Early Morning Philosophy #2

Whenever I watch a movie that features Arlington National Cemetery, I won't lie, I fight the urge to tear up a bit.

Not simply for all the alabaster graves...though there are SO many of them...but for all the people I know aren't there...including those once thought our enemies. I have seen many war memorials now, and though I am grateful for a new kind of war that doesn't involve lining up on hilltops to fire at each other 'like a good sport,' it grieves me that our non-traditional wars are not really conducive to memorials as we understand them. And the people we tend to fight now would never be able to afford them anyway.

I am sad for all the families in the arid nations of AK's and sand and oil. I've been accused of being unpatriotic for this, but I consider quite the reverse true. If the adage: "With great power comes great responsibility," is true, I believe we, as Americans, have the highest responsibility to be respectful of fallen fighters on all sides.

I am adamantly opposed to violating the dead. When Achilles killed Hector, that was fine, that was his right as a warrior, and it was an honorable battle. But when he towed Hector's bleeding body around Troy's walls, there was an almost ubiquitous dissaproval...even from the gods.

I do not believe anyone to be my enemy. I have wished harm upon individuals, but only in moments of anger, and always because they have threatened or injured those close to me, and usually, much of the ire is born out of my own incompetence at defending my loved ones. I do not hate any group of people.

This is one of the reasons...perhaps the biggest reason, war is a horrifyingly soul-raping, wretched endeavor. I believe there are things worth fighting for. I believe there are things worth dying for. While I am more than a little hesitant to claim there are things worth killing for (because it is hard for me to conceive, let alone justify such a claim), I recognize that sometimes easy choices are simply not given to us, and I do not judge those who fight. Despite my own deontological moral philosophy, I absolutely believe there is honor in being a soldier, and it is totally appropriate to respect and honor THEM for their service.

The dead have no enemies (unless of course, the Zombie Apocalypse arrives, in which case, I'm going to have a LOT of moral paradigms to rethink). An enemy is someone who wants to harm you in some way. I do not believe the dead wish ill of anyone. As such, when someone dies, they cease to be an enemy. I'm not suggesting we suddenly forgive or forget. All claims to objectivity aside, history will always be replete with at least passive judgments. But this does make desecration of the dead a moral sin. The most justly won victory can be completely tainted by such behavior, the most righteous defender brought down to the level of the basest of villains.

But I am not a soldier. I have no enemies. I have never fired a weapon, I have never been fired upon. I have never watched someone close to me die, knowing their killer was still alive and it was within my power to do something about it. It is simply not a position I have ever occupied, and so I cannot, in all fairness, pass firm judgment upon it. I have what I believe, and I believe it to be right, and someone would be hard pressed to convince me of any justification otherwise. But I will not pretentiously flout high standing ideals, safe in the comfort and security afforded me by the very individuals I would be lambasting.

I hope that all those people who were once considered enemies find peace in whatever afterlife they find, should they believe in one, and peace in the nothingness if they believe that instead. I hope their loved ones have a place to go to remember them, to honor their ideals if they are worth honoring them, to honor the individual if he or she is worth it to them, or at least to mourn the tragedy that was their life and death. And I hope that as best as we are able, we respect those who fight for causes not our own and that when the fighting ends, and the issues resolve and the wounds began to heal, we put aside thoughts of 'enemies,' and return to being just people.

A Philopsychological Analysis: V and Phantom

Today I watched two movies with a few similar themes that got me thinking about a variety of topics. The first was V for Vendetta, the second, the 2007 adaptation of Phantom of the Opera. One of this movies is almost incontestably better than the other, but that's not really the issue here. I noted some correlations between the two titular characters.

I'm using the movies for this case, as opposed to the books and/or original musical for a variety of reasons. One is, as mentioned, I just watched them. Two, I haven't read the original V for Vendetta in ages. Three, while I'm quite aware that the movie barely does justice to almost any aspect of Sir Andrew's music, there's the simple fact that I don't like Sarah Brightman. Not because she is in any way untalented, because she's quite gifted. I just think she's a robot. And by that, I mean, her voice has no soul to me. It doesn't move me at all, I am not in the least sympathetic to Christine, and in fact, kind of want the Phantom to drown her at some point. I am told by those more musically inclined than I am that the actors are singing off-key in some of the major songs. I couldn't tell you. It is my personal opinion that Raoul and Christine are fine singers on their own (one has a Tony and one has been performing opera since she was 4), but that they didn't harmonize particularly well, which hurt their duet performances. In the end, virtually all my issues (especially all the gross inconsistencies (Meg has wet pants, wet pants, wet pants, camera change, DRY PANTS)) are solely the fault of the director, Joel Shumacher (who is also responsible for the violent assault of our childhood known as Batman Forever and Batman and Robin). Admittedly, I blame him for lots of things, including the KT meteor. I don't like him, is what I'm saying.

You can tell I'm going to digress a lot.

Anyway, similarities.

To get the obvious one out of the way for you trolls, there's the whole mask thing, ostensibly to hide a great deformity that works as an allegory to their own inner scarring. They are both verbose, well versed in literature and theatrics, etc.

