[Buddha-l] Philosophy and Popular Culture

[Richard Hayes]

On Fri, 2007-11-23 at 19:19 +0000, David Webster wrote:

> As the phenomena of ‘Philosophy and Popular Culture’ books continues apace –
> I have wondered (while reading some of them) – is this a good thing for
> philosophy?

I suppose we would fist have to try to figure out what 'good for
philosophy' means. (Sorry, but my analytic prejudice is showing.)
Perhaps one thing that the phrases means is good for philosophers. 

I have heard ugly rumours (perhaps only urban legends) that philosophers
who have contributed to such books as Philosophy and Steely Dan,
Philosophy and the Matrix and so forth have met with severe disapproval
from their colleagues. (I have no idea whether books with those titles
actually exist, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.) The limiting
case of disapproval, of course, would be the loss of employment. It
could be argued that being unemployed is very good for a philosopher,
since it get him or her out of the prostitution business and dissolves
at least some ties to that form of big corporate business known as the
education industry.

Being unemployed puts a person one step closer to being a monk, which is
surely good for one's well-being. Moreover, if one takes being a monk
very seriously, then one will stop writing books altogether, and that
would be VERY good for philosophy.

Are all the popular books on Buddhism doing Buddhism any good? If we use
the same reasoning I have just used for popular books on philosophy, I
think the answer is obvious. So let us all pray for more popular books
on Buddhism.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico