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Does the hero create an enemy?

  
 
SMS
04:39 / 30.07.01
Any new philosophical ideas create, the moment they are introduced to the world, an opening for a counter-idea. If no one had ever considered what a woman's role in society ought to be, and I were to stand and say that they ought to be treated as equals with men, then that would open up immediately, in our minds, the possibilities that women ought to be inferior, or that they ought to be superior to men. Declaring that all entertainment ought to be examined by the government to judge whether it is suitable and appropriate for public consumption opens the door for an ideology that declares that no entertainment should ever be subject to censorship. And so on...

Could it be that fighting terribly hard for our convictions only helps to solidify the convictions of those who disagree with us? If I declare people of all races to be morally and intellectually equivalent, then I am implicitly saying that someone who disagrees with me is a bad person. Whether this is true or not, no one likes to be called a bad person, and anyone's first reaction to the implication would be to become defensive.

Now, in my mind, there is no question that fighting for your convictions can and has worked to cause social changes. But it seems that, theoretically, this should, in some ways, be counter-productive. Do we see any evidence of this in history? Is there any way to reduce it? One thing that comes to mind is the non-violent protests of the sixties that ended up with the cops putting the fire hose on innocent people. That kind of thing makes it very difficult to take the side of the police.

To rephrase the question, does the presence of a superhero in our city promote supervillains?
 
 
01
04:58 / 30.07.01
Any thing that exists is open to attack.
 
 
ephemerat
08:48 / 30.07.01
That’s a bloody tough question.

I usually avoid name-dropping philosophers in posts – a concept should be conveyed with maximum simplicity and inclusivity. And I hate sounding like a pretentious prick.

But I feel like I’m going to have to this time.

Mr Stolte, have you read any Georg Hegel? Because if you haven’t, then you’ve independently thought your way through to the root of dialectics. Either that or this is an attempt to discuss dialectics without name-dropping or using jargon and I’m being very dim and spoiling the party. Ho hum.

Aaa-nyway, Hegel’s dialectics revolved around the inevitable transition of thought, by contradiction and reconciliation, from an initial conviction to its opposite and then to a new, higher conception that involves but transcends both of them. For example;

  • subjective / objective / absolute,
  • symbolic / classical / romantic, or
  • superhero/supervillain/superhuman.


When you talk about superior/inferior/equal it’s the same kind of thing: all thoughts produce contradictions, but it is important to note that these concepts have a relationship. And this relationship is fluid and dynamic. Superheroes may automatically produce supervillains, but the result of their conflict will be a strangely transcendent fusion. Witness comics today.

But to illustrate:
quote: CLR James on Hegel

Hegel uses the One and the Many as his illustration.

Common sense thinks one is one, and over here, and many is some, and over there. In other words. One has a special quality, and they begin there and stay there. Hegel says No. Philosophy tells us that One presupposes Many. The moment I say One, I have thereby created the category Many. In fact it is the existence of the Many which makes the One possible at all. If there were no Many, One would be whatever you wish but it would not be One meaning this one, in contrast with many others. The One therefore is repellent. To be, it repels the Many. It is exclusive, but it is not quiescent. It is actively repelling the Many, for otherwise its specific quality as One would be lost. This is Repulsion. But, all the other Ones who constitute the Many have a connecting relation with it. They thereby have a connective relation with each other; the One, by holding them all off, makes them all join together against it. But each of these is a One, too. Thus the One begins by Repulsion but creates in every other single One an attraction. Thus, the One when you begin with it is a Quality, but by examining first and following what is involved to the end, you turn up with a new category, Quantity, with the original pure and simple Quality suppressed and superseded.

Next you move from talking about purely intellectual qualities and concepts and start applying them to societal relationships, between protestors and police, between super-powered guardians of morality and their equally powerful opponents. And this is exactly what our old friend - drunkard, lecher, duelist and revolutionary – Karl Marx did: took Hegel’s dialectics and adapted them to large-scale analysis of society and relationships of power. He thought that the transcendent movement would be Communism (a book everyone should read, The Communist Manifest). You may disagree.

Things have got more problematic. The interaction between ideas and movements is more complex and fluid than (Marxists, certainly) bargained for. Geniuses like Soren Kierkegaard have practically liquidised their brains attempting to introduce mobility of logic into Hegel’s ideas, but the problem remains: it is an ultimately futile attempt to divide a continuously chaotic world into individual, discrete packets. It’s an attempt to force a rigidly inflexible structure onto something that is constantly changing.

