Week Ten Meeting (Blog #4)

Deviant Philosophy.
Group Topic – “Paid Work is Voluntary Servitude”
Week Ten Meeting:

Today we had our last classroom meeting before next week’s presentation. Aleksy had prepared a rough draft of the presentation which all have all been given a copy of to look over and amend / expand upon. I’ve requested that all personally amended copies of the transcript be uploaded to this blog so that we can have an open debate about the content / structure etc in a format which allows us to see everyone’s opinions – something which isn’t possible via email.

The first thing that myself and Nick have decided to change is the order of speakers for the presentation and the handling of particular content. As Nick read about Mill’s approach to servitude/slavery and I read about Rousseau we have decided that the work and views of these two philosophers should be presented together as a form of structured debate. Since both philosophers approach the subject with different opinions but under the impression that the final results will ultimately be the same.

Nick has put together a rather useful list of ‘main points’ that Mill makes about slavery and I will be endeavouring to make a kind of sister list to it so that we can bother look over the two lists and then agree on a transcript and structure for presenting the two separate theories along side each other.

We also discussed how the conclusion and ultimately the main theme of the presentation is going to hang highly over the word voluntary and how “choice” and how we define it will have a big impact upon this. It is through this theme that we will try to bring the opposing concepts of Mill and Rousseau succinctly into the debate that can be formed by Carol Pateman’s Sexual Contract. Where we will raise issues about male control over females, our patriarchal society and then, subsequently the impact of ‘class’ in daily life.

All work on the transcripts are aimed to be completed by the end of the coming weekend and our last meeting before the presentation has been arranged for this coming Tuesday – We are aiming to quickly look over the complete presentation and ensure we are all happy with it, we will then run through the script and iron out any kinks or problems and confirm who is saying what and when.