Why So Serious, Part One: Child Abuse

As the purple clad and face-painted Joker springs forth from the pool table with knife in hand, he commences somewhat in meekly manner in his own self-indulgent query, “You wanna know how I got these scars?”

The Joker continues detailing a narrative of a father that “was a drinker and a fiend.” Recalling one night when his father goes “off crazier than usual” and how his mother “gets the kitchen knife to defend herself,” he tells that his father does not approve of this and how he “takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it.” As a matter of consequence, the young child witnesses this gruesome scene, yet whence his father realizes his son’s presence, he turns to the child saying jovially, “Why so Serious?”

From there the father inserts the knife blade in his son’s mouth and blares, “Let’s put a smile on that face.” Then, The Joker nonchalantly asks his present victim, “Why so Serious?”

Yet, seldom does a father so intentionally, so deliberately, so literarily scar his child. Nonetheless, the actions of our parents and the mentors of our youth bear heavily on our psychological, sociological, and neurological development. We are the products of our up-bringing.

As Jill E. Korbin, a cultural and medical anthropologist, Case Western Reserve University, explains “[t]he intersection of childhood and violence raises several problematic issues that demand a synthesis and reformulation,” she continues “[a]lthough it is perhaps simplistic to say that both childhood and violence are culturally constructed categories, it is nevertheless the case that violence is not a unitary phenomenon nor is childhood experienced similarly everywhere.”

For without these fundamental assumptions being explicitly stated, “it is impossible to understand the variability of experience involving children and violence.”

Martin H. Teicher, a psychiatry professor, Harvard Medical School, notes that “in the early 1990’s mental health professionals believed that emotional and social difficulties occurred mainly through psychological means.”

Interestingly, “[c]hildhood maltreatment was understood either to foster the development of intrapsychic defense mechanisms that proved to be self-defeating in adulthood or to arrest psychosocial development…”

Basically, the mind was viewed by researchers as essentially software in which any problem could be amended, reprogrammed, or just altogether erased.

The research of Teicher and his colleagues seems to lead to a failure in the hardware of the mind, due to biological and chemical alterations. Teicher explains that significant brain-wave abnormalities were clinically found “in 54 percent of patients with a history of early trauma but in only 27 percent of non-abused patients.” These electroencephalogram (EEG) anomalies reached 72 percent in those with “documented histories of serious physical and sexual abuse.”

When abuse of children occurs, it happens during the critically formative time of experience, as the brain is physically sculpting its structural self, as an artist with a chisel. The severe stress of these experiences “can leave an indelible imprint on its structure and function. Such abuse, it seems, induces a cascade of molecular and neurobiological effects,” as Teicher states, that are irreversible.

Ross Macmillan, a sociology professor, University of Minnesota, records that while “[c]ontrolling for earlier involvement and a host of sociodemographic characteristics, adolescent victimization almost tripled the odds of both violent and property offending in adulthood, doubled the odds of domestic violence, and increased the odds of problem drug use by almost 90%.”

So, basically, each generation lives out the habits, violence, and scars of the preceding generation. It can be said, that the “life trajectory,” which Macmillan discusses more in his research, would be to describe The Joker, as a stray bullet, without any form of agency.

The Joker embodies the now embrowned sins of his father, as we embody those of our parents, and as our children will embody from us. If only each lived in a vacuum, one would not be burdened by the scars of his elders, yet we live not as such, but as institutions produced by many.


This is my second column for the term, and it commences a three part series drawing on The Dark Knight;--mainly, outlining the different stories given by the Joker about the origins of his scars. I use actual scientific research to explore the macro-picture of this subtle and differing stories.

Some Things Never Change

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 19th Century American writer, in his masterful work, The Blithedale Romance, steals from an American period of revolutionary economic, societal, and political reform, mostly in the present grim face of the financial crisis experienced in the late 1830’s and early 1840’s, and the foreboding tensions of socio-political conflicts destined to lead our young nation to war. Here warns that vigorous reforms may bestow the United States with adverse results and unforeseen consequences to such lofty ideal goals put into practice hastily.

Firstly, in May of 1837, the young nation of immigrants, freedom, and opportunity discovered it faced a swarm of hardships to the likes it had not yet experienced and to which many doubted it ever would overcome. The American economy, actually, embarked on its severe downturn in 1836, following President Andrew Jackson’s eight years of hickory-like leadership. Jackson’s Vice President, Martin van Buren, came to the Oval Office with his primary concern being the struggling economy and its shaky financial institutions.

