Hello, thanks for your reply. I haven't spoken to many Superman fans about how I view Lex Luthor, but I'm glad that you think he could commit such a hideous crime.
Exactly! That kind of thinking stems from the super rich in any society. Here in India, the standard of living has gone up over the last three decades, but there is still income inequality and the top proportion of society earn a lot of wealth, try to find tax loopholes and instil means to keep the lower classes/castes in check. But I honestly don't think Lex is profit motivated. He uses profit making as a means to lure greedy investors (the top 1% wealthiest in every industry) who, frankly, **** on the lower classes because they all believe he is a money greedy industrialist like them; but then Lex double crosses/murders most of them because he feels that they pollute our planet in pursuit of wealth and have no other skill to contribute to humanity and they are harming progress of the human civilisation.
To me, his hatred of Superman is multi-faceted. There's a sense of good old fashioned xenophobia and racism that he holds against Superman. He clearly believes this "God-like" being could annihilate the human race and there's nothing we could do to stop him. But also, he sees him as an interfering foreigner, an immigrant, a refugee from a failed world who has no business telling us how we should behave and how we should support each other and work together. I think that feeling certainly ties in with an even deeper feeling which I think is the crux of Lex's hatred of Superman: he wants to rule all the nations of the world and "shape" the human race into becoming masterful and Superman is in his way. Because of his hyper-intellect and sociopathy, I think he looks at the world's societies in terms of Darwinian natural selection. No human being asks to be born and we shape our society to accommodate those that are "less able" out of compassion, which is Superman's ethos. But Lex's ethos I believe is, if a person has no qualities or attributes that are of benefit to mankind then that person has no reason to be here.
I certainly think Lex's idiosyncrasies are based on some of the vilest leaders throughout History. Hitler for example (who one could argue served as the model for General Zod), tried to wipe out an entire race of people because he felt they were somehow ruining his picture perfect image of a clean, strong and racially pure Aryan German nation. I believe Lex's belief system comes from that same kind of thinking, however Lex takes that eugenic thinking and amplifies it; I think his goal is to make the human race strong, able and as perfect as possible. What's also interesting to me is that I don't think Lex views himself as a criminal; in fact he views criminals as being a scourge to society and an economic sponge that needs to be wiped out also.
Yah, absolutely! I think he wants the ideal human race to be at the top of universe, so the very best of us, the best genes, will continue to thrive and evolve and the rest of us will be thrown into concentration camps to be exterminated. I don't think Lex has our sense of morality. He's a pure scientist, engineer and mathematician with a sociopath's outlook on the world. Lex doesn't understand that that kind of thinking destroyed Krypton and that's why Superman was sent here: to divert our natural progression and our base instincts and to make sure that that what happened to Krypton doesn't happen to humanity. Lex simply believes that the Kryptonian's ran their civilisation into the ground and if they "trimmed the fat" of their civilisation like how he is proposing with humanity, i.e. by exterminating unnecessary people, then they would have survived. As is the case with all poor leaders, they can't see the damage that they are doing. In many ways Superman and Lex want the same thing: to see a prosperous human civilisation only in Luthor's vision, not everyone is invited.
Thank you! I didn't know that. I'll check it out. Many thanks.
I think in an age of rising population, global warming caused by rising population, automation & AI taking over low skilled and skilled labour in the market and the ability for digital media and broadcast journalism run by super rich media barons to reach every pocket of the globe, there is certainly a place for a frightening villain like Lex Luthor to proliferate in our modern world.