Tag: existentialism

Writer’s Block

crimson

Okay, so this isn’t exactly writer’s block. I can write. The problem is I am loosing steam in the process. I have a profound idea that I want to explore, but once I get into it, I feel like the idea fizzles out. Perhaps the idea is just not deep enough to explore?

With regard to my new provider, I still have not yet received a response regarding the reliability issues. Nor have I seen consistent improvements. Sometimes, like now, things appear to be working acceptably. And then other times, the dreaded errors come. So, I will continue to ask for patience while I sort this all out.

And no digs at my previous provider. I have been hesitating to tell him that I’ve migrated this website, hoping to keep his server as a backup for now. In case the worst happens. But honestly, I’d really like to just have things work out with the new provider. It would simplify so many things if this just worked out.

So here I am, writing something. Anything really. I recently watched the Netflix series Alice in Borderland, and there is much to talk about there. Of course, if I say anything, I’d have to say spoilers ahead. The series, and what is happening, is just too complicated and nuanced to talk about without going into details.

The first thing that ought to be obvious is that the title is a play on Lewis Carroll‘s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It should be no surprise that many elements of the television series are borrowed from the book. First of all, there is アリス, which in romanji is Arisu. In the dub, his name is pronounced as it would be in English, A-RI-SU. Having taken some Japanese, this bothers me, because I think it is being mispronounced.

Before I challenge, let me take a moment to talk about a different word or phrase from Japanese: です ね. In romanji, this is “desu ne” which roughly is what one might say if they were seeking agreement regarding something. So it translates to something like “isn’t this the case?” At least, this is what I remember from my classes. I am noticing immediately that Google Translate is disagreeing with this. Then again, the problem might be that it is a sort of sentence stub, often accompanied by other information. In other words, it isn’t usually used by itself like this.

Getting back to the point, the phrase is NOT typically pronounced as it appears in English: DE-SU-NE. When that phrase is uttered, the “U” sound is dropped, so it becomes something like: DES-NE. This happens a fair bit in Japanese, and in other languages. In French, the sound for a trailing “e” is often dropped as well.

Thus, I wish to suggest that Arisu is pronounced: A-RIS. The “U” sound, I believe, should be dropped.

Next, is that pesky “R” sound. In Japanese there is no “L” sound, and so when such a sound is desired, the “R” sound is often used. Furthermore, the “R” sound in English is not the same as the “R” sound in Japanese. My instructor suggested that the sound be made while pressing one’s tongue to the roof of the mouth. Thus, the “R” sound in Japanese is more like the combined sound of both “R” and “L” from English together. A case where one needs to perform a different vocalization than one is used to.

This now adjusts the understanding of how to pronounce Arisu to something like A-LIS, or almost the equivalent to the English “Alice.” And hence, our protagonist is in fact the same protagonist from the book. Simply that instead of Wonderland, this Alice will be journeying to Borderland.

It is probably quite pedantic for me to dwell on this singular detail, but it really did bother me throughout my viewing of the show. If, at the very least, someone reads this and learns a little something about the Japanese language, then I suppose I have done my job.

The connection established, it will probably not surprise people to discover that the female protagonist (or love interest) is うさぎ or Usagi which literally translates to rabbit in English. In other words, she is the White Rabbit. There are plenty of other characters as well that are similarly spotted. The only other one I will mention is チシヤ or Chishiya which bears a resemblance to Cheshire, as in Cheshire Cat. I was particularly fond of Chishiya in the show, as his character behaved much as I would expect the Cheshire Cat to behave.

Thus, the most fundamental question that is asked throughout the show, regarding what is happening, can be guessed at immediately: all that is taking place is taking place within Arisu’s mind. In the book, Alice is dreaming, so we might suggest Arisu is also dreaming. We might also suggest, in similar fashion, that due to the levels and popularity of modern technologies, that perhaps Arisu might be in simulation, similar to the simulated world of The Matrix. As it turns out, if we are to trust what occurs at the end of the season 2 finale, Arisu is dead for about a minute, and all that takes place is something akin to his life flashing before his eyes, though perhaps it is more of “a” life rather than “his” life.

The reason I talk with uncertainty on this point is that we are presented with a serious problem in that finale, as well as in the series as a whole. There are just too many unreliable narrators running around. Arisu is compromised, not always knowing what is going on or what he can trust. His senses deceive him at many turns. And the final game, the Queen of Hearts game, is entirely focused on exploiting this fact. I will admit, I was quite impressed how the show presented so many credible theories before settling on the asteroid theory, especially as so many of those other theories were theories my friends and I had come up with. Good job writers!

However, despite the uncertainty regarding what is going on, or whether the series really has ended (because there is the subtle suggestion at the end that there could be more to come: the Joker), the point or main message of the series is in no way diminished. At least, based on my interpretation. I wish to acknowledge that others may have seen or focused on other aspects of the story and show than I did.

So, for me, the most important thing the show said was that there is no innate meaning in things, and that one needs to assign meaning themselves. Arisu is a bum. Ever since his mother died, all he does is play video games and hang out with his friends. He purposely avoids going to job interviews or moving on with his life. He seems to have abandoned all hope, deciding that his life has no meaning.

The best formalized example of his perspective is given after he loses his friends in the Seven of Hearts game. He lays on the street, completely lost. With his friends gone, he has abandoned hope. He cannot see how his own life bears any meaning at all. Usagi has to literally drag his sorry ass to her campsite and feed him before he starts deciding to do something other than lying on the ground.

How Arisu motivates himself to get up is by deciding to figure out who is running these sadistic games. To get revenge against those who killed his friends. His quest for answers takes him through many more games, and he ends up meeting many more people. At various points, he does kind of lose hope again and again, but somehow (often through the help of his new friends), finds value and purpose to continue. The Queen of Hearts game at the end is clearly the most difficult challenge for him, but it is his love of Usagi that helps him persevere.