Economists and historians alike agree upon the identification of three root causes of the depression, as noted by Miller Center of Public Affairs (MCPA), that ensued the financial crisis: “First, English banks--responding to financial troubles at home--stopped pumping money into the American economy,” the importance of this reversal being these funds financed much of the economic growth during the preceding decades; “Second, U.S. banks, which had overextended credit to their clients, began to call in loans after British banks cut their money supply; Third, President Jackson’s ‘hard’ money policies… only exacerbated the credit crunch.”

On May 10th, with rapidly depleting hard currency reserves, a group of New York state banks began the refusal of converting paper money into precious metals. Throughout the nation many more banking institutions followed the same practice. Thusly, the financial crisis, Panic of 1837, commenced: “Loans dried up, and so did new purchases; businesses and civic projects collapsed…. Creditors refused to accept paper currency that seemed to be losing its value by the hour,” as stated by MCPA.

Secondly, with all these actions, unemployment rose and many started to question the fundamentals of the economic system that only seven years earlier gave them a booming economic expansion; nonetheless, the American economy accelerated its spiral downwards.

The days of the late 1830’s drew themselves longer, as a shadow in a never-ending evening, as the rumors propagated about the failure of capitalism and its greedy pawns dressed in business and banker clothes. Even, President van Buren blamed the greedy actions of domestic and foreign businesses and financial institutions for the gross overextension of credit by American banks. In the midst of these dire times, ideas on the community, civil rights, labor conflict, and general economics grew in the States and aboard, while mostly the germs of these ideas were imported from Europe by the American thinkers and artists.

However, the pensive Hawthorne dwelt on these ideas, especially, on community and transcendentalism, and apparently found some merit enough to join such an undertaking, as the Brook Farm, with, as he recorded, those “in their haste to begin the reformation of the world.” Yet, faint doubts must have stifled his thought of and passion for the community, for little was it that revealed the cracks and the ever-growing width and depth of them.

Thirdly, according to Hawthorne biographer, Arlin Turner, Hawthorne’s Blithedale narrator, Coverdale, embodies much of the author, “hold[ing] in common… most of his attitudes toward the current interests in, for example, philanthropy [socially moral activism]…”

Within this work of a prophetic and admonitory nature, it cannot be lost upon the reader the bluntness, in realizing and noting, that “real life never arranges itself exactly like a romance,” for this demonstrates maturity and wisdom. By having Coverdale disclosing this directly, following the said statement, and his inability in an early scene to extract fully the discussion from two individuals beneath the tree in which he sits unbeknownst, Hawthorne’s juxtaposition of these two details leads the reader to an understanding that this romance shares naught with others;--that here there may exist some real world applications, some knowledge of wisdom or some awareness of reality.

As with for such, Hawthorne clarifies his overarching moral theme to life in general, much less the romance, “People never do get just the good they seek.” So, boldly and succinctly structured, he adds, “If it come at all, it is something else, which they never dreamed of, and did not particularly want.” Never did more destructive horrors than one striving solely for the betterment of the good for the many. The whole of the romance testifies to this end.

Finally, for the modern reader and in the afterglow of a presidential election season of reform on the right and change on the left, Hawthorne boldly strolls through the middle of the two with pragmatic sense. He wrote in 1852 in the campaign biography of future President Franklin Pierce that reformers never obtain the goals for their desired achievements. A little more absolute than Hawthorne’s normal stances, yet as David Brooks, New York Times Columnist, points out, it was not until Teddy Roosevelt that Americans had presidents campaigning on change against change, instead of change against non-change. So, the absolutes of the terminology can be understood, if Pierce ran as the “not change” candidate.

Nevertheless, Hawthorne’s belief on these matters stated laconically by William E. Cain, professor at Wellesley College, “came from serious reflection on the range of reforms that crisscrossed the United States in the 1830's, 1840's, and 1850's. Hawthorne did not doubt that the nation could be made better, but he balked at the notion that everything could be made better quickly. He perceived reformers turning narrow-minded, hard-hearted, and intolerant, and thereby causing harm as they took away other persons’ liberty in the attempt to gain an immediate moral good.”

All that said, our America and man’s history welcome you, my President Obama.


Today is the official return of my Parthenon column, Parsons’ Pulpit. I have written a column for The Parthenon before and I calculate all together it would be two and half terms. This column came about an independent study I did on the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is obvious my economic interests. Quite a bit longer than planned, but quite a lot of information, as well. Hope the reader enjoys.

