Episodes

Monday Jun 13, 2022
LAO TZU 50
Monday Jun 13, 2022
Monday Jun 13, 2022
In this podcast, discuss Chapter 63 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. The main theme is how the sage negotiates life through wu wei, or non-doing. In astonishingly few words, Lao Tzu imparts a very detailed account of wu-wei. [Free. 37 minutes.]

Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
REASON ON REASON 4 - MADNESS
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
In this podcast we examine madness or the loss of reason to further our picturing of reason. We start out with the fact that madness, like reason has a history which offers us a variety of causal explanations of madness, treatments for it, and accounts of its meaning. We also give a brief account of nosological drift. Both of these preliminaries serve to cast suspicion on the notion that we can discern madness through contrast with a supposedly sane consensus reality. Accordingly, we are drawn to consider madness in terms of suffering people and to appraise crazy social and political situations through the employment of a critical awareness rather than accepting the status quo understanding as a yardstick. That critical awareness, we claim, entails acquaintance with ones own potential for irrationality. [Free. 54 minutes.]

Friday Aug 28, 2020
AGAINST FLAG-SHAGGING - INTERESTING TIMES 9
Friday Aug 28, 2020
Friday Aug 28, 2020
In this podcast, we argue that patriotism is ideological, irrational, based on arbitrary boundaries, implicated in the weaponisation of history, employed by dead-cat culture wars, and rooted in a pathological narcissism. We suggest how those afflicted with it might return to health. [Free. 27 minutes.]

Monday Aug 24, 2020
WHY HAS SOCIALISM BECOME A DIRTY WORD?
Monday Aug 24, 2020
Monday Aug 24, 2020
In this podcast, we investigate why and how socialism has become a dirty word through the operations of propaganda and ideology. This naturally entails giving a characterisation of socialism, which we do, starting with the observation that it isn't one thing and that the word has a range of meanings. We conclude that the ideological war has to be fought alongside concrete organisation and that values cannot be bracketed out of the conversation even as we offer robust materialist analysis. [Free. 50 minutes.]

Friday Jul 24, 2020
BRITAIN-TRUMP, PORTLAND, YELLOW-HAMMER - INTERESTING TIMES 6
Friday Jul 24, 2020
Friday Jul 24, 2020
This wide ranging podcast flows out of the question of the influence of the USA on the UK and the rest of the world. We outline the nature of US hegemony and its roots in the dollar's status as world reserve currency, in military power, and in soft power. Trump's employment of federal military force in Portland and other US cities is analysed and its origins in the Right-Internationale play book is discussed. The wider significance of the Trump presidency and its symptomatic nature is thus bought into focus, particularly with regard to the decline of the hegemon and its desperate, rear-guard reliance on Goebellian propaganda techniques. In the context of UK current events, we re-visit the Yellow-Hammer report on the possible consequences of a no deal Brexit and picture how the added economic catastrophe of the COVID19 pandemic might well give rise to civil unrest. Despite this gloomy picture, we find reasons to hope, but they must entail grassroots action which goes beyond protest into the practical building and defending of communities, whilst not abandoning the need to capture the state. [Free. 40 minutes.]

Thursday Jul 23, 2020
LAO TZU 25
Thursday Jul 23, 2020
Thursday Jul 23, 2020
In this podcast, we discuss Chapter 38 of the Tao Te Ching. This chapter offers a picture of the sage who has a mastery of wu wei, non-doing, which transcends conscience, rule following and adhering to the status quo as a source of goodness and the ability to rule. We relate this picture to current events and our political culture. [Free. 25 minutes.]

Monday Apr 27, 2020
LAO TZU 17
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
In this podcast, we return to our long project of commenting on the Tao Te Ching. This time we comment on Chapters 29 and 30 which speak out against hubris in leaders. The character types of typical leaders is taxonomised and contrasted with that of 'the sage'. The sage, we are told, is without pride, false charm and greed and leads with a light touch. Consequently, his leading style avoids environmental destruction. Lao Tzu also speaks out against warlike behaviour in leaders and spells out the destructive consequences such as famine. We suggest that these lessons are very relevant to our current political situation. [Free. 22 minutes.]

Thursday Mar 26, 2020
PANDEMIC TRAUMAS
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
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.]

Saturday Mar 21, 2020
LEAST VALUED, MOST VALUABLE
Saturday Mar 21, 2020
Saturday Mar 21, 2020
In this short podcast, I examine the role of the UK's 'key workers' in the midst of the current global COVID19 pandemic. With a few examples I show how the nature of these workers is brought out of ideologically produced obscurity into the light by the crisis. Often low-status, poorly paid, and traduced and poorly treated by the conservative government, these workers, I argue, are both more necessary and more public spirited than, say, hedge-fund managers. [Free. 9 minutes.]

Saturday Jan 25, 2020
RESILIENCE: INTERVIEW WITH GODFREY DEVEREUX
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
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.]