is Greg Matson and I am your host in
this episode we are talking about Taylor
Swift who has her own class now at BYU
or rather a class about Taylor Swift
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Taylor Swift there's been a lot of talk
about this class at BYU which is
available right now for the winter
semester uh in the social sciences
college now I want to say something
first about this before I delve into
this and that is is I don't think it's
that big of a deal that there's a class
on Taylor Swift in the political
philosophy Department of the social
sciences college but there are a number
of red flags here now let me back up and
give you a little bit of personal
experience I remember classes like this
when I was in the sixth grade in South
Orange County the the school district
that I was in was well it was run by a
lot of those that came out of the 60s
and the 70s and you know what I mean by
that there were a lot of teachers that
wanted to talk more about social issues
and have social
experiences than they did about actually
teaching English and math and other
things I'm not suggesting that's what's
going on here but I've seen this type of
thing before my sixth grade teacher used
to have us do dances in our classroom in
the sixth grade three times a week
Monday Wednesday Friday that's what we
did now mind you this is a school where
a a decent percentage of the female
teachers went by Miz right not miss not
misses but by Miz all right an
honorific title that can be used whether
you are married or not but kind of pulls
you away from men it was a big thing
back in the 70s in high school I had an
English teacher who was writing a novel
and for our class each day he would come
in and read us a portion of what he had
written and then ask for feedback now I
suppose there's somewhat of an exercise
there of learning how to write but for
the most part he just wanted an audience
to read his book to in the local Junior
College there was a class on the lyrics
of Led Zeppelin and of Dan McLean's
American Pie right byebye Miss American
Pie which I I'm sure was very deep and
took on numerous philosophical tangents
in the discussion in class but everybody
got an A in that class and really it was
just a fun social experience motivated
by a pop culture topic now the news for
this Taylor Swift class comes primarily
from the daily Universe the Brigham
Young University paper student paper and
here's the title of it it's new BYU
Taylor Swift course to be taught by
Swifty philosophy Professor now at first
before reading the article you'll think
to yourself well he's a Swifty and he's
a philosophy Professor both of those
things are true but after you read the
article where it says Swifty philosophy
Professor what you really might look at
is Swifty philosophy as a thing and
that's what brings up the red flag in
this course the professor the associate
professor of political philosophy that's
offering this class is Ryan Davis and he
is a huge fan of Taylor Swift here are a
few statements in the article Davis is a
passionate Swift fan and looks for
philosophical implications in her
lyrics Davis is a professor in the
political science department whatever
this is he says I'm here for it I am on
the train the Swift train now Davis has
received his Doctorate in political
philosophy from Princeton so he's well
educated but I'm not sure how deep the
philosophy goes in a Taylor Swift
philosophy class he's even
given the philosophy of Taylor Swift a
name a term it is
philosophy right again philosopy and of
course there aren't any more seats
available in this class I mean who
wouldn't want to take this class I'm
sure he could get one of the very large
classrooms for this class because
everybody's going to want to attend it
it's going to be fun and again in a
vacuum I don't think it's that big of a
deal but when you look at the entire
social sciences College here and the
issues of professors teaching
pro-abortion in their classes protrans
movement whiteness activities having
their students arranged in the classroom
based on their privilege genderbending
exercises guest speakers who call
whiteness demonic I mean and the list
goes on and on and on in this college at
Brigham Young University this isn't the
best addition to that right again in a
vacuum I don't think it's that big of a
deal but the credibility of this college
is
just there's so many issues here here
are a few quotes from the article it
says according to Davis the professor
many of Swift's songs are
autobiographical and when a listener
listens closely to the lyrics they
realize she cares about
relationships because she has been
thinking about what the right way and
wrong ways to treat others are this is
the basis of the class of of the
philosophy of Taylor
Swift all of these questions he says are
questions about ethics and she's just
interested in the ethics of all those
things and so even though it's pop music
it's pop music that that's about the
moral structure of relationships and
again if I was using pop culture as a
way to bring in and teach much deeper
levels of philosophy then then great
right but if I'm actually moving to a
point where I have
philosopy as a
thing then then that's a little bit of a
red flag here's a few other red flags
that go along with this and again I
don't know this professor he's probably
a great guy and maybe the course is
going to be great it's just there's been
so much press about this so much bad
press about this that I wanted to
address it here are a few red flags he's
been to three concerts from the ays tour
this last year he's been to three Taylor
Swift concerts this guy is a massive fan
of Taylor Swift he's got a cutout of
Taylor Swift in his office according to
his sister he incorporates Taylor Swift
lyrics in any situation or conversation
he can she says at the end of the day
Ryan is just the guy who just wants to
talk about Taylor Swift she says
honestly I feel like my brother
understands Taylor Swift better than
Taylor Swift understands Taylor Swift
say Taylor Swift five times
fast Davis has written several op EDS
about Taylor Swift Davis writes about
the philosophy of Taylor Swift again in
a vacuum I don't think it's that big of
an issue but it it doesn't look real
good it just doesn't look very good
especially when the professor is the one
who is The Fanatic
of Taylor Swift anyway I want to know
what you think about this make your
comments in the comment section is this
a positive is this a negative is this a
way to bring students into political
philosophy or philosophy as a whole into
ethics and a way to teach them and that
makes it a positive or is he taking
something very superficial and trying to
make a deep meaning out of something
that really isn't fair let me know and
I'll talk to you soon
