[jessaustin]

By tradition, suicide can absolve guilt and cancel debt, can restore honor and prove loyalty.

In this respect I feel Japan's culture is superior to ours in the USA. For example, I felt Mark Madoff's suicide was entirely appropriate, a final act that put the rest of his life in a more dignified context. Yet every article one reads about it treats the suicide as an additional disgrace, yet another horrible thing we can blame on Mark and his father.

[chris_mahan]

My wife is Japanese (born and raised there) and she does not look at it that way. She says people who commit suicide are losers can't apologize properly and work hard to make up for their mistake, or people who don't have the guts to weather through the hard times. Also, the whole samurai/bushido thing essentially doesn't exist for anyone under fifty over there. I went to Japan with my family in January, and I had a wonderful time, by the way. Eat at Joyfull, so cheap, so good! ( http://www.joyfull.co.jp/ -- see breakfast menu: http://www.joyfull.co.jp/menu/morning.html )

[sosborn]

No offense, but making trip to Japan and eating at Joyful is like going to the Bay area and eating at Denny's.

[chris_mahan]

Well, that's not the only place I went to eat. There's this little sushi bar just a short walking distance from their house where I ate raw frozen thin-sliced whale meat. (Tastes like a blend of beef and tuna. Unexpectedly salty. My son didn't like it. I ate the nine pieces in front of me.

Oh, also went to the shabushabu place in the Fukuoka train station mall on the 10th floor. Awesome. Best shabushabu in my life (not too pricy). Great view from the roof.

Yeah, and Miso soup and rice and other stuff for breakfast.

[bane]

On the flip side, Denny's in Japan is freaking amazing.

Also, if you know of a Joyfull in the Bay area let me know.

[Estragon]

Back around 96 I went to Nagoya and ate at Denny's. My hosts wanted some Western food that day, I guess.

[philsnow]

I eat at Tsui Wah late at night when I go to Hong Kong, which is pretty much a HK denny's.

[krapp]

>Also, the whole samurai/bushido thing essentially doesn't exist for anyone under fifty over there.

I've been led to believe, (though I may be wrong, probably am) that it didn't really exist for the samurai either. In real life, they were elitist thugs and enforcers, and the mythology of bushido was added by old and bored samurai after Japanese society had more or less outlawed their violent ways.

[jessaustin]

It's as if the culture, history, and thought of Japan is as complex, multifaceted, and contradictory as that of any other place. Anyway, expats are often opinionated with respect to controversial aspects of their home countries.

[LanceH]

I heard it described like someone a hundred years from now found a high school handbook and decided that all high school students must be orderly, not chew gum, speak politely, respect their teachers, etc...

[llllllllllll]

She says people who commit suicide are losers can't apologize properly and work hard to make up for their mistake, or people who don't have the guts to weather through the hard times.

Charming attitude.

I doubt that many suicidal people have anything much to atone for, more likely they had some horrible things done to them or are just wired in a way that makes them deeply unhappy.

I don't see suicide as brave or cowardly. Depending on the situation, suicide can be in an individual's best interest -- a terminally ill patient in extreme pain who chooses to undergo a painless physician-assisted suicide would be a good example.

Even beyond terminal illness, I imagine that there are some people who have either been through such massive trauma, or are wired so badly, that suicide is a better option than living in misery. Granted, depressed individuals may not be capable of making decisions in their long-term self-interest, but I still wouldn't condemn every suicide as a "bad" decision, let alone "cowardly", "shameful", or any of the other pejoratives that come up around this topic.

[lilsunnybee]

Teenagers bullied into suicide must have a whole lot of serious stuff to apologize for, to kill themselves so early on! /s

[enraged_camel]

>>She says people who commit suicide are losers can't apologize properly and work hard to make up for their mistake, or people who don't have the guts to weather through the hard times.

My understanding is that at least some of the people who commit suicide have done things beyond apology.

I mean, let's say a bridge collapses and kills tens of people, and it turns out this was due to the architect's gross negligence and/or incompetence. Are you saying he can simply apologize and work hard to make up for his mistake?

[rrradical]

Wouldn't it be a better use of his life to work to make sure that sort of accident never happens again? Maybe he changes the culture that led to his incompetence. Maybe he tutors young architects and teaches them to learn from his mistake. I think someone that makes such a huge mistake is actually in a very powerful position to salvage something from it.

