farewell to facebook

What happens when technology ceases to be a tool and becomes, instead, a lifestyle? As Facebook continues to gain momentum and evolve through the deployment of new social networking concepts such as Timeline, the question becomes critical as we attempt to control our identities online and in the physical world. On a broad level, the issue is the degree to which our lives – our experience of living – has become defined by technology-mediated change. Without necessarily looking to the catastrophic – our vulnerability in the event of a technological failure or collapse – the rapid changes we experience in the name of so-called progress impacts our quality of life and the way in which we relate to each other.

Superficially, Facebook has certainly earned its reputation for innovating social networking, outperforming lesser attempts such as MySpace by delivering a seamless, streamlined, user-friendly platform with which to enable connections between friends. Although in large part a sinkhole of banality, like Twitter, it is possible to achieve meaningful communication. If there’s a reason not to feel unconditional revolutionary glee at deleting my account and unshackling myself from Facebook, it comes from the loss of those meaningful connections, however robust or ephemeral. Whether on the scale of an epic or a mere tidbit being able to share images or news, Facebook made it easier for people to keep each other in mind, at no monetary cost. That counts for a lot in a culture driven by constant attention shifts, increasingly high work demands, and a fast pace of living.

Yet at what point does the price of “free and always will be” become too high? As regrettable at it is to cut off a line of communication, many of the concerns raised over the years, from privacy to (lack of) anonymity, have only magnified as Facebook has grown to encompass over 800 million users and an internet presence capable of reaching into the political processes of countries around the world. That magnification has, at last, reached the critical threshold in which Facebook is too much of a juggernaut for users to be able to effectively manage or mitigate the very real threat it presents to us on a number of different fronts. The question is, as visionary as Mark Zuckerberg might be, has he perhaps so much vision that he can no longer see his blind spots? Assuming, of course, that the peculiar ethical quandaries created by Facebook are the result of blind spots and not calculation.

When considering privacy, the challenge of preventing status updates or other posts from reaching the wrong audience – coworkers, for example – is trivial in comparison to reports of, for example, Facebook’s use of facial-recognition technology to identify and tag users in photos uploaded to the site. Combined this with Facebook’s notorious changes to privacy settings with a tendency to require users to opt-out of new features rather than opt-in, this is the sort of practice that undermines the very possibility of privacy within the network. And what about the new granular privacy controls and friend lists that ostensibly allow users to control how their information is shared? While a step in the right direction, the clunky implementation highlights the way in which privacy controls are really an afterthought layered on a network model that is fundamentally based on the idea of sharing information. In other words, Facebook is trying to force its square privacy safeguards into the round hole of its dedication to public sharing. The resulting confusion has, on a user-experience level, finally taken away the zest that made Facebook such a compelling alternative to MySpace. Instead of being fun, Facebook has now become software requiring a great deal of time and attention to sort through the various account and privacy settings, manage friends, and otherwise administer our Facebook experience. Of course, Facebook can only share what users themselves put into the network. If users don’t fill out their profile with interests, or upload photos, or share every little trivial detail of their lives, Facebook has nothing to publicize. This partly defeats the purpose of being able to share freely with friends, in the sense that in order to maintain privacy it is necessary to entirely exclude Facebook, not just particular fellow Facebook users. Crucially, this ambiguity highlights the extent to which our ability to trust Facebook is compromised.

Furthermore, the illusory nature of privacy on Facebook is undermined by a system designed to make everything shareable across the web. With like buttons and more popping up everywhere, we have reached the point where Facebook aims to do nothing less than mediate our experience of the Internet. One result is, naturally, the aforementioned sinkhole of banality where users share every little link, every location, every bit of information about themselves. Again, users are under no obligation to do this, but Facebook encourages it through a platform specifically engineered to reinforce sharing behaviour as well as deploying themselves across the Internet and mobile devices. At this point, one could ask if Facebook really is an information sharing service or something worse: yet another manifestation of corrupted media. More and more, Facebook confirms that we have entered, as media theorist Jacques Baudrillard suggested, an age of the hyperreal where the simulation has overtaken and replaced that which it simulates, namely, the real. We can go beyond Wikipedia’s definition of information as an “ordered sequence of symbols that record or transmit a message” to view information as something that produces knowledge, perhaps even wisdom. Compare this to data, a mere qualitative or quantitative unit comprising information that may or may not be informative in itself. Saturated as we are by data to the point where it is impossible to credibly evaluate and consider what is meaningful information, we have become mired in trivialities, confirmation biases, and data that even functions as anti-information. Hyperdata, in other words, which is to information what hyperreality is to the real. As a medium for hyperdata increasingly integrated with websites across the Internet, Facebook is very much a simulation and not merely a representation of one form of social experience. And as Facebook infiltrates the physical world to the point where traditional methods of communication are rendered irrelevant or, at least, partially obsolescent – social media is now de rigueur for marketing businesses, for example – the simulation becomes everything.

