Slashdot Mirror
Internet Suicide Pacts Surge in Japan
darkmonkeh writes "The number of Japanese who killed themselves in online suicide pacts rose sharply last year, according to the BBC. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone. These Japanese internet 'suicide clubs' accounted for at least 26 deaths in the last 2 months."
Good to see the Japanese people enjoy having a right to privacy :P
Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone geez, i thought killing urself was scary enough....
I have to wonder, what is it about Japanese culture that produces these people in such high numbers? In America, they'd listen to emo music.
I have hunches but no evidence. Could somebody explain this tragic issue?
Having lived here awhile now, the idea of suicide in Japan is completely different from what it was in America. There are a couple things you have to keep in mind:
A) Mental illness is heavily stigmatized
B) Suicide is legal and only vaguely stigmatized
Oh, and if you kill yourself by jumping in front of a train (I don't know how many times I've sat on a train where we couldn't move until they cleaned it off), your family has to pay Japan Railways for the cost of repairs/cleaning. So, if you're crazy and hate your family and work 70 hours a week, suicide doesn't seem that bad, really. Nobody seems to care that much about it either. People always laugh and joke when the train comes to an abrupt stop.
Internet suicide is old news here. Just like your silly "cellular phones" and "computers". Telepathic communication is the new thing.
Certainly I think you raise a very good point, but there is a fundamental difference between east and west that nobody so far has touched upon, and it is important. We have a large stigma against suicide - in Japan that doesn't really exist, from what I understand. And there is a reason for that difference.
Put simply, Western spirituality is about how human beings relate to a divine being (God, Allah, etc.), but there is an assumption that human beings are not themselves divine. Eastern spirituality is about understanding how human beings are divine - they have part of the divine in them. So, ending your life in Western spirituality is a source of judgement and damnation at the hands of the divine, whereas ending your life in Eastern spirituality is in part setting the divine part of you free - hence, no ill spiritual aftereffects, and no stigma.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
There's also a large number of suicides that are attempts at auto-erotic asphyxia gone wrong, from what I've heard - they get classified as a suicide because "suicide" is a lot less embarassing than the truth.
(And if you don't know what auto-erotic asphyxia is, you probably don't want to. Trust me on that. Really.)
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
What I mean to say is that suicide is an act undertaken by those who are physically in good shape but psychologically and philosophically shattered. When you're starving, you think only of getting the next bite of food, and the thought of killing yourself is remote. When you have the time and mental capacity to ponder nihilism, that's when you take action. I think that would explain the third-world/first-world difference; there is not more misery in the first world, but the misery that exists is more conductive to suicide.
That was my very point. Emo kids don't commit suicide, but hikikomori do.
Of course, a lot of (supposedly somewhat) knowledgable Slashdotters here say that Japanese culture has always found suicide far more acceptable than Western (ie: European-derived) culture. Apparently they've just got a higher proportion of the same number of depressed people who kill themselves.
A lot of people fail through ignorance.
Pills aren't exactly a 'reliable' way to kill yourself. Too few and you don't die, too many at once and you might end up spewing them back out.
I remember reading an article where they had interviewed failed bridge jumpers. They said almost every one realized what a mistake they had made once they stepped off the bridge.
Anyways, didn't they use to run PSA's for suicide hotlines?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Hmm... I thought the first rule of suicide club was "Are you connected with yourself?"
that was a good movie, if you can take it...
Actually, it's very very on topic for this post. It's all about following trends, and knowing who you are and what you want. Most people don't, and fall prey to other things.
Also the most blood I've ever seen in a movie... wow.
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
Why would more be made of a 1 in 10,000 rate than a 2.4 in 10,000 rate?
-Peter
Are they smart? maybe. Will people miss them? probably. Is it an awesome display of natural selection? absolutly.
Whoo, signature!
DesireCampbell.com
Anyone interested in the depressing aspects of liberation from a death camp should check out a book called King Rat by James Clavell. The work is semi-autobiographical as it features Changi, a POW camp run by the Japanese during WWII, where the author himself had been confined.
When the healthy, grinning troops from the Real World showed up, the prisoners were shattered when they realized just how totally screwed up they were, and how much they had lost in their grueling struggle for existance.
Err, veering somewhat on topic, some of the characters ended their lives in ways you'll remember. It's a fantastic book.
I wouldn't be surprised if this were true. I had a virulent form of cancer that required a year of intensive treatment that included arduous chemotherapy and surgeries. I never really got used to it but figured that things would eventually get better.
Knowledge of how permanent and terrible the side effects would be didn't really set in until after the treatment had ended. Some of them include perpetual physical weakness and loud ringing in my ears, as well as some hearing loss. The horror of the treatment I didn't really understand until after it was over. I often thought about suicide, even more so than I had while I was sick, although I obviously didn't carry it out. I can only theorize that I was too busy being treated to contemplate how awful my life was, and that after it ended I realized that things would never be the same.
