Now let's continue the analysis with the next character: Miki Sayaka
At first: I disliked her. I thought she was annoying and antisocial. But I liked her costume and it strongly reminded me on magic knight rayearth.
The first interesting thing about her is one specific thing in the german dub: there, one character (I think it was kyoko) calls her a Gutmensch. And that is VERY fitting.
The origin of the term Gutmensch is not completely clear. There are some things linking it to Nietzsche again. (Which fits.) Others found evidence that this term was a slur invented by German jews in the 19th century. Today, in germany, it is frequently used by conservatives and especially by libertarians against left liberals. And its common among boomers.
While it is often used similar to the words woke (by the way, here in germany, for the most terms, liberals mostly adopted the term woke and because of that, in germany, woke is often understand similar to what Americans call liberals or shitlibs. And a certain American form of left liberalism conquered german left wing parties and almost drove out genuine social democracy. This is why many Europeans dislike the term woke.) or SJW.
But the term virtue signaling is more close to what the term Gutmensch means. The term white knighting can also fit. And a Gutmensch does not have to be a left winger. A catholic priest who secretly hires prostitutes might also get called a Gutmensch.
The term Gutmensch basically is referring to a hypocrite who overemphasizes his or her moral superiority but whose morality is more a facade to degrade other people. (You see how that relates to Sayaka.) And these people tend to basically just adopt popular causes and are silent when something is not popular enough to score point. (Some people here in germany call that "TV dictated morality") And the Gutmensch loves to emphasize pity.
You definitely see how that fits to Sayaka. One interesting thing here is also how she treats Kyoko. Kyoko tells her that she is basically poor and likely homeless. Sayaka does not help her but assumes Kyoko acts criminal and scolds her for that and emphasizes her superiority. Sayaka has absolutely no Empathy for someone for Kyoko despite Kyoko possibly having far Worse living conditions than her.
But now back to philosophy. Sayaka has a lot to do with the ideas of Nietzsche as well as with Sartre and his wife, the feminist Simone de Beauvoir.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a theory about the development of morality. His theory had huge influences all over the spectrum. The left liked that it exposed Christianity as hypocritical, the right loved its emphasis on strength and Ayn Rand was influenced by it and used it as a way to ethically defend capitalism against the left.
But Nietzsche criticized everyone. He criticized communists, Christians, capitalists and others equally. For him almost everyone was a hypocrite. (More on that later.)
But now to the theory. His ideas have some similarities to intersectionality theory by the way.
The first thing to notice here is the idea of the will. Nietzsche was influenced by Schopenhauer and Schopenhauer was influenced by Kant. And both talked about the limits of perception. Basically, Kant and Schopenhauers theory says that people do not mentally recognize reality as it really is. They see the world and form an opinion about it. And instead of seeing the world, they only see their opinion about the world.
Schopenhauer added one thing here: the perception of the world starts with a desire to see the world. And for Schopenhauer, the desire making you want to see the world is your desire to survive in this world.
Nietzsche changed Schopenhauers definition and said not everything is about mere survival and people are often willing to risk their lifes. So, survival is not the end goal. The ultimate desire is power.
Now, there is a second important influence: Hegel. Hegel was a german philosopher who thought history was a fight between worldview opposites. He called it dialectics. One group has one worldview, gets power, spreads it. Then people with another viewpoint challenge them and in the end, they find a new position influenced by that struggle.
And one such dialectic is the dialectic between oppressors (or privileged people) and oppressed. This drives history forward. By the way. That theory also formed the basis for Marxist class theory.
How does this apply to morality? According to Nietzsche there are 2 forms of morality. The first one is master morality. This is more common sense than morality in the classical sense: the things that benefit me (or benefit me and society) are good and things making me/us sick are bad.
Now. Here comes the other side: slave morality. Slave morality is basically the morality of oppressed people taking revenge on their oppressors (or on people who caused no harm but have simply been more successful than them in life) by harming their reputation and demonizing them. Slave morality is basically the position of "how dare you be more successful than me?" While master morality often boils down to "I deserve my privilege because I am such an awesome person"
And here is the important point: both sides are egotistical hypocrites who want a better position for themselves.
One key aspect of slave morality is also the glorification of suffering. Basically instead of "I suffer due to me having bad luck or doing something stupid", now it's "my suffering shoes that I am a superior person"
One interesting point here is also, Slave morality has a double meaning. On the one hand, it's the morality of oppressed people e.g. slaves. But on the other hand, it's a morality driven by resentment and hatred. The position is basically "I am a good person because I am not like these guys here." But this is not a free concept of the self but a definition in negation of someone else. So, if I am not like person X, if person X changes and I want to stay unlike him, his change forces myself to change. So, the persons I hate have literally the power to determine who I am if my goal is to not be like them. So, in an identity sense, slave morality turns people into slaves. (One example of how ridiculous that can get is the "hitler ate sugar" type of arguments. Some people say veganism is bad because Hitler was a vegan, or that green energy is bad because the Nazis had some research on renewable energy. These arguments are stupid because something is not inherently bad but something becomes bad because the wrong people did it.)
You see Sayakas way of thought is definitely slave morality and she definitely uses the "I am better than you because I suffer more" argument. Interestingly, some lyrics of her theme song decretum even stronger point that out.
And another trait of slave morality is often a position of "I was a victim so I have the right to act as a jerk towards others." And Sayaka is mean to everyone in the end, even if they never did anything wrong.
The other aspect of Sayaka relates to Sartre and to Simone de Beauvoir. According to both of them, you are fundamentally a free person with free will and all evil and most of your own suffering starts with denying your free will and agency. Basically to say "I have to do x" if that is not really the case. This is also why many oppressed people do not rebel. Their oppression gives them convenient excuses of "I could not do X because I am oppressed" or "if I would have done x I would have received punishment". According to both of them, you could still do x while avoiding to get caught and punished or you could accept the punishment, do it anyway and move on. But if you can deny your free will then you have another one to blame for your actions instead of yourself.
According to de Beauvoir, women are often raised to accept tons of personal sacrifices and deny their own Feelings and free will, for the sake of the common good and this fuels this mauvaise foi too. This also fits sayaka
But according to Sartre and de Beauvoir, this makes you mentally sick in the long run.
And you see that in Sayaka as well. In many many cases, she obviously had a choice (like saying to the boy she loves that she loves him). It was her own choice not to use her chances but she does not uses them, suffers and Lies about her situation leaving her no choice.
And some of her assumptions are not very logical. For example her assumptions that the boy she loves would reject her if he would know the truth. To be honest, if my girlfriend would Tell me she is basically a superheroine, that instead would instantly turn me on and make me horny.🤣 and I think I am not the only one here.
Interestingly, Kyoko frequently points out that Sayaka had far more choice than she admits and her suffering is due to making bad and/or dishonest choices. Like said, Sayaka is often associated with classical liberalism and objectivism and they share with the existentialists that they cherish personal responsibility.
In many aspects, Sayaka is a darker parallel to Nanami and her delusions. One interesting thing here: one of the witch world's where she Fights resembles the Statue of liberty. This is also a symbol of alchemy. The whole miss liberty symbol represents the end of the learning phase and the start of the acting right Phase. (This Phase is called citrinitas.) So in a way, Sayaka rejects both the truth and the need for right Action there.
