Sex Robots and Violence Against Women

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/09/15/ethicist-calls-for-ban-on-sex-robots/

When I first read this article, my initial reaction was... "So What?" One of my favorite recurring subjects on Cracked.com is the subject of how sex ultimately drives innovation.  A funny theory is that it won't be human's motivation to solve some major world problem that ultimately drives progress towards advanced robotics, but human sexuality.  People's desire to create something that advances their own sexual pleasure will ultimately drive our advances in robotics.

But my second response to this article was "how might sex robots impact violence against women.

Now, when you imagine a sex robot you're probably thinking of this:
(PICTURED: PAIN)

But what we are actually talking about, is something like this:











(Pictured: Sadness)

Sorry,  I don't want to start off by judging people:


(Pictured: Innovation!)

But yeah, that kind of looks like a woman.  (How many beers before that uncanny valley starts to look like a an uncanny pothole?)

Ok, back on track.  Lets get to the point.  A simple web search reminds us of the impacts pornography has had on our culture.  According to "Stoppornculture.org", after viewing pornography, men are more likely to report decreased empathy for rape victims, have increasingly aggressive behavioral tendancies, support  rape myths to a higher degree, report anger at women who flirt but then refuse to have sex, and report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex".

You may be a porn watcher, and this data may not describe you.  To you I say, congratulations!  However, you'd be lying if you said these results weren't correlated with the porn that is out there.  88.2% of top rated porn scenes contain aggressive acts.  Usually, porn focuses on the pleasure of men rather than women.

These statistics (of which there are many more), are the result of men watching films with scripted narrative.  Now imagine the effects were the pornography interactive.

The underlying ethical question that I believe Kathleen Richardson is asking is, how will an robotic sex doll (which by virtue of its marketing must be open to all sexual acts), impact violence against women.  Regardless of your feeling on pornography,  it is undeniable that porn crafts an unrealistic picture (or movie) of what real sex looks like.  At the very least, the women in porn scenes (mostly) consent to what happens in those scenes.   Even if you are watching a video where a character does something they don't want, at the very least someone could reasonably tell himself that the actress agreed to it.  In that way, the most aggressive concepts of masculine sexuality are kept in check with morality.

With sex robots, there are two questions we have to ask ourselves.  What are the repercussions for women when we have objectified them so much in pornography that they are now actual, physical objects?  And finally, how does real sex begin to look when men are never challenged to think about the realism of what they are seeing?  In a word where sex robots could potentially be as accessible as online pornography to adults, what happens when you actually own your sexual partner, and consent is a non-issue?

Perhaps they could create a robot that you had to get consent from.  Maybe she'd say "you have to buy me dinner first!"


(Pictured: FIRST DATE!)

The "Gun's Don't Kill People..." Chorus in a World Where MSM Can't Donate Blood

One thing we can count on since the events of Charleston, SC is a renewal in the gun-control debate.

No doubt you’ve heard about the recent act of terror committed by Dylann Roof.  What you might be unaware of is that for his birthday he received money which he used to buy a gun. Yes, the gun itself was not the gift.  The gun, which he used to murder 9 people, was purchased before the act of violence, but after two arrests earlier this year.  Both charges were misdemeanors, however due to the nature of the behavior and the proximity to the date of purchase, both should have been factors in the sale.  A misdemeanor still goes in your record for at least two years.

Does anyone else think it’s a little absurd that you could be arrested twice, and then less than 6 months later go out and buy a gun? 

If not, you should. 

Not because you ought to feel one way or another about gun control, but because the ability to buy a gun this close in proximity to two arrests is inconsistent with how our government and how we as a people handle public health risks.

Let me break this down.

First of all, regardless of your stance on how guns should be regulated, we can all agree that gun violence is a public health issue.  By that, I mean that the frequency of violence in our communities causes injury and death can be addressed and solved through education, community changes and programs.

