WATCHMEN

Still haven't seen the movie, but recently read the novel. Good shit, and deserves the acclaim it received for being good literature. Interesting work by the author in weaving in all the excerpts from books and clippings, and so forth. To say nothing of the pirate sub-plot, and the involvement of its author. Was predictable, but not a bad story. And the character Rorschach is… interesting. Totally alone, totally uncompromising, and comfortable with the fact that a mask is his skin, and that people don’t like him because they lack his strength, and fear it as a result. It’s not normal for a man to be able to actually do what he believes. Rorschach does, and pays the price. A hunted life, stinking, feared, and alone. He would tell you that its worth it. And he would mean it.

It has me thinking about dualities in general, especially in light of recent conversations with people about dominance and subservience. How people who live their lives in one tend to revel in the other. Heroes really are villains who’s failings have yet to be exposed. And they will be, even if their only failing is that they are human. So you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. Caesar was hailed as Rome’s salvation at the time be came to power.

How fucked up a species are we, and is there any hope for us? Does Rorschach have it right, and that people are just depraved animals waiting for the right opportunity to fall upon each other? Silly question, actually. We are no better than any other animals. But at least, like other animals, we generally prefer dominating socially over dominating physically. We are inherently destructive, but not inherently destroyers. Things in our local sphere, the things we see every day, that we covet; we destroy to protect those things. Even to were where act aggressively and/or preemptively in protecting ourselves.

Rorschach had nothing in his local sphere to protect. Nothing he saw every day. Nothing he coveted. With no grounding in this world, all he had left was his philosophy. His code. And yeah; there was nothing he would not do to protect and uphold that code, and nothing that would stop him from doing what the code deemed necessary. No compromise. Thank god there are not more like him. All to often, those sorts of personalities spend their lives in uncompromising pursuit of goals far less noble than his. The usual focus is orgasmic in some way, shape, or form. Funny how we really do demonstrate just how base we are.

As Veidt pontificated on in his journal, you can glean a great deal from a society by analysis of its parts, its culture, and – perhaps most importantly – its crimes. What behavior does the society consider acceptable, and what not? What sort of personalities does the society consider dangerous, and who are those personalities dangerous to? And finally, what separates the darkest degenerates from the man on the street? Lack of inclination to do evil, perhaps? Or maybe just lack of opportunities to do evil.