I watched The Dark Knight and caught myself: I find the Joker likable in a strange way.
Not as a person. Not as a role model. But as a function.
I know this function. I even like it. Because it does something that most systems try to prevent by all means: It holds up a mirror to them — and doesn’t let it sink again just because someone says “order”.
When I perceive the Joker as a dark version of Till Eulenspiegel, it’s because Eulenspiegel in truth was never just a jester. Eulenspiegel is a disruption that produces truth. He makes visible where rules are not rules but costumes. Where authority is not authority but only habit. Where “that’s how it’s done” in reality means “that’s how it’s done as long as nobody asks”.
And that’s exactly where my personal conflict begins — or more precisely: my personal hierarchy.
I love order. I love structure. I love bestforming when it really is bestforming: clarity, reliability, equal rules, clean boundaries.
But I hate hypocrisy more.
And when bestforming becomes a mask, when rules become absurd or apply only to some, then beingloco is not defiance. It is protest. Civil disobedience at the system level. A mirror that forces the system to look at itself.
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Pillar 1: The trickster is the system’s mirror test
The trickster is not an “anti-order” figure. He is an anti-hypocrisy figure.
He does not automatically accept the premises of the system. Above all, he does not accept the most convenient premise of all: that everything can be explained if you just know the right price.
This is the secret religion of many societies: In the end it’s about money. If you just pay enough, morality becomes a service. Loyalty becomes a subscription. Principle becomes a discount.
The trickster ruins this religion by not serving it.
Rubies as big as a tangerine
In The Dark Knight Alfred tells that Burma story, and it’s more than a set-up for “the Joker is just insane”. It’s a diagnosis.
“One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine.”
And this bandit — the actual trickster in Alfred’s story — throws these rubies away. He does not act according to the expected grid. He follows no logic “like money”.
Then comes the sentence that exposes the operating system of many orders:
“They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.”
Money, power, arguments, deals — the four standard keys with which you unlock systems. The trickster doesn’t fit the lock. And that’s exactly why he becomes a mirror.
Because the moment money is only a means of exchange (a token, a tool, a logistical circumstance) and no longer the anchor of meaning, the system loses its most convenient explanation. And suddenly it has to show whether it has values — or only mechanics.
The system believes it is moral. The trickster checks whether it is only stable.
The Joker does the same. Not subtly. Not kindly. But structurally identical.
He says in essence: Your order is not “good”. It is only “habitual”. And it does not apply because it is true, but because everyone has played along so far.
And he doesn’t test that through philosophy, but through pressure.
He calls himself an “agent of chaos” and goes one better:
“Introduce a little anarchy… It’s fair!”
That is of course a provocative lie and at the same time a mirror. Chaos is not “fair”. But the sentence hits a sore spot: Many orders are not fair but selective. They are fair for those who wrote them. They are fair for those who are allowed to interpret them. They are fair for those who can afford exceptions.
The trickster does not say: “I’ll make it better.” He says: “I’ll make it visible.”
And this making-visible with the Joker always happens where the system prefers to stay in the fog: with morality that only applies in good weather.
“Madness… is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”
This too is a mirror. Not because “madness” is desirable, but because the Joker is pointing at something we don’t like to admit: that many of our “civilized” self-images are not built on stability but on conditions.
The trickster is the moment when conditions tip.
Burning money: the mirror that hurts
The scene that resonates with you so much is the point at which the Joker destroys the obvious: money as a motive.
“It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message.”
“Everything burns.”
This is not poetry. This is a system operation: He takes away the mob’s common language. He cuts the “deal” channel. And suddenly everyone has to notice: If money no longer counts, only loyalty, fear, violence — and the question of who is even still allowed to define “rules” — remain.
In Alfred’s story, rubies are the size of tangerines and worthless. With the Joker, piles of money are real and worthless. It is the same movement: devaluation of the token in order to force the truth of the system to become visible.
And this is exactly where the Joker becomes the dark Eulenspiegel: He doesn’t just hold up the mirror. He glues it in place.
The ferry experiment: morality as a coat of paint
One of the strongest mirror moments in the film is not even a line. It’s a setup: two ferries, two groups, one button.
The Joker forces society into a grotesque decision and thereby says: If your morality is real, it will hold even when it becomes uncomfortable. If it is only a status accessory, it will fall off at the first serious test.
