Long recommended this, which I thought was good:
http://web.me.com/rlevatter/V_is_the_Veidt:_A_Watchmen_Guide/Watchmen_Guide_Welcome.html
SPOILERS
I think most people missed the mark about Rorscharch’s fascism. It’s not right-wing, really. It stems from childhood experience and an incredibly psychotic amount of self-aggrandization. He is incapable of loving other humans. His only love is vigilanteism, which he simply labels “justice”. It’s ironic. He doesn’t care about the people he’s fighting for. He values his own sense of morality more than life itself, which never seems to take into consideration other people’s feelings. This goes beyond a case of dedication to natural rights. One would generally support natural rights as the foundation of social harmony. Rorscharch values natural rights simply because they offer him a justification to assume power.
For instance, look at his mother. He despises prostitution because of his childhood neglect. Not only prostitution, but pretty much all sex, becomes immoral to him. He constantly rants about “fornication”. He even seems to despise any physical pleasure. He never seeks to avoid a fight. He eats other people’s cold food. He is indifferent to weather so cold it makes his body literally shake. Part of his character is anti-hedonism, which is often a core tenant of fascism.
Plus, we see the emotional isolationism of his childhood. He never had a father…or really a mother. His own mother tells him she would have aborted him. Obviously, his motivations do not stem from social harmony. They stem from a fascist desire to reform the world in the image he believes it “should” take.
The only moment he seems to show real emotion is when Dr. M kills him. (actually, you see him express extreme discomfort with the killer of the little girl, but this emotion is gone when he recants the tale to the shrink.) Why? Because his emotional core is actually self-centered, although it takes the specific form of social “justice”. I always wondered why he didn’t simply take comfort in the fact that his journal could expose the whole thing.
As a counter-point, his journal’s final entry mentions that he probably will not survive. He seems to have no qualm with this. He seems willing to die for his ideology. But he doesn’t seem simply discontent with his failure to stop Ozy. He seems truly discontent with his death. That moment marks the true end to his vigilanteism, and to all his power to change the world.
Edit: …he is still most enjoyable…
rorscarch is not a fascist. he does not believe that any and all people (or the subset that are his co-patriots) have positive obligations to each other, and should be strongarmed by a powerful leader (i.e him) into working for a greater good. rather he is just concerned with delivering punishment to unjust individuals. he dishes out justice whether people ‘like it or not’. that doesnt make him a fascist, it makes him a vigilante. there is a difference between fascism and vigilantism.
So you believe that he would have no problem with legalized prostitution?
Not just justice. He is quick to judge all manner of people by the company they keep, and quick to break their fingers for information. I don’t believe he does this for justice, or justifies it in a utilitarian sense. He seems to enjoy it even if it doesn’t produce anything. More likely he is a cultural fascist.
from what i know of his character he wouldnt care what this law or that law was in place. he is the judge.
also having ‘dislikes’ is not the same as ‘being active against’. (this is another way of saying that libertarianism is not libertinism.)
i dont know what a cultural fascist is. so no comment on that.
I simply meant that he takes a fascist view of social liberty - he is intolerant of certain cultural preferences, and I do believe he would rationalize aggressive violence as justified against such. I think it goes beyond dislikes; however, the work does not seem to have enough details to clearly say. I tend to think that he was simply too busy with bigger fish that were clearly criminal.
He is the judge, he is the arbiter of his own justice upon the world. In colloquial words: he is a fascist, stop dancing around the term,
He has no problem with killing anybody who partakes in activities he dislikes; ergo, he is fully against that which he dislikes.
who do you rely on to provide moral judgements? which you then adopt? if you say no-one, and that you are your own judge. then supposedly that makes you a fascist?
thanks for dancing with me.
please provide evidence that rorsarch’s character has killed a liberal for being a liberal, a prostitute for being a prositite etc. maybe i havent read the story close enough.
i’ll look closer too but ponder this…
he definitely says that the liberals, prostitutes, and politicians would ask him to save them, and he says he wouldn’t. why deny such general classes of people justice, if that is his supposed goal?
Rorschach was a joke of a character for me, not because he wasn’t brutal, but because Moore never got Objectivism. It’s not surprising, considering he probably never read anything by Rand within the context it was meant.
First, Objectivism doesn’t suppose moral absolutism, it simply supposes there is a right and there is a wrong, and that it is possible to know by a consistent basis which is which.
Second, Objectivism doesn’t suppose any cultural norms as moral or immoral, in fact Objectivist Ethics would run counter to the majority of so-called cultural norms (especially the overdependence on family, or “king and country” for example).
Third, Objectivism contends that no life should be sacrificed as life in respect to human life is valuable (or at least can be valued thus gain value from those who possess it).
Just on those three points alone, Rorschach would have had many issues accepting Objectivism under any basis. He would have probably considered it a ‘liberal’ philosophy.
I am almost sure it was intended more as a barb against Steve Ditko. Ditko’s work did get weird when he tried interjecting his Objectivism into it, and not long after he drifted into obscurity - where he remains (in fact now he is a hermit). I wouldnt get too offended by his portrayal of it, considering its a cartoonish parody of what he thinks Randianism is.
Actually, Ditko has done some limited penciling in the early 2000s for a few comics. He’s reclusive for the fact that he didn’t want his art to be mingled with his personal life. To him his artwork lived apart from him. Perhaps that’s what he learned with Mr. A, that sometimes the audience isn’t all too interested in what you think as an artist, but rather just want your skill in the craft instead.
I knew he had done some minor work. All I know is he had not made a public appearence in almost 40 years (his right of course). I am fortunate to own several peices of his original artwork from Atlas comics (Marvel Comics name from 1951-1957), however.
I love how this has turned into a discussion of Rorschach! I have problems with his character, but out of all the others he’s the one I respect the most, because it seems to be the only one with any real moral principles. I suppose Nite Owl kind of has them, but he seems a coward to me.
I personally couldn’t help but make the connection between Rorschach and Robert De Niro’s character from Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, incidentally also a jaded Vietnam veteran complaining about the lack of Morals in 1980s New York! In any case De Niro’s character is far less psychopathic, and has been a character from a film who I have sympathised a lot with.
With a thread titled “moral philosophy and the watchmen” I don’t think the SPOILERS heading is needed. A person would be a fool to open the thread if they didn’t want the movie plot ruined.
To be fair, while the Question was awsome, Mr A was just bad story telling from the 3 stories I read. When someone lets philosophy get to much in the way of a story it ruins it for me. Just my opinion.
Other than that I find the most unbelievable part of the watchmen not a giant squid or atomic blue naked guy, but a mainstream right wing news paper. Brilliant comic book though
Yes, it did. He already had a bit of editorializing in his art (something about his hate of hippies in Dr Strange), but Mr A was a bit out there. I still love his work for Strange Tales - classic.
I will certainly rush to comment on this as soon as the axxo rip comes out.
But you could always read it for the story and enjoy just the story and art. Like the Watchmen, it has a pretty profound message (one which I have some sympathie) but you can ignore it and just love the story. Mr A however, is essentially just Ditko preaching a message. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that, however that is not how I prefer my fiction. I always prefer a story first (or music first, or art first, etc) mentality, which is why I find Mr A inferior to The Question. Like I said that’s just my opinion.