Is it possible to ameliorate the violence and conflict associated with the clash of ideas? That’s a question I can’t answer. I’d like to think so but see little to improve the situation. Globally, resources have been concentrated in the hands of a small number of people. The system self-replicates, it’s not simply cracking in the way Marx thought it would, it’s constantly adapting and mutating. And it defends itself. It always maintains an implicit threat of violence.

[ 30-07-2001: Message edited by: ephemerat ]
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
13:22 / 30.07.01
quote:Originally posted by SMatthewStolte:
Could it be that fighting terribly hard for our convictions only helps to solidify the convictions of those who disagree with us?

It's partly a location thing. I know that I can disagree with almost anyone on here and afterwards we'll still play hunt the soap in the communal Barbelith team bath and buy each other a pint at the bar afterwards. On usenet the arguments are fiercer and more pointless, even sometimes with people I've known as long (or longer). I don't know exactly why this is, maybe it's because Usenet is seen as more public than this forum, maybe it's because I've met most of the people on here that i talk with.

But I also think it depends on how you address yourself. In the Northern Ireland thread I made a deliberate decision to make my point in a confrontational way which, so far, has annoyed only one person. (The rest of you are apathetic shits ) If I'd hedged it around with a lot of I thinks and IMHOs then this wouldn't have happened.

quote:
If I declare people of all races to be morally and intellectually equivalent, then I am implicitly saying that someone who disagrees with me is a bad person.


Not necessarily, though this is the kind of argument we see being used in politics and the media... If you think Brass Eye was funny then you are a sick, sick, sick! individual!

[ 30-07-2001: Message edited by: The Ungodly Lozt and Found Office ]
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
13:24 / 30.07.01
Good topic BTW.
 
 
Tom Coates
15:06 / 30.07.01
This reminds me a lot of Foucault actually, who argued that (among other features) the 'discoursification', indeed the 'creation' of sexual categories like 'the homosexual' was an attempt to marginalise and oppress divergent sexual acts, but that the creation of such 'identities' results in people who will occupy them and use them as a position from which to fight and obtain power.

Not convinced on your tract on feminism though. Seems to me that the pre-existent model of oppressed females was around an awfully long time and that economic / political / social changes made it possible for there to be a rising around that identity, which then generated a similar rising in opposition to it. Certainly though, I don't think that things like 'civil rights', 'gay rights' and 'feminism' created oppression for black people, gay people or women. In fact quite the opposite - I think these are reactions to articulated positions and can only happen in certain climates and environments.[/LIST]
 
 
Cop Killer
23:47 / 30.07.01
If the fact that there's a superhero means that a supervillian is created, does that mean that if there's a supervillian, a superhero would be created; because the later sounds like more of the way things work.
 
 
deletia
06:21 / 31.07.01
And who would win a fight between Wplverine and the Hulk?
 
 
Cop Killer
06:29 / 31.07.01
I didn't mean it literally, I just meant that it more seems that when something bad or evil or not good comes up, that's when people try to come up with ways to solve the problem. It doesn't happens so much with the reverse, or maybe I have too much faith in humanity...
 
 
Tom Coates
07:39 / 31.07.01
I think as soon as you bring in good and evil, everything changes. You're talking about a battle then between polar opposites, each trying to get one over on the other. But as GK Chesterton and Grant Morrison have said - why good and evil? might as well call it the battle between left and right for all the sense it makes.

Concept breeds opposition, and new concepts create new oppositions to them.
 
 
6opow
17:16 / 31.07.01
Ah, the freakin' dialectic (to add a little to ephemerat's post). It is the movement between thesis, antithesis, and then resolves in the synthesis of the polarized (left/right, good/evil, light/dark, and on and on...) ideas. The synthesis, of course, is nothing but a new thesis for which there develops and antithesis, and on and on... Hegel felt that we are moving to some ULTIMATE SYNTHESIS which would be the logical (Hegel's logic) conclusion of the process which is life.

Anyway, I think we need our dichotomies; that is, the polarized binary pairings seem to be necessary for us to have any sort of existence. We need the antithesis' of good, light, right, up, forward, etc...without evil, dark left, down, back, none of any of these experiences would make sense.

