HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Comic book wealth

Re: Comic book wealth

That's easy!

Superheroes are created by artists and writers, individuals who are by and large anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial, like all intellectuals. They are as a rule, and in spite of their obvious talents, totally incapable of bringing their work to their audiences by themselves and must rely on patrons to help them do so. In the old days it was the aristocracy. Today it is the corporation.

They may grudgingly give their villains great talents and resources, so they will be worthy foils for their heroes, but they are consciously planting the seed that those involved in commerce and business are inherently evil. It is a reflection of the relationship they have with their modern day patrons.

It is because of this that the artistic and literary mentality, always forced to kowtow and grovel before producers, publishers and editors and those in the financial end of their business, immediately cast them as the villains, the philistines and barbarians who seek out and crush all imagination and creativity in their pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Maybe that's why Hollywood types, music stars, writers, graphic and performance artists in general, as well as the communities in which they work, tend to be leftist, pro-socialist, and otherwise
hostile to the commercial world. They resent being subordinate to those they feel are their creative inferiors. It's a culture of elitism, envy, inhabited by genuinely talented and creative people who are furious that so many of the decisions which bring their art to the public are made by people who they feel are insensitive, mechanical, even, ugh!, "commercial". Even the word is now being used synonymously with schlock, with all that is trite, cliched, unartistic.

Scientists are usually looked down on by the literary and artistic community as well, even though scientists (unlike engineers) are very often political liberals and are quite well informed in politics, culture and the arts. In fact, many are artists, as a hobby. The engineers, of course, are usually depicted in a more favorable, proletarian way, nerdy but harmless, but the mad scientist and the misapplication of science to irresponsible corporations and environmentally destructive or monopolistic activity are all common themes in much modern fiction.

Need I go on? How am I doing so far?
8)

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