Scandal by Endo Shusaku
A book review.
Scandal is the title of the novel written by Endo Shusaku in 1986. Its setting is modern Tokyo, centered around the Yoyogi-Harajuku area.
The way Endo describes Yoyogi, Harajuku and Shinjuku in the eighties is just as I remembered it. In 1986, Yoyogi and Shibuya were my main playgrounds. For that reason, it’s especially meaningful to me.
The novel itself is a treatment of the nature of man. The main character, Suguro, is a novelist who in every way resembles Endo himself. Suguro is a highly respected, award winning novelist. He is thought to be upright, moral, socially sanitized.
Gradually, Suguro is forced to admit that he has an evil side. An extremely evil side. So much so that it makes his “main side” look like a fabrication. Which side is real? Both sides?
In the final chapters, we find Suguro in a hotel room, with the embodiment of innocence - a middle school girl by the name of Mitsu - intoxicated, naked and unconscious on the bed.
He wants to rescue the young girl. He wants to take her out of the hotel room now, before anybody can harm her.
He does that, but not before molesting and strangling her.
So which is it? Are we evil? Or are we good?
I think I’m a good person myself, but I am also aware of my extreme capacity for evil. I think we all have that capacity. History shows us we do. In a sense, we have two “natures”. A “good” nature that tells us to be good, regardless of negative consequences. And an equally extravagant “evil” nature.
Yes, that’s right, deny it. Deny that you could ever enjoy killing somebody.
That won’t make it go away though.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I think I understand what you mean John, but no, I could never enjoy killing someone innocent. I’m not telling myself that, I’m telling you that.
Now, there is violence within everyone, but I’m not sure that should be confused with evil. Killing an innocent (like the girl) and killing someone who probably deserves it…two different things that are not evil, but violent instead.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
This is a very interesting question to ponder. I read an article in Time magazine recently where though science they were pinpointing areas of the brain that are more active when doing “evil”. But they go on to explain, with examples, that different people have more active “evil” portions of their brain. In a way this would support what you are saying that we all have the capacity to do evil. Also Enjoyment/Pleasure would be a handled by a different part of the brain.
Although I also wonder if this portion of our brain can not grow in it’s capacity when it is excised. In a similar way the more we exercise the creative portion of our brain the more powerful it becomes… or more commonly put: the more creative we become.
As a society if we support the death penalty we are enjoying killing somebody (possibly an innocent person)… so in that sense I agree with you. I however do not support the government killing people for me. If we must kill somebody we should all actively participate as a society…. this perhaps could be part of your “social contract.”
What do you think?
February 11th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
So which is it? Are we evil? Or are we good?
I’m trying to think of a way of defining an evil act for the purpose of answering
this question. “An act that most reasonable people would judge to be evil”,
sounds a bit feeble but is the best I’ve come up with so far. The example of
raping and murdering the unconscious naked girl on the bed certainly qualifies
as an evil act by that definition.
It seems an evil act to me but after ten minutes pondering the question I’m
thinking about Nazi Germany and Auschwitz, where some of the most evil acts
imaginable took place, including the rape and murder of female prisoners. The
prison guards in Auschwitz were expected by their commanders to commit
heinous crimes. They were operating in an environment where morality had
been turned upside down and murder on an industrial scale was deemed
acceptable. How evil were the prison guards as individuals in these
circumstances?
Certainly they were deeply evil according to the standards we judge them by
as outsiders but how did these people view themselves? Were they able to go
home after a hard day’s work in the prison camps, switch off and love their
families as much as any “normal” person with a regular, non-genocidal job?
We invent rules to rationalise and justify evil acts. As cldnails comments, he
would make a distinction between killing an innocent and killing someone who
probably deserves it. Many people would think this way and it makes evil look
like a value that we can decide, alter, manipulate and deploy to suit ourselves.
How do we arrive at an infallible decision that the recipient of our violent, life
denying act deserves it?
I’m offering more questions than answers here because I feel a lot of
uncertainty about these questions. For this reason I support my country’s law
of jailing convicted murderers for long periods instead of executing them. I am
not absolutely sure that murderers deserve to be killed by cruel and macabre
means, and even if they do, I don’t like the corrupting effect that I think the
death penalty would have on the minds of our citizens if it we supported it. I
think it would encourage more of an unreflective, callous, lynch mob attitude
towards the issue among many people. It would make us less civilised.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
kerrin,
I’m interested in your proposal that citizens should participate in the carrying out of executions. Is this suggestion the result of a sadistic and voyeuristic impulse to partake in an evil practice, or a mischevious way of making citizens face up to the inherent barbarity of capital punishment and hence, pave the way to it’s abolition?
