Podcasts about Aristotle

How do you know when it's worth optimizing your retirement plan and when it's better to keep things simple? This week, Roger answers a listener question by exploring Aristotle's concept of the "golden mean," arguing that the best retirement decisions are rarely found at either extreme. He explains why financial optimization should be measured by the life it enables rather than the dollars it saves and introduces the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) as a practical framework for evaluating trade-offs. Roger also answers listener questions about stepped-up cost basis after the death of a spouse, whether dividends can be used to fund an income floor, and when bonds versus CDs make sense in today's interest rate environment.OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN(00:00) Roger introduces today's discussion on balancing financial optimization with simplicity, previews upcoming episodes, and shares updates on the August replay schedule and September Social Security series.RETIREMENT TOOLKIT(02:31) Finding your "golden mean" between optimizing your retirement plan and keeping it simpleWhy retirement planning often overemphasizes financial optimizationThe difference between optimizing for money and optimizing for lifeHow Aristotle's concept of the golden mean applies to retirement decisionsUsing the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) to make better decisionsRecognizing personal biases before making financial decisionsEvaluating trade-offs and second-order consequences before pursuing tax strategies, Roth conversions, and other optimization opportunitiesLISTENER QUESTIONS(36:35) Roger answers a listener's question about home cost basis. (41:02) Can dividend income be used to fill the gap in my retirement income floor?(44:55) Are bonds still a good conservative investment, or should I use CDs instead?SMART SPRINT(49:55) Practice using the OODA framework on a small, everyday decision this week to determine whether optimizing is truly worth the extra time and effort.CLOSING THOUGHTS(51:24) Roger reflects on how building a resilient retirement plan isn't just about protecting against uncertainty—it also gives you the confidence to lean into life and enjoy retirement more fullyREFERENCESSubmit a Question for RogerSign up for The NoodleNote: The opinions expressed are for informational purposes only and should not replace personalized advice from licensed professionals.

Storytelling has become the most overused word in marketing, and Emma Lieberman thinks that's exactly the problem. In this episode of Content Amplified, Emma, Director of Copy and Content at Impact Networking, argues that storytelling isn't a strategy to optimize, it's a craft, and treating it like a KPI is why so many brand stories fall flat. Drawing on Aristotle's Poetics, Emma breaks down what actually makes something a story (a beginning, a middle, an end, a character who changes) and why most marketing "stories" are really just branding wearing a costume. She walks through three examples that get it right: Grainger's YouTube series of unscripted client interviews, a Volvo ad that never shows the car until the very last second, and Google's classic "Parisian Love" ad told entirely through search bar queries. Emma also shares the one tactical move any marketing team can make tomorrow: start with client stories, since no sales team has ever said no to more of them. If you've ever wondered why your brand's "storytelling" isn't landing, this conversation explains what's actually missing.About EmmaEmma Lieberman didn't start out in marketing. She spent years in Los Angeles working as an actor and comedian, doing stand-up, sketch, and indie film, before the pandemic pushed her to try content writing as a freelancer. She quickly found that the skills she'd built connecting with an audience on stage translated directly to connecting with one in writing, and she moved from freelance work into an in-house role at Impact Networking. She's been promoted several times since and now serves as Director of Copy and Content at Impact Networking.Show NotesConnect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-lieberman/Text us what you think about this episode!