[bentcorner]

You're probably right, but personally if I was in that situation I don't think I'd be able to go through the mental hoops required to forgive myself.

Every morning, I'd wake up and remember what I'd done. The pain would be unimaginable.

[marcosdumay]

Anyway, once it's done, anything good you do later is a net positive.

It's not like one can change the past.

[tekromancr]

This is how I like to think that people who design software for weapons systems live.

[lmm]

Really?

I've written guidance code. A missile that doesn't go where you point it is a deadweight loss; while it might be best if they weren't fired at all, it's better they hit their intended targets than random (probably civilian) victims.

[rwallace]

I think it makes more sense to set aside for now the 0.1% of cases that fall into that category, and work on ways to avoid the other 99.9% of suicides that don't.

[kiiski]

I don't think all (probably not even most) suicides have anything to do with having made a mistake that needs apologising in the first place.

[thisjepisje]

Are you implying he can make up for his mistake by killing himself?

[pessimizer]

No. enraged_camel is clearly asking if sometimes there is no proper apology, and no amount of work that one can do to make up for one's mistake.

[tesmar2]

It depends on your worldview. As an evangelical Christian, I would say no one can make up for ANY of their sins, small or large. Only God can forgive sins. But thank God He is in the business of graciously doing that.

[vacri]

Gross negligence resulting in the deaths of others is usually a crime, punished by incarceration. Yes, those people aren't coming back, but it's not like nothing happens if this sort of thing happens.

[marincounty]

You and your wife sound nieve? Short, back/white answers benefit no one! Tell you wife, "Walk mile in man's shoes, then spout off ideology?" Or, just keep quiet and keep marital bliss? Wow-

[chris_mahan]

You try staying married to a Japanese woman for 15 years without learning to accept that another culture and point of view is as valid as yours.

It's naive, by the way.

[fakeasaur]

This is a dark, dark statement that paints a desperate individual killing himself out of fear as a good thing. It's not. Justifying suicide like that only makes it look like a good option for people who could get better.

[ciupicri]

From what I've just read it seems that Mark Madoff wasn't involved in his father's fraud, so I fail to see how his suicide was entirely appropriate.

Also from a pragmatic point of view, the victims of the fraud didn't get their money back, so his death was basically pointless except for the revenge factor.

[LanceH]

From wikipedia: "Mark deposited $745,482 and withdrew $18.1 million."

As a compliance officer at one point.

[jacquesm]

The man did not do anything wrong, left a wife and two children, there was nothing there that helped 'put his life in a more dignified context' because he may have profited from his fathers fraud indirectly but there is no evidence that he knew about it.

I think you may be confusing the son with the father.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2011/10/25/mark-mad...

[jqm]

You are getting down voted but honorable suicide was a practice in more than ancient Japan.

Socrates died by his own hand for instance.

https://suite.io/arash-farzaneh/4sa32c7

I'm not saying suicide is good thing but there is a cultural perspective that is different from our own in the modern West.

[philwelch]

Socrates was sentenced to death and chose to accept the judgment of the law and drink the poison himself rather than escape (or, I guess, force an executioner to become more directly involved). That hardly counts as suicide.

[jqm]

He could have left. But he decided to take the "honorable" path instead.

Because someone suggests you kill yourself doesn't make it any less killing yourself. This applies to ancient Japan as well. That was my point. The custom of "honorable suicide" wasn't confined to ancient Japan.

[philwelch]

A death sentence isn't exactly a "suggestion", and by "he could have left" you mean "he could have escaped but chose not to". (I believe this is the premise of Crito).

[jqm]

Not to beat a dead horse... but he drank the poison. He wasn't killed, he took his own life. There was an alternative in which he lived, but which he refused.

But all this is getting off the point. Honorable suicide was a custom in more than ancient Japan.

[philwelch]

So where? Because Socrates was sentenced to death; his death was not a suicide.

[nsxwolf]

Holy shit.

[a8da6b0c91d]

I think it ties into the differences between a guilt culture vs. a shame culture, as those terms relate to the anthropological research. In the western mind, you live suffering with guilt for your actions. In the east you have more irredeemable shame.