Introduction
Throughout human existence, there has always been a struggle between the idealistic views and the realistic views of justice. The idealistic person believes that everyone deserves justice; however, there have been times when people have been wrongfully convicted for a crime and spent years in prison. In the movie, The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne understands the corruption of the justice system in Gotham City and creates a vigilante persona to bring justice to Gotham City. The Joker, the realist, realizes that Gotham City cannot be saved because he believes that the true nature of human beings is selfishness. In The Republic, Plato argues that power should be used to govern in the best interests of the entire community. Thrasymachus the realist, however, argued that success can be achieved by caring for the citizenry so that they can provide material wealth and power for the leader or leaders. Batman is the idealist because, by becoming a vigilante, he is considering the community’s best interests which are consistent to Plato’s philosophy (The Dark Knight). Batman believes that justice should be used to protect the weak from the manipulative. Joker is the realist because, by being a villain, he places his everyone else’s interests over others and considers them as the best for himself, which is consistent with Thrasymachus’ viewpoint (The Dark Knight). In this paper, I will discuss the similarities and differences between idealistic views of the Dark Knight and Plato and the realistic views of the Joker and Thrasymachus.
The similarity and differences between idealistic views of the Dark Knight and Plato
Both Batman and Plato share similar idealistic viewpoints regarding how power should be used for the common good...
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...The Joker became the most dangerous criminal in Gotham. In both The Dark Knight and Plato’s The Republic, the ideals and realistic beliefs were similar but the methods used to obtain those ideals were mildly different.
Works Cited
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The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart. 2008. DVD.
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Plato. The Republic. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1955
In most superhero or action movies, the good guys are always the ones who are in the right with everything that they do, and the bad guys are always in the wrong, but that is not always how it goes. In 2008, director Christopher Nolan released the second installment in the Dark Knight trilogy, The Dark Knight. This blockbuster hit pits the “Caped Crusader” Batman, against his insane nemesis, the Joker as well as the once great Harvey Dent, in order to save the city of Gotham from complete chaos and destruction. However, when the movie comes to its conclusion, Gotham has not changed almost at all, and in fact some things are actually worse than they were before, and the Joker is not entirely responsible. The reason for this is that both Batman
The crafts done at the end benefit the subject and not the craftsman himself, he says. For instance, the doctor uses his knowledge about medicine as arts to treat the patient; the pilot directs to satisfy safety of the ship and the sailors… (Bloom 332e).As Thrasymachus, he thinks that ruling is like art and at an end for the subject's advantage. During the maintenance of this argument, Thrasymachus indirectly consents to Socrates ‘view. However further he will not accept the conclusion deny what's
In “The Dark Knight: An Allegory of America in the Age of Bush”, Ron Briley comparing the terrorist acts of 9/11 to one of America’s top movies, The Dark Knight Rises from the Batman series. Briley gives many different ideas of similarities and a lot of good points, but is not as clear as you would hope someone would be when trying to persuade and convince you to believe such an allegory. Briley is comparing many of the main cast in The Dark Knight to many real people who are not as great as these characters are seemed to be.
The terms "hero" and "villain" are as distinct as the terms "good" and "evil." They are mutually exclusive; the hero is courageous, popular, strong, morally, and willing to save the people at whatever cost, while the villain is despicable, hated, and heinous to his core. However, when we turn away from the archetypal world of comic books, this distinction is no longer as clear. When we look at real human beings we do not see a hero as a hero or a villain as a villain, but rather individuals composed of varying degrees of both extremes. No hero is perfect, and no villain is completely heinous. The most recent film adaptation of the DC Comic series Batman presents this truth of human nature. The Dark Knight Rises effectively communicates the
Plato. “Republic VII.” Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy From Thales to Aristotle. Comp. and ed. S. Marc cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. 370-374
According to Aristotle, man should strive to mimic Batman because he is virtuous. However, not necessarily Bruce Wayne since he is vulgarian. Yet, I noticed that Batman cannot maintain good relationships with the opposite sex. He will never be able to keep any relationship because of his obsession to fight crime. If Wayne were to find a balance between the normal life and the Batman life, he could have good relationships. However, since the ultimate goal is to attain happiness in the ethics, and part of that involves having good true relationships. Then is Batman really a good model for humans to look up to? No, while one may be virtuous, it does not imply that he will have a good life. Therefore, I do not agree with Aristotle’s assessment.
