[ThirdSight]

Or it's an idea of culture?

American's saw the kamikaze pilots and soldiers as insane, willing to die rather than to live and surrender. Even today, we see car bombers are insane psychopaths who thrive on death.

In reality, those soldiers in Japan lived with honor, and to surrender meant a loss of honor to them, and for them, to live without honor was far worse than to die with it (don't quote me on that, that's just a generalized thought of my remembrance of history).

The car bombers today? It's mainly a religious thing, insofar that if you die while killing an infidel, you go to Heaven with 70-some-odd virgins.

Culture could be considered brainwashing to a certain extent, but brainwashing has a rather strong connotation with it.