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Plato - Crito 3 Jul 2018 4:22 PM (6 years ago)

After having been unjustly convicted of the bogus charges brought against him in that most infamous and influential of trials, Socrates was asked to propose a penalty for himself. Defying everyone's expectations (exile, paying a fine, delivering a public apology, etc.), Socrates claimed he should be rewarded with free room and board at the Prytaneum. This response upset the Athenians so much that an even greater number than those who had originally found him guilty decided the proper sentence should now be death.

In the Crito, and against all sorts of arguments—moral, prudential, political, philosophical—urging him to escape this unjust punishment, thereby saving his own life and reputation, as well as his ability to continue to philosophize and to question everything under the sun, Socrates makes a powerful and unexpected plea for the need to obey the laws of the state, even when such a conviction is completely groundless and unfair. Deploying a powerful rhetorical device, as well as a number of ingenious arguments, Socrates leaves his friend Crito—who really wants him to escape—speechless. A man of principle, Socrates could not bring himself to betray the rationality that was his essence.



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The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan 22 Feb 2018 1:54 PM (7 years ago)

Ever since I first watched Memento and its fascinating exploration of the philosophical question of personal identity as constituted by memory through time, film director Christopher Nolan has been on my radar. And, Insomnia aside, he has consistently managed to set the bar higher and higher to the point where he stands on a category of cinematographic and philosophical genius all by himself.

In addition of being a master of character development, non-linear storytelling and building hair-raising suspense—not to say anything about the pure aesthetic beauty of his films—Nolan is a director of big ideas. There's virtually no film in which he does not explore—and through multiple angles—concepts of time, the constitution of self, moral and metaphysical identity, character, courage and integrity, mortality, meaning, the difference between reality and appearance, or between memory, perception and imagination, game theoretical questions regarding competition, trust and cooperation, or the tension between scientific knowledge and existential human needs.

And because there's so much to Nolan's films, the good folks at Wisecrack have just finished producing a three-part series on The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan, which we are showcasing here today for your viewing pleasure.

Warning: spoilers ahead.







And as an added bonus, here's a little NerdWriter analysis of the meta quality of Nolan's masterful adaptation of Christopher Priest's The Prestige.

Voltaire - Candide 18 Jan 2018 8:32 AM (7 years ago)

The philosophical problem of evil—the question of how the existence of unnecessary suffering is possible in a world created and sustained by an all-powerful, all-knowing and benevolent deity—has vexed theologians and philosophers for millennia.

Apologists have attempted to vindicate God's goodness in various versions of what is known as theodicy. One of the most famous was articulated by the Enlightenment polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Given that he thought the existence of contingent beings requires an explanation that is itself not contingent, Leibniz deployed a really clever argument to prove the metaphysical necessity of the existence of God. Since God was for Leibniz a metaphysical certainty, the problem was how to reconcile the existence of suffering with the traditional divine attributes. His solution—and consistent with the very same principle of sufficient reason he had already used in order to prove God's existence—was that when contemplating what kind of universe to create, God had a sufficient reason for creating the particular universe we inhabit, and not some other universe. In other words, though this world is not perfect, it is nevertheless the best of all possible worlds.

Little could Leibniz have suspected that two powerful natural forces would threaten the intellectual sophistication of his a priori proofs: a powerful earthquake that would suddenly obliterate the pious city of Lisbon in 1755, and the literary eloquence of the French philosophe Voltaire, whose satirical and biting mockery of Leibnizian optimism, the short novel Candide, would become the most famous of his many celebrated writings.


Here's the Crash Course take on Candide:



And because it's one thing to talk abstractly about some earthquake, and an altogether different thing to experience the real devastation and suffering it produced, the following documentary should help give you an idea of why Voltaire was enraged by the callous attempts on the part of priests and theologians to explain away the suffering and the misery experienced by so many people.




Finally, it is worth mentioning that before Candide, Voltaire wrote a more serious poem in which he vociferously and mercilessly conducted a head-on attack on those who would seek to glorify God at the expense of trivializing human suffering. That poem is not as well known as Candide, but it is certainly worth reading in full, and so I'm including it below in full for your reading pleasure:

Unhappy mortals! Dark and mourning earth!
Affrighted gathering of human kind!
Eternal lingering of useless pain!
Come, ye philosophers, who cry, "All's well,"
And contemplate this ruin of a world.

Behold these shreds and cinders of your race,
This child and mother heaped in common wreck,
These scattered limbs beneath the marble shafts—
A hundred thousand whom the earth devours,
Who, torn and bloody, palpitating yet,
Entombed beneath their hospitable roofs,
In racking torment end their stricken lives,
To those expiring murmurs of distress,
To that appalling spectacle of woe,
Will ye reply: "You do but illustrate
The iron laws that chain the will of God"?
Say ye, o'er that yet quivering mass of flesh:
"God is avenged: the wage of sin is death"?
What crime, what sin, had those young hearts conceived
That lie, bleeding and torn, on mother's breast?
Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of vice
Than London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?
In these men dance; at Lisbon yawns the abyss.
Tranquil spectators of your brothers' wreck,
Unmoved by this repellent dance of death,
Who calmly seek the reason of such storms,
Let them but lash your own security;
Your tears will mingle freely with the flood.
When earth its horrid jaws half open shows,
My plaint is innocent, my cries are just.
Surrounded by such cruelties of fate,
By rage of evil and by snares of death,
Fronting the fierceness of the elements,
Sharing our ills, indulge me my lament.
"'Tis pride," ye say—"the pride of rebel heart,
To think we might fare better than we do."

Go, tell it to the Tagus' stricken banks;
Search in the ruins of that bloody shock;
Ask of the dying in that house of grief,
Whether 'tis pride that calls on heaven for help
And pity for the sufferings of men.
"All's well," ye say, "and all is necessary."
Think ye this universe had been the worse
Without this hellish gulf in Portugal?
Are ye so sure the great eternal cause,
That knows all things, and for itself creates,
Could not have placed us in this dreary clime
Without volcanoes seething 'neath our feet?
Set you this limit to the power supreme?
Would you forbid it use its clemency?
Are not the means of the great artisan
Unlimited for shaping his designs?
The master I would not offend, yet wish
This gulf of fire and sulphur had outpoured
Its baleful flood amid the desert wastes.
God I respect, yet love the universe.
Not pride, alas, it is, but love of man,
To mourn so terrible a stroke as this.

