Theos-Talk Archives (November 2004 Message tt00246)

Hi Steve,

I wonder sometimes about the love affair with fantasy/entertainment 
that seems to interface with reality in the general psyche. Personal 
experience is my research model of course, but it does seem 
prevalent.

> Now that you have me thinking about it, the Superman myth seems to fit
> very well with how about half of this country perceives our President,
> who like Superman, uses his awesome strength (in his case, unmatched
> military power) in order to bring "truth, justice, and the American
> way" 
> to the Middle East, and perhaps, if he has time, to the rest of the
> world. 

Interesting point. Maybe that is why we (collectively) find it so 
possible to believe the myth of democratizing the world as a reason 
for waging war on people on the other side of said world. We are so 
willing to believe anyone who says they are the hero, as we are 
willing to believe to some extent that actors who portray made-up 
characters in made-up realities are somehow important, are bigger 
than life because the characters they portray are bigger than life; 
the way we are willing collectively to believe the most preposterous 
lies if someone tells us we should. 

I don't think that we are very willing in this cycle to accept as a 
hero someone with flaws. When we find a flaw in our hero, we tend to 
tear him down off the pedestal and start searching for another hero. 
We have lost sight of the complexity and seek instead the black and 
white. 

Sometimes I think that we are so starved for the truth (self-
responsibility, unity of all life, brotherhood of man) that we are 
willing to try anything, just in case it might be the answer. But I 
also find that the truth exists at the base of popular culture, in 
our literature, movies, in the very entertainment we seem to seek to 
lose ourselves in. If we look carefully we will see that the eternal 
ideas of excellence in humanity are often, even usually, represented.

Adelasie