So I’ve been watching Planet With, and it’s a unique fish, all right. Tonight I want to highlight a philosophical question raised in last week’s episode. Can’t remember seeing it in any anime previously, and that’s saying something: Yesterday I calculated that I’ve watched at least 400 hours of anime in the last couple of years.
The background: “Nebula”, an alien organization that wants to temper humanity’s warlike tendencies, sends some very bizarre… things (later known as “sealing devices”) to Earth. Anyone affected by them gets a vision or two of their greatest longings fulfilled, and can either stay in that vision or reject it.
But… is that really such a bad thing, such that you would even want to reject it? As one of the Nebula folks puts it:
The sealing device doesn’t hurt anyone.
Yes, the SD’s don’t hurt, and that’s the problem, the series implies. The comforting experiences “put out the fire” and “steal away hope”, according to one of the characters.
In the first millennium, there was a name for this: acedia, a life of pleasure and enjoyment that, somehow, impoverished the self and deprived it of joy. Pleasure, freely chosen, without happiness and without a sense of being alive. Those who fought against this in themselves (Christians, stoics, and others) would regularly choose inconvenience, and even pain. By choosing discomfort, they felt they were choosing life, hope, and joy.
In modernity, by contrast, we tend to equate harm, or causing injury, with hurt, that is, with causing pain. From our vantage point on the far side of the Renaissance, our precursors can seem incomprehensible, when they don’t actually appear to be masochists.
And certainly there are aspects of the old way that should be abandoned. Self-flagellation, for instance. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Our precursors could have a pretty rotten view at times.
At the same time, there are two reasons why I think it’s worth taking a second look at acedia, besides the humility which acknowledges that we have something to learn from those who differ from us. In the first place, the idea of self-denial as a path to fulfillment and happiness is found in many places and times, to the point that our own modern view actually seems to me to be the oddity, as seen from an eagle-eye view of history. So there seems to be something in the human being that this speaks to.
The second reason is that the same idea, of life through choosing inconvenience and even pain and suffering, has actually reappeared in our own time, just wearing different clothes as it were (and this very much does appear in anime). I see this in the social applications of biological evolution, for example: suffering weeds out the week and makes the strong even stronger. Or as Nietzsche said, “What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” No pain, no gain. No guts, no glory. Pain is the weakness leaving your body.
And as much as I rag on sports anime, I think our cultural fascination with sports speaks to this aspect of ourselves. The winners in sports are not those who spend all their time slouched in a rocking chair, blogging on their mobile phones. (No, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular. Why would you think that?)
It’s a cliche to wrap up a post with a question for the readers, but I really do find this paradox intriguing and would love to hear your musings on it. Can pain, and causing pain in yourself or others, ever be good? Can preserving sometime from pain and hurt actually do them harm, at least some of the time? And can suffering ever bring us happiness, and be good for us?
Hmm…interesting …I don’t think pain or causing pain in any way be good. Because..you now of the hurt it causes. However…I have learned some lessons from suffering. It eventually managed to change my mindset on certain things, and as such I became happier. So….I guess..in that way…suffering can cause happyness 😊
That’s a good distinction: something may not be good in itself, and yet allow for something else good (happiness, for example) to follow as a result. Thanks, Raistlin!
I guess this is why people promote altruism so much and yet, quite selfishly and paradoxically, they aren’t altruists in action themselves…people become self-conscious and overprotective of themselves that they wouldn’t subject themselves to doing something that could negatively affect their comfy lifestyle.
Hmm. It really is food for thought…
It is funny, isn’t it? We enjoy watching others putting something or someone ahead of their own comfort, but how many of us want to do so ourselves?
I guess pain does make you stronger.
100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats, and 10km running… EVERY SINGLE DAY! 💪😁
ONE PUNCH
“Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
Back in college, I’d been taught that the rod wasn’t meant to be a device to beat a kid with; it represented authority. So, the full saying should be “Don’t exert your authority over the child and spoil the child.” Which kinda makes some sense.
I think the problem with the Sealing Device isn’t that it gives pleasure or “doesn’t hurt.” It’s that it steals the individual’s ability to decide their own fate. It steals their agency. So, I guess, I’d argue that it does hurt them!
Cool topic, BTW!
Thanks! And thank you for commenting! I think your argument has some merit, as long as one recognizes that it redefines what “hurt” means compared to what the characters in the show meant. They limited it to physical and emotional hurt, while you’re expanding it to include injuries that someone might not even be aware that they’ve received.