As esoteric as this may seem, this huge amount of data underlies a fact we Facebook users often gloss over: we are not merely Facebook users but the ore in a vast commercial data mining operation. The overarching commercial use of our data means that privacy in any meaningful sense is absent, everything we post – obligatorily tied to our real name, although aggregate data for advertisers isn’t supposed to be personally identifiable – is subject to analysis, targeting, advertising, and marketing. That businesses and customers with shared interests are connected isn’t in itself a bad idea. It’s arguably better to receive advertisement for products and services that are relevant than otherwise. But the price of admission to Facebook is the complete erasure of distinctions between the individual as a private entity and the individual as consumer. The personal IS the commercial in Facebook. All our personal data becomes grist for a business simulation to identify and reach customers. Activities once the province of community with reasonably defined boundaries have blurred into standard methods for building brand loyalty and selling stuff. For example, it’s no longer enough for customers and companies to build a mutually beneficial economic relationship through superior products and professional service, that is, for economic transactions to create business accountability because a customer can take his or her money elsewhere if dissatisfied. To achieve “brand loyalty,” businesses must now build communities and offer social interaction – simulated friendships – to create a collateral value that will attract customers and convert to sales. In some quarters, this is a quality to be admired. In a blog post for ZDNET titled “Humans First, Technology Second. Why Facebook Will Win,” Rick Harris argues that Facebook will defeat Google because “After the launch of Timeline, it was made perfectly clear that Facebook knows that the golden nugget of marketing is an amazing story that resonates with other humans. Their biggest announcement at f8 demonstrates that they understand this better than most. Make the personal human experience amazing and the business opportunities will fall into place because you already have the people.” In my view, this is a mixed benefit.

The issue is not, as a matter of principle, that brands attempt to relate on a more personal level with customers – far from it. Business and customers should have good relationships that benefit both. But the lack of transparency, clarity, and genuine choice in regards to these relationships through Facebook is deceptive and damaging. Of course, by not paying for services, we have no leverage with which to pressure Facebook to implement honest privacy policies, opt-out of data mining, or give users a choice about using or foregoing creepy Truman Show-like features such as the upcoming Timeline. The only recourse is to quit altogether, delete the account, and nurture the unlikely hope that Facebook really does delete user information instead of merely making it inaccessible.

Although I am not opposed to technology or deny the progress that can result from it, the way in which we have allowed technological advances to change our lives strikes me as the product of an addiction to novelty rather than the end-result of careful deliberation that attempts, however fallibly, to map out consequences both good and bad. File me under better late than never, but the latest round of Facebook changes has finally prompted me to examine the social network with greater skepticism. That skepticism even prompted me to consider other aspects of my internet use, resulting in my ditching Google for DuckDuckGo.com on account of privacy and tracking issues. At least I can say I’ve always been cautious about what I post to the Internet, so I’m not worried about some embarrassing or otherwise dreadful piece of Internet stuff coming back to haunt me.

So what does the Internet look like for me post-Facebook? I still want to enjoy the benefits that comes from a social network. Would I be willing to pay? Sure, but in this era of “free” the question is whether a pay-to-use service would gain enough traction to support even a fraction of the kind of network size Facebook has. Another option is a social network that is everything that Facebook isn’t, but still free from a monetary standpoint: open about how it makes money and an honest broker of relationships between businesses and users. As it happens, two promising Facebook alternatives have come to my attention that are worth considering. The first, anybeat.com, is a response to Facebook’s “walled garden” approach of restricting user networks to known contacts. Recalling the glory days of BBSs and chat-room, AnyBeat aims to offer a safe, constructive platform that encourages people to interact with people they don’t know – anonymously, if so desired. Next is Unthink.com, which takes dead aim at Facebook's defects and espouses a socially-conscious philosophy based on giving users control over their network presence. Business has a place at Unthink.com, which is well and good, but even brands are encouraged to be agents of positive change in the world who don't simply see customers as an exploitable resource.

