In Avengers: Infinity War, the universe is
threatened by Thanos, a gigantic purple alien whose stated goal is the wipe out half of
the population of all known existence. One by one, he collects the infinity stones. With all six in his gauntlet, he can snap
his fingers and achieve his goal. The Avengers fail to stop Thanos, resulting
in the aforementioned catastrophic loss of life. In the comic books, Thanos wants to wipe out
half the population to impress Death, a woman he loves but has no interest in him. Basically, he's the universe's most powerful
incel. But in the film, his motivation is different. Thanos snaps his fingers to perform his grisly
task because he believe it's a “mercy” – the universe, he claims, only has so many
resources and far too many people. In doing so, he says, he will actually save
the universe. Thanos is...wrong. He's wrong. He's wrong for a lot of reasons but not only
the reasons stated in YouTube videos and fandom articles filled with Marvel Comics lore and
talk of plot holes. He's wrong because his arithmetic is wrong
and because he is blaming resource drain on the people instead of the real source of the
problem – capitalism. Oh yeah. It's one of those videos. Because of the way our discourse and politics
inform popular culture and how popular culture informs our discourse and politics, the subject
of overpopulation has once again returned to media. Not only because of Infinity War, this topic
becomes popular once a generation, but with the most successful movie in the world having
overpopulation as its subject, the reintroduction of overpopulation in serious news articles
written by serious people was inevitable. Also, with the return of fascist ideology
as an semi-acceptable talking point – so long as we call it something else – we now
have the perfect incubator for the rebirth of this wrong-headed idea. Right-wing buzz words like “overpopulation”
often contain conversations using Thanos as their example to explain eugenics, racism
and capitalism. As this has become part of the discourse now,
I will also use Thanos as my example to more explicitly oppose the very same. Thanos is wrong. There is enough food – more than enough,
in fact. We just don't allocate it properly under our
current economic system. There is enough space – more than enough,
in fact. There is enough energy. We just don't utilize renewable energy sources
because they are not as profitable as non-renewable energy sources under our current economic
system. The problem...is capitalism. Not those of us living under capitalism, the
vast majority of us in the middle to lower classes, meaning the people who do not benefit
from capitalism. But first, some necessary background on overpopulation
and eugenics. In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus wrote “An
Essay on the Principle of Population” in which he laid out his theory about overpopulation. To summarize, he believed that eventually
there would be more people than the world could feed. His solution was to find a way to prevent
population growth by killing the poor. “Instead of recommending cleanliness to
the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower,
crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages
near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome
situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific
remedies for ravaging diseases: and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have
thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation
of particular disorders.” Malthus was the Thanos of his day, and he
justified his proposals much in the same way. Malthus was wrong because he did not foresee
that food production would drastically increase in the coming centuries, but we'll get into
dunking on him later. For now...did you notice something about that
quote? I mean, besides that it advocated reintroducing
the bubonic plague? He didn't say kill...some people. He said kill...the poor. Much as it is today, the poor in the 18th
century were blamed for their own poverty, and the upper class believed that helping
the poor would decrease the overall quality life, which really only means the quality
of life for said upper class. This made capitalism under the industrial
revolution a conflict for survival. Work hard, gain property, gain wealth and
maybe you won't be part of the next culling of the filthy poors. Although Malthus did not use the word, what
he was advocating is a form of eugenics, a series of beliefs and practices with the stated
goal of improving the “genetic quality” of the human population and the secondary
goal of excluding groups judged to be inferior. Most commonly, these groups are the poor,
the non-white and anyone who the eugenicists claim should not be part of what they view
as their perfect human population. Eugenicists wished to raise the rate of population
among people who they believed had “desirable traits” and lower the rate of population
among people who they believed had “undesirable” traits. This was instituted through forced sterilization
and marriage restrictions – and later, much worse. Who decides who is desirable? Well, those with power, and under capitalism
that means those with means and the ability to influence politics with said means. Eugenics as a more popular theory rose to
prominence in the western world partially as a response to labor questioning their place
in the capitalist system. Eugenics sought to create scientific justification
for the status quo – “the way things are” – through quackery like judging human beings
based on skull shape. These “sciences” were used as justification
for imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, by claiming that races who the Europeans wanted
to colonize and enslave were “inferior” anyway, and that nature itself granted permission
for this endeavor. Eugenics was huge in America and not only
as theory but as practice. Throughout the first six decades of the 20th
century, hundreds of thousands of Americans were not permitted to continue their families
by reproducing. This is a map of sterilization in America
in 1913, which seems like this is ancient history, but the Federal Sterilization Regulations
that curtailed much of this wasn't instituted until 1978, and even now, it's not always
consistently enforced. Thanos' method of population control might
seem more “fair” than that of real world eugenicists – he claims that his finger
