In my earlier ruminations on freedom, I reflected on the statements which I have cited and made previously. This has provided me a new view of an old insight. It seems few, if any, are willing to analyze the overall corruption and reduction of language to banal statements and how this has done a great deal of harm to the understanding of words in the West, particularly those as important as freedom. This has left many unable to express themselves well in the West on such vital topics.
You may recall that in the last post on this topic I cited a point made by Jonathan Witt and Jay Richards in The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot. Specifically:
“Freedom is more than doing what we want to do. After all, if you have been determined by either physics, your upbringing, or an evil scientist to desire cleaning army latrines twelve hours a day, it’s hardly a consolation that you’re doing what you want to do. You’re clearly not free.”
Remember I also quoted Matthew Dickerson’s reading of Tolkien: that without the power of choice, “it’s not even clear that we could even be self-aware.” We would be mere machines that did as we were bid. How could we be happy if we had been programmed to enjoy or at least be technically competent at our tasks? We did not choose them, but would be compelled to follow them regardless, so whatever we felt or did not feel would be utterly irrelevant to the equation.
The next idea to drop after reflecting on their words was this character:
How much self-awareness did James Buchanan Barnes have after he was injured, captured, and programmed to become the Winter Soldier? Judging by what we see of him in the movie bearing the same name, not a lot. I am specifically thinking of this scene here:
"I Knew Him" Winter Soldier Begins to Remember His Past - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
This scene has, from the first time I saw it, always made my stomach turn. Why? Several reasons, one of which is that Sebastian Stan is not behaving normally. Anyone who chose to sit down and get a prosthetic repaired would be chatting up a storm, probably needed to be reminded by the technician not to move, and certainly would not be staring ahead vacantly. The little glimpses of attempting-to-return memory add to the overall effect but the moments where he is just staring into space are scary.
It is scary because truly free men don’t act like that – or if they do, they make it clear they are choosing to act in such a manner. In those cases, though, there are little tics which allow outsiders to realize that the person staring ahead blankly is fully cognizant of who he is, who is speaking to him, near him, or those potentially making a nuisance of themselves. Remember those Westerns or thrillers where the antagonists don’t seem to be paying attention, so some soused bar patron or cocky youngster comes up and starts trying to provoke a reaction from the “strong, silent guy” brooding in the corner?
Bucky does not even have that familiar look on his face. We see this most clearly once Pierce comes in to demand a report. Since he does not answer after the second call, Pierce backhands him across the face - and Bucky takes the hit.
That scene has always stuck with me: He accepts the insult, the punishment for violating his programming. Even halfway expecting something like this, it stuck with me because he never even shows the slightest inclination to rebel, talk back, or otherwise get angry. In his situation, it makes sense. But a normal or free man, one fully cognizant of his worth and his manhood, would not do that - not without giving at least a little signal that he did not like holding back.
How does this tie in to the subject of freedom? A previous post on this subject mentioned that Bucky’s presence ties into one of Captain America: Civil War’s main themes. That theme begins here in The Winter Soldier and it is easier to grasp here instinctively than it is in Civil War due to the fact Stan acts like someone who has been held in bondage for seventy years.
The Winter Soldier shows us what it means to take an individual’s choices away from him, to deny a man his own will so completely that he cannot fight back – physically, at least. Despite his prosthetic arm’s power and the enhancements which Zola succeeded in inflicting on him, Bucky’s physical strength does him no good in this situation. He is one injured man kept in a near-constant state of amnesia surrounded by an army. Despite his skill, an army prepared to take him down is entirely different from one that does not see him coming.
From the seats in the theater audiences get a good dose of visceral pseudo-fear at the sight of the Winter Soldier bearing down on unsuspecting SHIELD agents in the climax of the film. We get a secondhand taste of his hand-to-hand combat prowess when he fights the Falcon and Steve Rogers. Due to that outside perspective, he seems and is nigh unstoppable. The man has been programmed (remember that word, we’ll come back to it in a bit) to be the ultimate killer. He is not allowed to stop until his target is dead, so when someone gets in his way, they typically die as well.
However, we do not get as good a view of Bucky’s actual helplessness in the movie as we do of his skills. There are some subtle hints that are easy to miss at first, particularly since our focus is on him when he’s having his arm repaired. Once he strikes the technician, though, the entire room turns on him, guns cocking in a cascade in the background. That sound is enough to make him stop and settle into stillness. As fast as he is, it only takes one bullet in the right place to bring him down without killing him. HYDRA can’t afford to kill him, he’s too valuable.
