March 6, 2020
In this podcast, I distinguish between rational and irrational apocalyptic fears. I discuss the Cuba missile crisis of 1962 and the subsequent retreat from the brink through various treaties and weapons inspection regimes. I also outline briefly how an incipient new cold war / arms race seems to be on the horizon. I also consider the eco-apocalypse in the light of a real-life encounter with militant climate deniers. My conclusion is not entirely pessimistic and underscores the role of human agency. [Free. 28 minutes.]
September 12, 2019
In this podcast we deconstruct the hashtag "surrender bill" which Prime Minister Johnson has been repeating at every opportunity. This hashtag attempts to spin the bill which recently passed through parliament making it illegal for the government to allow a no deal brexit or a brexit with a new deal without parliamentary consent on 31st October as somehow a surrender in an imagined war. We trace how this framing attempts to resonate with myths and fantasies around World War 2. [Free. 26 minutes.]
September 9, 2019
In this podcast, we unpack the slogan 'Take Back Control' which was employed by Vote Leave in the 2016 referendum which resulted in the Brexit chaos the UK is currently living through. As an information source, we go right to the 'horses mouth', a YouTube video of Dominic Cummings, [Campaign Director, Vote Leave] explaining to an audience how the leave campaign came to win the referendum. [Available here - https://youtu.be/CDbRxH9Kiy4.] We argue that the manipulation of people's thought and actions en mass, which is propaganda, erodes the possibility of a flourishing democratic society and a culture of reasoned argument and careful evaluation urgently needs to be built. [Free. 33 minutes.]
May 26, 2019
In this podcast, I continue to explore the matter of human desire. I relate it to our embeddedness in time, to suffering and to our motivations to act. [Free. 26 minutes.]
June 27, 2018
This playful ramble likens the internet to the unconscious of the whole of humanity. If we let it, the internet rubs our noses in our being as a species, warts, wonders and all. However, we argue, it is now possible to avoid this stark and partly painful self-revelation by retreating into echo chambers. The monetisation of the internet through advertising is partly responsible. We touch on the desirability of a de-centralised internet which encourages and rewards good content creators. [Free. 25 minutes.]
March 14, 2018
In this podcast, I consider the mysticism of numbers of the Pythagoreans and its influence down the ages on Plato, Aristotle, Kepler, Newton and on to the scientism of the modern age. I contrast this with a mysticism of endless, unfathomable mystery and tease out the ramifications for the Socratic question of how life is to be lived. [Free. 38 minutes.]
March 11, 2018
This podcast is a mischevious engagament with a fagment from the TV series Vikings in which a protagonist confesses his desire to live each moment with the maximum possible intensity. [Free. 25 minutes.]
February 11, 2018
In this podcast, I draw attention to the way in which the term 'postmodernism' has become a derogatory term. I attempt to clarify and rehabilitate it by unpacking J. F. Lyotard's addage that 'postmodernism is suspicion towards grand narratives'. [Free. 27 minutes.]
December 25, 2017
This one was impomptu. Consequently, it was free-range, across questions of mystery, knowability, certainty, belief and faith. As always, the matter of living well presses itself into the picture, as does the matter of the puzzling limits of language. Thanks for your continued patronage. I'm planning some good stuff for patrons in 2018. [Patrons only. 23 minutes.]
January 15, 2017
Synchronicity is the phenomenon in which we encounter meaningful coincidences. It tends to occur if we are in dialogue with our unconscious mind, whether through meditation or psychoanalytic types of engagement. In this podcast we consider the nature of this phenomenon and its possible use for self-enquiry. The book Synchonicity [1952] by C G Jung and Wolfgang Pauli is drawn upon as is Jung's approach to the I Ching. [Free. 25 minutes.]
