Sklaving Them Softly: America Puts the Cap on Thor

Hello listener, and welcome!This episode got a little bit out of hand. Treating of the MCU's metaphysical maneuvering, we had to go deep into the bad air of ressentiment... Availing ourselves to Nietzsche, which sounds reasonable, had unfortunately gone to Sagi's head, who proceeded to channel the poor moustached genius throughout. And then a hammer became involved... Unfortunate.We are reverse-engineering perhaps the most cathartic moment of the MCU (phase 3 at least) -- where, in Avengers: Endgame, Captain America finally wields Thor's hammer, Mjolnir  -- and hopefully ruin it for everybody. We see a textbook example of Monotheistic ressentiment/slave-morality, whewre the symbol of pagan power undergoes, like Thor, a systematic humiliation, an infection, as a way  to prepare it to be "aufgehoben" into a Monotheistic value-system. The disease has two foci of corruption: for one, it is now tied to will rather than only the act; in the myths, Thor's hammer was indeed a boomerang, but could not be "summoned" -- by "force" of will -- like a Jedi does a lightsaber. Second, after Odin strips Thor of his power (for doing exactly what original Thor would do), he infects the hammer, and Thor's power, with  a western category of 'worth,' which then leads Thor on a journey where he learns to think like the weak, to alienate himself from his home and people so as to learn that "all life matters"...So by the time Captain America -- America's pure-of-heart, a-sexual, fight-for-justice eugenics experiment/prototype (but not a Nazi!) -- wields Mjolnir, the systematic usurpation of pagan power/valuation is complete, with no remainder. This is not new, but an old tradition, I daresay the 'western' tradition, at least since Thomas Aquinas. And the catharsis of the moment proves this fantasy is still lodged deep in the western psyche.Of course there's a lot more to unpack here, but I don't want to ruin it for you; tune-in, dear masochist! Hear Jake fail miserably at a Zizek accent! Empathize with Jack's PTSD (after being subjected to an Avengers amusement park)! Be edified by Andrew's lifelong crusade on homophobia! Fun for the whole family!!The stars that deigned to be tossed this time were, for the most part: What  Would Jesus Do; Il vaut mieux Lyotard que jamais; and Beast and Sovereign.