#oh look at me pretending to be smart and googling ethical theories

[italiantea]

trying to unpack fushiguro's weirdass moral compass instead of sleeping

it's megumi brainrot hours again let's gooo

based on memory because I can't be bothered to get specific quotes rn, here's what we know about fushiguro's view on saving people, in chronological order:

he has no intention of saving 'bad people' e.g. unlicensed drivers who hit little children with their cars

the reasoning he provides for 1 is 'what if the person you save ends up killing another person?'

he wants to provide fairness to as many 'good people' as possible

jujutsu sorcerers are not heroes. they exist in a unique position where no one can truly judge them

he chooses who he wants to save based on his own conscience, and doesn't really care if that decision is right or wrong

there are some obvious inconsistencies in this. based on 2 and 3, it would seem like his reasoning is consequentialist: he wants the most 'good people' to benefit from his actions. if someone else is harmed as a result, then he would feel responsible.

however, his decision to save itadori despite his great potential to harm other people immediately contradicts this reasoning. at first he has no good answer to why he saved him, and after contemplation he settles on 4 and 5.

so here's how I see it. based on his behaviour in middle school, we can see that fushiguro has a childish black and white view on morality. he splits people into either 'good' or ’bad’, and can't handle dealing with either type. he's so repulsed by 'bad people' that he went out of his way to beat up all the delinquents at school even though they didn't do anything to him personally. he also considers tsumiki, his older sister and only remaining family member, to be a 'model good person'.

one thing to consider is how important figures (like close family members) influence a person's worldview. for example, itadori's grandfather's dying wish and kamo's status as heir of a prestigious family are both powerful driving forces in shaping what the characters deem as 'the right thing to do'.

in contrast, fushiguro is a very private and self reliant person. unlike most other kids, he doesn't have a typical guardian figure to rely on to guide him (gojou aside— that man's moral compass is pretty wack anyway and as a young adult+the busy strongest sorcerer he most likely couldn't be a proper parental figure for him either) tsumiki tries to act her part as the older sister, but seeing as she's a non-sorcerer, there's a lot of things he can't go to her for guidance for. this is probably why his worldview is so black and white; he's had to rely solely on his own judgement without considering other people's opinions. having dealt with jujutsu related bs since childhood, he's learned that he can't afford to be indecisive, he can only rely on himself and stand by his own choices.

I think fushiguro entered jujutsu tech with this kind of childish moral compass. at the start of the series, he's only been enrolled for a few months. with all things going normally, he probably hasn't encountered moral dilemmas quite on the level of 'what if the good person you save is hosting an evil bloodthirsty demon inside him'. even the detention center example is pretty cut and dry— someone who purposely and repeatedly engages in reckless driving, and has already harmed an innocent child can be pretty solidly put in the 'bad people' category without much contention. so far he can still say his reasoning is to save as many good people as possible, and someone who is likely to harm other people in the future is not worth saving.

this is when itadori comes into the mix. though by his reasoning itadori's life should not be saved, he realizes that he can't stand to let him die. this is for two reasons: 1. itadori is what he classifies as a 'good person', and he wants to save good people. 2. he feels personally responsible for itadori's situation, as he swallowed the finger to help save him on a mission.

this is probably the first time he's had to confront such a moral dilemma, and throughout the series we can see him settling in his decision. he decides that despite the immense risk of harming innocent people in the future, he will save anyone he deems to be a good person. despite what he said about the detention center case, he's willing to risk innocent people's lives in the process of standing by his choice to save someone. this is reminiscent of virtue ethics, namely the idea that ’if you are a good person, you will do good things, and to be good, you must do good' and 'we do not do good things because of an analysis of the end result or of an equation to decide how many people to help versus harm. Rather, we do the right thing, or good thing, because of our good character as demonstrated throughout our life.' (source)

all in all I think a lot of factors shaped fushiguro's worldview into what it is. the unique role jujutsu sorcerers play in the world, being aware of the unfairness of the world from a young age, the lack of close guiding figures, his own strong sense of self reliance and responsibility... etc. tsumiki's curse also plays a role in this; she's his only remaining family member, one of the few people he holds dear. tsumiki, a 'model good person' is someone he has a personal bias in trying to save. in other words, his fixation on saving 'good people' stems from his desperation to save 'people like tsumiki'.

anyway jujutsu kaisen is about a lot of things but mainly it asks the question 'if we placed the safety of humanity in the hands of a ridiculously strong minority of unstable traumatized teenagers would that be fucked up or what' and the answer is yes

[annetteblog]

I got a very long ask and wrote even longer reply, and now Tumblr for some reason doesn't want to publish it through asks. So I'm making a separate post, because what else can I do? 😀 I hope Anon wouldn't mind

Hi!

Thank you for such a long ask! I really enjoy replying those, although it may take some time to actually write whatever I have on my mind 🙂 However, I feel like for every question that you posed, it's possible to write its own big reply or even an essay, so this piece of mine probably won’t give them justice (but I’ll try my best.)

As usual, one big IMO.

1) Ethics, “gueer coding” and discussions

I believe I’ve already partly touched this subject here. Shortly, I think that everything the boys did (and still do) had its own purpose. They decided to put these "undertones" (or whatever one may call them) in their art. They made some statements with a very small room for interpretation. And it didn't happen once or twice. More like, it's been a consistent behaviour throughout years.

