A few years ago, something about the UK's cultural landscape struck me as odd. We are world leaders at staging literary and music festivals like Cheltenham and Glastonbury, but philosophy was completely excluded from the festival circuit. It was seen as a trifling aside, a bit of a joke, rather than a subject worthy of a significant event.
As a nation, we can come across as deeply anti-intellectual and probably for very good reason, because philosophers and intellectuals tend to lock themselves away in academies talking a form of language that doesn't really have a bearing on us. For some, philosophy is seen as embedding a male mode of thinking, a phallogocentrism that discourages women. For others, it is part of an exclusive cultural framework that works to intimidate through bullish debate and a seemingly impenetrable linguistic code.
I wanted to get away from this; to show that philosophy affects the way we operate and that it matters. I wanted to see philosophy escape from the academy and into people's lives. That's why I founded HowTheLightGetsIn, a philosophy and music festival in Hay-on-Wye. I wanted to create a space where real human interaction could take place. A space whether emerging thinkers could be offered a platform alongside more established names from across the disciplines; where ideas, not celebrity, would be the prerequisite for participation.
We started small, with only one venue, a few events and a handful of inquisitive people. Five years on, we're the biggest philosophy festival in the world. This year, we are expecting over 35,000 visitors to come along over ten days to enjoy a range of events that will include solo talks, debates, film screenings, comedy and parties.
If public perceptions of philosophy are slowly changing, so too are attitudes in universities. Whereas practitioners once upheld elitist leanings and favoured disengaging moral philosophy over that of political thinkers, they are now more ready to embrace students' concerns with the "real world". This change of direction is grounded in pragmatism: with high student fees, courses need to prove that they are relevant to contemporary life or risk losing out.
The professional sphere is also reconsidering its bias against philosophy graduates. Companies, particularly those in the finance, property development and business sectors, are seeking out philosophy graduates who can think around issues, demonstrate an analytical mind, question assumptions and be innovative - abilities which are key to the subject.
HowTheLightGetsIn has put paid to the idea that the public want dumbed down culture. With an unashamedly highbrow programme tackling the latest theories in everything from philosophy and art to science and politics, this year we'll be focusing on our new theme, 'Unchartered Territories' and asking our audience to consider whether the founding principles of western thought are still useful to us or whether we should be seeking out alternative narratives to give us direction.
In a way, everyone is a philosopher. We're all trying to work out what our lives are about. In this period of economic, environmental, and political transition, that is surely something worth embracing.
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HowTheLightGetsIn 2012 - The Philosophy and Music Festival at Hay
2011 PROGRAMME - Tickets | HowTheLightGetsIn at Hay festival
Lets look at France - every school child has been made familiar with the pantheon of great philosophers and their basic proclamations for many decades. It's not unusual for an 18 year old French person to be able to discuss various ideas by Kant, Derrida or Hegel. No dusty academic rooms in this culture of philosophy, usually an impeccable spread of food.
Not so in the UK. Philosophy has all but been entirely absent from any school curriculum applied to the masses and has only just started to appear as an extra curricula subject in recent years.
Why this difference ? Lets go back in time. Generally speaking the Romans were highly suspicious of Greek philosophy. They felt it un-pragmatic and not conducive with their colonial desires, though they made sure that their wealthiest families were educated by Greek tutors.
Does this sound familiar ? Like the Romans, philosophy in Britain has been used specifically to provide a romantic education to the aristocracy through the ritual teaching of Ancient philosophy in private schools and universities like Oxbridge. The masses on the other hand, have been systemically excluded from any exposure to philosophy during the history of national education.
So we need to change our essentially jingoistic attitude to philosophy, stop being so suspicious of it, stop seeing it as though it is some kind of foreign pollutant. and start to teach the masses a broad knowledge of philosophy as a matter of course.
Philosophy writings are riddled with citations. Are you allowed to say more than three sentences without quoting to show that your incremental move of great tininess does not offend the canon?
Does the Modern belief that knowledge exists in space-time and has persistent existence still have currency?
I have moved to believing that knowledge exists outside of space-time, being abstract and conceptual, has no persistence, and exists only intermittently at moments when we attend to it.