So, in hindsight not my best idea. The housemate and I here in Gore Towers decided to watch Superman II. I was full of regret and remorse before the thing finished.
Even his name, “Superman”, has my cringe gland working overtime, flooding my brain with cringesterone and cringealine. And that outfit he wears… how could you have a romantic candlelit dinner with someone wearing that outfit and not spend the whole evening being distracted by the cape and shiny red underpants?
So it offered excellent heckle opportunities, of course – I observed the main villian “General Zod” and his obsession with having everyone kneel before him. “Kneel Before Zod!” he said, I think, roughly 300 times during the film.
“You know,” I said. “I think General Zod is a bit of a mental. That kneeling thing? That’s quite the pathology.” Such is the problem of looking at the behaviour of characters in children’s films and trying to apply a real world interpretation of their behaviour and personality.
But what really made me angry, though, was that scene where Superman talks Marlon Brando. I realised, there and then, that Marlon’s done a real number on his son’s head.
See, Superman’s been told that he must use his absurdly over the top powers to serve the humans.
There’s no reward. Very little in the way of thanks. He must, in effect, fly from disaster to disaster saving people and must do that until he dies of old age. And, if he’s not going to do that then his ‘only choice’ is to become a normal human.
We call him Superman, but really he’s humanity’s biyatch. He’s our slave.
The alternative presented – demonstrated in the form of General Zod – is that he uses his powers for ‘evil’ and dominates the world. So, there using powers to indulge a fetish for having people kneeling before you, or sacrificing your own life with no reward.
Sheesh… some choice that is. In hindsight, the choice to go to an Alien planet and have super powers and live your life as the servant of the planet’s inhabitants or stay on your own planet and have a bit of free will? I know which one I’d choose.
See, the Libertarian Superman would, I suspect, use his powers to help save Nasa a good $500,000 off the cost of putting satellites in orbit, and his strength could be invaluable for doing away with the need for cranes in certain construction projects. In fact, in all walks of life there would be a use for a man with his powers – sure, it’d be expensive because there’s only one of him, but Superman, if he really believed in Truth, Justice and the American Way should be able to make quite a comfortable living doing lots of interesting things.
Of course, Libertarian Superman wouldn’t really be as exciting for the young nippers watching the film – Hey Kids, look! It’s the Super Invoice!
But why did this make me angry? Well, it’s when Superman’s Dad, having explained Superman’s shite life to him, says something like, “you reward is a hidden inner happiness. You can’t deny that you feel it.” and Super replies, “Yes, yes I feel it.”
Bollocks he feels it! That’s the Big Lie, you see – the idea that if you completely subjugate yourself to others that it somehow brings a ‘deeper’ fulfilment and happiness, that if you’re not feeling it then you’re not doing it enough – or worse, that you’re just a profoundly immoral person and it’s you that’s the problem. Thing is, doing something for absolutely nothing – no thanks, no gratitude, no respect, no hope of cash or future favours in return? You might do something like that because *you* want or need something done, but what if it’s something you don’t care about, have no interest in, has no impact on your life whatsoever? What if the impact is that it hurts you? What possible, possible inner happiness can anyone gain from that?
Poor Superman, I say.
Mark Reckons said...
18 Jul 09 at 1:00 pm
Have you seen the Richard Donner cut of “Superman II”? I haven’t yet although I have a copy of it and intend to soon. Apparently it is how it was supposed to be originally and has a lot of the frivolous stuff excised.
Charlotte Gore said...
18 Jul 09 at 1:02 pm
Funnily enough it was the Richard Donner cut I watched. Not much different really, from what I remember. The bit with the fire in Niagara Falls was cut, as was the stupid stuff with the big hairy dumb guy trying to figure out how to use laser eyes.. but really it’s much the same film, with the most profoundly unsatisfying finale.
Mark Reckons said...
18 Jul 09 at 1:48 pm
So the nonsense with the sheriff and the hick talking about beans and trying to arrest the Krypton baddie etc is still in there?
I might not bother watching it if it isn’t too different then. I was led to believe otherwise.
James Graham said...
18 Jul 09 at 5:27 pm
Cinema does somewhat simplify things and much as I love Donner’s visionary Superman, I don’t think we’ll ever really know what he would have done with Superman II had he not been fired and Superman Returns was just toss.
DC have already done an Elseworlds imagining what Superman would have been like if Stalin had raised him (it’s called Red Son if you’re interested) but maybe it is time for a libertarian version. They could call it Kal El Shrugged or something.
I do think you’ve pointed out the fundamental flaw of libertarianism though. If Superman was a libertarian, and a venture capitalist, natch, he’d very quickly amass almost as much economic clout as he has physical clout. That would be fantastic for Superman. For the rest of us, in permanent debt to him, not so much.
Of course, in order that he get paid, Superman would also be highly dependent on nation states to give him the money. It is hard to see how he could co-ordinate it so that billions of individuals all seperately paid their dues. So its unlikely he’d challenge Big State politicians – yet in doing so he’d betray his principles.
