Thank You for all You've written. I look forward to Your "Divining the Machine" series, as I feel fairly sure I'll agree with most all.
In either event, I wonder if it has been precipitated by the supposed dominance of the left hemisphere of the brain over the right hemisphere. Are You familiar with Dr. Iain McGilchrist, M. Kingsnorth and/or anyone reading? He did 20 years of research and understood that, sure, both hemispheres do, indeed, perform virtually all the same functions as the other hemisphere. That's the conventional wisdom, which I gather still holds sway in a lotta places. Where Dr. McGilchrist varied in his analysis was that the two hemispheres weren't *physically* the same, and also that they didn't process information in a similar manner. Quite DISsimilar, according to his lights.
One hemisphere (left) pretty good at analyzing numbers and logic and *especially* reducing a whole into it's subordinate parts. The other (right) able to see the parts and the whole while simultaneously seeing, in the moment, their interdependencies and "lifeness" all of which the left-hemisphere is totally incapable of.
If anyone is interested his most accessible book is "The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning." $.99 and about an hour. Kindle only. He became somewhat famous for his 500-page book. And recently completed his 2000-page magnum opus. I need to reread those two in order to come close to fully understanding them. https://smile.amazon.com/Divided-Brain-Search-Meaning-ebook/dp/B008JE7I2M/ref=sr_1_6
Just thought I'd pass that along and HTH. And TYTY again, Sir Paul. :) On to reading what You "said" about The Machine.
My 4 year old brother was jumping up and down on the sofa with the Batman music. He fell off, mom said "I'm Mr. Freeze, pssssssstttttt". and he didn't move for 15 minutes.
No one thought about our cars' exhaust, or much about the body counts on TV, We were trying to decide if Rachel Carson was right or not: verdict: we better be safe and assume she was.
We were like the villagers in Nietzsche's story, not seeing what was already arriving. The madman was right.
Thank you, Paul. I am so grateful for your insights. Thank you for looking back at people like Mumford and Ellul. Their wisdom has largely been forgotten.
Erich Fromm spoke of a death-urge embedded in western civilization. If he were still with us I believe he would say these photos of batman's progression that you display visually express this syndrome. He explained that the oral, anal and genital characters (he was trained by Freud) were features of the half alienated individual as the result of a half developed capitalism. Now (1968) we have the fully alienated individual as a result of a fully developed capitalism which he called 'the marketing character'. This type of individual commodifies everything, even the self and sees the world simply as a series of favorable exchanges. But here is where it gets interesting. He said there was a new and unique kind of necrophilia built-in to this character. Necrophilia is not any longer so much about a fascination with corpses - the marketing character turns their attention away from life and directs it toward machines. This forms the foundation of the urge to destroy life by replacing life and living beings with dead machines. This theory was laid out in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness in 1973. Fromm and Mumford had tremendous influence on each other. Fromm's description of this syndrome displays chilling resemblance to social media among other things. The mass confusion and hostility expressed in these times is what Fromm would identify as an example of 'malignant destructiveness'. And it is inextricably linked to The Machine.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these issues!
