A Treatise on Holiday Politics

A Hanukkah gift from me and Spinoza.

And if you want to help me continue to become a disturber of religion, you can do so here:

Tractatus Holiday-Philosophicus

A Hanukkah language-game from me and Wittgenstein.

And if you would like to take your turn in this language-game, you can do so here:

Happy Cyborgmasukkah!

A Cyborgmasukkah gift from me and Donna Haraway.

And if you want to help start the Cyborgmasukkah revolution, you can do so here:

Happy Adornukkah!

A Hanukkah gift from me and from Adorno's classic Minima Menorah: Reflections on a Dreideled Life.

And if you want to get me something in return for this dialectical enlightenment, you can do so here:

Santa Zizek vs. The Hebrew Hammer & Sickle

A Hanukkah gift from me, Zizek, and Marx, to you.

And if you want to get me a gift in return for my alienated labor, you can do so here:

Hanukkah Husserl

Here's another Hanukkah gift from me (and Husserl) to you.

And if you want to give me a gift in return, you can do so here:

Happy Hanukkah!

A Hanukkah gift from me, Freud, Benjamin, Arendt, Levinas, and Buber to you.

And if you want to give a gift back to me, you can do so here:

#GamerGate - Is It About Misogyny or Ethical Journalism? Why Not Both?

From Abc.net.au's Religion and Ethics site:

For some, GamerGate is about the "ethics of gaming journalism," about the alleged collusion between video game developers and video game journalists, and about the response of gaming journalists and websites to such accusations. For others, GamerGate is about the misogynistic culture of video games, a culture that exists both in the sexist portrayal of women in video games and in the violent threats that have been made against women who have criticized this culture.

So what is GamerGate all about? Is it about the need for objectivity in gaming journalism, or is it about the need for equality in gaming culture?

While it has become something of a joke among those fighting for equality to argue that "it's actually about the ethics of gaming journalism," it is important to realize that these two sides of GamerGate need not be in opposition to each other, and could even be used to support each other.

Continue reading...

World Philosophy Day 2014

For World Philosophy Day 2014, three of PLU's philosophy majors and I will be discussing GamerGate, Feminism, and the "Ethics of Gaming Journalism."

As the theme of this year's World Philosophy Day is "Social Transformations and Intercultural Dialogue," we will be attempting to start just such a dialogue between gamers and feminists.

For more information, see our event invitation here.

Visiting Professor Shines Light on Myths of Unmanned Warfare

From Southern News:

Vampires and Call of Duty were all used as subject matter in a lecture on war drones, but the only myth was that drone operators suffer less than combat soldiers. 

Visiting philosophy professor Dr. Nolen Gertz, of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., addressed common misconceptions of drone operators in his lecture of, “The Myth of Unmanned Warfare: Drone Operators, Cyber Warriors, and Prosthetic Gods” Nov. 14 in Engelman C112. 

His lecture focused on how little people realize that although the drones are unmanned, those who operate the drones experience the operation more than a soldier on foot may experience it. Continued...

Find out more about the talk here.

Find out more about the book the talk is based on here.

The Myth of Unmanned Warfare - My Talk at SCSU on November 14th

I will be giving at a talk at Southern Connecticut State University on November 14th, based on my new book. 

If you're in the New Haven area, come check it out. If you're not, here's an abstract of what I'll be talking about:

President Obama's reliance on "unmanned warfare" in his War on Terror has been seen as a move to the opposite extreme of warfare from President Bush's use of torture in his War on Terror. However, the particular aim of this talk will be to show that—if we focus not on the questions of just cause, discrimination, and proportionality that are currently at the heart of such debates but instead focus on the question of what it means to be a drone pilot or cyberwarrior—torturers are not as removed from drone pilots and cyberwarriors as they may at first appear to be. Though drones are still a relatively new element of combat and cyberwarfare is much more in the planning than implementing stage, there is already evidence from drone pilots that although these tactics remove the combatant from the battlefront, the suffering remains the same. What this reveals therefore is that our ideas about what counts as “risk” for combatants needs to be rethought, particularly as some of the evidence that has started to appear indicates that drone pilots may even experience more suffering than do their traditional counterparts.

