Steven Rodgers and the Agents of Institutional Corruption

“The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalized into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero to refresh the word.”

~Joseph Campbell

***Spoilers for Winter Soldier ahead***

I love every Marvel movie. Not every Marvel/Other Studio movie. But Winter Soldier is in a class by itself. It isn’t hard to figure out why. I don’t have much in common with Norse gods that date Natalie Portman or billionaire engineers that date Gwyneth Paltrow. But a guy that’s pulled out his modernist, optimistic, nationalistic world into the current fractured one sounds about right. My grandfather was in WWII and found a closed system totalitarian religion to raise his family in.

But what happens when the world inevitably breaks in, shattering the illusion of a completely coherent and unassailable worldview?

From 1945 to 2014 represents a massive shift in the identity and perception of that identity in the life of the United States. The embodiment of mid-twentieth century ideals in the midst of present reality provides a stark contrast that could be disturbing. But in Captain America they aren’t because Steve Rodgers embodies what we want to be true about America.

Winter Soldier brings the audience face to face with the corruption of institutions. Every institution is corrupted over time. Some fast and some slow, but every corporate entity falls apart. Entities structured around communism fall apart fast. But then all institutions centered on the way money gets distributed tend to degrade quickly. Money and Power always change the game.

The grand idea of SHIELD is a task force to protect against global threats. But it’s twisted and pushed by Hydra into equating protection with proactive elimination . Sound familiar? Self-interest would remake the world in its own image.

Self-Interest demands that we continue in the lifestyle we have become accustom to, no matter what that lifestyle is. So, those in power or with the money make it easier on themselves to stay in power and keep the money. Institutions get away with it more easily because of diffused responsibility. No one single person is culpable and that negates the guilt of everyone.

Captain America’s solution is the dissolution of SHIELD. One of those literary inciting events that the storyteller can’t come back from – even if they wanted to the door is now closed to that plot device. But starting over, starting new institutions just delays the problem a little while. What we need is a different way.

Self-denial isn’t a popular course of action. It hasn’t been ever in the history of the world. But in the wake of Easter, maybe it is better not to hurry back to our normal lives. Better to remember the most influential man in history had no money or political power. And when we are long dead and our tiny kingdoms are nothing but sand, his name will still be considered, debated, and worshiped.

In the chapter titled “The Grand Inquisitor” in The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky’s Christ doesn’t speak but what is revealed by the leader of the Spanish Inquisition (an Institutional position) is a god fiercely devoted to the freedom of his people. Institutions are set up to protect a legacy. But institutional legacy often falls into the trap of believing a set of values displayed in a specific time and place represent timeless truths which lead to things like the Inquisition.

Institutional legacy is grounded in power. Freedom is grounded in love. 

Love enough to respect the choices of the Other even when we disagree with them. 

“There must always remain, however, from the standpoint of normal waking consciousness, a certain baffling inconsistency between the wisdom brought forth from the deep, and the prudence usually found to be effective in the light world. Hence the common divorce of opportunism from virtue and the resultant degeneration of human existence. Martyrdom is for saints, but the common people have their institutions, and these cannot be left to grow like lilies of the field; Peter keeps drawing his sword, as in the garden, to defend the creator and sustainer of the world. The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalized into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero to refresh the word.”