It’s the new millennium.
OK, that’s old news. Frankly, that was old news 8 years ago. With bloggers beginning to analyze the Oughts and ‘I Love the 90s’ celebrating its 5th birthday, I admit that I’m pretty behind the ‘Zeitgeist of the Cloud.’ Then again, we’ll be discussing Philosophy – a topic that is generally considered archaic (or, at least, out of touch).
That’s right. My musings today have been orbiting the following question: What form will Philosophy take among the new world order?
Not Your Grandma’s Philosophy
Before we get too far into it, in no way am I talking about the philosophy of universities and academic journals. My brother describes those philosophers as professionals striving to be living encyclopedias. And, for the most part, he is justified.
No, I mean the philosophy that Socrates himself practiced: wandering the agora, engaging whomever passed him by, bringing the arrogant ones down a few pegs. The question is, to risk a connection to an 80s classic, how would Socrates have done it had he been born into this world of TV, tweets, and Time magazine?
Before You Close This Tab
Now, you might think this question, while mildly interesting, is mostly academic and therefore pointless. However, I assure you that it is not. This topic is at the very core of whether or not Philosophy will continue to thrive or if it will join Alchemy and Phrenology in the semi-comical crypt of dead sciences.
Philosophy has been through quite the series of transformations [post on the Metamorphosis of Philosophy is upcoming]. However, while once a dynamic battleground of ideals and worldviews, the ole “love of wisdom” has long been absorbed by the aristocracy. That’s where the problem lies.
As Matt Mason illustrates effectively in his book ‘the Pirate’s Dilemma‘, once a major cultural movement has been appropriated by the establishment, it has the choice of adapting or fading away. Reinvention or obsoletion. Which will it be? For the study that has been the primordial soup of all major hard and soft sciences, I feel that there are few intellectual questions more pressing.
28 Days Later (…OK, more like 2800 YEARS later)
So, that is the question: will Philosophy be reborn or become the nosferatu from which all sane people run?
Well, if you must know anything about me, you should learn that I am (perhaps against my better judgment) an optimist. So death isn’t an option. Philosophy must adapt. Perhaps it already is adapting.
So Here’s the Project
Over the course of the next few articles, we’ll examine each of the major forms of media (Audio, Video, Written, Social) to see which vehicles are most predisposed to Philosophical discourse. Since speculation yields nothing related to reality, along the way we’ll examine whether or not philosophy has already begun to creep into these media.
I know, I know – I can hardly wait too!