David

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Superman - The Populist Hero We Needed (Audio)
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Apologies to readers :: This post has been updated both in terms of Superman history and a far more accurate understanding of the film Man of Steel. The update was inspired by an excellent video essay of Zach Snyder's entire filmography(including good things about his work which I agree with) by Patrick Willems which made clear the mythological aspects of the film that I'd neglected.

Superman was the first ever comic book superhero. Looking to communicate moral concerns beyond religion, the comic combined ancient myths and modern moral issues. Ever since then superhero comics - and their cartoon and live action adaptations - have provided readers and viewers moral guides for navigating the world; something mostly neglected by our current amoral metaphysics.

The comic was created towards the end of the Great Depression and with the tides of Fascism and Communism in the air. Superman was created as a democratic symbol of hope, anti-elitism, and a champion of the oppressed. He defended the poor from greedy landlords, workers from abusive employers, victims of domestic violence from the violent, and the wrongfully accused from their accusers. And he didn’t stop with cases where there were always clear victims; he also tackled systemic injustice by going after corrupt politicians and war profiteers.

The protagonist wasn’t just Superman either, he was Clark Kent, a newspaper reporter who, in true populist style, wholly appreciated the importance of intellectual values. Finding the truth and acting on it in the name of his version of justice and fairness - these were the values of Superman.

In a world full of corruption and desperation, Superman gave hope to the poor who had been on the bad end of the s%$t stick for too long. They could look to him as an example of someone demonstrating how to live in the less-than-fair world around them. They might not be able to do all that he could, breaking laws to get his way, but Superman's brand of justice and protecting the weak were values worth living. This Golden Age Superman - rebellious, morally driven, and politically charged - quickly became a pop culture icon.

Then, after American success in World War 2 and the beginning of the Cold War - a new Silver Age Superman morphed into something different. He became the flying, super-intelligent, super-powerful Superman we see today. This transformation occurred not as a result of a drop in popularity, as throughout the 40s and 50s he was one of the most popular comic characters, but due to a post-war conservative cultural movement. A movement of change that was driven by the post war Red Scare and the anti-subversion atmosphere that came with it.

Where Superman was previously populist, rebellious and carried out his own version of vigilante justice - he now needed to appear safe, loyal and patriotic. So by order of a newly created Comics Code he was reshaped. Moral ambiguity and law-breaking were out - American values of lawfulness, restraint and a perfect morality where he vowed against killing were in.

This shift in Superman’s moral character wasn’t limited to his behaviour either - it extended to the nature of the threats he faced too. They became far more fantastical rather than represent any kind of systemic injustice. Aliens, robots, and science fiction villains were the new while the problems of elitism and class based injustice were the old and no longer used.

After this second Silver Age version of Superman - the comic has waxed and waned between being the vigilante populist hero he once was and the picture of moral perfection fighting aliens and science fiction villains he was forced into being. Bronze Age Superman from around the 70s to the mid 80s, for example, appeared to be a somewhat harmonious amalgamation of the two where writers re-incorporated some populist elements but kept his style of justice on the side of the Law.

Bringing us back to the version of Superman in popular consciousness today - with Lex Luthor as his arch enemy - Lex no longer fully embodies those same Golden Era populist concerns of systemic injustice. But the populist parallels, even with the single Billionaire Lex, are clear.

So in amongst this conflict between the era's of the different versions of Superman and what he is to represent we've had the backdrop of rising inequality over the last four decades and the increasing elite control that goes with it. Indeed while things aren’t quite as desperate as they were when Golden Age Superman was created, America now has the highest levels of inequality and the elites more power than ever before.

As if matching that inequality, a sense of cynical and overly-intellectual hopelessness has infected modern culture for decades. And who can blame folks? Elites have cynically used our modern ‘amoral’ Subject-Object Metaphysics to hide all sorts of immoral behaviour under the language of objectivity. From immoral wars, to economic exploitation, to the corruption and millions of lives taken in healthcare, to the gutting of news laws and the resulting media manipulation, to the weakening of environmental protections and the delay of further action on climate change - the list just goes on and on.

And right there all along, helping them along the way, has been our current metaphysics, which encourages individualistic, ‘scientific’, subject-object thinking and denies and undermines the existence of morality at every turn. Indeed, science has been so successful - who can question the importance of this amoral objectivity?

Embraced by folks who see the power of science; this amoral yet individualistic intellectual attitude has become an increasingly large part of our shared culture. An attitude which views concerns about right and wrong with great intellectual skepticism at best, or naive and foolhardy at worst.

