Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2021 23:57:29 GMT
Why hello there, A/A folks! 
I wanted to briefly (or likely not so briefly) touch upon two anime with different settings, styles, and storytelling but which share a common theme of libertarianism running throughout. I will not be discussing libertarianism in terms of whether it is a good or bad political philosophy-- that's your call to make-- but rather I will give a quick summary of what it is and how these two series explore and depict that philosophy in different ways.
Ready? Here we go!
---
What is libertarianism in a nutshell? It is a philosophy that values the rights of the individual over all other concerns. It can be pro small government to anti-government (depending on how one views it), opposed to taxation, pro-laissez faire in economic philosophy (that is, businesses and the market should have the most latitude possible to operate without government oversight), pro-gun, pro-free speech-- basically, it opposes government regulation and intervention aside from the absolute bare minimum and instead looks to individuals to take care of themselves, no matter their circumstances. If you've ever heard the expression "Your rights end where the other guy's nose begins," this is a largely libertarian sentiment on the limits for personal freedom.
I hope I spelled that out as neutrally and as adequately as I could. Apologies to any libertarians if I've misrepresented their beliefs. Feel free to correct me if necessary.
---
There are two series which draw heavily from this philosophy in different ways. I've obviously spoiled them in the title of the thread but they are Psycho-Pass and Kino's Journey. So what are these two shows about and what does it have to do with a political philosophy?
Psycho-Pass is set in a high-tech future where every person is monitored and essentially mind-scanned by a shadowy system called "Sybil"-- a reference to the Grecian oracles-- and assigned a color value (the titular Psycho-Pass) and a "Crime Coeffecient" which is used to determine their fitness for certain roles in society, their access to services in some instances, and to alert law enforcement to possible threats. Those who are considered potential threats due to their Psycho-Pass are either imprisoned to be rehabilitated or killed, depending on the level of threat they present. A person's threat level can change due to trauma which is an important element of the story I'll touch on later. We follow this world from the perspective of law enforcement.
If you are thinking of Minority Report from that description, you're not far off.
Kino's Journey is about a young girl with a talking motorcycle (trust me, the series makes this not dumb) who travels from place to place in a medieval semi-steampunk setting, like a wandering Ronin, and encounters different towns and cities with different rules. In one place, murder may be legal. In another, there may be gladitorial fights which determine the rule of law. In another, the city might be a giant vehicle that periodically moves, occasionally trampling other towns. Kino has set a rule for herself that she will not stay in a town for more than three days but nonetheless often gets embroiled in local affairs despite her itinerant ways.
It is similar to Star Trek-- especially TNG. There is a heavy focus on ethics as Kino goes from place to place but unlike Star Fleet, Kino is not there with the goal of solving problems or saving these towns. She simply seeks to survive and see the world and she follows her own set of rules and ethics.
I highly recommend both of these series.
[Full disclosure time, as well: I've not seen all of Psycho-Pass and I haven't read all of the manga of Kino's Journey. For Psycho-Pass, I am going by the first season alone and for Kino's Journey, I am going by the 2003 and 2017 anime adaptations. This is not going to be a comprehensive and exhaustive evaluation; I'm going by what I know about them. Don't mistake this for professional critique but rather some musing over their themes. Cool? Cool.]
These two series approach libertarianism from very different angles. Psycho-Pass acts as a cautionary message (a "What if?") whereas Kino is presented as an exploration of ethics from a libertarian approach (a "What is?").
In the world of Psycho-Pass, the government has surveillance so powerful that they can scan a person's mind. They have law enforcement which can imprison or kill those deemed a danger to society with near impunity. They have a secretive network which determines when punishment is necessary which even their law enforcement agents do not understand the workings of but who nonetheless follow its orders. It is a system of unquestioned rules, powerful authority, literal thought-crimes, and the epitome of a hypothesized "nanny state."
This theme of the nanny state is prominent in Psycho-Pass and it is always negatively portrayed. The law enforcement officers ("Enforcers") cannot determine for themselves when lethal action is justified. Their guns ("Dominators") are hooked up to Sybil (the aforementioned shadowy network) and it determines the level of threat for them and how they should be allowed to respond-- stunning, killing, or not at all. This is approached from two angles: Sometimes, the police cannot kill or even stun somebody murdering an innocent in front of them because Sybil won't allow it. Other times, they are allowed to use lethal force against somebody having a mental breakdown due to recent trauma and are encouraged, if not ordered, to kill them as the rules mandate. In short, the cops can't use their guns by their own volition and when they can use them, they can use them unethically without any ramifications.
