Shows
The Eclectic HumanistCrossed Trails: COVID-19 and What Hobbes Got WrongThis episode, continuing last week's theme of COVID-19, human nature, and social responsibility, begins with a random encounter in the woods. It then wanders through some speculation on Hobbesian and Confucian state-of-nature arguments, a brief digression into primatology, and some thoughts on North America's ongoing epidemic of selfishness and sociopathy that our fractured responses to the coronavirus, particularly among the “muh freedum” crowd in their active undermining of adequate public health measures, has brought to the surface. Of course, as merely pointing out a shortcoming is not particularly useful, I also suggest a possible remedy to this selfishness epidemic, aris...2021-08-2935 minThe Eclectic HumanistWhat Would Mencius Do: A Confucian Response to COVID-19This episode, my first in about six months, was prompted by the ongoing flood of disinformation, dishonesty, and shear infantile selfishness among anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. In short, I take on a topic that I proposed to a class back in the spring of 2020, just after lockdown began: to offer a Confucian response to the pandemic, Using the classical thinker Mengzi/Mencius as a touchstone, this episode argues for a theory of human nature from which compassion, social responsibility, and intellectual humility naturally emerge. This discussion continues in the next episode as well, from a slightly different perspective, as these...2021-08-2030 min
The Eclectic HumanistDiamond Sutra 1: A Brief Sketch of Mahayana BuddhismThis episode kicks off a new sequence, or maybe a couple of new sequences. I've been wanting to explore both Buddhism and the figure of the cyborg since first starting this little project. As it turns out, by starting with Buddhism, I can do both at the same time as much of my take on both cyborgs and post-humanism generally is rooted in that and other non-Western schools of thought. So what I think I'm going to do is devote a few episodes to the Diamond Sutra, a short and quite important Buddhist text, both for its own sake...2021-02-2836 minThe Eclectic HumanistLucretius Book 6: Concluding with a PlagueThis episode concludes our little traipse through Lucretius's On the Nature of Things. In Book 6, Lucretius implicitly addresses the sufficiency of a naturalistic worldview in the making of great art, then brings us face to face with the concrete reality of dying. In describing a historical plague in Athens, he describes in painful detail the double agony of illness and fear to which those living in terror of postmortem judgment are often subject. In doing so, he addresses the ethical question, current in many modern societies, of prolonging a life beyond the point where the only reasonable prospect is...2021-02-2128 minThe Eclectic HumanistLucretius Book 5: From Primeval Ooze to PoetryIn Book 5 of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius presents a naturalistic account of the origins of life and, quite frankly, the origins of species in a well articulated explanation of evolution by natural selection. While he of course lacks the observational mechanisms that we now possess, or that Darwin possessed, he was pretty solid in the broad strokes, and it is probably worth noting that Darwin was familiar with this poem. He also offers accounts of both technology and civilization (both of which involve the question of language) that, like his account of life itself, owe nothing to...2021-02-1447 minThe Eclectic HumanistLucretius Book 4 - How We Know ThingsEver wonder how we know things? Lucretius certainly did, and he also recognized that, without a naturalistic account of knowledge, his proposed Cosmos consisting of nothing other than matter and void would be a non-starter. He argues, necessarily, that all knowledge comes through the senses, and accordingly proposes an empirical epistemology that foreshadows the modern scientific method. He addresses the means why which our senses often seem to deceive us, and argues that, even with its uncertainties, the provisional knowledge offered by empiricism is always better then the illusory certainties offered by religion. One of the principle positions that...2021-02-0739 minThe Eclectic HumanistLucretius Book 3: Death of the Soul, and Other Good ThingsIn Book 3 of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius addresses the idea that inspired Dante to consign Epicurus to the sixth circle of Hell: that the soul is not immortal. In making his argument, Lucretius makes a compelling case, given the observational capacities of his time, for the mind as an emergent material phenomenon, a position borne out compellingly by modern neuro-science. In making this case for the physicality and thus the mortality of the mind, which he posits as one component of a soul consisting of both mind and spirit, Lucretius also gets into areas pertaining to mental...2021-01-3143 minThe Eclectic HumanistLucretius Book 2 - Fun with AtomsIn this episode, we continue our exploration of Lucretius's humanist masterpiece, On the Nature of Things. In Book 2, Lucretius begins to explore what it means to live in a Cosmos in which divine interference lays no role and all phenomena are subject to natural laws and naturalistic explanation. Beginning with the smallest objects that can be observed with the naked eye, he leaps inward toward the question of free will and then onward to questions of what current thinkers refer to as emergence—the arising of higher-order behaviours that are not predictable from observing initial conditions and components in co...2021-01-2437 minThe Eclectic HumanistLucretius Book 1 - The Material CosmosThis episode begins our hands-on discussion of Lucretius's Humanist masterpiece, On the Nature of Things. Book One (of six) presents the best surviving Classical argument for a purely