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Speaker 1: Alson Media.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about stuff

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Speaker 2: falling apart and how it can maybe come back together.

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Speaker 2: I'm Garrison Davis. Joining me today is Mia Wong. Hello. Hello.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know what this episode is about. I

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Speaker 1: have been told the words David Graeber, and that's that's

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Speaker 1: that's all I know.

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Speaker 2: Gra Graber will will come up. So we've we've been

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Speaker 2: We've had a lot of you know, upsetting stuff that

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Speaker 2: that's been covered on the pod recently. It's it's it's

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Speaker 2: not a it's not it's not a great time in

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Speaker 2: the world. It's a lot of upsetting things happening. But

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Speaker 2: I thought we we might get a small reprieve from

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Speaker 2: all of the all of the uh real real world

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Speaker 2: chaos and mayhem to talk about some fake world chaos

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Speaker 2: and mayhem. And it's also the it's also you know,

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Speaker 2: it's we are we are vastly approaching the holiday season,

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Speaker 2: which means that I I think next week am doing

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Speaker 2: my yearly Batman Returns watch party, which I am extremely

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Speaker 2: excited about. Is it's gonna it's gonna be a fun time, uh,

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Speaker 2: which is it's probably it's probably the best Batman movie.

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Speaker 2: Oh No, it's just about the aesthetics. The aesthetics are unparalleled.

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Speaker 2: But I'm discovering what this episode is about. But there

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Speaker 2: is another Batman movie that's also set during winter time,

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Speaker 2: which is also also very political, because Batman Returns is

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Speaker 2: weirdly political. We have the Penguin running for mayor. It

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Speaker 2: exposes the the corrupt core of our political system. And

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Speaker 2: there is another Batman movie, also set during winter that

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Speaker 2: tries to expose the corrupt core of the political system,

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Speaker 2: which is Christopher Nolans twenty twelve. The Dark Knight Rises,

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Speaker 2: a not very good movie which which I think we

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Speaker 2: have We have referenced before because there's this one essay

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Speaker 2: by one David Graber which really gets into the film

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Speaker 2: which we're gonna which we're gonna get to. But the

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Speaker 2: reason why I actually put together this episode, or I

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Speaker 2: wanted to do this, is because when I was at

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Speaker 2: the Ghost conference earlier this year in Seaside, Oregon, as

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Speaker 2: you can listen to that two parter which came out

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Speaker 2: last Halloween, I got a whole bunch of old magazines

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Speaker 2: from this conspiracy talk radio host. Now I love collecting

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Speaker 2: old magazines. I find them endlessly fascinating. We have this

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Speaker 2: one from two thousand and three called MK Zine. Uh

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Speaker 2: oh no. On the cover, we have a mind control,

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Speaker 2: ritual abuse and political implications, the cult of national insecurity.

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Speaker 2: I've not I've not flipped through this one super in

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Speaker 2: depth before because I'm more taken aback by the other

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Speaker 2: magazine I got from twenty twelve called Paranoia the Conspiracy Reader.

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Speaker 2: On this cover, we have beyond MK Ultra Satellite Terrorism

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Speaker 2: in America, science fiction or space faction. Oh no, and

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Speaker 2: Dark Knight kill programming, which is obviously the one we're

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Speaker 2: going to be talking about here today. No is this

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Speaker 2: the Sandy thing? No? No, this is this is this

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Speaker 2: will briefly get into the Aurora mass shooting because this

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Speaker 2: comes up in this in this article. I'm not going

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Speaker 2: to get too into that's actually not the focus.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm realizing, I'm confusing, my you're confusing.

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Speaker 1: Your's actually no twelve mass shootings. No, there's that because

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Speaker 1: there is actually a Alex Jones conspiracy that there was

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Speaker 1: predictive programming in the Dark Knight returns or the Dark

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Speaker 1: Knight rises.

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Speaker 2: That's what this is going to be about. Oh okay, Okay, okay, yes,

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Speaker 2: this is by discount Alex Jones, Clyde Lewis, who lives

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Speaker 2: in power. Goddamn it. There's there's some pretty fun stuff

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Speaker 2: in this issue, which we might get to later at

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Speaker 2: the end to kind of close out all of our

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Speaker 2: political mamba jomba that that we will actually get into

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Speaker 2: as well. But I want to first look at how

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Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists read this movie and how they read the

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Speaker 2: political aspects of this movie, because this movie is obviously

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Speaker 2: very political if you've seen it, we will we will

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Speaker 2: get into some of some of the stuff, but I

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Speaker 2: want to I want to talk about how these conspiracy

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Speaker 2: theorists saw this movie because the way that they do

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Speaker 2: political analysis of media is very different from the way

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Speaker 2: actual academics and people who take this stuff seriously do

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Speaker 2: political analysis of media. And I think there's an interesting

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Speaker 2: juxtaposition there. So this is this is the cover page

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Speaker 2: for this story. The Storm is coming.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, no, saves one already off for bands start, yes, yes,

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Speaker 3: all right, So I will read a little bit from

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Speaker 3: this magazine and then we can kind of talk about

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Speaker 3: it and then compare to uh to our our colleague

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Speaker 3: David Graeber, as I was watching Christopher Nolans The Dark

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Speaker 3: Knight Rises, I didn't know the political substance right away,

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Speaker 3: which is a great way to start.

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Speaker 4: This because the film is so obviously political. This this movie,

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Speaker 4: like the Reeple whoever like this movie like starts with

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Speaker 4: Bain literally saying he's going to occupy Wall Street and

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Speaker 4: like seizing beflow.

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Speaker 2: See this is Wall Street, this, this is this is

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Speaker 2: what we will soon be debated. But anyway, I only

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Speaker 2: saw it as a bit of predictive programming and a

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Speaker 2: believable scenario as to how it might all begin. In

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Speaker 2: The Dark Knight Rises, Catwoman as Selena Kyle and Batman

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Speaker 2: as Bruce Wayne are dancing at a socialight gathering when

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Speaker 2: Selena purs in his ear. There's a storm coming, mister Wayne.

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Speaker 2: As it turns out, The Dark Knight Rises is a

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Speaker 2: damning indictment of the anti corporate movement and the threat

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Speaker 2: of social chaos it poses. Despite rallying people around their

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Speaker 2: deceased hero Harvey Dent, the rich are losing their grip

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Speaker 2: on Gotham City. Antagonist Bain played by Tom Hardy, and

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Speaker 2: his League of Shadows rise up against the bankers and

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Speaker 2: the elite billionaires like Bruce Wayne and attack Wall Street,

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Speaker 2: savagely beating the rich while promising the good people of

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Speaker 2: Gotham that tomorrow you claim what is right for yours.

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Speaker 2: Bain's organized violence against the wealthy evokes the reality of

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Speaker 2: Occupy Wall Street, but Bain is no Robin Hood. He

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Speaker 2: is plotting a massive transfer of wealth through stock exchange

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Speaker 2: after inciting civil unrest and taking control of cutting age

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Speaker 2: weapons technologies whose algorithm can be directly traced to Bruce Wayne,

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Speaker 2: software which will avail them from the fortunes of the rich.

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Speaker 2: As the war between the people and the police in

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Speaker 2: the Dark Knight Rises indicates, the predictive programming of statistical

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Speaker 2: data could very well undermine the one percent and send

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Speaker 2: them into the streets where the disgruntled will eat them.

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Speaker 2: Fraudulent practices will be exposed, identity theft, credit card fraud,

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Speaker 2: securities fraud, and a number of other practices that the

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Speaker 2: elite do in order to bilk the poor out of

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Speaker 2: their money. This is one interesting thing about these sorts

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Speaker 2: of kind of conspiracy radio guys, how they're both against

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Speaker 2: the elite but also fundamentally also for the elite. Like

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Speaker 2: this film is celebrated as being you know, like it's

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Speaker 2: deriding the anti corporate occupy movement, which they hate because

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Speaker 2: they hate they would dislike, you know, a left wing

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Speaker 2: popular uprising. But in the end they actually prefer this

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Speaker 2: corporate like illuminati to the actual alternative.

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Speaker 1: Well, and it's it's interesting too, Like the ways that

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Speaker 1: they think that, like rich people exploit people is through.

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Speaker 2: Like credit card fraud is like that, that's how you

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Speaker 2: think rich people get rich, Like really, like all right,

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Speaker 2: we are almost at the end here. Christopher Nolan's epic

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Speaker 2: sounds the alarm of the advent of an organized puppet

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Speaker 2: master anarchy that plans to topple the government by exposing

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Speaker 2: and gutting the fortunes of the elite. In real life,

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Speaker 2: it might look like an occupy. In this reads sands

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Speaker 2: and evil drums soundtrack pounding out the perennial battle between

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Speaker 2: the haves and the have nots, while the dark Knight

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Speaker 2: rises acknowledges the systemic inequality and injustice. It is not

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Speaker 2: the rich, but anarchy that is the bane of Gotham's existence.

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Speaker 2: Get It, Get it on. Nolan portrays the occupy anti

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Speaker 2: hero bane as a demagogue, ultimately seeking to speculate on

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Speaker 2: legitimate grievances and when Baine or hands the reigns of

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Speaker 2: power over to the people, they really won't know what

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Speaker 2: to do with it, which is something that never happens

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Speaker 2: in the movie. By the way. Oh now this is

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Speaker 2: at this point Clyde Lewis stops talking to the movie

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Speaker 2: and instead it talks about this bit of predictive programming

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Speaker 2: in the movie, which has which has a few kind

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Speaker 2: of aspects. Then there is the intriguing subplot that seemingly

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Speaker 2: seeped into reality on the eve of The Dark Knight

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Speaker 2: Rise's release, that a software company takes its findings to

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Speaker 2: the Supreme Court and exposes so called political heroes which

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Speaker 2: would lead to riots and marauding shooters creating mass casualties.

