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talkPOPc's Podcast
talkPOPc or the Philosophers' Ontological Party club, is a public philosophy + socially engaged art practice non-profit founded by Dr. Dena Shottenkirk, who is both a philosopher and an artist. talkPOPc sponsors one-to-one conversations between a participant and a philosopher (who always dons our amazing gold African king hat!) Various philosophers participate and these conversations happen in various places. For example, we go into bars and have one-to-one conversations. Various bars, both dives and fancy. We go to Grand Central Station in New York City. We set up shop on the sidewalk outside of City Hall in Philly. We go into bodegas all over Brooklyn. We sit down next to the deli counter and hold a conversation with someone who has walked in to get a ham sandwich and walked out knowing so much more about their own thoughts. We go into city parks or down dead end streets and set up the talkPOPc's tent. We listen. Here are some of those conversations.
talkPOPc's Podcast
Episode #117: Resident Philosopher Vincent Peluce talks with talkPOPc participant Levi about censorship
00 - 6:55 Vincent and Levi debate whether there are kinds of speech that one should censor. Levi argued that censorship should be avoided in general, not just of government speech but of social speech. After all, people are too sensitive to censorship to ask questions. Vincent acknowledged that censorship is a hard topic these days, citing neo-Nazi rhetoric as an example.
6:57 - 23:13 Vincent and Levi discuss the influence of social media. Vincent believes that social media is now international and even global, and everything happens very quickly. Levi agreed and believed that people in different social conditions would have different ideas, censorship cannot stop people from thinking but talking. He believes that what people need today is "the third space," a psychological term that means giving people space to change their minds and reject past ideas instead of always sticking to the ideas they had ten years ago. therefore, people need to slow down and focus, learn from real-life conversations rather than social media, and value feedback from real people rather than Twitter friends.
23:15 - 32:05 Levi mentioned his favorite ship theory, which is to gradually replace parts of the old ship and combine the replaced parts of the old ship into a new ship, so the old ship and the new ship may be difficult to identify but are never the same. He compared people to ships, and thoughts are parts, "After traveling around the world, we are the original ship, but it does not mean that all parts are the same. The key is how to update your thoughts, and behavior gives people the opportunity to change ideas." He likes how old Disney movies are mentioned at the beginning as being "not representative of today's culture" because they respect the original and separate it from today's values.
32:07 -61:40 Levi came up with the idea that people are reluctant to engage in conversation because it's unsafe to talk in some places, and humor is a great way to solve complex problems, just like Tom chasing Jerry can always make people laugh. Vincent agrees but thinks humor isn't the only way. Then they talked about why people like comedy characters, the possibility of the film Step Brothers remake, and why some comedy shows are so popular, all with unexpected parts and combinations in common.
61: 45- 73:44 Vincent summarized the content of this conversation and expressed his personal reflections: Expanding into new conversations is difficult but always rewarding in the end, and personal conversations often turn into larger conversations.