Cowboy Bebop’s “Brain Scratch” 20 Years Later
When Cowboy Bebop first aired in the U.S. in 2001, I was too young to watch it — I was only eight at the time. The show originally appeared in Japan a few years prior. It wasn’t until 2013 that I binge-watched the show’s 26 episodes or sessions. During my first viewing, I remember seeing one scene that cut me deep. The philosophical questions in that episode were so heavy that I have never forgotten them.
It may be esoteric to talk about an episode of a television show that aired twenty years ago, but now, being older and more studied in philosophy, I want to reapproach the arguments of that episode and find closure.
The scene I’m referring to is in Episode 23, “Brain Scratch”. The bounty for this episode is a cult-leader who goes by the name Dr. Londes. His group is called “Scratch: The Migrate to Electronics Movement.” He communicates to followers through television broadcasts. Londes’ disciples use a device to capture their brain states, which are then uploaded to the internet. This allows them to exist without bodies as programs within the internet infrastructure. The language in the episode alternates between murder and suicide but essentially this process kills the follower as they have disconnected their mind from their body.
Faye, the femme fatale of the group, rationalizes that her debts are tied to her body and if she “migrates” her spirit to the web, she will no longer need money. As she joins the cult, things aren’t as they appear and she calls out for Spike and Jet to rescue her.
Here’s where that scene comes in. Spike tracks down the site of the cult and confronts Londes as he appears on a tower of stacked televisions. This is their conversation:
Spike says, “Why do you kill off members of your own group? What’s the point of that?
Londes responds,
“I am not forcing anything on anyone. They are merely practicing a faith they decided to believe in of their own free will. Tell me, why do you think people believe in God? Because they want to. It’s not easy living in an ugly corrupt world. There is no certainty, nothing to hope for. People are lost, so they reach out. Don’t you get it? God didn’t create humans. No, it’s humans that created God.”
That was a gut-check moment. Of the philosophical arguments in the episode, this is the most blatant and cutting. This conclusion, that humans created God, removes the transcendence from religion and diminishes it to look like any other distraction; God is merely wishful thinking.
Londes goes on to use himself as the prime example. He explains to Spike that Londes never existed; Jet and Edward discover that Londes is merely the mask by which Rosny Spanngen communicates to the world via television and the internet. Moreover, all the information about Dr. Londes was fabricated for a convincing backstory.
The episode demonstrates that the person making these claims has made himself a god in his own right. Londes is 2 years into his ministry when the bounty is placed on him. Over that time, he has amassed 20,000 followers, 100 of which have died as they migrated their soul to the internet. His argument would imply that he provides hope in an “ugly corrupt world.” Perhaps Londes thought that if humans create gods, why couldn’t he become the god they create?
Furthermore, Londes says that he isn’t forcing his religion on anyone. Sure, people come to him of their “own free will,” but afterward he uses techniques similar to hypnotism to control them; Londes can hypnotize and manipulate anyone watching him on T.V. When Spike finds his monument of T.V.s, he also sees Faye lying unconscious before him. Londes says, “I just put her [Faye] into a state of deep sleep. As you can see, the other bounty hunters slept to death.”
The literal deus ex machina continues with another striking assessment of the human condition. Londes asks Spike,
“Do you want to know the greatest and also the worst device that humans ever invented? It’s television. Television controls people by bombarding them with information until they lose their sense of reality. Now television itself has become the new religion. Television has created a people who believe instantly in dramatic fantasies who can be controlled by tiny dots of light.”
Is he wrong? Obviously, technology has changed dramatically from when this episode aired. Because Cowboy Bepop is set in 2071, their use of technology should theoretically surpass the United States in 2020. Space travel is the primary example of their superior advance. But the show uses the internet and television in almost every episode. The T.V. show, “Big Shot,” clues the crew in on available bounties. Likewise, they use the internet much like people use it today, for communication and finding information.
An updated version of Londes’ statement would be to include the internet along with television as that new religion. It’s odd that in this current time, the primary form of attending church is through online or T.V. services. Society is ever more connected to each other but also to their devices.
Episode 23 begins with 4 and a half minutes of commercials or news reports on the Bebop T.V. More commercials follow later. There is hardly a moment in the episode when someone is not using a television, computer or cell phone. This seems to be intentional as the plot is told through interaction with these devices. But this also provides context for Londe’s statement about worshipping television, and as I have added, the internet.
Londes as the founder of this new Scratch religion, only appears on T.V. So when his followers worship him as their leader or god, they are engaging in religious acts via their televisions. Appearing as a god on T.V. only serves to codify his points; his disciples are worshipping the “dramatic fantasy” and are being “controlled by tiny dots of light.”
So to recap, Londes makes two arguments: humans created god instead of vice-versa and people are controlled through television, internet, and their devices. From the Christian perspective, what response can be given?
