In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois famously asked the question “What is it like to be a problem?,” highlighting the stigmatizing and dehumanizing treatment of Blacks in the post-Reconstruction but Pre-Brown v. Board of Education United States.  The purpose of his question was two-fold: on the one hand, Du Bois was urging his readers to consider the emotional and psychological toll on Black Americans living in a society where their very identity was reduced to a “problem” that others must grapple with; and on the other hand, by clearly articulating “what is it like to be a problem?” as a question, Du Bois was carving out a “problem space” of discourse, where the ugliness and urgency of anti-black racism was brought to the fore and itself demanded to be grappled with.

We suspect that most people intuitively understand what a “problem” is— How do I find the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle? Should I pay off my debts or invest in my retirement?  When is the exact right time to quit Twitter?—and also that most people understand what a person qua “problem” is, whether they are made problematic by social conditions and systemic prejudices or whether they just don’t know how to act right.

But what is a “problem space”? According to today’s guest, Will Paris (University of Toronto), it is NOT simply a location where problems occur or a problematic people show up, but rather a discursive space where ready-made answers are insufficient, critical thinking is necessary, complex societal issues can be made even more complicated, and actual problems are, although rarely “solved,” at least made intelligible.

In this episode, we discuss the following thinkers/ideas/texts/etc.:

• Upstairs, Downstairs (TV series, 1971-1975)
• What’s Left of Philosophy? (podcast)
• I’m a Virgo (TV series, 2023)
• W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
• William Paris, “The Problem Spaces of Public Philosophy” (Blog of the American Philosophical Association, 2023)
• practical reason
• Fred Moten
• W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Souls of White Folk” (1903)
• W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935)
• Karl Marx, Capital, Vaolume 1 (1867)
• HBS Season 5, Episode 61: “The Public Intellectual (with Eddie Glaude)”
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (1837)
• Overthink (podcast)
• Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope (1954)

——————-
If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotebarsessions!

Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!