material cosmos consisting of nothing but atoms moving in a void. The argument is the first step in both an overall understanding of how the Cosmos works and, perhaps counter-intuitively, a consolation in which the poet eases his friend Memius's fears about death, most particularly the fear of everlasting torment. The calamity against which he argues throughout the poem is religio—translated as both religion and superstition. Accordingly, Lucretius presents a vi...2021-01-1751 minThe Eclectic HumanistSeason Opener and an Introduction to LucretiusGreetings, folks, and welcome back. This kick-off to Season Two begins with a brief catch-up as it's been a couple of months since we've been in touch, and then jumps right into the subject matter with which I'd like to begin the year. The topic of the first few little talks will be what, to my mind at least, is the most important work of ancient Western Humanism to have survived the bonfires and vandalism of the early Christian era: Lucretius's great didactic poem, On the Nature of Things, which provides the only surviving account of Epicurean thought written...2021-01-1033 minThe Eclectic HumanistRemembrance Day 2020Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, and Veterans' Day in the US. So, for this episode, as an act of remembrance, I will simply be reading several poems and a chapter from a great and devastating war novel, written by soldiers who served on the Western Front. I am confining the location and time largely for historical reasons but also for personal ones as the field of literature to choose from would otherwise be overwhelming. so instead of aiming at broad coverage now, I will optimistically assume that there will be future annual episodes...2020-11-1100 minThe Eclectic HumanistGratitude, Compassion, and Electoral PoliticsSo the US election has been called, and it's all over but the temper tantrum. What do we do now? Where do we go? Well, speaking as an outsider, my first impulse is to rejoice in the triumph of electoral politics over authoritarianism, and I will stand by that impulse (fight me). My second impulse, though, is to ask what those Americans who have lived under Trump and Trumpism for the last four years are entitled to, and the first two words that come to mind are gratitude and compassion. Had they not voted that fascist MF out of...2020-11-0800 minThe Eclectic HumanistRodger Has Pre-Election JittersAs the US election closes in, I find myself unable to think about anything else. So, having attempted a couple of other ideas and failed to complete them, I've surrendered to the zeitgeist and recorded an election episode, as much an exorcism of my ambient demons as anything else. The talk ends up revolving around the political philosophy of the ancient Confucian thinker Mencius (Mengzi), but as much as anything, I think it might be an attempt at community, a reaching out to others at what I believe is a critical moment not just in American history but in...2020-11-0200 minThe Eclectic HumanistAttack of the Fundamentalists 4: Stand Against the DominionHere, finally, is the concluding installment in the "Attack of the Fundamentalists" sequence. This one takes a bit of a turn from what I'd originally intended, which had been simply to outline the history of Christian Dominionism inthe US, and instead speaks more broadly about the ongoing cultural conflict between the religious right and reasonable people on such subjects as apocalypticism and the looming American election. It seems to me that the discourse between the religious right and the more progressive elements of society, which has been building in tension and vehemence for many years now, is coming...2020-10-1200 minThe Eclectic HumanistThinking Out LoudThis episode departs from the ongoing series on the rise of Christian Fundamentalism to just plunge, stream-of-consciousness style, into some thoughts that have been occupying my mind lately. It is quite personal, so maybe not for everyone, and simply presents an hour's worth of taking through various thoughts on subjects such as lockdown, mental health, personal loss, optimism, 9/11, the Kennedy assassination, and the human capacity for meaning-making, subsequently edited down to about a half-hour talk. It is unscripted and unplanned, and so rambles a bit, but in playing back the final edit, I think it communicates something that I...2020-09-2532 minThe Eclectic HumanistAttack of the Fundamentalists 3: Gimme that Old Time ReligionWell, folks, I've finally managed to finish the third installment in the Attack of the Fundamentalists series, and I do apologize for the delay. This one roughly spans the time period of the Cold War and touches, in a helter skelter fashion, upon a handful of road markers along Evangelical Christianity's rise to power: McCarthyism, rock and roll, the sexual revolution, feminism, Roe v. Wade, and the merger of the Christian Right with the Republican Party. The narrative here is a little looser than in the last couple of episodes, but several strands will be picked up again and...2020-09-1158 minThe Eclectic HumanistAttack of the Fundamentalists 2: Deep Time, Darwin, and DenialDamn you, Darwin!
This episode picks up the challenge to religious authority posed by modern science, focusing specifically on the emerging knowledge of the age of the Earth in the 19thcentury and, most importantly, on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. While a literal reading of the Old Testament suggests an age of about 6,000 years for both the Earth and the Cosmos, and while the Genesis creation myth presents animals being created in specific and stable “kinds,” by the end of the century, neither position would remain viable. And while many in the religious community found, and...2020-08-151h 09The Eclectic HumanistAttack of the Fundamentalists 1: The Scientific RevolutionTime to throw down the gauntlet...