Dr Heidi Matisonn, Senior Lecturer at The Ethics Lab at the University of Cape Town’s Neuroscience Institute and Department of Medicine joined Clarence on air for a “Philosophically Speaking” conversation. Views and News with Clarence Ford is the mid-morning show on CapeTalk. This 3-hour long programme shares and reflects a broad array of perspectives. It is inspirational, passionate and positive. Host Clarence Ford’s gentle curiosity and dapper demeanour leave listeners feeling motivated and empowered. Known for his love of jazz and golf, Clarrie covers a range of themes including relationships, heritage and philosophy. Popular segments include Barbs’ Wire at 9:30am (Mon-Thurs) and The Naked Scientist at 9:30 on Fridays. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Views & News with Clarence Ford Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays between 09:00 and 12:00 (SA Time) to Views and News with Clarence Ford broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/erjiQj2 or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/BdpaXRn Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"...And he will refrain from giving to anybody and everybody, that he may have something to give to the right people, at the right time, and where it is noble to do so..."I am reading from Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, written in 350 BC. Reflection questions:Where are you being vague in your conversations with donors or in your campaign materials?How will you lean into providing clarity to our donors in your leadership?Reflection on quote:This month, we are exploring what it means to lead with integrity during a capital campaign.  For this series, we are using the metaphor of standing at the base of a mountain where the trail is obscured from view by the undergrowth of the forest. Each step is a step of faith, but the journey is grounded in building trust with our staff, volunteers, donors, and the community.  It is both exhilarating and challenging as we make our way to the mountain top to complete the capital campaign.  This trust building requires honesty, clarity, openness, and curiosity in our leadership. This week, we are exploring the principle of clarity through ancient wisdom.  Note: Aristotle uses the word liberal to denote a donor of money from their wealth.Aristotle points to a key principle for capital campaigns; that is, the importance of clarity when speaking with a donor about the campaign. He outlines that virtuous major donors will give to the right people, the right amount, and at the right time.  In the capital campaign context, we lead with clarity when we define why we are most equipped to expand our programs and services now and how we can be trusted to sustain our essential services through our new building or renovation after the campaign is over.  We lead with integrity when we clearly explain the true costs of the campaign and the gift range the donor may consider themselves in.  And, we lead with clarity when we demonstrate why the campaign is needed right now and a gift will have the most effectiveness when given now.  While it may seem more polite in our small towns to be vague in donor conversations, vagueness only leads to donor confusion, sending them back to the trailhead or lost off-trail.  Instead, it is more noble to lead with clarity that we are the right people for the right amount at this right time to receive a gift to the capital campaign.  This work has entered the public domain.What do you think? Send me a text. To explore small town capital campaign coaching deeper and to schedule an free explore coaching call, visit ServingNonprofits.com.Music credit: Woeisuhmebop

Join us for an engaging conversation on the social pillar of well-being with Maryland based psychotherapist, Cintra Harbold. This episode concludes the Lawyer Well-being Community's series, The Six Pillars of Well-Being. In this dynamic discussion with your community host, Winsome Gayle, a social justice lawyer and leadership coach, Cintra provides practical ways for us to connect. From Aristotle to the outdoors, Cintra, a nature certified therapist, tells us how we are built to connect and why it is important for our personal and professional well-being. And, if you are an introvert, Cintra shares some useful tips for you as well!Learn more about Cintra Harbold's practice here. Learn more about Winsome Gayle here.Please note, the positions and opinions expressed by the speakers are strictly their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of their employers, nor those of the D.C. Bar, its Board of Governors or co-sponsoring Communities and organizations.