With this background - this brings us to the 2013 film Man of Steel. Following the lukewarm reception of 2006’s Superman Returns - the first Superman film since the Christopher Reeve era - the creators of Man of Steel saw an opportunity for change. Screenwriters David Goyer and Christopher Nolan aimed to ground Superman in realism, while Goyer and director Zack Snyder specifically hoped to emphasise moral ambiguity. Snyder further contributed to this grounded vision with his gritty yet stylised cinematography, marked by bold, powerful imagery.

To achieve this look Snyder used an aforementioned "Heightened Realism" film technique which makes every shot appear dull, overexposed, and cold. If someone were looking for a cold, calculated, and intellectual style of filming - away from the emotions and warmth that colour brings - then this would likely be it. Indeed, the intellectualism demonstrated in this film isn’t the warm, pragmatic style shown by Superman in the first comics. Instead it’s an intellectualism far more in line with our current individualistic Subject-Object Metaphysics - one which views doing good with great hesitation and skepticism and then requires reasons for doing so.

Throughout his childhood, Clark is told by his father to hide his powers - his full goodness - from the world for fear of the repercussions of folks knowing his power. It is only after witnessing an abundance of suffering, including the death of his own father, that Clark finally breaks free from this parentally imposed limitation and begins to act in line with what is right.

When Superman finally and openly confronts the villains, they are portrayed in a highly thematic and mythic way, reminiscent of the grand, otherworldly antagonists of the Silver Age comics. This Superman ultimately does the right thing - but this version is far from the idealised, unwaveringly noble hero of the Silver Age.

The culmination of the film is a choice Superman must make between the lives of innocent bystanders and his fellow Kryptonian who is threatening those bystanders - General Zod. In the end Superman takes the life of Zod and saves the bystanders but the film highlights that this choice isn't without great suffering. It is this choice that the creators wanted to highlight as a reason for Superman doing the right thing and having his 'no killing' clause.

This version of Superman isn't interested in Golden Era concerns of shining a light on moral injustice and standing up for the right things in populist fashion. Nor is it the Silver Age Superman of moral purity who is always on the right side of justice against science fiction style villains. Instead this version of Superman is morally unsure of himself and is overburdened by the consequences of the enormous power he holds. Indeed on a metaphysical level this Superman is struggling with goodness and morality so much that he even requires reasons to do it.

But Creator/director Zach Snyder was never interested in telling those old Silver Age stories and his knowledge of the Golden Era appears mostly lacking - instead by his own admission he was interested in the mythology and depicting larger, deeper mythological conflicts on screen. Particularly the physical consequences of Gods living among men and the awesome power they hold. As Snyder says:

"Yeah, I feel like a lot of people didn't want Superman to grow up. They want him to remain a simpler man from a simpler time. My philosophy is that these characters are cathartic, they're our mythology and they speak to modern problems - when we don't know how to deal with an issue we can superimpose those feelings of impotence on to them and let them solve unsolvable problems."

So in this Snyder version, the attention shifted away from the moral conflicts Superman was resolving, to existential moral uncertainty within Superman himself. While Snyder leans into the virtuous and mythological aspects of Superman, placing the character in a contemporary political and metaphysical framework - this resulted in a very different perhaps unintended message. Instead of affirming the existence of goodness, the film questions it mirroring a growing sense of moral despondency found throughout the world. And it does this all while entirely neglecting the elite concentrations of social level power that cause much of it.

Golden and Bronze Age Superman by contrast, knew what goodness was and is and acted on it in the name of Intellectual and Dynamic Morality as with the populists before them. These versions of Superman, supported by the Metaphysics of Quality, morally highlighted important moral conflicts within modern culture that were unaddressed by existing power structures and neglected by our current metaphysics.

Enter 2025’s Superman film and the reason why I’m writing this. Rather than simply call out a misguided film, I think it’s worthwhile if we also point to one that’s good. If Snyder’s Superman was cold and overly skeptical of doing good, this new James Gunn version is way more in line with Golden Age Superman and open and direct about doing good. Indeed in one scene Superman goes so far as to proudly declare that all he is doing is serving 'Good'. This is a colourful, warm, and pragmatic Superman who doesn’t lament the decisions he makes and is almost too self-assured that he always does the right thing.

But before I go into the detail of that quality, let me get five minor issues with the film out of the way.

Because it would have been better if:

  1. Lex Luthor had manipulated the people and divided them against each other - distracting them while he carried out his evil plan (more accurately reflecting real life).
  2. Clark’s real concerns were more about elite manipulation rather than his own identity (although both were rightly included).
  3. It further highlighted the intelligence of the reporters at the Daily Planet.
  4. The focus was more 'Golden Age' Superman style on the abuse of the common folk by many different elites (not just Lex) in many different ways.
  5. The other 'Silver Age' style superheroes were not included - I'm not hopeful for any sequels to highlight the right things from this point forward.

