[愛と和] History’s sense of black humour, and love and harmony
There ought to be a word for Japanese films in which two people fall in love, and then nothing much happens.
A screencapture of the official website of the film "Yamazakura" (山桜), based on a novel written by Fujisawa Shūhei (藤沢周平).
A while ago, I was watching Yamazakura (2008), an above-average film in which two people fall in love, and then nothing much happens. Before that, I was watching The Invitation from Cinema Orion (2007), an average film in which two people fall in love, and then nothing much happens. There are many other Japanese films in which the love story is characterized by what never happened (I mean this in a positive way). These films are a genre in themselves.
History’s sense of black humour
Before I go on, I would like to take a moment to mention the two people – Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I think it must be history’s sense of black humour that just when all the traditional barriers to love such as class, wealth, religion, race and nationality fell apart to a large extent (though not entirely) after the WWI, this pair came along and turned “freedom” itself into a barrier to love.
Personally, I found their idea of “freedom” dubious, but I suppose one must give them credit for managing to turn “freedom” into a prison. I say it is a prison because it seems that under their credo you have the freedom to do what whatever you like… except for the freedom to refrain from doing whatever you like.
Love and harmony
The Japanese humorist Harada Munenori [原田宗典] once mused in his writing that the translation of “love” as ai [愛] back in the Meiji era was a mistake; instead, the more correct expression should have been the word wa [和], or “harmony”. So instead of a girlfriend asking her boyfriend, “do you love me?” [愛してる?], she would ask, “do we harmonize?” [和してる?] and he in turn would reply, “yup, we are harmonized” [うん、和してるよ]. And instead of saying things “love will save the world,” you would say “harmony will save the world”.*
The below is just my opinion. If you look at the word wa, it is comprised of the words for “thousand” [千] and “mouth” [口]. In other words, harmony is made of a thousand voices. Naturally, these thousand voices may all say different things. This makes me think of Yoshinaga Fumi’s Ôoku, a manga series I have been reading. You can read more my introduction of this series here.
Love and limitation in Ôoku
Screencapture from the official website of the manga "Ôoku". The above image shows (among other things) the third female shogun Tsunayoshi and Emonnosuke (her chief manager of Ôoku) with their backs facing each other.
My impression is that Ôoku is about the display of love by limiting it – ie. you express love by prescribing a limitation of what you can or cannot do, and contain love within that limited circumference. In Ôoku, love tends to come in the form of non-doing instead of doing, and the love stories tend to be more characterized by what did not happen instead of what did happen.
Another way of looking at it is that love does not take place in a vacuum in this story. The characters do or do not certain things because in their love they have to accommodate a thousand voices. These voices do not just from the outside, but from inside themselves as well. Even within the same woman, there may not only be one voice, but many voices as a mother, a daughter, a stateswoman.
In Ôoku, you would have thought that a harem of the opposite sex and political power to go with it would mean unlimited choice. But limitless choice is just an illusion – I encourage you all to read and find out why it is so. I said before that I am not good at talking about these things, so I can only resort to borrowing someone else’s words:
“Free love would be conceivable only if everyone were capable of the highest moral achievement. The idea of free love was not invented with this aim in view, but merely to make something difficult appear easy. Love requires depth and loyalty of feeling, without them it is not love but mere caprice. True love will always commit itself itself and engage in lasting ties; it needs freedom only to effect its choice, not for its accomplishment. The lover sacrifices all other possibilities, or rather, the illusion that such possibilities exist.” – Marie-Louise von Franze, Aspects of the Feminine.
For avoidance of doubt, this is not a flaming post about people’s lifestyles. I wrote this post mainly to drum up more interest in Ôoku. That is all.
* See Harada Munenori’s book Watashi wo Kaeta Hitokoto [私を変えた一言] for detail.
food for thought here…interesting stuff.
animekritik:
Thanks for letting me know. I was a bit worried that the post may seem too desultory at first, and people would not read till the end to see how the threads come together…
The Daily Mail is very sensationalist in its reporting so I avoid it (and this article, I’m sorry, I was very much put off by its whiff of sexism or at least, unpleasant condescension – why “Sartre,” but refer to the woman in the relationship by her personal name? It’s de Beauvoir in common usage, ugh the more I dwell on it the more it bothers me so I will stop here), but I’m also a jaded person, so I can only shrug at Sartre and de Beauvoir. Their freedom seems so self-indulgent and even narrow-minded. Like I said, shrug.
