Fates & Free Will: Kyoto School Zen Meets Three Greco-Roman Goddesses

‘Since in God there is no variable will or arbitrariness, God’s love is not narrow-minded love in which God loves some and hates others, or by which some are caused to prosper and others to die away. The love of the God who is the foundation of reality as a whole must be equal and universal, and its self-development must be infinite love for us. There is no special divine love apart from the development of the myriad things in nature.’
— Kitarō Nishida, An Inquiry Into the Good [善の研究 ] (1911), pp. 163-4

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In Chapters 19 through 22 (pp. 103-121) of An Inquiry into the Good (1911), Japanese moral philosopher Kitarō Nishida (1870 - 1945) grapples with the philosophical question of freedom, its origins, its depths, and its constraints within the frameworks propounded in existing ethical theories. To oversimplify the totality of this particular work of Nishida, one could say he undertakes the ancient philosophical endeavor of exploring the true nature of the ‘good life’ and the standards of ‘goodness’ itself. However, Nishida takes a novel approach that interlaces his Zen Buddhist spiritual training with Western philosophical traditions in a dialogic intellectual exchange intended to clarify matters of reality, existence, consciousness, and ethics. An associate of the Kyoto school during Nishida’s lifetime was his colleague and friend D.T. Suzuki, the author of the widely read An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (1934). For example, Nishida cites Suzuki in his later work titled Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness (e.g., 1966, pp. 19-20). It is precisely because of his heterodox form of existential and moral inquiry — one that facilitates a dialectical dance between Eastern and Western ways of knowing (epistemologies) and of being (ontologies) — that Nishida is renowned as the founding thinker of the philosophical movement known as the Kyoto School [京都学派].

Why facilitate a East-West moral philosophical dialogue? Does this Europeanization of Eastern thought erode its integrity? Are the insights of Eastern and Western thought incommensurable or complementary? As for the first question, Nishida’s experimentation in thought arose from a desire to know, from a love for truth. ‘Love,’ he writes, ‘is fundamentally the feeling that seeks unity’ (p. 164). It follows that it would be facile to propose that any one blog post reflecting on only a single corner of Nishida’s mind could ever be sufficient to arrive at some ‘true’ conceptualization of the ‘good.’ What is possible, however, is a brief clarification of his thought process. His discussion of the ethics of freedom in the theory he develops over four chapters is particularly instructive of a few constituent components of ‘goodness’ as he sees it.

Drawing from Zen’s emphasis on ‘pure experience as true reality’ (p. xxiv), being as ‘action-intuition’ [kéiteki-chokkan] (p. xxxiii), the ‘continuity of discontinuity’ (p. xxiii), and the dissolution of the ‘subject-object separation’ (pp. xx), he situates the Western ethical and moral contours of freedom and autonomy within a new metaphysical framework. Nishida attempts to arrive at a philosophically valid conception of the ‘good’ by juxtaposing autonomous ethical theories with heteronomous ethics. Autonomous ethics — categorized separately into the secondary rational (i.e., acting on one’s volition to maximize utility), hedonic (to maximize pleasure), and activity (to maximize goodness) theories — hold that true freedom emerges from acting in alignment with one’s own intrinsic nature or reason. Freedom is only possible when one expresses one’s own will in accordance with one’s individuality, a beautiful quality expressed in each individual’s personality.

To acknowledge another personality is to acknowledge one’s own, and the relationship in which people mutually acknowledge their personalities is love. In a certain regard, love is the union of both personalities—that is, in love, two personalities, while independent and respecting each other, join together and constitute one personality. Viewed this way, God can envelop all personalities and acknowledge their independence because God is infinite love (p. 170, my own emphasis).

For Nishida, this notion of ‘personality’ is fundamentally linked to his broader philosophical views on the self’s autonomous capacity for freedom and independence. He conceives of each individual’s personality not as a static or isolated entity but as an evolving expression of one’s authentic self, which emerges through the dialectical interplay of noumenal and phenomenal experiences, internal and external influences, encounters with difference and alterity, etc.

In this philosophical framework, personality is closely linked to the Zen Buddhist spiritual outlook that values self-realization and sees being as an evolutionary and ongoing process of becoming, a process that ideally culminates in one arriving closer to the ‘good’ life that accords with both the senses and the soul. (For more on this concept of ‘personality’ from Nishida, see Chapter 24, ‘The Good as a Unity of Personality,’ pp. 127-131). This insight is found in eighteenth-century European Enlightenment texts, such as Rousseau’s observations on freedom and equality in his Second Discourse (On the Origin of Inequality) (1755). Rousseau theorizes that the state of nature attests to humankind’s innate faculties of a) self-improvement and b) feeling genuine pity at the sight of another being suffering. The first faculty, that of self-improvement, Rousseau claims is essential to autonomous freedom on the one hand and hence integral to the active process of discovering the good on the other. Nishida’s approach to personality similarly reflects a core belief that true freedom and moral worth come from aligning with one’s authentic self – as the ‘one’ in question continues to uncover that self in its encounters with the confusions, conflicts, and constraints imposed by external ethical norms, societal expectations, and inevitable contingencies. Autonomy is a requisite for the good life.

In contrast to autonomous ethics, heteronomous ethical theory sees freedom as derived from moral obligations imposed on the self by an external commanding authority. Nishida observes how, in Western thought, this authoritative and prescriptive force is either conceived of as a divine or social authority, such as a deity (or deities) or a political leader. The heteronomous perspective thus confines individual freedom to mere compliance and obedience along deterministic lines, with moral duties and potentially false conceptions of the ‘good’ being externally mandated and inculcated by lofty authorities rather than emerging spontaneously and autonomously from within the self. In many Western religious traditions, such as Christianity, for instance, followers are required to adhere to divine commandments as dictated by God, limiting the individual’s capacity to realize what is truly good through internal or external repression. Now, this is not to say that religious doctrines do not uncover some form of the truth (such as the notion that ‘thou shalt not kill’ is a generally ‘good’ prescription. Although even this tenet finds exceptions in cases of self-defense or so-called ‘just’ wars). But when it comes to matters of autonomy specifically — e.g., issues of bodily autonomy captured in the contentious ethical debate over a woman’s right to access abortion services, reproductive healthcare, or contraceptive options — one begins to stab at this debate between heteronomy and autonomy.

In the secular sense, Nishida cites Thomas Hobbes’ assertion in Leviathan (1651) that citizens must submit to a sovereign for the sake of societal order and hence freedom. The use of the sea serpent demon ‘Leviathan’ as a metaphor for the purportedly omnipotent powers of the State is taken from the Old Testament’s Book of Job.

A prominent advocate of the monarchical authority theory is Thomas Hobbes, an Englishman who wrote at the beginning of the modern era. According to Hobbes, human nature is totally evil, and in nature the strong prey on the weak. We can escape the suffering caused by this state of affairs only by handing over all authority to one monarch and then fully obeying the monarch’s commands. Hobbes argues that to obey the monarch’s commands is good, while to disobey is bad. We see a similar type of authority theory in the thought of the Chinese philosopher Hsiin-tzu, who wrote that the good is to follow the way of ancient kings (p. 108).

Rousseau counters Hobbes’ depiction of human nature as he conceives it in an entirely different interpretation of the theoretical imaginary of pre-political human life dubbed the state of nature. Rousseau suggests that it is not human nature itself that is rotten but the social institutions imposed upon it. It is these institutions that have led to the current state of socioeconomic inequalities, collapse, and decay that one witnesses throughout modern history, not human nature itself (but this subject is best suited for another post - or a book). Both heteronomous views posit an illusory freedom, wherein freedom is bestowed from the outside by authority (divine or otherwise) rather than realized and actualized from within. It is not one’s agency leading them toward the good. Instead, they are steered by an invisible hand along a path sketched out for them in advance, one that conflicts with their personality and hence their authentic self.