Would it console the sad inhabitants
Of these aflame and desolated shores
To say to them: "Lay down your lives in peace;
For the world's good your homes are sacrificed;
Your ruined palaces shall others build,
For other peoples shall your walls arise;
The North grows rich on your unhappy loss;
Your ills are but a link in general law;
To God you are as those low creeping worms
That wait for you in your predestined tombs"?
What speech to hold to victims of such ruth!
Add not such cruel outrage to their pain.

Nay, press not on my agitated heart
These iron and irrevocable laws,
This rigid chain of bodies, minds, and worlds.
Dreams of the bloodless thinker are such thoughts.
God holds the chain: is not himself enchained;
By his indulgent choice is all arranged;
Implacable he's not, but free and just.
Why suffer we, then, under one so just?
There is the knot your thinkers should undo.
Think ye to cure our ills denying them?
All peoples, trembling at the hand of God,
Have sought the source of evil in the world.
When the eternal law that all things moves
Doth hurl the rock by impact of the winds,
With lightning rends and fires the sturdy oak,
They have no feeling of the crashing blows;
But I, I live and feel, my wounded heart
Appeals for aid to him who fashioned it.

Children of that Almighty Power, we stretch
Our hands in grief towards our common sire.
The vessel, truly, is not heard to say:
"Why should I be so vile, so coarse, so frail?"
Nor speech nor thought is given unto it.
The urn that, from the potter's forming hand,
Slips and is shattered has no living heart
That yearns for bliss and shrinks from misery.
"This misery," ye say, "is others' good."
Yes; from my mouldering body shall be born
A thousand worms, when death has closed my pain.
Fine consolation this in my distress!
Grim speculators on the woes of men,
Ye double, not assuage, my misery.
In you I mark the nerveless boast of pride
That hides its ill with pretext of content.

I am a puny part of the great whole.
Yes; but all animals condemned to live,
All sentient things, born by the same stern law,
Suffer like me, and like me also die.
The vulture fastens on his timid prey,
And stabs with bloody beak the quivering limbs:
All's well, it seems, for it. But in a while
An eagle tears the vulture into shreds;
The eagle is transfixed by shaft of man;
The man, prone in the dust of battlefield,
Mingling his blood with dying fellow men,
Becomes in turn the food of ravenous birds.
Thus the whole world in every member groans:
All born for torment and for mutual death.
And o'er this ghastly chaos you would say
The ills of each make up the good of all!
What blessedness! And as, with quaking voice,
Mortal and pitiful, ye cry, "All's well,"
The universe belies you, and your heart
Refutes a hundred times your mind's conceit.

All dead and living things are locked in strife.
Confess it freely—evil stalks the land,
Its secret principle unknown to us.
Can it be from the author of all good?
Are we condemned to weep by tyrant law
Of black Typhon or barbarous Ahriman?
These odious monsters, whom a trembling world
Made gods, my spirit utterly rejects.

But how conceive a God supremely good,
Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,
Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?
What eye can pierce the depth of his designs?
From that all-perfect Being came not ill:
And came it from no other, for he's lord:
Yet it exists. O stern and numbing truth!
O wondrous mingling of diversities!
A God came down to lift our stricken race:
He visited the earth, and changed it not!
One sophist says he had not power to change;
"He had," another cries, "but willed it not:
In time he will, no doubt." And, while they prate,
The hidden thunders, belched from underground,
Fling wide the ruins of a hundred towns
Across the smiling face of Portugal.
God either smites the inborn guilt of man,
Or, arbitrary lord of space and time,
Devoid alike of pity and of wrath,
Pursues the cold designs he has conceived.
Or else this formless stuff, recalcitrant,
Bears in itself inalienable faults;
Or else God tries us, and this mortal life
Is but the passage to eternal spheres.
'Tis transitory pain we suffer here,
And death its merciful deliverance.
Yet, when this dreadful passage has been made,
Who will contend he has deserved the crown?
Whatever side we take we needs must groan;
We nothing know, and everything must fear.
Nature is dumb, in vain appeal to it;
The human race demands a word of God.
'This his alone to illustrate his work,
Console the weary, and illume the wise.
Without him man, to doubt and error doomed,
Finds not a reed that he may lean upon.

From Leibnitz learn we not by what unseen
Bonds, in this best of all imagined worlds,
Endless disorder, chaos of distress,
Must mix our little pleasures thus with pain;
Nor why the guiltless suffer all this woe
In common with the most abhorrent guilt.
'Tis mockery to tell me all is well.
Like learned doctors, nothing do I know.

Plato has said that men did once have wings
And bodies proof against all mortal ill;
That pain and death were strangers to their world.
How have we fallen from that high estate!
Man crawls and dies: all is but born to die:
The world's the empire of destructiveness.
This frail construction of quick nerves and bones
Cannot sustain the shock of elements;
This temporary blend of blood and dust
Was put together only to dissolve;
This prompt and vivid sentiment of nerve
Was made for pain, the minister of death:
Thus in my ear does nature's message run.

Plato and Epicurus I reject,
And turn more hopefully to learned Bayle.
With even poised scale Bayle bids me doubt.
He, wise and great enough to need no creed,
Has slain all systems—combats even himself:
Like that blind conqueror of Philistines,
He sinks beneath the ruin he has wrought.
What is the verdict of the vastest mind?
Silence: the book of fate is closed to us.
Man is a stranger to his own research;
He knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes.
Tormented atoms in a bed of mud,
Devoured by death, a mockery of fate.
But thinking atoms, whose far-seeing eyes,
Guided by thought, have measured the faint stars,
Our being mingles with the infinite;
Ourselves we never see, or come to know.
This world, this theatre of pride and wrong,
Swarms with sick fools who talk of happiness.
With plaints and groans they follow up the quest,
To die reluctant, or be born again.
At fitful moments in our pain-racked life
The hand of pleasure wipes away our tears;
But pleasure passes like a fleeting shade,
And leaves a legacy of pain and loss.
The past for us is but a fond regret,
The present grim, unless the future's clear.
If thought must end in darkness of the tomb,
All will be well one day—so runs our hope.
All now is well, is but an idle dream.
The wise deceive me: God alone is right.
With lowly sighing, subject in my pain,
I do not fling myself 'gainst Providence.
Once did I sing, in less lugubrious tone,
The sunny ways of pleasure's genial rule;
The times have changed, and, taught by growing age,
And sharing of the frailty of mankind,
Seeking a light amid the deepening gloom,
I can but suffer, and will not repine.

A caliph once, when his last hour had come,
This prayer addressed to him he reverenced:
"To thee, sole and all-powerful king, I bear
What thou dost lack in thy immensity—
Evil and ignorance, distress and sin."
He might have added one thing further—hope.

