- Philosophy and Pop Culture
- Philosophy and Pop Culture, Part Two
As someone that works within the University and is considered an Intellectual, it is getting harder and harder to stay in touch with the various ‘news’ of my field of expertise. Several things contribute to that fact.
For one the internet has facilitated and changed the communicational channels through which professionals stay in touch with their peers and the research going on around the world. On the other hand the internet and it’s fairly easy use have led to a huge number of discussion groups, mailing lists, newsletters, websites, info sites etc. etc. – needless to say that with a steady rising number of these communication knots the time and resources it takes to stay informed has increased as well.
To this is added the fact that although I might be called a Historian of Philosophy (at the moment) specialising in Medieval Philosophy, I have a deep urging to keep up to date with some other parts of the current philosophy movement as well. And mailing lists are just a brilliant invention for exactly that.
It so happens that I am a subscriber of one of the oldest philosophy news lists on the net: PHILOSOP (run by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana USA.) A part from a lot of conference calls and Call for Papers, something reached me last week that prompted … well, let’s say, a strong reaction: a call for papers for a volume on Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy.
Call for Abstracts: Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy
The Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture Series
To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact (…)
Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.
Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Rationalism vs. faith: Baltar and Adama vs. Six and Roslin
- Hybrid-speak and the Scrolls of Pythia: Interpreting ambiguities of sense and reference
- Are Cylons humans, persons, or none of the above?
- Reincarnation, resurrection, or transmigration: How do Cylon souls get around?
- “All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again”: Eternal recurrence realized
- “God has a plan for you, Kara”: The precarious nature of Starbuck’s freedom
- Did Boomer really shoot Adama? Conscious acts, freedom, and moral responsibility
- Leaving people behind: Utilitarian ethics and the appropriateness of cutting one’s losses
- “Join the New Caprica Police”: Is collaboration ever the right move?
- “People need something to hope for, let it be Earth”: Adama’s noble lie
- Tigh’s bottle, Lee’s hooker, and Kat’s stims: The vain quest for happiness
- How many Cylons does it take to eradicate humanity? Collective moral responsibility among the seven models
- Freedom vs. survival: Roslin’s abortion policy and the black market
- Tom Zarek’s fight for democracy: But look who got elected president?
- Humanity as a “flawed creation”: Should we share the Cylon goal of “transhumanism”?
- “Worthy of survival”: Humanity’s need for redemption through atonement
- Cylon monotheism vs. Colonial polytheism: Which mode of theism is more rational?
- Starbuck’s a woman?! Gender identity and character templates
The Series of Philosophy and Pop Culture is published by Blackwell and edited by William Irwin. This series started with a great idea a while ago when a call for paper came out for South Park and Philosphy. The volume was published last year btw. The good idea behind this was that a certain meta-level was included in the contributions. The phenomenon of South Park is known to everyone and the controversial discussions about what satire, irony, comics and humour can do or are allowed to do have allowed philosophers and a large public alike to take part in a discourse about things that really matter to our society without the matrix of technical vocabulary or scholarly debate. We are still in need of those discussions, evermore so dearly, as the Danish Caricature Scandal a year back has shown.
Battlestar Galactica (BG) however, is very far from any such considerations.
Don’t get me wrong. I watched BG just as everybody did that grew up in the 80ies and 90ies. I liked the storyline and it was – like almost everything of that time – something really new… out of space new. However – I did not jump onto the new series that has been done now. Simply for the fact that I don’t see any sense in trying to redo something that was already really good to begin with. Besides, adapting something like BG to our today visual standards only helps to destroy the initial excitement we had when we watched it the first time around. This sort of feels like a Female Hollywood Star in her 50ies dressing up like a 30 year old, just to be ‘hip’. Or could you imagine the original Star Wars films being redone and just staying the same? Of course not. None of the cheesiness of the time – that had so much appeal – would make it through the editing process nowadays.
As for making professional philosophy drop it’s theoretical weight on something like BG is quite beyond me. Why can’t these “intellectuals” not let art be art, and pop culture be pop culture.
It’s really not like philosophy hasn’t more urgent questions to answer. Or did I miss when we found a clear ethical way in dealing with stemm cell research, patents on life or organisms, patient care, DNR patients, MS patients that want to kill themselves but don’t have the corporal force to do so anymore or euthanasia? And that’s just the well funded part of my profession: ethics. In ethics everything can get a funding for these important questions. In the lesser well known research areas (Ancient Philosophy; Translations; Manuscript editions; Neurophilosophy; Historical Philosophy; Philosophy of Literature, of Law, of Sociology, of Politics, of Knowledge etc. etc.) that do source work, you won’t even get funding most of the time, because it’s not what society wants us to do.
I somehow doubt that finding philosophical truth in “Battlestar Galactica” is really what we should be doing. Not because it’s pop culture. Not because it’s about a TV series. Not because it wouldn’t be worth it.
But simply because it has already been done. Not under the same label, granted. But it has been done on several levels which a look into the history of philosopy and the philosophy of literature will reveal. (NB: For almost every point that the Blackwell series offers, there is a corresponding underlying philosophical debate. Why replace the ‘real deal’ with elements of pop culture rather than offer the interested lay person the actual discussion itself?)
In taking a look into some of the major works of analysis of our culture(s), one may find that some great minds have already spent their time to examine some basic identifying traits of our texts, our literature, our history and offered a vast number of texts that show convergences, divergences and certain typologies with the idea to offer a way for a better understanding of the workings of our culture.
What else is BG, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Eragon et altera, but a watered down rehash of history itself?
What else are these great epics of today than a standardised and exaggerated version of our own life experiences, our hopes, our dreams?
