Slotkin says that in American culture, from its earliest roots, violence is defined as a savage activity. Yet civilized people must go among savages and master violence, becoming even more proficient in violence than the savages are, precisely so that they can defend civilization against savage people. By mastering violence civilized people can overcome their own weakness and corruption and become whole and healthy, that is, regenerated through violence. And finally Slotkin says that this motif of civilized people using violence to regenerate themselves is a motif throughout American popular culture, from the seventeenth century up to the present day... not least, adds Miller, in American comic books.

But, you go on to say, Slotkin's analysis doesn't really fit with what we know about seventeenth- and eighteenth-century popular culture [which emphasized Puritan themes of endurance in the face of savage, or diabolical, affliction]. Nor does it fit with late twentieth-century popular culture, which was fundamentally transformed by the advent of nuclear weapons: in a nuclear age, violence can only be redemptive on a global or universal scale, because that's the theatre where nukes could be used. There is no local use of nukes, not in a Cold War setting, and so regenerative violence cannot be local either.

And, moreover, what regeneration is there in Stark and Rogers' fistfight? At the end nothing is resolved. Isn't that, you suggest, the point: that their fight in the end solves nothing, underscoring the pointlessness of violence?

Finally, you ask, why do you, a non-American, seem so fixated on the role of violence in American popular culture? Surely the idea that violence can be honorable or revitalizing is a feature of many other cultures, Canadian and European alike. Cast out the beam in your own eye, you seem to suggest, before pointing to the mote in your American neighbour's.

Let's take those in turn:

Slotkin's analysis is a poor fit with American popular culture. This is not the forum to debate whether Slotkin's take on Turner, or on Puritan captivity narratives is correct (though I think it is). And as for the twentieth century, the event that prompted the most reflection and repudiation of the redemptive power of violence was not the advent of nuclear weapons but rather the costly and futile wars in Southeast Asia. The idea of redemptive violence, and the civilized man who fights like a savage to defend civilization, made a hell of a comeback in the post-Vietnam years. Think Rambo II, think the Death Wish movies and their innumerable knockoffs, think the resurgence of horror fiction and films in the 1970s and '80s, think of the defense of American military activity in Cuba in the film A Few Good Men, and above all, think of the defences of torture promulgated in the wake of revelations of American practice in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Civilized men must torture-- must behave like savages-- to defend civilization from savagery. And we were told this as recently as last year.

What regeneration is there in Stark and Rogers' fistfight? There isn't any, which is one reason I found the inclusion of a fight scene so forced. I think it was included more to satisfy the external demand that every comic book must have a fight scene, rather than for any reason internal to the story. But if the fight isn't regenerative, it is at least cathartic: after it's over, the two men can leave peacefully. Apparently the only way for the two of them to overcome their individual rage and frustration was to punch each other, and punching does help in that regard. My point is, the story presents the resolution the two men reach, namely a fistfight, as an unexceptional and natural outcome. Catharsis through violence is the appropriate and natural way forward: I really do think there is something peculiarly American at work here.

But don't the Canadian and British popular-culture traditions, to name just two, have a similar attitude towards violence? Not at all. I can't speak to the British tradition, but Canadian popular culture has always emphasized the primal conflict as being between human being and nature, not human being and human being. Maraget Atwood delineated this some time ago: American stories are about man vs. man, with the heroic man winning. Canadian stories are about man vs. nature, with nature winning. Perhaps, she theorized, because the Canadian environment was so much harsher than the American one, Canadian stories emphasized the need for communal solidarity, everyone pulling together to defend the community against the violence of nature. And typically nature wins, destroying community in spite of man's best efforts. There's no place for internal violence here in the face of an overwhelming outside danger. American popular culture is so, well, popular in Canada precisely because it strikes a note of optimism that we can't muster for ourselves: where Americans struggle against each other for reward, Canadians huddle together against the dark and cold.

My point here is not that Canadian popular culture is healthier or more praiseworthy than American popular culture-- clearly we here in the Great White North have our own demons to wrestle with-- but that regenerative violence does indeed hold a place in American popular culture that is by no means universal. I repeat: the final fistfight between Rogers and Stark struck many American readers, and the writer also, as a reasonable outcome, or so at least I imagine. But it struck this non-American reader as totally ludicrous, and wholly at odds with the reasoned debate that had been going on just before.

So yes, despite your objections, I continue to think that Richard Slotkin's point about Americans having a peculiar attitude towards violence stands, and that we can see it at work in this issue. Thanks for writing!