Arrow - A Celebration of Love 5 Jan 2018 6:46 AM (7 years ago)

Life is hard enough as it is. Existence, in many ways, is suffering. Obviously, some have it much worse than others, and that matters, but at some point in our lives we all experience pain, disease, loss, betrayal. We struggle with existential angst, with the fear of meaninglessness, with questions of character, with the impending coming of oblivion. We struggle to pay rent, to put food on the table, and to have enough energy at the end of the day to make a positive difference in the world.

And we don't all find love. Few things make the loneliness of existence bearable, and perhaps none is as effective at combating a sense of meaninglessness as having someone with whom you can let your guard down and allow yourself to be vulnerable, knowing that you'll be safe in their arms.

Love is not guaranteed. But if you're gay, transgender, etc., you also have to deal with small-mindedness, with intolerance, with hatred, with abuse, with public condemnations, with policies that would deny you the rights and protections that most of us get to take for granted. For you, an outward expression of love can become the reason your family and your community disowns you. On any given day, the mere act of hugging or kissing your partner, or even just holding their hand, could be the difference between going home at the end of the day or being beaten or killed.

Today, in this blog, we celebrate love, and your right to exist, and to be who you are.




And below is the back-story behind this powerful performance:



I also can't help but think of Leonardo's famous Vitruvian Man, and somehow that seems rather appropriate...

If 'Despacito' Were Written by an Evo-Devo Biologist 3 Nov 2017 4:42 AM (7 years ago)

If you are a geek, you are likely to get excited over things others might find boring, laughable, lame, etc. You still like what you like, but you also know when to keep that to yourself.

But sometimes you stumble upon something so incredibly brilliant that, no matter what else may be going on in your life, you just have to let your inner geek go nuts. And the following parody of 'Despacito' is just such an instance...

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley 3 Aug 2017 12:07 PM (7 years ago)

James Baldwin, the great essayist, poet, civil rights activist, writer and orator, would have turned 93 this week. In order to commemorate the importance of his memory and legacy, we are showcasing today the very famous Cambridge debate in which—while surrounded by an overwhelmingly white audience—he courageously and adeptly defended the proposition that “The American Dream is at the expense of the American negro” against the influential conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr.

Prior to this debate, Buckley had made his reputation as a leading American conservative, at least partly, through his writings opposing the civil rights movement and desegregation, and by publishing in 1957 a famous editorial in National Review titled “Why the South Must Prevail,” in which he cited the "cultural superiority of White over Negro" while defending his belief that whites are "entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas where [they do] not predominate numerically." All of this while conveniently—though in perfect line with conservative ideology—remaining silent about the fact that the lack of educational equality afforded to blacks in the South was the direct result of cultural and legal obstacles deliberately created and consciously enforced by white supremacy.

Everyone knew this would be a fascinating and important debate, but though expectations were high, no one could have predicted just how powerful and historic Baldwin's performance would become, not only for his skill as a masterful rhetorician, but for the deep honesty, humanism and personal conviction from which he so eloquently spoke...

Genius of the Ancient World - Socrates 1 Apr 2017 11:23 AM (8 years ago)

Few figures have been more important and influential in the history of civilization than the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. And it's not simply that he was a philosopher either. Despite the importance of the intellectual contributions made by his predecessors, and despite the vast differences between them (just think Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Democritus, etc.), virtually all philosophers who preceded him were ultimately consigned to the category of Pre-Socratics.

So what exactly was so special about Socrates that it would be he, and not any of his forerunners, who would be generally recognized to be the first master of philosophy? Well, for today's installment, historian Bettany Hughes brings her usual charm, passion and humanity—not to say anything about her lovely British accent—to bear on the importance and influence of this great, unique and fascinating thinker.

The Presocratics 20 Feb 2017 9:05 AM (8 years ago)

In the process of attempting to understand and explain the world, these thinkers came up with many of the concepts that are still highly influential today: the uniformity of nature, mathematics as the foundation/expression of all reality, mind as a potential cosmic principle, atoms as the basic constituents of the universe, explanatory reductionism, physical necessity, methodological naturalism, reductio ad absurdum, materialism, teleological explanations, anthropomorphic skepticism, the questioning of the nature/reality of space and time, presentism and the block universe, the difference between appearance and reality, and many, many others.

With many thanks to philosophy professor Peter Adamson and his fantastic podcast, History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, the following selection of audio clips provides a great and accessible introduction to the thoughts of these daring and intellectually creative thinkers. It is because of the move from mythos to logos begun by the Presocratics that it has been possible for human beings to unshackle ourselves from the chains of superstition and ignorance to which we were subject before there was any philosophy or science, and to come to realize that though our knowledge may always limited, it is nevertheless not only possible and worth pursuing, but perhaps a delightful moral obligation.

It all started with Thales, who shocked the world with his successful prediction of the solar eclipse of May 28th 585 BCE, and who said that "water is best":



Once the spark of logos had been kindled, Anaximander would think up his cosmic principle of apeiron (the indefinite, boundless, infinite), and Anaximenes would offer up the first idea of a scientific mechanism to explain change:



It would not take long for Xenophanes to recognize that our point of view can influence our perception and our judgments, and that we therefore have a natural predisposition to impiously anthropomorphize our ideas about the nature of the gods:



And then, in a truly odd mix of uber rationalism and mysticism, Pythagoras would argue that number is the fundamental reality of the cosmos, and would warn to stay away from beans!



Do things really exist? If everything we see changes, as experiences implies, then perhaps 'things' are actually processes, and everything is in flux. There is no being, only becoming, or so thought Heraclitus:



But why trust the senses when we know they are prone to deceiving us? Pure reason, on the other hand, is objective, and it works independently of our biases. And pure reason implies that change, of any kind, is logically impossible. Parmenides, the founder of the Eleatic school, argued that there cannot be any becoming, only being:



And if you thought he was just being cheeky, his students Zeno and Melissus set out to prove their master right with a set of paradoxes that continue to perplex, delight and frustrate thinkers of all stripes down to our own day:



So how do we reconcile being, which seems to be the necessary presupposition for any kind of possible predication, with becoming, which is what our sensory experience tells us is a basic fact of the world in which we live? Perhaps a combination of indestructible, indivisible and unchangeable particles, atoms, moving around the empty space of the void, and organizing themselves in countless collective configurations? According to Leuccipus and Democritus, this compromise would preserve the strengths of the Heraclitean and the Eleatic schools without being subject to their weaknesses:



But whence order? According to Anaxagors, perhaps behind all the regularity of the cosmos, and especially behind the construction of living organisms, there is a teleological principle of Mind responsible for organizing it:



Pythagoras may have started a religion, but Empedocles declared himself a god, and jumped into a volcano to prove it! (Unsuccessfully, I'm afraid.) Still, it is from Empedocles that we get the ancient conception of chemistry: air, earth, fire and water. Everything we see around us, he thought, is just different combinations of these elements (or roots, as he called them), mixed through the cosmic principles of Love and Strife. Oh, and we also get a bit of a precursor to the idea (not the theory) of evolution:



Well, when you take Empedocles seriously, you start to understand why so much of ancient medicine was concerned with finding the right balance between the four fluids (or humours) contained within the human body: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile:



And finally, from the Sophists we get an attempt to question the validity and limits of the kinds of claims made through language and on the basis of our experience. Doesn't the form of our perception, as well as the form of our linguistic expression, in some sense influence or determine the nature of our conclusions? But if so, is objective knowledge possible?