The deeper, and I feel, more significant similarity is that they are both offered a chance at a real human relationship by the woman they care about; arguably the first and only time this has or will ever happen. And they turn it down. My personal interpretation has always been that, having spent all their lives filled with darkness and hatred, the sudden introduction of something as pure as love overwhelms their twisted minds and brings them to the sad conclusion that they are incapable of returning in kind, as they are so very broken inside. You could make the case that V is simply too dedicated to his cause, but I believe the case for his 'monster' status is pretty well made in the film.

This line of thinking got me into a philopsyhological mindset, with which I found myself analyzing much of Phantom. In the end I focused on the triangle relationship, and the idea of personhood.

There will be a lot of stretching for some of these points, and clearly, much comes down to interpretation. That is, after all, the beauty of art.

The first point is that human beings act inconsistently, and paradoxically, and the characters in the play reflect that. There are numerous moments of conflict, times where warring motivations vie for decision-making significance. This is especially true with Eric (the Phantom), but both Christine and Raoul make good representations as well.

For example, rarely do I question the sincerity of the characters. Sanity, yes, sincerity, no. I believe Eric means it when he says he loves Christine, and I believe he means it when he says he'll kill Raoul if she doesn't stay with him (not exactly something a truly loving person would do).

Speaking of that, let's talk about that sanity thing. The only sane one in this triangle is Raoul and he makes up for it by being rich and spoiled. Christine clearly has some left over neuroses and abandonment issues thanks to her father passing away. As far as I can tell, she honestly believes in the beginning that it is the spirit of her father coaching her, and even after everything that happens in the first half of the show, she still goes to his grave, as if to confirm he is actually in it. When Raoul goes up to the roof with her, she hears the Phantom calling her, and she clearly is not sure if she's actually hearing it or if it's in her mind, because the lines of reality have seemingly become blurred.

Eric, of course, is even worse off. At best, he's a sociopath, devoid of what most of society recognizes as a moral compass (hence, the killing and all). More to our purposes, he has a sexual pathology. That actually doesn't have a lot to do with actual sex. To wit (and how often do we get to use that phrase?), he obviously spends a lot of time fantasizing, mostly about Christine. Note the drawings and paintings of her, all the little miniatures and of course the life size model. This is pretty classic behavior of someone with potentially highly dangerous sexual deviancy. Not that fantasizing is bad, in and of itself, we all do it. It is just that when classifying sexually violent crimes, it has been noted that only sadists and organized, anger excitation/power assertive/anger retaliatory rapists enjoy imagining the crime as much as, if not more than, actually committing it. So the fantasy aspect is considered very important, because offenders escalate up from that. Virtually all sexual crimes start with a deviant fantasy. That doesn't mean all fantasies will lead to deviant behavior (again, a lot more people would be guilty than are) but it is something to keep in mind.

Going up the usual progression, there's peeping, stalking, and finally assault/kidnapping, all of which Eric does at some point.

The danger here is that the world does not conform to our fantasies, and he has not been socialized to handle rejection and disappointment. But wait, you say, he never intended, nor demonstrated any attempt to hurt Christine.

Which leads to my second point. Eric did not see Christine as a person, someone with autonomy and agency. She was an object, a living, moving version of the mannequin he had made of her. She was a figure of his dreams, and when she did not act exactly as he'd pictured, he became violent, manipulative and destructive. This is also pretty standard behavior for a sexual predator.

When he brought her down to his lair, he probably imagined she would wake up, he would play and she would be inspired to sing and that would inspire him and they would exist in some kind of blissful resonance. The problem with making a human your muse is that real muses are remote, untouchable, as Christine had always been to him before. Now she was close, and all of her faults and humanity, manifested in the (not very subtle) action of pulling his mask off, were undeniable. This is one of the first examples of his reactions to non-conforming behavior. I don't really know what he expected to have happen, but he obviously didn't account for her curiosity.

If Eric had truly wanted Christine to come with him, as an autonomous human, he would have come to her more openly. Not like bells-and-whistles-and-hey-by-the-way-I'm-horribly-deformed, but certainly not purposefully inciting her to believe her father had sent him in some mystical way, not using smoke, mirrors and magic to make her question her senses and not hypnotizing her musically. I have sometimes heard people say they dislike the movie version of 'Music of the Night' because near the end, he's more or less groping her, but I don't really understand this reaction. Listen to the lyrics, they're all 'abandon reason' and good sense, 'give in to the darkness' and 'let me do what I want with you.' Between that and her glassy-eyed 'under the influence' look, and I'd say 'Music of the Night' is the essentially a lyrical roofie. Yeah, you heard me, he spiked her ears so he could have his way with her. Of course, I doubt 'his way' would have entailed a sexual relation for quite a while, not out of respect for her, but because I'm not convinced he's capable of such intimacy. I'm sure there's fanfiction to prove me wrong (very very very sure).