snap will kill half the population at random rather than focus on the poor – but he is
still employing the upper class' use of eugenics by sparing someone: himself. Thanos is asked what he will do after his
mission is complete, and he remarks that he will watch the sun set on a “grateful”
universe. This implies that he has no intention of adding
himself to those who may be randomly killed with his de-population. If he knows he will be spared, then he never
intended to make himself eligible for this culling. And indeed, we see that at the end of the
movie. Those who enact eugenics always see themselves
as those who are “worthy” of being spared and “necessary” for the future. Eugenics fell out of favor for a while due
to Adolf Hitler employing it on a massive scale, and modern eugenicists cite this as
the only drawback of eugenics. Hitler, the eugenicists claim, tried to make
the master race the “wrong” way, while still believing in a master race themselves. But...no. Murdering the poor and forcibly sterilizing
so-called “undesirable” people was always bad, actually, and the Nazis' adoption of
eugenics was not a bug in the system but a feature and the inevitable end goal of a belief
that some people are more “worthy” of life than others. In The Population Myth, Social theorist and
political philosopher Murray Bookchin wrote: “...by reducing us to studies of line graphs,
bar graphs, and statistical tables, the neo-Malthusians literally freeze reality as it is. Their numerical extrapolations do not construct
any reality that is new; they mere extend, statistic by statistic, what is basically
old and given. … We are taught to accept society, behavior,
and values as they are, not as they should be or even could be. This procedure places us under the tyranny
of the status quo and divests us of any ability to think about radically changing the world. I have encountered very few books or articles
written by neo-Malthusians that question whether we should live under any kind of money economy
at all, any statist system of society, or be guided by profit oriented behavior. There are books and articles aplenty that
explain 'how to' become a 'morally responsible' banker, entrepreneur, landowner, 'developer,'
or, for all I know, arms merchant. But whether the whole system called capitalism
(forgive me!), be it corporate in the west or bureaucratic in the east, must be abandoned
if we are to achieve an ecological society is rarely discussed.” OK. So...let's discuss it. Food is brought up explicitly in the film,
and that is as good a place to start as any. Remember Malthus, that great big piece of
sh*t? His projections about population growth and
food production were wrong. Technological advances has made the rate of
food production explode – far more than the explosion of population. Not only is enough food produced that the
whole world could be fed, but enough food is produced that the whole world could have
a lot left over. So, why are so many people starving? It's not because of a surplus population if
food production far exceeds the population. Malthus talked of mathematics justifying his
beliefs. Well, the real math does not lie. People continue to be hungry because of the
economic system that does not distribute food based on need but based on whether or not
people have “earned” the food under said system – a system, by the way, they did
not choose but are forced to live under. Governments are paying farmers to cut back
their harvests, as we have run out of storage space. Under capitalism, this is preferable to having
an excess amount of food and simply giving it to people in need. Companies that make an excess of food generally
dispose of it rather than giving it away too because the cost of giving it away is greater
than the cost of disposing of it. Under capitalism, a system that prioritizes
private property and profit over quality of life, this is preferable. A couple years ago, this grew to the point
that the world had a third more rice and wheat in storage than it was expected to consume,
sell or turn into fuel. The combined world surplus of wheat, corn,
rice and soya recently passed 670 million tons. To put another way, that's enough to feed
all of China for a year – just on the surplus food. The excess food that nobody uses. Governments sometimes send aid to countries
suffering from a drought or food shortage, partially because of the earned relations
and influence this gives the “giving” country over the “receiving” country. But corporations are not incentivized to do
this even though they are hoarding all the food and disposing of it. In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos claims that
his planet doomed itself by not following his population culling. For the sake of argument, let's pretend Titan
had a similar society, economy and problems as Earth. Thanos could have solved the problem by instituting
a radical economic change. Presumably, nobody did. The people of Titan could foresee their own
end, but those in power could not even imagine giving up a hierarchical economic society. This is what Mark Fisher calls “capitalist
realism” – the idea that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system
but it is also now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it due to its prevalence. Even in the face of catastrophe that could
be solved by finding an alternative or going around capitalism, we do not even consider
it. Arguments for wasting food rather than improving
the quality of life of others are supported by the hierarchical model and even philosophy
of capitalism. “The poor didn't 'earn' that food.” “It's their own fault that they're starving.” “That's just how the system works.” “This is the natural order.” Defending starvation as natural or acceptable
because of capitalist concepts is entirely common if capitalists believe in hierarchies
that benefit themselves over others. Overpopulation is not the source of world
hunger if the amount of food far exceeds the population. There is a distribution problem and a problem
of a system that decides who “deserves” food. Considering the vastness of space and the
sci-fi technology in the MCU, finding energy sources probably does not have the same challenges
as on Earth. But in either case, problems arising from
energy are not caused by overpopulation. The argument goes that so many people are
causing global warming. If we had less people, the modern eugenicists