It is in this intellectual context that a brilliant and charismatic thinker would emerge, and who would eventually become the embodiment of philosophical brilliance, humility and principle that has made its way through the centuries. That rascal was, of course, Socrates.

President Obama's Farewell Address 11 Jan 2017 6:15 AM (8 years ago)

As his presidency sadly comes to an end, President Obama delivered last night what is sure to become one of the most powerful and memorable speeches in his already admirable history of powerful and memorable speeches.

In a time when democracy, justice, freedom, equality and human rights have come under threat in America—as a right-wing administration inspired by unabashed hatred, divisiveness, racism, xenophobia and greed prepares to take office—President Obama's message is a sober and thoughtful reminder that this experiment in self-governing is not a foregone conclusion but a process that requires permanent work, vigilance and cooperation.



Thank you for being an inspiration to us all, President Obama. We are truly going to miss you...

John Berger - Ways of Seeing 6 Jan 2017 6:23 AM (8 years ago)

Art critic John Berger's recent death has left a huge void in the world of art appreciation. While his career prompted numerous controversies and instances of outrage and public condemnation, Berger's attacks on what sometimes amounts to the condescending and elitist attitude of his own profession helped popularize the appreciation of art. His 1972 BBC documentary series Ways of Seeing, as well as its subsequent eponymous book, helped bring the world of thoughtful art appreciation to an entire generation of people who may have otherwise never gotten interested in the fine arts. Unlike conventional forms of art criticism and appreciation—which tend to focus primarily on concepts such as form, function, craft, materials, beauty, the sublime, or on the history of various schools of art—Berger tended to provide a more humanistic, sociological and philosophical introduction to how to decipher the ideology hiding behind the surface of the canvas. Though it has been used for centuries to promote the interests of those in power, Berger believes that art's true function is one of liberation.

The first episode of Ways of Seeing—based on philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin's classic work, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction—explores the impact of photography on our aesthetic experience of works from the past. On the one hand, new technological means of reproduction have helped to democratize the appreciation of works of art that had previously only been accessible to wealthy elites. On the other, it has also severed the work of great artists from their historical context, thereby changing their original meanings. To look at a photograph of a painting at home or on a screen is a fundamentally different experience from that of looking at the painting housed in a church, the home of a wealthy aristocrat, or in a museum, and the difference matters.




The second episode—an exploration of The Male Gaze, a concept originally posited by film theorist Laura Mulvey in her groundbreaking article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema—starts with the following intriguing (and now famous) observation:

Men dream of women. Women dream of themselves being dreamt of. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. [This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.] 

Combining aspects of Marxist, feminist and phenomenological theories, Berger makes a distinction between a naked and a nude, and shows how much of the female nude in the European tradition perpetuates certain misogynistic paradoxes through which women are simultaneously revered and reviled, sexualized and denied their own sexuality, made the objects of desire, but denied the possibility of being autonomous subjects of experience, and in all cases, dehumanized, scorned, shamed, belittled. The discussion that follows at the end provides a powerful demonstration of the effects that this tradition has had not only on the place and role that women have played in society, but even on their own self-understanding.




The third episode explores the way in which oil painting enabled an unprecedented degree of realism in European art. Along with this realism, however, and the physicality and texture such paintings were able to convey, oil paintings also helped to promote an economic ideology that celebrated the wealth and status of the individuals who commissioned such works of art, while simultaneously concealing the exploitation and dehumanization on which such wealth was often based.




Finally, the last episode attempts to demonstrate the ways in which advertising, particularly through the medium of photography, represents an extension of the artistic tradition, though one that reverses the context: instead of portraying the reality of wealthy individuals and their possessions, advertising conveys an imagined and idealized reality that preys on our fears and insecurities, and attempts to turns us into consumers.




Rest in peace, John Berger.

Some Thoughts and Feelings on the Aftermath of the Election 10 Nov 2016 4:41 PM (8 years ago)

When I saw that anger, hate and bigotry were going to win two nights ago, I had to unplug for a while. I needed to find the strength to apologize to my students, to tell them, to confess to them really, that we have collectively failed them, that their lives and safety are now at risk, that the forces of pent up anger and resentment, carefully and systematically cooked for decades by the conservative propaganda machine that has normalized making up paranoid and ignorant conspiracy theories, now control all branches of government, and that it's de-facto open season on people who don't look like them, who don't believe or worship like them, who don't have the same body parts they do, who don't love like them.

I didn't know how I could protect and comfort my students while simultaneously admitting I'm genuinely afraid for their well-being and their safety. Would it be fair to give them what I consider to be false hope? How could I reassure my female students that they will be safe in their bodily and sexual integrity from men who define their masculinity through domination and force, and who can conceive of women as nothing more than collections of body parts to use, abuse and discard? How could I tell them that, with a straight face, when we just elected a self-described sexual predator as Commander-in-Chief? How could I tell them that their reproductive rights won't be overturned and taken away from them when the Supreme Court vacancy is filled by a president who has publicly claimed women ought to be punished for trying to exercise their constitutionally-guaranteed reproductive rights? How could I reassure my Muslim students that they won't be randomly harassed and attacked by angry mobs when they are simply trying to peacefully go about their day? How could I reassure my undocumented students that their families won't be suddenly broken up at some point when they least expect it? How could I reassure my gay or transgender students that they won't be beaten by angry men who can't understand their love, their identity or their sexuality, or that their right to marry the person they love will no longer be guaranteed and protected? How could I reassure my black students that they have nothing to fear, when I'm utterly terrified, actually shaking in my bones to the point where I can't even think the thought without crying, that... that there will be lynchings before too long?

Part of me wanted to hope against hope that I'm simply overreacting, that things won't be as bad as that. But on the morning after the election, one of my students' grandmother, an African-American Muslim woman who lives in the South, woke up to a burning cross in her yard, and to one of her eight dogs, noose around its lifeless neck, hanging from a tree. This is not an isolated incident. Hate crimes are already spiking throughout the country. This is the new America we must somehow manage to navigate our way across now.

