Since evening I stumbled upon a clip of my favorite childhood cartoon – Dragon Ball Z (DBZ). About forty seconds into the clip, the purple villain whose name is Bills told Vegeta (pun on vegetable) that he would die with honor in his death. Vegeta’s wife then shows up and directs her anger at Bills by slapping him for interrupting her party. He slaps her back to which Vegeta gets riled up and bawls out “that’s my Bulma.” At first, I thought he said “that’s my woman.” It was in that moment wherein I began to think about this ownership/ property subject for the millionth time. It continues to follow me compelling me to think about this idea of property.
In the context of Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, we have seen many instances where Doro asserts his power and ownership of others through fear and killing. What made a greater connection to my understanding of the mentioned texts is the highlight from the DBZ scene of what would happen if one damage another’s “property,” such as Doro’s. The one that does the damage would get pummeled, bombarded with fists, and possibly die. A few examples is when Shori wanted to pummel Katherine for damaging her property, Theodora by killing her, or Doro’s recent actions of ‘beating’ Jan because she made one of ‘his’ children die. I believe humans are just the same in complex ways. This belief is comes from my observations throughout my upbringing wherein a friend, peer, or family member would react irrationally as a result of damage to their property – an expensive phone, a body part, a prized car, or “their” woman or man.
Vegeta, who is a Saiyan of another race, yet no different than us Humans, the Inas, or Doro, because we and them will hurt others if ours and their property is damaged. Our emotions gets riled up and we act out of irrationality. In those moment, does the possibility of death ever cross our minds when we attack those who are the source of our pain? For Doro, this is necessary, and as Nikita Rumsey asserted, “Doro pursues excessive violence” which is a necessity in prolonging the “stability of his societies” despite not wanting to kill.
Still, the idea of property, since it continues to make me contemplate a lot, remains in question. I wonder about the possibility of categories of property in human interactions. Perhaps there is, because if I said “my mother” who would say to me “my child” with both of us understanding there is no feeling of ownership between us, wouldn’t that remove the idea of property (you’re mine or I’m yours) from the established interaction?
Your notion of categories of property in human interactions is very interesting. While reading your article it reminded of intellectual property. Intellectual property is referred to creations made in one’s head. This lead me to another term called intangible property, which is defined by Investopedia as ” something of individual value that cannot be held.” At that moment I thought about conversations with people whether it be on television, and or a everyday conversion. Conversation is a daily human interaction, but it is intangible no one can buy a conversation. However, when you recorded a conversion does that make it property? I debated this back and forth the recording device is a physical property, but still in reality the conversion is not. I wonder if this could be an example of a category of property in human interaction.