There are two salient moments where this fear of the nanny state is spelled out.
The first is when the Enforcers are investigating a crime scene in public and in order not to alarm any onlookers, they cloak themselves in holograms of cute chibi cats (it's Japan) so as not to risk lowering any Psycho-Passes of local people. In fact, at most crime scenes, the Enforcers set up cutesy holograms so that the public will not think there is anything wrong and to shelter them from reality.
The second is when a man is violently beaten to death in public and the onlookers don't know how to react and don't intervene because they have become so sheltered by an oppressive system of governmental control. They don't even understand what violence and murder are anymore and cannot comprehend it and do nothing to prevent it.
The message is made clear: The greater the power of government, the greater their ability to cover things up for their own purposes, and the less capable the individual becomes.
Another important element-- so important it's the title-- is the Psycho-Pass itself as determined by Sybil. Until much later on, nobody knows how Sybil works; they just accept that it does. Even those that find out are sworn to secrecy at the penalty of death or more often are killed to cover it up. Worse yet, Sybil often punishes people who are not guilty of any crimes aside from "wrongthink" and sometimes does not punish people who are blatantly guilty of crimes. Sometimes people are driven to crimes because of the system itself and its imposed restrictions.
The judgment of Sybil is ultimate and final and based on a nebulous working of a person's inner thoughts and emotions. This is the ultimate nightmare scenario specifically for the libertarian: A secretive system which judges people based on their thoughts and determines arbitrarily which are worthy of functioning in society and which should be imprisoned or killed.
The setting of Psycho-Pass is presented as a utopia that is, in reality, a dystopia. While outwardly to the denizens of its universe the system seems to be effective at making society peaceful and prosperous, we know as the viewer looking in that it is a charade and this is a terrifying, stifling world to live in. It is the worst-case scenario of government control and overreach.
Kino's Journey doesn't make such pointed judgments or set out to portray an imminent threat to individual freedoms. Instead, it offers up ethical scenarios and reflects upon them from a libertarian standpoint. Kino's Journey is about exploring the world and navigating its varied rules, maintaining your individuality, being self-reliant, and protecting yourself against danger. Often with guns, which are very much revered in this series.
Due to the nature of Kino's Journey's style of storytelling, there's not an overarching villain causing problems or a nefarious government running the entire world. Rather, we travel from town to town with Kino as she's trying to get by, attempt to see and understand the world, and perhaps someday find a place in it. Sometimes, the pivotal moment of a Kino story is as simple as her sitting at a coffee table and talking with somebody. Or pondering her own ethical code along with Hermes, her talking motorcycle (I swear it's not dumb), and determining for herself what is right and wrong.
Kino is not heroic in the typical sense of the word. Sometimes she does the "right thing" but often this comes with consequences. Sometimes she does something which is extremely questionable but it is not portrayed as the objectively wrong thing to do. At all times, what matters is her own philosophy and her independence to decide for herself and through that, she is considered heroic by the series. Just as it is for the locations she visits, Kino operates by her own rules and while some of those rules may occasionally be callous, they are hers to decide for herself and it is left up to you to decide if she is right or wrong. However, you are also tasked to respect her decisions.
So what is the libertarian theme here? Well, everything. Kino's Journey focuses heavily on self-reliance even if it is at times not beneficial to larger society. Kino does not set out with the goal of helping people or improving their lives. She acts largely in her best interest which sometimes does mean that she's helpful, but sometimes doesn't. She is not without compassion and does genuinely like people but ultimately her independence comes first and foremost and she has no hesitation to kill or do worse if it suits her. There is also an air of mistrust of the motivations of others prominent throughout the story; that they will always act in their selfish best interests so you always need to be prepared to defend against them if those interests are a danger to you.
Did I mention the guns? I probably mentioned the guns. Kino's Journey is extremely pro-gun. The Japanese tend to shy away from guns-- that's why they often depict gun surrogates in media as arm cannons or laser beams-- but you can tell Kino's Journey was written by somebody who loves guns and Kino's guns are almost characters in themselves. They are her means of maintaining her independence and dealing with threats.
---
In conclusion, I find these differing approaches interesting and food for thought. I hope I'm not injecting political philosophy where there is none but I think both series are fairly open about it, so I don't think that I am. I do recommend both (Psycho-Pass does get silly but the first season at least is worth it) and I hope I've piqued your interest if you haven't seen them, no matter your opinion on libertarianism as a political philosophy. You don't need to think about the politics to enjoy something about them.
Anyway, I guess this wasn't so brief after all. Any thoughts? If not, that's cool. I had enough fun writing this out so I'm good. Sorry for any typos.
