by Sean Dillon
Lessons in Capitalism #37: Lay Away
“I’m what they used to call a fly man round these parts.”
So Grant Morrison is non-binary. As I am writing this piece, they have just updated their pronouns to be they/them, confirming without a shadow of a doubt that they are non-binary. This is something to consider given Morrison’s history with gender being… less than optimal. It’s also worth noting given Morrison is silently one of Noah Hawley’s major influences, as anyone who has watched Legion will tell you. We’ve talked about Morrison in the last Lesson in Capitalism, in particular his work with the New Gods. But in this episode, there’s another aspect to consider: his magical war with noted con artist Alan Moore. Unlike the show, I use the term “con artist” with an air of love and affection. The phrase befitting a beloved (if somewhat problematic) grandfather who punch an asshole in the face. He is the best kind of con artist, one not so much interested in swindling the poor out of billions, but one out to change the world with his cons. To con the world, the systems that control us, and win out in the end. But there are two things Moore did that every con artist inevitably does. Firstly, he burnt some bridges. Morrison’s was among them, but there were countless others. Davis, Lee, Fox, to name but a handful. One does not con people without pissing them off or being pissed off in turn. The second thing he did was trust the government. It’s surprising to think a man like Moore, an anarchist who started his comic book career committing tax fraud against Thatcher’s England, would trust the government. But the face of the government takes on many forms. In the case of Moore, it called itself DC Comics. Contrary to popular belief, corporations are not people so much as systems. Ones that will break and destroy you if you ever think of them as people, let alone a fellow con artist. There is no art in the conning of the corporation. Only math, only pain. Morrison, for their part, also fell for this. They thought they could change things from within. As if empathizing with a corporation. They learned, after decades of hard work and unfortunate bootlicking, that this isn’t the case. And now, adrift from the system they once served, they feel comfortable using language that wouldn’t be accepted in such systems of power.
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