Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Heroes

Ever see Taxi Driver?

Classic movie.

The "hero" of the film is a psychotic taxi driver. At the climax, by some fluke (if I remember correctly) he is deflected from assassinating a presidential candidate. His raison d'etre now evaporated, he goes on a suicide mission to save a young girl caught up in a brothel.

There's a huge shoot out and he almost dies. But in the end he saves the girl and is proclaimed a hero.

A friend of a friend of a friend just murdered another friend of a friend of a friend. Even though some believe that the murdered wasn't necessarily the better guy; posterity will probably remember him better than the killer.

How shocking and how fickle fate is.

As Philip Zimbardo says, heroism and villainy are banal.

Everyone is capable of both; and yet often so sickeningly self-righteous.

9 comments:

joshua said...
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The Dodo said...

point taken. and agreed :).

triesti said...

u have a v. interesting 6 degrees there..

Mark Orford said...

Yo! My blog is up. I'm in the blogosphere.... it feels... good :)

Unknown said...

Great profile pic :P Lemme add you to my blogroll...

Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

i thought this post is about the tv series "Heroes" xP

its interesting of what u've said. and about your friend of a friend of a friend who murdered afriend of a friend of a friend, its something like the DeathNote animation from Japan. not quite the same, but the aim of the murder seems the same. to be called as a hero xP

Unknown said...

hey kana, i also love heroes!

i actually saw a lil Japanese kid running along the street the other day, he was just like Hiro - so cool!! :)

Nadia said...

i'm trying to read this post, but it has two big grey boxes covering most of it. are you being censored?