Bring back Seppuku!

First of all, can anybody give me an example of a society where ritual suicide has been used in this manner and where it has worked to effectively reduce or eliminate corruption and/or bad decisions?

Second of all, suicide doesn't fix anything. The braver and more responsible thing to do would be for the people who screw things up to try to make them right. You break it, you bought it.

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I'd much rather have solutions than mere feelings of closure.

Don't kill the offender. Make them set things right. Closure is gained by guilty verdicts anyway.

How about, no. That is an awful idea.

What you are proposing isn't even Seppuku, it is murder. Just because an individual makes a mistake does not mean he should end his life. What happened to the concept of basic human dignity? Most of the time it would not even fix the problem; you would just be causing unnecessary grief for his friends and family.

Your idea is pointlessly cruel.

edited 25th Jun '11 3:27:43 PM by Pentadragon

I've never felt this. I keep hearing people refer to revenge as some kind of natural instinct, yet most interaction between children I've seen - including my 6 younger brothers, mind you - does not involve revenge in the same way that seems to be brought up in these discussions by the people who confuse justice with revenge.

Almost everyone I know has been the victim of a crime - they got their bike stolen, were involved in an accident that wasn't their fault, etc - usually small stuff. Almost no-one showed any signs of wanting bad things to happen to the criminal, even when we discussed the event later in private.

From my experience, which I'm willing to admit is probably very different from some of your experiences, it seems that satisfaction at the thought or act of revenge is almost entirely limited to fiction. Only certain kinds of children - ones with little social experience - seem to enjoy the thought of revenge, and they usually grow out of it.

...Or maybe my society has a very different perception of justice.

Then surely you'd expect everyone who ever fired an employee to commit seppuku for failing to fulfill their social obligation? At least in cases where the company is still making a profit, but would make slightly more with 1 fewer employee.

perhaps its the fact that they were, indeed, small crimes.

Thinking of a fairly extreme example: Bernard Madoff, conman extraordinaire, destroyed countless lives, was caught red handed and admitted his crimes. He said he deserved to go to prison for what he did, but his lawyers reckoned he should only get 7 years due to his old age (well, worth a shot I guess. He got 150 years). Out of what seems to be a twisted sense of loyalty to his co-conspirators he pleaded guilty to all charges in order to not indict any of them in a plea bargain.

In a world where people would insist he should commit Seppuku in order to bring greater satisfaction to his victims? I doubt he would volunteer, given his lawyers didn't even feel more than 7 years was unjust. But if he did, I'm not sure it would give very many of his victims any more closure. Some may feel better hearing about his gut-spilling, agonising death. Others may prefer he got to rot in jail like a common scumbag, not go out gloriously with the trappings of a samurai, the sense of some honour salvaged or for him to have some control over his own destiny (namely how he died).

A more humane (and awesome) alternative.

That's exactly what you need when you make a mistake. A hard punch to the face.

edited 25th Jun '11 6:57:06 PM by Ekuran

Or better yet, force the fuck-ups to watch all Twilight Films and read all the books for a month. That'll be their jail sentence.

Hell even Mengele would shy from this method, I'd wager.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If Obama or Bush or whoever screws up the economy, I don't want them taking the coward's way out, I want them working to fix the problem.

Encouraging public suicides to please the masses brings us back to the barbaric levels of the ancient Romans, who killed people for sport in the Colosseums.

I don't want them working to fix the problem, if they are the ones who messed it up in the first place.

I'll take a resignation and permanent retirement.

@ Best Of: I agree. This violent instinct to get revenge that 'everybody' supposedly has isn't as universal as people say. Some seem to have it, others don't. I don't think I've had it since I was a child.

edited 25th Jun '11 8:17:45 PM by LoniJay

I can safely say that this "instinct" has been inspired in me by very few people, and for very personal reasons. That it is fairly widespread, however, I do not doubt a single bit - just take a look at the threads dedicated to criminals and crime in general.