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Steven Gallagher
Biography:
Stephen Gallagher is a philosopher and activist who works in the Raleigh, NC area. He has recently addressed the Radical Philosophy Association, the International Philosophers for Peace, and the Global Studies Association.
Mr. Gallagher has essays in the September and December 2005 issues of Free Inquiry.
Lecture Topics:
Jessica Lynch: Simulacrum
Jessica Lynch, the wounded Army private whose ordeal in Iraq became the stuff of legend, made her homecoming to her rural West Virginia town, a place bristling with flags, yellow ribbons, and the mythologizing eye of the media. W hat one saw on television was not so much the homecoming of a busted up soldier as the public debut of a simulacrum, a copy without an original, constructed by the US government and embraced by complicit media and a public in search of an alibi.
The Suicide Bomber and the Leap of Faith
The suicide bomber has become a central phenomenon in the 21st century. Very little attention has been paid to how this phenomenon derives from philosophical and theological roots. Any deep explanation of this phenomenon must account for its philosophical content. Gallagher traces this "philosophical content" to Sayyid Qutb, and through him to Kierkegaard. Both hold central the concepts of confrontation with a living God and the decision to embrace "the faith of Abraham" be responding to the call of this God to perform the absurd, destructive act.
Against Tolerance
In the United States of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, "tolerance" was supposed to pour healing oil on the waters and enable some sort of ground for a universal moral commitment. On the other side of the pond, with the emergence of the European Union and the "European Dream", a resurgent culture of tolerance would enable the kindly encapsulation of the Other. However, the almost frantic hope being placed in the promise of tolerance is proving to be unproductive, even dangerous. Recent years and recent events have battered the foundations of tolerance, and as we attempt to find our way in the new century, "tolerance" simply will not do. Tolerance has run its course. We must discover something better.
Welcome to the Meat Factory: the Mutation of the American Prison
The US prison population hit a staggering 2 million people in 2002. The U.S. now locks up its citizens at a rate 5-8 times that of the industrialized nations to which it us most similar, Canada and Western Europe. There is obviously something more than just a side-effect of a cowboy/gangster mythos at play here. As the reality of the US "prison industry" mutates out of control, Gallagher takes a cold look at how the discourse on the goal of the prison has mutated as well. In recent years, with the malignant explosion of the prison population, the pretension of any humane ethical goal has been cast aside, and the prison industry is now seen for what it is: a "meat processing" assembly line, a machine for the manufacturing of prisoners.
'Kill them all!' Camus on State-Sanctioned Murder
My sister would have been terrified, the night her junkie boyfriend beat her to death in that filthy motel room. Terrified, and disoriented; she would have been unable to understand what was happening to her.I would lie awake at night, aching for revenge: hard, bloody-fisted revenge, bitter and uncompromising Old Testament revenge. During the worst of my dark nights of the soul, I came across an old friend who I had not thought about in years, decades really: Albert Camus. I found myself re-reading his seminal essay, "Reflections on the Guillotine"; I read that tired, used old paperback copy until it literally fell apart in my hands. Camus' demand that one must apply one's reason to the question of 'administrative murder' finally gave me something to replace my hate.
Contact Information:
Steven Gallagher
steveg144@earthlink.net.