(soft electronic music)
- Ahoy!
Michael here to finally cover one of the zaniest
and most beloved animes to ever sail the great blue.
That's right: One Piece.
The story of Luffy D. Monkey's quest
to become king of the pirates
is filled with unforgettable characters,
incredible adventures, and a literal boatload of laughs.
(crew laughing)
But is there something deeper happening
beneath the chaotic waves?
Specifically, can One Piece actually tell us something
about organized society,
or even how to rebel against a society that sucks?
We think so, and we'll explain in this Wisecrack Edition
on One Piece: How to Live Outside the Law.
And spoilers ahead for about a fifth
of the total run of One Piece.
But if you like this, let us know,
and we can make another video in the future.
For the uninitiated,
One Piece is a show about Luffy, an aspiring pirate king
who rounds up a crew of misfits to sail the sea
in pursuit of the titular "one piece" treasure.
These aren't your run-of-the-mill kooks, either.
Luffy is a "rubber man,"
meaning he can stretch his body Mr. Fantastic-style,
a power he indulges to adorable effect at every opportunity.
(Luffy screaming)
His pal Zorro is a pirate-hunter-turned-pirate
who wields not one, not two, but three swords.
One is for his mouth, obviously.
Nami reads relatively normal,
but she's still a sneaky thief and kick-ass navigator.
The chef, Sanji, is a horned-up nicotine fiend
who loves fine dining and kicking ass.
Their engineer Usop is a pathological liar
who has a tough time distinguishing his fantasies
from reality.
Oh, and their doctor is a magical deer who can talk.
When we say misfits, we mean it.
(speaking in foreign language)
That said, maybe a magical deer doctor
wouldn't be on my case about my cholesterol levels so much.
And these aren't the only weirdos in this world.
In fact, almost every single character is bizarre,
and that's largely the point.
The farther from land you go,
the stranger the adventures become.
It's almost like, when you're out at sea, the rules of land,
or the logic of terrain, no longer apply.
So, why does this matter?
We can answer that with the help of bald icon,
leather aficionado,
and French philosopher Michel Foucault.
Let's start with what Foucault
thought about terrain and roads.
In his essay "Of Other Spaces,"
Foucault explained that different spaces in modern society
function as a network;
that is, they exist in relation to one another.
He writes that, "One could describe,
via the cluster of relations that allows them to be defined,
the sites of temporary relaxation: cafes, cinemas, beaches.
Likewise one could describe, via its network of relations,
the closed or semi-closed sites of rest:
the house, the bedroom, the bed, et cetera."
That is to say that there are places
where certain rules apply.
You don't run around screaming in a movie theater,
and you aren't getting into bed to do a Jazzercise routine.
These places have defined functions,
and as such, have defined rules.
We see plenty of the expectations
surrounding various kinds of land-based spaces in One Piece.
Like when Luffy is caught breaking the law,
which is sort of his favorite hobby.
Or when the crew is forced
to confront the reality of farming,
among other land-locked jobs,
and the costs that come with them.
However, Foucault points out that some spaces
are free from these sorts of rules.
These he calls heterotopia.
And unlike what you might be thinking,
Hetero-topias don't refer to a Buffalo Wild Wings
next to a GAP outlet.
Heterotopias are typically enclosed spaces,
worlds within worlds, if you will.
Fittingly, for our purposes,
he identifies the boat as a "heterotopia par excellence,"
describing the boat as "a floating piece of space,
a place without a place, that exists by itself,
that is closed in on itself and at the same time
is given over to the infinity of the sea."
When it comes to modern transportation,
the way we move has become largely codified:
we drive cars on government-paved roads
at government-enforced speed limits
and take our shoes off for the privilege
of flying across the country
in a rattling tin can with wings.
But when you traverse the sea,
you're a lot more free and unrestricted.
Sure there are laws,
but as anyone who saw Captain Phillips knows,
it's a lot easier to break them.
A heterotopia's specific function and population
creates a unique type of freedom for its inhabitants.
As scholar Ibrahim Marazka explains, a heterotopia
"enables human agency, because it allows the freedom
to create other rationalities and to follow them."
Think of how, on The Going Merry,
the crew can act like absolute maniacs.
(speaking in foreign language)
Or how they can derail their quest at any time
to, say, help reinstall a missing monarch
or bring a dragon colony back to life.
As Luffy explains, he doesn't want to be pirate king
because he wants people to bow down to him,
he simply wants to be free.
(speaking in foreign language)
And life on The Going Merry
enables that pure state of freedom.
Heck, Luffy is completely clueless about,
and ambivalent towards, money.
(speaking in foreign language)
(gulps)
(shouts in foreign language)
And his life, like his corporeal form, is pretty malleable:
throughout the crew's adventures,
they play a wide variety of roles
and are able to go wherever they choose.
Sometimes they're saviors, sometimes they're criminals,
sometimes they're just trying to enjoy a dinner
uninterrupted by pirate fights.
And it's not just that they move around a lot
and make zany friends.
They also use this freedom
to fight against oppressive powers
that might seek to restrict them.
The crew often finds itself
in places run by corrupt governments,
or taken over by the Marines,
or even usurped by evil pirates who, not coincidentally,
have often given up their seafaring gig for a life on land.
Fittingly, Foucault wrote that,
"In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up,
espionage replaces adventure, and the police the pirates."
We see this literalized repeatedly in One Piece,
which takes us to places where pirates
have given up the freedom of heterotopias
to impose a very not-fun rule of law.
