The forest can no longer be a sheltering place for the gods because it becomes a supply of wood." "O ur technological mastery of the earth causes the loss of the gods. While Miyazaki and Heidegger reject such simplistic responses to technology, they are both concerned with the possibility of an alternative way of life. Although he is not wholly unsympathetic, ultimately his approach is futile and destructive. In Miyazaki’s Ponyo (2008), Fujimoto (Ponyo’s father) aims to completely sweep away all traces of technology in a flood, hoping to return to a primordial sea. Attempting to abolish technology is not possible for Heidegger because it would repeat the mistake that people are complete masters of the earth. Heidegger admits that nobody can brake or direct the progress of history. For this reason, they both seek to challenge such technological mastery by highlighting its destructive aspects.ĭespite their critical stances towards technology, neither Heidegger nor Miyazaki advocates simply abolishing technology as a way of life. The forest can no longer be a sheltering place for the gods because it becomes a supply of wood. Thus, in their eyes, our technological mastery of the earth causes the loss of the gods. This tension is also seen in Howl’s companion, Calsifar’s (a fire spirit’s) dislike of the fact that fire is being produced on demand, as a resource, to light gun powder.Īs earth allows for mystery, both Miyazaki and Heidegger associate it with a sense of sacredness, of gods. The effects of technology and disenchantment are also present in the background of Howl ’s Moving Castle (2004): magic, which should be ancient and mysterious, is now industrialised as magicians are conscripted into the military. This manifests Heidegger’s notion of technology, which does not simply refer to various types of technical equipment like machines, but more importantly the underlying way that humans view the earth in terms of economic use value. Hence, when Laputa transforms earth (the crystal stones) into a source of power and destruction, nature is no longer mysterious. " If we break a stone open, we cannot reveal the original inside of the unbroken stone." In this sense, earth is ungraspable, being in darkness. This is because this original inside withdraws as soon as we break the stone. The stone has instantly withdrawn again.” If we break the stone open, we cannot reveal the original inside of the unbroken stone. This directly parallels Heidegger’s description of a stone: “if we attempt a penetration by smashing the rock, it still does not display in its fragments anything inward that has been opened up. This understanding of earth as something beyond human grasp is also seen in Miyazaki’s Laputa ( Castle in the Sky, 1986): the shining crystals hidden in the rock disappear when that rock is broken by the hammer. If humans, Heidegger states, live in a clearing, earth would be the rocks, soil and trees around and beyond the clearing. Heidegger sees earth as darkness and sheltering because it can never be completely grasped or structured by humans. Nature, or earth, in Heidegger’s thought is introduced in the Origin of the Work of Art, where it is contrasted to the human world. But despite the human-nature conflicts, Miyazaki is optimistic, and surprisingly close to Heidegger’s thoughts in his later works. In Miyazaki’s animes, this relationship is mediated through technology which threatens the sacredness in nature. But they share a recurring theme - the relationship between humans and nature. A link between the German existentialist Martin Heidegger and Japanese mainstream animator and author of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki, seems unlikely.
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