A YouTube Correspondence about Race and Culture

I must commence with a word or so about this post. I entered into a correspondence with a gentleman a couple of years old than I on YouTube.com several week past. This individual came to my attention while I was pursing a few videos on the newest Brad Pitt film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is based on a F. Scott Fitzgerald short story by the same name. You will read the simple, yet direct, statement he left on the video’s comment wall. From there, all, but the final reply, went from his YouTube wall to my YouTube wall and so on. The final reply was sent in a private message to me.

If one finds his or her way to his page, one will find the following self-description. I add it here to give the reader a further understanding of the reasoning behind some of the questions and responds. I did not enter into this discussion to sway this gentleman’s mind, only to better understand it. This is the same principle on which I go to church when home, just to have something or someone with to argue.

Here is this gentleman's self-description:

Name: Sean
Age: 26

.....WARNING: DO NOT ACCEPT SUNDAY AS SABBATH DAY
.....WHEN THE POPE/VATICAN MAKES IT A WORLD WIDE
.....LAW!! IT'S THE MARK OF THE BEAST!! NOT THE MICRO-
.....CHIP! ARM YOURSELFS WITH KNOWLEDGE!

.....“Then Peter and the [other] apostles answered and said, We
.....ought to obey God rather than men.” -- Acts 5:29

.....I support White Nationalism; I'm against interracial relation-
.....ships for various reasons; and I do my best to be a Christian.

.....The reason why I strongly disagree with interracial relation-
.....ships is because I don't enjoy watching the destruction of the
.....white race, which now only makes up 8% of the entire human
.....population that's 8% out of 100%. The way I see it, people who
.....support interracial relationships are mindless idiots that let
.....others think for them, genocidal racists who want to see my
.....race gone, or scoffers walking after their own lusts.

.....I'm a dedicated Christian and I care a lot about people, unless
.....they dislike me first then I just ignore them and deem them
.....arrogant and simple minded, I always consider other people's
.....opinions instead of just passing them off as ignorant. I try my
.....best to follow all 10 commandments, including observing the
.....Sabbath day (Saturday). I'm also aware Halloween, Christmas,
.....Easter, etc. are pagan holidays, instead of observing those days,
.....I observe the 7 “Holy Days” because when Jesus came he never
.....came to implement or take away any laws, he came to save
.....humanity and fulfill God's promise of a savior.

.....So, I'm pretty much Pro White and a Christian.

Here is his and my correspondence:

xScrappiex: I can’t believe you perverts condone the message in this movie.

ThinDreamer30: Two things. One, to what message were you referring, as in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, or should my next question answer this for me? Two, and I am sure you have heard this before, to what reply do you give that Jesus was not white?

xScrappiex: Number 1: That movie promotes pedophilia.

Number 2: I never said Jesus was white. No one knows what his race was. No one. And to make an image of him and worship it is blasphemy and idolatry. What brought that question up anyway?

ThinDreamer30: To reply. One, I disagree about the pedophilia, since the film portrays the mental state of the characters as developing on the same linear trajectory, not their physical appearances, which do progress counter to the other. That is, a relationship of the minds, not the bodies, wherein one may argue emotions and attractiveness abide. Two, I was just reading the comments on here and the summary on the left-hand side of the screen before posting, that is all. I probably was a little presumptuous. Nonetheless, would it not stand to reason that a man born in a particular geographical location at a particular historic time might be the race of that region and period, at least the odds seem to testify to such a conclusion?

xScrappiex: Let me ask you this: shouldn't every race be allowed to have their own homeland or is that a racist way of thinking?

ThinDreamer30: To reply to the homeland question. I simply see it as not being practical and more harmful than beneficial. All men possess ideas, and through the voluntary exchange and expansion thereof of these ideas, mankind creates his prosperity. I find any type of action taken in the form of tribalism, be it cultural, racial, or religious, to be an attempt by the collectivist, in which degrading the individualist, and as well the retardation of progress. That being said, each may do or try as each pleases as long as no harm befalls another who shares ideas counter to which.

xScrappiex: So Africans get Africa; Asians have China, Japan, etc.; and Arabs get Saudi Arabia, but Europeans aren't allowed to have a place they can call home? Why does Europe have to be a multicultural land?

Also, what race are you? Do you think whites are less than human or something?

