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 discuss Chapter 57 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. In this chapter, Lao Tzu extols the virtues of wu wei, non-doing, when it is employed by sage leaders. The question of the tendency for all governments to do things which are inimical to the flourishing of the people haunts this discourse and we tease out the resonances this has with a wide variety political philosophies. [Free. 23 minutes.]
This podcast is our original take on the recent film, Don't Look Up. [Discard the previous version which had the wrong file! Apologies. Free. 38 minutes.]
This podcast offers some more reflections on the recent film Don't Look Up. [Free. 38 minutes.]
In the light of the MPs second jobs scandal, we ask, 'How much more will the public put up with?' This leads to questions about the nature of ideology, and the contradictory class consciousness of Tories who make light of in-work poverty and the cutting of Universal Credit on the one hand, and then, on the other hand, plead that MPs need second jobs because they can't discharge their familial duty on £82 per annum! We underscore the point that this current scandal isn't anything fundamentally new, but a symptom of the profound and toxic entanglement of corporate and state power in the UK. [Free. 44 minutes.]
This podcast continues our series on economic collapse. It considers what the future might involve using the COP26 climate change conference as an indicator and focussing on economic, ecological and cultural systems. [Free. 1 hour 17 minutes.]
In this podcast, we consider the uses and dangers of social media for arriving at an ongoing understanding of our world. We particularly examine the zone of rage which is Twitter and a few current issues that are making a splash there. These are; outrage at the UK government changing the rules for investigating and sanctioning MPs' misconduct so that a Tory MP gets away with earning £100k per year for lobbying (allegedly), that there is widespread anger at the government voting to allow pollution of UK rivers and the sea, that there are many personal reports of depression at the general withering of hope as a direct consequence of Tory rule, and that the COP26 is so far merely dispensing 'greenwash'. In passing, we mourn the death or adequationist truth.[Free. 31 minutes.]
This podcast considers the possibility of economic collapse in the UK and beyond with a focus of the current state of culture. [Free. 56 minutes.]
In this episode of our series on the possibility of economic collapse in the UK and beyond, we examine the degradation of the ecosphere and its relationship to the economy and culture. [Free. 1 hour 7 minutes.]
In this second episode of our series on economic collapse, we examine a number of current economic crises in the UK and beyond and see if they resonate with what we encountered when examining some historical examples of collapse in Part 1. We focus particularly on the economic aspects of the crises in question. [Free. 1 hour 15 minutes.]
This podcast deals with Chapter 54 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. In this chapter, Lao Tzu once again outlines his meditative method and indicates how it might produce benefits not only to the individual but to several interlocking systems, namely the family, the village, the nation and the world. The benefits arise out of a clarity of seeing which in turn generates a understanding of the processes of psyche and social existence. [Free. 20 minutes.]