If the latter case, then might I add the proviso that the participating citizen is compelled to garotte, stab, or otherwise finish off his victim in a way that makes him fully aware of the gravity of what he is doing in taking a human life. Throwing a switch or inserting a needle, like pulling a trigger, is too easy, as evindenced by the popular sport among American misfits of mass shoot ups in schools and universities - a practice facilitated and encouraged by the free availability - written into the constitution apparently, of the means to do so.
But that’s another debate.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Dave,
I was being slightly facetious in my advocating citizens participate in carrying out executions. I was in favor of it only in the later sense… The average person’s disconnect from taking someone’s life in execution is why it is so easy for some to be in favor of the capital punishment as it stands now. Yes as you say throwing a switch, inserting a needle, etc. is too easy… but at least those would bring people closer to the realization of what is happening if they were to participate. Someone could live their whole life in favor of capital punishment and never even see/experience a single person put to death in this system. I guess in the end what I’m saying is if everyone who supported the idea of capital punishment had to participate in capital punishment there would be a whole lot less support for it.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Kerrin,
Thanks for replying. I didn’t really suspect that you were being sadistic and my own suggestions of garotting and stabbing are also slightly facetious, aimed at illustrating how repulsive the taking of life is, whatever justificatory spin we put on it. Our attitudes seem to concur somewhat, I’m pleased to say.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:24 am
John,
I am reeling somewhat from your revelation. I- am -like -wow. [to use the absurd vernacular of this current generation. I actually prefer a grammatically correct sentence but feel the need to lapse on this occasion]. It makes me think, what do I know, sat in my ivory tower, [actually a reconstituted stone bungalow] pontificating about the nature of good and evil?
When you mentioned our extravagant “evil” nature I had no idea that you had first hand experience of it. A number of questions come to mind about the details of your experience, most of which I will suppress, suspecting a purely prurient interest. No, on second thoughts I
will ask. What exactly did you do, how did it happen, where did it happen and did you enjoy it? Feel free to ignore these questions if they offend you but I feel they are justified on some sort of “horses mouth” grounds, to facilitate greater understanding.
Whatever the details, my limited knowledge of you convinces me that it was right that you should be spared the death penalty and allowed to resume life in the free world. I could be wrong though. At the very moment I write this you could be enthusiastically throttling a passer by for daring to criticize your dress sense. It all goes to show that you can never be certain just what type of person you are contacting on the internet.
I’ve just re read your post and the power and knowledge of it is numbing my brain to the extent that I might have to go out and kill someone, just to help me understand.
I’m kidding.
There’s an old saying that goes “Two wrongs don’t make a right”. It’s a simplistic sounding maxim but nevertheless resonates strongly for the purposes of this argument. In the UK we have killers that are unarguably of no practical use to humanity and are deserving of death for their crimes - killers that would satisfy your conditions for application of the death penalty, but I would still spare them of this sentence and consign them to a life of permanent imprisonment rather than see the justice system sink to their level. I think that capital punishment brings out the worst in people and is best avoided. Lets leave the execution stuff to asshole societies such as China and Saudi Arabia.
Thats my view as a naive armchair pundit who has never done much of anything very interesting ever, although I did walk the 270 mile Pennine way in 1982, an acheivement that qualifies me for exactly zilch.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I think it should be noted, I did not feel evil when I was doing it. I felt more evil doing other things in my life. Years ago, I was in a hotel room with an extremely beautiful young girl who thought that I was the best thing since sliced bread.
I was, however, married. True, I didn’t get along with my wife. But at that moment I felt more evil than any other time in my life. So evil that I broke off and left the room without finishing the deed. If you’re any bit male, you know how hard that is, and might get an idea of the overwhelming evilness I felt.
The point I’m trying to make is a paradox. We do things that have no victims, like cheating on a wife. If she doesn’t know, she isn’t hurt, and it’s a victimless crime.
On the other hand, we do things that do extreme injury. Like kill people. At the time, I don’t recall feeling bad at all. The next day, I felt bad. Every day after that, I’ve felt guilt. When I was younger, I even shot myself in the leg with a nailgun (3 inch nail) which broke my femur, in order to feel pain, in order to alleviate my guilt.
But at the moment, I didn’t foresee the pain that would be caused. And it was massive pain. I simply felt justified in taking a life, and I did so.
