Parasyte – 14
Kids, pay attention in class
There’s no end to the posts here, so let’s enjoy another episode of Parasyte.
Changing Perspectives
Someone who got in with the wrong crowd
It’s interesting to me the way that Migi has changed in this show. Much like Shinichi tries to claim that he’s still human, Migi continues to claim that it is just like the rest of its kind, not worried about killing humans, not sentimental, just following what it thinks should be done as a parasite. But then you see that it does things like say it’s rethought its position on killing people because Shinichi is so adamantly against it. It’s also thought more about the nature of their pursuer, the PI who has been investigating Shinichi, and has come to a much more thoughtful position, that the PI isn’t really working for a large group, and that they need to turn the tables on him.
One is fearsome enough, don’t you think?
Getting help is a good reason for the return of Oda and “Joe”. And things just go from bad to worse for that PI, who gets smacked down by Ryouko when he starts to figure out too much stuff, and then decides he’s going to make his big break out of Shinichi. Too bad that plan falls apart when he finally encounters Migi and Joe. But he learns a lot about his former client, and about the parasites. And Migi has become amazingly persuasive with words. Sure there was a threat of violence, but I think it was much more likely that Migi’s words about Shinichi, about having his mother killed, about stepping over piles of bodies, about the horror world that Shinichi’s lived through, were more convincing than the blades in his face.
I liked this scene between the PI and his wife, nicely human scale
Ryouko, Redux
Now THIS is a scary sight
Of course Migi figures out that Ryouko is the one who set the PI on Shinichi, since she’s the one who’s been interested in him the whole time (not the way Satomi was interested, tho, ever). The show does give us a pause before we get the meetup between the two of them, and gets us to a lecture on altruism. Altruism is a subject that’s interesting to me, because I actually believe it mostly does not exist. If you dig down deep enough, you will always find some reward for the person doing the supposedly altruistic deed. The lecture talks about there being no benefit, but I think that something being defined as altruistic requires too shallow a view of “benefit”. I think it’s wrong to think of the benefit being just the material betterment of the individual making the act, especially in the case of sentient beings. An act like was described in the show, such as environmental conservation, is selfish even if it the alternative would benefit them more, because the person who does it gains a better feeling for themself. Why shouldn’t feeling better about yourself due to some other ‘sacrifice’ you made be counted as a reward? I think that pretty much everything can be found to have some reward to the person who does the act. Someone saying something is altruistic, especially toward their own actions, is likely fooling themself, or intentionally lying to themself about it.
A different selfish
That digression aside, I think the show sets up this lecture on altruism to try to show some dichotomy between Shinichi and Ryouko, and even Migi and Ryouko. It is, of course, a selfish act on the part of the parasites to learn how to not be discovered by humans, or to be more discreet about eating humans. And as I said above, I think that it’s selfish (as in a betterment for the self) for Migi to have decided that killing is largely off the table in dealing with others. But the different ways of selfishness quickly are shown between humans and parasites as Ryouko uses her child as a shield against Shinichi. And Shinichi is incensed by this act in particular due to the death of his own mother. It’s interesting that Shinichi can’t calm down from this antagonism the way he has been able to so often. And while the hole in his heart is easily identified by the fortune reader, maybe Shinichi is misreading what she says too literally, and the hole in his rhetorical heart is actually his split with Satomi, which he just doesn’t make the association with due to his current rage at Ryouko.
A nice lecture gives me the chance for a little soapboxing. I may not go as far as Lazarus Long, who said “Beware of altrusim. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil”, but I think that it’s right to examine motives and rewards and try to figure out what the angle really is. Meanwhile, I don’t know what Shinichi’s going to do now, since it seems like he’s been cast away from everything that has anchored him to his life before. It will be interesting to see where the show goes from here, and whether there will be a final confrontation between Ryouko and Shinichi. Personally, I think that Ryouko is too savvy to get stuck in that kind of situation. She will always have an out, and while she is infuriating to Shinichi, she’s certainly not the biggest threat to him.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 43 comments
Hi, Highway. Regarding altruism, in the end I think it’s a matter of how pessimistic or existentialist we are when discussing the subject. I believe in altruism in the same way I believe in love and compassion: feelings evolved through natural selection to help us protect ourselves as a species. However, I think that saying that if a person who does an altruistic act feels good about it and therefore it was not altruistic but selfish is a bit sophistic. “Feeling good about oneself” is not a valid definition of selfishness, which would entail putting oneself first at the expense of everything else, even though not necessarily by harming others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfishness).
I’ve heard that argument before in anime. It’s the same kind of sophism used to justify killing because there is no objective reason not to kill. This is usually an argument used by totally self-centered characters who are merely trying to justify their desire to kill (in other words, psychopaths), and it’s not valid. We have rules and feelings against killing other people because it’s part of our survival mechanisms as a species, much like good and evil are not abstract concepts, but are also, I believe, biologically defined along the same lines.
