It's been a while! Thank you so much for being patient with me. And along with this newest chapter, Sunshin got colorized! I hope you like it!
Curious about the full pic of colorization? It'll come soon!
His mind was often most sluggish right after getting out from bed. Sunshin surmised that it was because of this reason that it took him a couple of minutes to notice that Hideyoshi was doing something odd while facing the mirror in his bathroom.
He invited him to stay for the night at his home yesterday, hence the reason why Hideyoshi was in his bathroom this morning. It took him a moment or two to notice that Sunshin was staring at him from the entrance.
"...Is something wrong?"
A pause marked with hesitation. "...You shave?" Sunshin asked
"Well, yeah. I am a guy, you know."
The very idea of Hideyoshi having facial hair... That was too much for this Disaster to handle.
"Shave... yes..." Sunshin muttered. "Yes... do continue shaving; I think the entire male population of our academy will lose the will to live at the very idea of you having a mustache or a beard."
"Hmm," Hideyoshi unfortunately missed the point Sunshin was hinting to. "Is it that bad? Should I perhaps wax instead-"
"No." Sunshin shook his head. "If you injure your face while waxing, the reaction will be even more catastrophic."
Sensing the rising level of awkwardness, Sunshin hurriedly left his bathroom, leaving poor Hideyoshi confused in his wake.
It was lunchtime.
Sunshin, as he was wont to do, lay down with his back against the wall, his arms behind his head, his eyes closed, his ear listening, listening to the mastication of his fellow classmates around him...
...Then the thundering footsteps approached from afar. Right then and there he was struck with a premonition that twisted his gut. Whatever was coming, whoever was coming, it was nothing good.
The door to the Class 2-F burst open, and rushing into the room was Kinoshita Yuuko, out of breath with a savagely triumphant smirk on her face. Kirishima and Kudou followed close behind.
Akihisa and Co. were expectedly dumbfounded by this sudden invasion by the top representatives of the Class 2-A; heedless of their astonishment, Yuuko rushed past them all and stalked straight toward the wooden table Sunshin reclined in front of and slammed down a piece of paper on the table with a gleeful roar of: "AH HA! YOU COMMUNIST!"
A sudden hush fell upon the room at the utterance of that forbidden word.
The paper Yuuko slammed down on the table had a picture printed on it. On it was Sunshin, crossing a hammer and a sickle in his hands while sporting a magnificent beard.
It was too, too much for poor Akihisa to bear, despite being a mere bystander in this tragedy; slumping forward, he fainted.
When Akihisa came to his senses, he found himself surrounded by his friends.
"Are you alright, Aki-kun?" Himeji whispered.
"I'm fine- I'm fine- but never mind me- is it true?" Lifting his head, Akihisa found the rest of the Class 2-F swarming around the photo in question. Sunshin was still as ever, but now, his eyes were alert.
"I'm impressed that you found that picture," he finally spoke. "I was under the impression that I managed to exterminate every single copy of that very photo in the internet... but, in the end, what they say is true: nothing is ever truly gone in the internet."
"Well, well, well..." Yuuko leered, revealing her dazzling set of white teeth that glinted in the midday light. "Who would have thought... when I took a look at the script of your play I had this sneaking suspicion; and it seems that I was right!"
She was, of course, alluding to the tendency of Ivan the Fool to underscore the superiority of honesty and hardworking over greed and industriousness.
"Well, no, not really." Sunshin replied. "Ivan the Fool actually implies that Communism only befits those of low mental intelligence."
Of course, that wasn't really what Tolstoy intended to imply; Ivan the Fool wasn't even about Communism; Anarchism was the more apt term for the main theme of the story. But they didn't have to know that.
"The photo you all see here was taken by me; this occurred back when I was young and foolish, the two traits that are usually found with each other. I was reading the writings of Marx and Engles, and I was appealed to their ideas and to the general idea of Communism; in my defense, I repeat that I was young and foolish. I decided to make that pose out of half-jest and half-seriousness."
In order to gain an appropriate idea of how Communism was viewed by the general Japanese public, we must go back to the year 1960 (droned the ever-faithful Mr. Fukuhara). In Tokyo that year, Inejiro Asanuma, the then-Chair of the Japanese Socialist Party, was participating in a public political debate. During middle of that debate he was stabbed by a nationalistic Japanese youth named Otoya Yamaguchi. That scene of murder was televised for all to see.