Until these services come online for me to evaluate as a viable alternative to Facebook, I plan on enjoying a break from the rumpus of social media. I'll post more at this blog, pay more attention to growing my fashion blog, and just go where the river runs.

quick film review - Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'hoole

Based on books by Kathryn Lasky, the story of this animated film is the usual fantasy fluff: a coming-of-age tale nested in the battle between the noble and the base, the wise and the fascist. The twist is that the characters are owls, who somehow manage to forge helmets and steel talons among other technological goodies. But forget the plot, which is serviceable despite feeling like the cliff notes presentation of a much more elaborate tale – this is film that invites immersion in its astonishing visuals. Proving that Zack Snyder does have the skill of a visionary, however stunted by the lack of a signature vision, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole features jaw-dropping attention to detail, the whole experience draped in a lush realism that employs motion so effectively it’s hard not to feel the wind in one’s hair. And that is just about all that needs to be said; a beautiful presentation of a lacklustre story.

Cowboys & Aliens: The Year's Most Underrated Blockbuster? : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

This may the best script from Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman – the fellows who subjected us to insipid Mission Impossible, bad Star Trek, and worse Transformers – outside of television, where they usually fare better. Perhaps credit is due to co-writers Damon Lindelhof, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby. Regardless, this is a film that deserves a chance...provided, as my wife astute pointed out, that expectations are set to western and not influenced by the Hollywood fetish for blowing stuff up.

Read the review here...

Cowboys & Aliens: The Year's Most Underrated Blockbuster? : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

quick review - The A-Team / The Losers

Yet another adaptation of a cult TV series, The A-Team surprises by what it gets right; the lively casting, the semi-serious tone, and the outlandish action. Faster than Liam Neeson can proclaim his love for a plan coming together, the movie launches a credible update that sees the A-Team as Iraq war veterans framed for a crime they didn’t commit and sent on the lam to clear their name. Missing, however, is a plot worthy of the characters and the spirit of an 80’s action movie. Sorry, folks, but the plight of missing US Treasury plates – what they use to print legal money – just doesn’t fit the, ahem, bill. In the end, The A-Team misses the opportunity to capture the essence of its originating TV series in much the same way JJ Abrams’ reinvention of Star Trek misses. Both films end with a recitation of their respective TV series’ opening narration, and both fail to justify them. In Star Trek, it was galling to be told about the final frontier and strange new worlds to explore after watching a film that consisted of exploding planets and conflict with a banal revenge-minded villain. In The A-Team, the premise of a team who can help you if you can find them is nowhere to be seen. The guys are too busy with treasury plates to find anybody in need of help. How much better would the film have been if the plot required them to choose between helping the oppressed and clearing their names...or finding a creative alternative? Much.

Although no one could accuse it of ambition, the similarly-themed The Losers, based on the Vertigo comic, manages to deliver an actual plot on top of interesting characters and high-energy action. A special ops team is framed for the deaths of innocent civilians during a raid on a drug lord. Naturally, they become fugitives as they track down the man responsible for both the slaughter and various other nefarious activities, their CIA handler code-named “Max”. It’s all old-school fun, not to be taken too seriously but not too cartoony either. Proving that a well-executed Bond-style villain is a vastly more engaging source of antagonism than missing treasury plates, The Losers win by having Jason Patrick deliver a singularly bizarre and memorable role. Yes, I love it when a plot comes together.

The Dark Knight Revisited

Of all the dissenting arguments made against The Dark Knight, the most interesting revolves around the notion that Batman is presented, even willingly upheld, as a kind of authoritarian, reactionary, (neo)conservative figure in a film that fails to address the inherent fascism of superheroism. Abigail Nussbaum’s review of the film, and particularly the comments from her readers, offers a good example of this criticism.

The general idea in itself isn’t new. Alan Moore leveled the charge against superheroes through Watchmen, although he nullified his philosophical ambitions through the mechanistic determinism of his universe. (Without “free will,” choices, even moral choices, become meaningless. ) In The Dark Knight, the objection centers on the dichotomy of white knight versus black knight, with the underlying, problematic assumption that Gotham needs a saviour-hero, a philosopher king, a father-protector – even if that hero’s position is rooted in deception. “The idea that these people now need Jim Gordon to promulgate the lie of Harvey Dent's perfection in order to achieve heroism--which is what Batman comes to believe, and which not only motivates his choice to assume the responsibility for Harvey's crimes but also helps to determine the kind of hero he chooses to be--is downright offensive,” writes Abigail.