Which brings us back to the Viscount. I do not believe that Raoul spends most of the play viewing Christine as a person either. His reasons are more that he's a chauvinist, typical of his time period. When they first meet again, and Christine tries to tell him she can't go out, he bulldozes over her words and insists she go to dinner with him. He does this sort of thing a lot. When Christine says 'Yo, let's escape because someone is trying to kill me' he's like 'Lol, you so crazy, girl.' Honestly, when she's explaining that she was in a dungeon and sharing how conflicted she is because she's terrified but also sympathetic to her captor, he looks at her as if she's explaining how the Saurians of Venout 9 have been communicating to her through her hair curls. To him, she's something to be protected and sheltered. You imagine that in HIS dreams, he is the perfect noble, she the perfect wife, to be set on a mantle piece, looked at and praised. Even 'All I Ask of You' (one of my favoritest songs ever) shows this relationship. All of Raoul's lines are 'Let me take care of you and lead you and tell you what to do'...'Let me do X for/to you.' Now, in his defense, she is frightened and probably needs someone to be there for her, to promise to take care of her and to help her figure everything out. I'm not solely blaming Eric or Raoul for seeing Christine as...well, what she is. An ingénue. For most of the show, she is passive, allowing things to happen to her, rather than causing them to happen. Part of this is, that's her character, some of it is the crazy. At least Raoul seems to seek some kind of involvement on her part. Eric's seduction seems more like 'Just be here and let things happen' as opposed to 'Do this with me.' Splitting hairs, though.

And for a while Christine and Raoul seem happy enough, so I'd like to think that they'd gotten over this. Then we get the after math of 'Masquerade.' Again, Christine is asking Raoul to listen to him and again, he is sure he knows best and she should stop being so bloody hysterical. He's not hearing her and is thus denying her basic personhood; in other words, he doesn't respect her.

The pivotal moment, and another of my favorite songs, comes with 'Point of No Return.' Eric is almost asking Christine to choose him, but he's also doing it according to his script, which he wrote. He expects her to follow the lines he has laid out for her, to just go along with it. Still not recognizing her as a person with agency. However, you can almost see Christine's spine straightening as the song goes on. Maybe she's tired of being pushed around. Maybe she thinks this is the only thing she can do to save the opera house and her friends (considering how that turns out, especially for the chandelier, I find this doubtful). Either way, she has finally come to recognize her own agency and is ready to demonstrate it. You can actually see the moment when Raoul sees it too. He half stands, a suggestion of tear coming to his eye as he realizes she might not actually choose him. She might just choose to go with this dark, exotic stranger, who promises enticing, forbidden joys; a contrast to the moral, socially acceptable (and therefore less exciting) life that he represents. She has a choice, and he might not be it. Yet before the song is done, he sits down again, jaw tightening as if he is coming to terms with the idea, resolving to let her handle it. Notice he doesn't send in the fuzz the moment things aren't going his way. You can bet Eric would not have exerted so much discretion.

When Christine pulls off his mask the second time, it should have been clear to Eric he was not going to be able to control her, but I think by then, he was done with the upstairs world and didn't really care what they thought. You can see the apologies in her eyes and this is one of the many times we see conflicting emotions and motivations. Maybe she thought the display would be good for him, freeing him in some way. Maybe she just wanted people to believe her. He doesn't seem angry with her action, perhaps a little disappointed, but also understanding. His expression says 'You did what you had to do.'

Still, Eric does not extend agency to Christine, dragging her down 'to the dungeon of' his 'black despair,' and shoving a veil on her head. But Christine has found some kind of inner strength now, and she is not jumping (or singing) on his say so anymore. What she is doing is holding him to a standard, speaking to him in plain terms and recognizing his personhood in a way he hasn't recognized hers. She points out that he's had a choice this whole time and he's been making the wrong one. He is not an object to be pitied, a pet to take home and nurse. He's a human being who has caused suffering to others. Then Raoul shows up. I think this is because he views Eric's kidnap of Christine as more than just 'you're taking my property' and more 'you're forcing Christine into this.' Obviously, he wants Christine to come back with him, but I think he was also concerned she was being taken against her will (whatever her and Eric's duet of musical foreplay said).

The Phantom asks Raoul before throwing a noose over his neck 'Why would I make her pay for the sins which are yours?' I find this to be an interesting question. On the surface, he views Raoul as a rival, someone who has gotten in the way of his plans. Still convinced of his fantasy, he probably believes that if not for Raoul, Christine would have acted exactly as he wanted. On the other hand, I wonder if, even unconsciously, he projected onto Raoul faults he saw in himself. He heard Raoul promising to do everything FOR Christine, he heard him in the beginning and probably later on ignoring her pleas. Here, Raoul has everything he doesn't: respect, passable looks, wealth, prestige, and yet he still disrespects Christine. In this way, I think Eric sees him as both rival and mirror and hates him in both capacities.

At this point, things become kind of muddy for me. Christine has made it perfectly clear that she holds Eric in contempt. So when she goes out to him, it could be argued that she is disingenuous, and simply doing it because she wants to save Raoul. For his part, I think Raoul is reaffirmed of his respect for Christine's personhood when he realizes she has to save him. Was Christine deceiving Eric by seeming to accept his offer? I don't think so, because I think he would have picked up on it. Certainly, he expected that to be her reason.