Although, one could argue that they choose to stay in the illusion, so in that sense it is their choice…
“Although, one could argue that they choose to stay in the illusion, so in that sense it is their choice…”
Good point. That’s the downside of free will, isn’t it? We can make choices against our own best interests.
Though honestly, while I’m against the whole idea of a gilded cage, I wonder if there’s a tipping point where the gilded outweighs the freedom? And theologically speaking, isn’t that how even the ancient Christians (or modern Christians) describe heaven? Constant bliss, no pain?
I feel like I’ve argued myself into a corner here…
Well, the problem of pain (besides being an excellent book by C.S. Lewis) is a question that doesn’t admit of simple answers, whether to Christians or otherwise. I’m not a fan of any religion or faith that pretends to do away with the complexities of reality; I want one that acknowledges the contortions of the world, without denying either side of any paradox. So I’m not going to say that Christianity offers a simple solution or resolution. What I would say is that there are views that allow for pain and freedom not to be aligned on one side against bliss and the gilded cage on the other. Here’s one example:
Freedom today is conceived largely in terms of freedom from something (like restrictions), but it also can be (and frequently has been) conceived of in terms of freedom for a purpose. In this sense, you are free if you are able to reach the given goal, and not free if you are not. GK Chesterton gives the example of an island surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs, inhabited by children who loved to run and play all over it. The children did not worry about falling off the cliffs because of a large wall that surrounded the entire island. One day a visitor arrived and asked, “Why don’t you knock down this wall that confines you? Then you will be truly free!” The children knocked down the wall. Later, when the visitor returned, the children were huddled fearfully in the center of the island, afraid that they would fall off the cliffs. In the sense of freedom-from, yes, they had more freedom; in terms of freedom-for, however, they had less: They could no longer carry out their goal, playing.
So the bliss of Heaven, in this view, is not a security blanket that wraps us up and prevents us from doing anything at the risk of getting hurt. Rather it’s the strength and means to fly continually closer to our goal—God—rather than away from him. Sometimes those means may be restrictive in a sense, but it’s the restrictions of an athlete who works out and eats right constantly: He gets stronger, and thereby is more free to do as he pleases, not less.
Gee, I think I just talked myself into starting an exercise and diet regimen…
Which GK Chesterton book was that from? I don’t recall that scenario. I thought I’d read most of his non-fiction, and to this day, The Poet and the Lunatics, along with The Napoleon of Knotting Hill, remain some of my favorite works of fiction.
“So the bliss of Heaven, in this view, is not a security blanket that wraps us up and prevents us from doing anything at the risk of getting hurt. Rather it’s the strength and means to fly continually closer to our goal—God—rather than away from him.”
Dang it, I knew that! It’s been too long since I had a chance to talk to someone with a theology background.
I liked your statement, “I’m not a fan of any religion or faith that pretends to do away with the complexities of reality.”
Still. Back to the Gilded Cage thing. Maybe I’m just getting too old, because in my youth, there’s no way I would have even considered the “merits” of a comfortable captivity. And I mean really comfortable: no hunger, adequate health care, opportunity to do some at least seemingly meaningful work. At some point, I wonder if the scale tips to supportive captivity over dangerous and possibly short lived freedom?
This article got me thinking today:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611815/who-needs-democracy-when-you-have-data/
What if — and it’s an improbable if! — what if the Chinese government pulls off some kind of AI-driven political system that provides for its people, yet maintains central control? Given what we’re seeing all over the western world, that kind of stability looks awfully tempting!
I know it’s improbable. In my heart, I know I’d fight on the side of freedom. But for the first time in my life, I’m not sure it’s the right side.
Man, sorry for being so depressing!
The Chesterton story is from Orthodoxy, chapter 9. http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/orthodoxy/ch9.html I do enjoy much of his non-fiction, but moreso his fiction!
Feel free to pull out the theology on my site, dude! 🙂
Re the freedom vs. security question, I think the more fundamental problem is that we’ve framed it as an either/or proposition. Ever since Descartes we’ve had a tendency to view things through a dualistic lens, which is just another way of oversimplifying things. I think it was Chesterton (again) who said that when the Devil sends errors into the world, he sends them in pairs in the hopes that by avoiding one we’ll fall into the other.
Who would you say are the authors who have had the greatest influence on you?