63. THE VALUE OF PATIENCE - Responses to Waiting
Read More“It has been a week of waiting.“
62. THE HORROR - Is It Rational To Enjoy Scaring Ourselves?
Read More“as I curl up with another scary story and find myself predictably sleepless later on, trembling at familiar creaks made new, and far more sinister, by the unsettling images now in my head, I wonder: with horror so real and ever-possible why do we indulge in the self-harm of scaring ourselves intentionally, at Halloween or any other time?“
- OCTOBER HALF TERM 2020 -
As always, we’re on break during the school holiday. Take a look at our archives and if you want to write a post for us, click HERE
We’ll be back next Monday (NOV 2ND) with our latest post
61. WEAR A MASK - Why Exercising Personal Freedom Should Not Come at the Expense of Others
Read More“Unfortunately there is a school of though around masks that equates personal liberty with the freedom not to wear one, regardless of the potential consequences. A selfish conception of what it means to be free that ignores our social connections with, and the needs of, others for personal desire and gain.”
60. THE TONE OF OUR OPPRESSION - Truth and Authority Under Trump
Read More“The Trump virus found the ultimate weaknesses in organised human life: 1) we have such shaky foundations at the best of times for what constitutes as real “knowledge” that if you repeat an untruth enough times, from enough “sources”, it can seem just as “true” as any legitimate truth; and 2) that the notion of external authority on which our political systems are based is entirely illusory. As any criminal can tell you: that there are laws against doing certain things impose no actual limitation on doing that which is against the law. Criminals, by definition, break laws all the time. And the only differences between those who break laws who we call “criminals” and those who break laws that we don’t, are either that they have been caught or that we don’t really enforce the law.“
59. IS THIS BLOG DANGEROUS? - On Indoctrination, Ideology and the DfE
Read More“unlike the politician, doomed to blind allegiance to whatever colour team they are playing for, on whatever side of the aisle, the philosopher has loyalty only to the truth. If you can show me my argument is wrong, I am not only willing to change my mind, logic dictates that I have to.”
58. WHAT DOES JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE? - When Both Black Lives And Abolition Matters
Read More“Breonna deserves justice. She should not be dead right now and the police killed her. But if I advocate the imprisonment of the police that killed her I am not advocating justice. I am advocating more barbarism. I am advocating the continuation of the prison industrial complex. I am advocating justice only when it suits me and injustice where it doesn't.“
57. IT’S HARD TO FOLLOW THE LOGIC ON COVID 19 - Though It's A Little Easier If You Follow The Money
Read More“As a philosopher it’s hard to follow the logic around Covid policy because in many cases there simply isn’t any. There is only the illusion of logic. A symbolic nod to a vague sense of health and safety which doesn’t dare follow its own argument to a conclusion for fear of what that conclusion might say.“
56. TIME ENOUGH AT LAST: Success and Failure During Lockdown
Read More“Before the lockdown came, we had borrowed three books from the local library. As I started the car engine to drive to work on Tuesday morning, one of the three books still remains unopened.”
55. THE WORLD (NOT JUST AMERICA) NEEDS BIDEN TO WIN THE 2020 ELECTION: A Student in the UK Weighs in on the Ethics of American Voting
Read More“since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the US has gone from perceived leader of the free world and centre of cooperation to a nation which continues to pull out of global organisations which ensure global security, health and sustainability, hence damaging the capability of all nations to respond to aggressive nations, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic“
- SUMMER BREAK 2020 -
We’re on holiday (staying safely at home - this pandemic is not over) until Monday September 7th when the new school year begins and we’ll be back to posting a new article every Monday at 6am during term time. In the meantime, we’re still open for submissions if you want to write for philosophy unleashed, so send us your ideas and have a great summer!
54. REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST YEAR OF PHILOSOPHY UNLEASHED - Looking Back & Looking Forward
Read More“I hope after a year of Philosophy Unleashed existing people have figured out that these little quotes are NOT the full article and that they have to click the title to read the whole piece…”
53. WHEN IS A BUBBLE NOT A BUBBLE? - Educating The Department for Education
Read More“It doesn’t take a logician to see the problems with the Department for Education’s plan for secondary schools this September, but it can help to crystallise the specific flaws by laying out the argument carefully.”
