- Sep 22, 2013
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America is a land of traffic, commerce, multi-terrain scenery, and multi-culturalism. In the early days of the Old West, when pioneers went hunting for gold in California, law was a makeshift enterprise and men of radical will such as Wyatt Earp rose to prominence as peace officers.
During the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, social experiments in bohemian and libertine philosophies engendered a festive humanist spirit and bias for communal practices, and it was at this time that the vigilante group the Hell's Angels rose to popularity and espoused a self-governance approach to American sanity.
Today, comic book media, which present outlandish stories about vigilante justice, abound on the sales racks and in the Hollywood box office. American comic book superheroes such as Batman (DC Comics), a masked urban vigilante who tackles the criminally insane, and Captain America (Marvel Comics), a patriotic pumped-up defender of democracy, represent a new age preoccupation with the 'negotiation of policework.'
Vigilantism will arguably always be an incendiary and stimulating subject for Americans. How we license people to control the mob or to guide society towards civics or to enforce civil procedures affects how we view our own sense of social organization.
Stories about corrupt cops in the news strike at our nerves and destabilize our already-anxious perspectives on civics-related modern problems (e.g., illegal immigration, narcotics trafficking, eco-pollution, political scandals, etc.). Such destabilization makes us 'wax romantic' about the comic book vigilante, but it can also create dangerous sentiments about anti-police politics.
If you're buying your kids water-guns this summer, consider how the proliferation of vigilantism-fantasy comic book movies and stories about lawlessness and crime in the news reaches our youngsters and shapes how Americans talk about the vanity of vigilantism.
I wouldn't be surprised if more and more colleges and universities are offering courses on the progression/evolution of law enforcement in America and/or the spectre of vigilantism.
Vigilante
During the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, social experiments in bohemian and libertine philosophies engendered a festive humanist spirit and bias for communal practices, and it was at this time that the vigilante group the Hell's Angels rose to popularity and espoused a self-governance approach to American sanity.
Today, comic book media, which present outlandish stories about vigilante justice, abound on the sales racks and in the Hollywood box office. American comic book superheroes such as Batman (DC Comics), a masked urban vigilante who tackles the criminally insane, and Captain America (Marvel Comics), a patriotic pumped-up defender of democracy, represent a new age preoccupation with the 'negotiation of policework.'
Vigilantism will arguably always be an incendiary and stimulating subject for Americans. How we license people to control the mob or to guide society towards civics or to enforce civil procedures affects how we view our own sense of social organization.
Stories about corrupt cops in the news strike at our nerves and destabilize our already-anxious perspectives on civics-related modern problems (e.g., illegal immigration, narcotics trafficking, eco-pollution, political scandals, etc.). Such destabilization makes us 'wax romantic' about the comic book vigilante, but it can also create dangerous sentiments about anti-police politics.
If you're buying your kids water-guns this summer, consider how the proliferation of vigilantism-fantasy comic book movies and stories about lawlessness and crime in the news reaches our youngsters and shapes how Americans talk about the vanity of vigilantism.
I wouldn't be surprised if more and more colleges and universities are offering courses on the progression/evolution of law enforcement in America and/or the spectre of vigilantism.
Vigilante
