Politics of Mobile Suit Gundam—Track 2 «Eating»

It is as if eating, this capacity, undeniably essential to our existence, has been neglected as a philosophical theme in its own right

«Die ethische Macht der öffentlichen Opfermahlzeit ruhte auf uralten Vorstellungen über die Bedeutung des gemeinsamen Essens und Trinkens. Mit einem anderen zu essen und zu trinken war gleichzeitig ein Symbol und eine Bekräftigung von sozialer Gemeinschaft und von Übernahme gegenseitiger Verpflichtungen; die Opfermahlzeit brachte zum direkten Ausdruck, dass der Gott und seine Anbeter Commensalen [D.h. gemeinsam an einem Tisch Sitzende.; from the footnote in the original text] sind, aber damit waren alle ihre anderen Beziehungen gegeben. Gebräuche, die noch heute unter den Arabern der Wüste in Kraft sind, beweisen, dass das Bindende an der gemeinsamen Mahlzeit nicht ein religiöses Moment ist, sondern der Akt des Essens selbst..» (1)

Welcome aboard the second track of Politics of Mobile Suit Gundam. Once again it’s time to enjoy ourselves. But enjoy how exactly?

Let us start by inquiring: what is depicted in a war anime? Tomino, as the founder of the Gundam Saga, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year having so many offsprings including spin-offs just like Star Wars, seems to give a quite straight forward answer already in the first Gundam, namely: an allegory of our political life.

As I have already mentioned in the trailer, the space battleship ”White Base”—also called the “Troy Horse” by its antagonists— is a temporary home, more precisely an asylum not only for numerous refugees on board from the space colony Side 7 that got severely damaged by the explosion Amuro unwillingly caused in the first episode but also for our young crew members who are destined by contingency to fight. And most of them, including Amuro and Frau, are not trained as soldiers but laypersons.

But isn’t this exactly how our home looks like? For who on earth has ever had the chance to choose one’s first country of residence before birth? This contingency corresponds to that of our natality.

Before the beginning of Amuro’s journey, we were talking about Arendt’s chuckling caused by, wait, what caused it? Was it Günter Gaus’ question? Or was it something else? It all began with a question flowing out from Günter’s mouth and then, in the mind of both Hannah and Günter, his word passed through the image of ”a” mOther tongue and then a chuckling came out from Hannah’s mouth.

So here we are, touching and being touched by our mysterious organ: the mouth.  In what sense is this organ mysterious? Because our mouth is an excessively multifunctional, equivocal organ, i. e. for both speaking and eating; but also for vomiting and laughing. This ”and” and the ”also” tells us something about our nature as a speaking being. They tell us simply that in order for us to speak, laugh and vomit, or to keep on performing these functions, we must also be able to eat. No less than we are speaking, laughing (Aristotle), vomiting animals we are eating animals too. Yet, as such animals, we cannot do all of these at the same time, for we only have one organ to perform all of these functions: the mouth. Like your mother told you: ”Oh baby, please don’t talk while eating!” An excessive prohibition, so to speak. For what is prohibited is impossible anyways. 

It is quite interesting that we only have a handful of thinkers in the history of philosophy, Epicurus for instance, who have seriously engaged with eating as such. It is as if eating, this capacity, undeniably essential to our existence, has been neglected as a philosophical theme in its own right; as if it were too natural that we too, qua animals, must eat. Eating as an excess of nature in us.

Arendt for instance—who often refuses to be called a philosopher and prefers to call her self a political theorist instead— subsumes our act of eating under the category of ” labor,” which is a ”condition” of human life in its double-meaning: firstly as a condition sine qua non for our life itself, self-preservation; secondly as a negative one that must be met in order for us to become active in the public sphere. In other words, we must leave behind our faculty of eating literally at home (oikos) in order to actively engage in the political community (coinōnia politikē). 

But is this true? Even if it is, isn’t it also true that we also live in order to eat, and even to enjoy the activity of eating itself? I am strongly tempted to say that, that which is left behind in Arendt’s understanding is the dialectics immanent to the act of eating itself. At least Tomino seems to take the figure of eating quite seriously, consciously or not taking the dialectics of eating at face value, i.e. eating as something essentially valuable.

After being forced to begin his journey, his political life in public–which is, I know, a pleonasm–, Amuro repeatedly manifests that, despite his extraordinary talent in fighting, he is disinterested in life itself. In other words: although he does have his own reason to fight, hence also to survive, he still doesn’t take his own life seriously enough. One reason for him to fight and survive is to find his parents—Amuro had unknowingly thrown his father into space during his first battle in the first episode. His disinterest in life was already shown before the beginning of his journey in the emphatic sense, even before he had made his first appearance. In the scene immediately preceding his first appearance, the camera hints at his existence by focusing on his breakfast—probably made by Frau only to be neglected by Amuro. 

