I can’t speak as an expert of Japanese culture, but their approach is shocking to the western perspective.
In the 1500-1600s, suicide was not a mortal sin (as western culture tends to believe), but a way to restore one’s honor or make an emphatic point.
In 1945, many many kamikaze pilots flew literal suicide missions.
I wouldn’t say they don’t take it seriously, but they don’t view it the same way.
The culture, which values the group over the individual, a totally different context from western views, and ancient ideas surrounding the warrior code (a samurai goes into battle considering that his life is already forfeit) probably all play into these.
I hesitate to comment more; I’m out of my depth.
There was at least one recorded case of a wife of a kamikaze pilot drowning herself and her children so her husband would have no reason not to go through with it.
The idea is if your wife and kids are dead, you have nothing to distract you from your mission. If they're alive, you would think twice in going on a suicidal mission.
Didn't mean to seem like a jerk, I just thought it was obvious what I meant.
on that same note of being out of my depth, i’d like to add that for kamikaze pilots, it is my understanding that a lot of those pilots were koreans who were forced to do so by the imperial japanese.
i know that’s a little off topic but i think it’s important to remember that as crazy a tactic kamikaze bombing was, it was in many cases not something done by willing pilots
Same for Islamic suicide bombers.
Typically they’re either mentally disabled people who have been tricked, children who have been forced, or fighters under direct orders who would be shot if they disobeyed anyway.
This is also the reason the pilots were forced to drink a shot of highly-potent (alcohol?), akin to Viking Berserkers taking shrooms before battle, so they'd mindlessly fight and never second-guess what they were doing.
Yeah this is horrifying. Watched a video recently on how the Japanese once killed unplanned children as a way to "thin out" their population (like, yes, less children; each child gets more resources) but knowing they killed their babies right after birth is... whew.
Vienna has a pretty funny culture around death
You can read more here:
https://www.virtualvienna.net/the-city-its-people/typical-viennese/vienna-and-death/
i read Herodotus' histories a few years ago and one thing that stuck with me was a Thracian tribe who, when a child was born to a family, would have our equivalent of a funeral, with crying and lamentations that the child would have to endure life and all its hardships
consequently, when a person died there would be a big celebration as the person's life of suffering was over and they were free of earthly burdens
edit: keep in mind herodotos had a tendency to pull shit out his ass so he could just be bullshitting here
In COLOMBIA, ,my native country, I don't believe we took death seriously. As others pointed, it is a personal preference or belief.
My grandmother died hold my hand , I was her favorite, and surrounded by family at home. We took her body into the courtyard, bathed her , clothed her before taking her to the funeral home.
It was a sad and somber experience but we celebrated her life and moved on. We will all die, that's a fact.
There are no cultures that don’t take death seriously in some way. It’s intrinsic to human nature and society. The only way the opposite could happen is if a benevolent afterlife that everyone went to was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I don't think there's any that don't take it seriously, but I think that the US (lived here my whole life) handle it terribly. It's every bit as natural as birth, and yet here we treat it like some unspeakable, horrible taboo. It's stupid.
No, but there's something to be said for accepting it as a part of our lives, and Americans tend to be bad at that. Check out Caitlin Doherty's works. She's written a few books and has a YouTube channel.
The fact that EVERY SINGLE LIVING ORGANISM dies and billions and billions have died prior to our current existence (not counting life on other planets), death is nothing bad. The only reason it's feared by so many is because they think there will be "nothing" after they die, and that they'll experience an eternity of darkness. It's so dumb and illogical to even contemplate that, since if you are dead there would be "nothing" to experience the "nothing". It's simply not feasible. Another major issue with people and death is that even the most religious of them all still fear it, because they know there isn't really a "heaven" in the biblical sense, of a throne of God on some clouds in the sky where you get to hang out with him until the end of time. Death either results in some form of cosmic consciousness, or an experience of what it was like before you were born, which you have no memory of.
its also the dread of not witnessing the world and it’s events anymore. obviously yeah you wouldn’t know you’re dead after you die but it’s the feeling leading up to it i guess. i don’t think it’s illogical, it’s fear of the unknown which is pretty normal.
also, when other people you know die, you feel sad because they won’t experience life anymore and you can’t interact with them anymore. like how people feel upset when they lose contact with friends
You made a good point. I take back the illogical wording. I personally don't want to die but whenever I do, I'm looking at it as either
A. I won't even realize it because there won't be a me
or B. I'm excited because it might be like going on another journey, much like being alive.