Obviously this isn't the only story
where a crew of pirates represent radical freedom,
but the cool thing about One Piece is how explicit it is.
We see a world government that is corrupt,
and uses its power to oppress people
and inflict harm on weaker communities.
We see our heroes frequently matched up
against these evil systems.
And according to scholar Juilian Reid,
the freedom afforded to nomadic groups, like pirates,
puts them in the best possible position
to take on powerful enemies.
Wisecrack favorites Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri
drew an important distinction between two visions of war.
There's war as a state apparatus
that uses violence to control its people,
intimidate enemies or be straight-up jerks.
And then, there's the war machine,
i.e. the eternal human impulse to struggle,
sometimes violently, for the sake of differentiation;
that is, a struggle in which people
want to affirm themselves on their own terms
rather than in relation to some opposing force.
It's basically the opposite
of what philosophers call dialectical thought,
which always defines two opposites
precisely in their opposition to one another,
i.e., hot and cold, up and down,
Taco Bell and Pepto-Bismol.
As Reid explains, Deleuze thought that when we define war
as an instrument of only the state apparatus,
we create limitations,
because "war exists both inside and outside
of the domain of political sovereignty."
Basically, Deleuze thinks you don't need to be a nation
to wage a war.
In fact, he uses evidence from ethnography
to argue that nomadic tribes often waged war
not to protect a state, but to stop a centralized state
from forming in the first place.
In this view, war has been, and still can be,
a valuable form of resistance against state control.
And we recently did a video
arguing that the human impulse for war
isn't really that natural,
so be sure and check that out for a different perspective.
Because of this, Deleuze sees the war machine
as inherently antagonistic to the state apparatus,
though the state may try its darndest to appropriate it.
Deleuze ultimately believed that the war machine
could be transformative and offer alternatives to the state,
which, he thought, limited possibilities.
Take the opposing ways that states and nomads
navigate space: states organize it,
determine ownership of it,
and place other arbitrary restrictions on it,
which is why I'm no longer welcome
at Yosemite National Park.
It's a long story.
In contrast, nomads live freely
without territorializing the spaces they inhabit.
States might define nomads in relation to themselves,
but nomads driving the war machine
are striving for a pure affirmation
that differentiates them from the state.
We see the nomadic war machine throughout One Piece.
Pretty much every narrative arc
is resolved with a big fight,
with the stakes almost always being
the freedom of a character, or an entire community
or sometimes just a cute dragon.
Like the time Luffy and co take on Arlong,
or fight to liberate Alabasta.
And this is a key way in which the anarchic nature
of the Going Merry's crew can teach us about the world.
They are violent, but their violence maintains a code,
and it's nomadic in that it's often directed
against the state.
They don't belong to a military structure
that serves the needs and demands of the sovereign.
What's more, remember how our friends live in a heterotopia?
That gives them the ability to see outside the rules
and norms of organized society.
As a result, they aren't confined to a single worldview.
You could call them psychic nomads.
That doesn't mean they're wanderers with telekinesis:
psychic nomadism simply means that you pick and choose
from a great big buffet of worldviews:
religious, political, ethical,
while rejecting aspects of those views
that you don't find as tasty.
For example, Luffy embraces the violence
and chaos of the pirate worldview,
but rejects the cruelty and selfishness.
And Chopper views the world through the lens of magic,
being a talking deer and all,
while still abiding by the science of medicine.
The result can be, as you might guess, somewhat chaotic.
Sometimes the crew has to save a kingdom
and install a rightful ruler.
Sometimes they have to get rid of rulers altogether.
It all depends on the scenario,
and on who happens to be onboard the ship.
Rather than fighting one political ideology with another,
they're fighting against ideology altogether,
and defending some type of formless freedom
or self-actualization.
They don't want to exist in relation to the state,
they just want to exist.
(speaking in foreign language)
The key consistency, though,
is that the crew resists the monopoly over violence
granted to those in power,
in large part thanks to their relative egalitarianism.
Now of course we're not saying you should buy a boat
and sail around the Florida panhandle
to beat up the Coast Guard.
But if that's your bag, who are we to stop you?
But you can still take a valuable lesson from One Piece.
Modern social movements are often under a lot of pressure
to strive for ideological consistency
when they resist state power.
In contrast, the One Piece crew doesn't stake
a consistent position in their resistance.
The way they fight back doesn't always
have to look the same, or uphold the same values.
Rather, they use their flexibility,
and their position as residents of a heterotopia,
to change themselves to fit the crisis at hand.
This mutability as a form of resistance
is very literally displayed in Luffy,
who can stretch his body
into all sorts of forms as he fights.
The crew's mobility, both literally and ideologically,
is its own form of power,
and maybe more importantly for our swashbuckling homies,
it's a form of positive freedom;
that is, a freedom which is more about freedom for,
rather than a freedom from,
some type of oppression or control.
In this way, One Piece shows us the value
of movement and flexibility,
and the unique power of the pirate and the nomad.
These lifestyles that are able to adjust, change,
and accommodate new circumstances
aren't just excuses to wear cool hats and bling,
but are in fact ways to more effectively think
about ourselves as political and social actors.
But what do you guys think?
Does the Go Merry crew show us the power
of the nomadic war machine?
Should we ditch land
for the pure heterotopic freedom of a boat?
Let us know in the comments.
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And as always, thanks for watching.
Later.
(upbeat electronic music)
Energy!
Okay, sorry if that hurt your ears if you had headphones on.