Opus 2026-389: Beware of Romance

I love to watch Star Wars movies.  I like the exciting graphics and special effects.  Sometimes the story is interesting.  On occasion, I can even identify with characters.  The one thing that I never get sucked into is thinking that what I’m seeing could be even close to reality.

I often use Conan the barbarian as an example.  I watched about half of one of the movies and it got so romanticize that I couldn’t go on.  If there was a real Conan the barbarian, he would not be the romantic character of the movie.  To start with, and most obvious, he would probably smell like an old unwashed cow just returned from rolling in the fertilizer of the meadow.  He wouldn’t have the smooth flawless skin you see in a movie.  He would be covered with scars, and they would be scars which were not sowed up by a doctor, but revealed gapping tissue where they healed over time.  There’s a good chance that he would be missing a number of teeth and what he had left would be so rotten that you couldn’t stand his breath.  Maybe he would be one eyed.  If you were a real fighter, he would be missing a finger or two.  He might have big lumps on his head from being clubbed to the ground.  He would probably walk with a gross lamp from a leg which was broken and never healed properly.  He would also consider theft and rape as just a matter of course.

What brings this to mind are some of the memes I see and the way in which AI artists are being used to enhance how people look.  We get a steady diet of memes that feature Ayn Rand.  I have seen her in real life interviews.  She is a significant author and an intellectual.  I would never call her attractive.  Yet when I see the artistic expressions of what she looks like in these memes she is tall, slender, and very handsome.  It’s harmless, but it’s not real.

Another type of meme has to do with lifting up manhood.  One that I recently looked at showed a man from the back and the statement had to do with being made for a war.  The idea was that the man is there to protect his family and civilization.  That’s a good thought.  It’s something we need to consider.  However, as I looked at this warrior from the back, I ran into the same problem that I run into with Conan the barbarian.  You have a narrow waist and incredibly broad shoulders.  You have massive arms.  You have every muscle standing out and clearly delineated.  You have the kind of body that pretty much can only be developed by concentrated weightlifting and a gym.  You know the kind of thing I’m talking about, where they will focus on just one muscle and do 1000 reps.

Compare those pictures to photographs that you occasionally see of real genuine barbarian warriors.  Or look back at historical photographs of Apache Indians.  If you pass them in a crowd, you would not be impressed with their physical size and proportion.  They tend to have skinny arms and often sunken chests.  They certainly don’t have massive ridges of muscles connecting every bone in their body.

There is romance, and there is reality.  It really doesn’t hurt to enjoy the artificial products of literature and art.  The problem is that when we measure those against ourselves and start feeling insignificant because our tissue hangs and doesn’t flex.  Keep in mind that characters like Conan  the barbarian do not raise productive and responsible children.  They don’t produce large quantities of food to keep others alive.  They don’t build manufacturing plants that provide the daily needs of those around them.  All they can do is destroy and show how powerful they are.

Leave them in the movies and get on with life.

homo unius libri