The Rise of the Anti Hero and the Triumph of Solipsim in a Godless World

This beyond dark imagery is becoming more and more prevalent. Just the imagery associated with some of the movies and television shows--for example, the imagery from American Horror Story--today repulses me. However, the imagery isn't always so repugnant.  From Dexter to Walter White to Tony Soprano to Frank Underwood to Jack Bauer the world is awash in antiheroes who sell sex, death, destruction and moral corruption as easily as...well, as easily as the devil sold the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The antihero rapes, tortures, kills, corrupts, etc. in service of his or her sense of what constitutes “the greater good.,” and not only do we root for them, we love them--some, of course, more than others. With the exception of Dexter because I can't stomach the idea of a "heroic" torturous serial killer-- I've watched them all and as much as I hate to admit it, to this day, I miss Tony Soprano and Walter White.  What that says about me speaks volumes. So I'm preaching to myself (and hopefully to my children if they ever read my blog...I'm certainly not holding my breath) because I'm as easily seduced, if not more so, by  the anti-hero.  As the saying goes: People teach what they need to learn.

In order to define antihero, you must first define hero because anti simply means “against,” or “opposite of.” So, what is a hero? He or she is one whose virtues and good works greatly outdistance those of ordinary good people. To take it a step further, heroes are "souls already purified from all attachment to things worldly, and solidly anchored in the love of God."  To put it very simply, an antihero is a central character or protagonist in a novel, play, movie, TV show, video game, etc, who lacks heroic virtues: temperance, fortitude, prudence, and whose virtues and good works greatly outdistance those of ordinary good people.

“Virtue consists in the following, or imitation, of God [Jesus Christ]. Every virtue, like every other thing, has its type [exemplar] in God. Thus the Divine mind itself is the type of prudence; God using all things to minister to His glory is the type of temperance, by which man subjects his lower appetites to reason; justice is typified by God's application of the eternal law to all His works; Divine immutability is the type of fortitude. And, since it is man's nature to live in society, the four cardinal virtues are social [politicae] virtues, inasmuch as by them man rightly ordains his conduct in daily life. Man, however, must raise himself beyond his natural life unto a life Divine: 'Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect' (Matthew 5:48). It is, therefore, necessary to posit certain virtues midway between the social virtues, which are human, and the exemplary virtues, which are Divine. These intermediate virtues are of two degrees of perfection: the lesser in the soul still struggling upwards from a life of sin to a likeness with God — these are called purifying virtues [virtutes purgatoriae]; the greater in the souls which have already attained to the Divine likeness — these are called virtues of the purified soul [virtutes jam purgati animi]. In the lesser degree, prudence, moved by the contemplation of things Divine, despises all things earthly and directs all the soul's thought unto God alone; temperance relinquishes, as far as nature allows, the things required for bodily wants; fortitude removes the fear of departing this life and facing the life beyond; justice approves of the aforesaid dispositions. In the higher perfection of souls already purified and firmly united with God, prudence knows nothing but what it beholds in God; temperance ignores earthly desires; fortitude knows nothing of passions; justice is bound to the Divine mind by a perpetual compact to do as it does. This degree of perfection belongs to the blessed in heaven or to a few of the most perfect in this life. -- St. Thomas (I-II:61:4)

The rise of the antihero is establishing a new social order completely independent of nature and totally at the service of human will.  Whereas, literary heroes used to be good people who did good things for good reasons, in contemporary literature, antiheroes have begun to outnumber heroes.  However, the anti-hero is getting harder and harder to discern as all moral boundaries are consistently and seductively blurred.  In other words, anti-heroism is a response to modern man's uncertainties about moral code and value judgements as modern anti-heroism captures the sensibility associated with modernism. The reader, spectator empathizes with characters who are immoral.

“The moral inversion of suspense is when the spectator empathizes with characters who are immoral, who are not necessarily presented as morally preferable in the narrative and may thus otherwise have been perceived as unsympathetic, and feels suspense in relation to a situation where it seems unlikely that this character will succeed. Empathizing with the character makes the spectator root for this character wanting him or her to succeed--more traditionally seen -- (The Antihero in American Television by Margrethe Bruun Vaage)

The devil, it turns out, with his disarming mix of charm and wit on the one hand and darkness and terror on the other, rules the day ...All you want to do is join the party, be his friend, sit next to him, make him smile. 

“Through Wisdom is a house built; and by Understanding it is established: [But] by Knowledge shall all the chambers be filled." (Proverbs 24:3-4)

Instilling fear--because when fear dominates our thinking, love is absent--and the transvaluation (reversing the meaning of traditional and accepted values) and inversion of the predominant moral system of the Christian world are the operating principles of modernity and the postmodern ethos, which has successfully seized the moral high ground...not all that hard, considering the levers of power are in their hands to not only  'do what thy wilt,' but to convince us that 'to do what thy wilt is the whole of the law,' that is, unless you step out of line.

Links:

The Rise of the Antihero