Stoic Week Activities Coming Up

Every year (at least recently), one of my favorite philosophy-focused celebrations is Stoic Week, and it is coming up later on this month!  I first got involved with it three years ago, enrolling in the free online course developed by the members of the Stoicism Today project, and particularly Donald Robertson.

Since that first year, I've stepped up my own activities during the week and my involvement with the associated project.  The last two years I created a series of videos, one for each day (you can see those here) of the week.  I also hosted a Stoic Week event here in Milwaukee last year.  And, starting last March, I was very honored to be asked to take over as the editor of Stoicism Today.

I've already enrolled in the 2016 Stoic Week course, and I'm really looking forward to engaging in it again this year.  As someone who has been studying and teaching about Stoic philosophy for quite some time, I find it's very useful to work through the sort of materials and exercises that the course provides once a year.  I also enjoy reading and engaging in the daily discussions with fellow participants (who these days number in the thousands, worldwide!)  So, I can't recommend strongly enough that - for anyone who has any interest in Stoic philosophy, in improving their life, or learning something new and interesting - that you sign up for that free online course!

A New Series of Talks: "Reconsidering. . . "

I've been involved in so much philosophy-related activity of various sorts lately, that I've not had the time to write here about quite a bit of it, which might lend a mistaken impression of precisely the opposite -- that nothing has been going on! 

Last night, at the Kingston Library, we held the second of a new series of monthly community discussions -- the "Reconsidering . . ." series, this one called "Reconsidering Charlie Hebdo:  Free Speech, Violence and Offense in Context".  So, that means that it has been a month since the first session. "Reconsidering Ferguson:  Racial Politics in Context."

The Iron Law of Ochlocracy (part 2)

A bit tongue-in-cheekily, about a week and a half ago, I coined a neologism - the Iron Law of Ocholcracy - to describe a dynamic which contemporary Marxist theorist, Michael Hardt, outlined in his recent talk at European Graduate School.  Hardt was speculating about two main topics, both having to do with a perceived dearth of emergent and identifiable leadership among recent leftist "leaderless movements."

One of these is the question why leaders aren't emerging -- a question that he noted could be answered partly by the abilities of external forces to eliminate or co-opt apparent "leaders", but whose deeper answer he sought in the very workings, ideals, and ideologies of the groups and movements.  Another is whether this constitutes a real problem or not -- is it a bad thing or a good thing, all told, even when taking into account concerns of effectiveness and continuity, to seemingly dispense with leadership and all that it entails?

The Iron Law of Ochlocracy (part 1)

This last week, with the exception of the night of my birthday, I've been attending a nightly series of stimulating lectures -- one of the benefits of being accorded Visiting Scholar status at European Graduate school this year -- one of which was delivered by Michael Hardt, probably best known outside of progressive and revolutionary academic circles for his collaborative work, Empire (with Antonio Negri).

Hardt used the lecture as an opportunity to set out a project he has been working on, but has not yet consolidated into a fully polished form.  The central question or problem was that of leadership among non-party, often-marginal, but revolutionary and radically democratic "leaderless movements," Occupy being the one most familiar to us Americans, but comprising a number of different, usually rather transient, and only occasionally effective movements worldwide over the last two decades or so.