Did Batman Flip-Flop? An Apparent Inconsistency in The Dark Knight

Apparently, Batman’s acrobatic ability is not limited to the physical. He displayed what seemed to be a major philosophical flip flop in the latest movie, The Dark Knight that would make a politician yell “encore!”

The Joker has rigged two commuter ferryboats with explosives. As the two ferryboats leave the docks, the passengers in both soon find detonators. The Joker’s mocking voice comes over each boat’s public address speakers, announcing his terms. He is not after ransom. The detonator found in each boat triggers the explosives in the other ferryboat. They have half an hour to decide whether to live or to die. To live, they would have to trigger the detonator, killing all passengers of the other boat. If both boats are still intact after half an hour, The Joker announces that he has a third detonator that he would use to explode both ferries. He is after chaos and anarchy. The passengers in both ferries naturally go into panic, each clamoring for survival. To add to the moral quandary, one of the two ferryboats is transporting condemned criminals among the passengers. It appears that the Joker will get his wish.

Batman decides to go after the Joker, and he succeeds in doing so using extremely sophisticated technology. Flawlessly, Batman eliminates each hurdle until he is face-to-face with the Joker. The Joker taunts Batman that he cannot save the passengers, that one of the two ferries will soon go up in flames. Batman confidently declares that that will not happen. I expected that Batman had another sophisticated gadget like a frequency jamming device to keep the detonators from working. There was none. As for the Joker’s detonator, Batman succeeds in hand-to-hand combat to disable it.

At the ferries, the passengers get over their panic and decide to vote for or against using their corresponding detonators. They cast their votes calmly as if CSPAN-1 and CSPAN-2 were on each ferryboat (do I detect a symbolism for the Congress?) The passengers vote to not murder the other ferry's passengers, Batman has disarmed the Joker, and the democratic process wins the day. There was no technological gizmo to block the detonators’ signals. In an attempt to promote anti death penalty, the movie ironically has one of the convicts lecture a citizen on the immorality of murder, that they should not even have voted on it.

Why was Batman so confident that the ferries wouldn’t blow up? Was he acting on faith? Did he have great confidence that the passengers on the ferries would do the right thing and not murder others for their own self-preservation? (Too bad he isn’t as articulate as the Joker is about his philosophy – must come from trying to disguise his voice too much.) So, if Batman had so much faith in the people, why couldn’t he trust them to absorb the news that Harvey Dent was guilty of murder? Instead, Batman conspires with Commissioner Gordon to preserve an illusion. He believed that the people would succumb to anarchy without a white knight like Harvey Dent. What a flip flop! What a glaring inconsistency, faith in the people in one scene, liberal elitist in the next!

We need heroes. We need Camelot. We need that "photo-op". Appearance is more important than substance, and finally, convicted criminals are morally superior to innocent citizens - All according to The Dark Knight.

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

1 Samuel 16:6-8