One Legendary Scene - Zaheer’s Philosophy in The Legend of Korra

it's the dawning of a new age the end of the white lotus what exactly is anarchy is it a state of complete chaos and unrest like we saw in the blm riots of 2020 or is it something more akin to the small town of tehran mexico where the people finally had enough of being screwed over by their government and so they kicked out and banished all of the politicians in their police force and believe it or not but ever since they've been experiencing a great time of prosperity serious crimes like murders and kidnappings which used to be frequent dropped dramatically and overall well-being has skyrocketed so which is it a senseless state of chaos or a well-regulated society without politicians or despots well potatoes potatoes but jokes aside with the help of the anarchist handbook i'll be trying to answer all of these questions in today's episode of the meaning of nerd show a high production video series focused on the philosophy behind your favorite cartoons anime and more and today's episode is a special one it was made as part of a bigger youtuber collaboration called one legendary scene to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the legend of korra antoine bendelay has invited me and many other youtubers to come together and collectively make our own videos on one scene from the show that we find to be legendary so make sure to give all of them some love and check out the playlist with all the videos in the description oh and also feel free to let me know in the comments below what your favorite scene is and if you'd like you can also make your own video on the topic as well of course with that being said though let's now jump into my own legendary scene from the legend of korra a scene that was not chosen because it made me feel a certain way or because of how epic it was but rather because of how much it got me thinking of how it got me to the point of questioning a lot of things i took for granted and make me ask myself what exactly even is anarchy don't move zaheer you're gonna give me some answers there's no need for aggression i'll answer whatever questions you have you deserve that much who are you people and why do you keep trying to take me we are part of the secret society dedicated to restoring freedom to the world we are the red lotus the scene i was previously referring to is the scene from book 3 episode 9 where zaheer has an intense talk with cora and explains to her his motivations and some of his goals personally i love this scene because it is strongly focused on the talking on the philosophy he supposedly supports and it starts off with him explaining to cora that all he wants is to show to the avatar a better path for the world by saying that we could have taught you so much sounds like you wanted to brainwash me so i'd do whatever you wanted no cora all i wanted was to show the avatar a better path for the world and we can obviously see where he's coming from in the current state of the world things don't look all that prosperous even after the 100 year war it feels like inequality oppression and overall poverty are still rampant from the way in which the despotic earthqueen is extorting her own citizens all the way to how republic said his so-called freedom clearly favors one class over the other how poverty is almost inevitable in some cases and ignorance is almost demanded in others and so it's very easy to see why zaheer would be wanting to change things because even though the war is over and a utopia is basically impossible to achieve it's also not acceptable that society is flirting with the idea of a dystopia and so i think that sahir has valid points and even more valid criticisms he wants to restore balance to the world a job that is supposed to be the avatars but he decided to take it on himself and then soon after he goes on to claim that bringing the spirits back should only be the beginning what do you mean the idea of having nations and governments is as foolish as keeping the human and spirit realm separate and here is where this scene really gets people thinking i mean after all he is not wrong is he in the show but in real life as well we often have to realize to no one's shock at this point that the presidents we elect and the kings and monarchs we are subject to both of them prove themselves to be either incompetent despotic or what's most often the case both they rule over people and their lands without any real competence they throw around words and slogans that they never intend on fulfilling and then to make things worse they end up getting us involved in stupid and needless wars and from a philosophical standpoint the idea of nations and borders is actually quite an interesting one after all if we truly believe to all be humans that regardless of our race religion or background to all be of equal value then why separate ourselves into my nation versus yours my will against the others well to be honest it's mostly because we humans we are inherently tribalistic we identify with whatever tribe we feel more adjusted to and on its own there's nothing wrong with that but when it becomes adversarial when we start to elect people who can on a whim declare wars in the name of the tribe that is when things become problematic to say the least as leo tolstoy once wrote slavery results from laws laws are made by governments and therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments but we are born into these systems we already live in these countries you may say taking it apart would only lead to chaos and unrest even if you are right how much death and destruction needs to be overcome to get there would it then really be worth the price and also i thought you were the one who said that the ants don't justify the means you've had to deal with a moronic president and a tyrannical queen don't you think the world would be better off if leaders like them were eliminated i don't really agree with what they've done but taking out world leaders isn't the answer it wasn't too long ago that the airbenders were nearly all wiped out thanks to the fire lord's desire for world dominance true freedom can only be achieved when oppressive governments are torn down but that won't bring balance it will throw the world into chaos exactly the natural order is disorder do you know who once said new growth cannot exist without first the destruction of the old no the wise guru lahima an airbender and here is where we get to the point where i will have to disagree with sahir i believe in to be completely right about his critique and analysis of the world i also think that his vision of the end goal while somewhat twisted is still in some ways desirable but even so i don't believe that any of this justifies what he believes to be the right path towards it the path of violence while i would agree with him that the world would be better off without leaders that we worship like a cult or that are forcefully imposed onto us assassinating them is definitely not the way to get there anarchy if it is to ever truly work needs to come about naturally and it needs to arise from within the people it can't be something thrust down upon them by suddenly taking out their leader also considering that this would actually solve nothing at all given that the control over the people doesn't rest on any one figurehead but rather on the system as a whole it would therefore if anything simply lead to a power vacuum that is later on taken over by someone else oftentimes someone more despotic and oppressive than the previous ruler i mean just take a look at kuvira for example and it's here where i think that the show as a whole gets anarchy wrong the writers probably had a hollywood depicted view of anarchy that doesn't even come close to represent what anarchy is all about anarchy is a philosophy that is way more complex than just saying that chaos is the natural order and so therefore all else be damned moments ago the earth queen was brought down