Truth, Justice and the American Way

Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.

– Lex Luthor, Super Villain

My middle child is 11 and he likes superhero movies. On nights when I’m home, we watch different ones. He curls up beside me, my 12-year-old takes the other side and my dog wedges himself in as well. Last night we watched The Guardians of the Galaxy for about the 10th time.

Given my son’s interest in superheroes, I told him that I too was a big superhero fan and that the greatest comic book I ever read was Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. I also offered to buy him a copy. That’s the excuse I made anyway.

In reality I was buying it for myself. I was not just looking to be entertained. The Dark Knight comic is one of the most powerful memories of my childhood; something that has stuck with me for more than 30 years. In short, I was wondering if the raw truth I discovered a long time ago was still true, and if so I hoped to reveal it to my son.

Watching the “Super Friends” television show as a kid on Saturday mornings in the 1970s gave the impression of shared vision and sacrifice among the different superheroes. Now that I’m grown up, I realize that this kumbaya vision among superheroes is impossible. Frank Miller’s vision was closer to the truth of how these characters would really act and think. Superman is a person of the system, upholding American values; he submits to U.S. authorities, offering himself as a weapon of war unleashed at the behest of the president. Batman answers only to himself and his internal demons. He’s looking for truth and justice just like Superman, but he is definitely not doing it the “American Way.” Should we follow the Superman “American Way” model or should we question the system and go with a more Dark Knight approach?

My search for the truth in nonconventional sources has been going on for a long time, well beyond the Dark Knight. I have been reading several newspapers a day for at least 30 years. Three of them—The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The New York Times—are considered papers of record. But The New York Post was my first, since I was nine years old, and I am sticking with that one as well. Why? Initially, because it had the best sports section in town, but over the long term it was because I needed to know other perspectives if I wanted to communicate the same to others. I can’t just step outside the ivory tower once in a while; I have to live there.

Is there more truth in the words of Peter Drucker, Joseph Schumpeter, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, John Maynard Keynes, Ayn Rand and Larry Summers than there is in the pages of The New York Post or The Dark Night Returns? For much of the population, there isn’t. These and other elite professors, economists and philosophers are viewed by many as the watchmen looking over our world and U.S. economy from an unapproachable ivory tower. They have been appropriately afforded deference and respect, but something seems to have changed recently. The ideas of the elites have never been more called into question and it is these non-conventional sources that are not only asking the hardest questions, but often revealing the deepest truths.

There are many sources for the truth. Who is watching the watchmen? We are.

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