Resources and Entertainment for Philosophers

             Most people already involved in philosophy are going to be familiar with many of these sites and other resources, but this list might be useful for undergraduates and laymen interested in getting a look at either the academic side of the subject from the analytic perspective, or the popular resources and entertainment related to philosophy.
            Rankings of philosophy departments, and other current information on academic
            philosophy:
                        *Philosophy Gourmet: http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/default.asp
                        *Leiter Reports: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/
                          Both of these sites are run by Brian Leiter at the University of Chicago

           Online Encyclopedias:
                        *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP): http://plato.stanford.edu/
                        *Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP): http://www.iep.utm.edu/
                        *Wikipedia, Philosophy portal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:
                          Philosophy 
                          Wikipedia is not as technical and precise as the SEP or IEP.
           Research Websites:
                        *PhilPapers: http://philpapers.org/
                        *EpistemeLinks: http://www.epistemelinks.com/
                        *Noesis: http://noesis.evansville.edu/
            Popular Websites
                        *The Browser, 'Writing Worth Reading': http://thebrowser.com/sections
                          /philosophy-religion/philosophy.
                          Their interviews are particularly good.
                        *Brain Pickings philosophy articles: http://www.brainpickings.org/?s=

                          philosophy
            Popular Books:
                        *The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
                        *The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant
                        *Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
            Graphic Novels and Illustrated Books About Philosophy:
                        *Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, written by Apostolos Doxiadis and
                          Christos H. Papadimitriou, illustrated by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di 
                          Donna
                        *Action Philosophers!, by Fred Van Lente, and Ryan Dunlavey*
                        *Epicurus the Sage, written by William Messner-Loebs, art by Sam Kieth
                        *Supergatari History of World Philosophy, Michael Gertelman*             

                        *Philographics, Genis Carreras*
             Movies related to philosophy or which may appeal to philosophers (search

             ‘philosophical films’ for many others):
                         *Waking Life
                         *Mindwalk
                         *My Dinner with Andre
                         *Agora
                           Starring Rachel Weisz.
                         *The Razor’s Edge
                           Starring Bill Murray. It's not a comedy, but it is beautiful.
                         *Vanilla Sky
                           It stars Tom Cruise, but no film is perfect.
                         *Stalker (Tarkovsky)
                           Very slow, with highly variable film quality, but strangely intriguing.
                         *Solaris (Tarkovsky)

          Videos
                         *Animated Thought Experiments by the Open University:
                           http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/10/19/open-university-
                           thought-experiments/*
          Products
                         *The Unemployed Philosophers Guild: http://www.philosophersguild.com
                           They are very amusing. Although many of their products are not related
                           to philosophy, their sense of humor is likely to appeal to those interested 
                           in the subject.

            Those suggestions with an asterisk at the end were found through articles at Brainpickings, especially the following: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/09/supergatari-history-of-philosophy/.
            If you have anything to add, please suggest it in the comment section.

In Favor of a Constructive Foreign Policy: War or Aid?

 http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/315792_388629991218096_936793397_n.jpg

This meme is a little simplistic, but it is a good reminder that war is not exactly the moral high ground. Political legitimacy is not the same thing as ethical legitimacy.

Here are two ad hoc definitions: Terrorism is the creation of fear by means of violence for purposes of drawing attention to one's cause or ideology. War is the attempt to bring about tangible political or economic results by means of violence (e.g., an initially offensive war), or to to protect one's group or nation by violently crushing the military forces of a clearly-defined enemy (e.g., an initially defensive war).

The distinction between offensive and defensive is not always clear, as crushing an aggressor often means going into their own territory. For instance, the South began the Civil War with an act of aggression against the North (Fort Sumter), but the North did not remain on defense; we had Sherman's brutal 'March to the Sea' to Atlanta. Conversely, the aggressor may end up on the defensive, as was the case with Germany in both WWI and WWII.

The question of what constitutes a defensive war becomes more complicated when the offensive force is not a single entity, but a hodge-podge of individuals and groups. Not only have our so-called wars on terror involved far more foreign deployments of manpower and material (putting the lie to the Orwellian title 'Department of Defense') than domestic ones, they also have no end-game in sight. How do you know when you have won a war when you don't know who your enemy is until they have already acted?

We would do far better as a nation, both economically and politically, if we invested a fraction of what we spend on the military for reaching out to other nations in ways that are constructive, rather than destructive.

In Vietnam, 'hearts and minds' became a key slogan, because we were losing whatever sympathy and trust the Vietnamese people may have felt for American troops and American ideals, by the way in which we were waging the war. In all times, foreign policy is at its best when both the politicians and the people (rather than exclusively the former, which leads to long-term resentment) of the nation with which we are dealing feel this sympathy and trust towards us. But, surely, all wars, even those waged more honorably than Vietnam, tend to alienate a substantial percentage of both groups.

I think we would further our interests more effectively, at far less cost, by winning the peaceful cooperation of other peoples, rather than their violent and often fragmentary competition and opposition. Resentment is a precursor to malice; if it continues unchecked, growing upon itself, it always leads to evil, sooner or later. It is best to avoid provoking it in the first place. I think of terrorists as splinter-groups from nations, who often represent widespread resentments among their peoples, albeit in an extreme and counterproductive form.