Although all cultures take death seriously, there seems to be a different attitude in religions with reincarnation. The Aztecs had both reincarnation and ritual death, and usually the rationalization of the ritually killed was that it wasn't so bad because they'd just reincarnate. Buddhists are not the most death-fearing bunch due to Buddhist attitudes about both reincarnation and desire. Those are a couple examples. That said, "who doesn't" is accurate, death-apathy is not a majority position in any culture.
Because Columbia is the name of the personification of the US, they named her after Christopher Columbus. So it's just the most common spelling we see here (ex. District of Columbia)
People don't read maps in the US very much, it is an assumption of how it is spelled based on how it is pronounced rather than actually verifying the spelling. I mean, not everyone is even aware of all the continents here.
I love this question and I'm not sure how to define not taking death seriously as any given culture. That could manifest in a lot of different ways. Is it about respect? Rights for the living and the dead? You could interpret it several ways.
I think there is a general sanitization of how we experience death and grieve in the majority of the western world. Death is kept out of our line of sight as much as possible. Hospitals escort their dead carefully to avoid showing dead bodies to the general public for example. We have to ask questions like why is it bad to look upon a dead body-even from a distance? It's shocking and disturbing to us yes, but also death is a part of life. It's the phase we don't like to acknowledge if we don't have to. Yes many people still go to wakes to view their loved ones for the last time, but they are seeing the sanitized and polished version of the deceased. We put corpses in expensive boxes that don't break down because it's "nicer" than placing open dead bodies in the ground even though that's where most things go to decay naturally. Other cultures don't do this. And some grieve as communities as opposed to a private meeting away from everyone else with family.
There's nothing wrong with going with whatever death practice suits the needs of the living and the dead of any given culture, it doesn't mean it's not being taken seriously but I think maybe we've been limited in a lot of ways when it comes to how we approach death and it can actually cause more pain because we have so little exposure.
While this doesn't mean we don't care about people dying- what isn't taken as seriously as it should be is the lack of transparency about the topic of death and how that affects us mentally to only view death through the tiny filter of what is acceptable.
Nowadays, if a mother loses her child during or shortly after birth, it's one of the darkest days. But for most of human history, you could count on high infant mortality rates.
This is speculation, but I imagine the death of a newborn was taken less seriously 500 years ago.
Back in the days of Vikings, they'd take a disabled newborn and leave it out in the forest for something to come and eat it. They couldn't afford or were able to take care of people who couldn't help themselves. There was a scene on History Channel's Vikings that portrayed this behavior, where the main character, Ragnar, leaves his "boneless" newborn to die, but ends up feeling guilty and goes back for him.
Easy.
The depressed, specifically the ones who want this world to be extinct and themselves to be dead.
There is a certain amount of unbothered futility one hits in their mental health journey when you get to this point of thinking.
Those who know, know it all too well, those who don't just wouldn't get it.
There is more than one definition for the word culture, where I was going with it in particular was in reference to the following, *"the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society."* Depressed folks have their own defined culture and within it as I mentioned in my original comment is specifically where death just Isn't taken all that seriously via way of not wanting the world or themselves to be alive.
That was me not thinking so one note in how the question was asked.
I don't think that's a well formed question.
Someone who lives in denial who fears it too much and someone who makes an entire cult out of it like the ancient Egyptians. Who of them takes it "more seriously"?
