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inkskinned · 9 months

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it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

#i can't believe i have to say this #the conservative party is legit like ''is it anything good? okay we hate it.''#''lets kill lgbt people and ummmmm school children shouldnt be able to read they should be at home watching jordan peterson :)"#the fact that it's like all related is. wild.#like it's wild bc if u start being like. actually making it impossible to afford housing is part of how they keep the nuclear family.....#it's just like lines connecting to lines. EXCEPT ITS OBVIOUS?#what's wild to me about most conspiracy theorists is that they're like . ohhhh the govt is hiding shit!!!!!!! they don't want u to know!!!#and im like. this old man literally got up on stage and said he hates public education and will let our kids die before taking away ak-47s #and ppl are like: lol thats just bob's sense of humor he didn't mean it literally uwu

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hxhhasmysoul · 4 months

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Hi, I really like reading your JJK analyses. Do you think that Itadori ate Sukuna's finger out of his free will? A lot of fans think that Itadori deserves to be punished for Sukuna's crimes because he willingly ate the finger (and because Sukuna is apparently a force of nature so he cannot be punished). I disagree, but what do you think?

Okay, so this really touches on a lot of stuff in-world for JJK and in general, philosophically. And philosophy is not my strong suit XD

Let’s take care of the last part of this first. Sukuna is a human, not a force of nature, not a god, not a curse. He’s a human in full control of his mental faculties: not mentally ill in any way, but especially not in a way that could make him incapable of controlling himself, not intoxicated, not coerced, not controlled by an outside force through magical means. So he’s fully responsible for all his decisions regarding his actions when he has control of Yuuji’s body. He’s hard to hold accountable, true, but it’s the problem of those who’d want to punish him. You know, skill issue.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the Yuuji part of this claim.

Free Will vs Fate

The first thing is whether free will exists in the JJK world and to what extent. And I feel it does but there’s also a fate component, for example in relation to Tengen and Six Eyes. So there’s some limitation to the free will, at least for some characters. Is Yuuji entangled by fate with anyone? He could be. There are hints that his connection to Sukuna might date back to Heian. It’s hard to tell at this point.

Choice

Then we come to the concept of choice. Let’s say Yuuji had the free will to eat the first finger on that school roof, that there was no fate involved. How much of a choice did he actually have?

Some people like to entertain themselves by saying things like “you always have a choice” even when the choice is between two horrible outcomes. For example working a job that is very destructive to your body and mental health but having a home or having no job and becoming homeless. They like to pretend like there’s a viable choice here.

And this is also the case with Yuuji. His choice was eat the finger and hopefully save Megumi or run and live with the guilt of whatever fate befell Megumi, likely never even finding out what actually happened, considering how secretive the sorcerers are. Is this really a viable choice?

I don't think it is. The manga rushes through this part in a typical first chapter fashion. In the anime Megumi warns Yuuji not to eat it but he doesn’t even tell Yuuji why. He doesn’t warn Yuuji that he’s likely to die, let alone that Yuuji dying would be the preferred outcome to the alternative, aka an evil homicidal bastard returning among the living. So Yuuji is working with the information provided and to him it seems either they both die or they get both saved. To him it feels like a fair gamble at that point.

And all this disregards the circumstances of that choice:

Shock and grief of losing the only family he had merely minutes or hours earlier

Last words of the said family member which are eerily relevant to the situation with the curse

Shock of learning about the supernatural

Shock of seeing his friends badly injured and knowing they could’ve died

Mortal danger

Extreme time pressure

All these render any discussion of free will in that decision making process a little shaky. In philosophy the influence of a person’s mental condition on choice, free will and ethics is actually a field of study.

Circumstance or Part of a Plan

Yuuji was created to become Sukuna's vessel as a part of Kenjaku’s plan. And for that plan Kenjaku manipulates the lives of others and creates situations to get certain outcomes. Like they did with Yuuji's friendship with Junpei. Once Junpei was involved by Mahito but also befriend by Yuuji, mother used that to test barriers for their own plans and also to test Yuuji. And probably confirm Sukuna’d made a vow with Yuuji. Kenjaku doesn't tell the disaster cursed about the vow, but they know much more about Jujutsu and Sukuna than the curses, they knew Yuuji was going to come back to life after the detention centre. Likely because they knew Sukuna would make a vow.

This makes me ask questions like:

Why was Sukuna's finger, an object of such importance, in an average school?

Why was Yuuji in that very school?

Why was that finger easily accessible?

Why did Yuuji find it? Was he drawn to it?

All these put complete free will on his part into question, unless we assume this was all a complete coincidence that by complete chance played into Kenjaku's plan.

But even if someone believes that, Yuuji would've been fed a finger at some point. How would it play into him being deserving of punishment? If he was coerced, would he still deserve it? What if he was tricked? Would he deserve it because he allowed himself to be incapacitated or tricked? I mean it's not an uncommon position assholes take towards victims of violence or scams.

Crimes and Complicity

Now let's look at Sukuna's crimes and Yuuji's complicity in them.

The first time Sukuna has reign of Yuuji’s body is on that school roof.

Sukuna then kills the curse and fantasises about massacres. The latter isn’t really a proper threat of violence because it’s not directed at any particular person or persons. That’s it, then Yuuji takes over. No crime so far.