On the #amwriting podcast's Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King's Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbatical became a year of researching five formative works (including Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary) to understand how horror language creates lasting fear. She explains choosing a first-person narrative that blends literary criticism, archival discovery, and her own anxiety, including eerie moments in the archive and insights into King's word-level edits, literary influences, and Shakespearean foundations, especially The Shining's ties to Hamlet.#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Read the Book* Monsters in the Archives by Caroline BicksTranscriptJennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jennie Nash, and you're listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Welcome, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we're talking about the big decisions writers face in their work and creative lives.I'm here today with a super special guest. I'm so excited to speak with Caroline Bicks. She is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. And she's the author of all kinds of very cool books ... about Shakespeare, including one on cocktails.Um, and, uh, is the co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, and we are here today to talk with her about her new book called [00:01:00] Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Welcome.Caroline: Thank you. Thanks for having me.Jennie: So this is gonna be the strangest interview you've probably ever done. ICaroline: don't know.Because- I've talked to a lot of people around the world about this Stephen King book.Jennie: I couldn't read your book. I, I couldn't read it. I can't read horror. Yeah. Which listeners of this podcast are gonna laugh about, ‘cause I'm actually coaching someone live and they're writing gothic horror, and they're probably like, “All you talk about is horror, Jennie.”But, um, it's actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you, because you made a decision in the writing of this book that I thought was super cool. Mm. Which was you put yourself in it.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you're a scholar.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you've written scholarly books, and you approach this with a scholarly perspective, but you, you really put yourself in it.And, and so [00:02:00] I was reading it for that part of the story and I had to skip over huge chunks of, of the, of the work. Because what you're doing in this book is you're getting at this question of- W- what, what is scary in writing? Like, how does it actually work? How does it act- what is the magic or the function that makes us feel this thing?And you actually feel it yourself while you're going through it, and I found it quite terrifying actually. So, um, that's kinda what I wanted to talk about is how did you make the decision? Well, first of all, you were the first person, I wanna make sure I get this right, ‘cause this is very cool. Yeah. You were the first person who was invited to the archives, the Stephen King archives.Caroline: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a bit of a story, so I won't spend too much time on it, but just the mo- Oh, no, do. It's good ... when I ch- when I took this position... So I've been a Shakespeare professor my whole adult life, ba- as soon as I graduated from grad school in the late ‘90s, [00:03:00] and I was at Boston College for 15 years.I took this position at University of Maine nine years ago as a Shakespearean. Um, so it is an endowed chair in Stephen King's name because he's our most famous alum. So when I took the position, I, it was because I'm a Shakespearean, not because I'm a horror specialist. Um, I had always been a Stephen King fan since I read him when I was 12, and he scared the beje- Jesus out of me, um, with The Boogeyman story.Jennie: Right.Caroline: Um, so when I took this position though I was told, “You're never gonna meet Stephen King. Don't even make contact with him.” I'm like, “Fine, you know, this is still a great job. I'm excited.” Um- ThanksJennie: for the money. Yeah.Caroline: Thanks for... You know, no, it's a wonderful fund. It was funded by the Harold Alfond Foundation, and it's to support the public humanities, which is an incredible mission.So, um, I get to give money away to people. You know, it's a great, great position, but I was not a horror specialist. And particu- a- and as an adult, I actually wasn't reading horror because it scares me too much. You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it had grabbed me when I was a teenager. So it was about four years into the [00:04:00] job when I got a call at home from Stephen King, which just, uh, uh, my jaw hit the floor.And he said, “You know, I think it's time we meet.” I'm like, you know, I, I really fan-girled because I really, I have so much admiration for him and respect. Um, I invited him to come talk to our students. He was brilliant, generous, funny, kind, and I felt so at ease that I felt like I could ask... You know, and I got to know him professionally.We had a good professional relationship that developed from there. When I had a sabbatical year coming up the next year- I could have written another Shakespeare book. I had another one in my head. I've written a bunch of them but I knew that he and Tabitha had just collected all of his manuscripts and put them in a climate-controlled space attached to their home in Bangor, and I thought, “You know, this is an incredible opportunity.I would love to dig in there and be the first one in there, and just read those early drafts of the books that scared me so much when I was a teenager, and try to just explore why. Why were they sticking in my head still?” Um, again, I am not a specialist in... I'm not a cognitive scientist. I'm not a [00:05:00] specialist in horror literature, but I'm obviously highly trained in how to do