Ic -- it's not that people like you shouldn't exist, it's that people like you shouldn't need to exist.
There's a distinction.
I'll admit that when I see the costumes and the boy-scout-altruism, it does strike me as cheesy, corny, hokey.. but damn, what else can you do? The costume gives you freedom to just DO GOOD, even just small bits of good, and to enjoy the bits of good you can do, without you-the-real-you suffering the snarky backlash, the askew glances, the intense scrutiny as to why you're doing things the way you're doing things and why not do them THIS WAY instead?
The vigilantes... well, battle not with monsters. I can't say I would ever support anyone ever doing anything like that, but neither could I say that I don't hope they succeed.. but they never will, it's not the criminals individually but the social structure that creates them that needs destroyed. And nobody can do that. If crime is the disease, vigilantes like that are the fever. Ostensibly destroying the disease but in the end nearly as dangerous.
Keep your mask on, dude.
Just like a criminal, the mask gives you impunity.. but not to do evil deeds. The impunity to do good where others would be paralyzed by social stigma from acting. The impunity to do silly things that make people happy, that make their lives better. No one can think any differently of you as a person regardless of what you do under the mask. No one can give you grief for not doing enough, or for doing too much, or for doing one thing when they think you should have been doing another.
There's a distinction.
I'll admit that when I see the costumes and the boy-scout-altruism, it does strike me as cheesy, corny, hokey.. but damn, what else can you do? The costume gives you freedom to just DO GOOD, even just small bits of good, and to enjoy the bits of good you can do, without you-the-real-you suffering the snarky backlash, the askew glances, the intense scrutiny as to why you're doing things the way you're doing things and why not do them THIS WAY instead?
The vigilantes... well, battle not with monsters. I can't say I would ever support anyone ever doing anything like that, but neither could I say that I don't hope they succeed.. but they never will, it's not the criminals individually but the social structure that creates them that needs destroyed. And nobody can do that. If crime is the disease, vigilantes like that are the fever. Ostensibly destroying the disease but in the end nearly as dangerous.
Keep your mask on, dude.
Just like a criminal, the mask gives you impunity.. but not to do evil deeds. The impunity to do good where others would be paralyzed by social stigma from acting. The impunity to do silly things that make people happy, that make their lives better. No one can think any differently of you as a person regardless of what you do under the mask. No one can give you grief for not doing enough, or for doing too much, or for doing one thing when they think you should have been doing another.