Dragoness Eclectic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragoness_e) wrote2023-05-04 09:46 pm
dragoness_e) wrote2023-05-04 09:46 pm
Entry tags:
This is Cultural Calvinism, btw
Note: going through my old Disqus account and reposting some of the more interesting comments I made to Slactivist back in the day.
2019-11-09:
I have quite a few thoughts on this topic, because I realized that so much of pop culture about vigilantes and rogue "good-guy" cops like Dirty Harry are based on some Very Bad Ideas: to wit, (1) that people can be divided up into Good People and Bad People, and that (2) "A leopard never changes his spots", i.e., Good people never "go bad" and Bad People can never truly be good, and (3) You can infallibly tell Good People from Bad People because reasons (the reasons vary, but traditionally, being an unrepentant criminal is considered a signifier of Badness. Or being a minority criminal). The logical implications of these exceedingly bad ideas leads to "if we just eliminate all the Bad People, then no one will ever do Bad Things again and the world will be Safe", and that "Only Good People should have rights, so ignore the rights of Bad People, they're just 'technicalities' that keep us from punishing the Bad People".
These are Very Bad Ideas because they're flat-out wrong, and lead to very bad conclusions. (1) People are complex and volatile; they are neither good nor bad, for the most part, but just human, with needs, fears, ignorance and literal brain damage driving a lot of apparent criminal behavior. (Then there's the condition of living under an oppressive system, wherein just surviving from day to day may be a crime in the eyes of the oppressors, but in no way is actually bad or evil). (2) People grow and change; people grow out of youthful folly, and people fall into mature debauchery or just do something stupid out of desperation or lose touch with their compassion and let fear drive them instead. (3) Given that there are no such animals as "Good People" and "Bad People", you certainly can't tell them apart.
Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker? Because he's really tempted to do just that, and he knows it would set him on the road to becoming an even bigger monster than the Joker.
Why doesn't Superman fix every disaster, rescue everyone, stop every crime and put every corrupt politician and criminal away/remove them? He's capable of it. Because Clark Kent is wise enough to know that humanity neither needs nor wants a vengeful god looking over everyone's shoulder, and, as much as they might want it, it's not good for humans to have everything solved for them. And it would probably turn him into a monster like TurboJesus in Left Behind.
2019-11-09:
I have quite a few thoughts on this topic, because I realized that so much of pop culture about vigilantes and rogue "good-guy" cops like Dirty Harry are based on some Very Bad Ideas: to wit, (1) that people can be divided up into Good People and Bad People, and that (2) "A leopard never changes his spots", i.e., Good people never "go bad" and Bad People can never truly be good, and (3) You can infallibly tell Good People from Bad People because reasons (the reasons vary, but traditionally, being an unrepentant criminal is considered a signifier of Badness. Or being a minority criminal). The logical implications of these exceedingly bad ideas leads to "if we just eliminate all the Bad People, then no one will ever do Bad Things again and the world will be Safe", and that "Only Good People should have rights, so ignore the rights of Bad People, they're just 'technicalities' that keep us from punishing the Bad People".
These are Very Bad Ideas because they're flat-out wrong, and lead to very bad conclusions. (1) People are complex and volatile; they are neither good nor bad, for the most part, but just human, with needs, fears, ignorance and literal brain damage driving a lot of apparent criminal behavior. (Then there's the condition of living under an oppressive system, wherein just surviving from day to day may be a crime in the eyes of the oppressors, but in no way is actually bad or evil). (2) People grow and change; people grow out of youthful folly, and people fall into mature debauchery or just do something stupid out of desperation or lose touch with their compassion and let fear drive them instead. (3) Given that there are no such animals as "Good People" and "Bad People", you certainly can't tell them apart.
Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker? Because he's really tempted to do just that, and he knows it would set him on the road to becoming an even bigger monster than the Joker.
Why doesn't Superman fix every disaster, rescue everyone, stop every crime and put every corrupt politician and criminal away/remove them? He's capable of it. Because Clark Kent is wise enough to know that humanity neither needs nor wants a vengeful god looking over everyone's shoulder, and, as much as they might want it, it's not good for humans to have everything solved for them. And it would probably turn him into a monster like TurboJesus in Left Behind.