Interesting stuff. There are a few other factors at play as regards the shifting versions of Batman over the decades. The 60s TV show took its cue from the Batman comics of the preceding decade or so, a time when the industry had to respond to a growing moral panic over perceived links to the content of comic books and juvenile delinquency and general bad behaviour. Rather than be policed by the government, comic companies created the Comics Code Authority which had strict guidelines about what a comic could and could not contain. Out went crime, horror, gangsters, graphic violence and allusions to sexuality and in came zany, cartoonish, adventures often involving ridiculous gadgets and excursions into outer space. The code endured until content creators started to chafe against it in the mid 1970s ( a period when the Batman comic started to head back to its noir roots) and ignore it completely by the mid 1980s. Had the code not been in place, and any menace contained inside a comic book's pages effectively jettisoned completely, we may have seen a darker incarnation in the original TV show which took its cue from the comics of the period. The arrival of Batman graphic novels (very much marketed at older teens and adults) in the 1980/90s by writers like Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Grant Morrison continued the trend, which started in the 70s, for much darker, violent and grittier stories which carried on through the 90s and 00s and which is very much the tone of Batman today. In that context the 60s Batman is an anomaly (the two Batman films made after Tim Burton's gothic versions were more cartoony but they were both critical and commercial disasters) and the default Batman is the dark, tortured, shadowy anti-hero. A grim, gritty Batman sells it would seem. Which as you rightly say probably says something about us and the times in which we live. As a side note I think it's fair to say that Gotham is often viewed as a proxy for New York city which endured a tumultuous time during the decade of the 1970s with spiralling crime rates, civil unrest, poor sanitation, blackouts and drug problems. About a million people left the city during that time and properties in the centre of town, that today are probably worth a fortune, lay empty or was occupied by punk musicians and artists taking advantage of the low rents. This idea of the city (New York especially) as some kind of modern hell very much fed into the Batman comics of that period and have remained a major feature of the printed and screen versions of the character ever since, as well as in the films of other people who grew up during that same time (Michael Mann, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, David Fincher). William Blake got there first over two hundred years ago when he saw the same 'hell' in the dirt and poverty of industrial London. Over the last few years the storylines in the Batman comic books have featured squabbles over investment in the city's infrastructure, arguments about gentrification and rising living costs that are pushing ordinary people to the margins. Batman himself has lost his fortune, his vast house and his company and lives in a modest apartment. His butler Alfred is dead and the Batcave has been scaled down and relocated to deep within the sewerage system beneath the city. It's all a far cry from the day glo figure who carried a can of shark repellent spray and was given to dancing the 'Batusi'!
In the latest Batman movie, 'The Batman', there's no top-down reform; he stays away completely from life as Bruce Wayne. In fact he hardly opens his mouth as Bruce Wayne. Gotham City itself is a much more interesting character than Bruce Wayne in this offering. Having said that, the development of the criminals over time would make an interesting study. The Joker, from the flamboyant touch of Jack Nicholson to the much darker, mentally ill portrayal by Joaquin Phoenix shows a great evolution of his character. Gotham the TV show, where there is no Batman at all, hosts a very interesting suite of characters including The Riddler and The Penguin... Gotham survives without The Batman quite nicely there. Perhaps that's the decline - the darkness becomes more interesting than the goodness, or the dark aspect of the good is more prevalent than the light. No Bruce Wayne at all. Where do we go to from here?
Where does the 2019 "Joker" played by Joaquin Phoenix come in when viewed through this lens? While not a Batman movie per se, it is a seriously important cultural exploration involving a Batman character. This film shook me to my bones and, quite surprisingly, won Phoenix an Oscar even though much of the messaging and symbolism ran so contrary to the myopic mythos of the identitarian orthodoxy imbibed throughout the Hollywood elite. Phoenix even called out cancel culture in his acceptance speech and made an appeal for more widespread forgiveness.
A more viscerally resonant cinematic exploration of the Jungian shadow and the making of the villain--an inverse hero's journey--I have yet to encounter.
The Batman as a film feels older than 2022 in its atmosphere of urban decay, as did The Joker from 2019. They have the feel of the 1970s-to-early-1980s: hopelessness and cynicism as the everlasting temptation for anyone attempting good, even in the tortured way that Batman attempts good in this film. But the film (spoilers?) ends on a note of hope, where Batman takes up relief efforts and public service of natural disaster victims, refusing to leave the city even as its outlook is grim and its streets are flooded. The film positions the new mayor as the chance for renewal (which depends on your politics as to its viability), but Batman matures from only rageful vengeance into a sense of duty to Gotham. His earlier "I'm vengeance" line is repeated back to him by one of the villains he has stopped, which is his realization of the abyss where he'd been working. He then decides to rise from it by service.
Did anyone else find a refreshing sort of hope in the film? For such a grim character, Batman can remain something of an optimist (as he does in The Batman).
