Batman: Triumph and Revolution
I wrote this somewhat bizarre article a number of months ago, exploring the way that dysfunctional characters in fiction relate to social change. Nothing lodges itself quite so deeply in the mind as the story; narrative patterns weave themselves into our psychology more easily than even simple truth-statements, creating and reflecting the wider tapestry of culture to which we react.
And so, I started to think about Batman. (It doesn’t take much.) I thought about how history and personalities unfurl in certain patterns, and it struck me: Batman is a near-perfect type of a failing revolutionary. And this was hard to realise, because I would not mind being Batman. I think I can make this clearer, though. Bear with me, folks.
Let’s start with the idea that Batman is a superhero. Everyone loves Batman (even dogs). I remember that, as a four-year-old, I had a Batman suit that I loved and wore all the time, fighting invisible bad guys scattered around the house. He’s iconic, powerful. Indeed, one of the most compelling elements of Batman as a fictional character is that he represents a fight that we would love to take up ourselves - except we find ourselves unable. It’s easy to aspire to his achievements.
And, of course, he is only human. Unlike Superman, Batman can be hurt. He has no powers, but only access to tools that are believably accessible to humanity today. He leads a fight against the familiar foe of organised crime. His efforts to change society cannot be contained by the political systems that exist in his world. He is a rebel with a natural cause. And, through this, he is vulnerable and deeply affected by the tragic loss of his parents in a gone-wrong street mugging when only a child.
But here is the problem: as easy as it is to like him or feel moved by his story, Batman is a terrible superhero and an even worse revolutionary figure. This is because, of almost all fictional superheroes characters, Batman is the most deeply and utterly human. So natural is he to our own hearts and minds and battles, in fact, that Batman hardly changes anything.
More about this, then. Motivated by the injustice, pain and fear that he suffered as a child, Bruce Wayne reasons that the law must be upheld for the protection of others. As such, Batman works vaguely within the boundaries of the law, holding its principles if not its exact requirements. So far, so good – right? The problem is that this fight, motivated by an endless personal sense of hurt, actually affects the systems that sustain his target problem very little. Batman never kills or confines enemies of the law himself, instead constantly handing them over to the authorities with the full knowledge (we must assume) that they will, inevitably, escape once again to wreak new havoc.
Why, though? Why assume an alter-ego to fight a systemic problem? Why choose this particular battlefield, if he has access to a deep wealth, arms manufacturers, staggering technological research teams as well as a huge political and social influence? Why fight it alone?
Two answers: because it is the easier fight, and Bruce Wayne is a broken man. Look carefully at his response to the staggering and emotionally-loaded problems (law-transgression, violence) he faces: his response is perpetually to meet fire with fire. It's an easy option to resort violence to fix violence. It's an easy option to operate outside legal responsibility to fix a problem with those who act outside the law. It's an easy option to look to those similar to the one mugger who caused him pain and loss, without using his profound intelligence to ask why that one criminal came to be.
Why? Because Batman is consumed by his own experience, loneliness and pain and so lets his aggressive social problem dictate the terms of engagement, taking him on a path that is almost cryptically vindictive. This emotional mission is clothed in justice, and so he becomes, from some perspectives, almost indistinguishable from that which he hates most: the madly self-consumed.
This is why Batman and the Joker are, in essence, the closest thing to a friend the other will ever have. One can hardly exist without the other. Both are motivated by their own pain, both are broken, both are horribly inefficient and self-aggrandising in their own way. Right and wrong they might be, but each sustains the existence of the other through their own
broken methods.
On an even deeper level, they make each other feel better by existing, by fighting a battle that will never end. The fight is cathartic and consumes them both, without either realizing the nature. And so it is that one sustains the other, because the real struggle they both face is not about crime: it's about feeling better.
And this is the thing about failed revolutionaries: it’s never that glimmer inside the heart that is the problem. It’s everything about the heart, and everything about the reaction. And this entails a costly and thoughtful process that neither Bruce Wayne nor the Joker are willing to commit to. Or indeed, most of humanity - or me. Perhaps especially me, at times.
Think of the way we get angry and style ourselves - or our communities - as counter-cultural rebels, standing for peace, love and justice in a world where a lot of other people are wrong. We pick up our arms and start out against our adversaries on the terms they set, just as Batman uses violence against violence. This is how bloody and costly revolutions are started. This is also the way today's revolutionaries become tomorrow's dictators. On a smaller scale, this is how you become the person who hurt you earlier in your life or your mother-in-law or the dictator-boss at work that you hated. It's how you sustain a socially destructive cycle without ever intending it to.
Similarly, if Batman can be seen as acting this way from his own pain, so we too often get caught in the bitterly ironic act of doing well to others in order to make ourselves feel better. The social-revolutionary system commonly becomes hijacked by this deeply hidden agenda and so, like Batman, we opt for the easy battles. The effect of this is subtle and seductive. It is possible to give well to charity without generosity, it is possible to fight war without peace, it is possible to fight hatred without love. We offset our guilt or personal discomfort with good acts. It would be unfair to say that these are terrible things.
These are, however, incomplete things. They are focused on removing rather than replacing, on issues rather than people. Often, they bear a type of tragedy. Sometimes, as with Batman, the revolution sustains its own failure and inefficiency simply because the battles chosen are done so blindly, in solitude and self-sufficiency. This also means that systems (or counter-systems) of religion or politics or social authority can and do sometimes counteract themselves. We can ignore the real battlefield, sustaining a triumphal attitude over minor victories that actually ensures that the real problem never gets addressed.
Such engagements reflect our individualistic approach to morality. Few systemic problems can be solved alone, so we take our victories in line with our immediate understanding. On the personal scale, this is what I mean when I say it is not enough only to dignify the methods or views of those whom you are already comfortable with. Such measures have led to the prayers being offered for justice without meaningful concern for the oppressed, the giving of international aid without a understanding the system which impoverishes, or indeed to speak out against hate with every semblance of it within your own words. Recently, this has been reflected well in the mutually vitriolic responses to progressive legal measures regarding gay marriage in the House of Commons – one would almost think the issue at stake had nothing to do with dignity or acceptance.
To get to my point in terms of revolutions and justice, the “an eye for an eye” mentality that feels so good and so just mostly simply consolidates a cycle that is meant to be broken. And, unlike Batman, the terrifying reality of revolution seen in successful, peaceful revolutionary figures (such as Christ or Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr) is that justice is established in the community by tolerating and embracing the unjust on the most basic social levels. And this is emotionally dangerous. It is following this horrible, complex irony that love fully realised bears little resemblance to justice, but often more to tragedy.
Batman is a tragic figure, then. Still a fan, as dubious as his methods are. That said, at the risk of thinking far (far) too much about the character, I now cannot feel anything simple towards him.
James Goldspink
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open Topic' Issue 43
