(New) Rise of a Sadistic Clown type of Psychopath (2/3) – Joker (2019)
13.Punching out at Ha-Ha’s
On the verge of saying goodbye to the employees of Ha-Ha’s who have assembled at the change room, Arthur can be seen emptying out his locker for the last time, picking up his belongings; and is about to leave his now former working place when Gary, the midget clown, expresses sympathy for the other’s loss of employment.
Gary: “Hey Art, I heard what happened– I’m sorry, mate.“
Randall: “Yeah, doesn’t seem fair — getting fired like that.“
Arthur looks hard at Randall for a moment, just slowly nods, and continues on to his locker. He starts to clean it out, stuffing all of his clown gear into an old brown paper shopping bag. Hears them talking about him behind his back, about why he got fired, laughing at him–
Ha-Ha Clown #1: “Did you really bring a gun to the kid’s hospital, Artie? What the fuck would you do that for?“
Arthur doesn’t answer them, just continues emptying his locker, a bag of balloons, a magic wand, some trick flowers–
Chippendales: (low-blow) “Is that part of your new act, Arthur? If your dancing doesn’t do the trick, you’re just gonna shoot yourself?“
More laughter. Arthur turns and looks at all of them, nods at Randall–
Arthur: “Why don’t you ask Randall about it? It was his gun.“
Randall: (feigns ignorance) “What?“
Arthur: (theatrical) “I still owe you for that, don’t I?“
Randall: (indignant; disingenuous) “What the fuck are you talking about? Stop talking outta your ass, Art!” (13.1)
Arthur was already walking away from the dress-room through the adjacent corridor when he returns, having suddenly realized–if theatrically–that he forgot to do something, some specific thing which–it is suggested–he otherwise would do as a matter of routine. While mischievously declaring, with a clownish smile on his face, “Oh no! I forgot to punch out!“, he goes to literally punch the punch-out box suspended on a wall next to the entrance. After a few deliberate and forceful hits, the thing becomes unhinged and crashes down to the floor, which makes him laugh out loudly, all the while sure to show his lit up face (with a touch of pride) to the rest of the room silently beholding the dubiously amusing spectacle play out.
The fired-up freshly-fired buffoon then exits the room in suspiciously high spirits by descending the stairs leading up to the corridor next to the dress-room, careful not to forget–however–using spray-paint to cross out the words “forget to“ on the sign hanging mid-way over the staircase that says, “Don’t forget to smile!“ A cheeky Arthur then gleefully kicks open the entrance door leading to the street and disappears outside, into the bright and sunny day, never to be seen again.
Note that by Randall now explicitly lying about the gun, his gun, it is plausible to assume that he had also lied previously to Hoyt about that same gun — thus ruling out permutations 1a+2b) and 1b+2b) in the earlier scheme of section 10. This would therefore be the second time that Randall lied to all present about the gun, his original gun. Between the two of them, it wasn’t Arthur who had been lying, but Randall. Again, the latter shows to have a penchant for deceit if feeling the need to avoid the shame that is nonetheless his to have — Randall will drop you like a hot potato (at least if your name is Arthur Fleck) if only it’s ass-covering time already.
However, it is still also entirely possible that–in such respect–Arthur might just not be a whole lot different from his now former colleague in that he could also have been lying to Hoyt about the gun being a prop (when it really wasn’t), lying for the purpose of avoiding the shame that belongs to getting caught for doing something risky, employment-wise, an action which would technically also be something morally dubious.
13.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
(13.1| Randall’s deception may be captured by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Randall; Victims = Randall&Arthur; Audience = Randall&Arthur&Gary&HaHaClown&Chippendales;
1. Incoming-stage: Randall initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Randall-idolatry:[M] Am truthful and sincere about the gun; did not provide Arthur with it at all;
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[M] Am lying about the gun; did not procure gun from Randall at all;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Randall initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Randall-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Randall/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Randall/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Randall-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Randall/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Randall initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Randall-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Randall/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Randall/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Randall-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Randall/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Randall incurs authentic guilt toward everyone whom he involves in his deception — Gary&HaHaClown&Chippendales, but more so toward Arthur and especially toward Randall himself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, by seeking to float his little exercise of self-sanctifying deception at Arthur’s expense, Randall–from his end–came to sacrifice (some of) the quality of the relationship he had with the other clown, in spite of simultaneously going around openly pretending to be his friend, his boy. In response, Arthur may now very well choose to reciprocate in kind, and by possibly lowering the esteem he has for Randall in terms of their alleged friendship, is prone to feel entitled to do so. Suddenly Randall has nudged Arthur into a position at which the latter might just feel little conscience pangs to retaliate–in whatever way deemed fit–for Randall’s betrayal. And although Arthur is to be held responsible for carrying out whatever future immoral action at his victim’s expense, Randall himself deserves to be held culpable for facilitating Arthur’s future act of payback.
In terms of actualization, nothing can be said as to who is unaware versus aware of Randall’s deception and who would therefore actualize his practices by gullibility versus by rationalization, respectively.
In terms of conscience, Randall’s deception obviously shows a lack of love and care for the main target of his deception: Arthur, as such defies the Golden Rule and so is hard to justify relative to Randall’s authentic conscience. However, he seems to launch his deception in order to avoid the shame that might have come his way if admitting the truth, especially in front of his employer. In terms of his inauthentic shame-avoiding conscience connected to a thematic practice of Shame-avoiding Self-idolatry, Randall’s deception makes a whole lot more sense. |13.1)
14.The prelude to “nothing but clowns” wreaking havoc in down-town Gotham
Arthur is in the kitchen, fixing himself something to eat, when his mother calls him to join her watching the news.
Penny: “Happy, look Thomas Wayne is on TV.“
Arthur: “Yes, mother.“
Penny: “They’re asking him about those horrible subway murders.“
He glances at the TV playing in the living room through the open wall–
Arthur: (attention peaking) “Oh, yeah.“
He walks to the living room, eyes glued on the TV, sits down on the couch and lights up a cigarette.
Thomas Wayne: “All three of them worked for Wayne Investments. They were good, decent, educated.” (14.1.i)
A small smirk registers on Arthur’s face when photos of the three Wall Street GUYS come up on the screen.
Thomas Wayne: “Although I didn’t know them personally, like all Wayne employees, past and present, they’re family.“
Penny: “You hear that! I told you. We’re family.“
Arthur shushes her, intent on hearing what Penny’s great hero further has to say.
“Good Morning” Host: “There now seems to be a groundswell of anti-rich sentiment in the city. It’s almost as if our less fortunate residents have taken the side of the killer.“
Thomas Wayne: “Yes and it’s a shame. It’s one of the reasons I’m considering a run for mayor. Gotham has lost its way.“
“Good Morning” Host: “What about the eyewitness report of the suspect being a man in clown mask?“
Arthur’s eyes start to bulge. The camera zooms in closer to Thomas Wayne on the screen–
Thomas Wayne: “It makes total sense to me. What kind of coward would do something that cold-blooded? Someone who hides behind a mask. Someone who’s envious of those more fortunate than themselves, yet they’re too scared to show their own face.” (14.1.ii) (to camera) “And until those kind of people change for the better, those of us who’ve made something of our lives, will always look at those who haven’t as nothing but clowns.” (14.2)
Arthur snickers.
Penny: “That’s not funny.“
Why does Arthur snicker?
Well, it’s obvious that Wayne is awfully prejudicial in his assessment; the Wall Street guys were likely educated yes, college probably, but good and decent? — they surely weren’t acting all good and decent down in the train, not to the woman reader and certainly not to Arthur (even though Arthur was not entirely innocent himself either). Also, by casually lumping all three attributes together as if one atomic category, Wayne suggests that such descriptors naturally belong together like beer and ballgames: suggesting that if a person should have one such attribute, say, educated, then the other two attributes naturally find home in the same person as well: good and decent.
By heedlessly painting the Wall Street guys as good and decent, conveniently glossing over the veritably ignoble ways in which they went around acting, Wayne may be held accountable for positively idolizing the Wall Street guys — he is guilty of presenting them, three of his employees, with more posthumous moral elevation than they deserved, propping them up with unduly-elevated personal image impressions, and by doing such on public television did so potentially in front of the entire residency of Gotham.
14.1 In terms of Person-idolatry — Wayne, the wedge driver
(14.1| Wayne altogether ignores his killed employees their nevertheless undeniably complex and multivariate human nature; Wayne neglects to acknowledge that they, like everyone else in principle, had good personal qualities about them as well as bad ones. Instead, Wayne focuses on a few of the good qualities they allegedly had and then goes to magnify the attributed importance of those alleged personal qualities to wildly exaggerated extent; but which, he implies, regardless still could still serve to accurately define what sort of people they were in reality: good and decent — such is the essence of Wayne’s initiation of an explicit potential practice of Abstract Positive Person-idolatry with the three now-deceased Wall Street guys for objects.
By the same token, Wayne altogether ignores the killer his complex and multivariate human nature; the captain of industry neglects to acknowledge that the perp, like everyone else in principle, has good personal qualities as well as bad ones about him. Instead, Wayne focuses on a few of the bad qualities the killer allegedly would have and then goes to magnify the attributed importance of those alleged personal qualities to such once again wildly exaggerated extent; but likewise which, he implies, regardless still could serve to accurately define what sort of person said killer is in reality: cowardly (+coldblooded+scared) and envious of the rich — such is the essence of Wayne’s initiation of an explicit potential practice of Abstract Negative Person-idolatry based on the killer.
Capturing Wayne’s initiated double act of Person-idolatry in script-format, we have:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Wayne; Victims = WS#1.2.3&Arthur; Audience = Arthur&Penny&Wayne&TVAudience14;
The set TVAudience14 is comprised of all the people of Gotham–besides Arthur, Penny, Wayne (and other people on the scene where Wayne is giving his statement)–who are watching Wayne on the pertinent television-channel, either live or by VCR (after-the-fact);
1. Incoming-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} WS#1.2.3-idolatry:[X] I was a good and decent person;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: [X] I am cowardly; too cowardly to show my face when I killed those three WS guys out of envy (for the fact that they were rich); [M] I am a bad person;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Wayne exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, and audially to self;
Arthur exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to Penny, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Wayne initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Wayne incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his act of Prejudgment — TVAudience14&Penny, more so toward Victims and especially toward Wayne himself. So now, however many people of Gotham have been exposed to what for Arthur are particularly toxic Pidols, image impressions that paint especially him in a negative unattractive light, someone evil and immoral; while the Wall Street guys were painted as faultless saints.
4. The ‘In terms of conscience’ and ‘In terms of actualization’ bits will be treated in the next script.
In terms of sacrifice, on the one hand we have that, by openly representing them in the positive yet recklessly-skewed way which he did, Wayne may be expected to be reluctant to see the victims in a less rosy, less flattering yet more realistic manner; and, as such, Wayne may be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in his promoted evaluation of them. Indeed, he may be expected to only all-the-more cling to his promoted prejudicial picture if airing his take–which he did–on television in front of an arbitrarily large number of Gotham’s residents, as his reluctance to alter his advertised impression would then naturally stem from fear of losing face if admitting–in front of an arbitrarily large audience–to have been (a wee bit) wrong in what actually, truthfully, seems little more than his off-the-cuff superficially-meditated assessment of the victims.
On the other hand we have, by openly representing the killer now in the negative yet wildly-skewed way which he did, Wayne may be expected to be reluctant to see the killer in a more reasonable manner with which he paints him to be; and, as such, Wayne may be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in his promoted evaluation of the killer. Indeed, he may be expected to only all-the-more cling to his promoted prejudicial picture if airing his take–which he did–on television, naturally fearing the eventuality of losing face in front of an arbitrarily large number of Gotham’s residents if admitting to have been (a wee bit) wrong in what actually, truthfully, seems little more than his off-the-cuff prejudicial assessment of the killer.
Wayne is thus responsible for encouraging all those folks who buy into what he is saying (whether for or against him), to go ahead and sacrifice reasonability and rationality in the ways they might relate to the killer (together with compassion – if pro-Wayne, or precisely animosity – if anti-Wayne); and so, if hypothetically ending up interacting with the killer, may be inclined to treat him with less balanced and less neutral Golden Rule-compliance than would both be desirable and deserved. |14.1)
Wayne represents the incident as if it was committed out of plain cowardice, fueled by sheer envy — which is baloney, of the likely–for him–wishful thinking kind. Indeed, it must be very tempting for Wayne to conjure up the fairy tale narrative which he did, as it stands to be very egosyntonic for him to assert on public television, for as many residents as possible to witness, that his now late employees were nothing but purely innocent victims of envy; for by presenting them in such capacity, it enables him (and, by extension, his own entire company, and–indeed–all of his rich peers) to look good in comparison, made attractive due to its resulting sheen of moral and existential vindication, as the incident may thus be used to verify the ostensible nobility of his own exalted financial personal status: that raising the pursuit of wealth to chief virtue status would be nothing but entirely moral and righteous, that material wealth is to be regarded as a perfectly noble goal to pursue in-and-of-itself, otherwise–his implied argument goes–the likes of him, the opulent chosen few, would never have ended up being targeted by envious financially less-endowed, if not to say challenged, people to begin with.
As such, by his heedless words of self-elevating fancy, by cavalierly declaring broad general support from the marginal poor classes for the triple-murder committed, Wayne–ironically enough–only works to further the divide existing between the rich and the poor. He basically goes to label the entire class of poor people as being evil, sympathizers of a purportedly ruthless killer, champions of a supposed senseless string of pusillanimous homicides, allegedly uniformly driven by a kind of jealousy for the rich which would be due to the mere fact of them being poor.
In effect, by deliberately working to fulfill a prophecy which he himself is sure to float and one which casually serves to criminalize (if not outrightly demonize) the entire demographic formed by the poor working classes, the reckless self-serving rich-ass big-shot (nevertheless reflexively worshiped by Arthur’s own mother) only goes to worsen the fundamental sort of societal problem that he will now see himself forced–as if bound by nothing but a purely noble and selfless sense of duty–to help solve again.
