So as it appears that Izuna is still alive and things are about to get serious!
So to begin with the Leaf Village though apparently not yet named has been conceptualized by Hashirama and Madara. Their plan revolves around the ambitious notion of a permanent resolution to hate and war with an institution that raises children with reasonable non-malicious expectations into adults with goals centered around kinship and love. This is pretty powerful stuff for a two kids to be planning just between the two of them!
But in their conversation they made me wonder with the approach they took. When Hashirama muses that he doesn't know where to start Madara brings up two points to which Hashirama quickly agrees. One is to hold firm to you principles no matter what, and the second in that you have to become powerful because no one will follow a weakling! These principles pretty much define what I consider to be the important features of this chapter.
I will explain that here. This brings up a perhaps unfortunate but none the less realistic reflection of real life. The fact that in order to be taken seriously in life, it typically is ineffective to simply make logically sense in discussion and debate. Rather, the key to credibility is looking and acting like you are powerful! My theory to explain this incorporates primarily two instincts for human survival: The need to belong and the economically pragmatic but scientifically lacking demands of cognitive miserliness...
The need to belong is an easy concept. We stick to our tribes with stubborn loyalty because they accept us and keep us alive. As a result we will give extreme loyalty to our ninja clan at the expense of pretty much anyone or anything else. This is a big part of warfare and generally any human conflict. Your team is your life, how do you simple turn around and say I don't want to follow your ways for the Senju clan because I care for those other people too! If you think of it in more relatable terms it might be easier to understand. If you grow up in a Christian home and are raised on such values, those values and the family and friends who embrace them become your whole freaking life. They are literally everything to a believer, so no matter how hard someone might try to sway another away from God you have to imagine how painful and inconceivable it would have to be for someone to turn against what has defined their life and their survival and happiness. The same applies to an Atheist who let's say he believed in Humanism, converting to Christianity. So admitting that you might be wrong or mistaken about something or at the very least that you've personally chosen not to embrace something anymore is a HUGE deal. It's not a simple matter of: "Oh well let's drop it and move on." Not by a long shot! To turn on what your friends and family and you have believed in, turns your whole world inside out. So it's is really not such a sensible easy process...it's really damn hard!
The message here is not to critique anyone's belief system or anything, I'm establishing rather a common ground between people with clashing beliefs. The common ground is that we are all afraid to have our beliefs defeated because they carry the essence of our lives and to lose them would at least feel like death...
This is why the Senju and the Uchiha tend not to be swayed by even the soundest argument for making friends with the other side. They are only concerned with their sense of belonging and survival within their respective ninja clans. As senseless as it may seem the notion of making friends with the other side actually threatens their sense of identity and vitality! If we admit that the other team is worthy of our friendship, it's tantamount to confessing that all the killing we did was not only unjustified but downright evil! We're not evil so that can't be! Also, it would be an admission that all of the family we've lost died in vain... blasphemy! How could I disrespect my son's and brother's deaths by making up with the enemy and declaring their deaths senseless?! Bull crap!
You see as social creatures we have to be able to present ourselves in a positive light in order to look like human beings worthy of belonging in a group because this sets us up for a good life. So we get desperate to justify ourselves in our every word and action. So, with this desperate demand for a good name every despicable thing we say and do becomes an act of love in our irrational survival driven human minds... So the Uchiha are good people and the Senju are good people, because if they're not then they are unfit for love and life!
Oh but it gets worse ladies and gentleman! The other half of the equation is the Cognitive Miserliness of the human mind! Unfortunately, we are not good at science and research at all. This is because we are not really built to be computers or databases, we are built to survive and at least try to be happy and we are given limited resources in our bodies and Brains in order to do this. But guess what! If we only have limited mental resources, it being a fact that the brain amazing as it is is still a physical entity constrained by physical limits then we have to be very choosy and picky about how we use those mental resources. In other words folks, we only put thought into stuff when we really care about it, either for survival or for happiness. If it doesn't keep you alive and it doesn't give your life any pleasure your brain is liable to make the call that it's not worth any thinking, studying, or researching. That's right, laziness is a normal state of life for human beings. It's a point of efficient survival!
You know how they say that academic and scientific study should have emotion separated out for the sake of objectivity? Well it turns out this is impossible, because intellectual activity is limited only to things you can actually get emotionally passionate about!
This connects to Madara's and Hashirama's strategy for getting people to cooperate! They will hold stubbornly to their beliefs and work to gain maximum power! Why? Because no one will take the time and energy to talk and learn and grow the way they would have to to make peace. It's too many mental resources and too threatening to their sense of self worth. In order to open everyone's eyes Madara and Hashirama's best bet is to become a couple of bad ass men who will stand up against everyone else's vengeful hateful crap and not be defeated. People will simply never want to "waste" their time and energy on reasoning and learning, and they will not risk admitting they were wrong about anything important lest their value as people is depreciated. The only thing that will get through to most people is the stubbornness and bad ass power of a couple of nuts who insist on love and friendship!
Madara and Hashirama teach us a true life lesson, which is that most people consider thoughtfulness too expensive and the confession of guilt too risky. I believe Kakashi Hatake once quoted Hashirama as saying, "Those who stray from the path of justice have no courage, but under the wing of a strong leader cowardice can not survive." This is why all of human history is marked by a handful of great people carrying the world to prosperity. People are most moved only when they see what is at least perceived to be a strong source of the greatest needs and wants of life! If you look like and alpha and act like as alpha people will let you be the alpha. If you don't then it doesn't matter how smart and nice you are...no body gives a damn...
This is my interpretation of events within Naruto Manga 623! I'll work on a piece for the latest Bleach stuff too.
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