InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I love Eliot Waugh"

box_in_the_box (box_in_the_box) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-28 14:38:00

Entry tags:

creator: steve ditko, theme: objectivism

"If only that Ditko fellow was less subtle and more overt regarding his personal politics ..."
For as much fail as it churns out, Big Hollywood occasionally offers some genuine gems.

I can't stand Objectivism, but I find Steve Ditko's treatment of it irresistibly compelling, perhaps because the comic book medium is a far more appropriate venue for such a Manichean philosophy than the thousand-page rape-justifying tomes that Ayn Rand routinely shat out (it certainly helps that none of Ditko's characters ever barfed up a 70-page screed like John Galt, not to mention the fact that Ditko actually managed to create characters who were more believable as human beings than any of Rand's strawmen or Mary Sues, even when his characters were radioactivity-powered superheroes).

The following four pages constitute "In Principle: The Unchecked Premise," a short story originally published in the 160-page graphic novel Steve Ditko's Static in 1988:

As crudely simplistic as it is, it's still better than either reading or watching the "fireplace scene" between Howard Roark and Dominique Francon in The Fountainhead, but then again, so is getting punched in the crotch until you hemorrhage internally and die.

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	runespoor7 2009-08-28 11:31 pm UTC (link)
	You can't compare nature and human society. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jarodrussell 2009-08-28 11:34 pm UTC (link)
	Are humans not part of nature? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	runespoor7 2009-08-28 11:38 pm UTC (link)
	Society is not a part of nature, but a construct. The rules used in all human societies are justified through morality - things are 'right' or 'wrong', both concepts that are defined by each society, and are found nowhere in nature. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jarodrussell 2009-08-28 11:53 pm UTC (link)
	Sure it's a construct, humans are tool using primates. Society and morality are just more abstract tools than sticks, but at the end of the day their purpose is still to ensure survival and (hopefully) continual betterment. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	runespoor7 2009-08-29 12:03 am UTC (link)
	Then if these new tools require or accept new laws, why not go with them? If a new way to ensure survival and betterment for the species is through wealth redistribution, why reject it? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jarodrussell 2009-08-29 12:23 am UTC (link)
	That presumes all laws are good and beneficial, though. Laws are tools, tools can be good or tools can break. Survival often depends on picking the right tool. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	runespoor7 2009-08-29 12:31 am UTC (link)
	Unless I don't get what you're saying, we agree on this part, then, because that's what I said. Humans are replacing nature's laws with laws they're formulating themselves, through society. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jarodrussell 2009-08-29 12:36 am UTC (link)
	The question then becomes will humans' laws be to their betterment or their downfall. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	runespoor7 2009-08-29 12:42 am UTC (link)
	Heh, that's a fallacy. Societies crumble and new ones are born, and that has no influence whatsoever on the species' survival. Unless mankind manages to makes the environment unfit for life - which is well on its way of happening - nothing will prove what their laws are worth regarding survival. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jarodrussell 2009-08-29 12:47 am UTC (link)
	Unless mankind manages to makes the environment unfit for life... You mean society there, don't you? I don't see African tribesman or Inuits pumping CFC's into the atmosphere. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	runespoor7 2009-08-29 12:59 am UTC (link)
	When I say society, I mean any society, be it Western or Ancient China or Bedouins in the desert. In this case, the direct and current culprit would be industrialized societies, but in the context of survival of the human species, it would suck for everybody. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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