literary analysis and how to do archival work, not Shakespeare, because we don't have any of his works, but, you know, I, I understand what that process is.So back to your question about why I wanted to bring myself into it, which was, you know, I had been experimenting with first-person storytelling after I got tenure. You know, ‘cause it's a long process, Kate. Right. And most of my writing had been academic writing, but I really had always loved storytelling And I got a piece into the Modern Love column.I started to have some success with publishing my first-person stories, and I was like, “You know, I love this.” So when I had this opportunity to go into his archives, they generously said yes, was amazing. I thought, “You know, I really wanna tell this story. I don't wanna write an academic book. I want this to be the story of a literature scholar, but really the story about a scared kid.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: You know, you, you never lose that scare, you know, I don't... This is the thing. Fear has stuck with me with those stories [00:06:00] for 40 years. So I was fascinated, and I just wanted to understand how he had crafted the language so that it was sticking in my head still. Because when I was talking to people around, you know, whenever you mention Stephen King to people, you know, if they've read him, they remember specific lines and specific words, and I was like, “That's an extraordinary, um, 50 years on to have that power.”So, um- Well- Anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. I, I could talk about this forever, so you tell me- Oh, no, it's- ... where you wanted to pick up from this.Jennie: It's so good. Well, I have to tell you this funny anecdote, which is that my college roommate was from Bangor, Maine, and babysat his kids in that house.Caroline: Oh, that's insane.Jennie: So when I went to visit her, she drove me by that house.There you go. And I was like, “Oh, hell no- Yeah ... would I ever babysit in that house.” Like, it's-Caroline: It's ‘cause it's like a gothic, it's like straight out of Haunting of Hill House ...Jennie: actually, and like these spiderweb gates that, and you describe that in the [00:07:00] book and, and the- Yeah ... archives are in that house. They'reCaroline: in the house.They're attached to the back. I know. And it, it was so, it was, it was insane. It was like a full-on 360 experience writing this book. Um, and I, I knew, like, so I did the research for a year. I didn't even know if this would be a book. I just knew I wanted to have the opportunity to be in there because it, I knew it was a great opportunity, and I was so curious, you know?Yeah. So I, I came out of the year with just tons of notes and observations, but I didn't have a book, you know? Yeah. And then I started experimenting with writing a chapter, and I just, the storytelling just came forward and then when I got an agent and she, you know, s- I, I, I was able to get a contract based on a proposal and that one chapter I had written and I was really fortunate to have a fabulous editor, David Ebershoff, at Hogarth, who is just such a wonderful writer himself, and he really encouraged me to bring my voice in and bring my story in even [00:08:00] more.Um, so that's- And- ... that's the story of that.Jennie: Was it hard for you as a scholar to do that?Caroline: You know what? It was so freeing and so fun that it actually wasn't, you know? Because I, I knew this wasn't going to be an academic book, so once I let go of that- Yeah ... um, I was like, wow, I have the, and yet I have this skill set I can bring forward, and I knew that's what would make this unique.Um, but I can combine my two favorite ways of writing, ‘cause I do actually love writing literary criticism. Like it's, I get a thrill out of it. I wouldn't be doing it this long if I didn't get a thrill out of it, but I also love telling my own stories and drawing a reader in. And so for me it was like just a circus carnival.Like it was so fun to be able to do it. Once I had the permission and I had a contract, I was like, fine, you know? I, I, who am I writing this book for? I'm writing it for me, you know? Like this is just something I wanna do because I'm so passionate [00:09:00] about it and I, and I love Stephen King. And, um, once I got into it that way and wasn't thinking about who's gonna criticize me for this, like how will academics view this, I was like, I don't care.I just don't care. I know I've got a great story to tell that people are gonna love to read because there's so many people that love not just Stephen King, but people who love reading about how great books get written, you know? Yeah. And so that was the audience I had in my mind when I, when I was crafting it.It was really, in my mind, anybody who cares about books and writing. It doesn't have to be... So when you say, you're not the first person who's said to me, “I can't read your book,” or, “I can't read-” Oh, I'm so glad. “... Stephen King books,” you know, and I'm like, “That's okay. You can skip, you know, the parts that really scare you,” because there's plenty about just like that first chapter I wrote about Pet Sematary, just his sticky notes back and forth with his copy editor, which is so fun I think.You know, it's just like, wow.Jennie: Totally. Yeah. But the thing that you