An Unspeakable Tragedy

The death of Aaron Schwartz is an unspeakable tragedy. His life touched not only his family and personal friends but millions of people: his work on RSS and reddit helped revolutionize the way we use the internet, and his recent legal troubles have brought into to stark relief the ethical and legal questions/concerns that make open access publishing among the most vital aspects of academic freedom for the 21^st century academic writer. Much has already been said about Schwartz death and what we can do to prevent the kind of (IMO) overzealous prosecution that characterized the JSTOR debacle.  (In response to Mr. Schwartz’s death, Lawrence Lessig and Joe Moxley have written thoughtful posts about the need for academics to get involved in the open access movement both by publishing their work in open access venues and by working to effect legal change.) I don’t wish to add too much to this conversation. Now is a time mainly for grief and for reflection. I, like Lessig, Moxley, David Parry, and others believe that we have an ethical responsibility to support open access publishing, and we have to do more.

But I also want to pause and perhaps do something that Lessig, in particular, warns against. I want to remind us – those who feel so passionate about the causes that Mr. Schwartz championed – that suicide – in general – is not an appropriate response to stress. I’m not speaking here to this case specifically because, like most of you, I don’t know the specifics of Mr. Schwartz’s thought process leading up to his tragic decision to end his own life. Nor do I wish to absolve the overzealous prosecutor(s) of their responsibility in (what I think Lessig rightly calls) bullying Mr. Schwartz despite JSTOR’s decision not to prosecute. The point I want to make here – as someone who has lost too many friends and family members to suicide – is that even the kind of horrifying stress associated with this overzealous criminal prosecution shouldn't result in a, by all accounts, bright, kind, thoughtful man’s suicide.

My aunt was a similarly bright, kind, thoughtful woman. She dedicated her life to others first as a nurse in the Air Force and later as a nun who worked for 30 years to better the lives of mentally challenged adults. And, after a series of increasingly horrifying accusations and name-calling from her mother, she locked herself in her bedroom and shot herself. This action was not a reasonable response to her circumstances; it was, rather, a tragic combination of circumstances and mental illness, and saying so doesn't absolve her mother of responsibility for the terrible things she said.

As so many recent incidents should have taught us, one of the great tragedies of modern America is our lack of access to and cultural distrust of mental health services.  So alongside the vitally important conversations we’re having about changes to the criminal code and academic publishing models, perhaps we should also consider how we might change the culture of shame that often permeates discussions of depression, bipolar disorder, and other mental health issues that too often result in tragic suicides that steal from us some of the brightest and kindest among us.