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Speaker 2: Imagine that intelligence is aware of the threat and issues

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Speaker 2: a declassified memo from the Department of Homeland Security warning

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Speaker 2: law enforcement that terrorists could be killing people in movie theaters.

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Speaker 2: All that is needed is the catalyzing event, and immediately

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Speaker 2: the police estate is activated. Flash riots take place in cities,

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Speaker 2: civil unrest bruise under the radar. Truth becomes stranger than

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Speaker 2: fiction as we examine the media stories surrounding the main

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Speaker 2: story of the so called brainwashed low nut James Holmes

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Speaker 2: opening fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on

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Speaker 2: July twenty, twenty twelve, and allegedly killing twelve and injuring

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Speaker 2: fifty nine others. Interesting use of the word allegedly there

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Speaker 2: in regarding regarding the people that were killed. Oh boy.

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Speaker 2: And then the next sentence is really where things pick up.

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Speaker 2: Not only is James Holmes connected to the neuroscience super

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Speaker 2: Soldier Peak Soldier performance experiments, but his fa there works

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Speaker 2: for a software company that analyzes fraud. So I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to actually read the next bit because it is

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Speaker 2: just the ramblings of conspiracy brained lunatic who thinks that

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Speaker 2: because the shooter's dad was a neuroscientist, that therefore his

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Speaker 2: son must have been this victim of a super soldier

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Speaker 2: program to brainwash you to activate the police state once

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Speaker 2: you receive a bit of predictive programming, and the other

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Speaker 2: will I will get to one other paragraph and then

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Speaker 2: will be done with this article, because there's really not

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Speaker 2: much more substance quote. The chilling predictive programming looming behind

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Speaker 2: the dark Knight Rises does not escape at least the

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Speaker 2: unconscious of those watching. Bain, the leader of the fictional

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Speaker 2: anarchist mob, decides to plant bombs in the Gotham underground,

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Speaker 2: the final target being a stadium where the Mayor of

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Speaker 2: Gotham attends a sports event. A young boy sings the

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Speaker 2: national anthem with a British act scent. Bain pauses to

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Speaker 2: listen to the distinct voice, then says Nott the gerberge brigand,

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Speaker 2: after which the stadium is bombed and the mayor is

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Speaker 2: killed in his reserved viewing box. Now, Clyde Lewis believes

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Speaker 2: that this was a bit of predictive programming in order

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Speaker 2: to prepare people for a mash casualty event at the

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Speaker 2: London twenty twelve Olympics, which you might you might know

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Speaker 2: did not happen. Was not yea was not a thing.

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Speaker 2: But he is convinced that this is part of some

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Speaker 2: predictive programming to either trigger this event, or cover up

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Speaker 2: this event, or allude to this event again an event

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Speaker 2: that did not happen. So that's you know, as as

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Speaker 2: as we're going to be talking about, you know, how

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Speaker 2: people view mass uprising and political movements in media. For

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Speaker 2: the for the rest of this episode. This is how

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Speaker 2: a certain sect of conservative does their own media analysis,

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Speaker 2: which I think is a really is a really fun,

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Speaker 2: really fun look into how their brains operate sorting a

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Speaker 2: very political film into these into these predictive programming boxes.

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Speaker 2: But we will we will return to talk about the

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Speaker 2: Virgin David Graeber and the Chad Mark Fisher. After this

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Speaker 2: ad break, we are back. I am. I am waiting

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Speaker 2: watching for the rich to be thrown from their balconies

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Speaker 2: as wealth as redistributed and a man in a very

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Speaker 2: fancy coat takes over a sporting event. So I read

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Speaker 2: almost every like serious political analysis of the doctment rices

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Speaker 2: that I could find from fascists, from conservatives, from liberals,

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Speaker 2: and from leftists and anarchists. Everyone agrees that this film

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Speaker 2: has some very very obvious occupy parallels. We're going to

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Speaker 2: get into how much of those are actually kind of

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Speaker 2: built into the film's production versus how much of those

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Speaker 2: are more or less coincidental. Now unfortunately for me, not

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Speaker 2: actually unfortunately, because I actually do like Graber a lot,

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Speaker 2: but his analysis was by far the best out of

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Speaker 2: anybody else's in regards to this film. Unfortunately, the UH

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Speaker 2: the schizoid, acid fueled chaos magic of Mark Fisher kind

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Speaker 2: of paled in comparison to the precision of the anthropologist

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Speaker 2: David Graeber in terms of their analysis of this film,

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Speaker 2: but both of them had roughly the same opinion. Graber

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Speaker 2: has just went into a lot more depth about how

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Speaker 2: kind of this film actually politically operates. So I'll be

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Speaker 2: mostly talking about in quoting from Graber, with a few

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Speaker 2: things from Fisher kind of mixed in, and then we'll

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Speaker 2: compare it to some stuff in Breitbart and The Daily

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Speaker 2: Caller and a few other reactions from liberals who enjoyed

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Speaker 2: the film too much and are are are unwilling to

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Speaker 2: kind of seed this conservative ground to Nolan's twenty twelve film.

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Speaker 2: And I think this is actually really interesting to talk

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Speaker 2: about this film this year after the release of Oppenheimer,

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Speaker 2: which I think is Nolan's probably most politically mature work.

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Speaker 2: And he has definitely grown a lot in the past

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Speaker 2: ten years as a filmmaker, at least in terms of

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Speaker 2: his ability to get into politics in a way that

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Speaker 2: is not just purely reactionary, where I think a lot

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Speaker 2: of his early films are kind of absorbed by this reactionariness,

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Speaker 2: and I think I think he has matured a decent bit,

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Speaker 2: at least as as a political filmmaker. So we will

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Speaker 2: start with a paragraph from Graber quote Christopher Nolan's Batman.

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Speaker 2: The Dark Knight Rises, not the title of the film

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Speaker 2: is really a piece of anti occupy propaganda. Christopher Nolan,

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Speaker 2: the director, claims that the script is written before the

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Speaker 2: movement even started, and that the famous scenes of the

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Speaker 2: occupation of New York Gotham City were really inspired by

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Speaker 2: Dickens's account of the French Revolution. This is probably true,

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Speaker 2: but it's disingenuous. Everyone knows Hollywood scripts are continually rewritten

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Speaker 2: while movies are in production, and when it comes to messaging,

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Speaker 2: even details like precise wording or where a scene a

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Speaker 2: shot can make all the difference. Then there's the fact

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Speaker 2: that the villains actually do attack the stock Exchange. Still,

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Speaker 2: it's precisely this ambition, the filmmaker's willingness to take on

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Speaker 2: the great issues of the day that ruins the movie.

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Speaker 2: So the script was written well before Occupy started. Shooting

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Speaker 2: for Dark Knight Rises ended two months after the start

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Speaker 2: of Occupy. Most of the shooting for the film took

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Speaker 2: place before Occupy even happened, and now in twenty eleven,

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Speaker 2: it was widely misreported that the movie was going to

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Speaker 2: be filming at Occupy itself, which started from like I

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Speaker 2: think something in the La Times, which just got blown out,

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Speaker 2: blown out of proportion. Was not true. They did shoot

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Speaker 2: in New York, but they did not shoot at Occupy

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Speaker 2: yeampubliccause you would have got run out probably Now, leading

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Speaker 2: up to twenty eleven, both Nolan and what became Occupy

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Speaker 2: were on very similar conceptual roads. They were just leading

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Speaker 2: to two very different places. The Dark Knight released in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the two thousand and eight financial crisis,

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Speaker 2: right after the two thousand and eight writers strike ended,

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Speaker 2: so there were a lot of class issues circling around

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Speaker 2: in Nolan's bubble. So it made sense that Nolan's next

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Speaker 2: Batman flick would tackle these things that rose to cultural

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Speaker 2: prominence by the time he finished The more Patriot Act

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Speaker 2: inspired at The Dark Knight. Now, Nolan and other writers

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Speaker 2: obviously saw economic inequality and corruption seating people's anger and

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Speaker 2: the rising possibility of civil unrest, and that was put

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Speaker 2: into the script and then it just happened two months

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Speaker 2: before they finished shooting. Now Nolan also took a lot

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Speaker 2: from the Tale of Two Cities. This probably more than

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Speaker 2: anything else. The Dark Knight rices is actually based on

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Speaker 2: the Tale of Two Cities, a passage of which is

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Speaker 2: read at the end of the film, And there's plenty

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Speaker 2: of parallels to the Front Revolution, including the storming of Bestile.

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Speaker 2: Actually two prison breaks inside the Dark Knight rises. There

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Speaker 2: is the release of Black Eight, and then there's of

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Speaker 2: course when Bruce Wayne escapes the giant hole in the

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Speaker 2: ground and frees the other prisoners as well. So still,

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Speaker 2: throughout all of these kind of class issues that Nolan

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Speaker 2: is talking about in this film, he still shows a

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Speaker 2: deep distrust of populism, or at the very least feared

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Speaker 2: how easily it could be subverted in a charged financial climate.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to read one quote from Fisher here. Quote.

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Speaker 2: When Nolan revived the Batman franchise in two thousand and five,

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Speaker 2: the setting Gotham in the midst of an economic depression

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Speaker 2: seemed like an achronistic reference to the superhero's origins in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties. Two thousand and eight, the Dark Knight

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Speaker 2: was too early to register the impact of the financial crisis,

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Speaker 2: but the Dark Knight Rises clearly attempts to respond to

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Speaker 2: the two thousand and eight situation. The film isn't this

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Speaker 2: simple conservative parable that the right wingers would like, But

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Speaker 2: in the end it is a reactionary vision, which I

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Speaker 2: think is the fairest way to look at this film.

