The dark truths of the world: reflections on our choice to become good or evil, heroes or villains, in the wake of personal trauma

With examples and discussion from The Dark Knight, The Joker, and The Avengers

Is there such a thing as ‘evil’?

There is a notion fairly widespread among intelligent, well-educated middle and upper class people that the world is just a matter of perspectives. There is in fact no such thing as evil, only different interests and perspectives. That ‘evil’ is an antiquated word. And not only is it antiquated, it is intolerant and ignorant.

Some years ago, I remember a prominent professor of philosophy hesitating during a course on moral psychology to use the word “evil”. That struck me, because I would have hesitated in the same way. Yet the contrast between the way the philosophers we were reading used the word, and her reluctance to use it in the same way, to instead use it in air quotes, struck me. As did my agreement with her. What about her and myself was so different in outlook compared to the outlook of the philosophers we were reading?

From am early age, I found myself firmly believing in the notion that evil did not exist and was an antiquated notion. Each time I was forced to go to church, I bristled at the demonization of so-called ‘evil’. To me, labeling other people ‘evil’ was itself a kind of evil, though I would of course never use such a word to describe my feelings, nor was I really aware that such feelings existed—that I was creating my own category of evil, just at the moment that I judged others for using the word. I thought that I was protesting on behalf of the truth, and my self-awareness only extended this far.

As I have gained life experience, I have come to understand that my original views were wrong. There is something called ‘evil’ that does exist that we can all recognize as such. We have all seen and experienced it. Some of us, perhaps most or even to some degree all of us to various degrees, have embodied it in our worse moments.

Banality of evil—or a spectrum from banal to monstrous?

Since Hannah Arendt’s extraordinarily influential book On the Banality of Evil, it has become almost a commonplace that evil takes many forms, that comic book villains aren’t the only kind of evil, that in fact comic book villains are so rare as to make them misrepresentations of the true nature of evil, and so on. Echoing Aristotle, Arendt contended that the unwillingness to think about our behavior was the fundamental basis of this banal form of evil, causing us to carry out evil deeds without our necessarily knowing—but being responsible, through that unwillingness to think, for these actions regardless of our lack of awareness.

And while Arendt was certainly right—evil does indeed take many forms and the banality of evil does indeed make evil possible on a mass scale—still such conceptions have in many ways blinded us to what evil really is. Indeed, her account of Eichmann’s motivations have been credibly contended by later critics and scholars—Eichmann really was much more ideologically motivated than her account suggested.

But right or wrong, it is my position that even those who are evil in a “banal” way do not have a strikingly different moral trajectory from exaggerated comic book representations. Ordinary bad people are bad for the same reasons—though less pronounced—that outrageously evil people are. This is even true of people we consider good who do bad things.

What is evil? Archetypes from comic book films

Evil thus exists along a spectrum, but with common causes. We will start by defining what evil is. I think a fair definition is that evil consists in a callous or even eager willingness to do injustice to other living beings. By injustice, I mean harm that is not morally justifiable. What constitutes morally justifiable will vary from situation to situation (and from person to person), since moral justifiability, although guided by principles, must decided on a case-by-case basis.

To characterize the spectrum of evil, it is useful to start with the comic book villain, because while evil may be banal, the comic book villain brings into relief its most salient characteristics that are present in even the most banal cases of the evil of everyday life. Comic book heroes are on the extreme end of the spectrum of villainy—just as superheroes are on the extreme end of heroism—but through that excess, they tell us something about the nature of evil that would frequently be much more difficult to discern if it was presented in a more diluted form. In short, comic book villains are archetypes.

Using clinical language, the comic book villain comes in the form of a classic collection of signs and symptoms that all of us can easily recognize. That characteristic evil laugh, the malicious way of speaking, the openly expressed desire to do harm, the resentment, psychopathy, the self-obsession, vengefulness, and the psychological derangement that all characterize a typical comic book villain. Sometimes the evil laugh is subtle, deep, and relaxed, and other times it is high-strung and shrill. Sometimes the expressed desire to do harm is hidden, other times it is expressed on every page (or in every scene, as in films). And so on.

And there are also a number of different types of villain.

