Improving The Golden Rule By Going Platinum

Sometimes it hits me that I am getting older. And one thing I've noticed from my experience of getting older is that I've realized just how many little drops of wisdom my father has given me over the years. I didn't notice how they were adding up with time, but there are a few key phrases that he has said enough to make them stick in my mind as, "Things my Dad always said." One of my favorites is something that he got from his father, which actually reflects a key idea in Taoism: "Don't force something or you might break it." While it think that his father mentioned it with respect to fixing cars, it applies to lots of other things, too, from opening paint cans to being in relationships. Another is, "Always follow the highest that you know." Of course it's not about drugs--it is about taking the moral high road and doing what you know should be done in any given situation. Finally, one thing that my dad has always said, which may be most familiar to others since many of us have heard it from our mothers and fathers, preschool teachers and even religious texts, is this: "Treat others they way that you would want to be treated." It's also phrased something like this: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's known as The Golden Rule.

I love my father. And I'm not trying to continue my rebellious streak at the ripe old age of 25, but over the recent past I've been thinking about The Golden Rule and I'm getting to a point where I can see more clearly how it doesn't quite hit the mark.

Here's why:

Although The Golden Rule is supposed to teach us compassion and kindness for others, to orient our actions based on how we would like to be treated maintains a focus that first and foremost considers ourselves before it considers others. It says, "What about me? How would I like to be treated? What would I want others to do for me?" Of course, since The Golden Rule is intended to guide us in how we treat others, this is one step in direction that moves us away from simply serving our own interests. It helps us not act as self-centered, inconsiderate children who haven't learned good manners. But it takes our own interests as the ground that informs our actions and then applies that to others. It still focused on ourselves. Me. I. It's still pretty immature after all.

It was nearly eight years ago when I heard of a different take on the The Golden Rule. An older friend of mine, another sort of parent figure, suggested that instead of treating others how we would like to be treated, we should treat others how they would like to be treated. He referred to it as The Platinum Rule.

 
Aside from the epistemological difficulties of actually knowing how another person would want to be treated and the potential risks of acting in ways that could be read as paternalistic and condescending, I think there is a really great kernel of wisdom to be found in The Platinum Rule. Ultimately, I think it serves the same purpose as The Golden Rule, namely, to encourage us to act in ways that reflect compassion, care, and respect. But it just does it so much better.

Perhaps The Platinum Rule hasn't quite caught on with the masses because it is more difficult. It requires that we put in more effort and real consideration to reflect from another person's position, to take the time to understand their needs, to get to know them well enough so that we can actually treat them with respect in the way that they would like and need to be treated. It demands that we step outside of ourselves,our own interests, and perhaps even our own comfort zones and do things in ways that we perhaps wouldn't typically do them. Maybe we wouldn't even think about doing them in such and such a way. But that is why it requires and demonstrates a greater commitment to serving the other and taking care of his or her needs first. That is why it shows a deeper level of care and concern. By seeing through the eyes of another person and stretching our notions of what it means to show love and respect, our actions may no longer reflect how we would prefer to act or how we would prefer to be shown love and respect. They testify, "I'm doing this for you because I know that you would like me to do thus," even it if doesn't jive with my usual M.O. or how I, myself, would like to be shown that I am cared for and loved. While it may be quite possible that the needs and desires and preferences of different people are not totally divergent from one another, actions that follow The Platinum Rule can stand on their own, completely independent from the thought, "I wish that you would also do this for me."

For lots of people, myself included, showing and expressing our love, gratitude, respect, and care for other people can be a hard thing to get good at.  That's why it's helpful to have some basic guidelines that generally cultivate us into being better people: listen to the other person; inquire about their life and how they are doing; accompany them at their side through challenges and hard times; celebrate their joys and victories with them; let them know that you see that they are special and valuable and worthy of being loved, even if they already know it for themselves; let them know when you are thinking of them; check in and say 'hello' just to say 'hello.' But even with fairly standard codes of generally good conduct, it takes more to be able to really love and care for another person. It takes more than good manners (although they are certainly part of it). It requires patience, vulnerability, openness, empathy, generosity, and growth.

It requires genuine love to actually express genuine love. 

These are not traits that we can develop very easily or very quickly, nor are they qualities that we can really embody for everyone whom we encounter. But perhaps for those closest to us, we can work to push ourselves further to really become better, more loving, more giving people. We can start by learning a new principle about understanding and meeting others needs on their own terms and trying to grow into that. And when someone says, "I'm going Platinum, baby!" we can celebrate the possibility that they are not simply ambitious rap artists, but rather ambitious friends and loved ones who mean to indicate to us their commitment and dedication to being better friends and loved ones.

For myself, no matter how old I get, I know that there is always more room to grow. And in this respect, I hope that we all continue to do so.

The Isolated Individual, and one way to resist being her.

A strange and unsettling image haunted me all throughout last semester. It was that of the isolated individual.

It took a while for me to realize that many of  the frustrations I felt during conversations in my ethics seminars, discussions with my own class, and even while processing some of the reactions to the Penn State sex abuse scandal in November were rooted to a very familiar notion that effectively derails conversations, undermines discussions, or truncates the ability for people to makes sense of their own actions (or lack thereof). In all of these situations, we always seemed to hit bedrock once people took it for granted that we, as separate, independent individuals, can only ever do so much.

Here's how the story goes: Especially when it comes to doing the "right" thing, there are very few people who have the purity of heart and fortitude of moral conviction to always buy the right products, donate a sufficient amount of their income, challenge oppressive stereotypes, not live according to social expectations of the norm, and risk their job, reputation, loyalties, and faith in their own life-long held beliefs  in order to protect the interests and well-being of others first. Sure we hear about the really exceptional folks who manage to do heroic, miraculous things. We admire the Mother Teresa's, the Gandhi's, the moral saints, for there just aren't that many of them in the world, and this is precisely what makes their actions so heroic and miraculous--hardly anyone else can or would dedicate themselves so fully to do them.

