To preface, this is not praxis or relevant, and I’m not going to pretend it is. Nor am i going to pretend like this is aplicable to anything irl. I’m legitimately just curious about the socialist perspective on this.
Anyway, I just finished up playing a certain game (which I won’t name cause spoilers, but if you’ve seen a crow in a broken mirror then you know what I’m talking about) and it was another one of those stories where charecters try to “end death” and ergo end suffering. Evangelion does this too, if I remember right [it’s been a few years since i watched it so i might be wrong]. and it shows up uncommonly in some other places like pathologic, and honestly I’m conflicted.
Essentially the idea is that some charecter(s) have the power (or wish to) end death in some way or to create some general entropy where people are united as a general whole and not in singularity. From what i can tell, the characters who wish for this are depicted all in some negative light, or at the very least are on the wrong side of things (this is just my interpretation of course). For pathologic the charecter is depicted as generally stupid and incompetent and utopian, in eva its depicted as evil and selfish, and in the game I just played the character is depicted as essentially desperate and afraid.
And, I think thats right, right? The general anti-thesis to these characters is that to have something is to necessitate nothing, and visa versa. If you were to have no suffering you would have no happiness, and if you had no death there would be no change. This feels correct, and possibly even dialectical (I think, honestly the philosophy of marxism still eludes me to an extent. Sorry Gramsci). But simultaneously there’s two things nagging in the back of my mind.
First is the similarity of these arguments to those used by conservatives to continue the capitalist system. That if there was no suffering that there would be nothing to live for, and that the death and suffering caused by capitalism is just the nature of the world.
The second is that death is the status quo, the cycle is the status quo. But those ending death are seen in the opposite light, that they are the ones in power and it is through death and change that the people are liberated, in a sense. Personally I’m…wary of stories where the ones threatening the status quo are seen as bad (discounting Eva, since SEELE are the ones in power and I don’t want to defend fascists and all)
Like I said, obviously this matters very little. I doubt any of us are going to be given godlike powers to change the fabric of the universe. But I wanted some different perspectives on this than from what I’ll see from liberals and such.
I don’t know why the entertainment industry resist immortality but if science can achieve it, it will achieve it, and the achievement will be welcomed.
Of course, there are people who don’t like the idea, citing some idealistic philosophies, imaginary scenarios, etc. But these are all fictional, unproven, unobserved. Using them as basis for judgement is no different from taking LOTR as history lessons, or Star Wars as political theories, or sci-fi as actual sciences.
Regardless, no technology is even close to achieving immortality yet. So dwelling in this thought is kind of pointless.
Death is literally the only thing I have to look forward to. To live forever sounds terrifying. And we’re already told there aren’t enough resources, imagine how harsh austerity programs would be if everyone lived forever. Not to mention, I doubt we’d be given a choice. For instance, in many countries, if you want to die (due to illness, depression, financial worries, whatever) you’re seen as having something mentally wrong with you, and either not allowed that option, or forced to go through assessments to judge whether you should be allowed it. I have no doubt the same would happen if humanity achieved immortality and some people didn’t want it, they’d be told “How can you not want to live forever? There must be something wrong with you. We will force you to live forever as you clearly aren’t fit to make your own decision.” It would be an eternity of fascism and wage slavery. No thanks!
I’m reminded of Russian cosmism, that postulated liberating people from death and ideally even resurrecting those who died as one of the goals of humanity. And adherents of this philosophy overwhelmingly sided with Bolsheviks, seeing them as making the first step toward this goal.
Also the crow hates the monarchy too, this makes him doubly cool.
Don’t know how to add much to the discussion, but there is also a lot of stories that take “end of death” as a premise rather than the conclusion. On an individual level that applies to vampire stories, but on a world level every Souls game is an example of that too.
In the case of Evangelion I think it’s not only end of death, but end of all divisions and “coming together as one” to the most extreme. I haven’t ever read Hegel but I have a nagging feeling that his theory can have great dialogue with those sorts of media (and his critiques serve to critique them as well).
Regarding SEELE specifically, they remind me of a quote in Mussolini’s own definition of fascism.
Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity. […] The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.
Of course, if you’re minimally critical you realise that the ruling interests of this “whole of a people” are necessarily those of the ruling class (or SEELE).
