The post seems a little confusing, Howl's Moving Castle was in fact written by Diana Wynne Jones 18 years before the Studio Ghibli adaptation.
There are major differences between the book and the movie.
Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
41–50 of 105 posts
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
In his own words, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”
> You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of "preserving the balance", and I've seen that noti…
But what is evil ? What you decide it to be ? What if I happen to disagree with your notion of evil, am I now evil as well ? You seem to make fundamental mistake in assuming that evil is something concrete and fixed in some sort of absolute moral framework. Realise that both the framework and the "place of evil" are, within very relaxed bounds almost arbitrary, is the point that's being made.
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
When an entire nation becomes a support system for a war machine ravaging an entire region and killing tens of millions of innocent people, the notion of "innocent civilians" becomes a bit tenuous. Japan was in the wrong. It was a criminal aggressor. The idea that the Japanese people should be able to sit back in their admittedly lovely gardens and sip sencha tea while their armies were committing massive crimes agai…
So like 9/11 was awesome then?
This is ultimately the harmful conclusion of any absolutist idea that ascribes guilt to the citizenry for the actions of the state it is subordinate to. You will notice similar ideas spread in ostensibly democratic countries. If you vote and the nominee ends up going berserk, it's your fault for picking them. If you don't vote, it's your fault for not stopping them. The idea that the voting system used might be inefficient is completely discounted. Further, the idea that maybe most people have no real agency over the actions of their government is treated as a rather foreign one.
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
In his own words, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”
> You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of "preserving the balance", and I've seen that noti…
If you believe that 'good' and 'evil' are fundamental and inseparable aspects of humanity, meaning evil can never truly cease because it's part of what we're made of, then yes, you might believe that balance is the healthier option. Belief in either extreme can lead you to a dehumanizing view of people, and a lot of evil has been done in the world in the name of ridding it of a greater evil, for the sake of an unquestioned good.
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that what you consider evil, somebody else considers good, and vice versa. Furthermore, we define good in terms of evil and evil in terms of good. The existence of one necessitates the existence of the other, whether in the past, present, or future.
That's weak. You can go down a definitional hole and say someone might consider anything good. Fact remains that things like, I dunno, torturing children and slaughtering villages are things that we'd be perfectly fine eliminating. We'd be A-OK without having people that have, as the near entirety of their existence, hunger and pain. Even in nature, there isn't a real balance. Any perceived balance is simply the resu…
I mean at the conceptual level. So many things are defined in terms of their opposite. If we have no knowledge, understanding, definition, experience of evil, we don't have a benchmark against which to compare our actions and make sure they are different. Hopefully once understood, it stays remembered but in the past.
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#46It makes me deeply happy to see this here. Miyazaki's mind is truly unique (and by extension most Ghibli films too), nothing else quite compares (and as the author points out, certainly not Disney & co. despite being Ghibli's distributors in the West). I've introduced many people to Ghibli, a lot of whom would have never even considered watching an animated film (even less so a foreign one), and most came away truly…
In his own words, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”
Here is the full quote, "When I say 'hero' do not picture someone with the strength to fight and conquer Evil -because Evil is not something that can ever be conquered or defeated, Evil is natural. It is innate in all humans. But while it can't be defeated, it can be controlled. In order to control it, and live the life of a true hero, you must learn to see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two."
Source: "The Whisper Within: Zen and Self" (p. 150)
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of "preserving the balance", and I've seen that noti…
> Evil should not persist out of any sense of balance I don't think the quote supports the idea of evil persisting out of balance, but rather that to advance the greater good one must balance the need to oppose the notionally evil things (which nonetheless contain good) with the need to oppose the evil contained in things which are notionally good. Its the only interpretation I can see which makes sense in the contex…
> I don't think the quote supports the idea of evil persisting out of balance, but rather that to advance the greater good one must balance the need to oppose the notionally evil things (which nonetheless contain good) with the need to oppose the evil contained in things which are notionally good.
That much is absolutely true; conflicts and war are evils in themselves, even when some would consider them "necessary".
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's weak. You can go down a definitional hole and say someone might consider anything good. Fact remains that things like, I dunno, torturing children and slaughtering villages are things that we'd be perfectly fine eliminating. We'd be A-OK without having people that have, as the near entirety of their existence, hunger and pain. Even in nature, there isn't a real balance. Any perceived balance is simply the resu…
I mean at the conceptual level. So many things are defined in terms of their opposite. If we have no knowledge, understanding, definition, experience of evil, we don't have a benchmark against which to compare our actions and make sure they are different. Hopefully once understood, it stays remembered but in the past.
That much is true; we shouldn't forget what evil is, lest we painfully rediscover it, but even if we define good as its absence, there's no reason we can't maintain that absence. Much like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio... , we can talk about things without enacting them.
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that what you consider evil, somebody else considers good, and vice versa. Furthermore, we define good in terms of evil and evil in terms of good. The existence of one necessitates the existence of the other, whether in the past, present, or future.
That's weak. You can go down a definitional hole and say someone might consider anything good. Fact remains that things like, I dunno, torturing children and slaughtering villages are things that we'd be perfectly fine eliminating. We'd be A-OK without having people that have, as the near entirety of their existence, hunger and pain. Even in nature, there isn't a real balance. Any perceived balance is simply the resu…
> We'd be A-OK without having people that have, as the near entirety of their existence, hunger and pain.
That's exactly the kind of thing I meant, yes. Some things are universally wrong no matter where or how they happen, who is doing them, or what "side" they're on.
Re: Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of "preserving the balance", and I've seen that noti…
But what is evil ? What you decide it to be ? What if I happen to disagree with your notion of evil, am I now evil as well ? You seem to make fundamental mistake in assuming that evil is something concrete and fixed in some sort of absolute moral framework. Realise that both the framework and the "place of evil" are, within very relaxed bounds almost arbitrary, is the point that's being made.
Some things really are evil. Not nearly as many as people call "evil", but some things genuinely, objectively, are evil.
Take Pol Pot, for example. He deliberately killed one quarter of his country's population. If you think it's just my decision to call that evil, then you are from a place that is so morally different from me that I don't know how to even begin having a conversation with you.
But Pol Pot thought he was doing good. The only response I can imagine is to try to resist that with arms. I don't know what else is possible. But in doing so, I have to make very sure that I don't become some kind of monster myself, rationalizing the evil that I do and calling it good.