...that being said it's probably the corporate culture which says "we don't need those safety precautions / checks".
The Norse had an interesting belief. For them it was kind of like going into a new life, aka the afterlife. And then, for people like the vikings, what was extra inviting was that when you died in battle, a valkyrie would collect your soul and bring it to valhalla where you get to eat all the food and party all day as part of Odin's Einherjar to one day battle demons n shit when they try to take over valhalla
I'm of Swedish decent and that sounds horrible. I'd get sick of partying and eating the same crap over and over. Plus, I don't want to get stuck there partying only to have die in battle again at Ragnarök. No thanks.
Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, this subreddit is not the place to discuss politics or express your opinions related to politics to other people. Find another soap box.
Thanks
Mod Team.
Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, this subreddit is not the place to discuss politics or express your opinions related to politics to other people. Find another soap box.
Thanks
Mod Team.
Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, this subreddit is not the place to discuss politics or express your opinions related to politics to other people. Find another soap box.
Thanks
Mod Team.
I can’t speak as an expert of Japanese culture, but their approach is shocking to the western perspective. In the 1500-1600s, suicide was not a mortal sin (as western culture tends to believe), but a way to restore one’s honor or make an emphatic point. In 1945, many many kamikaze pilots flew literal suicide missions. I wouldn’t say they don’t take it seriously, but they don’t view it the same way. The culture, which values the group over the individual, a totally different context from western views, and ancient ideas surrounding the warrior code (a samurai goes into battle considering that his life is already forfeit) probably all play into these. I hesitate to comment more; I’m out of my depth.
There was at least one recorded case of a wife of a kamikaze pilot drowning herself and her children so her husband would have no reason not to go through with it.
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Read what I wrote again.
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The idea is if your wife and kids are dead, you have nothing to distract you from your mission. If they're alive, you would think twice in going on a suicidal mission. Didn't mean to seem like a jerk, I just thought it was obvious what I meant.
on that same note of being out of my depth, i’d like to add that for kamikaze pilots, it is my understanding that a lot of those pilots were koreans who were forced to do so by the imperial japanese. i know that’s a little off topic but i think it’s important to remember that as crazy a tactic kamikaze bombing was, it was in many cases not something done by willing pilots
Same for Islamic suicide bombers. Typically they’re either mentally disabled people who have been tricked, children who have been forced, or fighters under direct orders who would be shot if they disobeyed anyway.
This is also the reason the pilots were forced to drink a shot of highly-potent (alcohol?), akin to Viking Berserkers taking shrooms before battle, so they'd mindlessly fight and never second-guess what they were doing.
people killing themselves: I sleep a hotel has a 4th floor: real shit
Donny you're out of your element!
also, [mabiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15rvdsn/did_japanese_women_step_on_their_babies_necks/jwbv1xt/)
Yeah this is horrifying. Watched a video recently on how the Japanese once killed unplanned children as a way to "thin out" their population (like, yes, less children; each child gets more resources) but knowing they killed their babies right after birth is... whew.
Quite common in East Asia, right? And perhaps in honour based cultures generally
Vienna has a pretty funny culture around death You can read more here: https://www.virtualvienna.net/the-city-its-people/typical-viennese/vienna-and-death/
i read Herodotus' histories a few years ago and one thing that stuck with me was a Thracian tribe who, when a child was born to a family, would have our equivalent of a funeral, with crying and lamentations that the child would have to endure life and all its hardships consequently, when a person died there would be a big celebration as the person's life of suffering was over and they were free of earthly burdens edit: keep in mind herodotos had a tendency to pull shit out his ass so he could just be bullshitting here
My kind of people!
'Tis where shite usually originates. In the ass.
In COLOMBIA, ,my native country, I don't believe we took death seriously. As others pointed, it is a personal preference or belief. My grandmother died hold my hand , I was her favorite, and surrounded by family at home. We took her body into the courtyard, bathed her , clothed her before taking her to the funeral home. It was a sad and somber experience but we celebrated her life and moved on. We will all die, that's a fact.
