The only way to teach these people is to kill them : Pedagogy as communicative action in the major plays of David Mamet

The mentor-student relationship is a recurring motif in the work of playwright David Mamet. Mamet\u27s portrayal of this relationship demonstrates a conception of human interaction in ways that closely parallel Jurgen Habermas\u27s theory of communicative action. Habermas posits his theory as a decentered method of examining human subjects\u27 attempts to establish intersubjective claims of validity with other subjects through the media of communication and argumentation. Within this concept, Habermas defines the Ideal Speech Situation (ISS), or rational discourse free of any relations of domination aimed at creating an intersubjective recognition of validity between two speaking subjects; Mamet\u27s own conception of community parallel\u27s Habermas\u27s ideal. The playwright\u27s characters disrupt possibilities for ideal communication in large part through the invocation of the role of mentor, a position understood as one of superiority within the lifeworld of Mamet\u27s characters; Mamet\u27s social context also reflects Paulo Freire\u27s banking concept of education ; Freire\u27s theory provides a versatile heuristic in which to frame these educational relationships for Habermasian analysis. The following plays serve as primary material for this dissertation: Sexual Perversity in Chicago, American Buffalo, A Life in the Theatre, Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, Oleanna, and The Cryptogram. In addition, secondary materials such as Mamet\u27s minor plays, screenplays, fiction writing and essays serve to contextualize the major works and illustrate the broad scope of this motif