5d ago

TIL Alan Moore, the author of V for Vendetta, has a negative view of the revolutionary cultures/movements he helped inspire

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132 comments

Quotes from Moore.
With regards to protests:
"At the moment, the demonstrators seem to me to be making clearly moral moves, protesting against the ridiculous state that our banks and corporations and political leaders have brought us to.”
With regards to school shooter painting a "V"
"A horrible, pointless episode,"
With regards to corporations owning his works:
"During a drunken night it turned out that I’d sold it to the Gypsies and they had turned my baby to a life of prostitution. Occasionally they would send me glossy pictures of my child as she now was, and they would very, very kindly send me a cut of the earnings…”
Turns out if you actually listen to the man who wrote an anti-fascist, anti-capitalist work he's anti-facist and anti-capitalist. You would do well to read articles/sources and find out specifically what he has said as opposed to just forwarding clickbait titles
- You're describing the early days, though. That's what most people see remarked on. The point is about what this all turned into. He can quite specifically be quoted as referring to how toxic things seem to have become.
  
  Then quote it

Alan Moore wrote Rorschach for a fucking reason and it wasn't because "Rorschach was right!"
Moore was clearly aware of people who are sympathetic to great causes but would undermine them and destroy society just to be able to say that they were right.
Rorschach was right in many ways, but he spent his time looking down on everyone and anything else. His hate for the world was visceral and colored his perception. He was happy to destroy the world just so he could prove to himself that the world was beyond redemption.
The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'SAVE US!'...and I'll look down and whisper 'No.'
-Rorschach from Moore's Watchmen
He doesn't support these movements because they're filled to the gills with fucking Rorschachs.
- V for Vendetta had a similar message. V was really not all that much better than the people he was fighting. He tortured the fuck out of Evey in order to get her to do his bidding. I'm sure it pissed him off to a huge degree that people started adopting Guy Fawkes masks as an actual symbol of revolution. Moore chose that mask for a reason. That reason is that Guy Fawkes was both fighting oppression and trying to turn England into a theocracy.
  
  The issue with subtle critiques of facists is that facists will enjoy them non ironically.
  See Watchmen, V for vendetta, starship troopers, warhammer 40k, on and on.
  
  There's also the factor that the movie is very different from the original comic, and the folks who adopted the Guy Fawkes mask as a hacktivist icon mostly just saw the movie.
  
  trying to turn England into a theocracy.
  Oh! You come with the anti-Catholicism baked in. The Brits will love you.
  Fascinated by the continued adherence to the idea that overthrowing a monarch who is simultaneously the head of the national church is a movement toward theocracy.
- There’s like a dozen in this very thread lmao
  Moore hates idol worship. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d personally fist fight anyone that idolized him.
  
  This is slander, he'd clearly cast a tantric curse on them.
- Rorschach was very conservative and anti sex, much like the maga base. The attractive thing about that is that there's a clear right and wrong.
  Later on he'd rather be killed than to admit ozymandias being right. His diary field the hateful marginal right-wing maga-crowd that had their anger taken away by the world peace that had materialized.
  
  Ozymandias was wrong.
  He wanted power over a world scared of an "outside" threat that didn't exist. As soon as anyone with any knowledge was able to debunk the 'attack', regardless of how, it would get even worse. The difference was only how far in the future. Rorschach didn't die because Ozy was right. He died because he couldn't be complicit in a world where evil got to win.
  Ozymandias wanted to believe a heroic ideal as much as Rorschach - one that's just as self-deluded. He wanted to believe that there was an end to "history". He wanted to decide when the future began. But he forgot just one fact that Rorschach at least was cognizant of:
  Nothing ever ends, Adrian.
  None of those characters were right.
  
  He also basically tortured Moloch for no reason. No matter how many times Moloch told him he didn't have the information. He just repeatedly beat the shit out of a dying old man for information the old man didn't have.
- What part of rorschach's views are revolutionary? Rorschach is a chud. Maybe his views are extreme but not revolutionary. False equivalence be wilin
- I'll take Rorschach at this point I'm not gonna lie. Something, anything has to give, and the road we're on rn is much worse.
  Edit: lol the only replies to this are from people I had to block previously due to trolling/ignorance etc. Figures.
  
  Will you?
  
  All sounds pretty MAGA to me.
  
  We did get Rorschach. It's r/Conspiracy.

It would probably be faster to list the things he doesn't have a negative view about.
- I was about to say the same thing. Pretty much the only thing I can think of that he has a positive view of is the hand puppet he worships.
  And to his credit, he freely admits it's a hand puppet.
  
  Chaos magick isn't really about believing your own bullshit so much as getting real silly and being able to chat up witchy chicks.
- What I came in to say. He's a curmudgeon. A genius, but not the most personable.
  
