Graphic novels filled with superpowers, costumes, and secret identities seem an escape from reality. However, because the characters can break the law with impunity, graphic novels are a place to explore important moral questions. As Alan Moore notes in his classic graphic novel Watchmen, the term “superpower” is also used to describe the United States in the decades following the second world war. The economic and military might of the United States allowed national security officials to act with impunity, confronting them with the moral questions explored in graphic novels.
In Watchmen, Moore introduces us to “masked adventurers” who blur the line between hero and villain. The story begins with the murder of The Comedian, a ruthless mercenary employed by the government. That murder is investigated by Rorschach, a fanatic unwilling to compromise his principles. The investigation leads us to Ozymandias, the “smartest man in the world,” forecasting the future and judging his actions by their consequences. Seeing the future even more clearly is Dr. Manhattan, a scientist accidentally transformed into a being of such power and intelligence that he is losing his connection to humanity.
Differences in values bring these characters into conflict. We learn that Ozymandias murdered The Comedian to protect an elaborate conspiracy. Ozymandias has foreseen a devastating nuclear war and intends to avert it by uniting humanity against an alien invasion. Simulating the invasion will kill millions, but Ozymandias believes he is justified by the billions he will save. After executing his plan, he explains to Dr. Manhattan,
I know people think me callous, but I’ve made myself feel every death…. I know I’ve struggled across the backs of murdered innocents to save humanity…. but someone had to take the weight of that awful, necessary crime….1
We encounter the term “watchmen” in the graphic novel as graffiti. Protestors demanding that the government control masked adventurers paint a wall with the message, “Who watches the watchmen?” We encounter that message again at the end in a quote from a real 1987 report on misbehavior by national security officials in the United States.
In a scathing biography, David Talbot recounts the choices of one such official, Allen Dulles of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Dulles began his career as a Wall Street lawyer before joining the precursor of the CIA during the second world war. Dulles became director of the CIA under Eisenhower and continued until dismissed by Kennedy following the disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Under the leadership of Dulles, the CIA ranged far beyond traditional moral boundaries, engaging in torture, political assassination, and even experiments with mind control. When he died in 1969, CIA officials wrote a eulogy to be delivered at his funeral. Talbot writes,
[T]he minister stood up in his church—whose pews were filled with the solemn ranks of CIA spooks and political dignitaries—and recited the eulogy as instructed. “It is as a splendid watchman that many of us saw him,” he declared, “a famous and trusted figure in clear outline on the American ramparts, seeing that the nation could not be surprised in its sleep or be overcome in the night.
“It fell to Allen Dulles to perfect a new kind of protection,” continued the preacher, not knowing how ironic the words he spoke were. “[F]or us, as for him, patriotism sets no bounds on…the defense of freedom and liberty.”
Dulles’s funeral oration was a celebration of the lawless era that he had inaugurated. Under Dulles, America’s intelligence system had become a dark and invasive force—at home and abroad—violating citizens’ privacy, kidnapping, torturing, and killing at will. His legacy would be carried far into the future by men and women who shared his philosophy about the boundless authority of the national security system’s “splendid watchmen.”2
If, like Ozymandias, we judge actions by their consequences, we cannot evaluate the choices of Dulles without knowing what he achieved. His failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs caused the death or capture of thousands. However, even Dulles victories often brought great suffering. For example, in 1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and gave power to the shah. A CIA report celebrated the coup as “a day that should never have ended.” Talbot writes,
All hope for change was ripped from the hearts of the Iranian people, replaced by poisonous seeds whose bitter fruit grew slowly over the next two decades. The shah ultimately reaped what he had sown, driven into his final exile in 1979 by a popular revolt led by the country’s Islamic mandarins, the only oppositional sector of Iranian society not crushed by the…regime. The Americans and Iranians are still paying for “the day that should never have ended.”3
The Islamist government of Iran has repeatedly come into violent conflict with the United States. Dulles did not intend to establish a regime hostile to the United States. He was a clever and accomplished man who oversaw sophisticated operations and outmaneuvered determined enemies. However, a problem with choosing our actions based solely on their consequences is the difficulty of foreseeing all consequences.
Apparent conflict between choices based on virtue and choices based on consequences may reflect failure to foresee all consequences. Confucius teaches that by behaving virtuously we teach virtue to others. Conversely, our cruelty teaches others to be cruel. Violence and threats of violence can have desirable immediate effects by changing incentives but negative long-term effects by changing values. Confucius argues that in the long term coercion is less beneficial than modelling virtue.
If you try to guide the common people with coercive regulations and keep them in line with punishments, the common people will become evasive and will have no sense of shame. If, however, you guide them with Virtue, and keep them in line by means of ritual, the people will have a sense of shame and will rectify themselves.4
Confucius teaches that modelling virtue is such an effective way of correcting behavior that the best leaders can bring order without apparent effort, a process he calls “wu-wei,” or effortless action. Describing a sage king, Confucius says,
Is Shun not an example of someone who ruled by means of wu-wei? What did he do? He made himself reverent and took his proper [ritual] position facing south, that is all.5
Our world is complex, and the consequences of our actions tumble into the future through channels we never imagined. During the revolution that overthrew the shah in Iran, the embassy of the United States was stormed and hostages taken. The United States responded by prohibiting the sale of weapons to Iran. The Reagan administration secretly defied that prohibition, using the proceeds to fund a war in Nicaragua. Moore takes the quote “Who watches the watchmen?” from a report on that affair.
In Watchmen, Ozymandias outmaneuvers his opponents, even the powerful Dr. Manhattan, and succeeds in simulating an alien invasion. However, Moore leaves ambiguous whether the plan will benefit humanity. Not even the “smartest man in the world” can foresee all of the consequences of his actions. After explaining his moral reasoning to Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias seeks reassurance, claiming it all worked out in the end. To which Dr. Manhattan responds,
“In the end”? Nothing ends…. Nothing ever ends.6
- Alan Moore, Watchmen, page 27 of Chapter 12.
- David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government (London: William Collins, 2015), pp. 616 – 617.
- Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, pp. 240 – 241.
- Confucius: Analects, with selections from traditional commentaries, trans. Edward Slingerland (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003), 8.
- Confucius, 175.
- Moore, Watchmen, page 27 of issue 12.