"Fire can destroy a forest in a day, while it takes a century for water and wind to create one. We prefer the ways of the water and the wind."It fits well within the action of the film, but this sentiment is as old as the Tao Te Ching, and has been present in the Tao-influenced "far east" flavors of Buddhism. The iconic image of a monk contemplating the metaphor of of a stream of water is powerful (i.e. Siddartha). Fire, dynamite, the atomic bomb.. can achieve quite a lot in a short amount of time. But if you don't rush, lie low, remain steady, sure, flexible, humble, you can achieve far more greatness over time and your efforts are more effective and you minimize the risk of your efforts blowing up in your face in unexpected and horrible ways.
Thusly the valley fended off the earth's hostility against them by slowly, calmly, and methodically disposing of any toxins that encroached upon them. The Tolmekians and Pejites on the other hand, succumbed to the folly of power and brute force symbolized in the giant apocalyptic monster.
There's an interesting parallel to Future Boy Conan, I'm up to episode 23 out of 26.. But even in the first episode there's an interesting exchange wherein Monsley lashes out in anger and resentment towards Conan's grandfather for being a part of the generation that created the apocalypse. For the viewer the irony is clear.. she's the one still operating under the destructive memes - but is utilizing the past destruction she failed to learn from as justification for her misdeeds.
There's of course also a parallel between the wisdom of the Valley of the Wind and Conan's High Harbor. The people in High Harbor built a sustainable civilization in harmony with nature. The heros in Future Boy Conan were much like the heros in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind; both offered an alternative wiser future for humanity with enlightened peaceful calm methodical conservative memes.
But that exchange with Monsley and Grandpa I still think about. I can't help, if Miyazaki would forgive me, putting an imagined Miyazaki in Monsley's shoes. Miyazaki's father worked towards the Japanese war effort supplying rudders for aircraft. The war ended when he was still a toddler but his formative years coincided with the Allied/US occupation of Japan. I can't help but imagine Monsley's misguided anger and later redemption (oddly enough through a little boy's naive trust) as being autobiographical? What sort of resentment towards their fathers generation might have burdened Miyazaki's generation? Or in lieu of resentment, what potential lies in Miyazaki's generation for greater understanding, redemption, and growth beyond the errors of their fathers?
Being educated in typical K-12 public schools in California, my overall sense of the atomic bombs was that the Japanese were victims of an unjustifiable crime against humanity.. Yet what I found at the peace memorial in Hiroshima really moved me and stood in poignant contrast to that mode of thought. There wasn't a hint of victimhood anywhere. In fact, there was a sense of Japanese culpability. Written beside the monument that protectively sheltered the names of the victims was the sentiment, "rest in peace, for we will never repeat the error." Nearby was a beautiful Korean drum. As Korea had suffered "cultural genocide" under Japanese rule, the drum really showed a commitment towards real peace.. Here they were celebrating Koreanness at the site of unimaginable Japanese pain - as though they bandaged their deep wound with the virtues of their old enemy - the same virtues they once sought to dominate or destroy. It really seemed that the Japanese had grown in a way that other societies hadn't in the wake of WWII (Japanese supercomputers simulate the weather - our supercomputers simulate weaponry)... it's as though they realized the victim mentality just begats more violence... true peace requires an unprecedented shift in public consciousness. An almost superhuman ability to see a bigger truth or justice... Nausicaa was regrettably drawn to kill operating under traditional memes of justice and revenge. One might also extend some sympathy for the Pejites.. who were luring the omu into The Valley in retaliation for the brutality they suffered under the Tolmekians... a crime born out of victimhood.
We followed 9/11 with two wars that continue today. The war drum was beat. Americans felt victimized and justified in pursuing a vague, elusive "war on terrorism." Anybody that spent a moment wondering if there was room for US culpability was regarded as unpatriotic, almost monstrous. Yet some intelligence experts believe that US response has just stirred up more anti-US sentiment making us even less secure than we were in 2001 from terrorism. Not only that, but the subsequent conflicts have surely resulted in far more death and suffering among innocent people than the event that sparked them. I posit that the US foreign policy in the middle east could benefit from a shift from the ways of fire to that of water and wind.
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