Just rewatched Princess Mononoke, and… I’m finding that this is grounded in the same sort of morality as The Fox And The Hound, but dialed up in complexity a bunch?
The Fox and The Hound is about a moral landscape where you have your ingroup, your ingroup sometimes kills people in the outgroup, and that’s just how life is. But occasionally you can make friends with a stranger, and you kinda bring them into your tribe.
Welcoming someone into your home doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to take care of them forever, nor go to bat for them as if they were literally your family.
But in this ingroup-eat-outgroup world, there are occasional glimmers of heroism. People make friends across tribal barriers, and they try to make those friendships work despite the difficulties.
It is possible for a fox to remember his friendship with a hound, and decide that it’s worth fighting a bear to save his friend. This is a simple enough moral decision that it is just at the edge of a literal-fox’s ability to glimpse it, and decide to be a hero.
And it is these little flickers of heroism that that slowly push the moral landscape from an ingroup-eat-outgroup world, to a world where people’s circle of concern is broader, and more complex relations between tribes can evolve.
...
Princess Mononoke is a world where different tribes of humans and spirits are trying to make a home for themselves. Sometimes, other tribes (of humans, or spirits) want resources in your territory and try to fight you for it.
There is heroism within a tribe, as people struggle to survive and thrive. Ingroups grow – Lady Eboshi makes the choice to rescue lepers and whores. She sees potential in them, and she forges them into Iron Town, aiming to make a better life for them than they had before.
But between groups lie zero-sum-games. To survive, they must cut down the forest, and go to war against the spirits.
The spirits are… perhaps “natural”, but their morality isn’t much different. They defend their tribe, they fight, they kill, they eat. They are at war with the humans and they are losing, but in a slightly different timeline they might have been winning, and they wouldn’t treat the humans any better than the humans are treating them.
Miyazaki intends there to be _something_ special about the spirits that the humans aren’t respecting, which affects the ecosystem. But, fundamentally this is a moral landscape where no one has the slack or abundance to really think about ecosystems or how to negotiate towards peace.
And into this world comes Ashitaka the traveler, who walks among different tribes. Different people welcome him briefly into their homes, and he treats them with respect and they respect him, but he is not one of them. But he crosses between enough circles of concern to see...
...there is something really sad about this world where people war over limited resources, killing each other to better themselves.
In his heart, is a little glimpse of something better.
He’s smarter than Todd the Fox. Todd the fox seems a simple fight between his friend and a bear, and he saves his friend. Ashitaka sees a world of decades-long conflict and there is no simple solution, and he doesn’t really have a very good plan for fixing anything. He stumbles his way into different conflicts and sees people hurting and tries locally to help the people in front of him.
But soon he’s made friends with each of them. And as they are all locked in conflict, his efforts to help just shuffles the damage around.
With a bit of luck, by the skin of his teeth, his efforts lead to a world that is a bit better and more peaceful. For now.
His confused, bumbling heroism inches the world slightly towards a moral landscape where people can think longer term, consider (somewhat) the value of the ecosystem, form trading partnerships with more people, and build a better world.
It isn’t much. It’s still mostly an ingroup-eat-outgroup world. I think Lady Eboshi does more to improve the world than Ashitaka does – she’s a clever leader, she’s able to make actually good plans, she’s able to establish trade relations from a position of power. She doesn’t try to help everyone, she doesn’t overextend, she doesn’t bumble her way through conflict. She slowly builds an empire where she can take care of people.
But, in little spurts of heroism, the intersection of people like Lady Eboshi, and people like Ashitaka, inches the world towards the sort of morality that I care about.
Just rewatched Princess Mononoke, and… I’m finding that this is grounded in the same sort of morality as The Fox And The Hound, but dialed up in complexity a bunch?
The Fox and The Hound is about a moral landscape where you have your ingroup, your ingroup sometimes kills people in the outgroup, and that’s just how life is. But occasionally you can make friends with a stranger, and you kinda bring them into your tribe.
Welcoming someone into your home doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to take care of them forever, nor go to bat for them as if they were literally your family.
But in this ingroup-eat-outgroup world, there are occasional glimmers of heroism. People make friends across tribal barriers, and they try to make those friendships work despite the difficulties.
It is possible for a fox to remember his friendship with a hound, and decide that it’s worth fighting a bear to save his friend. This is a simple enough moral decision that it is just at the edge of a literal-fox’s ability to glimpse it, and decide to be a hero.
And it is these little flickers of heroism that that slowly push the moral landscape from an ingroup-eat-outgroup world, to a world where people’s circle of concern is broader, and more complex relations between tribes can evolve.
...
Princess Mononoke is a world where different tribes of humans and spirits are trying to make a home for themselves. Sometimes, other tribes (of humans, or spirits) want resources in your territory and try to fight you for it.
There is heroism within a tribe, as people struggle to survive and thrive. Ingroups grow – Lady Eboshi makes the choice to rescue lepers and whores. She sees potential in them, and she forges them into Iron Town, aiming to make a better life for them than they had before.
But between groups lie zero-sum-games. To survive, they must cut down the forest, and go to war against the spirits.
The spirits are… perhaps “natural”, but their morality isn’t much different. They defend their tribe, they fight, they kill, they eat. They are at war with the humans and they are losing, but in a slightly different timeline they might have been winning, and they wouldn’t treat the humans any better than the humans are treating them.
Miyazaki intends there to be _something_ special about the spirits that the humans aren’t respecting, which affects the ecosystem. But, fundamentally this is a moral landscape where no one has the slack or abundance to really think about ecosystems or how to negotiate towards peace.
And into this world comes Ashitaka the traveler, who walks among different tribes. Different people welcome him briefly into their homes, and he treats them with respect and they respect him, but he is not one of them. But he crosses between enough circles of concern to see...
...there is something really sad about this world where people war over limited resources, killing each other to better themselves.
In his heart, is a little glimpse of something better.
He’s smarter than Todd the Fox. Todd the fox seems a simple fight between his friend and a bear, and he saves his friend. Ashitaka sees a world of decades-long conflict and there is no simple solution, and he doesn’t really have a very good plan for fixing anything. He stumbles his way into different conflicts and sees people hurting and tries locally to help the people in front of him.
But soon he’s made friends with each of them. And as they are all locked in conflict, his efforts to help just shuffles the damage around.
With a bit of luck, by the skin of his teeth, his efforts lead to a world that is a bit better and more peaceful. For now.
His confused, bumbling heroism inches the world slightly towards a moral landscape where people can think longer term, consider (somewhat) the value of the ecosystem, form trading partnerships with more people, and build a better world.
It isn’t much. It’s still mostly an ingroup-eat-outgroup world. I think Lady Eboshi does more to improve the world than Ashitaka does – she’s a clever leader, she’s able to make actually good plans, she’s able to establish trade relations from a position of power. She doesn’t try to help everyone, she doesn’t overextend, she doesn’t bumble her way through conflict. She slowly builds an empire where she can take care of people.
But, in little spurts of heroism, the intersection of people like Lady Eboshi, and people like Ashitaka, inches the world towards the sort of morality that I care about.
This is a great review of one of my favorite movies. Thanks for posting it!