What Would Happen If An Orthodox Christian, A Taoist, And An Ancient Pagan Walked Into A Bar

I teach a short unit on Dante in my world lit class, so I have been following big boy blogger Rod Dreher's American Conservative posts about Dante with interest. (He has far too many to link to) Because I also teach a unit on Taoism, his most recent post provoked some musings that I still haven't sorted through completely. This paragraph, which explained the events that prompted the post struck me as rather interesting:

This week, I stumbled across a book that gave me real insight into this problem. As you know, we moved to a new house recently. The moving process unearthed, so to speak, books of mine that have been out of sight and out of mind for a while. One of them is a book I bought five years ago, when I was reading about Taoism and its parallels to Orthodox Christianity. The contemporary Orthodox priest-monk Damascene wrote a book called Christ The Eternal Tao, in which he interprets the basic Taoist message in Christian terms. The basic idea is that outside of the Hebrew tradition, Taoism is the most complete understanding of what Christianity teaches, and, rightly understood, prepares one to accept the truth of the Gospel. The book by no means teaches syncretism, but rather identifies aspects of Taoist thought that correspond to the way Orthodox Christianity understands the spiritual path. Tao simply means “the Way”; in Chinese bibles, Jesus’s words, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” come out as, “I am the Tao, the Truth, and the Life.” For Taoists, yielding to the tao is the path to restoring harmony between body, soul, and the cosmological order, which isn’t necessarily deistic.

Something about that paragraph and the tone of Dreher's post reminded me of these passages from C.S. Lewis's "Myth Became Fact" which I have in an old paperback version of The Grand Miracle.

Now as myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens--at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass form a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other…We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. ....

...Those who do not know that this great myth became Fact when the Virgin conceived are, indeed, to be pitied. But Christians also need to be reminded - we may thank Corineus for reminding us - that what became Fact was a Myth, that it carries with it into the world of Fact all the properties of a myth. God is more than a god, not less; Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about 'parallels' and 'Pagan Christs': they ought to be there - it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic - and is not the sky itself a myth - shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.

To answer the question posed by this post's title, I think they'd all have a beer and some good conversation. I'll leave it to others to prove Lewis and  Damascene wrong. I still have much musing to do.

Sibby Provides Me With A Reason To Vote For Larry Pressler

I love teaching mythology. The young'uns appreciate the stories. They also appreciate the fact that myths or the remnants of myths surround them. For example Goodyear uses of Hermes' winged sandal in the company's logo. 

The snark beginnth now. That said, the myths remain buried in ancient history until yesterday when Steve Sibson elucidated a glorious possibility:

More on the Germanic Neopagans:

Germanic neopaganism, also known as Heathenism,Ásatrú, Odinism, Forn Siðr, Wotanism, Theodism, and other names, is the contemporary revival of historical polytheisticGermanic paganism. Precursor movements appeared in the early 20th century in Germany and Austria, and a second wave of revival began in the United States, Great Britain, Iceland, Australia, and other places in the late 1960s. Dedicated to the ancient gods and goddesses of the North, the focus of Germanic neopagans varies considerably, from strictly historical polytheisticreconstructionism to syncretist(eclectic), Jungian, occult or mysticist approaches. Germanic neopagan organizations cover a wide spectrum of belief and ideals.

Now we should understand the pagan source of the 1960s New Age movement. Now we have Larry Pressler ....

If Sibby is correct and Larry Pressler is indeed a Germanic neopagan, he may eschew being sworn in on the Bible. We've already had a Muslim United States Congressman sworn in on a Koran; Pressler could find true neopagan symbols such as a branch of Yggdrasil or a representation of Mjolnir to swear on.

If Pressler confirms he is indeed a neopagan and indicates that he will use Mjolnir as part of his swearing-in ceremony, he has my vote. The sight of Thor's war hammer in the United Senate chamber would be a sight to gladden the heart of any mythology teacher even if Ragnarok is sure to follow

Herein endth the snark.

As A Mythology Teacher, I Am Very Afraid

From IO9.com

. . . Brett Ratner, director of X-Men: The Last Stand, is doing a sword-and-sandal movie about Hercules, which is slated for release on July 25, 2014. The film begins shooting any day now, with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson playing Herc. Be very, very afraid.

