TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Comes Great Repsonsiblity: A Broken Aesop?

Go To

G.G. Since: Dec, 1969
#1: Feb 1st 2011 at 12:18:30 PM

I had seen the Spider Man TV series long beofre the books but that whole mantra of "with great power comes great responsibility" seems a little broken to me. Runaways says it best,

"Really? That's inane. Most people in life don't have great power, and few that do are almost never responsible with it. The people who have the greatest responsibility are the kids with no power because we're the one who have to keep everyone else in check."

Granted, it is hypocritcal as the page says but the point is that, not a lot of us possess this great power that Spider Man's uncle speaks of. Not all of us are superheroes, Newtypes or touhou characters. Even Badass Normal powers are somewhat unbelievable but if you did possess such powers, what would you do with it? That is not to say it is completely broken as it tells that we are responsible on how use our powers and how we treat others. Its extreme logical conclusion that some people turn completely insane after getting powers that they cannot handle is somewhat unbelievable as well.

It this a broken Aesop in superhero stories?

edited 1st Feb '11 12:22:07 PM by G.G.

Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#3: Feb 1st 2011 at 2:38:30 PM

In superhero stories, it's Played With. That's about the best way I can put it.

Some characters play it straight, some subvert it, some discuss it, some defy it.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#4: Feb 1st 2011 at 2:42:54 PM

One could argue that power doesn't exist in it's own right, only manifesting through varying degrees of responsibility. For example the President has a responsibility to the country, and various powers they could use to either uphold or abuse that responsibility - on a smaller scale a parent has a responsibility to their child, and powers over that child with which they can protect or abuse them.

The fact that people without powers are still responsible still only shows that their responsibility and power channel in different ways: you are responsible to get your everyday work done because you have the power to, at the very least, maintain or ruin your own prosperity, with varying additional responsibilities depending on one's actual job.

MEPT72 Vote is No from Boston, MA Since: Sep, 2009
Vote is No
#5: Feb 1st 2011 at 3:49:58 PM

I always read it as the more ability you have to change or effect things the greater the duty you had to do so in a positive way. Unless I'm misreading you guys it seems like you've got a different response, heroes failing to live up to the duty wouldn't make it nonexistant it would either speak to human failing or show their own lack of responsibility.

Obligatory self promotion: http://unemployedacademic.tumblr.com/
Malkavian What is this from madness Since: Jan, 2001
What is this
#6: Feb 1st 2011 at 4:22:08 PM

The point is that when you have such power, you have the obligation to use it to better the world. Just like when you have the power to create children you have the obligation to take care of them.

Many people don't fulfill this obligation, but it isn't about what is. It's about what should be.

"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant Morrison
juancarlos11 Since: Aug, 2011
#7: Feb 1st 2011 at 4:33:10 PM

@G.G: But I thought Ben didn't know about Peter's powers when he said that

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.
MousaThe14 Writer, Artist, Ignored from Northern Virginia Since: Jan, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Writer, Artist, Ignored
#8: Feb 1st 2011 at 4:53:57 PM

[up] Ben didn't but that's the only way people view it nowadays.

Like, just referring to having powers.

edited 1st Feb '11 4:54:14 PM by MousaThe14

The Blog The Art
KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#9: Feb 1st 2011 at 5:17:17 PM

It also depends on your definition of "power". There are few flaws with Spider-man's origin story.

Peter Parker didn't lose his Uncle Ben because he failed to actively patrol for wrong-doing. He lost him because he failed to do what any ordinary person could have done at the time—delay a common crook long enough for a cop to catch. (Why the cop would try to involve a civilian when the thug could have been armed is often never asked.) In any case, one has to ask why Peter Parker, every time he loses his powers, gives up crime-fighting. Even without his powers, he's a newspaper photographer—there are infinite numbers of stories you could breaking (such as restaurants with bad health codes, human rights violations, children living in squalor, etc.). Even without that, he's an inventor (you have invented a compound that, judging by how many uses you abused it for in your vigilantism, could infinitely help mankind). Even beyond that, he has a network of superhero friends and allies he's built over the years. Working at a newspaper, even as an intern/freelancer, could help them in any number of ways.