Perceptions of the superhero and supervillain are mainly based on subjective definitions of each concept. These observations often lead to a definitive dichotomy that precisely splits characters into two impermeable divisions. However, this stringent separation is unable to account for the characters that are not at the extreme ends of their respective side. Neither is this rift capable of classifying characters that flirt with both sides of the superhero-supervillain dichotomy. Therefore it is imperative to analyze the established criteria for both superhero and supervillain to derive a more adequate explanation. Most superheroes are not easily characterized, but rather fall somewhere between Superman, the bastion of moral purity, and Doctor Doom, the display of indubitable corruption. This solicits genesis of an entirely new notion about the differences between superheroes and supervillains. A more precise idea is that superheroes and supervillains are lined on a spectrum that spans from pure good to pure evil. Disparities between superheroes and supervillains are not black and white, but rather these characters are on a spectrum that radically changes based on individual cases.
Batman is a hero during the night that protects the people of Gotham city to the best of his capability and is willing to sacrifice everything, even his true identity. Then there is Bruce Wayne, who is a very rich, spoiled playboy that does not care about anything other than him and the luxurious lifestyle he lives. The ideological struggle between Batman and Bruce Wayne is very important in this book because everyone at some point struggles between who they actually are and who they want to be. The way Frank Miller portrays the struggle in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is truly a work of
Plato's Republic centers on a simple question: is it always better to be just than unjust? The Republic sustains reflections on political questions, as well. Not that ethics and politics exhaust the concerns of the Republic.
Brown, Eric. "Plato's Ethics and Politics in The Republic." Stanford University. Stanford University, 01 Apr. 2003. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.
Mitchell Cohen & Nicole Fermon Princeton Readings in Political Thought: Essential Texts since Plato. Princeton University Press
Plato, Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds. The Collected Dialogues of Plato (New York: Pantheon, 1966).
However, the argument with Thrasymachus raise some questions about justice and injustice and the advantages they offer to men. In order to attempt an answer, it is important to understand what is justice according to Plato himself and what other definitions it could have. Then it is possible to demonstrate that he succeed in a certain extent to refute Thrasymachus and Glaucon's opinion.
Can there be justice for all? To answer this question I must first define what justice is. Justice is ?the quality of being just, impartial or fair? in your dealings with others according to Merriam Webster?s Collegiate Dictionary. Keeping that definition in mind, I now must turn to the Voices of Wisdom in order to find an example of a situation in which all parties feel that they are being treated justly. After examining examples such as: Euthanasia, discrimination based on sexual orientation, and equal opportunity offered within the book, it becomes clear to me that there is in fact no possible way for there to be justice for all because everyone?s judgement is in some way or another clouded by their own self interests.
Batman Begins has an incredible amount of struggles that not only Bruce Wayne must face but all of Gotham must face. The first of many of these was Thomas and Martha Wayne's sudden death at the beginning. This left both the people of Gotham and Bruce Wayne to struggle along without them “Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself and Gotham has limped on ever since.” (Batman Begins, Ras Al Ghul, Scene 31) This also created much anger and rage in Bruce Wayne that he released as Batman. There is also the struggle with the crime rate in Gotham and keeping alive the cities slowly falling government. These things differ from the Dark Knight where the struggles are with mainly the Joker and his actions. Many more unexpected and out of control struggles occur in The Dark Knight. The Joker (mastermind terrorist) creates many series of problems and difficulties for Batman, Gordon, Dent, and all of Gotham in general. Another big problem, quite different from the first one is the capturing of Joker. Unlike the first film, the struggles of The Dark Knight are much more external while the first one was fixing what was on Gotham’s internal problems. An example was after Rachel’s death it changed Harvey into an evil person therefore changing the whole ending of the movie, and a lot of the next one. Another big difference between the two films is The Dark Knight has a lot more violence and explosions,