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Speaker 2: But now we're going to go deep into into Graber's analysis,

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Speaker 2: which is by far, probably one of the best write

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Speaker 2: ups on twentieth century superheroes and their role in American culture.

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Speaker 1: It's my it's my favorite by far. This is the

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Speaker 1: one that I always like push on people when people

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Speaker 1: talk about Marvel.

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Speaker 2: Because yes, no, absolutely, I mean this is this is

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Speaker 2: an essay that you've referenced a lot on this show.

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Speaker 2: I've been I've been going into a bit of a

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Speaker 2: graver resurgence lately. I deeply enjoyed his essay on Puppets,

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Speaker 2: which I'm going to respond to by writing an essay

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Speaker 2: on why nihilists hate puppets and except the U and

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Speaker 2: accept the adversarial framing of the police. But that is

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Speaker 2: a digression. Now we will we will get back to

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Speaker 2: Graber's essay in the New Inquiry titled Superposition.

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Speaker 1: Oh the thing, the thing I want to mention here

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Speaker 1: about this essays he wanted to oh god, what was that?

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Speaker 1: He wanted to call it on Batman and the problem

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Speaker 1: of constituent power, but they wouldn't let him do it.

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Speaker 2: So it's well super position instead. This is that is

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Speaker 2: certainly what it's actually about, constituent power. We will get

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Speaker 2: to that very shortly. So quote. Superheroes are a product

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Speaker 2: of their historical origins. Superman is a Depression era displaced

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Speaker 2: to Iowa farmboy. Peter Parker, a product of the sixties,

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Speaker 2: is a smartass, working class kid from Queens. Batman, the

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Speaker 2: billionaire playboy, is the scion of the military industrial complex

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Speaker 2: that was created just as he was at the beginning

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Speaker 2: of World War Two. I will say the early origins

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Speaker 2: of Batman are far divorced from that, but that is

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Speaker 2: certainly what Batman has evolved into. Quote. These heroes are

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Speaker 2: purely reactionary in a literal sense. They have no projects

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Speaker 2: of their own, at least not in their roles as heroes.

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Speaker 2: Almost never do superheroes make, create, or build anything. The villains,

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Speaker 2: in contrast, are endlessly creative. They are full of plans

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Speaker 2: and projects and ideas. Clearly we are supposed to at first,

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Speaker 2: without constently realizing it, identify with the villains. After all,

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Speaker 2: they're the ones having all the fun. Then, of course

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Speaker 2: we feel guilty about it, reidentify with the hero and

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Speaker 2: have even more fun watching the super ego clubbing the

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Speaker 2: the Errant. It back into submission. This essay that Grab

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Speaker 2: wrote is very Freudian. Craper makes a lot of freud

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Speaker 2: references in this. I'm not gonna be getting into that

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Speaker 2: as much, but superheroes are also very very Freudian.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to I want to say one thing

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Speaker 1: about this specific passage or specifically the the the way

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Speaker 1: that you're encouraged identify with the hero and then like

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Speaker 1: that gets like that gets subverted. You're supposed to come

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Speaker 1: back to the hero.

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Speaker 2: So this used to be a kind of so to

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Speaker 2: identify with the villain and then yeah, and then come

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Speaker 2: back back to the era.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so and this is part this works as like

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Speaker 1: a conserv ave project of conservative ideology, and this used

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Speaker 1: to be like an implicit thing in these movies. And

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Speaker 1: then you get to Black Panther, which is literally well

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Speaker 1: literally they just like that. That is just the me,

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Speaker 1: like like they they stopped being subtle and we're like, hey,

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Speaker 1: here's a guy who's an anti imperial list and then

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Speaker 1: the ending reveal is, oh my god, he's actually evil.

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Speaker 2: In terms of Marvel, I would say, yes, I think

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Speaker 2: my two favorite superhero movies, which would be Tim Burton's

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Speaker 2: Batman and Batman Returns, do the reverse of this where

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Speaker 2: very obviously the villain is the main characters of both

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Speaker 2: of those and Batman is really just a side character.

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Speaker 2: And I think that was actually work better for this

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Speaker 2: medium so much more. Oh yeah, but when it comes

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Speaker 2: to Marvel, absolutely, yeah, yeah, they're just like openly doing this. Now.

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Speaker 2: It's really sort of like, yeah, it was what the

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Speaker 2: second one's about? Two? Yes, yes now. Grayber then talks

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Speaker 2: about kind of what the project of these comic books

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Speaker 2: were originally supposed to be and how that kind of

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Speaker 2: continues on today into pop culture. Quote. Politically speaking, superhero

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Speaker 2: comic books can seem pretty innocuous. If all a comic

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Speaker 2: is trying to do is tell a bunch of adolescent

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Speaker 2: boys that everyone has a certain desire for chaos and mayhem,

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Speaker 2: but ultimately such desires need to be controlled, the implications

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Speaker 2: would not seem especially dire, especially because the message still

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Speaker 2: does carry a healthy dose of ambivalence. After all, the

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Speaker 2: heroes of even the most rightly ining action movies seem

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Speaker 2: to spend much of their time mashing up suburban shopping malls,

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Speaker 2: something that many of us would like to do at

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Speaker 2: some point in our lives. In the case of most

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Speaker 2: comic book superheroes, however, the mayhem has an extremely conservative

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Speaker 2: political implication. This is where we can start getting into

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Speaker 2: God versus the people and using both of these things

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Speaker 2: as constructs. Right, neither of these things really fully exist

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Speaker 2: in a super material way. Both of these things are

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Speaker 2: constructs quote unquote God, quote unquote the people. They both

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Speaker 2: occupy a very similar ontological role, and this is something

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Speaker 2: that Graper gets into quote any power capable of creating

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Speaker 2: a system of law cannot itself be bound by them.

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Speaker 2: In the Middle Ages, the solution was simple. The legal

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Speaker 2: order was created either directly or indirectly by God. The English,

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Speaker 2: American and French revolutions changed all that when they created

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Speaker 2: the notion of popular sovereignty, declaring that the power once

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Speaker 2: held by kings and by extension, God, is now held

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Speaker 2: by an entity called the people. The people, however, are

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Speaker 2: bound by the laws. They are able to create the

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Speaker 2: laws through those revolutions themselves. But of course revolutions are

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Speaker 2: acts of law breaking, so laws emerge from illegal activity.

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Speaker 2: This creates a fundamental incoherence and the very idea of

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Speaker 2: modern government, which assumes that the state has a monopoly

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Speaker 2: on the legitimate use of violence. It's okay for police

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Speaker 2: to use violence because they are enforcing the law. The

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Speaker 2: law is legitimate because it's rooted in the constitution. The

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Speaker 2: constitution is legitimate because it comes from the people. That

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Speaker 2: people create the constitution by acts of illegal violence. It

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Speaker 2: all circles back on itself. Quote. The obvious question then,

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Speaker 2: is how does one tell the difference between the people

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Speaker 2: and a mere rampaging mob, Which is a question that

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Speaker 2: comes up all the time across the political spectrum, from

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Speaker 2: anarchists to fascists to liberals. This is a debate that

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Speaker 2: still goes on. Is without the law, what is the

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Speaker 2: difference between the people and just a lynch mob. Now

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Speaker 2: Graber doesn't really give an answer to this, because this

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Speaker 2: doesn't really have an answer. This is a very vague question,

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Speaker 2: and kind of, as Graver points out, it's vague by design. Quote.

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Speaker 2: The response by mainstream, respectable opinion is to push this

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Speaker 2: problem as far away as possible. The usual line is

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Speaker 2: that the age of revolutions is over. Now we can

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Speaker 2: change the constitution or legal standards by legal means. This

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Speaker 2: of course means that the basic structures will never change, unquote.

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Speaker 2: And this is where kind of Graver talks about how

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Speaker 2: the role of tradition has totally taken over the legal

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Speaker 2: implications of our system. Here, how the US, which was

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Speaker 2: you know, at once progressive in its like in its

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Speaker 2: electoral college and two party system, is now quite old

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Speaker 2: fashioned compared to a lot of other you know, popular

431
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 2: democratic countries. There's a good line quote we base the

432
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 2: legitimacy of the whole system on the consent of the people,

433
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 2: despite the fact that the only people who were ever

434
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 2: really consulted on the matter lived over two hundred years

435
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 2: ago in America at least, quote unquote, the people are

436
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 2: long since dead. So now we have this situation that

437
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: we have this idea of the legal order which comes

438
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 2: from God, which then came from armed revolution, and now

439
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: it just comes from this idea of sheer tradition. Now

440
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 2: there's obviously a lot of American politicians who would want

441
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 2: to give this power back to God.

442
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, but even then I was like, it's really hard

443
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: to actually do that. Like, even governments that are very

444
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,880
Speaker 1: explicitly theocratic, like for example, like Oron, it's like, well,

445
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 1: they still have elections and they still have this like

446
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:44,239
Speaker 1: the notion of popular sovereignty belonging to the people is

447
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: very hard to dislodge unless you're going to straight up

448
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: impose a monarchy. And even a lot of the monarchies

449
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 1: now are like, you know, they follow the European thing

450
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: of like claiming to like derive the authority from the

451
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: people or something.

452
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: Sure, but we also we also have people like like

453
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 2: a Wall Michael Knowles, who are very openly like Castlic monarchists,

454
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 2: who yeh, you're getting a lot of prominence in American culture.

455
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's a like, I don't know, I

456
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: wish them bad luck.

