Odd, to have a whole visual novel based around this philosophical question, and yet have no place for the community to discuss their own mindsets on it.
So, you know how it goes:
You have a power, and you are unhappy with this world. Tell me, do you change the world, or do you change yourself?
And of course,
Why?
This discussion concerns what you personally believe, not what Romeo Tanaka tells you.
If Rewrite has influenced the way you think, however, feel free to share that in your explanation. Thus, please mark all Rewrite spoilers with [spoiler] tags, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
Gonna go ahead and add a poll too, because those are cool, and its interesting to see what the community’s consensus is:
Thank you for bringing up this topic. With a bigger and more active community, I hope this time, we’ll have a discussion on a scale that does the question justice, since the first attempt was rather short-lived.
To answer the question you have to assume things about it in relations to what kind of power/how great of a power it is. You also have to determine what ‘the world’ is to you.
In my case, I’m going to assume it is some great power. I would change myself, because I would change myself to the extent to where I can have great influence over the people and places around me, thus changing the world from there, too.
Changing the world based on what you personally think is right is inherently selfish and totally ignorant of the individual needs and wants of other people.
Besides, if you really want to change the world, what you need to do is arm yourself with knowledge so you can make things better all around, not just for you, y’know? One leads to the other like they were meant to go together.
That was the intention of including that question in Rewrite, at least in my opinion. Because Kotarou literally changed himself mentally/physically, and he changed the world for the better while doing it
I firmly believe that you should “change yourself” before you “change the world”. I someone in real life that tried to (put vaguely) “change the world” without even realizing that they were ultimately causing massive amounts of harm to a lot of people.
I was about to rant about something personal, so I’ll just stop here…
PSA please please please always think about how your actions affect others
(Check yourself before you wreck yourself)
Well I was leaning towards “I don’t know” before the Rewrite anime aired… but I’m kinda leaning towards… changing the World now.
Seriously though, I want to change the World. I’d side with Gaia.
Good memories don’t exist in this detestable, disgusting, ugly real world.
Humans do cruel things to other humans and other forms of life and that will never change.
Climate change and the warming of the Earth, pollution and the destruction of the environment, wars and humans killing their own race/genocide, greed and money. How foolish can humans be? Is it okay to be happy when there is so much cruelty in the World? How can we smile when elsewhere in the World, someone is being brutally murdered? We turn a blind eye. Is ignorance is bliss? Atrocities that happen in this World. How many of them go unheard? How many criminals get away with their crimes? How many innocents have died? How many more need to die?
Logic doesn’t rule the world and Popularity and Money is King. No matter how well-thought your logic and reasoning is, it doesn’t mean anything if your ideas aren’t popular. What’s the reason we don’t completely transition to renewable energy? Why do Internet Service Providers and other large companies monopolize their customers? Why are Pyramid schemes and MLMs allowed to exist? Why does Miyazaki think anime was a mistake? Why is moe and fan service the the industry’s meta instead of deep, well-written stories that can potentially change your life? Why does a masterpiece visual novel like Rewrite get arguably the worst anime adaptation in history while other garbage harem anime receive superior production? Popularity and Money is King and humans are foolish.
The ones looking to the stars are the minority. Space funding is continuously cut and isn’t priority. Its likely that we’ll never find another planet to call home outside this dying World. Humans are literally making the Earth more inhabitable every second and we’re killing our own species.
We’re all in this together. Our future is bleak, so let’s delude ourselves in the present because you’ll be dead before anything bad happens right?
“Changing myself” is futile when the voice of reason goes unheard.
I’m not a pessimist. I’m being realistic - Humans. will. not. change.
So if I had power to change the World I would welcome a well-deserved salvation.
Not gonna lie, I only brought this up because I asked a very close friend of mine this question, only to realize that I didnt have an answer myself. Im excited to hear what you all have to say.