While the traditional view of responsibility as culpability leads directly to the “dream” of unmanned warfare, what my view of responsibility as capability reveals instead is that we must remove the dangerously mistaken idea that warfare in any form can be “unmanned.” Even if we consider the ultimate realization of this dream—autonomous unmanned warfare—it must be recognized that there will still be humans involved in the designing and programming of these autonomous robots, humans who will still have to face the consequences of what their designs and programs do. Whereas traditional combatants have their “band of brothers” to look to for support and have the insulating safety that distant wars can provide from feeling judged by noncombatants, these new non- traditional combatants have neither such support nor such distance. Instead, drone pilots, cyberwarriors, and robot engineers are judged by both combatants and noncombatants— by the traditional combatants who do not respect those who do not fight beside them, and by the noncombatants who they see regularly because their battlefront is the homefront. There is no such thing therefore as a “safe distance” from combat for combatants because the “distance” that is vital to both the experiences of combat and the suffering of combatants is not the physical distance from the enemy with which culpability operates. Rather what can now be seen is that this distance is existential, for this distance cannot be measured but only felt, and it is for this reason that our approaches to the suffering of combatants have not yet been able to properly help in closing this ever-widening gap between combatants and noncombatants.

Happy Birthday Nietzsche!

I couldn't think of what to get Nietzsche for his birthday today, so I thought I'd let him hammer away at Freud's ego instead...

As for how Nietzsche may have actually celebrated his birthday, I believe this excerpt from a letter of his from October 24th, 1864 to his mother and sister may give us a hint:

I received the box and am greatly pleased over it, especially the nice linen things and the beautiful music literature. Yesterday we enjoyed a most jolly afternoon. I danced fabulously.

In a letter to Georg Brandes on April 10, 1888, Nietzsche provides us with an idea of how he viewed his life, from the day he was born on:

Vita. I was born the 15th of October 1844, on the battlefield of Lützen. The first name I heard was that of Gustav Adolf. My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Niëzky). It seems the type is well preserved despite three German 'mothers.' In foreign countries I usually am considered a Pole; even this winter the roster of foreign visitors in Nice entered me comme Polonais. They tell me that my head may be found in the paintings of Matejko's. My grandmother belonged to the Schiller-Goethe circle in Weimar. Her brother became the successor of Herder in the office of Commissary-general of Weimar. I had the good fortune of having been a pupil at the venerable Schulpforta from where so many have gone forth who are of account in German literature (such as Klopstock, Fichte, Schlegel, Ranke and so on and so forth). [...] I was forced to give up my German citizenship since, as commissioned officer (mounted artillery) I would have been called up too often and disturbed in my academic activities. Nevertheless, I am familiar with two weapons, sabre and cannon, and, perhaps, even with a third one... Then, too, I am according to my instincts a brave animal, yes, a military one. The long resistance has somewhat exasperated my pride.—Am I a philosopher?—But what of it!...

"Should philosophy be used to treat PTSD?"

Should philosophy be used to treat PTSD? Hear the debate on the Daily Commute free podcast http://t.co/wTnjnmwC4r
— BBC World Service (@bbcworldservice) October 6, 2014

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss my book The Philosophy of War and Exile with Dan Damon on the BBC World Update program. John Higgins, a friend and veteran who helped me immensely while I was writing the book by both sharing his personal experiences and by reading chapters, was also interviewed.

Here are some of the things that I brought up during the interview that didn't get included in what was aired:

• My work in establishing a Student Veteran Center at Delta College
• The importance of Simone Weil's The Iliad, or Poem of Force for my own analyses of the experience of war

Listen to the interview here:

My Book is Out Today!

