Real Life Rorschach wrote:
How is Rorschach a negative character?
His integrity is boundless, even to death. He is an outspoken conservative who realizes he is living in a world that is changing for the worse. His idols are people who do whats right not for any specifc reason, but because its right. He is also the only one who continues to thwart evil in a world that has forgotten him. Moore, a pinko-liberal, tried to portray a right winger as a nutjob but in my view he is the only one still with a sense of morals and purpose left in the story.
I know this is a super liberal board and Im probably one of only 2 conservatives on it, but I really felt that he was the ideal that we should strive for...except maybe we should shower every day, IMHO.
The gross simplifications and glaring contradictions in this statement are as clear as day and speak for themselves, but I'll give them the proper recourse anyway, for a lack of anything better to do and in the hopes of eviscerating the ideas that make such insipid inferences possible.
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How is Rorschach a negative character?
His integrity is boundless, even to death. He is an outspoken conservative who realizes he is living in a world that is changing for the worse. His idols are people who do whats right not for any specifc reason, but because its right.
Manically clinging to Kantian absolutes as a way of absolving yourself of responsibility and isolating yourself from the consequences of your actions is far from virtuous. And his only idol (mentioned anyway) is a man whose only lasting impact is the apparent affirmation of utilitarianism.
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He is also the only one who continues to thwart evil in a world that has forgotten him.
The world has not forgotten him, it has rejected him. Him and anybody else who would supplant humanity's judgment with their own. Him and anybody else who would purport to know what is best for the world, even if the world doesn't know it. By 1985, his crusade against evil has him breaking the arms of sickly old men and hospitalizing police officers. He has no respect for society, no desire to right its wrongs, and no interest in justice. He exists only to punish the wicked, even if, by doing so, he has become the most wicked of all. Evil must not be punished for the sake of it, but because Rorschach thinks that it ought to be, and Rorschach decides what evil is. It is a hideously subjective jingoism wrapped in a cloak of perfectly objective deontology.
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Moore, a pinko-liberal, tried to portray a right winger as a nutjob but in my view he is the only one still with a sense of morals and purpose left in the story.
I know this is a super liberal board and Im probably one of only 2 conservatives on it, but I really felt that he was the ideal that we should strive for...except maybe we should shower every day, IMHO.
Moore was not subverting the conservative, he was satirizing the objectivist. He was highlighting the fact that nobody can ever be the neutral embodiment of objectivism, as everybody is ultimately subject to their own personal experiences and opinions. Rorschach decides what is right and what is wrong, who is good and who is evil. And these conclusions are, more often than not, misguided and misplaced. I will now reiterate an earlier post of mine, from another thread, in lieu of trying to cleverly reword it:
"The man is a riddled with contradictions. He abhors crime and wrongdoing, but unknowingly embraces it by stealing, breaking and entering, and, hell, probably killing two police officers (the poor souls at the wrong end of a can of hairspray and his grappling gun). This is because he does not consider himself a part of society, he considers himself above it ("I'll look down and whisper . . ."). He has seen society's "true face" and thinks that it is not deserving of his sympathy or restraint. Moore wrote the character in a very specific way, a way that shows you the implausibility of somebody as black-and-white as Rorschach. Nobody can be the perfectly neutral, consistently objective personification of deontological ethics like Rorschach supposedly is; personal subjectivity is bound to get in the way, as one cannot help but be shaped by the experiences in their lives. Rorschach's leniency towards prostitutes and the many other "minor" infractions he encounters along the way is evidence of this. Whether he knows it or not, he compromises quite a bit. He compromises his desire to punish Moloch's possession of illegal drugs and an unlicensed gun by rationalizing that Moloch would probably be more useful out of trouble, where he is, where he could provide as much information as Rorschach needed. Why? Priorities. Finding out what he can about Blake's murder is a bigger priority than Moloch's pills, and herein lies the contradiction. Theoretically, Moloch's gun and Blake's murder are both evil deeds, evil deeds which must be punished, but only one can be addressed. So what is an objectivist to do? That's right! Compromise! Whether you know it or not . . ."His "righteous" defiance of Veidt is not so righteous when you consider its consequences. By punishing evil, he would have likely doomed the world to further death and destruction. He might argue that it's not his responsibility, that any negative repercussions from his unveiling of the plot are inherently Veidt's fault. But, if he had the choice, how is it not his responsibility? He would have plunged the world into chaos, simply because he refused to acknowledge the consequences of either Veidt's actions or his own.
Rorschach is not an idol, he is a warning.
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