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Philosophy in the Dark Knight
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Philosophy in the Dark Knight

dwilljo
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/23/08 - 06:21 PM: Subject: Philosophy in the Dark Knight	#1
So I just saw the new batman movie, and T thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed the use of philosophical ideas in an applied manner. To me the distinction between this movie and other movies that tries to use these types of ideas, is that here they are more "applied". What I mean is that specific philosophical ideas are displayed in scenes. One scene addresses morality: people on the 2 boats had to kill each other or be killed. To sweeten the deal, one of the boats was full of inmates. The movie addresses many classic questions on morality, free will and through these vaguely atheism/theism. I found that each character expressed a philosophy that was continually challenged and expressed throughout the movie. Would it be to far to compare joker to socrates? The similarities in their ideas to challenge mainstream society seems to stick out. I found joker to be the only one sure of himself in the movie. I think he represents the thoughts of modern society, in certain areas, - minus compassion etc. He is an atheist, not because of punishment/reward, but because he doesn't believe in free will. In any other movie having somebody say, "i am an agent of chaos", would be totally lame. But, I think that really contributed to understanding jokers philosophy. Joker understands the dance and balance of good/evil - but he wouldnt call it good/evil. It's really just a battle of opposing forces. Each one performing what they are supposed to do based on the probability of being who they are. This idea is manifested in the creation of two face. Anyways, just wondering if anyone else saw this aspect of the movie because all my friends think I am nuts.

Kelby
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Posted 07/23/08 - 07:27 PM:	#2
I saw The Dark Knight during the midnight showing and I thought it was amazing. As for your interpretation...keep it. It's hard to philosophize about what each aspect intended to be, and that you did find philosophical matters in the movie is good enough. I did not find the Joker to be philosophical in the sense you described. If anything, he was anti-philosophical. Don't think. Just do. He even says that during the scene when he was talking to Dent in the hospital. "I just do things." That would be the opposite of Socrates. Socrates lived an examined life, one carefully constructed, and lived by principles. Joker has none of those facets. The only things he cares about is crime for crime's sake, which is similar to Aristotle's belief in seeking knowledge for knowledge's sake. The Joker has no real philosophy of his own. He however is aware that others ARE philosophical, thus he concocted that little boat scenario. He uses other people's philosphies to attack them. He is an agent of chaos, no rhyme or reason. He is symbolic of a constant action without any direction. He stands as that manifestation Batman needs to deal with in his own life. In Batman Begins he says "it is no what's on the inside that matters, it's what I do that defines me." Batman is all action as well, but the aspects of Bruce Wayne need to control that fear of breaking loose and having no direction. Dwilljo, you are not nuts for drawing philosophical correlations from an amazing movie. You are intelligent...
Embodied Cognition: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/embodcog.htm#H2

dwilljo
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Posted 07/23/08 - 07:38 PM:	#3
sounds good, I like your interpretation of joker - and I definitely haven't thought too hard about my interpretation. That was just the first thing that came to mind. I think he's like socrates in the fact that he helps people examine themselves. Thanks for the vote of sanity! Although it stands to reason that individuals frequenting this forum would see the movie in a philosophical manner!

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 07/23/08 - 08:20 PM:	#4
dwilljo wrote: I found that each character expressed a philosophy that was continually challenged and expressed throughout the movie. Would it be to far to compare joker to socrates? The similarities in their ideas to challenge mainstream society seems to stick out. I found joker to be the only one sure of himself in the movie. It would be a fair comparison if you were saying that the Joker was the opposite of the Joker. Socrates was not sure of himself, though he wanted to pursue truth and the good. The Joker is sure of himself and wants to abandon the search for truth and the good. He seeks knowledge only in order to destroy the works of others. I think he represents the thoughts of modern society, in certain areas, - minus compassion etc. He is an atheist, not because of punishment/reward, but because he doesn't believe in free will. I struggle to see this as atheism. If anything, he seems to have the fanatical zeal of a believer. Joker understands the dance and balance of good/evil - but he wouldnt call it good/evil. It's really just a battle of opposing forces. Each one performing what they are supposed to do based on the probability of being who they are. This idea is manifested in the creation of two face. I think that the Joker explicitly identifies good and evil, he simply desires only the pursuit of evil and that is what is shown in his creation of Two Face.
"Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein [This is included for the irony.]

