Kirsten Powers wrote in USA Today what is perhaps the most astute response to the recent news about suicide — not just Kate Spade’s and Anthony Bourdain’s suicides, but the recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows a sharp increase in the number of suicides overall.
The CDC notes that more than half of those who died by suicide did not have a “known mental health condition.” It is also worth noting that male suicide is far more prevalent than female suicide. And there, too, mental illness is not the reason. “The epidemic of depression and despair in the Western World isn’t always caused by our brains,” writes Powers. “It’s largely caused by key problems in the way we live” and indicates that something is very wrong with the culture.
