Or rational mind vs emotional mind as its commonly put.
These two aren’t at odds.
Emotion is not the other side of knowledge it is two sides of it:
The Ignorance of Knowledge in which case it is a free ranging ocean of influences and dispositions passively taking place.
The Application of Knowledge in the understanding the capacities of our choice and expression.
This concludes my spam.
Remember this means with it:
You are not gay/bi/etc
You are not black/Asian/etc
You are not French/Anerican/etc
You are not a son/mother/etc
You are not but what you choose
Your SELF is not the ideas of others and antiquity.
This is something that has been swimming in my mind for a while now and I believe it is true. While there is no end to evolution, it is not a process of progress. It is responsible for transporting us to this point that is the highest of humanity. No longer are we forced to live reactionary lives defined by and adapting to our environments, free are we to choose our life in all aspects, now we as individuals not as a species can exist for our deepest subjective power, love. We can exist entirely as passion.
When one of my hearts starts to fail they can become a bit disappointing.
YOU CAN BE SO MUCH AND YET YOU CHOOSE TO BE LIES AND FEAR.
So easy it is to get along, to do nothing even is not so hard.
Existing, together would be so basic and simple.
Each has as they’ve made for themselves and as they’ve been given.
Cooperation and collaboration even can blossom.
It’s only combing voluntary parts.
All with such ease.
Harder is the construction of fear.
Instilled by the infected.
The Creators of fear suffer the worst.
Working without pause towards no end
but disruption.
Walter White spent his entire life being an honest, sincere and caring person. Never taking for himself. Only wanting to give to others. Rather than make money from his intelligence he chose the path of an educator, to nudge others in the right direction. The only thing he ever wanted for himself was love and family.
When Walter learns that he has cancer despite doing nothing in his life to bring it on, his first instinct is to insure his family’s security after he is gone. Quickly we see that this means for Walter, this means on his own. This appears to be a continution of his moral standards to earn all that he has and owns. That he has to provide for his family out of a sense of responsibility and duty. However, I think this is something else entirely, I think this is Walter saying he won’t allow his life to be in the hands of other’s any longer. Walter White believed in people and people gave him the bare minimum. He believed in the world and it gave him cancer. This is Walter taking control, this is the birth of Heisenberg.
As the series progresses we see Walter shift more and more completely into Heisenberg. Looking at two of his most famous lives, “I am the danger.” and “Stay out of my territory.”, we see that they reveal quite clearly that Heisenbergs development has become more than merely controlling but expressing that control, that power, to it’s extremes. If he is the danger and the territory is his then he effectively eliminates all threats in his newly declared domain. All that once ripped and pulled at him is now under his control, Walter White is no longer at the mercy of the world’s currents or the whims of others, Walter White is in control.
The Dark Knight was a film that handled its philosophy in the perfect way. It did so with the lightest of touches; a feat that most films with lofty expectations of leaving viewers with something to think about, let alone a dark, actiony superhero flick, fail to achieve. But The Dark Knight accomplished it. The movie handled the ideas with subtlety. If you’re not actively searching for the philosophies, you may just miss it while being all caught up in the immensely deep and engaging battle between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.
So naturally, one would think that, judging from the surface, its sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, fell rather short of the standard set forth by TDK. The apparent heavy-handed use of “the 99% vs the 1%” theme would hardly qualify as subtle. But that is taking the written script too literally and not allowing for a deeper examination of the inner workings of the minds of our great core characters.
Indeed it is true that Christopher Nolan has admitted to being inspired by A Tale of Two Cities, a novel that already holds a bit of significance for this current era with its story of class warfare and revolution. There is much to find in its social commentary and criticism that can be compared to the contemporary Occupy movement and other active protests. Therefore, the comparison to the rhetoric of the diabolical Bane or the femme fatale thief Catwoman comes easily. However, with these complex characters, it goes much deeper than that.
I will start with an easier one here with Selina Kyle (Yes she is not strictly a villain here, but for most of the movie she’s in a bit of conflict with the heroes, so I’ll discuss her with them). And that’s not to say she isn’t a good character or anything. Hardly. But she unfortunately doesn’t have a whole lot of backstory given to her in the movie (which is admittedly a little surprising, considering the character’s rich history throughout the comics). Her knowledge, skills, relationships and even technology is never really given an explanation. However this can definitely be seen as a good thing as sometimes, especially with Nolan films, the less said about something or someone, the better. Such is the case here I find.