For the majority of us, we are simply too afraid of what our friends or families might think of us if we "acted out," out of the ordinary, blew some whistles, or genuinely questioned the status quo of how things are. If one already nicely fits into all of the social norms and reaps their benefits, then one would quite literally be self-imposing disadvantages on her own life, including perhaps financial loss, the loss of social privilege, or even risk becoming alienated among one's social groups. None of which are particularly attractive or desirable self-selected fates. Even if we ultimately valued such actions, we often also tend to think,  "Well, geez, it's just not worth putting in all that effort and disrupt the order of things when my actions alone won't really make a difference anyway!" So, even if it we "know" that it would probably be better for everyone if we veered off of the beaten path, even just a little bit, for the most part, we stay on it. And as probably anyone who tries to facilitate conversations in a socially critical, progressive, and self-reflective classroom could attest, the attitudes of students eloquently capture the essence of the brick wall that one hits. The easiest way for a student to conclude a reflection essay or end a semester-long dialogue is to state, "I agree that (fill in the blank with some oppressive attitude, institution, or practice) is bad, but it will never change since things have always been like this." This leads to nowhere new. And that is precisely why I don't let my students say such dismissive (and clearly false) things. [you can read something about this here]

I won't harp on the trouble presented by this kind of cynicism and how it is very philosophically and politically significant in its own right, but I will note one thing that kept occurring to me in all of these frustrating and prematurely-hopeless exchanges--The notion of the separate, independent individually is only an assumption. Many people, from contemporary feminist philosophers to ancient Buddhist monks, have noted that we are not actually, nor are we ever, fully independent subjects. Of course we depend on other things, such as the environment and resources and creatures and all of the people around us. Even those who are very, very far away in time and space whom we will never know, whose faces we can't even imagine, we depend on them, too. And just as we depend on others, others depend on us. This means that we have the capacity to affect those around us. In fact, we always do. So with just a little bit of reflection, we see that we are not independent and that we are not ineffectual.

Instead, we are actually already situated and embedded within relationships, groups, and communities. Now imagine what would happen if we took this for granted.

Rather than mistakenly viewing ourselves as separate and independent individuals, which quickly lends itself to feelings of alienation, isolation, and vulnerability from the outset, we could find ways to recognize, appreciate, and strengthen our actual positions within collectivities, which quickly lends itself to feelings of being more supported, more valuable, and more capable of taking on bigger challenges. Perhaps we would feel more inclined to ask for help because we know that one person just simply can't do it all for herself. And perhaps we would also be more inclined to help those who need our support because we could trust that others would also be there to provide their support. This means that we wouldn't have to shoulder the impossible burden of holding ourselves and another person up, too, because we have the support of others even in how we support each other! Of course individual actions can accomplish great things, but privileging that over the effect of collective actions is like comparing the waves I can make by doing a cannonball into a pool to the waves of the ocean itself. Or, to be consistent with the metaphor, to the waves that my friends and I could make if we all jumped into the pool together at the same time. We could quite literally displace the water right out of the pool.

Anyway, I hope the point is well taken: Thinking of ourselves as isolated individuals is often more disempowering than it is motivating, and the potential for growth, support, and meaningful action that is present by virtue of the fact that we are always already situated in interpersonal relationships with others is often overlooked, under-appreciated, and under utilized.

And now it's time for the connection to my life, which is very far from suggesting that I am a Mother Teresa or moral saint...For me, of course, the connection goes to my work and my relationship with philosophy.

I have finally entered the final stage of my graduate program: the writing of the dissertation! I have set the ambitious goal to get the bulk of my writing done before August. That means in seven months (which includes already-scheduled travel interruptions for about three weeks and a big move to another city). I know it will be difficult, but thanks to another dissertating graduate student friend who shared with me some advice that she got about the whole ordeal, writing that much that fast doesn't seem completely impossible. How will it get done? By writing 300 words a day. At least that's how this guy recommends going about it.

Three-hundred words a day isn't really all that much when you think about it, especially considering how much time during the day that I have to do it. I'm done with courses. I'm on a teaching release this semester. So aside from my commitments through the Rock Ethics Institute to go to a some ethics seminars and continue working on the Public Philosophy Network, the demands for attention from my all-too-human cat, the care I must give to maintain the health of my relationships, and perhaps my own physical health in the process, all I have to do is write. Yep, in all of those hours between waking up and going back to sleep, for seven months, all I have to do is write. write. wriiiiiiiiite.

us, this morning, writing this post. me, sick and congested.

But that, my friends, is also kind of scary. Because what can quickly happen, and often does, is that I find myself sitting with my computer in a room somewhere all. day. long. I've got nothing but my books, the blinking cursor on the screen, and the sea of convoluted words twisting through my mind. I won't make phone calls to friends and family because I could be writing. I don't exercise because I should be writing. And since this is my big project, I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of, no real philosophical exchange to keep my thoughts fresh. It's an exhausting, consuming process of intense, solitary philosophical immersion (with the exception of my cat's company). I've only ever had intense writing periods like this for final seminar papers, so I don't exactly know what going through this will be like, day in and day out, for seven months. But honestly, the thought of it alone is enough to make me feel nauseated with a deep, unsettling sense of academic isolation. And that's precisely when the frustrations and doubts and insecurities and feelings of being completely overwhelmed usher in. "Why is this worth it?" "Who cares about what I'm writing?" "How is this going to help the world in any way?"

