The Watchmen Factor
As every Economics class I teach begins, I give my students an assignment to provide them with some insight into the principle of scarcity. I ask them to write a list of everything they'd ever want if they could actually have it. I tell them it would be as if a genie appeared and would give them as many wishes as they wanted, absolutely no restrictions... except one. This genie must have everything in writing.
My students enjoy this because it gives them a chance to be imaginative and connect with their deepest desires. Along with all the suped-up cars and mansions on islands and time machines there is the heartwarming request for food for everyone and a nice house for mom and dad.
When I last did this, one student wrote this among all the things he'd want:
“For zombies to be real, and to have lots of weapons to kill the zombies with.”
Hmm. Interesting. You want to have something just so you can not have it.
I've often pondered what I call the activity antinomy, the paradox of our impassioned desire to accomplish things even if all things are accomplished. Its simplest form is in the common consideration: If God has already done everything, then when we're in heaven won't it be boring?
This student is quite profoundly articulating the core nature of this paradox. I wonder, when we're in heaven bored with sitting on clouds humming to harp music, would God spice things up a bit by allowing some zombies to attack us so we can take out our Uzis to blow them away?
Let's face it, we all want to do that in whatever form we can. We can't help it. We want to kick butt at whatever and then thrill to the glory of victory over some bad thing. It's who we are.
Which brings me to this day, 3-6-09, the day of the opening of one of the most anticipated films I've ever seen in the pop culture milieu.
Watchmen.
I haven't seen it yet, but the reviews have been quite telling, in my mind. This is because while it has received a Metacritic aggregate score of 56--a tepid score at best-- the range of reviews are so wide ranging. Usually a film earns a score like this because most all the reviewers have scored it close to that 56, but Watchmen is different. A number of scores are the very best, 100, while an equal number are extraordinarily low, in the 20's or 30's. The critics who gave it a high score generally repeated the appeals that caused so many to embrace the graphic novel. The ones who gave it a low score seemed to resign themselves to a geniune incomprehension--they confessed they just didn't get it.
This made me think.
So many who just don't get how the World works.
Makes perfect sense.
One pull-quote from a review caught my eye, this one from Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it."
That's precisely it. I think the story is brilliant because it does go a bit of the way in exposing the way the World is. Brutal. Terrifying. Merciless. And this is with gallant superheroes out there rescuing everyone from it all.
You must know that there are indeed superheroes out there rescuing everyone out there from everything, and sorry but Barack Obama is not one of them though you'd think he was. He's just getting his strings yanked as all highly visible potentates do. (Funny, my wife and kids and their cousins are watching Pinocchio in the next room.)
These superheroes have been given seven times as much super-power as anyone else for the express purpose of protecting themselves in their duties of rescuing people, keeping an eye on everyone so we stay in line--hey, watch-men, it's what they do. Oh yes they are murderers, assigned the job of murdering murderers to keep the World System humming. Not sure this is the case? Take a look at the book of Genesis, chapter four to see how that happened.
Anyway, all this is indeed a shameless plug for the home page piece I put in my webzine a few months ago, precisely about the meaning of Watchmen for those fascinated by this weighty version of the activity antinomy. If you want to get more of an idea of how I see Watchmen as a dead-on metaphor for the dutiful tasks of World operatives, check it out.
My students enjoy this because it gives them a chance to be imaginative and connect with their deepest desires. Along with all the suped-up cars and mansions on islands and time machines there is the heartwarming request for food for everyone and a nice house for mom and dad.
When I last did this, one student wrote this among all the things he'd want:
“For zombies to be real, and to have lots of weapons to kill the zombies with.”
Hmm. Interesting. You want to have something just so you can not have it.
I've often pondered what I call the activity antinomy, the paradox of our impassioned desire to accomplish things even if all things are accomplished. Its simplest form is in the common consideration: If God has already done everything, then when we're in heaven won't it be boring?
This student is quite profoundly articulating the core nature of this paradox. I wonder, when we're in heaven bored with sitting on clouds humming to harp music, would God spice things up a bit by allowing some zombies to attack us so we can take out our Uzis to blow them away?
Let's face it, we all want to do that in whatever form we can. We can't help it. We want to kick butt at whatever and then thrill to the glory of victory over some bad thing. It's who we are.
Which brings me to this day, 3-6-09, the day of the opening of one of the most anticipated films I've ever seen in the pop culture milieu.
Watchmen.
I haven't seen it yet, but the reviews have been quite telling, in my mind. This is because while it has received a Metacritic aggregate score of 56--a tepid score at best-- the range of reviews are so wide ranging. Usually a film earns a score like this because most all the reviewers have scored it close to that 56, but Watchmen is different. A number of scores are the very best, 100, while an equal number are extraordinarily low, in the 20's or 30's. The critics who gave it a high score generally repeated the appeals that caused so many to embrace the graphic novel. The ones who gave it a low score seemed to resign themselves to a geniune incomprehension--they confessed they just didn't get it.
This made me think.
So many who just don't get how the World works.
Makes perfect sense.
One pull-quote from a review caught my eye, this one from Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it."
That's precisely it. I think the story is brilliant because it does go a bit of the way in exposing the way the World is. Brutal. Terrifying. Merciless. And this is with gallant superheroes out there rescuing everyone from it all.
You must know that there are indeed superheroes out there rescuing everyone out there from everything, and sorry but Barack Obama is not one of them though you'd think he was. He's just getting his strings yanked as all highly visible potentates do. (Funny, my wife and kids and their cousins are watching Pinocchio in the next room.)
These superheroes have been given seven times as much super-power as anyone else for the express purpose of protecting themselves in their duties of rescuing people, keeping an eye on everyone so we stay in line--hey, watch-men, it's what they do. Oh yes they are murderers, assigned the job of murdering murderers to keep the World System humming. Not sure this is the case? Take a look at the book of Genesis, chapter four to see how that happened.
Anyway, all this is indeed a shameless plug for the home page piece I put in my webzine a few months ago, precisely about the meaning of Watchmen for those fascinated by this weighty version of the activity antinomy. If you want to get more of an idea of how I see Watchmen as a dead-on metaphor for the dutiful tasks of World operatives, check it out.
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