Sep 19, 2012

Why do the Evils Only Do Evil Things?


I have a question as to why the evils only do evil things in hero movies.

I'm somehow virtuous and evil at the same time. Usually I want to be virtuous, but sometimes I also want to be evil. I can't always keep being virtuous or evil.

I guess that it's easier to be a hero than an evil, because being evil seems to be more stressful than being heroic. Generally it's more possible to be accepted by people around you, when you are virtuous. If you wanted to be evil, you should expect that you would be kept out of your society.

Of course sometimes you could be alone, because you are virtuous, and you could get company, because you are evil. But it's quite tough to keep being only evil.

Primarily, I couldn't be sure what is virtuous or evil. Why do the evils in hero movies look so confident with their evilness? How do they believe in their evilness?

I wrote about heroes and evils in my entry "American Heroes after September 11."

I am interested in the raison d'etre of heroes. If there were no evil in this world, we wouldn't need any heroes. Batman's raison d'etre is Joker. If Joker is gone, Batman also should be gone. Joker will never kill Batman and Batman will never kill Joker. Justice and evil are two sides of the same coin.

I think that heroes and evils, and justice and evil are interdependent with each other. Heroes couldn't be heroes without evils, because they can't believe that they always are virtuous without evils. If heroes want to always to keep being virtuous, evils also must always keep being evil. So "Joker will never kill Batman and Batman will never kill Joker."

I wrote about the conflict between China and Japan about the Senkaku islands in the previous entry "We Should Be Clever Enough Not to Be Controlled by Our Governments But to Control Our Own Governments."

For Chinese people, who go to the demonstration against Japan, Japan is evil, and their claim that Japan is evil makes them confident that they are virtuously stronger. It's true that the Japanese army in World War II did many evil things, but Japanese people including the Japanese army can't always keep being evil. Chinese government wants to make themselves Batman and Japan Joker, but we actually are not as evil as Joker.

In World War II the governments of U.S.A and Japan made horrible propaganda campaigns, which claimed that their enemies were so evil. And this propaganda made the U.S. army and Japanese army crueler, because they thought they could do anything cruel against such evil enemies. If you were interested in their propaganda, I recommend you to read John Dower's book "War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War."

After World War II countries around Japan have been insisting that Japan is evil, and we ourselves think that we are evil to some extent. So we feel guilty about our patriotism. But we are tired of playing as Joker for 60 years.

Osama bin Laden might think of himself as a hero and of George Bush Jr. as an evil. Osama bin Laden needed George Bush Jr. and George Bush Jr. needed Osama bin Laden. The desire of George Bush Jr. becoming a hero made Osama bin Laden more evil for him.

The movie "the Dark Knight" asked about the relation between justice and evil. I think that it's sound to have suspicion about this problem, because that helps us avoid us being like Osama bin Laden or George Bush Jr.

I'm afraid that Japan will become really evil, if Chinese government keeps claiming that Japan is evil.



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