Into the Madhouse

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. I apologize for nothing. This will hopefully be short, but you know how I get.

I recently received and read 'Batman: Arkham Asylum'. It was incredibly scary, but very well written. One of those 'DO NOT READ BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP' type works. And like all good pieces of literature, it got me thinking.

Graphic novels are frequently recognized for the social commentary they are (obviously not all of them, but many got their start that way, and many are still utilized in that fashion), philosophically offering answers to that tantalizing question, "What If?" What if the world was set up differently? What if PEOPLE were set up differently? Of course, there has to be SOME similarity to our own world, or we would not be able to relate at all, and this is where things truly become interesting. If one little X or Y factor is changed, but the rest of the known universe remains the same, what happens?

Something like Arkham is the perfect conduit for exploring the darkness of the human soul from a safe distance. The Reader is allowed the luxury of thinking 'That's alright, this isn't talking about the real world', even while feeling shivers threaten from the knowledge that it very easily COULD be...

This book was highly quotable, and I wanted to share some of my favorite parts and the meaning and thought processes it inspired for me, so hopefully it will generate discussion.

An obvious starting point would be the idea of Evil. Dr.Arkham founds this hospital as a way to try to help people considered 'unhelp-able'. As a Special Ed teacher (at least in spirit), I find this a laudable ideal, something I wish more people strived for. I WANT to believe that no one is beyond help, beyond redemption.

But that is part of what the graphic novel allows us...the chance to see, without consequence to ourselves the existence of true, unadulterated, unchangeable EVIL. The villains Batman puts away (not all, but a great majority) will never stop being evil. It is a comfortable categorization that we don't frequently get in the real world, Evil and Good, but it raises many UNcomfortable questions. Such as: WHY can't some people be helped? I usually think of it as a broken soul. This then questions moral responsibility. If they "can't help it", can we really punish them? Theoretically, this is what the Asylum is for, more hospital and less prison.

Craziness is something we have a hard time grasping, which makes it great writing material.

Speaking of craziness:
"The Joker's a SPECIAL case. Some of us feel he may be BEYOND treatment. In fact, we're not even sure if he can be properly defined as INSANE. It's quite possible we may actually be looking at some kind of super-sanity here. A brilliant new modification of human perception. More suited to urban life at the end of the Twentieth Century...He CREATES himself each day. He sees himself as the Lord of Misrule, and the world as a theatre of the absurd."

There's a reason the Joker is such a rich character. We, here in the civilized world of the Normal, NEED him. He reminds us where the Line is. The Joker has no boundaries, allowing us to glimpse the consequences of that, thereby reinforcing the need for such boundaries. But, it's interesting to note that these issues may not come from him being crazy, as such, but broken in another way. When they show him an inkblot, his response is frightening in its poetry:
"Well, *I* see two angels screwing in the stratosphere. A constelation of black holes, a biological process beyond the conception of Man. A Jewish ventriloquist act locked in the trunk of a red Chevrolet."

On another limb of the Crazy tree is Two face. Again the poetry of insanity comes through.
"The Moon is so beautiful. It's a big silver dollar, flipped by God. And it landed scarred side up, see? So He made the world."
Despair is a really broad door to insanity, I think. When nothing matters...well, nothing matters, and there's a reason there are only two kinds of true Nihilists: Crazy or Dead.

The Mad Hatter provides a very intriguing insight to the state of mind. It follows a line of thinking that many theists argue for the existince of evil. Evil is part of a much bigger plan than we can see. And while this may be the case, it doesn't change the fact that the evil is affecting us HERE, NOW and sure seems unfair.
"The apparent disorder of the Universe is simply a HIGHER order, an IMPLICATE order beyond our comprehension. That's why children...INTEREST me. They're all MAD, you see. But in each of them is an implicate adult. Order out of chaos. Or is it the other way around?
...Sometimes...sometimes I think the Asylum is a HEAD. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being.
Perhaps it's YOUR head, Batman. Arkham is a LOOKING GLASS. And WE are YOU."

This is another one of those Batman staples that makes it so fascinating to numerous generations. Batman KNOWS, he's afraid that he IS just like the criminals he puts away. The line between them and him is so thin, they are really just reflections of each other. But it's also a constant struggle, requiring him to remind himself that he is on THIS side of that mirror and they are on the OTHER side.

Dr.Arkham: "I see now the virtue of madness, for this country knows no law, nor any boundary. I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison that is sanity. All things are possible here and I am what madness has made me. Whole and complete and free at last."
Batman, in response to the question of "What ARE you?":
"Stronger than THEM. Stronger than this place. I have to show them."
"That's INSANE."
"Exactly. Arkham was right; sometimes it's only madness that makes us what we are.

Or Destiny, perhaps."

Batman destroys the electrical system which I think was holding them in. I'm not sure, this part was a little unclear to me. But he tells them their free, to which the Joker replies that they had always been free. Thanks to Two-Face, Batman gets to go free as well, but not before the Joker gets in one last laugh:
"Parting is always such sweet sorrow, dearest. Still, you can't say we didn't show you a good time. Enjoy yourself out there.
In the Asylum.
Just don't forget--if it ever gets too tough...
there's always a place for you here."

I know I'm saying a lot of the plot and whatnot, but I really hope you'll read the book because it's quite good, even if it will leave you questioning practically everything. At the end, there are these little sayings by each of the main characters in the book. Two-Face has my favorite.
One one side, it says 'Mr.Apollo. I am a lawyer. Yes.' and then recites the first part of the Preamble to the Constitution.
On the other side it says: "Mr.Dionysus. I am a LIAR. NO.
We the acid scarred victoms
of history
of evil and hypocrisy
EXALT crriminals to office
Vietnam El Salvador Chile
With Lovely missiles roaringbombs
of the RICH and the WHITE and the PIOUS
And BURN CHILDREN and Torture Women
Forever and ever AMEN"

Both say "God Bless America"

And you know what's scary? They're BOTH RIGHT. The frightening part of all of Arkham is that the Evil...the Fears, the Nightmares, the Monsters locked in there...They are not WRONG. Isn't insanity a normative term? Who decides what is 'normal'? We do, and occasionally the reasons for this is flimsy and easily thrown off. So while someone like the Joker reminds us we NEED boundaries, he also laughingly points out the ridiculous nature of those same lines.
Joker: "And who is this PURE foil? LO, in the sagas of old time, Legend of Scald, cometh he not in Green...like Spring?
O, thou water that art air, in whom all complex is RESOLVED!

Oh YES!
Fill the churches with dirty thoughts!
Introduce HONESTY to the White House
Write Letters in Dead languages
to people you've never met!
Paint FILTHY words on the
Foreheads of CHILDREN!
BURN YOUR CREDIT CARDS
and wear high heels!
Asylum doors stand OPEN!
Fill the suburbs with Murder and Rape!
DIVINE MADNESS!
Let there be ECSTASY, ecstasy in the streets!
LAUGH and the WORLD laughs WITH YOU!"

I hope you've enjoyed this foray into madness. This is a pretty barebones assessment, but like I said, was hoping to generate discussion.

To you, fellow philosophers.