[UA] Archetype ve. Stereotype (was The Masterless Man...)

[Nick Wedig]

>  I'm not certain how that fits with your interpretations, but that was how
>I imagined it (drawn largely from fictional sources, albeit).
>  
>I recall an old thread that talked about drawing archetype stuff from
>fictional sources. That isn't really an archetype, that's a stereotype.  A
>person who started doing that to tap into the masterless man could probably
>go somewhere, and would get serious recognition:  How many TV stations would
>kill for a story about a real-life superhero?

The main reason I mentioned that was I was unable to give specific historical examples off the top of my head, and that the fictional examples blow this into a larger picture than real examples.  Here are some that match more or less what I said: Miyamoto Musashi, perhaps THE Masterless Man, who retreated to a cave because he found that the Japanese government that was supposed to uphold the ideals of bushido in fact was full of corruption.  Someone suggested Ralph Nader as an example, who found the government failing to uphold true democracy.  Martin Luther, who found the church failing to provide proper morality.  Soren Kierkegaard, who did the same a few centuries later.  The guy who The Fugitive is based on (I heard somewhere that it is based on a true story, which would then follow exactly as you said it would) who found the police more willing to take the easy suspect than find the real criminal.  Numerous other whistle blowers of corproate corruption (most recently the !
tobacco industry) and doctors who have turned to alternative medicine.  Most of these are probably low level avatars, at best, but come close.

The main reason we don't hear about them is because, in a case like taking out a crooked cop, the organiztion is better able to convince the media of their side, so the news accepts the story that he's an insane cop killer or a vigilante or whatever.  

>But I don't think that conflict exists yet.

The basic idea was this: in feudal Japan, the ronin lost an actual, human master.  In modern day, the master which has been lost tends to be a set of ideals or principles, which have been lost due not to their own flaws but due to people bending these ideals to wrong ends.  The masterless man becomes a disillusioned loner (perhaps some of the Existentialist philosophers also fit this), seeking a way to mesh their philosophy with a world that doesn't match it.  It was never, in any way, an attempt to disagree with what was stated.

Mr. Teapot
disillusioned loner

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