Going down to nowhere
Mar. 13th, 2007 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonny_kateI've been thinking a lot lately about superheros. It has to do with the class I'm not taking; Heroes and Saviours, which includes such texts as The Republic, She, Lord of the Rings, Batman Begins, Unbreakable, and Superman Returns.
Why are there superheros? Or, more precisely, why are there stories about superheros? To understand why superheros, we must first understand what they are. Superheros are defined by two characteristics. They are good, and they are powerful. Superman wouldn't be much good if he was ordinary, and he can't be evil (that would make him a villain). Simple enough. Yet, we identify strongly with superheros, even though we are not that good, nor that powerful (think of the iconic picture of the child in cape). It is because we are, through the means of the story, giving that part of ourself which is most good, the most power. Superheros have the power to do good that we want. They are our best selves. We know that if we could fly we would rescue the kitten from the tree, stop the train from derailing, and save the world. That is the primary appeal of superheros; to have the power to do extraordinary good. Superheros are not always good, but they are essentially, that is in essence, good.
But this doesn't fully explain superheros. There is still, for instance, the question of secret identities. It doesn't make sense from a pure logic perspective that a bit of a mask can hide someone's identity. But the point is not the size of the mask. It is that we want the possibility, or even the idea, that the person in the cubicle next to us, or more truly, that we ourselves could be superheros in spite of our mundaneness. Everyone overlooks Clark Kent, because they do not realize his true nature. It is a consolation that even Superman can be overlooked when he isn't saving the world. It opens up possibilities. We know intellectually that we can never be Superman, or even be bitten by a radioactive spider, but we fell on some deeper level that perhaps we can be. This brings us to the next point.
Superheros are connected to Plato's Republic (nearly everything is). At first I thought that the superhero was part of the cave analogy. (The story of the cave, in case you don't know, goes like this: Picture that there are some people in a cave, facing the wall. They are chained, and can only see shadows. They have only ever seen shadows. What would it be like if one of them were to see reality? They wouldn't get it. They would think shadows were realer than the objects. They would eventually realize the truth, and see the beauty of objects, and finally, the sun. They would go back down to the cave to rescue the others.) I thought superheros were the ones who came back down into the cave to rescue us. But, this can't be right. If it were so, our primary response would be a desire to be rescued by them, rather than a desire to identify with them. We want to be the superhero. But this is a step in the right direction, for it eliminates an obvious answer, allowing us to move on to a better answer.
We can understand the deep connection between superheros and Plato's Republic by asking a simple question. What do superheros stand for? The answer is not, as I first thought, a form of rescue. It is Justice. This is true not just for a modern definition of justice (making sure the bad guys are punished), but the more rigorous definition presented in the Republic. Justice is at the heart of the Republic, in the discussion that forms it. It is shown through a picture of the ideal city, where the philosophers rule wisely. The great threat to this ideal city is the tyrant. He rules the citizens by brute force, doing whatever pleases him, and causing destruction and chaos. Sound familiar? Yep, it's the villain, who the superhero is sworn to defeat in the name of Justice. But while the superheros defeat the villains, they are not the philosopher-kings of the Republic. When have they ruled us?
To understand fully our fascination of superheros it is necessary to go deeper into the Republic. Plato reminds us that the entire point of creating an ideal city is to understand what justice is in the soul of the individual. It turns out to be a sort of rightly ordered soul. Similarly, the superhero is a means of rightly ordering the city. But what does the something that is superheros correspond to in the Republic? Not reason, for superheros do not rule, but not quite imagination, nor anything else. To go further we must turn to Dante.
In Purgatory, Dante has a dream. He dreams of a hideous Siren, who grows beautiful as he looks upon her. The Siren is recognized by a lady who turns to Virgil (Dante's guide) to unmask the Siren. In her notes on the text, Dorothy Sayers writes that the lady "symbolizes something immediate, instinctive almost automatic: one might call her an intuition, or perhaps the reflex action of a virtuous habit, whose instant warning puts the soul on the alert and prompts it to think rationally about what it is doing." Aha! This sounds familiar. In much the same way, the superhero is often the only one to comprehend the villain (and their plan). They understand the evil of the villain, and recoil. But they also have the power of Virgil; the power of action. They have the superpower which enables them to defeat the villain, but the reaction against evil that always sets them against the villain. Superheros, then, resound with us because they are an image of the instinctive action of the soul empowered by reason.