Thank you and much love.
I wanted to briefly (or likely not so briefly) touch upon two anime with different settings, styles, and storytelling but which share a common theme of libertarianism running throughout. I will not be discussing libertarianism in terms of whether it is a good or bad political philosophy-- that's your call to make-- but rather I will give a quick summary of what it is and how these two series explore and depict that philosophy in different ways.
Ready? Here we go!
---
What is libertarianism in a nutshell? It is a philosophy that values the rights of the individual over all other concerns. It can be pro small government to anti-government (depending on how one views it), opposed to taxation, pro-laissez faire in economic philosophy (that is, businesses and the market should have the most latitude possible to operate without government oversight), pro-gun, pro-free speech-- basically, it opposes government regulation and intervention aside from the absolute bare minimum and instead looks to individuals to take care of themselves, no matter their circumstances. If you've ever heard the expression "Your rights end where the other guy's nose begins," this is a largely libertarian sentiment on the limits for personal freedom.
I hope I spelled that out as neutrally and as adequately as I could. Apologies to any libertarians if I've misrepresented their beliefs. Feel free to correct me if necessary.
---
There are two series which draw heavily from this philosophy in different ways. I've obviously spoiled them in the title of the thread but they are Psycho-Pass and Kino's Journey. So what are these two shows about and what does it have to do with a political philosophy?
Psycho-Pass is set in a high-tech future where every person is monitored and essentially mind-scanned by a shadowy system called "Sybil"-- a reference to the Grecian oracles-- and assigned a color value (the titular Psycho-Pass) and a "Crime Coeffecient" which is used to determine their fitness for certain roles in society, their access to services in some instances, and to alert law enforcement to possible threats. Those who are considered potential threats due to their Psycho-Pass are either imprisoned to be rehabilitated or killed, depending on the level of threat they present. A person's threat level can change due to trauma which is an important element of the story I'll touch on later. We follow this world from the perspective of law enforcement.
If you are thinking of Minority Report from that description, you're not far off.
Kino's Journey is about a young girl with a talking motorcycle (trust me, the series makes this not dumb) who travels from place to place in a medieval semi-steampunk setting, like a wandering Ronin, and encounters different towns and cities with different rules. In one place, murder may be legal. In another, there may be gladitorial fights which determine the rule of law. In another, the city might be a giant vehicle that periodically moves, occasionally trampling other towns. Kino has set a rule for herself that she will not stay in a town for more than three days but nonetheless often gets embroiled in local affairs despite her itinerant ways.
It is similar to Star Trek-- especially TNG. There is a heavy focus on ethics as Kino goes from place to place but unlike Star Fleet, Kino is not there with the goal of solving problems or saving these towns. She simply seeks to survive and see the world and she follows her own set of rules and ethics.
I highly recommend both of these series.
[Full disclosure time, as well: I've not seen all of Psycho-Pass and I haven't read all of the manga of Kino's Journey. For Psycho-Pass, I am going by the first season alone and for Kino's Journey, I am going by the 2003 and 2017 anime adaptations. This is not going to be a comprehensive and exhaustive evaluation; I'm going by what I know about them. Don't mistake this for professional critique but rather some musing over their themes. Cool? Cool.]
These two series approach libertarianism from very different angles. Psycho-Pass acts as a cautionary message (a "What if?") whereas Kino is presented as an exploration of ethics from a libertarian approach (a "What is?").
In the world of Psycho-Pass, the government has surveillance so powerful that they can scan a person's mind. They have law enforcement which can imprison or kill those deemed a danger to society with near impunity. They have a secretive network which determines when punishment is necessary which even their law enforcement agents do not understand the workings of but who nonetheless follow its orders. It is a system of unquestioned rules, powerful authority, literal thought-crimes, and the epitome of a hypothesized "nanny state."
This theme of the nanny state is prominent in Psycho-Pass and it is always negatively portrayed. The law enforcement officers ("Enforcers") cannot determine for themselves when lethal action is justified. Their guns ("Dominators") are hooked up to Sybil (the aforementioned shadowy network) and it determines the level of threat for them and how they should be allowed to respond-- stunning, killing, or not at all. This is approached from two angles: Sometimes, the police cannot kill or even stun somebody murdering an innocent in front of them because Sybil won't allow it. Other times, they are allowed to use lethal force against somebody having a mental breakdown due to recent trauma and are encouraged, if not ordered, to kill them as the rules mandate. In short, the cops can't use their guns by their own volition and when they can use them, they can use them unethically without any ramifications.
There are two salient moments where this fear of the nanny state is spelled out.