Every text – be it minor or major, may it have success or not, may it ever be read or not – wants to give a certain basic truth. It can be a huge truth (like the one a former drug addict will give you while reconsidering his life) or a small one (like the little girl that writes in her diary how hard the world is for her). (NB: Films do count as texts as well, since they do lead a dialogue with the viewer as well.)
How this truth is told, how it is characterised or how it is understood is only the exterior appearance. Appearance changes. So why should we spend time and money to discuss an exterior appearance philosophically? Would it not be far more interesting to see this convergences, these basic truths that are realised in our culture (from the beginning of time right to the Peanuts…) and analyse them?
If we go back to our Blackwell series Philosophy and Pop Culture for a second, we see that the Editor tells exactly how he wants thing to be understood:
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and a healthy helping of popular culture clears the cobwebs from Kant. Philosophy has had a bad public relations problem for a few centuries now. This series aims to change that, showing that philosophy is relevant to your life – and not just for answering the big questions like “To be or not to be?” (…)
What a brilliant and honourable idea. But is this really the way to go?
When people ask me what I do, it usually goes like this:
“So, what do you do for a living?”
“I am writing a PhD in philosophy.”
“Oh… Uh, so you read a lot don’t you?”
“Indeed.”
“But, what is it exactly what you do…?”
This is when I try to pick any odd thing around me and the person I am talking to and construct something philosophical around it. Let’s say: a coffee cup. Is it really red with cows on it or am I just dreaming that I am having coffee with someone and the cup actually isn’t there at all? Or: See the coffee cup there? What makes us call it a coffee cup? (And then I launch into some explanation about the type-token problem and the universals? Or: Better yet, I find something out of the news like our consumer society, or the war on terror and the recent turn it has taken… OR since V for Vendetta I can take something out of pop culture to exemplify a situation we are actually experiencing in the US or have been experiencing in Europe with the NSdAP.
So, what do I do that is any different than M. Irwin is doing with his books?
I choose everyday situations or things to show philosophically lay people, how philosophy can be important for them or the society. I don’t take standardised archetypes of questions from a TV show and analyse them philosophically.
The “… bad public relation problem …” that philosophy has had is not due to the fact that it did not address actuality issues, but rather that it cannot keep categories.
By all means, you philosophers out there, talk to people in lay terms and simple language about Kant, Descartes and Sartre, but please don’t make things like TV Shows into the latest philosophical hot-news.
TV Shows do not want to change the world, they want to entertain.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Let them entertain, and if they have a basic truth in it that will help people become better citizens or better parents or what-not, that’s fine.
But please, refrain from spoiling all the fun and my digestion by putting an intellectual frosting on everything.
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Battlestar Galactica is one thing – but Depeche Mode? – I saw a listserv post featuring such a notion!
It may be my anti-new-romatinc prejudice, but I thought we had left some awful cultural accidents in the past – now philosophers want to drag them back out for another look?
Some of these books can be interesting (I am reading the Philosophy & Hip-Hop one at the minute – essays of varying quality – but intriguing) – but some gratuitous…
Dave, thank you for being the first one to finally jump into this discussion here.
Well, it seems that maybe we both have missed the point altogether. There will be an update entry abotu that.
But you’re right: there is pop culture and then there is pop culture…
Indeed: – maybe I should try and use our course blog see what my students think re this? They should be the ones with their fingers on the pulse of popular culture (!) and may have light to throw…
That’s a very good idea! I fear however that the coolness factor will throw the equation off a bit. As usual. Just because it’s cool, human beings will find things interesting they wouldn’t have dreamt of adopting years back. Proof: I am bloggin… meheeee…
Just wanted to make a few comments. Firstly, the idea of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series is not to analyse pop culture philosophically, but instead to write about various philosophical ideas using examples from a particular slice of pop culture.
Secondly, the present series of BSG is not a ‘redoing’ of the 70s series, but a reimagining. From what I understand of the older series it was supposed to be a camp, fun sci-fi show, whereas the present series, although it borrows the original premise, is different in many ways. Grittier, more serious, examining political, moral, and social dilemmas.
Lastly, you ask: “Why can’t these “intellectuals” not let art be art, and pop culture be pop culture?” Isn’t it good for people to critically engage with art and pop culture? To want to delve more deeply into the philosophical questions they raise?
Ad 1:
There are two ways of answering that first point. For one, we could agree to disagree. Second, if in fact the Blackwell Series wanted to …write about various philosophical ideas using examples from a particular slice of pop culture…, the volumes would have titles like Rationalism and Pop Culture or Realism and Pop Culture etc., instead of Depeche Mode and Philosophy or Batman and Philosophy (that’s the last call for paper btw., anyone interested, just email W. Irwing wtirwin@kings.edu). By choosing these titles, the authors are constricted to one pop cultural phenomenon for their analysis. It is different if you are a specialist for Realism Theories and try to find pop cultural references to this circle of problems.
The underlying problem is a known danger (in litterary analysis for instance, but it goes for any kind of Research): you always find what you are looking for. And since philosophy is a human state of mind, you surely will find all kind of philosophy in any human expression (theatre, poetry, romance, novel, tv series, film, documentaries etc.) By constricting volumes to one film or pop cultural reference, the authors are bound to find something. Even if it’s just the old rational vs. irrational friend pairing.
Ad 2.
You seem to contradict yourself a bit or how can a simple … reimaging … plus … is different in many ways … Grittier, more serious, examining political, moral, and social dilemmas. not equal redoing?
Ad 3.
Please refer to the follow up of this article, where I address precisely that point.
Are all contributers philosophers? Or are they interdisciplinary (sociology, history, communication studies, etc.)?
Anyone know?
Yes, it seems that all contributors are in fact philosophers and questions seem to be addressed from a philosophical point of view without any interdisciplinary flavour to it.