Londes’ argument is interesting as it is the inverse of another common argument that attempts to disprove God’s existence: The Logical Problem of Evil. This argument attacks the consistency of God’s classical theistic attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence due to the existence of evil.
The argument would say that God’s omniscience would allow him to know evil, and how to eliminate it, his omnipotence would allow him the power to eliminate it, and his benevolence would allow him the desire to eliminate it. Because evil exists, one of these attributes cannot coincide with the others.
How is this the inverse? Londes says humans created God as a coping mechanism against this “ugly corrupt world.” Proponents of the Logical Problem of Evil argument would say that even God cannot overcome these evils. Londes’ argument leads to God’s creation, and therefore existence, while the latter leads to an inconsistent or nonexistent God.
It seems like Londes would have to say that God exists, even if he is a production of the human psyche. Londes does not deny God’s existence publicly, as he actually refers to God in his television speeches as seen at the end of the episode.
On the other hand, the human creation argument is one method by which the multiplicity of religions has been explained, i.e., there have been so many religions throughout time because every culture creates their own god or gods. Londes appears to be referring to religions that have a creation story, such as Christianity, but his use of “God” probably just refers to religion in general. Londes would have to say that religious texts don’t point to anything transcendent as they are merely human inventions. Religious law codes, histories, and moral structures can be dismissed as well. Everything is of a human convention, including religion.
Nevertheless, this God is a figure of hope to the masses. Perhaps that quality is the only necessary attribute of God by Londes’ rendering.
If God is created as a momentary distraction from the corruption of the world, God seems similar to television and the internet in that regard. Television shows and online articles may provide hope but that’s not their typical function. They thrive by providing entertainment. So how have these replaced God?
It’s no secret that society is ever-evolving with technology and always changing with media trends. While there has been a steady decline in television watching over the last few years, other forms of media, particularly social media, are rising. The data would suggest that millennials, for instance, spend roughly six hours a day between social media and television. A quarter of each day is spent engaging in these devices.
While there is an overall decline in church membership, millennials, in particular, have been found to be partaking in church less than those generations before. I bring this up, not to say that these points correlate, because I don’t have evidence of that, but rather to demonstrate that Londes’ statement about television appears to be true. These numbers demonstrate that less time is being spent on religious activity and more time is spent with electronic entertainment.
So the Christian should combat Londes’ arguments by firstly understanding their ramifications. To say that humans created God is to acknowledge a hopeful lie of the gospel message, i.e., of grace and redemption. By creating God, it would appear that humans are attempting to construct hope from an arbitrary idea. It also seems like they have invented a way of dismissing their own corruption and degradation through a perfect savior, namely Christ.
As far as television and the internet are concerned, the Christian should contemplate upon their time spent with these devices. Does the time utilized for religious growth or reflection exceed the time spent with distractions? In my own case, I’d have to say that it doesn’t.
Secondly, Christians can either deepen their faith and fortitude or submit to their distractions. They should contemplate which they worship more: God or their devices. I’m not in any way suggesting that Christians should remove themselves entirely from T.V. or the internet; to do so would isolate them from current news and events — it’s just impractical. I am suggesting that they evaluate the beneficial gain they are receiving.
Lastly, Christians should consider if these devices actually control people. They obviously occupy a great amount of their time. With this constant flood of easily accessible information, people must discern the validity of what they watch or read. As Londes says, people will instantly believe the “fantasy” placed before them. Without discernment, it is easy to accept T.V. as truth. This is not a new idea. Dystopic novels, including Orwell’s 1984 have demonstrated the use of television to present propaganda or instructions to the masses. These can create a skewed or fantastical perception of reality.
By these steps, Christians can keep their Creator-God as the focus and hope of their religion. Television is allowed to demonstrate its dominance only because people have disorganized their priorities. Applying due discernment to the various forms of entertainment perceived eliminates the element of control of which Londes speaks.
The episode concludes with another speech from Londes. As his link to the internet has been disabled by Ed and Jet, this speech presumably occurs as a recruitment commercial prior to the gang’s involvement. Londes speaks of the human body as a mere shell. God has given humans their infinite spirit but it cannot be contained within these shells, he says. The shell of a body is shed as followers migrate their spirit to the more fitting, “infinite sea of electrons,” i.e., the internet. The “infinite spirit” that he speaks of could possibly be another reference to humans as their own creators of God — they possess the stuff of gods within them. I would rather imagine this as a reminder that humans were created with the image of God, and through God’s intervention, he has called his followers to live by that infinite spirit, or eternal soul, within themselves.
Note: In the few days it took to write this article, YouTube removed the video of Episode 23 from their site and rendered my link useless. I have since removed the link to eliminate confusion. The link to the particular scene that I reference is still active as of the time this article is published.