457
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 2: Yes, that is a that is a more moderate thing

458
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 2: I wish upon them. So back to Graber, quote, for

459
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 2: the radical left and the authoritarian right, the problem of

460
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 2: constituent power is very much alive, but each takes dimetrically

461
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 2: opposite approaches to the fundamental question of violence. Unquote. Now,

462
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: I think this is something that has I'd be interested

463
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,880
Speaker 2: to see Graber revisit this idea now. Unfortunately that cannot

464
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 2: be the case, because this question of violence has certainly

465
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 2: evolved a lot in the ten years in which he

466
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 2: wrote this, both in terms of how the alt right operates,

467
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 2: but also also in terms of how the quote unquote

468
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 2: left views violence as a necessary political tool. But getting

469
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 2: into his analysis of the twentieth century, I think it

470
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 2: is still fairly accurate quote. The left, chastised by the

471
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 2: disasters of the twentieth century, has largely moved away from

472
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 2: its older celebration of revolutionary violence, preferring nonviolent forms of resistance.

473
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 2: Those who act in the name of something higher than

474
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 2: the law can do so precisely because they don't act

475
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 2: like a rampaging mob. For the right, on the other hand,

476
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 2: and this has been true since the rise of fascism

477
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 2: in the twenties, the very idea that there is something

478
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 2: special about revolutionary violence, anything that makes it different from

479
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 2: mere criminal violence, is so much self righteous twaddle. Violence

480
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 2: is violence, but that doesn't mean a rampaging mob can't

481
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 2: be the people, because violence is the real source of

482
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 2: law and political order. This is why, as Walter Benjamin noted,

483
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 2: we cannot help but admire the great criminal, because, as

484
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 2: so many movie posters have put it, he makes his

485
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 2: own law. After all, any criminal organization does inevitably begin

486
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 2: developing its own, often quite elaborate set of internal laws.

487
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:58,880
Speaker 2: They have to as a way of controlling what would

488
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 2: otherwise be completely random violence. From the right wing perspective,

489
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 2: that's all law, ever, is. It is a means of

490
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: controlling the very violence that it brings into being and

491
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 2: through which it is ultimately enforced. Now, I think this

492
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 2: is also true of even certain aspects of the left,

493
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 2: where we have we don't call them laws, we might

494
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 2: call them like community guidelines or something, but we often

495
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 2: actually do this same process, especially in the anarchist kind

496
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 2: of formations that try to replicate gang formations, like purposefully

497
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 2: we get this this same essence that is developed in

498
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: order to people might you know, reject these to the

499
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,880
Speaker 2: word police, but at least, you know, make some kind

500
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 2: of structure that deems which violence is acceptable and which

501
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 2: violence isn't. But back to Graber quote, this makes it

502
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: easier to understand the often surprising affinity between criminals, criminal gangs,

503
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 2: right wing political movements, and the armed representatives of the state. Ultimately,

504
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 2: they speak the same language, they create their own rules

505
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 2: on the basis of force. As a results, they typically

506
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 2: share the same broad political sensibilities. In Athens nowadays, there's

507
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 2: active collaboration between the crime bosses in poor immigrant neighborhoods,

508
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 2: fascist gangs, and the police. In fact, in this case,

509
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,479
Speaker 2: it was clearly a political strategy. Faced with the prospect

510
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 2: of popular uprisings against a right wing government, the police

511
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 2: first withdrew protection from neighborhoods near the immigrant gangs, then

512
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 2: started giving tacit support to the fascists for the far right.

513
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: Then it is in that space where different violent forces

514
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 2: operating outside of the legal order interact that new forms

515
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 2: of power and hence of order can emerge. What does

516
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 2: this have to do with costume superheroes. Well everything, because

517
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 2: this is exactly the space that superheroes and supervillains also inhabit.

518
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 2: An inherently fascist space inhabited only by gangsters would be dictators,

519
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 2: police and thugs with endlessly blurring lines between them. Sometimes

520
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 2: the cops are legalistics, sometimes they're corrupt. Sometimes the police

521
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 2: themselves slip into vigilanteism. Sometimes they pursue the superhero, sometimes

522
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 2: they look the other way. Sometimes they help villains and

523
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 2: heroes a case a team up. The lines of force

524
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 2: are always shifting. If anything new where to emerge, it

525
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 2: could only be through such shifting forces. There's nothing else

526
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 2: since in the DC and Marvel universes, neither God nor

527
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 2: the people really exist. Now this is I think this

528
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 2: is great hitting on something that really actually does hit

529
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 2: at the core of this whole genre is that this

530
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 2: is the genre which is really only inhabited by the

531
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 2: uber mench as this like governing body. Right, there's there

532
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 2: really isn't the God in any kind of meaningful way.

533
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 2: There isn't the people in any kind of meaningful way.

534
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: There is just the super individual, the uber minch himself

535
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 2: is what inspired Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel to create Superman.

536
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 2: Like that, this is this is the origin of this

537
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 2: entire genre.

538
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: By the way I want to I want to mention

539
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: some some comic book nerds are gonna get very angry

540
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: here and be.

541
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:48,959
Speaker 2: Like, Wow, there's some one above all.

542
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: It's like okay, like God, like there are there is

543
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: technically God in this right, but like God is the

544
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: thing that you can beat the crap out of. Like

545
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: it's not God in the sense of like God or

546
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: dame authority is bla bla bla blahah, Like no, it's not.

547
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: It's not the same thing this is. That's not what

548
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: we were talking about. Leave don't be pedanic in the comics,

549
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 1: and I'm.

550
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 2: Talking like as like a literary tradition. God does not

551
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 2: operate as a significant role in these pieces of art

552
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 2: like that that like that, like if you're gonna be

553
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 2: looking at this genre as art for twelve year old boys,

554
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 2: God does not operate in a specific crucial role in

555
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 2: in this world's ontology.

556
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: And it's funny too because one of the things that

557
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: happens after this is there's there's a thing called there's

558
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: a thing called Occupy Avengers, and they make this attempt

559
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: to bring the people.

560
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 2: It's it's a shit show. It is awful.

561
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: It's so bad, like it's well, and it's interesting to

562
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: you because like anytime they try to so that, that

563
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: was an attempt to bring in like sort of the

564
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: people as like a left wing constitutive body, and that

565
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: was a disaster. They tried to do it, like they've

566
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: tried to do it again, but the people exist as this.

567
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 2: Sort of like very right wing like.

568
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: Forced that is like as like this Bob that's constantly

569
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: on the edge of sort of like destroying society whatever,

570
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: and that's been like the most yeah, attempts to do it.

571
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 2: Now, there are certainly attempts to bring in, like the

572
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: American political system into various aspects of comics, whether that's

573
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 2: like Lex Luthor being president, whether it's stuff like in

574
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 2: the I know this stuff and I think it's called

575
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 2: the Immortal Hulk has has has a lot of politics.

576
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 2: But I do think Raper's kind of point here is

577
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 2: still still still accurate and rings true. I have one

578
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 2: other paragraph from Graper then we'll kind of get into

579
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 2: a little bit more more discussion. Quote. Insofar as there

580
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 2: is a potential for constituent power, then it can only

581
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 2: come from purveyors of violence. The super villains and evil masterminds,

582
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 2: when they are not merely indulging in random acts of terror,

583
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 2: are always scheming of imposing a new world order of

584
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 2: some kind or another. Surely, if Red Skull King the

585
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 2: Conqueror or Doctor Doom did ever succeed in taking over

586
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 2: the planet, there'd be lots of new laws created very quickly.

587
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there was actually after he wrote this, there

588
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: was an arc where doctor dun successfully conquered the entire universe,

589
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: and he did, in fact do exactly that, which also

590
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: one another w for common David Graeber w.

591
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 2: Which also does not last very long because if if

592
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 2: that happened for a while, it would make the story incredibly boring. Yeah,

593
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 2: things doing things will always return to the status quo,

594
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 2: which is also another crucial aspect of this genre. That

595
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 2: things have to return to the status quo, which is

596
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: something I will get to very shortly. Back to Greber quote,

597
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 2: although their creator would doubtless not himself feel bounded by them,

598
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 2: superheroes resist this logic. They do not wish to conquer

599
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 2: the world. Now, this is where I'm gonna actually disagree

600
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 2: slightly with Graber. He writes that superheroes quote remain parasitical

601
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 2: off the villains, in the same way that police remain

602
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: parasitical off criminals. Without them, they'd have no reason to exist. Now,

603
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 2: I'd argue that the police actually create the spectral ca

604
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 2: category of criminals to justify their own existence. Yeah, criminals

605
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 2: didn't create the police. It's the other way around, right.

606
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 2: You can look at you can look at like the

607
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 2: way even the past few years, police have been lying

608
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 2: about inflated crime rates to justify their own increased funding.

