Transformers and Philosophy Page 23

  Compassion is for fools!

  Megatron is not merely a homicidal megalomaniac, but also a manipulative paranoid who consistently abuses his reckless power just to make others suffer. Just what you want in a leader.

  Of course, you’d want the right leader for the right situation. Megatron clings to power not merely because he lusts for more and more control. He really believes that he is the best leader for the Decepticons. His exemplification of all that the Decepticons must stand for fully entitles him to his leadership status. Without Megatron, the Decepticons probably would have been defeated long ago (regardless of what Starscream may think). He really is the heart and soul of the Decepticons, representing everything that they truly are. And the Decepticons do stand for something, something more than just serving Megatron and his grand schemes.

  Just exactly what the Decepticons might stand for is a matter that mostly eludes the other Decepticons. You won’t hear anything too sophisticated from that bunch. Occasionally Starscream will let loose with complaints against Megatron, indicating how he sees things. It’s mostly about whether the Decepticons are currently winning or losing, and who’s to blame when things go wrong, and what Starscream would do differently. No, Starscream is no philosopher. If you want to hear about the big picture, about how it is more than survival and victory at stake, you have to listen carefully to Megatron.

  Megatron’s Evil Philosophy

  Like Optimus Prime, Megatron is not above enunciating the core principles animating their perpetual struggle. Good and evil don’t mix, to be sure. But good and evil don’t bother fighting for all eternity unless there are contrasting visions, competing philosophies, trying to gain supremacy. Sure, sure, good must try to defeat evil. But it’s never really that simple. The really interesting devils of religions, devils with developed characters and important roles to play in the cosmic drama, have unique perspectives on the play worth hearing out. Consider the way that Angra Mainyu plays counterpoint to Zoroastrianism’s Ahura Mazda, or how Satan just can’t help teasing Christianity’s Yahweh. Lex Luthor didn’t find his purpose in life until Superman came along. And the Joker finds his alter-ego in Batman.

  Myth and legend agree with art and literature. Evil, true evil, has just a much a right to a fully articulated version of things, its own valid (if regrettable) perspective from which to make a stand. This is as true about evil as it is about good. That’s just the reality of evil. It’s not right, it’s not just, it’s not fair. And sometimes it just doesn’t make any sense. But that’s just the way it is. Unless evil is just as real as good—unless evil is a serious philosophy of life that could really tempt and sway and infect and pervert—goodness and righteousness just wouldn’t make any sense either. They are the cosmic yin and yang, the universe’s balancing act.

  Somehow, Megatron is dimly aware of this. It’s in the way that he takes special pleasure taunting and goading the Autobots. Megatron feels compelled to thwart the Autobots, as if he senses that he and the Decepticons really are crucially important to the universe. This attitude goes way beyond mere megalomania. It’s one thing to follow the devil; it’s quite another to think that you are the devil. Now there’s a cosmic role worthy of Megatron.

  Megatron flamboyantly plays the satanic role to the hilt, and not just in his evil deeds. Megatron shows nothing but utter contempt for the Autobots’ self-righteous moralizing. Their concern for each other. Their code of honor. Their rules. While these things deeply annoy and bemuse Megatron, he sees more deeply into the Autobots than that. If you had to put your finger on precisely what disgusts Megatron the most about the Autobots, it would probably be the way that the Autobots care for humans. He just can’t wrap his circuitry around that bizarre relationship. Why would any mighty transformer go out of his way to protect the puny life forms infesting Earth? In Megatron’s words,

  Humans don’t deserve to live!

  In Megatron’s evil philosophy, Might makes Right. The Strong not only rule, but it is Right that they rule. By implication, the weak must die. If the weak are allowed to live and proliferate, then everything around them becomes weaker as well, by Megatron’s logic. A strange logic, to be sure. You have to see how Strength only remains strong through continual struggle. Only the constant repetitive exercise of strength can maintain it. And the best way to exercise strength is battle. Not exercise, not practice, not games. Only real battle, when everything is on the line, supplies enough motivation to the winner and enough penalty to the loser. If the weak aren’t attacked, if they aren’t getting eliminated, then the strong aren’t staying strong. In Megatron’s words,

  Strike! Strike! With all the might at our command! Death to the Autobots and the decay that they stand for!

  By the strange logic of Strength, the only alternative to growth is decay: there can be no compromise, no toleration of the weak. Megatron tries over and over to get this through the Autobots’ thick metal skulls.

  OPTIMUS PRIME: It’s you and me, Megatron . . .

  MEGATRON: No, it’s just me, Prime!

  OPTIMUS PRIME: At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall!

  MEGATRON: You still fight for the weak! That is why you lose!

  In a war, only true Strength can prevail. The eventual outcome of the titanic battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons remains in doubt. But there’s no doubt in Megatron’s mind what the glorious utopian outcome will be. The Decepticons will control Cybertron and spread throughout all the galaxy and beyond, with Megatron in supreme command forever.

