PU #255 — DIGGING DIGGER — Offering Some Much Needed Love for This Misunderstood Movie

October 08, 2026 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Environment, History, Meaning, Media, Militarisation, Movies, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Pop Culture

“Digger is a great movie. Not a popular opinion but, I think, the right one.”

168. IT'S NOT JUST THE KIDS, IT'S US - Why It's Important for Teachers to Look in the Mirror

November 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School, Technology, Teaching

“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“

148. THINKING ABOUT WORLD BOOK DAY - How Reading Is More Than The The Fetishisation of Books

March 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Book, Censorship, Communication, Culture, Education, Free Speech, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School, Social Media

“Instead of asking what we are reading on World Book Day, we ought to raise the level of questioning: what are we reading and how is it changing us? What is it making us think? What questions are the book raising? Even if the answer is, to all these questions, not a lot (I am unchanged, not thinking about anything, and asking no questions), to ask them makes us perhaps realise that some books are like junk food while others are more nutritious.“

129. STRANGER THINGS - Leave the Battles to the Children

September 19, 2022 by DaN McKee in Culture, Meaning, Movies, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Television

“I love the Netflix series Stranger Things. I’m supposed to. It is literally targeted directly to me: a weirdo child of the 80s…“

99. DUNE BUGGED ME - On Being Bored of War

November 08, 2021 by DaN McKee in Culture, Death, Militarisation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, War

“We have been primed to be ready for war. We have been conditioned to expect it imminently. We have been told that a time will come when we have to pick a side and that we may not even be able to trust our closest friends. We have been fed the ideological norms of conflict escalation and had massacre and genocide normalised. All in the name of entertainment. To assume such repeated and sustained messaging will have no impact is to ignore the evidence of all other successful marketing strategies.“

80. WHAT IS YOUR WAY OF THE NINJA? - A Student Uses Naruto To Overcome Existentialist Ennui

April 19, 2021 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Culture, Identity, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, Student Writing

“what Naruto teaches us is that the ideas others have of you or the person you’re meant to be is not inscribed within us at birth but something we grow into through a process of learning and discovering one’s own purpose“

74. COOPERATION IS GREATER THAN COMPETITION: Lessons in Anarchism and Mutual Aid from Professional Wrestling

February 22, 2021 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Culture, Economics, Pop Culture

“By working together instead of against each other, as anarchists since Kropotkin have argued, everybody wins and the seemingly zero sum game is exposed for the capitalist con it always has been.“

52. WRESTLING WITH THE GUILT OF WRESTLING: Can You Be An Ethical Person and Support an Unethical Business?

June 29, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Work

“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.”