And now, watch out, spoilers are coming!

At least two characters among the initial crew members are essential in disgusti…, excuse me, discussing the figure of ”eating” in Gundam: Ryū Hosei and Kai Shiden. 

Ryū—you got it, another name that starts with ”R”— is that nice guy, I mean, that really nice guy in the group who always cares for others and moves constantly between others, permanently endeavoring to make visible for others which problems they have when they are feeling uneasy. His name says it: ”Ryū,” or better Ryū/Lyū–or Dew?—means ”flow（流）” and his last name ”Hosei” indicates ”correction（補正）.” He’s that guy who can read the tide, the air and make them smooth without violently intervening in other people’s opinions or pushing too hard on others who find themselves in a mentally difficult situation. In this sense Ryū is one of the rare characters in the story who is already almost perfect from the beginning.

 But as what is he almost perfect? As a good soldier, as a tough cool big brother in the neighborhood. Yet, of course, he too does not and cannot, just like everyone else, have an overview of the tide, precisely because he is an almost-perfect soldier.

So quite consequently, he makes a fatal error in the story. He gives Amuro, still not convinced to live for his own sake, a one-sided opinion on eating. He tells Amuro who refuses to eat that ”eating is like loading your gun with bullets.”

This, of course, is true. But this assertion of truth is nonetheless one-sided. The character who speaks out the other half of the truth of eating is Kai the cynic whose cynicism has its origin in his cowardice which, on its side, is a necessary virtue in a war too. He’s the other big brother for Amuro; not exactly nice, but honest. 

One of the most important moments of his honesty manifests itself in his conversation in the kitchen with the chef. He complains that it’s totally unjust that Ryū and Amuro as soldiers get more food than others.         

Yet, no one in the story manages to convince our poor boy Amuro to enjoy his meal—at least, to predict, not until the very end of the story. In fact, at one point, i. e. in episode 12, he finally tells himself that he must eat. But just look at how he eats:

His hollow eyes only show that he is becoming a “gun,” a weapon, a tool, but hasn’t become a human being in the sense of a political, i. e. eating and speaking animal yet.

At this point, Amuro is standing on the edge of turning into a thing with one function: to kill. But who does he have to kill? This, along with his reason why he must kill, he will learn slowly only by learning his reason to live and not just survive. For he hasn’t truly exposed himself to the real possibility of his own death as well as that of others.

And Hegel tells us about Amuro’s consciousness at this stage of his development:

„Durch den Tod ist zwar die Gewissheit geworden, dass beide ihr Leben wagten und es an ihnen und an dem Anderen verachteten; aber nicht für die, welche diesen Kampf bestanden. Sie heben ihr in dieser fremden Wesenheit, welches das natürliche Dasein ist, gesetztes Bewusstsein oder sie heben sich [auf] und werden als die für sich sein wollenden Extreme aufgehoben. Es verschwindet aber damit aus dem Spiele des Wechsels das wesentliche Moment, sich in Extreme entgegengesetzter Bestimmtheit zu zersetzen; und die Mitte fällt in eine tote Einheit zusammen, welche in tote, bloß seiende, nicht entgegengesetzte Extreme zersetzt ist; und die beiden geben und empfangen sich nicht gegenseitig voneinander durch das Bewusstsein zurück, sondern lassen einander nur gleichgültig, als Dinge, frei.“

[“Through death, the certainty has been established that each has risked his life, and that each has cast a disdainful eye towards [life; my correction] both in himself and in the other. But this is not the case for those who passed the test in this struggle. They sublate their consciousness, which was posited in this alien essentiality which is natural existence, that is, they elevate themselves and, as extreme terms wanting to exist for themselves, are themselves sublated. The essential moment thereby vanishes from the fluctuating interplay, namely, that of distinguishing into extreme terms of opposed determinatenesses, and the middle term collapses into a dead unity, which disintegrates into dead extreme terms which are merely existents and not opposed terms. Neither gives back the other to itself nor does it receive itself from the other by way of consciousness. Rather, they only indifferently leave each other free-standing, like things.”] (2)

Amuro’s spirit is still a void like that of a machine, for what he has won by simply surviving attacks from his anonymous enemies—with the help of his invincible body Gundam—is just an empty conception of himself. In other words, he has never been serious about his own life nor his enemies’ lives as well as the possibility that he might die in a battle too and that this should mean something for him.

Thank you once again for your time. Until next time, enjoy your meal for those you truly care for.

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(1) Sigmund Freud, Totem und Tabu, in: Freud-Studienausgabe, volume 10 (S. Fischer Verlag, 1974), p. 419.  

(2) G. W. F. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, in: Werke, vol. 3 (Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 149f. [Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Terry Pinkard (last accessed: April 21. 2020), p. 166].