The Id, The Ego, And The Superhero: What Makes Batman Tick?

Linda Holmes on psychologist Robin Rosenberg's new book, from NPR's Weekend Edition:

Perhaps the problem, she suggests, doesn't lie in the gifted Bruce Wayne, but in the people who assume something has to be wrong with him in the first place. Perhaps we're just not accustomed to his kind of self-sacrifice. “People who are truly selfless,” she says, “who have given so much of themselves, are confusing to most of us. And I think some of us, in cynical moments, say, 'There must be something the matter with someone who would do that.'”

She argues that our confusion at why Bruce Wayne would throw himself in the path of all manner of catastrophes misses the point that there's something in it for him, too. “I think it misses that it's about getting a whole life,” she says. “He experienced something that is terrifying as a kid, but his decision to become Batman gave his life meaning and purpose. It found a silver lining in tragedy.” And perhaps there's something in it for the rest of us: “The idea of superheroes that we carry around in our heads may help us to actually do good in our own lives.”

More here.