do is you- Allow yourself to confront that fear-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: [00:10:00] that, that I feel that the people can't, that can't read horror feel. You know, anybody that even allows themselves to be scared feels. And-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: and you, you do some very specific things, um, which I, I found fascinating, including tracking down on eBay the original copy of that book you read as a- Yeah, I wanted-as a teenager.Caroline: Yeah, that was part of the process for me, was I wanted to make sure I was reading... So before I would go into the archives for each work, and I'd spent like two... I only picked five, because I wanted to... First of all, I knew I wanted to make this personal. Um, and those were the five that scared me the most when I was a teenager.So I grew up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s as a teenager, so for me, it was in real time when the books were coming out practically. So it was- Yeah ... Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary. Um, I'm forgetting one of course. Uh, but I went -Jennie: The other one.Caroline: The other one. Had a huge impact on me. [00:11:00] So it was those five, and I, I knew those were the ones I was gonna do a deep dive into, and that I wanted to really re-engage with, and bring my whole self to.So I wanted to find the copies that I had read in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. And fortunately, it's pretty easy to find them. Uh, so yeah, but eBay sometimes I had to go on, or go into a used bookstore and, you know, find the like actual 1979 paperback, you know.Jennie: Um- I mean, that- Um ... I just, there's some, there's so much to say about that because-Caroline: YeahJennie: like, I just, um- We, we just had a new bookcase built, um, which is something I've wanted to do well for eight years in this house. But it's a thing I've always wanted to have, which is like a grand bookcase, and it just was finished last week, and we had all the books packed up in storage, and we brought all the books back.Then we went through this discernment process of what goes [00:12:00] on those shelves. And I, you know, I had all those books from when I was a kid, even when I was a kid-kid, and they're yellow, and moldy and falling apart, and the covers aren't on, and they're taped and-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: eh, but I cannot let them go-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: because those...that was the object.Caroline: That's the object. This is what I feel sad for kids now, because they're not gonna have those same memories, um, of books. Yes. You know? And I don't think they stick in your head the same way if you don't have the full sensory embodied experience with a book.Jennie: Right. You know? Even when you open...I read on Kindle, which I love for so many reasons. Yeah. But you don't even see the cover.Caroline: You don't see the cover, right. And for me, it's so much. Like, I remember going to the Scholastic Book Fair and being like- Yes ... “I'm getting Summer of My German S- Soldier because Christy McNichol's on the cover,” you know?Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was part of the journey for me was I did wanna just [00:13:00] reconnect with those books again, try to h- and as much as you can, you know, reexperience the feelings of f- like The Shining, I actually... the only one I still have from 1977 is the actual Shining that I read. Um, and that's, for me, that woman in room 217.Well, I know you haven't read it ‘cause you're probably... What? But, um, it, that particular one I still have from, from when I was growing up. Um, and I love that I still have it, and it still has the photo... You know, it's the version that has the photo inserts that includes the Kubrick film photos. Oh, okay.Jennie: Okay.Yeah, yeah.Caroline: And I read it before I saw the film, so I remember being- 15 reading it and then seeing the pictures and being like you know? And that's part of the experience, but it wasn't, it's different than seeing the film, you know? And I really, I wanted to write this book as a love letter to language and to books, and not to film.Like, there's, that's a whole other category I think that enters people's brains in totally different ways. It's a very different experience. For me it's about, like going back to your original question [00:14:00] about like why, why, why do stories cause fear, and like what's the value perhaps in that? Yeah. That was something I came to after this long journey really, and talking to people and thinking about why.And also by understanding and reading more about Stephen King's books and talking to him about them, and realizing for him how much these stories are rooted in personal experiences or fears of grief and loss. And- Yes ... that was really profound for me. And like The Night Shift, which is the ur-text that I start with, ‘cause that's the one I read when I was 12, and that's his first collection of short stories.It came out in 1978. It's 20 short stories. But he ends it with a story about his mother dying, and it's, I mean, it's thinly veiled autobiography. It's about a man who's watching his mother die in the hospital. Um, but it's clearly a mirror of his own experience losing his mother when he was 26. And I'm like, wow, what's that doing in a collection of horror stories?