at the hands of revolutionaries including myself i'm not here to take over the earth kingdom i think you've had enough of leaders telling you what to do it's time for you to find your own path from now on you are free i deliver bossing say back into the hands of the people so when i knew that i was going to make this video i realized that i didn't actually know that much about anarchy i knew that it wasn't what hollywood depicted it as and that fundamentally it is a philosophy that rejects all forms of coercive authority also that it often calls for the abolition of any force upon governments from more clear examples like monarchies and state communism all the way to more subtle examples like representative democracies and republics where you are forced to either partake in it or go to jail for not paying your taxes either way though i always found it to be very utopian in its beliefs and in no way applicable so to make sure i could better understand it i read the anarchist handbook a collection of works written by various past and present anarchists a book that has changed my views and perspectives unlike any other to this day it's a book that showed to me that anarchy is not a belief in chaos but rather a disbelief in force upon authority it states that if we are all humans then how could it be that some of us are allowed to rule and decide over the others if humans are prone to mistakes and corruption then why would any elected human be different why would anyone in power suddenly cease to be human and obviously that's the point they wouldn't but also anarchy is not opposed to all types of authority either only those that are forced upon people as mikhail bakunin and the narco communists believed does it follow that i reject all authority far from me such a thought in the matter of boots i refer to the authority of the bootmaker concerning houses i consult that of the architect but i allow neither the boot maker nor the architect to impose his authority upon me and so as you can see anarchy is more than what sahir tries to portray in the legend of korra it's a relationship one in which none of the parties involved have any authority over the other and it's exactly in this point where zaheer and other anarchists like johann most go wrong for believing violence to be acceptable because if anarchy is primarily focused on not having any force upon authority over someone else then thinking that you have the authority to impose your will over someone else and therefore kill them sounds very hypocritical besides the fact that again killing the earth queen wouldn't actually solve any problems before you were always talking about chaos and freedom then you took out the earthqueen and created the worst dictator the earth kingdom has ever seen thanks for that but then how do you achieve a state of anarchy well anarchists believe in freedom both as an end goal but also as a means to achieve it they think that there's no point in fighting authoritarian government violence by applying your own violence as well after all you would also not try to put out a fire with more fire would you as leo tolstoy once wrote all the times to get rid of governments by violence have hitherto always and everywhere resulted only in this that in place of the deposed government new ones established themselves often more cruel than those they replaced and the solution that he proposes through this problem is one i can easily get behind he believes that you abolish governments not by executing their leaders but rather by exposing the fraud it is and the lack of its necessity because you truly believe that governments are only needed for one thing to commit and then justify the most atrocious of crimes and if you're first taken aback by this statement maybe think back to what some of the worst crimes in the history of humanity have been from thousands of years of slavery to the cruel reality of the holocaust all the way to the unnecessary wars fought in the name of one country or the other all of these crimes were only made possible by the existence and the support of governments and it's this exact fraud that people need to start realizing and so it's easy to see why zaheer having probably realized this himself has become so desperate that he believes violence to be an easy fix but the truth is that anarchy is something incredibly hard to achieve not impossible but in my opinion harder than any other system because anarchy only works if every individual embraces their own lives and all the responsibilities that come with it anarchists believe that it can only come about naturally by having a majority of the people realize the fraud that governments are and then stop funding and participating in it when people finally realize that the only reason these institutions have power in the first place is because the people believe they have it and so the only way to achieve real anarchy is through the people through spreading information and knowledge and teaching every individual on how to govern himself not a revolution through the state but through the masses basically by changing public perception because otherwise if you do it by force it'll only end up creating a power vacuum that will be taken over by someone else and why well because the people they will still be craving someone to govern their lives someone to decide over them because they're not ready to take it up themselves and this is why anarchism is so misunderstood it's because it doesn't involve any special class of citizens but rather all of humanity making it incredibly complex hard to understand and even harder to believe in but anarchy is obviously not perfect men and women who commit evil would still exist in an anarchist world it just wouldn't give them the option of enforcing their malice over everyone else by being elected and then decreeing some oppressive law over the people it's an idea that i think is worth exploring as i previously mentioned the anarchist town of 20 000 people in tehran mexico seems to be doing great ever since they revolted in 2011 but i also realized that it may just be a foolish idea that could never truly work i really don't know which one is true but even so at least i'm of the firm belief that murder is entirely immoral and given that governments achieve almost everything they do through murder war and conquests i will at least tattle on refusing to support their efforts but you must realize that once change begins it cannot be stopped even by the avatar enough with your philosophical mumbo jumbo before wrapping up i just really like to thank antoine for inviting me to make this video it was a great opportunity to talk about some interesting topics so feel free to check him out in the description below also if this video has made you wonder more about anarchy and you would like to know how these things would even work in practice i really suggest everyone here to read or listen to the anarchist handbook there are many great ideas in there some of which i really think should be explored to its fullest but otherwise i'll see you in the next one thanks for watching guys i really hope you enjoyed the video over here we use philosophy and psychology to better understand life and to find our own meaning within it there are many exciting things coming up so if i were you i'd subscribe and turn on notifications to stay up to date see ya i am not a bounty hunter

Channel: The Meaning of NERD

Views: 9,277

Keywords: one legendary scene, antoine bandele, the legend of korra, legend of korra, the stakeout, zaheer, anarhcy, zaheer's philosophy, zaheer philosophy, the philosophy of zaheer, avatar, korra vs zaheer, avatar the last airbender, korra, legend of korra scenes, geek talk, legend of korra video essay, legend of korra philosophy, the meaning of nerd, anime analysis, tv analysis, film analysis, film philosophy, anime philosophy, life lessons, philosophy, mental health, the red lotus

Id: Q1NUFP9lgkc

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 14 2022