The Wisdom Of podcast explores great works of literature, the sort of works from which much insight and wisdom can be drawn. We explore themes from happiness, to love, to authenticity and to tragedy.
The Wisdom of With Kristian Urstad by Avant-Garde Productions
Simone Weil was a French philosopher and mystic! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
A major theme in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is carelessness. It's more relevant than ever today... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Are emoticons and emojis as benign as they seem? ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Walter Kaufman was a German-American philosopher. Let's see what he has to say about intellectual heresy! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
The philosophers Kierkegaard and Camus left us more than just their formal works! Let's explore their private journals! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
In wielding our dangerous technology, we could learn from the Samurai.
The German sociologist Max Weber uses the word disenchantment to describe the character of a highly modernized, secular and bureaucratic society. Couldn't we all do with some re-enchantment! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Neil Postman was a media theorist and a prophetic critic of modern technology... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that human existence is grounded in meaningful relationships to things. When we lose these relationships, we lose nothing less than the world.... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke advises all aspiring artists to ask themselves one question: Are you prepared to sacrifice everything? Because that's what it takes! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
What Epicurus has to say about gratitude deserves our attention, especially today... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
James argues for a world where we actively participate in the building of reality and where there are multiple sources of transcendence! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
We really need to revive a character-based account of the soul!... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Why is there such a large increase in loneliness around the world? I think the philosophers Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Byung-Chul Han might be helpful here! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Reviving the spirit of Greek tragedy can offer us a powerful corrective against today's lack of humility and moral polarization.... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
This French philosopher argues that there is no immaterial soul, and that this doesn't strip life of its value! .... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Edmund Burke is the founder of cultural and political conservatism. Dostoevsky, Aristophanes and T.S. Eliot also share in a similar spirit. They all warn against dismissing the past! .... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
For the psychologist Rollo May, art is no dispensable luxury, it's an essential response to nihilism! .... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Happy New Year to all across lands and seas! ...... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Nietzsche criticizes our modern infatuation with money-making, an infatuation that he thinks reveals a deep spiritual impoverishment and an erosion of character...... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
Self-interest is directionless and ultimately, is an enemy of both self-actualization and love. For these things, we need a relation to something outside of our own egos.
When everything can be reproduced, why do we still crave the original? The psychologist Paul Bloom and the philosopher Walter Benjamin offer up some insight! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/
What is eroticism? And does it still exist today? Find out more!
Choosing one path in life means letting go of another! And that's okay!
The philosophers Russell and Han come from different historical contexts, but they both agree on one thing: if you want to be happy stop being pre-occupied with yourself!
Aging doesn't have to involve loss of possibilities and heaviness. Just ask Nietzsche, the Taoists, Hannah Arendt and Camus!
Beckett is bleak but he's also hilarious. I try to explore why so many of us laugh when we read him!
Voltaire called for enlightenment and progress against the dogmas and powers of his day. Our world today needs more Voltaires.
There is no future without a past. That's because the past is the ground of transformation!
Orwell's 1984 has seen a massive surge in sales in the last 8 years. That's no surprise.
Man makes religion, religion does not make man, says the German philosopher Feuerbach. Karl Marx agrees. But why do we do this, and should we? Find out more!
You want lasting joy and fulfillment in your life? Then strive for excellence and competency! Or so argues Aristotle.
What is the universe without human consciousness? Strangely, not much! Or so I argue!
We prefer machines to people and mechanical precision to messy human qualities. What is this but our love of death over life! Or so argue Byung-Chul Han and Erich Fromm!
Aristotle and Kant argue for two very different ethical outlooks. I definitely prefer one to the other!
We live in an age increasingly dominated by black and white thinking. When we leave no room for the complexity and ambiguity of reality, the outcome is going to be perilous.
The French philosopher Montaigne made the exploration of selfhood the most important thing in his life. How does his project compare to today's version of self-fashioning?
Beneath today's trend of optimizing everything lies some deep philosophical and existential problems.
Ahead of their age, awaiting ours: Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche!
Our growing distrust of expertise and of universities is terminally stupid. We will all pay the price.
Abstract time and space sever our ties to place, rhythm, and responsibility! Or so argues the philosopher and ecologist, David Abram!
When religion becomes shallow it's no longer truly religion. Many philosophers have warned us of this, of religion being reduced to self-serving functions.
The American psychologist argued that before modern consciousness, we heard and obeyed the voices of the gods. With AI, is it any different today?
We've set a bleak precedent for what's to come.
Cicero and Simone de Beauvoir offer us two very different visions of growing old and the philosophy of aging!
Living an Edenic existence fails to give us what we truly need and want: namely, responsibility, love and meaning!
According to Han, we live in a culture of constant self-exposure and exhibition. And, despite what we think, it makes us flat, banal and powerless!
We walk in the shadows we cast. Let's be the architects of a better future.
This is the famous last line in one of Beckett's novels. But it's not just a last line, it's a credo for human existence!
We treat melancholy as a pathology, something to be cured or eradicated. But we've lost sight of it's real value!
Socrates doesn't just undermine his interlocutors, Plato undermines us! Or so argues the contemporary philosopher Alexander Nehamas!
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