Of Superheroes and Saviors
Being saved isn't all it's cracked up to be, but maybe there's something else...
If you live in the United States of America, there's no escaping the Marvel Universe. With the expansion from the comic books into television series, Saturday morning cartoons, and into the cinematic world with more than a dozen hit movies, and now series on streaming services, the creators and performers that are part of this legendary franchise have created something unmatched in popular culture. And once you get into things like product tie-ins, and you realize that it is so much more than lunchboxes. It's the gogurt that goes into the lunchbox, the toys, but it doesn't end with the kid stuff. Adults can buy t shirts, dress shirts, dresses, cufflinks, and all manner of gear.
We apparently cannot get enough of superheroes.
There is, indeed, something seductive about the idea that there are magically empowered superheroes, who take it upon themselves to protect us from danger. They shield us from threats and take on the big, bad villains who are too big for us to defeat on our own. Aliens from another planet summoned to our world by a trickster deity from an ancient Norse pantheon? Sure. A psychotic eco-terrorist from another planet empowered with a gauntlet that makes him pretty near omnipotent? Well, it takes a few movies, costs a few lives, but yes, he will be dispatched. Whatever sort of baddie that screenwriters can dream up, there is a hero that can defeat it.
Living in the age we're in, where the threats seem so large, and our personal ability to manage them so inadequate, it's no wonder that heroism seems so attractive. But maybe it's also made us lazy in our expectations. We keep looking for that magic moment where the hero arrives, and the villain is forever defeated. But real life doesn't work that way. You can create a vaccine for a pandemic, but that doesn't mean everyone will take it. You can defeat the attackers that storm the Capitol, but that doesn't mean the dangers to democracy are over. So many who have watched Trump get away with so much with no accountability anxiously hope for him to finally get his just desserts, and are frustrated with how long it takes for the wheels of justice to turn. We hope for that magic moment when the villain is defeated, we search the skies for the individual who will mete out justice and make everything okay again. And we get disappointed, frustrated and angry when that hero doesn't materialize or fails to produce the result we so wanted.
We ache for heroes and they do not come, and some of us slip into despair.
I'm a pagan, so it's really no surprise that I have an issue with the idea that someone is coming to save us. The idea of a savior just doesn't sit well with me.
The entire premise of a savior in the Christian context just seems off. Exactly what am I being "saved" from? I don't believe in the idea that humans carry around some kind of "original sin," i.e. a built-in, can't-help-it-even-if-you-try condition that categorically makes you unfit for interaction with deity. Humans are not unnatural creatures. We are, at bottom, as much a part of the natural order of things as a tree or a stone or a bird.
The idea that we come with an innate specialness that separates us from the natural world is a kind of arrogance, one that has over time led to all kinds of malfeasance against our planet. It's what's led us to believe that we can chop down whole forests, belch filth into the air, and build acres upon acres of concrete and asphalt and think that somehow, there will be no consequences. It's what's led us to misuse and mistreat animals. I'm all for the "circle of life," but a lot of what we've done has turned a natural predator-prey relationship into basically massive killing factories that just aren't healthy or sane.
Sure, I think that humans can do things that other animals can't. But is that because we have been set apart by deity, or because we evolved to use tools and develop the capacity for language and reason? Some might even go so far as to say that it doesn't matter, because the fact remains that we humans ARE different from squirrels and dandelions.
It does matter, if it means the difference between humility as a species or arrogance.
Arrogance is the belief that what you are, what you think, or what you are doing is so important, so singularly right that it, and you, should somehow be immune from the scrutiny or critique of others. It is is a form of entitlement, an abdication of responsibility for one's community. And it is not just ugly, it is dangerous.
Arrogance is the techbro who starts an online therapy app and insists that it's okay that he shares transcripts of customers' chats with therapists with his marketing team. Or the techbro who thinks that because he calls his car service app "ride sharing" that it means he shouldn't be subject to the same consumer protection regulations as limos and taxis. Arrogance is the researcher who thinks that because he has developed a groundbreaking medical procedure that he doesn't have to abide by the testing protocols. Arrogance is the group leader who meets valid criticism with defensiveness and blame.
If our special status is the work of deity, then our differences have conferred upon us godlike qualities, and leads us to think of the Earth and its denizens as our plaything. It also means that our deity must have a status of being beyond the reach of the natural world as well. If instead, it is the work of the same nature that has produced everything else around us, then we are merely part of the natural fabric of things, and no better or worse than any other creature of nature, and our gods are likewise part of the natural world and order of things. The first places us apart from and in dominion over nature, and arrogantly presumes we owe no accountability to nature. The latter places us in community with nature. As a pagan, I choose community with nature, because I recognize that that infinite web of the natural world isn't and shouldn't be mine to command.
But what makes Christian-style saviorism all the worse is that it further presumes that this "specialness" is, in fact, a state of sinfulness that requires us to be redeemed. Sure, we're special, but we're also (without this specific god's intervention) irretrievably broken. That seems more than a little toxic and cringey, sort of like a bad boyfriend who's always telling you he loves you and thinks you're attractive even though he really doesn't usually go for fat girls. In the end, it’s the same trap that Patriarchy and bigotry offers to everyone: Set me, THE MAN/GOD, apart in your mind as being special, wholly better than you and everyone else, and I will make you special too, and clothe you in my specialness so you can be better than everyone else too.
