Japan faces potentially serious societal problems due to its rapidly ageing population. Yusuke Narita, an economics professor at Yale and media personality in Japan, has made several provocative comments in which he suggests “mass suicide” might be a “solution” to this problem.
During an online news program in 2021, he said “I feel like the only solution is pretty clear. In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?”. As the New York Times explains, “Seppuku is an act of ritual disembowelment that was a code among dishonoured samurai in the 19th century.”
In 2022, when asked by a schoolboy to elaborate on his statements about mass suicide, he made reference to a horror film in which cult members send its eldest members to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff.
[As I like to respond to such suggestions: you first. This is yet another way in which the culture-of-death policies embraced by the elites turn into a tool for every issue. — Ed]
Join the conversation as a VIP Member