and back to the hotel.
*
-- Which part of Britain is the most Victorian? I'm asked at lunch on Wednesday. Hmmm. I start to describe Glasgow, home to my alma mater, but Paolo interrupts me: -- No, not the architecture, the political culture. Well, that threw me. I was tempted to say -- Anytime that Melanchthon is posting an article to CentreRight, but I didn't. I'm now going to disagree as strongly as possible with a fellow CR contributor, without offending etiquette. I hope.
Melanchthon's article about the 'wickedness' of assisted suicide provoked a stronger reaction in me than anything else he has produced, which to be frank is saying something. I am going to surprise, I expect, precisely none of you, and declare that I can see no solution to the issue of whether or not assisted suicide should be further criminalised, or further liberalised. I think it's too easy to adopt a theoretical position on something which can only ever be unique to the individuals concerned: life will not fit with ideological worldviews. It is for this reason that I abhor The Bigger Picture. On this topic, Bigger Picture adherents will tell you, depending on their own bigger picture, either that suicide is always wrong, or that it is always the right of the autonomous individual. They know this even when they know nothing about you, since their bigger picture effectively deletes you from their equation-solving.
Back on Planet Human ... In the comments to Melanchthon's post, we read incredibly moving testimony from Steve, which was a powerful argument against any move towards increased liberalisation. But we also read recently about Mr and Mrs Downes, who had to travel to Switzerland to end their life. I think it is correct to describe their life in the singular. I cannot find it in my heart to think that they could possibly be judged wicked. Can we not accept that some things are not ever perfectly 'legislatable', and leave our imperfect law in its imperfect state?
No, according to Melanchthon, because then someone (whom he doesn't know) may miss out on the beauty of a sunset.
I am often accused of writing emotional mush (guilty, both as charged, and of not being able to care less). A sunset is indeed a beautiful thing. We should all raise our eyes to the stars more often (we are all made of those stars, after all). But while the Universe is to all (our) intents and purposes infinite, human beings are not. We are small bundles of psychology and biology, more alike than we ever dare note (the wonder of existence to an atheist lies precisely in our ability to find beauty in the Other, when on a genetic or biological level we are so very, very similar), and we are ruthlessly limited in space and time. If I close my eyes now, I can see the sunset which means more to me than any other, for reasons I'm sure you can guess at. But that sunset is gone; and when I die so too will pass my memory of it. Nothing is gained with regard to that memory's influence on my life by an extension in time in which I can remember it, other than the (real) pleasure it brings to me; and my pleasure at my memories, the effects those memories have on my decisions for next actions, can have nothing to do with Melanchthon, since he wasn't present when the memory came into being. He can, literally, know nothing of their value to me. Further, precisely nothing at all is added to my life (a life which can happen only in this instant) by a potential future pleasure, to be derived from the conceit that the past-remembered pleasure can be replicated at some point in the future (a future which is in any case strictly limited in time). Such theorising is fiction. Future memories do not exist for anyone. Their utility in the derivation of a worldview which says that 'An action now is wicked because it denies the potential for a current fiction to possibly occur' is therefore, I would suggest, zero. I am not opposed to murder because it prevents future memories from coming into being. I am opposed to murder because of its assault on the human's right to exist as long as he is able.
All this is a long way to say that I find it impossible to judge people who choose to leave this life. Their decision makes my heart ache and I wish that it didn't happen. But to move from there, to being sufficiently certain to label as wicked people of whom we know little (can in fact never know at all) leaves me speechless.
*
-- It's beautiful here today, he says, it must be because you're coming home.
-- I'm coming home, I reply, because that's where you are.