In these ethical reflections on the possibility of free will, Nishida engages with a concept that he several times refers to as ’a variable free will’ (pp. 163-5). Simply put, as autonomous beings, we are required to act ‘in instances of doubt, contradiction, and conflict’ (p. 163), regardless of whether or not we see these inevitable contingencies, this ‘continuity of discontinuity,’ or the realities of entropy as being the result of forces out of our control. As it concerns one’s pure and direct experience, these moments of uncertainty demand the activation and action of a sort of moral agency from within the self, one with the capacity to respond to the present moment and, in turn, facilitate the above-described process of concomitantly realizing the self and the good through experience, action, and reflection. The appearance of contingency challenges the apparent paradox that suggests freedom can only coexist with the necessity of causes (if this is the case, acting in accordance with the conception of free will above would imply acting in a manner that seems essentially predetermined). ‘True self-awareness,’ writes Nishida, ‘exists upon the activity of the will, not upon intellectual reflection’ (p. 162). As beings limited by the faculties of our fleshy vessels, ‘we can still think of the world as coming into being by chance and yet having a goal’ (p. 81). There are necessarily some things (phenomena, reactions, etc.) that are out of our control. One does not need to know God’s plan or clutch onto the philosopher’s stone to discover for oneself the true standards of good.

Following Nishida’s example, I now turn to the Western canon to facilitate another sort of East-West philosophical and cultural exchange. Here, my exploration reaches further back into history and moves beyond normative philosophical and religious discourse.

In Greco-Roman mythology, the Fates illustrate the relationship between contingency and agency in stories where providence and prophecy challenge human beings’ autonomy and desire. The Fates (the Moirai in Greek and the Parcae or Fatae in Latin) are typically depicted as three sisters who spin out, measure, and cut the threads of life for all beings — mortal and divine. These sisters — Clotho (the Spinner, Κλωθώ), Lachesis (the Allotter, Λάχεσις), and Atropos (the Inflexible, Άτροπος) — are also tasked with determining the destinies and enforcing the prophecies that govern human affairs in the mortal world. Their role in the narratives of Greco-Roman mythology spotlights the ancient lingering uncertainty surrounding the existential tension between fate and free will.

Mythical narratives referring to the Fates explore how protagonists (or individual selves) grapple with the inevitability of their destinies. Despite efforts to alter their fates, these fabled characters frequently find themselves ensnared by the predetermined threads woven by the goddesses.

One compelling example of this tension on display is found in the ancient Greek myth of princess Alcestis (Ἄλκηστις), which was popularized by the Athenian tragedian Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406 BCE). The theatrical setting of a tragedy is especially fitting for this discussion, as the genre compels its audience to confront what is truly more ‘tragic’ — the flaws and follies of human error driven by noble intentions or the realization that these efforts were futile and doomed from the outset. In the myth, Alcestis’ husband, Admetus, king of the Thessalian city of Pherae, is granted a special favor by the god Apollo. The wager: he is allowed to live beyond his allotted time (enforced by the goddess Atropos) and escape death. The catch? Admetus must find someone willing to die in his place. At first glance, Apollo’s intervention seems to represent a heteronomous force — an external power that (only after imbibing with the Fates) alters the natural course of events. Nevertheless, despite his fervent wish to extend his life, Admetus is unable to find anyone willing to take his place. That is, the divine proposition is rendered mute on account of his failure to successfully act on his own volition (albeit, in this case, for selfish ends, i.e., in the rational or hedonic sense, rather than in an active pursuit of the ‘good’). His father, Pheres, refuses to sacrifice his life, deeming the request absurd and self-serving. The predicament weighs on Admetus and ultimately underscores the farcical nature of heteronomous freedom. It is futile to try and escape one’s fate through negotiations with the divine.

In a tragic turn, Alcestis, the devoted wife of Admetus, steps forward, choosing to sacrifice herself to extend her husband’s life. Her decision, a profound act of love and selflessness, originates out of her own autonomous volition. (The story also explicitly underscores the often-overlooked burden placed on women in ancient narratives who routinely perform acts of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the patriarchs at the center of the literary lens). The narrative in Euripedes’ play Alcestis reaches its climax with the arrival of the divine hero Heracles (Ἡρακλῆς), a friend of the mortal Admetus, who, unaware of the recent spousal tragedy, arrives at the palace in Pherae. Heracles embarks on a quest to wrest Alcestis from the grasp of death in a heroic surge of spontaneous action. ‘Death is an entering into absolute nothingness; life is an appearing out of absolute nothingness’ (Nishida, 1966, p. 209). But Heracles is not afraid. He confronts Thanatos (Θᾰ́νᾰτος), the personification of Death itself and, following a dramatic wrestling match, he manages to revive Alcestis and rescue her from the grave. Heracles’ intervention supports this idea that true freedom arises when individuals autonomously use their agency to act on their will, even when under duress or the supervision of gods and goddesses, to navigate the contingencies they encounter and face the unknown on the road to discovery. Alcestis’ return reinforces the notion that, while one’s fate may seem inescapable or predetermined, autonomy and action are the fletching and arrowhead that break prophecies and alter the apparent finality of fate.

In reflecting on Nishida’s philosophical reframing of autonomous and heteronomous ethical theory, one evidently confronts a nuanced and recontextualized version of Western philosophical concepts (e.g., liberty, agency, will, etc.). Seen through a Zen Buddhist spiritual lens, one that necessarily grasps this idea of ‘the place of absolute nothingness’ through an intellectual activity that is ‘the religious consciousness’ (p. 130), Nishida illustrates how each of these questions is intimately connected with one’s conception of the divine and of existence; nevertheless, he concludes that it is one’s ability to act autonomously within these eschatological parameters that clears the pathway toward the good. Nishida writes, referring to Suzuki, ‘Absolute nothingness and emptiness allow a somnambulistic certainty and sureness. It is through Nothingness that Zen finds the fullness of life’ (p. 20). The dialectic between autonomy and freedom or the self and the divine is not simply a question of personal volition versus external authority; it reveals the very conditions under which we, as both thinking and acting beings, are and become free. To claim autonomy is to recognize that true freedom arises not from an atomized, isolated, or narcissistic individual asserting their will but through one’s capacity to discover and express their personality and, in turn, shape, resist, and break away from the certitude of fate and the homogenizing forces of societal expectation on the differentiated paths that lead them towards the good life. Nishida’s emphasis on Zen epistemological underpinnings (e.g., the principle of ‘continuity of discontinuity’) asseverates that autonomy is not about the unbridled expression of will but rather a constant negotiation (a dialectic) between the self and the world — between agency and contingency.

Freedom (as I have mentioned in previous posts) must be understood not as a fixed state of being founded on ossified ‘objective’ truths. It is an unfolding process of self-realization within a web of relationships and constraints. Heracles wrestles with Death, Alcestis chooses sacrifice, and Admetus lives with the consequences of both divine intervention and personal indecision. In these tales, it all becomes clear: true autonomy — and thus, true freedom — is realized through an honest, conscious, and moral engagement with the contingencies and exigencies that shape and constrain our lives.

Like the threads spun out for each one of us by the Fates, our destinies may be woven into patterns beyond our immediate control, but it is through our active participation in this process — through conscious, deliberate action — that we gain freedom. Autonomy, then, is not simply about asserting individual will; it is the ability to navigate the constraints and contingencies of life while continually striving to act in accordance with our evolving dialectical understanding of the good and ourselves. Liberty is found not in the absence of limits, in license, or in the defiance of the Fates but in how we creatively and courageously choose to act and uncover the good when presented with contingency and uncertainty on the verge of self-discovery. This is the challenge and the promise of autonomy in Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good.

