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| Tanya, the "Evil" |
Recent events around the world has honestly taken a toll on me emotionally. Witnessing the destruction of peace by extremism, the ceaseless quarrel over obstinate, irrational chauvinists and ideologues, the media stirring up hatred and anger through white lies, more and more proof that military power means everything, all the while seeing world leaders pushing the world to the brink of a total war again, the third time in the last hundred years... All these have led me to wonder whether the values we have developed and deemed to be valuable over the reflections of the tragedies in the last century will still hold up for another, whether the pillars holding up the modern society is gradually giving way. Is it the destiny of humanity to be destroyed by our own hands, through the vices of humans that cannot be banished?
I have been led to reflect on a recent anime I have watched, Youjo Senki. It is set in an alternate universe, where the "Empire" (not-Germany) is in a state of war with the surrounding countries in Europe (not-France, not-Scandinavia etc.) We see the story through the protagonist, Tanya Degurechaff, a military prodigy, who was granted special "magical" powers and played the role of a front-line soldier against numerous operations. What is special about Tanya is her original identity: A salaryman in modern Japan who operates on strict adherence to rationality. Once an employee has failed to prove his worth, he does not hesitate to fire and replace him. One victim of his firing, disgruntled, pushed him into a train at the station. At the very moment before his death, "god" appeared in front of him, questioning why he has no room for faith. His answer is simple: In the modern age, where people live in peace and enjoy much freedom thanks to the advancements in science, there is no room for god. As a response, "god" then puts him in the "dire straits" where none of these things are present, which is the setting mentioned above, by reincarnating him as Tanya. What ensues is essentially a psychological battle between Tanya and "god", so-called "being X" by Tanya, for her to prove that faith is irrelevant and she will never need it: A battle between rationality and irrationality.
Belief and Faith
Let's take a detour and analyze one of the central themes of Youjo Senki first. I will return to the topic in the introduction in due time.
"Faith: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something; Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof." - Oxford Dictionaries.
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| I don't want to believe |
"Being X" goes a long way to coerce Tanya into belief: By constantly putting her life on the brink by "persuading" her superiors to send Tanya to the front lines, and even making the "computation crystal", the device that allows her use of magical powers including flight and superior ammunition, to fail at critical moments unless she utters a prayer to "god". Even so, Tanya refuses to have faith. Sure, this shows that she is staunch and unwavering to her principles, but when "god" actually manifests himself, with miraculous powers and ability to reincarnate and such, is it still a philosophically sound option to "not believe"? After all, in my view, there is no option to "believe" in science, since it is objectively true: the laws of physics will not become untrue and its experimental evidence will not be invalidated based on anyone's belief in it. This is why I devote myself to science. "God" is an unfalsifiable and unjustifiable hypothesis: There is, hitherto, no way to prove his existence apart from anecdotal accounts (which is not evidence), nor is there anyway to prove his nonexistence. I have always said that on the seven-point scale coined by Richard Dawkins, I consider myself as a 6:
6: De facto atheist. [The existence of God has a v]ery low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." -Wikipedia
In the context of the present story, "god" becomes "real", in a sense that he is actually physically present and can influence, objectively and in a verifiable fashion, the physical world. Is Tanya being the irrational one here, then, to hold on to disbelief?
At this point, I realized the "punchline" of the message here: That "belief/faith" and "acknowledgement of existence" is distinct. This is what Tanya holds on to as an axiom to her stance. "God" may be present. He could be a being like "being X", who is able to appear in front of others and alter the fate of the world. However, it is still possible to reject the notion of faith. Here, "faith" transcends mere "acknowledgement of existence". It is much stronger than the answer to a yes/no question. It is the acceptance of the notion of an omnipotent being and his rule over the world.
In Tanya's world, people are free to act as they will. They are only subject to a Darwinist selection process, where people who fail to improve themselves and prove their worth in the world will be removed from the society. A very practical and rational mindset, treating the society as a machine where parts that are broken are replaced without second thought in order to maximize efficiency. The concept of "god" is hence strongly incompatible. "God" operates on doctrines. People must submit to such doctrines unconditionally and without question. Otherwise, they are deemed unfaithful and will be rejected. It is inherently authoritarian, even when it is benevolent. Thus, what Tanya is fighting against is not the claim of existence of a deity, but rather the fact that she has to submit to a higher power against reason. It may be against reason to struggle against an omnipotent being, but to give in to this premise would invalidate her basic axioms, and thus her entire line of thought.