Consider then how we handle another public health risk, HIV/AIDS.  One of the many intervention that our government uses to prevent the spread of HIV is by not allowing any man who has ever had sex with another man from donating blood.  A policy, that has just been reviewed by the FDA and upheld, bars gay men and other men who have had sex with men from donating blood in an effort to limit HIV transmission.  Participating in a risk activity even once is enough to prevent an entire group of people from donating blood for their entire life.

Stop and reflect on this world we live in.  Our government, and many individuals, believe that it’s too risky to let a man who had sex with another man in 1978 (a year into the beginning of the AIDS epidemic) donate blood.  Yet, I could be arrested for a drug charge, and a trespassing charge (which involved me dressing in all black and making strange comments) and buy a gun a few months later.

Perhaps you think that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime; being a drug user doesn’t imply that you are going to be a murderer.   Well, having sex with a man doesn’t imply you are going to get HIV… but the government still seems happy with making that assumption, with some deal of public support.

For so long now, the chorus “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” has been shouted over the debate.  In many ways it’s a chorus of individual responsibility: most gun owners are responsible people, we shouldn’t limit access to guns simply because a small portion of individuals used them irresponsibly.

Applying this same logic to blood donation and you get the opposite of FDA Policy.  The policy does not seem to value the individual responsibility of men who have sex with men and instead holds the entire group responsible for (yet to happen) deliberate contamination of the blood supply.  Worse yet, this injustice is committed in the face of technology that can easily test the blood for HIV, eliminating the risk of anyone HIV+ donating blood without knowing their status.

Just as blood donation is a potential avenue for HIV transmission, guns are an avenue for violence transmission.  The only difference between is that we need blood, blood saves lives.  Yet we shrug off blood shortages and say “bring on the guns!”  An entire population is barred from saving lives due to a preventable risk that could have happened 37 years ago while another population is allowed access to ending lives regardless of obvious risk factors that happened days ago.

Review: "Efficacy of Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women"

By now you may have heard of the new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Efficacy of a Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women”.  The study finds that women who attended a sexual assault resistance program reported about 50% reduced incidents of rape during follow up.

 

You might have heard about this study by some article claiming that “teaching women self-defense is the best method to reduce rape”.  This is untrue.  From a public health perspective, the best method to prevent any kind of public health problem is one that not only addresses the problem but also addresses it equitably, justly, and with respect to the population it is targeting.  In this case, teaching women self-defense and skills to identify potential assailants does prevent them from becoming victims (key word *them*), however it does not prevent perpetrators of sexual violence from committing rape.

 

The study itself admits that this is a flaw, but leaves open the possibility that this strategy could be used in conjunction with programs that seek to educate men (largely the perpetrators of sexual violence) about how to talk to/stand up to friends and be active bystanders.  However, is it likely that schools would implement both programs?  Everything costs money, and given that schools have a responsibility to protect their students, it seems possible that when trying to decide which expensive program to implement they would go for the one that prevents the most rape.  Administrators are not public health experts (always).

 

There exists an important distinction between saying “women who attended the program reported 50% reduced incidents of rape” and “the program reduces rape victimization by 50%”.  The program itself doesn’t actually prevent rape, but rather insures that participants aren’t the victim of rape.  Now, let’s consider three facts:

1.      There is no reason to expect that the number of any potential rapists at any of the schools changed (increase or decrease).

2.      The control and intervention groups existed on the same campus, meaning that some group of women at University X had the training, and others at University X had the control.

3.      Many perpetrators of sexual violence are repeat offenders.  According to the work of David Lisak, many college aged rapists are responsible for an average of 6 total rapes.

It seems quite possible then that the rapes that would have happened to the intervention group simply happened to the control group.  Thus the actual frequency of rape may not have been affected (the authors don’t seem to make a specific reference to the total number of rapes that occurred on campus during their study).   