argue, we would have less change to the climate. After all, so many people drive cars. This ignores a few key details. Over 70% of global emissions are created by
100 companies. Your individual contribution to climate change
– your “lifestyle consumption emissions” – are marginal. Even among these limited emissions, it is
not most of us – the poor and middle classes – who are to blame. The top 10% richest people in the world account
for nearly half of lifestyle consumption emissions. Energy companies have known about global warming
for a long time but have actively tried to obfuscate their role by hiring right-wing
think tanks to create false studies and by buying politicians to side with them against
anything that might hinder their profits. Believers in overpopulation would still argue
that these companies would not have to produce as much coal and oil if not for the growing
population, but that still puts the onus on the consumer and not the producer of the product
and the problem. Coal is the biggest issue, both as a cause
of emissions but also because it is significantly more profitable than wind power and solar
power. The means of production are owned by the very
few, which means very few people have decided that this is what our planet is going to be
and this is what consequences our planet will have. Capitalism provides no incentive for millionaires
and billionaires to give up their industries or restructure their industries around much
safer but less profitable energy sources. As much as popular media has demonized nuclear
power, the truth is that it causes far less harm to our atmosphere than coal. Although mining and refining uranium ore do
require large amounts of energy, nuclear reactors themselves do not produce air pollution or
carbon dioxide while operating. However, nuclear power is currently less profitable
than coal, which has made it less prevalent. The key thing is understand here is that the
cause of global warming is not overpopulation. It's a prioritization of profit over quality
of life – or even life itself. Corporations are not incentivized to save
the world under the capitalism. They are incentivized only to make money. This is, perhaps, the most laughable of all
the overpopulation arguments, so I won't take much time on it. In Avengers: Infinity War, interstellar travel
is commonplace, and gigantic space station cities can be built in the void of space itself. So, Thanos isn't worried about there simply
not being enough “room” for more people in the infinite grandeur of outer space, but
here on Earth, that is somehow an argument. “Where are we gonna put all these people?” they ask. See, they ask this as if we're all presently
stacked on top of each other or if there isn't a lot of open space left. Well, to that, I answer, have you ever heard
of Wyoming? You would be surprised how much nothing there
is. 95% of world's population is concentrated
on just 10% of world's land surface. There is so much open space to build more
cities should the circumstances arise. If we lived at the density that people live
in Manhattan, the entire global population could fit in New Zealand. Now maybe you live in Alaska, a place that
has a density so low and so spread, that if everyone on Earth lived that way, we would
need 108 Earths to fit us all. And maybe, as an Alaskan, these figures scare
you because you don't want to live anywhere with a dense population. Well, fair enough, but is that enough of a
reason to believe in culling the world population? So there isn't a line at the coffee shop? Hierarchies are usually defined by people
who believe they are high up on that hierarchy. “Genetic superiority” books were generally
written by people who believed they were among the superior race. “Overpopulation” believers are usually
people who think that they themselves should not be among those removed or among those
whose people or race or class should not be removed. And capitalism is enforced by those with the
most wealth. Hierarchies are self-serving, not serving
the quality of life of all. Belief in “overpopulation” also only aims
to serve those who believe they themselves are the “worthy” race or class who must
continue to exist. This belief is also self-serving while under
the guise of “helping” the world at large. Nearly all discourse on overpopulation places
the blame on the poor or on non-white countries even though the poor don't have much to do
with these problems, and the entire continent of Africa contributes only about 3% of the
world's greenhouse gas emissions, by far the least in both absolute and per capita terms. The overpopulation discourse from books on
the subject all the way up to Thanos memes serve as an excuse to ignore the root causes
of poverty, starvation, climate change, etc. The rich telling us why some people are poor
is like a salesman telling you why their product is the best available: they have a vested
interest in presenting it that way. Capitalist apologists can look at the fact
that there is more than enough food but some people are starving, more than enough space
but people are homeless, and more than enough sources of cleaner energy but people are facing
global warming, and still say that capitalism is not the problem. They claim things like only “crony capitalism”
is toxic or that if we just make a couple small changes to the system, it will somehow
have radical results. But disparity is its very dogma – not an
unintended side effect or anomaly. There is no...version of the system we are
using right now that can solve our problems. It cannot be reformed if capitalism is rapidly
creating more and more disparity. The idea that incredible suffering can be
removed simply be tweaking the system or putting it through mild reforms is a neoliberal fantasy. Capitalists created the aforementioned circumstances
in the world but also wish that you will address these circumstances only within the confines
of capitalism itself. Capitalism wants you to fight fire with fire
instead of looking for some water. Philosopher Fredric Jameson once remarked
that it's now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Thanos, after gaining the power of all six
infinity stones, has the power to perform this radical change. He can create a post-scarcity universe in
which everyone is fed, every planet has clean energy and so forth. But he can't imagine that. He can't imagine such a universe. It's easier for him to imagine the end of
all things than the end of the system in which we currently exist.
