Pop Culture and Philosophy

[NebulaQueen]

In the Christmas Swag thread, FD mentioned how he got the book The Matrix and Philosophy and I remembered how I bought that book over the summer. Now, I'm not going to pretend the Matrix is some deep philosophical masterpiece. The only underlining philosophy I saw in it was, "Hey, let's make a cool movie!" I did not get the book to explain the deep mysteries underlining in the movie that I didn't understand (I understood the movie perfectly-"humans, defeat your robotic oppressors!"). I got it because I was curious about how the writers of these essays were going to pull this off (plus, the sale going on at the bookstore didn't hurt matters, either).

Now, looking in the back of the book, I found out that The Matrix and Philosophy isn't the only book in the series. There's also Buffy, The Simpsons, and I think I even saw one for Friends (I sincerely hope I'm mistaken on the last one) None of these are exactly deep. However, I don't think the real point of these books are to explore mysteries hidden deep inside their respective movie or series; rather, its to explore philosophy while using examples from them.

Now, this leads to the question: Can pop culture really be used to explore philosophy? How effective is using pop culture to explain and explore philosophy, if at all? Does it just either cheapen the philosophy, or make the example seem more important than it actually is? Can it be pulled off? Or is it a fickle thing, dependent on the series, the topic, and who's attempting to do this? <p>

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<span style="font-size:xx-small;">
"Hello, I'm Troy Mclure! You may remember me from such realms as Hell, and Gaera!"-Shinigori, OOC</span></p>

[PriamNevhausten]

In a world full of people who are slightly more capable intellectually than warm mayonnaise, and who rarely actually *try* to learn ANYTHING, pop culture referenda are sometimes necessary to get a complicated point across. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[Uncle Pervy]

Dependant, I say.

It depends on who does it, and how. Also, the nature of the philosophy itself plays a role in it.

For example, are we portraying through a song, or though a movie? In the end, it's a case by case thing.

<p>------------------
Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
</p>

[Ganonfro]

Subjectivity 1
Objectivity 0

[Banjooie]

Priam has obviously never seen certain kinds of mayonaise when they've been left out too long.

But onto the topic at hand.


A: People are teh dumb
B: People don't like to think
C: People like things explained in terms of what they know
D: People know pop culture
E: OMG

[Wolfbelly]

I'm going to agree with Banjooie on his fifth point.

And yeah. Some of the points found in philosophy are kinda hard to wrap your head around ... usually because they were written by some german wanker 300 years ago, or whatever. In any case, by using pop culture as a metaphor, the author can make people see the gist of these obtuse authors. So, while some pop-culture related philosophy might fail horribly, others might rock considerably. It depends on the writer.