[Unedited] Jennifer Michael Hecht with Krista Tippett

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Society, Spirituality, Society & Culture, Sociology, Culture, Science, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Social Sciences, On Being, Arts

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2020

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for On Being with Christa Tippett comes from the Fetzer Institute, helping build the
0:04.4	spiritual foundation for a loving world. Fetzer envisions a world that embraces love as a guiding
0:10.2	principle and animating force for our lives. A powerful love that helps us live in sacred
0:15.2	relationship with ourselves, others, and the natural world. Learn more by visiting Fetzer.org.
0:22.4	I'm Christa Tippett. Up next, my unedited conversation with philosopher, poet, and historian
0:28.8	Jennifer Michael Hecht on The Courage to Stay Alive. There is, as always, a shorter,
0:34.4	produced version of this wherever you found this podcast.
0:39.2	Hey, Jennifer. Can you hear me? Hi. It's so great to hear more again.
0:46.3	When was that? It was early in the life of the show. When did your book come out?
0:51.8	Doubt. 2003. Yeah, gosh. That was like the first year for us. Really? Yeah. That's lovely because it was
0:58.9	definitely one of my first big interviews. Yeah. 10 years, 11 years ago. Yeah. Oh, I can't
1:05.8	believe it was that long ago. Anyway, I'm so glad we're talking again. Yes, for sure.
1:10.5	Um, Christa, what do you need for us in terms of levels? Hey, Paul, can you hear me?
1:14.9	Okay. Probably somewhere. He's coming. He's just shutting my door. You're at Argo, right?
1:21.2	Okay. Okay. Oh, and while I was already in the office.
1:26.1	Yeah. Sorry. While I was already here, I got the message about the poetry, but I found two
1:31.4	poems that are appropriate online. Oh, great. Oh, great. I'm so glad. And also, Lily said,
1:37.1	you have a new book of poetry coming out. It just came out in November. Yeah.
1:40.9	Okay. So we'll put in, we'll, we'll mention that and, and we'll probably just at the end,
1:47.2	I'll ask you to read those poems, unless you feel inspired at some point in the interview to read them.
1:52.2	Sure. Okay. Um, so, Christa, do you need what we had for breakfast? No, we are ready. Okay.
2:00.1	We don't have to have any, any mundane conversation we can't, we can delve right into this
	...

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