Months ago, the film version of the Watchmen reached theaters. The graphic novel on which the film was based was highly celebrated, but I thought the film only middling.
One of the characters, though, caught the attention of libertarians: Rorschach, one of the costumed vigilantes who are protagonists of the novel and film.
Over at Reason magazine, Brian Doherty wrote an essay entitled, “Rorschach Doesn’t Shrug”. Doherty refers to Rorschach as an Objectivist hero. (Four quick remarks: (1) There are aspects of Rorschach that are disagreeable, (2) I know little about comics, (3) I don’t identify with comic book characters, and (4) I’m a libertarian, but not an Objectivist.) Still, it’s not hard to see, as Doherty does, that are are aspects of Rorschach that are admirable:
To be the kind of man whose highest value is to “have lived life free from compromise,” as Rorschach says, makes that man “unreasonable” in the colloquial sense—that is, you aren’t going to be able to talk them in or out of much. You are going to find them abrasive, aggravating, and in circumstances like those the characters in Watchmen find themselves in, mad, bad, and dangerous to know [note: here Doherty uses a description applied to Lord Byron]….
Yet he’s also the only man around who stands up for everyone’s right to be judged individually on the basis of their character and actions, their right not to be a means to someone else’s higher end—no matter what one might think of that end….
Rorschach judges as an individual mind, and judges individual minds. Rorschach is no handsome Rand hero as she imagined them; but he’s still probably the most vivid and well-thought-out Objectivist hero that Rand didn’t create.
Rorschach is a worthy character for another reason, too: he keeps going, despite public opposition or social contempt. He sees individuals as individuals, eschewing group favoritism, surely. Yet, he eschews group pressure, too. That’s also praiseworthy — to carry on despite futile social pressures and social scheming. An individualist in how he sees others, and how he lives his own life.
Admirable.