I had a revelation watching Captain America today. For whatever reason, the movie was able to provide the missing link to help me grasp an issue that has been subconsciously nagging at me for a while. One of the problematic incidents was the non-reaction outside of the ideological opposition to Sonia Sotomayor's egregious comment about the superior judgement of "wise" Latinas. Where even a centrist, conservative-in-name-only group like the Republican Party will drum out its ranks people who say anything that could loosely be considered racist, like "macaca" or "Strom Thurmond would have been a good president", a phrase that seemed so obviously racist to traditionally-minded people caused little or no comment outside of people who were not already looking for things to oppose about Sotomayor. The reason for their indifference is because to a certain extent, they agree. The "new" version of morality is subjective and sympathetic, and identifying with a person or group in this new morality gives one the right or ability to judge or assess the situation in a better light.

The example of this "new" moral code (it's actually not new, it's primitive and barbaric: civilization and enlightened society included the application of abstract rules and codes and holding everyone to an impartial and common standard of justice - primitive morality involves "me and my group first, others get what's left" ) in "Captain America" comes when the scientist responsible for changing a scrawny wimp into a superhero reveals the reason he specifically selected Steve Rogers (wasn't Steve Rogers the Six Million Dollar Man? I thought he was) over other guys was because he IS a wimp. According to Dr Steroids, people who are weak handle strength better than people who have strong all their lives. He goes on to elaborate, explaining that being weak gives you compassion and empathy for other weaklings. According to him, strong people can't use power responsibly, because they don't understand weak people. That is arrant nonsense in more than one way.

Firstly, regarding the strength issue, that is based on a basic principle of human behavior that applies across the board, and not remotely in the way that Dr. Tucci describes (it doesn't work that way with weaklings who become strong either, unless steroid users are generally known for their compassion and responsible use of their new muscles). Basically, according to the movie, people who have never driven cars are more responsible, because they understand the plight of pedestrians better than those who have driven for years; lottery winners are more fiscally responsible than people who are born wealthy (while the media actually likes to portray this as being the case, who generally passes on their wealth to their descendants - inheritors of an old fortune, or trailer trash who strike it rich? QED); a kid with his first gun is a more reliable and competent shooter than a long-service soldier; and so on. Common sense tells us that is an insane world view.

Secondly, it has no remote bearing on the applicable situation. The secret group is not creating a race of supermen to walk among the civilian population, they are creating elite warriors to go into BATTLE against a tyrannical dictatorship. At what point in that scenario is empathy for people without superb physical abilities useful? Do we want Captain America to stop and ponder if the Wehrmacht conscript he is punching in the face was also bullied? Or is everyone with the basic physical qualifications for an infantryman (or scientist) automatically a top-percentile physical specimen, and by extension, an irresponsible bully?

Thirdly, regardless of the impracticable nature of such reasoning, it is morally wrong. Right and wrong are absolutes and apply to everyone. You don't get points for being in a crappy situation. Strength is not used best with consideration to those who lack it, it is best used ONLY taking into consideration what is right and wrong. That knowledge is irrelevant to one's feelings on the matter or self-identification. By the scientist's values, the old primitive method of adhering to immediate group loyalties is supposed to be prevalent, and in order to make those loyalties extend as far as possible, the power should go to the one who identifies with the most groups. A strong person identifies only with the strong, but a weakling given strength can identify with both weak AND strong. But in questions of right and wrong, you are not supposed to make a decision based on identification with any side. Right and wrong, or "justice" is determined by meeting an objective standard. Justice is portrayed with a blindfold, because she is supposed to be impartial, not taking into account the individuals involved, but merely wielding her sword depending on how the scale in her other hand balances.