Actually, the Hercules film, based on a graphic novel called Hercules: The Thracian Wars, sounds like an awesome bit of cheese, and possibly the perfect outlet for Ratner's talents. It's a "dark" version of Herc, in which he's completed his twelve labors and now he's turned his back on the Gods. He's working as a mercenary, alongside six other hard-bitten Greek dudes, and they go around fighting for money in various wars. Until they realize how far they've fallen, and they get a chance for redemption.

Everything about "The Rock" shows the subtly necessary to portray the need for redemption and the joy of salvation

Yes, I Have No Life . . .

School's out; it's a Saturday night during a holiday weekend, and I'm sitting at home.

That being said, this adaptation of The Avengers is funny.  It also makes me think that I should find ways to incorporate creating a silent film into my mythology class.

Everything Old Is New Again: Myths For Our Time?

I've been meaning to respond to the conclusion of this Alyssa Rosenberg post for a long time.  She writes,

I’m not sure we have myths to embody the new fears generated by a world that’s much larger than the village, or the disembodied terrors of the digital age.

I was going rant a bit and assert that we didn't need new myths; the old folk tales might be enough.  Further, new myths or, at the very least, new uses of the archetypes--Star Wars, the Harry Potter franchise, and superheroes--exist.

Rosenberg may not have come to the same conclusions, but she hints that she could answer her question in the same way.  In her review of The Avengers, she writes,

In The Avengers, the battle of ideas isn’t between the forces of good and evil: it’s between the people who are supposed to be allies. Captain America thinks Iron Man’s a showboat, while Tony thinks Steve is a hopeless square. They waste time tangling with Thor in a forest before recognizing their common aims. Once they do, those three men plus Dr. Banner, find themselves suspicious of a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. agenda they uncover in the course of gearing up to fight Loki. And Fury manipulates them into coming together as a team even as he tries to hold off the worst impulses of the S.H.I.E.L.D. council he must answer to.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, superhero movies like Spider-Man 2, with its famous sequence of New York City subway passengers lifting up a fallen Peter Parker, were first about what other people had done to us and our capacity to recover. In The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s Batman became a representative of the terrible things we’d do to ourselves and the compromises we’d make to fight back against an external threat. The Avengers takes a third path, positing superheroes as the people who will stand firm both against terrorists and our own darkest impulses and those of the people in whom we’ve invested official governmental power. They’ll be there when we need them, but they aren’t entrenching themselves, amassing power and growing corrupt. It’s in keeping with the suspicion of institutions that’s become a major theme in Whedon’s work.

At the risk of committing both sociology and philosophy without a licence, The Avengers has long been about frightening dualities.  Iron Man reveals technology's power to save, and the risks of an imperfect human possessing unheard of power.  The Hulk personifies the fears of what can happen when science and technology go awry.  The character also illustrates the fears each of us has about our own hidden demons and emptiness of being an outcast.

I don't believe I'm stretching the dichotomies too far by claiming that the comfort provided by knowing that the powerful Norse thunder god is on humanity's side is tempered by the fearful knowledge that Loki and his mischief is out there somewhere.  The humans like Nick Fury, the Black Widow, and Hawkeye use their wits, archaic tools enhanced with modern technology, or the newest gizmos to battle fears, both real and imagined, just like every single one of us.

Perhaps all of these little examples are "mentions" or "illustrations" but not "explorations," a shortcoming that many seem to use to condemn recent superhero films.  Rosenberg, however, walks right up to the edge of declaring The Avengers a myth when she concludes,

But this franchise, with its long-form exploration of a rich cast of characters and its embrace of a huge, complex universe, has unlocked, at long last, the wondrous, weird potential of comic books to transport us to other worlds and to render our own transformed.

I would take her phrasing one step further.  Comics have the potential to unlock wonder about who humans are and the nature of our world in addition to dealing with the age old questions about never being able to accomplish the good we seek to do or believe we should do.  Those questions troubled our ancestors in their villages and continue to trouble us in the digital age.  Comics, like myths, never answer those questions; they just help us think about them.

Pop Culture Literacy: Yet Another Reason To Promote The Liberal Arts

I probably should limit my Daily Show clips a bit more than I do, but in this clip Jon Stewart unwittingly makes the case for teaching mythology.  At about 2:10, Stewart uses Renaissance art and myth in a brilliant take down of Rupert Murdoch.