Still, part of me wonders whether your comment about the Nazi camps is totally true. Viktor Frankl wrote a book called "Man's Search for Meaning" about his experience. Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist -- he had a Ph.D. -- from Vienna who the Nazis imprisoned. He observed that people within the camp tended to give up wanting to live, and that in doing so they would often succumb to malnutrition or rampant disease. Yet he saw in those who persevered a willingness to maintain a positive outlook even in the face of conditions that most of us would consider untenable. Perhaps some of those survivors were in a state similar to mine after treatment. I wonder if that's when they killed themselves, after they got out and realized their lives had been destroyed even if their bodies continued to live. I felt that way, and still often do. Maybe some of the Japanese the article describes do too. If so, I emphasize, especially given the callous comments of some of the posters in this thread.
(Posted AC for obvious reasons.)
Let's see. On my birthday (two days ago), I lost my job, injured my arm, got dumped by my girlfriend and had to spend 1.5 hours burning gas trying to find parking in downtown Montreal. This is on top of working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for this company (an Internet startup) and being assured, less than a week ago, that I would be the last person to be let go if anything went wrong.
I'm not suicidal, but I know why people would be. Thinking about suicide helps relieve some of the stress from a situation like this. It is a sort of mental shortcut to shifting one's mental frame, giving an example of a way to get out of one's current conundrum. I can only imagine how hard it would be if I had an expensive house to pay for, or huge credit card bills - oil on the fire I guess.
Obviously the solution is for the Japanese government to go to Yahoo, MSN and Google and tell them to censor searches for Suicide and Suicide Club.
As gratifying as the above jibe might be in light of recent stories about all the search engines and ethics...
I read a story in Wired Magazine about Google, I want to say 4 years ago. Anyway, the articles author mentioned that Google had these displays up that showed all the searches flowing through and how they resolved. The author noticed one go by which seemed to be from someone needing suicide counseling. The author said Google was wired to redirect some searches so that the searches returned links to places where they could seek help.
I would hope whomever writes such redirects would get around to Japanese soon.
For that reason, the highest gender-profession aggregate of successful suicides in Canada every year is female physicians. While most women try with pills, female physicians have the knowledge and access to the tools to do it right, the first time.
But thanks to the RIAA shutting down lyrics sites we will never know...
But... the future refused to change.
"I have to wonder, what is it about Japanese culture that produces these people in such high numbers?"
When you says these people I am going to assume you means suicides in general, and not just suicide clubs. First of all I want to say that 26 people in 2 months having died in suicide clubs, is likely FAR below the number that actually happened with clubs, and is definitely far below the number of actual suicides.
I take the train in Tokyo to work everyday often, probably once per week, a train that I am riding on is delyed due to a "jishin jikko" which basically means self death incidient. Suicide is common in Japan. As to what cultural aspects influence this, not being a cultural expert, I can only guess at several.
1) Historically suicide was a way to maintain, or regain your honour. Honour and spirit are very important in Japanese culture. It is more important to the older generation than the younger generation, however, the younger generation cannot help but having these ideals ingrained into their subconscious.
2) Group thinking. The Japanese are extremely group oriented. The group is more important than the individual. Being ostracized by your group, and being in a position where you have let your group down can be extremely painful. It can be painful in any culture, but in Japan it is something more. There is an expression in Japan that says "The nail that sticks out must be hammered down!" This means that everyone should be alike and that anyone who is different should be forced to comply or exiled. For people who have never been in a group, or have been exiled from a group, the idea of joining a group again, where you are understood if even for a short time, could be a big motivator to join a suicide club.
3) Pride. Japanese people are very proud and adverse to failure. There have been cases where people have starved to death rather than go onto any kind of government assitance. There are very clear cultural rules regarding what is proper or improper behaviour and people would rather literally die than break some of those rules and be shamed in front of their friends and family.
4) Gaman suru! Gama suru essentially means to endure. In Japan, it is expected for people to endure hardships. To silently put up with tough situations and keep going. This is seen in many aspects of life here, whether it is pain, tough business situations, or the loss of a loved one. When the pressures get too high, it is hard to be able to talk to people and often suicide is seen as the easiest, most honourable out.
5) School system. The school system here is incredibly competitive. The study ethic here is higher than anywhere else I have seen in the world, and the pressure to perform is incredible. Students often finish school and then go to a private school for more intense training in the evenings. Getting into a good university here is the hardest part, and it can determine your life. Pressure and failures at school are huge stresses on the students, and it is often easier to kill yourself, than to admit failure.
If you look at the reasons above, and combine them together, it paints a better picture. There are probably reasons I have missed but I think the picture I have drawn is essentially correct. I have been in Japan for 6 years now, and am getting married to a Japanese woman in April. When we have children, I won't want them to go through a typical school in Japan.
Cheers,
CB
I'm pretty sure Darwin didn't have anything to say about intelligence or number of people who like you being a factor in natural selection.
Basically, people who die for whatever reason before breeding won't pass on whatever it was to make them die to their children, whether it's stupidity or just a propensity to suicide.
So yeah, very appropriate to a Darwin discussions.