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Evil versus Crazy and my turn as a visual artist
Stayed up all night working on the comic I got asked to do for a thing called Resilient Brainforest. It's basically a bunch of non-comic folks trying to tell a story with some words, and B&W pictures that we created ourselves.
I had this "brilliant" idea that I'd "just" draw a few things, have H scan them, and then photoshop them together into something cool.
Turns out, that's really fucking hard.
Not only can't I draw AT ALL, but because of certain factors, it was "easier" to do in Illustrator than Photoshop. Essentially I had to cut out all my shitty drawings, move them into new files with transparent backgrounds, then shade them. At that point, I could place the in an Illustrator template (which I also had to make myself--with some assistance from H). All and all it was at least 20 hours of labor and nearly twice that of freaking out about how shitty it was going to be. Then I couldn't find a picture of a house that I had the rights to. Not having a car is a pain in the ass when it's 3:30 in the goddamn morning and you CANNOT find a picture of a house.
Anyway, it's done now. 3 panels, two of which have visual stuff in it. The one other non-spouse human I've showed it to say it was pretty cool.
This morning I woke up and found out that some crazy guy shot up a midnight screening of Dark Knight. Reactions are as you'd expect. Mostly people are shocked and/or saddened. Some Republican assholes are crapping out soundbites about how the audience should have been armed so they could shoot back, or how this is all really an attack on Romney or a way to obfuscate judeo-christian teachings. No, I have NO idea how anyone could get there from a crazy man shooting movie patrons.
I also hear a lot of people, people I know even, calling this an act of "Evil." As my regular readers know, I don't believe there's a such thing as "evil" humans. We tend to call acts evil based on either how hurtful they are to other humans, or on how difficult it is to understand the so-called "evildoer's" motives or intentions. It's one of the reasons a kid who steals a car is tried as a juvenile but one who shoots someone is tried as an adult. Shooting someone is more serious in terms of consequences. But the act itself shows no more maturity or intent--especially when you're talking about a kid of 12 or 13.
But I digress. By dismissing things like this as Evil acts perpetrated by Evil people, we relieve ourselves of the need to understand, to dig deeper and find out what the hell is going on with someone who would do such a thing. Understanding is the only path to prevention. Evil is an excuse, a made-up construct we apply to horrible things we don't understand. It's as lazy as any other stereotyping, and hurts us all just as much. This is something I discuss in my books, this one in particular. If I am actually able to influence the culture with my work, I hope I influence people to dig a little deeper, to ask a few more questions, and to keep their minds open to the possibility that things are not as simple as they're pretending they are--especially when it comes to the wide world of the mentally ill.
Mentally ill people sometimes do horrible things. They sometimes do wonderful things, things no one else would ever think of doing. This has to mean that we have things to learn from them. Please, let us not squander that opportunity by dismissing every incomprehensible tragedy as a mere act of Evil.
I had this "brilliant" idea that I'd "just" draw a few things, have H scan them, and then photoshop them together into something cool.
Turns out, that's really fucking hard.
Not only can't I draw AT ALL, but because of certain factors, it was "easier" to do in Illustrator than Photoshop. Essentially I had to cut out all my shitty drawings, move them into new files with transparent backgrounds, then shade them. At that point, I could place the in an Illustrator template (which I also had to make myself--with some assistance from H). All and all it was at least 20 hours of labor and nearly twice that of freaking out about how shitty it was going to be. Then I couldn't find a picture of a house that I had the rights to. Not having a car is a pain in the ass when it's 3:30 in the goddamn morning and you CANNOT find a picture of a house.
Anyway, it's done now. 3 panels, two of which have visual stuff in it. The one other non-spouse human I've showed it to say it was pretty cool.
This morning I woke up and found out that some crazy guy shot up a midnight screening of Dark Knight. Reactions are as you'd expect. Mostly people are shocked and/or saddened. Some Republican assholes are crapping out soundbites about how the audience should have been armed so they could shoot back, or how this is all really an attack on Romney or a way to obfuscate judeo-christian teachings. No, I have NO idea how anyone could get there from a crazy man shooting movie patrons.
I also hear a lot of people, people I know even, calling this an act of "Evil." As my regular readers know, I don't believe there's a such thing as "evil" humans. We tend to call acts evil based on either how hurtful they are to other humans, or on how difficult it is to understand the so-called "evildoer's" motives or intentions. It's one of the reasons a kid who steals a car is tried as a juvenile but one who shoots someone is tried as an adult. Shooting someone is more serious in terms of consequences. But the act itself shows no more maturity or intent--especially when you're talking about a kid of 12 or 13.
But I digress. By dismissing things like this as Evil acts perpetrated by Evil people, we relieve ourselves of the need to understand, to dig deeper and find out what the hell is going on with someone who would do such a thing. Understanding is the only path to prevention. Evil is an excuse, a made-up construct we apply to horrible things we don't understand. It's as lazy as any other stereotyping, and hurts us all just as much. This is something I discuss in my books, this one in particular. If I am actually able to influence the culture with my work, I hope I influence people to dig a little deeper, to ask a few more questions, and to keep their minds open to the possibility that things are not as simple as they're pretending they are--especially when it comes to the wide world of the mentally ill.
Mentally ill people sometimes do horrible things. They sometimes do wonderful things, things no one else would ever think of doing. This has to mean that we have things to learn from them. Please, let us not squander that opportunity by dismissing every incomprehensible tragedy as a mere act of Evil.
no subject
Although I do wonder about people like Mitt Romney and the heads of the banks who are screwing the rest of us for their own profit. They sure seem evil to me. But then, sociopaths are mentally injured, too, aren't they?
And congrats on the drawings coming out well!
no subject
But to dismiss a person as Evil is dangerous, dismissive, and prevents us from the understanding that could help everyone in the future. The whole thing goes back to the idea that we'd rather label something Evil and forget about it...because finding out what's really going on is hard and creates more uncertainty. After a tragedy, the last thing most people want is more uncertainty.
no subject
And that's how we got in the mess we've been in since 9/11. People in power taking advantage of that. Nobody was willing to step back and say, "Woah. Let's think about this for half a minute."
no subject
If you can't condense that shit down to a slogan, how the hell am I gonna understand it???
no subject
"Woah. Let's think about this for half a minute."
Yeah, no one's going to buy that one, are they?