129. STRANGER THINGS - Leave the Battles to the Children
Read More“I love the Netflix series Stranger Things. I’m supposed to. It is literally targeted directly to me: a weirdo child of the 80s…“
128. THE QUEEN IS DEAD - Long Live The King
Read More“As Britain comes to terms with the loss of its longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday, I was struck by the immediacy of transition from Queen to King. In an instance the previous settled gender of certain phrases - our national anthem, ‘God save the Queen’, prayers within the Church of England asking to ‘replenish her with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that she may always incline to thy will’, the pledges taken by members of parliament to ‘be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors’ - had to update and adapt.“
- NOTICE: The Association of Philosophy Teachers -
For those who haven't heard yet, with the help of the British Philosophical Association, we are trying to establish an Association of Philosophy Teachers in the UK - a professional body for teachers of philosophy to share knowledge, good practice, contacts, and support. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO THE BANK HOLIDAY FOR THE STATE FUNERAL OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II THE ORIGINAL DATE HAS NOW CHANGED: The next (online) meeting of this group is scheduled for TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH at 16:30 and we want as many UK-based philosophy teachers involved as possible!
If you want to be involved, please email - admin@bpa.ac.uk - to get joining information!
127. REMEMBERING WHERE WE CAME FROM - on the privilege of travel
Read More“what it is we travel for today? What is the lack we seek to find? What is the need that makes us leave the comfort of our homes and brave the journeys beyond?“
- SUMMER BREAK 2022 -
As Alice Cooper famously put it: “school’s out for the summer”. That means Philosophy Unleashed is too! However - we’ll be back in September as always. Philosophy Unleashed will still return when the new school year begins on Monday September 5th despite my sabbatical from teaching. In the meantime, if you’re bored over the summer, or perhaps a Philosophy student starting in September itching to get started, our ARCHIVES have 126 philosophy essays on a wide range of subjects. And you can always write one yourself if you can’t find anything of interest! Enjoy the break - and see you in September!
Oh - and if you are interested in having philosopher, DaN McKee, give a talk at your school, or run an in-person Philosophy Unleashed session for students, he’s taking bookings now for the 2022/23 academic year so get in touch!
126. EDUCATED ABOUT EDUCATION - Anarchist Pedagogies and Learning From My Students
Read More“If I had planned an ideal last lesson for you (an actual lesson aimed at teaching you something new) what would we be doing and how would we be doing it?“
125. THEMS THE BREAKS - When a Resignation Isn’t a Resignation
Read More“I wondered why my own slow resignation - making my statement to the Head in January and then still attending work in exactly the same way that I attended before my resignation for the last seven months - seemed completely acceptable to me and yet Johnson's far less lengthy suggestion seemed so egregious.”
124. WHEN DOING PHILOSOPHY ISN'T DOING PHILOSOPHY - Exams Aren't Everything
Read More“I wrote that phrase on the board: “Metaphysics of Mind”. I then made a lame philosophy joke: “let’s see if the innatists are right. You haven’t been taught any of next year’s content yet but do you already know what philosophy of mind is?”
The task they are then set is to simply “do philosophy” to try and work out what they think next year’s course will cover, simply from the phrase “Metaphysics of Mind”. I give them a blank sheet of A3 paper and ask them to fill it with all the questions, issues and answers they think they will be studying from September.“
123. THOUGHTS ON STRIKING - Why We Need More Striking, Not Less
Read More“As philosophers we can smell fallacious argument a mile off. We know an ad hominem attack when we see one, attacking the person (or people) rather than the actual idea. When it comes to discourse around striking in this country, it seems that fallacy and fear-mongering abound. And I would suggest that if you can’t counter the actual arguments of the unions you should be supporting their strikes, maybe even joining them, rather than complaining about them or attacking their industrial action.”
122. DUPLICATING SUFFERING - Economics and Ethics When Experimenting With Animals
Read More“a possible case could be made for accepting certain, limited, forms of animal experimentation but not within the current economic system because it is structurally set up to maximise, rather than minimise, the possible duplication of unnecessary suffering due to prioritising intellectual property rights over the rights of non-human (and human) animals.“
REMINDER: PHILOSOPHY GETS SCHOOLED
The excellent new Philosophy A-level podcast from Simon Kirchin - Philosophy Gets Schooled - continues to put out new episodes, some of which feature Philosophy Unleashed’s DaN McKee. DaN’s on episodes about utilitarianism, war and peace, and eating animals, but there is also an excellent episode out about deontological ethics and Kant too. More are coming out each week and if you are an A-level Philosophy student they come highly recommended! Well worth a listen.