I don't buy this excuse some fans write - "oh, he just didn't know about this/didn't understand how it looked like/didn't..." So apparently, JK wasn't able to figure out shit about Troye, didn't give a damn about his GCF, didn't think how his tattoo looked like; JM didn't realize to what conclusions could lead his quite bold words about 4am or waking up and seeing JK; both of them didn't have second thoughts about the Black Swan dance; Bang PD is just a CEO who pays zero attention to BTS in general and KM actions in particular (which sometimes actually backlash, e.g. that stop gay fanservice thing after the Seoul concerts), because he clearly just doesn't care AT ALL; whatever PR service they have in BH is just asleep all the time... Etc etc etc, you got the idea

Well, if one wants to perceive JM, JK and BigHit as a group of complete morons with no brains, this "oh, they just didn't know" explanation may work. But if all of them were idiots, how would BTS become the biggest group on a planet? They are smart enough, deal with this.

And YET. KM still do what they do. It's their choice, so apparently they have their motives. You wrote it yourself too - "Jikook and BH put out all that stuff for a reason."

Keeping this in mind, I truly think it's fair to discuss queer undertones or KM's bond. It's meant to be discussed and speculated. They made it public, and they continue to make it public (and quite obvious, to be honest). Why? Well, I guess they want us to speculate.

From here comes the second point

2) Art and its interpretations

In general, I believe that any good art should allow various interpretations. That's what a good piece of art is supposed to do - provoke a thought. As well as it's quite customary to analyze and (sometimes) overanalyze art. Thousands of universities worldwide have programs which are focused on fine art, literature, theater, music, film, etc.

And why is it okay to write about Avengers or Madonna or whatever weird art you're able to find in the closest Contemporary museum (like a banana taped to a wall), but not okay to interpret BTS' songs and/or performances? Again, I strongly believe that art is meant to be discussed. Especially as cool as theirs 🙂

Actually, some popular fandom theories turned out to be true here. Since Spring Day release on Feb 2017, fans speculated about its connection to the Sewol ferry tragedy based on the song's lyrics, MV and choreo. We got this confirmation like when, December 2020? But before it was also just an interpretation.

Coming back to KM. Combining these with the idea that JM/JK/BH clearly know what they're doing and how it may look like, I don't see a problem in having various interpretation of their art. Including queer ones.

3) Escapism

Isn't all art targeted to escaping in a sense? We want to take a break from reality and/or mundane life or just gain some new experience. In this sense what's the radical difference between staring at pictures or sculptures in a museum, watching a movie, reading a book or scrolling through Tumblr reading BTS/KM centric posts? All of these are means to escape and entertain ourselves.

As for this "if they are a queer couple, is it okay to derive pleasure and 'what a beautiful love story' feelings from two members of systematically oppressed minority?" - and you would prefer doing what - ignoring them? pretending that they don't exist? 🙃 In case if they are a queer couple, I guess showing support and benevolence is even more important. Exactly because, as you mentioned, they are a part of the oppressed minority. And the hatred is/would be definitely in place.

4) Fanfiction

Oh my, what a controversial theme these days.

Firstly, some forget it was not invented in the 21st century. Even slash fanfiction (cough Star cough Trek). As for incorporating real people, it's been a part of literature for like what.. always? There are millions of different writings about emperors, nobles, military figures, lives of saints, etc. And it's not like personal opinion of people in question bothered those, who write or wrote about them. I clearly remember a scene in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, where Alexander I [Russian emperor 1801-25] after losing a battle against Napoleon, hits a birch tree with his sword while crying hard and just being kinda hysterical. Would real Alexander be satisfied with such image if he read the book? Idk 😄

About having "the right to comment on such [different from your own] experience". I suppose, if authors wrote only about what they had experienced, our literature would be 95% poorer than it is. How can one write books in historic settings if they didn't live there? How do books about future and space travel exist, if we live in 2021? Is it needed to be a part of mafia to write about mafia? What about other cultures? Should an American author write only about American people and American lifestyle or it's fine to have characters from other countries?

Writing is not about experiencing something and then making a fanfic or a book, it's more about research and compassion. If you have reliable info on your theme and are able to look at the world using different lenses, why not?

I don't perceive fanfiction as a worldwide evil. Sure, there are creepy examples as well as authors, who write fetishizing weird shit. But it doesn't mean that all fanfiction=bad and all slash fanfiction=objectification of male homosexuality. Fanfiction is just one form of fiction, it can be good or bad based on how it's written. But the label itself doesn't define anything, as well as reading it should not be a reason to accusations.

5) Jikook, shipping and politics

I'm among those, who perceive pretty much everything as a part of politics. We all exist within some political conventions and have certain political laws over our heads. And yes, it includes art. Even if an artist says something like "oh, I decided to stay away from politics, my work is beyond it". The decision to stay away from politics is also political, because apparently there was something within the political structure what made this artist say that and forced them to make this distinction between them and some institutional conventions.

And that makes me believe that shipping/supporting KM is also political. But I don't think it's necessarily bad? Basically, you decided to support potentially queer people from a country, which doesn't really approve LGBTQ+. It puts you in the opposition towards a particular government. You made a choice. You could google some SK stuff, read all that you mentioned in the beginning of your ask, and say something like "oh, that's not okay there? well, fair enough, I guess their government knows better"🤠 and forget that this KM thing even exists. But apparently you didn't

Imo, is it politics? Yes

Is it bad that it's politics? Well, no? 🙃

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P.S. I hope I was clear enough with my ideas. Thank you again for the thought provoking ask, and I hope I'll hear from you again 🙂

And honestly, I don't think that you're problematic in any way :)