It was thanks to my friend Grant, who does a great deal of work in public Philosophy, that I was introduced to the problem of how to make philosophy accessible to the public. After all, I feel philosophy has greatly enriched my life, and I want to share that enrichment with as many people as I can. My discussions with Grant have lead me to the conclusion the philosophy as it is done today needs a makeover. (How I wish I had a GIF of Rene Descartes in What not to Wear that I could insert here)
At the beginning of our lectures on Sartre's Existentialism is a humanism, our professor told us about how Sartre had spontaneously delivered this entire piece to a room, packed elbow to elbow with people from all kinds of different backgrounds- Catholics, Communists, Philosophers and the common person. the room had been so packed that several people had to be taken to the hospital for fainting from the heat, and Sartre had sent them into a hushed silence the moment he spoke. Sartre was a rock star, and philosophy was on top of it's game in that time- everyone wanted to know what he had to say, which was great, because he had an important message. Today, I am lucky if prospective undergrads even know what the word philosophy means. What has changed and what can we do about it?
In my undergraduate honors seminar, which focused on identity, the students were expected to lead the discussion instead of the professor. We had a lot of fun and it was more relaxed while still being intellectually engaging, but one thing that quickly came to the fore when student led the discussion was that our early philosophical texts- the ones from which we drew our illustrations and thought experiments- were anything but texts. Most of the time we used films like the Matrix, Blade Runner and Dark City (a personal favourite of mine) as the currency of concepts. This was a great annoyance to our professor, who, likely being on the brink of retirement, had grown up and learned about philosophy in a completely different media landscape.
Today, media has changed even more form the days when people mostly read books for entertainment, and philosophers, as a result, are beginning to look at argumentation differently. Leo Groake for example, has been talking about visual argumentation. What this makes me wonder however, is why academic philosophy has not taken advantage of the diverse media landscape. In his day, Sartre wrote tons of entertaining fiction and some marvelous plays that no doubt led the average French citizen to wonder what philosophy was all about, and today with web 2.0 we have even less of an excuse to abstain. Philosophers have experts on hand to help them navigate the world of text publishing, so why do we not have access to experts in art, film, game development, or theatre?
No doubt this is partly because of tradition and partly because of expenses, but I think one very legitimate reason philosophers work mainly in text is because this makes clear communication (and therefore clear response) easier. Still I wonder if there is a way we could both communicate in a way that is clear and easily addressable and still accessible and engaging to the public. One other concern that I imagine I would hear from theorists like Neil Postman (I love his Teaching as a Subversive Activity) is that as philosophical works become more entertaining students are more likely to sit back passively and expect to be entertained (which is interesting because I find him to be a very entertaining writer). That may (or may not) have held true in an age where such entertaining education came in passive forms such as television or film, but I think in the age of web 2.0 we see a very active response to new information. On the internet, people can't resist the temptation to leave a comment (though such comments are not always well thought-out or rigorous), but we also see people responding to media by creating their own videos, writing blogs, reupholstering furniture, dancing, protesting, or inventing new memes. I think the media climate we have right now is the perfect opportunity to bring philosophy back to the people.
Great post. There's lots of work to be done in facilitating this infrastructure, so plenty of opportunity for folks like us to find something to do (and maybe even get paid for it?).
ReplyDeleteOne thing that we might consider as a possibility is that while public philosophy infrastructure is growing in terms of venues, public art infrastructure already exists, and seems quite strong (as an outsider to that realm). Would it perhaps not be a beneficial tactic to try to graft philosophy onto that infrastructure instead of trying to build up something totally new? I have in mind something like getting philosophers involved with artists in criticism and idea mapping, participating in acting and painting workshops, etc. We might find, once we start looking, that that already exists in some measure.
Great post, thanks again!