We have just given the White House to a self-described sexual predator, to an ignorant, stupid, hateful, narcissistic, thin-skinned racist who sees the world as a zero-sum game in which one person's success necessarily requires another person's utter destruction, to someone who is constitutionally incapable of respecting views which he can't understand... and who seems incapable of understanding almost anything that requires to be explained in complex sentences made up with anything above a third-grade level vocabulary, to someone for whom success means domination, to someone who feels the visceral need to surround himself with sycophants who won't challenge his toxic and simplistically ignorant worldview, to someone who has confessed to fantasizing about revenge and the humiliation of others, and who will now have the full force of the American government to do that. The man who doesn't have the self-control not to go on hateful and misogynistic slut-shaming tweets at three o'clock in the morning will now have access to the nuclear codes.

I hope the systems of checks and balances—created precisely to prevent demagogues like Trump from exerting their uncontrolled will on the rest of the world—will hold. I hope that Congress and the Supreme Court will stand up to him if... no, when he tries to violate the very same Constitution he will facetiously swear to uphold a few months from now...

But I won't hold my breath. These will be the same people, after all, who already stood behind him when he vociferously accused Latino immigrants of being murderers, drug dealers and rapists; who stood behind him when he called for a complete shutdown on Muslims entering this country; who stood behind him as he has mocked people with disabilities; who stood behind him when he repeatedly and relentlessly objectified and body-shamed women; these will be the same people who said nothing about the fact that his vice-presidential running mate is someone who has attempted to legalize discrimination against the gay community; these will be the same people who stood behind a man who has been charged with housing discrimination against African-Americans, who has taken out full spreads in the media calling for the execution of black youths who were charged with a crime it was subsequently proved they did not commit, who has instigated and encouraged his followers to commit violence against black protesters at his rallies, who publicly questioned whether our first African-American president was actually an American; these are the same people who stood behind him when he viciously and mockingly called refugee children snakes and reptiles; these are the same people who have watched him reduce the value of women to nothing more substantial than their sex appeal; these are the same people who still supported him even after the tapes in which he boasted about being able to get away with sexual assault came out. "I'm voting for Trump, but I'm not endorsing him" is  an endorsement! It's just an endorsement that makes you feel good about yourself without actually doing anything to stand up to him.

There is no real evidence that conservatives will suddenly stand up to him when he has even more power, not simply because they're cowards, but—and let's just be honest about this, shall we?—because Trump actually represents most of their core beliefs. Conservatives have been using coded language and policies to mask their racism, their sexism, their homophobia and xenophobia for decades. The party of 'personal responsibility' always manages to blame everyone else, especially people of color and immigrants, for anything that's wrong with this country. When it comes to their own faults, Republicans never take responsibility. Sarah Palin's son is arrested  for domestic abuse? Blame President Obama. You lost your job because the corporation you work for outsourced your job to China? Blame Mexicans. Your local ecosystem was destroyed by toxic waste dumped by a factory? Blame too much regulation on American businesses. It doesn't have to make sense; it simply needs to be blamed on others. As anybody who has studied American history knows, the misdirection is nothing new. Ever since the "Southern Strategy" was thought up, Republicans have gotten better and better at masking their intolerance under the rhetoric of 'law & order,' 'family values,' 'traditional marriage,' 'religious liberty,' 'the war on drugs,' and countless other euphemisms that communicate and perpetuate their intolerance while giving them the protection of plausible deniability. Trump's political genius ultimately consisted in being too stupid to understand the subtleties of using coded language, and in doing so he provided a megaphone for all the pent up anger and racism that the Republican Party has been carefully cultivating for decades. Trump isn't an anomaly for the Republican Party: he's the ultimate and crystallized embodiment and expression of their core values.

As I walked and cried on the night of the election, wondering how I would face my students the next day and protect them, I thought about the millions of little boys and girls who went to sleep that night, hopeful that when they woke up the next morning, they would have proof that it is possible in America for a woman to be President, that they would know that adults stood up to hate, anger and bigotry, and I thought about the kind of strength that their parents would now have to muster up to share the bad news with those heartbroken children. How do you explain to your little girl that, in America, an incredibly qualified woman who has dedicated her entire adult life to public service can still lose to an unqualified and hateful ignoramus? What kind of message about the worth of women does that send little boys? In times like these, when hope is gone, it seems as if the hardest thing to do is to be strong enough to have enough strength to share with others, but that's precisely what we must do, isn't it? But how do we find that strength?

I don't have any answers. I don't really know how to make things better. All I can do at this point is recommend, and plead, that we become better and kinder people to each other. That we respectfully and compassionately listen to the voices of those who are different from us, even if... especially if we can't immediately understand their point of view, that we stand up with and for our brothers and sisters of other colors, other faiths, other orientations, other identities, other backgrounds. That we consider how our choices might ultimately affect others, that we think beyond our intentions and also consider the impact of our choices, especially on those who will eventually bear the brunt of the weight of those choices. That we lend our voices to the voiceless, and our strength to the powerless. I don't know that it will be enough, but I do know that we must try. The safety of the people who make up this wonderfully eclectic country, and the very values and principles on which this experiment in self-governance and democracy is based, depend upon it...

The Philosophy of Marvel's Daredevil 28 Jul 2016 9:34 AM (8 years ago)

Everyone is familiar with the most obvious tropes of superhero comics: exciting action sequences, skin-fitting superhero outfits, the over-sexualization of strong female characters (or the need to emphasize the chastity and helplessness of damsels in distress), the perennial struggle between the forces of good vs evil, origin stories and haunting painful childhood memories, futile attempts at balancing one's public and secret identities, etc.

What isn't always obvious is that good comics often represent fascinating and thoughtful explorations of deep philosophical questions. These may not always be explicitly stated, but the multiplicity of circumstances and choices confronting the various characters, especially when these scenarios are slight variations on a more general theme, eventually make it impossible not to see the philosophical questions, and their complexity, at work.

If you simply watch the one-minute opening theme for the latest incarnation of Daredevil, for instance, you will notice that in addition to its beautiful aesthetic value, its creators have highlighted and juxtaposed some of the most important themes the show will explore: A world forged in blood. Wealth as the result of crime and corruption. Red as the color of blood, as a representation of loss, of sacrifice, of redemption... but redemption through a devil? A blind man, a red catholic devil meting out justice in the middle of the night? Outside the confines of the law and the light of due process? In the name of Justice? In the name of God? In the name of sublimated revenge and righteous indignation? And who exactly is blind? Justice? The vigilante? The world? Lady Justice and Matt Murdock shown not only blind but blindfolded? Does the blindness represent fairness and objectivity? Perhaps self-delusion? Does blindness represent an inability, or, perhaps, an unwillingness to see?