 

It is also worth noting that his potential displacement could skew that data to make it look like the intervention is more effective than it actually is.  Say for instance that the true number of sexual assaults on campus without an intervention is something like 25%.  However, with the introduction of the intervention, the number is displaced for the experimental group onto the control group.  The researchers assume that the control group at follow up is similar to baseline, but with displacement the rate rises.  Thus the control group follow-up and thus assumed baseline is 30%.  Thus any intervention’s effect is magnified.  As I read the study, I find no reference to the number of reported rapes per year per institution.  According to 1 in 4, roughly 5% of womenreport surviving rape or attempted rape at college every year.  The study found that among the control group, 9.8% experienced completed rape.

 

Let’s say that again, because its important.  We would expect 5% of women who receive that status quo to experience rape or attempted rape (more inclusive).  The study found that almost 10% of women during the study period experienced completed rape (less inclusive).

 

Now take this information and applying it to our previous conversation about what colleges tend to or are able to do.  Is a college likely to implement a 4 session program for all women on campus?  Maybe, but if not, there could be a huge displacement issue.

 

I think the idea of empowering women to protect themselves against violence is a good one.  And while the jury is still out in terms of its efficacy, I believe it is clear that resistance programs are not the equitable, feasible, or just response to the problem of sexual violence.  

Trade Chat: A World of [Warcraft] Opportunity

I've been a long time advocate of engaging men in sexual violence education in "unlikely places".  And by unlikely places, I'm really talking about places where we don't feel like notions of violent masculinity exist, when, in fact they do.  For whatever reason, the gamer community or the greater "geek" community in general is never the target of interventions addressing masculinity or sexual violence.  However, if you've ever found yourself in Trade Chat ( a World of Warcraft chat room), ever read a comic book, or ever heard of GamerGate, you'd know that the men in this community are fantastic targets for some education.

World of Warcraft would be a phenomenal venue for some sort of online intervention meant to address rape culture, pro-rape myth attitudes, and unhealthy masculinity.  For starters, approximately 6.6 Million of the over 10 million World of Warcraft subscription belong to people between the age of 16-25.  According to a survey from 2004, 84% of World of Warcraft players were male, although the proportion of female players has likely risen since then.

So we have a community of 6.6 million young men and women sharing a virtual world.  And in that world, we have rampant sexism.  In my own opinion, the sexism in World of Warcraft does not actually come from the game.  The game boasts several strong female characters (Sylvanas Windrunner, Tyrande Whisperwind, Jaina Proudmoore all come to mind).  WoW does fall prey to the "scantly clad women fighting demons" thing.  Basically, if you are playing a female character, you might find your armor to be a little more revealing.

The true sexism in World of Warcraft comes from it's players.  As in any community, the problem isn't actually with the entirely of the population, but rather with a  small and loud minority.  WoW is no different.  Spending time in a servers trade chat reveals that each server has their own "troll", someone who appears more often than others, usually saying things to get a rise out of other players.  While these "trolls" may not personally believe what they say, the act of trolling with, say a comment about how women belong in the kitchen perpetuates sexism regardless of it's intention.

The asset of World of Warcraft as a potential intervention site is its cultural importance.  Just this week, World of Warcraft was inducted into the video game hall of fame alongside Tetris, Super Mario, Doom, Pong, and Pac Man.  That's right, like it or not, WoW has had as large an impact on culture as these other iconic games.  So WoW really does have a lot going for it; a fictional universe that unlike so many others has strong female characters, a high number of young men, and huge cultural relevance.

Its not hard to imagine how bystander strategies might be adopted from college campuses to the streets of Stormwind City. Bystander intervention is not necessarily about jumping in to stop a rape in progress, but about training men to stand up to their friends and teammates who are making jokes about rape, or belittling the experiences of rape victims.  Interventions through World of Warcraft could reach millions of young men and women across the world in a way that very few social media campaigns ever could.  Moreover, given that World of Warcraft carries such a significant weight in gamer and in overall pop cultural, the effect of some intervention could be seen beyond the game itself.

