The ethics of the orange koolaid scenario
(Spoiler warning: this post will give a basic explanation of the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the 1995 TV anime and subsequent cultural universe. A lot of this is not revealed till late in the show and you could even miss some the first time. But, hey, it came out almost 30 years ago, plus it's on Netflix last I checked. I'm saying this at all not really because I'm worried it will spoil the surprise for someone watching for the first time, but because what I'm saying will be a bit reductive and might make you think the show is nothing special, something simple and leaden instead of something brilliantly multifaceted. It is absolutely something special and I recommend checking it out; it is more than I can spell out.)
In Evangelion, NERV director Ikari Gendou (Shinji's dad) is someone who, for reasons we are not shown, has always hated himself. Only once in his life has he ever found a reprieve from this depression, has he ever been able to be gentle with himself -- with and through his wife Ikari Yui. (This is highlighted for example by the fact that Gendou takes on Yui's family name when they marry, which I gather is quite unusual in modern Japan. He is making a break from himself.) When Yui is killed in the Second Impact, Gendou rebuilds his entire life around the grief. From now on, everything is only about healing his terrible wound. He is cold and manipulative with almost everyone. He sends his son away. And he devotes himself to a project that, in a nutshell, aims to reunite him with Yui by annihilating for everyone everywhere the boundaries between persons (his "scenario" for the Human Instrumentality Project). Everyone will die, or go away, or anyway will not be individually discernible. And so will go the pains of loss, of uncertainty, of our separation from others. We will all be dissolved together into an egoless primordial soup (which has an appearance not unlike orange koolaid).
Two thoughts about this. First, is this just a silly sci-fi apocalypse, or is it a hyperbolic presentation of a real emotional dynamic? Or, another option: is it just flatly realistic? Could the world actually be destroyed in an attempt to heal the emotional wounds of a single person? Lately I'm not sure that's so far-fetched.
Second thought: what are the ethics of doing this?1 Is it so wrong to want to permanently wipe away the pains of loss, uncertainty, and separation from others? The pains are obviously immense, and to think that they are "outweighed" by pleasures is a dicey proposition. Could be true, sure! I don't have a knockdown argument against it (although many have thought they had). But I don't have a strong argument for it either. And the pleasure of living as one in the orange koolaid might be greater still. If not a balance of pleasure over pain, then, what could make Gendou's plan wrong? Can we appeal to the freedom to choose of the people who would be annihilated? I don't know if that works -- even if they are not annihilated, people do not really choose their predicament. It seems to me it can only be that there is more to explore in the sad world of separate lives. There are possibilities that can only be reached by navigating through this pain, and in some way it is better to reach them than to stop now before they are reached. But this does seem a bit of a weak argument.
That this is a live question is dramatized by the show and by many of the other cultural products in the expanded Eva universe. For example, in the TV anime and in The End of Evangelion, Shinji ultimately has to decide whether to complete his father's scenario, which will also free him from his suffering, or to instead return to some form of individual life. I understand that in several of the videogame products, the player is asked to make this choice.↩