Rorschach Doesn't Shrug: The Watchmen's hero as Objectivist saint

From Reason.com:

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Rorschach Doesn't Shrug
The Watchmen's hero as Objectivist saint

Brian Doherty | March 6, 2009

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains significant plot and denouement revelations regarding the graphic novel and movie Watchmen.

The moral center of Watchmen, both the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and the new, much-discussed movie based on it premiering today, is a curious and prickly masked vigilante who goes by the name Rorschach.

The surface meaning of the name is visually obvious—his mask contains swirling black blots on white that remind one of the psychological testing mechanism. But applied to his character, the name is both appropriate and ironic.

It’s appropriate in that the character is obsessed with stark duality—black and white—and ironic in that the mushy “it’s whatever you see” vagueness opposes his very definite vision of what’s what in the world: There are good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys deserve to get it, good and hard. Rorschach’s mission, from which he will not diverge, is to give it to them, no matter what the demands of law, government, or social mores. He lives by his objective understanding of right and wrong.

In the original conception of the comic book Watchmen, the characters were going to be old Charlton Comics second-string superheroes that D.C. Comics had won the rights to. In that conception, the Rorschach character would have been The Question—a character created by Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man.

Ditko was a huge fan of Ayn Rand and Objectivism. After getting out from under Stan Lee’s thumb at Marvel Comics he decided to let his Rand flag fly, first with Charlton’s Question and later in his self-published “Mr. A.” That’s A as in, A is A, the essential statement of Randian Aristotelianism. Reality is what it is, Rand held, and an objective set of moral imperatives follow from that. Thus, Rorschach is Moore's vision of an Objectivist superhero.

Ditko's Mr. A is far more dispassionate than Rorschach—he’s a purer representation of a perfect Objectivist as opposed to what a real one might actually be like. (And unlike Rorschach, he doesn’t work in the slightest as an actual believable character one could care about.) When Mr. A refuses to save a kidnapper dangling above certain death, he informs the little girl (who Mr. A succeeds in rescuing, unlike the kidnapped girl central to Rorschach’s character arc, who ends up food for vicious dogs) that “I won’t help anyone who believes he has a right to hurt you!...I only care what happens to the innocent and the good people! I treat people the way they act toward human life! I grant them what their action (sic) deserve, have earned!”

Both Rorschach and Watchmen’s villain (who I’ll avoid naming, for slight spoiler protection purposes) are willing to kill in the name of what they think is a higher good. Indeed, given Rorschach’s contempt for what he sees as the moral stink of the Watchmen world, it's easy to imagine that he might have been willing to accept that each and every person killed in the movie’s central scheme might have actually deserved it (as Rand did in a smaller-scale disaster; Atlas Shrugged’s train wreck scene).

But Rorschach would deliver that as a personal, individual judgment—breaking what bones needed to be broken with his own hands—not from a world away with indiscriminate techno-gimmicks and no sense of actual individual guilt. The opposition between Rorschach and the villain is easy to read as that of individual, true justice versus the state’s collectivist version. In every single war ever waged, governments make the kind of moral judgment that Watchmen’s villain does, and the movie and comic, with Rorschach’s help, make us wonder whether those decisions that governments—and superheroes—often make really are tolerable. Rand would have been proud.

When you think of Rand’s aesthetic, it seems appropriate somehow that Rand should have invented the superhero. If the idea of the costumed vigilante, superpowered or not, hadn’t already been a pop cliché by the time she was writing Atlas Shrugged, it would fit Rand’s sense of romantic symbolic imaginative power to have, say, Ragnar commit his piracy-for-justice under a colorful masked identity; similarly, John Galt’s science-fictional invention could have turned him into a Dr. Manhattan type.

Rorschach’s sense of justice may make him hate most of humanity—he brags to himself at the beginning that if mankind begged him to save them, he’d justly say “no.” But by the end he sacrifices himself in the name of avenging the deaths of millions who he doesn’t know. He does it for another reason as well, one of particular holiness to the Objectivist: the truth, the facts of reality. Whether or not the villain’s scheme might result in some “higher good,” it did so at the cost of Faking Reality—a cost no Objectivist will bear. We don’t know if Rorschach’s attempts to set the record straight will do any good—but he’s willing to bear any burden, let the very heavens fall, to stay square with reality.