[00:15:00] And it's like, what? ‘Cause that is of course, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, that's the core fear we first have, is that where's mommy, right? Yeah. Right? You lose the person who's in charge of taking care of you, and if you're lucky, does it well and with care. Um, but even if it's not, like Carrie, you know, the more I was looking through the Carrie drafts, I was like, right, he's really homing in on Carrie calling out for her mother even though her mother's terrible and abusive to her, right?So it's, there's just this, I don't know. It's a long way around to say I think horror, and he writes about this really eloquently, is a way for us to metabolize our deepest fears. Um, and to look at trauma not head-on but sideways. Um, and he writes about that, um, a number of different places in a really powerful way.He's just such an extraordinary human. You know, he's been thinking about this and for so long.Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your willingness to [00:16:00] confront that, those particular fear, fears in your own self and on behalf of the reader, really puts you in it. I mean, like you, there's a really lovely moment where you are reading I think it's, I think it's Pet Sematary, reading the actual book, and you have to turn it over so you- Yeahdon't see, like on your nightstand so you don't see the cover. I'mCaroline: scared, I'm scared of the cover, right, still.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And then there's moments, se- several where you're driving And you're sort of holding your breath while you drive past a place that he writes about or, or- Mm-hmm ... you know, um, well you have to tell the story, I'm sure every interviewer asks you about the, um, the doorknob in the archive.You have to, like, I was-Caroline: Yeah, not too many people have asked me about that, but I'm like, that to me was the scary moment-Jennie: Wait, shut up ... the most, theCaroline: most sturdy. I'm like, wh- uh, why did that happen? But of course, I mean, there's a reason why it happened. It's, it's, it [00:17:00] automatically locks if, you know, the, if you- Okaydon't lock it So let's, let's play- So but it just happened that we were inside the archive room. It was me and, and Julie Ugli, who is their assistant, who was helping me through this whole process. And I know, and I was, like, literally holding the first page of the first draft of The Boogeyman, the story that had scared me so badly when I was 12, about a monster that comes out of closets, and we're like in this room.And the, the archive room, it actually, it almost feels like a closet. It's not huge at all. You know, it's just-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: top to bottom, ceiling to floor stacked shelving with, you know, boxes of materials. And yeah, and we were in there, and I'm holding the first page, and the lock closes on its own. It just goes...And I'm like, I'm looking at Julie, I'm like, “What is, what's happening?” We don't have our cell phones with us. I'm like, “Are we stuck in here? Like, what's gonna happen?”Jennie: In the scary archive- In this, I was terrified ... in the back of the scary house. Like-Caroline: I know, I know. It was like, you can't make this stuff up.That's why I was like, I [00:18:00] couldn't wait, when I finally got a chance to write the book and sit down and write, I was like, I can't wait to tell these stories, because they just... I, I'm not a fiction writer. Like, I, I have such mad respect for- I don't know about that ... well, I've m- We'll see I don't know. I have mad respect for people who can write fiction.For me, I only can write what I know and exper- So I'm like, ah. But these stories were just so amazing. Or like when I was reading The Shining, like the first draft of The Shining, which is crazy. I mean, it's so different from the published version. And like getting to the woman in room 217, and like reading th- and literally my head w- like I thought I was having a stroke.Like it was like, like... And it's like, and then I find an interview where Stephen King writes about how he was scared to go back to that scene when he was revising it, the book, because he was dreading it. And I was like, oh, my God, have I just like had some kind of telepathic experience with Stephen King?Like- Right ... across time, space, and yeah, it was amazing.Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, [00:19:00] it's just, um, uh, I actually made myself go through the whole book skipping giant chunks.Caroline: I feel so badly I put you through this.Jennie: I know. I, I feel like why, I kept saying, “Why? Why did I think this was a good idea?” Um, and it- I mean, even just tangentially, I, I don't know.It's interesting. I have, I'm sure you have this too, anybody who reads a lot or spends a lot of time with words, you have a capacity to sort of pay half attention, if that makes sense.Caroline: Mm-hmm.Jennie: Um, like you c- could sort of look at it without letting it all the way in. Yeah. But I, I just was, I just was riveted by the thread of, of your story and your putting yourself through that as a scholar and a human.But, but then some really cool things happen, and I, and I have flagged, um... Do you, [00:20:00] w- would you mind reading a tiny piece? It's- No, not at all ... it's on page 82, and it's the p- the paragraph that starts, “These manuscripts.”Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: That would be amazing.Caroline: Absolutely. So this is actually the moment I just described to you, where my head was like, I got...Oh, actually, I had just discovered the last 150 pages of the original Shining manuscript in a random folder in the archives, and I was like, “What is this doing here?” And I was getting obsessive about the manuscripts at this point, clearly- Yeah. Yeah ... just like the main character in The Shining, Jack Torrance, who gets obsessed with the manu- with the papers in the basement of the Overlook Hotel.But here we go. “These manuscripts are definitely getting into my head, and not just its rational part. In his memoir, when King describes books as being a uniquely portable magic, he doesn't specify what kind of magic. What if manuscripts can absorb and store more than just ink and words? [00:21:00] What if their pages can pass on dark energy along with dark stories?Ghosts have more than one way of making sure their stories are heard, of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, but rather pressed into our minds, even if we wrench our heads off the pillow and refuse to listen.” And that last is a reference to my, I used to see a ghost when I was five, and I write about that in the book too.Jennie: I mean, when I read that, I was like, “That's, that's me.” Like, these ghosts and horrors are pressing themselves into my mind, and I'm refusing to listen, and they still, they still do. And, um, King's stories in particular are so iconic, you can't really escape them. Like, you, you know the scenarios, you know the characters, you know-Caroline: YeahJennie: you know. And, and so it was interesting for me reading this book that that described my [00:22:00] experience where I was both repelled and magnetized at the same time.Caroline: That's beautiful the way you just put that. I mean, I think that is exactly our relationship also, of course, to our own fears. You know, again, what makes these stories endure, and I didn't go into this book thinking like, “This is a book about promoting Stephen King,” and, you know- Rightlike, I don't work for Stephen King. I just want to put that out there. Right. He, you know, he graciously agreed to let me go into the archives. He's been very generous about answering all my questions I had about the manuscripts, but he never at any point was like, “You can't say this,” or, “This is how you're supposed to say this.”So, but what I came away with after this process was exactly what you're describing, why we need these stories, why they endure, actually, is because they tap into our very real human fears. It's not about the monsters. It's about the grief and loss that's coming for all of us if we live long enough, you know?So you, and you have to at some point confront that, you know? So if it's- Yeah ... you can [00:23:00] try to run away from it, but it's coming, and that's part of being human. That's the human experience, obviously. Not to be glib, but it's like-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: you will experience loss. You will experience grief. And if these stories help you metabolize that or have a cathartic experience with that feeling without having to actually experience your worst fear, right?Um, like Aristotle says, it's cathartic, right? It's you watch a play, a, a tragedy because you experience a catharsis.Jennie: And did you, did you get to that in your own process?Caroline: That's a really good question. Um- You know, I, I think I became more aware of it. You know, I am, you know, and I write about this very openly in the book, that I was an extremely anxious little kid, um, which is part of why I think the boogeyman triggered me in the particular way it did, you know.Um, and that I grew into a pretty [00:24:00] anxious adult, you know? Yeah. I think anxiety is one of those things that, you know, I... Again, I was born in the ‘60s, so we didn't have this language for this back then. Like, my parents wouldn't have known to call me an anxious child, you know? Right. They probably would've said, “Oh, she's shy,” or, “She's whatever.”Um, so I think I, you know, like, and I as an adult, I think I've, I've found ways to manage it pretty well, but I am definitely a control freak. Like, that's part of how I manage it. I shouldn't use that language, but you know, it's like I, I like to just control what I can control, and that makes me feel that I can put the anxiety at bay.So I will say I think it's been interesting for me, Nick, now when I have those moments that are my worst fear moments that sometimes still will creep up on me just even though when I think I've figured it out, like doom s- doom scenarios. I tend to go to doom scenarios. So, like, if I can't reach... Uh, I will say Life360 has been, like, the best invention on the planet for me-with my two kids [00:25:00] and my husband. I'm like, “I know exactly where everyone is.” Yeah. It has saved me a lot of worry. Sometimes Life360 doesn't work, or sometimes a person still doesn't answer the phone, and then I have to manage my anxie- And then it's like... So I will say it's been interesting going through this process and having to confront or revisit the core of what scares me and, like, why that impacts, you know, why certain moments come forward for me still.So I think, yeah, I think it has helped me to a degree. Like, I can recognize it more clearly now. I'm like, “Oh, right, that's why I'm scared of that,” you know? Um-Jennie: That's so cool.