From Critical-Theory.com:

Arguing that the suffering of combatants is better understood through philosophy than psychology, as not trauma, but exile, this book investigates the experiences of torturers, drone operators, cyberwarriors, and veterans to reveal not only the exile at the core of becoming a combatant, but the evasion from exile at the core of being a noncombatant. From exploring the phenomenological philosophy of J. Glenn Gray to investigating the existential meaning of Rambo, this book focuses not on our current question of how to return veterans to our everyday way of life, but rather on the question of what it means for our everyday way of life that they call alienating what we call home.

You can buy it here, and preview it here. 

Happy Birthday Heidegger!

New Academic Year's Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions are, as everyone knows, completely ridiculous. But the idea of making a list of things to work on at the dawn of a new year might actually make sense when it comes to academia (especially since our jobs kind of depend on being better teachers more so than being better about not eating junk food). So in that spirit here’s a list of some things I will be working on improving this academic year.

Continue reading...

Gaza and Navel Gazing

My question, then, is this: Shouldn't philosophers be able to bring more to an ethical dilemma than a highly intellectualized version of the debate that was already taking place before they intervened? The reason this is important is because philosophers have, from the very beginning of philosophy, been accused of doing nothing more than "navel gazing," of asking and answering questions that are of interest only to other philosophers rather than providing any practical benefit to the world outside of philosophy. Or, as Karl Marx put it, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

Continue reading...

Scooby-Dubito

The parallels between Descartes and Scooby-Doo are uncanny...

As Descartes writes in his Meditations on First Philosophy:

I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusion of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement. I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things. I shall stubbornly and firmly persist in this meditation; and, even if it is not in my power to know any truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods, so that the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, will be unable to impose on me in the slightest degree.

That's right. Descartes, having realized that everything he believed he knew to be true was subject to doubt, decided that he could only achieve certainty if he could overcome any possible doubt, even the doubt that God was in fact an Evil Demon.

While on the surface it would appear that it is Descartes' proofs of God's existence that enable him to defeat the Evil Demon, much like in Scooby-Doo, looks can be deceiving. Just as "Reason" is what gets Descartes into his doubt spiral, it is also "Reason" that gets Descartes out of it.

What Descartes proves in his Meditations is that his well-known "Cogito" is not just the only thing of which he can be certain, but that it has the power to both push us to the brink of insanity ("Everything is a lie created by an Evil Demon!") and can bring us back to sanity once more ("Everything is a truth created by a benevolent God!").

The surface of Descartes' argument: I had doubt, but God created me, and I can prove it, thus there is certainty.

The underbelly of Descartes' argument: I had doubt, but I created proofs that God exists, thus there is certainty.

In other words, the Evil Demon is Descartes. God is Descartes. And, as Husserl would argue in his own Cartesian Meditations, we are all Descartes.

Characters in Search of God: Crises of Faith in Vikings, The Americans, and Hannibal

Vikings

The Americans

Hannibal

Most of the ostensibly religious practices shown on television have no intended religious meaning to them whatsoever. This is evident in the fact that whatever practice being portrayed in one episode (even if the practice in question is a funeral) almost never has any bearing on the characters in the next episode. Perhaps then it was only with the rise of serialized television and season-long story arcs that the portrayal of religious practices could actually involve religious meaning. In other words, religion cannot have any weight in a world with a reset button.

To watch television more recently is to see a decidedly different portrayal of religion. Now, if a character is to be found in a church, it's not merely because it's a setting common to American life, but because the character is having a crisis of faith. Indeed, more and more today television shows are becoming centred around characters experiencing spiritual crises.

Continue Reading...

Does the Introductory Philosophy Course Cover Too Much?

Typical philosophy course chalkboard from the University of Chicago

In his blogpost Does the Introductory Physics Course Cover Too Much?, Rhett Allain writes:

The point is that even with the very first concept in introductory physics, there are many things that students must not only understand but master in order to progress. Learning physics isn’t like building a pyramid with introductory concepts at the bottom. No. Learning physics is like an upside down pyramid that gets bigger at the top. All of this mass at the top of the pyramid is being supported by these initial ideas. A small crack in these supporting ideas will bring down the whole thing.