Ugh, I remember that original campy Batman show and didn't like it, though it was fashionable to watch amongst the middle schoolers, especially the boys. Instead, I was devouring LOTR and Sword at Sunset, poring through the appendices on Elvish history and also trying to teach myself Anglo-Saxon. As to the modern Batman films, I find them truly unappealing and I've never been able to watch one all the way through. I think we are going through a period of wallowing in the sewage of the soul, but I do wish we'd get over it. What's kind of interesting to me is our current fascination with super heroes and comic book characters in general. Maybe it's just a lack of imagination in filmmakers? Maybe a response to a gullible, emotionally immature population that has a prurient interest in true crime and is loath to look within?
I too had the die-cast Corgi Batmobile as a child. It was one of my favorite toys, and I have vivid memories of the little yellow plastic missiles you could shoot out of the rear facing tubes. I wish I knew what happened to it. I've also long been partial to pop-culture as a window on a culture's psyche. I believe it was British comics author Alan Moore who once said there was "truth in trash", referring to how the spontaneous movies and tv shows of certain eras represented unconscious upwellings of meaning. He pointed out how the 50s sci-fi flick "The Amazing Colossal Man", with its depiction of a giant American man grown too powerful and dangerous via science presented an image of a big diaper-clad baby stomping across the world stage. Scottish comics author Grant Morrison has also written extensively about the archetypal power of superheroes as myth and sociology (see their book "Supergods"). Others have pointed out how the novels of Philip K. Dick, often rushed out unpolished to make rent in the 60s and early 70s, also present a unique frame on our times and the unconscious forces below them, and have as a consequence become the basis for a lot of film making in recent decades (starting most famously with Blade Runner in the 80s).
In a strange twist I think we've moved from idolizing the super hero to idoliterizing the super villain. From Suicide Squad, Venom and Hell Boy to the Harvey Dent of Joker we no longer have time for, even becoming somewhat repulsed by, the super hero while simultaneously telling ourselves that Harvey wasn't all bad you know. He had his redemptive qualities and was just pushed too far. Part of the animus, the moving spirit, is laziness. Part of it is envy. Much of it is greed, hubris and pride. All of it is that utmost human condition. The one spoken about by the greeks, the romans, the vedas and the hebrews. Tat Tvam Asi.
I've been recently enjoying Conner Habib's recent podcast interviews on esoteric Christianity / anthroposophy, starting at episode 181 https://www.patreon.com/posts/63528572
It ties in with some of the recent themes here, something along the lines of that one cannot find solutions to our modern problems by drawing from that same well of modernity that the problems come from. With it being in the spiritual or religious life that the answer to this can be found.
Referencing the comments on Dr. Lain McGilchrist. I follow author, Rod Dreher on his Rod Dreher Diary. He has written quite a lot about IMG and his left vs right brain studies. Very “heady” stuff, no pun intended! I certainly do not claim to understand most of it, but one aspect I was particularly intrigued by, was his study on how the brain views beauty and the connection to the beauty in nature. Dreher’s commentaries on the study are enlightening. You might consider looking it up.
I am an American, I take no offense to any of the Batman comments. I live on the coast and I too would love a can of that shark repellant, even for use when I am terra firme, ha! Mr. Kingsnorth, I have yet to find anything you say offensive nor contrary to many of my own beliefs. Thank you for all your critical thinking and being brave enough to express your beliefs.
I have a couple of thoughts about your Batman post. They are disjointed but I’ll throw them down anyhow. When I read this quote….
“Batman is the ultimate hero for the post-modern West. He’s an urban loner, he’s fighting for a better world, he’s driven by unresolved personal trauma, and his ideology and his identity are both fluid. On top of that, he’s a thwarted idealist, he has a love-hate relationship with authority, and he can never quite make up his mind whether Gotham is best cleaned up by thoroughgoing top-down reform or just by masking up and kicking the shit out of the baddies.”
I thought of Moses. Oddly enough it seems to work.
Secondly I wondered what transformation looks like. I think it looks like death. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two when transformation is at its height. Whispers of Frankenstein. Our world is filled with zombies and zombies are corpses that are not alive but simply animated by some desperate virus.
