The Dark Knight

It seems that movies and books offer two of the best respites from a world that seems increasingly flipped. Psychological hucksters like Dr. Phil run around trying to shamelessly promote themselves while claiming to "help" people, and people buy it. Voting machines are still not working and people seem so surprised as if the decay in intellectual ability and competence as a result of the deterioration of education did not exist. The question of why new machines would malfunction is never asked. I guess it is like asking why American cars break down so much. The correlation between learning and dysfunction is rarely made. Instead, people decry the importance of doing something about this "problem" because people, especially "indigent" voters should be able to vote. The State should make it easier for people to vote and no one should have to exert any effort at all like saving money--heaven forbid--in order to buy the proper identification to vote. Translation: the State should force the competent, wage-earning, and intelligent to pay for the rest. From each according to his ability to each according to his need.

In every so-called "public forum" common sense always seems to be conspicuously absent. So, if you have any common sense at all--common sense and no less a currency-- will invariably feel like you are standing in the middle of a great and barren wasteland where asylum patients run around gagging and cackling about trivial things. It's Alex in Wonderland, the few that ever notice don't care, and it leaves you in that place Hemingway said did not exist: a man's island.

So, movies seem to offer a very nice break from all of the madness. Movies are orderly. Good movies have a clean story line. Movies are exciting particularly when there are simple values at stake like good versus evil such as in the Dark Knight.

This need for someone or in this case something to believe in is all the more strong when so many people are as superficial and phony as counterfeit money--using up their societal currency of politeness and platitudes as freely as counterfeiters would. So, what about the people who deal in gold? Gresham's law applies equally well to people as it does to money: the bad drives out the good. So, when heroes come along even if they are imaginary it gives us something to believe in again even if only for a moment.

One cannot underestimate the power of heroes or convictions. Very often conviction and value are all that we have. It is true that not too many people want to think about such things. They are far too busy with gossip and drugs. But, if you are the type of person who tends to value seriousness, strength, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are you any less of a human? Isn't it perfectly legitimate to want something more from life than pizza, beer, games? Is it not humanly possible to be "social" and "pensive?"

Well, one of the things that makes the Dark Knight inspiring is not only that he fights evil and wins, not only he is strong and a maverick, but as he is portrayed in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, he is also a thoughtful, serious man. In other words, he ruminates. And, he kicks ass, "dude." That is a wonderful thing.

The true measure of a man is the size of his bank account or his penis, but in the size of his values and his ability to protect them. Warner Brothers makes some damn good films, still.