Preface
This dialogue is intended to be very readable. Unlike many dialogues that one has been exposed to from Shakespeare or other writers of antiquity, this work includes manner of thought and expression that is representative of the current time period. The author has been exposed to works in dialogue form that are intended to convey points of philosophical importance in the works of Plato and some others, and while the traditional structure of the play and dialogue is utilized, on inspiration from these earlier writers, the subject matter and conversation style of the characters is modern and approachable.
I have used as a guide, the work of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The simplicity of this format is akin to those in which I’ve earlier been exposed, and it seems few novelties are required for the purposes of this particular book. Interestingly the works of William Shakespeare have been recently scrutinized for providing correct credits to the true author of the work, some claim may belong to a woman, or else to some other writers who may have aided Shakespeare in his works. Here I only note in passing that this is interestingly related to the subject of this book of the desire to provide expanded social justice in credits to authors, on grounds of current views of expanding on fairness and equality (e.g. those who really contributed should not be left out and their status should not be dwarfed such that no other credit is provided but to one person who may not have done all the writing), and also the desire that human excellences are fully appreciated and awarded. In other words Shakespeare is not thought of as deserving only equal merit to others, but more; and also that Shakespeare ought not receive all the credit over everyone else, because that is too unfair. Since I am not a Shakespeare scholar I am unable to form an opinion regarding the true merits of his authorship, or the details of his persona. I also am unable to know who has really contributed and who has not. However, I did utilize his work as an example for structuring the dialogue, directly. However I’ve read many other dialogues and his is not the only example I could recall for the planning and design of this work and others are mentioned in the Introduction.
It is hoped the reader pays special attention while reading to the realism of the dialogue, because the author is not writing this with any goal that it would become a film or screenplay. The primary purpose of the dialogue is to make it clear to the reader that what is said really is related to real world common examples of how people talk about equality and utilize it for trying to understand moral conclusions, and how conversation culminates in moral judgements that result from ambivalences. It is not merely entertainment! It should connect with real conversations we have all been exposed to in a way that makes it clear that there would be ample data in our culture substantiating the points in the main essay and its conclusions.
Introduction
This dialogue is a combination of a screenplay that could be used for performance on stage, or for creation of a film, and a traditional explanatory work of fiction, based on realistic conversations I’ve had, that serve to more completely articulate the meanings and purposes of the main essay. Some authors who write philosophical or scientific pieces have needed to resort to writing works of fiction or literature to more clearly convey their intended meanings in works that don’t provide human context. Some examples include the work Nasea by Jean Paul Sartre, a famous existential philosopher, and Walden Two by B.F. Skinner, a famous experimental psychologist. The authors David Hume and George Berkeley, have also written dialogues to clarify their other, more dense, philosophical writings. Of course, many have chosen to write in one genre, and not others, writing only literature, or writing only scientific or philosophical pieces, with considerable success. However, readers are more likely to have some confusions about what is really inferrable from their works to the real world in which they are living, and havepotentially a mindset differing from the author leading to differing ideas about what the author really thought about the relationships of their abstract thoughts to real examples in ordinary life. It is the author’s opinion that mixed media is the very greatest way to convey information in a maximally clear way, and a writer-scientist-philosopher-artist in one may do better than others to fully communicate ideas, if they could produce films, artworks, literary pieces, photography, scientific and academic articles, and plain works of prosaic explanation that are normal books of non-fiction. Combining fiction, entertainment, art, and non-fiction together, provides a better picture of what the author is really wanting to share with audiences.
While the author has aspirations to produce more mixed media to fully convey certain thoughts, it has to be admitted that time, funding, and skill constraints, make it infeasible at present to do all that might be most desirable for this particular work; and doing so decreases time available for completing other works. However, the author relies on the traditional approach that was used when there was no film or photography at all, with very good success in results, to use primarily the combination of a literary screenplay that could be used to create a film or act, and an essay to more completely communicate his intended meanings. The reader will easily be able to relate the dialogue with the essay to understand the author’s intent, and better see the relationships between common thinking about equality and constraints on moral development of civilization.
The essay includes some very controversial subject matter that the author has felt should be relatively uncontroversial, if not for various nationlistic commitments people have that they occasionally bring to mind. On many occasions people are quite ambivalent about their views of equality, sometimes supporting the view that people exhibit diverse excellences that should be rewarded, and diverse weaknesses that sometimes should be punished, while also thinking that fairness is incomplete and requires improvement, with the goal somehow relating to equalities that are thought to exist or are thought to be desirable. This work exhibits this pervasive tendency to alternate from one way of thinking to the other within real conversations that the reader will immediately notice to be realistic and commonplace. The dialog provides several sub-acts that provide a number of differing examples of differing types, so that the screenplay doesn’t only provide on singular example. This should convey to the reader just how pervasive the issue of alternating between incompatible ways of thinking about equality and inequality really is. This will prepare the reader for the main essay, where it is needed to understand the extent of the problem and the reasonability of the solution proposed.
This dialogue which can be thought of as a film in writing is followed by the essay, which provides initially a plain explanation in a nonfictional format, and an academic conversation that offers something closer to a formal mathematical-scientific proof of the main ideas in the total book. It is hoped the reader persists in reading through all the writing so full persuasive opportunity is provided to the author in all the ways the author has available for fully communicating the truth of the main message of the book.
A Dialogue Concerning Diversities and Inequality
Characters
Scene
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
References
Berekely, G. (n.d.). Three Dialogues.
Hesse, H. (1922). Siddhartha. New Directions.
Hume, D. (n.d.). Dialogs Concerning Natural Religion.
Mattanaw. (2018). Dr. Lunch. Book and Journal of Mattanaw. http://www.mattanaw.org/short-stories.html
Plato. (n.d.). Apology (4 Related Dialogues of Socrates).
Sartre, J. (n.d.). Nausea.
Shakespeare, W. (1599). Hamlet. Project Gutenberg. Edited 1859. http://mattanaw.org/hamlet-by-william-shakespaere.txt
Skinner, B. (n.d.). Walden Two.
Williams, C. (n.d.). Dialogue on Determinism.