In a cunning self-congratulatory televised stroke, Wayne encourages everyone willing to listen to his simplistic rhetoric, to divide the city into two basic but opposing camps: in the one camp are to be found those whom–in his eyes–may call themselves successful, those of Gotham’s residents whom allegedly have made “something“ of their lives, those kind of people whom have managed to land themselves in what he considers to be morally ascended positions of life, whom do not have to better themselves at all since they–in his eyes–already are better (than the rest); but because of their allegedly exalted stations of life may unfortunately be expected to wind up targeted by inherently envious members of the other camp, those folks whom–in his eyes–have failed to make “something“ of their lives, whose success in life–in his eyes–has proven elusive (especially financial success) and whom–unless they “change for the better“–may therefore, in his eyes, safely be regarded as “nothing but clowns” (and, as such, at once are deserving of the ample amount of derision that clowns usually, by default, get thrown their way).
14.2 In terms of Group-idolatry — Wayne, the flame-fanning firefighter
(14.2| With respect to the two mutually-antagonistic communal camps he promotes into existence (yet only in an abstract imagined sense, not a concrete actual sense of course), Wayne may be said to initiate a tandem potential practice of Abstract Group-idolatry. What he does specifically, is to ignore the complex and multivariate human nature of the various members of the group of rich people (his own native supposedly noble class) versus the comparably complex and multivariate human nature of the various members of the group of poor people (the alien other supposedly base class).
Instead, for each member at hand, Wayne focuses only on the financial (or socioeconomic) status of the members of both groups and then goes to magnify the attributed importance of that one characteristic to wildly exaggerated extent; and yet, he implies, it still were to accurately serve defining the member at hand: if someone is rich (financially successful) then that means that this person, according to Wayne’s gung-ho self-glorifying gospel, is entitled to regard themselves as (morally) superior with respect to someone else who happens to be poor (financially unsuccessful), deemed (morally) inferior, indeed, nothing but a clown — such is the essence of Wayne’s initiation of an implicit dual potential practice of Abstract Group-idolatry: Positive Group-idolatry with the entire group of rich people for object of worship; versus Negative Group-idolatry based on the entire group of poor people, the ones who are “nothing but clowns“ and who are expected to “change for the better“).
Wayne’s initiation of Group-idolatry practices in script-form:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Wayne; Victims = RichPeople&PoorPeople; Audience = Arthur&Penny&Wayne&TVAudience14;
The sets RichPeople versus PoorPeople consist of all the rich people of Gotham, including Thomas Wayne; versus all the poor people of Gotham, including Arthur&Penny. For simplicity’s sake, the union of PoorPeople and RichPeople yields the total population of Gotham, of which TVAudience14 is a subset representing the total TV viewership (excluding Arthur&Penny), whether tuning in live or after-the-fact via VCR, witnessing Wayne’s specific address taking place right now;
1. Incoming-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} RichPeople-idolatry:[X] I have made something of my life; [M] Do not need to change for the better;
{–} PoorPeople-idolatry: [X] I am nothing but a clown; [M] Do need to change for the better;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur&Penny-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Wayne exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, and audially to self;
Arthur/Penny exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to Penny/Arthur, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Wayne initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Arthur&WS#1.2.3/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Wayne incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his act of Prejudgment — TVAudience14, more so toward Victims and especially toward Wayne himself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, Wayne again stoops to (for him awfully convenient) prejudice in his evaluation of members of the rich and poor classes, making it harder for himself to maintain Golden Rule-compliant relationships with members of either class, relationships that would be based on truth instead of its distortion along the direction of either undue group-oriented flattery or undue group-oriented depreciation. Wayne may therefore be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in his characterization of members belonging to either class and therefore sacrifices reason and fairness in his social interaction with members from both classes. Furthermore, he may be expected to only all-the-more cling to his promoted prejudicial pictures if airing his take–which he did–on television, naturally fearing the eventuality of losing face in front of an arbitrarily large number of Gotham’s residents if admitting to have been (a wee bit) wrong in his off-the-cuff prejudicial assessment of members belonging to either class.
Wayne is thus responsible for encouraging all those folks who buy into what comes out of his mouth (whether for or against him), to go ahead and sacrifice reasonability and rationality in the ways with which they might relate to members of either group (including abandoning compassion for members of the poor class and neglecting animosity for members of the rich class – if pro-Wayne; or neglecting animosity for members of the poor class and abandoning compassion for members of the rich class – if anti-Wayne); and so, if hypothetically ending up interacting with members of either class, he may be inclined to treat them with less-balanced and less-neutral Golden Rule-compliance than would both be desirable and deserved.
In terms of actualization, when it comes to the extent to which Wayne’s potential practices turn into actualized counterparts, there are three categories of people we need to take into account. The first distinction to be made is between those who fall for Wayne’s rousing rhetoric versus those who see through the inciting bullshit, by recognizing it for the delusional division-causing propaganda it really is. The former group may be called the suckers; whereas the latter group, the skeptics, will be comprised of people who are familiar with the ins and outs of mind-control, Narcissism and Group-narcissism — people such as psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, as well as other people well-versed in critical thinking, those sharp-minded folks who are able to pierce through the however deceptively-attractive nevertheless mind-fucking idolatrous clutter; those who are able to sense red flags going up whenever brains are about to get washed. In short, the skeptics—courtesy of having savvy, quick-witted and properly-trained minds–will be able to prevent themselves from falling victim to Wayne’s toxic yet egosyntonically-attractive propaganda and so will not be among those who end up actualizing the VIP his idolatry practices.
As for the suckers, the sleepwalkers: those who do end up embracing and actualizing Wayne’s idolatry practices, those who do fall for his simpleminded mind-control rhetoric, they may, in turn, be divided up into two groups. On the one hand, we have the suckers who are sympathetic to Wayne’s own rich-guy camp, those who enjoy a comparable socioeconomic status as Wayne does, who have plenty of cash to burn, who like to base their identity on the fact that they are rich and who do identify with his self-promotional little theatrical show after watching him on television; indeed, they may even go so far as to call him their hero, their honorable and exalted banner-waving front-man. Such type of folks may be said to be in a trauma bonding kind of pathological relationship with Wayne; i.e. whenever Wayne would now go and morally misbehave (on televised stage), they will nevertheless tend to identify with him–the aggressor–instead of with the scores of (ideological) victims he leaves in his wake: the poor, the clowns.
On the other hand, we have the kind of suckers who are precisely anti-sympathetic to Wayne and the camp of the rich people, but are rather sympathetic to the killer clown; they are the sort of people who are being told by their nemesis (and effectively believe him) that they are nothing but clowns — those who do hate the rich, who feel victimized by the rich, exploited, marginalized, looked down upon and spat upon by members of the rich class; those who feel as if they have an axe to grind with the likes of Wayne and indeed all that his rich class represents: the establishment, the system. Now such other type of folks may be said to be in a state of trauma bonding with the killer clown, the enemy of the likes of Wayne; i.e. whenever the killer clown would now go and morally misbehave (on television), they will nevertheless tend to identify with him–the aggressor–instead of with the victim(s) he leaves in his wake.
The more Wayne hammers this corrosive and crooked message of communal bifurcation down the craniums of Gotham’s residents, i.e. the more opportunities he is able to enjoy to get up on stage and broadcast his toxic message of societal division and disharmony, the more he works to drive the members of the poor class into (collective) defensive posturing; as the poor will increasingly feel being seen as guilt-ridden de facto fair game by the rich, the latter class who–inspired by Wayne’s circumstantial flattery–would feel increasingly entitled to look down on the former, as if those poor people–in a worst case scenario–were an intrinsically problematic sort of demographic, if not an outrightly dangerous scourge deserving to be dealt with (in, if need be, harsh decisive manner) by representatives of the rich class; all in order to–what Wayne leads his peers to believe–further the noble goal of enlightening and brightening up the city, undoing itself–purging itself–of the damnable ostensible reason, coming in the form of a scapegoated whole class of people, as to why it were going down to hell in a hand-basket.
By working to drive a wedge in between the rich and the poor classes the way he does, Wayne himself only works to fulfill the prophecy coming from his own lips, one which he is sure to broadcast across an arbitrarily large number of Gotham’s households using the nifty telecommunications invention called the television. In a metaphoric sense, he shows to act as the special kind of fire brigade captain who also happens to go around acting on the shady side-lines as an elusive sort of somnambulatory pyromaniac, who by his concealed sleepwalking arsonist escapades effectively ensures that his own dearly beloved fire department never quite ends up bogged down by boredom and as such never quite ends up unable to justify the scope of its budgetary spending (bills ultimately footed by tax-payers, including–ironically enough–those who happen to be poor, those who already are struggling to make ends meet, the same sort of people whom Wayne likes to point the broad finger of scapegoated accusation to).
In addition, Wayne also shows to deserve retroactive culpability for the committed triple-homicide which he–by giving it a recklessly self-serving spin–is now keen to exploit for political and self-exalting purposes, for reasons which give him the opportunity to present himself as Gotham’s designated hero, its Knight in Shining Armor, exclusively suited to valiantly fight against the collective menace posed by the city’s corrupt and unwashed seedy underbelly; a sumptuous chance to bravely struggle against the wantonly evil rabble of the poor, the dangerous and depraved failures of life, the radical hordes of destitution blindly driven by greedy jealousy for the members of the purported noble class. Without the triple murder having become a reality, Wayne would have missed out on a defining opportunity to prop himself up as Gotham’s singular White Knight. Thomas Wayne thus surely does deserve blame for using the bloody subway tragedy to enable him to transform into the savior of a city which is ever more embroiled in the kind of flames that he is fanning into catastrophically incendiary heights himself.
As such, to recap, Thomas Wayne might just deserve to be fingered as a proverbial fire-starter sooner than a fire-fighter — the sort of fire-starter (or fire-bellower) who will soon take away any lingering possible doubts as to likewise deserving to be held accountable for promoting positive idolization of his own self (soon showing to not just seeing, but also advertising, himself as Gotham’s virtual Messiah). In addition, Wayne already deserves to be held responsible for promoting positive idolization of all of his employees (including the three killed ones) and, indeed, all of his peers who have managed to make “something“ of their lives. By the same token, he deserves to be held accountable for promoting negative idolization of all those supposedly inherently envious “clowns“ who failed to attain–what he considers to be–successful lives, including especially the “coward“ killer clown and the entire class of poor people allegedly automatically going around championing the latter, all allegedly eager–fueled by poverty-induced envy–to predate on members of the rich class.
In terms of conscience, while Wayne might delude himself into believing that he would be acting only with the best interests in mind for everybody, for members of the poor as well as the rich class, such in practice is clearly not the case. Maybe he does really manage to convince himself that he is acting only out of love and care when he portrays members of the poor class in the demeaning and quasi-incriminating light with which he does, but in reality he has no leg to stand on when claiming that he is acting in line with his authentic Golden Rule-compliant conscience. In actuality, by granting himself license to vigorously clean up town, so to speak, while scapegoating an entire demographic, Wayne shows to much sooner act in accordance with his own power-seeking inauthentic conscience, one that is connected to a thematic practice of Power-seeking Self-idolatry. |14.2)
15.In front of an indifferent Social Worker, stressing the undying need to be noticed
Arthur sits across from the same Social Worker from the opening scene. Same depressing office. He takes a drag from his cigarette.
Arthur Fleck: “I heard this song on the radio the other day. And the guy was singing that his name was Carnival–“
Social Worker: (trying to interrupt) “Arthur.“
Arthur Fleck: “–Which is crazy because that’s my clown name at work. And until a while ago, it was like nobody ever saw me. Even I didn’t know if I really existed.“
Social Worker: (insistent) “Arthur, I have some bad news for you.“
Arthur Fleck: (taken aback) “You don’t listen, do you? . . . I don’t think you ever — really — hear me. You just ask the same questions every week. ‘How’s your job?’ ‘Are you having any negative thoughts?’“ (radiating pain and resignation) “All I have are negative thoughts. But you don’t listen anyway. I said, ‘for my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed.’ But I do. And people are starting to notice—“
Social Worker: (still ignoring) “They’ve cut our funding. We’re closing down our offices next week. The city’s cut funding across the board. Social services is part of that. This is the last time we’ll be meeting.“
Arthur is not hating the idea.
Arthur Fleck: “Okay.“
Social Worker: “They don’t give a shit about people like you, Arthur. . . And, they really don’t really give a shit about people like me either.“
Arthur sits there for a moment. And then it dawns on him–
Arthur Fleck: “How am I supposed to get my medication now? Who do I talk to?“
Social Worker: “I’m sorry, Arthur.“
He just stares at her, taking it all in.
First off, I tend to agree with Arthur that the social worker seems to not really listen to her patient. In fact, she seems to do a pretty good job at ignoring what he’s saying, but then appears to rationalize her display of professional apathy by basically letting him know–while sort of implying to agree with him being virtually indifferent in regards to what he’s telling her (which–in all cruel irony–is precisely about his implied need to be noticed)–that her peculiar neglectful attitude toward him would somehow be okay, since she’s not alone in this respect at all, as the municipality in general were to not “give a shit about people like“ him. Without shifting her weight or so much as blinking her eyes, in a half-hearted bid to throw some vague joke of an approximation of sympathy in his way, she then dryly only shows to lend further implicit legitimacy to her professional disinterest of him by declaring that the inferred collective body of people controlling Gotham “don’t really give a shit about people like“ her either. In other words, they both would be in the same proverbial no-shit-given-whatsoever sort of boat, a vessel containing people rejected and damned, HMS Done Away With.
Arthur seems to derive the veracity of his existence from the extent to which people show to notice him in daily life. Whereas before the triple-murder incident occurred, people failed to leave him with the impression that they were even aware of his existence; and, because of having to bear such profound deficit in life, Arthur was left in doubt as to the realness of his own existence. His once sorry state of existential affairs has since drastically changed for the better, however, in that he now does sense that people do start to notice him; and, as a result, may now enjoy an increasingly strong notion of feeling alive.