@sanata50lbsb, the question is vague on purpose. “The power”, “the unhappiness”, and “the world” are all up to your own interpretation. In Rewrite, all three of them were played out on the grandest scale, and I think that is a great way to think about it. However, most of us will never have those opportunities, so I think it is perhaps also worth while to consider this question on a day-to-day scale as well.
@DangoDaikazoku, there is absolutelynothing wrong with interpreting the question in the way you have, but remember, there is no specification that there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed. In fact, it does not even specify that something is inherently ‘wrong’ with the world. You are just ‘unhappy’ with it.
@ThePlasticSpork, that is a decent argument, but I challenge you to think deeper. Again, this is philosophy, so everything is up to your own interpretation, but what if the aspect of the world that makes you unhappy is also harmful to or making everyone else unhappy as well? Then wouldnt changing only yourself be the more selfish option?
@42Megabytings, that is a very optimistic way of looking at it. To me, that seems like an easy way out. Assuming that things will work out “just because they will”? I wish that were true, but one thing Ive discovered in my life recently is that nothing will ever change without conscious, critical effort. Thinking about these things is hard, trust me, I know. But its the most important thing we can do to effect change, and perhaps even more important than starting to think is not stopping thinking. I challenge you to at least explain on a deeper level why you believe changing yourself could bring about such a widespread change.
Im not sure I could so easily agree with you that that was the answer that Tanaka clearly gave. I would absolutely love to hear your full argument on why you believe that.
@bionic, I can tell that this is a very personal story to you, but it would make me so happy to have you share it if you were comfortable. At least for emotional people like myself, the most convincing evidence for answer is often very personal and anecdotal.
@Zyzyoro, interestingly enough, my close friend brought this up too, although under a slightly different context: “What is the point of suffering if there is no point?” She was referring to how artificial “purpose” and “goal” feels… well, thats a bit off topic, I can get back to that later. Anyway:
I can obviously tell that you for one were not swayed by Tanaka’s argument in Rewrite. Im not gonna claim that I understand his argument completely, but I can say that your stance is definitely not it. BUT, this is not a topic about Tanaka’s views, its about yours, so good for you.
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on at least one point: you are indeed being pessimistic, not realistic. Why? Well:
Your argument inherently ignores every good thing that has ever happened. No matter what scale your argument exist on, you must include everything. All the good, all the bad. If you ignore the good, you are just as guilty as the people who write history leaving out all the atrocities.
Humans. have. and. will. always. change. This is such a huge concept time-wise that Im not even sure how to explain it, but think of it this way: Do you live and do you think in the same way that people 500 years ago did? Absolutely not. How about 5000 years ago? Even more different. People change people, and people change the world, and the world changes them back.
I challenge you to continue thinking, to never stop thinking. Changing another person is an extremely daunting task. It might be the hardest thing you ever do. But it is not impossible. Here’s my advice. Convince them to think, challenge them to think, in the same way I am challenging you. People give up on thinking because its hard and complicated. We don’t dedicate nearly enough time to it. If you can convince someone to think, I cannot guarantee that they will change in the way you want them to, but I do guarantee that they will change.
I asked a few friends about this during 3AM philosophy session and this is the bulk of what we came up with. I don’t remember the exact details but basically we would choose to change ourselves first before the world. While both are difficult and noble tasks, it seems like you have no right to forcefully change the world, or change other people, if you yourself have not adapted to the change that you will bring about.
As Gandhi says, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.” This implies that you must change yourself in order to effectively change others and eventually the entire world.
Well, fortunately the world doesn’t usually pan out that way. It is exceedingly unlikely that what you perceive as being problems with the world are also perceived as problems by everyone else.
But even if we were to philosophically suppose that everyone is made unhappy by all the same things, I still think tackling these things with a change to yourself is the more sound option. Everyone has different ideas about how a problem should be solved, even if they all agree that some certain factor is indeed a problem. Simply overwriting all that seems wrong. IMO autonomy is one of the most important aspects to being an individual, and should be maintained to the upmost reasonable extent.