Take Thanatos in the Avengers. Thanatos does not have an evil laugh, yet he would still fit the diagnosis (as it were) of “villain”. Thanatos is of course intriguing because, rather than being torn apart by any sense of grievance, he is coolly rational. This is also why he does not have an evil laugh. Underlying an evil laugh is a sense of malice, motivated by grievance, which Thanatos does not have. Indeed, some of his arguments make some good sense—if we suppress our awareness of their human costs. Thanatos’s arguments might resonate with some or many members of the audience. That resonance is of course what makes Thanatos such a compelling villain. He resembles a cold, calculating technocrat, driven to extremes by his zealous beliefs, in this case, to murder half of the population of the universe in order prevent the destructiveness wrought by excess population growth. He is an “ends justify the means” extremist.

At the other end of the villainy spectrum is a villain like The Joker from The Dark Knight. Maniacal and brilliant, this comic book villain embodies modern nihilism with a provocative philosophical verve that very nearly compels us to take his side over Batman’s. Or at least to be very compelled by him and like him more than Batman.

Nolan’s Joker therefore has a certain kinship to John Milton’s Satan, who we cannot not help but like—even though we know that he is Satan.

I will never forget this quote by William Blake:

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

The Joker was relentlessly abused as a child and endured untold psychological trauma. In having these experiences, Joker embodied certain dark truths about the world. The Joker is deranged by those truths, and he turns to evil as a result of his tortured awareness of them. Strikingly, many though not all of the things the Joker in the film said were true—Batman was in denial of that truth—and Batman was forced to synthesize and reconcile them into his own worldview by the end of the film, hence the film’s name: The Dark Knight. The film’s name was obviously a double entendre.

The Joker, although completely deranged, embodies a persuasive logic that, throughout the film, the Joker is trying to convince Batman of. The Joker is trying to convince Batman of the hollowness of the principles he defends, and of the depravity of the people he protects. And he almost wins, because The Joker is very nearly right.

The Joker from the more recent eponymously named film—this time less of a discordian nihilist and more of a nihilistic, populist crypto-Marxist—is indeed so compelling that many reviewers were taken to an extreme of empathy and reported catching themselves rooting for him. The Joker in this film was such a great villain because our empathy caused us to very nearly think of him as a hero, an underdog inflicting vengeance upon a corrupt, degenerate overclass. It is a similar theme as in The Dark Knight.

Through the Joker, we could understand how so much pain would drive a person to commit such terrible acts. And even cheer for the revenge that he took in committing them. The Joker was arguably an even more provocative story about the nature of morality than The Dark Knight was.

In Thanatos and The Joker, we can see two archetypes of the comic book villain: one who has been compromised psychologically by his resentment and rage at the truth of the world (Joker), and one who has been compromised morally by a relentless commitment to some sort of technocratic or political principle aimed at correcting some truth of the world (Thanatos).

Simply put, we have The Deranged and The Masterminds.

(Incidentally, Bane from The Dark Knight Rises was a combination of the two.)

The abnormal psychological characteristics of villains

These are the two main types of comic book villains. But what they share in common is an unyielding sense of self-belief that they are willing to impose on others, doing extraordinary injustice, without seeming to be quite aware that what they are doing is indeed an injustice.

They believe that they are simply following the logic that their experience or thinking has ineluctably led them toward. And, if they are good villains, we as an audience are compelled by their story. It has some legitimacy.

It follows from the above that, psychologically, all comic book villains types have in common a certain degree of narcissism that provides them with the confidence to impose their views on others through violence.

But they also have a loss of empathy that makes them out of touch with just how morally reprehensible their behavior is. Thus, they are all in some sense not just narcissistic but also psychopathic, since only with some psychopathy can they so blithely hurt others.

We may therefore summarize the formula for the psychological characteristics that cause a villain to be a villain as tripartite:

1. Pain or principles (pain for the Deranged, principles for the Masterminds);

2. Narcissism;

3. Psychopathy.

I wrote above that we may sometimes empathize with the villain, even when we know that he is the villain. Although this would seem to bring us back to the notion that there is really no such thing as ‘evil’, that everything is really just a perspective, how can we judge others?, and so on, this is not quite the right conclusion.