As Allain explains, though he organizes his Intro course around three basic principles (momentum, work energy, and angular momentum), students can only learn these principles if they have already learned what these principles presuppose (vectors, rates of change, how to graph). In other words, the "basics" are not as basic as we professors tend to take for granted, and by taking the "basics" for granted we risk leaving students behind.

Allain therefore suggests that Intro to Physics be reorganized from the bottom up (rather than from the top down, such as by the demands of the other departments whose students are required to take Intro to Physics). This bottom-up approach begins by asking the seemingly most basic question—"why are students taking this course?"—and ends with the sober conclusion:

Alas, if this was a 3 credit hour course you probably wouldn’t get to torque. I think torque is cool, but it’s a stretch to do all the cool things in such a short time.

After reading Allain's blogpost, and after having recently reviewed my student evaluations from last semester, I'm now led to wonder about the three parallel concerns surrounding teaching Intro to Philosophy:

1. What are the "basics" of Intro to Philosophy?
2. What are the basics behind these "basics"?
3. What is the "torque" or "cool thing" we should be willing to drop from Intro?

I would be fascinated (and greatly helped as a philosophy professor) to see how other philosophy professors answer these questions (and in particular how different the responses might be say from analytic and continental philosophy professors). 

Of course for philosophy, unlike physics, these questions are internal rather than external to philosophy (in other words, the question of how to teach philosophy is itself philosophy), for which reason our "upside down pyramid" might look a little different from that of physics.

Physics aims in one direction. Philosophy however is more "Ouroborical"...

Were I to attempt to answer these three questions, it might go something like this:

1. Epistemology; Ethics; Aesthetics.
2. Logic; Critical thinking; Writing.
3. Non-traditional/canonical/Western philosophy.

Such answers of course, Ouroborically, raise new questions:

1. Can one learn logic, critical thinking, and even writing without first learning epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics?
2. What is the value of learning epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics if we are not also learning non-traditional/canonical/Western philosophy?
3. If we were to learn non-traditional/canonical/Western philosophy, what impact would that have on both epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics on the one hand, and on logic, critical thinking, and writing on the other?

As you can see, I am now down the rabbit hole of philosophy, a rabbit hole I have been down many times before, for which reason I would greatly appreciate feedback from any other philosophy professors out there.

Pure Raw

Here's a little taste of Kant's Pure Raw:

You ever noticed that Idealists philosophize funny?  I mean, they all think that we can never through any possible experience become completely certain of the actuality of external objects! 

And don't even get me started on those fucking Empiricists!  They think they're better than Idealists, but they're just as immodest.  Have you been around an Empiricist right after they read Hume?  Woo boy do they puff up their chests and start audaciously denying whatever is beyond the sphere of their intuitive cognitions!

Detroit's Doors of Perception

"Knowledge is Power" at the Detroit Public Library...

From the Detroit Public Library's website:

Designed by architect Cass Gilbert, and partially funded by a gift from Andrew Carnegie, this stately Italian Renaissance style library of glistening white marble was called the most beautiful building in Detroit. In the 1950s, Detroit's population reached almost 2 million and the library's book collection was over 2.5 million volumes, requiring a major building expansion. On June 23, 1963 the Cass Avenue wings were opened to the public, adding 240,000 square feet to Main, doubling its size.

As often happens, Socrates and Plato are united as one...

Cicero and Caesar on the other hand...

From the Cass Gilbert Society website:

In 1913, the city of Detroit held a competition for the design of its new public library. Gilbert's design was chosen by a jury of three for its restrained Beaux-Arts design and its plan which arranged three reading rooms around a large central book delivery room. Although the commission was awarded in 1913, financial difficulties delayed construction. The cornerstone was laid in 1917, and the library finally opened in 1921. 