In Arthur’s book, one that’s written in the bold-lettered and loudly-colored kind of image-oriented and attention-seeking sort of language of Narcissism: being seen, being recognized for existing, therefore equates with a sense of being alive — the more he is noticed by other folks, the more he feels alive. It goes to show that Arthur–somewhere in his formative past–came to develop an unhealthy external dependence on other people rather than his own person; that rather than developing a more natural internal dependence on his own autonomous person, he began to look for salvation outside of his person and personal control; trading what to him (and every other person alive) is the natural way of nurturing true natural autonomy, for an unnatural route of life promoting attachment to and dependence on outsiders.
It seemingly matters less to him, whether the reasons for people noticing him would be righteous and moral or not so much so — and this is where it gets iffy. Indeed, since he now repeatedly has been punished for his attempts to be noticed for the good, noble or at least harmless things he was doing, there is increasingly less choice for him to try and gain notice for automatically bad, ignoble and harmful reasons. If categorically being denied the opportunity to feel alive through walking the blissful way of fame, which need not be without merit and deserved reward, he would then see himself naturally forced to gain a sense of aliveness by going down the only route left available for him, the path of infamy — and God help Gotham, if he somehow manages to also find blissfully attractive venturing into such alternative grim and glum venue of existence.
16.Premiere at pogo’s Comedy Club, hanging out with Sophie
Arthur is waiting next in line at pogo’s Comedy Club, located at Chinatown Street. It appears to be his first time on stage, his first shot at making a name for himself as stand-up comic. It’s obvious he’s nervous as hell, already profusely perspiring when the master of ceremony introduces him as a “lifelong Gotham resident who, from a young age, was always told that his purpose in life is to bring laughter and joy into this cold dark world.“
He gets up on stage, “the light so bright he can’t see faces in the dark audience, his trembling hand holding onto his worn notebook. He takes a deep breath, looks out at the dark crowd, opens his mouth and starts to laugh. His eyes go wide. God no, not now. A terrified look comes to his face under the laughter. He just keeps laughing. The crowd is just staring back at him.“
Arthur: (trying to stop himself from laughing) “— good evening, hello.“ (deep breath; trying to stop laughing) “Good to be here.“ (keeps cracking up) “I hated school as a kid. But my mother would always say,–“ (bad imitation of his mom, still laughing) “You should enjoy it. One day you’ll have to work for a living.“ (laughs) “No I won’t, Ma. I’m gonna be a comedian!” (16.1)
Arthur keeps cracking up. Hard to hear anything or anybody else. He goes through his notebook trying to find another joke–
Arthur: (reading verbatim) “It’s funny, I was thinking the other day,– Why are rich people so confused by the poor people?“ (silently counting to three) “Because they don’t make any cents!“
Arthur, looking out into the audience, sees Sophie sitting in the back laughing–
Arthur and Sophie leave pogo’s together, walking down Chinatown Street as they come across a news-stand featuring “a wall of Chinese language newspapers mixed with local papers and tabloids, screaming headlines about the three Wall Street Guys gunned down on the train. Arthur stops and stares at the headlines“: “Subway Vigilante“, “Yuppie Slaughter“, “Killer Clown On The Loose?“
Sophie: (re: the headlines) “You believe that shit? . . . I’ll bet you five bucks those rich assholes deserved it. He turns to her.“
Arthur: “You think?“
Sophie: “Look at their faces. Those smug smiles. I’ve seen that look. Fuck them. I think the guy that did it is a hero. Three less pricks in Gotham City. Only a million more to go.” (16.2)
Arthur watches her walk for a beat. She looks great, even in front of the mounds of garbage bags that line the sidewalk. A cab rolls past. In the backseat, someone wearing a clown mask stares back at Arthur. Holding his look for a moment. He smiles broadly and approvingly at the sight.
A moment later, Arthur and Sophie can be seen “sitting together across from each other in a molded plastic booth“ over at some run-down donut shop. “Bathed in ugly fluorescent light, a few other patrons scattered about. We don’t hear what they’re saying, but they look happy– and Sophie is laughing. Hard. Arthur stares at her“ with the subtle sort of smile that signals inner contentment, “this may be the best night of his entire life” — Sophie has indicated to him, albeit indirectly and prejudicially (and perhaps therefore only superficially), to be on his side when it comes to the murders, which–of course unknown to her–he recently committed.
And yet it deserves mention that while he does appear to be having a good time with Sophie, the smile Arthur shows to Sophie is less pronounced than the one he flashed outside at the one itinerant stranger person who reflected him more closely by wearing a clown-mask (resembling his own clown-face, his own facial image based on an alter-ego). Perhaps this incident could count as circumstantial evidence that Arthur likes receiving favorable (Narcissistically-affirming) public attention a little bit better than receiving attention of the romantic kind — although his hesitation to smile with less reservation in her presence could (also be) due to his possible worry that she might just feel a wee bit less at ease in his presence if learning the sobering truth about his factually homicidal person.
16.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
Note furthermore that, when it comes to idolatry, Sophie is doing the exact opposite of Thomas Wayne. She shows, if from a safe detached distance, to positively idolize the killer whom she doesn’t know the identity yet; quick to praise him, calling him a “hero“ (instead of merely a human being acting out immorally, while trying to cope with acutely-trying personal circumstances in the arena of self-defense). She simultaneously shows to negatively idolize the Wall Street guys, reflexively denouncing them as “rich assholes“ and “pricks“, floating image impressions of them in which they are readily painted such that it makes them out to be deserving of their miserable fates of violent expiration (instead of merely human beings acting out in vindictive immoral ways and ending up punitively victimized because of it).
(16.1| As for his maiden performance on stage, by his hapless laughing fit in the beginning, by effectively showing to ridicule the only available object – his audience, Arthur–however unintentionally–may be said to initiate an implicit and non-verbal potential practice of Abstract Negative Group-idolatry with his audience for object, its attributes being: inferiority, being ridiculousness and deserving to be ridiculed. At the same time, Arthur may be said to initiate an accompanying implicit potential practice of Abstract Positive Person-idolatry with himself for object, having attributes: superiority, entitled to ridicule.
In more comprehensive script-format, Arthur’s mild infraction may be captured as:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = dubious Moral Action; Perp = Arthur; Audience = Arthur&Victims;
The set Victims consists of Sophie and all other audience members of pogo at this particular moment;
1. Incoming-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{–} Victims-idolatry:[M] Being ridiculous; not worthy of being taken seriously or sympathetically (at all);
{+} Arthur-idolatry:[M] The opposite of being ridiculous; worthy of being taken seriously and sympathetically;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Arthur initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Arthur/ Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his nonverbal act of apparent ridiculing Prejudgment — Victims and especially toward Arthur himself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, Arthur technically does risk developing a somewhat compromised relationship with some of his audience members, who might now be tempted to lose some measure of faith in the clown’s stand-up comedy capabilities. Arthur’s ill-justified laughing fit, (unintentionally) smacking of necessarily inappropriate ridicule, may therefore cause him to sustain a loss of future audience enthusiasm, and he may end up with smaller audiences in the future, even more so if his laughing fits were to go on to become a recurring phenomenon at the start of his would-be gigs.
In terms of actualization, it is doubtful, however, that Arthur would be willing to actualize his own practice, as he obviously has little control over his laughing fit; indeed, is taken aback by it, ill-timed and awkward it obviously is — and is not authentically holding his audience in contempt (but something, some creepy little thing or things, inside of him tenaciously and viciously holding hostage of his psyche, might). As for his audience, I expect any self-respecting member to sooner take offense of Arthur’s apparent exercise of ridicule at their expense, than go anywhere near actualizing his practices (unless they’re masochistically inclined). Then again, they might also be self-respecting and recognize that there is something wrong with Arthur and be able to forgive him on such account.
In terms of conscience, Arthur’s laughing fit is more than anything an act of self-sabotage. Even though some members may either find some humor in it or sympathy for his apparent plight and as such shrug it off, his uncontrolled awkward laughing does not serve anyone, least of all himself — and so it’s hard to explain in terms of his authentic conscience. Once again, since he shows some signs of aversion to his misplaced laughter, it’s as if Arthur is split; as if there’s one or more alien intelligent being inside of Arthur passionately acting against his best interests; that want him to suffer instead of prosper; that want to push him into a direction of existence at which he will end up making others suffer because he might just be deluded into believing, courtesy of that same stealthy hostile alien intelligence, that those other people are responsible for the state of suffering he is being maneuvered into ever further. |16.1)
(16.2| Sophie goes to altogether ignore the complex and multivariate human nature of each of the three Wall Street guys by otherwise acknowledging that they, like everyone else in principle, had good personal qualities about them as well as bad ones. Instead, Sophie focuses on a few of the bad qualities they allegedly had and then goes to magnify the attributed importance of those qualities to greatly exaggerated extent; while, she implies, it could still serve to accurately define what sort of people they were in reality: rich assholes and pricks — such is the essence of Sophie’s initiated explicit potential practice of Abstract Negative Person-idolatry with the three now deceased Wall Street guys for objects. In addition, as did Wayne before her, she pulls off the same simplifying self-deceptive mental trick with respect to “the guy who did it“, but now goes to positively idolize him by artificially raising to definitional heights the attributed importance of his alleged heroism: Sophie may thus be said to initiate an explicit potential practice of Abstract Positive Person-idolatry based on the (for-her-unknown) killer, having for attribute: hero.
As such, her double act of Person-idolatry may be captured more comprehensively by a script of prejudgment:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Sophie; Victims = WS#1.2.3&Arthur; Audience = Arthur&Sophie;
1. Incoming-stage: Sophie initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur/KillerClown:[X] I am a hero; [M] Still a hero if I were to kill a couple more WS guys [one million more to go];
{–} WS#1.2.3-idolatry: [X] I was a rich asshole who deserved to be killed; [X] Prick;
Abstract Arthur-Pidol and WS#1.2.3-Pidols are disseminated over Arthur; Abstract KillerClown-Pidol and WS#1.2.3-Pidols are cast over Sophie;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Sophie initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Sophie-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Sophie-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Sophie/ to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Sophie/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Sophie initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Sophie-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Sophie-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Sophie/ Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur/KillerClown-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Sophie/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Sophie-Pidol & Arthur-Pidol are cast over Arthur; Abstract Sophie-Pidol & KillerClown-Pidol are disseminated over Sophie;
In summary, qualitatively, Sophie incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in her act of Prejudgment — WS#1.2.3, more so toward Arthur and especially toward Sophie herself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, by representing them in the negative yet heedlessly-skewed way which she did, Sophie may be expected to be less willing to see the victims in a more reasonable and neutral manner than with which she paints them to be; and as such may be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in her evaluation of them, now prejudicial. In addition, by representing the killer clown in the positive yet likewise heedlessly-skewed way which she did, Sophie may be expected to be less willing to see the killer clown in a more reasonable and neutral manner than with which she paints him to be; making it harder for herself to have a possible Golden Rule-compliant (sober and non-fawning) relationship with the killer, a relationship that would be based on truth and recognition of interpersonal parity instead of being based on what it now threatens to be, a distortion along the direction of undue flattery coming from her end. As such, she may likewise be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in her promoted evaluation of the killer.
In terms of actualization, as to the particularity specificity, not just Sophie but also Arthur will tend to actualize her practices since it obviously is egosyntonic for him to do so. Here he is indirectly being called a hero by the girl who in principle might very well end up becoming his girlfriend. Sophie shows tacit support for Arthur and he is therefore provided with a reason to not have to feel bad for his committed murders. As for the generality specificity, by showing to have no qualms to agree with the assassination of all remaining assholes working at Wall Street, Sophie indicates a ready willingness to hypothetically actualize more general sort of practices pertaining to the remaining one million more rich assholes serving as potential future victims.
In terms of conscience, by prejudging the WS guys so reflexively and decisively, Sophie goes to show having an attitude of hate toward members of the rich class. She does not seem to be willing to act with much care and love for the likes of the WS guys; and by negatively idolizing the rich class, shows to be guided not by her authentic Golden Rule-compliant conscience, but by an inauthentic type of conscience in which members of the poor class relatively-speaking receive more of her default blessings than do members of the rich class. |16.2)
17.Son of Thomas Wayne?
Later that night, Arthur returns home alone and finds his mom sitting in a chair, all passed out in front of the still-buzzing TV — Murray Franklin is on but, as it happens, signing off for the day. When he gently wakes her, she says having finished a new letter for Thomas Wayne. Arthur, however, is evidently in a good mood and wants his mother to dance with him for a bit. Unfortunately she is too much out of it to be of any use; and, after emphasizing the need for him to post her letter, can then be seen disappearing into her bedroom.
Arthur now focuses his attention on the letter, can’t resist the temptation to open it and begins reading its contents. He is not shocked to learn that Penny yet once again is asking her erstwhile employer for help. His inner peace is disturbed a great deal more, however, when he discovers being referred to as no less a person than Thomas Wayne’s son — the implication being that his mother and Wayne must have had a child-bearing affair years ago when she worked for him. He is so upset by this new revelation, in fact, that it keeps him up and awake all night, adamant to confront his mother the precise moment she wakes up. “He’s holding her letter in his hand as the sun is just starting to rise outside the windows, light just beginning to crack the gloom. Arthur impatiently sits there for another moment waiting for his mother to wake up, then suddenly shrieks out at the top of his lungs like a teapot, kicking his back on the chair like an excited toddler.“
The mother wakes up with a terrible start and before long a row ensues between her and Arthur. Penny manages to ensconce herself in the bathroom, door locked, saving herself from the decidedly unattractive prospect of facing her son standing in the living room, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, demonstrably holding out her letter in his hand as the incriminating piece of compelling direct evidence it would be.
Penny: (shouts back from behind the door) “I’m not talking to you until you stop being angry.“
Arthur paces for a minute, now goes to the bathroom door. Talks to his mother from behind the closed door.
Arthur: (lowers his voice; trying to sound calm) “Okay. Okay. I’m not angry, mom. I’m not angry. Please, mom. Is this real?“
Arthur leans in closer to the door. Leaning against it with just his head–
Penny: “He’s an extraordinary man, Happy. He’s a very powerful man. We were in love.” (17.1.i)
Arthur just leans there, listening. He closes his eyes, it’s all too much.