I remember standing in an old growth forest on Vancouver Island in front of the fallen body of a 600 year old Sitka Spruce. I felt completely frustrated because I had no one to be angry with. The tree had fallen of its own accord, its time had come, and I wasn’t happy with it’s decision. There were trees standing tall all around it that were much older and they weren’t dead! Oh how I longed for this tree to live. Then I noticed that it was covered in dozens of varieties of moss and lichen. Delicate flowers rose up from them in groups and I could almost hear the excited chatter. Here and there a short bush clung to the log and afforded just enough shade on the flowers to keep them in full bloom. Dotted along the massive length of the dead tree were young Sitka spruce, reaching longingly for the heights. They reminded me of my teenagers at the time. Firmly rooted in their parents and yet sights set so high. I realized then that this Sitka had laid down his life for his friends. I also realized that I don’t have a very good understanding of death and probably also not of life. I believed, up until then, that there was a finality to death, but staring at that dead tree screamed at me that I was wrong and begged me to listen. There is a light and a dark side to everything.
Having said all this I realize that we still have to act in the world. We still need to make a judgement, draw a line and maybe even go so far as to take a side, mostly because that is all that is on offer. I also believe that even in doing this we can transcend it. We may find ourselves, as I certainly do, on a side. The feelings of frustration that I felt as I stared at the grand old fallen tree were replaced with sentiments of joy and gratitude, although the desire to see the tree live never went away. I understood at that moment that transformation looks like death and life and then death again and then life, and I had to hold these things in tension in order to see the higher order in it all.
I leave you with a thought provoking poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called Palingensis.
Coffee. One of the singular pleasures in life is this black gold. First thing in the morning....hot (almost to the point of burning your throat, but not quite)....black....bitter. By it self or with an equally bitter meal.
Thank You for all You've written. I look forward to Your "Divining the Machine" series, as I feel fairly sure I'll agree with most all.
In either event, I wonder if it has been precipitated by the supposed dominance of the left hemisphere of the brain over the right hemisphere. Are You familiar with Dr. Iain McGilchrist, M. Kingsnorth and/or anyone reading? He did 20 years of research and understood that, sure, both hemispheres do, indeed, perform virtually all the same functions as the other hemisphere. That's the conventional wisdom, which I gather still holds sway in a lotta places. Where Dr. McGilchrist varied in his analysis was that the two hemispheres weren't *physically* the same, and also that they didn't process information in a similar manner. Quite DISsimilar, according to his lights.
One hemisphere (left) pretty good at analyzing numbers and logic and *especially* reducing a whole into it's subordinate parts. The other (right) able to see the parts and the whole while simultaneously seeing, in the moment, their interdependencies and "lifeness" all of which the left-hemisphere is totally incapable of.
If anyone is interested his most accessible book is "The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning." $.99 and about an hour. Kindle only. He became somewhat famous for his 500-page book. And recently completed his 2000-page magnum opus. I need to reread those two in order to come close to fully understanding them. https://smile.amazon.com/Divided-Brain-Search-Meaning-ebook/dp/B008JE7I2M/ref=sr_1_6
Just thought I'd pass that along and HTH. And TYTY again, Sir Paul. :) On to reading what You "said" about The Machine.
Ah, 1966.
My 4 year old brother was jumping up and down on the sofa with the Batman music. He fell off, mom said "I'm Mr. Freeze, pssssssstttttt". and he didn't move for 15 minutes.
No one thought about our cars' exhaust, or much about the body counts on TV, We were trying to decide if Rachel Carson was right or not: verdict: we better be safe and assume she was.
We were like the villagers in Nietzsche's story, not seeing what was already arriving. The madman was right.
Thank you, Paul. I am so grateful for your insights. Thank you for looking back at people like Mumford and Ellul. Their wisdom has largely been forgotten.
