Louis C.K. and Philosophy Calling Us on our Cognitive Dissonance Roben Torosyan Cognitive dissonance is always triggered by blatant evidence that you are not as beneficent and effective as you would like people to think. The urge to reduce it is the urge to get your self-serving story straight. (Pinker, 2009, p. 423) Most of…
The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Philosophy Let’s do the time warp again— By Jeffery L. Nicholas The Rocky Horror Picture Show is almost—almost—indescribable, unclassifiable. RHPS will celebrate its 40th birthday next year. After having a rough start, RHPS quickly developed cult status, and many of us, I am sure, have attended at least…
24 and Philosophy Jack Bauer and Margot Al-Harazi on “What Must Be Done” by Chandler Brett 24: Live Another Day revives the formulas that made the first seasons of the show successful, yet the writers have placed these familiar themes in new contexts, keeping the story thrilling and thought-provoking, despite some predictability. One of the…
The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Philosophy: How Minnie Mouse Refutes Marxism by Jason Brennan Can the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a CGI-animated children’s s show, settle the debate between capitalists and socialists, once and for all? The great Marxist philosopher Gerald Cohen, in his recent book Why Not Socialism?, argues most of us are already committed…
Wheel of Time and Philosophy How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Originality and Love Robert Jordan Jacob M. Held Roughly six years ago, a friend of mine asked if I was familiar with the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I wasn’t, but I was informed by others that I should be. “Jake,…
John Candy and Philosophy Harry Crumb Meets Edmund Gettier David Kyle Johnson A friend of mine on Facebook (Chris Heimsoth) posted a request for his friends’ “favorite John Candy movie.” I immediately suggested Who’s Harry Crumb?, one of Candy’s lesser known comedies that I grew up on (because it happened to be on the same…
American Horror Story and Philosophy Can Horror Stories Have Happy Endings? Benjamin W. McCraw Unlike fairy tales, the protagonist of a horror story/movie doesn’t really live ‘happily ever after’ due to the carnage, death, and destruction often bobbing the wake of the struggle to survive the ordeal and slay the evil demon/ghost/monster/killer/alien/whatever. The hero/ine comes…
Queensrÿche and Philosophy The Metaphysics of Rock Groups William Irwin I’m going to see Queensrÿche in concert in July. Or am I? The band split into two Queensrÿches when the original lead singer, Geoff Tate, was fired in 2012. On April 17, 2014 the court ruled that the non-Tate version of the band has the…
House of Cards and Philosophy Why Write about Popular Culture J. Edward Hackett Philosophy is everywhere, but it conceals itself, hidden behind the debates internal to its own activities. There are many reasons why philosophy does not have a higher profile in the wider culture. Let me just suggest a few: First, philosophy is not…
X-Men and Philosophy The Metaphysical Daze of Future Past? Christian Cotton The newest installment in the X-Men movie franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past, presents us with a classic philosophical conundrum: time travel. This go-round, though, instead of time traveling bodies, we’re treated to a time traveling consciousness. Wolverine’s body stays put in the present…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 