I find the 'You deceived me. I gave you my mind blindly' line to be important because it is another big step for Christine. Not only does she recognize she is in control of her own life but also that she has to take responsibility for her actions. She allowed Eric to manipulate her, she allowed him to control her. By proxy, she allowed Raoul to overrule her by never being assertive. Realizing that Eric was not solely at fault, that she too had created this situation, I think she decided that staying with him was a consequence thereof. And I think that while she honestly loved Raoul, she also sincerely intended to stay with Eric. Maybe because she felt he needed her more, maybe inside she was really frightened. I don't know, but in any case, she was ready to stand by that decision.

But Eric lets them go. Feeling human affection for the first time, something in his mind must have snapped, the curtain must have finally gone up (see what I did there?), leaving him no more excuses. He had said earlier 'the world showed no compassion to me,' as if that justified all of his wrongdoings, but now he had to face them in the eyes of someone who truly cared for him, who didn't judge him for his deformity. It was all too much. Whatever shame he felt before was increased exponentially now. So he demands they leave him to be alone with his misery. He has finally accepted Christine as her own person and realized that he can't force her. And he is pained he tried.

I've sometimes wondered why Christine comes to give him the ring. I always thought it was a token of her care. After all, Raoul had given it to her, she could easily have kept it. But she gives it to Eric, as if to say 'Even though I can't be with you, I choose to leave this with you of my own volition.'

You can see Raoul leaning on her and his development is never made more obvious than the switching of the lyrics. Now it is he who says 'Say the word and I will follow you.'

I think there is probably no greater image of self-hatred than the shattering of mirrors. Both Eric and V do it after being forced to see themselves through the eyes of the ones they love. It is a visceral and I think, truly heartbreaking attempt at trying to destroy oneself.

All of these points can be argued, and there were a lot of side paths that I didn't go into. But I hope my points were clear enough and that maybe you'll think about some of these things the next time you pop in the soundtrack or turn on the movie. You can wonder (although if you do, I'd be concerned) why Christine chooses Raoul over Eric (I'm gunna go with the whole 'murder' thing). In the end, I don't think it matters as much as the fact that she was given the choice and that she chose to make it.

They Who Serve Who Only Stand And Wait

Recently, I have been allowed to read books again, which is glorious. I have found myself drawn to some nonfiction. I mentioned this to an older acquaintance and they responded with 'Oh, I'm so glad you've grown out of those silly fantasy novels and are reading big kid books' (paraphrased). This bothered me to no end, but I made no issue of it at the time, knowing my cause already lost. I put it aside for awhile until the multi-talented Sean PC posted an observation on Facebook, which I'm reprinting here.

"...has an interesting observation. When a relationship has ended, and a person dwells on the feelings of their broken heart, after a certain amount of time everyone thinks they should get up and get over it and move on. “S/He wasn't worth it, anyway.”

But if someone moves on without seeming to care, everyone thinks they're a bit cold hearted, and wonder if they really cared in the first place - and may even suggest that they take a little time to mourn the relationship if just for its significance. Is this a double standard? And what is the time limit someone is allowed to mourn the past and ... See Morewhat if? And then there's what we are asking these people to do, and our views on emotions in general: How much significance do we allow our emotions? Are we to slip on a mask of good cheer and congeniality when we have "dwelled too long"? If we seclude ourselves because we make others uncomfortable, or are forced into seclusion because our display makes others avoid us, time spent too long there make our friends wish us out of it - but happy. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is the purpose of the stage - so that while we go about our daily lives with a social mask on, we may be ourselves in character, and allow our audiences see and feel what it might be like if people were free to be themselves."

My attention was predominantly to his supposition that the stage allows us to express what our culture does not. I wholeheartedly agree, but I would expand that notion to include basically all forms of fiction.

The further separated, the more distanced from reality, the more we are willing to open our minds to the possibility.

Consider the following scenario:
You have strong beliefs about the environment. You consider actions of our government and the corporations that call a lot of the shots to be irresponsible if not downright immoral. You believe our culture needs to change from one of consumption to one of careful stewardship.
Sure, you could write about it, try to convince others. But likely you would be labeled and then categorically ignored as a liberal, an extremist, a tree-hugger. No one wants to be told that what they are doing is wrong, that they may have to give up their comfortable lifestyle.

SO....spends billions of dollars and make a movie set on a different world where the alternative lifestyle is represented by individuals who are tall and blue and catlike and suddenly, BAM, everyone wants to hear what you have to say. It helps if everything is shiny and wellmade and stuff blows up too.

Undoubtedly some people were put off by the social subtext in Avatar. I was at points. But how many people do you think walked out at least THINKING about some of the questions it raised? Probably enough that James Cameron feels pretty good about it. The message didn't change, but put it in a way that people feel separated from, that makes them feel comfortable and you will reach a much bigger audience.

Do I think that was the point of the movie? No. The point of the movie was to be entertaining. It was intended to make money. But you know, while you're at it...

I've mentioned before that the Joker is a powerful character because we know he's *not real*. We can explore the moral and philosophical question he raises because he's OVER THERE. Fantastical fiction is therefore perhaps the greatest vehicle for philosophical discussion. My big brother said he thinks philosophy is dead. I disagree. I think it just changed addresses.