So if you'd like to peer beneath the surface and get a deeper appreciation of a few of the philosophical questions explored in Daredevil, as well as some of its religious, cultural and aesthetic influences and allusions, you could do worse than to sit back and enjoy the following short intro from the awesome folks at Wisecrack:

How the Republican Party went from Lincoln to Trump, and the Democratic Party went from White Supremacy to Obama 27 Jul 2016 10:00 AM (8 years ago)

When accused of promoting racist beliefs of policies, Republicans usually argue that it was their party who freed the slaves and passed the first meaningful legislation to extend equal rights to all men, and that it was Democrats who stood against abolition and on the Confederate side. This is incontrovertible historical fact.

Of course, what often goes unsaid is that things have changed significantly since the time of Lincoln, and those changes have to be understood in their larger historical context. All too often, unfortunately, we tend to get distracted by demagogues, by the latest political and ideological fashions, by the prejudices of 'common sense,' etc., and we lose sight, as a consequence, of the need to educate ourselves on the historical evolution of the many factors that have contributed to the problems we face today.

Complex and entrenched problems are not amenable to simplistic solutions. They require for their solution, at the very least, a recognition and correct diagnosis and understanding of their historical, sociological and philosophical context. But we must know the context. In that spirit, and although I highly recommend you pick up some history books, here is a short animated introduction to how the Party of Lincoln eventually became the Party of Trump.




Of course, the Democratic Party has undergone an evolution of its own, starting as the party of white supremacy, and eventually becoming the party that would elect the first African-American president:




Go home, America! You're drunk. :p

Simon Blackburn - Plato's Republic 20 Jul 2016 5:14 AM (8 years ago)

The term Utopia wasn't invented until 1516, when Thomas More published his now classic rendition of an ideal society. But the general concept had already taken place almost two thousand years earlier, when Plato wrote his Republic, a philosophical masterpiece exploring the nature, importance, need, justification and maintenance of a just society. Along the way, however, Plato devotes a substantial amount of pages to considering and proposing various arguments, allegories and thought experiments concerning issues as diverse as the nature of justice, the theory of Forms, the role of philosophers in society (hint: they're in charge), the importance of being an ethical person, the relationship between art and the state, a communal conception of parenting, arguments regarding equal opportunities based on sex/gender, and many, many more.

That's not to say that there haven't been powerful critiques of Plato's Republic. It has been credited, for instance, and by philosophers as influential as Karl Popper, of paving the philosophical road to totalitarian states such as those embodied by Hitler and Stalin, and with providing justification for the violation of individual rights in the name of the state. And in the following excerpt from Simon Blackburn's delightful book on Plato's Republic, narrator Simon Vance masterfully conveys these fascinating ideas with the sophistication, the pathos and the elegance for which he has become one of the most influential, memorable and coveted readers of our generation in the English-speaking world.

Introduction to Symbolic & Philosophical Logic 6 Jul 2016 1:23 PM (8 years ago)

Although almost every activity human beings engage in requires some degree of reasoning, we're often sloppy at it, we seldom (if ever!) think about the thinking process itself, and we are really good at tying ourselves into conceptual knots and logical contradictions. For more than two thousand years, however, philosophers have been hard at work trying to understand, organize, classify and perfect the reasoning process, searching for and discovering the rules and principles of logical necessity, devising methods for ascertaining the validity of logical inferences, and testing the very limits of reasoning.

The following Prezi is a compilation of a number of lectures by philosopher Mark Thorsby. These lectures provide a great introduction to deductive symbolic reasoning in:

1. Categorical logic (syllogisms and sorites), 
2. Propositional logic (and natural deduction), and 
3. Predicate (or 1st-order) logic.

These ideas may seem abstract and academic, and there's something to that charge, but they are also the ideas that make the modern world possible: our scientific knowledge, the technology on which our very survival depends, the political and economic systems through which we organize our social lives, our ability to reason about ethical questions, our very ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings to each other, and many other important domains, all depend on our ability to think clearly and reason properly...

Harry Frankfurt - Bullshit! 27 May 2016 5:59 AM (8 years ago)

Bullshit is everywhere. I know it. You know it. And yet, what exactly is bullshit? You might agree with Justice Potter Stewart when he once famously remarked "I know it when I see it" (although he was talking about hard-core porn at the time), but that kind of answer is not going to cut it with philosophers, a group notorious for their love of rigor and analytical precision.

How would you define bullshit? How would you distinguish it from, say, lying, or telling falsehoods, from humbug, from deception, from accidental or deliberate misrepresentation? What does it take for something to rise to the level of bullshit? Does it depend on the truth value of an utterance or speech act? On the intention of the speaker? On the inferences a speaker makes about an audience's state of mind? And, normatively, is bullshit more reprehensible than lying? More innocent? More insidious? Does it belong to an entirely different ethical classification?

Fortunately, philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote the (very short) book on Bullshit a few years ago, trying not only to provide a conceptual analysis of what bullshit is exactly, but to also say something about the ethics surrounding bullshit. Here's a little preview of why it matters:


"The essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony."

Must Society Recognize Trans People's Gender Identities? 9 May 2016 11:28 AM (8 years ago)

Between the fact that some celebrities have recently come out publicly as members of the transgender community, on the one hand, and (fueled by an unsubstantiated and distorted presumption that unfairly equates transgender individuals with sexual predators) recent legislation in some conservative states attempting to ban transgender people from using restrooms incompatible with the sex indicated on their birth certificate, on the other, the question of transgender rights has taken center stage in current political discourse.

Simplistic arguments, especially those coming from the ideological and religious right, which conflate the biological concept of sex with the philosophical concept of identity and the cultural concept of gender, and those that unquestioningly adopt a dualistic interpretation of these concepts instead of a spectrum (or a series of interrelated spectra) would be intellectually laughable if they weren't so pernicious in their practical and ideological influence. Which is not to say that there aren't other interesting and important perspectives and points of controversy on this topic. Questions regarding the phenomenology of bodily and gendered lived experience, cultural appropriation; challenges to the very ontological legitimacy of gender itself; intersectional questions regarding privilege and oppression; biological essentialism; constructivism; performativity; whether we should erase differences or celebrate them, and how, permeate the philosophical landscape. And because education is often best achieved by exposure to and analysis of various perspectives engaged in a dialectical process of civil discourse, we're showcasing today a fascinating Intelligent Squared debate on the question of whether society has a moral and/or legal duty to recognize trans people's gender identities.