Now, of course there would be challenges.  The most important being how do we get people to listen to us?  While colleges can deny funding to groups unless they undergo training, there is no way to make people listen to education around sexual violence during a time they probably use for escapism. A thought that comes to my mind would be training and employing some sort of "reverse troll", who says things to get a rise out of those hold negative attitudes.  While this is not a traditional method of education, it would fit within the bounds of the WoW trade chat universe.  Another possible strategy would be to increase WoW's mature language filter to include words like "rape" if it doesn't already.  A final possibility would be to encourage popular raiding guilds or e-sport teams to support healthy masculinity.

I think that this could be an incredibly effective strategy at reaching young men across the world.  As our world becomes more digital, we should be expanding our message to reach a digital audience.  World of Warcraft could be a phenomenal research tool for Public Health professionals on how to improve behaviors and attitudes online.  Currently, we are letting this opportunity slip through our fingers.

If you have any other thoughts, comments, or suggestions for strategies, feel free to post them in the comments below.

Is Sexual Violence Education Only for Cool Kids?

In the last few months there has been a pretty interesting debate going on behind the scenes of the video game community.  This event, dubbed "GamerGate", has reached some public attention (discussed on the Colbert Report among others...), but hasn't seen the same airtime as other events in the greater debate on gender and sexual assault that has been going on for most of 2014.

In short, GamerGate has been an ongoing controversy about how women and women's ideas have been considered in video game culture.  At the heart of it lies the inability for some men to just say "Yeah. I can totally see how this would be offensive".

Now, I'm generalizing genders, as there is certainly a large population of women that say "feminists are being too PC."  Sure.  There are also men that are very supporting of the incorporating "feminine values" into the gaming community.  And there are also women who are just showing up to posting boards yelling "check your privilege", without a single thought to the fact that some people don't know what that means.

Now I thought of this as an isolated incident, but I did think briefly to myself "why don't we do anything to talk to nerds about sexual violence and gender issues?"  Now just to give you a taste, a ton of women who have participated in this discussion have received DEATH OR RAPE threats!  This is a sexual violence issue as well as a gender issue. So why isn't it a conversation we are having as a part of the greater?

Earlier today, I was reading an article posted by Cracked.com about a bunch of "ignorant jokes" from surprisingly good comedians.  The article talked about a specific joke from Louis CK who states that vaginas should have a daintier name, because he imagines flowers when he sees them.  The author then suggested that this link has a potentially negative impact on women (and is simply not true, due to the overwhelming strength of the vagina).

People FLIPPED OUT.

I think I could get away with critiquing Gandhi before getting away with critiquing Louis CK.  But why?  Seriously, Cracked.com is a website that exists for the express purpose of over-analyzing popular culture.  A recurrent series is "the horrific implications of <insert movie here>"  How is this at all different than saying "the patriarchal implications of <insert stand-up>" when your source is a humor website.  Both don't actually comment on the quality of the media, they only hyper-anaylize.

Plus, don't give me that PC stuff, you can't say something is just "over political correctness" when REAL people get offended.

The point is, for whatever reason, there is a group of men out there who are getting extremely angry about inserting our feminist noses in their business.  And, though I can't put my finger on it, I feel like there is some shared quality to being super defensive about keeping video-games for men, and being super defensive of a comedian's reputation.  Its somewhere between being a nerd and being a hipster (and I use those terms as identities, not as insults).

So where is the conversation about them?  Why are we leaving this enormous population out of our greater conversation about sexual violence, gender and patriarchy. Why are we spending tons of money to educate fraternities but ignoring the gaming club?  At the very least, why are we willing to engage a fraternity population, but we are willing to dismiss the online population as stupid, harmless or just obnoxious.  Seriously, when someone held up a sign at Texas Tech that said "No means yes, yes means anal", people FREAKED OUT.  That happens on the internet ALL THE TIME.  That single event got more press coverage than GamerGate.