There is of course, some major differences. In a fictional setting, one is allowed to artificially limit options and circumstances. One could argue that it is easier for the Na'vi to live as they do because as far as we know there's only 20,000 or so, whereas on our planet, we have 7 billion. There are some things that are simply unfeasible for us to accomplish given geography, size and population. These issues should not be pushed aside, and they are valid concerns, but just thinking about them raises more discussion which could potentially lead to some positive outcomes.

This of course, raises a different issue.
What is the definition of propaganda? The connotations change over cultures. We generally consider it a bad thing here, yet the difference between propaganda, opinion and education is fine and fuzzy. Other cultures don't consider it a bad thing, because they don't feel that stigma of overt attempts at manipulation that we do. Is it only propaganda if we feel this attempt? That can't be right because guaranteed attempts are made that we allow to slide by because they are ineffective. Is it only propaganda if it IS effective then? Well then we would call it education.

Acting perhaps gives us an even more direct example than reading, as we are active participants instead of passive consumers. After all, isn't a staple of acting that it is permissible to say/do certain things because it is not YOU ACTUALLY DOING THEM? If people were unwilling to take this step, we'd have much fewer villains (and people would be that much more frightening who chose to be so o.o). We are clearly capable of suspending our own personal identity for the sake of the Story.

What does this say about the responsibility of the playwright? The actors? If they are indeed, not simply acting out a shallow tale of conflict and closure, but in fact presenters of ideas and concepts for pondering and reflection, does that change how they behave? Would they try harder? Probably not, being professionals, but maybe it would help them get into character by thinking about it.

So the next time someone comes up and asks why you waste your time with fantasy, science fiction, movies of clear non-reality, ask them if the messages contained therein are any lowlier or baser than the latest romantic comedy or stoner flick. Ask them which is more realistic, the emotions felt by the Hobbits or by the cast of Grey's Anatomy? Ask which is more palatable, yet able to bring up emotions of loss and duty...Star Trek or 24? What movie nailed right to the point on issues of race and responsibility more poignantly in recent history than District 9?

And then ask them why we only have fantasy to discuss such things.

The fact that they involve lasers, giant sandworms, aliens and gold-bikini clad princesses does not make them any less legitimate forms of expression. And their very distance from our reality makes us freer to explore issues too difficult or socially unacceptable to delve into in other ways.

Quick blurb

This is a rant. Will be short, promise.

Was watching Gotham Knight with Chaz, Tim and Andrew. Tim thinks Batman is a 'pansy' because he doesn't kill people.

I cannot begin to describe how aggravating I find this.

The irony, perhaps, the paradox of Batman is that he truly does BELIEVE in the system. He believes that everyone deserves a fair trial, that they should be judged by society and dealt with accordingly. I'm sure he agrees there are flaws within the system: bad guys let out on technicalities, the whims of human judges. All of this, however, is irrelevant. The system is there because WE put it there, because it separates us from the beasts, and is more or less what civilization rests on. The rule of law. Not the rule of might.

Batman (at least, my understanding of him) recognizes that there are those who work outside the system. Those to whom our laws don't apply because they are simply so far flung from what would be considered in the creation of laws. Sure, he takes out common criminals too but no one really pays attention to those, and in Gotham, they well established that the entire city was pass the point of the system dealing with it.

So Batman works outside, yet parallel to The System. He goes outside, fights the bad guys on the outside, and pulls them INSIDE The System. By killing them, Batman would say that democracy doesn't work, that The System is a failure and hey, everyone, just kill those think deserve it.

Batman is a hero because he confronts evil, but he does it on just terms and he does not put himself in all positions, judge, jury and executioner. That's not his role. His role is to attain those the normal law officer can't, and to make those criminals more 'available'.

He has to play by our rules, because they are OUR rules and he works for US. That's how it works.

/End Rant

Shades of Gray

Alright, fellow philosophers, I pray this will be a short post because as my usual subject matter goes, this is fairly shallow. I'm going to talk about myself.

Well, let me rephrase. I'm going to share with you a thought process which led to a realization of how not-simple the world is. This is another one of those 'everyone knows this' times, but it was causing a dissonance in my mind and I wanted to share the reconciliation.

I was raised in a fairly isolated environment, which is not to be confused with being sheltered. All my friends were much more sheltered than I was, it was simply that I saw the same people every day, and did not see much of the rest of the world.

This left me to form subconscious mindsets which have only recently been brought into question and discarded.

Being surrounded by Christians and having limited contact with non-Christians, I developed the notion that only Christians were good people. To a child's mind, this should make sense. Good=moral. Moral=This-one-set-of-beliefs.
Another concept was that all talents come from God, therefore if someone seems really talented, they must be blessed which must mean that even if they are hiding it, they are believers. This should also make sense when you think about how many Tony's, Oscars and other awards are accepted with God mentioned in the thank yous. Even if it insincere, it is 'the thing to do', and when I was small, it was hard to discern a difference.

Now, flash forward. I think most people are inclined to justify or stick up for those we admire, actors, celebrities, singers, and so on. Part of this is that identity notion I talked about earlier. We identify with certain people, certain tastes, and it is hard having those questioned. The other part is that very few people would want to admire BAD people. It simply doesn't make sense.
So we come up with lots of reasons for why people do what they do and what we think it means. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I've said before, art is subjective.

