Reaction to tweet about analytic philosophy

Someone who purports to be, and for all I know, is, a professional philosopher, sent a message on Twitter saying that she found the UK’s “obsession with analytic philosophy so fucking boring, uncritical and myopic, that they only just realised sex is a topic of theory.” She is called Isabel Millar.

As young people say, I have a problem with this. A number of problems, in fact.

1. If only the UK had had more of an “obsession” with analytic philosophy, then it would have cared more about the meaning of terms in the run up to the June 2016 referendum. The endless pursuit of what words actually mean can seem boring, at times, but that is no reason to stop the pursuit. If you don’t care what words mean, you are not a philosopher.

2. As regards sex, name me one writer from the last 70 years who has had more effect on the liberalisation of sexual relationships in the UK than Bertrand Russell.

3. If you don’t like Bertrand Russell’s writings, that is fine, but I will take your opinion more seriously if you are being picked up off the road in front of Aldermaston, when you are 96 (ninety-six) years old, assuming that I am still alive then, as well.

I know I support a lot of dead, privileged, white guys. But when you attack them, please pick the right white guy, for something like the right reason.

You don’t need to quote all the bad things that Bertrand Russell did, because I am, like him in his later years, a philosophical materialist, which means that I don’t have “h*r*es” (I can’t even bring myself to write the word). I am only interested in his ideas, not what he had for breakfast.

It is a fact that Bertrand Russell, dead privileged white guy, was a progressive force. And he applied that force for a very, very long time. If Mandela were still alive, I would be asking you what his opinion of Bertrand Russell was. And in the 1950s and 60s, if you had asked Bertrand Russell his opinion of apartheid, you would have been left in no doubt. This has now been conflated on the internet by a Russell Tribunal about Palestine. But that is partly the point. If I give of myself to progressive causes as much as 0.1 per cent as much as Bertrand Russell did, I will consider that I have done well. And Bertrand Russell expanded our ideas of what “progressive causes” are. Yes, a dead, privileged white guy. But a dead, privileged, good, white guy.

A dead, privileged, good, very thorough, white guy.

Tutorial question

A works in the marketing department of a publishing business.  She falls in love with the office boy, B, whom she believes has a mild learning disability. 

C is the manager of this department.  He is determined to shape the department in his image. 

D is an admin assistant who lusts after E, another admin assistant, who is a Buddhist, and believes that lust is a craving that can be removed from consciousness, by meditation.  E’s lama is F, whose day job is geography teacher at the school attended by C’s son, G. 

F has been confided in by H, another pupil whose father, I, is abusing his mother, J, and has threatened K, L, and M, their next door neighbours.  M is another pupil at the school. 

G is bullying H and M, at school, and also B, outside school.

N is a liaison police officer called in to investigate the fragmentary allegations made by H.  She does not think the case will stand up.  She does the most thorough investigation that time and budget will allow.  In the course of her work, she meets A, at an event to promote literacy, and falls in love with her. 

F, under mild interrogation, cracks, and blurts out his connection with E.  The police immediately consider this to be a cult-related, exploitative, or abusive relationship, and pull in E for questioning.  When E is asked whom she wants to be informed of her arrest, she cites D, who is then investigated, and also called in for questioning.

I goes on a violent spree, and randomly throws a brick at D, while she is on her way to the police station.  The police assume that D and I have some previous association.  D becomes a person of interest, because she has now been cited twice in the investigation. 

G’s bullying is now turning into a criminal racket, which involves O, P, and Q.  Q is D’s daughter. 

Q arranges a meeting between R, an assassin, and D, with the intention of killing I.  D explains to them that her problem is not I, so much as G. 

R works for C. R considers for a while whether it is in his own interests to tell C what is happening.  This will be contingent on how many hits he is paid for. 

D surmises this, but pays R to kill a few people she doesn’t like, to keep him busy (S, T, U, V, W, X, Y. Z).  E finds out about this, and is appalled.  D saves the money it would have taken to pay R to kill E, and kills E, herself.

B has heard most of what has gone on, because he was there, but people could not see him, or because they could see him, but thought he could not understand what he might hear. 

 B tells A that C and G are gangsters.  She doesn’t believe him. 

In a chance meeting between A and N, N meets B.  N gets talking with B, and surmises that B has valuable testimony. 

A tells N that B’s testimony cannot be trusted.  N tells A to piss off. 

Between them, B and N unravel the whole thing.  B tells N about the abuse of J, K, L, and M by I.  N overthrows capitalism and institutes a new system of political economy based on human need, and arranges for a properly funded safe house for the people affected by the violence to stay in. 

Question 1.  

Comment on the culpability of C and G, and the sentences meted out to them, should they be brought to justice.

Question 2.

Comment on the culpability of  D and R, and the sentences meted out to them, should they be brought to justice.