“If you must blush, then blush before yourself. For it is your own judgment that matters — not the world’s.” - Epictetus, Discourses
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Scar from Disney’s The Lion King. He strikes me as more relevant the older I get, because when I was 8, I didn’t know of any people who wanted to do the things Scar did. We meet this scornful brother of King Mufasa skulking around in his den and muttering to himself about his own greatness and potential, bemoaning the order of the lion pride that elevates lions (men) like Mufasa and not him.
It’s a rather stunning lesson in how Envy functions in the human heart and in politics, all wrapped up in a Disney classic about lions.
Scar takes up common cause with the scavengers of the Pridelands, the hyenas, because they too feel oppressed by the natural order of the savannah and want to challenge it. The balance of the ecosystem isn’t a concern of the scavenger alliance; all they know is they are always hungry and they want more.
What we end up with is Scar ruling over ruins, a man who, like Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, would rather “reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
He is jealous, greedy, and violent, in addition to being weaker than Mufasa or a grown-up Simba. Scar is bony, thin, and shrinks in the shadow of larger lions and lowers his neck like a beaten dog. Creation itself is “unfair”.
But he has a weapon that other lions don’t have.
Scar can force an opponent like Simba to back down, almost to the point of killing himself or surrendering entirely. He uses shame as a weapon because he is shameless. Watch how Scar reacts to the return of Simba. He’s afraid. So he goes back to the most effective tool in the toolkit for usurpers and revolutionaries: shame and contrived guilt.
Make the rightful king feel compromised by his imperfection, strip him of his confidence and self-assuredness, make him back down because, after all, who is he to judge when his hands are unclean?
Even a cursory glance at politics in the US, Canada, Britain, France, or Germany reveals traces of this reality in their discourse. Usurpers, the envious, the moral relativists; they’re in coalition together because there exists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remake the Pridelands, but it can only happen if the Pride cedes the battlefield.
“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting. It summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.” - Cicero, On The Laws
Scar snarls and advances forward, hurling half-truths and inflicting moral injury on Simba. He can break him down.
We’ve all known someone, whether it be a bully in the workplace, school, or at home, who knows how to push the pressure points in our heart that make our knees fall out beneath us. Masters of shame. One wonders if they know how it feels, so they pass it on, or if, like Scar, the sensation of scorning yourself is a total mystery to them…..
We’ll never know.
All we can do is make peace with what is in the mirror.
We must know ourselves.
How do we know that our morality is true and not a bedtime story we’re told to keep us well-behaved?
It’s hard. I hope someone in your life will tell you that. It is, in fact, very hard at times. What is right is not always clear, but there is something in our gut that sings a song we know from the earliest age.
A longing for justice (fairness or correction), the repulsion at cruelty, the admiration of courage.
Perhaps you know someone who admires cowardice and self-preservation in moments of epic struggle, but I don't.
I think about Upham in Saving Private Ryan. He’s a translator, not a warfighter. He never belonged in combat or on this damned mission to find Private Ryan behind Nazi lines. When his companions are being slowly killed one room over by a German soldier, he’s frozen head to toe.
All of us should be able to relate to Upham. That’s an essential part of being human, to see in someone’s failure our own capacity for failure. But that’s a far cry from saying, “Good on you, Upham! At least you’re alive.”
We know this scene above is a personal failing. And we know there exist second chances, third, and even fourth chances in our lives, to make things right. The reality of our brokenness does not mean there is no truth.
Truth is what reveals our brokenness. It’s sunlight shining through the stained glass mirror, bringing context to everything we know and do.
Be humble. Seek correction and higher ground. But don’t let the Scars of the world use shame as a weapon against you. Don’t back down without a fight.
Thank you for reading.
A few years ago, I contributed to a video essay on Disney Villains with some attention paid to Scar and Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Check it out if you’re interested in the topic!
Upham always struck me as so sympathetic. He had no business being in a warzone as someone who was not trained for it. Conscription is a terrible practice.