I say this because I dislike the argument that superheroes wouldn't "act responsibly" if they had superpowers. Superpowers are just physical force (usually), but they aren't the bulk of what mankind is capable of—not by a long shot.

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#10: Feb 1st 2011 at 5:36:43 PM

Actually, in the MC 2 universe (where Spider Man is retired due to a prosthetic leg), Peter Parker works as a police scientist (similar to Barry Allen).

KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#11: Feb 1st 2011 at 5:44:10 PM

Elseworlds, What-Ifs and Alternate Realities not-withstanding.

Cider The Final ECW Champion from Not New York Since: May, 2009 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
The Final ECW Champion
#12: Feb 1st 2011 at 6:14:46 PM

Who says its an Aesop? Spider-man believes it, Spider-man is driven by it, it makes(or made) good stories. Does anything else really matter.

Besides, that many people are irresponsible with large amounts of power is a bad thing. If it was looked at as an Aesop its a pretty good one.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
Drakyndra Her with the hat from Somewhere Since: Jan, 2001
Her with the hat
#13: Feb 2nd 2011 at 12:23:51 AM

I agree with Malkavian.

"With great power comes great responsibility" is a moral ideal to strive for, not a true reflection of reality. In a perfect world, everyone would use their power responsibly - but we (and comic characters) don't live in a perfect world, which is why there is corruption and abuse of power. And the thing that makes heroes heroic is they attempt to use their powers responsibly instead of for personal gain.

It's a should be, not an is.

edited 2nd Feb '11 12:24:06 AM by Drakyndra

The owner of this account is temporarily unavailable. Please leave your number and call again later.
Arilou Taller than Zim from Quasispace Since: Jan, 2001
Taller than Zim
#14: Feb 2nd 2011 at 1:35:53 AM

It's both a statement of obligation(those with great power have the obligation to use it responsble) and a statement of fat. (Almost existentialist) If you DO have power you are responsible for using it, or not using it. Good or bad you're the one with the power, and so the responsibility is yours, you can never blame anyone else for how you excercise power.

edited 2nd Feb '11 1:36:51 AM by Arilou

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
Tongpu Since: Jan, 2001
#15: Feb 2nd 2011 at 3:20:13 AM

One could argue that power doesn't exist in it's own right, only manifesting through varying degrees of responsibility.
I think it's the other way around. Power is the ability to do things, to influence things. It exists whether or not there is responsibility. It exists whether or not there are human beings. A hurricane has power. A river has power.

Responsibility OTOH is a mere value judgment, an abstract belief that a someone should live up to a certain standard of behavior. A meme. As such, it has no demonstrable existence outside of the minds of valuers. Say you have a culture where it is believed that parents have a responsibility to eat some of their babies. Naturally, they indoctrinate their (surviving) offspring to believe in this responsibility; they promote it on the level of the community, popular culture, perhaps even law. In other words, they exert various forms of power to ensure the survival of this "responsibility to eat babies" meme. If they didn't, it would be gone in any meaningful sense. If their culture goes extinct, the universe becomes indistinguishable from one in which that responsibility doesn't exist.

"Really? That's inane. Most people in life don't have great power, and few that do are almost never responsible with it. The people who have the greatest responsibility are the kids with no power because we're the one who have to keep everyone else in check."
I hope it was Chase or the little girl saying this, because it really strikes me as stupid. "With great power comes great responsibility" is a normative claim  *, not a descriptive  * one, so the observation that people who have great power tend to act irresponsibly with it is irrelevant.

And even if the character had gotten that part right, the rest of their statement still wouldn't make sense, because you can't keep anyone in check if you have no power. The ability to keep people in check is a form of power. If you have no power, chances are you are a corpse, a sufferer of locked-in-syndrome, or perhaps a slave locked in a cage. To say that someone with no power has the responsibility to keep everyone else in check is like saying that a quadraplegic has a responsibility to go for the Olympic medal in pole vaulting.