Unquestionably, the paternalism of the superhero is a problem that Watchmen, for better or worse, ushered into consideration, thereby launching a postmodern age in comic books. The idea that people need a strongman protector because of their inherent weakness – their inferiority, whether physical or moral – is distasteful on a number of level. Arguably, Superman is the most visible representative of this spiritual fascism. Although caped in truth, justice, and the (ahem) American Way, there is a messianic and obliquely warped Nietzchean connotation to a superpowered being who stands above mortal humanity as protector and noble ideal. Given that Superman isn’t even human, allegorically feeding the American self-image that immigrants are welcomed and encouraged to succeed in the US, we are confronted with the idea that the very best in physical and moral humanity must be both beyond human and other than human. Whether applied to Superman or other superpowered characters, what Abigail finds so distasteful is the most critical stress fracture of the heroic myth; the idea that humanity can’t, and shouldn’t, achieve greatness on its own. It’s like saying that aliens built the pyramids instead industrious and smart Egyptians. Mitigating this reading of superheroes, to some extent (and the discussion could be taken further), is the tendency of pitting superheroes against supervillains – threats no ordinary human could realistically face. It takes a Superman to battle a Doomsday, in other words, and we find that the cynical reading of superheroes isn’t entirely, or even necessarily, grounded in fascism either. When confronted with a super-threat, isn’t it heroic for a superhero to use his abilities to defend the innocent and materially helpless? How, in this respect, is a superhero different from a policeman or soldier empowered by law , training, and technology to repel threats beyond the ability of ordinary citizens?

By contrast, Batman is not a superhero – he’s a peak human being. Bruce Wayne as Batman starts on an even footing with the rest of humanity, undercutting the notion of a superior being beyond humanity. With the character’s psychology sourced in personal trauma and manifested in the form of a vigilante character on the edge of the law, his motives are more complex than simply protecting society. That he is referred to as a superhero reflects the iconic status he’s achieved in both comic book and mainstream culture. Still, the question remains: to what extent does the Batman mythos crack under pressure?

When we consider the copycat Batmen in The Dark Knight, we have to acknowledge the pitfalls of vigilantism – what happens when you take Bruce Wayne out of the Batman. Symptomatic of Gotham’s confusion in its confrontation with systemic corruption, their actions embody the notion that people must fend for themselves in the absence of workable law and enforcement. Of course, this kind of vigilantism is reactionary and blunt, neglecting the systemic causes of crime in favour of short-term, small-scale action against individual criminal acts.

What makes Batman interesting as a character is that, unlike clear outlaw vigilantes like the copycat Batmen or – to use another comic book character – the Punisher, Batman doesn’t represent a rejection of law as a means of justice. Frank Castle is judge, jury, and executioner; Batman is more like a police auxiliary, working outside the bureaucracy of law but within the spirit and intent of the law. His method is to capture criminals and collect evidence that the police can then use for arrests and prosecution. Often referred to as a great detective, Batman is presented as the kind of specialist investigator who can handle crimes the police aren’t equipped or trained to handle.

In this regards, Batman functions from a privileged epistemic position generally denied to the police. Where the legal and law enforcement systems are geared towards ascertaining innocence or guilt often after the crime occurs, Batman can gain knowledge of guilt and immediately act on it. For example, he hears of a robbery, shows up as the crime occurs, and foils it, whereas the police might have to investigate the crime after the fact using forensics and other means to identify the thieves, arrest them, and submit them to the judicial system. Or, Batman can simply spy on a gangster, get the information he needs, and act on it, whereas the police have to first demonstrate just cause for spying on said gangster in the firm place.

What makes Batman work both as character and concept results in part from our own privileged position as readers/viewers. We have access to information that Batman’s co-characters do not, and the consequence is that we can trust Batman not to abuse the power he has taken on for himself. By understanding his motivations and witnessing his own private doubts, we trust that Bruce Wayne has the self-discipline needed to stay on the right side of the line – and away from the fascist, authoritarian tendencies fashionably ascribed to superheroic characters.

Also vital is the way in which Batman’s actions justify our trust. The best example from The Dark Knight comes when Batman creates a mass surveillance system – a key plot development fueling the notion that the film advocates police state solutions – but turns it over to someone who doesn’t want to use it and willingly (even gladly) destroys it after its intended use. It is our trust in Bruce Wayne and Batman, mostly from our privileged meta-fictional position, that allows us to distinguish Batman from mere vigilantes and fascists. But can characters within the stories can achieve a similar trust? Should they? Therein lies the rub.

