It’s a general point of pride among Canadians how progressive we are. However, from my particular American-cum-Canadian perspective, it sometimes seems bizarrely so. Many others appear to agree when it comes to Canada’s expansive assisted dying law (MAID), which, should the original legislation come into full effect, would allow for even mental illness to constitute grounds for medically-assisted suicide. Of course, we must always show compassion for those who suffer, but when I reflect on my own brother’s quiet struggle with depression and tragic suicide, the thought of a doctor or a bureaucrat endorsing his calamitous decision seems darkly surreal.
Wisely, the current government has, for the moment at least, backed off on that particular provision, but the other legalized forms of assisted dying are already becoming normalized in Canada, and it is increasingly common for the chronically or terminally-ill to seek it. This essay won’t dive deeply into the ethics of that specific issue, aside from noting that there are obvious moral quandaries to reconcile. Instead, I wish mainly to expound on a point made by Noah Richler in his recent Globe and Mail op-ed, where he remarked on the impact that institutionalized ugliness made on his mother-in-law’s decision to end her life:
Beauty and not utility, the good and not the practical, were Judy’s eternal verities. The doctor’s shirt, a nurse’s shoes or her oncologist’s elegant dress; these were also a promise, steps to a better, finer and more enriching life of which hospital rooms are the antithesis. They are chambers of function and purpose with no place for beauty, but perhaps for flowers quickly wilting if they are permitted at all. Judy hated being in hospital as, truth be told, are a burgeoning number. Who wants to live in a ward that is effectively a waiting room for the soon-to-be dead?
How sadly true this observation is. A couple of years ago I had the misfortune of spending an entire week in hospital following complications from an otherwise routine surgery. Extremely bored and out of sorts, I passed the time by reading books and watching TV. This included the Cinemax series The Knick: a show set in a fictionalized 1900 New York City hospital. I’m partial to period pieces, in part, because the places shown are often so much more beautiful in comparison to contemporary settings. In the case of The Knick, the contrast couldn’t have been more apparent.
While it would be foolish not to appreciate the wondrous medical advances made over the last century, it’s equally fair to lament the ugliness that now typifies most medical facilities. Gone are the details that used to grace even ordinary institutional buildings, including natural-light filled spaces, moulding details with human-scaled character, and pleasingly patterned tile. Like modern factories and office spaces, hospitals are now largely cleansed of aesthetic flourishes with only bare function expressed. This is done with little regard to the impact made on patients’ mental well-being. In truth, it’s not especially difficult to sympathize with a person who wishes to quicken death when consigned to such a lifeless place without hope of ever leaving.
THE GOOD DEATH
Death, of course, has always been a highly ritualized part of human culture. In his documentary Death and the Civil War, Ric Burns explains the important role that beauty played in the Victorian era, where proximity to loved ones and spiritual reconciliation were hallmarks of that period’s conception of a good death. Mortal wounds on distant battlefields, however, made such rituals impossible. Nevertheless, as Burns recounts, fallen soldiers who were able would often arrange photos of their loved ones around them as they lie and await the inevitable, seeking love and beauty to help ease their final moments of suffering.
And while death can be a tortuous and exhausting act to witness—as Leo Tolstoy so memorably accounts in Anna Karenina1—it is still possible to find meaning in it. When asked about her husband’s last moments as he died from painful and debilitating liver cancer, Alice Coltrane purportedly remarked with sincerity, “it was beautiful.” Perhaps such profound serenity can only be experienced by a deeply spiritual person, as both she and John Coltrane were known to be. In any case, to the extent that the physical environment can provide solace in such a time, one need only consider that funerals are traditionally held in houses of worship.
Of course, anyone who has ever witnessed a natural death, or even its opposite—a birth, knows that it reveals human life in its most raw form. And while science has demonstrated that the substances of our universe can neither be made nor destroyed (only transformed), the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton is surely right to say that we live by a very different set of experiences: one of constant creation and loss.2 In this way our lives become indelibly marked by the joyful entries and sorrowful exits of those we love.
This phenomenon extends also to the places that we care for. For example, the willful destruction of the old New York Penn Station in 1963 so shocked Americans that it ignited the modern historic preservation movement. But despite recent attempts to lessen the harm done by that unfortunate intervention (via the Moynihan Train Hall and the newly planned Madison Square Park renovation), that original masterpiece by McKim, Mead, and White remains irretrievably gone, senselessly lost like a loved one who has been taken too soon.
That infamous case of architectural loss helps demonstrate how beauty underlies our attachment to the buildings we love. By providing value beyond utility, beauty allows our environment to transcend past its mere function, drawing out emotional connections that mirror interpersonal relationships. Just as we understand our loved ones to be more than mere “humans for interacting with,” we also view our homes to be more than mere “machines for living in,” as the influential modern architect Le Corbusier proclaimed. It’s no wonder, then, that people in their outrage and sympathy have coined a new word “domicide” to describe the horrible loss faced in Gaza by the destruction of thousands of homes: a devastatingly familiar feature of both modern warfare and urban renewal.
BELIEVING IN BEAUTY
Part of the reason I gave this newsletter its name is that, in many ways, believing in beauty requires a leap of faith. By orienting towards this virtue, along with truth and goodness, I believe one can have some measure of trust that life’s other concerns will be cared for in the process, just as a loving marriage can offer many practical benefits while the purpose of it necessarily remains the love itself. As a consequence, we can never really anticipate all the complications that may arise when we sacrifice beauty for utility’s sake. The increase in euthanasia as a result of depressing hospital design is just one example, but in all our ventures we surely risk some harm by ignoring beauty’s proper place.
Still, the uncomfortable question remains: what is the meaning to be found in suffering beyond all hope (as the dying must endure)? Unfortunately, rational argument alone may not provide a satisfactory answer, which is perhaps why assisted suicide is gaining so much traction in modern society. Nevertheless, I offer this possible explanation: that by caring for someone in their final state, we confirm that life is a worthwhile thing unto itself, and that no purpose is required to justify it. In turn, the gift that the dying make through their suffering is to affirm this truth to the living, so that we might see the value beyond fleeting desire and utility. Maybe in this way, even an ordinary death can be elevated to the plane of loving sacrifice.
In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy recounts the final hours of the character Nikolai Dmitrich: “There was no position in which he was not in pain, there was not a minute in which he was unconscious of it, not a limb, not a part of his body that did not ache and cause him agony. Even the memories, the impressions, the thoughts of this body awakened in him now the same aversion as the body itself. The sight of other people, their remarks, his own reminiscences, everything was for him a source of agony. Those about him felt this, and instinctively did not allow themselves to move freely, to talk, to express their wishes before him. All his life was merged in the one feeling of suffering and desire to be rid of it.”
From The Soul of the World by Sir Roger Scruton.