Mike Rowe and Ayn Rand Somebody’s Gotta Do It By Carrie-Ann Biondi Open any newspaper. Turn on any news channel. Politicians and many of their constituents clamor for government to “do something” about the latest so-called emergency. Whether it’s about the economy, education, or healthcare, they urge that “somebody’s gotta do it,” and by that…
Taking Ted Seriously By Ashley Whitaker According to existentialist philosophers like Simone de Beauvoir, human beings are free. But, Beauvoir argues, women are often treated like they are not free. Rather they are treated like objects with essential natures, that are not free. In fact, we all experience objectification to some degree with societal…
D-Fense for Fantasy Football By Myron Moses Jackson Fantasy football players are sometimes misperceived as parasitic fans who violate the ethical norms of spectatorship by watching for purposes that don’t depend on the actual outcome of the games. But this over-moralized critique misses what is inspiring about fantasy football as a second-order game. We all…
Slipknot Meets Camus By Ashley Whitaker In an interview concerning the motivation for creating .5: The Gray Chapter, singer Corey Taylor states: … [Slipknot] present reality the way it is, but we also try to put that positivity in … we are trying to free people’s mind and say, Look, this reality is only real…
Whiplash and Philosophy Does the Aesthetic End Justify the Immoral Means? By Douglas Groothuis Directed by Damien Chazelle, Whiplash is a film about jazz that is laden with moral theory enacted through drama. An aspiring 19-year old jazz drummer, Andrew (played by Miles Teller) attends a prestigious music school—on the order of Julliard—where he is…
Rain Man and Rule-Following How Autism can Bring Philosophy to Life By Robert Chapman In the film Rain Man, there is one scene in which the protagonist, an autistic man called Raymond Babbitt, is crossing a busy road at a pedestrian crossing. When Raymond is half-way across, the light changes from green to red,…
Banshee and the Political Philosophy of Carl Schmitt By Beau Mullen Banshee is one of the most violent shows in television history. Not an episode passes without a bloody shoot-out or a bone crushing fist fight. The protagonist is an ex-con who assumes the identity of the newly arrived sheriff. He intends to use the…
Mass Effect, Personal Identity, and Genocide By Russ Hamer As video games and gaming gain traction in our society, we are seeing the production of more and more games that immerse the player in serious narratives full of complicated philosophical problems. Mass Effect is one of these games. For those who don’t know, the…
What is the Purpose of the Hero? Age of Ultron, Dune, Batman, and Nietzsche By Jeffery L. Nicholas Age of Ultron asks one of those ultimate meta-questions: what is the purpose of the hero? I suspect that Captain America: Civil War will center on this question, but we get the first glimpse in AoU. Tony…
Lost Horizon: “No, this is not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into.” James B. South At this point, Mad Men has become so complicated and self-referential that it’s amazing Matthew Weiner can still craft a good episode that advances the story. Luckily, though, so many of the show’s references are also to things…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 