ETA: I forgot, I was talking about moral responsibility, but another sense of responsibility that applies is causal responsibility... which is pretty much synonymous with power. Either meaning you go with, the quoted character got it wrong.

edited 2nd Feb '11 3:26:43 AM by Tongpu

PrimoVictoria Since: Dec, 1969
#16: Feb 2nd 2011 at 3:43:33 AM

I remember reading about it in "Heroes and Philosophy" that there is a school of thought in philosophy that says that the more power/wealth/connections etc. person has, the more he/she is morally obliged to use it for the advantage of everybody in it's reach. Superhero books and uncle Bean just follows that philosophy.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#17: Feb 2nd 2011 at 8:01:26 AM

I think it's the other way around. Power is the ability to do things, to influence things. It exists whether or not there is responsibility. It exists whether or not there are human beings. A hurricane has power. A river has power.

Responsibility OTOH is a mere value judgment, an abstract belief that a someone should live up to a certain standard of behavior. A meme. As such, it has no demonstrable existence outside of the minds of valuers. Say you have a culture where it is believed that parents have a responsibility to eat some of their babies. Naturally, they indoctrinate their (surviving) offspring to believe in this responsibility; they promote it on the level of the community, popular culture, perhaps even law. In other words, they exert various forms of power to ensure the survival of this "responsibility to eat babies" meme. If they didn't, it would be gone in any meaningful sense. If their culture goes extinct, the universe becomes indistinguishable from one in which that responsibility doesn't exist.

Power in a river is different than power in a person, if only because a river does not have the option of abusing it, nor the capability to question or interpret it.

I've always been a big believer in impermanence not being an indicator of meaninglessness - the fact that the universe is not effected at large for the existence or destruction of the culture does not mean that the culture had not an effect or a meaning in the time of its existence - looking at the atom from the scale of the star unnecessarily belittles it.

And in any case, as you noted, power in that case is exerted as a means to maintain responsibility, not the other way around: though you could make the case that the implementation of the "responsibility" (actually a doctrine) is through their power as ruler, that power only comes about via taking power over the culture - either by seizing it or being given it.

edited 2nd Feb '11 8:01:47 AM by KnownUnknown

Arilou Taller than Zim from Quasispace Since: Jan, 2001
Taller than Zim
#18: Feb 2nd 2011 at 1:40:19 PM

I still think you guys are getting it wrong: It's not that one should (or do) act responsible, it's that one is responsible for one's actions (or lack thereof) and since the powerful have a larger scope of actions and greater conseqeunces thereof they are more responsible.

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#19: Feb 2nd 2011 at 2:18:41 PM

That sounds more like an accurate statement.

Fight smart, not fair.
KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#20: Feb 2nd 2011 at 2:33:11 PM

Who says its mutually exclusive?

Tongpu Since: Jan, 2001
#21: Feb 2nd 2011 at 6:11:16 PM

Power in a river is different than power in a person, if only because a river does not have the option of abusing it, nor the capability to question or interpret it.
I don't think this difference is significant or relevant.

I've always been a big believer in impermanence not being an indicator of meaninglessness - the fact that the universe is not effected at large for the existence or destruction of the culture does not mean that the culture had not an effect or a meaning in the time of its existence - looking at the atom from the scale of the star unnecessarily belittles it.
I was explicitly not talking about the culture's meaning in the time of its existence. To clarify, I was talking about the existence of the "baby eating responsibility" meme. Once all of the minds in which it resides have ceased to exist, then so too has the meme.

And in any case, as you noted, power in that case is exerted as a means to maintain responsibility, not the other way around: though you could make the case that the implementation of the "responsibility" (actually a doctrine) is through their power as ruler, that power only comes about via taking power over the culture - either by seizing it or being given it.
To be honest, I am not strongly committed to the position that the responsibility is contingent upon the power. The point of yours around which my disagreement revolves is merely the existential claim portion of your statement. I assert that power exists in its own right, as a physical reality in the world, whereas responsibility exists exclusively as an impotent meme.