However, the important thing to keep in mind is that not any of these binary pairings (think of them as unordered two-tuples; that is, as (x, y)) is actually an expression of two unique things, but rather, as one thing which must display itself through an illusory dichotomy; in other words, ALL binary pairings are but an alternating expression of a singularity; i.e., for all x and for all y, (x, y) = z. It is interesting to note that modern science has come to this conclusion within its little box: energy and matter are the same thing (only expressed in different ways). So within the physical consensual reality (the "external" reality whose constitution almost all of us agree upon; that is, biologically shared) there is only the interaction of quanta which can be waves or particles depending on how we desire to interpret the situation. The revolution will occur when we can interpret any situation as waves and particles. This will likely lead to the direct experience of the singularity, which would be McKenna's world folding itself into hyperspace at the moment of infinite novelty, and would be Hegel's Grand Synthesis. Both of these schemes require that we recognize that NOTHING = EVERYTHING.

[ 31-07-2001: Message edited by: the godog ]
 
 
6opow
17:17 / 31.07.01


[ 31-07-2001: Message edited by: the godog ]
 
 
grant
19:10 / 31.07.01
Lao Tzu had this all covered a couple thousand years before Hegel started dirtying diapers.

Just saying, is all.


quote:42. 1. The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are harmonised by the Breath of Vacancy.

2. What men dislike is to be orphans, to have little virtue, to be as carriages without naves; and yet these are the designations which kings and princes use for themselves. So it is that some things are increased by being diminished, and others are diminished by being increased.

3. What other men (thus) teach, I also teach. The violent and strong do not die their natural death. I will make this the basis of my teaching.

43. 1. The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest; that which has no (substantial) existence enters where there is no crevice. I know hereby what advantage belongs to doing nothing (with a purpose).

2. There are few in the world who attain to the teaching without words, and the advantage arising from non-action.

or, from
http://www.primenet.com/~grifter/TAO.html

quote:2

If something's beautiful, something's got to be ugly.
If something's good, something's got to be bad.

You can't have something without nothing.
If no task is difficult, then no task is easy.
Things are up high because other things are down low.

So, the Master gets shit done without moving a muscle
and signifies without saying a word.
When shit happens, he doesn't blink.
When things fall apart, he stays cool.
He doesn't own much, but he's got a lot.
He does his work without expecting any favors.
When the job's finished, he moves on to the next job.
That's why his work is so damn good.

The conclusion Lao comes to is:

quote:19

Get rid of sanctity.
People will understand the truth, and be happier.
Get rid of morality.
People will respect each other, and do what's right.
Get rid of value and profit.
People will not steal if they do not desire.

If that's not possible, go to Plan B.
Be simple. Be real.
Do your work as best you can. Don't think about what you get for it.
Stay focused. Get rid of crap.


[ 31-07-2001: Message edited by: grant ]
 
 
Higher than the sun :)
17:36 / 02.08.01
John King, Human Punk. ISBN 0-099-28316-6
Page 260

"Funny thing is, the destruction of organised opposition has created a new problem for the police. The masses are more isolated and powerless, drugged and misled, but the flip side is a nation of lone rangers, freelancers following the US model, serial killers and one-off dissentres, nutters and idealists going about their buisness on their own. Orginisations are easily policed and calm people down. Abide by the rules and everthing is filtred through a structure that soaks up the original anger and gets rid of the power to change things. Theres a strengh in numbers, but a lone gunman is more dangerous, the sniper who picks off his targets and never gets caught. Every organisation, dosen't matter what, ends up with the same proffesional clique in control, wether its quangos or elected commities. If someone gets through the wringer with their belifes intact, they're called a maveric and sidelined, an old fashoned eccentric whos crucified then patronised when they're cut down. Loved now they're no longer a threat."

So does this apply to Hero or Vilan or are they ideoligicaly one and the same?
 
 
SMS
00:52 / 03.08.01
They are idealogically the same. Jesus was wrong when he said a house divided against itself could not stand (speaking of evil). All evil does is stand against itself. All it does is fight other evils. If evil would join in a loving embarce, it would cease to be, and in doing so destroy good as well.

Incidentally, I've just added Hegel and Foucault to my reading list. Thanks.
 
 
Devin 1984
18:56 / 04.08.01
I apologize, but I'm going to jump on a tangent about the peaceful protests of the 60's. The peaceful protesters only furthered their cause with the help of the violent protesters.

