James Bond and Philosophy: Questions Are Forever by James B. South

James Bond and Philosophy: Questions Are Forever Reviews

• 
  Jay D

  Half interesting, half feminist Marxist crap.
• 
  Jim Beatty

  It is necessary to sail the seas, it is not necessary to live.
• 
  Nathan Albright

  As someone who has read a few books in this series of pop culture and philosophy crossovers [1], I went into it with the proper set of expectations.  This book, and the other books in the series, are generally written by slumming philosophers who are trying to get something published and perhaps help pay the bills while using pop culture as an empty vessel in which to display their own particular philosophical views.  I go into these books finding many of the pop culture elements themselves somewhat problematic in one way or another and the philosophies even more so, but I also read them in order to see how it is that people seek to put an accessible facade over their often complicated philosophical views and demonstrate that anything that can be analyzed can also be used as a trojan horse for one's worldviews.  The philosophers in this book have worldviews that are no better or worse than contemporary philosophers as a general lot, and that is not a terribly high standard.  Questions are forever, perhaps, but the answers won't be found here.
  
  The contents of this book are as self-contradictory and sprawling as one would expect for a book of this nature, but at somewhat over 200 pages, it's not a terribly long book to read at least.  Many of the titles of the articles show some clever puns on quotes from the James Bond series either in print or from the movies.  The book begins with a section on Bond, exstitentialism, and death that includes three essays that wrestle with the meaningful life and the omnipresent threat of death.  The second section looks at the man behind the number 007 with four essays on such issues as phenomenology, Nietzsche, and a view of Bond as a comic and chivalric hero.  The third section of the book contains three essays that wrestle with the relationship between James bond and issues of law and politics.  The fourth section contains three essays that look at the connection between knowledge and technology in the James Bond series, and the fifth section closes the book with two essays that examine issues of multi-culturalism, misogyny, and a kinder gentler James Bond in more recent portrayals.  The supplementary material of the book provides some information that shows that this book only covers up to Casino Real and nothing past that in terms of films, making it somewhat obsolete.
  
  Obviously, this book is aimed at people who are both philosophically inclined and who are fans of James Bond.  I tend to have ambivalent feelings about both James Bond and philosophy and the implications of both, although I did find some aspects of these essays to be worthwhile.  For example, I was deeply intrigued by the ongoing popularity of James Bond and his retributive violence and the implications this has for views of criminals as lacking some sort of human rights as a result of their criminality.  Other essays point out that James Bond directs his violence not so much against people from other states in a narrowly Cold War fashion but against outsiders who have sought to use criminality as a protest against the injustices they see in James Bond's England other states.  Even though this is a deeply uneven collection of essays, there is still a great deal worthy of reflection here, which means that the book is at least somewhat enjoyable despite its flaws.  If only all books on philosophy could be this thought-provoking and this aware of the ephemerality of what they were dealing with.
  
  [1] See, for example:
  
  
  https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
  
  
  https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
  
  
  https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
  
  
  https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
  
  
  https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...
• 
  Christopher Rush

  Under the "trying too hard" umbrella, we have this failed attempt at either humor or intellect or both. This collection of essays is really hit-and-miss, and it takes a long time to find anything remotely resembling a "hit." Some of the later essays have a tinge of worthwhileness to them, but it's a long slog to get to anything interesting. The first few are the now-typical "let's compare everything to that one philosopher we know so we sound intelligent, even if it has nothing to do with either the source material or the subject matter under examination (i.e., adulteration)." There's a lot of "what would Nietzsche say about Bond?" palaver at the beginning, making no one interested in either Nietzsche or Bond. There's also a bit about phenomenology, which also takes away one's interest in both phenomenology and Bond. It's rough going, that's for sure. Even the essays that display a tinge of quality disappoint in some way or another - there are no consistently good/enjoyable essays. The essay attempting to posit Bond as a chivalric, comic hero fails is presenting those ideas clearly or well. It's mainly a refutation of one of the first anti-Bond criticisms from the '60s, ignoring the movies/books the critic originally dealt with in favor of disparate, irrelevant, twisted examples from later movies that don't have anything to do with the validity of the original criticisms. Disappointing. Some of the essays (even the Nietzsche-themed tripe) early on deal briefly with the Fleming novels, which was nice, but most of them are all about the movies. Also disappointing - not that they deal with the movies, which I enjoy, but that most don't deal at significant length with the novels. Admittedly, the chivalric/comic essays does this more than most, especially the Gardner books, instigating a renewed interest in me to read them, which is the one high point of that essay, but by the end of that essay they give up and don't prove their point, which leads to the aforementioned disappointment. Some of the essays are written by the lazy party "Connery is King" line, and one even went so far as to say the Dalton movies (esp. License to Kill) are bad and embarrassing. On the contrary, most of this book is bad and embarrassing. The Dalton movies are good. The Moore movies are good. Brosnan's movies are good. Lazenby's movie was good. Connery's movies are good. (I haven't seen Craig's movies yet; I'm working on that.) Saying License to Kill is a bad Bond movie is just weakness. Some later essays posit it as part of Bond's growth as a man, which was nice, but the majority of the collection has little to say worth reading. Some of the later ones, as mentioned before, have good bits (like Abrams's treatment of abduction - the logic form, not kidnapping - and parts of Kowalski's survey of Bond as a growing, increasingly good person are good - but only parts), but it's a lot of work for very little reward. I'm glad I pressed on through the tiresome "whatever Nietzsche said is right" nonsense at the beginning, but if this is the best Bond scholarship out there, the field has a lot of work to do. Maybe I'll do it. Then, of course, comes the author bios at the end - mostly puerile attempts at mixing Bond flavor to typical academia self-congratulations. Embarrassing. Most embarrassing. I really wish I could recommend this book more fervently, but I cannot.
• 
  Rob

  My friend Mike recommended the Popular Culture and Philosophy series to me, and I’m glad he did. It’s a great idea to open philosophical discussions, and explain the concepts, using examples from popular culture. This book contains fifteen essays on the philosophical issues surrounding 007, from what it means to have a license to kill to the objectification of women. It uses a lot of examples from the books, but everything will still make sense if you’ve seen the movies. It did prompt me to buy the first book, though, which I’ll be reading soon.
• 
  Rob Thompson

  I was underwhelmed by this book. The discussion of philosophy is fine, but most of the authors got their details about Bond himself wrong. There are multiple factual errors about the character throughout the book. Also, this was less an examination of the Bond of Fleming's books than it was an examination of the movie James Bond -- and anyone who has read the books knows those characters often only share a name in common. If one only has a passing familiarity for James Bond, this will probably be an entertaining enough read.
• 
  Tom Griffith

  A light-hearted look at how the Bond films and novels can tell us a bit about materialism, objectification, existentialism, Yin and Yang, and the 'ubermensch'. A fun idea but sometimes they're stretching things just a little tooooooo much.
• 
  Rick

  This book is full of intriguing essays which discuss the philosophical background to the James Bond books and movies. I took to it because I like both James Bond movies and philosophy.