To be the kind of man whose highest value is to “have lived life free from compromise,” as Rorschach says, makes that man “unreasonable” in the colloquial sense—that is, you aren’t going to be able to talk them in or out of much. You are going to find them abrasive, aggravating, and in circumstances like those the characters in Watchmen find themselves in, mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

Moore’s conception of what an Objectivist hero would be like in “real life” (or at least in his realistically detailed fantasy) is both respectful and disrespectful to Rand’s vision in interesting ways: Rorschach seems driven to madness by his ideology; a radical Objectivism forges a character that seems obviously damaged in unpleasant ways.

Yet he’s also the only man around who stands up for everyone’s right to be judged individually on the basis of their character and actions, their right not to be a means to someone else’s higher end—no matter what one might think of that end. He knows what it means to be human—that’s why he has to condemn those he kills as having betrayed the essence of man qua man, relegating them to the status of dogs to be put down.

But always, Rorschach judges as an individual mind, and judges individual minds. Rorschach is no handsome Rand hero as she imagined them; but he’s still probably the most vivid and well-thought-out Objectivist hero that Rand didn’t create.

Post 1

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 8:43am

Brian Doherty is on the mark except for this:

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In every single war ever waged, governments make the kind of moral judgment that Watchmen’s villain does, and the movie and comic, with Rorschach’s help, make us wonder whether those decisions that governments—and superheroes—often make really are tolerable. Rand would have been proud.
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Rand wouldn't be proud.

I saw the movie. Like the eclectic, jumbled-together art that Rand artistically denounced in The Fountainhead, this movie depicts different philosophies as if they are on equal ground. Remember who wins in movies that you see, good or evil -- it's important. Neither of them really won in this movie. Instead, it ended in the middle (and the middle is always evil). The evidence for this is that the man -- the protagonist -- who stands for truth and justice, Rorschach, doesn't win.

In fact, if you can suffer through to the end of this movie -- then you will see what happens to the Good Guy (i.e., what happens to the good in this world). It's not pretty. Humans are depicted as essentially evil in this movie (mutually-assured destroyers), so evil that good men need to be sacrificed to save them from themselves. It's simply a rehash of the New Testament (with box office profits and ratings this time around). I've (philosophically) had enough of this story of human salvation. I don't need some third-rate writer, director, or producer -- whoever's most responsible for this film -- pushing this kind of filth in my face again.

I certainly didn't need to pay $10 to have someone push this filth in my face.

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/07, 8:49am)

Post 2

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 11:46am

I posted this comment on the thread for this article at Reason.com:

prolefeed | March 7, 2009, 2:41pm | #

Rorschach’s sense of justice may make him hate most of humanity—he brags to himself at the beginning that if mankind begged him to save them, he’d justly say “no.” But by the end he sacrifices himself in the name of avenging the deaths of millions who he doesn’t know.

I haven't seen the movie, and after reading Doherty's description of it, I have no intention of doing so. Rorschach isn't an Objectivist. Objectivists don't "sacrifice" themselves for "millions who [they] don't know". They don't go around altruistically playing vigilante for strangers. They don't DO altruism, at least in the careful sense in which they define altruism, i.e., sacrificing something or someone you value highly for something or someone you value less highly for the sake of others. Objectivists look after their self-interest, and the interests of people they care about and admire and love.

Doherty seems to have a shaky grasp of what Objectivist principles are.

Post 3

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 12:43pm

Good comments about Watchmen Ed. I haven't seen the film but I just recently read the trade paperback and I was thoroughly disappointed. It was misanthropic, dystopic, and the ending was just outright juvenile (although I hear the movie has a different ending than the comic) suggesting it is better for the masses to be duped into cooperating with one another rather than seeing the truth of why cooperation is mutually beneficial. Silk Spectre was guided by emotionalism rather than reason, the Comedian was a scum-bag rapist whom his victim actually forgave him, Night Owl was a self-doubting whiny wimp, Ozymandias was a crazy left-wing nut conspiratorialist, and Dr. Manhattan had callous indifference to humanity and repudiated free-will, etc. Rorschach was portrayed as a crazed lunatic but having moral clarity, especially with the notion of justice, yet his character's name and costume suggests the idea of objective morals as a fraud, not surprising considering Moore is an anarchist. Not one character had any redeeming value whatsoever. Alan Moore sucks.

(Edited by John Armaos on 3/07, 1:31pm)

Post 4

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 3:14pm

Very well put, John.

It makes me feel like you saw the movie (it was very accurate).

Ed

Post 5

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 3:22pm

Not to toot my own horn, but you can find my take on the story here. It's more related to the book than the movie, and focuses specifically on Rorschach, but I've included plenty of words from Alan Moore himself that clears up any confusion or misinterpretation of the intention for Rorschach and spells out Moore's views on Rand and Ditko explicitly. Don't wretch too hard...