  You sure?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iytGHs4Nga0

TBF Alan Moore has a negative view of the idea that anyone has ever read or enjoyed his work.

I rather don't think the movements he helped inspire would ask about his opinion though.
- Hence why appropriation is a thing.

What revolutionary culture? I've never seen any evidence that inspired revolutionary culture. Some cringe culture absolutely, but actual revolutionary culture? Nonsense.
- Have you never seen Anonymous before? They are a revolutionary group whose motif is the Guy Fawkes Mask, which is a symbol that comes directly from the character V from V for Vendetta, who wears one because his mask "is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof". Anonymous has done a lot of notable things, both good and bad, such as going after the Church of Scientology and trying to take part in the pandemic riots, and it is in response to some of this that Alan Moore has brought up the revelation or fact that Anonymous, he would tell/inform you, is excessive and misses the point, distorting his vision for social action, with him implying the same exact objection about Luigi Mangione and those who support him years later. He made characters regardless of good and evil, not models of it (heck, V admits at one point he sabotaged a train just to get his hands on real butter to go with his breakfast, an unmistakably "this must be an anti-hero" move, but everyone wants to focus on things like the "what they did was monstrous, so they made a monster" justification that wasn't meant to be taken as the doctrine it became), and he did not intend people would weaponize use of it as a platform, though most people are only aware of the initial remark of praise he gave Anonymous for combating the Scientology, which is what made it to the encyclopedias.
  
  You are really understanding Moore's point in V for Vendetta. His whole point is that good and evil are subjective. Which, as far as I can tell, is true in the real world.
  V is really not better than the people he is fighting and he has no plan for the aftermath, which will clearly be a horror show.
  And I guarantee you plenty of members of Anonymous committed their own horrible acts that would be considered evil by others. Being part of a good cause does not make you a good person.
  
  Anonymous are not a revolutionary group imo. Revolutions are bloody are done the in the streets. They're a nuisance at best.
  what they did was monstrous, so they made a monster" justification that wasn't meant to be taken as the doctrine it became), and he did not intend people would weaponize use of it as a platform,
  Personally I think that was pretty naive on Moore's part. It resonates with ppl because it's true. Revolution is often bloody and morally black because ppl have reached their breaking point.

Yeah, I feel the same way, a lot of these movements are just tyrannical government psyops waging proxy wars in the information era.
I realize that sounds like something a nutjob conspiracist would say but just look at how often the larger groups end up spouting pro-Russia and pro-Chinese sentiments, look at how forceful they are about spreading their ideologies here in the fediverse, look at an LBRY video comment section or at middle eastern talking heads.
Everyone in this whole world pretends to be a revolutionary and almost nobody is anything more than just another tool for a machine built for war and greed.
- Everyone in this whole world pretends to be a revolutionary and almost nobody is anything more than just another tool for a machine built for war and greed.
  the single most important thing you will ever learn in life, is when to recognize your level of expertise. It will benefit you to no end, and prevent you from making a fool of yourself.
  There are things that you are familiar with, and there are things that you are not familiar with. Be quiet, please. Just don't say things. Unless you know explicitly, it will be productive, in which case, do say things.
  
  I think it's better to get your opinions out there so you can face backlash when you're wrong. Where most people misstep in this hypothetical is they rarely try to look at it from their opponent's perspective and/or from an unbiased third party perspective, and instead radicalize further.
- look at how forceful they are about spreading their ideologies here in the fediverse
  You can say that again.
  
  I'm not sure if I get your point, as I'm sure happens to you quite often, are you calling the banning of discussion which is borderline illegal, inciting violence etc, and then the banning the discussion of that ban, a psyops campaign? I had to read comments in your Other Post to get a grasp of the situation.
  I feel like you really should have noticed the signs that you'd taken a wrong turn in your life when Hexbear users starting backing you up.

UK here - never used stone, LBs or pints as a measurement
If I was measuring bodyweight, I would use KG. Grams for anything light.
The only time I see Milk measured in pints, is bottles or cartons of standard dairy milk in supermarkets. Any other milk is litres, including dairy such as Jersey / Cream top milk
- How old are you? I'm mid 30s and grew up with stone for human weight, and kg for everything else.
  LBs never (except baking from old recipe books), and pints for beer only.
  I never know where the cutoff is for us lot.
  
  I'm the same age
  I found that stone was used for weight commonly up until recent times. I've been asked in person and one form what my weight is in kg (I think maybe health insurance?)
  Same with Lbs and pints, but also milk. Every standard plastic milk carton is measured in pints, usually with ml/l printed on them these days. Smallest carton? 1 pint. Most common? 4. Giant carton 6 etc
- Who wants a body massage?