If we apply dialectics, the thesis and anti-thesis aren’t just in permanent harmony forever. There’s continuity and rupture - the contradiction is resolved through synthesis, creating something new with elements of the old (and creating new contradictions).
Since living is dying, we can’t live forever. In some hypothetical future where we end death we will also end life, creating a new state of being that contains elements of both while being a complete rupture from the previous contradiction. If we truly find a way to end things like ageing, disease, accidental dismemberment etc. etc. then we’ll have transcended life into some new state of being that contains elements of both.
At least, that’s my understanding of dialectics.
Yeah, I don’t think the dialectical reason for death is to appreciate life. The dialectical reason is because coming into existence is an act of systems organization that engages matter and energy and that matter and energy eventually need to return to the system in order for the system to avoid total collapse. Birth necessitates death not for idealist reasons but material ones.
The reason characters chasing the end of death are despicable is because chasing the end of death is done entirely out of fear of death and an aversion. Acting from a place of expansive love would result in understanding the systemic requirements of circularity for continuous renewal. Acting from a place of fear to resist death paradoxically (and dialectally) brings more of what is feared. The entire Euro-imperial project we are living through is a direct result of acting from a place of fear and an attempt to resist the realities of circularity and reciprocality. We created Moloch by fearing Moloch and acting from those fears. Demons are real, but only in so far as they are created by our choice to act out of our fears
I like stuff like Cruelty Squad or Warframe where the development of immortality just ultimately makes life worse for everyone. The realistic outcome.
Hell, I think this is even one of the things that makes Zardoz interesting.
The red mars, blue mars, green mars series deals with an end to aging in a pretty cool way.
Altered Carbon as well deals with ending “death” in a very different way.
As for older stories, you have King Arthur’s search for the holy grail, which is sometimes said grant eternal youth. Clearly there it isn’t the villain but the hero who is attempting to achieve eternal life. There are many others.
Ending death as character motivation is pretty neutral and understandable, but how the characters do it can make the characters unacceptable. Imagine a story about a king trying to end disease in his realm by killing anyone who sneezes or coughs vs one where disease is ended through better care.
The problem alot of liberals have the idea of stopping death by aging is that it is the only way they see a change in leadership as being possible. It isn’t just their resistance to ending the status quo of the cycle, but also a fear that they will loose the chance to be as powerful as those who are currently in power. Without death, they fear that they would not be able to achieve the status as people in power now.
Personally, I don’t agree, death is the most unavoidable source of great sadness. Experience and knowledge of the effects of their actions seems like something I’d want leadership to have. I think people would eventually take out a bad leader, so if a good leader was in place they would be more stable and just better for everyone. I think a good leader would step aside when and if the time came, and so death and aging make having and keeping good leaders in place would be easier without death by aging.
Themes about cheating death go back a lot (to confirm my memory on it, Sisyphus is the most relevant I could find in a quick search). That may be where the themes are being borrowed from, is old stuff, cause capitalism likes to repackage old as new to make more money.
And I suspect some of those type of stories get told in such a way they are just the themes out of context of how they developed as a cultural message originally and that’s part of why it can be murky what message they’re trying to make beyond the themes themselves. Fearing death is a pretty universal concept, but how societies react to it won’t always be the same.
And context matters cause like… if you took a notion like that too literally, it would be very strange in the context of modern medicine, for example, or healing as a practice more generally. Could you imagine saying to a doctor, “You shouldn’t try to save people because that’s cheating death”? So there are limits to it as a narrative of going too far.
To deny the reality of decay would be burying one’s head in the sand, but at the same time, I don’t see anything wrong with the scientific pursuit of sustaining life. Cost may be an important question within that and I don’t mean the anti-China “at what cost?” (lol) or the capitalist “how many billions?” I mean in the sense of what are you losing. Collective sustainability for people and ecology alike is more important than a single rich person living to 200 or whatever. But if most can become more healthy and live longer, and the environment can be sustained in tandem, then great.
I don’t think overcoming death is in the cards for humanity, but there is a lot of room between that and the current common status quo to drastically improve quality of life for billions vs. the colonial shoggoth of a capitalist empire that many are dealing with across the globe. And I’ll take someone who believes in that who is also a little naive, over a cynic who thinks the world fundamentally has to be extreme suffering, any day.
