I always think back to this one quote, something like
You can tell the morals of a society by the myths they tell themselves. We tell stories of heroes who save the world then quietly go back to their day job until they’re needed again
I read that and I actually think positively on it. To me, i read it as the good person doesnt stand by and do nothing, they fight evil as it crops up, even at the cost of their peaceful life they desire. Im not sure I can agree to any one type of story them we tell though. Its pretty varied.
We just want an insurance policy, not for anything to change. We want to protect what we’ve built, write off the horrors of the world as isolated events like a collapsing building or asteroid impact. They stop the villains from rocking the boat, even when the villains have a morally superior position because “you have to do it the right way”
But the heroes aren’t too morally superior… They can’t make us feel bad. They do something about problems in front of them, and then go back to their job. They don’t use their power to actually address root issues, they don’t try to lead, they just defend the status quo
But, then heroes started to get more complex. Batman is a billionaire who fights crime, despite having the ability to actually fix the crime problem in Gotham, he just fights. He suffered a random act of violence as a child, and so that instilled a sense of justice. He works with the police and uses his wealth… In any way except actually changing things
Spiderman learned the hard way noblesse oblige, that his power gives him the responsibility to use it well. And he does, he saves people around him while also actively working to make the world better at his day job - inside the system. He’s basically an activist
Then you have captain America, who puts his sense of justice above the system… But he mostly works inside it, but sometimes it’s infiltrated and he fights or it’s wrong and he stands against it
But when you get to more recent heroes, they start to get dark. The system is broken, so they work outside it as best they can. They don’t have day jobs anymore. They kill sometimes. They make sacrifices, they fail. They question themselves.
People scream at them “where were you when we needed you?” And they explain the answer to that question to the readers through character development, even though there’s nothing they can say to the victims
The heroes aren’t infallible, they aren’t strong or wise enough, they constantly struggle, and they fail. This isn’t a hobby for them, they don’t go back to work. But they keep trying, especially at great personal cost
And they carry every failure with them as penance for not being good enough to have saved us when we needed them
I always think back to this one quote, something like
I read that and I actually think positively on it. To me, i read it as the good person doesnt stand by and do nothing, they fight evil as it crops up, even at the cost of their peaceful life they desire. Im not sure I can agree to any one type of story them we tell though. Its pretty varied.
I’m curious, what’s you’re take on that then?
Liberalism in a nutshell.
We just want an insurance policy, not for anything to change. We want to protect what we’ve built, write off the horrors of the world as isolated events like a collapsing building or asteroid impact. They stop the villains from rocking the boat, even when the villains have a morally superior position because “you have to do it the right way”
But the heroes aren’t too morally superior… They can’t make us feel bad. They do something about problems in front of them, and then go back to their job. They don’t use their power to actually address root issues, they don’t try to lead, they just defend the status quo
But, then heroes started to get more complex. Batman is a billionaire who fights crime, despite having the ability to actually fix the crime problem in Gotham, he just fights. He suffered a random act of violence as a child, and so that instilled a sense of justice. He works with the police and uses his wealth… In any way except actually changing things
Spiderman learned the hard way noblesse oblige, that his power gives him the responsibility to use it well. And he does, he saves people around him while also actively working to make the world better at his day job - inside the system. He’s basically an activist
Then you have captain America, who puts his sense of justice above the system… But he mostly works inside it, but sometimes it’s infiltrated and he fights or it’s wrong and he stands against it
But when you get to more recent heroes, they start to get dark. The system is broken, so they work outside it as best they can. They don’t have day jobs anymore. They kill sometimes. They make sacrifices, they fail. They question themselves.
People scream at them “where were you when we needed you?” And they explain the answer to that question to the readers through character development, even though there’s nothing they can say to the victims
The heroes aren’t infallible, they aren’t strong or wise enough, they constantly struggle, and they fail. This isn’t a hobby for them, they don’t go back to work. But they keep trying, especially at great personal cost
And they carry every failure with them as penance for not being good enough to have saved us when we needed them