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It makes me deeply happy to see this here. Miyazaki's mind is truly unique (and by extension most Ghibli films too), nothing else quite compares (and as the aut

It makes me deeply happy to see this here. Miyazaki's mind is truly unique (and by extension most Ghibli films too), nothing else quite compares (and as the author points out, certainly not Disney & co. despite being Ghibli's distributors in the West). I've introduced many people to Ghibli, a lot of whom would have never even considered watching an animated film (even less so a foreign one), and most came away truly touched. Miyazaki is anti-war, but he's also extremely pro-ecology as is obvious in most of his films (Nausicaa is an obvious one, but perhaps more obvious would be Pom Poko or Totoro). Broadly speaking, he advocates balance in all its forms. A lot of his main protagonists are strong female characters, and not the "overly girly unicorn princess with magical powers" kind. Violence, like greed, is a disease as opposed to an end (in fact those two concepts are often expressed together in his films, e.g. Spirited Away). But maybe the best accomplishment in most, if not all, of Miyazaki's work, is his ability to capture the interest and the imagination of the viewers without resorting to cheesy gimmicks, gratuitous violence or sexual innuendos, which seem to be the go-to for a lot of cinema (animation and otherwise, Western and Eastern).

shadowmoses 11y ago
In his own words, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of "preserving the balance", and I've seen that notion show up elsewhere as well. Evil should not persist out of any sense of balance, and nothing goes horribly wrong with the world if evil ceases altogether.
  - ectoplasm 11y ago
    The point is that what you consider evil, somebody else considers good, and vice versa. Furthermore, we define good in terms of evil and evil in terms of good. The existence of one necessitates the existence of the other, whether in the past, present, or future.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      That's weak. You can go down a definitional hole and say someone might consider anything good. Fact remains that things like, I dunno, torturing children and slaughtering villages are things that we'd be perfectly fine eliminating. We'd be A-OK without having people that have, as the near entirety of their existence, hunger and pain. Even in nature, there isn't a real balance. Any perceived balance is simply the result of ongoing fighting and current stalemates. When things go "out of balance", groups or species go extinct and things move on. Absolutely nothing in nature is stopping a species from taking over the entire planet, consuming all resources, then going extinct. And personally, I don't define good in terms of evil. Like a silly saying of defining light in terms of darkness (uh, no, I'll define it as certain energy bands or something, thanks). Unless you meant this on a conceptual level, like, if we had never heard of the concept of insanity, it might be hard to say we value sanity since it'd just be an unquestioned state of affairs. I don't find that a very useful definition as far as a course for action goes; we'd be quite fine eliminating "evil".
      - ectoplasm 11y ago
        I mean at the conceptual level. So many things are defined in terms of their opposite. If we have no knowledge, understanding, definition, experience of evil, we don't have a benchmark against which to compare our actions and make sure they are different. Hopefully once understood, it stays remembered but in the past.
        JoshTriplett 11y ago
        That much is true; we shouldn't forget what evil is, lest we painfully rediscover it, but even if we define good as its absence, there's no reason we can't maintain that absence. Much like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio... , we can talk about things without enacting them.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  How does one "preserve the balance"? Could you provide an example action you might take that is preserving this balance? I'm having trouble turning this into anything useful, other than a generic, general sort of "don't be hateful and rash; think things through; sides aren't perfect" kinda thing.
  - rwallace 11y ago
    The word 'balance' is vague and overused, to be sure. Here's my suggestion for a kind of action: if you have to respond to aggression, make the response targeted and limited to what is necessary. For example, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the right thing to do was use the military force necessary to kick him out. It should have stopped there. It should not have continued with twelve years of economic sanctions that condemned hundreds of thousands of civilians to death followed by an invasion and regime change that created a power vacuum leading to the rise of one of the worst regimes since the Nazis.
    - pekk 11y ago
      Well, Saddam's was one of the worst regimes since the Nazis. We really can't do anything right as far as intervention, at some point we have to accept we can't make things work out in other people's countries and there will always be evil rulers we can't do anything about.
      - rwallace 11y ago
        > Well, Saddam's was one of the worst regimes since the Nazis. Saddam was a villain to be sure, but as far as people actually living in Iraq were concerned, his regime was nowhere near as bad as what followed. For some reasons why, check out http://riverbendblog.blogspot.ie/ http://riverbendblog.blogspot.ie/ > We really can't do anything right as far as intervention, at some point we have to accept we can't make things work out in other people's countries and there will always be evil rulers we can't do anything about. I agree completely.
- shadowmoses 11y ago
  Here is the full quote, "When I say 'hero' do not picture someone with the strength to fight and conquer Evil -because Evil is not something that can ever be conquered or defeated, Evil is natural. It is innate in all humans. But while it can't be defeated, it can be controlled. In order to control it, and live the life of a true hero, you must learn to see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two." Source: "The Whisper Within: Zen and Self" (p. 150)
bane 11y ago
Spirited away is probably one of the most creative, beautiful films I've ever seen. Part of what makes it so rewarding are the fantastic landscapes it paints and the amazing adventure it portrays, but there's also an entire other level of symbolism in it that you don't have to know to thoroughly enjoy it. http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol8No2/boydShinto.htm http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol8No2/boydShinto.htm
glandium 11y ago
Please note that Pompoko is not a Miyazaki movie. It is Takahata's.

