The Dark Knight Rises: We need to talk about Bane

The purpose of this post is to explore perspectives on human behaviour from 3 different disciplines; Psychology, Sociology and Politics, and observe how these perspectives interrelate.

Warning!: 1. It will make little reference to, and take much poetic licence with, the Dark Knight Rises. 2. Spoilers for the film are contained within. 3. The perspectives will be oversimplified for the purpose of intellectual entertainment.

 

Psychological perspectives: Nature versus Nurture

(In Psychology today the debate is not generally framed as crudely as Nature versus Nurture using terminology instead such as nature via nurture or the interaction of genes and environment). 

Nature simply refers to the genetic code one inherits from their biological parents. An individuals personality is written into this code prior to conception. If human action was determined exclusively by genetic coda then Talia al Ghul committed the same actions as her father, Ra's, because she shared the same genes as him.

Nurture is essentially everything other than genes; every external, environmental factor on an individual after conception. An individual's personality is shaped by experience and exposure to these factors. The factors of predominant focus in traditional Psychology are upbringing, family and peer relationships. When Batman and Bane fight for the first time, Bane tells Batman how the physical absence of light shaped him as an individual  -"You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, moulded by it" (Bane 2012).

 

While Psychology acknowledges the existence of social influence as an environmental factor, the nature-nurture debate tends to overlook the power of social structure on the individual.

Sociological Perspectives: Structure versus Agency

Social structure refers to how society is ordered and organised, and provides or prohibits the resources and choices to an individual.

Structural Functionalists see social structure as necessary and natural for a healthy functioning society. Society can be compared to an organic system with each social structure, or social organ, (for example the nuclear family or the state), performing a vital function for the good of society and the individual.

Conflict Structuralists on the other hand do not see social structures as natural or inevitable and observe that social structures can create a dysfunctional society which in fact harms individuals. Selina Kyle (2012) implies that social structure constrains individual choice: "I started out doing what I had to. Once you've done what you have to, they'll never let you do what you want to" (Kyle 2012). John Blake (2012) understands "structures (as) becoming shackles" (Blake 2012).

 

The Nature-nurture debate also tends to ignore the concept of free will, or in sociological words, agency. Whether it's biology or the external environment or social structure influencing an individual, all these concepts imply a deterministic model and neglect the philosophical presence of agency, the ability of an individual to independently choose how to act. Bruce Wayne is chronically physically debilitated, financially bankrupt, placed in an "inescapable" prison and subject to mental torture, but he is able to overcome his nature, environment and social structure in order to escape his fate, defeat Bane and save Gotham.

 

 

Political Perspectives

Political theories rely on assumptions embedded in these positions on human behaviour and whether the individual is governed more by nature, nurture, structure or agency.

A political concept that assumes humans are almost exclusively the product of their genes is the extreme political concept of racism, which holds that certain races are superior or inferior by virtue of their biology.

Conservative political theory is an almost direct mirror image of Structural Functionalism promoting traditional social institutions such as the nuclear family and maintaining social structural stability. Social Conservatism emphasises the value of a good upbringing and the importance of nurturing children within a familial context. This would fall under the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate.

Nationalism and Fascism would also come under Structural Functionalism arguing that the social structures of the nation and the state are good for the individual and society. The nation is an entity that should govern and preserve itself by promoting stability and unification in its structures and social relations.

Right wing liberals/libertarians regard agency as the primary vehicle for human behaviour. Individuals are free to act how they choose and are solely responsible for their own actions. However libertarians do acknowledge the reality of some social structures such as the police and legal system in order to enforce and preserve the law. Note right wing liberals do not see Capitalism as a structure but as a free market of individuals.

Socialist/Anarchist/Marxist/Communist political theory disagrees with right wing liberal/libertarianism that individuals are free agents under Capitalism. These left wing theories reflect Conflict Structuralism and emphasise particularly how economic and political structures, such as private property, class and state, can exploit and oppress individuals, and produce conflict within individuals and between social groups. However the conclusion of these theories can range from dismantling all social structures and replacing them with a society of pure individual agency and voluntary association to creating a new social structure or state which ensures equality, or in Bane's words gives social structures back to "the people" (Bane 2012).