Cultural literacy is always a dicey argument, but I think it's safe to argue that any culturally literate American of the 21st Century should be aware of Stewart and the Daily Show.  If Stewart and his writers believe they can get a laugh from Zeus seducing (euphemism alert) Leda in the form of a swan, perhaps they expect their viewers to know at list a bit about the story.

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Quotation Of The Day: Porn And Mythology Edition

Writing at The Daily Beast, Lizzie Crocker makes the allusion to draw the link between a California initiative to require actors in adult films to wear condoms and the chief god of Olympus who was known for his many amorous adventures:

Ron Jeremy holds a Guinness World Record for his appearances in porn. He’s starred in 2,000 X-rated films and had sex with more women than Zeus

If Crocker had sat through my mythology class, she would have learned that most of Zeus's conquests could be shown to be a patriarchal religion's efforts to dominate and weaken the symbolic power of the matriarchy, but why should one let facts get in the way of a good one liner.

Ending The Boredom Of School Reform

At the Answer Sheet blog, Mark Phillips writes an important post that many education reformers will probably ignore because it challenges entrenched paradigms.

Phillips contends that the current debate bores him because it repeats the same questions:

Standardized testing, useful or harmful? Charter schools, the answer or the new problem? Teachers maligned, teachers defended, teachers resistant to change. No Child Left Behind, revise or eliminate?

Phillips then offers a few thoughtful and thought provoking suggestions, a few based on Native American culture and mythology. First,

Perhaps we need a trickster to wake us up and boot us into another dimension. To many Native American peoples the trickster is the raven, the rabbit, the coyote.  The trickster is the teacher who surprises people and wakes them out of their routines. It is also the trickster who sometimes provokes us into leaving the safety of our present worldview.

Of course, Phillips never had to deal with parents who begin every conversation about education with "when I was in school. , ... "  That fact allows him to make this provocative proposal:

we’ve had ideas from educators with some vision that extends beyond our same old room, ideas . . . .  And there are teachers who could help take us there, if we would provide them with the luxury of time to develop their ideas.

As one example, years ago Louise Berman, in New Priorities in the Curriculum , challenged the idea that we must organize our curriculum in the present way. She focused on processes rather than our traditional way of organizing subjects. Her organizers (perceiving, communicating, loving, knowing, decision making, patterning, creating, and valuing) are debatable, but at least she stepped out of our present dimension and challenged our preconception of subject organizers.

I've long advocated breaking down department barriers and having more team teaching. No one seems to want to listen.  I believe debate seems to cover "communicating," "knowing," "decision making," "creating," and "valuing" as the terms are commonly understood, so a department of argumentation might be fun.

Phillips goes on to suggest placing

a teaching consultant in every school, a seasoned tribal elder, to continually guide younger teachers. Certainly too, each school would have a full-time psychologist/counselor, not just a part-time person or one who focused almost exclusively on college admissions.

This suggestion makes a lot of sense, but I fear that administrators would turn the consultant's main job into creating cookie cutter teachers.

I realize that Phillips and I might argue vehemently about the details.  I certainly agree with him about how to start:.

I also think it would be refreshing if educational reform wasn’t such a ponderously serious business. Maybe we need a Brigade of Educational Tricksters, to keep waking us up, making sure we aren’t taking ourselves and our varied positions too seriously, helping us to see beyond our present paradigm, and making sure we are able to laugh at the absurdity in the educational world we inhabit.

Sunday Morning Drop Quiz

Via Andrew Sullivan, an important question:  How much has to be true?  The original question came from this post.  A thoughtful response is here; the following Bible fact or fiction quiz comes from here.

Maybe we could break Brian's question down into some representative 'True or False' bite-size chunks.

• Adam and Eve were literally the progenitors of humanity.

• Satan is a fallen archangel in rebellion against God.

• There was a worldwide flood that wiped all life off the face of the earth in the time of Noah.

• God made the sun stand still so Joshua could wipe out his enemies thoroughly.

• God commanded bloody genocide against the Canaanites in the Old Testament.

• Daniel knew what was going to happen hundreds of years into the future.

• Key events in Jesus' life were accurately predicted in Isaiah, Psalms etc.

• Mary was a virgin when she fell pregnant.

• Jesus turned water into wine.

• Jesus rose from the dead in bodily form three days after the crucifixion.