52. WRESTLING WITH THE GUILT OF WRESTLING: Can You Be An Ethical Person and Support an Unethical Business?
Read More“As a philosopher, especially a philosopher interested in ethics, it was the latest in a list that feels far too long of moral wrongs surrounding the industry that it feels increasingly impossible to turn a blind eye towards. I have been a fan since April of 1992, but this may have been the month wrestling and I finally have to part ways.”
51. SNAPSHOTS OF WHITE PRIVILEGE - Why It Is Not Enough To Just Not Be Racist
Read More“it is not enough to just not be racist (or sexist, or homophobic, or transphobic) in a world which has racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia built in to its very fabric. We have to do more.”
50. THE PROBLEM WITH CIS-NORMATIVITY TO A NON-PASSING TRANS WOMAN - A Student Asks Us To Confront The Consequences Of Cis-Normative Thinking
Read More“Cis-normative thinking therefore has disastrous consequences when it perpetuates the idea of passing being a requirement for those who aren’t cisgender“
49. AUTHENTIC DEMOCRACY & COVID 19: a Postscript on a Pandemic
Read More“Unfortunately for the world, though helpful to my book, far from illustrating the necessity of government, Covid-19 has served only to support the thesis defended within the pages of Authentic Democracy, proving even further how our current, flawed, political arrangements continue to fail us.“
48. WHY THIS UPRISING IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WAS A MATTER OF WHEN, NOT IF - A Student Questions The Limits of Peaceful Protest
Read More“The reason we are seeing such outrage, and even riots, in the U.S.A today is due to the level of systematic oppression that black people have faced across the world for much of the last millennium”
47. A LIFE WITHOUT SANCTIONS - Thinking About Consequences And Their Lack In An Age Without Punishment
Read More“Sanctions, punishments, threats…these may bring some short term sense of comfort that justice is being done, but true justice comes when we no longer need such threats to ensure good behaviour. When the logic of the genuine consequences of an action is enough to make people make better choices. When police aren’t racists and politicians aren’t liars because the obvious wrongness of being a racist or a liar, and its logical consequence in the death and suffering of innocent people, is sufficient to not want to be racist or lie. “
- MAY HALF TERM 2020 -
Hard to believe it’s the “holidays” yet again - mainly because most of us will be spending this week very much like we’ve spent the previous five weeks: at home - but it is. As always we will be taking a break to recharge our batteries this week and suggest you do too. And, as always, I invite you to get in touch and WRITE US AN ARTICLE if you have the time.
We’ll be back JUNE 1ST (because unlike a primary school, a blog is guaranteed “Covid-secure” and we can make such bold statements without risking anyone’s safety), but I suggest if you’re looking for your weekly PU fix you take the week to see how thinking beyond the exam specs here in Philosophy Unleashed has given us the intellectual freedom to explore things which may seem unimportant at the time, but have actually been very prescient to the current Covid crisis, long before we even knew it was a thing.
For example…back in June of 2019 when we were thinking about how “the science” or “the data” does not always give us “the facts” and can be used for political or managerial spin to justify anything; or in July of 2019, when we praised the idea of “waste” and denounced the short-term thinking of “efficiency” (imagine how many fewer might have died in the UK this year had we “wasted” money on PPE and ventilators rather than making the NHS “efficient”? Though that counter-factual itself would be disputed by our November of 2019 student guest post about the futility of historical “what ifs” ); the February of 2020 post where I unwittingly laid out the ethical basis for pandemic lockdowns, or the November post which might go some small way to explaining the reticence of people to demand a universal basic income during this time where, clearly, working for a living has become a potentially deadly proposition; or the second ever Philosophy Unleashed post which may explain why so many teachers and students feel strange this May without there being a proper send-off for their leaving students.
There’s a lot of good stuff there in the archives, and I hope there will be many more great posts to come - especially from you, our readers. I know there’s a bunch of Philosophy students out there reading this who will have some really interesting things to say - now is the time to say it.
Also, of course, if you want to read something longer, my book Authentic Democracy: An Ethical Justification of Anarchism exists in both physical and ebook form, available direct from the publisher or from Amazon. Having finally seen a physical copy of the thing I can tell you, as well as being a good read, aesthetically it’s a beauty!
See you June 1st!