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The Superhero Handbook
A Do-Gooder's Guide to Saving the Planet A Book in Progress by Glenn Campbell Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Production Notes This is a DRAFT document, and everything here is subject to editing. Your feedback is encouraged! FamilyCourtGuy<at>gmail.com |
We can define a superhero as anyone with "powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men" who also makes a conscious decision to use those powers for Good. Flying figures in capes and masks come to mind, but of course the classification can also apply to any number of entirely human figures. Social workers, police officers, doctors, administrators and just about anyone who helps someone else can be thought of as a superhero and faces the standard superhero dilemmas.
What all of these roles have in common are (a) power over others, and (b) specialized knowledge about how to use that power. Doctors, for example, have trained for years to gain a specialized set of skills. None of this knowledge is secret, per se, but the general public hasn't made the substantial investment necessary to gain it. A doctor as the power to write prescriptions, order tests and perform surgery, but more importantly he has the knowledge of how to use these things to heal his patient. Through this knowledge, he can provide a service to his clientele. Unfortunately, this knowledge also isolates him from his clientele and creates a conflicting set of expectations between them.
When one person has power over another, there is a shift in the way they relate to each other. Inevitably, a wall will arise between them. One party desperately needs something and hopes that the other will provide it. The party with the power has relatively greater resources but not unlimited resources. To avoid being overwhelmed, the party in power has to put the brakes on the relationship, making sure that it doesn't exceed his ability to give. This naturally creates a barrier between the two of them, enforced by the one in power.
When you take off your clothes for a doctor, you are very vulnerable. Especially if you are ill, your emotional needs are huge. If you could make it so, you would want the doctor to see you right away, devote all of his time to you and give you all the optimistic answers you are seeking. Unfortunately, real doctors have to deal with countless practical constraints on their own resources. They have to juggle many patients, as well as the needs of insurance companies and the limitations of their science. To see the doctor, you have to make an appointment and perhaps wait when you get there. The doctor will eventually see you and give you his undivided attention, but only for a limited time. After that, the doctor is not going to be easily accessible to you. It's like he goes back to his batcave to do mysterious things you don't understand.
Whenever you have power over someone else, you have to put some theatrical distance between you and them. You can no longer be their friend, in the sense of being able to say whatever you think and feel. You have to be very careful what you say and do, because it is easily misinterpreted. Every move you make has to be measured and choreographed so you don't fall into any of the hazards already mentioned.
Think of how a judge appears to the litigants in his courtroom. He wears a robe and sits in a high podium. When he enters the courtroom, the bailiff says "All rise!" and when lawyers talk to the judge, they are supposed to do it in a certain respectful way. In the modern age, all this pomp and circumstance may seem hokey, but it is still necessary. The judge has huge power—the ability to put people in prison, for example, or to take away people's children. To effectively exercise this power, there have to be barriers between the judge and his clients. The ceremony may be theatrical, but the litigants expect it, and it provides a control mechanism protecting the integrity of the exchange.
Likewise, if there is a famine in an African village, and you arrive with a relief truck full of food, you can't just open the doors of the truck and let the people at it. Chaos would ensue. When any resource is distributed to the needy, it has to be done in a controlled way, with a theatrical sense of order and authority. The people receiving the resource must be required to obey a set of rules, and you as the giver are responsible for enforcing those rules. Inevitably, you are forced to become an authority figure, and you will probably find yourself employing the symbols and protocol of power, like those of the judge, to keep your constituency in line.
Children dream of being superheroes because of the respect that society apparently accords them. What kid wouldn't want to be Superman or Wonder Woman, known and adored by millions? When you actually arrive at superhero status, however, things look quite different. Sure, people adore you, but they often have a hidden agenda, so you can never be sure the respect is genuine. Everyone praises the queen when they want something from her. The queen is beloved for her power and image, but not necessarily for herself. Under these circumstances, how does she know who to trust?
The natural corollary of power is loneliness. To exercise your power, you have to erect a security system between you and the neediness around you. This is a cage that keeps the world at bay but also locks you inside.
The greatest risk of power is that you, locked in your cage, eventually lose touch with your constituency. Surrounded by her courtiers, guards and sycophants, the queen may have great difficulty ascertaining what is really going on in her kingdom. Over time, she may become more and more isolated from the effects of her actions. She acts based on a theory, but she has few opportunities to compare the theory to reality and adjust it accordingly.
All superheroes face this difficulty—how to dispense your resources in a disciplined manner without cutting yourself off from your clientele. Sadly, most people in power pull it off poorly. In their isolation, they quickly lose touch and drift away from what is really best for their clientele. Over time, they may forget their own enormous power. They say a word and think that no one has heard, but in fact millions have heard and all of society may have shifted as a result.
Once you get used to power, you have a natural tendency to underestimate your impact on others. You proceed according to some abstract theory, but then may be shocked to see how many lives it has changed. If things go bad as a result of your decisions, it is easy to deny responsibility, because you remain isolated in a prison of your own creation. "It's not my fault," you say and your sycophants agree, when of course it is your fault.
On the other side of the relationship, your clientele also tend to misjudge the situation. Their usual error is to overestimate your abilities. In their eyes, if you have the power to fly through the air and rescue children from runaway trucks, then you must be capable of anything. Their urge is to deify you because doing so is convenient for them. If their choice is between worshipping you or accepting responsibility for their own actions, they are probably going to worship you, and there is little you can do to stop it.
Which is easier: accepting your own mistakes and trying to fix them or praying for a superhero to save you? If you know superheroes exist and were even saved by one once, then prayer has a powerful attraction. Because you don't have the superhero's specialized knowledge, his actions seem like magic to you. If you believe in magic, then you can believe anything is possible, which is far more a curse than a blessing.
People often make bad decisions in their lives and find themselves trapped, and the more trapped they are, the more vulnerable they are to believing in miracles. Say you bought a house in city where the local economy is disintegrating. As your own quality of life deteriorates, the only viable solution may be to sell the house at a loss, abandon most of what you have invested in and start your life over from scratch. People loath such painful choices, however, and would much prefer to have a hero save them. Emotionally, they need to build the person in power into something more than he is—as a god-like character who is capable of fixing everything that is wrong in the world.
The superhero can lay out exactly what he is capable of and not capable of, but the people won't believe him. They treat him as a god whether he wants it or not. Very often, the superhero is hung by these expectations. He does what he can, but the people always expect more. They expect their problems to be solved miraculously so they don't need to face their own hard choices, and they may be unforgiving when the superhero can't deliver.
These misunderstandings between hero and client are always a burden and are a powerful argument for remaining anonymous. As much as you may enjoy the power and prestige of being recognized for what you do, it is usually more effective to keep a low profile. Clark Kent can move around much more easily than Superman, and the expectations of him are far less. If you have a super power, you want to exercise it quietly whenever possible. A certain level of deification is inevitable, but if you can deflect attention away from yourself and shift more responsibility to the clientele, you'll usually get more done.
Continued in Chapter 13
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