22 May, 2007

The Sandman and Spiderman should have teamed up!

Megan makes a good point:

[I]f the Sandman and Spiderman could have just gotten away from their positional stances (“I need to take money” and “I need to catch crooks” respectively), to their underlying interests (“I need to help my little girl” and “Dude, I’m all about helping the people”), they could have found some common ground. There was opportunity there, and it could have saved a lot of expensive plate glass and I-beams and cars being thrown about.

True, but my question is this: What if “I need to take money” was the Sandman’s underlying interest and “I need to help my little girl” just a rationalization, and thus a positional stance for himself? Heck, even Spiderman could have had a crook-catching fetish, and the altruism, and the story that the comic books and films tell us, could have come later. I haven’t seen the latest Spidey flick, actually, but who can tell the difference between reason and rationalization? Huh?

(Link via Marginal Revolution.)