We empathize with the villain not because he is good, but because we can see his point of view. He is still evil, because he has broken from common humanity and is willing to do harm to others. Even if those others have done harm to him, or even if he is zealously following his principles, he is not justified in doing harm in return. His mind has been distorted by his interpretation of the truth of the world, causing him to inflict unrestrained harm on other people.

People need not be innocent for it to be wrong to inflict harm on them. One of the themes from The Joker is that perhaps nobody is innocent, that most people in a certain sense do indeed deserve some punishment, that the world is a dark place that creates people like The Joker.

This creates a dilemma in the audience, a dilemma that all humans do in fact ultimately end up facing: do I want to take out my sense of grievance on the world and the other people in it, or do I want to work to make it a better place, regardless of its defects and regardless of what I have endured at the hands of others?

A good, deranged villain is always in a way following a certain truth. This is the essence of the choice between good and evil. It is a moral choice about what to do about the terrible injustice inherent in the nature of the world that we all must face.

Those who caught themselves somewhat cheering on The Joker, in the heat of the moment, chose evil. That’s why the film was great. Because it was so powerful that it nearly tempted us to choose evil.

A villain makes the same choice, so in feeling the way we did about the The Joker, we were feeling as a villain does.

Thanatos is an interesting example, since of course, he is acting not on pain but on principles. He has not been hurt by the world, but he has witnessed what happens when his principles are not followed: his home planet came to ruin because of its population overgrowth.

But a similar choice confronted him: do I impose my will on the world to impose radical solutions on others in an attempt to purge it from what I deem its core evil? Or do I work with other people to try to achieve something similar, without harming them?

Thus, to make a broader generalization incorporating the example of Thanatos: one is forced to confront whether one will try to hurt others to satisfy one’s point of view (whether driven by pain or principle), or whether one will work with and help others.

Heroes and villains share the same psychological abnormalities—but heroes ethically limit how they are expressed and develop

Batman shares the three tripartite characteristics with the villains:

1. Pain and principle: his parents were killed, fueling his quest for justice, causing him to become Batman.

2. Narcissism: he is so convinced about his views that he is willing to impose them on the world, unilaterally, using force when necessary. He is even willing to defy the police, acting as a one-man paramilitary force. This requires an incredible amount of self-belief that is psychologically unusual.

3. Psychopathy: he ruthlessly injures other human beings. While villains may deserve it, to injure people without reserve requires some level of dehumanization. This is not psychopathy per se, but it is the total loss of fellow-feeling, which is something akin to psychopathy. Not everyone can commit acts of violence like this; for many, it must be trained and cultivated. Although we may cheer on Batman’s heroic violence, for him to commit it so ruthlessly—and indeed, to seek it—requires that he be psychologically unusual. It was indeed only through his pain that he sought it.

Yet the difference between Batman’s heroism and the villain of the Joker or Thanatos, despite the shared characteristics, should be clear.

Batman’s heroism is informed by a strong sense of morality: he is psychologically unusual but places careful limits on his behavior and thinking.

1. Pain and principle: His pain drove him to defend others—Gotham in particular—rather than destroy them. This is in contrast to villains, who seek to harm. His pain is sublimated to do good, rather than bitterly acted out to do indiscriminate evil toward others.

2. Narcissism: He limits his unilateral actions to when he is called to help, and only helps when there is a need. He does not seek to impose his sense of order on everyone else, but allows for them to choose how he can help them.

3. Psychopathy: Although injuring his opponents, he only does so to the extent required, refusing to kill anyone, even The Joker, who was causing tremendous amounts of death and destruction.

In short, the hero and the villain share all core common characteristics in common. The hero is psychologically unusual and not perfectly balanced in many of the same ways as the villain. But the hero thoughtfully limits the expression of these characteristics, deploys them only in certain circumstances, only to certain extents, following specific well-defined principles, etc. By limiting himself, he is less psychologically distorted than the villain.