You don’t have to romanticize this scene to see its mirror value. The mirror is: Morality is often performance. And systems love performance because it simulates order. The trickster forces performance into reality.
And then comes Tyler Durden — the Joker without clown makeup
When you say Tyler Durden connects to this, you’re right. Tyler is not a Joker double, but he is the same function in a different field: consumption, identity, performance.
He doesn’t hold up a mirror to society regarding “criminality” but regarding “normality”.
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes…”
This is the mirror on a society that sells meaning as a product and is then surprised when people become hollow inside.
“The things you own end up owning you.”
Again here: money and possessions are tokens. Tools. But when they become the anchor of meaning, the token owns you — not the other way around.
And Tyler does something else that directly connects your two pillars: He puts bestforming under suspicion as soon as it becomes a self-optimization religion.
“Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction…”
You can consider that destructive (it often is). But as a mirror it is sharp: There is a kind of bestforming that does not seek truth but recognition. That does not want performance but superiority. That does not mean order but rank.
And that is exactly where your point begins: The trickster is the protest against rules that are not true.
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Pillar 2: Hypocrisy beats order — and then I choose beingloco
I want to say this as clearly as I need it myself:
Order is a value.
Structure is a value.
bestforming is a value.
But these values are subordinate to something I do not negotiate: equality of rules and honesty of justification.
Because order can protect. Order can support. Order can even heal.
But order can also stabilize what is wrong.
And then order becomes a lie with good branding.
bestforming is only bestforming if it applies to everyone
The simplest definition I know:
• bestforming is order that serves truth.
• bestforming is structure that enables fairness.
• bestforming is a set of rules that does not become soft at the top and hard at the bottom.
As soon as a system has two sets of rules — one for people with money, one for people without — it is not a set of rules. It is privilege management.
As soon as a system calls itself “rational” but does not apply its rules consistently, it is not rational. It is rhetorical.
And as soon as a system says “professionalism” but in truth means obedience, it is not professional. It is trained.
At this moment beingloco becomes an option.
Not as a lifestyle. Not as “chaos”. But as targeted rule-breaking, because playing along normalizes hypocrisy.
Absurd rules are not an argument for order but a wake-up call
You brought up the cannabis example, and it’s ideal because it exposes the time dimension: rules are versions, not truth.
In Germany, the recreational cannabis law (KCanG) came into force on 1 April 2024. The federal government recorded this in the Federal Law Gazette. The Federal Ministry of Health describes that this legalized private home cultivation and collective cultivation in cultivation associations.
And at the same time, cannabis as medicine is being re-regulated; the ministry explicitly describes that cannabis was removed from the schedules of the BtMG on 1 April 2024 and the rules were transferred into separate laws.
This is not a detail question. This is a mirror for something fundamental:
Yesterday you were — in the logic of the system — a criminal.
Today you are — in the logic of the system — normal.
And tomorrow the system will act as if all of this had always been without alternative.
The absurd thing is not the change. Changes are normal. The absurd thing is the moral self-certainty with which systems present their respective version as “natural”.
And here lies your beingloco impulse: If rules are so obviously time-dependent and narrative, why should I obey them blindly — especially when they harm people while at the same time culturally ennobling other drugs (alcohol)?
I don’t even have to argue medically to see the mirror: societies confuse legality with morality. And this confusion is hypocrisy with a stamp.
My permanent triggers: decades, one pattern
You said: It’s not “one situation”. It’s been the same pattern for decades. And that is the central point for the manifesto character: It’s not about mood. It’s about structure.
Patriarchy:
There is a hypocrisy that calls women “hysterical” when they become inconvenient — and “likable” when they keep themselves small. There is a hypocrisy that labels female clarity in menopause as a problem instead of as a consequence: less fear, more identity. The system calls that “emotional”. In truth it is often simply: no longer available.
Children without a lobby:
Adults call it “upbringing” when they set rules they would never accept themselves. Children bear the consequences but have no voice, no bargaining power, no exit option. This is a power asymmetry disguised as normality.
Money rules the world:
Not as a moral accusation but as an observation: Money is increasingly becoming the ticket to freedom of action. And power is increasingly becoming the ability to write rules — or not to have to follow them.