 

Now the good.

Since Man of Steel we have witnessed the rise of Marvel and superhero films taking over global consciousness. It can be hard to underestimate the impact these films have on our shared culture. So in these times of overt elite injustice, we have been crying out for a film of similar popularity which didn’t just shine a light on some of that injustice but also pointed to a better way.

Where Man of Steel‘s father told Clark to be cautious and skeptical about doing and being good, the 2025’s Jonathan Kent has no such hesitations. The fearful parenting style is gone and something quite different and better has taken its place. As his father says to him:

“Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be. We are here to give y’all tools to help you make fools of yourselves all on your own. Your choices, Clark, your actions… that’s what makes who you are.”

Which is about as strong a statement in favour of pragmatism and goodness, and away from the nihilistic mythology of Man of Steel as you could find.

Indeed, this film is ‘the Superman we needed’. This film:

  1. Rightly and proudly points out, in our modern often overly ‘individualistic’ culture, that caring is punk rock and people and things are beautiful and worth caring about.
  2. Quite directly calls out a few major villains in today’s world - something we haven’t seen in a blockbuster of this scale since Chaplin’s brilliant The Great Dictator.
  3. Provides a positive role model for young men to look up to - something that has been lacking on the screen for a long time. It provides something the rise of the ‘crisis of masculinity’ has been calling out for
  4. Demonstrates, through an excellent performance of Mr Terrific by Edi Gathegi, how it’s cool to use your intelligence for good - far better than for bad, as Lex does.
  5. Joins a growing trend of eschewing the Heightened Realism cinematographic style made popular by Christopher Nolan. Colours are finally coming back to blockbuster cinema films.

It's not often a piece of art that's culture changing is also popular. But that appears to be the case here - and for the better. So with Superman 2025's box office success - I say Rock On. 🤘

_video cultural-values intellectual-values social-values the-law
David

An attack on true Populism and the Intellectual & Dynamic Morality it represents.

I've been thinking lately about how fixating on “left” versus “right” is doing us all a disservice. These labels split us up on a huge number of issues where we agree on far more than we're traditionally told.

Overusing these labels turns politics into a team game. Elites and the media love to propagate the team games, often reducing things to cartoonish caricatures of “left” and “right.” While real talk about what truly matters, what is truly valuable for a nation or the world gets tossed aside. Suddenly it’s all about cheering for your team - a social construct - no matter what you actually believe or what the values at play truly are. Instead of genuine debate or discussing what's truly valuable, it becomes a game of shouting extreme political stereotypes at your opponents and claiming victory. Values and truth be damned!

This would be entirely depressing if it were the only way forward. But there is another view of politics, more pragmatic and less focused on ideals. More focused on what's truly valuable and what can actually be achieved. Populism it's called. Populism, a term created by farmers and common folks tired of being exploited by elites in the late 19th Century. Populism isn't about political calculations or manipulation. It's not about left or right, but instead it's a pragmatic viewpoint focused on finding what most common folks intellectually agree is best, and doing that.

Unfortunately, in today’s global political climate, where socially powerful elites dominate the conversation, finding that common ground or what folks think outside of elites is rare. This isn’t an accident. Stagnation and division serves the socially powerful as it ensures their rule is never challenged. In fact elites have also created and fostered the caricatures of either side of politics ensuring that a true intellectual renaissance of common man populism can never occur. 

Currently, the left sees itself as aligned with 'The Intellectuals' - elite academics and experts who claim to have a monopoly on truth. This fuels their moral superiority, allowing them to feel justified in dismissing not only figures like Trump but importantly, his supporters anti-elitist values too. In response, the right has framed itself as the challenger to this kind of elitism, taking on these elites who have at times made disastrous decisions in their own favor at the expense of the common man. But in doing so, figures like Trump have fueled a culture of conspiracy and anti-intellectualism in response, tapping into deep frustrations with the establishment.

The current political system then, while elite controlled, keeps us divided, so that we never come together and intellectually discover and act on our shared values. In line with this; at every turn since Populism's inception - the powerful on the social level have successfully sought to keep the general populations understanding of what exactly it is - blurred and confused. Just about every caricature known of the populists now is the opposite of what it was.

Racist? They occasionally fought and died along side their fellow blacks for their equal rights
Sexist? They had women in lead roles.
Anti-Intellectual Unthinking Mob? They often celebrated intellectual achievements and started as a movement using books and intellectual discussion to determine why they were getting screwed.
Authoritarian? They mostly made decisions as a collective and never really had any strong-man type leaders.