121. CONFIDENCE MAN - What Exactly Do The Conservative Party Have Confidence In?
Read More“According to last week's confidence vote, the majority of Conservative members of Parliament have confidence in the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. 211 out of 359 MPs, or 59%. But what does this actually tell us? And why do we care about their levels of confidence? Should confidence have anything to do with governing in a democracy? And, if it does, ought the question of confidence be put to the demos - the whole population - rather than merely the MPs of the current ruling party, many of whom are frontbenchers dependent on the very Prime Minister whose confidence is in question for their current political and financial success?“
120. TALKING ABOUT MY CONSTITUTION - Why Conversation Is More Important Than Codification
Read More“The very act of codifying into a constitution the core principles of how your society is to be run is to commit future generations to values that they may not actually hold. It is a normative act, wherein one generation is imposing a set of values in stone on the basis that they believe future generations ought to hold such values. But while human beings remain autonomous agents capable of choosing many different values such an imposition has no guarantee of sticking unless the values are, in fact, actually held by the citizens for whom they are endorsed. This means constitutions are either attempting the impossible and trying to force people into valuing something they don’t value, or they are redundant, as they simply articulate values already held.“
- MAY HALF TERM 2022 -
We’re taking a week off for half term to go see Bad Religion, Werk The World, Jerusalem, and generally play fast and loose with covid for a few days while also resting and recuperating from the last few weeks. As always, enjoy our archives while we’re away or submit a post of your own and we’ll be back with you at 6am every Monday during term-time again from Monday June 6th.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Philosophy Gets Schooled Podcast
Check out this excellent new Philosophy A-level podcast from Simon Kirchin - Philosophy Gets Schooled (and check out his other excellent philosophy podcast, Philosophy Take on the News if you have time too!).
Philosophy Unleashed’s DaN McKee is talking about utilitarianism on this episode.
119. DECOLONISING DECOLONISATION - Why Diversifying Reading Lists Isn’t Enough
Read More“I found myself asking the obvious next question: is our own British colonialism taught openly and honestly in British schools?”
118. SHOWING OUR TRUE SELVES - What Does It Tell Us When We Tidy Our House?
Read More“If we all are running around like headless chickens to make things look nice whenever someone visits then that must mean that none of us actually live our lives in the way that we present to others that we do.“
117. ROE VS WADE VS PHILOSOPHY - Abortion and the Illusion of Law
Read More“one of the founding principles of Philosophy Unleashed is that it is a place to go “beyond the curriculum” and discuss things not covered by GCSE and A-level courses in Philosophy. Abortion ethics, as every student knows, is central to any current examination specification in either Religious Studies or Philosophy, and most undergraduate courses in Ethics will also cover it. So I will be careful here not to simply rehash the standard arguments most people will have already covered.“
- MAY DAY BANK HOLIDAY 2022 -
As always, we are taking May Day off to celebrate International Worker’s Day, remember the Haymarket Affair and the battle for an eight-hour work day, and ask that you spend at least some of this day off work thinking about what needs to be done to improve your workplace, or work in general. More autonomy? More democracy? More meaningful participation in the decisions that determine your day? Less hierarchy? Better communications? More money? Less time for more pay? Two recent books I have loved which investigate our current relationships with work are Sarah Jaffe’s Work Won’t Love You Back and Amelia Horgan’s Lost in Work. Meanwhile, CrimetInc’s Work is a long-time favourite and there is no better book about work than the late, great David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs. And while we’re talking books and May Day, you may as well check out radical publisher, Haymarket Books, on this day as they, too, are named after the Haymarket Affair. We’ll be back (at work) next week as always - Monday May 9th at 6am - with a new proper post. But for now, I shall leave you with this lovely quote from Bertrand Russell’s In praise of Idleness:
“It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, people would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilisation”.
Happy May Day everyone!
Author: DaN McKee
My book - AUTHENTIC DEMOCRACY: An Ethical Justification of Anarchism - is available HERE , from the publisher, and from all good booksellers. Read my Anarchist Studies journal paper on Anarchism and Character Education here. For everything else DaN McKee related: www.everythingdanmckee.com
116. NOTHING IS REAL AND YET EVERYTHING IS REAL - On Constructing A Better Reality
Read More“Consider: it cannot both be true that advertising has no influence on our thinking and that people spend over £23bn a year on advertising. At worst, people are spending their twenty three billion pounds to influence us in a range of ways we are barely aware of. At best, the only advertising that has ever worked is the advertising for advertising itself which has convinced so many people to spend billions on a product which is utterly useless. Which means advertising does still work.“