To believe you need a savior is to buy into the notion that you need saving, and that only someone outside yourself can do it. Nothing could be more patronizing. Nothing could be more detrimental to your feeling like an empowered person with agency in your world.
Now, could we all use some help? Yup. Absolutely. None of us does this thing called life by ourselves. And if we learned anything in the pandemic, it is how much we really do need others to survive in this world. But is the help we need really from a supernatural superhero, a being with godlike powers?
Even the Marvel Universe has had to acknowledge that sometimes a superhero isn't enough. Take the ending of the first season of Ms. Marvel. In the end, it is the entire Jersey City Muslim community that surrounds Ms. Marvel that allows her to avoid being captured by the authorities. Then there's the legendary "train scene" in Spiderman 2, where the residents of Queens rescue Spiderman after he rescues them from a derailing train. Many is the member of the MCU who has had to learn the lesson that they can't fight the baddies all by themself, they need someone to help them, whether that's another superhero or an entire ancestral village (see e.g. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings).
But the kind of "saving" that comes from a community is vastly different from that promised by a superhero savior. First off, it is participatory. Your community comes to your rescue because you have been an active participant in it, and because its entire purpose is to provide mutual benefit and support. The romanticization of the "lone wolf" who serves no one and needs no one is a decidedly modern idea. Most of civil life over the centuries has been built on the notion that we need and help each other to survive, and by doing so, we can also do better for ourselves than we ever could alone. A lone wolf without a pack to hunt with and protect it is a dead wolf.
When community saves you there are no "magic moments." Movie plots require a climactic moment to make the story work. The entire plot of a story works up to this moment, where the hero vanquishes the villain at last. Everything that happens after this climax is really just wrapping up the loose ends and maybe laying groundwork for a sequel. But life isn't a movie. Only very rarely does the real world offer the kind of climax that makes for a good movie plot. And when community is marshaled to dispatch a foe, it rarely happens with much speed. Community action takes time to build, time to mobilize, and time to take effect.
When a community comes to the rescue, it is not usually in a grand gesture. It's the delivery of a multitude of small acts. The cancer patient who receives a dozen casseroles and rides to the doctor and other caring acts doesn't enjoy a "magic moment" when everything is suddenly okay. Even if the cancer goes into remission, there is always the long road of recovery and the specter of it returning. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed, Black voting did not suddenly become easier. It was and is still under attack. It has taken the monumental effort of a whole community of activists and voters and others to sustain the voting franchise for Black Americans, and that effort will need even more to fend off the attacks it is currently facing.
But that's why, in the end, communities almost always are better at really saving things than superheroes. Superheroes are singular creatures. They cannot be everywhere at once, and they all have weaknesses and points past which they are overwhelmed. Even the best superhero will eventually fail. because they are just one person. They can't always go the distance. The great thing about communities is that they are not reliant on just one person. When you roll with a crew, you have backup. If one person can't get the job done, fails or gets tired, there are more people to pitch in. When the community takes it upon itself to do something, nothing can stand in its way.
But community does not just happen all by itself. The fact that we even have community around us is an intentional act that takes time to cultivate. Community is the web that catches us when we fall only because we have been weaving it underneath us for months and years before we actually need it. Communities require attention and intention to create and maintain.
That may be why we tend to wish for superheroes. Communities are work. They are not always easy. The people who make up our communities don't always get along. They don't always pull their weight. Communities can get distracted by internal problems. It's hard to keep a community together sometimes. It's much easier to wish for a savior than do the labor of building, maintaining and working with a community.
Waiting for a savior allows you to feel like you are doing something without actually doing anything. Saviors feed the fantasy that we will have a moment of glory, when the hero wins and the villain lies ruined and defeated, and all we have to do is watch on and cheer. And if the moment doesn't seem to be arriving, It gives you someone to blame. And what if the superhero isn't really a hero, and ends up causing damage even as they "save the day?" (Even the MCU grappled with that... see "Civil War'). The idea of the savior/superhero never actually fixes all of our problems, it just creates new ones built around one being's ego. So not only is the promise of a savior patronizing and vaguely creepy, it's also a pretty fair likelihood that it will never actually pay off as advertised.
Communities require effort, intention. Communities don't always work quickly. But nothing stops them when they decide to act in support of their values. And they yield many incredible side benefits. Being part of a community improves both our physical and mental health. It reduces stress. It can create economic opportunity. Neighborhoods that have a strong sense of community, no matter their economic status, are usually safer. Being a part of something that embraces a larger community around you makes everyone's lives better.
It turns out that the best thing we can do, if we really want to handle our most villainous problems, isn't look for a savior. It's to seek out and participate in community. No one is coming to save us from poverty, from tyranny, from injustice, or from violence -- we're going to have to get together and save ourselves. We're going to have to stop looking up at the sky for a hero or a savior, and instead look to those around us. We're going to have to pitch in and start building the kind of community that can defeat all the problems we have.
There are no saviors, no heroes. There's only us. But maybe that is all we need.