shadowmoses 11y ago

In his own words, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of "preserving the balance", and I've seen that notion show up elsewhere as well. Evil should not persist out of any sense of balance, and nothing goes horribly wrong with the world if evil ceases altogether.
- ectoplasm 11y ago
  The point is that what you consider evil, somebody else considers good, and vice versa. Furthermore, we define good in terms of evil and evil in terms of good. The existence of one necessitates the existence of the other, whether in the past, present, or future.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    That's weak. You can go down a definitional hole and say someone might consider anything good. Fact remains that things like, I dunno, torturing children and slaughtering villages are things that we'd be perfectly fine eliminating. We'd be A-OK without having people that have, as the near entirety of their existence, hunger and pain. Even in nature, there isn't a real balance. Any perceived balance is simply the result of ongoing fighting and current stalemates. When things go "out of balance", groups or species go extinct and things move on. Absolutely nothing in nature is stopping a species from taking over the entire planet, consuming all resources, then going extinct. And personally, I don't define good in terms of evil. Like a silly saying of defining light in terms of darkness (uh, no, I'll define it as certain energy bands or something, thanks). Unless you meant this on a conceptual level, like, if we had never heard of the concept of insanity, it might be hard to say we value sanity since it'd just be an unquestioned state of affairs. I don't find that a very useful definition as far as a course for action goes; we'd be quite fine eliminating "evil".
    - ectoplasm 11y ago
      I mean at the conceptual level. So many things are defined in terms of their opposite. If we have no knowledge, understanding, definition, experience of evil, we don't have a benchmark against which to compare our actions and make sure they are different. Hopefully once understood, it stays remembered but in the past.
      - JoshTriplett 11y ago
        That much is true; we shouldn't forget what evil is, lest we painfully rediscover it, but even if we define good as its absence, there's no reason we can't maintain that absence. Much like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio... , we can talk about things without enacting them.
MichaelGG 11y ago
How does one "preserve the balance"? Could you provide an example action you might take that is preserving this balance? I'm having trouble turning this into anything useful, other than a generic, general sort of "don't be hateful and rash; think things through; sides aren't perfect" kinda thing.
- rwallace 11y ago
  The word 'balance' is vague and overused, to be sure. Here's my suggestion for a kind of action: if you have to respond to aggression, make the response targeted and limited to what is necessary. For example, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the right thing to do was use the military force necessary to kick him out. It should have stopped there. It should not have continued with twelve years of economic sanctions that condemned hundreds of thousands of civilians to death followed by an invasion and regime change that created a power vacuum leading to the rise of one of the worst regimes since the Nazis.
  - pekk 11y ago
    Well, Saddam's was one of the worst regimes since the Nazis. We really can't do anything right as far as intervention, at some point we have to accept we can't make things work out in other people's countries and there will always be evil rulers we can't do anything about.
    - rwallace 11y ago
      > Well, Saddam's was one of the worst regimes since the Nazis. Saddam was a villain to be sure, but as far as people actually living in Iraq were concerned, his regime was nowhere near as bad as what followed. For some reasons why, check out http://riverbendblog.blogspot.ie/ http://riverbendblog.blogspot.ie/ > We really can't do anything right as far as intervention, at some point we have to accept we can't make things work out in other people's countries and there will always be evil rulers we can't do anything about. I agree completely.
shadowmoses 11y ago
Here is the full quote, "When I say 'hero' do not picture someone with the strength to fight and conquer Evil -because Evil is not something that can ever be conquered or defeated, Evil is natural. It is innate in all humans. But while it can't be defeated, it can be controlled. In order to control it, and live the life of a true hero, you must learn to see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two." Source: "The Whisper Within: Zen and Self" (p. 150)

bane 11y ago

Spirited away is probably one of the most creative, beautiful films I've ever seen. Part of what makes it so rewarding are the fantastic landscapes it paints and the amazing adventure it portrays, but there's also an entire other level of symbolism in it that you don't have to know to thoroughly enjoy it. http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol8No2/boydShinto.htm http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol8No2/boydShinto.htm

glandium 11y ago

Please note that Pompoko is not a Miyazaki movie. It is Takahata's.