Politics Is Our Superhero Complex

In light of the turbulence of our recent election season and its unfolding implications, I wanted to make a connection with one of the chapters from The Shape of Joy.

In Part 1 of the book there is a chapter entitled "The Superhero Complex," which takes its cue from the podcast hosted by David Weinberg. Weinburg's podcast recounts a crazy time in Seattle where people were showing up downtown dressed as Superman and Batman as "real-life superheroes" combatting crime. In analyzing the real-life superhero phenomenon in The Shape of Joy, I use the work of Ernest Becker who argued that human life is motivated by a quest for the heroic, some pathway toward value, purpose, meaning, and significance. 

Sometimes our quest for the heroic drives people to dress up like Spiderman, but the chapter pushes on to explore a variety of other examples of what I call "hero games." I talk about conspiracy theories (like QAnon), fan culture, Christian end times beliefs, virtue signaling on Twitter, and social justice activism, to name a few things. In each case I analyze how the pursuit of a heroic identity sits at the heart of pathologies we observe all around us. Relevant to the recent election, the chapter also goes on to describe how politics has become the biggest hero game we're all playing. Which explains why our politics has become so angry and polarized, along with the huge emotional swings we experience and witness in the wake of electoral successes and failures. 

As I argue in The Shape of Joy, as our culture becomes increasing post-Christian our politics has become the repository of our most deeply held values and commitments. Evangelical Christians, for example, are more interested in following Donald Trump than Jesus Christ. The same dynamic happens on the Christian left where being a social justice warrior comes to eclipse the faith. Religious identity has become, on both right and left, a political identity. Consequently, politics has become for us the arena of heroic moral performance. Politics is the hero game we play to achieve a sense of purpose, meaning, and significance.

This, of course, raises the psychological and existential stakes of politics. Politics is no longer a pragmatic tool used to solve social problems. Politics has become an expression of identity. Politics is our superhero complex, and it's this complex that sits at the root of so many of our social and cultural pathologies.