The ability to study philosophy no doubt requires a good amount of privilege, luck, and leisure. The confluence of factors required to allow me to study philosophy on the daily is impossible to even know—and this, for me, is a profound source of both gratitude and humility. For most humans for most of human history, however, the capacity to partake in philosophy was non-existent. First off, it didn’t really exist until a few thousand years ago, But secondly, life is often just too damn difficult to have the opportunity for respite. And this remains the case for countless folks today.
So, yes, studying philosophy is, no doubt, a luxury of sorts. At the same time, philosophical issues are ubiquitous, absolutely unavoidable for thinking, reflective creatures such as we. As a species, we care about how to live well, about what’s real, about what’s meaningful, about what’s right and wrong, about how to show up and care for the people in our lives. The list goes on. These issues are deeply philosophical. So, philosophy in itself is not a luxury. It is inescapable. The luxury comes in our ability to critically reflect on these issues, to challenge our intuitions, to learn from people’s past experiences, to stand on the shoulders of giants, to carve out the time and effort required to contribute something original, to be creative, to teach, to learn. These privileges are, unfortunately, not afforded to everyone.
The philosopher Miranda Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice to describe this (and closely related) phenomenon. So not only is it a privilege to question the world around us, to study and partake in the philosophical soiree, but it is also an injustice when folks are deprived of these things. This, I think, speaks to those of us who are lucky enough to do philosophy, that we have a responsibility to communicate it. Education—philosophy and critical thinking and ideas and art and creativity—should not be a luxury (though it most certainly remains one today). It is a profoundly meaningful good that should be as widely accessible as possible.
I feel like a lot of tumblr culture, especially the particularly ineffective brand of Tumblr Social Justice™, has somewhere along the line lost track of the difference between something having the potential to be bad, and being innately bad.
For instance, a white author writing a character of another race absolutely has the heightened potential for problematic portrayal, since that author lacks lived experience as a member of marginalized racial/ethnic group to draw on, and has a heightened chance to misrepresent that group. However, if they do their research, talk with individuals from that racial/ethnic group, consult with sensitivity readers, etc., they may still tell a very honest, sympathetic, good story with good representation. It is not innately bad, simply because of the author’s race; though I’ve seen arguments on tumblr insisting this is the case.
Another example is relationship dynamics; couples who have an age gap or a power imbalance (such as one individual being lower on a professional chain of command from the other) might have an increased potential for an abusive dynamic to form. The couple with the age gap has to be more conscious of differences in lived experience, and the couple with a power differential in the professional side of their relationship needs to overcome more hurdles to equalize things in the context of their personal dynamic. But neither of these things is impossible. These dynamics are not innately abusive; they might make abuse easier, or more common, but they don’t guarantee it. Just as avoiding these dynamics doesn’t guarantee a lack of abusive behavior.
Some situations/dynamics/endeavors have a heightened potential for things to go wrong. And we should be conscious of that potential and keep an eye out for problems – not to destroy the thing, but to encourage course correction (an edit to a manuscript; couples’ therapy; etc.). Many of these things, however, tumblr culture has labelled as innately bad, rejecting any possibility of the thing being done well and thus shutting down that encouraged course correction in favor of flat-out condemnation, without nuance, thought, or consideration. And by drawing clear lines of what is ‘innately bad’ and ‘innately good’ we also avoid giving due criticism of problematic things that have been assigned as ‘innately good.’
This hellsite is allergic to nuance, but damn, do I wish we could all be better at it and recognize that few things are as black & white and simple as we’d like them to be. Shit is messy. Everything is problematic. But not everything that can be bad is, and not everything that’s less likely to be bad is perfect.
its really funny how like, pikachu has been the obvious moneymaker for pokemon throughout its history, and they’ve tried to replicate this without success ever since. trying each gen to hit on that perfect mascot formula
and finally after a series of unsuccessful and generally unmemorable clumsy pikachu ripoffs, nintendo comes out with a pokemon… whose entire concept is boldfacedly, ‘clumsy pikachu ripoff’
Like most people don’t like to admit this, but one of the reasons a lot of us have so many mental health issues is because we live in a world that has basically become untenable. People can’t afford basic necessities, let alone to cultivate their interests or take breaks and rest or do any of the things necessary for good mental health. People my age are wracked with debt, working at jobs they hate or studying topics they hate, living in a shitty apartment with five roommates. We live in a world that’s very hard to be healthy in. So while yeah, a lot of people obviously do have mental illnesses that would need medication no matter what, they are greatly exacerbated by these issues, and a lot of people have basically just been thrust into an eternal situational depression. So if that doesn’t change, medication is just a band-aid.
Do you ever have that moment when a kid is looking at you and you realize that they’re looking at you as a grown up? Then its like no child im a children too, dont. Im sorry my outward appearance confuses you.
satire is “I’m going to take this concept to an extreme or absurd level in order to demonstrate how bizarre/nonsensical/illogical it is” and not “I said something bigoted but just kidding I didn’t really mean it hahaha”
Dang it I’ve written like 5000 words trying to explain this and I only needed this post to reblog
tumblr backup 