What makes you think that even one of them did it for that reason?

Besides, the rate is not the highest ever. It was highest when Japan was in the ascendant.

Yes, that too was a despicable society.

I agree, but its members did not think so.

Of course they did, that's why they first killed themselves in high numbers and then immolated the culture entire.

They regarded it as self-sacrifice for the nation and god.

Your hatred of your fellow man, if he doesn't happen to be Christian, often drives you to stake out positions that defy evidence.

Had they really despised themselves, they might indeed have killed themselves, but they would not have sacrificed so devotedly for the cause as they did.

They didn't sacrifice anything, nor gain anything. They held their own lives worthless and tossed them away.

'When Japan was in the ascendant' means the bubble years of the 80s or during the time it was controlled by militarists in the 20s or 30s?

I live in Japan now and have studied its culture for almost 20 years, and do not see a national tendency towarsds suicide. Historically there is no religious ban against self-destruction, and going down in a blaze of glory or a lonely-puddle of self-drawn blood has been held as evidence for the ultimate in sincerity. I may no agree with such views, but let's try to understand them for what they are.

As for the kamikaze, they were not nihilistic, brainwashed dupes--rather, they were mostly poetic young college students who thought that the only chance Japan had against the US was to turn themselves into smart-bombs. They were very wrong. Not to idealize them, but at least they were targeting legitimate military threats and not pizza parlors or skyscrapers. Not so say that their government wouldn't havegiven that a try if they thought they could and it would come in handy.

So let's not defend a thoroughly despicable period in Japanese history--held despicable by most Japanese now in the know, as well. But let's not write off a very life-loving--hell, fun-loving people as lemmings. If you want to refer to some particular incidents or historical contexts, please be clear.

ANd if you want to go after somebody,let's figure out why the BBC has to blame the spike in suicides on the economy. Ideological motives? I offer further thoughts on the subject here.
http://zimblog.typepad.com/tanuki_ramble/

I meant by 'ascendant' the period from 1905 to 1942, particularly the '20s and '30s.

Orrin hates people he does not understand.

I despise the Japanese but I do not hate them.

The 'Three Human Torpedoes' were criminals, but they did not hate themselves, nor did their countrymen hate or despise them.

Self-sacrifice, like courage, is overrated as a virtue. Like everything else, it's value to outsiders is relative. That does not make it any less real for the courageous self-sacrificer.

I think the Christian martyrs were idiots, but I don't think they despised themselves.

There's no courage in the belief that your life has no value. What takes courage is sacrificing it when you think every human life infinitely valuable.

Christians and/or Westerners don't hold every life to be "infinitely" valuable; if we did, we'd be in the Sudan right now.

Western Christians may be predisposed to valuing human life, (even to bizarre lengths, such as calling zygotes "humans"), but we also apply judgements as to exactly how valuable individual's, and populations', lives are.

The British and Canadians firebombed Hamburg, killing 40,000 people, of which 70% were women and children, rather than let the French live under Nazi rule.

Later, the British and Americans immolated roughly 100,000 people at Dresden, as a show of force to the advancing Soviet military.

If lives were "infinitely" valuable, neither action could have been contemplated, nor carried out.

Michael:

We're in Sudan now even though we have no interest in the problem other than humanitarian.