The powers that be weren't listening to the peaceful protesters until they became afraid of the violent protesters. All social change must have a peaceful faction and a violent faction. I used to believe things could change with only peace, but now I think violence is necessary as well. I would never be violent, but many are. Basically, the peaceful protesters get to distance themselves from the violent protesters, and therefore get to speak with the leaders. THe leaders then listen to the peaceful people liek MLK, while in the back of their minds, they are thinking of the Black Panthers.

Again, I'm not advocating violence, I am a peaceful protester myself. But a cause goes much farther when the leaders are scared...

Kennedy said: If you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent change inevitable.

p.s. (Haus of Jericho) - Spidey would beat both Hulk and Wolverine.
 
 
SMS
23:41 / 04.08.01
Martin Luther King gathered some pretty intimidating crowds in his peaceful meetings. Crowds can be as peaceful and loving as they like, but, if they're large enough, you'd damn well better take them seriously.

Also, I think people did respond to police violence against peaceful protests. If you see the cops pulling a fire hose on some poor black guy who wasn't doing anything but marching, you will react to that.
 
 
Lionheart
02:24 / 05.08.01
For a superhero to be acknowledged by the public s/he will have to defeat a super-villian. Supervillians aren't created by heroes but by freak accidents, greed, double-crosses, and the script writers.
 
 
Math is for suckers!
02:41 / 11.08.01
its just a duality. if theres good theres gotta be bad. its like that all through nature. and the good good and bad are just relative to whoever is judging it. i may think one side is good while someone else thinks the other is. good and bad, super hero and super villain are all just subjective terms for our own labeling of a situation based on how we were raised and our current environment
 
 
Tom Coates
10:23 / 15.04.04
There are interesting chunks of Foucault around these issues when he talks about the history of sexuality. He argues that the medicalisation and labelling of homosexuality started decades of oppression and mistreatment, but also by giving that group a name allowed them for the first time the very possibility of political organisation and a position from which to fight back. So in a sense, i suppose the hero creates an enemy and an enemy creates a hero - the existence of a defined thing allows people to navigate and organise themselves around it - either in forms of opposition or in terms of supplementarity and analogy.
 
 
Bomb The Past
05:17 / 16.04.04
An interesting corollary to the "invention" of the homosexual person - as simply opposed to homosexual acts - is the invention of the heterosexual as well. So, not only does the idea of homosexuality give rise to an enemy in those opposed to homosexuality, it also provides a primitive framework for people to identify as sexual (rather than, say, celibate or virginal) but avowedly not "deviant". This idea of deviancy is what allows the construction of a norm (namely heterosexuality), without which the idea of a norm would be pointless and empty.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why people find homosexuality, bisexuality etc. so threating, because it confronts them with questions about their own identifications, compelling them to pick a neatly demarcated spot within a system and then to foreclose any desires that might not be encompassed by the category they have identified with. Problems seem to arise when people treat identity in an oppositional fashion such that identifying as heterosexual also maps onto being anti-queer rather than non-queer. Naturally it applies both ways as well - that is, the idea that is necessary to oppose heterosexuality to protect homosexuality.

One way of sidestepping this little pickle seems to be the notion of sexuality being performative: that sexuality doesn't exist over and above sexual expressions. This seems to bring us back to a situation similar to the pre-medicalisation and pre-classification of homosexuality. To return to the idea of 'heroes' and 'enemies', the possibility of enemies of homosexuality are dissolved by collapsing the category of "the homosexual" itself. The difference being that a group has coalesced around the category of homosexuality and fought for the legitimatation of the sexual acts and desires that constitute the possibility of constructing the category in the first place.

Oops, that was all rather off-topic. Sorry.
 
 
The Prince of All Lies
13:29 / 16.04.04
This is an interesting topic indeed, I've been pondering these issues for quite a long time... Dialectic thought is just a way to trascend dualism. And when you stop seeing things in terms of confrontation (good/bad, left/right, etc) you can start looking at the world as a process, a discourse. When we all realize this simple "truth" we'll probably reach a synthesis of all mankind, maybe it's the fusion with the supercontext..that is, when you admit "all the things you left behind when you were building your little house called me" is just another side of you.
On a macroscopic scale, chaos creates it's opposite, and viceversa. From the chaos of the primitive world we've been trying to rationalize and explain reality by creating mythologies, religions and science. That attempt to create an order also gives form to chaotic behaviour, and by polarizing it, gives it power. WHen you give a name to someone/something, you have power over it, but you're also allowing it to be born into consensual reality...
 
  
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