Personally, I stand pretty close to Tanya's thoughts. "God" may very well exist. He might have performed all the miracles and manifestations documented in the Bible, or any other religious text. However, this is not why I am a de-facto atheist. I am one based on two premises:
1. The phenomena revolving around "god" have never been replicated in the age where documentation of such phenomena is well-developed (video, photos etc.) The very evils of this world where "god" has tried to eliminate from this world are still prevalent. I am therefore very unconvinced that the possibility of "god"'s existence is plausible.
2. I am fundamentally against authoritarianism. I do not like arbitrary rules set on how people must behave.
I do not refute the claim that "god" has done a lot of people good by reforming them to be law-abiding citizens and stop causing trouble, but it has also spawned irrational fundamentalism that is the largest threat to peace in the first world nowadays. Regardless, I am against the notion of "god" and believe that society would be better off without the worshiping of a deity, but I do see how "god" can evolve naturally from the development of humans as something to cling onto in times of crisis and darkness.
War and the Limit of Rationality
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| An unpleasant surprise [1] |
That said, atheism is not the sole central concern of the show. Neither is war and violence, which is prevalent throughout but nonetheless serve as a motif, a device for the main theme: Rationality and the lack of.
Tanya is a hardline follower of rationality, as mentioned above. This has led to her incompatibility with the demands of being X, fueling the major backstory. Yet, rarely does being X actually interfere with the physical world per se (apart from the computational crystal and few exceptions). What being X interfered with was the minds of people surrounding Tanya. All it takes is one small seed of emotional outburst, be it blind hope for the scientist's case to push him to force lethal tests on Tanya, or a fervent mist obscuring the judgment of Tanya's superiors to push her to deadly, reckless battles. Indeed, he merely has to start the reaction, and the dominoes will fall on its own, leading to inexplicably emotional actions even from the "epitome of rationality", the brass. In the end, it is emphasized that the war is not between the actual warring nations. It is between reason and impulse (humanity), a battle between Tanya and the world, which may even include herself.
One must wonder whether war is a result of reason. Surely the process of planning out operations, performing battles require the power of rational thinking, much like a game of chess, in order to anticipate the moves of the opponent and optimize a set of motion. However, for what reason are we fighting? To fight for some arbitrary border issues? To obtain control over some resources? At the end, it all returns to motives that are hardly rational at all: Hatred, greed, intolerance... Perhaps more reductively, it is impossible to "reason" with the absurdity known as life, so all we do must reduce to irrationality. It is something that is fundamentally built into all we do. Some of this irrationality leads to "good" outcomes such as compassion and "moral" behaviour, but more often than not it leads to seemingly mindless self-destruction as a species.
Reason is a means of thought that develops conclusions and decisions based on observations, or axioms [2]. Given a goal of optimization, one sets to find the best combination of actions that would result in achievement of such goals. Yet, if we examine the rationality of the axioms themselves, we may find ourselves at an impasse, for axioms are the foundations to threads of reason. It is the base where reason would serve as the reinforcement. It thus transcends reason, and thus the above question makes no sense. What determines whether a set of axioms are good is necessarily within the purview of an alternative form of judgment. Could we then say that all reason must be based on something irrational? On a more anthropocentric level, we as humans seem to default back to irrationality when reason falls apart, whether under extreme emotions such as stress, anger or whatever, or when we are faced with questions that challenge purpose. We are more fundamentally built on irrationality. It is our fail-safe mode of thinking, the most intimate sort of thought.
The English (sub)title of the series reads: The Saga of Tanya the Evil. Tracing Tanya's thoughts throughout the series, I wonder what is so evil about Tanya, and why von Rerugen in the picture above would call Tanya a "monster". It turns out that Tanya lacks (or has very little of) this irrational basis. The events throughout the show emphasizes this: She would not hesitate to sacrifice useless subordinates, subject her troops to inhumane training, cleverly circumvent international treaties on humanity to fire at civilians that refuses to get out of the way. It is fundamentally not because of the fact that she has killed numerous in cold blood that makes her evil, it is the lack of an emotional core, what some people may call moral, or conscience. She knows that hatred will cause incessant revenge against all measures of reason, and concludes that all flames of hatred must be extinguished. Yet, I am sure that we all know that once a person is killed, and his flame of hatred extinguished, ten more springs up into action. Tanya is not merely the enemy of people who stand in her way, nor the soldiers on the opposite side. She is the enemy of humanity itself. Dare I say that this is what evil, by definition, is?
