Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:
The psychology of political power: does power corrupt or is it magnetic to the most corruptible? In January 2022, I attended a conference on ‘Political Power, Morality and Corruption’. A Socratic dialogue with fellow scholars led me back to one question that epistemologically haunts political theory and philosophy to date—Does power corrupt or is it magnetic to the most corruptible? The cornerstone that this question posits on is antithetical to the idea of power duality as malefic or benefic. Instead, this problem statement is trying to explore and exact the fundamentals of political power. While the former part of the question is striving to deconstruct the soma of power itself, the latter construct of the question is focusing on the agency of an individual with political power. … (APA blog) [As it happens, a new book of mine on precisely this topic will hit the stores in September!]
Parsing ‘possible.’ One of the favorite techniques of mystery mongers when confronted by skeptics or good evidence—or just plain common sense—is to reply “But isn’t it possible?” This is a standard ploy on countless paranormal-themed television shows, including (and especially) those dealing with ancient aliens. This is often said with some degree of smug satisfaction, as if some universal truth had been laid down and the critic should just concede defeat and move along. Sure, maybe there’s no evidence whatsoever for Claim X—but how arrogant it would be to confidently and omnisciently rule it out! When I’m confronted with this fallacy, as I often am, I explain that there’s some (often unintentional) confusion between possible, plausible, and probable. This is a point that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in critical thinking and skeptical circles, and I thought it would be worth exploring. … (Center For Inquiry) [The author did get a few things wrong here, can you spot them?]
Beauty vs morality is art bound by ethical constraints? With respect to evaluating art, are questions of morality categorically irrelevant when it comes to beauty? A thing of beauty, it might be said, is beyond good and evil. For most of the Western tradition, this idea would have been an outlier. In the Classical and Christian epochs, beauty was treated primarily as a means of teaching virtue. And even puritanical dissenters connected beauty to morality, albeit negatively. But in the eighteenth century, seeds were sown that flourished in the nineteenth century, heralded by slogans like “art for art’s sake” and labels such as aestheticism, and, later, formalism, and autonomism that signaled that art, including beautiful art, is separate from morality. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the gleeful cry, “Beauty is back,” broadcast at least the hope that artists were about to leave off their politicized moralizing and get back in the business of beauty. … (IAI News) [The answer, of course, is “it depends…”]
On TikTok, philosophy is getting edgy … or at least concise. In his 16th century fresco The School of Athens, Raphael sought to capture the essential spirit of philosophy. The artist depicts Plato as an old, gray, barefoot man beside his most famous student, Aristotle. The two Greek philosophers hold thick bound books as they walk together beneath a magnificent stone archway, discussing their very wise and very serious ideas. Whether they know it or not, many people continue to hold this Raphaelite view. Philosophy is seen as ancient, slow-moving, formal, and cerebral—not anything that is typically associated with TikTok. … (Slate) [I’m not convinced, and I say this as a regular user of Twitter.]
Hooked on mindfulness: hidden design tricks make meditation apps addictive. The pandemic has turned mobile mindfulness into a booming industry, as millions of Americans download meditation apps hoping to boost their attention, mood, and sleep. Major companies concerned about worker productivity have also contracted with app makers to provide their employees with free subscriptions to the services. With the average American meditation app user generating $70 in annual revenue, this year the industry is expected to earn nearly $1 billion in U.S. sales—double what those companies earned prior to the pandemic. “Once Covid hit, we got a lot of feedback about how hard it was to disconnect from emails because people are constantly home. These apps allow people to disconnect and spend some purposeful moments thinking about, where’s my head at?,” an executive told CNBC about why his company offers employees a free Headspace app subscription. … (Skeptical Inquirer) [There goes yet another potentially useful concept being swallowed by capitalistic consumerism.]
Philosophy as a Way of Life
SHOCK ME (per Casablanca, of course) that there are socially addictive “apps” in general online, let alone among mindlessness ones.
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On the lead topic? Your forthcoming sounds interesting. I read selections from The Symposium in my classical languages program, as well as the whole in English. The idea that power is more a “force multiplier” than inherently evil is something I’d overall agree with, while still bringing in Lord Acton to note that relatively unrestricted power is likely to “recruit” people who lean toward the darker side of human nature, and within their personalities, to “recruit” and amplify their worst parts.
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