(12-13-2017 06:49 AM)toddjnsn Wrote: Quote:and while we're at it, what if Superman was raised in Nazi Germany instead of America?
Then everyone in Europe would be speaking German right now (and possibly us!).
USC wouldn't be leaving the P12 unless the P12 was falling apart like the B12 did back-in-the-day, and the B12 started grabbing teams.
Highly doubt it. BUT, maybe there is a Superwoman who was raised in Canada, eh?
When our nation was being formed there was a vote on the official language. English nudged out German by a vote or two. Verstehen sie?
The difference of course is that Superman the hero is an American creation born out of our cultural identity which at that time emphasized personal responsibility and accountability in a nation that prized individuality. Hence one guy, not exactly from our world, but raised with our ideals, who can inexplicably do it all.
The concept had been kicked around before by Nietzsche and others when philosophizing about the perfect man.
Hitler adopted his archetype from such philosophical discussions, misappropriated it to fit his concepts of racial purity (partially borrowed in a mishmash Wagnerian archetypes and concepts from the Vril Society) and turned it all into the horror of the lebensborn through which he hoped to obtain the supermen that would arise through Aryan purity. So it isn't all that odd that the comic book hero (who during WWII is actually depicted fighting Nazis) and Hitler's confused notion of producing supermen were actually contemporary with one another.
Unfortunately it's not coincidental that now the abandonment of personal responsibility and accountability and the pursuit of a better person is occurring contemporary with lagging education, rising incarceration, and entertainment that has been debased in language usage, reduced to violence and sex only, mocks ideals, and gives us the movie "Idiocracy".
The pursuit of the better self should never have been abandoned, but it is dying along with religion which in most cases urges that pursuit. As our founding fathers once pointed out, and nation of the people, for the people, and by the people, cannot long endure (major condensation of thought here) when we quit being vigilant (accountable & responsible) as people. Or when we quit striving to be better.
I would argue that the Nanny State mentality is the greatest warning to our public that going forward none of us shall be truly free, that those who consider themselves to be superior to our citizens will decide matters for us, and that we should no longer strive to be anything other than subservient to our corporate overlords.
We are no longer challenged to be better or smarter or to think rationally because we are being raised now to be a new kind of slave. Inebriated, fat, stupid, and irresponsible is no way to go through life! It's kryptonite to freedom.