[I am citing these texts by Nishida. An Inquiry into the Good (tr. M. Abe & C. Ives). (1990). New Haven: Yale University Press & Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness: Three Philosophical Essays (tr. R. Schinzinger). (1966). Honolulu: East-West Press.]

Porygon-Z’s Philosophy: Scientific Revolutions, AI, and a Feminist’s Cyborg

“We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. This cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics.” — Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)

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What happens when our greatest scientific breakthroughs — once driven by human ingenuity and curiosity — are powered by artificial intelligence, blurring the line between authentic discovery and synthetic simulation? The origins of Porygon-Z in the Pokémon world provide a helpful metaphor for adjudicating this question in the philosophy of science.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), authored by historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, radically redefined how we understand scientific progress. In Kuhn’s view, the development of the sciences does not occur through a neat ‘linear or cumulative’ (p. 139) process of discovery. Instead, scientific progress occurs through recursive ‘paradigm shifts’ (p. 66), wherein Kuhn proposes that the prevailing models and standards guiding scientific inquiry are overturned once the emergence of inexplicable ‘anomalies’ necessitates new approaches, models, and methods with greater explanatory potential. Anomalies require ‘new theories’ altogether (pp. 67-8). In other words, scientific paradigms remain in place through the conduct of so-called ‘normal science’ (p. 109) until an accumulation of new anomalies — observable phenomena (i.e., empirical data) that the existing paradigm and its analytical frameworks cannot explain — create a ‘state of growing crisis’ (p. 67) and a ‘pronounced professional insecurity’ in scientific communities characterized by heated debates into epistemological truths. According to Kuhn, the emergence of ‘anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones’ (p. 146); as a consequence, he explicitly sets his theory of scientific development apart from the typical scientific tenets of testability and falsifiability formulated by Austrian-British philosopher of science Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959). Kuhn writes that ‘the scientist in crisis will constantly try to generate speculative theories that, if successful, may disclose the road to a new paradigm’ (p. 87). The uncertainty of scientific innovation and discovery during this ‘crisis-state’ (p. 86) persists until researchers finally arrive at the point of the scientific revolution, where consensus on a new paradigm supersedes panic over the validity of the old, fundamentally shifting the field’s foundational principles toward models and methods with more explanatory power.

A concrete example of an anomaly that Kuhn provides is the discovery of oxygen by eighteenth-century French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (pp. 86-92). Lavoisier’s experimental design and corresponding discoveries did not align with the expectations set by the prevailing ‘phlogiston theory,’ which predicted that metallic ores released a fiery substance called ‘phlogiston’ when burned (pp. 99-100). Lavoisier observed through experimentation how heating ‘red oxide of mercury’ produced a gas that did not fit the phlogiston theory (pp. 53-7). This anomaly led to the recognition of oxygen, a discovery that contributed to a scientific revolution — a paradigm shift from the phlogiston theory to modern chemistry. In another instance, Kuhn mentions the discovery of X-rays by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895 – another anomaly at this stage of scientific progress. Röentgen noticed that a screen spontaneously began glowing during his experiments with ‘cathode rays,’ a phenomenon that could not be explained by existing models (pp. 57-8). His subsequent discovery of X-rays introduced a new area of research and necessitated changes in both experimental procedures and scientific understanding. Both examples illustrate how limitations and gaps in knowledge are the norm when on the cusp of revolutionary discovery, alongside curiosity and the will to solve the puzzle before one’s eyes or in one’s mind.

In Kuhn’s view, paradigm shifts constitute not simply mere additions to the public corpus of scientific knowledge. On the contrary, these shifts — he demonstrates through an examination of ‘the Copernican, Newtonian, chemical, and Einsteinian revolutions’ (p. 66) — are transformative events that redefine the problems scientists prioritize and the methods available for solving them. ‘The transition from Newtonian to Einsteinian mechanics,’ writes Kuhn, ‘illustrates with particular clarity the scientific revolution as a displacement of the conceptual network through which scientists view the world’ (p. 102). The shift from Newtonian mechanics to Einstein’s theory of relativity changed not only our understanding of physics but also how future research could be conducted. As Kuhn argues, these revolutions are a recurring and necessary part of scientific progress, marked by periods of stability, incremental discovery, and the fine-tuning of scientific models (‘normal science’) disrupted by bursts of revolutionary change that progressively aim toward greater certainty and more accurate approximations of the truth.

In the context of our evolving information technology age, artificial intelligence (AI) and its correlative ability to organize and interpret ‘big data’ (i.e., extremely large and complex datasets that require advanced computational tools to store, analyze, and extract meaningful insights) with large language models (LLMs) suggest that the incipient forces of a potential paradigm shift are currently under development. The massive amount of data generated and accumulated in the digital age challenges traditional methods of data processing and models of scientific analysis. AI, particularly in its ability to sift through and make sense of this data, could represent a Kuhnian sort of scientific revolution. Just as Einstein’s theories transformed physics, AI may reshape the scientific process itself, offering new frameworks for interpreting immense amounts of complex data that were previously beyond human analytical capabilities. Outside of the natural sciences, the application of AI to specific statistical methods or textual analysis in the social sciences, for example, suggests the feasibility of models with enhanced explanatory power and, as a consequence, better predictive applications to the complexities of the sociopolitical terrain.

But the question remains — will AI’s rapid development and integration into technological infrastructures lead to greater scientific enlightenment, or, like Porygon’s transformation into its unpredictable and unstable form, will it introduce complexities and risks that challenge our ability to discern between authentic understanding and artificial, algorithm-driven simulations of truth?

In the video game series, the original Porygon — a synthetic Pokémon designed to function as a digital life form that can navigate both the ‘real world’ and cyberspace — mirrors the progression of artificial intelligence. The creature was created by research scientists at Silph Co., ‘born’ out of some pretend computer code and programming language in an attempt to produce a human-made, self-sustaining entity resembling a simple, digital avatar of life, a synthetic recreation of forms derived from reality. Following their initial discoveries into the possibilities of creating artificial Pokémon life forms, these scientists worked on refining increasingly sophisticated iterations of their clunky, 8-bit prototype. Much like early AI, Porygon’s design was limited in its capacity to mimic reality. It performed basic tasks but remained a product of its creators’ code without any capacity for autonomous action or spontaneous creativity. It was only a rudimentary model of digital existence, yet one that represented the initial stages of a paradigm shift in so far as it confounded the scientific community of the Pokémon world with new possibilities of observable phenomena and processes once considered impossible.

As technology advanced, so did Porygon, evolving into Porygon2. This second form embodied a leap forward in computational power and technological capacity mirrored in the upgraded Porygon2’s adaptive applications. Porygon2 could learn from its environment, respond to stimuli with greater flexibility, and simulate the behavior of organic life forms with improved accuracy. It parallels the mid-point of AI development, where machine learning allowed computers to process more complex data sets and, for the first time, learn from experience. At this stage, Porygon2 was not merely executing commands — it was beginning to imitate aspects of cognition, a closer approximation of life in the digital space. Finally, Porygon-Z represents the most advanced form in this artificial being’s evolutionary chain. However, Porygon-Z became even more chaotic and unpredictable. The Bulbapedia entry for Porygon-Z states, ‘The resulting Pokémon began showing highly erratic, unstable behavior and twitchy movements, making it difficult to work with for research. As a result, it is believed the experiment to create Porygon-Z was a failure.’ The addition of new software expanded the range of the original Porygon’s capabilities. Yet, it also introduced unexpected glitches, perplexing irregularities (or ‘bugs’) and, as a result, presented unseen risks to those relying on this artificial and synthetic Pokémon life form to fulfill the same functions of protection, companionship, or reliable research as organic, ‘real’ Pokémon.

