- Philosophy and Pop Culture
- Philosophy and Pop Culture, Part Two
It has been brought to my attention that I might have been a bit too harsh on treating with Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy like I did. After a slightly heated discussion it was suggested to me by that same person that rather than articulating myself against such a book or the way the publisher has done his call of paper, I should have given some advice on how it should have been done according to me. I might have been too harsh in my previous post. I might have been unclear about certain points. But then again: maybe not.
However this may be, I’d like to clarify several points. (Especially since someone else has sent me an email probing my interest in a volume on Depeche Mode and Philosophy…)
- I am not against the use of pop cultural references in order to bring people in contact with philosophical concepts and theories they would otherwise never have come across.
- I am not against pop culture. (In fact, I am interested in pop culture like anyone living in this world: tv shows, series, films, cinema, bestsellers, comics, music etc.)
- I do not plead for a esoteric use of philosophy in general or the history of philosophy in particular. Philosophy is for everyone. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Period.
- I do not plead for an aristocratic use of philosophy either, where the academic philosophers are the ones that hold the only true view on the big chapter of human sciences labeled Philosophy.
- I do not hate Battlestar Galactica.
The first point seems the most important one to me. So what is all this fuss about then? If I am not against the use of popular culture in exemplifying philosophical concepts, why did I write that first lengthy entry?
Several answers are possible here and I will make it just as plain as before.
- I don’t think that taking people to be complete imbeciles is a good way to get “normal” people in touch with philosophical concepts.
- I don’t think that you have to water absolutely everything down in order to get academic philosophy to be understood by philosophical lay people.
- I strongly believe that everything is a matter of code. Failed communication, lost interest, contempt for something or someone etc.: all a matter of code.
This means that it’s about “how do I say XYZ” and not what XYZ really are. (This is why rhetorical manipulation really works btw. Watch one of the speeches of the greatest manipulators of the last century (addressing his HJ) to prove my point.) - Philosophy today and in history is articulated and kept alive within two distinct places: academia and agora. There are professional philosophers and there are people interested and well read in philosophy. These areas need to mingle but have to be kept distinct for the sake of the quality level on both “sides”. And the mingling is where the crux lies.
So for me the question – that obviously nobody in academic philosophy has the guts to ask due to so many prejudice surrounding our profession – that follows the first step (i.e. how can we get people in touch with philosophical concepts that they would never have otherwise approached?) is: Which code do we choose? Do we choose the code of the addressed and try to stay hip (as seen with the Gender-Inclusive Bible or the German Street Slang Version of the Bible or Strine Slang Bible) by choosing their code, or do we try to impassionate them for what we really do by showing how we do it?
As usual it all comes down to attention. And these pop cultural initiatives do have the dirty feel of attention seekers for the sake of attention by all means.
What I would wish the editors of the Blackwell Pop Culture and Philosophy series to do is choose Battlestar Galactica as a matrix for exemplifying certain theories and problems philosophy has to deal with at the moment (cloning, AI etc.) instead of claiming that Battlestar Galactica is the ultimate Philosophy Show.
In a discussion about this the comparison with Matrix has been drawn. Matrix cannot be compared to the Blackwell Project in any way. The Matrix Trilogy has been written as an application about the dream vs. reality theorem in the history of thought. It was thought up that way and the writers have been so strict about this that the end of the Matrix Revolutions can hardly be understood without a degree in Modern Realism Debate. (I wonder if J. R. Searle and H. Putnam ever got together and watched the movies in light of their ongoing quarrel…)
Matrix – for me – is the prime example how complex philosophical concepts (dating as far back as Descartes genius malignus theorem) that were thought up and published in a highly technical language can be adapted and shaped up into a modern, pop cultural visual experience without losing its profundity. Of course it lost some tech-aficionados with the third part which in my opinion is purely philosophical, but never mind that.
Matrix became a phenomenon because it was philosophical. Because it offered a whole library of possible discussion topics. Matrix did not become first a phenomenon that we discussed philosophically afterwards or tried to cut to fit into certain philosophical categories. I dearly would hope -for the sake of our profession – the editors of the Blackwell series would try to live up to this standard instead of seeking for attention by any means.
Ah, yes… and please leave Depeche Mode where it belongs: my ears and my free time. Everything can be analysed philosophically, even the wandering of the earthworm. But does it have to be?
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Très intéressante controverse; au-delà de cela, n’y a-t-il pas comme une tension entre tes deux affirmations:
“I do not plead for an aristocratic use of philosophy either, where the academic philosophers are the ones that hold the only true view on the big chapter of human sciences labeled Philosophy”
et, un peu plus loin:
“Philosophy today and in history is articulated and kept alive within two distinct places: academia and agora. There are professional philosophers and there are people interested and well read in philosophy. These areas need to mingle but have to be kept distinct for the sake of the quality level on both “sides”. And the mingling is where the crux lies.”