Thus, while to traditionally-minded people, the idea of a judge basing her rulings on her ability to empathize with the right side is a horrific concept, to people with this absurd and infantile mentality, it makes sense. And this mentality is everywhere! On the farcical TV show Glee, the major villainous character was explained to me to be a three-dimensional character with good points. These good deeds she did at various times included fair and equal treatment of a mentally handicapped student, and standing up for the students and their club which she despises when outsiders were bullying them. In both cases however, we see that the character is acting on her self-identification with the underdogs she champions. She is revealed to have a similarly afflicted sister in the episode where she treats the retard like a human, and defends her rivals to the bullies because the bullies explicitly point out her own similarities to those rivals. The fans of Glee seem to have a lot in common with Egwene fans, as they too seem oblivious to the fact that altruism is not profitable. If you benefit by something, you can't claim benevolent motivations. If you obey the basic animal instinct of self-preservation, you are not being courageous. The Glee teacher defending people who have expressly pointed out to be akin to her is not doing anything overtly moral, she is simply doing what even insects do instinctively - lash out at those who threaten her. She only defends her rivals because the criticism of them is being expressly leveled collectively at her and them together.

This is the real root of the problem: popular morality worships power (or wealth or success or whatever), because power can get them what they want. Captain America is the hero, and not the soldiers who accompany him into every single fight, because he has the superhuman strength and reflexes, and if he does get injured, will recover from it more successfully. Also, he carries a shield that defends him from vaporizing ray beams. He is the hero, and not the ordinary slobs who got enough muscle and skill to keep up with Captain America the old-fashioned way (hard work and discipline), and not the guys who go up against the vaporization beams with only crappy US Army issue fabric ca. 1942 to protect them (it doesn't). Captain America is to be admired by the makers of this movie, because of the unearned ability to dish out the most damage on the bad guys.

This is not to say that Captain America, as portrayed in the movie is NOT heroic, but the choices made in how the story is portrayed expose some serious flaws in the moral understanding of the film makers, which would appear from these other examples to be representative of the popular zeitgeist, and symptomatic of a serious flaw in the contemporary understanding of morals and justice. In fact, while that latter word is still used, the concept itself has almost entirely been discarded in favor of the nebulous and transient notion of "fairness." Fair is not just. Justice relies on an absolute standard applied equally and is thus impartial and intellectual; fairness is subjective and emotional, particularly when it is based on empathy. And where superheroes originally stood for "truth, justice and the American Way" they are now selected for their empathy, sensitivity and, according to this movie, their attraction to a British woman (one of the definitive moments establishing Steve Rogers as the preferred candidate is when a grenade is tossed into a group of candidates: the others scatter for cover, but Rogers dives on top of the grenade when the British liaison to the project moves towards it).

Some other points regarding the film, from an historical perspective, rather than moral or philosophical, is Rogers' iron-clad determination to enlist, not out of bloodlust or patriotism (enlisting to fight an enemy not remotely threatening the USA is hardly patriotic anyhow), but because he doesn't like bullies. Because of this quality, he is absolutely determined to fight alongside the USSR and the British Empire, a world-wide hegemony over 400 million people, dominated unilaterally by a single country of a tenth that number, which is turn is ruled by a small elite group of landowners and a very limited franchise. Ask Gandhi about his experience with bullies some time, Steve. Or Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Or Mannerheim. Or the nuns who were victims of the US & British supported Spanish Republicans a few years before the war. Hell, most US foreign policy up to that point had been a case of bullying, or thumbing our noses at others from behind the safety of a two-ocean buffer zone. Germany got started simply by reacquiring through mostly peaceful means, territory taken from them at gunpoint within the last few decades. Nazi Germany was the last, desperate, and admittedly vicious (as in whipped-dog-vicious), blow against more than fifty years of victimization in a Europe that had been dancing to the tune of the British foreign policy, which was unashamedly explained by Winston Churchill as maintaining dominance over the continent by organizing coalitions against any nation that dared to approach them in influence or success. Since 1871, that major contender had been perceived as Germany, so British foreign policy became gradually centered on beating Germany down. World War Two, from a very narrow focus is about Germany bullying other countries, but in the broader context, is the final stages of an envied member of a community being harassed and provoked and abused until he lashes out and it becomes acceptable to destroy him in the name of self-defense. A classic bully tactic.