That does not mean they can’t afford to hurt him. So long as the damage is something they can repair, they can find any number of sadistic means to make his already hellish existence worse. In the bowels of their own bases, they are the ones with the power and Bucky is the person who has none. Abusive owners who do not want to kill their investments can be devilishly creative in how they make their victims suffer while keeping them alive and whole enough to continue working.
I use the present tense in the previous sentence for a reason: Remember Ariel Castro? Human and sex trafficking is just slavery under less unpleasant names. There are nations around the world that have laws against owning other people on the books which are not enforced in the slightest. You may not see these individuals chained up in public in plain view (though in certain parts of the world, you will indeed see that), but that does not mean they are not there.
One of the things individuals in situations like Bucky’s always fear is the very idea of being recaptured by their abuser, as the person who mistreated them will make sure to prevent their escape this time. Hence the conflict of Captain America: Civil War and Bucky’s part in it – or does the set up in this scene not seem hauntingly familiar?
Zemo Activates the Winter Soldier - Captain America: Civil War (2016) Movie CLIP HD
Once more, Bucky is strapped into a chair, both arms are held down, and he has no way to stop Zemo from using the hypnotic trigger words to accomplish his desire. Gee, that doesn’t sound like a return to an abusive situation at all, does it? That does not seem like a good reason for him to try his best to run away from Steve Rogers, the German Anti-Terrorism Task Force, and the rest of the world at all, right?
After Zemo finishes using the words, you can see how Bucky’s consciousness has slipped back into the slave mentality described by Witt and Richards. He is not a person anymore but a machine. A living, breathing human being who has had his ability to choose forcibly ripped away via programming so he cannot make his own decisions but only follow the orders he is given as efficiently as possible. Who had the bright idea to helpfully set this disastrous situation up for Helmut Zemo?
The very same people who wanted to enslave the Avengers. Right. Why am I not surprised?
Bucky’s entire reason for being a central figure in the cinematic Civil War is because he is a warning to the other Avengers. A warning only part of the team heeds due to a combination of personal experience and the unwillingness to relinquish their responsibilities. Steve was not blindly trying to save his “old war buddy,” he was trying to save his friend from being abused again. At the same time, he fought to prevent his new friends from having their wills torn from them as well; he is trying to save the team, Bucky, and the world.
Iron Man believes he is doing the same thing, but as he himself admits, what he is really trying to do is to stop the pain he is experiencing due to the results of his previous choices. His self-destructive tendencies have come full circle and, in an effort to rein himself in, he cedes control of his actions to the first person to promise he can make the agony “go away.” Rather than tell Ross and the U.N. to go bark at the moon, Tony Stark listens to the howling and joins in.
So does Black Widow, though it is also possible that having been a victim of abuse herself means some of her own defensive behaviors have come back to haunt her. The Red Room owned her even more thoroughly than HYDRA owned Bucky. It is also quite possible that SHIELD and then the Avengers were the only organizations protecting her from old enemies outside and within the United States. There are people in the American government who distrust her, and there are people in the Russian government who want her back so they can “reclaim” her or torture her to death. Leaving the Avengers or having the team retire altogether could put her at serious risk because those organizations have enough political clout to keep people in power away from her. Remove those barriers, and she is potentially at their mercy.
Peter Parker is starstruck and does not stop to think – or to ask pertinent questions. Black Panther is blinded by grief and rage, Rhodey trusts too much, and Vision lacks experience. These issues all combine to make the perfect storm when the rest of the team, who planned to retire, find they may be facing a doomsday scenario the powers that be are perfectly willing to ignore in preference to taking ownership of the Avengers.
The film’s plot was never about Bucky, but his part in it was integral to the themes therein. He is the living proof of what Ross and the Accords want, and the reason why Team Cap fights so hard to maintain their freedom. It is also why the more that Team Iron – or certain members thereof – attempt to outrun their obligations, the more said responsibilities come calling for their attention.
Freedom and the ability to choose are heavy duties to carry. But abdicating our destiny to other’s whims never ends well, and for someone to steal a man’s right to choose from him is one of the worst perfidies in existence.
Men are not automata. Reducing them to such is an abomination. Anyone who tells you otherwise doubtless has a ball and chain to sell you. They may not be visible or physical but that does not mean they will not be there.
Don’t let them catch you napping. If you do, you may not be able to break free until well after it is too late.