The Nature of Philopolis, pt. 4

The first three installments, which can be found here, here, and here, have generated lots of interesting comments and discussion, so I'm very excited to see what responses I get to the this fourth and final installment in which I draw my conclusions. Really looking forward to discussing some feedback.

            So what is Philopolis offering that’s unique? For now, we differ from both Chautauqua and TED in our outlook on the creation of knowledge, in that we strongly endorse a participatory model rather than a cloistered-production-and-dissemination model. Philopolis has the in-person feel of Chautauqua, which is unfortunately campy and niche at the moment. However, given that we don’t pass this off as a wholesome summer camp, but rather as a festival, we move in a much more urban circle than the rural Chautuaquans. Hopefully that makes us less camp.

            At the opposite extreme, TED dominates the massive online dissemination model, whereas Philopolis has basically no online presence. What little online presence we have basically serves entirely to draw people to the in-person festivals, which are the real bread and butter of our organization. However, if we were to drastically expand our online presence, what would it look like? TED has videos of talks, but that’s appropriate for the dissemination model of education in a way that doesn’t seem to suit the participatory model. An online community of Philopolis would be more of a discussion board (or set of discussion boards) than a set of videos. Discussion boards, of course, exist all over the internet. What Philopolis would hopefully “lack” is the near-instant recourse to the ad hitlerum fallacy that we find in any online thread. Is that even possible? Or does one need face-to-face interaction to resist calling one’s interlocutor a Nazi at the drop of a hat?

            Another potential obstacle is that online interaction often takes place in short bursts. There is a parallel in teaching here: pedagogical researchers, of whom I’m often deeply distrustful, tell me that students have a very short attention span and that we therefore should be switching activities every 20 minutes. First off, this endorses the tacit assumption that even if their attention span really is that short, that they cannot (or should not) be expected to work at lengthening their attention span. And I don’t believe that either of those things is true. Second, short spans of attention seem to me incompatible with philosophical reflection as it’s currently practiced. That’s not to say that philosophical reflection shouldn’t change either, but my point is that there is an impasse between currently short attention spans and the current model of philosophical reflection that requires sustained time and effort. I don’t think that we should give in entirely to either of those: we shouldn’t resign ourselves to short attention spans, nor should we preclude the possibility of philosophical reflection evolving in a fruitful fashion that does not require quite as lengthy an engagement as it currently does.

            So Philopolis faces the following challenges: first, embrace the urban feel of the festival, which differentiates us from the campiness of Chautauqua camp. Second, embrace the participatory model of knowledge and education that distances us from both Chautauqua and TED. Third, negotiate the current impasse between short attention spans and the time-consuming cognitive demands of present philosophical practice. Fourth, negotiate the enormous gap between the universal but “thin” sense of community that comes with present forms of online interaction, and the “thick” sense of community that comes with in-person interaction, as well as the serial bursts vs. sustained attention that goes with that dichotomy.

            This is the state of the Philopolis union so far as I can see it at this point. My hope is not that this conception goes unchallenged: I welcome revisions to my questions and challenges as much as I welcome answers to them. Also, it’s kind of nice to think that some of these issues are those that are defining of our time: the relationship between communication, community and education (and democracy), and how that relationship is affected by the introduction of new online technologies, which in turn replace modes of communication that have been the bedrock of our culture for decades (and in some cases centuries). Are online and real life opposed, or can they play complementary roles? Can philosophical reflection evolve into bite-sized chunks, or is it essential that it be a sustained activity? Is a hybrid of theory and practice a reasonable goal to set for oneself as a community?