Penny: “He said it was best that we not be together, because of appearances. And, I could never tell anyone because, well, I signed some papers, and besides you can imagine what people would say about Thomas and me, and what they would say about you.” (17.1.ii)
Arthur: (eyes still closed, head leaning against the door) “What would they say, Mom?“
Penny: “That I was a whore, and Thomas Wayne was a fornicator, and that you’re a little, unwanted bastard.“
Since she shows to find Wayne “extraordinary“ on account of him being “very powerful“, it is suggested that Penny finds worthiness in a man to the extent that he is able to wield power. Showing therefore to be attracted to a man for the power he would command, this might be an indication of her finding comfort in such a man for the protection he were to furnish her as well as grant her a robust opportunity to bask in that man’s glory — thus being able to lay claim to a persistent means to feed her own possibly-existing Narcissistic proclivities.
Penny has already indicated that she doesn’t feel comfortable where she is currently living, that she wants to get “away from this place“ and “these people“ that are implied to be in her current environment. By being able to attach herself to a powerful man, it would give her a chance to escape from it all, an opportunity to settle in what–in an ideal sense to her–would be a safer and more exclusive social habitat, one which were to provide her access to an at once ameliorating and sedating abundance of wealth, comfortably able to distance and shield herself from the apparently regrettable prevailing social circumstances she now shows feeling victimized by.
17.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
(17.1| Two possibilities are open. Either she’s telling the truth or she’s lying about having had an affair with Thomas Wayne. If it turns out that Penny was lying, she then is guilty of implicitly promoting an unduly elevated image of herself, one in which she paints her own person as someone who once managed (if illicitly) to attach to a man of high status, a purportedly extraordinary man of a high power; and it may therefore be said that, in front of Arthur (and herself), she went on to initiate an implicit potential practice of Abstract Positive Person-idolatry with herself for object, with its attribute signifying elevated personal status of a romantic (albeit illegitimate) nature.
If indeed Penny is lying, her act of deception may be captured in script-form as:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = grievous Moral Crime; Perp = Penny; Victims = Arthur&Wayne&Penny; Audience = Arthur&Penny;
1. Incoming-stage: Penny initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Penny-idolatry:[M] I have had an illicit affair with Thomas Wayne; [M] Arthur was born out of wedlock as a result;
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[M] I am the bastard son of Thomas Wayne and Penny Fleck;
{–} Wayne-idolatry:[M] I have had an illicit affair with Penny when she did work for me; [M] Arthur is my bastard son;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Penny initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Penny-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Penny/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur&Penny-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Penny/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Penny-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Penny/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Penny initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Penny-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Penny/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Penny/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Penny-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Penny/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Penny incurs authentic guilt toward everyone whom she involves in her deception — Wayne, but more so toward Arthur and especially toward Penny herself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, if she is lying, by representing herself in the unduly elevating way which she then does, Penny may be expected to be unwilling to give up her unwarrantedly self-flattering way in which she paints herself; and, as such, may be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in the way she represents herself, and in the way she relates to her own being; thus causing her to blind herself to information pertaining to her own person which clashes with her idealized unduly flattering self-image; she makes it harder for herself as well as other people to act with open-minded compassion, patience and protective care aimed at her true person; thus–by wasting her focus on an unreal image of herself, by abandoning living in truth as to her own person–sacrificing some measure of her ability to effectively love herself — her own uncensored, unspun and authentic self.
By the same token, if Penny is lying and yet he believes her, by himself coming out in a correspondingly unduly elevating light which he then does, Arthur may likewise be expected to be (highly) reluctant to give up the unwarrantedly flattering ways in which he now may paint himself as well as his mother; and, as such, may also be said to sacrifice reasonability and rationality in the way he represents and relates to himself as well as his mother; thus causing him to (willfully) blind himself to the kind of personal information which clashes with his idealized unduly flattering self-image and his ditto image of Penny. By misrepresenting himself as well as his mother (in unduly flattering ways), he makes it likewise harder for himself as well as the people exposed to his mischaracterizations to act with open-minded compassion, patience and protective care aimed at his true person and his mother’s; thus–by wasting his focus on unreal images of himself and his mother, by abandoning living in truth as to the two of them–sacrificing some measure of his ability to effectively love himself, his own uncensored, unspun and authentic self as well as his uncensored, unspun and authentic mother.
In terms of actualization, as it stands right now, if Penny is lying, she either is aware of it herself or she isn’t. If she doesn’t know she’s lying, by believing she’s telling the truth as he seems to do, then Arthur quite willingly joins his mother in actualizing her practices by gullibility. If she is aware she is deceiving her son, would she then be willing to actualize her practices by rationalization? — and if so, how?
In terms of conscience, if she in fact is lying, then by trying to lure her son as well as herself away from perfect truth and perfect sanity of mind, while at the same time there clearly is no pending great disaster which might be averted through deception, what she is doing relative to her authentic conscience obviously doesn’t make sense. However, by promoting the impression that she and her son deserve access to more status than fate up until that point had openly granted them, relative to an inauthentic conscience connected to a penchant for status-seeking, her deception seems to make more sense (if only myopically). |17.1)
18.Confrontation at Wayne Manor
That afternoon, Arthur is sitting in a subway train on route to take him outside of Gotham. He’s heading to the estate of Thomas Wayne, intent on trying to meet with–what he now firmly believes is–his real biological father. When he arrives at the manor on foot, he first attracts the attention of the ten-year-old son of Wayne, Bruce — meeting one and other on opposing sides in front of the wrought iron gate. Arthur pulls out his magic wand in a seeming attempt to break the ice, does a few tricks, they exchange first names and Arthur–using his hands through the bars of the gate–ends up touching the face of a nevertheless solemn and expressionless Bruce. He uses his hands to twist the mouth of the kid into a forced artificial smile (not unlike what he once did to himself in front of the vanity over at Ha-Ha’s), a sort of gesture which makes for a rather dubious sight since the lad consistently shows neither sign to want to cooperate or resist.
Indeed, with the boy doing little more than stare vacantly at the entirely unannounced visitor, before long an older man dressed in suit named Alfred suddenly comes hurrying toward Bruce from within the estate and is quick to tell the young master to keep a distance from what to them as yet–in a best case scenario–is but a perfect stranger.
Alfred: (to Bruce) “Get away from that man.“
Arthur: (assuring) “It’s okay. I’m a good guy.“
Alfred: (turns to Arthur) “What are you doing? Who are you?“
Arthur: “I’m here to see Mr Wayne.“
Alfred: (defensive) “Well, you shouldn’t be speaking to his son. Do I need to call the police?“
Arthur: “No, please. My mother’s name is Penny, Penny Fleck. She used to work here, years ago. Can you please tell Mr. Wayne I need to see him?“
Alfred: (color drains from his face) “You are her son?“
Arthur: “Yeah. Did you know her?“
Alfred doesn’t say anything. Arthur puts his face right up against the bars, whispers so the boy can’t hear him–
Arthur: “I know about the two of them. She told me everything.“
Alfred: (demystifying) “There’s nothing to know. There is no ‘them’. Your mother was delusional. She was a sick woman.” (18.1)
Arthur: “Don’t say that.“
Now Alfred leans in closer to Arthur, almost looks like he feels some pity for him–
Alfred: “Just go, before you make a fool of yourself.“
Arthur: (blurts out) “Thomas Wayne is my father–” (18.2)
When Alfred cracks up laughing in the face of the puzzled clown, (18.3) thus inflicting an apparent serious offense aimed at his standing as well as that of his mother, Arthur reaches his eager hands through the bars of the gate, rudely grabs the other by the lapels, pulls him nearer with force and starts choking the perceived as insolent and deceptive valet — but after a few seconds stops and relaxes his harrowing hold when he sees little Bruce, standing several feet away in the background, looking at the attempted strangulation scene in sheer shock. He lets go of Alfred and takes off with haste, running back down the street away from the estate. (18.4)
18.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
Let’s assume that Penny did lie to Arthur about having an affair with Wayne. The string of immoral actions committed by Arthur translate into a string of truncated scripts, with a stage four discussion given at the end; the one committed by Alfred translate into one full script.
(18.1| Arthur seems to rather firmly believe that Alfred is now trying to deceive him, deceptively trying to make him believe that his mother is crazy, that he is not the bastard son of Thomas Wayne, that she all made it up. Since this is what is actually asserted to be the truth (verified later in the story), Arthur merely imagines that Alfred is lying.
i. Imaginary Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = grievous Moral Crime; Perp = Arthur; ImPerp = Alfred; Victims = Arthur&Penny&Wayne; Audience = Alfred&Arthur&Bruce;
1. Imaginary Incoming-stage: Arthur effectively imagines Alfred initiating a potential practice of Abstract…
{–} Penny-idolatry:[X] I was delusional; [M] did not have an illicit affair with Thomas Wayne; [M] Arthur was not born out of wedlock as a result;
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[M] I am not the bastard son of Thomas Wayne and Penny Fleck; [M] I am a fool for believing my mother;
{+} Wayne-idolatry:[M] I have not had an illicit affair with Penny when she did work for me;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Imaginary Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur effectively imagines Alfred initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Alfred-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Alfred/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Alfred/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Alfred-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Alfred/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Imaginary Rationalization-stage: Arthur effectively imagines Alfred initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Alfred-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Alfred/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Alfred/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Alfred-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Alfred/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs the authentic guilt which he implies to believe Alfred incurs toward everyone whom the valet involves in his alleged act of deception — Bruce, Penny, Wayne but more so toward Arthur and especially toward Alfred himself. Since Penny made him believe the fantastical sort of narrative which inspired his trip to Wayne Manor, based therefore on a erroneous conviction that Alfred is lying to him, the mother deserves to be fingered for having had a facilitating hand in what Arthur is now doing and so deserves to share in the guilt which her son now incurs; |18.1)
(18.2| i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = grievous Moral Crime; Perp = Arthur; Victims = Arthur&Wayne&Penny; Audience = Arthur&Alfred&Bruce;
1. Incoming-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Penny-idolatry:[M] I am not at all delusional; [M] I did have an illicit affair with Thomas Wayne; [M] Arthur was born out of wedlock as a result;
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[X] I am the illegitimate son of Thomas Wayne, [M] and Penny Fleck; [M] I am not at all a fool for believing my mother;
{–} Wayne-idolatry:[M] I have had an illicit affair with Penny when she did work for me; [X] Arthur is my secret son;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Arthur/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Arthur/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Arthur initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Arthur/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Arthur/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward everyone whom he involves in his deception — Bruce Wayne, Thomas Wayne, Penny, Alfred, and especially toward Arthur himself. Since Penny made him believe the fantastical sort of narrative which now convinces him that Alfred is lying to him, the mother had a facilitating hand in what Arthur is now doing and so deserves to some degree share in the guilt which her son now incurs; |18.2)
(18.3| i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = dubious Moral Action; Perp = Alfred; Victim = Arthur; Audience = Alfred&Arthur&Bruce;
1. Incoming-stage: Alfred initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[M] Being ridiculous; not worthy of being taken seriously or sympathetically (at all);
{+} Alfred-idolatry:[M] The opposite of being ridiculous; worthy of being taken seriously and sympathetically;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Alfred initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Alfred-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Alfred-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Alfred/ to Prejudge Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Alfred/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Alfred initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Alfred-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Alfred-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Alfred/ Prejudging Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Alfred/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Alfred incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his nonverbal act of ridiculing Prejudgment — Bruce, but more so toward Arthur and especially toward Alfred himself;
4. In terms of actualization, in his eyes, Alfred is dealing with a fool; and so the valet may only be expected to actualize his own practices; in sharp contrast with Arthur, who must sooner be scratching his head in disbelief as to why Alfred would be so cruel to laugh in his face, humiliating him, having the rude nerve to offhandedly dismiss him into the realm of absurdity and hilarity.
In terms of conscience, by laughing in the stranger visitor’s face, Alfred may be said to exercise a subtle form of power over the other, a power of the dismissive kind. It’s the sort of power that is hard to justify in terms of his authentic conscience since in it there is little love and care for Arthur to be found; but the demeaning gesture makes a whole lot more sense in terms of his possibly existing inauthentic conscience connected to a personal power-seeking practice that would be consistent with his function as a representative of a much more powerful person than himself, Thomas Wayne. In the capacity of being Wayne’s proxy, should the occasion present itself, Alfred could very well see himself authorized to put strangers in their place using (slightly) Golden Rule-perturbing means if need be; and such is what he’s doing right now.
Needless to say, however, in terms of sacrifice, by openly ridiculing Arthur, Alfred does make it a little bit harder for himself to expect a Golden Rule-compliant future interactability with Arthur — he therefore sacrifices some measure of quality in any future relationship with Arthur he might have. |18.3)
(18.4| i. Physical Abuse of the Body kind: Level = Moral Crime; Perp = Arthur; Victim = Alfred; Audience = Arthur&Alfred&Bruce;
1. Incoming-stage: Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward Alfred for grabbing him rudely by the lapels (autonomy supersession) and proceeding to choke him;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Superior by Bodily Abusing Alfred/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Arthur/ Bodily Abusing Alfred/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Alfred-idolatry: Inferior by Getting Bodily Abused by Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Arthur initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Bodily Abuse Alfred/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Arthur/ Bodily Abusing Alfred/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Alfred-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Bodily Abused by Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his act of Physical Abuse — Bruce, more so toward Alfred and especially toward Arthur himself. Since Penny made him believe the fantastical sort of narrative which now convinces him that Alfred is lying to him, the mother had a facilitating hand in what Arthur is now doing and so deserves to share in the guilt which her son now incurs;
4. In terms of conscience, the infractions committed by Arthur make no sense in terms of his authentic conscience. However, in terms of his inauthentic conscience connected to a penchant for praise-seeking and power-seeking, Arthur might have reason to feel himself quite entitled to do what he did, as Alfred presented himself to him as an obstacle, and–standing in the way of what he implies to think is rightfully his to have–an annoying one at that. In Arthur’s tormented eyes, Alfred must be evil for supposedly lying to the other about his mother, about Thomas Wayne and the love-affair the two alleged lovebirds were to have had way back in the fifties — and most of all, Alfred would be evil for implying to lie about Arthur himself.
But what if Alfred was right all along? What if his mother had been lying instead?