From what very, very little we learn, the Catwoman (as she is never referred to in the movie) is apparently a character who fell to her current level. She wasn’t born to this, unlike another couple of our interesting characters in this film. No, Selina Kyle got involved with the wrong kind of people, got on the wrong side of the law and had to adapt to her ever-changing life. And as she states, she is indeed adaptable. But, living the life of the occasionally glamorous but often poor jewel thief would have a tendency to slightly embitter you to the privileged of society. Such is where the conflict between Ms. Kyle and Mr. Wayne stems from. Selina preaches a Robin Hood outlook, but in reality, she’s less “give to the poor” and more the usual “just give to me” attitude. She would like nothing more than to see Bruce Wayne and his billionaire buddies all taken down a nice peg. However, she is delivered a stark realization when she gets exactly what she wanted after Bane and his League of Shadows destroy all social and economic structure in Gotham. This chaos is what, in the end, motivates her to finally choose a definitive side in the fight for the city’s soul. She cuts from her antiheroine lines and joins Batman in his last effort to stop Bane from achieving his goal of the total destruction of Gotham and its people. And yes, that is truly Bane’s goal, as I will discuss next…
Now the big villains of Batman have always taken center-stage in whatever medium they have appeared, and here is an interesting character to be sure. Bane could certainly rival The Dark Knight’s Joker in intricacies. And the two even share very similar goals, but their motives and methods are polar opposites. Bane is a ruthless, cold and calculating monster. He creates elaborate plans and manipulates powerful people, all in the effort to inflict pain and punishment to Bruce Wayne and his city. His endgame is death, destruction and chaos. Sounds like our loveable Joker, right? But where the Joker wants to incite chaos to expose the inner corruption of people and prove that everyone is as dark and demented as him, Bane wants nothing more than to utterly destroy corruption. He was taken in and trained by Ra’s al Ghul to battle the evil of the world and do the work of history by destroying great civilizations that have fallen into the depths of degradation. However, Bane’s origins show that he already had a abhorrence for depravity and highly valued innocence. He became the protector of the young Talia al Ghul, a child he saw as good and pure within a cavity of desecration that was their prison. And when the League takes over Gotham, Talia stays in the shadows while Bane gets his hands dirty. He preserves her purity. This sort of fanatic dogmatism may have put him at odds with even Ra’s, and so this may have been the reason for or greatly contributed to his excommunication from the League of Shadows, as Alfred theorizes.
So it is most apparent that the Joker and Bane are different breeds of insane villainy, but this isn’t just about comparing and contrasting the two big baddies. Bane is a fascinating enough figure to stand on his own without having to bring in the other iconic rogue. No, it’s time for me to disprove the idea that Bane had some sort of political agenda.
I am really not sure where the idea that Bane supports one side of the political spectrum or another comes from. His populist speeches about liberating the oppressed and giving Gotham back to the people were nothing but demagoguery meant to manipulate the citizens of Gotham, to demonstrate the horrors of their wickedness and justify his and the League’s actions. He cares not for the common people, the proletariat, the 99%. To him, everyone in the city is guilty of the most heinous crime, and must be punished by death. The anarchy is simply a means to proving that sentence and achieving the execution. The people who join up with and rally around him after he’s taken the city are just useful idiots; tools to be used to complete the League of Shadows ultimate plan and fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny. That is the true nature of his “necessary evil”. Theatricality and deception are powerful agents indeed.
And now our hero. Batman’s a character we’ve gotten to know previously over two films, but it is this third film that arguably gives him some of the most radical development. Essentially, The Dark Knight Rises shows us a broken Bat. Broken even before he confronts Bane. It has been eight years since The Dark Knight, and in that time, Bruce Wayne has hung up the cape and become a recluse in his own mansion. The events and deaths of TDK have hurt and tired him greatly, but he still hasn’t moved on past them. He’s a man without a cause. A man who’d always looked for an escape from his dark path, but lost it when the woman he loved was killed. He never got his escape. So when Gotham is threatened once again and the people need Batman, he resignedly dons the cowl and mask once more. But he underestimated his enemies. He thought Bane and his crew were just another group of violent thugs. He didn’t realize he was facing the reformed League of Shadows. Their new leader. His equal. Real trained warriors and assassins. And he’s ruined for that mistake.
