Philosophy of Ghost in the Shell
ghostintheshellphilosophy.info
ghostintheshellphilosophy.info
Trump is basically the galvanizing "cult of personality" figure who was able to connect with a population that was marginalized by both the government and the media -- much like Hideo Kuze was to the refugees. In the case of Trump, he energized the people, but also similar to Kuze, he can't really control every aspect of the emergent behavior (anti-semitism in Trump's case, etc). I would even say that it's similar to the Kuze storyline in that the "cult of personality" figure is actually being manipulated by a foreign power (ironically the American Empire in SAC) for their own ends.
Similar comparisons can be made with Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, or any other movements that start with legitimate gripes but are manipulated by false information to different ends.
It's definitely not a new phenomenon, but SAC was amazingly prophetic about how it would play out in an age of instant communication. It's unfortunate that it's so difficult to approach (you won't really "get it" until your second or third watch through) -- I don't know any other show that had multiple episodes that were essentially philosophical lectures by the main characters / tachikomas .
I heard an example of it today in a program by the Guardian, covering the special election in Montana. The reporter interviewed an old (80? 90?) lady, who said this one candidate was clearly ridiculous because he had a TV ad where he shot a television. The reporter then mentioned how the opposing candidate - her candidate - ran an identical ad. She said they were completely different examples. He then said she probably only thought they were different because one of them was for the candidate she wanted, and she agreed. Another example was when the reporter asked her why she supported Trump regardless of his failures or scandals, and she said because he is a real, normal person. The reporter offered that many people find him the opposite of a normal person, and she replied that they don't know what they're talking about.
"Gouda notes that there is a tendency within a Stand Alone Complex for the masses to unconsciously project their inadequacies and common desires onto a leader."
I think this kind of self-manipulation in order to achieve a specific goal is essentially a form of Stand Alone Complex, in the form of thought patterns being duplicated among a group, with no explicit intention to do so. In order to achieve an unspoken specific social change the people follow an icon, and do anything they need to do to continue following that icon and eventually achieve the goal.
Trump was obviously able to tap into this collective consciousness / common desires -- a border wall is a stupid fucking idea that basically every expert thinks is a waste of money, but is an example of the masses projecting their inadequacies onto him (and Trump reacting in turn to give them what they want).
But claiming trump as an analogue to kuze is offensive to the efforts of everyone involved in the stand alone complex
And it's clear Gouda didn't work alone either -- he pulled the strings behind the scenes through fake media, but others were obviously working with him offscreen. Bannon fits this well from his time at Breitbart -- he was trying to create a movement, and eventually a charismatic leader emerged and people projected whatever they wanted on that leader.
Meaning to say Trump is analogous to kuze is offensive to the people who developed the show
In most modern philosophy spirits are assigned to humans (with exceptions), while in Japan everything in nature has a spirit/energy [1]. This makes the concept of nature different between our cultures, animals even more different so the concept of a robot is really different.
So a Ghost in the shell for us westerns is kind of obvious; a robot has nothing, it is a shell by default, and you can add a human consciousness which is just a group of thoughts like you'd add a different program. However for the Japanese culture where everything has vital energy this is not entirely the same concept. An empty shell/robot is a void much larger than what a robot is for us and a normal, working robot in the real world has something making it move. Heck, even "electricity" includes the word "気" (spirit/energy).
Of course I am not good at explaining all of this and just know it because I like learning about it. But I do think that there are important cultural differences when watching this movie and many details are lost from a western point of view.
I don't think it's obvious at all. If you can add a human consciousness to a(n entirely non-human-biological) robot, then that "human consciousness" is no different in nature to the robot's software. A difference in degree, certainly, but not of kind. Yet most westerners would claim a difference in kind between software and a "person".
Point taken, though, about the way the film's interpretation changes depending on the cultural mindset of the watcher. I'll do some reading. :)
Edit: After thinking and reading about it, I think that is actually the opposite in the other direction. What might shock us is the concept of the spirit being transfered, while for Shintoism that is not such a shocking concept since they are not so concerned with the afterlife and their spirit will just join nature:
"The afterlife, and belief, are not major concerns in Shinto; the emphasis is on fitting into this world instead of preparing for the next, and on ritual and observance rather than on faith." - interesting read: https://www.japanspecialist.co.uk/travel-tips/shinto-buddhis...
People say this as if it means something profound, but it really doesn't. It's just energy. There's no Japanese belief that electricity is powered by little spirits or anything like you try to imply.
In western philosophies we have a body and spirit, where the body provides the energy to move it and the spirit the will. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) in Japanese philosophy that energy and will to move is closer together, it is the spirit the one that provides the strength to move the body (talking about philosophy, not biology).
If I recall correctly even some body sickness are attributed at a weak spirit.
Seems like in Japanese culture spirit and energy is the same thing?
DragonBallZ owes more to Chinese Taoist alchemy than it does with Shintoism, but there are going to be some shared similarities.
Traditional Chinese Medicine, for example, is a healing modality that was modernized. It retained some of that animist leaning, but lost a lot too in the modernization.
I'd say, if you talk with most shamans, there will be some understanding of spirit being energy, though often in the sense that energy is not dead, without intelligence or consciousness. A lot of this has to do with this being a lived experience that is oddly shared across cultures. You might find this, say, talking with an Australian Aboriginal shaman with one of the surviving shamans in say, Poland. Different words, different perspectives of the same underlying experiences.