Into the discussion comes the Joker, who is a very different kind of antagonist than we’ve previously seen in Batman movies. In Tim Burton’s Batman, thug Jack Napier falls into a vat of chemicals and becomes a Joker who is, essentially, nothing more than a theatrical thug with grander ambitions for murder and destructions. Nolan’s take presents the Joker as a force of nature. Despite the irritating tendency of wrongly equating the character with anarchy, this version of the Joker is a terrorist whose motive is chaos and whose method involves manipulating individuals into moral dilemmas rigged as catch-22s. He pushes buttons, in other words, and gleefully watches as ostensibly good people are corrupted. Crucially, conceiving of the Joker as a terrorist highlights the importance of symbolism in his actions within a film that attaches great importance to the power of symbols. The Joker aims to create fear by destroying not just stability and justice, but the hope for stability and justice. He acts on the assumption that without some sort of moral center, the glue that binds society into a relatively ordered state will disintegrate. Harvey Dent, as an effective instrument of justice in a corrupt city, is a prime symbol of hope and a potent moral center in a legal system otherwise gone awry. But the Joker aims even beyond that, to the very idea we have that people are fundamentally good or, at least, decent. The entire scenario of the ferries and the explosives is an attempt to demonstrate the Joker’s thesis that chaos ultimately reigns in the human heart. By exposing this chaos and forcing people to confront their own chaotic natures, the very possibility of a workable, cooperative social order would be destroyed. Without the ability to trust in human relationships there is no possibility of community and society.

In a film also concerned with the notion of escalation – bringing guns to knife fights – the Joker represents an escalation not simply in terms of force but also in terms of ideology. The film acknowledges that Batman’s devastating effectiveness against ordinary criminals makes it possible, in an evolutionary sense, for a breed of supercriminals to arise. Yet the Joker isn’t a greater force in a material sense. He doesn’t bring bigger guns or more destructive superweapons. Instead, he represents an ideological escalation that is as lateral as it is vertical. The film noir tragedy of The Dark Knight, then, arises from a mismatch between threat and weapons, new problems and old solutions. Whereas Commission Gordon and Batman aim to use the traditional methods, mostly rooted in brute force, to neutralize the Joker, these methods are precisely the fuel that propels the Joker forward. One gets the impression that the Joker doesn’t mind being beaten up or possibly killed because this is precisely the sort of interactions he wants in the world he envisions, where the stronger destroy the weak, the weak find ways to make themselves stronger, and raw power is the only possible mode of communication. Essentially, the Joker disrupts the relationship between ends and means; Batman and Gordon find themselves in a reactive position using an irrelevant model of threat and response. Forced to use increasingly extreme measures, they end the Joker’s reign of terror but ultimately become trapped in a web of symbolism. I suspect that had Batman been a Zen monk, he would have fared much better.

To return to Abigail’s criticism, the decision to take the blame for Two-Face’s murders doesn’t make sense when read as heroism achieved through deceit or, as Abigail later comments, as a decision to be a hero based on the premise of saving Gotham’s citizens from the truth instead of empowering them to “think and make informed decisions.” Is that really the key decision that Batman makes? The rationale that Dent’s reputation has to be preserved for the sake of preserving faith in the justice system’s ability to handle rampant crime isn’t illogical given the circumstances and the role of symbols in gluing society together. Why should Gotham’s citizens trust the social order if the very guardians of an already fragile order are corrupted? If, for example, you believed your local police to be corrupt and in league with criminals, would you dial 911 if you saw your house getting robbed? Would you trust the badge of your local police? Arguably not, because the police has lost its symbolic significance as a force for protecting the public. However, much like Alfred’s decision not to reveal to Bruce Rachel’s decision to marry Harvey, there is something unquestionably icky in the notion that the truth can sometimes do more damage than a lie, and the slippery slope from a lie protecting the greater good to a cover-up of serious abuse is very steep indeed. Ideally, the truth should be a force for good and justice. That Batman and Gordon can’t make the truth work represents the inadequacy of their philosophy and approach.

Before condemning them fully, however, some context is necessary. In The Dark Knight we see a Batman early in his career. Unlike the Batman portrayed in the animated series, the outstanding animated film Mask of the Phantasm, or even Burton’s films , Nolan’s Batman is not a calm, calculating, relatively unflappable character. Although he has come to terms with the grief over his parents’ death, he hasn’t shed his rage. This emotional volatility makes him vulnerable to the Joker’s manipulations. With this in mind, one can appreciate the significance of Batman ultimately not crossing the line to murder, even though he has the opportunity and the decision could be easily rationalized. Tellingly, the Joker himself recognizes Batman’s incorruptibility. It ‘s in that final confrontation between Batman and the Joker that we find the real crux of Batman’s arc throughout the film, a reinforcement of Batman as a character we can trust to hold true to the idea of morality even in an environment that demands uncomfortable compromise. The decision not to kill the Joker, not to give in to a thirst for revenge, is arguably the story’s key milestone. That his symbol is tarnished by accepting the blame for Two-Face’s murders is, of course, ironic.

