Joshua Heter – författare

The Man in the High Castle is an Amazon TV show, based on the Philip K. Dick novel, about an “alternate present” (beginning in the 1960s) in which Germany and Japan won World War II, with the former Western US occupied by Japan, the former Eastern US occupied by Nazi Germany, and a small “neutral zone” between them. A theme of the story is that in this alternative world there is eager speculation, fueled by the illicit newsreel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, about how the world would have been different if America had won the war.       In The Man in the High Castle and Philosophy, twenty-two professional thinkers look at philosophical issues raised by this ongoing enterprise in “alternative history.” One question is whether it really made a profound difference that the Allies won the war, and exactly what differences in everyday life we may expect to arise from an apparent historical turning point. Could it be that some dramatic historical events have only superficial consequences, while some unnoticed occurrences lead to catastrophic results?       Another topic is the quest for truth in a world of government misinformation, and how dissenting organizations can make headway.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

Karl Marx might have been thinking of punk rock when he wrote these words in 1847, but he overlooked the possibility that new forms of solidity and holiness could spring into existence overnight.

Punk rock was a celebration of nastiness, chaos, and defiance of convention, which quickly transcended itself and developed its own orthodoxies, shibboleths, heresies, and sectarian wars.

Is punk still alive today? What has it left us with? Does punk make any artistic sense? Is punk inherently anarchist, sexist, neo-Nazi, Christian, or—perish the thought—Marxist? When all’s said and done, does punk simply suck?

These obvious questions only scratch the surface of punk’s philosophical ramifications, explored in depth in this unprecedented and thoroughly nauseating volume.

Thirty-two professional thinkers-for-a-living and students of rock turn their x-ray eyes on this exciting and frequently disgusting topic, and penetrate to punk’s essence, or perhaps they end up demonstrating that it has no essence. You decide.

Among the nail-biting questions addressed in this book:

● Can punks both reject conformity to ideals and complain that poseurs fail to confirm to the ideals of punk?

● How and why can social protest take the form of arousing revulsion by displaying bodily functions and bodily abuse?

● Can punk ethics be reconciled with those philosophical traditions which claim that we should strive to become the best version of ourselves?

● How close is the message of Jesus of Nazareth to the message of punk?

● Is punk essentially the cry of cis, white, misogynist youth culture, or is there a more wholesome appeal to irrepressibly healthy tendencies like necrophilia, coprophilia, and sadomasochism?

● In its rejection of the traditional aesthetic of order and complexity, did punk point the way to “aesthetic anarchy,” based on simplicity and chaos?

● By becoming commercially successful, did punk fail by its very success?

● Is punk what Freddie Nietzsche was getting at in The Birth of Tragedy, when he called for Dionysian art, which venerates the raw, instinctual, and libidinous aspects of life?

Show Additional Fields

Better Call Saul and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam is a collection of twenty-three essays exploring the philosophical themes in the hit television show Better Call Saul, a prequel to the TV show Breaking Bad.  The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul, with thirteen episodes, began airing in April 2022.

The central character is Jimmy McGill, whom we know from Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman.  In Better Call Saul he first takes the name of Saul Goodman from the phrase “S’all Good, Man!” Jimmy/Saul is a natural con artist who not only scams from self-interest but also because he enjoys it. He has a strange relationship with his brother, the distinguished lawyer Charles McGill, who resents Jimmy’s delinquency and advantage in parental affection. Jimmy/Saul becomes a lawyer for a drug cartel, and most of the people he meets are criminals and other kinds of villains.

Like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul raises a wide range of philosophical issues including the nature of good and evil, personal identity, free will and determinism, the law as it relates to morality, the ethical implications of the war on drugs, death and dying, and many more. Better Call Saul and Philosophy offers thoughtful fans of the show deeper and more provocative insights into the story and the characters.

Topics covered include: the morality of keeping promises to wrongdoers, the nature of psychosomatic illness, difficult moral choices facing lawyers, just how good or bad are some of the compromised characters in the show, the unintended consequences of the War on Drugs, the similarities between drug cartels and governments, whether bad people are just unlucky, the perils of self-deception, and whether we ever really have much of a choice.

Better Call Saul and Philosophy is Volume 8 in the path-breaking series, Pop Culture and Philosophy.