While watching a superhero cartoon the other evening - because I’m over thirty and married, I can do any childish thing I want without feeling ridiculous - I had a bizarre epiphany strike me during a climactic showdown between the heroes and the villain. This being, called Graviton (dear lord, the people at Marvel really did run out of creative names at some point), had absolute control over gravity - one of the four basic forces of the universe. One of the heroes calls out to Graviton, saying that such immense power could have been used to benefit all mankind. It’s the stock moment in so many superhero stories, but at that time a voice in my head cried out, “Bullshit!”
Why? Because if I was in that situation, where I suddenly found that I could control one of the fundamental laws of physics with my mind, I would have already destroyed my fifth orphanage by the time the hero had even posed the question. I know that you’re now thinking that I’m a horrible person who should be locked away forever, but I must protest your judgemental attitude. I am not a horrible person, but at the point I am given god-like powers I would cease to even be a person. Does that mean I would start sprouting tentacles like some Lovecraftian horror? Not necessarily, but at that point I would have more in common with Cthulhu than the average joe.
As human beings, we have limitations. There is only so much we can do to affect changes in reality, but we really are brilliant at going right up to the edges of those limitations and pulling off some fantastic changes. But should I somehow gain awesome cosmic powers, there would no longer be any limitations to my behavior. As a result, I would feel a sense of detachment from the entire species. Anything I could dream of would be possible, so why should I not do it? Morality would be tossed to the wayside and orphanage-flinging would commence. The old adage that power corrupts is not as accurate as saying that power dehumanizes the powerful.
Thankfully, there are no laboratory accidents doling out awesome powers, mostly chemical burns and singed eyebrows. The closest thing we have to that are trust funds and the stock market. I have had a second epiphany, after the supervillain one. What I have described, a person completely detached from humanity, seems to also work terribly well for many of the super wealthy. It’s the only explanation I can find for the callous behavior of so many CEO’s. They have this vast wealth, which frees them from so many of the limitations imposed on nearly every other human being on this planet. They feel justified in playing with the lives of ordinary people, all in the name of the shareholders. They destroy people’s livelihoods, trap individuals in debt, and treat good health as a commodity instead of a necessity.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that we are living in a world with real supervillains. But this isn’t a time for superheroes. This is not a struggle that will be won by people in capes and tights. It won’t be one individual leading the way, taking the fight all on their own. We do not need such a powerful individual. It’s time that we realize that we are enough for the challenge. All of us, together.
Why? Because if I was in that situation, where I suddenly found that I could control one of the fundamental laws of physics with my mind, I would have already destroyed my fifth orphanage by the time the hero had even posed the question. I know that you’re now thinking that I’m a horrible person who should be locked away forever, but I must protest your judgemental attitude. I am not a horrible person, but at the point I am given god-like powers I would cease to even be a person. Does that mean I would start sprouting tentacles like some Lovecraftian horror? Not necessarily, but at that point I would have more in common with Cthulhu than the average joe.
As human beings, we have limitations. There is only so much we can do to affect changes in reality, but we really are brilliant at going right up to the edges of those limitations and pulling off some fantastic changes. But should I somehow gain awesome cosmic powers, there would no longer be any limitations to my behavior. As a result, I would feel a sense of detachment from the entire species. Anything I could dream of would be possible, so why should I not do it? Morality would be tossed to the wayside and orphanage-flinging would commence. The old adage that power corrupts is not as accurate as saying that power dehumanizes the powerful.
Thankfully, there are no laboratory accidents doling out awesome powers, mostly chemical burns and singed eyebrows. The closest thing we have to that are trust funds and the stock market. I have had a second epiphany, after the supervillain one. What I have described, a person completely detached from humanity, seems to also work terribly well for many of the super wealthy. It’s the only explanation I can find for the callous behavior of so many CEO’s. They have this vast wealth, which frees them from so many of the limitations imposed on nearly every other human being on this planet. They feel justified in playing with the lives of ordinary people, all in the name of the shareholders. They destroy people’s livelihoods, trap individuals in debt, and treat good health as a commodity instead of a necessity.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that we are living in a world with real supervillains. But this isn’t a time for superheroes. This is not a struggle that will be won by people in capes and tights. It won’t be one individual leading the way, taking the fight all on their own. We do not need such a powerful individual. It’s time that we realize that we are enough for the challenge. All of us, together.
We are individually limited. We do not have the wealth to confront them financially, because that is their domain. The oligarchs of our age built that arena. No one of us can really stand against that wealth and power, but all of us together can.
America has become the wonderland of the Objectivist, Ayn Rand’s “Utopian” dream. The lower class in this country is responsible for its own problems for having the temerity to be born poor. On the bright side, this system is not sustainable, as shown by the recent financial crisis. The challenge for the rest of us it to keep this country and this world from slipping into chaos when the system does collapse under its own largess.