I give you the example of Eminem because that's what got me thinking about all this.
No one is ever going to say that his music is family friendly or remotely aligned with Christian values. However, I am preinclined to say 'Well he really doesn't mean THOSE parts because of X, Y, Z and he's really doing D.'. This is because I have a hard time imagining someone could be so talented and really so selfish and hateful, it is inconsistent with my understanding of the universe's works. And I want him to be a good person because I don't want to believe that someone I respect is all the things others accuse him of.

But, as the great Neil Gaiman said about another author: He's not your bitch.

I have heard the argument made that people like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are purposefully inflammatory because they want to shake things up, they want people to argue with them because it forces them to think. The exact same argument can be made for Eminem (and has, numerous times). And to be honest, Glenn and Em DO do what they do for the same reason (wow that sentence sucked). They do it for money. Eminem sells more records by being controversial and Glenn Beck gets higher ratings and more listeners by being a hateful jerk-I mean opinionated pundit. I'm sure there are times where they really are sincere in their anger, where they truly desire to wake people up, using intemperate language to shake people off the fence. But they are also certainly aware that they are now personas which must be kept up for the sake of sales.

My point for this is that I know now that there are plenty of good people in the world who don't believe the way I do. And there are a depressing many terrible people who claim to believe the same things, though I don't believe them. I still believe that people are talented and given ability for a reason, but I also recognize that circumstances play a strong role. Would Elizabeth I have been such a great queen if she hadn't been faced with such adversity right from the beginning of her rule? Adversity breeds greatness. I believe God gives each of us potential, but it is up to our own determination and our surroundings to develop it. And because we all have free will, we do not have to use our abilities for what was perhaps their original intention.

So now, if someone says 'Why do you like that celebrity, he/she is such a douchebag who does K and U?', I'm not going to be all that bothered by it unless they are being inaccurate or unnecessarily malicious because who we are isn't only defined by who we enjoy having entertain us and it IS possible to be talented but not moral, and/or good but with different beliefs.

I know all of this is incredibly elementary but I feel like the universe is less frightening for not having the contradiction. Things are rarely as black and white as we considered them when we were little.

Have any of you ever come to a conclusion that you felt you should have realized a long time earlier?

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.

The short guy probably had it right...

EDIT: The captive slaves of the Spartans were called 'Helots' not 'huknos', I was thinking one word and typed another. I fixed it now.

Note: This is probably going to be one of those posts where I know more or less what I want to say, but because the topic is so amorphous, it is hard to really communicate well. There is no thesis statement, I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm not even sure I have a point. This post will probably be very stream of consciousness, so please bear with me.

As interesting as history is as a story, the very philosophy behind it is just as fascinating to me. Like all stories, there's usually room for interpretation, but rarely do the interpretations have such far reaching consequences (except in the case of religious texts). Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with saying, "History is a set of lies agreed upon by the victors." There is undoubtedly a grain of truth to this, on both the small and large level. Take Women's history. Now I'm sure a lot of people get aggravated that there are entire classes just focused on Women's history but that's because ours is one of the first generations that has even LOOKED at it. Before, it was assumed they either didn't have one or it would totally match up with Men's. If you were to look at a certain period in history solely from the point of view of men, and then do the same with women, no doubt you would get a different story. It's about what's emphasized, prioritized and outright ignored. Both have truths to them, both have gray areas of belief.

John Stuart Mill, great man though he was, was wrong about history. He said (paraphrased): "These nations[referring to India] have no culture, and therefore, no history. This is true of almost all of the East."
Because their culture did not look like his, he didn't recognize it as civilization. How many times may this have happened, and how many stories may have gotten lost because of it? I think this is a serious flaw in our education system, that we get so focused on American History (which is frequently white-washed past recognition), as if all of history was just setting up for the creation of the United States that we forget there's an entire world outside. And when the rest of the planet is talked about, it is usually in reference to us.

This is another inherent problem with history. For as long as the stories have been passed down, they have usually been used to engender nationalism or pride. It is awfully hard to remain objective when you want to make someone (or large groups of people) believe something about themselves.

But then, no history is wholly objective. The writers are human and therefore have flaws, and the readers are likewise without perfection. I think that's one reason it says in 1 Corinthians 13, "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face."
There's much we don't understand, it is obscured from us, and I personally am looking forward to seeing it all laid out later (much later, please).

Okay, so far we've shown: History changes depending on who is telling it (who may be focused on some things more than others, and who may simply be ignorant of other aspects), and because there is usually an agenda, it is difficult to say any of it can be taken totally on faith. That doesn't meant we should disregard it or consider it unimportant. It is simply something to be aware of.

Phew, glad we got that all set up. Now to what I actually wish to talk about. ^.^

Like I said, the philosophy is almost as interesting as the actual stories, and like philosophy, history is full of contradictions. Things everyone knows but doesn't always think about. Often, it is just the difference in wording. But words have power, and shape our perceptions and therefore our actions.

Why is it that:

You can be a freedom fighter...or an 'anarchist' rebel?
A crusader...or a terrorist?
A strong, effective leader...or a dictator?
A great general and tactition...or a cruel, inhumane bastard?

What's the difference? Sometimes it is easier to say, but often we are on very shaky ground. Most of the time, the only difference is whose side you're on.