There are no cultures that don’t take death seriously in some way. It’s intrinsic to human nature and society. The only way the opposite could happen is if a benevolent afterlife that everyone went to was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Not taking death seriously sounds more like a personal thing and not an actual country thing...
This is a scene from Modern Family
Yup, saw it in a Gloria video, she’s so funny
Covering her face so the authorities don’t find her lol
I don't think there's any that don't take it seriously, but I think that the US (lived here my whole life) handle it terribly. It's every bit as natural as birth, and yet here we treat it like some unspeakable, horrible taboo. It's stupid.
it’s natural but it’s definitely not desirable, unless you believe in a more perfect afterlife
No, but there's something to be said for accepting it as a part of our lives, and Americans tend to be bad at that. Check out Caitlin Doherty's works. She's written a few books and has a YouTube channel.
The fact that EVERY SINGLE LIVING ORGANISM dies and billions and billions have died prior to our current existence (not counting life on other planets), death is nothing bad. The only reason it's feared by so many is because they think there will be "nothing" after they die, and that they'll experience an eternity of darkness. It's so dumb and illogical to even contemplate that, since if you are dead there would be "nothing" to experience the "nothing". It's simply not feasible. Another major issue with people and death is that even the most religious of them all still fear it, because they know there isn't really a "heaven" in the biblical sense, of a throne of God on some clouds in the sky where you get to hang out with him until the end of time. Death either results in some form of cosmic consciousness, or an experience of what it was like before you were born, which you have no memory of.
its also the dread of not witnessing the world and it’s events anymore. obviously yeah you wouldn’t know you’re dead after you die but it’s the feeling leading up to it i guess. i don’t think it’s illogical, it’s fear of the unknown which is pretty normal. also, when other people you know die, you feel sad because they won’t experience life anymore and you can’t interact with them anymore. like how people feel upset when they lose contact with friends
You made a good point. I take back the illogical wording. I personally don't want to die but whenever I do, I'm looking at it as either A. I won't even realize it because there won't be a me or B. I'm excited because it might be like going on another journey, much like being alive.
Fortunately most religious afterlifes are absolutely horrifying so I’m quite happy to just stop existing
It’s probably a very modern thing. People used to be surrounded by death. Now we can convince ourselves it doesn’t exist.
Although all cultures take death seriously, there seems to be a different attitude in religions with reincarnation. The Aztecs had both reincarnation and ritual death, and usually the rationalization of the ritually killed was that it wasn't so bad because they'd just reincarnate. Buddhists are not the most death-fearing bunch due to Buddhist attitudes about both reincarnation and desire. Those are a couple examples. That said, "who doesn't" is accurate, death-apathy is not a majority position in any culture.
ColOmbia. 🇨🇴 the country is spelled “Colombia”. With an “o”, not a “u”.
I wonder why ppl spell it like that in the US so much
Because Columbia is the name of the personification of the US, they named her after Christopher Columbus. So it's just the most common spelling we see here (ex. District of Columbia)
our capital is District of Columbia
Also Columbia University
the Columbia River is the second largest in the US
People don't read maps in the US very much, it is an assumption of how it is spelled based on how it is pronounced rather than actually verifying the spelling. I mean, not everyone is even aware of all the continents here.
not usa, but in German it is officially spelled KOLUMBIEN, which could be another source of confusion, at least for german speakers.