609
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 2: And now, obviously people always broke social norms, but if

610
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 2: you're looking at the actual, like the actual like political

611
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 2: class of criminal and the political class of police, this

612
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 2: is like it's like everyone has done a crime, right,

613
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 2: Like police commit more crimes than the average person, but

614
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,399
Speaker 2: they do not often get called a criminal. I'm talking

615
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 2: about like a very political class that we call criminal,

616
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 2: and this is something that the police create. And curiously,

617
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 2: in the same way, most superheroes also predate their respective supervillains,

618
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: as it is the presence of the superhero that often

619
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 2: births the adversarial supervillain. We see this across tons of

620
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 2: superhero medias where they use the example of how the

621
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 2: superhero predated the of these theatrical villains, and this is

622
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 2: actually the superhero's fault, right, this is this, This happens in Batman,

623
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,479
Speaker 2: this happens in Spider Man. This is this is very

624
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 2: very common. We even see this in something like The

625
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 2: Boys or The Watchmen, both of which targets superheroes as

626
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 2: a reactionary right wing tendency, which are our line of

627
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 2: the police and military. We we literally have Homelander creating

628
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 2: supervillains to justify his own existence, or super terrorists in

629
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 2: the Watchman, the actual team predates the arrival of many

630
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 2: super villains. So this, this is this is one one

631
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 2: small nitpick I might I might say with this article,

632
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 2: at least in terms of the like the the causality

633
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 2: loop between superheroes and villains and criminals and police. Do

634
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 2: you know what also pre dates all all of us,

635
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 2: every every single person listening. We're gonna have like someone

636
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 2: who's one hundred and the advertising industrial complex predates every

637
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 2: single one of you fuckers. The surrealists burst this hell

638
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 2: hole of h of advertising which tricks your mind via

639
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 2: predictive programming, the ditch to buy this fucking food box. Okay,

640
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 2: we are we are back. We have returned to the

641
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 2: status quo of our podcast. Speaking, speaking of which we're

642
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 2: going to talk about returning to the status quo. So

643
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 2: what what superheroes and the police, which are very ontologically

644
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: similar roles in a lot of cases, what their end

645
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 2: project is is that they seek to maintain what is

646
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 2: and then seek out and destroy anything that threatens to

647
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 2: alter our civilizational fabric. They fundamentally are defenders of the

648
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 2: status quo. That is, that is the that is the

649
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 2: role of the superhero across almost all media. This is why,

650
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 2: if you had the powers of Superman, why are you

651
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 2: just saving cats from trees and instead not fundamentally reshaping

652
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 2: the world in something that is better. Now, this is

653
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: a question that gets tackled by people like Grant Morrison

654
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 2: and Alan Moore. Is to they often give reasons for

655
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 2: why someone shouldn't do that, but still, this is a

656
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 2: fundamental aspect of this genre is that these guys never

657
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 2: really have any generative political project. They are purely reactionary,

658
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:21,240
Speaker 2: and they purely are made to hold up the status

659
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,399
Speaker 2: quo and always return to this single point from which

660
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 2: they emerged. Back to grayber quote, they remain defenders of

661
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 2: a legal and political system which itself seems to have

662
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 2: come out of nowhere, and which, however faulty or degraded,

663
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:39,760
Speaker 2: must be defended because the only alternative is so much worse.

664
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 2: They aren't fascists. They're just ordinary, decent, super powerful people

665
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 2: who inhabit a world in which fascism is the only

666
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 2: political possibility. Why might we ask what a form of

667
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 2: entertainment premised on such a peculiar notion of politics emerge

668
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 2: in the early to mid twentieth century America at just

669
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: around the time that actual fact was on the rise

670
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 2: in Europe. Was it some kind of fantasy American equivalent?

671
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 2: Not exactly. It's more that both fascism and superheroes were

672
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,720
Speaker 2: products of a similar historical predicament. What is the foundation

673
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 2: of social order when one has exercised the very idea

674
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 2: of revolution, and above all, what happens to the political imagination?

675
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,280
Speaker 2: So at this point Graver starts talking about how basically

676
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 2: all power goes to the individual, but the individual who

677
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: is embedded within a system. He discusses how the core

678
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 2: audience for superhero comics are adolescent or pre adolescent, to

679
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 2: white boys. At least that was in the nineteen twenties

680
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 2: or thirties and forties, and roughly is still the case.

681
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 2: It's that these comic books and now Marvel films, although

682
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 2: unfortunately Marvel films have a much broader audience, but they

683
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 2: are targeted to people who are at a point in

684
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 2: their lives where they're like where they're likely to be

685
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 2: both like the most imaginative and a little bit rebellious. Right,

686
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 2: this is the twelve year old white Boy is the

687
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 2: is the thing that that this is targeting. So they're

688
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,399
Speaker 2: both very imaginative, they're a little bit rebellious, but they're

689
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 2: also being groomed to take on positions of power and

690
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 2: authority in the world. Right, They're about to transition to

691
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,919
Speaker 2: being fathers, share of small business owners, middle management. Right.

692
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 2: So this is what this genre is targeted towards. So

693
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 2: what are they supposed to learn from these kind of

694
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 2: endlessly repeating stories that are all very much the same story.

695
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 2: One aspect is that imagination and rebellion will inevitably just

696
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: lead to violence, right, And then second is like imagination

697
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:39,800
Speaker 2: and rebellion violence can actually be a lot of fun,

698
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 2: but ultimately violence must be directed back against any overflow

699
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 2: of imagination and rebellion or else everything will kind of

700
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 2: go into chaos. These things have to be contained. So

701
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 2: this is why superheroes are only allowed I'm gonna I'm

702
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,919
Speaker 2: gonna quote from Graper again quote their imagination can only

703
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,320
Speaker 2: be extended to the design of their clothes, their cars,

704
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 2: maybe their home, and their various successories unquote. Basically, all

705
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 2: of their imagination for the superhero is limited to commodities. Right.

706
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 2: This is this is the fundamental aspect where that's the

707
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 2: only acceptable outlet for your imagination. It's it's it's just

708
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 2: with these, it's just with commodity fetishism like that. That's that,

709
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 2: that's the only possible way. Back to grayber quote, it's

710
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 2: in this sense that the logic of the superhero plot

711
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 2: is profoundly, deeply conservative. Ultimately, the division between left and

712
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 2: right sensibilities turns on one's attitude towards the imagination. For

713
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 2: the left, imagination creativity and by extension, production, the power

714
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 2: to bring new things and new social arrangements into being

715
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 2: is always celebrated. It's the source of all real value

716
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 2: in the world. For the right, it's dangerous and ultimately evil.

717
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 2: The urge to create is also a destructive urge. But

718
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 2: this is also what separates conservatives from fascists. Both agree

719
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 2: that the imagination unleashed can only lead to violence and destruction.

720
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 2: Conservatives wish to defend us against this possibility. Fascists wish

721
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 2: to unleash it anyway. They aspired to be, as Hitler

722
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 2: imagined himself, great artists painting with the minds, bloods, and

723
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 2: sinews of humanity. I think this is a really good

724
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 2: distinction between conservatives and fascists in terms of how they

725
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 2: view creative violence. And to get back to superheroes, I

726
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 2: think this medium, as Grab points out, has this kind

727
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 2: of built in essence of a guilty pleasure. It revels

728
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,720
Speaker 2: in the absurdity of both the costumed heroes and villains,

729
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 2: all while still targeting in imagination which is too expansive

730
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 2: to outside the norm as being the ultimate crime. This

731
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 2: guilty pleasure aspect even applies to the great superhero satires

732
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 2: like The Watchmen and The Boys, which we applaud for

733
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,879
Speaker 2: poking and prodding at the conservative superhero all while still

734
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 2: reveling and watching the outlandish antics on screen or on

735
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,240
Speaker 2: the page. Now. Graver even applies this guilty pleasure aspect

736
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 2: into explaining the kind of the conservative backlash to superheroes

737
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 2: in the forties and fifties, particularly with the book Seduction

738
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 2: of the Innocent, which kind of viewed superheroes as this

739
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 2: weirdly fetishistic kind of naughty impulse, which resulted in superheroes

740
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:13,399
Speaker 2: getting very sanitized and much more much more silly, much

741
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 2: more campy, which all which resulted in the fantastic nineteen

742
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 2: sixty six Batman show. But but but still it kind

743
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 2: of it kind of points at this this this guilty

744
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 2: pleasure aspect. There's there's something inherently kind of naughty about

745
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 2: about viewing this material. All right, we are we are

746
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:33,319
Speaker 2: nearing the end of Graber's analysis here. Quote. If the

747
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 2: message was that rebellious imagination was okay as long as

748
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 2: it was kept out of politics and simply confined to

749
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 2: consumer choices like clothes, cars, and accessories, this had become

750
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 2: the message that even executive Hollywood producers could easily get behind,

751
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 2: which results in stuff like the nineteen sixty six Batman

752
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 2: show and now leading us back into Christopher Nolan, Uh,

753
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: we get we get this. This really good, really good

754
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 2: paragraph from Graber. Quote. If the classic comic book is

755
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 2: extensively political about mad Been trying to take over the world,

756
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 2: but really psychological and personal, about overcoming the dangers of

757
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 2: rebellious adolescents, but then ultimately political after all, then the

758
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 2: new superhero movies are precisely the reverse. They are sensibly

759
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 2: psychological and personal, but really political, but ultimately they go

760
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 2: back to being psychological and personal. So this is me

761
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 2: just ripping. Now let's take Batman begins, right, we have

762
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 2: Racial Ghul, who operates in this psychological role of a

763
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 2: second father for Bruce right after Bruce's training initiation to

764
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 2: the League of Shadows. Only then does Race reveal his

765
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 2: political goals to destroy Gotham and rid the world of corruption.

766
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 2: So this is like the psychological is the first bit,

767
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 2: then it's actually political, and then by the end it

768
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 2: actually it goes all the way back into being truly psychological.

769
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna I'm gonna read one paragraph from Graver,

770
00:43:55,960 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 2: which is only because it has a very funny oh

771
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: two word combination. In the ritual comics, we learned that

772
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: racial Ghoul, a character introduced telling Lee in A nineteen

773
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 2: seventy one, is in fact a zerzen Esque primitivist and

774
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 2: no terrorist, determined to restore the balance of nature by

775
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 2: reducing the Earth's human population by roughly ninety nine percent.

