On the second day of the first lunar month, Liu Bing's nephew went to get a haircut; However, an unexpected tragedy occurred that night, and my uncle died in a car accident. This incident has attracted widespread public attention, especially the aunt's complaint against her nephew for "indirect intentional homicide" and demanding compensation of 1 million yuan. Such legal disputes have become a hot topic in CCTV's "Law Lecture (Life Edition)". Regarding the so-called "indirect intentional homicide", Yang Bo, a lawyer from the Shanghai Bar Association, explained that although the perpetrator did not directly intend to cause death, he knew that his actions might bring dangerous consequences, but allowed such danger to occur, which eventually led to the death of others, which constituted this crime.
There is no direct objective connection between the nephew's haircut and the uncle's misfortune. The lawyer believes that Liu Bing's nephew's haircut was not out of malice or murder to his uncle, but only to express his emotions. What's more, the uncle was not present when the haircut was performed, and the actual behavior did not have any direct impact on the uncle. The uncle's death was ultimately caused by his own drunk-driving accident. In this case, the so-called custom of "cutting the head of the first month to kill the uncle" is merely a fortuitous coincidence, and it cannot be proved that the nephew's barber behavior caused the uncle's death. Therefore, the nephew cannot be legally found to have committed a crime.
The mystery of "the dead uncle who cut his head in the first month" is actually a traditional saying of origin deconstruction. Some netizens claimed that the original meaning of the New Year's hair cut was "thinking of the old" or "thinking of the uncle", not the "dead uncle" in the traditional interpretation. With the change of times, this traditional meaning has gradually faded, and may have mutated into the taboo of "dead uncle" that people now know. Some folklore experts have pointed out that this claim may have been due to seconding and misinformation. According to the records in the "Ye County Chronicles", this saying originally originated from the "nostalgia" custom developed by the Han people because they were oppressed by the Qing army to shave their hair and keep braids, in order to show that they did not forget the old feelings. With the passage of time, "thinking of the old" was misrepresented as "dead uncle", and eventually evolved into the taboo tradition of "don't shave your head in the first month, shave your head and die uncle". These cultural inheritances and misinformation have created this bizarre statement.
Even though there is a wide range of controversy over the conflict and interpretation between law and custom, the lawyer believes that the nephew's act did not constitute direct harm to the uncle in essence, let alone meet the standard of indirect intentional homicide. The uncle's unfortunate death was more due to his own negligence and accident than to his nephew's actions. The collision between customs and law has brought about a conflict between legal logic and traditional creeds, and triggered thinking about social governance and cultural inheritance. In this case, the re-examination of customs from all walks of life may lead to deep thinking about the relationship between the spirit of law and social practice.
In general, in this case of a nephew's haircut and uncle's tragic death, the inheritance and change of customs are intertwined with the entanglement of modern law and morality. People's perception of tradition is often limited by outdated legends and traditions, while legal decisions need to be based on objective facts and legal logic. For the saying that "the uncle who cut his head and died in the first month", a reasonable explanation may be found in the cultural inheritance, after all, the origin of culture often carries ancient wisdom and historical memory. However, under the framework of the rule of law in modern society, the trial and adjudication of each case still need to follow the principles of the rule of law and the logic of practice, so as to deal with it fairly and ensure the authority and fairness of the law. In such a special case, although the unexpected death of the uncle is sad, it should not simply be blamed on the nephew's rational behavior, and rational and objective analysis can avoid unnecessary legal disputes and social misunderstandings.