Batman: slave morality and the invention of the sigma
Contemporary pseudoscientific entries display a binary of human ontology. Some males are alpha and others are beta. Some dominant and others are submissive. While in Marxian duality there are oppressed and oppressor as well as leaders and followers in folklore, humanity is much more diverse than these terms can convey. Yet buying into these binaries for argument’s sake can shed light maybe not on ontology but on expression. The master-slave morality is an example of threefold human expression.
Nietzsche’s master-slave is interesting given his slave is less obedient and more a rebel. If anything slave morality would be dealing within the system. The ideal slave morality would be the beta model. A group that accepts the hierarchy but impassions itself via motivation or promise. The slave is the master’s property and thus must concede to the stereotypical layout by the master. The alpha sets the standard standing tall above the hierarchy. A top-down classical political fashion. There is little the slave can do other than provide himself with hope of salvation. Coping through the matrix designed to keep him down. The master solidifies his control by ensuring the slave follows through.
Yet Nietzsche’s slave morality portrays sigma energy. Modelled after John Wick. A sigma is one who rejects the master’s hierarchy. The master attempts to impose his will but the slave rejects it breaking away with his own system. The slave is no longer a slave in the colloquial sense. While the master may continue his dominant reign chastising the disobedient slave, the slave no longer perceives himself as a slave. He is free and independent. He has successfully constructed a model beyond the master’s capacity. His rebellion leads him to his framework. While he continues to struggle under the might of the master’s angst to regain control he rejects the master’s imposition. The master exiles him in disgust, yet he is the victor. Able to harness his strength and push on despite his alienation.
The master has cultivated generational power but the former slave demonstrates his unique prowess by developing a unique strategy away from this might. Pushing through despite his continuous attempts to destroy him. He is considered an outcast. No master nor slave is to join him but they are inspired by him. It is only through prolific propaganda that the outsider remains a vicious outsider. Order has been broken and the master must resort to underhanded deviltry to salvage his reputation. The former slave is a renown rival. A scary adversary that wishes to do his own thing. He does not see the master’s system as relevant. He seeks a new model a revolutionary paradigm. It is this danger that the alpha fears the sigma. The sigma objects to the hierarchical blasphemy. Instead promoting a more horizontal approach. A novelty that seeks to overthrow the master’s ways.
Slave morality creates the idolised mysterious sigma. His ways are out of sorts and indeed foreign but they appeal to the common good. An insightful ordeal that designates a model picture for a better future. The slave who has experienced the hardships and nonsense of the master’s system decries its ignorance and paranoia. Mustering courage he dismisses its prowess and paves a new route devoid of the formalistic obscurity. Generational power gone in a single moment. Breaking out of the matrix of masterful dominance. No longer a new world order is relevant. The aspiration is tantalised but action is taken to reduce the master’s influence. The mysterious one is outcasted for his outbursts. His aspirations deal him out of the community but he returns and raises up a rebellion. A revolution against the master. Undermining the hierarchal order with the bottom half putting the system in disarray through armed challenge.
Historically, the slave rebellion comes in many shapes and sizes from the Exodus to the Magna Carta to the American and then Russian revolutions. Each of these sought a new route out of the status quo. A successful bottom-up solution. In each situation ironically an elite individual (Moses, Fitzwalter, Washington and Lenin) led with help from the lower half. Only when lowering themselves to the difficulties of the slavish depravity did they see the light. Able to transcend the matrix of the dominating presence. All arising from wealthy homes to alter the trajectory of the new nation. The common theme is the historical-mythological narrational recognition of master morality’s falsities. The slave did not always need an external saviour but a misguided elite who came to their aid to join their fight. To surpass master morality a new world order was stabilised by a balanced masterful consent to the slavish rationale.
Though it may be this masterful transition to slavish notoriety that maintained the master hierarchy. If the leader was trained by formal masters aspects of the previous institution will be kept. Despite daring attempts to promote liberty, hierarchies were maintained. Ethically resolved tensions but the continuous hierarchies remained. Profitable in the short run but their structural inflexibility retain the defiling future. Biblical kings and congressional members placed themselves above the people. The greatest attempt in Leninism was followed by Stalin’s murderous rage. His dictatorship placed him beyond all others. Slave morality has yet to escape the structural affinities of master morality. While they make grand innovations they stumble onto their own master framework that is toppled inevitably. Rebellions occur through the reign with a rollercoaster ride of turmoil but unable to reach that idealistic anarchist equality.