  In Megatron’s electronic dreams, with the transformers wars over and only domination of the weak to look forward to, the Deceptions will enter a final glorious stage of peaceful existence. Only in Megatron’s delusional fantasies could this make good sense, but by the logic of Strength, continual war against the weak by those in supreme power is exactly the final peaceful solution to all the struggles of existence. As Megatron puts it, in his witty manner of cybernetic brevity,

  Peace though tyranny.

  Fascism

  “Peace through tyranny.” That’s sounds an awful lot like those paradoxical slogans of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” Like Orwell’s fictional Party holding totalitarian domination over everything, the Decepticons would hold the universe in absolute control. Paradoxes express seeming contradictions. Could peace be achieved through tyranny?

  Megatron’s philosophy of Strength could only work under conditions of continual war. If war is not immediately available, it must be sought out or it must be artificially created. The struggle for survival can never end, for if struggle ceases, so does Strength. Peace cannot really be any sort of goal for the philosophy of Strength.

  The only way to make any sense of the phrase “Peace through tyranny” is to take “peace” to mean that one supreme power dominates everything. It can’t mean “peace” in the ordinary sense, when there is no conflict. Rather, the “peace” that a tyranny enjoys is the peace of knowing that nothing will overthrow the dictators, and that the dictators control all the violence. The peace enforced by the tyranny has ended all significant wars between groups of the weak. There really is only one struggle anymore: the Weak versus the Strong.

  For more insight into this philosophy of Strength, we can turn to another megalomaniac who also rose to great power. Let’s hear from this deranged lunatic. Does this quotation sound familiar?

  Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.

  Yes, those words came from a real twentieth-century tyrant—Adolf Hitler. Here’s another quotation from Hitler:

  Only force rules. Force is the first law.

  Hitler’s philosophy of evil was a philosophy of Strength. No one would mistake Hitler for a philosopher. But he could understand and express the philosophical principles behind the philosophy of Strength. These principles resound throughout all his
writings, speeches, and proclamations.

  Hitler had a vision of leadership to match his philosophy of Strength. Not surprisingly, it again sounds a lot like Megatron’s:

  The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy.

  During the twentieth century, this philosophy of Strength suddenly erupted in central and southern Europe at a time when the nineteenth century options of Communism and Democracy were facing off against each other. It’s new label was Fascism, but it was an old philosophy. The Spartans perfected Fascism. The empire of Imperial Rome took Fascism to new heights of world domination. Military dictatorships every since have experimented with Fascism.

  During the twentieth century, these three political philosophies of Communism, Democracy, and Fascism fought for control of western civilization for about thirty years. Unlike the others, Fascism alone was designed for war. As we know, Fascism is all about war. Another Fascist, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, explained Fascism in this way:

  Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism—born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it.

  Fascism is a philosophy of Strength, and therefore it develops into a political philosophy about Perpetual War. If your first assumption about humans is that Strength is the supreme meaning of life and the highest excellence to achieve, you can draw some conclusions about politics.

  A political philosophy explains why humans need government, and argues for one form of government as the best. According to Fascism, humans need government because humans ought to be in a perpetual state of war, and only a strong government can sufficiently bind the people together for the immense effort required. Therefore, the best form of government would be the best at unifying and commanding the people in a time of war. That government is a Fascism: a military dictatorship designed to fight wars.

  The basic principles of Fascism are something like the following:

  1.Government must identify and fight the enemy (there’s always an enemy).

  2.Government must be a military organization with a supreme commander.

  3.The best rulers possess the military knowledge and skills to wage wars.

  4.The best rulers must also know how to manage society for increasing its strength.

  From these basic principles of good government, everything else so characteristic of Fascism necessarily follows. Government demands absolute and unquestioning obedience; government completely controls all social institutions and all ways of thinking; government silences any dissent and destroys any differences among the people; and government indoctrinates complete loyalty and devotion from the people towards the government and especially to its supreme leader.

  Megatron’s Fascism

  Megatron has a philosophy about the meaning of life, his philosophy of Strength. Combined with his severe megalomania and his capacity for leadership (such as it is), Megatron develops his own diminutive version of an imposing political philosophy: political Fascism.

  By contrast, the Autobots don’t stand for any political philosophy. We can’t get much of an idea of what life would like under the rule of the Autobots. But that notion strikes us as odd. Autobots as rulers? No, that doesn’t seem part of their plan at all. The Autobots do exemplify a contrasting philosophy of life, based on compassion, honor, freedom, and peace. “Til all are One,” as Optimus Prime so touchingly puts it. But the co-operative “One” envisioned by Optimus is hardly anything like the commanded “One” dreamed by Megatron. If it needs a label, we might fittingly use Community for Optimus Prime’s vision for life in the universe. The Autobots are fighting against the Decepticons to save the universe from Fascism. But the Autobots have no way of imposing Community on us, either. Optimus Prime is not designed to become a benevolent monarch. Rather, Optimus represents an ethical ideal, that only we the people would have to try to put into practice.