On the one hand, he never really finds the answer to his questions. The way he is presented at the end, he may not even remember anything that happened in Borderland at all. Only some general feeling that he has met the girl in the hospital, who just so happens to resemble strongly Usagi from his journey. But he did gain something else as well. Hope. He seems to no longer be in a state where he believes his life is meaningless. For him, it clearly now has some sort of meaning.

This mirrors the likes of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre and their Existentialist philosophy. In particular, the idea that nothing has innate value. That all value is assigned by an agent, typically a human being. To put this a little differently, one cannot simply go out and find or discover meaning or purpose, like it were some object laying on a beach someplace. It is not out there to be found. It is, in some sense, within us. I have to generate my own meaning and purpose. I have to decide what it all means.

Arisu had a similar journey. That is, Arisu may have been waiting for someone to give his life meaning or purpose, but in the end, he had to give it to himself. This is straight out of Existentialism. It is our free will that allows us the power to generate value in this world. I choose the value of things. This includes myself. Whether Arisu realizes it or not, he too chose his value and meaning. His experience was simply the avenue that helped him to do so.

Nihilism, Existentialism, and Basic Human Conditioning

crimson

I’ve been thinking about my identity recently. Who or what would I be, if it were not for the influences of my environment. Who or what would I be if I were somehow not situated, in Simone de Beauvoir‘s understanding of situation. I almost always come to the same conclusion each time: I would not exist.

Every day, I notice something else that has had a profound effect on myself and on the world I inhabit. A few days ago, that thing was Santa Claus. I had known for a very long time that the story of Santa Claus was a consumerist story, designed to sell products and get countless families out to the stores. What I realized, however, was how much the story seemed to insidiously form the foundation of consumerism as a whole.

What do you want? This is the question asked by the shadows in the 90s television series Babylon 5. For the shadows, it is a prompt to action. A call for races to fight for the things they desire. I imagine they would be quite happy if we spent all our time fighting with each other in our deluded attempts to acquire everything our hearts desired.

Ironically, this is the same question Santa asks. However, when Santa asks this question, it is not a prompt to action. Instead, it is held in front of the individual as a reward for good behavior. It is a call for individuals to conform and comply with the establishment. Be good, and Santa will give you what you want for Christmas. In fact, an individual who fights for what they want would be considered very naughty, and thus could expect coal in their stockings.

The heart of this transaction is obedience for a reward (often a material reward). Like Pavlov’s dogs, individuals are conditioned: when the bell rings, the dog becomes hungry, just as when Christmas time approaches, the children become expectant for their reward. It becomes an integral part of the individual’s behavior, just as it does for the dogs, manifesting itself in curious ways and causing potential harm.

But now imagine a world without these things. Specifically, imagine a world without Santa Claus, once a year granting everyone’s wish for the thing they most desire. For some, this will be easy. For other’s nearly impossible. For those who say it is easy, they will likely tell a story about how Santa is simply a myth. Of course a world without Santa can exist; it is the world we currently inhabit. To them, I ask if they are so certain…

Those who cannot imagine such a world, I suspect, are facing the same dilemma I face. Without those dangling rewards, without “proper” motivation, what ought I do with myself? This is the capitalist dogma, where the incentive of wealth and accumulation of property is the prime motivator to action. Santa Claus may be fictitious, but his face is the face of capitalism and consumerism.

I sometimes end up in discussions regarding universal basic income. My opponents suggest that if such a thing existed, people would lazily remain at home doing nothing indefinitely. They believe that without the motivation of money, nothing would get done and our societies would collapse. They often cite the former Soviet Union as proof of their claim. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union exhibited capitalist dogma better than the United States ever did, which led to its accelerated collapse; the Americans are well on their way to a similar outcome presently.

I keep beating around the topic. It is time I focus. All of this, as I see it, is for one purpose: purpose. Meaning. To direct large numbers of people in a direction. To motivate them to action. But not just any action. To the action that is deemed most beneficial to those decision makers in our world. This is why we are called “consumers.”

We don’t have to be though. For the nihilist, the world is without meaning or purpose. Period. No action is any better than any other action, because in a world devoid of value, all actions are truly equal. A world full of nihilists would never accomplish anything. But then again, they wouldn’t really care either, would they.

For the existentialist, there is no inherent meaning or purpose in the world. That is, there is no outside force or influence that has the privileged position of applying meaning to things. Instead, we all have that power within ourselves. It is our freedom. We choose the purpose and meaning in things. So things can have value, but only because we decide that things have that value. There are certainly better actions than others; generally the better actions are those that lead us to the things we value. But a world full of existentialists tends to have the same problem as the world of nihilists; each individual exercising their freedom is still an individual, and the actions they follow will not necessarily avoid conflict with the other individuals. Accomplishing of larger projects can be challenging.

The seemingly best option is to have an authority that establishes meaning and purpose for all. A single authority applying value to things guarantees that all individuals will agree to the value of those things. And where there is agreement, there is shared motivation toward common goals. No more pesky wasting energy assessing value on their own. No more fighting with others regarding the value of things. No, that energy can now be better spent on more important things, like innovation and progress and the accumulation of wealth.

Some will say that God is that external authority. Only God can establish the value of things. It is His will after all. In this, I will suggest that those of shared belief system will share an agreement. However, this is not the observance. Unfortunately, even those of the same faith cannot always agree on the same interpretation of that faith.

But there is still Santa Claus to save the day. Keeping all the little girls and boys highly motivated to behave in order to receive their reward. Their hearts’ greatest desires fulfilled at the flick of his nose. What better training could you hope for, for the future’s well grounded consumers.