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I love superhero stories, and Batman and Superman are my faves by far. But I have been having a problem reading Batman fic recently because too much of it uncritically accepts the underlying premise, that you can scare or hurt people into not doing evil. Especially with Red Hood: that Jason killing people and/or brutalizing them will stop the violence, that he can control things that way, that he can threaten people into backing down and it will be a permanent solution because he's so good at violence that people will accept his dictates. Jason believes that, and the fic often backs him up. (So does canon, but that's another can of worms.) Problem is, that's just not the way people work.
Before covid, I volunteered at a warming center, a place where homeless people can spend the night in a warm, dry, safe place when it's really cold and/or wet. And sometimes people are homeless because of bad luck, but sometimes people are homeless because they're assholes and nobody wants to deal with them. So while most of our guests are polite and well-behaved, some of them are just awful. And we have to deal with them, hopefully calming them down so they can stay without hurting or harassing anyone, and throwing them out if not. Every year at new volunteer training, there's at least one brawny guy who's really eager to volunteer to be the bouncer, the one who goes up to the assholes causing trouble and intimidating them into behaving. And every year, the director has to explain that no, the ideal person to handle things and take point in dealing with the assholes is a level-headded woman, preferably a small one. Because if you have a violent asshole, and a big man comes up to him, the violent asshole is going to take that as a challenge and escalate things further. Even if it is obvious that he is greatly outclassed by the bouncer! Sometimes especially if he is obviously outclassed by the bouncer! A levelheaded petite woman can go over and, through being firm and not backing down, often get the asshole to either stop or leave, because she doesn't register as a challenge. But a big dude is a challenge! If you let it be about dominance and top dog and machismo and violence or the threat of violence, people (especially men) don't back down. They escalate.
And this is true in other settings, as well. It's one reason why negative discipline and physical punishment never result in long-term behavioral change. You may stop the initial problem behavior, but you won't stop future problem behaviors, because you've turned it into a pissing match instead of an opportunity to change. Or in a turf battle, whether between rival ethnic groups or rival gangs, when things turn to violence it never results in lasting peace or lasting dominion by the group that is initially most successful at violence. Because the other groups retaliate! Even if you have overwhelming force to begin with, you haven't taught the other group "we should just let them rule us because it's too dangerous to resist" you have taught them "violence works, we just need to be more violent than the other guys, time to up our game."
So, back to Batman. It is understandable if Batman thinks that fighting people will bring lasting change to the streets, though he's wrong. It's even more understandable if Jason Todd as Red Hood thinks that fighting people will bring lasting change to the streets, or at least if he's nihilistic enough not to care that it won't change things in the long run, just make him feel good and solve his temporary problems. It is completely understandable if the cops believe, from Gordon on down, that violence will solve things, because that's a typical cop belief in real life. What's much harder to swallow is if the narrative backs up this belief, or if social workers/nonprofit workers in the story accept this belief in the ability of violence to solve problems.
Before covid, I volunteered at a warming center, a place where homeless people can spend the night in a warm, dry, safe place when it's really cold and/or wet. And sometimes people are homeless because of bad luck, but sometimes people are homeless because they're assholes and nobody wants to deal with them. So while most of our guests are polite and well-behaved, some of them are just awful. And we have to deal with them, hopefully calming them down so they can stay without hurting or harassing anyone, and throwing them out if not. Every year at new volunteer training, there's at least one brawny guy who's really eager to volunteer to be the bouncer, the one who goes up to the assholes causing trouble and intimidating them into behaving. And every year, the director has to explain that no, the ideal person to handle things and take point in dealing with the assholes is a level-headded woman, preferably a small one. Because if you have a violent asshole, and a big man comes up to him, the violent asshole is going to take that as a challenge and escalate things further. Even if it is obvious that he is greatly outclassed by the bouncer! Sometimes especially if he is obviously outclassed by the bouncer! A levelheaded petite woman can go over and, through being firm and not backing down, often get the asshole to either stop or leave, because she doesn't register as a challenge. But a big dude is a challenge! If you let it be about dominance and top dog and machismo and violence or the threat of violence, people (especially men) don't back down. They escalate.
And this is true in other settings, as well. It's one reason why negative discipline and physical punishment never result in long-term behavioral change. You may stop the initial problem behavior, but you won't stop future problem behaviors, because you've turned it into a pissing match instead of an opportunity to change. Or in a turf battle, whether between rival ethnic groups or rival gangs, when things turn to violence it never results in lasting peace or lasting dominion by the group that is initially most successful at violence. Because the other groups retaliate! Even if you have overwhelming force to begin with, you haven't taught the other group "we should just let them rule us because it's too dangerous to resist" you have taught them "violence works, we just need to be more violent than the other guys, time to up our game."
So, back to Batman. It is understandable if Batman thinks that fighting people will bring lasting change to the streets, though he's wrong. It's even more understandable if Jason Todd as Red Hood thinks that fighting people will bring lasting change to the streets, or at least if he's nihilistic enough not to care that it won't change things in the long run, just make him feel good and solve his temporary problems. It is completely understandable if the cops believe, from Gordon on down, that violence will solve things, because that's a typical cop belief in real life. What's much harder to swallow is if the narrative backs up this belief, or if social workers/nonprofit workers in the story accept this belief in the ability of violence to solve problems.