We want to fight evil, save the world, and fly. We want to be superheros.
Why are there superheros? Or, more precisely, why are there stories about superheros? To understand why superheros, we must first understand what they are. Superheros are defined by two characteristics. They are good, and they are powerful. Superman wouldn't be much good if he was ordinary, and he can't be evil (that would make him a villain). Simple enough. Yet, we identify strongly with superheros, even though we are not that good, nor that powerful (think of the iconic picture of the child in cape). It is because we are, through the means of the story, giving that part of ourself which is most good, the most power. Superheros have the power to do good that we want. They are our best selves. We know that if we could fly we would rescue the kitten from the tree, stop the train from derailing, and save the world. That is the primary appeal of superheros; to have the power to do extraordinary good. Superheros are not always good, but they are essentially, that is in essence, good.
But this doesn't fully explain superheros. There is still, for instance, the question of secret identities. It doesn't make sense from a pure logic perspective that a bit of a mask can hide someone's identity. But the point is not the size of the mask. It is that we want the possibility, or even the idea, that the person in the cubicle next to us, or more truly, that we ourselves could be superheros in spite of our mundaneness. Everyone overlooks Clark Kent, because they do not realize his true nature. It is a consolation that even Superman can be overlooked when he isn't saving the world. It opens up possibilities. We know intellectually that we can never be Superman, or even be bitten by a radioactive spider, but we fell on some deeper level that perhaps we can be. This brings us to the next point.
Superheros are connected to Plato's Republic (nearly everything is). At first I thought that the superhero was part of the cave analogy. (The story of the cave, in case you don't know, goes like this: Picture that there are some people in a cave, facing the wall. They are chained, and can only see shadows. They have only ever seen shadows. What would it be like if one of them were to see reality? They wouldn't get it. They would think shadows were realer than the objects. They would eventually realize the truth, and see the beauty of objects, and finally, the sun. They would go back down to the cave to rescue the others.) I thought superheros were the ones who came back down into the cave to rescue us. But, this can't be right. If it were so, our primary response would be a desire to be rescued by them, rather than a desire to identify with them. We want to be the superhero. But this is a step in the right direction, for it eliminates an obvious answer, allowing us to move on to a better answer.
We can understand the deep connection between superheros and Plato's Republic by asking a simple question. What do superheros stand for? The answer is not, as I first thought, a form of rescue. It is Justice. This is true not just for a modern definition of justice (making sure the bad guys are punished), but the more rigorous definition presented in the Republic. Justice is at the heart of the Republic, in the discussion that forms it. It is shown through a picture of the ideal city, where the philosophers rule wisely. The great threat to this ideal city is the tyrant. He rules the citizens by brute force, doing whatever pleases him, and causing destruction and chaos. Sound familiar? Yep, it's the villain, who the superhero is sworn to defeat in the name of Justice. But while the superheros defeat the villains, they are not the philosopher-kings of the Republic. When have they ruled us?
To understand fully our fascination of superheros it is necessary to go deeper into the Republic. Plato reminds us that the entire point of creating an ideal city is to understand what justice is in the soul of the individual. It turns out to be a sort of rightly ordered soul. Similarly, the superhero is a means of rightly ordering the city. But what does the something that is superheros correspond to in the Republic? Not reason, for superheros do not rule, but not quite imagination, nor anything else. To go further we must turn to Dante.
In Purgatory, Dante has a dream. He dreams of a hideous Siren, who grows beautiful as he looks upon her. The Siren is recognized by a lady who turns to Virgil (Dante's guide) to unmask the Siren. In her notes on the text, Dorothy Sayers writes that the lady "symbolizes something immediate, instinctive almost automatic: one might call her an intuition, or perhaps the reflex action of a virtuous habit, whose instant warning puts the soul on the alert and prompts it to think rationally about what it is doing." Aha! This sounds familiar. In much the same way, the superhero is often the only one to comprehend the villain (and their plan). They understand the evil of the villain, and recoil. But they also have the power of Virgil; the power of action. They have the superpower which enables them to defeat the villain, but the reaction against evil that always sets them against the villain. Superheros, then, resound with us because they are an image of the instinctive action of the soul empowered by reason.
We want to fight evil, save the world, and fly. We want to be superheros.
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Date: 2007-03-15 01:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 09:26 pm (UTC)