This latter possibility doesn’t seem to dawn on Arthur, however, as he shows to stubbornly cling on to what to him may very well be a rather irresistibly-attractive egosyntonic delusion appearing as undeniably real as death and taxes; the blissful divinely-sanctioned “truth” that he would be the secret (if bastard) son of an important and powerful industrial magnate, a “fact of life” which automatically would lend significant personal status to him too, a sure stellar improvement of his current pitiful civil and socioeconomic status as struggling professional clown aiming to be a stand-up comedian but whose success is yet to prove fruitful, and who–shamefully enough–is still living with his mother in a state of all but abject poverty.
And so Arthur would have special reason to consider Alfred evil, hating him for effectively being unwilling to recognize the younger other as the concomitantly elevated son of someone important, very important indeed. His mother shows to revere power and Arthur seems just as keen to — something which, of course, happens to fall right in line with his already demonstrated Narcissistic hunger for public recognition, whether coming in the form of personal fame. . . or, if such route to success is ruled out, personal notoriety.
In terms of actualization, it’s no wonder that Arthur seems determined to actualize his own practices [except of course those of script (18.1)]; the personal images built on his practices and which raise both him and his mother a little bit more into pink clouds of celebrity, just seem too attractive to deny and dismiss. Alfred, on the other hand, must be thinking to be dealing with a madman (like mother, like son) than someone deserving to be taken seriously; Wayne’s proxy is therefore not expected to be willing to anywhere near go actualizing the other’s practices, quickly relegated into the realm of self-glorifying and self-congratulatory fantasy.
In terms of sacrifice, by committing the moral infractions which he did, Arthur is only digging himself further-and-further into his egosyntonic fantasies. Courtesy of what his mother told him, if the ideas he has about himself and his mother are built on fanciful makebelieve, then the more he is making a fool of himself, the more he goes out on a limb defending them and committing the infractions which he did along the way. The more he would lie about himself and his mother, the more he sacrifices reasonability and rationality with respect to how he views himself and his mother as well as how he expects other people to view him and his mother. Specifically, by lying to Alfred and by flying at the valet’s throat, Arthur makes it harder for himself to expect future Golden Rule-compliant interactability with Alfred (and to lesser extent, with Bruce as well) — he therefore sacrifices some measure of quality in his possible future relationship with Alfred. |18.4)
19.Mother lands in hospital
When some time in the evening returning to the tenement building housing his home, to his horror, Arthur sees his mother lying motionlessly on a medical stretcher, oxygen cap on, being wheeled into an ambulance. Deciding to join the team of paramedics taking care of her, whom all are as oblivious as him as to what happened, the shook-up off-duty clown gets into the ambulance taking off to hospital.
Later at night, Arthur is sitting on a bench just outside of the hospital smoking a cigarette when two police detectives walk up.
Det. Garrity: “Mr. Fleck, sorry to bother you, I’m Detective Garrity, this is my partner Detective Burke.“
Arthur looks up at them. Doesn’t say anything.
Det. Garrity: “We had a few questions for you, but you weren’t home. So we spoke with your mother.“
Arthur Fleck: “Oh. What did you say to her? Did you do this?“
Det. Garrity: “What? No.“
Det. Burke: “We just asked her some questions and she got hysterical– hyperventilating, collapsed and hit her head pretty hard.“
Arthur Fleck: “Yeah, the doctor said she had a stroke.“
Det. Garrity: “We’re sorry to hear about that. But like I said, I still have some questions for you. They’re about the subway killings that happened last week. You’ve heard about them, right?“
Arthur Fleck: “Yeah. It’s horrible.” (19.1.i)
Det. Garrity: “Right. So we spoke to your boss over at, Ha-Ha’s. He said you were fired for bringing a gun into the children’s hospital. Is that true Mr Fleck?“
Arthur Fleck: “It was a prop. It’s part of my act. I’m a party clown.” (19.1.ii)
Det. Burke: “All right. So why were you fired?“
Arthur Fleck: “They said I wasn’t funny enough. Can you imagine that?” (19.1.iii) (stands up) “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to go take care of my mother.“
The detectives share another look. Detective Burke steps close to him, holds up the card that Arthur handed him–
Det. Burke: “Your boss also gave us one of your cards. This condition of yours, the laughing, is it real or some sort of clown thing?“
Arthur Fleck: “A clown thing?“
Det. Burke: “Yeah, I mean– is it part of your act?“
Arthur Fleck: “What do you think?“
Arthur then walks away, intending to re-enter the hospital, but unexpectedly bumps nose-first into a sliding glass door stubbornly staying shut — no wonder, exit only, it says on the header of the door. He does manage to get in, however, when an itinerant medic makes the sliding door open from the inside, by–indeed–exiting the building. The two detectives silently behold the whole clumsy scene unfold as the self-styled not-funny-enough party clown disappears into the building.
Arthur has lied in this exchange at least twice. First off, he either lied explicitly or by omission when he commented on the murders, ostensibly finding them “horrible“ — in an obvious attempt to evade drawing incriminating attention to himself; lest giving them even the slightest of hints of the actual god-given unadulterated truth, i.e. the personally most meaningful fact of his unusual clown life which to him towers with unequaled splendor above all possible necessarily fake narratives that could be conjured up in the service of describing the killing-event, and that is the soon-to-be-reaffirmed butt-naked truthful psychological reality that he was actually able to draw considerable personal sustenance from executing the murders, considering them to constitute a most significant moment of existential vindication, a source of utmost personal pride and a sure-way ticket to a better existence in terms of access to much coveted glamor and public recognition for his own (Narcissistic) person, his particular praise-probing person.
Secondly, he was fired not for being insufficiently funny but because his boss didn’t tolerate his employee flashing a gun over at a children’s hospital. This is a critical new development, as the detectives now have to decide whom of the two clowns was speaking the truth; and if they do a follow-up interview with Hoyt, it should not take very long to conclude that the boss was not lying (as to the matter at hand, at least). And so since Arthur, by necessity, must have deceived them, the detectives would naturally want to know why; and if the clown would be so good as to come up with a credible alibi: where he was, whom he was with and what he was doing the exact time the murders took place — also, why did he carry that gun anyway?
Hence, by providing himself with a novel reason to dread their pending inquisition already smacking of apparent vengeance, anxiously anticipating their right-off-the-bat uncomfortable sort of their follow-up inquiries, Arthur has provided himself with a resilient reason to henceforth resent meeting the two detectives again in the future.
19.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
(19.1| By lying twice to the detectives, by seeking to promote into the minds of all present–but especially the deliberately-misled two detectives–an image impression of himself in which he effectively was twice more innocent than would be consistent with the sober reality, i.e. an image impression in which the truth as to his person was distorted twice in for him egosyntonically beneficial ways, it may be said that Arthur initiated an implicit as well as explicit potential practice of Abstract Positive Person-idolatry with himself being its object, having two attributes of deception: 1) not being the subway murderer at all [implicitly]; and 2) fired for not being funny enough [explicitly].
In addition, Arthur implies that–between the two of them–his boss had been lying, ostensibly firing Arthur for not being funny enough, and as such–by painting his boss to be more guilty than would be permitted by the sober reality–the clown may also be said to have initiated an implicit potential practice of Abstract Negative Hoyt-idolatry, having as attribute of deception: having fired Arthur over lack of being funny.
In more comprehensive script-form, Arthur’s twin-deception may be rendered as follows:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Arthur; Victims = Arthur&Hoyt; Audience = Arthur&DGarrity&DBurke;
1. Incoming-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry:[X] I find those subway murders horrible; [M] Therefore I have nothing to do with them; [X] Hoyt fired me for not being funny enough;
{–} Hoyt-idolatry:[M] I fired Arthur for not being funny enough;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Arthur/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Arthur/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Arthur initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Arthur/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Arthur/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward everyone whom he involves in his deception — DGarrity, DBurke, but more so toward Hoyt and especially toward Arthur himself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, by lying to the detectives about himself and his boss, by incurring authentic guilt and for seeing to an increase in inner tension in order to brace himself for their subsequent reproach or revenge, all for coming out looking relatively good at the expense of his boss coming out looking relatively bad, Arthur makes it more difficult for himself to now relate to the detectives as well as Hoyt in a state of (honest and fair) Golden Rule-compliance. As such, Arthur causes himself to sacrifice some measure of quality in his potential relationship with the detectives as well as his now-former boss.
In terms of conscience, his attempts to draw both detectives away from objective truth and away from perfect sanity, do not make sense relative to Arthur’s authentic conscience, but make a whole lot more sense when trying to steer clear from the reach of the law. Arthur clearly has something to hide and may be said to launch his deception in order to avoid the shame of getting caught. Hence, his deception does make sense in terms of his inauthentic conscience connected to a habit of shame-avoidance.
In terms of actualization, if we presume that Arthur is aware that he is lying to the detectives, he will be prone to actualize his practices by rationalization on the basis that such had been necessary in order to mislead the detectives and keep them at a for him comfortable enough distance. As to whether the professionally skeptical detectives would actually be gullible enough to believe Arthur’s side of the story remains to be seen of course, and so it cannot be said that they would succumb to actualize his practices by gullibility. |19.1)
20.Humiliated by Murray for everyone to see
It’s late at night, still in the hospital, sitting on a small visitor’s bench next to his bedridden mother, a depressed Arthur is staring vacantly into space, barely responsive. Sophie has joined him in the meantime, but–with him sitting stooped forward while she is sitting normally with her back to the back of the bench–he shows to be too distraught to be socially engaged with her. His mother is still unconscious, oxygen mask still on, hooked up to what seems like a life-support machine.
Sophie: “She’s gonna be okay.“
He just nods. Lost in thought.
Sophie: “I’m going to get some coffee? You want one?“
He nods again. As Sophie walks out, we hear Murray Franklin from the TV set bolted high up on the wall.
Murray Franklin: “So I told my youngest son, Billy, you know, the new one, the ‘not so bright’ one,–“
Murray is in the middle of doing his monologue.
Murray Franklin: (laughter) “I told him that the garbage strike is still going on. And he says, and I’m not kidding, Billy says, ‘So where are we gonna get all our garbage from?’“
Murray cracks up at his own joke. Studio audience laughs — Arthur too, and the television goes on to capture his full suddenly lightened-up attention.
Murray Franklin: “And finally, in a world where everyone thinks they could do my job, we got this videotape from the Gotham Comedy Club. Here’s a guy who thinks if you just keep laughing, it’ll somehow make you funny. Check out this joker.“ (20.1.i)
The TV proceeds to show a recording of someone coming on stage and immediately is confronted with the troublesome and embarrassing task of overcoming a tenacious laughing fit gripping him by the throat, even before being able to decently introduce himself, let alone crack his first joke. Arthur soon realizes that he is watching himself on TV. Seeing his recent maiden appearance at gogo’s Comedy Club right here on television, makes him jolt into a higher state of awareness.
He rises to his feet and goes to stand right in front of the television set to make sure he doesn’t miss a frame or beat of what’s coming next. This might be a most defining moment in his otherwise uneventful life, a potential breakthrough opportunity of epic proportions, getting to have free advertisement of the highest possible quality right here on his favorite television show, courtesy of his favorite host.
Arthur (ON TV): (trying to stop himself from laughing) “— good evening, hello.“ (deep breath; trying to stop laughing) “Good to be here.“ (keeps cracking up) “I, I hated school as a kid. But my mother would always say,–“ (bad imitation of his mom, still laughing) “You should enjoy it. One day you’ll have to work for a living.“ (laughs) “No I won’t, Ma. I’m gonna be a comedian!“
Back in the hospital, seeing his own appearance, makes Arthur laugh out loudly. But on TV, Murray Franklin–in sharp contrast–is only left shaking his head, trying not to laugh.
Murray Franklin: (sarcastic) “You should have listened to your mother.” (20.1.ii)
The studio audience erupts into laughter. Here is Arthur, taking it all in right beside his bedridden and unresponsive mother, watching Murray Franklin make fun of him on TV. The smile he had been showing melts away and is replaced by an increasingly stern expression. This can’t be real: his hero, his idol, suddenly turning Judas, stabbing him in the back like Brutus, and for all of Gotham to see.
Murray Franklin: “One more, Bobby. Let’s see one more. I love this guy.“
Another moment of Arthur at the comedy club plays–
Arthur (ON TV): “It’s funny, when I was a little boy and told people I wanted to be a comedian, everyone laughed at me.“ (opens his arms like a big shot) “Well, no one is laughing now.“
Dead silence. Nobody is laughing. Not even him.The TV camera then closes in on Murray Franklin, just shaking his head.
Murray Franklin (ON TV): “You can say that again, pal!” (20.1.iii)
Murray cracks up and the studio audience laughs along with him.
Arthur, back in the hospital, while staring at the television set, is left with a similarly empty sort of depressed look he had just a few minutes ago, but it now also shows the clear beginnings of resentment, indeed, hatred.
Here is Murray, his brightly shining idol, doing the exact opposite of what Arthur had hoped he would do, at the very least do a little pro-bono promotional work for what is–after all–one of his biggest fans, if not THE biggest. But oh no, on the contrary, let’s instead casually prove to do the very opposite when showing to have no qualms at all, moreover, even having the rude gall, to make fun of him, his perfect fan, his most worshipful devotee; and not just that, but, adding insult to injury, also doing it for all to see right here on television. It must therefore be extra painful to have to withstand not just his big hero, but the entire audience as well, and–by worst-case-scenario extension–all of Gotham, laughing at him, ridiculing him, implicitly shaming him for what they all imply to believe is his pathetically worthless attempt at stand-up comedy.
The irony on top of a heavy foundation of humiliation, is palpable. Here he was, just minutes ago, dryly lying through his teeth when declaring to the police detectives outside, that he supposedly was fired for not being funny enough; and now it is confirmed, all out in the demeaning open, potentially in front of all of Gotham, that he might as well have been telling them the truth. At least, on a minor bright side, the fantastical components in the story he shared with the detectives have now been fashioned with a little extra dose of credibility, though such turn of events was clearly unforeseen by Arthur.
