We Shall Now Begin Ethics - Vol. 4 Ch. 17 - Man in the Mirror

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Man, I wanted to join this debate but I was 2 weeks late now to learn about this manga lol
 
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individualist gang

better being independent than a sheep
because if you always follow the crowd, your true feelings will never be heard
 
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Honestly don't like this chapter. For once, I can't agree with the teacher here, especially the conclusion. The way he goes that the bullies were wrong, but the victim was also wrong. That's freaking stupid. If someone's vibe is off because someone else doesn't want to participate, tough sh*t, they don't get to whine about it. The moment they decided to bully her about it, all rights to fair discussion go away.
 
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As an Asian, I want to ask you westerner this : Is it also like this in the western? I heard that collectivism is not a thing in western, at least not so much so in Asian culture, do people also kind of like this too in there? Or do they speak their mind even if it cause a friction in the community of class or whatever?
I'm from Spain and here it's just another way of doing things. It's frowned upon in conservative circles but, to put it simple, both the left and the right do this, and we talk about centrism or pluralism when we try to listen to contrarian voices to make a comprise. Also dictatorship and ultranationalism is a very controversial topic in the country, whole Europe even.
 
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"Is it consensual?"

If an individual gave his/her consent to a group, does that make him/her a collectivist?
If you are a part of a collective and you don't agree with their way, does that make you an individual?
The final point of the chapter is to make decisions by thinking hard about them, your question is about semantics... I could say "yes to the first and no to the second question" and it would be fine, as you didn't elaborate on the moral implications on each question.
 
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Ethics or philosophy without presuming there will be a right and wrong answer is simply nihilism. It's as correct and useful as saying, "Sometimes somewhere something may happen".
There was a right answer, "you have to think hard and honestly about it". The conclusion we had was disappointing but, I would not say it's nihilist.
 
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Honestly don't like this chapter. For once, I can't agree with the teacher here, especially the conclusion. The way he goes that the bullies were wrong, but the victim was also wrong. That's freaking stupid. If someone's vibe is off because someone else doesn't want to participate, tough sh*t, they don't get to whine about it. The moment they decided to bully her about it, all rights to fair discussion go away.
I mean, they didn't bully her hard at all. Looks like it was some gossiping at her back. "It was just about ten or so persons", that is very telling of the situations they get. Also the target doesn't really care, I believe it's too harsh to get them out from the discussion in this case.
 
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Honestly don't like this chapter. For once, I can't agree with the teacher here, especially the conclusion. The way he goes that the bullies were wrong, but the victim was also wrong. That's freaking stupid. If someone's vibe is off because someone else doesn't want to participate, tough sh*t, they don't get to whine about it. The moment they decided to bully her about it, all rights to fair discussion go away.
I think the point was to reframe the situation from one of "right vs. wrong" into understanding where the other party might've been coming from. People are flawed - few, if any at all, can claim to always conduct themselves perfectly (i.e. in the way of the ideal Chinese sage in Confucian/Taoist philosophies), so it's almost guaranteed that any action a person undertakes will inevitably step on someone's toes, so sometimes even the "right" actions can end up being perceived as "wrong", sometimes even to the best of people who you'd thought would've understood.

I guess what I'm trying to convey is that we shouldn't cast judgment too hastily. It's easy to say that the bullies are wrong for ocstracizing her and slandering her behind her back, but to simply disregard them thusly as such will be no different from what they did to her. After all, they were compelled to bully her in the first place because they never tried to put themselves in her shoes.
 
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I think the point was to reframe the situation from one of "right vs. wrong" into understanding where the other party might've been coming from. People are flawed - few, if any at all, can claim to always conduct themselves perfectly (i.e. in the way of the ideal Chinese sage in Confucian/Taoist philosophies), so it's almost guaranteed that any action a person undertakes will inevitably step on someone's toes, so sometimes even the "right" actions can end up being perceived as "wrong", sometimes even to the best of people who you'd thought would've understood.

I guess what I'm trying to convey is that we shouldn't cast judgment too hastily. It's easy to say that the bullies are wrong for ocstracizing her and slandering her behind her back, but to simply disregard them thusly as such will be no different from what they did to her. After all, they were compelled to bully her in the first place because they never tried to put themselves in her shoes.
'It's easy to say that the bullies are wrong for ocstracizing her and slandering her behind her back' okay but that IS objectively wrong. There is no case where their behavior could be considered acceptable or understandable.
 
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'It's easy to say that the bullies are wrong for ocstracizing her and slandering her behind her back' okay but that IS objectively wrong. There is no case where their behavior could be considered acceptable or understandable.
It certainly seemed to be "acceptable or understandable" for those bullies though, hence why they started bullying her in the first place. We confidently say they're "wrong" because we're able to see both sides of the issue, and don't share the sort of crowd mentality they have.

And it's one thing to say they're wrong while only having one side of the story, versus being able to judge them as wrong after knowing where exactly they're coming from. In the latter we're striving to better understand and go beyond the limitations of our circumstances, whereas in the former we're no better than the bullies themselves who cast judgment without any attempt at mutual understanding.
 
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err... wasn't the guy in the flashback the guy that tried to assault aizawa? it's definitely not her fault he got mad.
Telling an evil person that he/she is "good" is utterly disgusting.

Manga seems to show that if a teacher is good, the students will be good. Collectivism.
 
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Since I re-read this series again, I would like to say that having all students do group discussion/debate is such a smart decision to close the arc.
 

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