Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicious108
…Which is why I never said he wanted to help "most people". Yes, as it stands, only predators would thrive and be able to survive in the society he seems to want to perpetuate. But (whether you like it or not) "predators" are still people, so none of what you're saying is mutually exclusive with what I said about him.
Like I said in his character discussion topic, he's essentially championing individualism, only without making any sort of moral distinctions between people. The fact that some wouldn't have the strength to survive in a world where no one suppresses their will is probably but a natural inevitability to him, and it doesn't change the fact that he truly believes everyone should act based on their will, even if the obvious consequence of such would be for some of those wills to extinguish others.
|
Dictators and members of an all powerful oligarchy are also people. Does that mean we can characterize a society where 1% of the population has complete freedom to wantonly dominate and inflict harm upon 99% of the society without restriction as being a *free* society? I'm sure if we play around with the semantics of the English language we could find a way to answer that with an unambiguous affirmative, but I'm pretty sure all the laymen English speakers would look at us like we'd just started speaking in Swahili.
Obviously someone like Makishima might think this is a perfectly fine definition of *freedom*, but is it really categorically anything like modern liberal democracy that also espouses the virtues of freedom? Of course Makishima probably wouldn't see any difference between the liberal democracy that Rina is talking about and the Sybil system, so his definition of freedom makes sense. But that's not a useful definition for outside observers trying to compare Makishima, the techno clinical oligarchy of the Sybil system, and actual democratic society with each-other.
You can say in a sense that Makishima is interested in bringing *freedom*, but when we have actual pro democracy activists running around, we need to differentiate these definitions of freedom by remembering that Makishima is a predatory anarchist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicious108
Well, that depends. I think it's still important to consider his criticism of the society Sybil's created (some of which also applies to real life societies IMO). But as far as the society his actions and beliefs would likely end up implementing in its stead, then yeah, no thanks to that. I'm all for people having the freedom to express themselves, but in my view that freedom ends the moment it starts intruding upon the freedom of others (and serial killings definitely qualify as such).
|
Indeed. Just because Makishima is a monster doesn't mean it's impossible for him to make legitimate critiques about systems. Not trying to invoke Godwins law in a moralistic way, but I'm sure many members of the Waffen SS invading the Soviet Union were able to observe MANY deficient aspects of the USSR. But this didn't make Mister Waffen SS a friend to all the Russian people under the oppression of communism.
And yes. What you're talking about here is basically VERY different (essentially incompatible) definitions of freedom. The idea that freedom is sacred, but it only goes so far until it violates the freedom of somebody else. It's inherently incompatible with Makishima's desire for the freedom to engage in intellectual/philosophical/recreational homicide.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicious108
Most likely, yeah, but he certainly seems to believe Sybil's society to be particularly unsatisfactory (to the point of having caused humanity to actually regress as a species) and I believe he's made a lot of good points when it comes to backing that up.
Although, of course, ultimately…
|
Indeed. But that's still not a fundamental shift. His
particular dissatisfaction with the Sybil system seems comparable to organized societies particular dislike of particularly sadistic mass murderers. One certainly doesn't need to be a mass murderer to raise the ire of society. Even murderers who only kill one or two people cleanly will be imprisoned for long periods of time, or even killed by the state. The scale of the crime just increases the ire.
Maybe liberal democracy (or almost any other way of organizing society) wouldn't be as appalling to Makishima's world view as the Sybill system, but it doesn't exactly seem like it still wouldn't be enough for him to want to tear it down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicious108
…this is absolutely true. Which is why I said the protagonists will likely end up rejecting both and creating a third stance. Or they'll be swallowed up by one of the other two, who knows. Let's wait and see.
|
Well there is poor old Rina on the sidelines adamantly saying she's gonna use the power of rock and roll to bring back the light of freedom and democracy to the people.