The library has been characterized as "a symbol of cultural life in Detroit." The building has symmetrical facades of white Vermont marble rising from terraces. At the second level, an arcaded loggia with fluted Ionic pilasters indicates the location of the major service areas on the interior. The barrel-vaulted hall has white marble walls adorned with murals by Edwin H. Blashfield. Arches in the east wall of the former delivery room, now Adam Strohm Hall, contain murals by Gari Melchers. The painted glass windows in this room were designed by Frederick J. Wiley. The fireplace in the former children's reading room has Pewabic tiles illustrating storybook characters. 

Aristotle and Alexander, likely before their falling out...	Augustine seems skeptical about Ambrose...
Sappho and Erinna of Telos, perhaps discussing even then the sad state of women in philosophy...	Aristophanes and Actor, perhaps discussing how to play Socrates in The Clouds...

The interior of the library isn't bad either, but that requires a post of its own...

Happy Father's Day

From my DeviantArt page...

Oedipus Complex Day, I mean Father's Day, was always one of Freud's favorite days. It was great for business...

A Satire of Philosophy by Washington Irving

You know a book is a satire when the author claims someone else wrote it...

On a recent trip to the wonderful used bookstore The Dawn Treader (admittedly the initial purpose of the trip was to get a bubble tea at TK WU next door), I happened upon Washington Irving's satirical first novel from 1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York.

Is there anything that isn't funnier in German?

Not unlike Laurence Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (a book which inspired not only Irving to write his History, but Karl Marx to write Scorpion and Felix), Irving's History begins with some philosophical reflections on the origins of existence. However, whereas for Sterne this involved Shandy recounting the story of his own conception, for Irving this involved recounting the story of the philosophical conception of the Earth itself.

"Diedrich Knickerbocker Philosophizing"

As Irving writes:

It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a pains taking philosopher, that nature often refuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that often after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favorite positions. This is a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to this theory, which is unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of dame nature, who with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened with respect to the foregoing satisfactory explanation of the motion of our planet; it appears that the centrifugal force has long ceased to operate, while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency: the world therefore, according to the theory as it originally stood, ought in strict propriety to tumble into the sun—Philosophers were convinced that it would do so, and awaited in anxious impatience, the fulfillment of their prognostications. But the untoward planet, pertinaciously continued her course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philosophy, and a whole university of learned professors opposed to her conduct. The philo's were all at a non plus, and it is apprehended they would never have fairly recovered from the slight and affront which they conceived offered to them by the world, had not a good natured professor kindly officiated as mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation. 

Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accommodate the theory to the world: he therefore informed his brother philosophers, that the circular motion of the earth round the sun was no sooner endangered by the conflicting impulses above described, than it became a regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave it origin—in short, that madam earth having once taken it into her head to whirl round, like a young lady of spirit in a high dutch waltz, the duivel himself could not stop her. The whole board of professors of the university of Leyden joined in the opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would decently extricate them from their embarrassment—and immediately decreed the penalty of expulsion against all who should presume to question its correctness: the philosophers of all other nations gave an unqualified assent, and ever since that memorable era the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper.

Irving goes on to give his reader "fair warning" that, as "an impartial historian," he feels that it is his "duty" to investigate the cosmological theories ("by which mankind have been so exceedingly edified and instructed") of such philosophers as Zenophanes, Strato, Pythagoras, Moschus (whose philosophy was "revived by Democritus of laughing memory, improved by Epicurus that king of good fellows, and modernized by the fanciful Descartes"), and Plato ("that temperate sage, who threw the cold water of philosophy on the form of sexual intercourse"), among many others. 

As Irving warns (and if you're going to put a "trigger warning" in your philosophy syllabi, this would make for a pretty good one):

...I am about to plunge for a chapter or two, into as complete a labyrinth as ever historian was perplexed withal; therefore I advise them to take fast hold of my skirts, and keep close at my heels, venturing neither to the right hand nor to the left, least they get bemired in a slough of unintelligible learning, or have their brains knocked out, by some of those hard Greek names which will be flying about in all directions. But should any of them be too indolent or chicken-hearted to accompany me in this perilous undertaking, they had bester take a short cut round, and wait for me at the beginning of some smoother chapter. 

