Fireside Chat Ep. 302 — Why Is Suicide at an All-Time High? | Fireside Chat

Hi everybody, welcome to Fireside Chat number 302. She's so sorry. Now I'm feel guilty. If I made you feel sorry for saying oh rather than zero, I feel bad. Okay, hello. 302. Wow. Well, no dog yet because the, I guess, is it fair to say successor to Otto? I guess so for the Fireside Chat. Mr. Tubbs is still a puppy and not exactly aching to cooperate here. One day hopefully. Anyway, great to be with you. I'm Dennis Prager. This is my chance to offer you some thoughts about life, about, yeah, about life. It's hard for me to imagine anything about life that doesn't preoccupy me. Just that's my nature and it has been since I was a kid. And then take your questions and hopefully have a positive impact on you, on your thinking. There is a study that just came out, or a report, not a study, from the United States CDC, that's our big health authority, Center for Disease Control, and it is about suicide in the United States. It is at the highest rate ever recorded since, as they put it, the dawn of World War II, so almost a hundred years. And I'm surprised that it was that high then. Anyway, it's obviously high and it's higher in every age group, though certain age groups it's even higher than in others. If I recall correctly, it is the second highest form of death for those, I think it's 25 to 50 or 25 to 54, whatever it is, which is, it was fourth two years ago. It has gone from the fourth highest to the second highest reason for death of people who were that young. So why am I bringing this to attention? Because I've talked about depression in America and sadness. I'll tell you why. What fascinated me about the report, as written by the AP, the Associated Press, and reprinted in the New York Post, among other places, was the reasons experts gave for why there is so much suicide in the United States. But first a word on experts. So I have no idea how you will react to what I'm about to say. I'm taking a risk here. But I've taken these risks all of my life. This is what I think, and people are free, obviously, to reject it, even to reject me, or to find it thought-provoking. Your choice. Over the course of my life, when, and certainly now post-lockdowns and COVID, whenever I see experts say, I assume I will hear or read something stupid. I don't always. I'm saying I assume. It may not be. I fully acknowledge that. But my immediate assumption is it will be because it usually is. That's exactly what occurs. Now, I want to make something clear. If somebody said, a biology expert said that mitochondria, that part of the cell that I think produces energy, I believe it is, whatever it is, part of the cell, does the following, I will assume it's not stupid, because it's a fact. But wherever there is an idea, a suggestion, an assumption, I assume it will be foolish. Experts told us that it was a good thing to close schools, and it wasn't a good thing. It was a bad thing. Entirely bad, as Sweden proved, because it kept all its schools open for kids up to the age of 16. And there are many other reasons, but I won't get that much off track. So sure enough, this is what the experts, I don't even know, what does that mean, experts? What does it mean to be an expert on suicide? Seriously, it's an interesting question. What does that mean? Clearly, it's not an expert on how people commit suicide. That's a fact, and that I wouldn't debate. Do they hang themselves? Do they take pills? Do they shoot themselves? I would accept an expert's statistical statement about that. But why people commit suicide, that's not a matter of expertise. That is a matter of wisdom. Wisdom and expertise have nothing to do with one another. Nothing. I'll never forget, I remember the day I distinguished between expertise and wisdom. And let me remind you at this time that the rest of this Fireside Chat is at PragerU.com. We do this intentionally because we don't know when and if social media will simply take PragerU videos down. So we'd like you to get into the habit of watching the Fireside Chat at PragerU.com, or best, with the PragerU app. That's the easiest way to do it. But please do see the rest of it. Very, very important stuff remains to be said. Thanks.