Interesting topic. well…
I can said that If I have the power I may mostly use for myself but sometimes I have to use it for the world too because there are many times i would like to help the people when they got a bad situation but i can’t. so I think it can be intend to…“Meaning of My Life”. I believed like that.
My apologies for misreading the question. TBH, though, it’s hard to imagine a me without intrinsic flaws…
I’m not sure if I could ever make such a decision. I know it’s a cop-out, but I’ve never been a decisive or assertive person and deciding the way the world should be based on how I feel it’s detrimental to myself and others is far too grand a decision for me to feel I could make on my own. The ramifications from such an action would be huge and nearly impossible to figure out. I might not even be able to stand the possibility my changing the world would have caused pain or hurt people who had otherwise been fine. The fact that I don’t have a way of knowing how my change will pan out would be too much for me to make that decision.
So, in a way, I’m standing by my first post. Of everyone, I know myself best, and since I could most easily understand and react to the changes that would happen if I were different, I wouldn’t fear about changes I couldn’t perceive because, in my mind, I’d be able to perceive most of myself. To be a little more specific, I’d like to be more of an extrovert with a lot more self-confidence and assurance, who likes learning new things and can schedule himself well, rather than scramble to motivate myself to day-to-day tasks. With the world, however, I can’t be sure of what might happen and considering not only my personality, but again the verse I quoted earlier, I simply couldn’t change anyone but myself with such a power.
I wasn’t addressing the “good” or “bad” because those subjective concepts are useless when addressing the survival of humanity. I could mention “good” things such as human ingenuity causing the creation of new technology, the areas of the World that are at peace, love, feecof etc… Even if I look at everything: all the “good”, all the “bad”, throughout history, what I see today as a culmination of all those things is the inevitable end of humanity.
The world is dying. The killing of our environment is irreversible as long as humans continue to not prioritize the long-term survival of our species. Its difficult for me to see our environment changing for the better even if I look to “good” things.
The concept of “good” and “bad” is irrelevant to humanity’s survival. I believe this was addressed in Rewrite in each of the heroine routes. No matter what everyone did, the world ended anyway. There’s such an impossibly small chance for humanity to continue living and there’s no Moon Kagari in this universe to give us that possibility.
I completely agree that humans do change, but they don’t change in a way that will bring “good memories”, the survival of humanity and reaching the stars–NOT killing the environment and each other. Humans have been around several tens of thousands of years and humans are still killing each other, still separated by borders and killing our home planet’s environment faster than ever. This tells me humanity has a pretty bad track record for “changing” in this regard. We could give it another ten of thousands of years. Maybe humans will stop killing the environment then, if humanity isn’t extinct by then. I wish humanity would change and start looking at the long-term survival of our species but that isn’t the reality.
If I look at the objective facts of the current state of the environment on a global scale, the conclusion I draw from them is that the Earth will inevitably be uninhabitable for humans. Humans are killing themselves and there are no clear signs of this destruction from slowing down, let alone stopping. These are facts, “good” and “bad” are irrelevant.
If I had power to change the World, I would wish for everyone to look to the stars.
I could be seen as pessimistic, but I honestly don’t see a problem with it given the facts and the lack of “good memories” in our world.
I don’t really know how to answer this myself, but if I can choose something or what I can select if I had the power while, rather living in a world that doesn’t make me happy, I would choose to change myself.
The reason being would be because of a personal influence I had with my life, and because of those experiences, I would want to change for the better, or at least make myself stronger throughout the process.
Maybe even showing what I can be rather than what I was previously, maybe making myself look different but not in a sense of personality, maybe with a sense of more confidence or being stronger against the things in my path, that’s what I can say here.
Maybe I could go as well with changing the world, to change the way that I would perceive it in a bad way and turn it for the better for the point I want to see fit, like I would want a world where there wouldn’t be war or at least crimes, or at least arguments, etc. That’s how I can see it in the second option.