Conclusion: Where ignorant armies clash by night
Youjo Senki shows us what a "person" who operates solely on reason is like. As I have remarked numerously in previous posts, emotions are fundamental to humanity and forms our subconsciousness. We often see politicians leveraging emotions as a strategic step in their rational plans, yet at the end of the day it is greed for power and urge for control, all irrational sentiments, that drive such persons to do what they do. Unfortunate to say, as long as humanity is here to stay, we are necessarily enslaved by our own emotions, leading to unpredictable phenomena. Can we turn the tides of hatred and resolve into peace instead? Recent events have made me quite pessimistic. It is a problem too large and fundamental of a scale and nature for me to tackle alone, or, heck, for the entire human race to do so. Yet, I still hold a bit of blind hope that somehow, things will turn out all right. This is the most anti-rational thing that I could possibly think of, but I guess it is better than the alternative of sulking and spreading the hatred.
[1]: Examine the allegory drawn by the picture in the background.
[2]: Reason here could be a combination of inductive and deductive reason, but let's assume that inductive reasoning is part of the "deduction" process for now, where conclusive evidence is used as a means for arriving at conclusions, much like a step in a deductive process. In any case, it refers to the antithesis of irrational, or emotional processes.
Tanya is a hardline follower of rationality, as mentioned above. This has led to her incompatibility with the demands of being X, fueling the major backstory. Yet, rarely does being X actually interfere with the physical world per se (apart from the computational crystal and few exceptions). What being X interfered with was the minds of people surrounding Tanya. All it takes is one small seed of emotional outburst, be it blind hope for the scientist's case to push him to force lethal tests on Tanya, or a fervent mist obscuring the judgment of Tanya's superiors to push her to deadly, reckless battles. Indeed, he merely has to start the reaction, and the dominoes will fall on its own, leading to inexplicably emotional actions even from the "epitome of rationality", the brass. In the end, it is emphasized that the war is not between the actual warring nations. It is between reason and impulse (humanity), a battle between Tanya and the world, which may even include herself.
One must wonder whether war is a result of reason. Surely the process of planning out operations, performing battles require the power of rational thinking, much like a game of chess, in order to anticipate the moves of the opponent and optimize a set of motion. However, for what reason are we fighting? To fight for some arbitrary border issues? To obtain control over some resources? At the end, it all returns to motives that are hardly rational at all: Hatred, greed, intolerance... Perhaps more reductively, it is impossible to "reason" with the absurdity known as life, so all we do must reduce to irrationality. It is something that is fundamentally built into all we do. Some of this irrationality leads to "good" outcomes such as compassion and "moral" behaviour, but more often than not it leads to seemingly mindless self-destruction as a species.
Reason is a means of thought that develops conclusions and decisions based on observations, or axioms [2]. Given a goal of optimization, one sets to find the best combination of actions that would result in achievement of such goals. Yet, if we examine the rationality of the axioms themselves, we may find ourselves at an impasse, for axioms are the foundations to threads of reason. It is the base where reason would serve as the reinforcement. It thus transcends reason, and thus the above question makes no sense. What determines whether a set of axioms are good is necessarily within the purview of an alternative form of judgment. Could we then say that all reason must be based on something irrational? On a more anthropocentric level, we as humans seem to default back to irrationality when reason falls apart, whether under extreme emotions such as stress, anger or whatever, or when we are faced with questions that challenge purpose. We are more fundamentally built on irrationality. It is our fail-safe mode of thinking, the most intimate sort of thought.