When one visits any link to the recording of that assassination, half of the comments criticized the violence of the incident, and the other half of the comments praised the assassin for rescuing Japan from the poisonous ideal of Communism.
Needless to say, communism was not an ideal looked favorably upon by most Japanese, especially during today's political climate.
"So," Yuuko continued her interrogation, arms on her hips, smile on her lips, "you're not a Communist?"
"I do not subscribe to that ideal, no."
"Strange!" She declared, her eyes glinting with frenzy. "A radical like you not being a Communist! You purposefully made that pose in that photo, so you must have been sympathetic to such ideals, perhaps in the past. You're not the type of person to be peer-pressured; your antics in the past show your complete indifference to what others think of you, so why deny this now?"
"Not even a fool like me is foolish enough to defend such an insane ideal. Marx and Engles are geniuses, I'll give them that; I was very appealed to their words when I first read them. Their arguments were sensible and sound, because they made sure to cover all three bases needed for successful persuasion: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. They appeal using Ethos because, at this point in time, those two, Marx and Engles, have achieved complete infamy in the minds of many people on earth today; you cannot research politics without researching their ideas. They appeal using Pathos by encouraging our sympathy for the laborers being exploited, exploited to the point of losing their very humanity and being reduced to something lower than animals, all by the bourgeoisie living at the top. They appeal using Logos by using Immanent Critique, the art of criticizing an idea using its own terms; they make sure to impress upon the reader that they, unlike their political rivals in thought, do not use assumptions or high ideals or ethics that do not connect to reality, such as the hypothetical State of Nature. They emphasize their insistence on sticking to actual, practical facts and Material Relations. They take great pains to prove that Capitalism is inherently oppressive. They introduce logically-alluring concepts: the idea of Alienation, workers being alienated from their own products, from the very act of producing products, from the species they belong to, and from other fellow workers. The idea of labor producing products, then reproducing itself, then reproducing the laborers themselves as products. The idea of Objectification. The idea of Wage being nothing more than Private Property. The idea of Hegelian Dialectic Process and conflict between Relations of Production and Forces of Production eventually leading to the change of the Mode of Production-"
"-I already am very well acquainted with such ideas, so there is no need for you to drag that on and on," Yuuko interrupted, tapping her foot. "Or are you implying that I am lacking in intelligence enough for you to have a warrant to show off?"
"Far be it from me to insult your intelligence; such an endeavor is beneath me," Sunshin smiled.
A non-Class 2-A student would probably have risen to such a bait, but Yuuko was far too intelligent to not sidestep such a remark. Instead, she pressed on toward the main topic of their argument. "So? Have you really rejected the ideas of Communism? After all that you've said, one would think you are its most fervent advocate."
"Communism, in the end, is a poison; a poison for the mind; that's all it is," Sunshin shrugged. "Have you forgotten that it was Communism that split my country in two? What about Russia, Cuba, and Vietnam? Did Communism ever successfully bring peace and prosperity to people? Not even; it caused the death of millions. It's a noxious gas that, wherever it goes, induces poverty, violence, hunger, degeneracy, (ironically) fascism, so on and so forth... a Socialist State, the eventual state Marx and Engels dreamt of, is an Utopia, and you know very well what happens whenever anyone attempts to create utopia on earth; they instead create hell. There are a myriad of quotes that reaffirm that idea: 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'... 'hell is full of good intentions or desires'... 'the attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell'... 'some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions'... 'all bad precedents begin as justifiable measures'...
"All you need in order to be greatly frightened by the nightmare that is Communism are works by Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, the men who predicted the fall of 20th century and the precise reasons behind it. You may think that a determined and honest leader may actually somehow make Communism work; allow me to tell you that any man who thinks himself capable of being an effective leader of a Communistic State will inevitably be killed by a Stalin.
"And - here's the clincher - even after all that that was said and done, even after all those atrocities stemming directly to his work, Marx is still guilty of a sin greater than all of them. Can you guess what it is?"
The silence was deafening. Even Yuuko, who made efforts to maintain her judge-like countenance, failed to hide curiosity reflecting from her face.
