The League of Shadows is Based

What a change in mindset a few decades make. Batman Begins is still my favorite of the Caped Crusader films (and my favorite superhero overall), but I have a renowned appreciation for Ra's al Ghul. As brutal as it seems, Ra's al Ghul societal and judicial analysis is correct (not method). 

Let's take a tasty red pill and see why.  

*TISM'y comic alert: this is not the same as Ra's al Ghul from the comics. We're here to analyze Christopher Nolan's take on his composite Henri Ducard/Ra's al Ghul character and the League of Shadows, not DC canon. Back away nerds!

Image 1. Jeff Albertson (aka Comic Book Guy), The Simpsons      

 

Don't Mistake the Summer for Forever

I was a sweet summer child in 2005, entirely behind Bruce Wayne. Why wasn't he correct? I watched the film in a Los Angeles theater, which was decidedly in one of its better eras. Seeing its decline now (like San Francisco's) is tragic, not a schadenfreude Fox News segment. I thought (wrongly) that Ideals can and should overcome any base corruption because change is bottom-up. This notion of bottom-up change is seductive and can be intoxicating. “Anyone can be MLK.”

Image 2. The Man, The Myth, the Realist

Ra's Realism

"Always Mind Your Surroundings." Ra's al Ghul 

The above quote is stated in three different scenes, each with a different tone. The first time is on an ice lake where Ra is training Bruce, and it takes on a tactical tone (i.e., "You gave up your steady position for an easy kill"). It takes on an operational tone when Batman defeats Ra's by using his Gotham network Ra's failed to account for. Ra's also says it philosophically when debris from a fire traps Bruce. But isn't this just a tactical tone? Let's examine the scene:/  

Ra's al Ghul confronts Bruce Wayne in his mansion, and Bruce defends the idealist's position and his crusading vigilante:  

• Bruce: You're gonna destroy millions of lives. 

• Ducard: Only a cynical man would call what these people have "lives," Wayne. Crime. Despair. This is not how man was supposed to live. The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption... ...for thousands of years. We sacked Rome.  Loaded trade ships with plague rats. Burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence... ...we return to restore the balance.

• Bruce: Gotham isn't beyond saving. Give me more time.  There are good people here.

• Ducard: You're defending a city so corrupt... ...we have infiltrated every level of its infrastructure.

They soon clash, and eventually, the fire in Bruce’s mansion causes debris to trap him. As this occurs, Ra's says, "You never did learn to mind your surroundings. Justice is balance. You burned my house and left me for dead. Consider us even." He means this as a final and declarative statement on their idealist v. realist debate. Is he wrong, considering Gotham's "surroundings" of a degraded population and corrupted elite? How is America different?

"Who are these men in authority and favor, to whose hands the dispensation of the country’s wealth has been committed? Note the sudden rise of their estates compared with the mean quality in which they had first entered the country, and let us see whether their extractions and education have not been vile, and by what pretense of learning and virtue they could enter so soon into employments of so great trust and consequence. Let us see what sponges have sucked up the public treasure and whether it hath not been privately contrived away by unworthy favorites and juggling parasites whose tottering fortunes have been repaired and supported at the public charge.” - Nathaniel “Sizzling” Bacon 

Image 3. Mostly a fabulous news channel

Witness the American inner cities or the semi-rural. Would you consider these lives to be the best man can do? Dollar Generals, Vape Shops, and Car Washes. Drug addiction and cheap, soulless, and disposable commodities. Democracy and Modernity's lotus is a tad bitter but creates the effect. Whether you're on the left mocking Wal-Mart People or the right mocking Those People, no one deserves this. 

Man can be spiritually fulfilled and supported by their local community and be a part of that community. But in the face of the continued corporate onslaught, what can man do against such reckless hate? An uncaring corporate and semi-accountable elected elite have since consigned those people to a Hunger Games they can drive through if Waze accidentally directs them through it. I would have said that's the free market a few years ago, bro. God forgive my soul.      

Ra's isn't thrilled with Gotham's corruption but understands why it exists. The Peak Democratic System is corrupt and ineffective. From top to bottom, it can't pass the marshmallow test.  A sterling example of this is the San Francisco Homeless Department. This is not cynicism, just a point about social services in general.  Any bureaucracy (public or private) must justify its own existence.  For example, San Francisco has a $700M budget for their homeless department.  That's $100K per homeless person per year.  The average SF HS salary is $150K.  It is better for the individuals within that interest (both salaried bums and government bums) to perpetuate the problem.    