I still think you guys are getting it wrong: It's not that one should (or do) act responsible, it's that one is responsible for one's actions (or lack thereof) and since the powerful have a larger scope of actions and greater conseqeunces thereof they are more responsible.
That usage of the terms is counterintuitive. The normal meaning of calling a person "more responsible" refers to the person acting more like they should act.

In any case, in your previous post you had stated that the phrase in question is both a statement of obligation and a statement of fact. I agree with that, but now you seem to be saying that it is only a statement of fact.

I have a few reasons to conclude that the catch phrase in question is in fact at least partially normative. First, to be "responsible" in the factual(i.e. descriptive, rather than normative/obligative) sense of the term is to be the cause [of some effect]. This factual sense of responsible is generally used in reference to a particular effect. The typical phrasing is "X is responsible for Y". The thin is, power is the ability to do things; and anything that a person could possibly do will produce effects  *; and the greater their power, the greater the effects they may produce; this makes power and (factual) responsibility so inherently intertwined that the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility", if taken in the descriptive rather than the normative sense, is so factual as to be tautological. And a tautology is too trivial to be treated with such importance as the catch phrase in question historically has.

Also, if the phrase in question is merely a tautological statement of objective fact, then this thread is moot; it's not a broken aesop because it's not even An Aesop at all. Aesops are moral lessons; IOW, they're normative; claims about what one "should" do.

Also, as the trope page for Comes Great Responsibility notes, "With great power comes great responsibility" is actually an instance of Beam Me Up, Scotty!— the original quote was "With great power there must also come— great responsibility!", as can be seen here:


Although even with the "must", the phrase can still be interpreted as factual— i.e. "great responsibility is a logically necessary consequence of great responsibility"— it's quite a stretch, seeing as how the usage of "must" in that manner is highly unusual outside the context of logical proofs. In the context of the quote's appearance, I think it's therefore safe to say that the phrase was meant in the normative sense, to indicate that one should use one's power responsibly. I'd say the overall message is that one with great power should use one's power especially responsibly because someone with great power is potentially responsible for great consequences.

edited 2nd Feb '11 6:12:06 PM by Tongpu

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#22: Feb 2nd 2011 at 6:29:00 PM

That usage of the terms is counterintuitive. The normal meaning of calling a person "more responsible" refers to the person acting more like they should act.

What if you say "Alice was more responsible for the project failing than Bob was"?

eX 94. Grandmaster of Shark Since: Jan, 2001
94. Grandmaster of Shark
#23: Feb 2nd 2011 at 6:36:40 PM

He explained that one in his post.

And I don't think both interpretations are antithetic , they can both apply, though in Spider-man's case, I'd go with Tongpu's explanation. This is Spidey's origin story and the meaning is that because he has this great power, he has the responsibility to live up to it - becoming a superhero -. If he has used his powers in that way from the get-go, his uncle would had survived. The Aesop in this case.

Because the other interpretation, while interesting, doesn't really suits Spider-Man, who's powers are rather low-level, compared to the rest of the MU.

edited 2nd Feb '11 6:37:39 PM by eX

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#24: Feb 2nd 2011 at 8:11:20 PM

Because the other interpretation, while interesting, doesn't really suits Spider-Man, who's powers are rather low-level, compared to the rest of the MU.

Well, "great power" is a relative term. There are probably plenty of people in the world who would consider me having a few thousand dollars in my bank account as a great power indeed.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#25: Feb 3rd 2011 at 12:44:15 AM

I don't think this difference is significant or relevant.

Then why bring it up as comparison in the first place, I wonder?

That last bit if fairly interesting, but it suffers from insisting on a lot of rigid definitions for things - particularly a rigid definition of responsibility and a unconsidering dismissal of any other interpretations of the term - and then holding up it's terms only by way of following those rigid definitions and only those rigid definitions.

By the time you start talking about logical proofs, the idea is far along the path of only being relevant to a certain assumed presupposition of what the truth is, a presupposition that is neither as rigid or as absolute as your musings require.

edited 3rd Feb '11 12:51:28 AM by KnownUnknown


Total posts: 73
Top