Breaking Bad and Philosophy

Can you tell us a little about your background and how you ended up involved with the Popular Culture and Philosophy books?

ROBERT ARP: I first got involved in 2003 when two of my graduate student colleagues at Saint Louis University, Jason Eberl and Kevin Decker, got a contract with Open Court Publishers to do Star Wars and Philosophy in their Popular Culture and Philosophy series; the one that was started with Seinfeld and Philosophy and then the wildly successful The Simpsons and Philosophy.  I have a chapter in the Star Wars book about droids and what constitutes personhood.  Bill Irwin was series editor at that point.  He moved to Wiley-Blackwell and started The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, and my South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today was the first book in that series.  I have more than 30 chapters in these kinds of books, and I’ve edited another half dozen or so.  Hard to believe it’s been 10 years!

Pilots N Paws Interview

Can you tell us a little about yourself and how did you come up with Pilots N Paws’ idea?

I have always had a deep connection with animals. I am a retired nurse, have raised Morgan Horses for 25 years, and share my life with my wonderful husband, two Dobermans, one Lhasa Apso who definitely rules, and of course our barn kitties.  Prior to Pilots N Paws, I was one of the founding members of a rescue organization known as Doberman Assistance Network, a national Doberman rescue group. When we lost our 12 year old Doberman to cancer, we wanted our next dobie family member to be a rescue dog.  The perfect dog for our family ended up being in Florida and we are in South Carolina.  Due to his condition, we knew he was used as a sparring partner to teach other dogs how to fight.  We had to bring him home, of that, there was no question.  I asked a group of friends if anyone was traveling my direction from Florida.  Our friend in Tennesse who is a pilot with a private plane replied that he would just fly over, pick up my husband and fly to Florida and bring our boy  home to us.  I was astounded at his generous offer. After the flight he asked if there was a need to move rescue animals. After sharing the trials of ground transportation, the only means available to rescue groups to  move these animals , he agreed that we needed to do something.  I knew rescue work, he knew pilots and told me that they are always looking for a good reason to fly.  What better reason then to save a life?  The name Pilots N Paws immediately came to my mind and with that, the program literally took flight.  I feel strongly that it is our responsibility, as humans, to be the guardians for animals others have abandoned, abused, or simply can no longer care for.  If we don’t, who will?

Jean Philippe Vergne Interview

What are the main points behind The Pirate Organization: Lessons from the Fringes of Capitalism book? How did you and Rodolphe Durand and you come up with the idea?

Back in 2005, at a time when I was reading a lot about cyber-piracy, I visited the Scheepvaart Museum in Amsterdam (Maritime Museum), which featured an exhibition about sea piracy in the 17^th century. And I began to realize there were many connections between these two historically distant forms of piracy. So I asked myself: why do we use the same term, “piracy”, to describe sea robbers in the modern age and some hackers nowadays in cyberspace? What do they have in common? A few years later, Rodolphe and I were talking about the history of capitalism from the perspective of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy. We had similar views in many respects – in particular, we both believed that Deleuze (and Guattari) did a great job at theorizing capitalism, except that we felt that their story would benefit a lot from looking at an additional level of analysis – the organizational level. We were unsatisfied with the idea that capitalism was just about individual desires and the State. In between the two, there are many different types of organizations that channel human agency. In a way, the bureaucratic organization (in the Weberian sense) can be seen as the mother of all capitalist technologies. Pirates, in particular, are not lone wolves but belong to organizations that are sometimes powerful enough to change the course of history by making visible the inherent contradictions of the capitalist State. In fact, we realized that piracy was key in explaining many aspects of capitalism’s evolution that economists hadn’t addressed at all. We decided to join forces and write a book together in 2010. It first came out in French under the title L’Organisation Pirate.

Charles Eisenstein Interview

1. You say that money needs a transformation with a profound effect from profanity to sacredness. What’s behind the concept of Sacred Economics?

The book starts with the observation that money is not aligned with what is becoming sacred to us, for example ecological healing and social justice. In the past, we have just taken that opposition for granted. We assumed that goodness, sacredness, and so forth were outside the money realm, that holy people don't have much to do with money. But this is no longer sustainable, because the behavior that money drives is destroying the planet. We need to change the nature of money, so that it is no longer the enemy of sustainability, not to mention the sacred. The book describes how we got to our current state of a crisis that won't quite go away, and how we can change the money system and the economy that embeds it. It also explores the personal and community dimensions of this transition.

Carl King Interview

1. If you could give only one advice to someone who wants to launch an artistic career, which one would it be? A sort of “cast in stone” mantra that could be repeated over and over.

It's difficult to write it as a mantra. But artists need to learn about healthy compromise. That doesn't mean you should get taken advantage of, or never do the things you love, but unless you're already independently wealthy, you need to trade something of value to others in order to survive. It's how human society generally functions. If you don't bother to create something that other people want, you'll have a difficult life. I see artists of all ages who refuse to learn that simple lesson. 

Song lyrics that could be a movie VOL.1

BLOG CONTRIBUTOR

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips

If we leave the metaphor meaning of the lyrics aside, this could be a psychedelic heroine based epic flick. A thrilling story with several layers, spiced up, fun and cheeky could be found in this hypothetical movie adaptation.

DIRECTED BY:

The first name that comes to my mind is Quentin Tarantino because he has a unique vision and he’s very good writing witty dialogues. Another good option –with a more hectic approach- could be the Russian director Timur Bekmambetov.

ACTRESS: Ziyi Zhang

Louis Ferrante Interview

1. In your book Mob Rules: What the Mafia can teach the legitimate businessman you talk about the importance of sniffing out opportunity. What is the best opportunity that you spotted and took advantage to?

There were many and most dealt with human relationships. Knowing I was a reliable guy who would never break my word, many people who had great opportunities fall into their laps but didn’t know what to do with them would bring them to me. So keeping your word and always delivering on your promises was like a magnet for opportunities.