Inter-Action

Diminished Morality?

Daniel Guzy (dlg3@cox.net)

"First off I just want to say that what I say in this letter may offend some devoted Superman fans and I just want it to be known now that Superman is now, always has been, and always will be my moral compass in life. I've always believed in the strength of his moral views, character and heart which has helped me to grow up to be a better human and man in more ways than I can count."

I don't believe that what Superman does diminishes what real people do on a daily basis. If anything, I believe that what he does is helps us to see the type of person we could be inside each of us and to show us what we could aspire to on a daily basis in real life if/when we are given the opportunity. He teaches us how to raise ourselves to his higher standards, to try and do what we can to lend a helping hand should the opportunity arise while working within the physical limitations that are set around and to us. While what he does in comics, movies, shows etc. is amazing while compared to that of the mortal standards of real people and real life; people in the real world cannot and should not be expected to do what he does or have what they do be compared to that of what he can do for the basic reasoning that they have an apparent lack of abilities and powers that he has. There are a great deal of people in this world who sacrifice themselves for others, constantly doing what they can within the physical boundaries that are set to them by the real world while not caring about the fact that it takes away from themselves what they are sacrificing to and for others in order to help them during their time of need.

Take for instance firemen, while yes they do get paid to save others, they also take a chance each and every situation they enter into, the possibility to sacrifice his or her own life or limbs. They are not chained to their jobs. They have the choice and ability in finding a job with less of a risk factor in which they may not lose their life or limbs. So they choose to do their job, not for the money but to help others. So in this respect Superman and Fireman are on equal moral grounds, because they both choose to help others in need.

With all due respect to the "Man of Steel" (My Idol), I dare to say that the firemen are actually more moral than that of Superman for the simple reason that they can lose life and limb every time that they choose to go into a burning building to save a life, they chance losing everything they are and have in order to help the helpless individual while Superman is invincible. So he will always come out unscathed, unharmed regardless of the situation he his involved in. When viewed from this point, it is actually the real people that diminishes Superman's morality.

While we cannot do in real life what he could in our fantasy world, given the chance I believe we would for the simple reason that we do sacrifice to the limits of our abilities on a daily basis as humans.

In terms that we all have a moral compass from 0 - 100, 0 being Lex and 100 being Superman and that we may only reach a set potential is not true. I have known good moral people to not fulfill their moral standards capacity and have actually betrayed them at times as well. At the same time I have also seen those with low or no moral standards to reach inside of themselves and have reached a greater, higher moral standards capacity later in their years as they have grown. In essence, I have seen no such evidence of a set individual moral capacity that could not be potentially risen to a higher standard and potentially be broken all together. in respect of this Lex didn't actually reach his full potential as questioned; he failed it, miserably.