Spider-Man Ethics
Why it’s right to hate rich people
I’ve loved Spider-Man since I was a kid. Many of you love him, too. And it’s not just the costume, or the powers, or the way he cracks jokes as he takes out the bad guys.
We love Spider-Man because we love Peter Parker, the science nerd, the awkward teenager, the kid who always does the right thing, or tries to, at least. And we love him because he has a code, one given to him by his Uncle Ben. It’s one of the most famous lines in comic book history:
With great power comes great responsibility.
Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man, and the very first thing he does is find ways to help people. With all that power, he could have done anything, could have been as selfish as he wanted, but he chose to sacrifice; he chose to put his life on the line, again and again, to keep others from harm and defend his community. It may be just a story, but it’s also exactly what we want, from ourselves, and from those around us. Spider-Man is a superhero, but he is also a great American, and that, I believe, is his true appeal.
That is why we love him, and that is why we should love him. Because he is the American we all want to be, and he is the American we all want to know.
In the real world, there are no comic book superpowers. No one can fly or stop a freight train with their bare hands. In the real world, power operates differently; it doesn’t manifest in the strength of one’s arm, or in the ability to see through solid objects. In a capitalist society like ours, that exists in the real world, power can be measured in wealth.
But instead of using their superpowers to make the world a better place, our wealth class instead uses their power to oppress, to gain more power, and then to oppress some more. Instead of superheroes, we have parasites who grow their power by draining us of the power that once was ours. To them, great power comes with no responsibility at all.
In America today, there are people so rich and so powerful that they could end a great many of our problems. They could be superheroes for real. For example, Elon Musk could end homelessness in America forever just by wanting to, but he doesn’t, and he never will. Jeff Bezos could end poverty in America all by himself, but he’d rather fly into space in a penis rocket. A dozen others could do everything from build a better electric grid to cure cancer, but they won’t. They’re too busy thinking up new ways to make us hate them.
But the most frustrating thing about our wealth class is their lack of vision. This is what makes them the absolute worst of us. I mean, they never buy the right things. They buy yachts and Senators, yet none of them seem to be interested in purchasing a legacy. They could be remembered forever. They could be loved. They have a chance to be our Spider-Man, but they just won’t take it.
We need heroes, and all we have are supervillains. That’s why we hate them.
And that’s why we should hate them.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days fighting for working families as the Executive Producer of The Rick Smith Show, and his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.