“What hope is there for Gotham when good men do nothing?

People react to change in many ways, with varying degrees of emotion and reason. Despite this diversity, every human response to an event, action, or shift falls lies between between two extremes: complacency – apathetic, disregarding, unconcerned – and outrage – startled, stirred, passionate. Though many argue that all things should be done in moderation, none seriously claim that all extremes pose equal perils. As Naomi Littlebear once said, “Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage,” and indeed, the former endangers society, while the latter can often preserve it.

Complacency enables deception. Ultimately it enables evil. In the film Batman Begins, a young district attorney conjures a compelling question for the caped crusader: What hope is there for Gotham when good men do nothing? The unspoken answer, of course, is None; “doing nothing,” the very soul of complacency, can bring about no change. The complacent in the world would say that “things will work out,” that “you shouldn’t worry,” that “it’s someone else’s problem.” Homelessness? Someone else’s problem. Racism? Someone else’s problem. Genocide? The same. Apathy easily grows, flowering into fruits of failure. Apathy never brings about good, and often allows evil.

Outrage, by contrasts, protects truth and justice. When when outraged citizens challenge, rather than ignore, troubling matters, the outcome cannot fail to be positive. For that which is right shall stand up to the scrutiny of misplaced outrage; but, unable to sustain itself against truth, that which is wrong, that which advances evil, falls before the righteous onslaught of justified dismay. Outrage looks at homelessness, at racism, at genocide, and demands action, cries out for change. If outrage carries its courses too far, opposing outrage checks it, restraining it from excessive action (if not from excessive passion); thus, this emotion becomes for itself a restraint against its own dangers.

Littlebear’s perceptive statements bears far-reaching implications for modern society. Today, convenience saturates the world. At every turn, life brings on-demand entertainment and instant gratification. Widespread complacence results, the product of a couch culture and the freedom not to care. Humanity must wake up, stepping away from its echo chamber of self-pursuit. We must never fear to be passionate, to be outraged, in the pursuit of what is right and true. For only then, when the “good men” do something, will hope endure.