Meanwhile, the villain is rapacious and acts on his psychologically distorted characteristics without limit. He does not bring his mind under control but rather spirals in psychological derangement. The villain dwells in and nurses his pain, he takes his principles to single-minded extremes, there is no limit to his narcissism, nor to his psychopathy.

We can return to what Hannah Arendt and Aristotle wrote, that unwitting evil—as was the case with Eichmann in Arendt’s book—ultimately originates in the unwillingness to think.

But I think what the above demonstrates is that this is true of conscious evil as well.

For both Batman and The Joker were exposed to similar kinds of childhood trauma, but while Batman built his trauma into what made him a hero through careful reflection on his ethical principles and their application, The Joker’s trauma distorted him into a monster.

That The Joker embodied dark truth—and that Batman accepted many of these truths without becoming evil himself—is of critical importance, because the difference between Batman and The Joker is not a difference of childhood trauma—but what each chose to do with that trauma.

Likewise, Thanatos, in relentlessly pursuing the purgation of half the universe’s population, had a short-sighted view of his actions and the implications they would have on other human beings. He pursued his principle and only his principle—without any ethical balance.

The consciously evil person does not think through and limit the expression of his potentially problematic psychological characteristics. The hero by contrast, although hurt in the same way as the villain and with similarly unusual psychological characteristics, uses that pain to a higher ethical purpose, and so avoids becoming a monster.

Indeed, the hero can be filled with rage but still limit his actions to conform to the appropriate ethical standards. The hero is not placid without emotions—he has all the same emotions as the villain does—but he channels them to act with a higher purpose.

Thus, despite being driven to pain and rage by the murder of his loved ones at the hands of the Joker, Batman still does not murder the Joker in retaliation. This is because Batman accepts The Joker’s proposition: nobody is innocent. But he rejects The Joker’s conclusions: this fact still does not entail that we should harm them.

He accepts The Joker’s truths of the world, but he refuses to act with evil in response to his pain at that awareness. He yells furiously and strikes The Joker, but he does not kill him. He has absolute ethical control over his behavior, no matter how he feels. This is in complete contrast to the Joker, who viciously acts out his painful awareness of the truth of the world through relentless, impulsive mass murder.

Psychologically, Batman and the Joker started the same. But because of their different interpretations and choices, these same tendencies developed and expressed themselves very differently.

Being a good person requires learning and integrating the dark truths about the world

Indeed, Batman shows growth over the course of the films—exemplifying just how important incorporating new information and growing through hardship is in being a good person, or in this case, a hero. In striking contrast, his villainous opponents never learn anything, staying, as they do at a baser level of instinct. This difference—that Batman learns, and even learns certain harsh truths about reality from his opponent The Joker—is not a mistake. Rationality, careful reflection, and personal growth are central to the nature of goodness—and a lack of it is central to the nature of evil.

Goodness acts through reflection and knowledge that maintains the integrity of the mind and behavior, while evil acts on impulse that relentlessly distorts the mind and behavior in inhuman directions. Goodness maintains psychological and ethical balance, while evil becomes psychologically and ethically monstrous.

Acquisition of self-knowledge and knowledge about human nature is thus not a neutral act—it is an ethical act required for an ethical life.

The whole point of these films is that villains are not, in essence, any different from us. That the pain they experience is something we can relate to. That the world is a dark and terrible place.

But the nature of good is in not allowing oneself to succumb to that darkness. One cannot be good by ignoring the pain and darkness of the world, either. Rather, one must have complete awareness of the pain and darkness, and rise through it by thoughtful, moral commitment and the psychological development that goes along with it.

Importantly, psychological integration does not need to be perfect, and, in a way, for the sake of justice, shouldn’t be perfect. Batman does not pursue inner peace. He remembers and holds onto his pain. And through it, he pursues justice, and he pays the price internally for that pursuit. Paying that price is what makes him a hero and not just a good person.

All of us in everyday life exist somewhere along the same spectrum of villainy and heroism that we see in comic books and films. We have all variously gone through the same process of reconciling ourselves to the world that heroes and villains have. And we have made many of the same choices that heroes and villains have made in the course of our development, for good or evil.

In sum, the kind of person we develop into—good or evil—depends on our choices we make.

We must make those choices carefully.