Personally Id vote the guy in as president.
I think about his actions and I tend to agree with his way
of thinking and doing things. I also agree that the time to grieve
and get emotional is NOT in the middle of the mission, you put it aside
and deal with it when there is time.
I agree with Bauer's comment to the Senator. "You are weak, incapable of facing evil
and doing what is necessary" I find that many of the people I have met and meet
really are weak and not equipped to deal with Hard men who have ill intent. It may not be their fault. It is because they have lived sheltered lives and never been subjected to violence.
To me this seems "Weak" but if we are to have a society of people who are sheltered, then do we
not need people like Bauer to protect them? I say yes.
And if we do need these hard men to protect our soft society, then who is qualified to lead them? Certainly not a Weak demographically palatable soft person as they are not equipped to deal with the savage nature of reality. So who then can lead? In our real world Jack Bauer would be in prison and the Savage men would win every time.
I've noticed especially lately on Television that anytime an agent or cop or citizen is forced into a position to kill a savage attacker intent on violence there is an inordinate amount of emotional grief after the fact which I really do not understand...personal experience and philosophy has taught me that this is not the reality, I care not a whit about those I may have harmed or killed while they were intent on harming or killing me or those I cared about....so what does that make me?
Thinking about this has lead me to wonder.....am I a sociopath? I see no problem with treating
violent, savage people, violently and savagely in the name of keeping others safe. Has my life
living in the rural areas raised to kill animals for food and then in the Military to face down aggressors left me a being unfit for polite society? I feel I fit in well enough, that I have never harmed another person or even threatened them without cause....but should there be cause, I have no hard feelings to cope with, it is just a situation that needs dealt with. I am at a loss to understand those who would defend the "rights" of those savage types at the expense of the soft civilized side of society. So what am I?
So what of Jack Bauer and those who view the world and life as this fictional character does....where do they fit in?
So am I a sociopath? a deviant? What am I?
Solar Solar Solar
16 years ago
Posts
8 comments:
Sorry. . glaring typo there. . been a long day.
Here it is again. . .
Many of those who say they would feel nothing were they put in a position where they had to kill someone are surprisingly affected by it. Some of the most "hard ass" types. One never knows until they've done it.
Imagining how you feel does not MAKE you that feeling.
I am tough as nails about many things, and clinical training was a rigorous as can be. But the first time I came across someone who died horribly, in great pain, and alone, fighting for their life, I stood in my suit, as ashes swirled around me, crying, and praying the media wouldn't get a shot.
Yeah I can understand what you are saying but I was in a couple of different firefights during my military days. To me,it was purely terrifying while it went on, and I know for sure now that I am no "Hard as nails, cool under fire" macho man...I may have lost control of my bladder at one point..but those details are hazy, but I will always remember the fear. However there was no remorse, or sorrow. It was self defense, defending people I cared about and served with. Maybe if it had been one on one it would have been different. I dont know the answer to that.
Where does Jack Bauer fit in? Nowhere. He's a radically unrealistic fictional character operating in an equally unrealistic pretend world.
It's true that societies require hard men to protect them, as Orwell noted, but those real-life men have about as much in common with Jack Bauer, and his ilk, as real-life police have in common with most TV cops, or real-life doctors and lawyers with their TV versions.
Jack Bauer, in real life, would long since have been dead (probably) or in prison (assuming he wasn't dead). And rightly so, since he would be a liability to his own side and an asset to the enemy.
Well Anonymous, that is certainly one way to look at it.
However, I think your view on the issue is exactly the reason that Vietnam was a wasted exercise. Suits sittig back dictating Policy then Micromanaging the people tasked with the execution and operation of the task. Its the kind of thing that gets people killed....the wrong people.
However. I agree in the later part of the series Jack does go overboard. But thats just my opinion.
Vietnam was a real-world event. Jack Bauer is fiction, fiction set in a totally unrealistic world, with unrealistically incompetent enemies and allies who behave in ways that defy human nature.
It's true that meddling at home undercut the war effort, and in fact the Vietnam War was lost on the home front in a masterful (for the enemy) exercise of psychological and propaganda warfare. The media effectively sided with the enemy, deliberately misreporting the facts and creating a narrative that was, to be charitable, distorted.
But shows like '24' don't represent a counter-argument to that, merely an exercise in wish-fulfillment. Jack Bauer, if he were to ever go up against realistically competent opponents, would rapidly be dead, and the CTU would be shut down for multiple violations of Federal law and the Constitution well bnefore it was in operation as long as it is portrayed to be. Nobody would be willing to work for them once it became clear how easily you could end up tortured for nothing, jailed without trial, or any of the other things we see in the course of the series.
The micro-management from the White House in Vietnam, for example, was partly motivated by the very real concern that pushing too hard could trigger a nuclear war. They were wrong to do it, but their motives were understandable and the concern was a serious one. It wasn't something that a Jack Baeur could fix just by being a little tougher or more ruthless.
Likewise, the agit-prop victory the enemy achieved in Vietnam is not something that could have been countered by Jack Bauer's approach, in fact he'd merely provide the enemy with more grist, since he appears to be oblivious to political realities or the fact that actions have consequences beyond the immediate.
It's sad, in a way, 24 had a brilliant initial premise and if they'd actually been a little more realistic, it could have been a truly great show. Jack Baeur could have been a genuinely plausible portrayal of a good man in a hard situation, having to make hard decisions, with the uncertainty, doubt, and consequences that entails, but that isn't what they did.
The thing about Jack Bauer is that his character is to the War on Terror and the Islamist problem almost precisely what Dirty Harry Calahan was to the crime wave of the 1970. An exercise in wish fulfilment, a fantasy figure who can vent frustration and anxiety without realistic side effects or consequences.
Just as with Dirty Harry, it has to keep ramping up to maintain the schtick.
Oh course, you have a valid point there, to keep audience it does have to get over blown, but I still maintain that the basic premise that you need to let those who have to deal with a real threat, be free to deal with that threat in a manner that is sane and not necessarily P.C.
In our comfort of the last 4 or 5 decades, we have forgotten as a society what real danger is.....and consequently what the cost of not dealing with danger properly is....weak and ripe for the picking so to speak.
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