Epoche, entertainment and ethics

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Epoche, entertainment and ethics: On the hyperreality of everyday life

Abstract:
In this essay, I argue that popular entertainment can be understood in terms of Husserl’s concepts of epoche, reduction and constitution, and, conversely, that epoche, reduction and constitution can be explicated in terms of popular entertainment. To this end I use Husserl’s concepts to explicate and reflect upon the psychological and ethical effects of an exemplary instance of entertainment, the renowned Star Trek episode entitled ‘‘The Measure of a Man.’’ The importance of such an exercise is twofold: (1) to demonstrate, once again, the fecundity of the methodological procedures Husserl bequeathed to us; more than any other philosopher, he tapped into the fundamental manners in which we lose, make and remake the meanings of our lives; and (2) to demonstrate how popular entertainment, similarly, plays a central role in the making and remaking of the meanings of our lives. If my zig-zag procedure between Husserl’s philosophy and popular entertainment is productive and cogent, in addition to elucidating Husserl’s philosophy, it will demonstrate the reality-generating potency and the constitutive power of entertainment in the contemporary world. Entertainment, via ourselves, has become the primary producer of the meanings via which consciousness constitutes the world.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ch ... y-Life.pdf

It's only 8 pages long and talks about Star Trek, that's not so bad, right?

And if it is that bad then maybe he's right:
The case for consciousness or sentience as the basis of rights and respect is not so well made by the Star Trek episode as it is by Mary Anne Warren or William Lycan, nevertheless, it does make the point more vividly than do the philosophers; entertainment makes it more real. It makes it more real, in part, because we care more about vivid, unified fictional characters that we let into our homes each week than we do about Warren’s or Lycan’s hypothetical examples.

storytelling and structure, not entertainment as such, I'd say. playing fortnight doesn't create meaning, but becoming the best fortnight player in the world fits well with stories about people becoming successful andfinding meaning in what they're doing, no matter how trivial. fortnight is still a blatant money-grabbing operation, so the idea that one could derive meaning from just any trivial task, even fortnight, is a story that needs closer examination....

I mean, the star trek question has basically been posed by mary shelleyin frankenstein, in 1816.