When Bruce is brought to the Pit he is truly and utterly broken. But he hasn’t given up. He’s still in the fight. Now though, he has to relearn who and what he is. He has to re-become Batman. He returns to where he began. Bruce says at one point while training, “I’m not afraid, I’m angry”. This is very reminiscent of the man he was early in Batman Begins. Back then he was just angry and fighting to fight. He didn’t have his cause yet. Then he meets his mentor Ra’s al Ghul, trains with the League of Shadows and learns what he is fighting for. He learns not to be without fear, but to use his fear against his enemies. To make them share his dread. So when he takes his final climb up to get free of the Pit, he does so without the rope on the advice of a fellow prisoner who had seen the way the child Talia al Ghul made the climb many years ago. He must do it with the fear of death. It makes him stronger and faster. It makes him succeed. He returns to Gotham a new Batman.
Bruce’s love interests are another case to examine. Miranda Tate (who of course is actually Talia) and Selina Kyle display a good opposite. In many ways, Miranda represents what Rachel Dawes did. A strong woman with a position of power and a normal life. A partner for Bruce Wayne. Selina however, is a very different person. She’s a strong woman, but she’s also a fighter. A thief who wears a mask. A match for Batman. And after all of it, Bruce isn’t the man underneath. He’s the man that does. He ends up with the woman that he could be himself with, Selina.
At the end of the film we see the Batman come to his conclusion. He makes himself more than just a man. He becomes something else entirely. A legend. Batman sacrifices himself to save Gotham and goes out in a blaze of glory with the whole city watching. A statue is erected in his honor. People look up to him. But his legacy doesn’t die. Robin John Blake is set to put on the mask and take on the mantle as the city’s silent guardian. Of course, he wouldn’t really be Batman. Not quite. And people would know. But the legend is solidified. John Blake’s Batman would have the mystery about him. Who is he? How is he related to Batman? Is he really Batman? A new Batman? That furthers the legend. That gives more power to the fear he brings and furthers the legend. Batman never died; he was reborn.
So what is the overall message of the film? What is its core, underlying philosophy? Christopher Nolan has always had an individualist streak in him. He’s always stressed the power of the one. This film is no different. He never necessarily takes sides in the class warfare. He prefers to examine the man and his fight against injustice. Batman’s struggle and his character’s evolution over the years. The movie is about a good man’s redemption in the public’s eye, and the legacy he leaves behind. The consequences of suppressing the truth. How structures can be shackles. How to rise from fear, chaos and pain. How anyone can be a hero.
But most of all, the film is about what you take from it. There is no one, big philosophical message in it. There are many. Each character is a very realistic person, with their own life, beliefs, values and goals. You may agree with one character over another. You may agree with many characters. You may agree with no characters. That’s your choice. It’s what you decide. Nolan and his friends, family, and team aren’t trying to push any idea really. They’re just showing you the life of a masked man, his city and the people who live there. In a way, you too are a citizen of Gotham. It’s up to you to decide who and what you believe in. Heroes. Villains. Men and women of law and its enforcement. Regular people. Legends.
It’s a long read but a worthy one.
A mother, who got drunk before accidentally smothering her baby and killing him, was ceaselessly mocked by Headline News host Nancy Grace on one of her shows, asking “Did mommy booze it up and kill her baby?” and suggesting she should have been charged with murder.
That woman, made further despondent after seeing the segment, set herself on fire. She later died.
(via The New York Daily News)
I hope Nancy Grace is pleased.
Never forget, your words do have an impact on others.
Love,
Rabble
Nancy Grace is a terrible human being.
Okay hold on. Couple of things here.
1. Nancy Grace isn’t a terrible human being, it’s a tv show. Her goal is to be controversial.
2. Words cannot effect other people.
3. The crime of manslaughter makes no sense. The woman made a stupid choice that resulted in something unfortunate but she did not intend on killing the child(so far as I can tell anyways). She is not free from responsibility because she is not punished, the consequences of her actions is that her child is no longer alive and she is the cause.
4. I highly doubt she set herself on fire because of Nancy Grace.
STOP USING YOUR CHILDREN AS POLITICAL TOOLS.
This child has no idea what they are protesting and the parents are forcing their ideas onto her. This is just as bad as religious indoctrination.
Porn is not BAD by any actual standard of the word.
Porn actors/actresses are not forced into it the work, they are not unintelligent and their decision to be so is not the result of sexual abuse.*
To suggest that they are selling their bodies or even that a prostitute is and then to suggest that any labor is not a selling of one’s self is an extremely inconsistent view.
*Not that those cannot be the case but they are hardly common and just as much the case in any profession.
it’s okay to have an opinion for your own life and to apply that to your life anyway you see fit so long as you do not force it upon others, their opinion is not yours and yours is not correct, it’s a subjective view not an objective fact.
“I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities.” -Ayn Rand