The level of pure calculation is one I deplore, and it is the only one the U.S. government seems to be moved by. In all fairness, this is true of most governments, but I think the extent of Machiavellian tendencies increases with the extent of power, whether national or personal. On this level alone, much less that of the humanitarian, interacting with other nations in a democratic manner- taking account of what their peoples think of our proposals, and not influencing their politicians to act in ways that are virulently opposed by potentially violent groups within them, even if they are a tiny minority numerically- is desirable. Resentment only needs a few hearts, and it will end up finding many hands.

One of the key lessons of Nassim Taleb's work The Black Swan was that you do better to invest considerably in avoiding the unlikely chance that would ruin you, if it comes about, than to invest the same amount, little by little, in avoiding comparatively likely things that can easily be borne. You do well to avoid predicating your entire worldview on an assumption that may be false; we cannot avoid having assumptions, but we can avoid investing ourselves in them so totally. Is it unlikely that a given individual pissed off by our foreign policy will go on to kill thousands of Americans? Probably. But it is certainly desirable for most of our society (perhaps not for the military industrial complex, whose funding requires excuses for periodic wars) to keep the number of people pissed off at us enough to attempt that as small as possible.

How do avoid producing this lethal resentment? Well, not killing someone's family members- particularly someone's civilians, females, or children- is a great place to start. There is no resentment quite like revenge. Perhaps we'd be more inclined to oppose actions that lead to civilian deaths if we were honest enough with ourselves- if the media was direct enough with this mass of atomized individuals, of alienated sheep- to stop calling them casualties or collateral. Such terms are disgusting euphemisms that keep us from fully acknowledging the fact that we are talking about dead human beings- they are ways of lying to ourselves, and of subtly dehumanizing the victims of our actions.

Regardless of how earnestly we may seek to exclusively kill enemy combatants (soldiers, insurgents, terrorists), killing those who are not fighting us is most easily avoided by not fighting at all. I think war is arguably a necessary response to direct invasion of one's domestic territory, but not justified otherwise. Limiting ourselves to just wars, which are thankfully rare- and avoiding going to war for spurious (such as dubious CIA intelligence), corporate, or reactionary reasons- would help.

Interacting with other nations in a consensual manner, rather than one that is coercive, is also good strategy. Whether we cooperate with politicians who will coerce our designs upon their populations, or coerce the politicians too, we are winning concessions but losing friends.

What of winning hearts and minds, rather than merely trying to avoid losing them? Well, spending that fraction of our military spending which I mentioned earlier on bolstering the infrastructure- physical (such as running water and roads) and human (education, institutions conducive to domestic stability, healthcare, family planning- another euphemism, of course, but one which stands for something I support)- of poorer countries could end up being a public relations coup. A nonviolent coup, always the best kind. Admittedly, poor countries often remain stay poor in part because of governments that do not effectively prevent their members from taking bribes and stealing public funds. Yet, even if we could trust that only half the money we gave would be spent in the ways we intended, that aid money would still be 50% constructive; spending money on the military, beyond the extent needed to keep it ready and able to protect one's borders, is 100% constructive. In other words, I think we- and the domestic population- would both come out ahead, and there would be a lot less fear to go around.

'No Child Left Behind': Background and Consequences

The following is by no means comprehensive, but it is intended to give a sense of some of the influences on NCLB (decades of national concern with the quality of education in the U.S., the supposed miracle in the schools of Texas in the 1990s), and some of its effects. I do not go into depth on the specifics of its implementation.

National Policy Climate

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a 2002 reauthorization of a 1965 piece of legislation called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Though NCLB was such a shock to the national education system that it was more like a revolution than a reauthorization, it nevertheless drew on concerns that had existed for decades. The difference was not the aim, but the implementation.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in its original form, was motivated by the recognition of an achievement gap in poor schools. Federal money, under Title I, was used to supplement state funding for schools. When a school was identified as having both high poverty and low achievement, a calculation would be done to determine how much Title I money would be given to that school (9/4/12 lecture notes, on an education class at Ohio University).

By 1980, there was plenty of evidence that the achievement gap was not closing, and was in some areas getting worse. The 1983 report A Nation at Risk led to increased concerns among teachers, politicians, and the public about the state of public schooling in the U.S. (Toppo, 2008). A desire to find top-down, evidence-based solution to academic woes has only mounted since. In other words, NCLB did not come out of the blue; it addressed long-standing concerns in predictably technocratic, quantification-oriented ways.

"Where all the children are above average" (Garrison Keillor)

NCLB expects that all students- literally, 100%- score 'proficient' (average) or higher on standardized tests by 2014. This suggests a basic misunderstanding of what an average is. Mandating that everyone be at or above average is statistically impossible, and that cannot be changed by any tweaking of the means or time allotted for achieving this goal. When there is a range of performance levels, the average of those performance levels will be higher than some, and lower than others. You cannot always bring desired outcomes into existence by demanding that they occur, particularly when the desired outcome is impossible by definition.