To battle this feeling of isolation and keep my motivation up, I invited some of my friends and family members to become my "daily receivers" of the 300 words that I write each day. In the initial email I explained that if they agreed to it, they would only be signing up to receive my email. They certainly wouldn't have to respond with any thoughts or comments on what I wrote (in fact, it would be better for my progress if they didn't) and they wouldn't even have to read the words from each day. Hence, rather than being my "daily readers" or "daily reviewers," they are my "daily receivers." I guess the basic idea here could be that they help me hold myself accountable to get the writing done each day by holding me accountable to them. But since I'm not really one for shaping people's behaviors by hanging the threat of shame and disappointment over their head, this isn't exactly the position that I wanted to put myself in. Instead, I wanted to find a way to break out of the isolation.

By inviting some of the most important people in my life to receive my daily emails, I have opened myself up in a way that says, "This is gonna be a hard project, and I anticipate many days ahead that will leave me feeling pretty discouraged. I also imagine that I may feel like I can't do it. So, please help me. I would really appreciate your support, because I know that I'm gonna need it. And here is how you can help me." My loved ones have shown me support already by simply signing up for the long-haul, and I've made it much easier for them to respond with little bits of encouragement like, "Good work!" "I know you can do it!" or "Keep it up!" Any and all of which, of course, will be nice little boosts of encouragement as I push on.

I'm still the one doing all the writing. The project is still my own. But I no longer feel so entrenched in my own thoughts and texts, and I don't feel so secluded and cut off from everyone else in my life. This project, which is very personally and philosophically important to me, is also something that I can share of myself with those who I care about and who care about me. In addition to knowing what I am doing all day long, if they choose to read the words that resulted from my effort on any given day, they can peek into the ideas and issues that I have been focusing on for the past six years since I've been doing philosophy. In short, in addition to hopefully addressing some of the vulnerability and anxiety and pressure that I feel about writing for months on end, I've found a way to let people into my academic world, and it might be the first time that they actually get to see why and how I do what I do in philosophy. Finally, the often stifling walls of academia seem a bit more permeable.

Multiple Models of Marketability: My Encouraging Realization from the Eastern APA

I just returned from what a friend and faculty member referred to as "the death-march known as the Eastern APA." Very much like last year, and quite unlike what most people report about their experiences there, I had a really great time. I'm not kidding, exaggerating, or indulging in some weird kind of masochism--I really enjoyed myself, the people around me, and the philosophical content that was being discussed. Okay, perhaps it has to do with the sessions that I attended--I go to pretty cool and inspiring ones (more on this in a bit)--and it probably helps that I am still not on the job market (that's coming up later as well). So maybe this time next year, when I actually will be on the market, I'll be writing a completely different post. Maybe the stress, anxiety, terror, and misery that is usually associated with interviews at the Eastern will finally be felt deep within my bones. But maybe not. And I don't think that it's simply because I've had two years of exposure to this beast-of-a-conference either (more on this later, too).

Some of the delights of this year's E-APA for me were found in the connections that were had there. I met some really wonderful people for the very first time. I saw people again whom I see only about once this time every year. And I finally met a number of people face-to-face for the first time. These are people with whom I've had email exchanges, facebook friendships, Google+ connections, and other sorts of "virtual" relationships for quite a long time...even years. Among my peers, professors, mentors, new acquaintances, and friends, we talked about lots of important things like relationships, planning for the job market, the surprisingly common horror stories from prospectus defenses gone bad, to teaching kids baby-sign language. I know that the Eastern can exacerbate social alienation and awkwardness in many people, but if you are lucky enough to have the social skills and comfort to use them, the whole affair can actually be quite an enjoyable social hub.

All of that aside, the real reason why I went was to present a paper. It was the second time I presented my paper, "Irigaray, (Trans)sexual Difference, and the Future of Feminism." It's funny when people ask me about what I'm going to do with it since I'm not an Irigaray-scholar and I'm not trying to set myself up as one, and although I am serious about the questions that I ask in the paper, it's not part of my current work or even related to the research in my dissertation. Nevertheless, some good things came out of presenting the paper. Just as it was at SPEP in October, I was very pleased with how the audience engaged one another in a discussion afterward rather than simply firing questions at me. I prefer when papers lead to philosophical exchanges among the people in the room who know more and different things than I do, and I've always (even if especially very recently) been skeptical of the productivity of "defense" like attacks from interlocutors. I also got a cash prize for it being accepted to the main program. As one professor said to me that evening, mine was very likely the first grad student paper with "(trans)sexual difference" in the title to ever be accepted to the main program at the APA. That's pretty sweet to think about, but I also like that I just used some of that money to buy a new, cute winter coat. 

I attended some really great sessions while I was there, and while I didn't get to make it to many of the ones that I wanted to, I did go to a session entitled "From Philosophical Training to Professional Blogging." Among the three panelists, two had a PhD in philosophy (the other a BA in Philosophy from Harvard).  Andrew Sullivan, one of the most widely read bloggers at present, had a number of really great things to say that resonated very deeply with me. Whenever he spoke, Sullivan emphasized the importance of philosophical dialogue. Being influenced by Plato's dialogues, he noted how the blogosphere presents greater opportunity for philosophical exchanges in the way of Plato. Dialogues that go back and forth. Invitations to take a step in one direction and see what follows from there. In addition to stressing his conviction that there is a real hunger in people to engage in meaningful, important philosophical questions, he also repeated a few of my favorite key words: "honesty" and "humility."