Perhaps its because we don't view nerds as high risk perpetrators, and I think part of that has to do with an idea of masculinity that even the staunchest feminist still might have.  Simply put, we don't imagine these people having sex, or as powerful enough to rape anyone or to follow through on a threat.

So internet, I say to you please broaden your conversations, and go deeper.

Maybe Your Son's A Rapist: A Response to Time Magazine's Criminal Defense Lawyer Comment

Time Magazine’s May issue was perhaps the greatest summary of different views and realities about campus sexual violence over the past year.  Along with being one of the most awkward purchases of my life (the Barnes and Noble cashier only saw the giant “RAPE” flag on the front and was a little afraid), the “Debate” section really opened my eyes to some different opinions.

Naturally, one made me angry.  A criminal defense lawyer gave the following opinion.

“Colleges will risk sanction by the Department of Education if they don’t take action in favor of women who report sexual assault.  The school’s incentive is to set up a process that results in guilt.  One way schools accomplish this is by defining sexual assault as sex with any one who has been drinking.  But drunk sex isn’t what Joe Biden is talking about.  The ‘drunk sex=rape’ rule is systematically unfair to male students, especially when we all know drunk sex is common in college.  When my daughter leaves for college, I want her to be protected from sexual assault.  But when my son goes to college, I want him to not risk his future whenever he has sex after a party.  And based on the cases I’ve seen, I’m more concerned for my son than my daughter”

Initial rage-summary:  I’m more concerned that my son will be in trouble for fucking anything that moves without any regard for consequence than I am about my daughter being raped.

But seriously, I actually want to unpack this step by step (SO THAT WE CAN GO DEEPER).

(1) “The school’s incentive is to set up process resulting in guilt.”

           

Ugh, no it isn’t.  A school’s incentive is to do whatever is attractive to incoming students.  That is to under-report rapes and therefore to set up a process resulting in innocence.   Whenever the administration can say “oh, those crazy kids”, the school can just write it off with a relatively clear conscience. In theory, colleges have always been at risk for Department of Education sanction due to under or misreporting because doing so is a Title IX violation (and they’ve known about it since 2011 according to TIME).

Sure there is a little more drive and push after 55 schools have been publically called out for being under investigation, but we all know that only a few will actually be found “guilty” and it is really unlikely that federal funding will be pulled. 

(2) “Schools define rape as sex with anyone who has been drinking.”

First off, school’s tend to define rape as having sex with anyone who is unable to give consent.  Being drunk means you are unable to give legal consent. 

Notice how these definitions are different.  If I go out and get drunk with my girlfriend of four years, and we both agree to have sex when we get home, and then DO have sex when we get home, all else being equal, it isn’t rape.

However, if I just met a girl at a party and we are both drunk, maybe it is rape.  OR at the very least, a truly well-meaning good guy should be operating under the assumption that it might be. 

But how are guys supposed to make the kind of judgment call?  I don’t know, the same way they decide not to go on homicidal shooting sprees after a night of drinking.  Which leads me to…

(3) The whole, “systematically unfair” and “worried about my son” part.

Why is this guy so afraid for his son?  Let’s disregard the whole part about how he is more concerned for his son’s  (if history gives us any evidence) slap on the wrist for being accused of  rape than for his daughter’s potential rape.

He claims he is basing this fear off “the cases he’s seen”.  Now, as someone who makes a living defending rapists… I mean men accused of rape, I could understand how you would be more likely than others to find evidence that there are many women who lie.  But just like nurses who think full moons bring out the craziest injuries, the data just doesn’t support it.  According to One in Four and a host of other research, less than 10% of all reported sexual violence cases are unfounded.  It is important to note that this statistic in its collection is likely flawed in a way that would make the actual value even lower.  For example, police officers may dismiss a sexual violence case if the victim has a prior relationship to the assailant or if drugs or alcohol were involved. 

You could see why this would be a big problem at college.

