fastidium

The current edition (November/December 2007) of the online journal Philosophy Now is devoted to the topic of Popular Culture and Philosophy. Tim Delaney, the editor, gives a nice overview of what is meant by popular culture and its context.

One of the most interesting articles is John Shelton Lawrence’s review of “… and philosophy” books. These are the books that you can find in Barnes and Noble or Borders (along the standard philosophy texts) that have titles like Seinfeld and Philsophy, The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy, and The Simpsons and Philosophy. They are small collections of papers by academic philosophers seeking to explain philosophical problems and topics using the shared knowledge of popular culture.

Throughout his career, Lawrence has used literature and particularly, superhero comic books, to explain how myths and heroes have helped to form our collective (social) understanding of the world. His initial major publication was The American Monomyth (1977) in which Lawrence (with cowriter Robert Jewett) describe how the universal narrative of the hero’s journey has disappeared in comtemporary culture and how in America this evolution reflects a deep antipathy to democratic institutions through violent actions of a hero who remains separate from the community. Lawrence and Jewett predicted the rise of an entertainment-based system of religious belief, a reality that became even more evident with the Star Wars phenomenon (Wikipedia). Lawrence and Jewett have since expanded their thesis with The Myth of the American Superhero (2002) and Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism (2003).

Lawrence is more than qualified to speak about the pros and cons of the …and philosophy books, and yet, I have some reservations about his notion that they “side-step issues of gender antagonism and ethnic exploitation”. While I do think there are underlying sex and ethnic stereotypes in Star Wars and other stories in our culture, I don’t think that these books, which are supposed to help students understand philosophical topics, should be expected to uncover these kinds of things.

The first …and philosophy book that I read was the first of the ‘Philosophy and Populare Culture’ series by Open Court. It was Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing and it had a tremendous impact on the way in which I watched Seinfeld. I think everyone who watched the show’s finale realized at some point in the episode that these people weren’t the moral bunch that we assumed them to be. In fact, it was hard to imagine them being our friends anymore. The allure of the show was that it was about nothing so you started to feel like you were hanging out at Jerry’s apartment. But after the moral character of the characters was summed up in one court case, it was hard to imagine going back to just hanging out with Jerry and company.

Reading Seinfeld and Philosophy helped me to understand certain distinctions that are made in the area of moral philosophy and ethics. Not having much exposure to philosophy that was not considered analytic, looking at the life of Kramer and George through the works of Keirkegaard and/or Nietsche not only helped me to examine their lives but it gave me a better understanding and appreciation for those great thinkers as well. I don’t know if I understood Kierkegaard’s three stages of human existence before I looked at them through the life of Kramer in Bill Irwin’s article on Kramer and Kierkegaard.

Lawrence explains that the aim of these books is “to combat alienation from abstract thought with the pleasing notion that philosophy sits as close to people as their favorite hobbies, films, or shows.” And I think that’s a good way of putting it. But he goes on to expect them to uncover certain (unjust) ideas within popular culture that should be explained to young readers. He assumes that the market for these books are young people looking for further articulation of ideas they are learning in their intro to philosophy courses or professors looking for “fresh material” for class discussions.

Now, if someone decided to publish a Seinfeld and Social Criticism or The Simpsons and Social Justice book, then I would expect them to shed light on topics such as gender equality and racial injustice. And, maybe if we extend the subject area of philosophy to include those things, then I could see where an …and philosophy book could address these things. But, philosophy as its usually considered has as its subject matter epistemology, ethics, logic, ontology, metaphysics, rationality, morality,… these are topics that go deeper than simply critiquing a story for its depiction of women or how its pandering to popular notions about the military.

One further concern that I share with Lawrence is the use of pop culture identities that are owned by corporations. Still though, this too seems to go outside the bounds of a book trying to explain philosophical topics by using characters and stories from popular culture.