- FEBRUARY HALF TERM 2021 -

February 15, 2021 by DaN McKee

A week away from excess screen-time! Half term has arrived and it’s time for you to look at the sky instead of a computer. If you insist on looking at a computer then scroll down and take a look at our archives - and if you fancy looking a bit longer write us something (submissions HERE). We’ll be back again with a new post every Monday morning at 8am from February 22nd or March 1st (depends if I can be bothered to write anything during the holiday on top of other writing commitments I have, or if someone sends in something good this week!)

73. OF NESTS AND PALIMPSEST - Am I Really Making An Aesthetic Choice?

February 08, 2021 by DaN McKee in Environment, Identity, Meaning, Mindfulness, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Work

“I have always loved chaotic collage and my childhood bedroom walls quickly became an ever-evolving palimpsest of posters, pictures, postcards, photos, and things I’d cut out of newspapers or magazines, their content adapting over the years alongside my tastes but generally maintaining the same ragged aesthetic; an aesthetic initially limited to a single cork noticeboard on a nicely painted wall but eventually sprawling out and taking over everything until, at one mad point, I was even hanging posters upside down on my ceiling, occasionally waking startled in the night as they lost their battle with gravity and came crashing down on my face.“

72. THE 2021 EXAMS ARE NOT CANCELLED - But They Should Be

February 01, 2021 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Data, Education, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School

“I don’t believe in examinations, but I do believe in moral tests, and I worry that when we do eventually hear back from the consultation about the alternative to 2021 GCSEs and A-levels we will have failed yet another one.“

71. RETHINKING HOW WE LISTEN TO MUSIC - Towards A Meaningful Ethics of Streaming

January 25, 2021 by DaN McKee in Charity, COVID19, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, Music

“…what is actually missing from the current business model of the music industry is not more pennies per stream, but a meaningful ethics instead of mere talk of ethics with very little substance. So here is my first attempt at drafting some…“

70. TRUMP, UNFORTUNATELY, HAS NOT BEEN SILENCED - Thoughts on Freedom of Speech in the Digital Age

January 18, 2021 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Authentic Democracy, Censorship, Culture, Education, Elections, Ethics, Free Speech, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics

“Good ideas grow, bad ideas shrink. As a consequence, good speech gets louder and bad speech soon gets drowned out. Not censorship, but developed understanding and evolution towards better ideas that, at a certain point, recognise certain voices as no longer worthy of being listened to. The fascists, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, the conspiracy theorists - they have little to offer once we look beyond mere transgression and take the ideas seriously as speech. And so, rightly, they are discarded.“

69. WHAT, IF ANYTHING, HAVE I LEARNT FROM HAVING COVID 19? - Reflections on Getting the Plague

January 11, 2021 by DaN McKee in Christmas, COVID19, Culture, Death, Education, Epistemology, Ethics, Free, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics

“now it is three weeks since the day I got my positive COVID test, and I cautiously think I may have survived it, I have decided to look back at the experience to see what, if any, philosophical lessons it taught me.“

- CHRISTMAS BREAK 2020 -

December 20, 2020 by DaN McKee

Well, it’s been a hell of a year and it’s finally coming to an end! At the stroke of midnight January 1st 2021 there will be a magic cure to all the ills of 2020: COVID-19 will be no more, Trump will be resolved and Brexit will be easy. I joke, of course. The loosening of safety precautions for COVID around Christmas is going to be an unnecessary death sentence for many and we are in for a bleak winter ahead. But for now, take a rest and enjoy the two week break (or latest 14 days of self-isolation, depending on how your year has been!). We’ll be back with new posts again from Monday January 11th. See you then!

68. ABUSIVE THEOLOGY - Why LGBTQ+ Students Deserve Better From RE

December 14, 2020 by DaN McKee in Education, Gender, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Religion, LGBTQ

“As a teacher of RE, and head of RE at my school, that we RE teachers are supposed to give oxygen to such ignorant and discriminatory views in our classrooms – and treat their prejudice and hurt as something that is to be respected – is something I find an outrage.“

67. DISPATCHES FROM THE CAVE - Why Being "Realistic" Demands The Impossible

December 07, 2020 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Authentic Democracy, COVID19, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Environment, Epistemology, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work

“The pandemic has shown just how flimsy “the way things are” actually are. From basic norms of social interaction to entire economic systems, COVID-19 has unwittingly acted as the liberating hand breaking the chains of Plato’s epistemological prisoner and dragging them out of the cave and into the light…This isn’t, however, a post about the coronavirus…“

