Monday, November 13, 2023

A Certain Magical Index Deconstructs Meritocracy

During the Index account of the Sisters Arc back in season 1 we are shown how the official propaganda of Academy City is that any Esper could reach Level 5 if they try hard enough.  But in Index III at the end of the plotline with the Item characters it is made clear how only certain people had the potential to be a level 5 and those in charge mostly know who they are.

And this was always heavily implied, by the Sisters Arc itself Misaka was selected for the cloning experiment as a small child long before she was officially known to be a Level 5 yet the implications of that don't ever seem to be something that's occurred to her.  We've also seen that Accelerator and Mental Out were also already singled out to be experimented on as small children.

And now I feel compelled to return once again to The Last Jedi/Sequel Trilogy discourse.  The fact that so many online leftists think it's more Left Wing for anyone to be equally a potential Jedi shows how actually Liberal their mindset still is.

Leftists are Materialists, we acknowledge that some people do have innate natural advantages to being able to be successful that most people don't have.  We are the opposite of Nazis in that we reject that those with innate advantages should actually be considered more valuable.  But to deny the innate advantages exist ultimately serves the interest of Conservatives, it lets them convince themselves those already with power must be the ones who earned it.

Meritocracy is the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

The Raildex Anime are better social commentary then any Dystopic Science Fiction precisely because they are avoiding the usual Aesthetics of Dystopia. It's world is different from the real world but about the same in how Free or not Free it's society is.

Update May 31st 2024: I recently watched all of Durarara!! and it has a similar especially with the character of Shizuo Heiwajima who becomes of his naturally strength and rage is unbeatable in a fight even though he's had no trainer, multiple far more trained fighters consistently lose.  

Interestingly that's another Light Novel series that also started in 2004.

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