If former masters turned liberators cannot escape the structure ingrained in their psyche. Liberation of the slave is to provide a new order for the free. The freed slave is now lost in the chaotic wilderness and needs order to configure itself. The former master recalls the structural stability and enforces a reformed Leviathan. Similar to the last order but more ethically innovated. The liberator does not know any other model and yet even television shows like Vikings which take a farmer turned rebel becoming an unwarranted king. Even when the leader himself wishes to distance from the older order. He not only takes the place of his captor but the external influences and his widespread respect reaches new heights in his kingship. The biblical episode follows the metric with kingship reigning in following surrounding political influence. While the American distaste for kingship distances its namesake, the president has slowly garnered king like power and even the government has reached aristocratic status. Everyone may be created equal but not everyone is judged equally.
Stalin’s failure had much more do with the idealistic fault than communism’s natural fallacy. External propaganda and elitist fear-mongering plummeted the ensuing success of communist agenda. Despite the anti-communist push, the slavish revolution startled order with little to go on. It was a new model that hoped the government would ensure equality. There were many successes but elitist paranoia swept across all countries. The Tzar’s regime influence did not dissipate. Stalin or Mao had big blunders but their dictatorships were neo-kingships. Yet so were democratic governments. Gulags were awful but given the democratic bias the American prison system is seen as so much better despite its torturous conditions. The inability for the slave morality to survive was due to generational conformity.
If anything unlike Lenin, Stalin was born to a poor family and suffered under the Tzar’s regime. He was not an empathetic outsider but a struggling insider. He had the capability to topple the system and bring security to the people. To be the perfect Joshua to Moses. Yet unlike Joshua, his uphill battle had little allies and many powerful foes. Stalin’s failed conquest to ensure soviet security was pushed back as an imperial danger to the global paradise democracy preached. Yet it may have been his slavish history that derailed his success. He did not understand the world enough. He played with fear while his successor Gorbachev played politics. The latter failed but it was the historical decline that sent his plans asunder. His centralism of armed conflict persisted into the afghan conflict which like many wasted wars woke up the public of this nuisance.
Communism was the first bottom-up attempt to remove the generational monarchical hegemony with an entirely new structure. Democracy existed in antiquity and briefly in the Middle Ages but nothing like communist publicity. While ancient hunter-gatherers to some extent and certain Native American groups were proto-communist in their economic forum others like Inca or Aztecs were imperial and hierarchical. There is a diversity even amongst the americas. It is in this depiction that communism is even harder to secure in its fully slavish creation. Nietzsche may have hated democracy but there may be some aspects of representative democracy in its elitist surge that he would revere. On the face of it he would reject the equality for all slogan but recognising realistic trends of elitist overhaul may have found some liking. Yet communism was the worst in its ultimate equality and childish emasculating sharing.
Nietzsche’s apolitical nature did not stop his proto-fascist vibes (more Mussolini than Hitler). The master race would prevail in the masterful takeover. Today in liberal democracies it is the rich corporatists and congressional elitists. Nietzsche’s promotion of aristocratic hegemony in the Genealogy of Morals has more in line with the Sheriff of Nottingham than Robin Hood. Zarathustra desires a different model away from the conformist narrative. One faces the alpha the other the sigma. The one thing Nietzsche consistently hates is the betas. The inability to self empowerment by collective or individual is a failed sequence. Nietzsche’s aspiration provides one possibility while the batman comics provide two others. Zarathustra is the mystics unable to handle the matrix and runs away. He tries to preach his ideal but is mocked and gives up on society’s rehabilitation. He masters his own prestige over the coercing narrative. Yet this abandonment unlike the former mentioned leaders did return to liberate. Unwilling to back down against the standard order.
While many of the character mentioned attempted to create a new society the sigma soul is not always a militant revolutionary. The rebel attempts to coexist within the existing model but alter the current mechanics. In many instances this brave liberator is behind the scenes or an apolitical figure. Harriet Tubman and MLK were perfect examples of rebellious figures who displayed the duality between a hidden Underground Railroad and a revealed March at Selma. Batman is the nighttime concealed hero and superman the daytime spotlight hero. Batman is the whistleblowers and unnoticed champions of change. His lack of powers symbolises a lack of power in the system. His sigma smugness pushes back against the crime lords by stopping crime. The rebel does not have a following but a single individual with a his body and wits to protect the conformists. He fights back the masterful corrupted hierarchy with his own will. Yet it is his wealth that enables him to access the innovative means to stop crime.
