by Greg Johnson
One of the gangsters asks the Joker what he will do with all his money. He replies: “I’m a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite, and gunpowder, and . . . gasoline.” At which point his henchmen douse the money with gasoline. The Joker continues: “And you know what they all have in common? They’re cheap.” He then lights the pyre and addresses the gangster: “All you care about is money. Gotham deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m going to give it to them.”
Aristocratic morality makes a virtue of transforming wealth into something spiritual: into honor, prestige, or beautiful and useless things. Trading wealth for spiritual goods demonstrates one’s freedom from material necessity. But the ultimate demonstration of one’s freedom from material goods is the simple destruction of them.
The Indians of the Pacific Northwest practice a ceremony called the “Potlatch.” In a Potlatch, tribal leaders gain prestige by giving away material wealth. However, when there was intense rivalry between individuals, they would vie for honor not by giving away wealth but by destroying it.
The Joker is practicing Potlatch. Perhaps the ultimate put- down, though, is when he mentions that he is only burning his share of the money.
THE MAN WITH THE PLAN
Gotham’s District Attorney Harvey Dent (played by Nordic archetype Aaron Eckhart) is a genuinely noble man. He is also a man with a plan. He leaves nothing up to chance, although he pretends to. He makes decisions by flipping a coin, but the coin is rigged. It has two heads—two faces.
The Joker kidnaps Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes and rigs them to blow up. He gives Batman the choice of saving one. Batman races off to save Dawes but finds Dent instead. Dawes is killed, and Dent is horribly burned. Half his face is disfigured, and one side of his coin (which was in Rachel’s possession) is blackened as well. Harvey Dent has become “Two-Face.”
The Joker, of course, is a man with a plan too. Truth be told, he is a criminal mastermind, the ultimate schemer. (Indeed, one of the few faults of this movie is that his elaborate schemes seem to spring up without any time for preparation.) When the Joker visits Dent in the hospital, however, he makes the following speech in answer to Dent’s accusation that Rachel’s death was part of the Joker’s plan.
Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just . . . do things.
The mob has plans, the cops have plans. . . . You know, they’re schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. . . . It’s the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and look where that got you. I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm?
You know . . . You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan.” But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair!
The Joker’s immediate agenda is to gaslight Harvey Dent, to turn Gotham’s White Knight into a crazed killer. “Madness,” he says, “is like gravity. All you need is a little push.” This speech is his push, and what he says has to be interpreted with this specific aim in mind. For instance, the claim that chaos is “fair” is clearly a propos of Dent’s use of a two-headed coin because he refuses to leave anything up to chance. (Chaos here is equivalent to chance.) Dent’s reply is to propose to decide whether the Joker lives or dies based on a coin toss. The Joker agrees, and the coin comes up in the Joker’s favor. We do not see what happens, but the Joker emerges unscathed and Harvey Dent is transformed into Two-Face.
THE CONTINGENCY PLAN
But the Joker’s speech is not merely a lie to send Dent over the edge. In the end, the Joker really isn’t a man with a plan, and the clearest proof of that is that he stakes his life on a coin toss. Yes, the Joker plans for all sorts of contingencies, but he knows that the best laid plans cannot eliminate contingency as such. But that’s all right, for the Joker embraces contingency as he embraces death: it is a principle of freedom.
The Joker is in revolt not only against the morals of modernity, but also its metaphysics, the reigning interpretation of Being, namely that the world is ultimately transparent to reason and susceptible to planning and control. Heidegger called this interpretation of Being the “Gestell,” a term which connotes classification and arrangement to maximize availability, like a book in a well-ordered library, numbered and shelved so it can be located and retrieved at will. For modern man, “to be” is to be susceptible to being classified, labeled, shelved, and available in this fashion.
Heidegger regarded such a world as an inhuman hell, and the Joker agrees. When the Joker is arrested, we find that he has no DNA or fingerprints or dental records on file. He has no name, no address, no identification of any kind. His clothes are custom made, with no labels. As Commissioner Gordon says, there’s “nothing in his pockets but knives and lint.” Yes, the system has him, but has nothing on him. It knows nothing about him. When he escapes, they have no idea where to look. He is a book without a barcode: unclassified, unshelved, unavailable . . . free.
For Heidegger, the way to freedom is to meditate on the origins of the Gestell, which he claims are ultimately mysterious. Why did people start thinking that everything can be understood and controlled? Was the idea cooked up by a few individuals and then propagated according to a plan? Heidegger thinks not. The Gestell is a transformation of the Zeitgeist that cannot be traced back to individual thoughts and actions, but instead conditions and leads them. Its origins and power thus remain inscrutable. The Gestell is an “Ereignis,” an event, a contingency.