Without dogging the Academy, which he claimed to revere, Sullivan simply stated that after his time within academia it became clear to him that it didn't fit his style. As he continued to speak, I identified more and more with what he said, and I thought about the blog post that I had written just a week or so before. Academic philosophical writing comes with an air of authority. The arguments have to be well-crafted, exact, and fully-formulated. Essays are written as presenting mostly completed, self-contained ideas. Even if they lead to more questions or rely on previously established notions, academic writing often assumes that it has to come off as "right." But as Sullivan explained, this sense of authority, and the compulsion to write as if one is right, knows the answer, and has it all figured out, stems from a deep insecurity in the Academy about itself. This leads to a defensive sort of writing that asserts itself without really being willing to listen to others, especially those who are outside the walls of the ivory tower. Moreover, this kind of posturing is not conducive for allowing oneself to change one's mind.

In contrast, blogging about philosophical questions, especially when undergone as a philosophical activity in itself, only needs to offer the beginnings of an idea or the start of an argument. Because the writing is more "loose" it's very likely that one will say something stupid, or even wrong. But that's okay, because it can be acknowledged as part of the process...and it doesn't mark a failure unless one assumes authority in the first place. The process is necessarily open-ended, and the one who writes has a more explicit responsibility to respond to readers' comments and reactions. In this way, Sullivan explained that he has often changed his mind on issues in light of what his readers sent him. And if nothing else, he cannot dodge engaging with big issues that columnists and certainly academics can avoid. Sure, being a blogger is different from being a journalist, and both are quite different from being an academic philosopher, but that does not mean that the virtues of honesty and humility are less valuable, if not fundamental, qualities upon which each profession should be pursued.

And importantly, this is all still very much philosophy. Reasons, thoughtful explanations, and logical connections are part of the writing. There is definitely a space to hold a position, one that seems to hold some relation to truth even if that is not a stable truth. AND there is even room from wanting to persuade others through one's writing. But rather than being a political propagandist who seeks to persuade others merely for the sake of promoting an ideology, one is more of a philosopher who engages others through the genuine activity of thought. The entire practice, it seems to me, is housed in making the process the intended result, rather than already having an end point, a position, and a "certain truth" that one only works to preserve.

While I don't have aspirations to become a professional blogger, it was nice to recognize my own thoughts, words, and feelings in Sullivan's words as he continued to speak on the panel (read more of his thoughts here). I saw my own style for writing, which is also often reflected in the way that I teach, present, lecture, and read--one that doesn't formulate water-tight arguments but rather finds connections that lead to asking different questions that in turn spur new ways of thinking. And it's a style that depends on the input from others, whom Sullivan eventually called "friends." I've noted before that I learn most from teaching, and that is because I engage with my students in ways that provoke all of our thinking together. Of course, I start out as the one presenting the material, but I do so in order to provide a launching pad from where we can take-off and not as an authority on the matter at hand (this is a strategy for any grad student who suffers from an "imposter-complex" while teaching: change your attitude and goals for teaching, and realize that you don't have to pretend like you know everything if you don't assume that your students want to know everything that you think you know. My guess is that they are pretty disinterested in acquiring a carbon-copy of your brain anyway).

All in the all, I really enjoyed the session, but I was left with one unfulfilled wish: I wish that there could have been more discussion on movement in the other direction. In addition to noting that maybe there is something significant about the fact that some of the top professional bloggers have philosophical training, I wanted the discussion to at least touch on the other side of the coin, namely, how "professional blogging" could influence "philosophical training." What could professional academics in philosophy learn from those who write in philosophical ways on philosophical questions to public audiences as a philosophical endeavor? I think that could be a really rich and fruitful exchange....Unfortunately, there were a couple of times when it was stated, even by Sullivan himself, "Don't do this unless you want to lose your job. Wait until you have tenure, then you can write in this way and blog about these sorts of things."

This rather disappointing acquiescence to the "standard way of things" is what people usually say about going against the grain. Just wait. Don't do it yet. Despite my efforts to grow into a more patient person, I'm better at this in some areas than I am at others..and after four years of graduate school professional philosophy doesn't get a whole lot of it from me anymore. I don't like to tolerate the status quo without putting in at least some effort in the hope of making deeply desired changes. In that way, I guess I'm at base a pretty idealistic optimist. And ironically, this eventually led to one encouraging realization.

Sadly, I took very few pictures at the conference itself. This is from lunch. At least there's a name tag.

I left the eastern APA with a realization that was actually made from a number of conversations and not just from this particular session. Here's the short of it: I constantly hear concerns about the job market. Aside from the fact that the market itself sucks--there are few jobs, competition is outrageous, and if you are good enough and lucky enough to get a job it will take you to who-knows-where and will overburden you with who-knows-what kind of or how many other unwanted obligations and responsibilities--I hear lots of concerns about doing things differently and how that poorly sets one up for the market. In my own experience, this comes off in comments like "How in the world do you expect to get a job with this?!" Or I've heard it more politely as, "I'm just concerned about how you will get the job that I know you deserve." But what comments like this fail to acknowledge is that there are other ways to be "marketable." If I cultivate my deepest sense of compassionate and open-minded understanding, I can actually see how apparently antagonistic words and actions from my superiors really are coming from a place of looking out for my best interest. Sort of like when parents say,"I'm only enforcing these rules on you because I care about your safety and well-being."

But from my experience of also always being the kind of child who questioned and challenged my parents attitudes about what was "acceptable," "appropriate," and "right," (even when it turns out that at times they were sharing bits of valuable wisdom), I think that parents operate best as parents if they adjust to their kids' specific needs and desires and interests. They can care best if they actually know how their kids need to be cared for (this is a standard line in the ethics of care and maternal thinking..yes, I also went to the APA session in honor of Sara Ruddick's life and work). The same goes for teaching: we are better teachers if we teach to the individual interests, strengths, weaknesses, etc of the student. And the same goes for medicine....and so on and so on.

