Watch the World Burn

Last night was our First Movie Night and it could not have been a better movie…

BATMAN’S “The Dark Knight”

Perhaps I am a bit biased, Batman has always been my Absolute Favorite Superhero, or Dark Vigilante.  Unlike Superman who is always Perfect, always knows the right thing and does the absolute right thing, not to mention has Super Powers, Batman is someone we can all relate to…

Bruce Wayne, Batman, is a Human Being.
He has suffered.
He is angry.
He has doubts.
He questions.
He can be such a dark, brooding character.
He is Human.
No Super Powers to count on, okay so he has awesome Toys!  But, come on now, he has to have Something, he is a Superhero after all.  🙂

After the first few times that I saw this movie, I was moved by its message, by the Humanity of it all.

The Joker’s character had never been so efficiently done.  So dark, demented, disturbed, so twisted.  The depravity, the sadness of his fallen state…

There were many a time when you just get so irritated at Batman because it took him so long to understand how Joker was not like him or anyone else he had come up against…The Joker is just plain Evil.  The way he can get under people’s skin, mess with their minds and convince them of the fallen state of ALL humankind.

For a GREAT read, pick up Vlad’s handout, “The Dark Knight: The Gospel According to Batman.”

What I wanted to discuss, after plugging Vlad’s note-worthy work, is the Morality Test.

As we watched it last night, I was reminded of the all-too-well-known Morality Questions that you are given in School.

The one that stands out most in my mind is one that I was given in Biology Class in 10th Grade.

We were separated in groups of 5.  We were given a handout with about 5 questions and we had to come to a consensus in our group then present our answers.

When we got in our groups and read the questions, most of us giggled, not out of joy, but because we were nervous and probably a tad disturbed.
We had to decide the fate of people!

One of the questions was, “What if you’re in a mine shaft in a runaway mine cart and the brake is broken.  There are several of you in this mine cart.  If you do not stop the mine cart you will all die.  You can save most everyone’s life, if you throw someone onto the rails to stop the mine cart.  Who do you throw?”

NOTE: Not would you, but WHO?

Then it goes on to describe a young man, a young woman, an old man, an old woman, etc.

Another question was about A Bomb (I believe Nuclear) that was dropped.  You have a safety bunker where only X amount of people can survive in order to re-populate the world after everything is clear once again and it is safe to leave the bunker.

There is a Doctor, a pregnant Teen, an Engineer, an old woman, an old man, ETC.  So, basically you have to choose who you let die.

And there were a few more like that.  Even then, at that stage in our lives, we all knew, knew, that this was wrong.  That there is no right time to take someone’s life. And yet, here we are, 15 and 16 year-olds having to make those choices and justify them!

I did not know then that this a Practice in, the Oh-So-Popular and Widely Used, Situational Ethics.  That we were being “taught” that under certain circumstances it is okay to do wrong, because it is justifiable.

What danger!  Here our young, impressionable minds are being, were being, molded to believe and justify that it’s okay to be bad, to do the wrong thing, as long as we are able to justify actions to ourselves and/or others.

In “The Dark Knight” you have that same moment.  You see that we are capable of evil.  That we have a dark side.  You fear…you are Revolted! by this realization.

It is disturbing to see that when push comes to shove, we can, even if for a moment, justify killing others for our own benefit.  I am not ashamed to say that it moves me to tears each time.  One can’t help but think, “The horror! The horror!” (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness).

And yet, “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart” (Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl).

This is what we must always cling to…Hope.  At the bottom and the end of it all, there is Hope.

This is what we need to focus on.
This is what we need to teach our young.
What we, ourselves, need to be reminded of…There is Hope. There is Good.

In fact, the good will always, always outweigh the bad.

Just look around you.  Whenever we are hit with tragedy, we help each other, no questions asked.  When there is a burning building, there always exists that “hero” that risks his/her own life to save others without a second thought to their own safety.

In “The Dark Knight,” we triumph over The Joker, that Being that “just want(s) to watch the world burn” (The Dark Knight).

We Can Triumph.  We Did, Remember?