Furthermore, David Lisak and other researchers have gone on to study perpetrators of sexual violence.  In their studies, as reported by TIME, somewhere around 6% of men report rape perpetration behaviors, and half of those (3% of men) report multiple offenses, with an average of 6 rapes each. 

Why is this important to our lawyer friend?  If drunk sex were so common in college, and it was so easy to conflate drunk sex with rape, wouldn’t we expect to see these report behaviors way higher than 6%?  Or is it possible that 94% of men out there know when something is wrong; that having sex with a woman who is too drunk to give consent is wrong.   The claim that these policies are “systematically unfair” to men is only true if we admit that men have no responsibility to be morally cognizant of the rights of those around them.

There is also the equally likely possibility is it possible that women aren’t falsifying reports (what!?!).  There is some fear out there that women love to make up rape stories.  Why?  Why would a woman’s desire to claim someone raped her be any stronger than a man’s desire to say he was the victim of a crime?  Perhaps the nature of the crime being difficult to prove and the social stigma placed on the accused…

Hmm… how is that working out for them?

What should Mr. Lawyer’s take away be?

Rape culture has created a world that has blinded you towards the truth of what is happening.  So much has been made of campus sexual violence that a sensationalized media brings you stories of men falsely accused of rape.  Because these stories are so accessible compared to the statistical reality, we cling to these and claim they are the norm, plunging us into a world where women apparently love to take time out of the best 4 years of their life to sit in front of some deans and make up stories.

Rape culture has created a world where we fear our sons will be accused of violence, but lack the courage to ask ourselves whether we have prepared them to be good men. Is it possible that they are capable of violence.  Rape culture is when we say sexual assault policies work systematically against men because we believe the only thing that separates a rape from a drunken mistake is what side of the bed the girl wakes up on the next morning, leaving good men “vulnerable”

It is time for us to face reality, as represented by what we know from data and facts.

Here’s an uncomfortable truth, Mr. Lawyer.  If your son is accused of sexual assault in college, it’s probably because he did it.

The Killing Joke and the Abyss

In honor of “The Dark Knight Rises”, I thought I would take a look at what is widely accepted as one of the greatest Batman graphical novels, “The Killing Joke”.  The story not only sets the stage for future events, but challenges the reader to think about The Joker and The Batman in entirely different lights.

WARNING, CONTAINS SPOILERS (Just incase you're going to read the comic... yeah I just realized how stupid that sounded)

For those of you who haven’t read the Killing Joke, I will provide a very brief synopsis.  Essentially, the Joker hatches a plot to reveal that everyone is really just “one bad day” away from being as crazy as he is.  To prove this point, he goes to Commissioner Gordon’s home and shoot’s his daughter (also Batgirl for those of you who don’t know) in the spine and paralyzes her.  He then kidnap’s the Commissioner and forces him to look at very graphic pictures of her lying in pain.  As you might imagine, the Clown Prince sends an invitation to Batman to see the friuts of his labor.    

Frequently throughout the novel, the Joker has flashbacks to life before he became the Joker.  As a struggling comedian with a wife and baby on the way, he took a job sneaking gangsters into a factory.  During the planning session, his wife is killed and he is grief stricken, although the gangsters make him go through with the heist anyway.  Batman shows up during the heist an accidently knocks him into acid, the last straw in his “bad day”.

Batman arrives and the Joker begins to run away.  As Jim is being freed, he tells Batman to make sure he brings the Joker in by the book.  Upon arriving the Joker proudly proclaims that the doesn’t care if Batman sends him back to Arkham Asylum, because he has already proven his point that everyone is just one bad day away from insanity.  After a final confrontation, the Joker is defeated and lies at Batman’s mercy.  In an attempt to reach out to him, Batman states that one of these battles will eventually lead to one of their deaths, and that they ought to stop their fighting.  Batman offers the Joker a truce and offers to help him get through whatever happened to him.  For what happens next, it may be best to look at the actual panels.