So in this situation there are a couple of things that I think should be understood and communicated between graduate students like myself and the professors who advise them. First, it was only recently mentioned to me that there are number of types of jobs out there, even among the academic jobs. And there are programs that value research, teaching, outreach, and other things in a diversity of ways that put greater weight on different kinds of philosophical work. So the goal shouldn't be to get a student just any job, and not even "the best" job if that is understood simply in terms of reputation and prestige, but rather the best job for that particular person.

Second, and this is related to the first point, it has to be understood that there are different pictures of "marketability." I can see why some very successful and well-respected philosophers are panicking about how I am going to fare on the job market since I don't conform to their image of marketability. Even though I have plenty of presentations on my CV now and thank goodness I got that prize (not just for the new coat)!, if I wanted to be how they want me to be, I would be freaking out, too. But the good news is that I have a handful of strengths and lots of ambition and passion to fuel me in my philosophical work, and I have other  qualities that I think make me very marketable.  Maybe that means I'm attractive to a different market all together, but I don't think that necessarily has to be the case. I think that there are more ways than one to be marketable even on the professional, academic job market that gives the eastern APA a bad, anxiety-provoking reputation. After all, this session on professional blogging was at the eastern APA and the award for excellence and innovation in philosophical programs this year was awarded to Thomas Wartenberg for his development of the Philosophy for Children.

Maybe doing things differently, being honest, and at the same time humble, in one's work, could actually serve one quite well. I guess only time will tell. Check back this time next year.

Faith in and Frustration with Philosophy

**This week I've been following the conversation on a feminist philosophy listserv about an article that appeared this week in The Chronicle. With each message that gets posted I've wanted to add something from my prospective as a grad student who passionately teaches philosophy to non-majors, but as I started to write, my response got too long. I didn't feel comfortable posting the whole thing on the listserv and thought that maybe people could just follow the link to my blog if they really wanted to read. But that second-guessing is part of the process I've been dealing with for the past few days and even now as I write. I have been self-censoring so that I don't come off as arrogant, but then I swing back and forth, compelled to say something because I am especially frustrated with the lack of internal and institutional support that I have been facing regarding my own research and methods. But I need to write. About philosophy. About life. About my practice of philifesophy. After all, that is precisely why I have this blog. So, I'll write the message that I wish I had the confidence to post on the listserv here.**


I want to thank all of you for engaging with this topic. As a graduate student, I have been following the thread of emails with a sense of optimism thanks to the generally shared sentiments that seem to be coming through in each message. But I've also been concerned about how we seem to be at a loss for what to do about the concerns at hand. I hear the worries about potentially negative student evaluations if one were to bring up relevant, everyday, and very political examples in class, the fears about losing jobs (or in my case, not getting one), the frustrations around philosophy being treated like a mere commodity that could be distributed to bring in more majors, etc. Even though I've only been teaching my own classes now for three years, I've had to face similar worries about how I run a classroom. But I've also had the good fortune of putting together my own course syllabi and use my own pedagogical techniques from the very beginning. While teaching classes like Love and Sex, Race and Diversity, and Philosophy and Feminism lend themselves to difficult yet highly personal and relevant conversations, I've employed the same methods in my Basic Problems and Asian Philosophies classes. I have decided to make sure that every course and every class period takes the issues head on with honesty, integrity, and courage. My students are often surprised by how ethically and politically charged our discussions can become, and I don't even hesitate to show my own cards, but so far, I have had very few students openly state their disapproval of my style in evaluations or on ratemyprofessors.com. Perhaps my students respond more favorably to me because I am relatively young for an instructor and close to them in age. Maybe this allows me to get away with more polemical and often surprisingly outrageous things. But I have to think it is something more than that.

Could it be that they appreciate my style precisely because I'm not afraid to bring up polemical issues and say and do pretty outrageous things?

An overwhelming majority of my students have loved my classes, precisely because it helps them be not only better thinkers but better people (by the way, these are their words--I have them write final reflection papers on their thought processes at the end of every semester). My classes are never easy-A's; I run intro courses more like 300 level classes. They require young 18 to 21-year-olds to actually think, read, speak, and write in ways that they often haven't ever been expected to do before. In fact, at the start of the semester many don't  really know how to think, read, speak, and write well at all. And it's true that in my class on race, some students even admitted in their final papers to being so filled with anger at me and the material we were covering that they said they hated the class. I already knew, of course. I could feel it during the semester from the line up of four white male students against the back wall. But those same students came around with gratitude and eventually wrote about how and why they responded that way for the majority of the semester. The material is personally challenging, but also personally rewarding. For being non-majors seeking a simple gen-ed credit, I've had students re-enroll to take my other classes and decide to become majors (all good things as far as the college is concerned, right?). But more than that, they see value in philosophy and appreciate the work that we do over the semester because it means something to them in the end. And you know what? It means something to me, too. There have been numerous times where conversations with my students have made me think harder and learn more than any of the graduate level seminars that I have taken since my senior year in college. I suspect that they see how I am also learning with and from them.

Related to Marilyn's email, the real shame here, though, is that no one taught me how to teach. I was just one of those undergraduate students who was always frustrated when my own professors didn't seem to care enough to go out of the box in terms of their own teaching. With the exception of two classes as an undergrad, I found the majority of my philosophy classes to be painfully boring and useless, and so I used the experience to note what didn't work. (By the way, I didn't even want to major in philosophy. I only declared a major because I already had some credits from my religious studies classes and a professor convinced me to not drop out as a sophomore. I used those credits so that I could still graduate in four years. During the fall of my junior year I took a crucial class that introduced me to a different approach to philosophy. Then I attended PIKSI at Penn State before my senior year. It was there, not in my department, where I saw what I could do with philosophy and what philosophy could do...I write more about this journey to academic philosophy and what to do with it now, here).  And I'm one of those people whose passion for philosophy is so strong--how it can change us, empower us, help shed new light on our lives and experiences--that I can't even imagine "talking about" philosophy in the usual way. So, with teaching, I've just had to wing it. Ironically, winging it has worked best. Maybe that's because I start from a place that avoids conventional assumptions about teaching...