The first is when the Enforcers are investigating a crime scene in public and in order not to alarm any onlookers, they cloak themselves in holograms of cute chibi cats (it's Japan) so as not to risk lowering any Psycho-Passes of local people. In fact, at most crime scenes, the Enforcers set up cutesy holograms so that the public will not think there is anything wrong and to shelter them from reality.
The second is when a man is violently beaten to death in public and the onlookers don't know how to react and don't intervene because they have become so sheltered by an oppressive system of governmental control. They don't even understand what violence and murder are anymore and cannot comprehend it and do nothing to prevent it.
The message is made clear: The greater the power of government, the greater their ability to cover things up for their own purposes, and the less capable the individual becomes.
Another important element-- so important it's the title-- is the Psycho-Pass itself as determined by Sybil. Until much later on, nobody knows how Sybil works; they just accept that it does. Even those that find out are sworn to secrecy at the penalty of death or more often are killed to cover it up. Worse yet, Sybil often punishes people who are not guilty of any crimes aside from "wrongthink" and sometimes does not punish people who are blatantly guilty of crimes. Sometimes people are driven to crimes because of the system itself and its imposed restrictions.
The judgment of Sybil is ultimate and final and based on a nebulous working of a person's inner thoughts and emotions. This is the ultimate nightmare scenario specifically for the libertarian: A secretive system which judges people based on their thoughts and determines arbitrarily which are worthy of functioning in society and which should be imprisoned or killed.
The setting of Psycho-Pass is presented as a utopia that is, in reality, a dystopia. While outwardly to the denizens of its universe the system seems to be effective at making society peaceful and prosperous, we know as the viewer looking in that it is a charade and this is a terrifying, stifling world to live in. It is the worst-case scenario of government control and overreach.
Kino's Journey doesn't make such pointed judgments or set out to portray an imminent threat to individual freedoms. Instead, it offers up ethical scenarios and reflects upon them from a libertarian standpoint. Kino's Journey is about exploring the world and navigating its varied rules, maintaining your individuality, being self-reliant, and protecting yourself against danger. Often with guns, which are very much revered in this series.
Due to the nature of Kino's Journey's style of storytelling, there's not an overarching villain causing problems or a nefarious government running the entire world. Rather, we travel from town to town with Kino as she's trying to get by, attempt to see and understand the world, and perhaps someday find a place in it. Sometimes, the pivotal moment of a Kino story is as simple as her sitting at a coffee table and talking with somebody. Or pondering her own ethical code along with Hermes, her talking motorcycle (I swear it's not dumb), and determining for herself what is right and wrong.
Kino is not heroic in the typical sense of the word. Sometimes she does the "right thing" but often this comes with consequences. Sometimes she does something which is extremely questionable but it is not portrayed as the objectively wrong thing to do. At all times, what matters is her own philosophy and her independence to decide for herself and through that, she is considered heroic by the series. Just as it is for the locations she visits, Kino operates by her own rules and while some of those rules may occasionally be callous, they are hers to decide for herself and it is left up to you to decide if she is right or wrong. However, you are also tasked to respect her decisions.
So what is the libertarian theme here? Well, everything. Kino's Journey focuses heavily on self-reliance even if it is at times not beneficial to larger society. Kino does not set out with the goal of helping people or improving their lives. She acts largely in her best interest which sometimes does mean that she's helpful, but sometimes doesn't. She is not without compassion and does genuinely like people but ultimately her independence comes first and foremost and she has no hesitation to kill or do worse if it suits her. There is also an air of mistrust of the motivations of others prominent throughout the story; that they will always act in their selfish best interests so you always need to be prepared to defend against them if those interests are a danger to you.
Did I mention the guns? I probably mentioned the guns. Kino's Journey is extremely pro-gun. The Japanese tend to shy away from guns-- that's why they often depict gun surrogates in media as arm cannons or laser beams-- but you can tell Kino's Journey was written by somebody who loves guns and Kino's guns are almost characters in themselves. They are her means of maintaining her independence and dealing with threats.
---
In conclusion, I find these differing approaches interesting and food for thought. I hope I'm not injecting political philosophy where there is none but I think both series are fairly open about it, so I don't think that I am. I do recommend both (Psycho-Pass does get silly but the first season at least is worth it) and I hope I've piqued your interest if you haven't seen them, no matter your opinion on libertarianism as a political philosophy. You don't need to think about the politics to enjoy something about them.
Anyway, I guess this wasn't so brief after all. Any thoughts? If not, that's cool. I had enough fun writing this out so I'm good. Sorry for any typos.
Thank you and much love.