"Marx was not being sincere..." Sunshin whispered. "He. Was. Not. Being. Sincere. He was not motivated by his sympathy for the workers; he was not compelled to write his work because of the flaws of Capitalism. His conclusions are awashed in deceitful optimism; he calls for the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' with all the horrific violence and cruelty that comes along with it (by deeming them 'necessary') all the while being as ambiguous as possible about proper limitations. He was hired to subvert the already socialist sentiments growing among the workers during his time; he was hired by the very same force behind every major war since the Napoleonic wars. I dare not say more than this..."
Sunshin cast a glance upon a particular corner in the classroom.
"...the walls here have eyes and ears."
If everyone in the classroom was shocked before by the idea of Sunshin possibly being a Communist, it was nothing compared to the shock they felt now.
Yuuko was the first to regain her composure:
Clap,
Clap,
Clap.
"Sasuga, Sunshin..." Yuuko snarled after her golf-clap. "Just when I thought I finally found a way to corner you, you manage to step it up a notch more. Tensai as always."
"You're not so bad yourself; you dug up that picture, after all." Sunshin grinned. "Tell you what; now that the cat is out of the bag, might as well tell you the reason why I began to slack off- well, you already heard the main reason from me, but you still have yet to know the straw that broke the camel's back... come to my house after school today," Sunshin spoke up, addressing the entire class. "There, I shall tell you why I began my string of mischief."
Upon approaching the doorsteps to his home, he found a package left behind by a postal worker. Opening it, he found the item he ordered the week prior: a 1999 can of Surge.
"Perfect..." Sunshin whispered with delight. He quickly entered his home; he needed to place this can in the fridge before company arrived.
Less than ten minutes later, his doorbell rang; Sunshin subsequently welcomed the entirety of Class 2-F into his home, along with the three representatives of Class 2-A.
"Welcome, friends," Sunshin directed them to the living-room. "Forgive me for having only chips and juice-boxes; I did not expect myself to invite you all to my home today, but I hope that what you will hear from me will more than make up for the lack of food."
Indeed, the majority of the students currently within the living-room paid little heed to the bags of chips and refreshments laid out on the middle table.
There, Sunshin began his confession. About how, despite being qualified enough for the Class A, he was a slacker without proper motivation or discipline just like those in Class F. About how he found it all tedious and useless, just like how those in the Class F felt. About how he was envious at the relaxed and leisurely attitude those in Class F enjoyed. About how his shenanigans landed him here.
And, as expected, his confession had the most dramatic effect upon the slackers at Class 2-F. They were glad and relieved to directly hear from a Class A-2 qualifier about how he, too, felt beleaguered by the prospect of much studying, about how he, too, was just as much of a slacker as they themselves were. Suddenly, being in Class 2-F didn't feel too humiliating.
Then the talk reduced down to small chatter and personal discourses between themselves. As hours passed and snacks dwindled, the students began to leave one by one.
Soon, only the three representatives of Class 2-A and those of Akihisa and Co. remained. An heavy silence fell between them.
"Well..." Akihisa yawned, affably clueless as ever. "That was a good talk, Sunshin. I'd better get back home now; my sis will be worried about me... again..."
"I don't recommend leaving now, Aki," Sunshin replied. "Especially when I'm just about to get into the good stuff."
"Eh?"
"He means, he will now finally get into the meat of his story," Sakamoto said.
"Correct. Miss Tsundere here-" - Sunshin nodded toward the burst of indignation that flashed onto Yuuko's face - "-already knew everything of which I told the others hours ago. She immediately knew that I was holding information back, information that I was willing to share only with those I trust. Well then, it simply became a mere waiting game. Kudou, Kirishima and Sakamoto saw the set look on Yuuko's face and figured that something was up, so they stayed also. And when they stay, the rest of you guys are not likely to leave either... so, here we are."
"..."
"I suppose I the friendship between me and you all are close enough for me to talk about this. I am uncertain as to how much validity you will place upon my reasonings for my actions, but we shall see. I believe it began somewhere around the third month of my stay here at Fumizuki Academy. At that time, I was still a functioning student with good work ethic, and I strove to do the best I could achieve in my studies. I went through multiple books that dealt with political ideas, for I am appealed to that subject. Then... I came across a writing by a man named Louis Althusser."
Sunshin got up and walked toward one of his many cabinets. After some minutes of digging, he produced a stack of printed papers.
