Ao no Flag Chapter 44 Discussion

Sonal1988 said:


Okay but where did you two read it?

Ellroy said:
Shingo was pretty dishonest with his arguments, that was disappointing as hell. It is what it is: homophobia... :(

He twisted everything the girls were saying and strawmanned SO HARD.
That thing about "love to bullying" being the same as loving someone was gross. Love to hate doesn't equate to caring deeply (romanticaly) for someone.
Society "accepting" gay people nowadays doesn't excuse being bigoted (AND VIOLENT).
He also said that their fight and the girls talking shit about Kensuke was the same, because they're also being intolerant, but then his argument falls in the "paradox of tolerance", that says that if society is tolerant with violent intolerance then eventually intolerance will destroy the tolerant and torelance itself, and I do believe that's the truth. I think the girls are right, there was no reason for him to fisically assault Touma the way he did.

It's so bad that Kensuke was molested in the past, but he decided that he was entitled to victimize someone because once he was a victim himself. I almost feel no sympathy for him.

From personal experience, being around bigoted people can destroy your own mind, so for Touma's sake I just hope they don't get to be friends anymore. It's ok to let go of some people in your life if all they do is destroy your confidence and self steem.

It feels like they were even more hurt that a man dared to not reciprocate Mami's feelings, because I'm pretty sure both guys like her.

The construction of some characters in this manga is brilliant. I can't wait for the next chapter cause my heart was completely shattered to pieces by that cliffhanger... :(

It's funny that Futaba is the only considerate person in all of this even if she's just so unaware of things, even her own existence and worth.

I hope to see Touma's and Masumi's PoV soon.

FuMomo-kun said:
Although Shingo made me angry by taking Kensuke's side, I do think we have to listen to the homophobes as well. People's beliefs exist for a reason, and they won't change easily. When people listen to each other, and have an open minded conversation, they will be able to finally understand each other.

The two girls were amazing though; fighting for our gay boy!

While Kensuke's feelings are more understandable now, I still think he is the one who is wrong. He sees girls and guys (and gays) as separate. That is why I don't like labels that define gender or race or sexuality. As long as you're part of a group, you are likely to suffer from in-group/out-group bias. (Although, I also think some people need labels to feel like they belong somewhere)

The tension in Masumi's face is quite amazingly drawn when Futaba imagines being confessed by her.

Joestars10 said:
you would WHAAAAAAAAAAT

LordSilverFang said:

So many people can't even grasp what Shingo was saying. It's sad how many people write him off.

This whole discussion is not about homosexuality in and of itself but rather what happens when two parties with differing values interact.

Shingo's argument of love was in regards to the emotional aspect of the word relating to satisfaction or the feeling of pleasure. It doesn't posses the same meaning or nuance as the term when used in relationships so in that regard his argument was completely logical. He's regarding a feeling when discussing love and hate. Saying they are neutral in and of themselves in terms of correctness.

This whole chapter was two girls emotionally and verbally beating up Kensuke like he physically hit Touma. Shingo pointed out that the girls were being hypocrites. They essentially did everything they hated on Kensuke for when you view the topic as one of a clashing of values.

Shingo did not condone Kensuke's actions. He specifically separated the specific instance in question with the fact that the girls were attacking Kensuke's very values as if they possessed a god-given sense of objectiveness and understood an absolute morality.

Shingo stepped up and made the argument that the women were unilaterally trying to shut Kensuke's belief system down. They weren't there to discuss, to understand, they simply wanted to get rid of someone who didn't agree with them. Quite frankly, the girls were simply virtue signaling as much as I hate to use the term. The way they made light of his molestation was just another sort of skeevy nod to the fact that they were just there to hear themselves talk. Or at least they didn't put much thought into it if they were being genuine. This is why Shingo flipped their argument on them, made them out to be hypocrites and essentially had them fleeing in defeat. What they were doing was useless and non-beneficial to the situation to put it bluntly.

If Kensuke thinks gays are gross. He's entitled to it. It's not 'wrong' to possess that feeling no matter how much you want to assert it because it doesn't suit your personal, regional, philosophical, political or religious framework.

If the girls think Kensuke is gross for feeling that way then they can also think that.

What happens when they meet each other? That's the issue at hand. Well, as Shingo pointed out, either you face it head on and try to resolve the issue despite having different values.This goes for all sorts of differing view points by default.

You bottle it up and go with the flow so as not to rock the boat.

Or you fuck off and stop associating with one another.

TLDR: My man Farmer Shingo was just telling the two donkeys to stop kicking the dog for being a dog and hating a cat. Whether or not he can make friends with the cat is their issue and trying to unilaterally write the dogs values as wrong while you sit on your pedestal is horseshit, unproductive and the way you make enemies.

As for The Tolerance Paradox. Whether or not you believe that is up to you but even if you do, it's not about the sort of situation being covered in this chapter. Popper even expresses how it would be unwise to suppress intolerant philosophies in and of itself. The whole theorem revolves more around an open-society in which there exists an imminent and present threat/promotion of violence in which the society itself is in danger. It's a last straw sort of option when the other party has resorted to illegal acts, refuses to harbor any discourse with opposing views and is essentially at the tipping point. It isn't about ideas, words and feelings you find distasteful in and of themselves. A lot of extremists on both the left and right seem to love to cite this.

So no, trying to destroy Kensuke for disagreeing with their values isn't ok by any stretch of the imagination. And Popper would have probably reacted like Shingo.

Of course this has nothing to do with how Kensuke actually handled the situation like a buffoon. As I cited earlier on, the actual topic of the chapter was something much more profound.

As for Kensuke's view on gender. That is a pretty common viewpoint tbh. There are differences between men and women whether we want to admit it or not and that was handled fairly respectfully by the author.

(Disagree? You're entitled to an opposing opinion. I'm gracious enough to let you have it. And civil enough to share a space. The real problem is those on either extreme who can't do this)

To quote Shingo"It's just my two cents". Have fun and goodbye folks. What a great chapter.