I’d write more but I have to go see Helen Mirran naked now.
Leon Greenwell said...
18 Jul 09 at 5:38 pm
Err, this notion of being Charlotte’s slave seems oddly intriguing…
Joe Otten said...
18 Jul 09 at 6:47 pm
Who exactly is subjugating Superman? Nobody. This thesis is cobblers, and Superman is a willing hero.
I say people who want to be heroes can be heroes and good luck to them. That makes me a better libertarian than you.
burkesworks said...
18 Jul 09 at 10:34 pm
Of course, Libertarian Superman wouldn’t really be as exciting for the young nippers watching the film
It won’t be.
Not only is Atlas Shrugged 1100+ pages of badly edited self-indulgence and leaden dialogue, but John Galt has no known superpowers either.
The Nameless Libertarian said...
19 Jul 09 at 3:50 pm
Superman will always be the blandest of superheroes. He lacks a real character, any real motivation and a decent backstory. Even the villains are rubbish, in both the comics and the films. Superman II is probably the best Superman film, although that isn’t a massive compliment. But if you don’t like Superman II then don’t ever watch Superman Returns. It is like Superman II but about 25 times more boring.
John Scott said...
20 Jul 09 at 7:53 am
Actually a libertarian superman might choose to do things due to obtaining a warm and fuzzy feeling from so doing. He is then behaving rationally – he obtains what he desires, and other people get what they want. It’s just that the starting point for his reasoning is an incalculable and atypical desire to help other people without reward. Being a libertarian does not mean you elevate a crude financial profit motive above all others and it certainly does not require you to share the same values as other people.
In essence, all charitable giving is fundamentally selfish, it’s just people are unwilling to accept this.
Of course in the case of Superman, being an alien might mean he does obtain meaningful rewards from being selfless – you assume that aside from superpowers he otherwise functions in the same way as human beings, which seems improbable.
Charlotte Gore said...
20 Jul 09 at 9:32 am
Ah, yes, very true
I obviously didn’t think about this one enough before posting.
Next up: Socialist Batman!
MorpH said...
20 Jul 09 at 11:03 am
Perhaps he’d be something like this… http://www.attackcartoons.com/index.php?topic=LibertarianMan
(i.e. one joke which is occasionally funny)
Joe Otten said...
20 Jul 09 at 2:45 pm
In essence, all charitable giving is fundamentally selfish, it’s just people are unwilling to accept this.
Yes, when you use the word selfish in a way that robs it of all meaning.
Clearly all my acts result directly from my desires, values and intentions, and not somebody else’s. In this sense all acts are selfish, and so describing an act as selfish in this sense tells us nothing about it.
So it remains useful to use words like selfish and unselfish naturally to distinguish between different kinds of motivations, according to how an individual feels about helping or hurting other people.
John Scott said...
20 Jul 09 at 7:54 pm
“So it remains useful to use words like selfish and unselfish naturally to distinguish between different kinds of motivations, according to how an individual feels about helping or hurting other people.”
I think your understanding of the natural usage of selfish is different to mine (and as for the idea of a “natural” use of language…). As far as I can tell, people use the word “selfish” when they want to use pejorative language to describe someone else’s actions or thoughts. My understanding, instead, suggests that there is nothing wrong with acting for oneself and, I agree, that is how everyone acts.
Much better to accept that and move on. People are selfish bastards and yet somehow that lets us all to rub along. The best part about Libertarianism is that how someone thinks (let alone feels) is irrelevant to the rest of us, provided how they act does not infringe on other people’s liberty.
Charlotte Gore said...
20 Jul 09 at 8:16 pm
Yes, people do automatically assume that selfish is ‘hurting people’ and unselfish, or selfless, is ‘helping people’ but that just makes it intellectually lazy at best, and ‘crypto-dogmatic’ at worst
From a debating point of view, selfish and selfless are only really useful when you mean them in their literal meaning. Someone is being selfless when they deliberately stay in a job that they hate without any justification. That person succumbs to depression and anxiety. The other people that work with them fear and dread being near them, because they’re going to get their heads bitten off or have to listen to the same massive rants over and over again.
They’re being selfless, but all they’re doing is hurting everyone else and importantly they’re hurting themselves too. The selfish thing for that person to do would be to leave the job and go find another one, one they actually like.
The important bit is working out who and how someone is benefiting in deciding whether something is a ‘net good’ or a ‘net bad’ such as these things can be objectively evaluated. Whether or not someone is being selfish or selfless when they act is completely irrelevant.
If something is hurting someone then just say so, and leave the “words that mean too much to be useful to anyone” (like ‘liberal’) well alone?
Joe Otten said...
20 Jul 09 at 8:25 pm
A good point Charlotte. The ethics of a choice depend precisely on how it affects other people. The terms selfish and selfless relate to how a choice might affect ourself, and are therefore irrelevant to the ethics of the case. Ethics do not help us determine our own interests.
Charlotte Gore said...
20 Jul 09 at 8:29 pm
Woo!