In effect, in Arthur’s eyes at least, Murray is guilty of no less an offense than altogether destroying his prospects of becoming a successful stand-up comedian, because the way he sees it, with a bit of bad luck, everyone in Gotham will have reason to seize any random future opportunity to go and ridicule Arthur — his image as aspiring professional comedian therefore tanked, ruined, carelessly shattered into a thousand painful pieces; all thanks to the one person he until that point in time had idolized, worshiped, sanctified, the one person whom he looked up to; indeed, the one person who functioned as his beloved and idealized father figure (if remote and removed by belonging to the ivory-tower sort of world of pixelated media entertainment).
20.1 In terms of idolatry . . . Murray humiliates Arthur by televised ridicule
(20.1|
The host asserts that Arthur would be someone, some kind of joker, who supposedly operates on the belief that it is funny to laugh merely for the hell of it. Murray thus takes a character trait of Arthur, his volatile propensity for laughter, and–rather than acknowledging that this might, in principle, be due to some delicate sympathy-requiring underlying psychopathological condition the host is as yet not aware of (a sort of laughter counterpart of Tourette’s)–then goes on to superciliously presume that the aspiring comedian does this willfully in order to make himself appear funny.
First off, Murray evidently is not only unwilling to actualize Arthur’s effectively initiated practices (see section 16) apparently serving to raise himself up by ridiculing his audience through expressing his laughing fit, the host goes so far as to be inspired to flip the other’s practices upside down, using the fit as inspirational ammo to precisely ridicule Arthur in retaliation. Furthermore, rather than airing his egosyntonically-distorted image impression of Arthur “only” in front of a live audience, however, which would do enough damage already, Murray is sure to tremendously magnify the pack of his punch aimed at the amateur comedian’s fragile glass-jaw sort of Narcissistic chin by casually broadcasting his toxic take of Arthur across every television-outfitted household in Gotham that happens to have their TV-set switched on and which also happens to be tuned in to his show at that particular time (or who went to record the show on the VCR they might have, only to watch it later).
Since Murray’s advertised image impression of Arthur is meant to trigger shame and ridicule (negative) instead of praise and admiration (positive), it may be said that–by broadcasting said image impression not just across a live audience but also across an untold large number of Gotham’s households–Murray initiated an arbitrarily potent implicit potential practice of Abstract Negative Arthur-idolatry, with attributes being: 1) laughing for the hell of it, in a vain and ridiculous attempt to appear funny, 2) being cut of no comedian material at all. And when I write arbitrarily potent, I mean the large yet unknown number of people who ended up exposed to Murray’s televised poisonous abstract Pidol based on Arthur.
In more comprehensive script-format, Murray’s prejudicial action may be described as:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = dubious Moral Action; Perp = Murray; Victims = Murray&Arthur; Audience = Arthur&Murray&LiveAudience20&TVAudience20;
The sets LiveAudience20 versus TVAudience20 consist of all the members of his live audience (concerning this chapter) versus all the people who watch this show via television, respectively.
1. Incoming-stage: Murray initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Murray-idolatry:[M] Even though “everyone” may think they could do my job, no-one can do it like I can or as good as I can; [M] I’m an authority when it comes to vetting aspiring comedians;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: [X] I am funny merely for laughing if unprovoked; [X] Should have listened to my mother and chosen another line of business; [M] No comedic talent;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Murray initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Murray-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Murray&Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Murray-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Murray/ to Prejudge Murray&Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Murray/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Murray exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, and audially to self; Arthur exposes PrimePidol audially to himself;
3. Rationalization-stage: Murray initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Murray-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Murray&Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Murray-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Murray/ Prejudging Murray&Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Murray/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Murray incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his act of Prejudgment — LiveAudience20&TVAudience20, but more so toward Arthur and especially toward Murray himself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, it’s obvious that Murray’s dissemination of his demeaning image impression of Arthur via television may trigger in the latter a sense of crucial loss in comedy-career potential; rather than indulging in a televised occasion in which he was going to be lauded for his joking ability as he hoped he would, Arthur himself is made a laughing stock instead. As such, Murray ends up sacrificing (some significant measure of) quality in his potential relationship with Arthur. Especially seen in Arthur’s fragile eyes, Murray had made a tremendous leap downwards in terms of esteem, tumbling at free fall speeds from a lofty and celestial brightly lit-up Mount Olympus sort of height of attributed importance all the way down to the gutter, dark and shady.
If they run into each-other in the future, it would be (unimaginably) more difficult from Arthur’s end, to interact–and sustain interacting–with Golden Rule-compliant friendliness toward one another. Murray is partly to blame for such unfortunate sort of development, although Arthur himself–by way of previously positively idolizing Murray, for unreasonably upping the ante of his expectations with respect to the host, and also for his inability to rationalize away his sustained slight–is also responsible for such sad turn of events.
In terms of actualization and conscience, Murray and an unknown portion of his audience imply by their evidently dismissive behavior to have no difficulty actualizing the host his practices. Although what Murray is doing to Arthur on stage is dubious in terms of his authentic conscience, it makes more sense in terms of his inauthentic conscience connected to a thematic practice of Praise-seeking and also Power-seeking Self-idolatry; as his joking episode at the expense of Arthur (the Joker) gives the host a self-serving chance to earn him praise from his (live) audience as well as letting everyone know just how exactly he deals with aspiring comics whom in his eyes are just no way near funny enough.
In Arthur’s eyes, what Murray is doing is more than just airing a few jokes at the clown’s expense; the entertainment star is acting as his judge, ruling with a cold and callous rod of iron that Arthur can never become a comedian: not funny enough, end of story. Owing to his prior commitment to idolize Murray, Arthur was more-or-less forced to take to heart what Murray was saying about him; who may very well, at least initially, have chosen to actualize Murray’s practices. And so when Murray supposedly told him he had no future in comedy, Arthur saw himself forced to accept such nevertheless prejudicial verdict. Owing to his vulnerable mental disposition, one that is compromised in its ability to rationalize away personal slights as well as criticism aimed at his person, the resulting psychic devastation is huge. The core tragedy of Arthur is that he is incapable of being guided by his own autonomy; and instead is deeply reliant on cues coming from outside people as to his person and as to what direction his life should take and what he should do in life; even if such cues are highly prejudicial, circumstantial (relative and temporary) and the people emitting them do not really know Arthur — and so couldn’t possibly, in any decent and sound capacity, act as his judge of personal life (deciding for him, personal questions of an existential nature). |20.1)
As to why Murray stoops to reckless prejudice in his evaluation of Arthur is that it gives the host a chance to be funny himself, amusement going at the expense of the sort of person they all seem to have settled on only deserves to be made fun of (which makes the comic host out to be a bit of a sadist, albeit arguably of a more-or-less tongue-in-cheek kind, typical for comedians). Murray, after all, asserted at the start of his bit about Arthur that the (particular sort of) world of which the host speaks, would be one where everyone thinks they can do his job, thus suggesting to believe (if jokingly) that people are prone to take his job lightly, that “everyone“ thinks they could go on stage and joke around and shoot the shit (as good as him), an implied-to-be no-big-deal trivial sort of job. By brutally putting down Arthur in front of–with a bit of bad dramatic luck–all of Gotham, Murray effectively seizes the opportunity to show who’s the boss around town, who’s the true King of Comedy, sitting on a kind of throne that has room for only one king (to put it melodramatically).
Seen from Murray’s vantage point, the likes of Arthur–the comics they sell themselves to be–would normally have valid reason to laugh only if it were in response to an expression of a joke. Since Arthur hadn’t yet said anything that could pass for one, here he is nonetheless already laughing — which stands to make him look instantly suspicious in the eyes of Murray. As such, it might be tempting for Murray to consider Arthur himself to be the joke in focus and so the somewhat pejorative appellation of Joker seems fitting, someone whose mere stereotypically ridiculous appearance is to draw laughter rather than the actual words that might come out of his (or her) mouth.
In addition, Murray might be led to believe–just like the mother with the child in the bus, or the three Wall Street guys–when confronted with an Arthur suddenly bursting out in laughter, that he would do so in order to convey ridicule as to the particular people he laid his eyes on; his bouts of laughter then seemed implicit and non-verbal put-down acts. Hence, Murray might be led to take offense, however slightly or subtly, to Arthur’s seemingly unprovoked and undeserved exercise of ridicule apparently now targeting the audience at hand, since there simply were no other people around. Murray’s put-down response to Arthur’s admittedly mediocre performance would then automatically have retaliatory overtones; in which Murray shows indirect sympathy for Arthur’s own apparently slighted audience — vengeance for the latter’s seeming attempts to kick off his gig by first ridiculing his very own audience, and for no good reason whatsoever, right off-the-bat, before even airing his first joke, or what was to pass for one.
Murray, after all, knows like no other the inherent virtue and merit–the blessed outright luxury–of disposing over a live audience. Indeed, if it were up to Murray, Arthur should sooner get down on his grateful knees and cry tears of joy for even getting to have the opportunity of a bunch of people taking out their (precious) spare time, making the effort to come on over to gogo’s and act as his audience. Murray, vigilant and protective Murray, standing up for and defend that which matters to him (perhaps eagerly so), may be expected to place a great deal of worth and esteem in the concept of an audience, in the idea of being able to possess a live audience as well as a TV audience. Seeing himself therefore perfectly-sympathetic to the general phenomenon called the audience, what’s good for an audience – any audience, is good for Murray; versus what’s bad for an audience – any audience, is bad for Murray; audiences are his lifeblood as they feed his fame and fortune.
In all fairness though, as to whether Murray also really is serious about his televised treatment of Arthur, remains to be seen of course. He is a professional comedian after all, one who evidently does not shy away from making fun of even his own children on air and also, as we shall find out later, about his own self for that matter. That’s why it might just be in everybody’s interest to not so readily letting their knickers or panties get in a bunch, and instead take what Murray is saying with a healthy grain of salt.
20.2 In terms of idolatry . . . Arthur retaliates by Mentally Murdering Murray
However, Arthur himself evidently fails to see Murray’s treatment of him as lighthearted as it perhaps was intended; he seems rather unable to recognize it for the joke Murray might very well make it out to be, albeit of an arguably rather low-blow (sadistic) type. Indeed, if we take into account Arthur’s sensitivity about his image, his self-confessed rather desperate need to be noticed by other people in order to feel alive, it is unlikely that Arthur is able to rationalize away the sting of Murray’s initiation of a widely-publicized implicit potential practice of Abstract Negative Person-idolatry with him being its object and therefore coming at his cardinal expense.
Arthur’s main anxiety would then naturally be that people, after watching the show, will be henceforth seeing (noticing!) him in the ridiculous and dimwitted light that mocking Murray makes him out to be. His worry, his very real and pronounced anxiety, would be that Murray is out to tarnish his reputation, indeed, obliterate it, smash it to smithereens; terrified that Murray’s potential compound-practice of Abstract Negative Arthur-idolatry had turned into actualized compound-counterparts for however many of Gotham’s residents, i.e. the for Arthur nightmarish scenario in which an arbitrarily substantial number of viewers went to decide adopting and committing to mind Murray’s toxic mental Pidols about Arthur.
And when tongue-in-cheek targets of Murray’s televised tongue-in-cheek cheap shots fail to rationalize away their tongue-in-cheek victimhood (by otherwise interpreting it within the context of easy-going comedy and keeping it there), that’s when things get iffy, real quickly.
In order to process what he now finds is a terrible act of betrayal of the highest order, in order to hang on to some semblance of self-honor and sense of self-worth, Arthur will see himself forced (as well as fully vindicated) to retaliate and redeem the assault on his image by firstly radically altering his own idolatrous interpretation of Murray. Whereas pre-incident-wise the celebrated host was positively idolized in Arthur’s mind, he will now post-incident-wise end up negatively idolized. As a person-idolatrous object of worship, Murray–in Arthur’s mind–is thus subjected to an abrupt polarity reversal, rapidly transitioning from plus (positive) to minus (negative).
By initiating a novel private (strictly self-actualized) practice of Abstract Negative Murray-idolatry, with attributes–though undisclosed–which will no doubt be drenched in hatred for Murray, Arthur has now provided himself with a tool (ego-defense mechanism) to bring down his former hero from his once lofty mental pedestal by progressively minimizing his mental appreciation of Murray. In the service of dealing with the host’s effectively devastating treatment of him, Arthur is keen to strike back by as-of-now starting to mentally shame the other — seeking to ultimately altogether nullify Murray in his mind, and thereby hoping to ultimately altogether nullify the caustic effects of the host’s treacherous treatment of one of his greatest of fans; the almost mathematical argument behind such trick of the mind simply being: when ideally zero (fully-nullified) regard may be given to the person issuing an otherwise grave sort of insult, then likewise ideally zero (fully-nullified) regard may be given to said insult, thus ideally having zero (fully-nullified) mental impact on the victim.
In terms of sacrifice, by suddenly starting to bomb out Murray in his mind, by working hand-over-fist to flip his appreciation of the host right on its head, it’s obvious that Arthur sacrifices from his end a significant amount of quality in his potential real-life relationship with Murray. And so, should they now run into each-other in real life, without clearing up between them the matter that has now arisen, it will also be (infinitely) harder from Arthur’s end to socially interact with his former idol in an ultimately Golden Rule-compliant sort of way.
Again, Arthur ends up being punished for trying to seemingly do good, for having put what to him was his best foot forward trying to make people laugh, serving the buoyant yet principledly noble goal–drilled into him since infancy by his mother–of spreading joy and laughter in the world around him, which by its jovial spirits-uplifting function does intrinsically have positive Karmic merits tied to it (the power to make people enjoy themselves through laughter). It is becoming clear to him, in his unfortunately not so flexible and ditto self-confident mind–in which an eager love-guided drive to learn and improve skills seems painfully lacking, just like an ability to sustain personal criticism–that his chances of making a name for himself by doing good are annihilated, over and done with, gone forever and ever.
The notion that Arthur is most of all interested in making a name for himself, is once again confirmed when it turned out that the presence of Sophie left him virtually indifferent – sitting away from her, not looking at her, barely showing interest in her; whereas when Murray came on TV, merely cracking the first corny joke, the clown–as if recognizing a fellow clown suddenly dawning–magically perked up, his mood instantly brightening up. It goes to show that Murray, even though not being tangibly present, took up a (far) more important role in Arthur’s life than Sophie does and probably ever will, even though she is very much physically present in his life even.
