Thank you Flash Gordon, I agree he is the antithesis of everything Superman stands for. But if Superman's core belief is that all life in the world is precious and should be protected and saved (this makes sense since he is a being who lost his entire civilisation) then surely Lex's core belief would be that “not all life is worth the same and some lives have greater value than others”. To me this type of thinking has plagued human civilisation for hundreds if not thousands of years. The holocaust, imperialism, slavery. These are examples of how this type of thinking has menaced our societies worldwide, but what's astonishing to me having read literature on these historical events is that nations of people following their leaders into committing these heinous acts, do so because they think their leaders are right and justifiable and also because by doing so they can provide a better standard of living for themselves and their families. I don't think most people commit evil acts for the sake of being evil; I think they do so because they believe they are right, but it just so happens that what they are doing is perceived as being evil to others. Lex Luthor, is a leader in the same vein, but he takes this idea of human beings having different values several steps further and pits groups of human beings against each other. Typically, people have been persecuted due to ethnicity, faith, gender, sexual orientation etc; but imagine a character that promotes the idea that human beings should be valued on their abilities and what they can contribute to our overpopulated and polluted world. The idea that some human beings, who have talents, should be allowed to flourish whilst others are merely a burden to society and should treated like meat in an abattoir. For example, viewing unskilled/low skilled citizens who are chronically ill and need support for health care as being seen as nothing but a burden to tax payers and being sent to concentration camps, or burning down entire prisons (with convicts locked inside) because they too are a burden for the tax payer and a perfect society has no use for criminals.
This goes to the heart of Superman’s lifelong battle with Lex Luthor: a battle for leadership of the human race, for the very soul of humanity. Poor leadership can break a nation or an entire civilisation and this is what I have taken as having the most profound meaning to me from the Superman stories. The trouble with poor leaders is that they seldom realise the damage that they are doing.