Thomas Frank writes about this campaign of the populists and their anti-populist elite opposition in his excellent book titled 'The People, NO'. Without knowing about this superior alternative though, folks can be and have been easily manipulated.

Enter Steve Bannon. Unlike Trump who all too often does and says things to contradict his 'populist' label (and is never called out for them by an uncaring elite media) his former political advisor Steve, in some ways, makes a stronger case to be labelled a populist. For example in a recent interview(above) he calls himself a 'neo-brandeisian'. This tag is in reference to the original populist lawyer named Louis Brandeis who is quoted as famously saying:

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

And

“Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

In the video above Bannon also speaks highly of former FTC chair Lina Khan who was one of the only few bright spots in a relatively lackluster Biden administration.

Finally, like the original populists, Bannon has argued that elites care little for international borders or the rule of law and undermine local workers by importing cheap labor from overseas. Importing cheap labor, neglecting rights and hurting not just the immigrants but the common folk is an immoral placing of social level power above the Human Rights of the workers. Indeed, Bannon takes this critique further and also notes that by undermining a culture through mass immigration, elites are able to undermine a sense of national identity fostering chaos and enabling further exploitation.

If this was all there was to Steve Bannon's "populism" then, that would be the end of it, we could rightly call him a populist and go home. Except unfortunately it isn't.

Nathan J. Robinson recently on Twitter points out some of the issue with his "populism". In the same way the Democrats latest elite supporting chair argues that there are 'Good and Bad Billionaires' - so too does Bannon. In his arguments for Trump and Musk, Bannon makes dubious claims as to why these Billionaires he deems as good, are at least somewhat immune from corruption:

'Trump doesn't have an elitist mentality' Bannon argues 'because he is a self made Billionaire'. 'Trump isn't an elitist.. he's an outsider'. After some thin prodding Bannon's arguments become even less strong when asked about Trump's elite Billionaire supporters: 'All of Trumps billionaire friends aren't elites, they support Trump!'.

So with Bannon's rose colored glasses, he believes that simply because Trump is self-made(he isn't) he will always have the nations best interests at heart(he doesn't). It takes very little scrutiny of Trump's actions, and especially of Musk's recent actions to see they clearly do not have the nations best interests at heart.

To point out an easy one - look at their (currently underway) dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This Department costs 1 Billion dollars a year and has done far more good in protecting consumers against powerful elite run corporations than just about anything else. It's returned over 20 Billion to consumers through law enforcement over the last 10 years and protected Americans from further exploitation. Exploitation such as Facebook's recent attempt at becoming its own bank and creating money for itself and becoming an even greater undemocratic power in America and the world.

With this in mind then, it's somewhat of an irony that in 'religious' America the sins of greed, lust and power can be so easily dismissed by the likes of Bannon. The idea that if someone is rich enough or they are 'self-made', they no longer lust for more and will always have others best interests at heart is simply asinine. For the great majority of Billionaire's accumulated their wealth at least partly because they lusted for further power and their greed knew few bounds.

This understanding though is best summed up through the language of the Metaphysics of Quality(MOQ). Because those who understand the MOQ, understand that the conflict between social values and intellectual values is still ongoing. And at this moment, it's most profoundly being undermined with the aid of an amoral metaphysics at the hands of the socially powerful like Bannon, Trump and Musk.

Bannon has done more than anyone before him to muddy the waters between populism and elitism. By rolling out the red carpet for elites in his so-called “right-wing populist” movement and hyping up figures like Musk, he’s made it clear—this isn’t real populism. It’s a sham, a vehicle for grift, deception, and the erosion of anything truly valuable. Rather than being a movement about widespread intellectual enlightenment and a celebration of intellectual values - it's encouraged conspiracy and limited critical thought.

Like past anti-populists, Bannon has warped the meaning of the term, giving the elite media even more ammo to do the same. The result? The powerful have successfully misled everyday people about what genuine populism is—and what real change could look like.

When we begin to look at the reasons why Bannon might be deceptive in undermining the intellectual value of populism in this way there are a few that can be given.

  1. He can fundraise off true populist outrage.
  2. He can keep framing himself as an outsider despite having wealthy backers like the Billionaire Mercers.
  3. He actually prefers social level strong-man authoritarians rather than true populist common-man movements as evidenced by his working with 'soft' dictator Viktor Orban, and praise of Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping.

Notably each of these reasons is about social level power. Either increasing his own, or admiring that of others. This is the opposite of what the populists were fighting for. Valuing social level power at the neglect of the intellectual value of fairness and the Dynamic Morality that can arise from that equal opportunity is wholly immoral.