When the detectives asked me what I did afterwards, I said I drank some water. They suggested that I drank water because I was excited and out of breath. I said no, in fact, I was a bit shocked by how easy it is to take a life. In the movies, they make it very dramatic. Lightning in the background. Ominous music. No. It wasn’t like that. It was like tying my shoe. There was nothing exciting or dramatic to it. Not on my end, at least.
The victim no doubt was experiencing a horrifying five minutes. That I regretted immediately, with a twinge of guilt. I tried to rush it along, because no doubt knowing that one is being killed must be horrific. But the human body just doesn’t die so easily.
After I was in jail, I became “human” in the sense that I realized other humans were not objects to toyed with as I pleased. I felt feelings of guilt I’d never felt before. I felt empathy. And it was shocking to me all the evil I had done in my youth. When I was 14 and 15 and 16 years of age, I was seriously evil. I had no conscience. Sometimes I got in three fights a day, beating people unconscious and enjoying it. I beat up train station attendants for looking at me in a way which I took offense to. I beat people for refusing to hand over their cigarettes. I humiliated people. I took joy in it.
I didn’t have a conscience at all. None. Zero. Zilch.
I think most people in prison for homicide felt justified, at least at the time when they did it. I was in a prison that was owned by the Japanese, but supplied with food by the military, and held military people convicted by Japanese courts. A lot of young Marines, mostly.
One was in for beating a guy to death after the guy had mocked him and allegedly said some anti-American things. That guy left the bar, waiting outside, and when his drunk victim emerged, he beat him to death.
He felt justified. The victim, according to him, brought it on himself.
Another guy in there had raped a girl. He felt justified because she had “led him on”. He had bought dinner, they had held hands, obviously she was obligated to have sex with him, and when she refused he beat her senseless.
The difference between the “good inmates” and the “scary ones” is how they reflect on their crimes. Most of us realized after the fact that we had no right to do what we did. Most of us admitted wholly to our guilt, and didn’t try to weasel our way out of it.
The scary ones, as I call them, are the ones who felt victimized. They felt they were justified in raping or killing or assaulting. They felt victimized by the courts, and many of the scary ones vowed to get revenge on Japanese once they were released. The rage was all-consuming, and I have no doubt that a few of those people, once released and back in the States, will have assaulted Japanese or Japanese-looking people.
Back on the topic of capital punishment….
Why do they execute people who commit treason in times of war? I think they do that to emphasize how important the nation is. Likewise, when guilt life is taken by an executioner, it is done to emphasize how important innocent life is to humanity.
I generally oppose capital punishment, but then I read the specific cases, and I think that even capital punishment is a solution lacking in horror. Some of the crimes these people committed, the horror is just … unspeakable.
What do you say? Hitler, if he had not killed himself, and was captured. Should he have been executed, or allowed to retire to a prison cell and write his memoirs?
February 18th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Your experiences were dramatic, to say the least. Do you have any
understanding of why your youthful character was so vicious? Did you bite the
heads off hamsters as a pre teen?
You paint a vivid picture of some blood curdlingly gruesome characters, of a
type that I hope never to come across. We have people like that in the UK,
many of them safely and permanently incarcerated. I’m satisfied with that
solution. It’s over 40 years since we abandoned the death penalty here and no
political party has ever campaigned for its reintroduction.
When you speak of our solutions lacking in horror for perpetrators of the most
unspeakable crimes, that’s true from a vengeance point of view - Hitler
deserved to die horribly several million times over, but I don’t think our
governments should be looking to enact horrific punishments. This would put
us in the same category as the world’s human rights blackspots. The intention
should be more to clean up our act, lead by example and hope the rest of the
world will follow.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:21 am
John,
Everything ok? It’s been over a month and I’ve missed you writings! Not to mention this discussion.
cheers,
kerrin
July 10th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Your post reminded me of the young girls and guys freaking out on all sorts of music in Yoyogi Koen in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Anyway, what you say is perfectly true. In life, we do things based on our expectations by our family, friends, coworkers and people around us. In doing so we many times we try to kill our natural instincts. And, if we get a chance where we feel that we may not be caught or observed by people, we defintely are bound to do ‘bad’ things based on out natural instinct.
When I first went to Japan in late 80’s, I used to find Japanese girls very sober, soft spoken and shy. And in just 10 years, with new gadgets and services like mobile phones, terekura .. look what has happened to the young generation of Japanese girls! Around 40% high school girls in Tokyo said they would not mind dating old men for money! They do the ‘evil’ things because they think that their parents or people that matter won’t find out what they are doing. So the environment matters a lot too.
July 24th, 2008 at 6:42 am
It doesn’t sound as though you much enjoyed killing.