776
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 2: None of the villains in any of the three movies

777
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 2: want to rule the world. They don't wish to have

778
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 2: power over others or to create new rules of any

779
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 2: sort unquote. And I just really like the term Desi

780
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: Esque primitives to describe the seventies racial Ghoul, which is

781
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 2: a deeply a deeply brain poisoned way to describe a

782
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 2: comic book likelier. John Zergeon is an eco anarchist writer

783
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 2: who certain sects of kind of social anarchist theorists liked

784
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 2: to make fun of.

785
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,919
Speaker 1: I think Great Graver's most devastating thing about the premi

786
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 1: of this was calling them all Marxists, because they're the

787
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 1: only people on earth who say it's a program, not

788
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: a critique.

789
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 2: He's very funny.

790
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 1: I think like one of the things that's kind of

791
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: going on here is like everyone who's writing about superhero

792
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: movies is also trying to settle their own grudges a

793
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 1: little bit, and oh absolutely grudges in this is like

794
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,239
Speaker 1: one of Graber's grudges that he was like like he

795
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: was tear gased, like very very close to a lot

796
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: of where these things were shot, like a month before.

797
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: And his second grudge is that he had to spend

798
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,280
Speaker 1: the whole fucking nineties arguing with a bunch of primitivests.

799
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:37,839
Speaker 2: He's very annoying in it because two thousands. Yeah, so

800
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 2: that those those are his grudges going into And I

801
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 2: do believe his his kind of framing of the Nolan

802
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 2: supervillains of not really having any desire to like rule

803
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 2: the world as ringing true. They they really only want

804
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 2: to like wape the slate clean. I think a. Graber

805
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 2: correctly identifies Nolan's supervillains as being primarily some form of anarchist,

806
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 2: just a very peculiar type that really only exists in

807
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: Nolan's imagination. Graber describes them as quote, they are the

808
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 2: anarchists who believe that human nature is fundamentally evil and

809
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 2: corrupt unquote. I think this has taken to its most

810
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 2: obvious extent in the Dark Knight, with the Joker, who

811
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 2: openly claims affiliation with anarchy and fetishizes destruction. His sick

812
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 2: and twisted imagination is the real villain, even with the

813
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 2: backdrop of the film's kind of deceptive war on terror framing. Now,

814
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 2: between the production of The Dark Knight and The Dark

815
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 2: Knight Rices, the funniest thing happened. The economy completely collapsed

816
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, and it wasn't due to

817
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 2: an eco terrorist cult or a clown set on a

818
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 2: total negation. Instead, it was bankers and finance managers and

819
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 2: Wallstree bros. Who became the obvious villains in their quest

820
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: to maintain the lie of endless growth. Millions of people

821
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 2: lost their homes and source of income. So in response,

822
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,839
Speaker 2: there was a whole bunch of popular uprisings that took

823
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 2: place all around the world. Graber lists regimes being toppled

824
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,839
Speaker 2: in the Middle East and people occupying squares everywhere from

825
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 2: Cleveland to Karachi trying to create new forms of democracy.

826
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 2: So there's this resurgence of constituent power, right, and this

827
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 2: imagination driven kind of radical and largely non violent form

828
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 2: of resistance at least hearing the States. And this is

829
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 2: the sort of political situation which superhero universes can never

830
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 2: really fully tackle because it can't exist within their own

831
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 2: weird ontology. To quote Graver or quote in Nolan's world,

832
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 2: something like occupy could only have been the product of

833
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,280
Speaker 2: some tiny group of ingenious manipulators who are really pursuing

834
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,000
Speaker 2: some secret agenda. Why does Bain wish to lead the

835
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 2: people in a social revolution if he's just going to

836
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 2: nuke them all in a few weeks anyway, it's anyone's guess.

837
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 2: He claims that before you destroy someone first, he must

838
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 2: give them hope. So is the message that utopian dreams

839
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 2: can only lead to nihilistic violence presumably it's something like that,

840
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 2: but it's singularly unconvincing, since the plan to kill everyone

841
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:59,959
Speaker 2: came first and the revolution was a decorative afterthought. In fact,

842
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:02,720
Speaker 2: what happens to the city can only possibly make sense

843
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 2: as a material echo of what's been most important, what's

844
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 2: happening in Bruce Wayne's tortured brain. Yeah, it's like it's

845
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 2: a good line, which, yes, yeah, because in the end,

846
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 2: Batman and the police rise from the abyss. Literally in

847
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: both cases, both of them are trapped underground. They both

848
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:27,879
Speaker 2: rise from underground join forces to battle the people occupying

849
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 2: outside of the Gotham City Stock Exchange. Batman fixed his

850
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 2: own death by disposing of this nuclear bomb, and Bruce

851
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 2: Wayne gets to live happily in Florence with the criminal

852
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 2: Selena Kyle. And then a new new phony martyr legend

853
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 2: is born in the role of Batman, and people of

854
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 2: Gotham are returned once again to the status quo. I'm

855
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 2: gonna read kind of Graver's final final kind of overview

856
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 2: of the entirety of this message, right, like, of what

857
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 2: this thing is really trying to convey, right quote, if

858
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 2: they're supposed to be a take message from all of this,

859
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 2: it must run something like, yes, the system is corrupt,

860
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 2: but it's all we have anyway. Figures of authority can

861
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 2: be trusted if they've first been chastised and endued terrible suffering.

862
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 2: Normal police might let children die on the bridges, but

863
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 2: the police who've been buried alive for weeks can employ violence. Legitimately,

864
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 2: charity is much better than addressing structural problems. Any attempts

865
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,879
Speaker 2: to address to such structural problems, even through nonviolent civil disobedience,

866
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 2: really is a form of violence, because that's all it

867
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 2: could possibly be. Imaginative politics are inherently violent, and therefore

868
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 2: there's nothing inappropriate If police respond by smashing protesters' heads

869
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 2: repeatedly against the concrete as a response to occupy, this

870
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 2: is nothing short of pathetic. When The Dark Knight came

871
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 2: out to this in eight, there was much discussion over

872
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 2: whether the whole thing was really just a vast metaphor

873
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 2: for the War on Terror. How far is it okay

874
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:50,919
Speaker 2: for the good guys America obviously to adapt the bad

875
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 2: Guy's methods. The filmmakers managed to respond to these issues

876
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,840
Speaker 2: and still produce a good movie. This is because the

877
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 2: War on Terror actually was a battle of secret networks

878
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 2: and manipulative spectacles. It began with a bomb and ended

879
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 2: with an assassination. One can almost think of it as

880
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 2: an attempt on both sides to actually enact a comic

881
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 2: book version of the universe. Once real constituent power appeared

882
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 2: on the scene, the universe shriveled into incoherence. Revolutions were

883
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 2: sweeping the Middle East, and the US was still spending

884
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 2: hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a ragtag bunch of

885
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:26,239
Speaker 2: seminary students in Afghanistan. Unfortunately for Nolan, for all of

886
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 2: his manipulative powers, the same thing happened to his world

887
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 2: when even the hint of real popular power arrived in

888
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 2: New York. So that is kind of the essence of

889
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 2: Graber's view of this movie. I think it's pretty good.

890
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 2: This is a This is a pretty a pretty solid

891
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 2: take on this. Now, there's obviously people who have opinions

892
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 2: that are less good than this. I'm gonna read I'm

893
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 2: gonna read this. This right up from from these two guys,

894
00:50:55,560 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 2: Jeff Sprousse and Zach Buchemp, who argue that Batman represents

895
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 2: this symbolic defense of liberal democracy, which I think is true,

896
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 2: but the way that they go about their analysis I

897
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 2: think is heavily flawed, because yes, I do think he

898
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 2: represents a defensive liberal democracy. I just don't think that's

899
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 2: necessarily a good thing. Yeah. So they talk about how

900
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 2: fear is the kind of the core emotion across all

901
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 2: of Nolan's Batman films. Right, we have in Batman begins

902
00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 2: fear and takes the form of Scarecrow, as you know,

903
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 2: one of the main villains. But we also have this

904
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: terror of there being a powerful criminal underworld which overwhelms

905
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:40,919
Speaker 2: the power of political and social intitutions that are meant

906
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 2: to address such criminal underworlds. We have Batman, in his

907
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 2: role is to fight injustice by turning quote fear against

908
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 2: those who pray on the fearful right Batman is this

909
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 2: terrifying symbol meant to restore the balance of fear between

910
00:51:56,120 --> 00:52:00,800
Speaker 2: the anarchic private underworld and the gutless public spear to

911
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:03,439
Speaker 2: quote jeffin zax rite up quote. In The Dark Knight,

912
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 2: Nolan continues his examination of the terror of anarchy, as

913
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,239
Speaker 2: well as the potential for the state and allied institutions

914
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 2: to abuse their enormous power. Bain and each of Nolan's

915
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 2: other villains attempt to exploit fear for ideological projects, revenge

916
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 2: or simple fun. Batman aims to channel it to make

917
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:24,240
Speaker 2: his opponent's legitimate grievances subject for debate in an orderly system,

918
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:29,760
Speaker 2: rather than through violent resolution, which is not what Batman does.

919
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 2: Thatman punches people. They were we watching the same movies

920
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 2: quote to entrust Gotham to heroes with a face, as

921
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 2: he says in The Dark Knight, and to democratize Batman

922
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 2: as a symbol that can be embodied by anyone. It's

923
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 2: not that it's not that Christopher Nolan is taking a

924
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:51,760
Speaker 2: side in our political debates. He's simply defending a particular

925
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:57,800
Speaker 2: system through which we address them. Which is nonsense of

926
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 2: a writer from Forbes that this analysis is quach a

927
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 2: beautiful rebuttal to those critics who viewed the film as

928
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 2: fascistic or as a critique of left wing populism. Batman

929
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:12,360
Speaker 2: as the defender of liberal democracy, not of conservatism or liberalism,

930
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 2: but the system itself from the forces of fear and chaos.