 

Left wing liberals/social democrats aim for a mix between structure and agency, promoting greater agency within a capitalist social structure. Recently, with developments in genetics in biology and psychology, left wing liberals have begun to emphasise the constraining force of genes on agency, (for example the genetic basis of alcoholism)  as well as other environmental constraints on individual agency other than socio-economic structure, such as physical and mental health.

Conclusion

This post does not aim to provide an expansive description of the nature nurture debate, the structure agency debate and the political left/right spectrum. It offers a rudimentary overly succinct oversimplified breakdown of these debates and explains how psychological and sociological assumptions are embedded in common political ideas. The picture is catastrophically more complex in reality. For example, many psychologists argue that nature and nurture are so inextricably interwoven, it renders the debate useless. However, the conclusion of this post is to pose this question: if these political theories rely on particular psychological and sociological assumptions, should it be the case that we make sure those assumptions are not as rudimentary and simplified as this post implies? Should our political ideas be more nuanced based on a more evidence based view, evidence from Psychology, Biology, Sociology and other disciplines? Perhaps then political dialogue  would be less like idealistic indulgence and more rooted in reality with the capacity to genuinely better individuals and social relations and structures.

The Dark Knight: The Philosophy of the Joker

Sensible living (according to the Joker)

The natural condition of mankind, or 'state of nature', is a concept that imagines the hypothetical conditions of how people behaved before societies came into existence. 

According to Thomas Hobbes, the natural state of mankind - without society or social rules - is “warre... of every man against every man” (Hobbes Leviathan: Chapter 13). This view is shared by the Joker. 

The Joker (2008) suggests that if you take away social convention and place individuals into a more natural situation in which they must decide between themselves or the greater moral good, individuals will abandon all social rules and kill each other (he later attempts to prove this point with a social experiment involving boats). He states that people's “morals, their code, is a bad joke, (and would be) dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be... When the chips are down, these 'civilised' people, they'll eat each other” (Joker 2008).

Hobbes' answer to this natural state of “warre” is the “social contract”. Social Contract theory states that individuals tacitly consent to the reality of an authority, for example a State, that's function is to maintain order among warring individuals.

The counter-argument to this theory is that in a state of nature individuals are uncorrupted by society and the state and are naturally more free to associate themselves with others and co-operate rather than kill each other. This is the premise of philosophies such as anarchism. Anarchism's response to its alternative premise on the state of nature is the opposing conclusion of removing the state and social order and reverting back to a state of nature.

Although Joker (2008) shares the same premise as social contract theory, he flips the conclusion of social contract theory on its head and in fact advocates an extreme individualistic form of anarchism, verging on moral nihilism, living without any social associations or rules – “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules” (Joker 2008). This is not pure nihilism however as the Joker does seem to possess a moral or principle, the principle of living sensibly. It could be inferred that living sensibly would, to the Joker, translate to living as your natural, truthful self; your absolutely selfish, malevolent self as opposed to your unnatural, unreal, social self. In this sense, living according to one's own nature would be the moral ideal of the Joker's.

The Joker (2008) also implies, from a practical viewpoint, that living without society actually protects you better than the social contract. Knowing the truth about humanity's natural state makes you better prepared for when people turn against you - “They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out like a leper” (Joker 2008).

Joker's philosophy is not simply an attack on social or moral rules but also on society's and social group's plans. As Joker (2008) explains:

“The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know. They're schemers, schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are” (Joker 2008).

The Joker (2008) points out the hypocrisy of society's plans – “Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that.. a truck load of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all part of the plan, but when I say that one little old mayor will die, then everyone loses their minds”. Even though in the first instance, more innocent people will die, because it is part of the social plan, nobody panics. In other words, social schemes and conventions are simply fabrications, socially and psychologically constructed structures that have no real existence, in the same way that moral rules have no real natural existence.

So in a world without rules or plans, how does one live? According to Joker, one lives simply by doing - “I just do things”, in other words, one lives naturally and spontaneously. This is similar to the concept put forward by the existentialist Martin Heidegger, "dasein", but where dasein refers to being in the moment, the Joker conceives of doing in the moment. Joker's concept of 'doing' is perhaps evocative of the ancient Taoist values of naturalness, simplicity and spontaneity and the concept of wu wei -  of “effortless action” or “action without intent” - acting in an uncontrived, unplanned, wholly natural way.

Living sensibly then, according to the Joker, is living naturally, selfishly and spontaneously, without any moral rules or restrictions, without any social or personal control or convention. 