I’m sorry if I’m not good at giving well answers, but more likely myself for reasons above, and more of a personal point as well.
Alright. Fluff your pillows and get comfortable, because you’ll probably fall asleep before you finish reading this. This is probably not what any of you were looking for, since it’s super abstract, so it’s fine if you skip it all. tl;dr: it’s both or neither, in the end.
I’ll just state here: I won’t be addressing the environmental questions or any question regarding “natural evils” (the world dying, the sun exploding, aliens coming to eat us, etc.) since I already have a really long answer for a simpler question below.
Let’s start from the ground up, answering the most simple and basic element of this question: you are unhappy with the world. What can you do? I won’t answer it with a philosophy paper, but I will answer it with a proof sketch: I’ll be stating what I want to prove, and then provide arguments for it; together, if valid, they’ll come to a valid conclusion.
The structure of the proof: #1 is our initial assumption; #2-8 will be proven; #9 is the logical conclusion if all previous points are true.
You are unhappy with the world.
If a human is unhappy with the world, it’s because there exists some deficiency in the act of reason—whether in the self, in another, or in both. Here, we will exclude natural evils (natural disasters, animal attacks, etc.) as the question’s presumably regarding the “human world” or “human civilization.”
A deficiency in the act of reason consists in perceiving a disordered end to be good and willing it.
Such deficiencies can be intentional or unintentional.
Unintentional deficiencies can be corrected by proper education.
Intentional deficiencies can only be corrected by the agent himself.
Thus, to act to correct deficiencies, there are only three acts in the power of a single agent: 1) to correct deficiencies within oneself; 2) to correct unintentional deficiencies in another through education; 3) to encourage another agent to correct their intentional deficiencies.
However, it is a deficiency of the act of reason to fail to correct known deficiencies within yourself or an unintentional deficiency in another.
Therefore, the course of action according to reason is to correct both deficiencies in yourself and others. In other words, you cannot improve yourself without improving the part of yourself that isn’t improving others; the opposite is true as well. One can either fully seek to improve both, or you can improve neither. This is due to the nature of reasoning well and acting well.
I suppose this is the time I begin some proof sketches for my seven claims. Man, this will take a while…
-#1 is our initial assumption; no proof is needed.
-#2: If a human is unhappy with the world, it’s because there exists some deficiency in the act of reason—whether in the self, in another, or in both.
The proof for this really has its basis in a much older proof that you can look up: Aristotle’s proof of how the function of a human being is to reason well. This ties into his understanding of virtue, morality, purpose, and so on. It’s a very useful and interesting read, if you’re ever interested! (and is the foundation for a very large amount of modern thought—perhaps even a lot of what you believe)
His function is (roughly) as follows: imagine a carpenter. When is the carpenter most perfectly a carpenter? When he does carpentry well. This is intuitive: a thing is most perfect when it performs its function perfectly. A warhorse is most perfectly a warhorse when it fulfills the function of a warhorse well: carrying its rider into battle; avoiding enemies; surviving; wearing armor well; etc. A shipbuilder is most perfectly a shipbuilder when he builds ships well. And so on.
What is the function of a human being? Well, what does a human being do? What defines a human being from everything else? We are animals; we live and breathe and eat and sleep like all animals do.
The difference is our intellect. We reason. We are rational animals, unlike all other animals. Only we have art, technology, philosophy, deep interpersonal communication, ritual, etc.; and all of that has, at its root, our reason. Our rationality.
That is the precise function of a human being: the function that separates us, makes us special, and defines us.
It makes sense, then, that we are most human when we are reasoning well. This also includes the aspect of an animal; of course; we have to breathe and eat and sleep; but those things too are related to reason. After all, our will lies within our reason: we can choose to eat or not eat; learn or not learn; think or not think; reason well or reason poorly.
We have the ability to function well by reasoning well, but we can choose not to. In fact, every choice is also a rational act.
