If the US government and corporate executives had even half this level of shame, we'd have nobody left in those positions!
The plane's aft pressure bulkhead catastrophically exploded, causing total decompression at the high altitude, severing all four of the massive plane's hydraulic stabilizer systems and entirely tearing away its vertical stabilizer.
With these the 747 basically became uncontrollable and minutes later, despite tremendously heroic efforts by the pilots to turn back and crash land it with some modicum of survivability for themselves and the passengers, the flight slammed into a mountain close to Tokyo, killing hundreds.
The resulting investigation showed that the failed bulkhead had burst open due to faulty repair welding several years before. The two technicians most responsible for clearing that particular shoddy repair both committed suicide soon after the crash tragedy. One of them even left a note specifically stating "With my death I atone". (paraphrasing from memory here)
I can't even begin to imagine a modern Boeing executive or senior staffer doing the same.
Same couldn't be said for Japanese military officials after the tragedy though, so who knows about cultural tendencies:
Right after the crash, helicopters were making ready to fly to the scene (it was night by this point) and a nearby U.S military helicopter squadron also even offered to fly in immediately. The local JSDF administration however stood all these requests down until the following morning, on the claim that such a tremendous crash must not have left anyone alive, so why hurry?
As it turned out, quite a number of people had incredibly survived, and slowly died during the night from exposure to cold and their wounds, according to testimony from the four who did survive to be rescued, and doctors who later conducted postmortems on the bodies.
On the other hand you have cases like the MV Wewol ferry disaster, also in South Korea, in which well over 250 passengers died horribly. Most of them were just kids, high school students on a trip. The causes leading up to the tragedy, the accident management by the crew itself and the subsequent rescue, body retrieval and investigation, were absolutely riddled with negligence, incompetence, bad management and all kinds of blame shifting.
The owner of the ferry company itself had an arrest warrant issued for him, then fled and only later was found in a field dead and presumed to have committed suicide.
Underlying all this is that even these apparent cultural ideas of committing suicide to atone for the shame of some gigantic mistake don't seem to prevent people from actually making these kinds of mistakes or doing things more responsibly in the first place.
I'm not sure Yoon Suk Yeol had any shame
It’s pretty crazy over there, Lee’s probably safe right now just because his party’s the majority. But it also sounds like they’ve been abusing the impeachment process against the minority party.
> My wife, who’s from Korea
> 13 days later his temporary successor Han was also impeached
- Han Duck-soo: Acting president for 13 days. Impeached for refusing to investigate Yoon Suk Yeol and Kim Keon Hee (Yoon's wife).
- There were 192 votes against him and 108 members *abstained* from voting. This meant that they failed to form a quorum. *This vote was strictly party lines*
- They ruled that they only need 50% approval because Han was the Prime Minister. *President needs 2/3rds btw*
- Choi Sang-mok: was the acting PM for those 13 days. But only serves for 87!
- 24 March SK's (equivalent to) supreme court overrules Han's impeachment 7-1, and Han once again becomes the acting president.
> the DPK has been impeaching everyone they disagree with.
Before Yoon was Moon Jae-in (DPK), who the GNP tried to impeach in 2019. (Hwang Kyo-ahn was acting after Park's impeachment, who preceded Moon).
Before Park was Lee Myung-bak (GNP). He got 15 years in prison. In 2022 Yoon gave him a pardon.
Before Lee was Roh Moo-hyun (Liberal party) (Goh Kun was in between because...) but was impeached (193 to 2) in 2004 and his supporters were literally fighting people in the assembly. Month later supreme court overturned impeachment. After he left presidency people around him started getting sentenced. In 2009 he threw himself off a cliff as investigations were following him too.
Since the 60's they've had a president exiled, a coup, and even an assassination. It's fucking wild!
And don't get started on chaebols...[3]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_South_Ko...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Han_Duck-soo
Even in cases it is executed by themselves, shame won't be the primary motivation.
More often than not the suicide covers a whole organization's dirty laundry. You'll have people drunk and driving their cars over cliffs [0], low profile actors ending their life as shit hits the fan [0] etc.
Then some on the lower rank might still end their life to spare their family financially (insurance money) or because they're just so done with it all, which I'd put more on depression than anything.
Us putting it on shame is IMHO looking at it through rose colored glasses and masking the dirtier reality to make it romantic.
[0] https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/76130
[1] https://www.tsukubabank.co.jp/cms/article/a9362e73a19dc0efcf...
Shame is a powerful social force throughout the society, but we're talking about systematic screwings more often than not backed by political corruption (letting incompetent entities deal with gov contract on basis of political money and other favors) or straight fraud.