Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity
Funny you'd say that considering Miyazawa was a DEVOUT Buddhist  and considering self-sacrifice is a much stronger concept in Oriental philosophical schools than in any Abrahamic religion.
And I think that's where you're kind of misguided. It's still pretty demanding to sacrifice yourself for the greater good, but not as much, in a society such as the Japanese one when he wrote the novel. It's kind of expected of everyone to willingly self-sacrifice themselves for the common good in traditional Japanese (Buddhist) mentality.
And from what I see, Kanba willing to die in place for his sister is self-sacrifice enough. Basically, I think you're the one putting the demand that Miyazawa's novel must absolutely refer to someone sacrificing themselves for a complete stranger and not the novel itself.
Actually, you go a bit further, you imply that a sacrifice of self to save someone related to you isn't actually self-sacrifice and that's simply not true. It would also mean that most of the selfless acts of sacrifice that are considered as such by the Japanese, the Buddhist, the scholarly or whoever you think Miyazawa borrowed his ideals from aren't actually self-sacrifice. You can always extend relationship outward (a Japanese died for a Japanese because they were Japanese, a human died for another human because they were human ... ad infinitum) but what is there to invalidate someone giving up something so valuable as their very life for someone else as self-sacrifice just because the beneficiary happens to be a loved one of theirs? That self-sacrifice is only so (or that it is only a higher purpose) when the benefactor is unrelated to the beneficiary is thus an inherently flawed argument. |
Call me a pessimist as my username implies, but I got the feeling Kazu-kun seriously hates Kanba. Whatever this character does, you will always see the guy's comment to make the worst of it.