Heidegger suggests that etymologically “Ereignis” also has the sense of “taking hold” and “captivating.” Some translators render it “appropriation” or “enowning.” I like to render it “enthrallment”: The modern interpretation of Being happened, we know not why. It is a dumb contingency. It just emerged. Now it enthralls us. We can’t understand it. We can’t control it. It controls us by shaping our understanding of everything else. How do we break free?
The spell is broken as soon as we realize that the idea of the Gestell—the idea that we can understand and control everything—cannot itself be understood or controlled. The origin of idea that all things can be understood cannot be understood. The sway of the idea that all things can be planned and controlled cannot be planned or controlled. The reign of the idea that everything is necessary, that everything has a reason, came about as sheer, irrational contingency.
The Joker seeks to break the power of the Gestell not merely by meditating on contingency, but by acting from it, i.e., by being an irrational contingency, by being an agent of chaos.
He introduces chaos into his own life by acting on whim, by just “doing things” that don’t make sense, like “a dog chasing cars”: staking his life on a coin toss, playing chicken with Batman, etc. When Batman tries to beat information out of the Joker, he tells him that “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.”
Alfred the butler understands the Joker’s freedom: “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
The Joker introduces chaos into society by breaking the grip of the System and its plans.
He is capable of being an agent of chaos because of his relationship to death. He does not fear it. He embraces it as a permanent possibility. He is, therefore, free. His freedom
raises him above the Gestell, allowing him to look down on it . . . and laugh. That’s why they call him the Joker.
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS
I like the Joker’s philosophy. I think he is right. “But wait,” some of you might say, “the Joker is a monster! Heath Ledger claimed that the Joker was ‘a psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.’ Surely you don’t like someone like that!”
But remember, we are dealing with Hollywood here. In a “free” society we can’t suppress dangerous truths altogether. So we have to be immunized against them. That’s why Hollywood lets dangerous truths appear on screen, but only in the mouths of monsters: Derek Vinyard in American History X, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York, Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins, the Joker in The Dark Knight, etc.
We need to learn to separate the message from the messenger, and we need to teach the millions of people who have seen this movie (at this writing, the seventh biggest film of all time) to do so as well. Once we do that, the film ceases to reinforce the system’s message and reinforces ours instead. That’s what I do best. I take their propaganda and turn it on itself.
What lessons can we learn from The Dark Knight?
Batman Begins reveals a deep understanding of the fundamental opposition between the Traditional cyclical view of history and modern progressivism, envisioning a weaponized Traditionalism (The League of Shadows) as the ultimate enemy of Batman and the forces of progress.
The Dark Knight reveals a deep understanding of the moral and metaphysical antipodes of the modern world: the Nietzschean concept of master morality and critique of egalitarian slave morality, allied with the Heideggerian concept of the Gestell and the power of sheer irrational contingency to break it.
The Joker weaponizes these ideas, and he exploits Batman’s latent moral conflict between Nietzschean self-overcoming and his devotion to human rights and equality.
In short, somebody in Hollywood understands who the System’s most radical and fundamental enemy is. They know what ideas can destroy their world. It is time we learn them too.
Let’s show these schemers how pathetic their attempts to control us really are.
Counter-Currents/North American New Right,
September 27, 2010
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ALAIN DE BENOIST is the leading theorist of the European New Right. He is the editor of Nouvelle École and Krisis. His most recent title in English is Beyond Human Rights: Defending Freedom (London: Arktos, 2011).
KERRY BOLTON, Ph.D., Th.D., is the author of Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2012), Revolution from Above (London: Arktos, 2011), and many other books and essays.
JONATHAN BOWDEN, 1962–2012, was an English writer, artist, and orator. His many books include Our Name is Legion (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2011).
AMANDA BRADLEY is an American writer who focuses on religion, Western esotericism, and women’s issues.
JEF COSTELLO is a writer living in New York City.
HAROLD COVINGTON is the Chairman of the Northwest Front and the author of the Northwest Quintet.
F. ROGER DEVLIN, Ph.D., is the author of Alexander Kojève and the Outcome of Modern Thought (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2004) and many essays and reviews.
JULIUS EVOLA, 1898–1974, was one of the leading Traditionalist thinkers of the 20th century and the author of Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and many other books and essays.
GUILLAUME FAYE is a leading thinker of the European New Right. His most recent book in English is Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance (London: Arktos, 2011).
DEREK HAWTHORNE is a writer living in New York City.
JULEIGH HOWARD-HOBSON is a poet and essayist living in Portland, Oregon.
GREG JOHNSON, Ph.D., is the author of Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2010).
ALEX KURTAGIĆ is the author of the dystopian novel Mister (Guildford, U.K.: Iron Sky Publishing, 2009) and many essays.