Philosophical
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Posted 07/23/08 - 11:07 PM:	#5
I have seen the Dark Knight twice - I just got back from seeing it again just now I feel The Joker shared an erratic and psychotic thought pattern. He didn't question philosophical ideas with his own personal philosophy; he just conveyed the idea that chaos can change us all. He thrives on this chaos and seeing an unbalanced society to disprove or contradict the regular belief of people. His objective is simple - watch the world burn; sadistic. You could say The Joker had one philosophical thought or social analogy -depends which way you look at it- in the movie: 'You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody would panic. It's all part of the plan. But tell people that one tiny little mayor is going to die and everyone loses their minds!' To prove my point The Joker conveys an erratic fiend or 'sicko': The Joker speaking to Harvey Dent: 'Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don't have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just do things.' This direct quote proves to us that The Joker was fully aware he had no real objective, he just simply thrived on his own psychotic thought to continue chaos and mayhem. Unplanned, not pre-meditated to cause any real logical beneficial objective - just to satisfy his thirst for 'fun' - The Joker: ‘You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.' Another thing I picked up on was when the passengers where on the ferries and The Joker comes across the PA system going, 'Tonight we are going to try a social experiment'; this lead me to believe The Joker had a sarcastic and witty twist on what was recognized as normality. This facet of his humor allowed him to derive 'fun' from his sadistic and cruel undertakings on innocent people. His only recognized reward for his actions - becoming a better criminal: 'This town deserves a better class of criminal... and I'm gonna give it to them.' And you may be wondering why I called The Joker 'psychotic': 'I use a knife because guns are too quick. Otherwise, you can't savor all the emotions. You know who people are in their last moments.' I see that as psychotic or mentally disturbed thinking. I didn't really like the character portrayed by Batman, he just remained in his own world of saving Gotham and trying to regain love with Rachael. That kind of made me lose interest in the character and just made me pay attention to the remarkable final acting part of Heath Ledger. Ultimately the movie was a product of 'when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.' Edited by Philosophical on 07/25/08 - 03:00 PM
“No one can give you any answers. There aren’t any. You have to discover for yourself—you must learn to navigate the mystery.” -Bill Hicks

The Joker
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Posted 07/25/08 - 02:10 PM:	#6
The batman movie and this thread has compelled me to join this forum. I have always been a philosophy buff and I just wanted to give my view. I think my interpretation may fit yours. I think The Joker is just like the batman being he wants society to change and I think for the better, or we deserve to die. He is showing us our own principles and values we are living by and showing us what the end result is. The Joker: "I am not a freak I am just ahead of the curve". I think the theme of this movie is the way people react to the fake morality most people have on earth and the ways in which it contradicts itself. I think via the dialogue he has speaking of his various life memories, he shows the emotional trauma he has been threw when he has personally experience the ways in which the mainstream principles of society can turn on its self. What I believe the joker is doing is pushing our principles to the extreme to show with our society's subjective principles he is not doing anything out of what the society excepts.I think he tells us he acknowledges in this quote "'You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody would panic. It's all part of the plan. But tell people that one tiny little mayor is going to die and everyone loses their minds". I think he hates our contradiction in our principles, our subjectiveness or lack of objectiveness, and can be seen in various instances, first of all he has experienced them at first hand, via the memories he talks about, and can be seen in at least 2 quotes one being to batman, "You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun.", he is trying to exploit batmans contradiction in principles, or maybe to see if there is one, which would be why he thinks hes fun, because hes finally met some one who is objective. The other quote is when he talks about how he lives to disrupt those with 'plans', and he names them off, the mob the cops, and he says the get what they deserve because they scheme. And ultimately that's what he hates the scheming, the subjectiveness, and the lack of integrity of social values. Well that's my two cents. Tell me what you think. .
"It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair." - Homer

kkiiji
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Posted 07/25/08 - 02:32 PM:	#7
It seems that the Joker is a reaction to rigid and inflexible societal structures, which attempts to put humanity under control, to put a lid on humanity. It isn't a far stretch to relate Joker to an atheist, his ideals seems to be very similar to Nietzsche's "God is dead". Though he made no direct comments on religion if I remember correctly, he certainly did comment on bureaucracy. He is the direct representation of humanity's resistance against being systemized, that's my take at least.
Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says "But Doctor... I am Pagliacci." Good joke, everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum... Curtains.

cortes
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Posted 07/25/08 - 02:58 PM:	#8
Who is batman?
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

The Joker
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Posted 07/25/08 - 03:09 PM:	#9
cortes wrote: Who is batman? That post is ridiculous. Batman has values, principles, he is objective, he doesn't 'bend' the rights and freedom of everyone else to get the bad guys. And bush isn't even getting the bad guys, hes bending the rules so he can do whatever he wants. Batman does even want to do this, he believes everyone should answer to their crimes. Bush is a sociopath that has blatant disregard for human life. Bush has broken the law almost every day in office, he has almost 50 investigations of various crimes and being the dictator he thinks he is, and the dictator we let him be, he doesn't answer for anything. I feel insulted for batman in that comparison. edited Edited by The Joker on 07/25/08 - 03:13 PM
"It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair." - Homer

Philosophical
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Posted 07/25/08 - 03:18 PM:	#10
The Joker wrote: Batman has values, principles, he is objective, he doesn't 'bend' the rights and freedom of everyone else to get the bad guys. .. Were you watching the same movie as me? Bruce Wayne took on the responsibility of maintaining the Batman despite his knowledge that The Joker was going to kill people. He very much jeopardized people's rights to live. Nothing the Batman did was according to the books, he just took justice into his own hands and made himself a super cop. He had objective, values and principles but he sure did compromise peoples safety and rights to get the bad guys.
“No one can give you any answers. There aren’t any. You have to discover for yourself—you must learn to navigate the mystery.” -Bill Hicks

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