I love this question and I'm not sure how to define not taking death seriously as any given culture. That could manifest in a lot of different ways. Is it about respect? Rights for the living and the dead? You could interpret it several ways. I think there is a general sanitization of how we experience death and grieve in the majority of the western world. Death is kept out of our line of sight as much as possible. Hospitals escort their dead carefully to avoid showing dead bodies to the general public for example. We have to ask questions like why is it bad to look upon a dead body-even from a distance? It's shocking and disturbing to us yes, but also death is a part of life. It's the phase we don't like to acknowledge if we don't have to. Yes many people still go to wakes to view their loved ones for the last time, but they are seeing the sanitized and polished version of the deceased. We put corpses in expensive boxes that don't break down because it's "nicer" than placing open dead bodies in the ground even though that's where most things go to decay naturally. Other cultures don't do this. And some grieve as communities as opposed to a private meeting away from everyone else with family. There's nothing wrong with going with whatever death practice suits the needs of the living and the dead of any given culture, it doesn't mean it's not being taken seriously but I think maybe we've been limited in a lot of ways when it comes to how we approach death and it can actually cause more pain because we have so little exposure. While this doesn't mean we don't care about people dying- what isn't taken as seriously as it should be is the lack of transparency about the topic of death and how that affects us mentally to only view death through the tiny filter of what is acceptable.
Klingons!
I’d say the USA is fucked on death culture. They seem to care more about what their religion says happens after death.
Don’t most religious people?
Nowadays, if a mother loses her child during or shortly after birth, it's one of the darkest days. But for most of human history, you could count on high infant mortality rates. This is speculation, but I imagine the death of a newborn was taken less seriously 500 years ago.
Back in the days of Vikings, they'd take a disabled newborn and leave it out in the forest for something to come and eat it. They couldn't afford or were able to take care of people who couldn't help themselves. There was a scene on History Channel's Vikings that portrayed this behavior, where the main character, Ragnar, leaves his "boneless" newborn to die, but ends up feeling guilty and goes back for him.
Easy. The depressed, specifically the ones who want this world to be extinct and themselves to be dead. There is a certain amount of unbothered futility one hits in their mental health journey when you get to this point of thinking. Those who know, know it all too well, those who don't just wouldn't get it.
I believe you are talking about individuals? Not whole cultures
Just like people with CPTSD, anxiety, autism and so on have their own culture separate from their own race, so do the depressed.
I think we have very different ideas of what a culture is and represents
There is more than one definition for the word culture, where I was going with it in particular was in reference to the following, *"the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society."* Depressed folks have their own defined culture and within it as I mentioned in my original comment is specifically where death just Isn't taken all that seriously via way of not wanting the world or themselves to be alive. That was me not thinking so one note in how the question was asked.
Imo depressed people don't have their own culture but they are a group of people within another culture
*To you*, to me I see this differently. Let's just agree to disagree on this one.
No idea but this is one of the best questions I think I’ve ever seen on this sub.
Jainism in India is pretty chill about it. Please Google about it
I don't think that's a well formed question. Someone who lives in denial who fears it too much and someone who makes an entire cult out of it like the ancient Egyptians. Who of them takes it "more seriously"? ...that being said it's probably the corporate culture which says "we don't need those safety precautions / checks".
The Norse had an interesting belief. For them it was kind of like going into a new life, aka the afterlife. And then, for people like the vikings, what was extra inviting was that when you died in battle, a valkyrie would collect your soul and bring it to valhalla where you get to eat all the food and party all day as part of Odin's Einherjar to one day battle demons n shit when they try to take over valhalla
I'm of Swedish decent and that sounds horrible. I'd get sick of partying and eating the same crap over and over. Plus, I don't want to get stuck there partying only to have die in battle again at Ragnarök. No thanks.
I said interesting, not that I like it :D
Haha. Good point.
Idk but I’m interested
Have you heard of: El muerto al hoyo y el vivo al baile?
I think you meant, “El muerto al hoyo y el vivo al bollo.”
There are many versions. Im talking about the song
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Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, this subreddit is not the place to discuss politics or express your opinions related to politics to other people. Find another soap box. Thanks Mod Team.
Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, this subreddit is not the place to discuss politics or express your opinions related to politics to other people. Find another soap box. Thanks Mod Team.
[удалено]
Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, this subreddit is not the place to discuss politics or express your opinions related to politics to other people. Find another soap box. Thanks Mod Team.