Good guys and bad guys
Jan. 31st, 2018 08:21 amThanks to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
conuly, a fascinating article about the good-guy/bad-guy trope. You know how every story has one or more bad guys, who are generally sadistic, greedy, duplicitous, and narcissistic, and one or more good guys, who are generally kind, generous, honest, humble, and forgiving (even of former bad guys who might yet be redeemed)? Well, not so much: the article claims that pattern has only existed for about 200 years, and was invented largely to support nationalism (which has also existed for not much over 200 years). Think of the Iliad, the Odyssey, Gilgamesh, your favorite Chaucer story, your favorite Shakespeare play, anything about King Arthur or Robin Hood written before 1750, or your favorite pre-Grimm fairy tale, and name two opposing characters who differ on a moral principle. You'll find it surprisingly difficult, because those stories are about conflicting individual interests, and perhaps individual journeys of maturation, but not conflicting values systems. (In Shakespeare, I'm thinking perhaps "King Lear", but even that's a stretch.)
The United States, founded right around the time of this shift in stories, has long had a self-congratulatory myth that it is set apart from other countries by its democratic, egalitarian, balanced system of government, in which any idea can be voiced and critiqued, nobody is above the law, and anybody regardless of origin can grow up to be rich, famous, and/or a leader. In calling it a "myth" I don't mean it isn't true (it sometimes is, and I very much want it to be), merely that it functions as a national unifying myth. The recent resurgence of unapologetic racism in the U.S, and more generally the decades-long trend of which Donald Trump is the avatar, abandons this idealistic nationalistic myth in favor of a less-idealistic one in which my ethnic, political, or religious tribe competes for zero-sum resources with other ethnic, political, or religious tribes, the winner to be determined by physical force and psychological intimidation regardless of moral qualities. But even Trump and the alt-right often frame the conflict in moral terms, as between good guys and bad guys, in order to dehumanize their enemies, because that's the form of discourse that motivates a modern audience.
conuly, a fascinating article about the good-guy/bad-guy trope. You know how every story has one or more bad guys, who are generally sadistic, greedy, duplicitous, and narcissistic, and one or more good guys, who are generally kind, generous, honest, humble, and forgiving (even of former bad guys who might yet be redeemed)? Well, not so much: the article claims that pattern has only existed for about 200 years, and was invented largely to support nationalism (which has also existed for not much over 200 years). Think of the Iliad, the Odyssey, Gilgamesh, your favorite Chaucer story, your favorite Shakespeare play, anything about King Arthur or Robin Hood written before 1750, or your favorite pre-Grimm fairy tale, and name two opposing characters who differ on a moral principle. You'll find it surprisingly difficult, because those stories are about conflicting individual interests, and perhaps individual journeys of maturation, but not conflicting values systems. (In Shakespeare, I'm thinking perhaps "King Lear", but even that's a stretch.)The United States, founded right around the time of this shift in stories, has long had a self-congratulatory myth that it is set apart from other countries by its democratic, egalitarian, balanced system of government, in which any idea can be voiced and critiqued, nobody is above the law, and anybody regardless of origin can grow up to be rich, famous, and/or a leader. In calling it a "myth" I don't mean it isn't true (it sometimes is, and I very much want it to be), merely that it functions as a national unifying myth. The recent resurgence of unapologetic racism in the U.S, and more generally the decades-long trend of which Donald Trump is the avatar, abandons this idealistic nationalistic myth in favor of a less-idealistic one in which my ethnic, political, or religious tribe competes for zero-sum resources with other ethnic, political, or religious tribes, the winner to be determined by physical force and psychological intimidation regardless of moral qualities. But even Trump and the alt-right often frame the conflict in moral terms, as between good guys and bad guys, in order to dehumanize their enemies, because that's the form of discourse that motivates a modern audience.
