Hacker News Reader

Comment by jkhdigital | Hacker News Reader

In Japanese society, historically, ritual suicide was accepted as an "honorable" way to die under otherwise shameful circumstances. It seems pretty natural that, with such a cultural legacy, Japanese people (including children) would be more willing to resort to suicide.

Reinforcing your comment, the fallacy here is in assuming that the factors affecting suicide rates among Western children are identical to the factors for Japanese children, and therefore bullying in Japan must be particularly atrocious to cause the high baseline suicide rate.

View on HN

>In Japanese society, historically, ritual suicide was accepted as an "honorable" way to die under otherwise shameful circumstances. It seems pretty natural that, with such a cultural legacy, Japanese people (including children) would be more willing to resort to suicide.

Does it really? Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? The many old practices regarding marriage and the church all around?

I don't think suicide as an honorable death is any more of a real thing in Japan nowadays than ninjas are.

Do you want to reframe duels to the death as gun violence and then consider America, which is the most clear comparison?

American gun violence is on a different scale to most of the rest of Western society. I don't think it's a particularly useful comparison.

>Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death?

Considering how common a form of retribution gun violence is in the US nowadays, yes, I'd say yes.

Could there be a case to be made in comparing American school shooters and Japanese student suicides? Maybe we'd find they had similar school experiences prior to their final moments.

>Does it really? Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? The many old practices regarding marriage and the church all around?

Yes, I would. Such societal norms don't just die, they remain in the "ether" so to speak.

For example, americans might not be as religious, or sticking with the church. They might not even be born in the US, or just be first or second generation. But the culture, and this includes immigrants as they integrate, contains all kinds of protestant ideas.

And it's easier for something like a suicide norm to survice that a practice of the duel (which takes two to survice, plus has the law against it, even if you come out alive).

Suicide was also an honorable way to go out in the Roman empire, but I'm not sure it's a societal norm in Italy nowadays. Definitely in the ether though, I think suicide after disgrace is something everyone can relate to.

>Suicide was also an honorable way to go out in the Roman empire, but I'm not sure it's a societal norm in Italy nowadays.

Maybe not so nowadays, but you'd be surprised how often it was a solution to societal shame in Italy up to the 1950s or so...

The ether of American "death by duel" is part of the more general protestant idea that suicide is an act against god, but there's no rule against finding someone/something to kill yourself with. Drink yourself to death, get yourself killed by a cop, join the army and find a place to sacrifice yourself: all are related to why duels to the death were part of our culture. To what extent that ether still effects the way we act I couldn't say, but it's definitely still around.

The relics of European honour culture, which includes duelling etc., being preserved in parts of the USA, particularly in the West and South, due to the delayed roleout of the centralised state, is a real argument made about why men from those parts can be so quick on the draw (perhaps literally) at the slightest interpersonal offence. Dunno if it's true but it doesn't seem preposterous.

Japan expat resident here.

The 'suicide for preserving honor' theory has been long abandoned & mostly outlawed, even. No one in the modern generation thinks that way. The causes for suicide are mostly due to economic imbalance & high credit/ loans/ failed businesses (sadly). Children have easy access to credit cards from family, and rack up huge debts by indulging in things as part of peer pressure. I saw several case studies highlighting this when I was part of influencer marketing business.

Ritual suicide was done by seppuku - slashing out your guts, as a final act of bravery. No one does anything remotely similar.

I have to assume that WWII history is still being taught. I'm not sure if they are censoring kamikaze tactics in Japan, but they are still well documented in US WWII media.

Funnily enough, WW2 is taught in a very sanitized way. Its more along the lines of "we had disagreement, we had a war, we were all somewhat wrong. let's move on and be peaceful". People take offense if you prod along the topic further. They don't want to talk about it anymore.

How do you “outlaw” a theory?

You can’t purge a cultural heritage—everyone in Japan learns Japanese history and ritual suicide is a notable part of that history. The point is not that people commit suicide today for the same reasons or in the same way that they did 500 years ago, but that it is more likely to be accepted as a way out than in a culture that e.g. considers suicide to be a one-way ticket to the spiritual inferno.

> You can’t purge a cultural heritage—everyone in Japan learns Japanese history and ritual suicide is a notable part of that history.

Not sure where you get this idea, but this is grossly inaccurate.

Japanese culture is strongly revisionist. People don't talk about the war, much less teach about it. The 'old ways' and 'samurai heroism' was faulted for the mess in '40s. People make a sigh whenever such touchy topics come up. New Japan is a different beast.

As a consequence, we are seeing a generation which is severely confused on why WW2 happened. American pop culture is embraced with open arms, but they can't explain why Hiroshima happened at the hands of US. It's all faulted to grave mistakes on the 'old thinking' which is best left behind. Japan adopted modernism & became America's best buddies, ignoring the blemishes over 3 decades of Imperial japanese horrors. Older generation, who used to teach from experience of pre-war and neo-modern Japan, are dying off due to age. A significant chapter of history is being ignored by looking the other way. Look up the editorials of any Japanese weekly, and on any random week you will find some discussion on how they bemoan the growing dissonance between the post-war values of peace & the cultural change alongside the pseudo-aggression of some political parties, which eventually aims to remilitarize Japan at some point. (That's a story for another time or another thread)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com