The Dark Knight

I watched a short "making of" about Batman Dark Knight, and one of the interviewees said some very profound stuff. I paraphrase:

"Sometimes you have to use violence to get peace.

Sometimes you have to be unkind to defend kindness.

Sometimes you have to be intolerant to defend tolerance.

Sometimes you have to break the law to get justice.

Sometimes you have to abandon principles in order to defend them."

His point was that sometimes heroes have to break the rules of civilization in order to defend civilization. And that those who do are often reviled by the very ones whose lives they make possible in a dangerous world.

He related it to the necessity of Batman wearing a cape and mask, to hide in the shadows because what he does is "beyond" the law...therefore not "within" the law, therefore is "unlawful"...even while he is protecting the people from true evil....one they cannot begin to imagine. They only see Batman's apparent mayhem...not the potential world-ending madness of the true villain.

Naturally that made me think of the whining Left in our country who refuse to be intolerant of murderous intolerance by Muslims. And who refuse to use violence to defend their own lives and those of their children. And who excoriate those who would torture one villain to save millions of innocents.

These are the naive children of Western civilization. We have made them that way through our achievements, our scientific advances, our promise and fulfillment of plenty, ease, peace, brotherhood.

They are ill-equipped for the "real" world, because they have always lived in the exceptional and Utopian bubble of peace and plenty that is The United States of America. We have given them a facsimile of paradise. But instead of understanding that it is a unique, wondrous experience in a troubled world, they are angry because it is not perfect. And they demand perfection.

They do not know that perfect tolerance guarantees the triumph of intolerance. They do not know that perfect kindness guarantees the triumph of cruelty. They do not know that perfect non-violence guarantees the triumph of force and violence, They do not know that perfect submission to law guarantees the triumph of injustice. They do not know that perfect adherence to perfect principles guarantees the triumph of the unprincipled.

It is a hard lesson. It is an ugly lesson. And our protected, soft, other-worldly Lefties, do not wish to learn it. We have taught them that life is good, peaceful, law-abiding, safe, bountiful, pleasurable, long and healthy.

What we have not taught them is what the price is to make it so.

Freedom is not free. Nor is peace, law, safety, pleasure, health or longevity. But we have failed to teach them the truth. We have indulged the naiveté, and encouraged the innocence. We have protected them from most serious forms of anxiety, harm, worry, danger, fear. And we have reaped a whirlwind of outrage and anger for all those things that guarantee the very benefits of civilization that they enjoy without understanding, appreciation or gratitude. They don't understand that it isn't organic; that it is not automatic, that it has not "always been this way". Because they have always lived in the bright light of progress, beauty and plenty, they cannot imagine another way. They mistake their experience of life in America for the natural condition of the world.

They have no idea what sacrifice, what labor, what commitment, what genius and what single-mindedness among a people such a remarkable culture requires to create and maintain. And untroubled by the knowledge, they imagine that the rest of the world is being somehow prevented from enjoying these "natural" benefits.

And they have concluded that somehow the "hero" is to blame. They blame the United States, the one country that has worked the hardest, sacrificed the most, joined in brotherhood with as many nations as possible to create a better world, who has given her sons and her blood and her treasure to try to insure the same benefits for the rest of the world that she enjoys herself.

But because the world is not perfect, in their eyes the sacrificing hero has become the villain, the destroyer. In their opinion, the hero's demise will guarantee that the world will be free to grow into its natural beauty and glory.

And they completely miss the true evil that the hero has been holding back from devouring them all.

If they are allowed to kill the hero, by making him doubt his own heroism and goodness, and give way to their sick fantasies and ignorance, all civilization will perish. All light and glory will be extinguished. And all mankind will again live in the darkness of the tyranny of evil....the real "natural" state of man without heroes.

The (so-called) Dark Knight defends the Light.

The Gunslinger