Ta deuxième proposition semble supposer que les seuls professionnels de la philosophie sont du côé académique, alors que, dans la première proposition tu poses explicitement que les philosophes académiques (qui exercent au sein de l’université) ne sont pas les seuls vrais philosophes.
Je ne sais pas si l’on peut distinguer vraiment entre philosophie académique et philosophie de l’agora. Même historiquement d’ailleurs, mais c’est une autre question. Je crois que l’on ferait mieux de poser une philosophie académique et une philosophie non-académique (mais qui ne correspond pas à l’agora). Le débat à lieu dans l’”agora”, comme espace public, et les intervenants sont universitaires ou non. La philosophie de l’agora peut être alimentée par des universitaires comme par des non-universitaires.
La tension existe entre philosophie universitaire et non-universitaire, et elle s’exprime dans l’agora.
Bon, en même temps, c’est samedi matin et je n’ai pas encore pris mon petit déjeuner…
Thank you for a point well made. Unfortunately I don’t agree.
You’re right, at first glance one might think that there lies a contradiction in my post and you’re right to question my choice of words within the “academia vs. agora” part.
However when you say that the tension is rather articulated between university philosophy and extra-university philosophy (slight English problem here since in English ‘academic’ means ‘universitaire’ in French!) but is expressed within the agora, you are – imho – describing the ideal ‘how it is supposed to be’ situation. Not the real situation.
Too often are there agora philosophers attacking academics because they’re taking every articulation of philosophy to be equal and the same. They are not. There lies a difference between the one person that has spent years over years in studying a field and is earing his money with it and the other person that spends his free time with philosophy.
I believe that if the encounter of these two parts of living philosophy are done in the agora can be very enriching experiences. But only if it is clear that academic philosophy is something else entirely than a casual discussion around a good bottle of red wine.
Enjoy your breakfast!
First, let me apologize for the work you had to do to write this Philosophy and Pop Culture II: the return, as I am responsible for the “heated” discussion (as a matter of fact, I recall it to have been quite peaceful and argumentative
.)
This time, concerning Battlestar Galactica, I can say that I agree: not everything is pertinent to be analysed in a philosophical way – even if sometimes the definition of what is pertinent is very difficult to determine, specially when some meta-level is involved; but, also, that something which is not linked to philosophy in the first place can be a matrix or an excuse for exemplifying some theories and problems philosophy has to deal with. Lets just see what they will do with Battlestar Galactica and hope they are not going to make a fool of a good publisher.
As for concerning the place of philosophy and “academic” vs “agora”: it’s a real Gordian knot. Here I take the point from Yseult: if the difference between the academic and the agora is that the one person that has spent years over years in studying philosophy is the “academic” and the other person that spends his free time with philosophy is the “agora”, we are facing a problem: of course the academic one in this sense is usually one working in the university, but not necessarily, as for example Dante, or Camus… and sometimes the one who works in the university doing “philosophy” is just in fact doing anything else, but philosophy (logic, mathematics, psychiatry,…). So those categories don’t really match in detail. As for those academics and non-academics, meeting in the agora… I personally find it more interesting, and I often ask myself why this doesn’t represent the actual situation? I have to say that usually academics don’t go public, and neither the non-academics… why? because academic often thinks that it’s a waste of time (don’t give beads to the pigs) and so they stay in their Universites and non-academics think that academics philosophy is far too complicated, cannot be applied to everyday situations and that academics are pretentious and so they stay in there associations or coffee-bar.
I think the only way to get out of this knot is to cut it: let’s not try to sort those professional vs amateur, academic vs agora, academic and non-academic together in the agora, but let’s perhaps talk about: 1) how do we make people interested in philosophy meet (to be as open as possible to everybody with good will, and the subject determinate enough not to get lost)? 2) how do we handle the everyday news, and take position?
And specially for those like us, members of the University: how do I take the work done in my office to the street and where do I take it? I know this is a quite complicated problem to solve… so, let’s do it together! and after that, sure everyone will understand that philosophy is something else entirely than a casual discussion around a bottle of wine, but that sometimes a good bottle of wine help to philosophize… Cheers
Don’t worry, all your indications were justified. Proof: I did write it again. So don’t apologize for giving me some great input.
We’ve talked about some of the points you bring up in our comment already.