The English (sub)title of the series reads: The Saga of Tanya the Evil. Tracing Tanya's thoughts throughout the series, I wonder what is so evil about Tanya, and why von Rerugen in the picture above would call Tanya a "monster". It turns out that Tanya lacks (or has very little of) this irrational basis. The events throughout the show emphasizes this: She would not hesitate to sacrifice useless subordinates, subject her troops to inhumane training, cleverly circumvent international treaties on humanity to fire at civilians that refuses to get out of the way. It is fundamentally not because of the fact that she has killed numerous in cold blood that makes her evil, it is the lack of an emotional core, what some people may call moral, or conscience. She knows that hatred will cause incessant revenge against all measures of reason, and concludes that all flames of hatred must be extinguished. Yet, I am sure that we all know that once a person is killed, and his flame of hatred extinguished, ten more springs up into action. Tanya is not merely the enemy of people who stand in her way, nor the soldiers on the opposite side. She is the enemy of humanity itself. Dare I say that this is what evil, by definition, is?
Conclusion: Where ignorant armies clash by night
Youjo Senki shows us what a "person" who operates solely on reason is like. As I have remarked numerously in previous posts, emotions are fundamental to humanity and forms our subconsciousness. We often see politicians leveraging emotions as a strategic step in their rational plans, yet at the end of the day it is greed for power and urge for control, all irrational sentiments, that drive such persons to do what they do. Unfortunate to say, as long as humanity is here to stay, we are necessarily enslaved by our own emotions, leading to unpredictable phenomena. Can we turn the tides of hatred and resolve into peace instead? Recent events have made me quite pessimistic. It is a problem too large and fundamental of a scale and nature for me to tackle alone, or, heck, for the entire human race to do so. Yet, I still hold a bit of blind hope that somehow, things will turn out all right. This is the most anti-rational thing that I could possibly think of, but I guess it is better than the alternative of sulking and spreading the hatred.
[1]: Examine the allegory drawn by the picture in the background.
[2]: Reason here could be a combination of inductive and deductive reason, but let's assume that inductive reasoning is part of the "deduction" process for now, where conclusive evidence is used as a means for arriving at conclusions, much like a step in a deductive process. In any case, it refers to the antithesis of irrational, or emotional processes.
OST Discussion 19: Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni (In this Corner of the World) Insert Song, Kanashikute Yarikirenai (Too Sad to Go on)
"It's so sad, so sad that I can't bear it.
Should I go tell someone about it?"
I know I have been completely ignoring the song I claim I am going to talk about in this section, and go straight for a passage about the anime itself this part of recent posts. This time, however, I really have something (whether it is substantial or not would be up to your judgment) to say about the song itself. (I will go back to the movie itself though)
The nature of "sadness" or "melancholy" is something I have touched upon in previous posts, such as the one about hikikomoris. I have explained that sadness is not something like anger, where a sudden event would trigger an intense bout. It is something that creeps upon people, accumulating bit by bit through events that would seem too small to deem worthy of attention: Perhaps from a piece of news about a tragedy, perhaps from the transition from one stage of one's life to another, perhaps from a minor disagreement with how someone acts... As such, we would not notice such build up of negativity within us until something hit us. Something objective, or something subjective, such as a moment of introspection. Yes, indeed, a mere moment of introspection is what some need to open the floodgate of welled-up sadness. A quote from 5cm/s comes to mind:
"Through the act of living itself, sadness piles up here and there. Whether in the sheets hung up to dry in the sun, the single toothbrush in the bathroom, or the history logs of the cell phone"
It is at that moment of realization that we ask: where did all this sadness come from? I am so sad, I cannot carry on, yet I fail to even locate the source of the problem to begin solving it.
The song in question today has sadness plastered all over it. From the title to the lyrics, the tempo, the tone of the singer, instrument choice, all immediately tell you, blatantly, about sadness. Is there more to it though? Apart from sadness, I can hear the sense of frustration, precisely stemming from the inability to comprehend the source of such sadness, as I mentioned above.
Frustration is also key to the theme of the movie, where the MC Suzu, dragged along in the tides of the brutal history of WWII, has little control of the fate of herself and people around her. Throughout her life she is simply dragged on by forces she cannot control: Blindly marrying to Kure, having her husband and father-in-law drafted into the military, losing her sister-in-law's daughter to an unexploded bomb in a fraction of a second... Even at the end of the movie, her tragedies do not end, with her sister receiving radiation poisoning from the Hiroshima bombing. It is natural to be frustrated about fate in her shoes.