Score ten for each which you feel are true (i.e. definitely historical), five for those you think might be historical but equally might not, and zero for those you think are patently false (i.e. pious inventions).
If you score 85-100, do you consider yourself a fundamentalist? If not, why not?
If you score 0, do you necessarily consider yourself a non-Christian? If not, why not?

When I teach mythology, I tell the young'uns that there's a difference between fact and truth.  The myths that we read may or may not be factual, but the stories may contain truths about the human condition or human nature.  Nearly all of he hero myths, for example, illustrate that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall, a principle that seems true.

Looking at these 10 questions, the only one that HAS to be factual in order for Christianity to be true is the resurrection.  The rest can be metaphorically true without being factual and the central tenants will still hold.

Tangential Update (10/23/11, 11:05 am):  BW Schwartz at The Great Plains Observer provides an interesting summation of the world's religions.

Was McDonald Medusa's Surname?

I love it when mythology and pop culture come together.  IO9.com discovers this sculpture.

I will admit there are some obvious similarities: Medusa turned people to stone if they made eye contact with her; McDonalds' food turns people's arteries into stone.  IO9 may have carried the comparison a bit too far with this speculation:

I'm assuming Perseus traveled to the bowels of McDonaldland and collected the spokesclown's head to prevent a one-kilometer-tall Grimace from destroying Argos. Also, Ronald's blood turns into the Fry Kids when it splatters the earth.

Everyone knows that Ronald doesn't have blood.  He has Big Mac "special sauce" running through his veins.

A Humorous Mangling of Mythology

If Immortals is this funny, I won't object to the film.
                       

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These Immortals May Be Extremely Pretty and Flawed

I know one shouldn't judge a book by its cover or a movie by its trailers or pre-release publicity, but this USA Today article about the upcoming Immortals frightens me.

Readers are cautioned not to compare the movie "to a comic book movie" but the article contends the film "touts itself as an Avengers for the historical set, an all-star lineup of mythological icons including Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo and King Hyperion."  Apparently consistency isn't going to be one of the films hallmarks.  I can live with that.  The Greek gods were a capricious lot.

The article continues to take away hope for satisfying mythological fare, however, when it summarizes the plot.

Set after the mythic Greek struggle between the gods and titans, Immortals tells the story of Hyperion, mad with power, declaring war on humanity and amassing an all-star team of irritable immortals. Mankind is no match until Theseus steps up as a ringer for team human.

Cast members claim that it will be "more grounded" than a comic book film even though it "celebrates exhibitionism." Therefore, the movie avoids "getting too deep in . . . Greek mythology" and seeks to become "300 meets Gladiator . . .an ab fest."

My skepticism is kicking in.  I am afraid audiences will be forced to endure mythological adaptations like the 1981 Clash of the Titans or the 2010 Clash of the Titans.  In fact, I fear that the film could approach lows set by Demi Moore's Scarlet Letter.

I may have to buy a season of Xena: Warrior Princess just to gain perspective on camp.

Comics as Myth

I haven't seen X-Men: First Class, but big boy bloggers and reviewers are elevating the movie from a comic book geekboy must see to myth.

It is apparently, a metaphor for the struggle for gay rights.  Writing in The Atlantic, Paul Schrodt opines,

In X-Men: First Class, one young mutant-human tells another, "You have no idea what I'd give to feel ... normal." It's a moment anyone who went to high school can empathize with, though it might mean something more to those who grew up gay—the adolescent experience when you discover, like the X-Men, something in your nature that makes you different from the majority of the people around you.

Parallels between the mutant experience and the gay experience pervade First Class, which opened on Friday to a weekend box-office haul of $56 million. The film, a prequel to the modern X-Men movie series, tells the franchise's origin myth: Genetic mutations create a cadre of young superheros who use their powers for good—in this case, by attempting to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis. The mutants are, unmistakably, a social minority. The film's catchphrase is "mutant and proud," a playful riff on post-Stonewall self-acceptance, and a "don't ask, don't tell" joke even finds its way into the dialogue.

In the New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that the movie is about race, even as it engages in historical revisionism that promotes musing in people of a certain age who possess a bit of historical knowledge.