Capitalism as lack of alternatives through narrative:
Communism as a historical system has failed in many ways — and in capitalism this is gladly told as if that had also settled all the questions that communism raised: dignity, basic needs, solidarity, protection from exploitation. This is a rhetorical trick: You let the counter-model die and sell that as “proof” that there are no alternatives. And suddenly “that’s how the world is” becomes a law of nature.
ADHD and neurodiversity:
“Invented illness”, “excuse”, “excusing lack of performance” — this is a particularly cheap form of hypocrisy because it presents itself as morally superior. It says: If you don’t function, it’s your fault. It ignores complexity and calls that “responsibility”. In reality it is often simply: unwillingness to adapt systems that would have to allow people to vary.
When you read this list, it’s clear why you say “wild Absurdistan”. Because the world is not only chaotic. It often pretends to be logical — while applying logic selectively.
And that is exactly why “order” is no longer enough as an answer.
Further mirror examples (because the pattern is everywhere)
If I take your pattern seriously, I find the same signatures in countless places:
• Meritocracy as a fairy tale: Performance is celebrated, but starting conditions are ignored. The system calls this “fair” because it does not factor in the unfair basis.
• Compliance theater: Rules are sold as morality but in practice used as a weapon downward. For those at the top there are “isolated cases”.
• Selective law & order: The small are sanctioned, the big are “regulated”. The system calls this “realism”. In truth it is power arithmetic.
• Neutrality as camouflage: Those who benefit call stabilization “objective”. Those who suffer call it “injustice”. Neutrality becomes the moral excuse to risk nothing.
• Race/class as implicit rule sets: Officially the rules are equal. In practice they often are not. This is hypocrisy in pure form: claiming equality, implementing inequality.
These are all variants of the same bug: Rules are not lived as a common contract but as an instrument. And as soon as rules become an instrument, bestforming is no longer performance — it is training.
Then I choose beingloco.
A mini-model that helps me (and probably you too)
I like to think of it along two axes:
1. Does the rule apply to everyone? (universal vs selective)
2. Is the rule meaningful? (meaningful vs absurd)
This creates four fields:
• Universal + meaningful: bestforming. Here I love rules.
• Universal + absurd: bureaucracy as an end in itself. Here I become critical.
• Selective + meaningful: privilege order. Here I become angry.
• Selective + absurd: the core of hypocrisy. Here beingloco becomes the moral option.
beingloco is then not “I do what I want”, but “I make visible that you are not doing what you claim”.
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Manifesto: My line between bestforming and beingloco
I write this as a vow, not as a debate.
1. I love structure — but I do not confuse structure with truth.
2. Rules that do not apply to everyone are not rules. They are privileges.
3. Money is a means of exchange. Whoever declares money to be meaning betrays people.
4. If a system preaches morality but sells exceptions, it is not a moral system but a market.
5. I do not play along when “professionalism” is just another word for obedience.
6. I accept disorder more readily than hypocrisy, because disorder is at least honest.
7. I do not believe in lack of alternatives. I believe in power that disguises itself as a law of nature.
8. I do not consider women “hysterical” when they become clear. I consider systems hysterical when they cannot bear clarity.
9. Children have no lobby — so every “that’s just how it is” is a moment of suspicion.
10. Neurodiversity is not an excuse. The excuse is not wanting to change systems.
11. When bestforming becomes a mask, I choose beingloco — targeted, visible, justified.
12. I do not want to watch the world burn. I want it to stop lying while it burns.
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The final catch: The trickster is both warning and tool
It would be cheap to dispose of the Joker as just a monster. Then I wouldn’t have to look. Then I could say: This has nothing to do with me.
But that is exactly the value of the trickster as a mirror: He forces me to sort my own values.
Tyler Durden says: “You are not your job…”
The Joker says: “It’s not about money…”
Alfred says: Some people follow no logic “like money”.
Three variants of the same disruption: The token is not the meaning.
And if the token is not the meaning, then I also cannot hide behind tokens: not behind money, not behind status, not behind “that’s how it’s done”, not behind “rules are rules”.
Because sometimes the most honest order is the one that dares to break a rule — not to win, but to show that the game is rigged.
The world is a wild Absurdistan. I can cling to it because it promises “order”. Or I can cling to it because I refuse to lie while I’m hanging on.
And maybe that is the real reason why the Joker as a dark Eulenspiegel seems likable to me: not because of the darkness. But because of the mirror work.
Because I want order.
But I don’t want it at the price of lying to myself.