Whereas some professors above me have said (quite unfavorably) that I am bull-headed about how I do philosophy, I have wished all along that I didn't have to force my way against such resistance, but that there were more mentors and examples around me who supported and demonstrated how to talk with people and students without excluding them or shooting them down, how to ask questions that invite critical thinking rather than dismissive or defensive apathy. But since I see these unhelpful tendencies around me all the time in many professional philosophy settings, I have started to think that many academic philosophers simply don't know how to relate to others on philosophical issues without it turning into a very narrow, unproductive event. I hesitate to even call them genuine dialogues of philosophical exchange.

If philosophers really want to start teaching in new ways and engaging the public in new ways, then we should probably put more effort into making sure that we are the sort of people with whom others (students included) want to and feel like they can have meaningful, enriching conversations. In other words, I agree with Marilyn that professional philosophers should give more attention to teaching graduate students how to teach. But it has to start with cultivating a sensibility for how to communicate, how to listen, how to openly engage with others, and how to encourage people who aren't familiar with philosophy to think philosophically. These are skills that you simply can't learn from reading the work of your favorite thinker in the history of philosophy or from mulling over one specific philosophical problem for years on end. Being the sort of people who can actually do the kind of philosophy that we are all hoping for and talking about through listservs and higher-ed articles requires a different kind of work. A different kind of cultivation of character that, frankly, most philosophers lack.

And here's the real kicker. The "crisis in philosophy" isn't just about being poor teachers who can't engage students. It's also about the very work that we do. Part of how I keep my classes interesting and relevant is by teaching interesting and relevant material (so, thanks, to you who publish such material). And part of how I keep myself motivated to do philosophy and finish my degree is by working on questions that are professionally and personally important and relevant to me. Trust me, I know that there are risks for how I am doing things. People might say that I am too unprofessional in how I teach because we talk about things very openly and casually, but they could not deny that we are also very philosophical. And thanks to the push back that I get from professors above me who don't seem to like or get what I do (I don't know which is worse), I am constantly reminded that I have to do what is "standard" and "conventional" in philosophy so that I can eventually get a job. Put simply, I probably won't get a job after writing my dissertation, which uses contemporary feminist work on affect and Nietzsche's views on physiology and philosophy to reframe how we can think of philosophical practice (in the old school sense of reading and writing theory) in ways that embrace its potential for therapeutically transforming those who do it as a mode of resistance to oppression.

So let's talk about risks. If people in tenured positions are worried about the crisis in philosophy, the budget cuts in the humanities, or what it means for their livelihoods, what are they doing to respect, support, encourage, and defend young scholars, un-tenured faculty, and graduate students who lack any kind of job security (or jobs at all), but are committed to doing philosophical work that stays true to the notion that philosophy is an intrinsically valuable practice, a way of life? I see how the work that I do is especially risky, but I am unwilling to jump through the hoops of conventional standards of philosophy in order to get a tenured position with the supposed promise that I will eventually be able to do what I want to do. (By the way, so far many of the comments from even the top feminist philosophers are making me question the tenability of such a promise.) Yes, I'm bull-headed on this. But let's face it. There aren't a whole lot of jobs out there to begin with. And if I had compromised on how I do philosophy at any point leading up to now, I know that I wouldn't have lasted this long in the discipline or in my program. I would have burned out, thrown up my hands, and said, "Fuck this, it's not worth it"  (which I almost did, multiple times, much like most people I know who've gone through this whole process).

But that's a real shame, because I know lots of people like me who are passionate and dedicated to philosophical practice, but who just get tired of having to fight the uphill battle against philosophical conventions and hierarchical bullying from unsympathetic professors. However, I know that sticking to it is worth it because philosophy is worth it....when it's done in certain ways. At the very least I know what philosophy has done for me and I see how my students react at the end of every semester.

So rather than wringing our hands and worrying about the backlash that we might face if we actually try to do what we feel like we should do and want to do in philosophy, I think it's most important to actually support each other in doing precisely those things. Be bold with our teaching. Be ambitious with our philosophizing. Be humble with our profession. And be open to doing things differently.  We need to learn how to communicate, how to improvise, how to listen, how to really ask genuine questions (with our students but also with one another) without needing to know the answers ahead of time. Perhaps we could also accept the possibility that we won't get to a stable answers, and that's a good thing. We can make these changes much more easily if we know that we are not alone and that we have support from others in the field, even if they aren't in our departments. If we can trust that others are going to be constructive, helpful, and cooperative, rather than just trying to tear us down or prove us wrong, then we can let our guards down, be less defensive, and actually work with a kind of honest curiosity, interest, passion, and sincerity that seems to be so hard to find and maintain.

After writing all of this, I want to thank you again for having these conversations. When I was faced with a challenging question at my prospectus defense this week that basically asked, "So you mean to suggest that you will go into a room of people who are interviewing you for a job and tell them that what they do is boring and irrelevant?" I responded, "In a sense, yes, because it's a pretty safe bet that what I am doing is not what they are doing. Philosophy can do more than it has typically been given credit. And I know that it's a risky position to hold if one's on the job market, but I also know that I am not alone. There was an article in the Chronicle this week that raises this precise issue, and some of the top names in feminist philosophy have been discussing it on the FEAST listserv for the past couple of days."

Your support and encouragement on these issues are appreciated, even by those (like myself) who you may not know are reading along and following your leadership.