The story of Porygon-Z advances a compelling metaphor for the current state of artificial intelligence in relation to scientific development. While AI systems like large language models (LLMs) exhibit remarkable capabilities in data processing and interpretation, they also introduce new complexities and risks. In a word, the more AI systems evolve to mirror human-like reasoning, the more they expose the inherent unpredictability and fallibility of their simulations. This trajectory raises profound questions about the future of science, technology, and human interaction. Scientific development will undoubtedly benefit from AI’s ability to handle larger datasets, optimize calculations, and generate more refined models of the world that possess greater explanatory power or predictive capabilities. As Porygon-Z demonstrates, however, there is a risk that as our technological creations become more advanced, they might also lead us away from genuine human curiosity, creativity, and companionship and towards their synthetic substitutes.

Assuming the whirlwind pace of advancements in artificial intelligence signals an impending Kuhnian crisis-state, paradigm shift, and scientific revolution, I turn to Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century (1985) in search of theoretical insights that might tell us what to anticipate as well as how to navigate the years ahead. Haraway, for instance, argues that the boundaries between humans and machines are increasingly blurred in a technological age. In simple terms, our smartphones (for those who own one) have practically become extensions of our biological fingertips. We are also currently living in an age of augmented reality (AR), e.g., from Pokémon GO to the Apple Vision Pro, which renders entirely new synthetic sensory experiences for the human brain in virtual reality spaces. If the point is not clear enough already, consumers are already considering implanting a chip in their brains to help them seamlessly drift in and out of some cybernetic interface. It follows that Haraway’s concept of the cyborg ought not to be so farfetched as a descriptive term for explaining the normative relations established between humans and technology as they have evolved since the time she wrote her manifesto.

As it concerns this notion of ‘progress’ in science and technology, Haraway considers the cyborg as a sort of prefigurative figure suggestive of a future wherein humans and machines co-evolve and co-exist. ‘The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience,’ she writes, such that the ‘boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.’ Further down the page, she adds: ‘The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation.’ Under Haraway’s socialist-feminist critical lens, this observation considered in relation to a Kuhnian scientific revolution suggests that ‘the traditions of ‘Western’ science and politics — the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other’ — may be replaced by new principles and new forms of scientific inquiry, production, and political activity during the paradigm shift. A revolution in scientific knowledge may, at times, be a constitutive component of social revolution. (As an aside, while an important debate must take place on the subject of ‘automation,’ it is interesting to note that certain strains of radical anarcha-feminism have placed automation at the crux of a utopian society. One such example, and a particularly misandrist one at that, is found in the SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas – who gained prominence after she shot Andy Warhol. The phrase SCUM is apocryphally reported to be an acronym for ‘Society for Cutting Up Men,’ although that phrase is found nowhere in Solanas’ actual manifesto).

While this synthesis between humans and machines presents possibilities for liberatory social transformation and scientific development, it also comes with serious ethical concerns. Haraway suggests that ‘in this world of protean transformation,’ the concept of the cyborg may also take a repressive turn, converting human individuality and difference into something synthetic, programmed, and codable, controlled by corporate or reactionary political interests: ‘The new technologies seem deeply involved in the forms of ‘privatization’… in which militarization, right-wing family ideologies and policies, and intensified definitions of corporate (and state) property as private synergistically interact.’ The safeguard against this turn, in the end, is human agency. Haraway concludes, ‘The machine is not an it to be animated, worshipped, and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us. We are responsible for boundaries; we are they.’

In the case of AI, this means that the more we rely on algorithmic interpretations of big data to process knowledge and adjudicate our truth claims, the more we risk losing the nuanced, organic aspects of scientific inquiry — those that rely on intuition, collaboration, and human creativity. To complicate matters further — drawing on the insights of French sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard, author of Simulations (1983) — our increasing reliance on artificial intelligence raises the unsettling prospect that we may be left with nothing but simulations of truth and the appearance of reality rather than truth or reality itself, as the lines between reality and its artificial replicas are increasingly blurred, as the noumenal somehow melts and slips into the phenomenal and vice versa in a sort of surreal, reality-bending, dreamlike dialectic. Like Porygon’s creation, AI systems may become powerful tools for simulating reality, so powerful that they may even be forming the technological basis for a nascent scientific revolution. But we must remain skeptical about mistaking these intricate simulations for brilliance, genius, or truth. While the burgeoning capabilities of artificial intelligence are impressive, one must resist the temptation to become entranced by contrived reproductions of reality. Moreover, we should not hesitate to criticize the invalidity or unreliability of these artificially spliced-together representations of reality whenever they contravene our conceptions of truth or overstep some ethical concern.

In this sense, Porygon-Z’s transformation from a simple 8-bit being to a complex and unstable digital lifeform serves as a cautionary tale. It symbolizes the immense potential and risk inherent in the evolution of AI, and it reminds the reader that the scientific revolutions observed by Kuhn have harbored the knowledge claims undergirding both the most creative and the most destructive aspects of technological progress. Just as paradigm shifts redefine our understanding of the world, technological advancements in areas like AI, AR, virtual reality, or even smartphones challenge us to reconsider what it means to be human in an age where our intellectual curiosities, creative processes, and social relations are becoming increasingly mechanized, synthetic, and digitally-driven.

[I am citing these texts: Kuhn, T.S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Second Edition, Enlarged). In International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. 2, No. 2 (eds. O. Neurath, R. Carnap, and C. Morris). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press & Haraway, D. (1985). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991). New York: Routledge, pp. 149–181. Available at https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/donna-haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto (linked above)].

Free Speech & Fine Art: Notes on Kneecap

“KRS-One come to start some hysteria / Illegal business controls America” — Boogie Down Productions, ‘Illegal Business’ (1988)

“Fight the power! / We’ve got to fight the powers that be” — Public Enemy, ‘Fight the Power’ (1990)

“I’m guardin’ my feelings, I know that you feel it / You sabotage my community, makin’ a killin’” — Kendrick Lamar, ‘The Blacker the Berry’ (2015)

“C-E-A-R-T-A, you say it needs more Tiocfaidh ár Lá’s” — Kneecap, ‘Fine Art’ (2024).
Note: the phrase ‘Tiocfaidh ár Lá’ translates from Irish (Gaeilge) to ‘Our day will come’. For more, see the Diary of Bobby Sands.

(All translations are my own)

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The lyrics above highlight the power of art, notably rap, to amplify silenced voices, challenge societal norms, and push the boundaries of liberty. While the ancient Greek philosopher Plato dismissed such a concept, contemporary artists like Kneecap vividly illustrate dissenting artwork’s urgent significance in our present moment.

In The Republic, Plato argues that art should be eliminated due to its subversive potential. Since art influences society's ‘gnosis’ (γνῶσις), i.e., its collective ‘knowledge’ or ‘awareness,’ Plato believes that artistic expressions of individuality that do not conform with the prevailing epistemic plane of authority threaten the stability of any established order. The West Belfast political punk rap trio Kneecap, however, demonstrates why Plato is mistaken in dismissing art’s value for the truth while still being correct about its capacity to disrupt the status quo. Kneecap’s artistic expression, much more than merely subversive or polemical, has spontaneously emerged as one of the many counters to the sorrowful fact that ‘every forty days, an Indigenous language dies’ (a tragic reality of the ethnocidal pressures of global capitalism highlighted at the end of the group’s biographic film released earlier this year, Kneecap (2024) — the first Irish language film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival).