Believe it or not… the goddamn Batman laughs!   At least until he apparently strangles the Joker, or is laughing so hard that he needs the Joker for support.  Or both.  The ending is left intentional vague, and to be honest I’d rather leave it that way.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a major point of this work was to paint a side of Batman that showed that in his own dark and twisted way, he’s pretty insane, and his relationship with the Joker curious.

            The real interest I have in this story is what the joke the Joker tells actually means to tell us.  It is undoubtedly inserted to be a metaphor for Batman and the Joker’s relationship; the dramatic situation reminds Joker of the joke for one, and the actual panels imply it as well.  As the Joker mentions “two lunatics”, the scene pans out to reveal both Batman and the Joker’s silhouettes. 

            The joke itself took me a minute to fully understand, mostly because I read it too fast.  The first lunatic offers to shine his flashlight across the gap so that the other lunatic can walk across the beam of light.  Obviously, this is impossible. However, instead of picking up on this impossibility, during the punch line the lunatic refuses for an absurd reason.

            Assuming that the punch line is a direct allegory for the dramatic situation, the offer to “shine the light so that you can walk across the beam” is being compaired to Batman’s offer to the Joker to live.  Batman admits that the Joker may succeed some day in killing him, so by asking for a truce Batman offers the security of life.  To the Joker, the security of life is as much of an impossibility as walking across a beam of light.   The joke points out that for Batman to try to reach the Joker on this level is insane, and for the Joker to accept it would be insane.  For the Joker, Batman’s offer of a secure life is a bad offer not because the tangible, biological state of life is unreliable (like the man holding the flashlight), but because such a life cannot even exist in his world.   Batman speaks of life for the sake of itself, while the Joker speaks of life for the sake of living.

            Batman firmly states during the final confrontation that the Joker has failed and that Commissioner Gordon has NOT been driven insane.  However, after going through that Gordon did, wouldn’t it be insane to not be insane? Gordon insists that Batman comply by the rules in apprehending and defeating the Joker, but the Joker’s point is that an ability to fall back on the concrete rules or laws does not constitute sanity or living a valuable life.  In a strong sense, the Joker has succeed in revealing both Batman and the Commissioner’s insanity; simply because Gordon can buck up and remember the rules does not mean he is sane

            So according to the Joker, (1)adherence and compliance to rules and morals despite such overwhelming force does not constitute sanity but rather quite the opposite, and (2) simply living does not constitute a life, and believing otherwise constitutes insanity.  Batman, as his is popularly imagined, defies both of these rules with his failure to kill the Joker.  No matter what the Joker does, who he hurts, or who he kills, Batman will not kill the Joker.  And despite what you may think after seeing Batman Begins, it really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with a commitment to justice, but rather simply because the Joker really hasn’t given Batman enough cause to kill him yet.  In Batman: Hush, he believes that the Joker killed an old friend of his and comes within inches of killing the Joker with his bare hands.  He needs to be talked down (strangely by Gordon, although I really don’t remember which novel comes first).

            Elegantly summed up in “The Dark Knight”, the Joker’s main point is that “the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules”.  Ultimately, after dissecting the Killing Joke, it seems that this is true because rules are simply sticks and leaves over the abyss.  Albert Camus was a nihilist but believed that creating your own meaning in life avoided the suffering of life in the face of the abyss staring back at you. We might be reminded of Camus’ Sisyphus who can’t help but feel a small iota of meaning in his repetitive task. The Killing Joke presents two such ways to handle this information.  Batman and Gordon put meaning into rules and life for its own sake.

The Joker puts meaning into the chaos of the abyss. He claims that we “have all these rules, and [we] think they will save [us]”, when really if we didn’t go out to create meaning (rules) and define meaning (life), we’d be saved from a system that could fall apart when a small part goes away, like a Jenga tower.  To the Joker, Sisyphus isn’t content because he’s found meaning in his life, even in hell.  Sisyphus is content because he is completely free from ever having to ask the question about whether or not his life has any meaning in any sense.

That was a big jump…  Why so serious?