When we left the theater, my son and I knew we had experienced the most thrilling movie of the summer. “First Class” is narratively lean, beautifully acted and, at all the right moments, visually stunning. But I had experienced something else. My son is 10 and a romantic, as all 10-year-olds surely have the right to be. How then do I speak to him of this world’s masterminds who render you a supporting actor in your own story? How do I speak of the Sentinels whose eyes melt history, until the world forgets that in 1962, the quintessential mutants of America were black?

This movie seems to explain and people seem to argue about its interpretation. Pantheon.org claims "myths and mythologies seek to rationalize and explain the universe and all that is in it. Thus, they have a similar function to science, theology, religion and history in modern societies."

Stan Lee, creator of the X-Men comics has always said the comic sought to expose bigotry.  Schrodt writes,

Lee has been coy about sexually identifying X-Men, calling it one of several stories directed “against bigotry of all sorts.” At the time the comic book first came out in 1963, it made more sense to think of the characters’ plight in terms of the civil rights movement. Since then, however, it’s become a natural echo of the growing LGBT movement, which is likewise based on a minority that’s “hidden” from public view.

When I go to see the movie, I'll be looking for the explanations of social ills and hopefully be seeing myth not just an adventure story

A Few Musings about Reading

The Answer Sheet Blog reproduces lists of influential books.  Scholastic created the lased based on responses made on the You Are What You Read website.

Adults listed

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Holy Bible
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Kids listed

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney
The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

First, why didn't adults list Green Eggs and Ham or any Seuss book?  In that light, it's surprising that no Lemony Snicket books made the list.

More importantly, it's good to see that the lists share a common element, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.  Americans hold too few things in common.  They don't share a common religion or ethnicity; increasingly, they don't share a common language.  Americans probably never shared a common English grammar.  They have been divided by region and class.  Young and old frequently conflict.  Mark Laptia writes, "In America, the chasm between rich and poor is growing, the clash between conservatives and liberals is strengthening, and evil and good seem more polarized than ever before" (HT Andrew Sullivan).  Having small things in common in an increasingly fragmented society seems important.

Further, the kids' list has a healthy dose of books based on Greek myth.  That element links them to a long and great tradition of Western Civilization.  Once again, it's a small link to a larger tradition, but it's a link nonetheless.  That link to the past is necessary to succeed in the modern world.

Now, kids need to start thinking about and playing baseball instead of soccer.

Random Monday Morning Musings

I really think the music for this scene would be better that "Pomp and Circumstance" for graduates to entrances and exits.

I hope that Gardy can get the Twins turned around.

This guy thinks mythology has practical uses.  I don't know if I will ever agree with him on anything else, but I do about that.

Watching Treme and reading this post makes me wish that I were a musician.  I need all the brain power I can get, especially after reading this post that tells me what will happen to my older brain.

Secularists use fear mongering too.

Another Minor Musing About Myths

Earlier today, I asserted that myths contain symbolic truth.  Now, Hugh Macleod from The Gaping Void points out that myths are practical.  Damn, it's been a good day for those of us who love the old stuff.

Of Myths and Men

The weather is hot and muggy.  I hate hot and muggy weather.  The cat woke me up earlier than I wanted to wake up.  The household's main computer seems to be dying.  In the midst of the morning fog caused by heat, rude awakenings, and fear of impending financial failure caused by tech failure, I came across the following tweet:

Madville Times: Daugaard Perpetuates SD Teacher-Pay/Cost-of-Living Myth: Myth, Dennis. Myth, myth, myth.

My enthusiasm rose.  The word myth is repeated 5 times.  I love myths.  I teach mythology.    I use this handout for my class; it asserts "in general, myths are metaphorically and symbolically true, but factually and literally false."  Myths are great adventure stories with symbolic meaning.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to read an analysis of a modern Heracles destroying a symbolic hydra.  I didn't even get to read an analysis of Thor kicking the dwarf Lit into the fire of Baldur's funeral pyre.  Instead, the article is about Dennis Daugaard justifying teachers' low salaries by claiming that South Dakota's cost of living is low, so it all balances out.  The Madville Times debunks the claim here.

I want to cling to the idea that myths have symbolic truth.  In this situation, there's little symbolism to examine.  Either low coast of living makes up for low pay or it doesn't.  The stats say it doesn't.  Therefore, this claim isn't really a myth.

Daugaard's claim is propaganda.  According to Merriam-Webster.com, propaganda "is the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person."