66. IF A POST FALLS IN THE WOODS - When Is A Post Not A Post?

November 30, 2020 by DaN McKee in Obligation, Mental Health, Education, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, School

“And yet this post exists…”

65. IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE COVID-CHRISTMAS - Re-Thinking The 2020 Festive Season

November 23, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Culture, Death, Ethics, New Year, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Christmas

“The Grinch who steals Christmas this year isn’t COVID 19, it’s the mindset that is so rigid about what Christmas has to be it can’t conceive of doing things differently.“

64. THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS WORTH LIVING - Why An Emphasis on Exams Misses The Point of Education

November 16, 2020 by DaN McKee in Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School

“As I tell my students, the absolute worst way to judge how good a philosopher you are would be to take away all of your books and resources, isolate you so you cannot speak to anybody else, and set you an arbitrary chunk of time in which to answer a really big question.“

63. THE VALUE OF PATIENCE - Responses to Waiting

November 09, 2020 by DaN McKee in Authentic Democracy, COVID19, Elections, Epistemology, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Time

“It has been a week of waiting.“

62. THE HORROR - Is It Rational To Enjoy Scaring Ourselves?

November 02, 2020 by DaN McKee in Culture, Death, Epistemology, Meaning, Movies, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture

“as I curl up with another scary story and find myself predictably sleepless later on, trembling at familiar creaks made new, and far more sinister, by the unsettling images now in my head, I wonder: with horror so real and ever-possible why do we indulge in the self-harm of scaring ourselves intentionally, at Halloween or any other time?“

- OCTOBER HALF TERM 2020 -

October 26, 2020 by DaN McKee

As always, we’re on break during the school holiday. Take a look at our archives and if you want to write a post for us, click HERE

We’ll be back next Monday (NOV 2ND) with our latest post

61. WEAR A MASK - Why Exercising Personal Freedom Should Not Come at the Expense of Others

October 19, 2020 by DaN McKee in Charity, COVID19, Culture, Death, Ethics, Free, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics

“Unfortunately there is a school of though around masks that equates personal liberty with the freedom not to wear one, regardless of the potential consequences. A selfish conception of what it means to be free that ignores our social connections with, and the needs of, others for personal desire and gain.”

60. THE TONE OF OUR OPPRESSION - Truth and Authority Under Trump

October 12, 2020 by DaN McKee in Authentic Democracy, COVID19, Elections, Epistemology, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics

“The Trump virus found the ultimate weaknesses in organised human life: 1) we have such shaky foundations at the best of times for what constitutes as real “knowledge” that if you repeat an untruth enough times, from enough “sources”, it can seem just as “true” as any legitimate truth; and 2) that the notion of external authority on which our political systems are based is entirely illusory. As any criminal can tell you: that there are laws against doing certain things impose no actual limitation on doing that which is against the law. Criminals, by definition, break laws all the time. And the only differences between those who break laws who we call “criminals” and those who break laws that we don’t, are either that they have been caught or that we don’t really enforce the law.“

59. IS THIS BLOG DANGEROUS? - On Indoctrination, Ideology and the DfE

October 05, 2020 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Education, Book, Philosophy Unleashed, Economics, Free, Environment, Philosophy, Free Speech, Authentic Democracy, School, Black Lives Matter, Censorship, Politics

“unlike the politician, doomed to blind allegiance to whatever colour team they are playing for, on whatever side of the aisle, the philosopher has loyalty only to the truth. If you can show me my argument is wrong, I am not only willing to change my mind, logic dictates that I have to.”

58. WHAT DOES JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE? - When Both Black Lives And Abolition Matters

September 28, 2020 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Black Lives Matter, COVID19, Culture, Death, Militarisation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Racism, Justice

“Breonna deserves justice. She should not be dead right now and the police killed her. But if I advocate the imprisonment of the police that killed her I am not advocating justice. I am advocating more barbarism. I am advocating the continuation of the prison industrial complex. I am advocating justice only when it suits me and injustice where it doesn't.“

57. IT’S HARD TO FOLLOW THE LOGIC ON COVID 19 - Though It's A Little Easier If You Follow The Money

September 21, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Culture, Economics, Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work

“As a philosopher it’s hard to follow the logic around Covid policy because in many cases there simply isn’t any. There is only the illusion of logic. A symbolic nod to a vague sense of health and safety which doesn’t dare follow its own argument to a conclusion for fear of what that conclusion might say.“