Why is the suicide rate in Tahiti so high?
One would think, in particular after reading the "happy planet index" study (see previous post), that people were very happy in the Pacific Islands... Well apparently it seems that it is not always the case, at least not in Tahiti. Anthropologist Robert Levy searched for an answer to the high suicide rate in Tahiti in the 1960s. After research and investigation, Mr. Levy found that there is no word or concept for sadness in the Tahitian culture. While Tahitians felt sadness, they had no word to refer to their feeling. Neither did they have a ritual to heal sadness nor a tradition of solacing sorrow. Mr. Levy concluded that because Tahitians do not have the concept of sadness, which is desperately needed in a society, their frustration was expressed in a high suicide rate. In cognitive science, such a condition is called "low cognition," meaning the absence of a frame of reference that associates a certain concept with one or two words. The frame is the fixed definition of thoughts. (...)
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2 commentaires:
Well, although Levy did interesting studies, I wouldn't agree with this vision...
Sadness do have words in tahitian (oto, tai, roha), but their meaning is diferent from exact translation of the word 'sadness', the whole linguistic system can't be transfered in europeans concepts...
Tahitians have a very diferent way to perceive the world and express themselves (at least at a semantic level), and an outsider look might be deceived by looking signs that are diferently expressed in different cultures. (what would some people think of a St Louis funeral where people dance and sing in the most joyful way ?)
This diferent way of showing expression of sadness have induced observers to think that Tahitians couldn't hold deep emotions !
Hey what a great site keep up the work its excellent.
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