Create a Socratic dialogue and write an analysis on it

EXAMPLE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Starbuckticus

Characters: Franny, Brittany, barista

On a sunny afternoon two female college students are enjoying blended coffee drinks at a popular café chain. Finals week is approaching, and the two friends are fixated on their shiny MacBook laptops. Occasionally one will absently flip through a college textbook or check social networking applications on her iPhone. There is a busy atmosphere in the café, and a hushed chatter envelops the room. Brittany soon contributes. She is usually soft-spoken and desires to make everyone she comes in contact with happy. She follows the latest trends and is usually immersed in an overwhelming group of girlfriends. She is about to begin an uncomfortable conversation with her childhood friend and classmate, Franny, who is known for being sharp-witted. However, her outspoken attitude often creates a rift between her and others.

Brittany: Did you see they released a new iPhone? I’m so disappointed that I have six months of my contract left. I’m actually thinking about buying it after I collect a couple more paychecks.

Franny: Gosh, that seems like a waste. Is there even much of an improvement from the previous model? I feel like most people buy Apple products just because they want to fit in. I couldn’t imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a new phone if I had one that functioned perfectly fine.

Brittany: No, you don’t understand! This model has a fingerprint scanner on the lock screen! The camera has also improved! I would take so many selfies if I had that phone!

Franny: (rolls her eyes) Aren’t you on your phone all day anyway? I hardly think getting a slightly improved phone would impact your life in any way.

Brittany: (looks down at her shiny iPhone) I think it would. It’s nice getting new things every once in awhile.

Both girls remain quiet for a period of time. Brittany seems nervous; she is repeatedly checking her phone. The atmosphere is uncomfortable. Franny is directing all of her attention at her laptop screen. It appears as though she is taking out frustration on her keyboard as she mechanically types her sociology paper. A barista unknowingly breaks her concentration. barista: Are you ladies done with these drinks? Is there anything you’d like?

Brittany: Yeah, I’m done! I’d like a blended chai Frappuccino, with soy milk please! Franny: (becoming noticeably irritated with her classmate) I’ll just have tea, thanks.

Franny: (with a sarcastic attitude) You know what, Brittany? It was kind of bothering me for a while that you seemed so shallow. But really, that’s really how everyone is nowadays. You’re just conforming to society. Everyone else follows trends like sheep; it shouldn’t bother me that you do, too. I’m sure you just do it because you are afraid to be an outcast.

Brittany: Wow, Franny, you don’t have to be so aggressive. I don’t know why you’d say something so mean. So what if I happen to like the same things as other people do? That doesn’t make me an awful person. And how do you know that I don’t genuinely like the things that you’re saying are just “trends”?

Franny looks at three hardbound books, stacked perfectly at her friend’s side. All three are Russian classics that look as if they have never been opened. Franny knows this will be a low blow, but she wants to get her point across. She points to the stack.

Franny: What’s with those books? Correct me if I’m wrong, but they look as if they’ve never been opened. What is the point of bringing those to a café?

Brittany: (she stares at the stack and says nothing)

Franny: You brought those books because you thought other people would notice that you’re reading a book that was written by some man that died over a hundred years ago. Wouldn’t you be happier if you didn’t focus on what other people thought of you?

Brittany: (her face softens) It’s not like I’m knowingly conforming to what other people do. That’s just how being a girl is. If I were to stand out, or look obnoxious, or even seem like a total airhead, I feel like everyone would judge me so harshly--

Franny: (cuts off her friend at the end of her sentence) --Do you think anyone cares what you’re reading right now? Because they don’t. Everyone is focusing on how their self-image is being portrayed to the world without realizing that their thoughts and actions mimic everyone else’s.

Brittany rubs her temples; she is tiring of the conversation. Not only is her childhood friend creating a scene at her neighborhood café, but she is beginning to question her relationship with her childhood friend. Her submissive demeanor fades.

Brittany: (with both fingertips on her temples) If I did conform to society and trends, it’s not like that would make me a terrible person. I would never conform to values that reflected hate, prejudice, or judgment. You are making it seem like conformity can only be defined in a negative light, but that’s really not the case at all. People wouldn’t be able to agree on anything if there wasn’t a level of conformity in society.

Franny is surprised, and slightly impressed by her friend’s rebuttal, but she continues with her argument.

Franny: Some level of conformity is necessary in society or else it would crumble. However, if you just mindlessly mimic the actions of everyone else around you what do you think is going to happen?

Brittany: (silence)

Franny: This is what would happen: if you were to mindlessly mimic the actions of everyone else around you, you wouldn’t be able to think critically about the consequences of your actions. Youcan’tdenythatamajorityofhatecrimeoccurbecausethekillerblindlyaccepts the beliefs of hate groups. Mob mentality is also a byproduct of conformity. It’s sickening that those people aren’t able to discover their own beliefs and ideas, so in turn they poison other people’s minds as well. Everyone should just be his or her own person regardless of what others think, including you. If you were just to adopt your own ideas of what you view as “cool” or “intelligent” you’d be much happier with yourself—you would see how silly it seems to want to fit in at all costs.

Brittany realizes that her friend is truly concerned for her happiness. She ponders her stance on the argument at hand.

