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Are there any historical examples of "a joker"? The sole example cited by the article is Nazi Germany which forced the US and the USSR to work together for a sh

Are there any historical examples of "a joker"? The sole example cited by the article is Nazi Germany which forced the US and the USSR to work together for a short time. That doesn't to me seem to be a real example of a "joker" however, that's just the enemy of my enemy being my friend kind of thing. Hitler wasn't just fucking things up for the sake of it, but had a very specific world he was trying to create. The Joker wanted chaos, or if he wanted anything else, doesn't tip his hand, being an unreliable source of information. How many different ways did he get those scars? I'm just asking because scholarly articles about the actions of fictional psychopaths seem a bit much. Especially when we are talking about applying it to entire groups of people (nations) without some good examples. Note, this is also different than Swartz's or the author's suggestion - that this cooperation was intended. That's not implied by the movie, nor the joker of the article. This is the first paragraph: In the recent Hollywood movie The Dark Knight (2008) the comic character known as the Joker jeopardizes a whole society spreading chaos and destruction with no aim of benefit at it. That's not Nazi Germany (the sixth paragraph or so and example). Hitler may have had a fucked up sense of societal benefit, but that was his goal, not wanton destruction (at least until he went completely crazy).

rocqua 10y ago
I'd say nature is the best example. Natural hazards with immediate and predictable effects are much like the joker. It hurts producers and freeloaders equally, and everyone sees them coming. The dutch 'polder' politics seem like a very fine example of this. I imagine predators are another example. As are very periodic floods or droughts.
nostrademons 10y ago
I'd expect such characters to get written out of the histories fairly quickly. The point of a "joker" is that they're purely destructive and don't work in anyone's self-interest, not even their own; thus, they're eventually defeated and have nobody that cares about them enough to keep their memory alive. But thinking about a few examples: Julian Assange is a modern-day joker, with Wikileaks indiscriminately publishing damaging info about many different institutions (several of which would otherwise be at odds with each other). Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated William Mckinley, who ironically spurred both cooperation among anarchists and cooperation against anarchists. Heck, the traditional description of Satan very much is the in line with the joker archetype, which makes me wonder if his depiction in religion is a composite of various joker-like characters that people have faced but not wanted to remember.
anamoulous 10y ago
/r/the_donald?

rocqua 10y ago

I'd say nature is the best example. Natural hazards with immediate and predictable effects are much like the joker. It hurts producers and freeloaders equally, and everyone sees them coming. The dutch 'polder' politics seem like a very fine example of this. I imagine predators are another example. As are very periodic floods or droughts.

nostrademons 10y ago

I'd expect such characters to get written out of the histories fairly quickly. The point of a "joker" is that they're purely destructive and don't work in anyone's self-interest, not even their own; thus, they're eventually defeated and have nobody that cares about them enough to keep their memory alive. But thinking about a few examples: Julian Assange is a modern-day joker, with Wikileaks indiscriminately publishing damaging info about many different institutions (several of which would otherwise be at odds with each other). Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated William Mckinley, who ironically spurred both cooperation among anarchists and cooperation against anarchists. Heck, the traditional description of Satan very much is the in line with the joker archetype, which makes me wonder if his depiction in religion is a composite of various joker-like characters that people have faced but not wanted to remember.

anamoulous 10y ago

/r/the_donald?