(Edited by Joe Maurone on 3/07, 3:23pm)

Post 6

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 3:26pm

Thanks Ed. From what I understand Zach Snyder tried to make the film as close to the source material as possible so I wouldn't be surprised if there's barely any difference between the comic and the film. Snyder also did 300 and that was a brilliant film and he stuck as close to the source material as one possibly can, but the source material for 300 was actually good. The only proud thing I can say about reading Watchmen was that I only read it during bathroom breaks, because that's about as much respect as I'd give that piece of crap of a book.

Joe I read your post too and well put. Ironic that Moore would use the symbolism of Rorchach's name and mask to discredit Objectivism when the very act of making such a statement is a black and white judgment on objective morality. What a moron!

Post 7

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 7:49am

I posted the link to the movie but I have to agree generally with John Armaos on this: I was disappointed in the book. Technically, it is as good as 100 (or 178) other "great" books of the 20th century. But the sense of life is totally negative. The "innocent" people who die in New York are all flawed -- Joey beating up her girlfriend... the therapist not intervening in that .. the topknots at the concert... even the kid reading The Black Freighter: the newsstand operator asks him why he keeps reading it and the kid says it's because he doesn't understand it.

I was attracted to a poster in a bookstore window of Silk Spectre II "I"m used to going out at 3 am doing something stupid." It seemed compelling and in the store, their comic guru explained the story universe and its history. The book started out interesting enough, but quickly devolved into situationism and relativism.

Reading "objectivism" into Rorschach is about as meaningful as the last comic hero that grabbed the attention of Objectivists: The Incredibles. Rorschach loses his moral standing when he kills one of the policemen who have come to arrest him. From that point on, his death is assured.

Similarly, getting hung up on Ozymandius (Adrian Veidt) for his "leftwing" ideas is to miss the point entirely. Of all the characters, I would have tagged him as the one most aligned with Objectivist Ethics. Not that he is. None of them is. But I can make a better case for him than was made for Rorschach. Veidt is the smartest man in the world. He gave away his inheritance to prove that he didn't need it to become rich. He built supercomplex machineries. He orchestrated the events that drive the story. He made himself healthy and strong by means and methods that he insists are available to everyone who wants to find that within themselves. Etc. Etc. Agreed that he killed 3 million people in a bizarre scheme to bring the world together -- killed his own nominal "friends" (several times); even killed his cat -- but that is the problem with the entire story as a single work.

And you cannot rescue it by reading bootleg ethics into Rorschach. (Though that would be an example of the Rorschach persona. I had no problem with that part of it. We see what we want to see. That doesn't make it real in an objective sense, but you find out all about people when they describe an ambiguity because they can only read themselves into it. As we are doing here, in fact.) I give the character credit for perseverence -- "What's to stop me?" the bad guy says. "Your hands and my perspective," Rorschach answers -- as opposed to Silk Spectre II who is wracked and attacked by doubts at every turn: nothing is clear to her.

I had no problem with Dr. Manhattan's quantum-mechanical view of the universe. It is no more difficult than Edwin Abbott's Flatland. Ultimately, Dr. Manhattan proves himself the most human and humane of the superheroes... but that's not saying much... he's pretty passive through most of this -- until he kills Rorschach, which was unjustified.

So, all in all, this was disappointing.

Post 8

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 7:57am

>> [Doherty:] In every single war ever waged, governments make the kind of moral judgment that Watchmen's villain does, and the movie and comic, with Rorschach's help, make us wonder whether those decisions that governments — and superheroes — often make really are tolerable. Rand would have been proud.

> [Thompson:] Rand wouldn't be proud. [...]

Not "proud," but nonetheless appreciative of Rorschach's fidelity — down to his undeserved end, despite his own murderous ways — to his moral outlook.

You would benefit, methinks, from re-reading Rand's "Roots of War" essay, on warmaking and collectives, in CUI. Wherein she reluctantly accepts such collective (and collectivist) decision-making on the part of governments as being, at best, only a necessary evil. Doherty gets that point.

You would also benefit, apropos of Rorschach, by remembering Rand's admiration for Mickey Spillane. Rorschach is a darker — and, yes, far more sociopathic — echo of Mike "I, the Jury" Hammer. That's part of the character's power.

... I should note that I have never read the graphic novel. In this case, I wanted to see the film before I did. It's worked better for me this way several times, with V for Vendetta (also by Alan Moore), Stardust, and The Fountainhead.