Then Gojou comes and arrogantly and irresponsibly decides that it’s a good idea to check Yuuji’s control over Sukuna in the open, there isn’t even a veil raised, no crowd control. Sukuna proceeds to do some property damage - his first actual crime. Is Yuuji responsible for that? Not really, he’s a traumatised and badly hurt minor who was pressured to relinquish control of his own body by an adult.

The second time Sukuna comes out is in the detention centre.

Yuuji waits for his friends to be far away and then gives Sukuna control. It is very much a calculated risk, Yuuji believes in his ability to prevent Sukuna from rampaging and assesses the cursed womb as a bigger danger to everyone than Sukuna in his body, and he’s mostly right.

Sukuna does more property damage and severely beats up Megumi and kills Yuuji. The latter is Yuuji’s choice to stop him from killing Megumi. So yeah, he’s responsible for Megumi’s injuries because he didn’t factor in how his own injuries and mental exhaustion would prevent him from fully controlling Sukuna. And in a kind of twisted way Yuuji is responsible for Sukuna’s last crime of killing Yuuji himself, because if he didn’t come back Sukuna wouldn’t have killed him.

Then Sukuna tricks Yuuji into a vow and makes Yuuji unaware of the existence of the said vow..

For Sukuna’s third outing Yuuji isn’t responsible in the least.

Yuuji gets killed by Chousou and if he was left alone, he and Sukuna could’ve died then and there. The only reason he survives and Sukuna is let loose is because the twins and then Jougo force feed him more fingers overwhelming his soul’s capacity to cage Sukuna. Considering the level of trauma Yuuji had sustained then, it takes him more time than at the detention centre to take back control. And yeah, Sukuna commits a mass murder.. And more property damage ;-)

So.

Even if someone decides that Yuuji had completely free will to eat the first finger (I wouldn’t if it’s not obvious so far), under regular circumstances Yuuji is perfectly capable of caging Sukuna, rendering him incapable of committing any crimes apart from verbal harassment and threats of violence.

The sorcerers knew that perfectly well, because Gojou has tested it, on the roof and then by feeding Yuuji another finger after Wasuke’s cremation.

The elders decided to murder Yuuji, and his two new friends as collateral. Thus created an abnormally traumatic situation. Which led to Yuuji losing control over Sukuna.

Not learning from that debacle that Yuuji should be kept away from harm so they can slowly feed him the fingers, the sorcerers put Yuuji on the front line in Shibuya. And the whole Shibuya incident is orchestrated by Kenjaku, though not micromanaged. I don’t think they predicted Sukuna’s rampage. That was on the twins a bit but mostly on Jougo, the former are kids, Jougou is ancient, he should’ve known better.

Blame - Who Deserves Punishment?

That all being said. Yuuji would’ve been fed Sukuna’s fingers one way or the other. He ended up under the care of the sorcerers who went the most fucking irresponsible way possible about handling that.

Would the mass murder in Shibuya not happen if Kenjaku fed Yuuji the fingers under different circumstances and Yuuji was under their care? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. Would other mass murder happen instead? Maybe, maybe not. Would Sukuna have killed Gojou? Absolutely. Unless Gojou’d stayed in the box.

This whole idea reeks of the fandom’s dislike of Yuuji. Nobody talks like that about Gojou and the elders where it’s pretty easy to point to the ways they are very clearly complicit in various tragedies in JJK, including the way the Shibuya incident went.

And I guess they forget that Kenjaku exists?

Yuuji is a child and new to the jujutsu world. He follows instructions and puts trust in the adults in the jujutsu world. Most detrimentally to himself, he puts trust into Gojou who fails him over and over again.

Yuuji doesn’t proactively go into the world to seek the fingers or fight curses. He finds himself in situations and tries to handle them, but he’s not the creator of the said situations. He’s not the driver of the events. He doesn’t act recklessly.

Even if we consider eating the first finger, Yuuji's act of full free will. Yuuji ate the finger out of desperation and ignorance but still he managed to prevent Sukuna from doing any harm. He handled his questionable choice.

Then Yuuji was captured by Gojou, the strongest of the sorcerers and an adult. A person fully aware of curses, jujutsu and the threat of Sukuna. And Gojou decided to let Yuuji live, even though he could’ve killed Yuuji on that very school roof. Gojou kept Yuuji alive despite the elders’ will. He kept Yuuji alive knowing full well that by doing so he put a target on Yuuji’s back because he dragged the boy into his little political scuffles with the elders. He kept Yuuji alive and didn’t protect him, and didn't really put much work into educating Yuuji so he could protect himself better at least.

The truth is, if we’re looking to blame someone for Sukuna’s crimes, other than Sukuna (and he is the one to blame first and foremost!), or at least Kenjaku or Jougo, then it’s mostly Gojou and the elders to a lesser degree.

#answering asks #jjk meta #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #itadori yuuji #sukuna #this fandom is really shit tier #if i see this opinion in the wild here on tumblr dot com i will block on sight #gojou kinda did get punished for his irresponsibility and arrogance #i mean he got clowned on in public showed his true colours and achieved nothing #talk about a fitting legacy for that man #thank you for the ask

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