The concept of love is so…funny. It’s so idealized, but like you pointed out in the case of Ooku, it’s really dependent on a lot of different factors that is so far from any romantic ideal.
I’m a very jaded person, so don’t mind me too much ^^;
Oh but I just realized my tone is pretty negative. I didn’t mean to impugn you in any way by trash-talking The Daily Mail, but that wasn’t my intention, sorry if it came across that way.
Tan:
You pointed out the very problem I faced when I was writing the above post. I am no fan of S&B. I tried to read their books once upon a time but found them to be uninspiring. Naturally I would rather spend the least amount of time writing about their lives and ideas. This leaves me with referring to external sources as a shortcut. I looked around but found none that struck me as having the right amount of indignation. It was with long deliberation and great difficulty that I chose The Daily Mail – partly because The Daily Mail (for all its faults) seems to be closest to the voice of sanity on this particular topic. S&B, for better or worse, embody our Zeistgeist, and to this day they have their ardent followers in both creed and practice. But The Daily Mail does not give a damn about any of that.
Sorry to double post, but I forgot to mention that I did check out the more “respectable” papers like The New York Times, The Guardian and The Spectator, but none explicitly mentioned two particular points I wanted the reader to be aware of:
1) S&B legitimized to a large extent the Godless and permissive society we now live.
2) S began to be drawn to the idea of God before his death, and B was appalled because it would mean that their life’s work would be undone.
None but The Daily Mail mentioned the above. I hope this explains my difficult choice. I apologize if the article I linked to as reference offended you.
Wabisabi,
No need to apologize! It’s the article I had a problem with, not your post or your linking to it. I disagree with the points that it makes, but reading the article was interesting enough.
Tan:
No problem. Noted with thanks.
“S&B legitimized to a large extent the Godless and permissive society we now live.”
Ultimately, though, I would say it is the development of culture that’s “at fault”. The 18th and 19th centuries reached such a point of refinement and sensitivity, that the traditional deities seemed boorish by comparison. As Nietzsche says, one can condemn most gods by virtue of the very moralities that they supposedly have revealed… But if these gods don’t make sense, then morality itself has no absolute ground on which to stand on, therefore nothing is forbidden anymore etc..
animekritik:
> Ultimately, though, I would say it is the development of culture that’s “at fault”.
For a celebrity couple who has gone out of the way so much to champion their cause as S&B have, I think they would be very much disappointed that “culture” at large was credited for the outcome instead of their individual efforts.
> The 18th and 19th centuries reached such a point of refinement and sensitivity, that the traditional deities seemed boorish by comparison.
I think the great question back then evolved around rationality and its implications for free will and existence of God. “Refinement” is an individual accomplishment and “sensitivity” is an individual disposition. I think the issue was not whether the “traditional deities” were “boorish” (have they ever been “stylish,” which I take to be the opposite of “boorish” before?). I think I can see the point you try to make though you used those words loosely. Please correct me if I assumed wrongly and I apologize in advance if the above sounded harsh.
> As Nietzsche says, one can condemn most gods by virtue of the very moralities that they supposedly have revealed… But if these gods don’t make sense, then morality itself has no absolute ground on which to stand on, therefore nothing is forbidden anymore etc..
I think I can see that you are only trying to explain where their idea came from (and that it is not your intent to advocate such things).
For the record, I never agreed with Nietzsche either.
Wabisabi:
I agree that S&B wouldn’t be happy if they thought themselves belittled.
Refinement might be the wrong word, sensitivity is more like it. Sensitivity out of which benevolence and empathy are born, say.
There’s a criticism of religion in terms of rationalism that leads many to deism, but as many religious people have argued, once you strip the deity of personality you’re but one step away from atheism (eg Spinoza with his “God, or Nature”).
But this is the intellectual criticism. What I was talking about is the criticism that any common person can make of religion: “the holy books state that the deity was angry and he ordered such and such nations to be annihilated. Whoa! I am far more sensitive and moral than that. Therefore this god can’t be god.” or “The existence of hell is immoral, because no sin is worth eternal punishment”. Therefore, the gods are not to be trusted, they don’t exist But again, if the gods don’t exist, then who’s to say which morality is correct. There’s no absolute standard, therefore everything is permitted etc.
Hopefully the comment isn’t too long!! Interesting topic, to be sure..
On the “boorish” thing, I know many people who make fun of traditional deities as precisely that. “Uncouth” is another word that comes to mind. What’s interesting is that they condemn god/s based on the moral standard that their own religious upbringing gave them!
animekritik:
I think I see your point. Noted with thanks.