Batman Begins: The Philosophy of Ra's al Ghul

True Justice (according to Ra's al Ghul)

Ra's al Ghul refers to True Justice in a Retributive sense. 

Retributive Justice states that the right response to crime is to punish the person who committed the crime, normally with a severity that is proportional to the severity of the crime committed. To complete his initiation into the League of Shadows, Bruce Wayne is asked by Ra's al Ghul to murder a murderer.

The reasoning behind Retributive Justice might include a conception of Justice as “balance” (al Ghul 2005). Justice, in this sense, could be likened to Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

It could also be said that in the same way Newton's Third Law is understood as a universal Physical Law determining the interaction between physical objects, the principle of Retribution could be understood as a universal Moral Law determining the requisite response to immoral behaviour. This appeal to a universal moral Law is rooted in a form of reasoning called Deontology.

Retribution usually includes the concept of moral desert. Those who commit an act of immorality deserve to suffer a corresponding punishment. The implication here is that the individual who committed the criminal act is exclusively responsible for that act. It is the criminal alone who rightfully receives retribution as it is the criminal alone who is to blame. 

However, al Ghul appears to contradict this:

Here, al Ghul asserts that Bruce Wayne's father was responsible for his parent's murder. This could be suggesting that the person who committed the act of murdering Bruce Wayne's parents is actually without blame and that it is the victims responsibility to prevent another individual performing an act of crime against them. However, al Ghul's philosophy does not automatically contradict.

It could be argued that the individual has both a responsibility to not carry out a crime and to not allow a crime to be carried out against them. In the example of the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, al Ghul does not deny that the murderer himself deserves to be murdered. However, Bruce Wayne's father simultaneously deserves to be murdered precisely because he did not prevent himself from being murdered. 

In the example of Person A stealing an item from Person B, perhaps Person A deserves a corresponding punishment, for example something of similar value to be stolen from them, but Person B does not deserve to have the stolen item returned to them as they allowed Person A to steal it from them. However does this logic hold up if Person B was not in the proximity at the time in which the item was stolen?

Looking at al Ghul's example, if Person X is murdered, they deserve to have been murdered and have therefore received what they deserve (and the murderer, Person Y, also deserves to be murdered). It follows then that if Person X successfully prevents themselves from being murdered then they deserve to remain alive, however what about Person Y who still intended to murder Person X? Does Person Y deserve punishment or not?

Al Ghul claims that when it comes to preventing a crime, “training is nothing, will is everything”. The concept of Bruce's father possessing the will to actively prevent his own murder could be read as being rooted in Metaphysical Libertarianism which states that free will can override physical causality. Al Ghul however could be referring only to the specific case. Bruce's father, being an able bodied man, possibly physically, mentally and intellectually stronger than his opponent, should have possessed “the will" to actively and successfully disable his opponent. Given Bruce's father's physiology, he is consequently responsible for the crime.

Ra's al Ghul extends the concept of Victim Responsibility beyond The Individual to that of Society, or The City – The City is responsible for its own acts of criminality carried out by individuals or institutions within that city against individuals or institutions within that city. 

When talking about crime on a society-wide level, Ra's al Ghul acknowledges the existence of institutional crime in the form of corruption and decadence:

“The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome. Loaded trade ships with plague rats. Burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence we return to restore the balance” (al Ghul 2005).

The function of the League of Shadows is to exercise Retributive Justice on a Society-wide scale. Punishment is to be carried out on any Society that in itself could be called a Criminal entity. Ra's al Ghul maintains that like other cities before it, Gotham “has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die”. Gotham has been morally destroying itself and therefore its punishment is to be physically “destroyed”.

If the punishment is directed at society in its entirety this implies that all members of society are responsible for society's criminality, all members of society are responsible for ensuring that crime, including institutional crime, is not perpetrated or perpetuated. If crime takes root in their society, all individuals, whether villain or victim, are equally guilty.

The underlying implication in al Ghul's argument is that individual consciousnesses can transcend their bio-psycho-socio-economic-historical situations and simply will themselves to stop criminality from occurring or continuing. Ra's al Ghul's philosophy could therefore be conclusively characterised as Libertarian in the metaphysical sense, pertaining to the idea that nothing is determined and free “will is everything”. The exception to this of course would be morality itself and the moral Laws that determine behaviour, however it would be, according to al Ghul, within the individual's power to choose to prescribe to those Laws or not.