The question remains, will Sophie become wise to her persistently–and, for all practical purposes, unalterably–marginal role in Arthur’s life? It would have been interesting, when she returns to the room with the coffee she said she was going to get, to be able to gauge her reaction to Arthur’s change of demeanor following Murray’s (widely) televised butchering of his name together with seemingly obliterating his overall prospects to become a comic. It remains to be seen however, if Arthur would even be willing to show his true emotional state to Sophie, since he might be too much in shock, quite paralyzed by overwhelming embarrassment and all that Murray’s apparent betrayal would entail; possibly fearing–keeping in mind his sensitivity for his image, apprehensive about the way other people notice him–that she might lose respect for him if coming out all covered in pixelated tar and feathers, for all to see, in front of potentially all of Gotham, all that dreadfully-deflating shame soiling him six ways from Sunday.
As far as Arthur is concerned, by both of them offhandedly passing votes of no confidence as to his stand-up aspirations, Murray and Penny now unwittingly have in common to be in a state of antagonism with respect to the clown rapidly turning vindictive and spiteful — and this does not bode well for either one of them.
Even though Arthur as yet seems to possess little conscious control over his laughing fits, there nevertheless is a sense of Karmic justice tied to the occasion of him experiencing what it is like to be on the receiving end of apparent ridiculing laughter; to end up getting a taste of his own medicine; to find out what it’s like to be made fun of the way he appears to make fun of other people. The fact that such an experience is (undeniably) egodystonic, rather than generating reflexive vindictiveness, a dying thirst for revenge, it could also be used as an ultimately beneficial opportunity for transcendental self-growth.
Indeed, if Arthur would be more in tune with his authentic conscience, the fact that someone now has made fun of him, after having recovered from the blow, such might serve to inspire meditative self-reflection in him as he now knows (like no other) what it feels like to be ridiculed. It’s the egodystonic sort of occasion which he could then use to enlighten his own moral character, especially its shady sadistic aspects — and might ultimately even serve to make him more empathic in general with respect to other people who have the misfortune of likewise being subjected to ridicule.
In addition, while he might not be in a position to right away see to a lifting of his Tourette-like laughing-fit affliction, it could just-the-same serve to sufficiently humble him into realizing that ultimately it was he who needed to change for the better, instead of building up ever more resentment toward his paternal idol as well as his mother for them having stated what really is but the obvious: the tough but fair truth, pointing to a universally just sort of rule — that (technical) skills and proficiency worth bragging over tend to take an ample amount of prior training and dedication of time: blood – sweat and tears; that something worth having in life tends to not come easy, and nor that it should for that matter, lest creating hard-to-please hordes of spoiled little brats. . . although, needless to say, being blessed with useful talents does help in the skill-development department.
21.Collective resentment building in the city reaching boiling point
Late in the evening, Arthur is back home, lying motionlessly in his mother’s bed — lethargic and dispirited; the television is on but he only starts paying noticeable attention to it when the 11 o’clock news comes on and a woman reporter announces, “As tensions mount in the metro area, mayor Stokes has pleaded for cooler heads to prevail. City services have been affected and some businesses have decided to remain closed amid the unrest. Chuck Stevens filed this report–”
Arthur slowly rises, goes to sit upright in front of the TV set and turns up the volume to hear more clearly what the news anchor has to say.
Chuck Stevens: “The anger and resentment that’s been building in the city for weeks seems close to exploding. Protesters, many dressed as clowns, took to the streets today in one of several planned demonstrations taking on the city’s elite. Including a massive rally outside tomorrow night’s Benefit at Wayne Hall.“
On the television a crowd of protesters can be seen, a few wearing Arthur’s clown mask are being interviewed.
“CLOWN” PROTESTER #2: (screaming into camera) “[Beep] the rich, [beep] Thomas Wayne, that’s what this whole [beeping] thing is about! [beep] the whole system.“
Thomas Wayne now being interviewed on the plaza in front of Wayne Tower–
Chuck Stevens: “Wayne, who recently announced he is running for mayor, will be attending the Benefit. You might remember, it was Thomas Wayne who first referred to many of Gotham’s residents as clowns. Today, he offered little in the way of an apology.“
Thomas Wayne: “Well, what I will say is, there’s something wrong with those people. I’m here to help them. I want to lift them out of poverty, help make their lives better. That is why I’m running. They may not realize it, but I’m their only hope.” (21.1)
Again, Wayne resorts to self-glorifying prejudice by asserting that all those who oppose him–the noble and exclusive savior of Gotham–do not do so for any valid and honorable reason at all; leaving it not being his fault at all, nothing to do with him whatsoever; rather they–the resisters–are the ones malfunctioning, there’s something wrong with them – not him; they themselves are the ones to blame – not him; thus conveniently wholly denying any need from his own end to admit having any personal culpability for the escalating crisis gripping the city ever more tightly in its catastrophic clutches.
Wayne shows once again unable to resist the ego-stroking temptation to place the blame for the aggravating city-wide crisis entirely outside of his own person — when he himself, in stark contrast with his self-aggrandizing self-whitewashing asserted take of how things stand, every time he makes a public appearance like the one he’s making right now, actually actively works to widen the divide between the wealthy elite versus what he infers to be the unwashed and uncouth working class masses, the automatically problematic little people, Gotham’s putrefying poverty burden: uniformly violent, envious and cowardly.
21.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
(21.1| With respect to the alleged (socioeconomic) fate of the poor people of Gotham, by claiming that he would be “their only hope“, by therefore declaring to be their sole savior, Wayne seeks to raise the attributable functional importance of his own person to lofty exclusive heights while simultaneously trying to lower the attributable functional importance of all other relevant people who might likewise have a credible shot at improving the alleged fate of the poor people, including the ones who hail from the ranks of the poor people themselves, the type of demographic which he earlier deridingly referred to as “nothing but clowns“ — who would be virtually helpless by definition, albeit by his own definition. By explicitly asserting himself to be Gotham’s savior while casually denying such exemplary role of noble exaltation to categorically everybody else, Wayne shows to initiate an explicit potential practice of Abstract Positive Person-idolatry with himself being the object of worship, having attributes that baptize him as the exclusive savior of Gotham.
The fact that he idolizes himself, basically seeing himself as Gotham’s virtual Messiah, as well as wanting as many other people as possible to join him in the exercise of idolatry based on his own person, goes to conveniently blind him ever more from another already-broached most worrisome fact, which is that he himself to significant extent has been responsible for creating the dire societal problem that he now seeks to solve, as the proverbial pyromaniacal yet shortsighted fireman he actually goes around acting like.
In comprehensive script-format, Wayne’s act of prejudgment victimizing also himself (since he also includes his own person in his prejudice) reads:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = dubious Moral Action; Perp = Wayne; Victims = Wayne&Arthur&Protesters; Audience = Wayne&TeamChuck&Arthur&TVAudience21;
The set TeamChuck is comprised of all the people involved in recording and broadcasting Wayne’s interview, apart from Wayne himself; the set TVAudience21 consists of all the people tuning in to the show that Arthur is tuned in too, apart from Arthur himself as well as any possible members of TeamChuck; The set Protesters consists of all the people out there protesting right now;
1. Incoming-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry:[X] I am the only hope for the (mask-wearing) protesters, [M] and the poor people of Gotham in general;
{–} Arthur&Protesters-idolatry: [X] There is something wrong with me, [M] should accept help from Wayne, the Savior of Gotham;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Wayne exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Wayne initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Victims/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Prejudging Victims/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur&Protesters-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Wayne incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his act of Prejudgment — TeamChuck&TVAudience21, but more so toward Arthur&Protesters and especially toward Wayne himself;
4. In terms of sacrifice, by promoting Abstract Positive Person-idolatry of his own person, by placing himself on a lofty celestial pedestal like some majestic sort of Archon overseeing the entirety of the city of Gotham (including metro-area), Wayne goes to sacrifice rationality and reasonability with respect to his self-perception, and with respect to how he expects other people to approach him. In addition, he goes to sacrifice his willingness to potentially recognize other people who might make a dent as to solving the societal problems now plaguing Gotham.
In terms of actualization and conscience, Wayne’s rash declaration exclusively favoring himself as Gotham’s savior, while dismissing everyone else to the ranks of problem-solving superfluity, makes little to no sense with respect to his authentic conscience; but makes more sense in terms of his inauthentic conscience connected to a penchant for praise-seeking. Blinded by his own Narcissism, Wayne is expected to be (dying to be) the first to actualize the idolatry practices which tout his own person (yet seeing his factual act of prejudgment not as such, but rather only one of sound judgment). The suckers from section 15 tuning in to the show who also happen to be on Wayne’s side, are likewise expected to actualize his practices. Arthur and the protesters as well as all the viewers who are sympathetic to the protesters and the mysterious killer clown, will not be expected to actualize Wayne’s practices. |21.1)
22.Confronting Thomas Wayne inside of Wayne Hall
That next day, at dusk, Arthur is making his way through a screaming and shouting mob of angry protesters that has assembled in down-town Gotham right in front of Wayne Hall, the Center for Performing Arts. The irate crowd is prevented from charging and bum-rushing the Hall, however, by way of strategically-placed barricades commanded by lots of policemen and security guards working hard to keep them at a distance. Many of the protesters are wearing “clown face” masks inspired by Arthur’s lethal lone wolf action the other night, since deemed heroic and just–indeed–noble by the protesters. Showing to positively idolize “the clown” and negatively idolize Wayne, they are chanting slogans like “Down with Wayne“; and a few of them are holding up home-made partisan signs that carry rallying cries, positively idolizing ones such as: “We Are ALL Clowns“, “Clown for Mayor“, versus negatively idolizing ones like: “Kill the Rich” and “Fuck Wayne“.
With scuffles going on between protesters and police, as all this simmering unrest manages to absorb the attention of the entire security detail, Arthur is able to cleverly exploit all the distracting outside chaos by slipping unnoticedly into the building through an unguarded side-entrance. Once inside, he succeeds to further minimize the chances of any unwanted nosy eyes being brought down upon his person, by sneaking into a change room for bellboy personnel and, a minute later, coming out dressed as one. This disguise enables him to pass through the massive multi-level lobby in wholly undetected fashion, due in part to a perfect absence of security personnel (whom all must have been called outside). He ascends the wide lobby staircase to enter the main hall through a second-level entrance.
For a moment, Arthur is diverted by the mesmerizing magic coming from the huge silver screen now hanging right in front of him–playing Charlie Chaplin’s, Modern Times–but pulls himself back on track after happening to spot Thomas Wayne sitting with his wife in one of the peripheral balconies. When his target–the man who is supposed to be his real biological father–stands up to leave, Arthur likewise exits the main hall and sets out to look for the VIP. He finds him in one of the opulent bathrooms, undoes himself of his bellboy disguise and timidly approaches Wayne, who is busy relieving himself at the end of an open and otherwise vacated row of urinals.
With Arthur standing there in the middle of the bathroom in his shabby clothes and with a look of hesitant anticipation on his face, it does not take long before Wayne notices him, what must strike Gotham’s wannabe savior as an instantly unlikely newcomer to the posh and plush establishment they find themselves in.
Thomas Wayne: (glances over; annoyed) “Can I help you, pal?“
Arthur Fleck: “I don’t know what to say.“
Wayne finishes, zips his fly back up, walks passed the insignificant other and moves over to one of the sinks to wash his hands.
Thomas Wayne: (interrupting) “You want an autograph or something?“
Arthur does not respond as the significant other walks passed him. He instead tentatively follows his allegedly real father to the sink area.
Arthur Fleck: “My name is Arthur. Penny Fleck is my mother.“
Thomas looks over at him like he’s fucking crazy.
Thomas Wayne: “Jesus. You’re the guy who came to my house yesterday.“
Arthur nods, relieved he finally broke through.
Arthur: “Yes. I’m sorry I just showed up, but my mother told me everything and I had to talk to you.“
Wayne grabs a tissue to dry his hands.