I found the film, upon seeing it this afternoon, to be a vividly and effectively told play upon notions of morality, valid and invalid. An unexpected couple, forming a romantic bond, creates the moral center of the movie — a quite positive and life-affirming one, by the end of the story.

"Watchmen" swept me along with its storytelling, which is rare enough these days to deserve some plaudits in itself. The CGI effects serve the story, especially in one of the most vivid metaphorical allusions to Isaac Newton — on Mars, yet — in cinema history.

I've rarely seen two hours and 43 minutes pass so quickly. (Without once looking at my *ahem!* watch.)

And, finally, any film which so brilliantly uses two songs by Leonard Cohen can NEVER be all bad.

(Edited by Steve Reed on 3/08, 8:04am)

Post 9

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 10:10am

I see the film both as a philosophical fugue and as a good piece of film work (the effects and the scenes were cut right, although they still felt a bit busy, then again that's why I don't like comics, they're too busy visually). The philosophical fugue part of it is the fact that Moore seems to me the kind of man that doesn't quite grasp the nature of ethics, consciousness, or even epistemology for that matter. He seems to be trying to grasp the ideas, pitting them against each other, but it never gets to the point of resolving them. Even Ozymandias' ideas seem half-baked for their pseudo-Utilitarian basis in contrast to the equally myopic morality of Rorschach (who equally condemns consensual sexuality and truly evil acts, despite there being an obvious difference that can be argued logically and consistently).

As a film, I was not disappointed by the action, the visual feel of the scenes, or the acting, but I would say this is a film that someone should see if they want to grasp why Utilitarianism is wrong. Especially, as the character Ozymandias even early on shows the folly of such thinking in his justifications of "free energy" and "unlimited resources" as cure-alls to war (as it's not so much scarcity that causes wars, rather it is a misaligned belief of superiority of one nation against another in the role of initiating war). Sadly, I think those who are not good at perceiving the flaws in Moore's rhetoric will be easily smitten by it as it's a common misvalue that continues to exist in other popular mythologies (the misvalue of a "greater good" beyond that of the self).

Post 10

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 10:58am

And that is something which needs greater elucidation - this myth of the 'greater good beyond the self', that by the nature of being human, there can be no such thing, and further , that the supposed alternatives are bogymen frauds designed for one purpose - to continue to influence the choices of the ignorants and innocents to seeking out what is in fact a dis-value...

Post 11

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 3:34pm

To say that Rorschach "sacrificed" anything displays a complete lack of understanding of the narrative and the characters involved. Rorschach dies because he REFUSES to sacrifice anything, for any reason. All of the other characters choose to sacrifice in one way or another for the "greater good".
I would agree that the film version was infiltrated with some fairly obvious (to me) attempts to pander to leftist ideologies.

Post 12

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 3:46pm

Steve Reed: You would also benefit, apropos of Rorschach, by remembering Rand's admiration for Mickey Spillane. Rorschach is a darker — and, yes, far more sociopathic — echo of Mike "I, the Jury" Hammer. That's part of the character's power.

Funny you should mention it... I deleted from my post my statement that this novel was as disappointing as I, the Jury and Ninety-three. While The Avenger characters of John Steed and Emma Peel are compelling. the plots were often silly.

Bridget Armozel: ... again that's why I don't like comics, they're too busy visually ...

To be fair, this is not. I searched for those self-indulgent touches that artists cannot help but with which to clutter their work. I also had help finding them from another book, a movie tie-in. Still, the panels are tight, exacting, controlled, balanced, integrated. It's all very well done, just very negative. I cannot fault the technical achievement, even as the purpose of it leaves me sorry that I bothered.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 3/08, 3:47pm)

Post 13

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 4:31pm

Did the film pander to leftist ideologies? In the comic it pandered to nothing. In that sense it was just nihilistic.

Post 14

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 4:49pm

Environmental themes were introduced. The utopia that was ozymandias' goal is directly linked to "totally clean and abundant" sources of energy, directly contrasted with fossil fuels. The character specifically addresses the "failure" of "captains of industry" to provide what "the world deserves". The peaceful world at the conclusion has hybrid cars filling over half the screen. I'm not sure if the cast ozymandias as gay to grab that segment of the demographics or what, but it didn't add anything to the story.

Post 15

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 6:56pm

Another topic covered in the film and it seems also in the comic books was this strange division of intellect from the ability to feel empathy or the capacity to socialize with other human beings. Both Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan are shown as men of great intellect, but totally inept when dealing other people. This I think it clearly a naive division of human skills for at least one good reason: learning in many studies of the brain is tightly linked with the function of 'mirror' neurons which also lead to the capacity to form empathy. So, just from a scientific standpoint, being a completely devoid of empathy and being able to learn and master one's intellectual capacities is just impossible. At least for humans, that's true.