Nevertheless, the film never treats the idea of a vigilante dressing up as a bat as anything other than a dysfunctional solution to the problem of Gotham’s corruption, as evidenced by the great hope Harvey Dent personally holds to Bruce Wayne for setting Batman aside. Even on a conceptual level, Batman can only be a tactical response, a finger in the dyke, a stopgap – his actions cannot work towards addressing the root causes of Gotham’s corruption and rampant crime, unlike a District Attorney who represents a social effort to deal with injustice. The whole effect of the film, then, is to repudiate the need for Batman, whose very existence is a compromise on the social order and the reliance on morally compromised solutions such as deceiving the public about the truth. If Batman’s capacity for heroism, although meaningfully heroic on one level, is fundamentally subject to doubt in terms of his role in society, then I have to question whether it makes sense to view the movie, as Abigail does, as an argument that “Gotham's need for a hero is spiritual rather than practical.”

It’s also worth noting that the decision to perpetuate the lie of “Harvey Dent, White Knight” is merely the resolution of the film’s plot, not the beginning of it. Setting aside the issue that, as viewers, we are under no obligation to agree with characters that we nonetheless find fascinating, the film ultimately takes no stance. The question is left open-ended as to whether the ploy works or not. In fact, as we speculate about the final part in Nolan’s trilogy, one has to suspect that if Batman is to gain the status of a legend with the capacity to inspire good, the truth about Harvey Dent will have to come out eventually. At the very least, it would be hard to imagine Batman going mano e mano with major villain Bane without the truth of his reputation coming into play as they battle it out in Gotham.

In the end, films like The Dark Knight are open to interpretation precisely because they don’t actually take a firm philosophical position on their own stories. This is where the risk of confusing the film’s artistic intent with what we, as viewers, bring to it increases. To wit: Just because a character states an opinion, doesn’t make it a true message the film is hoping to deliver to audiences. Nor does a character’s decision to act a certain way automatically carry a moral imprimatur because of that decision.

Of course, when it comes to what the characters actually think it helps to turn to the text, beginning with Commissioner Gordon closing out The Dark Knight with this melodramatic speech –

Because he's the hero Gotham deserves. But not the one it needs right now. And so we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A dark knight.

Earlier on, he discusses with Batman the decision to take on the blame for Harvey’s murders. From a transcript at imdb.com:

Batman: You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I can do those things because I'm not a hero, not like Dent. I killed those people. That's what I can be.

Lt. James Gordon: No you can't! You're not!

Batman: I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be.

[We cut to a funeral for Harvey Dent]

Lt. James Gordon: Not the hero we deserved but the hero we needed

[Gordon is shown on top of Gotham Central. An axe is in his hand. He is being watched by an assortment of reporters and police officers. The next lines are heard in voiceover]

Lt. James Gordon: They'll hunt you.

Batman: You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me. Set the dogs on me.

[Gordon takes the axe to the bat light]

Batman: Because that's what needs to happen.

Batman: [Alfred is shown holding the envelope from Rachel. He lights it on fire and watches it burn] Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough.

[We see Lucius Fox type his name into the sonar machine. The machinery around him sparks and the sonar screen fades out. Lucius smiles and walks away]

Batman: Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

To say that Gordon believes Gotham needs a spiritual protector like Batman and not a practical protector like District Attorney Dent is one way of reading it. But another way is that Gordon is being cynical, however much his admiration for Batman glosses over it. After all, if Dent is the hero Gotham needs – someone who represents justice within a functional system of law & order – but Batman is the hero the city deserves, then we return to the implication that there is something very rotten indeed in the city of Gotham for it to deserve a vigilante dressed as a bat. The question is: shouldn’t Gotham deserve the hero it needs? And that, along with the decision Batman and Gordon make to conceal the truth, highlights the tragic, film-noir character of the film. Far from presenting us with an idealized portrait of heroism, whether that ideal is fascist or not, the film presents us with a moral no man’s land with characters struggling to do the best they can. The rest is interpretation, and the fact that so many perspectives can be extracted from The Dark Knight highlights its achievement as a film.