John Rawls
Dec 14, 2008John Rawls was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. In his book A Theory of Justice he ar...
Shazam!is the latest of the DC comics superhero movies, featuring foster child Billy Batson (akaCaptain Marvel). LikeBatmanandWonder Womanbefore,Shazam!is based on the exercise of transformative superpowers. Billy isn’t a very sophisticated wielder of his powers—indeed, part of the fun of the movie is watching him bumbling into figuring out the powers he has and how he might use them to bring good into the world. So it’s easy to seeShazam!as innocent and uplifting fun.
But it’s also useful to think more about whatShazam!’s audiences (who paid over $159 million worldwide its first weekend) may take away from the movie. Here are just a few possible messages:
These are bad messages about justice, I fear.Shazam!was so much fun and sweetly heart-warming that these and other potential messages for viewers nearly passed me by. I don't want to seem churlish, but I'd encourage people who seeShazam!and love it (90% on the Flixster Tomatometer and 88% of the Flixter audience when I looked) to think about these messages in the context of how theorizing about justice was deployed by John Rawls inA Theory of Justicein 1971. Specifically, Rawls developed a theory of justice for ideal circumstances, not for realities of existing injustices. He didn't start by asking what justice requires here and now. And, he thought of justice as a hypothetical agreement among productively capable people about how to share the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. Neither of these assumptions furthers inclusive justice for people who are worse off.
It might be sobering forShazam!让观众知道现在美国有超过50万的寄养儿童生活得并不好。寄养儿童是最贫穷的儿童之一。The motivations of foster parents may vary from therosy beneficenceportrayed inShazam!and by the American Academy of Pediatrics to far, far worse. A 2018 addition to the federal spending bill—theFamily First Prevention Services Act—will limit federal funding for group homes of the kind portrayed inShazam!When children age out of the foster care system—at age 18 in many states and age 21 in California and about twenty others—they are left to their own devices and may become homeless. Nearly half end up in jail after exiting the foster care system—so much so that leaving foster care has become known as the foster care to prisonpipeline.
People with disabilities don't fare very well in the U.S., either. Despite the Americans with Disabilities Act, only19.1%of people with disabilities are employed, in contrast to 65.9% of people without disabilities. High school graduation rates have improved but at about 2/3rds remain far lower than graduation rates over all. State Medicaid budgets are perennially cut and what there is of a social safety net in the US is frayed. Stigmatization of disability continues, especially people with mental illness or addictions.
InA Theory of Justice, Rawls developed an account of basic principles of justice for ideal circumstances. For Rawls, justice was the project of determining how full participants would share the benefits and burdens of social cooperation if they did not know features of themselves that would enable them to select principles that would give them an advantage. This was a project inideal theory; Rawls set aside, for another day, what justice might require innon-idealcircumstances of structural injustice or partial compliance situations when many are not meeting their obligations of justice.
Both of these choices—that participants in theorizing about justice are capable contributors and that ideal theory is the place to start with justice—have become highly controversial philosophically. Martha Nussbaum points out how conceptualizing justice as a bargain among the capable marginalizes populations such as the disabled. Some other writers, such as Amartya Sen and Jonathan Wolff, question whether idealizations of justice make sense at all, much less as guides to what to do in less than ideal circumstances. Instead, they suggest, we should consider what policies would further inclusion in the here and now.
The takeaways fromShazam!用罗尔斯的方法来解决这些问题。只有当人们被剥夺了残疾,他们才会获得超能力,使他们能够为改善世界做出贡献。And instead of thinking about the lives of children in foster care,Shazam!idealizes these lives away. At least in this group home, the children lead a happy existence. What's more, when evil strikes, they acquire through one little word superpowers which enable their triumph.
All the reviews ofShazam!that I've seen regard it as a delightful feel-good movie. And so it is, on one level. But beneath the fun lies very real structural injustice in the US today that superpowers will not readily dissipate.
John Rawls was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. In his book A Theory of Justice he ar...
什么构成一个公正的社会?自由民主国家有什么义务确保其他国家公民的权利和福祉?
《美国残疾人法案》承认,残疾人经常被阻止领导生产和满足……
Are gender roles and differences fixed, once and for, all by biology? Or is gender socially constructed and culturally variable?
Some actions are right, and some are wrong. But aren't some even better than right---the kinds of things that heroes and saints do?
Michel Foucault was a 20th century philosopher known for his work concerning power and knowledge.
Sometimes, we struggle to tell the truth—especially when it's the truth about ourselves. Why did James Baldwin, a prominent Civil Right...
联合国预测,2050年左右,人类人口增长将超过90亿。我们知道人口过剩的后果…
John Rawls was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. In his book A Theory of Justice he ar...
什么构成一个公正的社会?自由民主国家有什么义务确保其他国家公民的权利和福祉?
《美国残疾人法案》承认,残疾人经常被阻止领导生产和满足……
Are gender roles and differences fixed, once and for, all by biology? Or is gender socially constructed and culturally variable?
Some actions are right, and some are wrong. But aren't some even better than right---the kinds of things that heroes and saints do?
Michel Foucault was a 20th century philosopher known for his work concerning power and knowledge.
Sometimes, we struggle to tell the truth—especially when it's the truth about ourselves. Why did James Baldwin, a prominent Civil Right...
联合国预测,2050年左右,人类人口增长将超过90亿。我们知道人口过剩的后果…
Comments(1)
Harold G. Neuman
Tuesday, May 7, 2019 -- 11:01 AM
I usually do not comment onI usually do not comment on the philosophical implications of film and fiction-the first, being one or the other; the second, generally being the latter. Previously, I have opined that film is a venue, the purpose of which is, primarily, entertainment. That used to be my sophomoric view (I still like watching cinema, but bear with me here). Film making is Big (with a capitol 'b') business; bigger and more extravagant than at almost any time in my youth. Insofar as my youthful assessment goes, it is flat wrong now. The primary purpose of cinema is making lots of money for those involved in the film business. I do not rely on cinematic philosophizing for advice as to how to live my life. There are many more sources to which I may refer that are more useful, rather than less so. Pragmatically, they just make more sense. Your bullet-ed take-aways are amusing. I don't know if foster children ever attend Cal Tech. I suppose, at some time, someone out of foster care may have done so---maybe even now, such a person is studying there. It would be interesting to know, But, I doubt that would be something Cal Tech would advertise. If I am wrong, that's OK. Time to think about tomato seedlings...