"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus... that is the title of this essay. To say that it opened my eyes is an understatement. It's a college-level writing, and, furthermore, this copy is not in Japanese, so..." He sat back down on his chair. "I'll just provide you with a simplified explanation. I admit that I am at bit of a loss as to where to begin, but... here, I'll ask you this question." Sunshin cleared his throat. "Akihisa, why did you come to school today?"
"Well... I suppose I felt that I had to attend school."
"How so? You have free control over your own actions. Who obligates you to continue to attend school?"
"...My parents, I guess?"
"Alright, that's a valid reason. Now, why do your parents feel that it is necessary for you to continue attending school?"
"Well, they want me to receive official education, I guess."
"Let me put it this way." Sunshin paused for a moment of thought. "What do you think your parents think will happen if you stop attending school?"
"I suppose they'll think I won't be able to get a job and be a part of the society."
"Yes, that's a valid reason. And there must be a reason why they think that way, for they have attended public schools when they themselves were young, and so did your grandparents, and so on, and so forth. Allow me to enlighten you, Akihisa: your parents believe that school is important mostly - well, only - because they themselves were taught to think that way by the school. I fully realize the flawed implications this superficial and hasty conclusion comes with," Sunshin added, noticing the doubtful looks cast upon the faces of the three Class 2-A members present in the room. "I skipped the disclaimers necessary for this argument only to spare Akihisa of the tedious details and to get straight to the point. Now, as I was saying, in essence, the school teaches their students that public education is necessary to succeed in life. Those students graduate, marry, reproduce, and imparts that same idea to their children. Rinse and repeat. Why? Schools cannot sustain themselves unless they reproduce the environment in which they stay alive in. If every single one of you suddenly decided not to attend schools anymore, then the education system will collapse. It will be, to them, a disaster. So what do they do? They do their absolute hardest to convince the students that they owe it to themselves to go to school. They try their hardest to convince you that the only way to become a capable person in life is to attend schools. They try their hardest to convince you that a single sheet of paper with certain words printed on them - say, the word 'diploma' - will function as your ticket for success. This idea is merely a fragment of multiple ideas expressed in that paper Althusser wrote, but right now this part of his ideas is the only part relevant to us for this moment."
"Let me guess; after having realized all this, you gave up on studying and decided to pursue only subjects that actually interests you, correct?" Yuuko shook her head in dismay. "Sunshin, you're insane. Too much studying made you go mad!"
"If what I say is logical - and I highly doubt you will be able to refute the bare concept of this idea I espouse - it is not I who is mad, but the system."
"But education is necessary. Our school, our teachers, our parents, they all reinforce that fact onto us - fine. But it is still necessary nevertheless."
"Behold this woman, who clings to education as her ticket to success!" A contemptuous smile graced Sunshin's lips. "Do you not care for these unfortunate individuals at Class 2-F?"
"That is not what I mean, and you know it."
"At the very least, that's how I feel about this."
"Alright, I'll bite," Sakamoto intervened, gaining the attention of everyone else in the room. "So your antics - the same antics that landed you in our class - are your way of, for a lack of a better word, 'fighting back'?"
"Somewhat...? Though, I would classify my behavior as idiosyncratic caprices."
"So what exactly do you propose as a possible solution to this cycle? What can the rest of us do?"
"Well..." Sunshin reflected for a moment. "In order for me to get that part of Althusser's argument, I'll probably need to continue onward into my explanation, and propose the possible solutions in the end. I have outlined reasons why the Education System is considered to be so crucial in reproducing the society it survives in. Althusser has also studied Marx's writings, and this paper of his is his contribution to the central idea of 'reproduction of the system of production'. The education system must output both the proletariats (henceforth referred to by me as 'Underclass') and the bourgeoisie (henceforth referred to by me as 'Overclass'). The main purpose of the education system is to convince you that you are the Underclass. That is essential for the main capitalistic system to survive. Just like our parents, and by extension, our society, the very teachers who teach you in such ways are also 'brainwashed'. Every time you attend a school, every time you submit to the authority of educators, you are ideologically consenting to the idea that you are merely a student, and that your destiny is to pursue the state approval and recognition of you having finished education, and to end up as the Underclass, working for the Overclass. So what happens if you stop attending school? That's where the 'repressive apparatus' steps in; they send the police, Child Protective Services, government agents, whatever it takes to intimidate you to continue sending you to school. Oh sure, if you somehow convince your parents to allow you to be homeschooled, that is one way to learn in different manners; but good luck convincing any of your parents into doing that.