And that brings us right back to popular contemporary morality. The empathy-for-the-victim mindset begins demanding efforts to eradicate poverty, rather than helping worthy individuals. From the old-fashioned concept of praising the widow who gives a tiny amount, over the wealthy man who contributes many times her donation, because her gift was a greater proportion of her possessions, while the rich man gave a mere drop out of his bucket; we now move to praising the one who wields the most power for a cause, rather than the one who gives the most of himself for that cause. We are back to the admiration of power, because it is seen as doing a greater amount, rather than a better amount or whether or not it does any good in the broad scheme of things. Massive indifferent charitable programs that in general encourage people to stay in poverty to keep receiving a pittance for no effort rather than potentially earn a disproportionately greater amount for some more effort exerted, are considered superior to individually helping a single worthy person overcome some misfortune, because of the power wielded in the former case, and never mind the waste, costs to others to provide that charity, and net harm done to society.

Poverty (i.e. lack of financial strength or economic weakness) is seen as the root of all evils. Poverty makes men into criminals. Criminals from poor backgrounds must not suffer consequences for their actions, because poverty has, if you extend the logic of the popular mindset, eradicated their ability to tell right from wrong. Poverty makes women into promiscuous slatterns who breed randomly and without following the traditionally prescribed methods of reproduction. But they are not to be criticized for their behavior, because of their difficult financial straits. Poverty renders children into delinquents who are incapable of being educated. It's not their fault they cannot pass basic skills tests, and they should not be denied educational funding or access to higher education or employment opportunities - their poverty has impeded them from learning!

The popular mindset blames moral failures on weakness (in the case of poverty, financial weakness) and calls for broad-spectrum efforts to eradicate the weakness that excuses such delinquency, and AT THE SAME TIME, calls for the empowerment of the weak, who are supposedly stripped of their moral, social & intellectual faculties by this weakness! The people who support the idea that poverty must be fought because it ruins people and excuses their inability to function in society are almost never the ones who favor property qualifications for voting (if poverty makes them incapable of following the law, proper personal behavior or improving their minds, why on earth would we want them to have a say in the government of the rest of us? Because it would not be "fair" to exclude them! ).

This is why Captain America is full of crap. It's not about bullies. The application of the term "bully" is subjective, and refers strictly to a disparity of strength between contending parties. However, right and wrong have nothing to do with strength and weakness. Those latter are subjective and relative concepts. Germany compared to the USA is a weakling. Compared to Poland, it is a bully. Right and wrong, on the other hand, have nothing to do with strength. Rounding up unpopular groups and murdering them is wrong. Waging unjustified war is wrong. You fight because someone is right or wrong, not because they are strong and you are weak. A policeman is vastly stronger than most criminals, if not in terms of individual physical strength, than in terms of equipment and organizational resources. That does not disqualify him from opposing law-breakers. But according to the stated morality of the film, the highest value is empathy for those without power. Using the power in a right or correct manner does not matter nearly as much as how fairly you use it, or how well you understand those who do not have the power. That all sounds "fair" but it is not remotely just. And at the same time, we see this same contradictory dichotomy common to the fairness mentality exhibited in those who decry the effects of poverty on its victim's judgment & ability to function and yet prefer that victim to be the one wielding power. Even while overtly claiming that power is best wielded by those unfamiliar to it and who have been deprived of it, the movie exalts and worships the USE of that power. While saying power is best used by those who are not accustomed to its use, it REALLY prefers those who have the power, because they are the ones to use it. Steve Rogers' only observable character traits as a civilian were belligerence and alienation. He is rewarded with power and feted as a hero because he possesses and uses that power, while those whose moral actions are objectively more heroic are ignored because they can't match his capabilities or potential.