A Miracle in Texas?

Many people may not be aware that NCLB was based on "The Texas Miracle" and the schools of Houston in particular. That the nation's schools came to be modeled on those of Houston was unsurprising, given that the superintendent of Houston's schools, Rod Paige, was named secretary of education by George W. Bush. "Paige... had instituted a policy of holding principals accountable for how their students did. Principals worked under one-year contracts, and each year, the school district set strict goals in areas like dropout rates and test scores. Principals who met the goals got cash bonuses of up to $5,000, and other perks. Those who fell short were transferred, demoted or forced out." (Leung, 2009). Investigative reporting by 60 Minutes found that the impressive statistics of high test scores and low drop out rates were, in effect, falsified (Leung, 2009). Later, similar concerns about honesty on the part of administrators and teachers would come to light with NCLB as well.

A common complaint about NCLB is the tendency of teachers to teach to standardized accountability tests. According to Walt Haney of Boston College, who spent over two years on an extraordinarily comprehensive article about this supposed miracle, the same tendency was found in Texas after the introduction between 1990 and 1991 of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). "In the opinion of educators in Texas, schools are devoting a huge amount of time and energy preparing students specifically for TAAS, and emphasis on TAAS is hurting more than helping teaching and learning in Texas schools, particularly with at-risk students, and TAAS contributes to retention in grade and dropping out" (Haney, from the abstract). There is also evidence of negative effects of educational policies used in Texas on minorities (higher rates of failure, repeating the same grade, dropping out). Further, TAAS may be neither reliable or valid, and increases in TAAS scores have actually coincided with decreases in scores on a college readiness test. "Between 1994 and 1997, TAAS results showed a 20% increase in the percentage of students passing all three exit level TAAS tests (reading, writing and math), but TASP (a college readiness test) results showed a sharp decrease (from 65.2% to 43.3%) in the percentage of students passing all three parts (reading, math, and writing)" (Haney, abstract).

Textbooks, Tests, and Motivation

One of the first expectations of good research about even a subject of insignificance is that the student use multiple sources. No single source should have a monopoly on discourse- it is fundamentally contrary to intellectual integrity. Yet, whole subjects, taught for the 180 days of a school year, apparently do not merit the same extent of concern for variety of perspectives as a five-page research paper completed in a couple hours. In many classrooms, teachers can tell their students 'open your books' or 'turn to the text,' and know that they will understand what they are talking; this suggests that everyone in that classroom takes for granted that only one book will be used there. Why is this? According to many teachers, it is because the textbook they use includes everything the students will be tested on.

It is no wonder that there are concerns about NCLB narrowing curriculum, and diminishing the enthusiasm of teachers. Has anyone who has truly enjoyed thinking about things and learning things ever been motivated by wanting to prove themselves on an impersonal Scantron? I think motivation to learn is found in our curiosity about the material, and our connections to our teachers. If this is the case, then it is surely a poor indicator for the future of education that testing regimes encourage a view of education more preoccupied with tests than either interesting information, ideas, or discussion. NCLB is an impoverishment of education, rather than an enriching of it.

Reliance on textbooks is also problematic because it presents a unified, rather than a contested, view of the realities discussed. Do teachers who rely on textbooks care about non-hegemonic perspectives (e.g., perspectives that are not Eurocentric, patriarchal, classist, racist, and so on)? Some of them do, of course. Yet, they trust the authors of the textbooks they use to provide a neat cross-section of these views- a neatness which is often reductionist and marginalizing, and communicates none of the passion that is in them- and expect that this will suffice. This is naive, and a poor example to those they teach; not only are textbook authors fallible human beings, but reality is not so neatly pinned down. No one has a monopoly on reality, so why give someone a monopoly on the parameters of discourse within your classroom?

Unintended Consequences

One of the most basic, but undervalued, aspects of good decision-making is the regard for unintended consequences. Because it is hard to know the full ramifications of any course of action until some time has passed, it is wise to wait and see before attempting to make a would-be objective statement about whether or not that course of action is desirable; and, because it takes time for consequences to unfold, it is best to institute changes slowly and steadily, rather than all at once. (Perhaps human social structures, like human bodies, can undergo 'shock,' and the associated unpleasant and disorienting affects- certainly, many individual teachers felt shocked by NCLB!) Such prudence was not shown either in waiting to deem the educational reforms in Texas miraculous, nor in deciding to scale them up to the nation as a whole. Now that time has passed, it is clear that many of the concerns had about NCLB- for instance, the propensity to motivate dishonest behaviors by some teachers and administrators (for instance, see http://fairtest.org/nclb-boosts-temptation-cheat)- were evident, first, in the Houston schools on which it was based.

Citations

Leung, R. (2009, February 11). The 'texas miracle'. CBS News. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60ii/main591676.shtml
Toppo, G. (2008, August 1). 'Nation at risk': The best thing or the worst thing for education?. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-04-22-nation-at-risk_N.htm
Walt, H. (2000). The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 41