A nice little story about my philifesophy

Thanks to Jamie Oberdick for putting together this short podcast on my philifesophy. I am so grateful for the opportunity to speak about what I've been up to on Youtube, this blog, and in my classrooms. And thanks, too, to Chris, Bryn, Jason, and Michael for their input!

You can find a link to the podcast here:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2011/tlt-newsletter-podcast-philosophy-grad-student-discusses-philifesophy-via-social-media

Open Letter to Penn State: #WEstillARE...but how and why?

After what people are describing as the most trying and difficult week in Penn State's history, it may seem like everything has changed. But I suspect that really, very little has changed at all. And that, I think, is quite unfortunate.

For all of those who felt dismay over the news about Sandusky's repeated sexual abuse of children, who were horrified by the details in the grand jury report, who were struck with rage, anger, or even heartbreak when the Board of Trustees fired Joe Paterno, who were filled with disappointment over the unfair, sensationalizing media coverage that portrayed Penn State students as misguided, riotous idiots, who emphasized that the actions of a few do not represent the majority, who gathered with candles in hand to insist that we have not forgotten about the victims, please accept this letter as a message for you.

Given the gravity of the scandal itself and the unbelievable series of events that followed after news broke out, the thousands upon thousands of people who have been directly and indirectly affected by it, and the depth of so many emotions that have been brewing over the past week, it is important to stay clear about the issues at stake. To begin, it doesn't really matter if you were in the riotous mob that turned over a news van or if you were among the mass of students at the vigil, because both events demonstrate the power of groups, and how quickly individuals can get swept up in "group think." There's little doubt that a vigil is a less pernicious collective demonstration than a violent riot, but the vigil, the solidarity marches, the singing of fight songs and the alma mater, and cheers of "We STILL are...Penn State!" raise strong doubts for me because, in large part, the greater context for these actions hasn't changed in light of the scandal. What these demonstrations reveal is that no matter how well-intentioned some groups and their actions may be, the vast majority of people who care about what has happened at Penn State over the past week have mostly failed to truly identify the problem for what it is, thereby unintentionally contributing to the problem itself.

Let me explain.


Here's what most people have been willing to recognize: Eight or more young boys were victimized and sexually abused by Sandusky over fifteen years, and there were repeated failures on every level of administration and leadership at the University and within the community to prevent it from happening again. This means that others--such as Spanier, Curly, McQueary, Schultz, and Paterno--are implicated to varying degrees by their complete impotence, inability, or unwillingness to act appropriately and recognize their responsibilities to aggressively intervene, to help the victims, to contact the authorities, to follow up and hold others accountable.

When Spanier and Paterno got fired, when major networks from CNN to Comedy Central started reporting on the riots that followed, a different "voice" was desperately trying to be heard. Aside from the less than 10% of the student body that rioted, there was a strong presence from concerned students who emphasized that we should be refocusing our attention on the real victims, the children. Of course we should show deep concern and compassion for their lives, their traumas, and their healing, and the vigil, the fundraising for RAINN, and the "blue-out" at the last home game were all student attempts to recognize the victims.

But I really don't want this piece to be read as yet another write-up that emphasizes the "for the victims" messages. To be blunt, I think we're still missing the point.

I don't want to suggest that raising funds and social awareness to stop the sexual abuse of children, holding vigils, and wearing blue to support the victims are bad things. Of course not. They are important actions that demonstrate a compassionate response to devastating realities. What I am trying to do is hold our attention on a deeper problem at Penn State. I think it's quite dangerous to say that we should turn our attention to the victims and insist that this whole situation isn't about football,  that it isn't about Joe Paterno, and that Penn State is more than just football anyway. That's because this situation involves more than just a series of crimes that were committed by one person towards a number of young kids. Many others were complicit in the cover-up and perpetuation of the crimes, which made it into a scandal, and the scandal came about because this whole situation actually IS about football, which means that this IS also about Joe Paterno. Of course, it's about much more, too, but for now, it has to be recognized that PSU football and Joe Paterno cannot be dismissed from the equation.


So here's the real problem--the one that should stay the focus of our attention, and the one to which people SHOULD have responded with anger, outrage, disappointment, and calls for collective action:

The leadership and administration at Penn State failed to do the right things. And the moral failures on behalf of so many people did not occur by accident.

People wonder, "Why didn't the children ever speak out?" or "Why didn't everyone who was involved do more?" To help answer these questions, we have to turn our attention to the power of Penn State as an institution and the blinding, cultural force that is Penn State football.

Sure, there's more to Penn State than just football, but one can't deny that the culture and identity of most PSU students center on that which Penn State is best known for:  football. And this is not a simple matter of exciting games and fun tailgates. Football generates millions and millions of dollars for the university. And with that money and notoriety comes an image, a reputation, a legacy that feeds into itself by generating more money, drawing more people to the university, funding one of the largest libraries in the nation, supporting top-notch research. The success of Penn State football is not separate from the academic flourishing of the university. For this reason, the student reaction to the firing of Joe Paterno was not wholly misguided. People LOVE Joe Pa and showed such dedicated loyalty to him in spite of the scandal because he has done so much for the university. Again, and more specifically, he helped build up a university, sports and academics and endowments and reputations included, by serving as the head coach of a football team.

When so much prestige, reputation, and revenue comes out of any department, which largely supports a university on the whole, the people involved in that department have very strong incentives to protect against anything that would shatter that image. For this reason, it may be unfair to think that the coaches and administrators were only looking out for themselves. One could perhaps even go so far as saying that by failing to do much of anything to stop the abuses, and thereby facilitating the cover-up that sowed the seeds for the present scandal, they were actually looking out for the best interest of the university and the student body at large.

