South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today
Encyclopedia
South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today is the first non-fiction
book in Blackwell Publishing
Company’s Philosophy & Pop Culture series and is edited by philosopher and ontologist, Robert Arp
, at the time assistant professor of philosophy
at Southwest Minnesota State University
. The series itself is edited by William Irwin
, who is a professor of philosophy at King's College, Pennsylvania
in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
. The book utilizes the five classic branches of Western philosophy
, namely, metaphysics
, epistemology, ethics
, political philosophy
, and logic
, in order to analyze episodes of South Park
as well as place the show in a context of current popular culture
.
The book was published December 1, 2006. The following year, South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating
—volume 26 of Open Court Publishing Company
's Popular Culture and Philosophy series—was published, with editing by philosopher Richard Hanley
.
and Satan
as gay lovers, existentialism
as applied to the death of Kenny, and a debate about whether feminists can enjoy the show due to some of its misogynistic characters. The contributors to the work utilize philosophical concepts derived from Plato
, Aristotle
, Freud and Sartre and place them in a South Park context.
The book's contributors all attempted to analyze the philosophical and cultural aspects of South Park in the work. One of the authors, David Koepsell
, wrote about the controversial episode dealing with Scientology
, entitled: "Trapped in the Closet". Koepsell cited the fact that the series won a Peabody Award
due to its willingness to criticize intolerance in April 2006 as a "special concern for criticizing and countering intolerance", and the notion that "the Church of Scientology suffers from the widely held perceptions that it seeks to silence former members and others who criticize its beliefs and practices" as the motivation behind the episode. Koepsell analyzed Comedy Central
's reaction to the episode itself, in a section of his book entitled "2005-2006: Comedy Central Caves". He mentions South Park's usage of the onscreen caption "this is what Scientologists actually believe." in the episode, noting that the same device was used in the episode "All About the Mormons?." In referencing this similar use of the onscreen caption device, Koepsell seemed to point to an inconsistency in the behavior of Comedy Central relative to the episode. He explained "By a long shot, this show was more kind to Scientology than was "All About the Mormons" to Mormonism." He noted Comedy Central had suggested it would not rebroadcast the episode for the second time, though it later announced on July 12, 2006 that it would. The book can thus be summed up in the following sentence: "Perhaps the truth is in the middle."
. Host Lynne Mitchell wrote that most of the contributors to the book succeeded in teaching philosophy to the reader while discussing the various South Park episodes. However Mitchell also commented that she was annoyed by a pretend interview by the editor with the creators of South Park, which she felt was made up in "a kind of South Park pastiche." A review in Publishers Weekly stated that "some of the writers' attempts at lowbrow humor can be embarrassingly off-mark", but also noted that pop-philosophy devotees and South Park fans with a philosophical bent will enjoy the book.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
book in Blackwell Publishing
Blackwell Publishing
Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley's Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing, after Wiley took over Blackwell Publishing in...
Company’s Philosophy & Pop Culture series and is edited by philosopher and ontologist, Robert Arp
Robert Arp
Robert Arp is a philosopher and ontologist, and is known for his work in ontology , philosophy of biology, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy and popular culture...
, at the time assistant professor of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at Southwest Minnesota State University
Southwest Minnesota State University
Southwest Minnesota State University is a public, four-year university that is part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. It is located in Marshall, Minnesota, United States, a city of 13,000 people. The school has a full-time enrollment of approximately 3,500 students and...
. The series itself is edited by William Irwin
William Irwin (philosopher)
William Irwin is professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors Program at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He was born in 1970 and raised in Yonkers, New York. Irwin attended Regis High School in Manhattan, an elite Jesuit institution, graduating in 1988. He received his B.A...
, who is a professor of philosophy at King's College, Pennsylvania
King's College, Pennsylvania
King's College is a liberal arts college located in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. Accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, King's has been ranked among the best colleges in the nation by U.S. News and World Report for 16 straight years...
in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
. The book utilizes the five classic branches of Western philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, namely, metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, epistemology, ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
, and logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, in order to analyze episodes of South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
as well as place the show in a context of current popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
.
The book was published December 1, 2006. The following year, South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating
South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating
South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating is a non-fiction book analyzing the philosophy and popular culture effects of South Park, published by Open Court...
—volume 26 of Open Court Publishing Company
Open Court Publishing Company
The Open Court Publishing Company is a publisher with offices in Chicago and La Salle, Illinois. It is part of the Carus Publishing Company of Peru, Illinois.-History:...
's Popular Culture and Philosophy series—was published, with editing by philosopher Richard Hanley
Richard Hanley
Richard Hanley was born in Zambia and later moved to Australia as a small child. He studied at the University of Sydney, and completed his PhD at University of Maryland. He is now an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Delaware. Philosophically, he is a perdurantist following in...
.
Synopsis
The book includes contributions from twenty-two academics in the field of philosophy. Topics include issues of sexuality involved in depicting Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
and Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
as gay lovers, existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
as applied to the death of Kenny, and a debate about whether feminists can enjoy the show due to some of its misogynistic characters. The contributors to the work utilize philosophical concepts derived from Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Freud and Sartre and place them in a South Park context.
The book's contributors all attempted to analyze the philosophical and cultural aspects of South Park in the work. One of the authors, David Koepsell
David Koepsell
David R. Koepsell earned his PhD in Philosophy as well as his Law degree from the University of Buffalo where he studied with Barry Smith...
, wrote about the controversial episode dealing with Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
, entitled: "Trapped in the Closet". Koepsell cited the fact that the series won a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
due to its willingness to criticize intolerance in April 2006 as a "special concern for criticizing and countering intolerance", and the notion that "the Church of Scientology suffers from the widely held perceptions that it seeks to silence former members and others who criticize its beliefs and practices" as the motivation behind the episode. Koepsell analyzed Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
's reaction to the episode itself, in a section of his book entitled "2005-2006: Comedy Central Caves". He mentions South Park's usage of the onscreen caption "this is what Scientologists actually believe." in the episode, noting that the same device was used in the episode "All About the Mormons?." In referencing this similar use of the onscreen caption device, Koepsell seemed to point to an inconsistency in the behavior of Comedy Central relative to the episode. He explained "By a long shot, this show was more kind to Scientology than was "All About the Mormons" to Mormonism." He noted Comedy Central had suggested it would not rebroadcast the episode for the second time, though it later announced on July 12, 2006 that it would. The book can thus be summed up in the following sentence: "Perhaps the truth is in the middle."
Reception
A review in The Boston Herald called the work an "indispensable collection of thought-provoking essays." The book was featured on The Book Show radio program on the Australian Broadcasting CorporationAustralian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
. Host Lynne Mitchell wrote that most of the contributors to the book succeeded in teaching philosophy to the reader while discussing the various South Park episodes. However Mitchell also commented that she was annoyed by a pretend interview by the editor with the creators of South Park, which she felt was made up in "a kind of South Park pastiche." A review in Publishers Weekly stated that "some of the writers' attempts at lowbrow humor can be embarrassingly off-mark", but also noted that pop-philosophy devotees and South Park fans with a philosophical bent will enjoy the book.
External links
- South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today, Official page at publisher's web site