Post 16

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 7:26pm

Predictably, the thread on Reason.com about this identical article veered off on a much different tangent. Not a lot of love lost between most of the libertarians (and frankly non-libertarian leftists) who post at Reason and the people who post here, apparently. I've included below some of the comments toward the end of the thread, so you can see the public perception of Objectivism by many people who ought to be allies of Oists.

I'll leave it to others to describe why this antagonism exists, since I'm frankly kind of stunned by some of the Orwellian Two Minutes Hate going on, though I have noted before my objection to some of Rand's technical writing skills:

(Ducks and runs for cover)

The comments:

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As an aside, I recently re-read Atlas Shrugged, the first time was when I was 17 or 18, and it had a profound philosophical impact on me (well... the Fountainhead had more... but whatever). But upon re-reading, even though I find myself agreeing on a root level with many of her basic points, I almost could not finish the book because of the horrendous character-writing and dialog.

Not to turn this into a Rand-bashing thread, but jesus christ she could not write a decent or realistic human to save her life.

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To call Rorschach an "Objectivist Saint" misses the important fact that the character is a dangerous sociopath and mentally unstable.

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All I wanted to say is that 'A is A' is the stupidest mother frakin phrase uttered in the 1000 year history of the english language.

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Speak it Brother, HALLELUJAH! One of the things that bothered me most about Rand as a philosophy student was that her methodology did not match her methods. For all the exaltation of human reason that she purported, a lot of her philosophical judgments seemed to flow out of non-rational emotive impulses (mostly hate) directed by her at certain figures like Kant. Remove her insistent indignation and occasional good skill at crafting a phrase and you are left with her actual philosophical contribution being a second-rate undergrad paper of derivative criticism, very little of which flows logically from her own premises.

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Not to bring on the Ayn Rand hate, but I've been reading Atlas Shrugged for about five months [often quitting for a couple of weeks only to pick it up again] and I've found it to be horrible literature. I do agree with some of her points, but let's be honest, the novel is horrible. I can find far better literature that does more to make people sympathetic with libertarianism than Atlas Shrugged.

Ironically enough a democratic socialist [George Orwell] was probably the one who had the biggest impact on me becoming a libertarian. The book which did it was under 100 pages long, the plot was set on a farm, and the majority of the characters were animals.

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And my ex-girlfriend wasn't remotely a "psycho" either. But she was a very serious O-ist, and as such tried to deny herself a lot of the normal emotions that ordinary people tend to have in an extreme effort to stay "rational".

This is a well-known and oft discussed problem among Objectivists, at least among the ones less prone to the kind of emotional repression you're talking about. I'm open to the argument that it's a common afflication among members of the Objectivist community, but the idea that it represents the "Objectivist ideal," given everything Rand said the problems of emotional repression, overstates the case.

Post 17

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 7:46pm

Jim,

Did you do the same at Reason.com (post our messages there, to get their reaction to us)?

Ed

Post 18

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 8:05pm

Not to turn this into a Rand-bashing thread, but jesus christ she could not write a decent or realistic human to save her life.

Rand dealt with this in The Romantic Manifesto. This complaint would be an expected complaint of a post-modern naturalist -- who, in order to build a story, records the activities of his neighbor. He ends up writing a novel where all of the content came from being a Peeping Tom -- and none of it from concretized ideals.

One of the things that bothered me most about Rand as a philosophy student was that her methodology did not match her methods. For all the exaltation of human reason that she purported, a lot of her philosophical judgments seemed to flow out of non-rational emotive impulses (mostly hate) directed by her at certain figures like Kant.

This claim is baseless. In the case of Kant, Rand's judgment of Kant is principled and reasoned out. It may not be 100% accurate (though I think it is), but it is 100% principled and 100% reasoned out. She gives clear reasons for her judgment. It's amazing that this guy or gal can say of someone, someone who carefully layed out the case for something, that they didn't lay out the case for something and that they are just acting on emotional impulses.

Imagine someone standing up in court and yelling about how the prosecutor had kept talking about a smoking gun, and about gunshot residue on the defendant's shooting hand, and about the bullet retrieved from the brain of the victim, and about a match of that bullet to the defendant's gun -- but how that prosecutor must be non-objective and simply judging based on emotions. It'd be kind of cool to catch on tape, actually -- someone willing to speak such absurdity and yet still expect to be taken seriously.

:-)

Ed

Post 19

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 8:41pm