Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery

by Editor: William Irwin (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)

• ISBN13: 9781405182089
• ISBN10: 1405182083
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2009-02-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Hit the lights and jump in the fire, you're about to enter the School of Rock! Today's lecture will be a crash course in brain surgery. This hard and fast lesson is taught by instructors who graduated from the old schoolthey actually paid $5.98 for The $5.98 EP. But back before these philosophy professors cut their hair, they were lieutenants in the Metal Militia. A provocative study of the 'thinking man's' metal band Maps out the connections between Aristotle, Nietzsche, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Metallica, to demonstrate the band's philosophical significance Uses themes in Metallica's work to illuminate topics such as freedom, truth, identity, existentialism, questions of life and death, metaphysics, epistemology, the mind-body problem, morality, justice, and what we owe one another Draws on Metallica's lyrical content, Lars Ulrich's relationship with Napster, as well as the documentary Some Kind of Monster Serves as a guide for thinking through the work of one of the greatest rock bands of all time Compiled by the editor of Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer

Table of Contents

WhoÆs Who in the Metal Miltia

Heroes of the Day: Acknowledgments

Hit the Lights

On Through The Never

Whisper Things Into My Brain: Metallica, Emotion, and Morality

This Search Goes On: Christian, Warrior, Buddhist

Alcoholica: When Sweet Amber Becomes the Master of Puppets

Through the Mist and the Madness: MetallicaÆs Message of Nonconformity, Individuality, and Truth

Existensica: Metallica Meets Existentialism

The Metal Militia and the ExistentialistsÆ Club

The Struggle Within: Hetfield, Kierkegaard, and the Pursuit of Authenticity

Metallica, Nietzsche, and Marx: The Immorality of Morality

MetallicaÆs Existential Freedom: From We to I and Back Again

Living And Dying, Laughing And Crying

To Live is to Die: Metallica and the Meaning of Life

Madness in the Mirror of Reason: Metallica and Foucault on Insanity and Confinement

Ride the Lightning: Why Not Execute Killers?

Living and Dying as One: Suffering and the Ethics of Euthanasia

Fade to Black: Absurdity, Suicide, and the Downward Spiral

Metaphysica, Epistemologica, Metallica

Believer, Deceiver: Metallica, Perception, and Reality

Trapped in Myself: ôOneö and the Mind-Body Problem

Is It Still Metallica? On the Identity of Rock Bands Over Time

Fans And The Band

Metallica Drops a Load: What Do Bands and Fans Owe Each Other?

The Unsocial Sociability of Humans and Metal Gods

Boys Interrupted: The Drama of Male Bonding in Some Kind of Monster

Justice for All? MetallicaÆs Argument Against Napster and Internet File Sharing

The Phantom LordÆs

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.