Tyler Zimmer

Tyler Zimmer is assistant instructional professor and assistant director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. His public philosophical work centers on gentrification, policing, sexual violence, and economic justice.

What types of civically engaged/public philosophy do you do?

I’m a professional philosopher, but I also have a long-term commitment to social and political activism. In some ways these are really different roles—in my view, it’s neither desirable nor possible to try to reduce one to the other. But there are, of course, ways in which these distinct undertakings overlap and inform one another in my life. So, for example, I try to write about political and philosophical topics for nonacademic publications aimed at a broad audience. One example would be a piece on the discontents of toxic masculinity that I wrote for Slate a few years ago. The ideas for this piece came from nonacademic and philosophical sources: first, real public debates as well as problems thrown up in the course of my own life, and, second, important scholarship in feminist philosophy. At one point, the piece was among the most widely read on the website and I got a large volume of feedback from readers via comments, emails, and tweets. It should go without saying that my arguments would’ve reached a much smaller audience if I had only aimed to publish them in a peer-reviewed professional journal.

In addition to nonacademic writing on philosophical topics, I also participate in and try to contribute to educational programming put on by the Democratic Socialists of America, of which I am a member, and Rampant Magazine, where I am part of the editorial collective. Because of this work, I sometimes find myself sitting on public panel discussions alongside a mixture of activists, organizers, and academics. I also take part in on-the-ground organizing work—e.g., knocking on doors in Chicago to pass a “lift the ban” ordinance so we can enact rent control. This inevitably leads to conversations that inform my own thinking about normative issues such as gentrification, which is one of the focuses of my academic writing. These conversations also force me to find creative ways to convey my ideas in as clear and direct a way as possible. 

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What motivates you to do this work?

A little biographical information might help explain what motivates me. I’m primarily a political philosopher, and I first got interested in philosophy as an undergraduate at a moment when I was struggling to think through a number of “real world” problems that confronted me. Some of those problems had to do with the “war on terror,” global inequality, whether it is legitimate for one state to invade another, nationalism and its discontents, and so on. Others were more immediate: Is it unjust that workers at my university aren’t paid a living wage? If so, is it justifiable to pressure the administration to raise wages through acts of protest or civil disobedience? The more I thought about these questions, the more I was drawn into philosophy. But I didn’t simply retreat from the world and sequester myself in the philosophy section of the library—my philosophical work opened up all sorts of new ways of thinking about the problems with which I began. This dynamic interplay between real problems and philosophical theory continues to be a source of motivation for me. My work on gentrification, for instance, aims to respond to debates outside of philosophy about what gentrification is, whether it is unjust, and what (if anything) might be done about it. But the way that I respond to these ongoing debates is from the point of view of a political philosopher, which (I hope!) brings a fresh perspective and helpful set of conceptual tools to the table.  

In what ways does your civically engaged/public philosophy inform your teaching (or vice-versa)?

I have a certain allergy to academic conversations about social and political problems that are too rarefied to be comprehensible in any way to nonacademics. Of course, it’s legitimate for there to be some amount of jargon when specialists engage with one another in certain contexts, so long as the jargon is justified in terms of explanatory power or some other epistemic or practical payoff. But when the thing we’re talking about is, for example, racism or class inequality, then it strikes me as especially important to make the arguments in such a way that they are intelligible to people who aren’t versed in the current jargon. Civically engaged work forces me to find ways to talk about problems in a lucid, accessible manner. The political problems are what’s hard—we shouldn’t heap impenetrable language and jargon that take us even further from the difficulty of the problems themselves. I try to bring this same perspective to bear on my efforts to be clear and accessible in the classroom. 

What’s the philosophical grounding of your civic engagement?

I’m a radical egalitarian—I think we should want to relate to one another as equals, as peers, as much as possible. That means we ought to reject forms of social organization that entrench domination and rigid hierarchy. This basic thought animates the way I approach all sorts of issues, including gentrification. There are many contemporary egalitarian theorists whose ideas have deeply influenced me, especially Charles Mills and Elizabeth Anderson. But the egalitarian current in political philosophy has (historically speaking) always taken its cue from oppositional social movements that aimed to abolish various forms of tyranny and domination, e.g. slavery, serfdom, colonialism, and so on. So even at the level of pure political theory there is, I think, always some link to practice and real-world social struggle. The figures from the history of philosophy that interest me most are those who give us ways of thinking about individual freedom and social equality as deeply intertwined—for example, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Marx. 

The issues most connected to my work are gentrification, policing, sexual violence, and economic justice. The justice issues that I engage with almost always have to do with inequality in some form. So, I’m interested in gentrification as a form of inequality whereby those vulnerable to, say, displacement are subordinated by those in a position to push tenants out and repopulate entire neighborhoods. I’m also interested in policing and its connection to racial oppression, class inequality, and gentrification. For example, gentrifying neighborhoods are often policed in such a way as to make poor people of color feel unwelcome, the better to assuage the anxieties of wealthier (and often whiter) populations bent on a certain kind of conquest and return on investment. I’m also interested in the ways that common constructions of masculinity are damaging to women and nonbinary people, but also harmful to very men who strive to be “masculine” in this sense. Among other things, this work has obvious connections to activism aimed at stopping sexual violence and harassment. 

If you had to pick a theme song for your civically engaged/public philosophy, what would it be? Why?

This is a difficult question! I suppose I’d pick “Move on Up” by Curtis Mayfield. When your work focuses attention on injustice, it’s easy to get stuck oscillating between rage and resignation. “Move on Up” manages to be uplifting and energizing without losing sight of the obstacles in the way of liberation, without ceasing to be militant. Also, it’s just good music, which is surely one reason why the song has been sampled so heavily. And it’s impossible to hear it without also thinking of other emancipatory anthems like “People Get Ready” or “Keep On Pushing.”

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