931
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 2: Gotham as an examination of the frailties and pressure points

932
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 2: that make this system weak in the face of the

933
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 2: unexpected and uncontrollable. While there is indeed both praise for

934
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:27,839
Speaker 2: the role of civil society in these films, there's also

935
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 2: a portrait of economic inequality that provides the brittleness needed

936
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 2: for men like Bay to truly succeed. This is not

937
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 2: a critique of the government or private sector as so

938
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 2: much as it is a critique of the frailty and

939
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 2: fragility of our system and its institutions and the power

940
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 2: of symbols to combat this fragility, which is a deeply

941
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 2: liberal analysis.

942
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: We're just not even good, like I mean, this is

943
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 1: the thing. This is the thing that really pisses me

944
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,200
Speaker 1: off about. So the cadre of liberal intellectuals that we've

945
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:00,760
Speaker 1: gotten in the last like twenty years is like, look,

946
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:07,600
Speaker 1: you don't have to be like unable to form coherent

947
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 1: and that like it is. It is not a precept

948
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: of liberal of like of like liberal intellectualism that you

949
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 1: are unable to form a coherent argument or do any

950
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 1: piece of analizamble like they used to be able to

951
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: do this, and then at some point, like after the

952
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:23,799
Speaker 1: War on Terror, they just stopped. Now all we have

953
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:25,919
Speaker 1: is like matt Iglesias, and it's like these.

954
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 2: I think this is what a greater talks about when

955
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 2: there's like a fundamental incoherence, And I think this is

956
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:34,399
Speaker 2: really exemplified by like the structure of The Dark Knight,

957
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 2: Rice is. It's a very messy film. The pacing is bad,

958
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 2: the plot is very convoluted. It's it's so it's so plotting,

959
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 2: which is often Nolan's kind of biggest failure as a

960
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 2: as a filmmaker. In my opinion, it's it's it's very

961
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:51,720
Speaker 2: structurally just confusing, whereas The Dark Knight is actually pretty clear.

962
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 2: It still has a few of those weird plot like

963
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 2: super plotty elements, but overall it's it's it's it's much clearer.

964
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 2: But in the wake of the War on Terror and

965
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 2: then financial crash, there's this fundamental incoherence that kind of

966
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 2: seeps into everything. I have two final takes to read.

967
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:09,839
Speaker 2: I know we are getting along here, but I think

968
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 2: it's important to look at what the conservatives and the

969
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 2: fascist rite actually said about this movie, beyond just the

970
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 2: conspiracy rattled ramblings that we started this episode with. This

971
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 2: is from The Daily Caller twenty twelve. The film is

972
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:27,839
Speaker 2: sympathetic to the concerns of the poor and points out

973
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 2: that some who achieve wealth don't earn it legitimately. But

974
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 2: these themes disappear as soon as the hulking terrorist Baine

975
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:38,839
Speaker 2: takes over Gotham City. All that criminals are released, rich

976
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 2: people are executed in sham trials headed up by Baines's

977
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:45,440
Speaker 2: lunatic friends, Government officials and police officers are killed or captured.

978
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 2: Bain claims that he is solving inequality by leveling the

979
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 2: playing field, but his true plan is to perpetuate massive

980
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 2: murder by setting off a nuclear bomb. In this way,

981
00:55:55,200 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 2: viewers see a familiar story unfold, and that's reminiscent of

982
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:05,320
Speaker 2: communist and fascist revolutions in Russia, Germany, Cambodia, and North Korea.

983
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 2: No matter how legitimate criticisms of the economic, political, and

984
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 2: social order may be, any revolution that shatters the rule

985
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 2: of law or eliminates the market entirely well necessarily resulted

986
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 2: in greater inequality, suffering, and death.

987
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: It's so funny you can tell how on the defensive

988
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:23,840
Speaker 1: they are, like in the wake of occupied because you

989
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 1: have these people going like, wait, social inequality is real,

990
00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: but if you try to do anything to it, it's

991
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: also so funny, and this is this is the interesting

992
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: thing about like I think I think the fundamentally incoherence

993
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:35,800
Speaker 1: of it politically is that they've tried to graft the

994
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: French Revolution onto Occupied because like, yes, yes, the two

995
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 1: things that Occupied resolutely refused to do was one have

996
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 1: a leader and two like do any kind of mass violence,

997
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:48,600
Speaker 1: like well, arguably outside of Oakland, but that wasn't even

998
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:50,040
Speaker 1: like what that was like in Oakland.

999
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 2: Sometimes they fought the.

1000
00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 1: Cops, like in New York, like not the only bank

1001
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:56,560
Speaker 1: window in New York that was broken the entire time

1002
00:56:56,880 --> 00:56:59,319
Speaker 1: was I think it was a Bank of America window

1003
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 1: that was broken with a hop smash of protests head

1004
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:02,400
Speaker 1: through it, like.

1005
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:05,239
Speaker 2: That's it's that's why, That's why I really don't think

1006
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:08,560
Speaker 2: the Dornet Rices isn't about Occupy. It just like it

1007
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:12,200
Speaker 2: just isn't It arose from similar conditions that Occupy a

1008
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:14,840
Speaker 2: rose from, and then in its final tunes of filming

1009
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,160
Speaker 2: they did some parallels to Occupy, But it is much

1010
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 2: more about the French Revolution, especially in like Bean is

1011
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 2: like a vanguard, like he is a leader of this

1012
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 2: there is there's no but there's no such rule. And

1013
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 2: Occupy now during during the editing and final production of

1014
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 2: the film, obviously they realize that there is some obvious

1015
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 2: parallels here, which they do they did indulge in. But

1016
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 2: I mean most of the writing and the filming of

1017
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:39,080
Speaker 2: this took place before occupy. I think it just came

1018
00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 2: from a very similar social place. Yeah. Also, though even

1019
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:45,240
Speaker 2: as a French Revolution thing, it's incoherent.

1020
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: Because it's not like it's not like rose Fier got

1021
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 1: in there and was like this is all a secret

1022
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 1: plot executing beggars, like it doesn't make any sense. It's

1023
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 1: like that's why it has that fundamental incoherence, right. Yeah,

1024
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 1: there's one othergraph from the from the Daily Caller. Then

1025
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:06,560
Speaker 1: we will read something from Breitbart, like the communist parties

1026
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:09,840
Speaker 1: of real authoritarian states. Bain and his Cohurtz represent a

1027
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: new ruling class that pretends to care about equality and liberation,

1028
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:17,440
Speaker 1: but in practice resorts to oppression and extreme violence. The

1029
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,960
Speaker 1: film's good guys are Batman and the police officers of Gotham,

1030
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: who bravely go to war to prevent Baine's genocide.

1031
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 2: These guys have these guys.

1032
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 1: Have never had more than two thoughts like consecutively. It's

1033
00:58:34,120 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: surely impressive.

1034
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:38,560
Speaker 2: If the political message of The Darkness Rises seems muddled,

1035
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:42,680
Speaker 2: which it does, it's because real life problems can't be

1036
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:46,320
Speaker 2: solved with Batman. There is no well funded superhero with

1037
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:50,800
Speaker 2: a glut of fancy gadgets and moral incruptibility. No, a

1038
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 2: core Parties films is that Batman is morally corrupt. This

1039
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 2: is sorry. Nor are there villains in America as damning

1040
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:02,840
Speaker 2: and transparently evil is Baine. The film doesn't offer much

1041
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 2: right there. The film doesn't offer much of a practical

1042
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:11,680
Speaker 2: answer for what The film doesn't offer much of a

1043
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 2: practical answer for what to do about inequality, social unrest

1044
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:21,479
Speaker 2: or terrorism. Great great work, daily collar God. Now where

1045
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 2: do they find these guys?

1046
00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: I guess they find these guys from failed actors. So

1047
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 1: makes sense.

1048
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 2: So you mentioned Bush as being an obvious villain. Well,

1049
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 2: Breve Part disagrees. Obviously, Bright Part disagrees. Here is Here's

1050
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 2: here's our final take on on The Dark Knight Rises.

1051
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:43,480
Speaker 2: Quote Bain, a hulk of a man burning with resentment

1052
00:59:43,480 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 2: against a society whose only provocation is being prosperous, generous, welcoming,

1053
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 2: and content instead of miserable like him. That is not

1054
00:59:55,600 --> 01:00:00,320
Speaker 2: Bain's gripes, but anyway, in Gotham sewers Bain recor fruits

1055
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:04,760
Speaker 2: those like himself, the insecure thumbsuckers, raging with a sense

1056
01:00:04,800 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 2: of entitlement, desperate to justify their own laziness and failure,

1057
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 2: and to flaunt a false sense of superiority through oppression, violence, terror,

1058
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 2: and ultimately total and complete destruction As expected, The Dark

1059
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:26,120
Speaker 2: Night Rises is a love letter to Gotham City, its

1060
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 2: flawed but ultimately decent people, its industry and generosity, all

1061
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:35,439
Speaker 2: of which are by products of liberty, free markets, and capitalism.

1062
01:00:35,720 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 2: In other words. In other words, just as The Dark

1063
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 2: Knight was a touching tribute to an embattled George W.

1064
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 2: Bush who chose to be seen as a villain in

1065
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:52,720
Speaker 2: order to be the hero, Rises is a love letter

1066
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:56,160
Speaker 2: to an imperfect America that, in the end always does

1067
01:00:56,240 --> 01:01:00,160
Speaker 2: the right thing. And Nolan loves the American people, the

1068
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 2: wealthy producers who are more often than not trickled down

1069
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:06,680
Speaker 2: their hard earned winnings, the workaday folks who keep our

1070
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 2: world turning a financial system worth saving because the benefits

1071
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 2: it's all, And those everyday warriors who offered their lives

1072
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:16,640
Speaker 2: for the greater good with every punch of a clock.

