Batman And Philosophy – Mark D White

You’ve accepted that identities are constructed, and that even truth is constructed. So what’s the next piece of the puzzle to complete your transformation? The key to cracking this part of the puzzle resides with Nietzsche. We read Batman: Year One, Arkham Asylum, and The Dark Knight Returns as a chronology of Batman’s life, and if you want to become a Batman yourself, you must embrace Nietzsche’s philosophy—as Batman has. Nietzsche states that we are instinctual creatures and our identity is constructed out of our desires for survival and power.

Nietzsche coins the phrase will to power to describe these desires.8 A companion concept to this is the eternal recurrence (also known as eternal return of the same). This is the ability to welcome both the highest peaks and the deepest, darkest valleys of our individual lives. Nietzsche praises the person who fully embraces these concepts.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche poetically captures the essence and the difficulty of the eternal recurrence in “On the Vision and the Riddle” when he describes the following scene as a vision and a riddle to be deciphered: Among the wild cliffs I stood suddenly alone, bleak, in the bleakest moonlight. But there lay a man. . . . A young shepherd I saw, writhing, gagging in spasms, his face distorted, and a heavy black snake hung out of his mouth. Had I ever seen so much nausea and pale dread on one face?

He seemed to have been asleep when the snake crawled in his throat, and there bit itself fast. My hand tore at the snake and tore in vain; it did not tear the snake out of his throat. Then it cried out of me: “Bite! Bite its head off! Bite!”

Is Batman a Utilitarian or Deontologist? (Or None of the Above?) To the Bat-Trolley, Professor Thomson! Hush Will Love This Next Story . . . Top Ten Reasons the Batmobile Is Not a Trolley . . . “I Want My Lawyer! Oh, That’s Right, I Killed Him Too” So, Case Closed-Right?

Chapter 2 – IS IT RIGHT TO MAKE A ROBIN? What Should a Batman Do? The Duty of the Superhero Using Robin for the General Good Crime Fighting and Character Can Batman Train Robin in Virtue? Sometimes Heroes Fail Chapter 3 – BATMAN’S VIRTUOUS HATRED Batman Hates Vice and Hatred Is Batman Virtuous, or Does He Do Virtuous Things?

Batman’s Hatred Is Virtuous Batman’s Hatred Is Not in His Self-Interest Lacking Balance PART TWO – LAW, JUSTICE, AND THE SOCIAL ORDER: WHERE DOES BATMAN FIT IN? Chapter 4 – NO MAN’S LAND: SOCIAL ORDER IN GOTHAM CITY AND NEW ORLEANS No Man’s Lands: Gotham City and New Orleans The Road to No Man’s Land Survival over Justice: Villains, Gangs, and Hobbes’s State of Nature William Petit versus Jim Gordon: Violence in the Quest for Justice The Witness of Nonviolent Humanitarians “This Is My Town”: Batman and the Restoration of Order The Thin Veil Chapter 5 – GOVERNING GOTHAM Gotham Made Me Do It Do We Need Any Stinking Badges?

Legitimacy and Violence From Crime Alley to Sin City: Hobbes and Gotham “Two” Little Security The Anti-Batman: Nietzschean Rebellions The Real Dynamic Duo: Batman and Gordon Theorizing Government Chapter 6 – THE JOKER’S WILD: CAN WE HOLD TH E CLOWN PRINCE MORALLY RESPONSIBLE? Laugh and the World Laughs with You-or Does It? Clearing Out Some Bats in the Belfry Putting One More Card on the Table (Don’t Worry, It’s Not a Joker) Taking the Plunge: The Fall from Freedom Who Has the Last Laugh? PART THREE – ORIGINS AND ETHICS: BECOMING THE CAPED CRUSADER Chapter 7 – BATMAN’S PROMISE Batman Begins The Nature of the Promise Promises and Morality Making Promises to the Dead Batman Returns Batman Forever?

Chapter 8 – SHOULD BRUCE WAYNE HAVE BECOME BATMAN?

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 3404b5daaa3789c9
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,869,563 bytes (1.783 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780470532799
• Pages: 308
• Language: English (en)

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