Some context: For Christmas, I received a bunch of books written by the same author, historical fiction about ancient Greece and Rome. Currently I'm reading one about Xenophon, which has been really interesting because it's a period that I'm not really familiar with (though I know about what came before and then what came after). But it got me thinking about how we, in the present, think about people in the past.

A Tale of Two Cities in the Ancient World:

Once upon a time, there were two very powerful city states. They were named Athens and Sparta. Athens was the cultural center of the known world, militarily strong because of her navy (being right near the sea), and a huge trading post. Great minds, philosophical and scientific, flocked to her, and at the time we're looking, she had the first fully functional true democracy, under the leadership of Pericles. Well...true democracy in the sense that all free white men could vote and had a say. However, Athens looked around to its neighbors and literally conquered them through democracy. They became more and more powerful by subjecting other free cities, "for their own good." (Sound familiar anyone?)

Meanwhile, there was Sparta. I personally, consider the brilliance of Sparta in their social system. They had few legal punishments (obviously rape and murder, and stealing was punished, normally because you were stupid enough to get caught), instead they relied on social ostracization. Sparta had once conquered their rival and had taken all the people captive as slaves. 'True Spartans' were called Spartiates, and there were relatively few of these compared to people who just lived in Sparta, and then the helots(or the captive slaves). Now, if you know you're outnumbered by people who would kill you if they could, you would make a military society too. That's why the Spartan war-culture continued so long after they had stopped making war, they had to be always on guard against those within their own borders. And once a year, they got to go crazy and kill as many of the helots as they wanted. Fun people huh?
But back to their social psychology. Spartiate men all lived and ate together in Barracks. It was like The Big Kids table. If you showed cowardice (the highest crime in Spartan Society), you were stripped of your Spartiate status, and could no longer eat or live there. It was a huge disgrace. In this way, the Spartans ruled themselves through internalized values. No one had to be physically punished because they did it themselves. I think that's pretty innovative.

So both cultures had their good and evil, just like any other. Spartans treated their Spartiates very well, regardless of whether they were male or female. Well, women were more respected and got to have a greater say in politics, though they couldn't formally hold office. They were able to participate in Olympics, but this was mostly because healthy women create healthier children so it wasn't really due to any kind of enlightenment. But Sparta was pretty backward when it came to other things. Because they had slaves to do their work, they didn't advance technologically. Their houses were not particularly comfortable (more like mud huts than anything else), and it was once said 'No wonder Spartans are so willing to die on the spear. Better that than to live on their food'. They were strong people in that they adhered ardently to their beliefs, and with the exception of the one country that they more or less accidentally 'won', they had no interest in conquering anyone else.
At the same time, Athens encouraged new levels of higher thinking and we find the beginnings of deductive reasoning, the scientific method and great leaps in science and art. Plus, the formalization of democracy is an important contribution. But the Athenians were pretty full of themselves and felt the need to spread their greatness to others who didn't ask for it.

And so like what so often happens, the true evils of any people comes forth in war. Sparta didn't participate in the first Pelloponnesian War because they didn't like leaving Sparta for fear the slaves would rise up. But the second, which lasted for 27 years, would have tragedies on both sides.

It is during this time that my books starts. Sparta won the Second Pelloponnesian war, and installed a puppet government, known as the Thirty Tyrants. This was a huge leap from true democracy to a strict oligarchy and the Athenians resented it. Spartan philosophy didn't work on such a large scale. It was fine for their city-state, but they couldn't enforce it well on others. For one thing, they liked winning, but they didn't really like conquering.
(Note: This is all based on my personal understanding. I get my information from classes, books and talking with professors because I assume they know what they are talking about. As I've said, history is usually open to interpretation and has often been embellished if not outrightly made up. So I could be wrong on some of these points, especially motivation. Please don't think that I assume everything I say is gospel truth, I am completely open to the idea I could misunderstand these things.)

Man, that was a lot more background than I meant to give. And all from memory too ^.^ Dr.Nuzum (my Prehistory teacher) would be so proud.

So what this has done is made me think about our double standards. Take the movie 300. Obviously, only loosely based on historical fact, and I don't use it as a real reference point, but it DOES speak to our present perception. And a lot of it is right, at least philosophically. Spartans were the best hoplite warriors of the time (hoplites are foot soldiers). And they really did fight off an overwhelming number of Persians to allow for the rest of the army to escape (yeah, covering for someone else running away isn't quite as romantic, but it does show a level of self-sacrifice).
The Queen, Gorgo, was actually a really fascinating figure, someone who greatly interested Herodotus, the father of history. She is the main reason we know about the battle of Thermopylae, as she wrote extensively. Leonidas was a great king, he introduced many reforms and improved the lives of his people (I personally consider that a plus for a ruler). But we have this over-simplified view of the Spartans I think, just as we do of many other peoples and individuals. We, Americans, and probably humans in general, are drawn to people who are the best at physical prowess. Take team names. My school mascot is a Viking. Vikings were smelly, gross and often terrible human beings. Yet, we glorify them. Look at most teams. Heck, the Forks High School team is called the Spartans. No one wants to be called the Athenians because they were known for their mental abilities and despite our great enlightment (/sarcasm) we don't value that nearly as much as the ability to swing an ax into someone's face. It's just as we like winners, no matter how they achieve that rank.

