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Is the good-vs-evil narrative always a regression? Caricature-painting is a basic tool of modern morality tales. Is it so universally regressive? Would we be b

Is the good-vs-evil narrative always a regression? Caricature-painting is a basic tool of modern morality tales. Is it so universally regressive? Would we be better off if we portrayed Pol Pot, Heath Ledger's Joker, or Opposing Racist White Guy as trying to balance conflicting motivations?

leetcrew 9y ago
I think, when you have the time, it is always worthwhile to dig into the nuance of a particular issue. whether you have time to dig deep into the intricacies of le sophisticated gentlesir's stunning new devil's advocate argument about racism is ultimately a personal decision.
pjc50 9y ago
"Why Opposing Racist White Guy actually has some kind of point" is a popular genre of mainstream news opinion columns. Superhero stories vary on an an axis from pure pantomime villains to giving the villain considerable space to explain why he's actually in the right. Part of the reason that Heath Ledger's performance is so acclaimed that his Joker isn't simply one-dimensionally evil.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  You're setting up a false dilemma. American History X and Breaking Bad each do good jobs of showing evil without making evil behavior one dimensional.
psyc 9y ago
The difficulty with this question is that progress is relative to goals, goals depend on values, and values are usually considered subjective. So progress is subjective. If you value winning a political conflict above all else, then the good-vs-evil propaganda may well be progressive, to your allies. If you value understanding human beings, it’s probably regressive for that purpose.
scythe 9y ago
The first and last, yes. The Joker is literally a cartoon character; the story needs him to be an incomprehensible psychopath.
- goatlover 9y ago
  Do you think serial killers are generally comprehensible? People who do really bad things do exist.
bzbarsky 9y ago
If you portray evil as being done only by people who have pure-evil motivations, that gives your audience the impression that they can't do evil. After all, _they_ don't have evil motivations! I think it is in fact important to show that conflicting motivations can lead to evil. Heck, even _good_ motivations can. That way people might actually stop and think about whether what they're doing is in fact evil. Or to put it in Godwin's Law terms, your typical Nazi was trying to balance conflicting motivations. The right lesson to be learned is not "Nazis were evil, so they did evil things" but "we better watch out for conditions that cause people to behave like that".
- goatlover 9y ago
  Your average Nazis and German society in general, sure. But the ones who architected the final solution and world war? That's a different matter. Sociopaths exist, as do people with deep hatred for certain groups, and a desire for power and glory no matter the human cost. A better way to frame the matter is what sort of conditions in a society lead to dangerous people being in charge.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    Just to be clear, the "ones who architected the final solution" attempted other solutions first (e.g. having Europe's Jews emigrate from Europe to somewhere else; they were stymied by other countries not being willing to accept them). I'm not saying this was a _nice_ thing to try to do, but even they did not start with cackling evil laughter and wanting to wantonly slaughter people. Something that often gets left out of histories of WWII.
    - goatlover 9y ago
      And I'm sure serial killers start out with fantasies and stalking instead of melodramatic laughter. What matters is what people end up doing. The Nazis did very bad things. And I've heard Eichman's rationalizations for keeping the trains running on time. He was doing his duty, it was lawful, nobody around him opposed the policy, etc. It's all BS to excuse his moral choices and anti-semitism. And yeah, we need to understand how groups of people come to justify genocide and other terrible practice, but keep in mind not everyone went along with it in WW2. Bulgaria refused to hand it's Jews over. There were German police and army who refused to cooperate with the SS. It was possible to resist participating in genocide, and sometimes without consequence.

leetcrew 9y ago

I think, when you have the time, it is always worthwhile to dig into the nuance of a particular issue. whether you have time to dig deep into the intricacies of le sophisticated gentlesir's stunning new devil's advocate argument about racism is ultimately a personal decision.

pjc50 9y ago

"Why Opposing Racist White Guy actually has some kind of point" is a popular genre of mainstream news opinion columns. Superhero stories vary on an an axis from pure pantomime villains to giving the villain considerable space to explain why he's actually in the right. Part of the reason that Heath Ledger's performance is so acclaimed that his Joker isn't simply one-dimensionally evil.

humanrebar 9y ago
You're setting up a false dilemma. American History X and Breaking Bad each do good jobs of showing evil without making evil behavior one dimensional.

psyc 9y ago

The difficulty with this question is that progress is relative to goals, goals depend on values, and values are usually considered subjective. So progress is subjective. If you value winning a political conflict above all else, then the good-vs-evil propaganda may well be progressive, to your allies. If you value understanding human beings, it’s probably regressive for that purpose.

scythe 9y ago

The first and last, yes. The Joker is literally a cartoon character; the story needs him to be an incomprehensible psychopath.

goatlover 9y ago
Do you think serial killers are generally comprehensible? People who do really bad things do exist.

bzbarsky 9y ago

If you portray evil as being done only by people who have pure-evil motivations, that gives your audience the impression that they can't do evil. After all, _they_ don't have evil motivations! I think it is in fact important to show that conflicting motivations can lead to evil. Heck, even _good_ motivations can. That way people might actually stop and think about whether what they're doing is in fact evil. Or to put it in Godwin's Law terms, your typical Nazi was trying to balance conflicting motivations. The right lesson to be learned is not "Nazis were evil, so they did evil things" but "we better watch out for conditions that cause people to behave like that".

goatlover 9y ago
Your average Nazis and German society in general, sure. But the ones who architected the final solution and world war? That's a different matter. Sociopaths exist, as do people with deep hatred for certain groups, and a desire for power and glory no matter the human cost. A better way to frame the matter is what sort of conditions in a society lead to dangerous people being in charge.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  Just to be clear, the "ones who architected the final solution" attempted other solutions first (e.g. having Europe's Jews emigrate from Europe to somewhere else; they were stymied by other countries not being willing to accept them). I'm not saying this was a _nice_ thing to try to do, but even they did not start with cackling evil laughter and wanting to wantonly slaughter people. Something that often gets left out of histories of WWII.
  - goatlover 9y ago
    And I'm sure serial killers start out with fantasies and stalking instead of melodramatic laughter. What matters is what people end up doing. The Nazis did very bad things. And I've heard Eichman's rationalizations for keeping the trains running on time. He was doing his duty, it was lawful, nobody around him opposed the policy, etc. It's all BS to excuse his moral choices and anti-semitism. And yeah, we need to understand how groups of people come to justify genocide and other terrible practice, but keep in mind not everyone went along with it in WW2. Bulgaria refused to hand it's Jews over. There were German police and army who refused to cooperate with the SS. It was possible to resist participating in genocide, and sometimes without consequence.