Plato - Meno 4 May 2016 8:43 AM (8 years ago)

Plato's Republic is widely recognized as his philosophic and literary masterpiece, but many of his shorter dialogues are also exquisite demonstrations of philosophical brilliance and argumentative cunning. The Apology, for instance, in which Socrates defends the value of philosophy and the principles that informed his own moral character, is universally taught in literature, rhetoric, oratory and philosophy courses as one of the most powerful speeches ever delivered. His Euthyphro makes an intellectually convincing case, and a hilarious one at that, for the independence of morality from religious foundations. The Symposium provides a fascinating account of the nature of love and its relationship to Beauty. The Crito provides a dramatic account of justice and of the appropriate response to injustice. Etc.

In Plato's Meno, showcased here today, we encounter, condensed into one brief discussion, an important account about the importance of defining concepts in terms of their necessary and sufficient conditions, a theoretical framework for how to investigate philosophical questions, a beguiling paradox about inquiry and whether we can know what we think we know, a fascinating account (and proof?) regarding the immateriality and immortality of the soul, as well as a theory of knowledge as recollection from previous existences, some allusions to Plato's theory of the Forms, an explicit demonstration of the Socratic method and its importance for philosophical reasoning, a demonstration of hypothesis testing through dialectics, and much, much more... all in the classic style for which Socrates was reviled by his detractors, loved by his pupils and admirers, and celebrated by lovers of wisdom ever since...

Boswell's Life of Marx: There Will Be Beard! 29 Apr 2016 8:28 AM (8 years ago)

Ever since the publication of his Life of Samuel Johnson, the name Boswell has become synonymous with biographical genius and companion. In philosophical circles, the story of his encounter with David Hume shortly before the latter's death is usually told as a testament to Hume's courage and commitment to his philosophical views. Unlike the death-bed conversion Boswell was expecting, Hume surprised him, and earned more of his respect (and incredulity), by affirming his skepticism concerning the immateriality and immortality of the soul. Boswell is said to have experienced nightmares as a result of said meeting.

But Boswell's influence has also broken the barrier into fiction. In A Scandal In Bohemia, for instance, Sherlock Holmes famously compliments his faithful friend and chronicler, Dr. Watson, by confessing to him "I am lost without my Boswell." And in the brilliant BBC TV adaptation Sherlock, in which, through the medium of blog entries, Watson recounts Sherlock's adventures and mishaps, there's a subtle allusion to the original Holmes quote above (and a clever play on words on the Boswell reference) when Sherlock tells Watson: "What would I do without my blogger?" (Sherlock has lots of those great and gratifying allusions and references for those familiar with the original canon.)

But apparently Boswell eventually turned into a drunk and horny time traveller, traversing the fabric of space-time and visiting parallel worlds on a quest to document the lives of geniuses... or the whole thing may have just been one LSD-induced dream. It's not quite clear. Either way, the following is a hilarious treat about Marx's thoughts on seizing the means of production, and on his followers' attempts to seize the means of reproduction:

Will Durant - The Philosophy of Plato 21 Apr 2016 11:00 AM (8 years ago)

There are many great introductions to the history of philosophy. Some do a fantastic job of explaining the thoughts and theoretical frameworks developed by philosophers; others contextualize the philosophy in light of their historical milieu; others attempt to understand the past through the perspective of the people who lived at the time, while others try to make us understand the importance of these timeless questions from within our own time and place; others tend to focus on the lives of the philosophers, and to try to understand the philosophy by focusing on the biographical details; others provide thoughtful commentary and philosophical criticism; etc.

One of the classic and most engaging introductions to the history of philosophy is Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. The exposition of philosophical ideas and the biographical details are always fascinating, and the quoted passages are perfectly chosen, but it's Durant's wit and penetrating insights, always beautifully crafted into eminently eloquent aphorisms, that sets this book apart. And as if that weren't pleasurable enough, this audio rendition, read by the eloquent and thunderous voice of Grover Gardner will make you feel the philosophy in a way that transcends the purely conceptual pleasure of learning and understanding...


Check out the Will Durant tag for more on this great series.

What Is Socialism? 22 Feb 2016 6:34 AM (9 years ago)

Like political correctness, socialism is one of those concepts everyone keeps throwing around, usually derisively, without really knowing what it means.

Although the concept of socialism did not start with Marx, it is helpful to remember his analysis of capitalism, to which socialism can perhaps be better understood of as a response. According to Marx, capital is accumulated labor: capitalists, those who own the means of production, become wealthy by keeping for themselves some of the value created by their employees. Capitalists have a vested interest in extracting as much value from their workers as they can while compensating them as little as possible, producing in the process an ever-growing gap in the bargaining power between the two camps (just look at the gap between rich and poor in the US). According to Marx, labor—which under natural conditions is a source of meaning, value and identity—becomes under capitalism the greatest source of human alienation and exploitation.


Socialism, then, can be understood as an attempt to check the imbalance and exploitation inherent in free-market capitalism. In its worst and most perverted manifestations, however, 'nationalist socialist' regimes have tyrannically appropriated the means of production and taken on the role of the capitalists without protecting the interests of the people, predictably leading to the social and/or material ruin of their countries. Such approaches have merely substituted one oppressor and form of corruption and greed for another while illegitimately maintaining the title of 'socialists.' Such tyrannical and corrupt systems are usually referred to as Marxist (or sometimes also Leninist) Socialism. As an indefatigable defender of freedom, however, Marx became so appalled by the misinterpretation and the misapplication of his ideas that, according to his life-long friend and intellectual collaborator Friedrich Engels, he once declared "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."

In its best manifestations, however, most notably in democratic socialism, where the government is beholden to the people, wealth is made to work for the protection and welfare of all members of society: the incentives for economic success and upward mobility are there, but opportunities for success do not depend on the accident of inherited socio-economic status. Rather, wealth is used to create the conditions that make it possible to meaningfully empower everyone to be able to adequately pursue their own individual conception of the good, and then to pay it forward. Under democratic socialism, these material and structural conditions—quality education, healthcare, unemployment protection, safe working conditions, housing, regulations for economic and environmental sustainability, etc.—are understood as basic human rights, owed to every single citizen, not as the privilege of a wealthy elite.

