Is there/has there ever been a society/culture that attached no negative stigma to suicide?
I don’t mean instances like fundamentalist suicide bombers, or seppuku where shame of some sort dictates self-destruction, or Romans falling on their swords, or prisoners biting down on cyanide capsules to protect their confederates.
Rather; is there/has there ever been a society/culture that felt there was no particular difference between suicide and any other cause of death?
Where an individual, for whatever reason(s) just asked “Where’s the ‘off’ switch?”, found it, and flipped it, and his fellows found no fault?
Not that this rises to the Culture or Society - capital C and S - level, but there is the Hemlock Society / Compassionate Choices movement that might at least be considered a subculture. The balance of acceptance of their views seems to be slowly tilting in their favor, at least in the US, with the enactment of assisted suicide (or what ever the local euphemism - in WA it’s “Death With Dignity”) statutes in some states. Admittedly, this subculture does not (openly) advocate “suicide on demand”, but only for narrowly defined situations and only in the context of a doctor-patient relationship.
Japan has a complicated relationship with suicide. A lot of times, suicide is tolerated and often called “responsible”, but as that link notes, there is still concern about the number of suicides, and there is also some disapproval over suicide pacts and similar things. I’ve heard from a PhD in Japanese religion (which naturally ties into culture) that there’s a history of Suicide Help hotlines that advertise themselves in Japan getting angry calls from people telling the hotline that suicide is “none of their business.”
IIRC, plenty of Noble Romans committed suicide rather than accept dishonor of whatever sort; the culture was not just fine about it, but basically required that they take that step. Someone more steeped in the classics than I will no doubt be along to fill in the details.
Would you consider going off into the wilderness, or getting in a hopeless fight (to die ‘in battle’) to meet your requirements? If so, you might want to look to the ancient greeks, the Spartans in particular.
And does the OP consider kamikaze’s to be “fundamentalist suicide bombers”?
I assume he’s not considering various individuals and groups who have committed suicide rather than be captured by enemies. At times, Western culture has praised at least the idea of a woman killing herself rather than letting herself be raped. And there’s examples like Masada, where an entire group killed themselves rather than be enslaved.
I don’t think any of these examples are really what the OP is looking for. He specifically excludes situations like suppuku, where the person is looking to avoid shame/social stigma. I’d imagine that assisted suicides/so-called “Death with Dignity” situations are also not what he’s looking for.
If I understand the question correctly, imagine that you hear on the news that former president Bill Clinton was found dead from what appears to have been a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Your reaction would probably not be the same as if you heard that he’d died of a heart attack. Has there ever been a society where your reaction would be pretty much exactly the same?