or, Why Everything Must Change, Dark-Knight-Style
or, Why So Serious?
[I'll elaborate later when I have more time, when I've seen it again, and/or when more other people have seen it so I don't feel bad about posting spoilers.]
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?
[for the last few days I've been preparing a solo music presentation for church; I'm playing and singing an arrangement of the hymn "What Wondrous Love Is This" that I worked out for the occasion. I just did it in the first service within the last hour, and the second is coming up soon. I say this here because it influenced the way I watched Batman.]
We do not need a better world. We need better people. We only need a better world because it would create better people.
We do not need less violence. We need to be less violent. We only need less violence because it causes us to be violent: growing up in it, becoming accustomed to it, and becoming angry or vengeful as a result are the causes of violence. It is a vicious cycle, and perhaps a chicken-egg situation: does it matter which came first? They are really two sides of the same coin, the individual and the systemic; that's part of my point. But I choose to phrase it this way because I have more say over myself as an individual than I do over society as a whole.
We are the problem. Remove evil from the world, and we are still here. Remove all evil-doers, and no one is left. Remove the most vicious ones, and others will take the opportunity to fill their places.
People do not become evil (or insane) through the coercion of something outside themselves. All it takes is a little push to coax out what's already there.
Is the same true of goodness?
At one point the movie made me feel that I need to do something to help solve the world's problems, to make it better. As it progressed, though, I felt that better devices and problem-solving techniques--weapons against weaponry--are only one side of it. What we really need is to make better people. At the very least, we need to let people be better; we need it to be possible. Timshel must be made available.
How?
This isn't a question I felt that the movie addressed. It may not have even raised this issue, but it caused me to think about it. How do humans get better? Do we need some outside help? Is it available?
To be continued.
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4 comments:
This reminds me of a Kafka quote:
"The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt of that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impossibility of crows."
The Czech word for crow/jackdaw sounds like Kafka. He made a habit of using crows to represent himself, so he's essentially saying that wherever he exists is automatically not heaven. It is something inherent in himself ("already there," as you say) and his status as 'crow' that disqualifies him from being in a perfect place. The problem isn't the place - it's that he corrupts it.
If heaven is the absence of evil, then heaven is the absence of us. Unless your next post is about how we become uncrowified. But if evil is a basic element of who we are as you seem to suggest in the post, would we be ourselves if we were fixed? Would we be recognizable?
Yes we need outside help. I really want to know what your answer is to "Is the same true of goodness?"
Good point about people being the evil and the good...both of which come from within, not from without.
Hm...Actually, I think God is the good, and He comes in from the outside.
If God is the creator (the source, the origin) of all things, how can he come into them from the outside? How can there not be good in them already, if God is good?
Bethany--yes, I liked that Kafka quote when you Tumbled it. "Would we be ourselves if we were fixed?" "Is the same true of goodness?" I want to know my answers, too. Let's keep exploring.
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