They count on us dragging each other down, because they want to believe we’re all as greedy and sociopathic as they are. It helps them hurt us guilt free to believe that.
That’s what McCarthyism was all about, attacking, shaming, and scarlet lettering Americans who did the unthinkable and empathized and encouraged …gasp… cooperation with others rather than gleefully competing against them.
The funny thing about the Incredibles movies (both of them) is that the villains were right. It’s just too bad their methods were bad.
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Syndrome’s goal was egalitarianism and empowerment of everyone via technology.
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The Screen Slaver wanted people to become more self-sufficient and fill their lives with experiences, instead of wasting them idolizing heroes on TV.
(The conspiracy theorist in me can’t help but notice that Disney has a vested interest in discrediting those ideas, especially the latter.)
I think this is what makes for an interesting villain in general though across all media. That uncomfortable feeling of relating to them or seeing they have a point even though their actions are clearly reprehensible
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Some politicians do, its just they tend to burn themselves out fighting against the neverending tide of the self-interested ones.
It doesn’t help that often they have little to no support structure because most people assume they’re corrupt by default.
This kinda sounds like the whole few bad apples thing.
Are you suggesting the politicians who try to help people out, or who care about the public, are the “few bad apples”?
I think that’s typically considered the difference between a “politican” and a “statesman” (or statesperson)
Politicians care about winning elections and staying in power, whereas statesmen actually give a damn about the future over getting eternally re-elected on empty promises.
The problem is that politicians run the show, so if statesman (or legislators) want to get things done, they have to play the political game anyways. Becoming politicians by default.
I mean at the same time that’s meant to be the advantage of a democracy
When everyone is pushing their own self interests, more often than not things ought to average out close to a compromise everyone can accept
Which is, frankly, a ridiculous concept. If you only ever consider your own wants, compromise (a necessary concept in any non-authoritarian system) is impossible.
Balance of self interests is literally the entire concept of politics and economics
