Suicide is imitation without genius.

In 1974, David Phillips published, “The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide: Substantive and Theoretical Implications of the Werther Effect.” Phillips begins with Goethe’s own observation of this phenomenon. “My friends thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public.”

In Le Suicide, or Suicide in the English, first published in 1897, Durkheim denies imitation as social phenomenon let alone an epidemic. Phillips, by contrast, documents a range of instances in which a rise in suicides correlate to a well publicized suicide — a politician, entertainer, or author, for instance: suicide through the power of suggestion; suicide as romance and style; style replacing genius; style without art or artistry.

< § >

—
David Phillips, “The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide,” American Sociological Review 39, no. 3 (1974): 340-54.

—

The question in all of this is, What is my One Thing? What matters most of all where everything else dissolves? The answer is simple. I live for suicide. In the beginning was the word and the word was suicide and suicide moved over the face of the deep. Blessed is the man who mediates on suicide both day and night. He is a tree planted by streams of dark water that bears winter fruit in its season. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has suicide not been told from the very beginning? Yes, I reply. I believe it is so.