Batman vs. Superman
This week one of the most anticipated movies of the year will open. DC Comics tries to challenge their rival Marvel by having their two biggest properties square off, Batman vs. Superman.
The trailers tease lines, scenes and the plot to us. From the trailer it seems that the world has understood something about Superman. He’s an alien with seemingly unlimited power. The government has decided that this kind of power cannot be left to itself. Something must be done.
In the trailer Lex Luther quips to the Senator
“Do you know the oldest lie in America Senator? That power can be innocent.”
Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
The writers of the superhero stores are of course not the first people to think of such things. Thomas Hobbes in the 17th Century wrote Leviathan where he talks about the state of nature.
Given human nature, the variability of human desires, and need for scarce resources to fulfill those desires, the state of nature, as Hobbes calls this anarchic condition, must be a war of all against all. Even when two men are not fighting, there is no guarantee that the other will not try to kill him for his property or just out of an aggrieved sense of honour, and so they must constantly be on guard against one another. It is even reasonable to preemptively attack one’s neighbour.
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.[5]
In our system of government we empower the state to be one center of power with a monopoly on violence and attempt to make that great instrument of power subject to the will of the people. It’s our hope that by things like elections and courts and laws that government will be a force for good, for the public welfare. We are, however, seldom united over what those things actually look like so we live in perpetual struggle and conflict between powers.
Is it any wonder that our political contests are increasingly indistinguishable from our sports or fantasy narratives?
Jesus’ Triumph Continue reading