Kneecap, for example, gained traction in 2017 during Northern Ireland’s Irish language movement, which culminated in thousands marching in the streets of West Belfast in support of the Irish Language Act. Protesters were demanding a law to officially recognize, protect, and promote the use of the Irish language in Northern Ireland. Although the fluent population has dwindled, the Irish language (like any language) is significant because it is a vital part of Ireland’s cultural heritage and identity, including the six traditional Irish counties that are now circumscribed in the North of the island by the borders of the U.K. The Irish language represents a historical connection to the country's past, and speaking it in locales like Belfast is an act of cultural revival, as well as an expression of autonomy and sovereignty. In 2022, the U.K. Parliament enacted the ‘Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act’ to officially recognize and protect the Irish language. Such a conciliatory measure does not live up to the rap trio’s own aspiration to ‘Get Your Brits Out.’ Yet the law is evidence that the group, a megaphone for the Irish people, has captured the eyes and ears of the powers that be.

In The Republic, Plato criticizes artists — those who create representations of reality — calling them ‘imitators’ whose primary purpose is neither to create something new nor to imbue the world with meaning but strictly to entertain or deceive the masses. He argues that these imitators are ‘a long way off the truth’ because they only ‘lightly touch on a small part’ of reality, presenting mere expressive fabrications rather than developing a genuine or objective understanding of reality itself. At one point, Plato offers the example of a painter who depicts a cobbler or carpenter at work. Though the painter knows nothing of these artisans’ respective crafts, ‘he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter’ (Republic, p. 461). Plato’s critique extends particularly to poetry and, by extension, to contemporary artistic forms such as hip-hop. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Plato saw poetry as closer to ‘the greatest danger’ than any other phenomenon he discusses. He goes so far as to claim that ‘all poetry is an outrage’ (Republic, p. 113). Ultimately, he argues that ‘the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates’ (Republic, p. 465).

Plato’s observations about the disruptive potential of art are not without merit. He understood that art could challenge, unsettle, provoke, and thus threaten the durability of long-standing regimes. However, Plato was fundamentally mistaken in elevating art’s function to deceive and, in turn, dismissing and obscuring art’s role in documenting, preserving, and shedding light on the truth. On the other side of the coin, then, one observes a shortcoming of Plato’s argument in that he does not reason on the role of art in a repressive context or, in other words, on the role of art in emancipation, liberation, and positive social transformation. His critique also fails to account for the intrinsic value of art as a vehicle for human freedom, expression, and individuality in precisely these contexts where certain types of regimes (such as settler-states) thrive off the exploitation of occupied peoples.

An active process, rap as an art form distinguishes between the phenomena of ‘liberation’ or ‘emancipation’ as prerequisites for, but not tantamount to, ‘freedom’ or ‘living free’ as a state of being (see Hannah Arendt’s On Revolution or Neil Roberts’ Freedom as Marronage). In my case, it is this fact that compels me to write.

As it concerns art’s connection to the truth as opposed to deception, Kneecap’s intentional artistic use of the Irish language (Gaeilge) in their rap flow is not just a stylistic choice, and it surely isn’t intended to deceive. Instead, it is a radical act of linguistic and cultural reclamation, an assertion of autonomy and sovereignty. To quote a line from the rap trio’s eponymous film (that won the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award), ‘Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom.’ To speak in broad theoretical terms, their music resists both the death and erasure of a colonized Indigenous people’s language and the subsequent homogenizing forces of neoliberal globalization, positioning itself as a conscious form of political speech.

That is to say, conscious rap operates not as a deceptive imitation but as a powerful tool for dissent, as a vehicle for political expression under circumstances of duress. Rather than ‘fine’ art – defined generally as the lofty and inaccessible standards of ‘true beauty’ ascribed to the aesthetics of so-called ‘high culture’ – Kneecap’s lyrics are expressions of what Marx would refer to as class consciousness (see Lukács), with rapper Móglaí Bap asserting in tracks like ‘I’m Flush’ that ‘he’s a working-class fella.’ The lyrics often refer to members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — a conservative, loyalist, and British nationalist political party in Northern Ireland that holds (as of writing this piece) five seats in the U.K.’s House of Commons and controls twenty-five seats (27.8%) of the Northern Ireland Assembly (Tionól Thuaisceart Éireann). The national conservative DUP has often come into conflict with Irish republican and democratic socialist political party Sinn Féin, which now holds seven abstentionist seats in the House of Commons and twenty-seven seats (30%) in the Assembly. Following the 2023 Northern Ireland local elections, the DUP retained 122 (26.4%) council seats, while Sinn Féin gained thirty-nine council seats, now holding 144 (31.2%) of the locally elected offices.

Hip-hop is historically known for its artists’ audacity to push the boundaries of free speech — such as when the U.S. Supreme Court cited Eminem’s lyrics while in session or YG's release of ‘FDT’. This activity challenges Plato’s argument by demonstrating that art can indeed produce a profound, emancipatory understanding of the world rather than merely ‘imitating’ or creating false representations of it. Accordingly, to develop this challenge to Plato’s logic, I primarily invoke the thought of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci on the relation between culture and hegemony. Gramsci, along with György Lukács and Walter Benjamin, was the original ‘cultural Marxist’. To understand what this term — cultural Marxism — actually means, please consider the following on classical Marxist thought (which does not consider the Frankfurt School linked above).

Marx’s concept of revolution is rooted in his theory of historical materialism, which posits that the economic base of a society—the social relations and means of production—fundamentally shapes its superstructure, which includes matters of culture, politics, ideology, and so on. The output of the economic base sustains the affairs of society’s superstructure, and the values and norms descending from the superstructure (i.e., ideals), in turn, shape the material realities concerning the relations and means of production (e.g., labor relations affect labor laws, labor laws affect labor relations, and that tug-of-war relation continues over time). The back-and-forth nature of this sort of dialogic exchange, wherein the economic base alters and shapes the superstructure and vice versa, is known as a dialectic (derived, at first, from the Socratic dialogue and then further developed by the German Idealist philosopher Hegel in the early nineteenth century). To further simplify this concept, conjure the image of yin and yang (for dialectical thought traces its origins to Taoist inquiry. For further reading, see the writings of ancient Chinese philosophers and ‘founders’ of Taoism Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the Liezi).

In Marxism, when we mention dialectics, we are usually talking about dialectical materialism (linking to U.S. Marxist economist Dr. Richard D. Wolff’s explanation of these terms posted on his YouTube channel). This philosophical proposition posits that changes in society’s economic base (its material) ultimately drive transformations in the political and ideological superstructure (its ideals). It is chiefly for this reason that classical Marxism is critiqued for its straw man of economic determinism. According to Marx, significant social change or revolution occurs when the existing economic base becomes incompatible with the superstructure, leading to a conflict between the ruling class and the oppressed class. This conflict drives the revolutionary process, ultimately resulting in a transformation of both the economic base and the superstructure.

Revolution is a historical fact, Marx observed, as the forces of European commercialism and mercantilism succeeded in overthrowing the fetters of the aristocratic feudal order, paving the way for industrial capitalism and free enterprise. From this vantage, he reasoned that the growing urban proletariat would develop a class consciousness akin to that of the bourgeoisie. This collective awareness would drive society to acknowledge and address the demands of the workers, who supply the technical knowledge, skill, and labor power necessary for the production and reproduction of (social) life.

In dialectical materialism, culture is seen as a crucial component of the superstructure since ‘culture,’ broadly defined, contains representations of reality that encapsulate and proliferate certain collective values and ideals. Culture reflects and reinforces the economic base, but it can also influence and challenge it. Classical Marxists, however, recalling the critique of their economic determinism, relegated the role of culture to a secondary status, placing the material aspects of society above the abstract dimensions of ideals when it comes to social transformation. Scholars like Gramsci, Lukács, and Benjamin, however, rejected Marxism’s myopic economic determinism, expanding this understanding of ‘superstructure’ by emphasizing the role of culture in maintaining or contesting hegemony. In other words, Gramsci and his contemporaries in later permutations of the Marxist camp argue that culture is not just a static reflection of economic conditions. It is an active and malleable force that can either liberate or repress, loosen or reinforce the binds of oppression.

