PU #247 - WOULD YOU RATHER? - On the Value of Silly
Read More“instead of answering it, I asked a different question: why do we think dumb “would you rather” questions like this are worth answering?“
PU #238 - CENSORING TOURETTE'S - Baffled By The BAFTAs
Read More“How the BBC dealt with John Davidson’s attendance at the BAFTAs last week is definitely morally questionable and offensive, but not because they let the racial slur slip past the censors when other insults were cut…“
234. WHAT IF THEY WERE RIGHT? - On Kids These Days
Read More“What if what our parents warned us about did cause us harm but we were too harmed to see?“
231. ABNORMAL NORMS - On Philosophy’s Futility In Our Continuing Decline
Read More“To say there are things of philosophical interest about Donald Trump’s unilateral kidnapping of Venezuela’s president and takeover of the country’s economic resources by force, is to, perhaps, show the failings of philosophy.”
228. MAKING A COMPLAINT - What Complaining Tells Us About Those We Complain To
Read More“Complaints are important in any honest endeavour. A willingness to openness to being told that the thing you’re trying to do is not working and needs to be improved. An honest endeavour wants to hear its complaints because it wants to meet its objectives. It wants to fix those things being complained about.“
220. HELLO HUMANS - A Teacher Writes on Their Inclusive Classroom
Read More“the bell rang and I could not think of a response in the thirty seconds I had to dismiss the class so left the question unanswered. I have been thinking about a response ever since so I have decided to write this.“
218. FLAGS - Against Lamppost Patriotism
“Once we did have a symbol of the country that used to make me proud:
hotels welcoming those seeking asylum from persecution with open arms.
Now the hotels are being shut down by angry mobs
and all we have in their place are cheap flags tied from lampposts
wilting damply in the rain. “
Read More210. HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND? - Radical Intentions Within the Seemingly Mundane
Read More“I have long been inspired by the teaching philosophies of bell hooks, and a core element to her ideas about both teaching to transgress and teaching community, is to “genuinely value everyone’s presence” in the classroom. to “have interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognising one another’s presence.““
201. THE FORBIDDEN BEAT - Should I Stop Listening to Marilyn Manson?
Read More“Manson always was a symptom and not a cause of the social sickness he personified. Watching the documentary this week simply reminded me that the world which created him continues to fail to confront the true causes of its sickness, and points the finger at individuals we can demonise instead of looking in the mirror and asking why such demons continue to exist.“
200. WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OURSELVES? - Ethical Digital Hygiene
Read More“why do I get news headlines sent to my phone?“
196. ARGUMENTS DON'T WORK - And I Won't Be Able to Convince You
Read More“I have been thinking about arguments. And the more I do, the more I think they don’t actually convince anyone of anything.“
191. WRESTLING WITH DONALD TRUMP - Why We Ignore The Wrestling Connection at Our Peril
Read More"Trump is undoubtedly a monster. Trump is a massive threat to the kind of democracy that all Americans should hold dear. But he is using the playbook of professional wrestling to win the White House once again and is therefore a monster we are responsible for keeping alive so long as we continue to not take the influence of professional wrestling on politics seriously."
184. NOT CONVINCED BY POLITICAL ARGUMENT - On the UK General Election 2024
Read More“We are changed in our political views when new ideas or arguments confront us in our every-day, non-political, life. Often these ‘arguments’ are experiential rather than logical: something seen, heard, witnessed or experienced first hand which have no formal logical structure but imprint some deep shift in values nevertheless. We change our minds because we are changed. Not because we are convinced by arguments.“
183. I WATCHED EUROVISION - Does That Make Me a Bad Person?
Read More“As a self-identified punk since my teenage years, I am very used to feeling shame about watching the Eurovision Song Contest each year, and even hiding the fact from people who know me…“
181. EXTREME LANGUAGE - Governmental Warning
Read More“The entire UK political system operates, arguably, on a mission to intentionally create a permissive environment for the perpetual violence of the state, for its intolerance of disorder and dissent, and for its hatred of alternatives.“
180. WHAT PHILOSOPHY COULD BE - Breaking The Norms That Don't Have To Be Norms
Read More“Philosophy is difficult. But it is only as difficult as we choose to make it. Rigorous thinking does not have to be alienating. It does not have to speak a secretive and opaque language different from the way non-philosophers speak. That is a choice, not a necessity. Nor too should academic specialisation and disciplinary complexity be mistaken as necessary components of philosophy. Navel-gazing is still just navel-gazing, even when it props up an entire job market. So too is self-interested gatekeeping intended to preserve a questionable system rather than make it accessible to the masses.“
179. INFERRING THE END - Doom-Spiral or Fallacy?
Read More“We had seen the signs that things weren’t going well. That the wheels were falling off a bit. And we had made the inference - this place was going out of business. And the inference was right.“
175. SUING MADONNA - The Ethics of Honouring Stage Times
Read More“is Madonna’s late start really “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive”? In philosophical terms: are such late start times, different from those advertised, genuinely immoral?“
171. RISHI SUNAK'S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT - Rwanda and the Greatest Fallacy of Which We Can Conceive
Read More“Sunak’s latest descriptive wish of a ‘safe’ Rwanda is just another modern day Gaunilo’s island: a stark example of the demonstrable failings of the ontological argument’s logic and, perhaps, of the UK Prime Minister’s troubling commitment to perpetuating damaging linguistic fantasies instead of solving actual problems in the real world.”
168. IT'S NOT JUST THE KIDS, IT'S US - Why It's Important for Teachers to Look in the Mirror
Read More“in a world where there is a very real epistemological threat coming from falling down online rabbit-holes into algorithm-guided conspiracies, we teachers are spending a lot of our own free-time guided by those very same dangerous algorithms as we hunt and click for hours looking for the perfect clips for our students. We then normalise this behaviour to our students“