Beyond this layer of frustration though, is there more to the song? Perhaps we are (I am) ignoring the obvious here: The dreariness of the tone. the song carries no deliberation. Rather, it is something akin to a song hummed by a farmer, or some distant tone heard from the beach on an island for vacation. Indeed, take Suzu out of the entire context, and we would find that the first thing that can describe her is absent-minded, dreamy, imaginative yet not very bright. She is depicted as a natural artist, always carrying around her sketchbook in her free time, sitting on a slope to draw the scenery. A scene that is remarkable, in my opinion, is the depiction of the air strike on Kure port. Instead of being a frightening mass of bullets and bombs, we see a wealth of colours, a wealth of warm colours: pink, light yellow, light blue, almost like a bouquet of flowers. Here we see the strike in the point of view of Suzu. Is she completely ignorant of the cruel nature of what is happening above her head? Probably not, but we cannot say for certain whether she is aware but optimistic, or simply not conscious enough to recognize what a war is. What we can say for sure is that she manages to maintain a child-like attitude, despite all that is going on around and with her.
This film is clearly about the Second World War, but it is told from the perspective of ordinary folks rather than military masterminds. Suzu cannot be more ordinary of a person. In her life, she has not achieved much, simply maintaining the status quo as much as possible. Thus, some call this film a slice-of-life (SoL). The anime genre is used to SoL comedies, but here we see a starkly different take on SoL with such a character as Suzu. Such a take is possibly more familiar in literature, as it reminds me of the concept of "average-Joe" (小人物). By minimizing the character, we see much more about the milieu, the atmosphere and the setting in general. It is like a test point placed in the field that is to be explored, where the point has minimal influence on the field itself.
However, I find myself wondering whether this has the opposite effect of magnifying the character type exemplified by Suzu herself. In a setting so chaotic, so brutal, so out of the ordinary as Second World War, the largest tragedy in modern human history, CAN such an ordinary person exist? CAN one depict a person with a character so firmly unaffected by the war?
This brings us to the punchline of my discussion: Life goes on. There is no incompatibility between the milieu and the character, because there should be no relation to begin with. There are malicious people in peaceful times, and there similarly are plenty of sensible people in such incomprehensible times. When the film shows the emperor's famous jewel voice broadcast on the radio, the initial reaction of Suzu's family would be anger at the outcome. Yet this lasts for mere minutes, before it is replaced with a flood of relief, signatured by the removal of the lampshade to cover from enemy bombers. Warmongering politicians and ideologues are quick to label enemies of the state, people whom you should feel anger towards, people whom you should donate your full attention towards. Yet, have we forgotten that behind the enemy frontlines are people who hate war just as any of us do, the same people we love and care about?
With this I return to the very first thought of this post. These are the times of picking sides and labelling, whether in America, in the UK, or in HK. Whoever is related to our enemies must be our enemy, and their death must be something we should celebrate. Whatever the enemy says we must find to the end of the world evidence to revoke. Just pick a side and declare war. Call me apathetic, but I am sick of debating, and I am sick of sarcasm. If we can see the person behind whom we rashly label as enemies, perhaps hiding in that inconspicuous corner of the world, perhaps the world may be a bit of a better place to live in.
With these thoughts in mind, this song expresses the nuances of the multitude of emotions that it is almost therapeutic. The world is indeed a sad place, but if it is the last thing I believe in, I believe that there are true humans behind this fury of madness, chauvinism and pure anger. The fact that Suzu can live on despite all of her surroundings makes me believe so.
With this I return to the very first thought of this post. These are the times of picking sides and labelling, whether in America, in the UK, or in HK. Whoever is related to our enemies must be our enemy, and their death must be something we should celebrate. Whatever the enemy says we must find to the end of the world evidence to revoke. Just pick a side and declare war. Call me apathetic, but I am sick of debating, and I am sick of sarcasm. If we can see the person behind whom we rashly label as enemies, perhaps hiding in that inconspicuous corner of the world, perhaps the world may be a bit of a better place to live in.
With these thoughts in mind, this song expresses the nuances of the multitude of emotions that it is almost therapeutic. The world is indeed a sad place, but if it is the last thing I believe in, I believe that there are true humans behind this fury of madness, chauvinism and pure anger. The fact that Suzu can live on despite all of her surroundings makes me believe so.
