The Philosophy of D'Oh

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn't been doing his villainous best to provide you, his loyal minions, with the finest cutting-edge commentary and opinion over the past few days.

And this post will not change that trend. But, your Maximum Leader did want to take a moment to direct his philosophically minded minions to a Christian Science Monitor article entitled, How Homer Simpson can enrich philosophy class.

Your Maximum Leader and his Poet Laureate have talked quite a bit (and perhaps exchanged books) related to the Simpsons and philosophy, or the Matrix and philosophy, etc. And your Maximum Leader will say that he is generally in favour of any attempt by academics to utilize pop-culture examples as a method of stimulating serious discussion. Where the use of pop-culture examples break down is when the examples themselves become the focus of the discussion and not the philosophical concept behind the example.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if Keith Burgess-Jackson uses pop-culture examples in his classes? Hummm... Perhaps it is worth an e-mail to find out.

Carry on.

Update: After reviewing his library some, your Maximum Leader has remembered the two books relating the Simpsons to philosophy about which the Big Homind and he were speaking. They are "The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer" and "The Gospel According to The Simpsons." They are well worth your time to read.