[chajin]

"-cide" is a pejorative in English: homicide, genocide, fratricide, and suicide are all seen as negative actions. In Japan, by contrast, seppuku 切腹 is a means of expiating shame and regaining honor, for someone who has been derelict, or who failed in his duty. In a sense it is like the ancient Roman patrician practice of slitting one's wrists in a bathtub--and remember that while seppuku was a practice generally reserved for the samurai, all military officers, whether descended from samurai or not, considered themselves the 20th century equivalent of samurai.

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.

[henkster]

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.

[EternalVigilance]

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?

[Hebrews 11:6]

Thanks once again for your very generous and helpful explanations, insights into that (to me) bizarre culture.

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