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In christianity, the word for spirit means breath. I find the origins of words and why/how the literal meaning of the original term evolved to describe something much more philosophic fascinating. I would expect that the Japanese used the word "electric" or "energy" to describe the spirit because they saw a connection between the two, in that both are vital. I would not expect the use of that term to be taken in its strictest sense though...
anyway... some thoughts.
Shintoism has held onto this vestige of proto-science. It's amazing and beautiful.
I'd argue that is a case of modernity, and not simply a difference in culture. That animist leaning is present everywhere indigenous shamanism is present, which means it is pretty much present everywhere. While it isn't normative or mainstream, it's present in the Americas and in Europe.
The discussion is less about Japanese cultural notions of kami and more about the tensions between modernity and tradition. There is also another line of exploration that no one has good answer for: what is the role of a post-tribal, _modern_ shaman?
Few pieces of media manage evoke wonder. It's beautifully drawn and philosophical.
http://www.japanator.com/ul/32429-annotated-anime-mushishi-e...
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Buddha_in_the_robot...
This is my favorite essay on these themes, tying together threads spanning from ancient myths to contemporary movies: "The Robots Are Winning!" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/robots-are-winnin...
One interesting thing I've understood when discussing GITS the anime vs the new movie is that in the anime, Motoko embraces her cybernetic body, so the question is: What does it mean to be human? But in the new movie, Major is the first cybernetic body, so the question is more: Who am I? This an interesting essay by Hideo Kojima about the differences: http://www.glixel.com/news/hideo-kojima-on-the-philosophy-be...
By the way, people into GITS might like this post we made about shots in the movie recreated from the anime: https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-sh...
One of my favorite features was cyberpsychosis. As a gameplay element, it was an answer to "Why don't you just buy godlike cyber replacements for your body?"
But as a lore element, they bored down into the question. If you've got your neural processing running at multiples of human normal, or have a bulletproof body capable of lifting cars, then how do you relate to all the unmodified people around you? Musn't your relationship with them fundamentally change? And doesn't it seem logical that the amount of change would be related to the extremeness of your augmentation?
I find it quite superficial to call the new movie a love letter just because a number of stills have similar elements in them.
As an example: In the water fight scene the anime has a LOT of story-telling with her actions being clearly based on high level moral motivations, as well as observations of and adaption to the progression of the fight itself. Every action taken has a reason and nuance behind it, based on who and what her adversary is as well as the tactical situation. In the movie it's a straight-up beat-down of an almost entirely unresponsive puppet.
As a long-time GITS fan, the new movie was a complete disappointment. It added nothing new or interesting, and dropped almost all of the philosophical content of the original.
If you haven't seen the original, start there. And then move on to the sequels, the TV show, etc. if you want. But avoid this new one. None of the individual elements (soundtrack, cinematography, etc) are the equal of the original and as whole it is utterly lacking in style and substance.
I also agree about your point about Westworld -- I think Ghost in the Shell could be pulled off as a live-action TV series because the exposition could be spread out across a whole season. Because it often doesn't have a guaranteed global market at the time of production, anime in general tends to be a balance between ambition and budget -- the compromise often being "recap" or "expositional" episodes focused on one or two characters (fewer voice actors to worry about) and using recycled animation. I get why they do it, but it's frustrating.
I mean, if we just step back, when I watched the anime I never expected that one day I'd be able to see a live-action version of the tank fight. It was very unlikely for this movie to have been made at all, in between Avengers 12 and Fast and the Furious 17. I'm glad it exists.
There's a downside, though. The masses become gogol slaves, used basically as appliances by the Primes.
Edit: Also, the Primes make highly numerous copies of slave gogols, introducing random variation, and then select for performance on some task.
Fantastic read. It’s sad such great content has no right to stay on Wikipedia, where this article originated. (I’m not implying the rules of Wikipedia are wrong.)
I can't say the same for Soylent Green.
My naive approach was to replace "terrorist" with "some asshole", so that the news report "Terrorists detonated a bomb" would become "some assholes detonated a bomb". This is a joke example of a real concept. I think that our news sources have tried to do something similar by referring to ISIS as "Daesh", but the significance was lost on non-Arabic-speakers, and its usage never caught on.
Donald Trump has recently begun calling terrorists "Losers".
George W. Bush called Al Qaeda members "thugs and killers".
You are also correct that Daesh is preferred in Arabic media over the term ISIS, and although the former is really an acronym, it is close to to the Arabic words 'Daes', 'one who crushes something underfoot' and 'Dahes', translated as 'one who sows discord'. Members of the group also really hate the term being used to describe them, which helped spur it's usage.
It's a strategy that's been used for some time and has proven effective in some cases in discouraging copycat behaviors.
The merging of minds between Kusanagi and the Puppet Master was the finalé in the journey Kusanagi took through the film. To remove that final step from the remake made me angry.
Sounds very familiar.
I find it really annoying that we now have to design/develop for different screensizes. The web used to be much more simpler when we were just making 1024*768 pages with <table>s
The problem is mostly with overdesigned websites, not ensuring it works for all devices. Simple designs and sticking with mostly default settings will be responsive-by-default.
In this case, 130% font size is fine but I feel it should have more line height (1.7 vs 1.45) and text should be aligned left instead of justified for smaller devices. Two small changes.
(just kidding...)