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• Dress Up by G. Bruce Boyer | Articles | First Things

— While not putting an emphasis on dress itself, most commentators who have discussed the relationship between the public and private person have made reference to both dress and manners when discussing the abandonment of the formal public self. And perhaps nowhere can the loss of public self be so readily seen as in the clothes we wear. One commentator remarked, “A ‘gentleman’ no longer tipped his symbolic hat to a ‘lady’ to show the conventional respect due her sex; he no longer had a hat to tip.” And no one doubts that the hat is gone, as well as the suit, the tie, and the polished leather oxford. The word I’m searching for is casualization.

— The Avengers is chock-a-block with Ubermenschen, powerful, willful people who assert themselves through technology and the hyper-violence that that technology makes possible. And the most remarkable instance of this technologically informed self-assertion is the creation of the savior figure, who self-identifies with the very words of Yahweh in the book of Exodus. But he is not the Word become flesh; instead, he is the coming together of flesh and robotics, produced by the flexing of the all too human will to power. I find it fascinating that this pseudo-savior was brought about by players on both sides of the divide, by both Iron Man and Ultron.

— It is Ultron, not the Vision, that teaches us about nihilism. And guess what? He’s the bad guy. The only way for there to be peace is human extinction. Its Ultron who thinks he’s beyond good and evil, not the Vision. Where the Vision pauses to discover what is truly good -existence, friendship, kindness- Ultron acts without thought. Ultron declares himself the messiah. “I’m going to save the world,” he says. He’s a machine, utterly focused on his programming. Upon a rock of destruction will he build his church of death. Father Barron thinks that the Vision is presented as the herald of Nietzsche, that Joss Whedon is covertly trying to turn us into nihilists. Ultron is the herald here, and he sows and reaps destruction. He also loses in the end, and I’ve yet to see a scenario where losing attracts people to a cause.