It was a bit of confusing post in the beginning but in the end I saw how they tie together. Now to get in the previous discussion: isn’t a bit too much to claim that only two people are to ‘blaim’ for our godless and permissive society?
About the godless part: I don’t see atheism bad. As long as people have values of (self-) respect in them to treasure. Because in the end no god will save you, no god is almighty and god is after all a human creation. It began as an explanation of the world, because people are scared of the unknown and giving names ,comforts. Then it turned as an authority-keepsaker of morality. BUT can the lovely father be a tremendous and horrifying punisher at the same time? Is punishment and guilt helping to improve the world? Psychologists claim that violence only reproduces violence to the one generation onto the next only because hurt people feel the need to hurt others in order to keep their sanity…
About the permissive part: sure no one can do as (s)he pleases because that destroys the connectivity of society and turns it into a jungle. Although I’m not sure that civilisation ever existed in the end. It sounds pretty harsh or silly, but if one reconsiders, human societies have adapted the law of the powerful:only powerful individuals can do as they please. Anyway, that’s another topic. What I wanted to say here is mainly that what happened during the centuries is that people realised they can break off the rules and the cliches which confined their desires. To be just I’d say their ‘true selves’, as desires always are more than what can be realised and not always ‘orthological’. For definition of ‘true self’ see Winnicott.
To sum up, I’m not sure if I’m in topic, godless society is a result of a whole chain of events (like the deaths and pain , the insanity and the dead ends that WWs have brought)and permissive society has to do with the break-down of the traditional family and society.
ayame:
> isn’t a bit too much to claim that only two people are to ‘blaim’ for our godless and permissive society?
I know it may sound unbelievable now but the two were huge celebrities who worked at popularizing just that. Even if they did not come up with all the ideas themselves (ie. the roots trace back to Nietzsche’s works etc), they were certainly the ones who made it popular and chic, and rubbed it into you that you must be boring, conventional and bourgeois if you did not follow their lead.
It’s like when you now mention the name “Hermann Hesse” and most people born after 1980 would just go “huh?” (Hermann Hesse was big name during the hippie movement.)
I have removed the link to the Daily Mail now. For information, please go to the library or a well-stocked bookstore.
I never said atheism is a bad thing. Please note again that there were two points to what I what I wanted to mention:
“1) S&B legitimized to a large extent the Godless and permissive society we now live.
2) S began to be drawn to the idea of God before his death, and B was appalled because it would mean that their life’s work would be undone.”
The issue was not whether *I* personally think God exists or not, but whether *Sartre* thinks God exists or not, and how a critical reader would interpret his works in light of his attitude to God before his death.
I am not sure where your whole speech about desires and true selves came from. All I said in the post is that love can be expressed in non-doing, and love stories can be characterized by what never happened. I also gave the context that the Japanese films and the manga Ooku were examples of this idea expressed. The “true self” (whatever that is) can be expressed by what one refrains from doing too.
BTW, devastating events on the scale of WWI & II have happened before (think the fall of the Roman Empire, the Black Death etc). One could equally argue that disasters make people turn to religion more than before.
I was wondering what the sort of discussion you suspected this post may generate and chuckled when you wrote at the end “this is not a flaming post about people’s lifestyles”. (I apologize.) I guess you saw that people would use it as a springboard for… well, a lot of other things. You just saw it coming, didn’t you?
Again, I apologize for chuckling but I was really amused, _knowing you_.
Etienne:
I have learned my lesson and will not attempt to blog about love again.
-_-
Ah-ha-ha… ;)
Etienne:
*sigh*
One false step and an eternity of regret indeed. -_-
I won’t use external sources on the internet that I am not entirely satisfied with again either.
“For the record, I never agreed with Nietzsche either.”
That’s why I thought that you were against atheism. I’m sorry I misunderstood, but perhaps I made you misunderstand as well. I didn’t mean to flame you, I was just stating my opinion. I wanted just to discuss further. Did it seem like I was attacking?
I also get the feeling you got a false impression about me mentioning desires and ‘true self’. It wasn’t meant as a speech :( I just thought it fitted the frame of discussion about permissive society. I was just continuing the topic from the previous posts, since they focused on S&B and their ideas and not so much on the notion of love. That’s why I mentioned that perhaps I’m out of topic.
About a future post about love, don’t get negative please. It’s always an interesting topic and there’s much food for thinking.