Saturday, October 17, 2009

Justice

As far as Seinen manga go, SIDOOH episode 0 is pretty hard on. It paints a feudal japan just after the americans have made contact, a world of suffering and disease and death.

http://www.onemanga.com/Sidooh/0/02/ And this is my creative response to it.
[Edit:] I guess it's like the half filled glass of water. 

The mother of the protagonists is sick with cholera. A priest persuades her to use her last energy to speak to her sons. She tells them: "This world is unfair. If' you're weak, you die." She's right of course. In the world of men past and current, the weak die, crushed under the powerful, the wealthy, the strong. But her statement is incorrect. In her place I would argue that the world is unforgiving, and that if you are weak, you die. But there is a certain justice in the inescapability of death. All die. Rich, poor, wise and foolish, arrogant and humble, generous and cruel, none can overcome death, postponing it is the most one can hope for.  This justice is universal, but, like she says, it is also universally unfair. (an interesting concept, unfair justice, and not one that we are unaccustomed to, but that's another story.) Death feels for no one, spares no one, no matter how much you try to fight it, or how far you run. It kills the pure and innocent newborn just as easily as the murderer, or the athlete about to reach the highlight of his life.

Hmm... life is like a tunnel, or a dungeon. One way in, one way out.

So is death mostly just or mostly unjust? Not everyone gets to live but everyone gets to die. Conversely, Not everyone deserves to live but everyone gets to die. Remove the invariables, and your answer is this: not all live that should and not all that should live.

That's the definition of injustice. Or at least, inconsistent justice. Another oxymoron that we're more than familiar with.

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