{"id":539,"date":"2012-08-14T21:10:59","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T01:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=539"},"modified":"2012-08-14T21:10:59","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T01:10:59","slug":"in-defense-of-superman-learning-virtue-throught-popular-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/08\/in-defense-of-superman-learning-virtue-throught-popular-fiction.html","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Superman: Learning Virtue throught Popular Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

For centuries and millennia, the inhabitants of the Western world have recognized the indispensable role that stories <\/em>play in shaping moral character.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Human beings are born neither virtuous nor vicious, as Aristotle correctly noted.\u00a0 Rather, both excellence and vice are habits <\/em>that we acquire by way of imitating <\/em>others\u2014whether these others are flesh-and-blood beings or works of fiction.<\/p>\n

The superhero comic or\u2014as it is more commonly, and accurately, called today, \u201cthe graphic novel<\/em>\u201d\u2014is especially illustrative in this regard. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, untold numbers of people from across the country (and the world) forgo all to pack themselves into movie theaters to enjoy cinematic adaptations of these graphic novels. Unfortunately, though, relatively few people look beyond the action and the glitzy special effects to discern the provocative moral insights supplied by the films\u2019 protagonists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take Superman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Man of Steel is the prototypical superhero, the Babe Ruth of superheroes, as it were. Yet not infrequently, and especially as of late, commentators of one sort or other have demeaned this perennial symbol of \u201cTruth, Justice, and the American Way,\u201d comparing him unfavorably with, say, Batman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Batman, as anyone who is at all familiar with DC Comics lore knows, has no super powers, and yet he tirelessly wages war against all manner of evil doers.\u00a0 This, <\/em>the Superman detractors contend, renders him more admirable than the god-like Man of Steel who is virtually invulnerable.<\/p>\n

To look at Superman and see only an immovable object whose campaign to rid the world of evil must be easy and, thus, less than fully admirable, is like looking at the Grand Canyon and seeing only a big hole in the Earth.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Far from detracting from his goodness, that Superman possesses enormous power actually accentuates it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The historical record is a depressing one on this score, but it is abundantly clear: the greater the power that is concentrated in the hands of a person or group, the greater the danger they pose to others.\u00a0 Lord Acton famously summarized this point when he said that, \u201cpower tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Superman, though, in spite of having at his disposal far more power than the Earthlings among who he lives, chooses <\/em>to use that power to serve, not his own selfish interests, but the well being of others\u2014meaning the entire population of the planet.\u00a0 His gifts\u2014his awesome strength; his heat, x-ray, telescopic, and microscopic modes of vision; his \u201csuper\u201d hearing; his ability to move at the speed of light; his \u201csuper\u201d cool breath; and, of course, his ability to fly\u2014he employs inexhaustibly to save strangers.<\/p>\n

Like Jesus Christ, with whom he has been long compared, Superman voluntarily assumes to himself the incredible, and incredibly selfless, responsibility of serving as a beacon of hope, justice, and goodness to the world.\u00a0 Both Christ and Superman could have deployed the enormity of their resources toward the same end\u2014self-aggrandizement\u2014upon which the powerful have been preoccupied from time immemorial.<\/p>\n

Yet they refused to do so, instead ordering their very lives as a standing rebuke to oppressors the world over.<\/p>\n

What this means, however, is that if Superman is insufficiently heroic or admirable because he <\/em>is like a god, <\/em>then Jesus\u2014who Christendom affirms is none other than God\u2014<\/em>should resonate even less with us.<\/p>\n

It will do no good to object that Christian theology also recognizes that Jesus is fully man.\u00a0 <\/em>Superman too is fully a man (even if he isn\u2019t an Earthling by birth).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interestingly, there are<\/em> Christians who seek to re-imagine the Person of Christ by emphasizing His humanity at the cost of de-emphasizing His divinity. This tendency has been particularly acute among contemporary Biblical scholars.\u00a0 Some of these scholars\u2014like those who compose \u201cthe Jesus Seminar\u201d\u2014deny that Jesus was divine at all. On the other hand, there are others who concede His divinity while all the same concurring with their unbelieving colleagues that unless we opt for a \u201clower Christology\u201d\u2014a more human-centered depiction of Jesus\u2014we will not be able to relate to Him.<\/p>\n

That our heroes must be relatable and, thus, human, no reasonable person would dare to deny.\u00a0 But what both the detractors of Superman and the proponents of \u201clower Christologies\u201d fail to notice is that the objects of their critiques are that much more human because <\/em>of their unimaginable powers and the purposes that they elect to serve with those powers.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just as the deity of Jesus compliments and enhances His humanity, so too does the awesome power of Superman and his selfless use of it distinguish him as the finest of human beings.<\/p>\n

Contrary to their critics, in choosing to devote themselves to serving others, Jesus and Superman do indeed render themselves vulnerable.\u00a0 How could things be otherwise?\u00a0 After all, the readiness with which Christ and Superman surrender themselves for the good of others is a function of their boundless love, <\/em>and as anyone who has ever loved knows all too well, the price of love\u2014any love\u2014is pain.\u00a0 <\/em>But the greater the love, the greater does the pain promise to be.<\/p>\n

Superman is a fictional character.\u00a0 Jesus is real.\u00a0 Still, there are crucial insights that this analysis yields.<\/p>\n

First, neither the power of Superman nor that of Jesus makes them less heroic and worthy of imitation.\u00a0 Quite the contrary, given what <\/em>they have chosen to do with this power, they are actually the finest specimens of humanity.<\/p>\n

Second, though none of us can ever become Superman or Jesus, we can learn from their example and aspire to use what power we have<\/em> for similarly noble purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

originally published at The New American<\/p>\n

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For centuries and millennia, the inhabitants of the Western world have recognized the indispensable role that stories play in shaping moral character.\u00a0 Human beings are born neither virtuous nor vicious, as Aristotle correctly noted.\u00a0 Rather, both excellence and vice are habits that we acquire by way of imitating others\u2014whether these others are flesh-and-blood beings or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Defense of Superman: Learning Virtue throught Popular Fiction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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