Philosophy now, baby!
Posted by Mike Sugarbaker at 4:17 am on 6/3/2003
Some data points towards a retarded theory of a cultural trend: the most obvious one is the Matrix films. Once you see Reloaded, it’s clear that the Wachowski brothers are up to something: movie 1 = what is reality, movie 2 = do we have free will, and (not enough data from the trailer to determine for sure what the third movie’s question will be. I’m pulling for a theme of moral relativism and compromise, which would be good medicine for a few young ragers-against-the-machine I could name).
A subtler one is The Believer, a new monthly print magazine published by McSweeney’s. It’s hot, it’s hip, it’s beautifully designed, and it has featured an interview with a philosopher in every issue so far.
Then there are the pop philosophy books, which have been warming us up for this trend for a few years. You know, Socrates Café, Plato Not Prozac, the one about Seinfeld, the one about the Simpsons, and of course The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real. More than one of the authors of these books have posited philosophy as a way of practicing therapy, addressing people’s everyday lives in a very concrete fashion. Would it make a difference? Would it be possible to go on ignoring Simulation and Simulacra in a world that replaced Dr. Phil with Richard Rorty?
I have this fantasy that philosophy will become an increasingly common undergraduate major thanks to the influence of the Matrix films. However, I don’t really think we’ll get the young ones; they’ll go for forensic science instead, due to CSI. Philosophy is really going to be the refuge for the slackers, the new thirtynothings who looked for something to believe in, found it, and then had it yanked away.