Posted on 08/26/2015 4:49:38 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Suicide is one aspect of Japanese culture that is radically different than western culture. Maybe it was so accepted in Japan that it was self-explanatory, and they felt no need to document it. And in the west, it carries such a stigma that it is still avoided as a topic.
There is one other thing to consider, which is religion. The two main religions in Japan are Shinto and Buddhism. To be simplistic, Shinto is Japan's animism, and Buddhism is Japan's metaphysics. This informs the Japanese view of taking one's own life as an act of contrition. In Shinto, this makes it more likely that you can become a kami, one of the innumerable deities and ancestral spirits that get to inhabit Japan alongside the living. In Buddhism, this can be consider an act that expiates karma: at the very least you'll come back as something equal or greater than you are in this life, and at best you may leapfrog into nirvana, or at least the Western Pure Land from which one can enter into nirvana. Moreover, Japanese Buddhists accept Shinto kami as bodhisattvas, beings just this side of nirvana, so your bases are covered either way.
A simple summary of this would be that a Japanese, particularly a samurai-level Japanese, believes he has nothing to lose by committing seppuku, since he is either becoming a kami, coming back in a better incarnation, or going on towards nirvana. By contrast, a Christian committing suicide knows he is committing a sin, perhaps an unpardonable sin, and in any case 1) does not expect to come back as anything, and 2) is jeopardizing one's eternal existence. So a Japanese committing seppuku believes he is acting at a very high moral level, while an American Christian committing suicide believes he is acting at a very low moral level.
Thanks; I knew you could provide some insight. It is indeed a significant cultural difference.
As a side note: In German, suicide is “Selbstmord,” or “Self Murder.” It clearly connotes the moral wrongfulness of the act.
You made me look.
I’m going completely from memory, but it seems to me from my reading that the Japanese had a rather worshipful, religious sort of attitude towards “victory.” So much so, that the ultimate “crime” in their book was losing.
How are off is my surmise?
I grow wearier and wearier of all men's feeble efforts (including post-Christian America's) to make sense of themselves and the world, at the inverse of the rate at which I grow more and more eager to leave this vale and enjoy Yahweh in His presence forever. I'm not contemplating sui-cide, just keenly appreciating the blessed hope and faith He has given me. When my time comes sooner or later, I won't be hanging on.
This world is not my home, I'm just a-passin' through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me through heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore
Thanks. Col. Tice can sure tell a story.
Communism in the 20th Century became strongly associated with brutal totalitarian dictatorships in the Soviet Union, China, Cubar, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. To their credit, Labour never attempted to impose a dictatorship in Britain and when they were turned out by the electorate they peacefully surrendered power to the Tories. Socialists in other West European countries were similarly peaceful, but I'm hard pressed to think of other examples outside the region.
Laski was taking the very long view, and didn’t demand the “dictatorship of the proletariat” right away. He knew that every step to the left, every “program” that was instituted, would never be repealed even if the socialists were temporarily turned out of office. Look at the National Health Service; that has irrevocably turned Britain into a “worker’s paradise.” It has not been repealed, there is no serious talk of ever dismantling the program.
It is very much the same here with 0bamacare. It will be tweaked around the edges a bit here and there, but in the end neither party really wants it gone, and so it will stay. No matter how toxic it is to the economy.
And Social Security and Medicare. Those unconstitutional socialist programs are so deeply embedded that Republicans won't even point out that they obliterate the Enumerated Powers. Every single Republican running for president this year is, for all practical purposes, a New Deal/Great Society Democrat.
Now I must admit that over the bar in our Officers Club tent we had talked about being the first to land in Japan by lowering the gear and making a touch-and-go,
Aokigahara—Japanese suicide forest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FDSdg09df8
Yep, that’s the way it works.
I’ve mentioned this before, but ever since the Supreme Court decisions in Scheckter Poultry and Wickard v. Filburn, they have abrogated their duties as guardians of the Constitution and the notion of limited government. Since then, the Courts have served the socialist state by creating from wholecloth new “rights” that were never recognized in the Constitution. The creation of an ever expanding series of “rights,” has created a complex legal situation where these rights inherently compete against each other. The Courts become the aribters of these competing “rights,” including several that actually are specifically recognized in the Bill of Rights.
In arbitrating which rights control in a situation, these “rights” are not rights at all, but licenses, granted (and revoked) by the state acting through its judicial branch.
And you will notice that it is the Free Exercise of Religion that takes a backseat to all other “rights.” In fact, for a Free Exercise claim to get any traction, it has to be cloaked as a Free Speech issue.
I’m afraid that most of the socialists who arbitrate these “licenses” look at the Free Exercise of Religion as:
You are free to worship any religion you wish in the properly zoned structure for religious worship, during the regulated church hours of 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Sunday, where you can hear the officially approved message from the politically correct edited Bible delivered by the licensed pastor.
That’s what creeping socialism does. Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand and George Orwell would not be pleased with the society we have created, but they would all certainly recognize it.
BTW, one of the most bizarre performances I have ever seen was the glorification of the National Health in the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics. Given the long and glorious history of the Sceptered Isle, they couldn't think of anything else??
The teach ‘em a lesson and I won’t vote for a Mormon choruses cost us the last chance to do a complete repeal of Obamacare after the 2012 election. The entire U.S. healthcare industry has now been reorganized to comply with it. What we could do is begin a process of reform and privatization to allow a new industry to emerge based on free market principles.
Nothing else that could pass the litmus test of political correctness in socialist Britain.
The Iron Lady benefited greatly from North Sea oil; if it hadn’t been for that fueling an economic boom in Britain, I doubt she would have been able to accomplish half of what she did.
Agreed about the Mormon thing.
What you’re looking at now is an uphill generational struggle, or recreating our country in the aftermath of a catastrophe.
Nah. Romney would have never done a complete repeal of Obamacare, which was modeled, after all, after Romneycare. He was one of those "repeal and replace" guys. In other words, he thought he could do socialism better than Obama.
I fear the “teach ‘em a lesson” brigade will simply switch to the “Trump knows how to tell it like it is” brigade and enable the most powerful unindicted leftist candidate to assume the mantle of power by default. I can’t imagine the state of the nation or the world after 4-8 more years of the big government wrecking ball.
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