Thanos is a fantastic example of how films can be moving rorscarch paintings.
Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 went lengths to make it explicitly clear that Thanos is a sadist and an abuser. That fits his characterization in Infinity War. Furthermore in Infinity War Thanos thinks he's the only one that can see the truth of reality - he's a textbook narcissist. Like most narcissists he wants to be the hero. He also an abuser who enjoys hurting people who are weaker than him so how do you make hurting people weaker than you heroic? You say that it's for the greater good - Malthusian ethics. He's the rugged individualist who "makes the tough calls." Nobody in their right mind would look at a civilization that is on fire and think that adding gasoline to it would fix it. Nobody who cares about saving people would come up with this solution.
Thanos is self-evidently wrong. It's meant to be obvious enough so that actual children can see that he's wrong because actual children can come up with very obvious alternative uses for the Infinity Gauntlet. That's the point, that literal children can poke holes in this ideology. Thanos fanboys just prove Mark Fisher correct when he says that people can more easily envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism. For many real-life adult human beings it's easier to see a nakedly sadistic cartoon villain whose plan is to kill half of all intelligent life in existence as correct than that capitalism has flaws that create and/or exacerbate conditions like pollution and famine.
Thanos' philosophy is dumb because it would only take one generation(two at most) to go back to pre-snap population levels. Good job, Thanos. You delayed the process that's been going on for millions of generations, for at most 2 of them.
It's pretty disturbing the amount of people who do unironically think Thanos is in the right. Is his motive well written and incredibly interesting? Definitely. But he's definitely wrong, Doctor Strange says it best during their discussion.
....no shit?
He's the villian of the film, does anyone seriously agree with him? I mean, he's relatable and sympathetic, but it doesn't mean I agree with his plans.
Well, they call him the Mad Titan, not the Reasonable Titan.
Thanos is pretty much a great villain, but not for reasons many think of him as a great villain.
He is certainly very well written and acted character, but what makes him extra good is that akin to someone like Rorschach and Joker, neither of whom were intended to be sympathetic (Alan Moore even openly berated people who said to him that they identify with Roschach and called them psychos), he is complex written character that subterfuges and exposes the audience for what they truly are, even if that was intentional on Russo's part.
Thanos in this case represent many ideas and flaws that many people suffer today from, especially young middle class white men (who, let's face it, are the main core of his unironic fanbase), which makes him not only thematicaly relevant villain but also als makes people identify with his causes, thus revealing the inner villain inside of them.
Such as "doomsday scaremongering", that leads people to commit horrendous acts in mission of "saving the world" that didn't need any saving in the first place. An idea that takes on many forms, from more reasonable to completely insane like political radicalism.
...."underdog superiority complex", which is an idea that just because you think you are in the right and because you are in the minority of those who share your views, make you englightened and other to be "sheeple". That you are the one who sees the truth and everyone else is just blind. A trope that has been used for protagonists so often, so much, that it ingrained this stereotype in mind of people (there is nothing wrong with underdog trope in of itself though).
...."the end justifies the means" pholosophy, which makes people believe that if they think their goal is good enough and they take no pleasure from their horreoundous acts, that no matter what they commit is perfectly justifiable, nay commandable.
And even social misantropy and lack of empathy for your fellow man, so much so that you would be capable of killing your fellow man and other people, just for sake of some ideal.
It's easy to hate with characters who act like complete cartoonish monsters, even if you agree with some of things they preach, such as let's per say Light Yagami, who was just demonically cartoonish.
But because Thanos is so...humane and almost likable, he bypasses those senses and those who share these kind of views have easier time to identify with him and openly admit their support of his views, which in reality represent their own fears and desires.
I recommend Mikey Neumann’s take as a nice little follow-up.
I've been watching Leon for years, and I gotta say his content is not what is used to be. I think its cool he's started doing this kind of social/political analysis, but his points and observations aren't as strong as they used to be imo, and I don't think its because he's talking about this stuff, i'm not sure what it is.
https://youtu.be/g-eMjUidjh8