1073
01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 2: Nolan's love for this country is without qualifiers, and is

1074
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 2: symbolized and all of its unqualified sincerity in the form

1075
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:28,800
Speaker 2: of a beautiful young child sweetly singing a complete version

1076
01:01:28,840 --> 01:01:32,920
Speaker 2: of the Star Spangled Banner, just before Occupy attempts to

1077
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:38,600
Speaker 2: fulfill its horrific vision of what equality really means. Nolan, sorry,

1078
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:38,919
Speaker 2: I can.

1079
01:01:41,000 --> 01:01:44,920
Speaker 1: Like this is this is one passage, this whole thing is.

1080
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:48,440
Speaker 1: It's such a great explanation if you weren't around for it,

1081
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 1: for how the Trump guys just completely blew aside all

1082
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: of the old George Bush coalition because all of the

1083
01:01:54,480 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 1: George Bush guys were fucking like this. They all talked

1084
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:03,160
Speaker 1: like this. It was this like absolutely insufferable. Like since

1085
01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: it's completely completely sincere nonsense, it's crazy. It's still all

1086
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:09,480
Speaker 1: this shit because it.

1087
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 2: Fundamentally misunderstands Nolan's a filmmaker. He is purposely juxtaposing a

1088
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:17,480
Speaker 2: British child singing the Star Spangled Banner at a sporting

1089
01:02:17,560 --> 01:02:21,760
Speaker 2: event with this destruction inherent to America. He's he's, he is,

1090
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:24,320
Speaker 2: He's making these things kind of combat each other like

1091
01:02:24,400 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 2: this is this is actually pretty good framing, and this

1092
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:32,280
Speaker 2: guy fundamentally misunderstands this. Nolan's genius is a filmmakers. Well,

1093
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 2: Nolan's genius as a filmmaker is, without question, the pacing,

1094
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:39,560
Speaker 2: the editing, the performances, the humanity of the duc Knight

1095
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 2: Rises will be talked about for decades, which it doesn't.

1096
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 2: This is by far one of his worst films. This

1097
01:02:45,920 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 2: is widely seen as one of one of his worst films.

1098
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:52,480
Speaker 2: The editing, pacing, performances are all heavily criticized. This is

1099
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 2: actually like a bad movie. I do like the juxtaposition

1100
01:02:56,840 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 2: of the star spangled banner at the sporting event with

1101
01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 2: this like spectacle of destruction. I think that plays very well,

1102
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 2: but like that is this is come on, come on,

1103
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 2: like these are the people who and this is this

1104
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 2: is the thing. This is this.

1105
01:03:10,040 --> 01:03:14,120
Speaker 1: This is why the sort of trumpest like the sort

1106
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:17,480
Speaker 1: of sort of like ironic detachment stuff became so popular,

1107
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:20,360
Speaker 1: because these are the people who listen to Born in

1108
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 1: the USA and are like this rules this rue like

1109
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 1: this is this is this is about how America is good.

1110
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: And it's just like like these people they have nothing,

1111
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:31,040
Speaker 1: there's nothing going on with them. There's just just like

1112
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:33,000
Speaker 1: there's nothing going on in their heads. They don't have

1113
01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:35,760
Speaker 1: any ideas whatsoever. They just have that like they just

1114
01:03:35,800 --> 01:03:40,400
Speaker 1: have this like reflexive flag worship stuff and that it's awful.

1115
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: It's it's like the whole fucking American right was like this.

1116
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 1: It's just like yeah, and then the South TRUMPI has

1117
01:03:47,480 --> 01:03:49,920
Speaker 1: just destroyed them because this is a really good example

1118
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:53,680
Speaker 1: of nothing of the conservative political conditions that led to

1119
01:03:53,840 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: populace to takeover right.

1120
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:57,240
Speaker 2: We have all of these guys who are lamb poooning

1121
01:03:57,280 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 2: populism and have this very like deeply sincere neoconservative outlook

1122
01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:06,200
Speaker 2: which then got all got decimated in three years by

1123
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:09,680
Speaker 2: Trump's very kind of basic childish rhetoric. Just just blew

1124
01:04:09,720 --> 01:04:13,120
Speaker 2: this stuff out of the water. I think this is

1125
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:15,320
Speaker 2: all this stuff is a very fascinating snapshot into the

1126
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 2: politics of ten years ago. I know there's a lot

1127
01:04:17,680 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 2: of zoomers who listened to this who may not has

1128
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,720
Speaker 2: been as politically kind of engaged in twenty twelve. All

1129
01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 2: this stuff is a very good look at that. And

1130
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 2: I know this is too long, but the final final

1131
01:04:28,440 --> 01:04:31,560
Speaker 2: thing to just laugh at. We will return, as as

1132
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:34,600
Speaker 2: all good superhero stories do, return to the status quo

1133
01:04:35,040 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 2: of my Paranoia Conspiracy Reader magazine, which also had a

1134
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 2: review for The Cabin in the Woods movie, which it

1135
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 2: thinks is a secret Illuminati message about how there's secretly

1136
01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:51,000
Speaker 2: control rooms that are that are like navigating your entire life.

1137
01:04:51,040 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 2: There's like people in control rooms who are like controlling

1138
01:04:53,880 --> 01:04:56,760
Speaker 2: every spect of your life. The Cabin in Woods was

1139
01:04:56,800 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 2: an ironic admission of this pretty good, Pretty good. Our

1140
01:05:01,000 --> 01:05:03,920
Speaker 2: technico credit controllers and manipulators are crass and evil pretenders,

1141
01:05:04,080 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 2: able to get off only spectacles of pain and torture.

1142
01:05:07,120 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 2: Pretty funny. There's some quite racist stuff in the middle,

1143
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 2: which I'm is not not even gonna mention. Oh yeah,

1144
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,600
Speaker 2: that's the everything. It was like. People were really racist.

1145
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 2: People are still really racist. People are still quite racist.

1146
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:20,120
Speaker 1: Shit that like like you could say ship back, like

1147
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:22,920
Speaker 1: like people who are ostensibly liberals would say shit back

1148
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 1: then that like would get you like thrown off a building.

1149
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:28,880
Speaker 2: Today we have an article by someone who says, quote,

1150
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:32,320
Speaker 2: my father worked with Jimmy Carter on the submarine one

1151
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 2: Killer and chased flying saucers for a Project blue book,

1152
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:42,160
Speaker 2: which is a fascinating article. Then it talks it also

1153
01:05:42,200 --> 01:05:45,560
Speaker 2: talks about here that a cern is building a matrix

1154
01:05:45,640 --> 01:05:48,480
Speaker 2: like you know, like the movie The Matrix. Fucking God,

1155
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:52,680
Speaker 2: we have one. When you do an episode about about

1156
01:05:52,680 --> 01:05:55,320
Speaker 2: the cern Concira, we should this the silliest thing. We

1157
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:59,000
Speaker 2: really should do an episode about certain conspiracies, because yeah,

1158
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:02,040
Speaker 2: they are they are certainly quite amusing. There's one other

1159
01:06:02,160 --> 01:06:05,200
Speaker 2: aspect in this article that I wanted to mention. Here's

1160
01:06:05,240 --> 01:06:07,000
Speaker 2: discerns to Oh here it is here? What it is?

1161
01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 3: This?

1162
01:06:07,480 --> 01:06:09,960
Speaker 2: It is in the Alistair Crowley section of the article. No,

1163
01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 2: oh no, you know, I think we've actually suffered enough.

1164
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 2: I will I will let you imagine what this guy

1165
01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:23,280
Speaker 2: what this guy says it about Alistair Crowley, Hitler and

1166
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:28,360
Speaker 2: BIFA Vendetta. Oh no, so I'll let you imagine what

1167
01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:31,160
Speaker 2: that says. Because we've gone on too long. I' I'm

1168
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:33,000
Speaker 2: happy you were able to join us in our in

1169
01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:37,200
Speaker 2: our deep dive into the twenty twelve disaster. The Dark

1170
01:06:37,240 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 2: Knight Rice is not very good movie. And instead, if

1171
01:06:40,120 --> 01:06:43,400
Speaker 2: you want to watch a Batman film about politics and Christmas,

1172
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:46,240
Speaker 2: just watch Batman Returns. That's what I'm doing this week,

1173
01:06:46,360 --> 01:06:49,439
Speaker 2: So get your friends together. Watch Danny DeVito vomit black

1174
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:52,120
Speaker 2: Doo for two hours. Watch Michelle Feifer's Catwoman in a

1175
01:06:52,200 --> 01:06:56,360
Speaker 2: latex suit. It is much much better. So that does

1176
01:06:56,360 --> 01:07:00,400
Speaker 2: it for us today here. It could happen here. I

1177
01:07:00,440 --> 01:07:03,520
Speaker 2: hope we learned a little bit something about constituent power

1178
01:07:04,240 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 2: police superheroes and how CERN is building a matrix and

1179
01:07:08,720 --> 01:07:17,080
Speaker 2: this predictive programming targeting the next Winter Olympics. It could

1180
01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 2: happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

1181
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:22,000
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

1182
01:07:22,040 --> 01:07:25,160
Speaker 4: coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1183
01:07:25,200 --> 01:07:28,560
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

1184
01:07:28,560 --> 01:07:31,280
Speaker 4: find sources for It could Happen here, Updated monthly at

1185
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:33,520
Speaker 4: coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.

1186
01:07:33,720 --> 01:07:34,560
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.