Our Myths Matter
Before his death, I had a sporadic, long-standing debate with friend of the show, and literature professor, David Allen White about comic books. I had heard David lecture on the great historical epics and argued that comic books sat in the same place in American culture as The Odyssey did in ancient Greece or The Iliad in Rome. That these stories embodied and passed forward the basic values of the culture. David was dismissive. His dismissiveness was understandable as for every great comic book there are hundreds of pure entertainment dredge. Nonetheless, when comics are gotten right they really do rise to the level of art. New evidence has appeared that just might make my case for me.
Psychologists from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Italy conducted experiments on the Milan metro to see who, if anyone, might offer their seat to a pregnant passenger.
The kicker? Sometimes Batman was there – or at least, another experimenter dressed as him. The researchers were checking if people were more likely to give up their seat in the presence of the caped crusader.
And sure enough, there did seem to be a correlation. In 138 different experiments, somebody offered their seat to an experimenter wearing a hidden prosthetic belly 67.21 percent of the time in the presence of Batman.
Fascinating, is it not? This would seem clear evidence of my contention – the presence of an epic comic book hero reinforced the cultural norm. But the scientists did not stop there:
“Interestingly, among those who left their spot in the experimental condition, nobody directly associated their gesture with the presence of Batman, and 14 (43.75 percent) reported that they did not see Batman at all.”
Instead, the team hypothesizes, it might just be that seeing something unexpected around you makes you more self-aware, and thus more likely to notice someone else in need.
Say, for example, you’re zoning out to a podcast on your morning commute: you’re probably not paying much attention to your fellow passengers. But someone getting on the train dressed as Batman is likely to catch your eye – and suddenly you also notice a pregnant passenger who might need a seat more than you do.
One must read that carefully as it is far, far from conclusive. The first paragraph is a data point, the other two are pure conjecture. I have always had a problem with studies that involve self-reporting of a state of mind. There is a bias amongst the self-reporters to want to look good and to meet the expectations of their interviewer. Be honest, would you want to admit that you were afraid of a nerd in a Batman costume? Thus I find the data point inconclusive.
The conjecture (“hypothesis”) is poorly formed. For one we all know the average scientist these days hates religion and to admit literature in any form could be this effective would be to give religion credence, and so they are going to conjecture that something else is at play. But moreover, the self-awareness they do conjecture would not only serve to make one more observant of the pregnant woman, but serve as a reminder of the social norm itself – which is precisely my contention about comic books, that they reinforce the values of a culture.
People keep talking about the importance of “story” these days. But they do so in an incredibly self-centered fashion, “What’s your story?” Stories are important. They do encapsulate and transmit the values of the day. Stories that become timeless, like the Odyssey and Iliad, transmit values not merely of the day, but of a culture over its existence. Centuries from now, most of the comics produced featuring Batman will be compost, but we could do much worse to represent our culture than the story of a boy, orphaned by tragedy that turns his pain towards working for good – or an alien that uses his difference to stand for the best of us – or mutants that fight to save the planet despite the planet’s rejection of them.
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