Something I've always wrestled with is how we judge individuals, and if we even have the right. I've talked to a lot of people about it, especially my dad and Dr.Nuzum (who is a historiographer and so usually understands where I'm coming from).
What do we judge? The action, the consequences, the motivation? If they were a total douchebag, but did good things for their country, are they excused? What if they did good things for their country but at the expense of another country? I suppose that's the philosophy of Political Science.

Take three of my favorite subjects: Richard, Coeur de Leon, Alksandr of Macedon (also known as Alexander the Great) and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Richard was one of the ten greatest generals of all time (as far as I know). He inspired much in his men, and his people loved hearing of his victories.
But he also bankrupted his country to fund the Crusades, and obviously his victories came through killing people closer to their own country than he was to his. I highly doubt he really cared about liberating the Holy City. He loved making war, he was good at it, and any excuse would have worked. He was known for raping women and then passing them around to his men for their depravations. In his defense, that was expected of him, though it hardly excuses him morally.

So which column do we put him in? Should we even try? Perhaps we don't have the right, as we weren't there. But then, we have to live in a world shaped by these actions, which gives us some leeway. If Sparta and Athens hadn't more or less destroyed each other, Phillip of Macedon would have had a much more difficult time defeating them and Alexander the Great would likely never have risen and the world would certainly be different.
Alexander unified formerly disparate nations and paved the way for the Roman Empire who for all of its evil, did much for the world, including setting the stage for the birth of Christ. If Alexander had lived past 33, who knows what he could have accomplished, for good or ill? But in his time, he perfected his father's improvements in hoplite warfare and reshaped the map. People became aware of the world around them better. When Rome came, they also built on this, creating the Latin Rule, which made them come to new nation-states as colonizers, not conquerors and is one of the main reasons they were as powerful as they were for as long as they were (an empire that literally lasts 1000 years is not to be sneered at).

More directly than either of these perhaps is Napoleon. Much that is in the world today can be traced to him, including the rise of Nationalism (and come of its consequences, such as Abolitionism and Feminism). The Napoleonic Wars greatly altered Europe and many of the colonies (such as Haiti). Napoleon was definitely egotistical, but he was also a great general and understood psychology to the extent that he perfected nationalism to help keep the French people in line and to this day they have few figures they love as much as him.

I know I'm talking in circles, but that's how I think about these things, there is always a thought and then a counterthought.

Were these great men? Were they good as human beings or are those in authority answerable to a different set of rules? Jimmy Carter was probably one of our most moral presidents but he failed as a ruler pretty hard. Herbert Hoover was one of the most hated, but he didn't really do things wrong, he just didn't do much of anything. Johnson WANTED to do a lot of great things, he had a lot of good intentions, but he's mostly remembered for getting us stuck in Vietnam.

Or look at it another way:
During World War I, we saw the formalized conceptualizing of Total War. One of the components of Total War is the Homefront. Every individual is involved, man, woman, child, with the war machine. And therefore, there are no civilians. It because acceptable to bomb cities, towns...If you destroy their suppliers, if you demoralize their soldiers...you win. The Blitzkrieg, Nagasaki...Terrible atrocities done in the name of victory.

But if it WORKS...it's considered good strategy. The Assyrians ruled through fear because they did terrible things to those who rebelled against them, including babies on spikes. But it worked right? Does that justify it? That's a dramatic example but we can see it other places. It's war right? The rules change. But when the OTHER side does it...it's barbaric, it's evil, and that's why we have to stop them. The double standard continues.

If we do it, we're Liberators. If They do it, they're terrorists. How dare Russia invade democratic Georgia? Oh, we invaded democratic Iraq? Well...that's hardly the same thing.

I'm not ragging on the US, but pointing out a problem with humanity in general. As a species, we tend to suck hardcore when it comes to fighting with each other.

There was a line, at some point, someone must have said 'We should never go past this point. This is the worst we should do, because after this, it becomes morally unnacceptable'.

I think that point was passed a long time ago. Now we can destroy the world 80 times over with nuclear weapons, and even better we have MACHINES to do it. The only benefit is that war is no so horrid, we are discouraged from doing it because of how awful the cost would be. But there's always a button pusher, always someone who considers the ends justifying the means, and our children will have to live with the consequences of those decisions.
Because someone decided that killing each other more efficiently was a good idea. And then someone else, and then someone else...and no one stopped them. And they thought they were doing the right thing.

So how do we judge THEM? If their intentions were, if not pure, at least in the best interest of those they considered important, could we say they were evil? Or just misguided? Einstein said one of his greatest regrets was helping with the Atom bomb. But he had been told that the Germans already had one and the only way to preserve peace was for America to have one too. He was lied to, plain and simple. Does that excuse him?

A lot of good things have happened in our world. So have a lot of evil things. And so many many things we don't know about anymore.

So what's the point? I told you, way at the beginning that I didn't have one. Remember that far back? ;)

We are all actors in history. What we do changes the world, whether we see it not. So take care and consider your decisions because someone else will likely have to live with the consequences.