Why the Simpsons is Philosophical

My dad and I are, whether the result of nature or nurture, very alike in some respects, but - being thirty years apart - very different in others, e.g. taste in music, TV and, well, most matters of taste really! One result was disagreement over whether to watch the new series of the Simpsons on Channel 4 tonight, or some gardening programme (that saw me confined to the dining room's portable TV).

(Incidentally, other than the Edgar Allen Poe Raven one, I'm not much of a fan of Simpsons Hallowe'en specials - particularly show at inappropriate time - but the second episode tonight was good, and hopefully augurs well for the series).

One thing my dad said, however, struck a kind of chord with me. He said I should watch programmes about real people, where I might learn something, rather than that cartoon rubbish (or words to that effect).

It occurs to me there are two types of programme about 'real people': those that deal with exceptional people, which may be interesting but from which we learn only very isolated particulars, and those that deal with ordinary, and consequently uninteresting, people (witness Big Brother).

Whatever my dad watched was, I assume, either concerned only with particulars or boring (or both). Good comedy, however, has to be something you can relate to - e.g. dealing with the ordinary matters of family, relationships or work. This includes the Simpsons. While the people might be yellow and have three fingers, in many ways they are ordinary humans - we see ourselves in them, and can relate to them. Comedy holds a mirror up to reality; we see universals instantiated.

It was for similar reasons that Aristotle said poetry is more philosophical than history - it deals with universals rather than mere particulars. So, I contend, the Simpsons is more philosophical than whatever programme about 'real people' my dad watched.

(By the way, the same is true about sci-fi)

Simpsons do Local Democracy

I remember skim-reading a paper a while back (I think it was in the journal Politics) about the potential of The Simpsons for engaging students with democracy. Springfield holds regular New England-style town meetings, which often demonstrate shortcomings of deliberation and the danger of demagogues - perhaps most memorably (for me) the one where a singing salesman convinces the townspeople to spend a windfall on a monorail.

In tonight's episode (which featured a guest appearance from U2), Homer got into an argument with the refuse collectors which eventually led to him running for sanitation commissioner, being elected on the basis of 'crazy promises', spending his year's budget in a month and then making up the financial hole by filling another - letting other cities bury their rubbish in a disused mine under Springfield until rubbish was literally popping up out of the ground. A fine example of local demcoracy in action...

Simpsons, Again

Continuing the theme that The Simpsons is philosophical, or at least educational, tonight Channel 4 showed a rather interesting episode that told the stories of Odysseus, Joan of Arc and Hamlet.

Unfortunately, aside from obviously rather truncating events, they did get some key details wrong. We saw Homer - as Odysseus - leave Troy, but the only adventures we see on the way home are Circe and the Sirens - no Cyclops or Scylla.

What's more, they get some of these parts horrendously wrong - in the actual epic, Odysseus orders his men to plug their ears, while he is tied to the mast to listen to the Sirens' song (hence the title of Elster's book on bounded rationality). In this version, the crew row happily toward the rocks, only to be repelled by the Sirens' hideousness (they're Patty and Selma). And when Odysseus finally gets home, he simply skewers Penelope's suitors on a spear, rather than going through all the trouble of disguising himself and stringing a bow.

The Simpsons on Art

I only caught the last ten minutes or so of The Simpsons last night (which I rarely watch at all these days, due to not watching a lot of TV at all and it being a bit early for mealtime, even on C4+1). It was this episode, in which Homer becomes an 'outsider artist.' I may have to see whether I can work a reference to this into my Aesthetics lectures; particularly this quote:
[Homer floods the town as an art project]
Bart Simpson: Are you sure this is art, not vandalism?
Homer: That's for the courts to decide, son.

Bleg

Watching The Simpsons Friday night (I said it could be educational), Bart thrust his book of short stories into the dog's mouth. The camera closed in on what was left of a page reading "All in all, it had been a very strange lottery. The End" I was wondering if anyone could tell me where this came from?

Googling has so far proved ineffective. All I've found is it was used in a signature by someone posting on deviantART. The only other lead I got was to Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, but that's not the last line of her story.

Newspaper Links 4: Postgraduate Tutorials

Today being my teaching day - three tutorials - what really caught my eye was The Cherwell's article on postgraduate teaching (which, incidentally, quotes my friend Nick). Indeed, I was particular caught by their focus on students turning up only to find a note telling them the tutorial had been cancelled - I did that a couple of weeks ago, though not at 8:30 in the morning!

Tutorials are such a personal interaction between students and tutor that it's obvious some will be better than others, and indeed a tutor who's great for one student might be bad for another. There's no intrinsic reasons why a graduate student should be worse than an older professor. Of course, they may be very different - the professor probably has years of experience, but the grad student may have better knowledge of recent debates and have been through the reading and even exams and lectures recently him/her-self. Also the much more relaxed atmosphere you may get with a younger teacher may make the tutorial not only more pleasant but perhaps more relevant - like today, The Simpsons came up in my tute.

It's understandable that some students will want to be taught by leading figures in their fields, and they usually have the opportunity in lectures. Tutorial teaching, however, is very intensive. We'd be loath to lose it - see here, here and here - so we have to accept the reality: either it will be more graduates teaching or fewer tutorials.

Finally, they're quite right to point out grad students are often inexperienced teachers. I wish I'd been given more training - and I'm one of the lucky ones that has at least been through the system from the other side. But I simply don't see how having a DPhil - a research qualification - is supposed to instill teaching competence. If grad students weren't allowed to teach, we'd have a number of freshly-qualified doctors who'd be similarly inexperienced. At least while we're still pursuing the DPhil we have more time to devote to the teaching - indeed, it's often a welcome distraction from the dreaded thesis, rather than the burden it is for many fellows.

Two Things from TV

I've previously gone on record as a fan of the Simpsons. Tonight's Channel 4 show (actually one I'd commented on before) was particularly educational - offering re-tellings of Homer's Odyssey, Joan of Arc and Hamlet. One glaring inaccuracy though, that needs to be pointed out, is groundskeeper Willie showing up in the Hundred Years War, between the French and English, and declaring himself a great English hero!

Afterwards, as I flicked through the channels - wondering what to watch without Wimbledon - I caught the end of the quiz show Eggheads, where the decisive final question was 'where was political theorist Machiavelli from? Florence, Rome or Milan'. Reminds me of the time I saw 'What was Wittgenstein's first name?' for £125,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionnaire? - if more quiz questions were about philosophers and political theorists, I could probably do them, but as it is I'd use up all my life-lines not knowing soap actors!