Heroes and VillainsHercules, Jesus, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, Gandalf, Frodo, Harry Potter, Buffy Summers, Spiderman, Batman, Captain Kirk, Dr. Who, Darth Vader, Sauron, Voldemort, Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, the Daleks, the Borg. Almost anybody living in the developed West would be able to group these individuals into two camps: the heroes and the villains. However, what criteria they may use to do this is less clear. Mike Alsford introduces us to a range of heroic and villainous archetypes on a journey through film, television, comic books, and literature. On the way, he addresses questions such as: What is a true hero? What is a true villain? Have we misunderstood these terms? What kind of societal values do our mythical heroes and villains represent? In trying to understand the extremes of hero and villain we are made more aware of our own ethical standards and given a space in which to explore contemporary concerns over notions of right and wrong, good and bad. |
From inside the book
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... ethical demands made on the self by the other . -- This sense of ethical duty , what we ' ought ' to do in any given situation rather than what we would like to do finds its clearest and most enduring expression in the work of the ...
... ethically . It is the very formality of what Kant calls the ' principle of volition ' or ' the principle of the will ' which establishes the moral worth of rational , ethical behaviour . All material motives are to be abandoned in the ...
... ethical response to the world . my duty to respond to the other suspends my natural right to self - survival , le droit vitale . My ethical relation of love for the other stems from the fact that the self cannot survive by itself alone ...
Contents
Myth and Imagination | 1 |
Heroes and Otherness | 23 |
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility | 63 |
Copyright | |
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