Get Plato a Script Doctor
If there is one philosophical device I am absolutely sick to death of, it’s the dialogue. Apparently some writers figure that no one wants to read a boring treatise about some kind of abstract theory. So instead, they write a boring play in which multiple characters debate the abstract theory through stilted dialogue. Maybe it’s the fiction-reader in me, but I read these things and I just want to scream “exposition dump!” Characters don’t sound natural, they have to contort themselves to drop names and establish theories, and usually there’s clearly one character who’s destined to be right. (In Plato, it was Socrates.)
I remember in college our professor had us watch a movie called Mindwalk, in which Sam Waterston plays a senator who’s just dropped his campaign for the presidency and so his poet friend takes him to a beach in France, and while touring a castle they meet some French woman who decides to start talking to them bout how the Cartesian worldview has affected Western society for hundreds of years. On the one hand, the characters had their own existential crises they were trying to get through. On the other, they had to recount hundreds of years of Western philosophy while they traipsed around the beach. By the end of it I was begging for a lecture.
I am reminded of all this by one of my education textbooks, which is full of dialogues. And boy oh boy are they stilted. And full of stereotypes – the author has apparently decided to be “edgy” by occasionally having one character call another a racist or a conservative idiot or what-have-you. At least there’s no clear voice-of-the-author character.
In the end, I think I’d rather read or see a work of fiction, with fleshed-out characters delivering compelling dialogue, that illustrates a philosophical conflict rather than make the philosophical debate the centerpiece of the story. It’s not like anyone’s breaking down my door to start a philosophy reality show – these conversations are interesting to participate in, but not much of a spectator sport.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.