Back in the 1930s and 40s when surfers in southern California first put wheels on wooden boards, there was no thought of skateboarding becoming a commercially-profitable sport, let alone an Olympic sport. On today’s show, guest host Andrew Thomas speaks with Joshua Heter and Josef Thomas Simpson about their edited collection, Skateboarding and Philosophy: Essays Concerning the Life of the Grind, and how the sport gets us to think philosophically about what we do with our bodies in space.

The skateboarder resists authority, antagonizes security guards, and scorns middle class values. And this figure has retained the reputation of being an “outsider” through the different iterations of street and park skating, says Heter. Skateboarding also reflects current political trends, from the targeting of young men by fascists or the display of resistance to genocide by the Gaza Skate Team. A year ago when far-right podcaster Tim Pool tried to buy a DIY skatepark in West Virginia, he was met with pushback from the local skate community. The Right has increasingly co-opted rebellion, says Heter, to which Simpson adds that it’s a time-tested propagandistic strategy to target youth.

They also discuss the feeling of flourishing that comes from overcoming risk, the creativity of new generations of skaters, and the ability to see the world differently that skaters have. Heter adds that if skateboarding didn’t require risk, it wouldn’t be worth doing. 

Heter and Simpson are philosophers and bring their interest explaining the mundane and the everyday to their love of skateboarding. One of the goals of thinking philosophically, says Simpson, is eliminating as many assumptions as possible in order to ask: What is a skate trick? Why do we do the things that we do? What separates this activity from other pursuits? What makes a person a skateboarder? All of this makes us human, says Simpson.

The Annual Sporte de WORT Skateboard Contest is happening on the last Sunday of this month, August 31, 8am-12pm at Madison Skatepark.

Joshua Heter is an associate professor of philosophy at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, Missouri. He has published a number of books on popular culture and philosophy.

Josef Thomas Simpson is an academic advisor at George Mason University. He has contributed to a number of popular culture and philosophy volumes.

Featured image of the cover of Skateboarding and Philosophy: Essays Concerning the Life of the Grind.

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