The reasoning for this dichotomy or seeming contradiction is thus exposed. Who is more likely to lash out and fight others than a man possessing Rogers' initial traits of belligerence (willingness to use force) and alienation (indifference to the outcome of using such force). Rogers is the perfect hero for those who worship power, because he is MORE likely to use it. He does not take his power for granted, he revels in possessing it and enjoys the novelty of it. Earlier I compared the scientist's absurd formulation regarding the relationship between power and the worthiness to possess it to people with money. Who spends more freely, the one accustomed to money or the one newly flush with unearned money? Vulgarity and ostentation are commonly held to be the marks of the latter, who spend freely. They have had so little money up until their windfall, that their new-found resources seem limitless by comparison. Their judgment is not improved because habits of frugality were once forced upon them, rather they now perceive those limitations to be completely removed. They have not learned how to spend wisely, because they are not accustomed to spending at all. Meanwhile, the signs of "old money" or experienced wealth are generally greater discretion and superior quality of purchases. These people ARE accustomed to spending money and have learned to differentiate quality, now that they have the means to acquire quality goods and discern the difference on their own. Furthermore, they would appear better at holding on to their money than lottery winners who generally go broke rather quickly. Though the left-wing leveler will leap to the explanation of unfair advantages, an alternative explanation could be the newly rich are accustomed to poverty and the loss of their fortunes leaves them in a place they have already survived and know how to deal with, while those raised to wealth LIKE the taste of a silver spoon, and are highly motivated to keep it firmly in their mouths. The unknown tribulations of poverty are more frightening to them than to the people who learned to appreciate the small joys of McDonalds and reality TV but never discovered haute cuisine or opera night.

Likewise, Steve Rogers acquiring strength is just as likely to become obsessed with the idea, since he has never had it before. While a person raised with strength and who has had objective morality and justice imposed on him learns to discipline his strength to meet those ideals, to a 90 lbs. weakling, the moral principle of not bullying people has never been anything more than a distant idea he only notices when it gets broken to his own detriment. The novelty of being able to punch someone out with a single blow will hold far more of his attention than the rule that hurting others is wrong, since he has never had to be wary of breaking it until now.

We have the idea of a Napoleon Complex, but no corresponding concept for the reverse, because a stronger man learns to "pick on someone your own size." Meanwhile, such mores only reinforce the permission of the weaker man to test the limits of his strength. No one is concerned about his violating the moral limits, because the practical limitations render such danger beyond his capabilities.

If Steve Rogers is indeed a hero, it is because he meets objective criteria that are never demonstrated in the movie. They show him fighting, but he has always wanted to fight, so in fighting, he is merely doing what he wants. He undertakes dangerous missions, but they are made less dangerous for him than for others. He seeks to rescue captive prisoners, but mainly because of his personal concern for a friend among their number. Indeed, once he frees them from their cells to run unarmed through a facility staffed by trained and well-equipped enemies, he ignores them to continue searching for the personally important goal. That the men subsequently survive in large numbers is due more to their own ability and heroism than his altruism or courage. Of that entire prison-break episode, the most heroic moment of his comes at the end, when upon returning to base, he submits himself to judgment for his breach of discipline and violation of orders. In doing so he proves his understanding of the true nature and use of power, and the importance of discipline and control in its use, rather than simply admiring that use and the results obtained. Such results are purely a material good, and not a moral good. The contemporary popular morality holds the former as superior and confuses it with the latter, and thus holds power as a good in its own right. If power is good and moral, the weak should be empowered, not because they will use it in a more moral fashion, but because they are both more likely to use it freely, and to do so in a more gratifying and viscerally pleasing manner. The truly heroic action of subjugating power to discipline and correction when there are no physical constraints demanding it, is ignored at best or scoffed at, because it may result in less use of power. But that kind of heroism is not something Steve Rogers learned from being weak, whatever the opinion of an ex-Nazi who overindulges in alcohol before performing experimental medical procedures.

Captain America exemplifies the contemporary popular moral fashion of glorifying empathy over judgement, power over discipline and fair over right. The values of strength and the values of weakness are inverted and the hero is admired for all the wrong reasons, while his heroism passes unremarked and largely is not even portrayed. It's a good thing this movie was really about punching Nazis. An objective assessment of the action performed regardless of the worthiness of the one doing it or their relative strength or morally fashionable position (i.e. proper morality and justice), says that's a good thing.