You have excited some thoughts I'm exploring in my Substack and an upcoming book.
Most cultures strongly believe in the warrior as an image of strength. This is especially true in monarchical systems based on military dictatorships. In the USA, this is especially apparent in the hero's journey that is a core structure underlying the most …
You have excited some thoughts I'm exploring in my Substack and an upcoming book.
Most cultures strongly believe in the warrior as an image of strength. This is especially true in monarchical systems based on military dictatorships. In the USA, this is especially apparent in the hero's journey that is a core structure underlying the most popular movies from Hollywood. They forget that the warrior, in balance, draws the boundaries that allow love and protection for those less well off and less lucky. According to many on the right the hero of these movies is way too woke.
The warrior out of balance gets lost in an 'enemy mentality', where they see enemies everywhere, especially in vulnerability of any kind (both their own and that of others). They are mercenaries who live for and from battle, whereas for soldiers, battle is an abnormality they are forced into and are happy to come home to normalcy. They are the products of some kind of psychopathy (in its original coinage—sick psyche), either the genetic form or the socially created form post-trauma.
Project 2025 and the Mad King are clear examples of a political expression of the misguided excitement the warrior fantasy evokes. The problem is that the warrior and adversary can get very mixed up.
Shane (Alan Ladd) was unpaid defending the farmer's rights, while Wilson (Jack Palance) was paid to do a job defending the rancher's rights. If you are on the sidelines without a stake in either side, righteousness is a choice. The choices are muddied in propaganda fed on disquite, frustration, resentment, irritation and envy. When you listen to MAGA folks, they believe the Mad King is Shane or Dirty Harry defending the poor and victimised against a corrupt system. Democrats see themselves in the same light, with the Mad King and his jesters as Ryker, the rich rancher or Dirty Harry's bureaucracy.
As a person from a distance, on the sidelines in Australia, with a small stake in the outcome, I see the mythical references being used in the propaganda—the Shane Movie I mentioned, Quick and the Dead, Marvel (before the Avengers became part of the deep state), and Dirty Harry—all examples of the USA's most common movie heroes, vigilantes who are either inside or outside the system. The exceptions are police procedurals on TV like Law and Order and the FBI, though these often involve frustration with the system.
Warrior heroes defend those without the skill or psychological capacity to stand in battle and win, usually by killing against evil warriors attacking the innocent (non-consenting victims of the battle). The paradox is that heroes are usually outsiders to the system but defend its status quo as a moral good, thus essentially conservative.
The Mad King and his collaborators are not conservative. They want to tear down, blow up the system. So, in the frame of the various vigilante movies and in the Democrats' myth, they are the bad guys.
His followers' delusion is that the Mad King and his collaborators are outsider vigilante heroes fighting a corrupt system when they can only be billionaire presidential executives if they are part of and rewarded by the system they accuse of corruption. It's like thinking Tony Stark and the Avengers aren't part of the system they're fighting.
Project 2025 is proof of how much a part of the so-called deep state they say they are fighting. They are like the Avengers sweeping up all the alienated, lost vigilante heroes into compromising their values to become part of the deep state conspiracy they are fighting, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Crazily, they want to centralise the power they fight in one person, a warrior hero who thinks just because you've paid mercenaries, they obey them. But we've seen in movies and reality how setting up systems to sidestep the law, the oversight systems on humanity's flaws, can be profoundly dangerous.
I don't know if this makes sense, but thanks for the inspiration.
You have excited some thoughts I'm exploring in my Substack and an upcoming book.
Most cultures strongly believe in the warrior as an image of strength. This is especially true in monarchical systems based on military dictatorships. In the USA, this is especially apparent in the hero's journey that is a core structure underlying the most popular movies from Hollywood. They forget that the warrior, in balance, draws the boundaries that allow love and protection for those less well off and less lucky. According to many on the right the hero of these movies is way too woke.
The warrior out of balance gets lost in an 'enemy mentality', where they see enemies everywhere, especially in vulnerability of any kind (both their own and that of others). They are mercenaries who live for and from battle, whereas for soldiers, battle is an abnormality they are forced into and are happy to come home to normalcy. They are the products of some kind of psychopathy (in its original coinage—sick psyche), either the genetic form or the socially created form post-trauma.
Project 2025 and the Mad King are clear examples of a political expression of the misguided excitement the warrior fantasy evokes. The problem is that the warrior and adversary can get very mixed up.
Shane (Alan Ladd) was unpaid defending the farmer's rights, while Wilson (Jack Palance) was paid to do a job defending the rancher's rights. If you are on the sidelines without a stake in either side, righteousness is a choice. The choices are muddied in propaganda fed on disquite, frustration, resentment, irritation and envy. When you listen to MAGA folks, they believe the Mad King is Shane or Dirty Harry defending the poor and victimised against a corrupt system. Democrats see themselves in the same light, with the Mad King and his jesters as Ryker, the rich rancher or Dirty Harry's bureaucracy.
As a person from a distance, on the sidelines in Australia, with a small stake in the outcome, I see the mythical references being used in the propaganda—the Shane Movie I mentioned, Quick and the Dead, Marvel (before the Avengers became part of the deep state), and Dirty Harry—all examples of the USA's most common movie heroes, vigilantes who are either inside or outside the system. The exceptions are police procedurals on TV like Law and Order and the FBI, though these often involve frustration with the system.
Warrior heroes defend those without the skill or psychological capacity to stand in battle and win, usually by killing against evil warriors attacking the innocent (non-consenting victims of the battle). The paradox is that heroes are usually outsiders to the system but defend its status quo as a moral good, thus essentially conservative.
The Mad King and his collaborators are not conservative. They want to tear down, blow up the system. So, in the frame of the various vigilante movies and in the Democrats' myth, they are the bad guys.
His followers' delusion is that the Mad King and his collaborators are outsider vigilante heroes fighting a corrupt system when they can only be billionaire presidential executives if they are part of and rewarded by the system they accuse of corruption. It's like thinking Tony Stark and the Avengers aren't part of the system they're fighting.
Project 2025 is proof of how much a part of the so-called deep state they say they are fighting. They are like the Avengers sweeping up all the alienated, lost vigilante heroes into compromising their values to become part of the deep state conspiracy they are fighting, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Crazily, they want to centralise the power they fight in one person, a warrior hero who thinks just because you've paid mercenaries, they obey them. But we've seen in movies and reality how setting up systems to sidestep the law, the oversight systems on humanity's flaws, can be profoundly dangerous.
I don't know if this makes sense, but thanks for the inspiration.