To be succinct, this word hegemony refers to ‘established norms’ — the eminence of certain customs, etiquette, and habits of thought that are the result of the social, economic, and political dominance of a ruling class or group over others. The point of hegemony is that this dominance is achieved not just through force or coercion, but by shaping cultural norms, values, beliefs, and ideologies, or what Gramsci refers to as ‘common sense’ (senso comune) so that their power appears natural and accepted by society. This cultural and ideological control ensures the consent and compliance of subordinate classes, making the existing social, economic, and political order seem inevitable and unchangeable.

Gramsci introduced the concept of cultural hegemony, arguing that the ruling class maintains dominance not just through economic and political control but also by shaping cultural norms and ideologies that make their power appear natural and consensual. It follows from Gramscian thought that culture is a battleground for ideological struggle, where organic intellectuals from subaltern classes can challenge and redefine hegemonic narratives. Indeed, past scholarly work has described some rappers in the United States as Black organic intellectuals. One could certainly make the argument that mainstream rappers like Kendrick Lamar would fall into this category, with his 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly offering insights into the existential dimensions of poverty, struggle, outrage, and success and his later album DAMN. awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018. Scholars like UConn’s Jeff Dudas, author of Raised Right (2017), however, point out the converse — the so-called ‘culture war’ is depicted as a war precisely because such challenges to existing norms are found on both the emancipatory (i.e., intending to expand civil liberties, personal freedoms, and public interests) and reactionary (intending to restrict them) sides of the spectrum. (For an example of ‘reactionary art,’ one may refer to the link between Futurism and fascism in Italy).

As it concerns the other two foundational ‘cultural Marxists’ named above, Lukács focused on how class consciousness and cultural forms are intertwined, suggesting that cultural expressions can both reflect and influence class struggles. For him, the development of an aesthetics of class consciousness is crucial for the working class to recognize its role in revolutionary change. Walter Benjamin, on the other hand, explored how culture and art can serve as vehicles for activating revolutionary potential: ‘art will tackle the most difficult and most important [tasks] where it is able to mobilize the masses.’ He argued that art has the power to challenge dominant ideologies and reveal hidden truths, contributing to the process of social transformation (see, for example, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’).

Together, these later scholars in the Marxist tradition emphasized that culture is not a passive reflection of economic conditions but an active, dialectical force that can either reinforce or subvert existing power structures. Consequently, this perspective enriches our understanding of art’s role in societal change, revealing an emancipatory potential that is overlooked by Plato’s concern for hierarchy, order, and stratified rule. On the other hand, as Dudas notes, art may very well be used as a means of deception; however, it would appear that the art of the subaltern has the central tendency to unearth rather than obfuscate truth. These theoretical insights on the latent revolutionary politics of art and culture highlight how artists like Kneecap use these creative forms to challenge hegemonic systems and articulate alternative visions of freedom, justice, and sovereignty.

Kneecap’s music exemplifies how conscious rap has the power to unmask and critique the subtle mechanisms of hegemony, particularly in the context of British colonization. (As a quick note, this blog post considers Kneecap’s music to belong to this ‘conscious’ or ‘political’ rap subgenre as opposed to mainstream forms of trap or drill music and the like. To discuss the group in this broader context of the hip-hop genre would more egregiously expose this piece to critiques for its deliberate avoidance of the genre’s glorified hedonism or depictions of violence and despair. These are certainly critical issues, but I have neither enough space nor knowledge at this time to do such questions justice. For example, Kneecap itself extols drug use on some tracks like ‘I’m Flush’ or ‘3CAG’, but it also critically considers ‘A Better Way to Live’ outside of the routine cycle of MDMA crashes, cocaine binges, hangovers, and all other such consequences in party- or pub-induced deals with the Devil). By incorporating elements of Irish language and political commentary into their lyrics, Kneecap challenges the intergenerational hegemonic narratives imposed by colonial and imperial powers. It brings to light the realities of continued colonial influence. Their work reveals the often-overlooked injustices and cultural suppression associated with British rule over the ‘North of Ireland,’ and they have employed their rising stardom to expose and resist these entrenched systems of power, both as they affect the occupied people of Ireland and elsewhere on the globe (e.g., in Palestine).

In their latest album, titled Fine Art, Kneecap responds to criticism directed at the group’s polemical political expression, notably the flak hurled the trio’s way after they unveiled a public mural of a burning police car. The self-titled track, ‘Fine Art,’ features a recording of a male news reporter saying, ‘On the Nolan show today a mural of a burning police car and chants of “get the Brits out.” This is Ireland 2022. Rappers Kneecap say the mural was unveiled as just a piece of FINE ART.’ Here is an example of how Kneecap’s dissent extends beyond the current state of U.K.-Irish relations, touching emancipatory resistance movements around the world, such as the ‘Stop Cop City’ movement in the United States.

The insightful remark here is that Kneecap’s artistic rebellion underscores a crucial aspect of art’s role in society: its ability to question and disrupt dominant ideologies as it concomitantly fosters a space to elevate and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging with both issues of sovereignty and social justice through their music, Kneecap illustrates how art is a powerful tool for social critique, resistance, and transformation.

To paraphrase the words (as I remember them) of UConn’s Head of Philosophy, Lewis Gordon — art is our way of putting meaning into an otherwise meaningless world. As a result, art provides a profound medium for dynamically engaging with the nuance and complexities of human existence. Art, therefore, has an incredible potency to serve as a means of understanding, conveying experience, and revealing underlying and potentially overlooked truths that are far too intricate to be captured in conventional forms of discourse. Honest art does not obscure objective reality but illustrates alternative explanations. As such, Kneecap’s artistic creativity not only challenges hegemonic narratives but also expands the boundaries of artistic expression and political activism, demonstrating that art can be a method of cogent exposition. The group illustrates, from a Gramscian point of view, the power of art for the subaltern and oppressed. In these cases, art does not ‘lightly touch’ the truth, to recycle Plato’s words. On the contrary, artwork is a valid medium of philosophy and an expressive means of discourse for organic intellectuals to shape politics and society indirectly through the influence they exercise on culture.

‘Art itself,’ writes Gramsci, ‘is a philosophical category, a “distinct” moment of the spirit’ (Prison Notebooks, p. 845).

Therefore, Kneecap’s approach to music – considered as a social and cultural product – concretely illustrates the concept of Gramsci’s organic intellectuals (pp. 131-162). According to Gramsci, organic intellectuals (as opposed to ‘traditional’ ones locked away in the ‘ivory tower’) are individuals who emerge from the working class or other such subaltern groups and actively engage in shaping and articulating their class’s worldview, culture, and politics to overcome oppressive hegemonic cultural norms. Organic intellectuals create social products and serve a social function that is representative of the class from which they emerge. In other words, organic intellectuals are those who attest to the extant alterity shrouded by hegemony. For example, the group hit the Irish airwaves with tracks like C.E.A.R.T.A. (‘cearta’ meaning ‘rights’). Unlike traditional intellectuals, who may operate within established social and political institutions, organic intellectuals like Kneecap are generally precluded from accessing customary domains of power. Their knowledge is therefore deeply embedded in the lived experiences of their communities, and their work is intentionally tailored for the resistance of dominant cultural and ideological hegemony from within.