I think that in fact all this revolves around the fact that people do not respect basic communication rules (such as the ‘principle of charity’ or the honesty clause (cf. speech acts) etc.). Most of the time people of the agora will come into academics with a huge ego trying to tell me, how I need to do my job. A job I have studied half my life for (yes, I did start with philosophy that early).
And so it comes that it’s more often the non-academics that are pretentious enough to believe that they have the ultimate view than the other way around. It’s usually at that point when they offer you the speech on how Socrates was a real philosopher and that he certainly would never have taught at a University and that the academic discourse will be the death of ‘real’ philosophy. This is the reason btw. I have abandoned all philosophy boards on the internet. What’s the use in being abused just because you are what you are: an academic. And believe me, these people have this pretensions simply because they feel inferior to an academic. Why is beyond me. Nobody would expect me to do structural engineering, just because I am interested in Doric columns of the 7th century BC in the Peloponnes. So why do they expect themselves to know everything, just because they liked Plato’s dialogues?
I liked your article. I share your opinion. As I told you before, the same problems exist in psychology. Everything has to be chopped down to easy chew able bits, entertaining whenever possible.
Modern people don’t read books, they consume books. It has to be entertaining. That’s a possible explanation for the popularity of these books. I agree people who are made lazy by feeding them these kind of books will never read Hegel, Kant, Leibnitz. It’s to hard to swallow. It costs too much effort, it’s not broken down to tiny pieces we are used to in our post modern pop culture. It’s not fragmented. It’s another way of thinking we aren’t familiar with. So it’s not popular.
Do we have to change the message or do we have to rewrite The Critique of Practical Reason by Kant to make it better palatable? Of course not!
I think we have to think about ways to tickle people’s brains. To start asking ‘why’ questions. Why do we think the way we think? Why don’t we think another way? Where does our way of thinking come from? Who made us think the way we do and why is the ancient way of thinking obsolete? When people are curious, they are going to read philosophy by themselves.
Just my 2 cts.
Taq.
This is a great discussion. The gap/friction between the armchair philosopher, that I am now, and the the academic/professional philosopher, I am realizing is much grater than I have experienced.
When in collage I was head of the Philosophical society all of our work was focused around bringing the wealth of great thinking to everyone. To that end for the 2 years I was president we published a journal of papers submitted by any discipline that were philosophical in content, and inspired thinking. We got hundreds of papers. Some from professors others from first year students at Junior collages. We had a panel read and vote on each one. It was very hard to see some great papers not be published.
We struggled with opening the journal up, but felt that by being exclusive to “masters students or professors” would not help bridge the gap we bridged weekly at our club meetings. We met no agenda to ask the good questions, like this one “But does it have to be?”. I think some other great questions are posed by ‘arsedendi.
To sum up what can I do to help bridge the gap with respect and understanding, using ‘pop culture’ or not. This is an answer I am very interested in. What is the code for making philosophy the respected, applicable discipline it should be?
Bob McWilliams
Bob, I don’t think that there is only a certain code that will help with the problem… or to put it differently: the code will only be right when the right attitude is adopted.
Every conversation needs an inequality of a certain kind (knowledge for instance). If both individuals try to exchange something but have exactly the same level on what their talking about, there can be no exchange.
Simply every conversation that we have – be it with a journalist while reading his article in the paper, be it with an author when reading a novel or a book, be it with my colleague while drinking a coffee – is based on the principle that the other has something to say and that I actually want to hear it. (cf. Pledge of Truthfulness)
If any of those two assumptions is violated – for instance if someone is lying or the other doesn’t want to hear it – then there can be no real exchange.
Simply the acception for non-academics to accept that academic philosophy has something to tell them and for academics to see that they actually have to do the telling.
That, in my eyes, would be the first step to exchange and thus understanding.
I’m beginning to see how this ties back into the “pop culture” again. I, as a non, academic should find utility in being guided by those who spend there time and dedicate their work to philosophy. I enjoy discussions with those more learned than myself because I still thirst for Philosophical insight.
I see now the Pop culture books are trying to motivate the masses to seriously consider philosophy as a part of our lives. And I fully agree that not every “pop culture” item needs to be philosophically analyzed, watered down, and used to try to promote philosophy. “Philosophy is for everyone”, and the choice to add this discipline to an individuals studies should be made with some degree of consideration. Reading John Locke is very different from reading the Tao of Pooh.
Humility on both sides I believe is a great stating point for defining the exchange. The roll of the academic philosopher to desire teaching others with integrity, excitement and passion. And humility to the ‘arm chair’ philosopher who believes that by reading everything in sight they can pronounce themselves “learned”, and therefor above instruction, and honest debate/discussion on the issues we still face in philosophy.
Bob McWilliams