So the parasytes’ completely selfish point of view is, in the end, self-destructive, as they seem to be learning (especially Migi).
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Why isn’t it a valid definition of ‘selfishness’? Why is one reward valid, but another reward rejected? In fact your link would argue the other way, in that one derives pleasure from ‘feeling good about oneself’, something that is explicitly described there.
The point I’m making is that ‘altruism’, described as something that someone does either in contravention or without regard for their own self-interest, are actually done in their self-interest (because it makes them feel better). That’s what makes it selfish. Yes, it’s sophistry, but so is any other definition. I just see no reason to draw a line in the middle and say “these motivations are selfish, but these motivations don’t count”, when you could include everything and still be correct.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I think assuming that altruism must be by it’s nature purely selfless diminishes the very facets that make us human. We do lots of things for a list of reasons…taking care of our own children. At it’s very basic, hardest level, we care for our offspring to avoid negative crap from our peers, and the law. But for pretty much everyone, that reason hardly even crosses their minds…
…and then there’s Ryouko…
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 43 comments
Yes, but that can be used to say that all actions are selfish in the sense of justifying the notion that “humans are evil by nature”.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Take a look a the recent history of the Vlogbrothers and the Project for Awesome. It’s altruistic, charitable, and you cannot tell me they don’t get a buzz from it. Heck, they don’t even make that much money from doing Crash Course, but it’s for the purpose of education, a process which gives back to society….
…it’s a mult-faceted thing…
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 43 comments
Again, that’s my point. Saying these projects are selfish because the people who are running them are enjoying to do so doesn’t make sense.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Highway, your belief that if nothing else the reward of an altruistic act is feeling good about oneself while true in most cases doesn’t explain the willingness of soldiers to risk and sometimes lose their lives for their comrades. For example, the guy who throws himself on a grenade to protect his buddies isn’t going survive to feel good about what he’s done.
OTOH, such self-sacrifice does make sense when regarded in evolutionary terms. Evolution doesn’t give a damn about the individual–it’s the group that’s important. And the soldier sacrificing himself helps to preserve the group. Originally this would have been limited to the small band of hominids or later fully modern humans to which an individual belonged, a band whose members would have shared much of the same DNA. But later this extended to tribes and nations. And in combat it’d be especially strong in regards to the squad, platoon and company to which a soldier belongs. There’s very little chance the soldier who sacrifices himself shares DNA in any meaningful way with the rest of his unit, but the evolutionary imperative to protect the group would still remain.
So the act of self-sacrifice is altruistic in the full meaning of the term, but it also makes sense in evolutionary terms.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 43 comments
That’s my point. That’s why I said calling such acts “selfish” because doing them makes one feel good is just a sophistic argument. Feeling good about doing something is not the same as selfishness. Selfishness requires that you profit from the act (and in most cases harm others through it).
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I don’t see why one definition is correct and the other is not. Both are sophistry. What is “profit”? What is “benefit”? I don’t see why declaring an arbitrary line to be ‘here’ is more correct than putting the arbitrary line ‘there’. In both cases, it’s arguing “I know it when I see it.”
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Highway is right that feeling good about yourself is a reward and an altruistic act does give you that reward. However, my point is that sometimes it’s impossible to receive any kind of reward for an altruistic act because the person performing it dies as a result. But it’s clear evolution has equipped us to have the instinct to perform altruistic acts, even sometimes to our great determent. So his contention that there is always some sort of reward in performing an act of altruism is wrong.
I was disappointed that the lecturer in his talk didn’t touch on the evolutionary basis for altruism.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…and a very interesting take on the human mindset, if in a very small scale…she changes her mind and has a drink…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
We humans are creatures of contradiction.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
It’s like the more the story goes, only despair increases. At this point, Murano giving distance is the best thing for her sake. She just wouldn’t understand.
Shinichi’s plan of cornering the P.I was well executed. “Kidnap that fool”. I was pissed at the P.I’s convenient self-righteous chattering. “Giving yourself up for the sake of mankind, even if it means becoming a lab rat” What the hell? It’s not his life on the line. He’s not the one possibly subjected to untold numbers of experimentation. If the roles were reversed, he surely wouldn’t want anyone telling him that. Only shooting off his mouth because he’s in the clear.
I do worry for Shinichi, though. As Ryoko says, he’s not normal anymore. Where she’s steadily becoming more human-like, he’s acting more like a parasite. Before he took the P.I, his facial expression was almost as blank as a recently human-turned parasite.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
This “Sacrifice yourself up for the good of humanity” argument is one that I’ve seen multiple times in anime, and it’s one that is almost universally rejected by the shows, to my delight. Yes, sometimes the characters do end up making the sacrifice, like in Nobunagun, but it wasn’t because people were telling them they needed to do it for all humanity. It’s very easy to tell someone else to do something that is bad for them that will benefit you (perhaps the ultimate subversion of altruism?). But in the end, that should be based on a person’s agency.