Batman is akin to Moses with a less revolutionary charm. Finding more compatibility with Jefferson before his political fame. The rebellious Batman fits Camus’ absurdism as the foil for the Joker’s chaotic nihilism. Humans are selfish hierarchies are deplorable may as well destroy everything. The Joker pushes back against the governance with chaos and disarray. Instead of leaving he remains in the depraving society but makes noise to inspire change positively or desire destruction negatively. Whatever the Joker’s agenda his sigma rage is a reactionary cruelty. If the world is cruel well then either he will be cruel in response just for its sake or for people to recognise the faults and rebuild. No matter, the Joker is unwilling to be a slave any longer. His menacing wit and exotic mania leads to his villainous supremacy. A tragic idealist anti-hero living his way against the grain.
Joker’s foil is an internal stoic mastery. Joker’s slavish revolution seeks anarchy. Dismantle all the wealthy villains. Seek to establish an equivalent vicious selfishness. Batman thought aware of the world’s harsh truth works within the system for change. To route out the evil. Refusing to kill in order to maintain some order. Working with Commissioner Gordon to fortify and rid the devilish instability. Batman fails many a time to alter society’s depravity but it is through his conviction and thereby his actions that is truly remarkable. Batman himself remarks his purpose is to symbolise that it is his actions that define who he is. He fights for the common man. Yet it is his lack of successors that keeps the people down. For all of Batman’s success his own key-tonight is his attitude. He is a sigma but a deep loner with little deeper connections. Speaking of his crime fighting alone he has limited sidekicks no more than ten at a time to fight the good fight. Yet this continues to be a capable sliver but nonetheless a sliver fighting for the people.
He is never able to reach the promising goodness of collective rebellion. Even his successors stick to their solo shows. Nightwing moves to a different city, a little more emotional but alone in his crime fighting journey. Crime fighting whether alone or on a team is still on behalf of the people. To an extent it’s a super-powered police force. Yet this agency is the mistaken understanding policing. Policing is to maintain order not to end systemic policies. They must collectively fight with the common man. Democracies have taken the individual out of the lawful equation. It is illegal for an individual to resort to violence to stop a crook. Citizens are to be bystanders. Yet in the crime-stricken debased hierarchy someone outside the system unaffected by the systemic nature. While a batman is necessary to evoke the message and implement potential change, the people must break free of the matrix. The goal is not for Batman to free everyone through action and conversation.
Slave morality is eclipsed by the system’s failure. Recognising the unequal treatment from the outside from the unexpected leads to a change in perception. Batman’s wealth could not save his parents, the untouchable became mortal. For Moses the enslavement leading to menacing murder was a step too far. While he enjoyed the royalties of the kingdom exposure to the disenchanted oppression was unbecoming. Most people accept the conditions they are in. The consistent rogue aristocrat is perceiving the issue from beyond. The empathetic brutality courses through their veins. It is the insider who struggles to exit the prevailing thematic lifestyle. It is just life destined for mediocrity. Neo can only leave the matrix, he can only become a sigma by taking the red pill. Only by accepting the chemically altering reality can he fight back. Yet for those outside the system its that obvious. For the Israelites it was unthinkable but not to Moses. The difference between the loyalists and patriots amongst the colonists resembles the grand shift in perception.
Plato’s enlightened individual eclipses the matrix. The systemic darkness bolsters ignorance. It’s not passivity but well kept secrets. The philosopher king returns to aid the disheartening individuals. Unlike Batman, Jefferson takes his political philosophy and moral virtue to the presidency. While Jefferson remained in the hierarchal chair he did so by epitomising a new style of thinking. Protecting the people on a political level not just as a patriotic vigilante. The comic strip ally is Green Arrow who combines vigilantism and politics. Attempting to bring a synergy but unable to distance from the vigilante life he eventually steps down. Jefferson put the public service first before his philosophical rampage. The issue with both figures is that innovations were inside the hierarchy and refused to dismantle them. A political figure inside the matrix cannot easily disbar the framework. Gradually yes but with additional assistance. Alone he can defeat crime on the streets with more might but is repelling criminals not stopping the systemic processes that create it.
Even the outlier who seeks to sow change is incrementally good but leaving office or crime fighting leads down a dark path without a virtuous successor. Democratic continuity was a collectivist agreement. Unifying stability generationally. The people held to this model with the structural affinities. Yet the racist overtones were startled by Lincoln but remerged with Jim Crow. Slavery ended but remerged in wage slavery. Innovative changes are incredible but without an entire network change political alteration is meaningless. The ethical guidelines must be bolstered over the governmental action. The leader sparks the genuine persistence from communal laity. Success of the bottom-up revolution must be with engaged accountable laity. The people must represent and push back when unrepresented. To not accept the troubling status quo and push back. Reaching the absurd abyss is a moment of reflection and seeking an alternative route. It is not the end but the cessation of this specific path. The sigma is a rallying figure but must engage the laity on their level to ensure collectivist solutions.
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