To most Americans this may sound like an unrealistic pipe dream. But the proof of concept already exists, most notably in the Nordic European countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark), as well as Germany, Australia and New Zealand, all of which consistently score highest on the various indices used to measure well-being: education, health, safety,  civic engagement, gender equality, environmental sustainability, life satisfaction, income equality, work-life balance, working conditions, parental leave, rates of recidivism, etc. These remarkable rates of success can be at least partially attributed to the importance such governments place on enacting policies that are supported by comprehensive social science research, and to their strong commitment to protecting individual rights. This is not to say that these countries don't have problems of their own, of course, but they do represent an alternative model to the good life that is well worth considering, and possibly emulating...



If socialism is such a great idea, why hasn't it taken root in the United States? Well, ignoring the Pavlovian mental associations forged in the mind of Americans, especially during the Cold War, and given our narrow conception of competitive, boot-strapping individualism and the American (pipe) dream of upward mobility, there's a famous quote, apocryphally attributed to John Steinbeck, well worth considering, which argues that:

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Historians, ethnographers and sociologists know what I'm talking about...

Understanding the Refugee Crisis and Its Impact 5 Feb 2016 6:46 AM (9 years ago)

Back in September of 2015, the Syrian refugee crisis took center stage in the world's awareness when the body of a cute three-year old, Aylan Kurdi, washed ashore lifeless after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to escape the violence and devastation that President Bashar al-Assad has been unleashing on his own people since 2011. Terrorist organizations such as ISIL are also responsible for a significant amount of the death and destruction, but it's Assad who manages to fly below the radar of consciousness while being responsible for most of the devastation.

As of today, around a quarter of a million people have been killed in Syria (two-thirds of them civilians; 13,000 of them children). This is an incredibly complex issue, with lots of moving parts, plenty of blame to go around, many conflicting interests and power struggles, and lots of points for possible interventions, but it would greatly help to get straight on the facts, one of which is the all-too-important distinction between 'migrant' and 'refugee' status, as John Green does in the following video:


There are those who callously claim that Syrians need to 'go back home' so they can solve their own problems instead of asking for 'handouts.' What such facile and inhumane statements ignore is the fact that 'home' for many Syrians just doesn't exist any longer: their cities and towns have been obliterated into a huge wasteland of rubble where the violence continues to expand, rendering the thousands of buildings that have not been completely pulverized into death traps that could collapse at any moment. But why take my word for it when you can see the destruction with your own eyes?







And here is John Oliver on the way that hateful groups have been using racist and zenophobic language to dehumanize these poor people in their time of need:


These people need our compassion, not our indifference or our hate...

Philosophy Talk - Jean-Paul Sartre 29 Jan 2016 5:52 AM (9 years ago)

The nice folks at Philosophy Talk have just put out an episode on the highly influential French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Like his compatriot Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who began his highly influential The Social Contract with the now famous line "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," Sartre is probably most famous for his thoughts on freedom: specifically for his thoughts and defense of existentialist radical freedom.

While his early phenomenological analysis and defense of freedom tended to focus primarily on the authenticity of individual consciousness, Sartre's later thoughts became more complex (and some might even say inconsistent) as he began to understand and incorporate the insights of historical materialism into his philosophical and political narrative, and there's an interesting discussion of that, as well as many other fascinating themes, in the episode below:

Mass Incarceration in the US 22 Jan 2016 7:55 AM (9 years ago)

In addition to the physical walls that separate free citizens from those who have been incarcerated, there are also powerful and self-fulfilling metaphorical walls that make it difficult to see and recognize (for historic, cultural, corporate and political reasons) the humanity of countless human beings whose lives have been unnecessarily wasted when we threw away the key after we locked them up for no particularly good reason.

We talk about these cultural 'wars' (the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on crime), but then we tend to forget that our actual practices have become a de facto war on the poor, on the homeless, on black and brown, and a war on criminals, and we forget we've made it a crime in this country to be black or brown, to be homeless, poor or unemployed, to be transgender, to struggle with mental health issues, to lack proper nutrition, healthcare and education. And we treat these issues—especially when applied to non-whites—as issues that require we lock up and abandon the very people who have been the victims of systemic injustices and lack of opportunities for most of our history, the people who are in most desperate need of our compassion and our help... And the numbers, the sheer numbers!!!



Here is sociologist Bruce Western on the virtual inevitability of ending up in prison for certain demographics, particularly young black men:



Here is Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the powerful Between the World and Me, on the enduring myth of black criminality and how our response to various social issues that we could very well solve through humane sociological interventions, are often treated instead as mere issues of criminality:



Here is documentary producer Matthew Cooke providing some historical context for the ways in which racial biases have been created, maintained, strengthened and perpetuated in an effort to serve the economic interests of a wealthy elite at the expense of some of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised members of our society:


And if you want a more thorough understanding of the systemic history of racial inequality, the structures and institutions of our legal system, the political backroom deals, the financial incentives, the self-perpetuating logic of the system, the targetted and discriminatory application of these draconian and inhumane measures, as well as the consequences for individuals, for families, for communities, for race relations, for our nation as a whole, for our own cultural perception and collective self-identity, and for the impact on our culture and values, I can do no better than to recommend you pick up and read Michelle Alexander's powerful exposé and manifesto The New Jim Crow, which you are also welcome to listen below:




And just for a little perspective on how we compare to other countries (to our shame, unfortunately), click on the following infographic:


In the land of the free, we can do better than to thoughtlessly acquiesce to the fear-mongering and racism that has denied so many people the liberty we all want to claim for ourselves...

Immanuel Kant - Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals 21 Jan 2016 6:38 AM (9 years ago)

One of the most fascinating moral frameworks philosophers have developed, to say nothing of its incredible scope, influence and depth, has got to be Immanuel Kant's deontology: the idea that the basis of morality is to be found in the self-determining principles of a rational and autonomous will, willing universal principles based on its recognition and respect for moral obligation, is particularly refreshing, especially in a time when we evaluate so many moral issues simply on the basis of hedonistic cost-benefit analyses, principles of non-interference, individual and collective self-interest, neoliberal values, relativism and post-modernism.

According to Kant's deontological framework, the basis of moral reasoning is not to be found in anything empirical or contingent (such as human nature, social mores, religious dogma, tradition, individual dispositions, or even the consequences of our actions). It is, rather, to be found in the nature of practical reason itself: in the discovery of universal principles applicable to, and discoverable by, any and all rational beings (both in and out of this world).

Kant articulated his thoughts concerning morality most fully in his Critique of Practical Reason and in The Metaphysics of Morals, but he wrote a 'popular' introduction to his theory for non-experts, which many people consider a cruel joke, since they think the text is still impenetrable. Luckily, Nigel Warburton has decided to present Kant's ideas in a short and accessible format in the following audio clip based on his book Philosophy: The Classics.




And for more, check out the Kant tag .