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- Yusuke Narita, a professor of economics at Yale, made the suggestion in 2021
- ‘I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,’ he said of mass suicides of elderly
- Japan has an aging population and declining birth rat
A Yale University professor has sparked outrage by suggesting the only way to deal with Japan’s rapidly aging population is a mass suicide and disembowelment.
Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, defended his views in a New York Times profile this weekend after he made the remarks on a streaming news program in 2021.
‘I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,’ he said at the time. ‘In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?’
Seppuku was a ritual disembowelment that was forced upon samurai who had brought dishonor to themselves in 19th century Japan.
Yusuke Narita (pictured right), an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has sparked outrage by suggesting the only way to deal with Japan’s rapidly aging population is a mass suicide and disembowelment
Narita was asked to defend his views in a class earlier this year and did by showing a clip from the 2019 film Midsommar, in which a cult forces an older member to jump off a cliff.
‘Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer,’ Narita said. ‘So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.’
His comments received renewed attention when social media discovered them in January, with a sociologist proclaiming them as ‘hatred toward the vulnerable.’
Narita told the Times he was ‘primarily concerned with the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons continue to dominate the worlds of politics, traditional industries, and media/entertainment/journalism for many years.’
He allows that the way he said it was meant as a metaphor for how an older generation must be phased out and he has softened his language since.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in late January that the birth rate was a crisis that was in a ‘now or never’ solution state
Narita told the Times he was ‘primarily concerned with the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons continue to dominate the worlds of politics, traditional industries, and media/entertainment/journalism for many years’
‘I should have been more careful about their potential negative connotations,’ Narita said. ‘After some self-reflection, I stopped using the words last year.’
He’s not alone, however, as one of the major players in the country’s Liberal Democratic Party has suggested old people need to ‘hurry up and die.’
Narita spreads his message on social media and in comedy shows, energy drink ads and even via TikTok impressionists.
Surveys have even suggested that the public in Japan supports voluntary euthanasia.
Narita continues to emphasize that he’s softening his position and not to be taken literally, but the discussion is coming.
‘I am not advocating its introduction,’ he said. ‘I predict it to be more broadly discussed.’
