Thanks for the links and thoughts on this. I didn't know that about Tiptree. I knew it was a pseud, but not her personal backstory. And the point about the common narrative with caretaker murders is important.
I think it will be probably impossible to tell from the outside and in retrospect whether their deaths were a truly mutual decision that they made as partners in a situation that seems to have wearing down both of them over a long time, and she genuinely executed their shared will, or whether she was at fault for fostering or creating his suicidal wishes. Or even her being somehow truly monstrous inside, rather than it all being tragic.
I do think it counts for something that apparently nobody who knew them more closely doubted that it was a mutual wish, even if we need to be mindful how our ableist society may be coloring people's views. I'm inclined to believe that she wasn't intentionally manipulating her husband to feel suicidal or desired such total control, where the murderer in a murder-suicide sees the victim only as extension of themselves, or similar abhorent scenarios.
I mean, I am quite uneasy with assisted suicide even with doctors and evaluation procedures involved, because I do see the danger of a slippery slope that reinforces the view of old, sick and disabled people as "burden", and that potentially makes good support and hospice care less available. (And to offer medical suicide for persistent, untreatable depression really disturbs me.)
So I don't think acting on even a mutual suicide pact is great, but then I'm not in their place and not ready to judge their personal tragedy and her guilt either. (Campbell's work otoh is quite knowable and a public thing.)
And that does make it not particularly urgent for me to see the Tiptree award renamed. But in general prefer award names that just symbolize their purpose somehow, or that are just made up and then come to symbolize it, rather than name them after people, who inevitably are messy and ultimately not actually the embodiment of something.
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I think it will be probably impossible to tell from the outside and in retrospect whether their deaths were a truly mutual decision that they made as partners in a situation that seems to have wearing down both of them over a long time, and she genuinely executed their shared will, or whether she was at fault for fostering or creating his suicidal wishes. Or even her being somehow truly monstrous inside, rather than it all being tragic.
I do think it counts for something that apparently nobody who knew them more closely doubted that it was a mutual wish, even if we need to be mindful how our ableist society may be coloring people's views. I'm inclined to believe that she wasn't intentionally manipulating her husband to feel suicidal or desired such total control, where the murderer in a murder-suicide sees the victim only as extension of themselves, or similar abhorent scenarios.
I mean, I am quite uneasy with assisted suicide even with doctors and evaluation procedures involved, because I do see the danger of a slippery slope that reinforces the view of old, sick and disabled people as "burden", and that potentially makes good support and hospice care less available. (And to offer medical suicide for persistent, untreatable depression really disturbs me.)
So I don't think acting on even a mutual suicide pact is great, but then I'm not in their place and not ready to judge their personal tragedy and her guilt either. (Campbell's work otoh is quite knowable and a public thing.)
And that does make it not particularly urgent for me to see the Tiptree award renamed. But in general prefer award names that just symbolize their purpose somehow, or that are just made up and then come to symbolize it, rather than name them after people, who inevitably are messy and ultimately not actually the embodiment of something.