Dexter and Dostoyevsky
[Update: Dexter is once again streaming on Netflix.]
After watching the finale of its second season, I’m ready to stick my neck out and say that Dexter is the best show in the history of television. As an aficionado of plot, I am in awe; but it excels on every other margin too: dialogue, performances, theme, even music.
As I see it, Dexter is at root a re-telling of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The protagonists in both stories willfully transgress moral law by taking life. In Dostoyevsky, of course, Raskolnikov’s action fills him with guilt and self-loathing. In Dexter, we see the alternative: Dexter embraces his actions, and thereby condemns himself to live a lie – to be himself with no one but his victims. I know of no other work of literature that so powerfully explores this theme of isolation that flows of out the need to live life wearing masks.
Dexter is also a deep work of political philosophy. All of Dexter’s victims are murderers. His procedural safeguards are more stringent than those of the criminal justice system. So why would most of us condemn his vigilantism? Doesn’t it just boil down to status quo bias – the system that we have is better because it’s what we got? Or perhaps it reflects statist quo bias – we can trust government, but not individuals… even though government employees are individuals.
I could go on. But for a show this good, spoilers would be a crime. All I can say is that Season 1 is available on DVD, Season 2 just finished on Showtime, and Season 3 is coming in 2008!
The post appeared first on Econlib.
I agree that the show is fantastic. The reason we can't have Dexters is the same reason we can't have authoritarian rulers. A truly good authoritarian is orders of magnitude better than a democratic system. But a bad authoritarian is orders of magnitude worse than the democratic system. So we flatten the distribution to avoid living in terrible times. A single vigilante may be good as Dexter, but without a system of accountability (government) we would have as many or more bad vigilantes as good ones and it would be a net negative for society.
If you've only watched through season 2, STOP NOW!!
If Dexter had ended there (with Dexter dead) it would go down as the best show I've watched on TV, but it continued and became just another show. I couldn't even get through more than a couple episodes of season 3.
Dexter should have remained the hardcore anti-hero the first 2 seasons presented him as, not just a misunderstood good guy the following seasons turned him into.