The previous cities the League of Shadows put to sleep were Rome and London (as it steadily moved away from monarchy). These non-virtuous and unresponsive societies had given to democratic whims for too long and decayed, but this is natural when observed on a long enough timeline. 

Ra's Understands History as Cyclical, not Linear.

"When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural." /Ra's al Ghul

Machiavelli wrote that he loved his country more than his soul. Bruce Wayne's relationship with Gotham is the same. Any of Batman's romantic dalliances will always be merely mistress to Gotham. He is one of the few elites who cares deeply about the city. Still, he narrowly views Gotham as a singularity when it is in the mold of any other metropolis with economic, cultural, and political power.  

Ra's and the League of Shadows have a long view. They understand civilizations wax and wane, and in their waning period, they seek to reduce suffering (again, I am not saying this is correct) as a part of the ecosystem.       

Gotham is not unique. Gotham is no different than Imperial Rome, Ancient Athens, or modern New York City/DC. All of them hit a zenith, which they misascribed to democratic increase when it was something more tribal and primal, leading to its rise. Decay sets in when it tempts itself towards a more Promethean sense of itself.  

Bruce thinks he can alter this by changing a variable or coefficient in this algebraic equation of democracy. Hell, Attorney General Harvey barely made a Dent.  But the operator and constants don't change. The final expression will be the same. A democratic system quickly yields to decay.

A Goal of Balance, not Utopia.

"Tomorrow, the world will watch in horror as its greatest city destroys itself. The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable this time." Ra's al Ghul

Let's focus on one word: harmony. 

Harmony, in this context, is an Eastern/Chinese sense of the term. Remember that the League of Shadows is based in Nepal/Western China. It means a cooperative Relationship with nature, not just exploitation.  But what about the new i-Ching:

Figure 1. Plenty of 3 eyed fishes in those waters.    

Ah yes, the ole checkmate move. Remember we must distinguish civilizational cultural values that many have v. a nation state’s political elite strip mining a culture to justify their will to power.  I don’t see Ra’s seeking to join the CCP scramble to secure material desires.  

Chenyang Li of Nanyang Technological University provides the following analysis on Confucian Harmony: 

• "It is a moral, political, and social ideal and equally practical."

• "The Confucian ideal of harmony calls for a practical attitude in political life, and this practical attitude, in turn, leads to pragmatic approaches to handling political affairs harmony is anchored around centrality (equilibrium)."  

• "Discretion (author's note: read as human action) is a balancing force for regulation. The regulation comes with rules. Rules are not created to suit every situation. In order for ritual propriety to function appropriately, discretional action is needed." 

• In line with Confucian teaching, Ra's is looking to balance something that has moved far off in one direction. His goal of societal equilibrium is not creating equality but balance. It is not towards totalitarianism but back towards some hierarchy and away from the chaos of easily corruptible democratic politicians, an avarice merchant class, and sociopathic criminals. 

The League of Shadows

Final Reflection on Ra's in Nolan's Batman Movies

“Are you ready to begin?” Ra’s al Ghul 

How did I go from agreeing with Ra's more than Bruce? It could be the call for immediate, direct action that now convinces me. It's hard to see the chaos, broken down communities, and humans of America not at their optimum, and a system that should fix this is now fully kleptocratic and unaccountable. Hearing that "the training is nothing! The will is everything! The will to act" is refreshing after being trapped by impotent ideology for a decade and a half that falsely and naively promised peace and prosperity via free markets and free minds.

The undiscerning reader will infer Kristallnacht.  I am not advocating for blowing up the Narrows nor continuing to throw good money after bad.  Turning back to San Francisco, 1% of San Francisco's population is causing major chaos for 99% of its residents.  Michael Schellenberger proposes some tactical empathy, but a Uyghur like policy might be more effective.  

That being said, a discerning elite, reasonable centrist, Ra’s al Ghul and Batman hybrid (“Bras al gult, Man?)” could apply the following prescription for America:

Here's the 5 year plan: 

1. Corruption: Prohibit all elected officials and their next of kin from purchasing individual securities 

2. Fairness in Taxation: Disband the Fed income tax in favor of a VAT tax

3. Sovereignty: Let the states bootstrap funding to police their own borders

4. Dignity: Send the TSA to re-education camps to learn a trade like plumbing 

5. Independence: Build our own nuke plants and Nikes

6. Public Health: Disband the FDA, Dept of Ag, CDC, and end all farm subsidies  

7. Equity: Raid every university's treasury to pay for Slave Reparations, since they are the true Ivory Tower of White Privilege. © Michael Malice