Erich Fromm spoke of a death-urge embedded in western civilization. If he were still with us I believe he would say these photos of batman's progression that you display visually express this syndrome. He explained that the oral, anal and genital characters (he was trained by Freud) were features of the half alienated individual as the result of a half developed capitalism. Now (1968) we have the fully alienated individual as a result of a fully developed capitalism which he called 'the marketing character'. This type of individual commodifies everything, even the self and sees the world simply as a series of favorable exchanges. But here is where it gets interesting. He said there was a new and unique kind of necrophilia built-in to this character. Necrophilia is not any longer so much about a fascination with corpses - the marketing character turns their attention away from life and directs it toward machines. This forms the foundation of the urge to destroy life by replacing life and living beings with dead machines. This theory was laid out in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness in 1973. Fromm and Mumford had tremendous influence on each other. Fromm's description of this syndrome displays chilling resemblance to social media among other things. The mass confusion and hostility expressed in these times is what Fromm would identify as an example of 'malignant destructiveness'. And it is inextricably linked to The Machine.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these issues!
Why is Batman 1966 wearing a suicide belt?
Interesting stuff. There are a few other factors at play as regards the shifting versions of Batman over the decades. The 60s TV show took its cue from the Batman comics of the preceding decade or so, a time when the industry had to respond to a growing moral panic over perceived links to the content of comic books and juvenile delinquency and general bad behaviour. Rather than be policed by the government, comic companies created the Comics Code Authority which had strict guidelines about what a comic could and could not contain. Out went crime, horror, gangsters, graphic violence and allusions to sexuality and in came zany, cartoonish, adventures often involving ridiculous gadgets and excursions into outer space. The code endured until content creators started to chafe against it in the mid 1970s ( a period when the Batman comic started to head back to its noir roots) and ignore it completely by the mid 1980s. Had the code not been in place, and any menace contained inside a comic book's pages effectively jettisoned completely, we may have seen a darker incarnation in the original TV show which took its cue from the comics of the period. The arrival of Batman graphic novels (very much marketed at older teens and adults) in the 1980/90s by writers like Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Grant Morrison continued the trend, which started in the 70s, for much darker, violent and grittier stories which carried on through the 90s and 00s and which is very much the tone of Batman today. In that context the 60s Batman is an anomaly (the two Batman films made after Tim Burton's gothic versions were more cartoony but they were both critical and commercial disasters) and the default Batman is the dark, tortured, shadowy anti-hero. A grim, gritty Batman sells it would seem. Which as you rightly say probably says something about us and the times in which we live. As a side note I think it's fair to say that Gotham is often viewed as a proxy for New York city which endured a tumultuous time during the decade of the 1970s with spiralling crime rates, civil unrest, poor sanitation, blackouts and drug problems. About a million people left the city during that time and properties in the centre of town, that today are probably worth a fortune, lay empty or was occupied by punk musicians and artists taking advantage of the low rents. This idea of the city (New York especially) as some kind of modern hell very much fed into the Batman comics of that period and have remained a major feature of the printed and screen versions of the character ever since, as well as in the films of other people who grew up during that same time (Michael Mann, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, David Fincher). William Blake got there first over two hundred years ago when he saw the same 'hell' in the dirt and poverty of industrial London. Over the last few years the storylines in the Batman comic books have featured squabbles over investment in the city's infrastructure, arguments about gentrification and rising living costs that are pushing ordinary people to the margins. Batman himself has lost his fortune, his vast house and his company and lives in a modest apartment. His butler Alfred is dead and the Batcave has been scaled down and relocated to deep within the sewerage system beneath the city. It's all a far cry from the day glo figure who carried a can of shark repellent spray and was given to dancing the 'Batusi'!
I guess you could probably do the same sort of analysis with most stock TV characters: cops, detectives, sitcom characters, even cartoon characters.
