Psycho Pass follows Unit One of the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division in a futuristic Japan. The most notable thing about this futuristic world is how most things in a person’s life are determined by the program SIBYL and the person’s psycho pass, meaning basically their mental state. A bad psycho pass with a “crime coefficient” that is too high can land someone in jail or at a facility with no options, labeled as a ” latent criminal.”
One latent criminal’s life, Shusei Kagari, was over at 5 years old when the system labeled him as such.
The way the system is set up made me think of the parable of the wheat and the weeds and how it is sometimes interpreted in real life. In the parable, a man is growing a field of wheat when his enemy comes and scatters seeds of weeds throughout the field. When the weeds start growing, the man tells his servants to leave them with the wheat until the harvest. After they are collected and separated, one goes in the storehouse and one goes in the fire. The wheat and weeds of course symbolizing good and bad people.
The man tells his servants not to pull up the weeds because they may uproot the wheat.
“So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.”
– Matthew 12:28-29
Many scholars believe the weed spread among the field was darnel because that weed, until mature, appears as wheat. It is not until the harvest that you can truly tell which are the weeds and which are the wheat.
The system in Psycho Pass left almost no room for growth, no room to mess up, no time to walk through a “valley” in your life that may not be quite as pretty of a mountain top view. Some did succeed in therapy, but pretty much no one returned from the rehabilitation facilities. Get too bad, or have the possibility or tendency of getting too bad and society basically gives up on you.
At five, Kagari had two options for the rest of his life. Stay in a facility or become an “enforcer” that helps the police search for criminals and protects inspectors psycho pass from becoming tainted. He was treated like a lower life form because of the SIBYL systems determination of his potential to commit a crime.
I feel this happens sometimes in our world and in the church based on a persons past and tendencies. Where someone comes from, the mistakes someone has made, and even quirks that don’t match a certain criteria can mark some as unreachable. You can’t look at someone’s, anyone’s life and determine their end. My firm belief is that as long as someone has breath, they have hope.
With people, there is a cutoff before death. A point where people will reach their end and stop trying, stop giving a person chances. In this lifetime, there is never that point with God.
Well, more accurately, the wheat are the sons of the kingdom, and the weeds are the sons of the evil one. Also, the reapers are angels, so it’s not really a correlation of people judging other people. I don’t think the parable really works as a connection here, because everything in the parable has very specific meanings (as explained later in the chapter) and none of them really fit with this example. I guess you could say that the main character could have been one of the wheat had he been a believer, but that’s about the only connection I could make there.
Churches way too often develop cultures that are separate from an identity only rooted in Christ. In almost can’t help but be that way, and unfortunately when it happens, we begin to exclude people (even if not purposely). I attend an ethnic church, and it’s certainly like this naturally. I think in churches like mine, and probably churches in general, we need to be even cognizant of newcomers of all shapes and sizes, as it were, welcoming them with hospitality and showing them that yes, THEY DO BELONG HERE. Everyone belongs here.
I loved this post – thank you for writing it, Ashley!
What I meant is people identifying others as wheat or weeds and treating them in a specific way because of that pre-judgement. It’s just the connection I automatically thought of when I was watching the show mostly because of the part about the wheat being accidentally uprooted. I wasn’t suggesting Kagari was of the wheat or of the weeds,just that others assumed he was a weed and treated him accordingly. Sorry if that was confusing. Sometimes I’ll make connections that only make sense to me and don’t do a great job explaining them :P. Thanks for the comment!
Nice read, really liked how you connected that to Psycho Pass. I like being made to think more deeply about the anime I watch!
Glad you liked it!
I’ve thought about this subject, of sorts, for a long time. And the basic point on it is….
Who decides that a person is valueless? Only God can possibly make a determination like that. Do we, who cannot read the annals of another’s mind, really and truly have the right to judge? What if an unrepentant monster, in the last moments of his life, repents and finally finds peace? It does not happen often, but it nonetheless happens. The world could say that he went to Hell after he died, and yet some of you will meet him of all people smiling at the End.
And, since I’ve seen Psycho-Pass…If you are born in an atheistic society, prejudged from your early childhood, treated like a freak and a monster…Is it your fault that you don’t believe in God? Particularly if you have no way of finding out about Him? Should you be sent to Hell?
I think the answer to these two questions is the same: Only God can judge. Humans have better things to do than condemn others. But you should still probably stay away from the crazies. :}