Daugaard is obviously spreading the information or in this case misinformation to help his cause of being elected.  He's been part of the current administration and it serves his cause to have people believe that South Dakota has a low cost of living and, therefore, wage earners need less to have a comfortable existence.  If voters are comfortable or believe they are comfortable, the incumbents have a far better chance of holding power.

Less charitably, Daugaard may intend to injure teachers.  Teachers as a group probably lean Democrat.  They constantly remind the Republicans that South Dakota is last in teacher pay, but the idea that a low cost of living makes up for the low pay allows workers in other occupations to view teachers as whiners and complainers who have three months off with pay.

The great myths showed flawed people doing awesome deeds and experiencing heart-wrenching failures.  The deeds and failures reveal a little truth about the human condition.  Daugaard's claim doesn't fulfill those criteria; it's merely self-serving propaganda

What It Feels Like To Be A Parent And A Teacher

I suppose these sentences by James Lee Burke resonate with me because I am on the wrong side of 50.  Still, if one substitutes "parent" or "teacher" for "the elderly" and "old people" in this quotation, one has concisely summed up the frustrations of parenting and education.  The last sentence probably also sums up the frustrations that arise from living in the 21st Century.

Cassandra had been given knowledge of the future and simultaneously condemned to a lifetime of being disbelieved and rejected.  The wearisome preoccupation of the elderly--namely the conviction that they had already seen the show but could never pass on the lessons they had learned from it--was not unlike Cassandra's burden, except the anger and bitterness of old people was not the stuff of Homeric epics. (James Lee Burke, Rain Gods, pg 283)

Iron Man, James Madison, Prometheus, and Us

I recently picked up a copy of Iron Man and Philosophy.  One of the articles "Did Iron Man Kill Captain America" by Mark D. White recounts Iron Man's efforts to implement the Superhuman Registration Act, build a prison in the Negative Zone to house superheroes who refuse to register, and institute a Fifty State Initiative to give each state its own team of superheroes.  (I have no idea which heroes would be assigned to South Dakota.) In short, Iron Man was expanding the role of government, but he was doing it to provide for public safety.  Given that he built a prison in some alternate dimension, Iron Man's actions can be seen to be similar to building a supermax prison or instituting a national ID card.

Tony Stark, Iron Man's alter ego, may be a scientific genius, but he apparently forgot James Madison's injunction from The Federalist 51: 

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

 Perhaps some members of the superhero community need to be controlled; they have caused damage and civilian deaths.  Stark did set up a government to control the governed; he did not, however, oblige his creation to control itself.  Stark eventually lost his position to Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, a member of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.  It's difficult to see how the Americans of Stark's world are better off than they were before his foray into prison building and registration.

Stark claims to be a futurist.  He seemingly is like Prometheus, the Titan who gave humans fire.  Prometheus could see the future and warn Zeus that Thetis, a minor goddess Zeus wanted to bed, was destined to bear a son greater than his father.  The Titan, however, could not that giving humanity fire would result in his being chained to a mountain and having an eagle devour his liver.

In my mind, the superhero, mythological deity, and American founder are all making me wonder about many of the loud voices who fear the new health care but who support enhanced surveillance to protect citizens from terrorism or who want to build a fence to keep out illegal aliens. 

The national health care bill may turn out to be a disaster because it will mushroom out of control like the opponents fear.  If, as these prognosticators fear, this mushrooming is a natural result of government, what's to keep the government from turning the surveillance against innocent citizens or using the fence to keep citizens in instead of keeping illegal immigrants out? 

The fear about government seems to be selective and incoherently applied.  The same people who say bank reform will destroy the country often claim building more prisons and increasing the number of crimes that can be called terrorist acts will make citizens safer.  Six banks now have assets equal to 63% of GDP.  Shouldn't that fact scare one as much as a threat posed by a car bomb in Times Square?

Mythological deities and superheroes are imperfect futurists, and we mere mortals are not angels.  Everyone, therefore, should listen to Madison.  Iron Man and Prometheus show what can happen if we don't.

Epic Sadness

I had hoped that the Clash of Titans remake would do two small thinks.  First, it would take myths and heroism seriously.  Second, it would be a good movie.  According to Rotten Tomatoes, I'm going to be disappointed.  I haven't seen it, but these reviews mean that I'll wait until it's on HBO.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; after all, the publicity emphasized one of the most stupid movie lines of all time, "Release the Kracken."