In the latest Batman movie, 'The Batman', there's no top-down reform; he stays away completely from life as Bruce Wayne. In fact he hardly opens his mouth as Bruce Wayne. Gotham City itself is a much more interesting character than Bruce Wayne in this offering. Having said that, the development of the criminals over time would make an interesting study. The Joker, from the flamboyant touch of Jack Nicholson to the much darker, mentally ill portrayal by Joaquin Phoenix shows a great evolution of his character. Gotham the TV show, where there is no Batman at all, hosts a very interesting suite of characters including The Riddler and The Penguin... Gotham survives without The Batman quite nicely there. Perhaps that's the decline - the darkness becomes more interesting than the goodness, or the dark aspect of the good is more prevalent than the light. No Bruce Wayne at all. Where do we go to from here?
Where does the 2019 "Joker" played by Joaquin Phoenix come in when viewed through this lens? While not a Batman movie per se, it is a seriously important cultural exploration involving a Batman character. This film shook me to my bones and, quite surprisingly, won Phoenix an Oscar even though much of the messaging and symbolism ran so contrary to the myopic mythos of the identitarian orthodoxy imbibed throughout the Hollywood elite. Phoenix even called out cancel culture in his acceptance speech and made an appeal for more widespread forgiveness.
For a beautiful insight into the symbology and disturbance of political narrative, see Jonathan Pageau's awesome analysis of the movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H74BbcTs6xs&t=150s
A more viscerally resonant cinematic exploration of the Jungian shadow and the making of the villain--an inverse hero's journey--I have yet to encounter.
The Batman as a film feels older than 2022 in its atmosphere of urban decay, as did The Joker from 2019. They have the feel of the 1970s-to-early-1980s: hopelessness and cynicism as the everlasting temptation for anyone attempting good, even in the tortured way that Batman attempts good in this film. But the film (spoilers?) ends on a note of hope, where Batman takes up relief efforts and public service of natural disaster victims, refusing to leave the city even as its outlook is grim and its streets are flooded. The film positions the new mayor as the chance for renewal (which depends on your politics as to its viability), but Batman matures from only rageful vengeance into a sense of duty to Gotham. His earlier "I'm vengeance" line is repeated back to him by one of the villains he has stopped, which is his realization of the abyss where he'd been working. He then decides to rise from it by service.
Did anyone else find a refreshing sort of hope in the film? For such a grim character, Batman can remain something of an optimist (as he does in The Batman).
Ugh, I remember that original campy Batman show and didn't like it, though it was fashionable to watch amongst the middle schoolers, especially the boys. Instead, I was devouring LOTR and Sword at Sunset, poring through the appendices on Elvish history and also trying to teach myself Anglo-Saxon. As to the modern Batman films, I find them truly unappealing and I've never been able to watch one all the way through. I think we are going through a period of wallowing in the sewage of the soul, but I do wish we'd get over it. What's kind of interesting to me is our current fascination with super heroes and comic book characters in general. Maybe it's just a lack of imagination in filmmakers? Maybe a response to a gullible, emotionally immature population that has a prurient interest in true crime and is loath to look within?
I too had the die-cast Corgi Batmobile as a child. It was one of my favorite toys, and I have vivid memories of the little yellow plastic missiles you could shoot out of the rear facing tubes. I wish I knew what happened to it. I've also long been partial to pop-culture as a window on a culture's psyche. I believe it was British comics author Alan Moore who once said there was "truth in trash", referring to how the spontaneous movies and tv shows of certain eras represented unconscious upwellings of meaning. He pointed out how the 50s sci-fi flick "The Amazing Colossal Man", with its depiction of a giant American man grown too powerful and dangerous via science presented an image of a big diaper-clad baby stomping across the world stage. Scottish comics author Grant Morrison has also written extensively about the archetypal power of superheroes as myth and sociology (see their book "Supergods"). Others have pointed out how the novels of Philip K. Dick, often rushed out unpolished to make rent in the 60s and early 70s, also present a unique frame on our times and the unconscious forces below them, and have as a consequence become the basis for a lot of film making in recent decades (starting most famously with Blade Runner in the 80s).