Artistic representations of revolutionary thought are intrinsically linked to the agency and needs of the ‘subaltern mass.’ In Gramsci’s words, the view espoused by Plato arises only when the ruling class does not ‘expect that the subaltern will become directive and responsible.’ As Kneecap demonstrates, ‘however, some part of even a subaltern mass is always directive and responsible.’ What Plato fails to realize of the subaltern therefore is that their artwork, as a form of ‘the philosophy of the whole,’ emerges as ‘a necessity of real life’ (Prison Notebooks, p. 647). It is within this dynamic tension that the subaltern’s creative expression becomes a powerful catalyst for change that, in turn, challenges the boundaries of established hegemony and redefines the contours of societal consciousness. The a priori assumption that change can only result from deception is demonstrably false; a fortiori, one observes a clear link between art, dissent, and truth. In this sense, the rebellious West Belfast trio may be seen as contemporary organic intellectuals who channel their creative powers into their art to critique and deconstruct the dominant narratives of British colonialism and imperialism. Their music serves not only as a form of artistic expression but also as a means of advancing a political agenda and fostering class consciousness. Through their rebellious and politically charged lyrics, Kneecap actively participates in the superstructural struggle against hegemonic forces, embodying Gramsci’s vision of art as a tool for ideological and cultural resistance.

To conclude this defense of Kneecap’s free speech, provocative art, and political expression, I cite Bolivian feminist historian, sociologist, and subaltern scholar Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, who writes in Sociologia de la imagen (Sociology of the Image), that the art of the colonized ‘[es] el taypi o zona de contacto que nos permite vivir al mismo tiempo adentro y afuera de la máquina capitalista, utilizar y al mismo tiempo demoler la razón instrumental que ha nacido de sus entrañas’ (p. 207) (it is the taypi or contact zone that allows us to live simultaneously inside and outside the capitalist machine, to use and at the same time demolish the instrumental reason that has been born from its entrails). Art, in other words, facilitates ‘la recuperación de la conciencia y el renacimiento… en el proceso de retorno a la comunidad’ (p. 79) (‘the recovery of consciousness and the rebirth… in the process of returning to the community’). Cusicanqui’s notion of ‘rebirth’ connects to Indigenous scholar Glen Coulthard’s call for a ‘resurgence’ and ‘interjection’ (see his Red Skin, White Masks) of Indigenous ways of knowing (epistemologies) and being (ontologies) into the prevailing hegemonic order as expressions of resistance and assertions of sovereignty against the pressures of ethnocidal erasure and colonial coercion.

By embracing and showcasing the Irish language and political themes, Kneecap not only challenges the dominant narratives of British colonialism but also embodies Gramsci’s concept of the organic intellectual—those who rise from the subaltern to actively reshape cultural and ideological landscapes not through deception but through expositions of the truth of their conditions. Through their provocative speech and politically charged art, Kneecap demonstrates that artistic rebellion can serve as a crucial battleground for ideological resistance and societal transformation (a conclusion all the more powerful in light of developments in artificial intelligence and the ulterior effort to further reduce innate human creativity to synthetic processes). As Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui eloquently puts it, art operates as a ‘contact zone’ that navigates and disrupts the capitalist machine (la máquina capitalista), facilitating a bottom-up ‘recovery of consciousness’ and a ‘rebirth’ (la recuperación de la conciencia y el renacimiento) — a renovatio ab imis — of epistemologies and ontologies threatened with extinction by (as it concerns this essay specifically) Anglophone capital. Thus, Kneecap’s work reaffirms the profound capacity of art to both reflect and forge new paths in the ongoing struggle for justice, liberation, and resurgence.

Teaching American Politics in 2024

As the 2024 presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump approaches, I am compelled to reflect on my role as a teaching assistant for an Introduction to American Politics course — i.e., as a political science educator-in-training. For the remainder of this essay, then, I necessarily embrace my multiplicity as I momentarily step aside from my intellectual ideals and commitments to critical social inquiry to write this brief and scattered piece on the more normative subject of U.S. electoral politics.

In the few months left before the electoral game begins, I am tasked with guiding fifty undergraduate students through the histories and intricacies of American political systems. As first-year college students, it struck me that most of them were in elementary school (a mere ten years old) during the tumultuous Clinton-Trump contest (see the county-by-county breakdown of the 2016 results). Their engagement with politics prior to this point, however grand or slight, has been shaped by a political landscape that has transmogrified into something qualitatively distinct from my own formative years.

Witnessing Barack Obama’s first inauguration at the age of eight undoubtedly marked my early political consciousness. That experience, seen through the eyes of both a youthful innocence and growing reflection, embodied a profound affirmation of participatory and inclusive democratic ideals and the promise of progress reminiscent of the American Dream. It was not simply a ceremonial transition but a deeply emotional validation of hope, change, and the essence of civic participation. “On this day,” Obama announced to those witnessing history in the making, “we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” He was a leader who plucked at the chords of humanity inside the soul of the electorate, an extraordinary individual but also someone uniquely human, the kind of man who could sing Al Green's “Let's Stay Together” in front of an auditorium composed of the American public.

The event offered the nation a reprieve from the Bush administration’s hawkish and corporatist policies that were unleashed in the post-9/11 era, a period in American history that will forever be memorialized by the unjust and heavily protested Iraq War and an unabashed xenophobic temperament excused by the national security state’s aversion to so-called “dangerous others.” The strain of the wartime atmosphere was accompanied, of course, by the economy of the Wall Street bailout (the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008). Whether or not Obama’s presidency was effective is an entirely separate matter. One cannot overlook the label of ‘Deporter in Chief’, the dramatic increase in the loss of innocent human life attributed to drone strikes sanitized under the term ‘collateral damage,’ or the lost chance to take action on police brutality following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer and the resultant Ferguson protests in 2014.

Nevertheless, the general mood of the nation on 20 January 2009 was characterized by a cautious optimism. The mood at the start was consistent with later progressive social achievements of the Obama years, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage through Obergefell v. Hodges or the nation’s formal entry into the Paris Climate Accords in 2015. Soon, however, and from my then sophomoric high school vantage, this outlook of optimism would be shattered by Donald Trump’s victory in the Electoral College over Hillary Clinton in 2016 (Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million votes). Recent scholarly literature comparing Trump’s politics to fascist politics and situating his leadership within the contemporary trend of ascending far-right populist heads of state across the globe (e.g., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orbán in Hungary, Erdoğan in Turkey, Meloni in Italy, and so on) makes many on the political spectrum — left, right, and center; in the U.S. and around the world — frightened by the prospect of a second Trump term.

As my students and I come together each week to discuss American politics on the brink of the 2024 election, I feel a profound responsibility to impart the gravity of civic engagement and political participation to a generation whose early historical memories are colored by this intense polarization and widespread disillusionment with the integrity of the nation’s political systems and elected officials. On the latter front, outside of the presidential scene and within the affairs of the legislative branch, one may cite the recent resignation and conviction of Bob Menendez (NJ-D) or the antics of fellow convicted felon and former Congressman George Santos (NY-R). Not even the Justices on the Supreme Court (viz. Clarence Thomas) are immune to ethical missteps and misconduct.

More to the point, as an aspiring educator and scholar, I cannot overlook how this sense of detachment from the real world of human affairs and corresponding cynicism towards earnest notions of hope fostered in the wake of 2016 have been further exacerbated by the proliferation of misinformation on social media and other information echo chambers, in addition to concerted illiberal, (neo)reactionary efforts to establish a unitary executive — an idea that sullies the Founders’ (see Thomas Paine's Common Sense for an example of classical radicalism) and their contemporaries’ (see Adam Smith's remarks on inequality in The Wealth of Nations) explicit rejection of monarchy (constitutional or otherwise) which rests, in part, on public procedures of 'checks and balances’ that administer the separation of powers doctrine handed down from Polybius to Locke (Second Treatise) and Montesquieu (the Spirit of Law) to Madison (the ‘Madisonian model’), or Aristotle’s ancient postulate found in his Politics and Rhetoric that it is better to be ruled by the “best laws” than by the “best men” (i.e., the rule of law), two concepts at the heart of republican and classical liberal theory and the constitutional principles and forms of government derived therefrom. The Founders evidently saw the structural separation of powers as a requisite for and an integral component of political freedom and robust democratic institutions. Both phenomena, the dissemination of misinformation together with modern reactionary thought and praxis, have aggravated the erosion of public trust in U.S. democratic institutions.