  In the meantime, as we struggle for community (the true meaning of pacifism, by the way), we can stay motivated and on course by conjuring up the devil and his temptations. We can imagine more Megatrons, waiting for any opportunity. When we feel weak and scared, when we feel frustrated, when we wish for fast action and quick victory—that’s when a fresh Megatron sets aside the disguise and stands up among us. Announces he’s recruiting followers. Promises revenge and pride, glory and riches. Sounds tempting, no?

  Which are you, deep down inside? Are you an Autobot, or a Decepticon? Megatron’s waiting for an answer, and you really don’t want to keep him waiting!

  15

  Are Ethical War-Bots Possible?

  DAVID R. KOEPSELL

  I was in the midst of my teenage years when the first Transformers series aired in the United States. While it was clearly primarily a means of peddling Hasbro’s toys, which admittedly stoked the lust of any young boy (they’re trucks, they’re robots, what more could a boy want?), there was a more-or-less consistent and sustained story line that held the series together, and could even be compelling.

  As with most non-comic cartoons of the era, there were obvious heroes and outrageous villains. I had grown up with the first wave of Japanese animation which aired as reruns in my early childhood. Prince Planet (also known as Astroboy) battled Warlock throughout most of the run of its fifty-two episodes. Prince Planet, like the Transformers, came from another planet as some sort of savior, and chose to help humans whenever and wherever he could.

  Prince Planet, while aided by technology (his amulet of power, which needed occasional re-charging) was biological, and so his motivations to do good were not in doubt. He had come to determine whether Earth was ready to attain status in the Galactic Union of Worlds, and became sympathetic to humanity, assisting it where he could, serving as a moral example of how advanced interplanetary people could behave. There’s a theme here. The Transformer plight, and the moral context of their appearance on Earth, are similar to that of Prince Planet.

  In both the TV series and the recent Transformers movie, we’re offered a vision of robots as “life forms,” some of whom are clearly intended to be models of moral behavior, and others of whom are clearly evil. In the TV show, the Transformers came to Earth quite by accident, and unfortunately both the good and evil factions crashed and became intertwined with the fate of the Earth. In the movie, both good and evil Transformers come in search of the “All-spark” but for different reasons. These conflicting reasons and the ongoing battle between good and evil Transformers in both the TV series and the movie are more-or-less identical.

  Optimus Prime and his nemesis Megatron are the quintessence of good and evil, locked forever in battle, with the fate of the Earth in the balance. In the TV episodes, and for much of the movie, it’s up to Optimus Prime and his cohorts to subdue the unbridled will to power and destruction of Megatron, and to save the people of Earth in the process. Optimus Prime and his friends are larger-than-life embodiments of selfless sacrifice and honor, exhibiting virtues that are mirrored by their human compatriots.

  Megatron and his minions are the polar opposites, driven by nothing more than desires, hatred, and greed, threatening the futures of both Earth and Cybertron. The morality of the Autobots, headed by Optimus Prime, and the immorality of the Decepticons, headed by Megatron, are clear. No one can doubt their moral status. (Or can they? See Chapters 11 and 12 in this volume.) Before examining what this means, and the question of whether and in what manner robots could possibly be “moral,” let’s look at some classic examples, from both the TV show and the movie, that illustrate the virtues of the Autobots, and the evilness of the Decepticons.
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  Automated Evil

  In the TV series, Megatron and the other Decepticons first go to war with the Autobots in order to take over the planet Cybertron, and eventually secure domination of the universe (the only worthy desire of any arch-villain). The battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons comes to a pitch as Cybertron is running out of energy, and both the good and bad robots try to venture into the galaxy to find new sources of energy. In the ensuing space battle, the ships become intertwined, and crash-land on Earth, where four million years later, when all the robots are revived automatically, they find themselves in the midst of present-day humanity.

  For the Decepticons, twentieth-century human technology offers vast reserves of power which can finally help ensure total domination of the universe, and for the Autobots, their mission becomes to save humanity from the Decepticons. The plotline in the movie is sufficiently similar, and exposes the dual natures of the robots from Cybertron. Examples of Decepticon evilness and Autobot virtue abound in both the movie and the series.

  Megatron’s only motivation for action is his desire for power, and in the series, he has among his minions a challenger, Starscream, who is constantly vying for power. The raw, brute, and unbridled quest for power and domination that compels the Decepticons is at the heart of their lack of virtue. They are often cowardly, with the possible exception of Megatron, but even he looks out only for himself, never for his minions. They are impelled by vanity and pride to vanquish not just the Autobots, but the whole universe.

  Their greed and desire lead them always to their temporary defeats at the hands of the Autobots, all of whom exhibit the Aristotelian virtues, and serve as moral models for their human friends. Or if we wish to be Kantians, they act only according to their duties, impelled by the categorical imperative. The Autobots’ duties often conflict with their desires, preventing them sometimes from leaving earth, and requiring them to sacrifice their own goods for the sake of the earthlings’ needs. Or finally, if we are utilitarians, then we can see the good of the Autobots in attempting to maximize the pleasure of all, including humanity, by thwarting the Decepticons who seek to increase their pleasure at the expense of that of the rest of the universe.