In a strange twist I think we've moved from idolizing the super hero to idoliterizing the super villain. From Suicide Squad, Venom and Hell Boy to the Harvey Dent of Joker we no longer have time for, even becoming somewhat repulsed by, the super hero while simultaneously telling ourselves that Harvey wasn't all bad you know. He had his redemptive qualities and was just pushed too far. Part of the animus, the moving spirit, is laziness. Part of it is envy. Much of it is greed, hubris and pride. All of it is that utmost human condition. The one spoken about by the greeks, the romans, the vedas and the hebrews. Tat Tvam Asi.
I've been recently enjoying Conner Habib's recent podcast interviews on esoteric Christianity / anthroposophy, starting at episode 181 https://www.patreon.com/posts/63528572
It ties in with some of the recent themes here, something along the lines of that one cannot find solutions to our modern problems by drawing from that same well of modernity that the problems come from. With it being in the spiritual or religious life that the answer to this can be found.
Referencing the comments on Dr. Lain McGilchrist. I follow author, Rod Dreher on his Rod Dreher Diary. He has written quite a lot about IMG and his left vs right brain studies. Very “heady” stuff, no pun intended! I certainly do not claim to understand most of it, but one aspect I was particularly intrigued by, was his study on how the brain views beauty and the connection to the beauty in nature. Dreher’s commentaries on the study are enlightening. You might consider looking it up.
I am an American, I take no offense to any of the Batman comments. I live on the coast and I too would love a can of that shark repellant, even for use when I am terra firme, ha! Mr. Kingsnorth, I have yet to find anything you say offensive nor contrary to many of my own beliefs. Thank you for all your critical thinking and being brave enough to express your beliefs.
I have a couple of thoughts about your Batman post. They are disjointed but I’ll throw them down anyhow. When I read this quote….
“Batman is the ultimate hero for the post-modern West. He’s an urban loner, he’s fighting for a better world, he’s driven by unresolved personal trauma, and his ideology and his identity are both fluid. On top of that, he’s a thwarted idealist, he has a love-hate relationship with authority, and he can never quite make up his mind whether Gotham is best cleaned up by thoroughgoing top-down reform or just by masking up and kicking the shit out of the baddies.”
I thought of Moses. Oddly enough it seems to work.
Secondly I wondered what transformation looks like. I think it looks like death. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two when transformation is at its height. Whispers of Frankenstein. Our world is filled with zombies and zombies are corpses that are not alive but simply animated by some desperate virus.
I remember standing in an old growth forest on Vancouver Island in front of the fallen body of a 600 year old Sitka Spruce. I felt completely frustrated because I had no one to be angry with. The tree had fallen of its own accord, its time had come, and I wasn’t happy with it’s decision. There were trees standing tall all around it that were much older and they weren’t dead! Oh how I longed for this tree to live. Then I noticed that it was covered in dozens of varieties of moss and lichen. Delicate flowers rose up from them in groups and I could almost hear the excited chatter. Here and there a short bush clung to the log and afforded just enough shade on the flowers to keep them in full bloom. Dotted along the massive length of the dead tree were young Sitka spruce, reaching longingly for the heights. They reminded me of my teenagers at the time. Firmly rooted in their parents and yet sights set so high. I realized then that this Sitka had laid down his life for his friends. I also realized that I don’t have a very good understanding of death and probably also not of life. I believed, up until then, that there was a finality to death, but staring at that dead tree screamed at me that I was wrong and begged me to listen. There is a light and a dark side to everything.
Having said all this I realize that we still have to act in the world. We still need to make a judgement, draw a line and maybe even go so far as to take a side, mostly because that is all that is on offer. I also believe that even in doing this we can transcend it. We may find ourselves, as I certainly do, on a side. The feelings of frustration that I felt as I stared at the grand old fallen tree were replaced with sentiments of joy and gratitude, although the desire to see the tree live never went away. I understood at that moment that transformation looks like death and life and then death again and then life, and I had to hold these things in tension in order to see the higher order in it all.
I leave you with a thought provoking poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called Palingensis.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1864/07/palingenesis/540312/
Coffee. One of the singular pleasures in life is this black gold. First thing in the morning....hot (almost to the point of burning your throat, but not quite)....black....bitter. By it self or with an equally bitter meal.