Aaron Bushnell lit himself on fire and then shouted, “Free Palestine!” until he no longer could. At the time of this blog post’s release it has been a month since it happened. He went ablaze and subsequently died on February 25th, 2024. Since then plenty of people have came to their own conclusions about what to make of it. Is he just a crazy dude whose actions should be ignored, lest some other unfortunate soul tries to replicate him? Is he a hero who put his life on the line to protest atrocities? Is he a secret third thing?
Regardless of the answer, it’s worth noting that he is far from the first person to die in this manner. He almost certainly won’t be the last. Self-immolation is one of if not the most painful ways to die possible, yet it keeps on happening. How do we make sense of that? This blog post is dedicated to pondering the significance of Aaron Bushnell’s final act and other similar incidents. In my view self-immolation is neither exclusively a political act nor merely a reflection of poor mental health. By the end of this post we’ll come closer to figuring out what concoction of factors that secret third thing contains.
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