Loyalty vs. skepticism

We humans have the problem of being biased in favour of something if we have been involved in it for a while. It is pretty hard, and requires a lot of guts, to get out of something we are already involved in, if and when there is evidence to counter our belief in some other thing that is necessary to continue doing that thing. This is most commonly referred to as loyalty, and most often considered good.

And therein lies the cause of most problems. Being loyal to my family makes me blind to its blemishes. Being loyal to my religion makes me tolerate its bigotries. Loyalty to my traditions makes me oversee their historical misinterpretations and exploitations that continue to have an impact today; to my employer makes me disbelieve his / her / its shortcomings that doesn't directly affect me; to my country makes me insensitive to its atrocities; to my ideas makes me incapable of figuring out my bias.

The more the time we spend in doing something, the more we want to believe that thing to be right, the more vehement our support for it, the more biased we are, the more time we spend doing that thing.

Skepticism, then, is the only hope. But if we are skeptical of everything, then what are we but skeptics? And if I am skeptical of skepticism, am I a skeptic or am I not?

Why So Serious?

I believe "The Dark Knight" deserves the top spot it has earned on IMDb. This post is more a testimony to the characters Batman and Joker themselves than to Chris Nolan and Heath Ledger.

Though I don't like superheroes, Batman has grown to be my favourite. The reason is his strength - his anonymity. It is the purest form of service - to fight for justice and to expect nothing in return, not even recognition. To be able to satisfy oneself with the only fact that justice is being reinforced. To be called a wealthy industrialist with no big concern for the city when actually risking one's life for the betterment of the city. He is an embodiment of service in its purest form.

And that is exactly where the Joker scores. The kind of lunatic who could do outrageous acts for no reason, commit crime not for money or power, but for the establishment of anarchy, for reigning chaos. To fight against justice and expect nothing in return. To be able to satisfy oneself with the only fact that lawlessness is the only law. To be called a lunatic, a freak, when actually risking everything for what one believed in, and rightly so, for the Joker's doctrines are those of a lunatic, a freak. He is the true 'Professor Chaos'.

As the Joker himself says, the conflict is like when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. The concept kind of reminds me of the movie 'Seven' which also has a similar theme. But, unlike there, the Batman makes the Joker lose by losing himself, by sacrificing his options to prove his vigilante image wrong - another point that reinforces the Joker's claim that the Batman 'completes' him. The underlying theme is heavily inter weaved with ironies and seemingly paradoxical situations. The whole Batman-Joker battle has been elevated to an ideological stratagem, and that is what makes the movie brilliant. And Chris Nolan has proved his genius thus. But, it would be unfair not to mention Ledger's owning of the role of the Joker. The body language, the dialogue delivery are exemplary, perfect even. A must watch. Probably more than once!