V for Vendetta: Inevitable Democracy?

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on August 29, 2006.

In a prior review, I noted that revolution was not a Biblically warranted response to political oppression and that democracy had no intrinsic value (though it has immense practical value). However, it is one thing to make such claims on an abstract, theoretical level, and it is quite another to live in a (supposed) democracy founded on a revolution. The fact is that we live in a country that still has some remnant of its classical liberal heritage, and this affects what we expect from both our political leaders and our everyday lives — i.e., regardless of any philosophical quibbles we may have with democracy, we still expect the state to respect our political rights. We are accustomed to such freedoms as speech, press, and assembly, and we become upset if any power tries to take those freedoms away.

Perhaps this explains why movies like James McTeigue's V for Vendetta (2005) strike a chord with audiences. The presentation of a heroic individual fighting against a totalitarian regime sells to a public raised (at least to some degree) on notions of autonomy and individual rights. "V" (Hugo Weaving) dons a mask, cape, and other superhero regalia, and spends his evenings planting bombs at government buildings and assassinating evil politicians and bureaucrats. The totalitarian regime in question is a futuristic England, run by a dictator obsessed with securing the country against any and all security threats (real or perceived). The script (penned by Andy and Larry Wachowski of Matrix fame) doesn't provide much detail about how and why England abandoned its classical liberal traditions, but we do receive glimpses of times past when political crisis "necessitated" extreme measures that may have been, well, "regrettable."

For more plot detail, one should turn to the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It not only provides more character development but also a darker, grittier feel. Using muted colors and dark, shadowy tones, Moore and Lloyd present an England that is utterly depressing, run by powerful thugs who repress dissent while fighting their own inner demons. While the movie does paint a disturbing portrait, it nevertheless uses bright lights and cleaner, sharper colors that induce a less depressing tone.

The other major difference between the novel and the movie is ideological. In the former, V is explicitly an anarchist: he not only wants to overthrow the regime, but he favors replacing it with, well, nothing. In the movie, V's end goals are less clear. While he wants to depose the current regime, we don't see any alternate vision — not even one as loose and open-ended as anarchy. He just wants to provide the masses with the opportunity to make up their own minds and find their own way.

Of course, the problem with the two V's (the novel and the movie) lies precisely in the lack of a viable end game. The anarchism of the "printed" V may sound ideal, but it ignores our Hobbesian reality, the fact that without some arbiter (though not necessarily a monarch, as Hobbes proposed), we constantly would be at each other's throats. The cinematic V is simply too optimistic; after all, if people "find their own way" in a vacuum, that "way" could lead either to the aforementioned Hobbesian nightmare or to another despotic regime (i.e., another leader who promised the restoration of law and order).

(Disclosure: I was an anarchist when I was younger, but I found the total absence of state authority hard to defend, given the reality of sin. Thus, I have moderated my ideology to that of libertarianism.)

Nevertheless, despite the problems with his vision, many of us like V precisely because he is fighting an alternate vision that we definitely do not like: fascism. I have yet to meet a person who honestly would prefer to live in a totalitarian regime, given what he/she knows of alternative systems. Sure, there are plenty of people who gladly would give up their liberties for some promise of security, but they do so under a representative regime, and they still think that they hold a measure of autonomy (i.e., that they matter as individuals). I have yet to meet someone who, having lived in a democracy, would want to subsume his/her entire being under collective state rule. (For a glimpse of those who do not have a choice of living under such rule, check out A State of Mind, an intriguing documentary about life in contemporary North Korea.)

Thus, despite the philosophical charges that one can raise against classical liberalism and representative government, despite the violent excesses that rebels inevitably commit in their attempts to overthrow dictatorships, characters like V still resonate with us. We can't turn back the clock — if you are reading these words, then you probably live in some sort of democratic system, and given a clear choice between your current status and a completely antithetical alternative, you probably would choose the former. This, of course, sounds thoroughly Western, modern, and bourgeois: the "inevitable" march of liberalism smacks of a cultural and ideological chauvinism that is dangerously triumphalist and ahistorical. However, alternatives that are both viable and palatable are lacking, and while certain efforts at democratization, such as the Iraq War, have proven disastrous, the ideology itself still stands. What else is one going to offer?

For the Christian, the march of democracy doesn't make much of a theological difference, but it does hold practical benefits. Since nothing in the Bible explicitly praises or condemns representative government, there seems to be no reason to eschew it outright. On a sociological level, we are all, to one extent or other, (lowercase-d) democrats and some part of V for Vendetta's message resonates with us. If nothing in that movie resonates with you, then perhaps you do want to live in a totalitarian regime. I hear that Pyongyang is an interesting town.