Monday 20 December 2010

Philosophy and Popular Culture

The last post made me think about the relationship between philosophy and popular political culture today.

Clearly, most western societies are societies implicitly goverened by what might be termed 'market populism'. This is a populism based around the values of consumption and the habits associated with 'materialist acquisition'.

To date, philosophical discourse has been rather bad at challenging the hegemony of these values and habits. The question for me here is twofold. Firstly, should philosophy adapt to this cultural reality or should it attempt to challenge it? Given the outcome of this choice, how should philosophy achieve its ends?

Cheers

Neil