1. I missed last week entirely: that might be a first, at least in a long time. Such is the state of my life at the moment.

2. One of my lessons this week was a run down of common logical fallacies. As part of my research I tried using AI for a list. Every single example that the AI returned (or at least the ones I read before giving up) was not, in fact, a fallacy.

For instance, their example of ‘Ad Hominem’ was “She is a bad choice for mayor because she didn’t grow up in this town.”

That’s not an Ad Hominem: that’s just an argument about someone’s qualifications. Ad Hominem means attacking the arguer instead of the argument.

Ad Hominem would be, “You say that only people from this town should be considered for mayor, but that’s because you’re a bigot.”

3. What makes the American Civil War so interesting is that it showcases the inherently equivocal and contradictory nature of ‘liberty’. The conflict boiled down to a fight over how liberty was to be understood in America: does liberty mean the right of each local group and community to define its own values, with the inevitable result that some will do objectively immoral things? Or does it mean that a single set of values that are defined and imposed by a central authority, reigning in potential excesses of local communities, but removing their power of self-determination?

The answer, of course, is the latter. The verdict of the battlefield is that ‘liberty’, in America, means a set of values defined and imposed by the central authority.

4. I didn’t bother seeing James Gunn’s Superman by James Gunn, because I thought the trailers were pretty awful. From what I’ve heard, I’m glad I didn’t (though at least Supes seems to be heroic this time around).

Apparently, both it and Fantastic Four are flopping, largely due to being too expensive to have any reasonable chance of turning a profit. Studios haven’t accepted the fact that the days of reliable billion-dollar box office takes are gone and not coming back.

5. Part of the issue that Hollywood keeps running into with Superman is that they keep trying to overcomplicate it to make it ‘interesting’ or ‘relevant’. Superman is a very simple formula: sincere country boy moves to the big city, where everyone – including the beautiful and sophisticated co-worker he immediately falls for – underestimates him as a naive hick. All the while, though, he’s secretly the glamorous modern Hercules who flies about the city righting wrongs and helping those in need, whom the said co-worker is infatuated with.

That’s really it. You don’t need frenetic, crazy action scenes involving monsters and aliens and a dozen different heroes, it’s just a guy trying to use his incredible powers to do the right thing while still attempting to lead a semi-normal life.

You have to understand that Clark doesn’t just work at the Daily Planet for cover: he likes his job. He values being a journalist, and he values his relationships with his co-workers and his parents. He values the lives of ordinary people and wants to be able to have what they have.

This may be why Hollywood struggles with this story; I’m sure the idea of a superhuman being who more than anything wants an ordinary life and relationships must seem completely foreign to them.

“Clark values his family and friends.”
“Ah, because he’s an alien, right?”

Essentially, I think the key to making a good Superman film is, ironically, to dial it down and focus in on the characters rather than the spectacle.

6. Pilgrim’s Pass brilliantly explores some of this while discussing the ‘evil Superman’ problem:

The key point of his video is: if someone is all powerful, then what they will naturally come to value are the things that can’t be taken by force, such as genuine relationships and connections with other people. Clark may be able to push planets around, but his powers are useless when it comes to trying to be friends with Jimmy Olsen or to win Lois Lane. Which means, of course, he would treasure those things all the more because they cost something.

(I like to think that Clark chose to become a journalist in part because writing is a skill his powers can’t help him with).

7. By the way, it seems that it’s become a new tradition to character assassinate Superman’s father figures. Snyder butchered Pa Kent, and now, it seems, Gunn has slandered Jor-El by revealing that he wanted Clark to conquer the Earth.

Again, Hollywood is run by aliens.