Philosophy and Pop Culture

How to not be a person

Posted by yseult on May 25, 2009 in Issues, Philosophy, Philosophy and Pop Culture

Die or don’t. Be creative, be idiotic, be silly, be eccentric, but don’t be too smart about it, or you might reveal a bit too much about yourself…

I’m not really into the weirdness that the current charts are subjecting us to, but not even I can completely cut myself off from the hype around certain things. Lady Gaga certainly falls into my category of ‘annoying’ and ‘heap of mental debility’ or even ‘be original at any and every price’. I won’t go into the difference between ‘being original’, ‘having a personality’ and ‘having an image’ of all the above here.
No what I am far more interested in is something the Queen of Over-the-top stated a couple of weeks ago in either a press release or an interview:

“You know, I have such an appreciation for where I am in my life because I’ve struggled and because I couldn’t get signed, and because I couldn’t get played on the radio,” … “There are times when it can be a lot to deal with but always when I get up in the morning I try to find that very joyful place that reminds me that I would die if someone took it all away. If someone did that I wouldn’t be a person anymore.”

cf. Contactmusic News and a much longer, twisted version in The Independent

That strikes me as odd. Well, to be completely honest, first thoughts are ‘oh dear’… then a touch of ‘how stupid can you get’ comes in. Once those signs of rejection subside, I get down to the philosophical problem that arises.

What makes us persons in the first place? Is it what we do (ie. the good)? What we don’t do (ie. the evil)? Is it where we come from? From who we are born? From what we’ve been through or haven’t been through (ie. the good and the bad)?

Or rather: is it what we want to project to the outside? Or rather that unveiled, harsh reality that we don’t want anybody to see? Is it the friends that cherish us? The people we love? The ones we despise?

Truth be told, what looks like a stupid quib by an equally stupid person, after scrutiny, actually is the true and profound expression of Gaga’s gagaism and true existence. She is what we make her to be. We give her the canvas on which to draw her meaningless existence out into something glamorous, something eccentric, something we in our everyday trot would never dare to do. Truly, if someone were to take that away form her, the icon would die. Just as any of the megahyped media models starting from an oversexed Marilyn Monroe to a slightly disgustingly exhibitionist Madonna. They exist because we see something in them. Because they dare to drag out the craziness that our reason cannot live out. Why? Because it’s not meant to be lived out. When craziness becomes the everyday role you play, then you lose what really made you a person in the first place. Or with the terms of Lady Gaga: if you make your ‘box of insanity’ your only kingdom, what’s left in the evening when you lie in bed alone, only turned on yourself?

Now of course, such a reasoning presupposes thought and self-critique which frankly I doubt Lady Gaga has enough of to even recognize a ‘bon mot’ when it would jump under her wig and ate directly at her brain. Chances are she really believes that losing her constructed image and fame would really kill her. The humiliation clearly would be enough to stop that superficial heart of hers.

But that leads me to a comforting thought: you can be what you want, wish and dream of. You can even construct your pseudo-memories about it all and make it real for us. And with the reinforcing strength of the perspective of people around us, we can even legitimize it until we completely and utterly forget what it was to be different or before.

Comforting or terribly unsettling?

Death in all it’s disguises

Posted by yseult on Jan 1, 2009 in Philosophy and Pop Culture, Poetry

Touching your skin with cold fingers,
the sweetest sorrow of all,
pouring itself into every fibre of our being,
and wasting away the fine border that separates the you from the me,
the worst emotions from the best ones,
the hardest memories from the brightest ones,
the bitter moments from the joyful ones.

There is so much life here,
so much future in every cell and move,
so much love, it could not be contained.

My fingers’ trace is followed by my tears,
for love’s constant yearning which cannot ever be satisfied,
for lovers lost in hardship,
for death in all it’s disguises.

Your skin grows colder and colder under my hand now,
and outside the dawn is breaking…

Symphony

Posted by yseult on Aug 12, 2008 in Philosophy and Pop Culture, Poetry, Writing

When do we really dare to know, dare to care?
There is a silent whisper whenever the clouds separate themselves,

torn apart by insensitive finger of windy heights,
blown to the extremes of this world,

a whisper that prolonged and minded, speaks of eternity.

With words that no language can bear nor hold,
a symphony of continuous harmony,
creating ever on, like the waves that continue to roll

one after the other, into and onto this land,
into my heart and your eyes.

Philosophy and Pop Culture, Part Two

Posted by yseult on Jan 19, 2007 in Philosophy, Philosophy and Pop Culture

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.

1. I don’t think that taking people to be complete imbeciles is a good way to get “normal” people in touch with philosophical concepts.
2. 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.
3. 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.)
4. 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?

Philosophy and Pop Culture

Posted by yseult on Jan 9, 2007 in Philosophy, Philosophy and Pop Culture

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.