Few threats to human and global well being are more pressing than religious fundamentalism. At least in North America, no social force is more closely associated with such anti-humanist phenomena as science denial (environmental, medical, etc.), authoritarian politics, persistent racial inequality, denial of rights and equality to gender-nonbinary people, and women's bodily autonomy. And I have been watching this force unfold in real time since the late 1970s and the days of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. I've watched the Religious Right attain a degree of political and social clout...2020-08-091h 03The Eclectic HumanistMythic Meanderings 2: Revelation, Ragnarok, and RealityIn the second part of the Mythic Meanderings sequence, I dig into two end-of-the-world myths: the biblical narrative culminating in Revelation, and the Norse Ragnarok tale. These myths, and the differing understandings of human nature, the divine, and time underlying and articulated in them, have a certain amount of common ground, but oppose each other in important ways. They present quite different notions of human worth, and of the source and possibility of meaning in life. As an atheist and metaphoric pagan, I lean toward the Norse myth, and honestly, one of the reasons I hold these two up...2020-07-311h 06The Eclectic HumanistMythic Meanderings 1: Myth, Mind, and MetaphorThis episode took on a life of its own. Simply put, it is a look at several mythologies in which I explore such elements as time, creation myths, the nature of the gods, and the nature and construction of the other. It ranges freely across several different bodies of thought—Sumerian, Christian, Hindu, Daoist, Greek, Roman, and Celtic—and therefore gives a taste of the way I hope to address the humanist approach to myth throughout this series. As a humanist and an atheist, of course I do not believe in any of the gods I discuss, but what I fi...2020-07-3153 minThe Eclectic HumanistFriedrich Nietzsche vs. Robert E. LeeThis episode plunges into contested territory. In many countries, people are calling for the removal of monuments to slavery and genocide while others decry these demands as an assault upon their "culture." It occurs to me that Nietzsche, in his early work On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, has something worthwhile to say on the subject, so that is the exploration I've undertaken this week. What is our relationship to history? How does it shape us, and how do we shape it and thus ourselves? Who controls the narrative, and what happens when narratives butt heads...2020-07-311h 00The Eclectic HumanistA Mohawk TaleThis episode ended up taking me on an unexpected journey. When I started out, the plan was simply to tell the story of the Six Nations First Nation near Brantford, Ontario applying for membership in the League of Nations in 1923, and the underhanded ways in which the government of Canada, and especially Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott, opposed and punished them for their application. But when I finished that part of the recording, the episode seemed incomplete, and as I sat at my desk, staring at my bookcase and wondering what I might do to turn...2020-07-3155 minThe Eclectic HumanistThe Final Solution to Our Indian Problem: Canada's First Nations GenocideIn this episode, I give a brief history of Canada's genocide against First Nations with a particular focus on the infamous residential schools. The episode touches upon important pieces of Canadian legislation, and discusses a number of the methods by which first the colonial and later the federal government has tried to eliminate Canada's Indigenous population both culturally and physically. Listener discretion is advised.2020-07-3152 minThe Eclectic HumanistMoral Charisma: A Confucian Approach to Jacinda Ardern and Donald TrumpMy venture into humanist podcasting series continues with this discussion of Jacinda Ardern and Donald Trump with reference to the Confucian notion of "moral charisma" as the two leaders offer very different responses to both domestic and global crises. In Confucian thought, the conduct of the leader,for good or bad, affects the character of the entire society over which he or she has authority. Few contemporary societies illustrate this notion better than New Zealand on the one hand, and the United States on the other, in their radially different responses to the crises currently besetting the world.2020-07-3156 minThe Eclectic HumanistMencius in MinneapolisThis episode considers the ongoing Black Lives Matter demonstrations, which I support and in which I am participating, from a Confucian perspective, particularly with reference to Mencius (Mengzi). Mencius would be deeply critical of a regime that, on the one hand, has established such an inequitable system as the one in which many minorities find themselves, while on the other hand has effectively criminalized their response to such inequity. His argument is based on the essential goodness of human nature (to be addressed in future episodes), and the responsibility of the regime to cultivate that nature in everyone living...2020-07-3154 minThe Eclectic HumanistSeries IntroductionA quick introduction to my new podcast. What I hope to do with this little project is to explore a wide selection of humanist thought, both ancient and modern, and apply it to questions and concerns of contemporary life. The aim is both educational and political. Humanism is currently under threat, particularly from fundamentalist religion and authoritarian politics, and this series is a part of my response to that threat. In this episode, I just lay out my overall sense of what the project is and where it might go. More focused content starts with Episode 2.2020-07-3120 min