Philosophy is thus both a universal aim of reason and, simultaneously, one that manifests itself in completely specific moments.*

 

Rory McIlroy achieved a specific moment of golf, which may or may not be reasonable, depending on your sporting tastes, when a dimpled, white ball trundled over a pristine green sward to end its chug-a-chug progress by falling into a neat round hole, with a satisfying chutter.

He achieved his aim of universal validation, as millions of viewers, on-site and in front of screens, witnessed the specific moment. That moment achieved the universal aim of commercial success for the tournament organisers, their sponsors and for all the business interests that benefit from golf.

Emotions soared, at the green-side and far away, principally delight and relief.

McIlroy is the well-mannered son of loving parents. He speaks clearly and modestly, when interviewed by public media. He is their darling. 

Being from the north-east of Ireland, he has learned to negotiate a complex triangle of political, religious and national identities that befuddles other public figures. His approach is to use them all, as and when they suit him. And to ignore them when they don’t.

In this, he is like many wealthy people. He can ‘rise above it all’. Nonetheless, specific moments trouble him. The Olympics required him to pick a flag and anthem combo, both versions of which made him uncomfortable. He let the Olympics go by. Besides, there was no money in it.

Being from Northern Ireland, Rory McIlroy can carry both British and Irish passports, thus he can be a subject of a monarch and a citizen of a republic at the same time, a very useful two par. He may have a specific moment of reasoning when, as is likely, the British Crown offers him an honour later this year.

Some people, not all of them golf fans, are uncomfortable with this and advise he choose either/or. Others see him as a celebrity success of the outworking of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. 

While Article 40.2 of the Irish Constitution says that no Irish citizen can accept a title of nobility or honour from a foreign state without the approval of the government, it’s a hole-in-one certainty that such approval would follow. It’s up to Rory which club to play at this hole, needing to stay out of the water, while still making the green. 

Will he then wheel along in a golf-buggy to appease the US President, who is a golf enthusiast, as the tariff war launched by the Trump regime runs its course, whenever the regime’s inside-market trader profits max out?

Rory is a multi-millionaire. His own financial dealings include substantial gifts to favoured charities, including MENCAP. False reports that he gave his bulging winner’s wallet from the US Masters Tournament to the learning disability charity soured the immediate aftermath of the win. It is all part of being a celebrity sports star and, as with most things in life, Rory will play his way out of the rough.

He persists. 

That is his specific talent and the universal aim for all humans striving for success as the world currently defines it. It leads to various forms of exceptionalism. Rory, and his fellows, comprise the exception, which the media determines universal.

The commercial and sporting worlds follow Rory. Millions of people, oblivious to his activities, experience specific moments of the unreasonableness of these worlds and their universal pursuit of profit.

*The Years Of Theory: Post-war French Thought to the Present Day

Frederic Jameson, Verso, London, 2024 

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The history of philosophy is not a history of ideas: it is a history of problems*

Ideas are problems. 

The idea that a liberal democracy can call itself that, even as it re-commences modern manoeuvre warfare on a human population corralled into a narrow terrain beside the Mediterranean Sea is a problem of politics.

UNICEF reports that 14,500 children have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, more than the number of children killed in 4 years of wars worldwide. 25,000 children have been injured. Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. 17,000 children have been separated from their parents or find themselves unaccompanied. Over a million children have been displaced. 

These are terrible figures. The war has destroyed almost all essential infrastructure. Sunday newspapers report the finding of a mass grave, where Israeli forces buried 15 paramedic and rescue works near Rafah. 

These figures arise from a programme of terror.

The idea of a liberal democracy responding to terrorist actions in that manner is a problem for humanity. Will the perpetrators survive such an idea? Will humans survive such an idea?

The idea that leading world liberal democracies advance their economies by manufacturing and exporting weapons of war used in the programme of terror on Gaza is a problem.

These are problems of politics and justice. And philosophy. 

The philosophical pursuit of wisdom involves facing into general and fundamental problems.

The idea that mercantilism, as driven by the current US administration, led by President Trump, can provide an approach to world affairs in the 21st century, when it failed in the 18^th century, is a problem of economics. And philosophy.

What philosophy is behind the switch from globalisation with limited tariffs and light regulation to full-on tariff-setting and tightening of export-import regulations? High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods, are a feature of mercantilist philosophy. And a problem.

It is a re-working of Trussonomics: the idea that tax cuts for the wealthy makes economies grow in the long term, regardless of pressure from the casino capitalists in the international stock markets. And that pressure is mounting.

The idea that resources such as land, sea, minerals; great tracts of fertile terrain; large numbers of human beings, can be sacrificed for conversion into profit in the practice of mercantilism is a problem foreconomics. And for philosophy.

The idea that a globally successful tv drama on Netflix called Adolescence could be used to push back against the behaviour the drama presents has taken hold in many countries. This idea is a problem of child-rearing and of the philosophy of education.

Teachers have just called off strike action where I live, in an effort to address problems with their work-load. Appeals to broadcast Adolescence in schools, in an effort to educate young people away from asocial and violent behaviour, are publicly made. The appeals pay no heed to the workload problems well-documented by teachers. 

Netflix’s interest’s are commercial. The idea that one of their programmes would alter behaviour away from violence is mistaken. Individual artists working on programmes for the platform may have other interests, such as education and social change. Netflix gains by having such ideas associated with their commercial interests. It uses AI-reinforced algorithms to tailor the advertising of content for each of its over 300 million paying viewers worldwide. 

Netflix is a grand scale influencer. The idea behind an influencer is to gain subscribers, who will use products uncritically. This is a problem of social harmony. And philosophy.

Influencers used to be called publicists or advertisers. In this and many other cases, they use fear as a means of controlling behaviour: fear that if I don’t view the platform I will miss out on something; fear that I will not be cool; fear that I will not learn something vital to my life and to the lives of my children.

Clockwork Orange (Heinemann, 1962) by Anthony Burgess and Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach (BBC, 1966) are historical instances of art proclaiming against the social problems of youth violence and homelessness. That both youth violence and homelessness persist today points to a problem of art. And of philosophy.

My theatre sequence Plays in a Peace Process (Guildhall Press, 2008) dramatised problems in the Northern Ireland Peace Process. The fact that these problems, though diminished, still persist is a problem of the philosophy of applied dramatic art.

Ideas are the problems. Solutions are ideas too. 

More philosophy?

* The Years Of Theory: Post-war French Thought to the Present Day

Frederic Jameson, Verso, London, 2024

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