Brittany: Maybe you’re right. I have a lot to think about.

The two girls feel closer after this discussion. They finish their caffeinated drinks within an hour and soon pack up their belongings. Franny and Brittany smile at each other when they part.

ANALYSIS

A Socratic dialogue is often seen in literature as depicting the view of a philosopher

who is determined to get his point across to another character in the dialogue. This technique was first utilized by the philosopher Socrates, who promoted critical thinking to his peers though one-on-one logical argumentation called dialectic. More recently this technique was used in a modernized Socratic dialogue “Starbuckticus” which focuses on the values of two girls in college: Franny and Brittany. The two girls offer different beliefs about conformity. This essay will examine the characters and rhetorical techniques used to create this Socratic dialogue.

First, this dialogue utilized several ethos-based rhetorical techniques in order to contribute to the effect of the argument. For example, in the beginning of the dialogue Franny seems to have made practical use of disinterest or eunoia--a willingness to sacrifice one’s own wants for the greater good. It was clear that Franny was hesitant to begin her argument with her childhood friend, and the conflict progressively grows to the point where she feels the need to act on it. She is more and more troubled by her friend’s seemingly shallow attitude, so she sacrifices her own interests to aggressively persuade her friend of the truth. It is undoubtable that by the end of the dialogue she genuinely cares for her friend’s well-being, which is the final push to convert her friend to her beliefs. Due to her self-righteous attitude, Franny also uses disinterest in a more selfish way. Franny uses a rhetorical device known as reluctant conclusion--the act of reaching your conclusion due to the character’s belief that it is overwhelmingly right.Regardless Of The Fact that Franny cares for her friend,her attitude is undeniably sermonizing. She is not moved in the slightest by her friend’s beliefs on the topic, and seems to become extremely emotional throughout the argument. It is clear that Franny is determined to get her point across, even if it means hurting her friend’s feelings.

Another rhetorical devices used in the dialogue is logos, or an appeal to logic. This was Franny’s most powerful strategy in the dialogue; she emphasized logos through deduction-- the strategy of applying a general principle to a specific matter. This was emphasized in the dialogue when Franny observed that her friend craved a new iPhone and made a generalization that she was a shallow person who conformed to trends. Although Franny succeeds in convincing her friend in the end, she is guilty of using fallacies to support her claim. For example, Franny uses the fallacy reductio ad absurdum in order to diminish the appeal of Brittany’s argument at the end of the dialogue. Franny is disgusted by the idea that conformity is not catastrophic to society, so she provides a somewhat extreme example as to why conformity is unacceptable. Ultimately, Franny’s statement that conformity leads to hate crimes reduces Brittany’s argument into senselessness. If Franny had neglected to do this, it is likely that the audience would have complied with Brittany’s beliefs.

Moreover, many elements of the Toulmin Model are incorporated into Starbuckticus. For example,each arguments defined by a claim. In this case, the claim is that conformity is harmful for both individuals and society. Franny gives grounds for this claim in order to support the argument. For the length of the dialogue Franny provides both Brittany and the audience with reasons why conflict is so detrimental which include both societal and individual concerns. The claim and the grounds are both tied together through a warrant or a chain of reasoning. In the case of this dialogue the warrant is that conformity ultimately leads to a loss of individuality which is dangerous to society. This chain of thinking was emphasized in the latter part of the dialogue when Franny discussed mob mentality and hate groups.

Both Franny and Brittany present insightful opinions that help shape the argument throughout the dialogue.The fact that Franny is gifted with an outspoken personality to contrast Brittany’s timid aura makes it clear that Franny will be deemed the philosopher who convinces the remaining character of her values. What makes this Socratic dialogue unique from others is that the character who is not deemed the philosopher makes several insightful arguments. Brittany provides the audience with the idea that conformity offers some benefits to society. When one examines this statement, it almost seems that there is an interaction of two armchair philosophers in this dialogue. Brittany’s submissive attitude is common to Socratic dialogues. Usually, the “other” in the Socratic dialogue is confined to a passive temperament. However, Brittany’s insightful aura seemed to add another modern aspect to the dialogue. Traditionally Franny’s outspoken attitude affects the dialogue in unique ways as well. It is true that generally the philosophers in Socratic dialogues have a calm and measured approach to the argument; however, this requirement is tested when Franny dictates the conversation and aggressively asserts her values. It is possible that if Franny’s demeanor were slightly more perceptive, Brittany would have offered some more intellectual concepts on the topic, which would have made the dialogue more challenging to read. However, it is undeniable that Franny did persuade her friend to adopt her beliefs on conformity, which is essential to a Socratic dialogue.

Socratic dialogues offer the reader two viewpoints, but only one usually emerges as the victor. In this case, Franny persuaded her friend Brittany to realize that conformity damaged not only individuals but society as well. She did this by adopting Socratic dialogue techniques, utilizing rhetorical devices, and exploiting the traits of her submissive classmate and old friend. Although the work of writing did not follow all of the rules of a traditional Socratic dialogue, its modernization was certainly effective regardless. Hopefully after examining the dialogue, the reader has put some thought into the impacts of conformity on society. The topic certainly has a huge impact on every individual; conformity both shapes society and confines it.