Wide-ranging talks on all things relating to spirituality, meditation, yoga, current affairs, politics and philosophy. contact me via info AT peteyates.uk.
In this podcast we identify four types of trauma that the global CORVID19 pandemic is inflicting on individuals and societies. They are to do with isolation and restriction due to lock-down, fear, anxiety and panic, increased awareness of death, and political / economic disillusionment. In the second half we attempt to discern how these traumas will continue to act in the future when the pandemic has subsided. [Free. 38 minutes.]
In this podcast I question the nature of revolution, particularly as to its ultimate ground, which for some should be consciousness, and for others, the power structures of society, particularly materialistically understood. I outline the thought that both must be involved as it is found in the ongoing historical conversation. This includes Freudian Marxism, and the existentialism of Simone de Beauvoir, who gives us the figures of the yogi and the commissar to imagine. [Free. 28 minutes.]
In this interview renowned Yoga Teacher Godfrey Devereux about a recent turn his work has taken. Godfrey has dropped the language surrounding contemporary Yoga to talk instead about resilience and how it is a consequence of a certain meditative self-enquiry. I ask Godfrey to elucidate this and particularly in the context of impending ecological catastrophe. I give my own take on these matters which is more inclined to speak up for activism. Listen to the following podcast, The Yogi and the Commissar, in which I explore some of the themes that emerged and in the light of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism. [Free. 32 minutes.]
In this podcast, I try to discern the reasons behind Labour's defeat in the UK general election held on 12 December, 2019. I consider Labour's move from honouring the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum to backing a second referendum and look at how this relates to voting patterns in contrast to those of the 2017 general election. I go on to examine the relentless propaganda assault on Labour and its leadership mounted by the billionaire owned press and the BBC. In the second part of the podcast, I look at possible strategies that the preceding analysis suggests. These include the development of alternative, independent media, the more effective use of the grass roots, the possibilities of networking and more effective use of social media, including the development of new platforms. And more! [Free. 68 minutes.]
In this podcast, we unpack the common rhetorical phrase employed by no-deal brexiteers, "leave means leave". We point out that, though the phrase tautological, an implication is indirectly intended by it, whilst simultaneously concealing counter implications. The implication is that there is only one outcome of invoking and implementing Article 50 which would withdraw the UK from all its treaty obligations with the EU. The fact is that the terms "brexit" and "leave" denote a wide range of possibilities which need to be considered as to their probable outcomes and evaluated more generally. [Free. 30 minutes.]
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.]
Here I sketch out and contrast various ideas of what guilt is and how it arises. These are firstly, that conscience, the capacity to feel guilt, is innate, [biologism and Kant], and secondly, the result of social processes, [Nietzsche and Freud]. Books mentioned are New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Third lecture: 'The Dissection of the Psychical Personality' 1933) and Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals (1886). [Free. 39 minutes.]
This podcast is a rambling discussion which seeks to elucidate the nature of taboos. This involves considering law, superstition, transgression, the unconscious and Freud's metapsychology. We find ourselves questioning the coherence of the notion of the unconscious whilst at the same time finding it almost indispensible. Do we have to have taboos? We conclude that theoretically a society could be without taboos but that it is unlikely in the near future. However, minimising the play of irrational forces is thought to be desirable. The one thing that taboos have in their favour is their connection with the transgressive element in erotic jouissance. Contains a discussion of swearing and an account of a tantric exorcism. [Free. 38 minutes.]
This podcast considers "making your peace with your parents" and why, if possible, it's a good idea. [Free. 20 ,minutes.]
This short squib deals with the paradoxical euphoria of the Corbynistas, who did not get to form a government as a result of the election, and asks if the euphoria is justified. I conclude that it is and that a number of important transformations have taken place in the political landscape. [Free. 29 minutes.]
