labingi

content warning for non-graphic ethics discussion of Really Bad Things.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and figure I’ll put some thoughts down. People seem to use two main ethical approaches to orienting themselves to those who do really bad things. I mean things like might include rape, murder, all the way to war crimes. The philosophical crux seems to be whether such people are theoretically redeemable (in a secular and/or possibly religious sense).

One view holds that some actions are “beyond redemption,” at least in a worldly/social sense. In this view, if you commit certain really bad actions, you are irredeemable for life (if not beyond), and people should treat you as such. YouTuber Steve Shives is in this camp, as he explains well in his interesting video on Garak in Deep Space Nine. He likes Garak as a character, but notes that if this were real life, Garak would not be morally redeemable because, regardless of his personal moral development, he has committed acts too heinous. For reference, Shives notes that the Cardassians in DS9, including Garak, are coded as Nazis. Basically, he’s saying Nazis—and, by extension, others who do really bad things—can’t be redeemed, i.e. it would be immoral to consider them/treat them as redeemable. It would be giving a pass to their heinousness.



[EDIT: reworking this paragraph in response to selenak's very legitimate point that I totally mischaracterized Christianity.] This view—though atheist Shives might cringe at this—seems philosophically close to Christianity, in the sense that it posits some people deserve to go to hell. Selenak rightly reminds me that Christianity is based on the idea that everyone can repent and be forgiven anything; in that sense, no one is beyond redemption, which sounds like the opposite of the view Shives is expressing. Solid point. I was thinking (a) of the Calvinist strain that infests American secular thinking, which holds that everyone deserves damnation, but more broadly (b) of the metaphor of existence after damnation: the person who didn't repent and, therefore, is now stuck in hell for eternity, regardless of what potential they might theoretically have for learning better/repenting given longer life/reincarnation/purgatory. An attitude of "you can't be redeemed" is what I think of as "secular damnation" in that, metaphorically, it treats the person as if they were damned in the eyes of the human judge, maybe not for eternity but for their life on Earth. I do think that view is related to certain Christian mindsets (and not just Christian), though it's fair to note that Christianity is also founded on the idea of radical redemption for all through Christ. It's complicated.

The other view holds that people are constantly in flux (at least potentially) and that anyone could theoretically be redeemed if they change enough to become a truly better person. In this view, people should be treated more according to who they are in the present (which could include actions to atone for the past). Under this view, Garak is certainly potentially redeemable. It’s a question of how much he changes, including what he might do to try to be accountable for former heinous acts. And I’d like to amplify a point made in some of the comments on Shives’ video: redemption is not the same as forgiveness. Both words have many meanings, but I’m with those commenters who see redemption as more internal to the self while forgiveness is something someone gives you (though you can give it to yourself too).( Read more... )

The Dharma talk I intended last week gave me a piece of information that I feel has unlocked Mirage of Blaze for me, elucidating the thematic trajectory of the whole text. Maybe this is old news to some, but I wanted to write about it. Potential spoilers for all of Mirage( Read more... )

A friend who is definitely not the target audience for a BL light novel series invited me to summarize and comment on Mirage of Blaze with an emphasis on its Buddhist underpinnings. So this I have done, and I thought I'd share some of it.

Some spoilers for Mirage of Blaze

Character Profile: Kagetora
My sensei has mentioned that the root cause of our anger is feeling our sense of self-worth/identity attacked. From this perspective, Kagetora exemplifies this universal human problem of an insecure sense of self-worth. His problem can be described in terms of Maslow's hierarchy. Though he is a highly developed person in many ways, he is fundamentally insecure. His security need has never been met. (As with Kuukai's stages of enlightenment, Kagetora is in several places in Maslow's hierarchy simultaneously: very conscientious and high achieving, but much like a young child in his security needs.)

Kagetora's problems stem from disrupted attachment to father and older brother figures. His biological father gave him away to the Takeda as a hostage when he was seven. He stayed with the Takeda seven years and then was given back to his birth family, but his father did not take him back. Instead, he was adopted by his great-uncle. Shortly thereafter, his family gave him as a hostage to Kenshin. Kenshin adopted him and made him his heir. But after Kenshin's death, a rumor surfaced that Kenshin changed his mind and named Kagekatsu his heir, hence the civil war. Being reunited with Kenshin after death, he asked him which son Kenshin chose, and Kenshin never answered. His oldest brother, Ujimasa, never liked him and regarded him as an evil omen because his birth closely attended the original oldest son's death. His trusted tutor raped him. Basically, throughout his formative years, he felt abandoned or betrayed (mostly abandoned) by the men who were supposed to protect and guide him.

Kagetora seems to have been treated well, by and large, by mothers; he doesn't seem to have particular "issues" about mothers. His compassion and decency probably speak to his having been well mothered. However, I think he regards mothers as fairly powerless and unable to protect, which accords with his Sengoku experience. It may also explain why Takaya is so phenomenally forgiving of his own mother abandoning him and his sister. Despite his having decent mother figures (bar Takaya's), a mother cannot fill his security needs.

Kagetora's insecurity takes the form of an overriding fear that he keeps being abandoned because he is not "good enough" to please his father figures. Thus, he has to perform to near perfection to stave off abandonment. This leads to his overextending his spirit's capacity to serve Kenshin, but more crucially it underlies his dynamic with Naoe. ( Read more... )

Mirage of Blaze as a Shingon Text (An Initial Swing)

In the past six months or so, I have become a tiny, baby practitioner of Shingon, the school of Buddhism practiced by the Yashashuu in Mirage, and this context has really transformed by understanding of the story, though it is still a tiny, baby understanding. With huge dual disclaimers that I am an extreme layperson and have only read the summaries of later Mirage, I want to try to write down some thoughts. (It looks like I did take a preliminary swing at this quite a while ago, when first reading some Kuukai, so apologies for any repetition.)

Observations in no particular order:

Bodhisattvas, Compassion, and Service:

Shingon is notable for its emphasis on the importance of service in the world. It focuses a lot on the Bodhisattva path and the vow to become almost enlightened but with just enough attachment left to remain accessible through compassion for others, to be drawn, as it were, to alleviating others' suffering. Service to others is a huge theme of Mirage: it is the function of the Yashashuu, and it is also the only dimension of their lives in which they (most of them) actually seem capable of quite spiritually advanced practice. They can marshal the powers to fight onryou, but with the possible of exception of Irobe, not one of them is any good at overcoming ego and attachment in their own life—at least till very late in the story. In any case, I can see that call to service as one of the Shingon precepts they practice, including Tachibana Naoe in his own work as a monk.

A corollary to this is that Shingon has a generous place for venturing out into the world in all its messiness, in contrast to some other schools that put more emphasis on retreat and removing oneself from negative inputs. (Kuukai is actually quite hard on people who put too much single-minded emphasis on retreat; I might say he has it in for them a little like Jesus has it in for hypocrites.) This value of being out in the dirt of life seems front and center in Kenshin's call to the Yashashuu. He's asks them to spend centuries embroiling themselves in ugly situations in order to help others. It hurts them a lot, but they also clearly see it as part of their duty. While the aim of Shingon is certainly not to get psychologically hurt, I see that call to help others in their commitments. ( Read more... )