Thomas Wayne: “Look pal, I’m not your father.“ (chuckles) “What’s wrong with you?” (22.1.i)
Arthur Fleck: “Look at us. I think you are.“
Thomas Wayne: “Well, that’s impossible, because you were adopted. And I never slept with your mother.” (22.1.ii)
Arthur Fleck: “I wasn’t adopted.“ (22.2.i)
Thomas Wayne: “What do you want from me, money?“
Arthur Fleck: “No, I don’t. . . I wasn’t adopted.” (22.2.ii)
Thomas Wayne: (taken aback) “Jesus. She never told you?“
Arthur Fleck: (indignant) “Told me what?“
Thomas Wayne: (sighs) “Your mother adopted you while she was working for us.“ (22.1.iii)
Arthur Fleck: (getting annoyed) “That’s not true. Why are you saying that?“ (22.2.iii)
Thomas Wayne: “She was arrested and committed to Arkham State Hospital when you were just a little boy.” (22.1.iv)
Arthur Fleck: (rising temper) “Whoa, whoa. Why are you saying this? I don’t need you to tell me lies. I know it seems strange. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I don’t know why everyone is so rude. I don’t know why you are. I don’t want anything from you. Maybe a little bit of warmth. Maybe a hug, DAD! How about a little bit of fucking decency?! What is it with you people?!! You say that stuff about my mother!!” (22.2.iv)
Thomas Wayne: (cocksure) “She’s crazy.“
Arthur starts laughing, frantically, madly. (22.3)
Thomas Wayne: (insulted) “You think this is funny?“
Arthur: (laughing loudly) “Dad! It’s me!“ (laughs louder) (22.2.iv)
Thomas Wayne punches Arthur straight in the face with his free hand, blood spraying from his nose– (22.4)
Thomas Wayne: “Touch my son again, and I’ll fucking kill you.” (22.5)
22.1 In terms of idolatry . . .
Let’s again assume, and this will be verified a little bit further down the story, that Wayne was telling the truth; and that Arthur therefore (unconsciously) was promoting lies and in such capacity was effectively engaged in lying. Arthur’s first of three immoral actions is an imagined one, he imagines Wayne is lying to him. Arthur’s imagining of Wayne’s deception may be described in truncated script-form as:
(22.1| i. Imaginary Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Arthur; ImPerp = Wayne; Victims = Arthur&Penny&Wayne; Audience = Arthur&Wayne;
1. Imaginary Incoming-stage: Arthur imagines Wayne initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry:[X] I am not Arthur’s father; [X] never even had sex with Penny Fleck; [M] did not have an illicit affair with Penny;
{–} Penny-idolatry:[M] I did not have an affair with Thomas Wayne; [X] adopted Arthur when I worked for Wayne; [X] arrested and committed to Arkham State Hospital when Arthur was a kid;
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[X] I am not the illegitimate son of Wayne and Penny; [X] was adopted by Penny when she worked for Wayne;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Imaginary Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur imagines Wayne initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Wayne/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur&Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Wayne/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Imaginary Rationalization-stage: Arthur imagines Wayne initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Wayne/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Wayne/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs the authentic guilt which he effectively thinks Wayne incurs toward everyone whom he–in Arthur’s mind–involves in his alleged Deception — Penny, but more so toward Arthur and especially toward Wayne. Due to exposing him to her deception first, since she inspired Arthur to set out to find Wayne and confront him with what Arthur believes is the unassailable truth, Penny deserves to share in the guilt which her supposed son now accrues for himself; |22.1)
Evidently until this point in time unknown to him, Arthur effectively did lie during the exchange when he was basically propagating his mother’s lies about herself and her son. His deception may be captured by the following truncated script:
(22.2| i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Arthur; Victims = Arthur&Penny&Wayne; Audience = Arthur&Wayne;
1. Incoming-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry:[X] I am Arthur’s father (2x); [M] did have an illicit affair with Penny;
{–} Penny-idolatry:[M] I did have an affair with Thomas Wayne; [M] Arthur is my son, the product of my affair with Wayne;
{–} Arthur-idolatry:[X] I wasn’t adopted (3x); [X] Wayne is my real father (2x); [M] I was born out of wedlock to Wayne and Penny;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Arthur/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur&Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Arthur/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Arthur initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Audience-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Arthur/ Lying about Victims/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Victims-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Arthur/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Lie to Audience/ about Victims/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward everyone whom he involves in his deception — Penny, but more so toward Wayne and especially toward Arthur himself. Since Penny made him believe that he is the bastard son of Wayne, however, and since she therefore inspired Arthur to now go find Wayne and confront him with what Arthur believes is the unassailable truth, she deserves to share in the guilt which her supposed son now accrues for himself; |22.2)
The third and final script attributable to Arthur in the role of Perp, is generated into being by another one of his dubious laughing fits:
(22.3| By laughing in the face of the other, Arthur obviously shows to dismiss–and rather vehemently so–the substance of what Wayne is telling him. The louder he laughs, the more strongly he implicitly shows to reject–to the point of abject ridicule–what Wayne is saying about Arthur and his mother.
i. Psychic Abuse of the Prejudgment kind: Level = dubious Moral Action; Perp = Arthur; Victim = Wayne; Audience = Arthur&Wayne;
1. Incoming-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{–} Wayne-idolatry:[M] Being ridiculous; not worthy of being taken seriously or sympathetically (at all);
{+} Arthur-idolatry:[M] The opposite of being ridiculous; worthy of being taken seriously and sympathetically;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Arthur initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Superior by Prejudging Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Arthur/ to Prejudge Wayne/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Prejudged by Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Arthur initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Arthur-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Prejudge Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Arthur/ Prejudging Wayne/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Prejudged by Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Arthur incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his nonverbal act of ridiculing Prejudgment — Wayne and especially toward Arthur himself;
4. In terms of actualization, notice that Arthur no longer grabs his card out to hand it over in this case to Wayne; and so he no longer makes an effort to show that he didn’t really mean to ridicule the other by implication. In other words, Arthur really does seem to believe that Wayne at the very least is being unreasonable, that he might be putting on some kind of show, a show of denial, stubborn denial; and that the captain of industry, as such, only deserves to be ridiculed, his due reward for making an apparent fool of himself. Could this be a sign that Arthur sees himself more-and-more vindicated in his laughing responses? — that he would be more-and-more convinced that the people he laughs in their faces really do deserve to be made fun of? It is obvious from the way he spreads the lies instilled into him by his mother, that he really does believe them himself. He doesn’t know he is lying, and so readily implies to actualize his own practices by gullibility, and eagerly so; in contrast to Wayne, who shows only to want none of it, and probably even thinks the son is just as nuts as the mother (like mother, like son).
In terms of conscience, Arthur’s prejudicial actions serving to victimize Wayne, his gullibility basically turning him into humanoid drone uncritically propagating his mother’s lies as well as turning Wayne into an imagined liar, all these reckless actions make no sense relative to his authentic conscience; but do make more sense relative to his inauthentic conscience connected to a penchant for praise-seeking and power-seeking, as the prospect of being regarded as the son of someone famous, someone important is just to attractive to pass up on (highly egosyntonic).
In terms of sacrifice, in spite of its apparent appeal to a misguided Arthur, his effectively awkward behavior, ultimately self-sabotaging, does not exactly earn him favors with Wayne. By calling him a liar and by laughing in his face for actually no verifiably good reason at all, Arthur goes to sacrifice some measure of quality in his potential future relationship with Wayne; and he should count himself lucky if the VIP would even be willing to receive him with any semblance of Golden Rule compliance. |22.3)
(22.4-5| (22.4| Wayne, by literally coming back swinging, readily shows vehement aversion to being treated with ridicule (readily showing to refuse actualizing Arthur’s potential practices); and by taking revenge through punching the other in the face, shows to indeed be partial to the exact opposite scenario as the one advertised by the clown: that Arthur himself should rather deserve to be the subject of ridicule, while it precisely would be Wayne who was entitled to enjoy the elevated position of moral superiority. Also by punching him in the face, by giving him a bloody nose, Wayne raises into existence physical evidence of the other’s implicated shameful and morally-inferior position — showing to push the narrative that, yes, Arthur got his nose busted, but rather than deserving compassion and sympathy, Wayne implies to want people to side with him by wondering what the hell this bloodied other fellow must have done to deserve ending up getting slugged on the snout.
By punching Arthur and therefore blemishing his PrimePidol, by physically shaming him, Wayne’s violent action may be captured in script-form as follows:
i. Physical Abuse of the Body kind: Level = grievous Moral Crime; Perp = Wayne; Victims = Arthur; Audience = Arthur&Wayne;
1. Incoming-stage: Wayne incurs authentic guilt toward Arthur for punching him in the face, giving him a bloody nose;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Superior by Bodily Abusing Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Bodily Abusing Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Getting Bodily Abused by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Wayne initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Bodily Abuse Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Bodily Abusing Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Bodily Abused by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Wayne incurs authentic guilt toward everyone involved in his act of Physical Abuse — Arthur and especially toward Wayne himself. However, Wayne would not have punched Arthur, if the latter hadn’t started to laugh in the former’s face, implying to ridicule him, and therefore Arthur partly owes it to himself for ending up with a busted nose — Arthur gets to share in Wayne’s blame to some further specifiable extent (quantitatively). Then again, Arthur would not be in a position to laugh in Wayne’s face, if it weren’t for his deceptive mother effectively inspiring him to do what he has done, and so Penny–in turn–deserves to share in Arthur’s incurred guilt. |22.4)
Wayne did not leave it with bloodying Arthur’s nose, he also passed an arbitrarily grave conditional threat unto the clown, to be captured in script-form as follows:
(22.5| i. Psychic Abuse of the 2-party Conditional Threat kind: Level = grievous Moral Crime; Perp = Wayne; Victim = Arthur; Audience = Wayne&Arthur;
1. Incoming-stage: Wayne initiates an potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: If Arthur touches my son again, I will “fucking kill” him;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: If I touch Wayne’s son again, Wayne will “fucking kill” me;
Abstract Pidols are distributed over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Wayne initiates a potential practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Superior by Conditionally Threatening Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Conditionally Threatening Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Inferior by Being Conditionally Threatened by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Wayne initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Wayne-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Conditionally Threaten Arthur/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Wayne-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Wayne/ Conditionally Threatening Arthur/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Arthur-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Conditionally Threatened by Wayne/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, Wayne incurs authentic guilt toward all involved in passing his Conditional Threat — Arthur and especially toward Wayne himself. However, Wayne would not have threatened Arthur, if the latter hadn’t started to laugh in the former’s face, implying to ridicule him, and therefore Arthur partly owes it to himself for ending up being threatened — Arthur gets to share in Wayne’s blame to some further specifiable extent (quantitatively). Then again, Arthur would not be in a position to laugh in Wayne’s face, if it weren’t for his deceptive mother effectively inspiring him to do what he has done, and so Penny–in turn–deserves to share in Arthur’s incurred guilt. |22.5)
4. In terms of sacrifice, also Wayne ends up sacrificing quality from his end as to his possible relationships with the other; he likewise makes it harder for himself to interact with Arthur in a Golden Rule-compliant way should they again happen to meet in the future.
In terms of conscience, what Wayne did to Arthur obviously is not inline with the meaning of the Golden Rule. If there’s no real pressing reason for Wayne resorting to violence and threats, there’s no care or love to be found for Arthur in the act of punching the clown in right in his face and conditionally threatening his life; there’s no-one under his immediate care, including his own person, that would warrant such acts. In terms of his inauthentic power-seeking conscience, however, Wayne established himself with decisive power and so relative to his power-seeking inauthentic conscience, he did do rather well; he showed quite unequivocally to his victim that he is not someone who kids around, who is ready and willing to act with power if either insulted or feeling threatened or otherwise maligned.
In terms of actualization, seeing himself perfectly entitled to lash out to any sort of crazies out there having the balls to cross his path, trying to infect him with their lunacy, Wayne may therefore be expected to be quite willing to actualize his own practices. It remains to be seen if Arthur feels that way too. |22.4-5)
Arthur’s behavior–in Wayne’s mind–could very well serve as one more piece of evidence that the rich industrial cat had been right in his factually egosyntonically-skewed, heedlessly broad and sweeping general appraisal of the poor classes: summarily seen as nothing but clowns, because–well–here’s one standing right in front of him, after all, temporarily blocking his view and holding him up, like the blood-boiling nuisance such pain-in-the-ass sort of people easily go on being. Wayne might thus very well be led to think that it was more than a little bit ironic that Arthur, while precisely trying to make the VIP out to be the clown of the two, actually only managed to come out looking like one himself, and with flying ridiculous colors too for that matter — heavy on the blood-red component.
As far as Arthur is concerned, when being most reasonable and rational, two possibilities are open. Either Wayne was lying, or his own mother was. If the former, Arthur would have all-the-more reason to hate the older, as it would then redefine the younger as not just a bastard son but also one deliberately and persistently unwanted, even during a face-to-face sort of confrontation between son and real father.
But what if his mother had been lying to him all along? If so, then it immediately means that she would share in the responsibility for him now having made a fool of himself two times in a row: once right now, right here in front His Royal Loftiness Thomas Wayne and once in front of one of Wayne’s proxies, as well as Wayne’s son, down over at the gate of Wayne Manor the other day. Moreover, he would then also have valid reason to hold her responsible for directly facilitating to raise his spirits based on a seductive but ultimately proven-false hope, the now shattered otherwise Narcissism-soothing hope of being able to indulge in the lusciously-elevated basking-in-the-glory sort of status that belongs to being acknowledged (and therefore noticed!) by everybody as the son of a Very Important Person (the blissful exact opposite of the totally-unfunny wacky hack of a piece-of-shit sorry-excuse-for-a-clown he now could very well fear being viewed as, also by everybody, courtesy of--what he solemnly may think is–the particular, exclusive and [most of all] malicious manufacturing coming from the magnificent telecommunication Maestro Murray).
Penny shows to altogether ignore the complex and multivariate real human nature of Wayne by otherwise acknowledging that he, like everyone else in principle, has good personal qualities about him as well as bad ones. Instead, Penny focuses on a few of the good qualities he were to have, and then goes to magnify the attributed importance of those alleged personal qualities to a wildly exaggerated extent; and yet just the same imply that it could still serve to accurately define what sort of person he is in reality: 
Sixteen year old Nicole lives in a remote and secluded house immersed in the woods on the outer edge of Seattle with her father, his new wife Laura and her tween son from a previous marriage, Toby. One day, Nicole was supposed to join her family to attend a James Taylor concert, but since the father ended up being called away for work at the last minute, the concert plans were cancelled, leaving Nicole free to do what she rather wanted to do in the first place: joining her friend Margo to attend a rave at a club located at the docks of Seattle called Occidental.
When Nicole finally does come home (alone) well over her curfew, Laura is there waiting for her, being none-too-pleased.
Back at school, Nicole meets with Gary. She tells him she doesn’t think wanting to ever see David again. He rejoins that David–referring to him as 
Later that day, Steve is back at the office, trying to invoke the help of a friend named Alex to put a restraining order on David.
Boldly overriding her autonomy by deploying unessential brute physical force, David grabs an intoxicated – hesitant and at best insincerely consenting Margo, swings her body over his shoulder and, by grabbing with his free hand her barely-covered (and admittedly cute) ass while she’s draped over his shoulder, is sure to rub the cuckolding gesture squarely into Logan’s face — like some sort of yesteryear’s caveman taking home with him a succulent woman-trophy stolen from some defeated enemy tribe, right in front of their pitiful downcast faces. 
Later that day, Nicole can be found at home, playing video-games with Toby when the doorbell rings. Laura opens, sees Margo standing there and lets her in. Nicole, however, receives Margo with the kind of coolness that is entirely understandable and unsurprising, just somehow not to Margo. Following Nicole’s lead, Margo steps outside to have a chat.
While an upset Margo drives away, it just so happens that before long David pops up in her rear-view mirror and starts pursuing her; ends up driving next to hers and lets her know to want to talk. Margo shows vehement unwillingness by flipping the bird at him; 
Later that evening, a surprisingly vulnerable and seemingly humble David rings the doorbell of the Walker residence. Steve opens.
Phil's Philosophy 