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Long read, but some real gems in there. The ideas that seem to animate Miyazaki’s movies, if you’ll pardon the pun, feel a lot like the ideas that animate most

Long read, but some real gems in there. The ideas that seem to animate Miyazaki’s movies, if you’ll pardon the pun, feel a lot like the ideas that animate most of Jordan Peterson’s lectures. Life is a relentless and unmitigated tragedy, and yet we manage to find (or create!) beauty and wonder all over the place. The author seems to think this acute awareness of the paradox that is life comes from growing up in postwar Japan; I can see how that experience might have been a major influence.

earthboundkid 5y ago
Miyazaki is a literal communist. He supports the JCP. It’s the subtext of like half of Studio Ghibli movies.
- jbay808 5y ago
  Worth mentioning that the JCP is much more of a major mainstream party in Japan than communist parties are in most, or perhaps any, other western developed country. Miyazaki himself also became somewhat more moderate in the early 90s while working on Nausicaa.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    Eh, "major mainstream" is pushing it. They have 0.5% of the seats in the Diet, approximately similar representation in local government, and have never been part of a ruling coalition. Their membership is geriatric and their vote share slowly declining as well. AFAICT, the main reason they command any support is their staunch pacifism/anti-militarism, not economic policy. Many post-Communist parties in Europe, like Germany's die Linke, have done much better. But unlike the JCP, they've also employed branding consultants and dropped the word "Communist", the hammers and sickles, etc.
    - jbay808 5y ago
      They have about 270,000 members. Between both Diet houses they have 23 seats in total, which is 3.2%, not 0.5%. Their share of the popular vote was over 13% in 2014. By any measures that's massively more successful than, say, the Canadian Green Party.
  - thrdbndndn 5y ago
    JCP is not a mainstream party.
- seanstrom 5y ago
  I think they meant his psychological analysis of Disney movies that are on YouTube. Not JP’s political lectures or etc.

earthboundkid 5y ago

Miyazaki is a literal communist. He supports the JCP. It’s the subtext of like half of Studio Ghibli movies.

jbay808 5y ago
Worth mentioning that the JCP is much more of a major mainstream party in Japan than communist parties are in most, or perhaps any, other western developed country. Miyazaki himself also became somewhat more moderate in the early 90s while working on Nausicaa.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  Eh, "major mainstream" is pushing it. They have 0.5% of the seats in the Diet, approximately similar representation in local government, and have never been part of a ruling coalition. Their membership is geriatric and their vote share slowly declining as well. AFAICT, the main reason they command any support is their staunch pacifism/anti-militarism, not economic policy. Many post-Communist parties in Europe, like Germany's die Linke, have done much better. But unlike the JCP, they've also employed branding consultants and dropped the word "Communist", the hammers and sickles, etc.
  - jbay808 5y ago
    They have about 270,000 members. Between both Diet houses they have 23 seats in total, which is 3.2%, not 0.5%. Their share of the popular vote was over 13% in 2014. By any measures that's massively more successful than, say, the Canadian Green Party.
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  JCP is not a mainstream party.
seanstrom 5y ago
I think they meant his psychological analysis of Disney movies that are on YouTube. Not JP’s political lectures or etc.