Vigilantism Considered Harmful

I wonder if WikiVandals perceive themselves as WikiVigilante?s.

They're making another Batman movie - "Batman Begins" - based on the FrankMiller? "Batman: Year One" comics. It's about the ultimate effete with all the money and power beset by the corruption money creates. An ineffective justice system, crooks in public office, bureaucratic middle management stymying charity's best efforts to improve the lot of the poor.

What does he do? Does he create SchoolsForCivilization, pour money into the FourFreedoms, or work on CulturalTransformation? No. He goes out looking for easy targets. Desperately poor people beating up other desperately poor people. Batman sets out to inspire fear in the poor and ignorant, to become an icon of terror that makes the benighted feel watched, hunted, even stalked. Think how you'd feel if some crazy in powered armor was peeking in your windows from a nearby rooftop!

Batman appeals to the worst in our natures - that eye-for-an-eye justice, the idea that evil is something only certain people - "supervillains" - are capable of - and the notion that we must become violent to fight violence. Batman is GeorgeBush in black leather.

Nah. Batman is DickCheney? in black leather. Robin would be GeorgeBush...

See VigilanteJustice.

I think you are talking about vigilantism in general, not Batman specifically. Vigilantism is sometimes the correct pattern to apply to a context. Have you never seen a situation where someone broke the law and you knew, in that one particular context - they were doing the right thing? Would you steal someone's cat they neglect - that is starving and with maggots in it's leg - to help it? The law is a pattern - you still need to remember the context to know when to apply.

Besides, Batman was always the rebel of the vigilantes - never opting for killing the villain. I personally think he'd track GeorgeBush down in some alley lit by just one flickering streetlight and scare the compassion for fellow humans back into him.

This is an interesting topic: Vigilatism is the real-world analogy of FireFighting, fixing the problems you see right now to make things better for the people in front of you. Despite the bad rap it gets here, firefighting is an essential function in any society. If fires are not fought, people will be harmed and long-term damage will occur. There is no way to deny that.

The danger is failing to look up from the existing fires to see the factors that are starting the damned things. This is why fire marshalls exist, why building codes are written and sometimes even enforced.

What's worse is that you can't be sure that your fire prevention measures are actually preventing fires. The Soviets, for example, tried to plan their way out of poverty and ended up with a system they absolutely could not maintain for a full century. American President Johnson's Great Society programs (social welfare, mainly) have thus far completely failed in their goal of eradicating poverty in America, and have arguably created a class of hard-core welfare recipients with no incentives to gain employment. The LawOfUnintendedConsequences will have its way.