Originally Posted by karice67
@Triple_R
If I might make a couple of observations about Japanese society today in response.
I think it's important to look at this debate in the context of contemporary Japanese society. That is, the society of a country that has been in economic stagnation (even decline), for over two decades. The officially unemployment rate (4.1% in November) isn't as bad as in certain other countries, but that only measures the percentage of people actively looking for work. Another 0.5-1% of the population are apparently hikkikomoris, and the proportion of married women who do not work is probably higher than in most other developed countries. Furthermore, this doesn't say anything about the people whose wages barely support one person, leaving them no possibility of starting a family. Or the people who remain at university, doing additional studies because they are unable to find work...or the students who struggle year after year to get into degrees without a guarantee of a job when they finish. Even if they are lucky enough to get a job, unless it's in the public service, there is no guarantee either that they will be employed for life. While that is arguably the norm is many Western countries, many Japanese people still aim for the one secure position. At present, there is a lot of uncertainty in Japan about where their country is going, and thus, what will happen to each individual and his/her family. Hence one of the highest rates of suicide in the world.
This is the society, the audience, that Urobuchi is writing for. Compared to that uncertainty, the job and livelihood security offered by the Sibyl system may indeed be something that many people would find appealing. Furthermore, whilst the show focuses on the enforcement side, it has also demonstrated that some ordinary people are protected from potential harm such as stalking, and that other, less-than-appealing aspects of society (e.g. what many people would term 'grotesque' art) are also removed from the public view. I'd wager that there are many people who wouldn't mind some sacrifice given the other benefits.
Furthermore, Japan is a community-based society, rather than an individualistic society. Speaking from experience, there is increasingly conflict between people who want to value individualism and people who value social harmony, but I would say that there remain many who prize the latter over the former. What that translates to for a society such as Japan are rules and norms that strive to protect the rights of the community over the rights of the individual.
This is also why the decision to cover up Makishima's existence may make sense to Japanese people (and many others in North and South East Asia, even if the West would balk at the very idea). I agree with you in that this approach doesn't address the issue of training inspectors and enforcers for dealing with the outliers that cannot be dealt with using the Sibyl system. However, whether that is something that justifies turning over a system that works 99.9999% of the time is a matter for debate. Is the system really so broken that it needs to be destroyed (which revealing the existence of outliers like Makishima may well do), or can the imperfections be 'fixed'? Many people would probably argue that the inspectors and enforcers who encounter these outliers should push for change within the system, and push for it in a way that will not disrupt societal harmony. (And to return to our own world for a moment: that, I would say, is one of the debates about the capitalist system...)
If we accept the premise that the system merely needs improvement (and I would argue that this is how the characters see it), as opposed to starting from the ground up, then the Director has simply taken one way of dealing with it. It just happens to be a method that a number of viewers would disagree with. The question is: how are our protagonists going to deal with this?
From a Western perspective, it's very easy to say that the Sibyl system should simply be abolished. However, the questions of how to live with the system, of how it can be improved, and whether there are limits to such improvements, are far more interesting to me, and arguably far more relevant to our world today.
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