In this context, as someone who studies politics and human affairs and thus bears a responsibility to prepare my students for active participation in civil society, my role extends beyond merely elucidating the mechanics of elections and governance. It is imperative to cultivate a deeper understanding of democratic participation grounded in the ethical and philosophical dimensions that underscore our collective responsibilities as citizens of this Republic. To get straight to the heart of the matter then, I invoke the words of Plato, who put it quite bluntly when he concluded in The Republic — Cicero’s Latin translation of the original ancient Greek title Politeia (πολιτεία) — that “the greatest punishment” for the idle and ill-informed citizen is “being ruled by someone worse than oneself” (Bk. I, 347c, tr. C.D.C. Reeve). Renowned figures in the history of U.S. politics have reiterated essentially the same sentiment. Thomas Jefferson, for example, is quoted as saying, “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe their minds must be improved to a certain degree.”

I emphasize that the term 'republic' is a deliberate choice inspired by the ancient Roman philosopher and consul Cicero, for the root of the word, res publica, i.e., ‘public affair,’ or the fundamentally democratic principle of ‘rule of the people’ (the demos, δῆμος) retained by the Roman Republic through Jefferson and onward in the Western canon, reminds the reader of the primary purpose of the American form of government. The Republic — to say nothing at this time of the inseparable and co-constitutive modern commitment to liberal democracy — is designed to represent the general will of the people (the term from Rousseau's Social Contract) expressed through their active participation in public spaces as informed citizens (see, Arendt's On Revolution). Attention to this crucial nexus between education and a healthy democracy extends far beyond the pens of the revolutionary Founding Fathers and their contemporaries in the intellectual milieu of the American Enlightenment. F.D.R. wrote in 1938, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."

Education, in principle, is the most accessible safeguard against the “vicious arts by which elections are too often carried,” according to James Madison’s prescriptions for the American Republic in the Federalist Papers (No. 10). Madison was specifically referring to the advantages of an electorate large enough to select candidates on the basis of their merits and capacity for persuasive (ideally eloquent) argument yet still exclusive enough, he reasoned at the Constitutional Convention, “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority,” an explicitly bourgeois, elitist, and socially stratified variant of indirect democracy and representative government where wealth reigns supreme — an oligarchy as opposed to democracy in Aristotelian terms and in the realistic contours of administrative governance. Though I may stow away for the moment my penchant for critical theory, it is important to highlight these crucial facts and their durability throughout the history of U.S. political thought and governance; however, these concerns fall outside the immediate scope of this reflection concerning the relationship between education and democracy. But it is notable how the inequalities embedded in the American Republic at its founding mirror the social relations of Plato's Republic, wherein enslaved laborers and women relegated to the οἶκος were excluded from the domain of political life, the public affairs of the πόλις. This was the case in the U.S. until popular struggle and sacrifice ushered in national policy change through the 13th, 14th, 15th, (17th), 19th, and 26th Amendments, among a host of federal and state statutes and jurisprudence, that slowly expanded the enfranchised electorate beyond the ruling class of propertied white males and bulwarked, with few restrictions, every adult citizens’ right to vote for their representatives. (For more on the constraints of realizing genuine democracy, consider Robert A. Dahl’s descriptive theory of democracy as polyarchy, i.e., ‘rule by the many’ — a form of pluralistic governance that is neither purely democratic nor tyrannical. Alternatively, you might find Noam Chomsky’s lecture on the Madisonian principle informative if you prefer listening to reading).

To cut through the muck and mire of misinformation and engage with democracy in good faith, students must recognize not only the procedural aspects but also the fundamental values, ideals, and principles of tolerance and consensus or even respectful agonism that serve as the democratic glue of our diverse and pluralistic civil society. Progress in a democracy hinges on the free and open exchange of information, and this applies to empirical research as much as polemical dissent (Also, see the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment). However, the challenges presented by this presidential election cycle are augmented not only by the imperative to educate young minds and improve their capacity to navigate and participate in political spaces. Prior elections have demonstrated that educators who concern themselves with politics and human affairs must prepare both themselves and their students to decipher, filter out, and combat the misinformation that undermines informed citizenship and hence — when it comes to elections — bars the electorate from making the “right” decision, from choosing representatives who will express their general will and act in accordance with the common good. As the poet abolitionist Henry David Thoreau wrote in his Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers (1890), “All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.”

If one takes Madison’s warning against the “vicious” nature of some elections seriously, the evident parallels between the disillusionment following the 2016 election and the current climate of skepticism and falsehoods eight years later (e.g., Trump’s 162 “lies and distortions” in a single 64-minute-long press conference in August) ought to come as no surprise. In Plato’s Republic, one finds the idea of a ‘noble lie’, an untruth told by a political leader to serve some civic and hence common good, resolve stasis (στάσις, meaning ‘civil strife’ or ‘factional discord’), maintain harmony, or avoid panic. One would be naive not to suspect that there might be ignoble lies and demagoguery in the mix. Regardless of the historical backdrop, the integrity of the democratic process is threatened by the deluge of misleading narratives that distort reality and obscure truth.

To bridge the gap between theory and practice, it is essential to engage students in discussions that connect electoral politics to real-world issues, especially to issues that will impact their generation more acutely (e.g., climate change, housing, economic inequality, energy, automation). Exploring how political decisions practically influence employment, environmental protections, jurisprudence, and other related dimensions of public affairs directly linked to their everyday lives can help students see the tangible impact of their participation, even when their participation might otherwise be hindered by the apparent fact that (and I say this as a social scientist with respect to neat statistics) any one voter’s single vote makes no causal difference in the ultimate outcome of an election. Discussions also provide them with opportunities to apply rigid concepts to the complexity of public affairs. In any case, by illustrating the interconnectedness of political, social, and other such issues, one can foster a more comprehensive understanding of civic engagement that organically draws on and, in turn, enriches the diversity of each student’s developing worldview. Perhaps this approach will also prevent undeclared undergraduates or students in unrelated majors (i.e., not social science) from dropping the course four weeks from now. Only time will tell.

That said, I go into our discussion sections with a heightened and honest awareness of my own political ideals and potential biases. I do my best to ensure that my personal policy preferences do not ooze out into the classroom and infect my own desire to excite my students about this nebulous quest for truth in the realms of politics and human affairs. During our first meeting, I even took a moment to tell them that my goal was not to proselytize or “brainwash” them. Political science is our discipline; hence, through our discussions, our goal is not to achieve “dogmatic” but “disciplined” thinking. In a word, it is essential to respect their individuality. Whether a majority or conspicuously sizeable minority, many young people today are either disinterested in politics and/or view the political system as corrupt or ineffectual, a sentiment fueled by the constant barrage of misinformation that sows division and discourages humble and open discourse among peers. Tackling these concerns openly, reminding students of the diverse viewpoints and counterarguments sitting with them in the same room (not to mention out in the ‘real world’), and presenting opportunities for dialogue, I hope, can help mitigate feelings of apathy in at least a few minds.

My personal opinions about who they vote for are beside the point. The primary goal is to ensure that they will not shy away from the controversies and challenges on the road ahead and that they are set on a path where they can make informed and thoughtful decisions for themselves.

As we prepare to choose our representatives this 2024 presidential election cycle, my objective must not be to foster partisan hacks or apparatchiki but to cultivate critical thinkers who can navigate a complex and often deceptive information environment. “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all,” wrote the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, “Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.” The task of education for democracy thus extends beyond the classroom setting; it is about instilling a sense of agency and commitment to the common good rooted in the first principles of this Republic.