ThinDreamer30: To replay to a place to call home. Firstly, Europe and America have such diversification due to their prosperity and as the rest of the world prospers these nations as well will also become more diverse. It is only a matter of time. Secondly, home is not simply a piece of ground or even a race, but a shared idea. As man moves away from physical demarcations, such as race and blood, he then finds a community of individuals with shared ideas;--that is, the mind, itself, is what defines a man, not anything else. Thirdly, I do not approve of culture as means of fact or justification: it is a form a collectivism and stagnation. Fourthly, I am quite a pale white guy, mostly German, Irish, English, Polish. Yet, forthrightly, I care little about such matters, for I view myself as American only, because The America Experiment is an experiment of ideas, not land or colour. Finally, white individuals are no less and no more human than any other. We, as all races, are equal in our humanity, if nothing else.

xScrappiex: I noticed you assumed I was a supremacist like the asshole you are. ;)

Just because someone supports white nationalism doesn't mean he thinks he is more supreme than anyone else. I shouldn't have to tell you I have a Jewish friend or a black friend to prove I'm not a supremacist, (even though I do have a Jewish friend).

Your ideology is false. You, like most people, assume a culture is not static;--nations defend their cultures so they remain static. By saying, “It's only a matter of time,” it's kind of like saying, “Why take a bath if you are just going to get dirty again.”

ARROGANT people like you THINK they know it all as if they were intelligent, but you are just as close minded as you claim me to be.


I do not believe I have finished with this discussion. I just have not yet replied. I worry about man’s ability to live with inconsistencies. My grandmother often uses the old saying, “Speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth.” It seems so glaringly obvious. I will note, I corrected most of his spelling and grammar errors for this post.

Intro of Self, Revised

I am an undergraduate student in Economics at Marshall University, while also minoring in Mathematics and English. I plan on obtaining a Ph.D. in Economics. Economic research is my passion and joyance. I know within myself harbors and labors a scholar of a real Asimovian mathematical psychohistorian, the economist. Also, I expect to one day be a man of letters: fiction, both novels and short stories, in the forms of the philosophical and the allegorical; non-fiction, both novel-length and pamphlet-size, in the forms of either technical or popular. A few short stories have been completed and I have mapped out in detail my novella, The Cage. Furthermore, I have commenced to researching and modeling my first non-fiction work, The Godless Society: An Economist Explains a World without a Deity.

My grandparents raised me from the age of four years, and due to my grandfather's practical nature, moral influence, and his tales from his years as a police officer and public figure, as well as his life in general, I seek answers through reason and evidence with always a healthy skepticism of convention, authority, and collective organizations. Moreover, as child, my grandparents entertained company weekly discussing local and national political and economic issues, and in these gathering, I sought to join, for one reason or another. I was advised when I had something to contribute then I was allowed the floor, figuratively, of course. I remember still the feeling I got, the rush, when the adults stopped and listened to what a seven year old had to say; I remember still the placement of all in the room, where I sat and the colors of what I was wearing; however, not a damn idea to what they were discussing or to what I even said.

Almost all my discussions, today, therefore, embrace an academically argumentative tone, wherein I beg of all parties engaging in the given discourse to argue the issue, not the person;--personal attacks display only the whipping asininity of one's lacking reason and evidence. The maintaining of ones temper and mannerisms when pressed by an argument that is or is not rooted in logic and/or backed by data which may weaken or even counter one's own, defines one's maturity, civility, and rationality.

I value, myself, a political philosophy of Pro-Choice in all matters, Transparency in all cases, and Self-Responsibility at all times over any third-party Accountability. I believe in Efficiency, noting that self-sufficiency is seldom the same thing. What's more, I value a personal philosophy wherein Perspicaciousness, Comprehensiveness, and Consistency held by the great minds with their self-interest and personal curiosities expanded for us all the knowledge of the once tribal to the now celestial. Remembering that civilization presses forwards by the very few great minds, not by the numerous strong backs, I strive for knowledge.

As a bright-eyed child, I watched and drew from certain fictional characters, in which I now find their traits. These characters are, to name a few, Batman, Zorro, MacGyver, Highlander, Maxwell Smart, Jefferson Smith. As an analytic teenager, I witnessed and learned from several in my small town who were entrepreneurial in spirit and laboring in body. These individuals I became close with and also had the honor of working under at times.

As a young man, I desire mental stimulation on nearly an hourly basis, that being, I love knowledge and advocate education;--education in the forms of seeking and reading and analyzing facts in an opinionated world, ergo, wielding tough questions and demanding solid answers. That being said, education does not come from a nightly television show, yet from reading, not newspapers, but books and journal articles.


Political Views: Libertarian Republicanism
Religious Views: Atheism
Philosophical Views: Objectivism

I thought it was time to readdress my description of myself, since to last done in another blog post, Intro of Self. Hope someone cares.