There is far too much extreme inequality in America right now. Social level power drowning out the people in being able to choose what is intellectually right is immoral. There is a better way and the MOQ eloquently shows it to us.

_video cultural-values intellectual-values social-values the-law
David
Metaphysics making things better - Psychology.


There's no such thing as matter. There's no such thing as the physical. There's no such thing as ideas. There's just quality. What's a good way to describe reality?

And if there's a good way - can you apply that quality to other things and find yet more quality? If something truly is good - then you would think it can pay forward like that right?

"I am kind of in the position of a theoretical mathematician who comes… you know, who has worked out a set of equations which to him look wonderful. He goes to a group of engineers and they say, "Well, what good is it? What's this going to do for us?"

Robert Pirsig to the Association of Humanisitic Psychology.

Like Pirsig - I don't claim to be a psychologist - but what I do think is that at the very least - at a very high level - the Metaphysics of Quality can start to create interesting distinctions in 'human behavior' that haven't been brought out clearly before by psychologists.

Looking at psychology from an MOQ perspective I can ask questions like - what behaviors are an unchangeable part of our biology and what of those are social? Whilst I'm sure these types of questions have been asked before - with the MOQ, we have a language with which we can discuss them and categorise them definitively and not get caught up on what exactly is social behavior and what exactly is biological behavior.

Because it provides clear distinctions like this - from there anthropologists or psychologists can also ask questions like - if they are social - do they serve their purpose in an intelligent way - or is there a better way they can be achieved? If so, then obviously because they can be changed then it's best that we do so. And from this clear cultural recommendations can be made by intellectuals on the best way to live.

Because this would be dramatically different let me repeat. Using the Metaphysics of Quality - intellectuals, could provide recommendations, based on human psychology, on the best way to live a moral life. Not just for some people in some such a culture. But for all people. Everywhere.

I think this would clearly be a dramatic improval to the way things are done now. A psychology now whose terms are not clearly philosophically defined and also importantly - whose aims are also unsure. Because more than anything - it provides us an overarching frame that everyone can get behind and grounds us all in a moral direction towards a better future.

Anyway, with this perspective from here I will be writing about psychology studies that I see that the MOQ can perhaps provide further color to and how the MOQ makes it uniquely clear that they can help us to live better lives.

intellectual-morality the-law cultural-values self-improvement
David


Daily exercise is moral. There I said it. This is an unusual sentence but one that is logically correct and actually also more truthful and honest than any other statement about exercise.

It's a sentence that I can only say because I'm using a metaphysics that is built for this 21st Century. A metaphysics that allows us to move beyond all traditional interpretations of morality and place even everyday activities into a moral context. A moral context that isn't just logically true for me in my place and time - like our current morality would say, but it's true and moral for all people, everywhere.

I can say this because I can philosophically and logically justify the sentence using the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ). Because unlike Zazen as described in an earlier post, exercise, as static quality; does have clear qualitative justifications for why its a good thing. In fact, whilst it is fundamentally a biological activity - it’s actually something that’s good on every level and this is really why it’s so moral to do every day.

For example, intellectually science is increasingly demonstrating the benefits of regular exercise. It has been shown to benefit the health of both body and mind in many ways. But the biological effects of feeling good as well as the social benefits of looking good are both empirically verifiable and legitimate as well.

And as an aside - this is also another reason why the celebrities I wrote about in my previous post are so good. They show that you can do professional level exercise and yet maintain a moral vegan diet at the same time - both things supported by the MOQ.

Personally I’ve recently been spending up to two hours a day at the gym doing various cardio and strength based exercises. But for someone who has limited free time for exercise, studies are increasingly showing that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is an effective way of getting fit and healthy in an extremely time limited way.

Along these lines please enjoy a video above showing a daily HIIT routine that basically anyone can do so long as they are honestly pushing themselves through.

_video youtube cultural-values self-improvement the-law-of-the-jungle intellectual-morality the-law
David


The Metaphysics Of Quality (MOQ) points out that as social values exist; celebrity culture is unavoidable. Because of this we should thus encourage those celebrites that are moving society in a better direction. Two of those celebrites are Rich Roll and Nimai Delgado.

Two vegan athletes, breaking stereotypes of vegan protein deficiencies and showing that you can still live a healthy life and actually thrive on a purely plant based diet.

I’ve written before about the morality of a vegan diet and that’s why these two athletes are celebrites supported by the MOQ.

Enjoy a preview of their chat above or you can listen to and watch the whole podcast here.

_video youtube cultural-values celebrity the-law