A utilitarian calculation might suggest that when the reputation and culture and image of an institution that carries so much sway and influence over the lives and identities of hundreds of thousands of students and alumni was at stake, it may be better to give Sandusky a warning and a slap on the wrist by telling him to stop showering with boys and not appoint him as the next head football coach. The hope is that it would be enough to end the abuses without making the graphic details public, which would run the risk of jeopardizing the name of a University that so many love and support. In other words, when everyone invests so much into a university (emotionally and financially), that can put a lot of pressure on those in higher positions of power to protect the name of that institution. So it may not be that the particular individual interests of people like Sandusky, Spanier, and Paterno were set above the safety and rights of eight children. Instead, it could be that the interests of Penn State, Penn State football, and all of the students and fans and families who love Penn State took precedence.

What if this is what went through people's heads when they were caught in a position to make an ethical decision? What if the interests of the institution, and those who benefit from its power and prestige (again, not just Spanier or Paterno, but the interests of everyone else too, including all the students and alumni and fans who bleed blue and white), were set above the interests of specific individuals who, in this case, were a handful of young children?

I raise these questions to highlight a tension and put it into critical questioning: Could it be that the dedication, loyalty, love, and commitment to Penn State that has been conjured up by student-led movements for solidarity, to proudly claim that "We STILL Are...Penn State," are rooted to the very same investment in and identification with an institution that fed into the unethical decisions of its administrative leaders? If so, how might this possibility change our responses to the events from the past week?

I'll put it another way. Since we are those very students and fans and Penn State loyalists whose interests might have been protected at the expense of the victims' protection and well-being, this presents us with a valuable opportunity to clarify our true values and real interests as a university.  We have the chance to prove to others, including the administration, that being a Penn Stater means more than just being a die-hard Nittany Lions fan. We have to show that, to us, being a part of Penn State means that we are part of an institution that is committed to leadership and service, and that what makes Penn State special is its sense of support and community, and that these things can be formed outside of parties and tailgates on football weekends.

When we find ourselves in a situation like last week, where the veil is lifted to reveal a scandal, I think it's important to rethink our responses. What does it mean to state things like, "Despite everything that has happened, I am still proud to be a Nittany Lion!" or "I still love Joe Paterno!" It's even worth considering what it means to say, "We Still Are Penn State," for these messages imply that we hold the same commitments, same ideals, and same values that could have led the University's administrators to do wrong. Or, if nothing else, they shift our negative judgments to the "few bad apples" by denying that we have any role in their poor decision-making processes. While this might make us feel better, as if we are able to disassociate ourselves from the administration that guides us, it only keeps us blind to how our loyalties might have actually fed into the systematic moral failures that we so desperately want to reproach.

Fortunately, if you don't buy into utilitarian calculations and you think that there is no balancing act that would ever justify the cover-up of repeated sexual abuses against children, no matter how many people might be distraught and negatively affected if such a secret within the Penn State athletic department got out, then there is an alternative approach. I have in mind a response that places honesty, integrity, and justice above any name or image associated with Penn State and the Nittany Lions. If we as students truly value the well-being of victims over protecting the image of Penn State and football, then our responses this week should have been those that make it resoundingly clear that no matter how much good a person has done for the university that we love, we will not support them if they fail to do what is right. And that is because, no matter how much we proudly and affectionately identify with a university, we will do so only if it holds itself, and everyone who is a part of it, to the highest moral standards.

So rather than rioting in the streets "in support of Joe Pa," and rather than (or at least in addition to) channeling efforts to form counter-demonstrations "in support of the victims," we should look to the heart of the problem, which is the unethical privileging of the interest of the university over the interests of individuals who have been harmed. And rather than reiterating our loyalty to an institution that is clearly capable of committing heinous wrongs by stating "We Still Are Penn State," we as students should take a moment to reflect on the situation and all of the complexities that it entails. We must find ways to prove to the current administration that immoral decisions should never be made in our name, and that nothing is more important to us than our ability to trust in their ethical, admirable, and respectable leadership.

To make these points, we probably should have rallied at Old Main over the first weekend when the news of the scandal became public. We should have supported the decisions of the Board of Trustees to dismiss everyone whose failures to report and intervene made them complicit in the crimes. We should still be encouraging the Board to take further action against those who have not been dismissed and whose legal fees will be paid by money from our tuition. And one of the most powerful public demonstrations that Penn State students could have done to really make the point that we stand for what is right above all else, including the prestige and money and culture that is generated by Penn State football, would have been to boycott the last home game.

I started by saying that, despite all of the events that occurred at Penn State over the past week, very little has changed. And that's because Penn State students have continued to do what they've always been really good at--getting thousands of people together to make a point. They did so in the from of a riot in the streets, at the stadium  in blue to cheer on our football team, and at Old Main to honor victims. The problem, however, is that none of the collective action was directly targeted at the University itself or the powers that be. And very few have taken the time to call their loyalties into question. When we say, "We Still Are Penn State," this does not do enough to make it absolutely clear that we demand moral integrity as a university.  And it doesn't evidence that we do not love our alma mater unconditionally.

Think for a Change (19): The Other Ethical Problem with the Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal

In light of the Penn State scandal that has struck Happy Valley and gained news coverage across the nation, I think it is important to remember that there are multiple issues at stake. Not just Penn State's reputation; not the jobs of a few men; not simply that a number of young boys were abused and victimized. It is important to recognize that all of these elements were combined in such a way that led to moral failures on behalf of university administration and leaders who protected the image of an institutional at the expense of the interests of individual victims. The prevalence of sexual abuse must be addressed at large, but this reveals the dangers of sexual abuse when it is mixed with institutional power. Figuring out how to encourage a greater ability to locate moral accountability and cultivate moral sensibility, along with fostering the capacity to do right actions, should be a major task that is highlighted by this very sad and disturbing situation.