Invitations and Becomings

Is philosophy's relation to politics changing? Two recent online posts have me wondering... The first is a review on NDPR of Allen Wood's book Kantian Ethics, which blurs the line by infusing a scholarly philosophical publication with political invective. The second is a musing in the Daily Kos that 'purity trolls' in the lead-up to this year's US election are in fact a contemporary manifestation of Hegel's notion of a 'beautiful soul'.

Tonight the AMA is demanding plays or films involving smoking be refused government funding. The story makes a nice complement to the Bill Henson controversy, but that's only because this is the kind of moral incursion into the arts that should be vigorously resisted.

The AMA's argument is simply bankrupt. The AMA argues that, since smoking is a "blight on society", it should not be depicted anywhere on stage and screen, or at least not when that depiction is tax-payer funded.

I've just discovered - somewhat belatedly - Gary Sauer-Thompson's ... well... über-blog is perhaps the only way to describe it. There are actually no less than four blogs on the site, Thought-Factory.net, which seem to be added to almost daily.

In any case, I'm inspired by the way he uses his postings in the Philosophical Conversations blog, not as opinion-pieces or arguments, and more as pointers.