“We are indebted to one another and the debt is a kind of faith — a beautiful, difficult, strange faith. We believe each other into being.” That’s the message the philosopher, poet, and historian, Jennifer Michael Hecht, puts at the center of her unusual writing about suicide. She’s traced how Western civilization has, at times, demonized those who died by suicide, and, at times, celebrated it as a moral freedom. She has struggled with suicidal places in her life and lost friends to it. She proposes a new cultural understanding based on our essential need for each other.
Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, Doubt: A History, and Who Said.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jennifer Michael Hecht — ‘We Believe Each Other Into Being’" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Janine Benyus and Azita Ardakani Walton — On Nature's Wisdom for Humanity
Befriend Your Body: A Compassionate Body Scan
Christine Runyan — On Healing Our Distressed Nervous Systems
“Joy is the Justice (We Give Ourselves)” by J. Drew Lanham
Lyndsey Stonebridge and Lucas Johnson — On Love, Politics, and Violence (Channeling Hannah Arendt)
New From Poetry Unbound: A Series on Conflict and the Human Condition
Colette Pichon Battle — On Knowing What We're Called To
Kate DiCamillo — On Nurturing Capacious Hearts
Wisdom, Solace, and Courage for 2024
Nick Cave — Loss, Yearning, Transcendence
A Word from Krista
Sara Hendren — Our Bodies, Aliveness, and the Built World
Christiana Figueres — Ecological Hope, and Spiritual Evolution
Clint Smith — What We Know in the "Marrow of Our Bones"
“Dance Party” by Clint Smith
“Ode to Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep” by Clint Smith
[Extended] Clint Smith with Krista Tippett
Three Skills for Staying Calm, Sane, and Open in a Chaotic World | Krista interviewed by Dan Harris for Ten Percent Happier
Latanya Sweeney — On Shaping Technology to Human Purpose
[Unedited] Latanya Sweeney with Krista Tippett
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney
Selected Shorts
This American Life
The Frank Skinner Show
Judge John Hodgman