"The state, in order to survive, uses the Ideological State Apparatus (the ISA) and Repressive State Apparatus (the RSA). RSA is mostly the police and the military. ISA is, simply put, the Education System. The minds of children are vulnerable, and they know this, which is why they took control of the main form of ISA in today's society governed by Reason, which is the Education System, in order to maintain control over the people from their youth. ISA cannot be enforced nor be protected by force; its survival relies on the people 'believing' that they have free will. The Education System teaches the students 'good behaviors' necessary for the job they are 'destined for'. In order to wield power, one must control the ISA. In other words, if you wish to make a difference, you must break free and take control of the ISA. Ah, but that is easier said than done! When radicals appear, when the rule-breakers appear, they step in and take necessary steps to prevent disorder. Why do you think they demoted me to this class?"
"They demoted you to this class because you caused trouble," Yuuko retorted.
"Sure. But that doesn't invalidate this line of reasoning I just proposed."
"You are implying that we do not have free will because the 'proper way we ought to behave in' are ingrained into our minds. But you are one of many proofs that one can have a free will if they want to."
"Do you really think so, Kinoshita? I disagree. The sense of proper behavior is ingrained into our minds to the point where we can never be completely free from their influence. Allow me to give you an example. Suppose that you are walking on a school hallway, and suddenly, behind you, Ironman yells 'stop!'. What will you do?"
Sunshin made a brief, dramatic pause.
"Turn around, of course! It's obvious! What else would you do, continue walking? It's that 'sense of obviousness' that you have to watch with great caution; it sneaks up on you with an air of naturalness. Suppose that the Principal Toudou herself is giving a speech at this moment, and suppose that we are the audience. If she states 'Dear students...', who do you think she is referring to? Why, us, of course! We are raised to believe that we are the students, and that the school faculty has the authority to address and order us. This is 'interpellation' at work. The moment we believe that the principal is addressing us with the word 'students' is the moment where we become her subjects under her will. This works through 'recognition'; we have to recognize the legitimacy of her authority to address us in order for her to control us. Once we admit that she is addressing us, we admit that she has the authority to control us. This is not done through force; this is what they call 'hegemony'."
"But," Akihisa replied, "do we not listen to them out of fear of punishment, instead?"
"And how exactly do you know about the existence of that consequence? How do you know that there are consequences at all? Because the system drills the fear of consequences into our heads. Do you see now? Interpellation transforms free subjects into subjected beings. Our freedom is then taken away, and we are now under the subjection of the ruling ideology instead. Then, those who are overruled reproduce the next generation of people who will continue to stay overruled. Reproduction is key here; it is the whole point of the System. The Education System merely jump-starts the process before we mature into adulthood, ere we think for ourselves."
"Sunshin, the world is not out to get you. Those concerns you express are valid concerns, yes, but at the same time you sound like a nut right now." Yuuko shook her head.
"The world is not out to get me; it is out to get all of us. I'm merely a brighter target."
"Disregarding as to whether the world is out to get us or not... how exactly do we 'fight back'?" Sakamoto further prompted.
"The Relations of Production set up by the school does not reproduce by itself. It's us students who are mindlessly, endlessly working to reproduce the System. As we students are the ones reproducing the System, we have the power to change... well, in theory, in any case."
Yuuko sighed; "and how exactly would you go about convincing other students to suddenly boycott the school?"
"The students must first break free from their haze of ideology. When within an ideology, that ideology is no different from your reality. You perceive it as it is, a mere ideology, once you break free from it and observe it from outside. When an ideology is your reality, you make actions based on that ideology, and those actions have concrete consequences in the real world, furthering the influence of that ideology. Be ware of people possessed by ideology! They have no qualms about performing the most horrific acts as long as they find a way to justify doing so to themselves. Hence the Gulag Archipelago."
"Great. And how do we exactly break free from their ideology?"
"To students in general, the ideology of the school is no different than their reality. Therefore, in order to break their ideology, we must break their reality. Now how to break their reality? That's the question... an Alien Invasion, a Zombie Outbreak, a Plague Epidemic..."
With a sad expression Yuuko turned to others and tapped her head in resignation: He's out of his mind.
"...the possibilities are endless. Then, after all that, perhaps they'll see that life is not all about studying."