TREVOR LYNCH is an American movie critic and the author of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2012).
KEVIN MACDONALD, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, and author of The Culture of Critique (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998) and many other books and articles.
JAMES J. O’MEARA is a writer living in New York City. His blog is http://jamesjomeara.blogspot.com/
MICHAEL O’MEARA, Ph.D., is the author of New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe (Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks, 2004) and Toward the White Republic (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2010).
EDOUARD RIX is a French writer on the European Right.
TED SALLIS is an American writer on race, politics, and culture.
JOHN SCHNEIDER is an American writer on politics.
ROBERT STEUCKERS is a prominent member of the European New Right. The author of countless essays, articles, and reviews, he is Editor of Euro-Synergies, the leading New Right webzine, http://euro-synergies.hautetfort.com/
BRYAN SYLVAIN is a writer living in Southern California.
DOMINIQUE VENNER is a French historian. He is the editor of Nouvelle revue d’histoire and the author of many books and articles. His most recent book is Le choc de l’Histoire: Religion, mémoire, identité (Versailles: Via Romana, 2011).
MICHAEL WALKER is a writer living in London.
NOTES
1 I wish to thank F. Roger Devlin, Derek Hawthorne, and Matthew Peters for their extensive comments and editorial suggestions, most of which I have followed.
2 The rest of this article is adapted from Greg Johnson “Theory and Practice,” Counter-Currents/North American New Right, September 30, 2010, http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/09/theory-practice/
3 Guillaume Faye, Archeofuturism: European Visions of the Post-Catastrophic Age, trans. Sergio Knipe (London: Arktos, 2010).
4 On Cochin, see F. Roger Devlin, “From Salon to Guillotine: Augustin Cochin’s Organizing the Revolution,” The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 63–90.
5 On June 17, 2010, Counter-Currents Publishing and North American New Right hosted a Francis Parker Yockey memorial dinner in San Francisco. Michael O’Meara spoke on Yockey’s anti-Americanism and metamorphosis into a supporter of the USSR. This memorial tribute was not included in his speech.
6 Julius Evola, “Sui presupposti spirituali e strutturali dell’unità europea,” in Europa Nazione, vol. 1, vo. 1 (January 1951). Translation originally published: http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id54.html
7 Ulick Varange, Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, 2 vols. (London: Westropa Press, 1948).
8 Speaking of “traitors, parasites, and ‘distorters,’” a point which cannot be stressed enough is that, if we are to believe the contents of certain supposedly top-secret documents from a famous American secret service agency—or even if we don’t believe them—the state of affairs in Europe since the end of World War II suggests that the “European Union” is nothing but the continuation, by hidden means, of the “Morgenthau Plan.” These documents show, among other things crucial for the true understanding of what has been going on in Europe since the end of World War II, that, in the early 1950s, well-known and highly respectable American mafia-type organizations financed many projects intended, in the terms of their perverse vocabulary, to “rebuild” Europe into the form we know today, and called enthusiastically for the creation of a “European parliament.”
9 Oswald Spengler, Jahre der Entscheidung, Erster Teil: Deutschland und die weltgeschichtliche Entwicklung (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1933); in English: The Hour of Decision, Part One: Germany and World-Historical Development, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934).
10 James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World (New York: John Day, 1941).
11 Of emperor
and pope—Ed.
12 Christoph Steding, Das Reich und die Krankheit der europäischen Kultur (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlangsanstalt, 1938).
13 The “Volta Congress,” convened in 1936 by the Academy of Italy, invited celebrities from various countries to discuss “the question of Europe.”
14 Francis Parker Yockey, The Proclamation of London of the European Liberation Front (London: Westropa Press, 1949), 29.
15 Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Post-War Fascist International (New York: Autonomedia, 1999).
16 Martin Lee, The Beast Reawakens: (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997).
17 Yockey: Four Essays 1939–1960; Frontfighter newsletter; Yockey/Thompson letters to Dean Acheson, 1952; “America’s Two Ways of Waging War,” 1952; “America’s Two Political Factions,” 1952; Yockey FBI Report, 1953; Kerry Bolton, Varange—Life and Thoughts of Yockey (Paraparaumu, New Zealand: Renaissance Press, 1998 ), a biography of Yockey drawing from FBI and Intelligence files, newspaper accounts of his capture and death; rare typewritten manuscripts of Yockey; Imperium; The Enemy of Europe; The Proclamation of London. (www.freewebs.com/renaissancepress).
18 Yockey, Il Proclama di Londra, trans. Alfonso De Filippi (Genoa: Effepi, 2005).
19 David Duke, My Awakening (Covington, La.: Free Speech Press, 1999), 474.
20 Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson, 2 vols. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1971).