Rather than be offended by Irving's mockery of philosophy, I think we should take it as a compliment. That a novelist would spend so much time joking about philosophers, and in a novel that was immensely popular, shows that there was a time in America when philosophy was part of the culture. 

So please, novelists, be inspired by Irving, and make fun of philosophers as much as you can (note: making fun of philosophers is not the same as making fun of philosophy, as the former requires reading philosophy, while the latter only requires hearing Neil deGrasse Tyson on a podcast). 

If people are laughing at philosophers, then there is a much greater chance that people will again laugh with philosophers as well.

Not-So-Great Wars and Modern Memory

Arlington West Santa Monica - February 17, 2013

From my Medium.com piece:

Beside and beneath the fun and folly of the Santa Monica Pier lies a graveyard with no graves. While Arlington National Cemetery is a place of mourning, a place where Americans go to pay their respects, it is most importantly a place set off from the rest of America. “Arlington West” is not-so-conveniently out of the way, requiring a Metro trip and a long walk through hallowed grounds, but is instead on the beach, requiring that one at the very least walk around it while trying to enjoy what the Santa Monica Pier has to offer. 

The shadows of the fallen are in the shadows of frivolity. A visitor to the Santa Monica Pier on a Sunday can try to ignore the veterans both present and represented, but to do so requires that one has already become aware of it, that a day of fun for the family has already become tinged with a reminder of all the days lost for the fallen. It would come as no surprise therefore if those who happen upon “Arlington West” would not only try to ignore it, but would resent it, wishing that it was somewhere else, somewhere where it belonged, somewhere like a Metro stop in Arlington, VA.

Continue reading... 

Misogyny, Violence, and Responsibility: #YesAllWomen vs. #NotAllMen

https://twitter.com/Blissmade/status/470807378279940097

From my Medium.com piece:

To take up responsibility is consequently to take up our humanity, just as to avoid responsibility is to avoid our humanity. A man cannot simultaneously claim to be responsible to #YesAllWomen while claiming on #NotAllMen to not be responsible for #YesAllWomen. 

Misogyny is not the result of any one action by any one man. Misogyny is the atmosphere in which we live, an atmosphere of violence that is ever-pervasive for women as what is “normal,” and that is ever-invisible to men as what is “normal.” It is the normalcy of misogyny that allows the Elliot Rodger’s of the world to feel entitled to sex and to blame women for not living up to his expectations. And it is the normalcy of misogyny that is only worsened when our response to the Elliot Rodger’s of the world is to run to #NotAllMen to make clear how little we are like him, rather than running to #YesAllWomen to realize how much we can, should, and must identify with him. There is some of Elliot Rodger in all men—even if for no other reason than because we are also men—and it is only by recognizing the Elliot Rodger inside of us that we can begin to be responsible to #YesAllWomen.

Continue reading...

Dangerous Subjects

For Nietzsche, the idea that we are Cartesian subjects, or the creators of our own thoughts—or, likewise, the creators of our own drawings—is "simply a formulation of our grammatical custom that adds a doer to every deed"...

Being a big fan of both Nietzsche and Freud, I found myself drawing them recently when I suddenly became paralyzed with what seemed to be the awesome responsibility of giving them a cartoon worthy of their stature. Having not been making cartoons for very long, I don't know if this is a problem generally felt in the cartooning world, but this was certainly new to me. I have experienced anxiety in teaching Nietzsche and Freud, and in quoting Nietzsche and Freud (especially in my new book), but I have never before had any problem including Nietzsche and Freud in jokes of any kind.

Nietzsche would have made a great guardian angel, or so I like to imagine...

Something about Nietzsche and Freud together, about putting them in this specific juxtaposition, left me feeling overwhelmed. As such I tried creating not one cartoon out of my drawing, but two. You can judge the results for yourself, but this anxiety over this drawing of two of the Fathers of Angst is likely not going anywhere anytime soon.

If anyone would have deconstructed their own portraits, it would have been these two...

Perhaps it's even a manifestation of my concern that I'm starting to enjoy drawing philosophers more than I enjoy quoting them in papers...