Think about a choice you make. You choose to eat an apple. There’s actually a lot of small steps you took there, but to simplify: you had the idea of eating the apple. You perceived this idea as a good: the act of eating the apple is seen as good because the end sought is perceived as good—the taste of the apple, presumably; though there are other ends one might seek as well, like nutrition, health, social responsibility if you’re expected to eat it, etc.
Now, back to the original point: you are unhappy with the world. (I’ve taken “the world” to mean “the human world,” or “all of humanity; human society and civilization,” what have you.) Therefore, you perceive some element of the world as lacking an essential good; just as evil is a lack of essential good, so is unhappiness caused by a perceived lack of essential good.
Now, there are three cases. First is that your perception is false, and there is no lack of essential good in the world. In that case, the deficiency of reason is in your own reason. Second is the case where there really is a lack of essential good in the human world. Third is the case where both the first and second cases are true.
If there is a lack of essential good in the human world, we have to ask what the essential good for the human world is. Since we’re talking about human civilization/society, the essential good for civilization is simply the good of all individual humans and the good of their union in societies or governments. The essential good for a human is gained by functioning well, which is to reason well; thus, any lack of essential good implies a lack of functioning well, which is a lack of reasoning well.
Therefore, if a human is unhappy with the world, there must exist some deficiency in human reason—whether it be their own, another’s, or both—and the correction of this deficiency would result in the correction of the essential evil.
Now, I can prove #3 pretty easy, since we’ve already built up the framework: as stated earlier, human acts are acts of reason regarding things we perceive as good and thus choose to seek. Thus, a deficiency in reason is a deficiency in the perception of the good of the chosen end.
Let’s put all of this into a practical example.
There is Cain and Abel, the only two humans upon the Earth. (I’ll be veering from the original story a bit with this example.)
Cain sees Abel’s fruits of labor, gets jealous, and asks Abel for some of the fruit. Abel says no. Cain becomes unhappy with the world.
His unhappiness stems from his perception of an evil: that he should have the same goods (the fruits) as Abel does.
There are three cases: 1) he is wrong: that is not actually an evil, and Cain’s reasoning was faulty on that point; 2) he is correct: he should have the same goods as Abel, and Abel’s reasoning was faulty on that point when he denied that statement; or 3) both were wrong, though that doesn’t make sense in this case, since the perceived evils are in direct opposition.
There are other points to be asked: correcting that perception wouldn’t solve the problem of not having the same good as Abel—if, for example, there weren’t enough fruits to go around. But that’s a “natural evil,” as stated earlier; here, we’re only discussing “human evils,” so to speak; evils of human acts—and that will always have a root in a deficiency of human reason, whether intentional or unintentional, known or unknown.
I’m not going to prove the rest, because I’m fairly certain that if anyone has a problem with these sketches of proofs, they’ll have long since arisen. If they don’t, the rest is much more trivial to show and almost already follows from what we’ve discussed.
This is definitely a tough question, that goes into the inner psyche’s of people and how they view humanity.
I’ve thought about this the entire morning, and asked myself: “If I changed [x], what would I change?”
If I changed the world, I can think of a few things to change. Maybe less evil, maybe less greediness. Ultimately I’d be changing other people, and not the world itself. But this counts as wanting to change the world, right?
If I changed myself, what would I change? I’m pretty satisfied with myself; but I sometimes lament my inability to prevent other people from being evil. If I could change myself, perhaps I’d make myself stronger, more cunning, just to be able to prevent other people from doing bad.
However, at the end of the day, it’s still the intent to change others that drives my desire to change my self. As someone who likes to nip things in the bud, it seems it’ll be more practical to change the world, really. While both choices may be able to solve said problem (and may also fail really badly), given the choice, I say to change the world.
Of course, this is strictly considering I am forced to choose. Honestly, I’m pretty satisfied with myself and the world. The world is beautiful, despite the horrible sides of it, and I’m more than happy to let natural progression take its course. Therein lies my true answer to this dilemma.
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