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And it feels like that's the, the, um, the transformation in the book is you're exploring how that actually works and the language and the stories.Mm-hmm. But you're, you're also exploring how it works in your own self, how it did when you were young, how it does now- Yeah ... these moments when you're scared. So it- Mm-hmm ... there's such [00:26:00] a depth to it and, I mean, I just, uh, even in my half reading of it, I just loved it. Thank you. And, um, there's something that happens That's kind of crazy, which is, so you're a Shakespeare scholarCaroline: Mm-hmmJennie: And I ha- I, I know from reading Steve, a- about Stephen King, from reading his book On Writing, of course, and, um, interviews and such that, uh, I'm, I'm probably gonna say this in a disrespectful way, and I don't mean it to be so, but the, the easiest way I can describe it is that he's always had sort of a chip on his shoulder that he's just a popular writer and not taken seriously in a literary way.Mm. I don't know if that's, if that is fair to say, but that's how I'm saying it. Uh,Caroline: yeah.Jennie: And, um, what, what I found incredible was that [00:27:00] here comes this Shakespeare scholar into his archives doing proper scholarly archiver, arch- archival work, and there's this moment when you begin to see Shakespearean themes in his, in his work, and you can't ignore it, and particularly in, in Carrie and- Yeahparticularly around exactly the thing you were wrestling with, which is like a young girl's- I don't know, sense of, of not being fitting in the world or, um-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: right? And so that, um, there's, on page, since you have the book in your hand, um, I think it's pageCaroline: 202. Mm-hmm.Jennie: And it refers back to that passage you just read about portable magic.It's the one that's I remembered.Caroline: [00:28:00] Right. Okay. So this is going back to when I first was, um, I was in the final round of the job for the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and I was working on a book about Shakespeare's, the girls in Shakespeare's plays and world and teenage girls and their cognition.Like, the how were people during Shakespeare's day thinking about girls' brains? Yeah. So I'd been working on this for 10 years. Um, and then I was getting ready to give my job talk. This was the first time Stephen King and Shakespeare came together for me, and it was getting ready, and this, again, this is an authentic story, like write what you know.So I was getting ready for the job talk. I remembered that King's 1974 novel, Carrie, featured a 16-year-old girl whose telekinetic powers are unleashed when she gets her first period in the school shower. I started rereading it, and within a few pages came across an uncanny phrase. When she's walking home after being dismissed early, Carrie feels her brain flexing in a new way, [00:29:00] as if her powers have been waiting below the surface for her to reach, quote, “mental puberty.”I couldn't have wordsmithed this dynamic cognitive change better myself. In the last part of my job talk, I used the phrase to connect the brain work of Juliet Capulet, who's described as being two weeks away from seeing the change of 14 years, to Carrie's newly activated adolescent mind. It felt like a moment of pure portable magic between Stephen King, Shakespeare, and me.Jennie: Ugh, so beautiful.Caroline: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, that was just so gobsmacking. Like, when that happened, I was like, I ca- I can't believe it, but yeah.Jennie: And then, now I may be getting some of the things wrong here, but then you- You realize, is it Carrie that, that you realize he was, you thought he was emulating a play, a Shakespeare play?Caroline: I think you're thinking of Shining. I mean, definitely at the end of the Carrie [00:30:00] chapter I return to, I did notice echoes of Macbeth, and I was convinced that that must have been what he was thinking about. And, and what's funny is, so one of the conversations I got to have with him, I mean, he's so generous with his time, one of my last conversations with him was about the end of Carrie, and that's a book that he actually doesn't like very much.You know, it was his first published novel, he was 26, and he's like, “I think that was written by a young man who thought he knew more than he did.” So he's, it's not a book that he goes back to. He recognizes it's important, and it's important to him, but, ‘cause it started his whole career, his whole trajectory.Um, but he didn't particularly, he hasn't returned to it. Yeah. So that was a fun chance for me to sort of talk to him and say, “Hey, you know what? I think you should maybe go back,” ‘cause it's it's, there's a lot of Shakespeare in there. Anyway, but the Shining chapter, what was fascinating, so there's this first draft, which I, I write a lot about, called The Shine, that's in the archives, with a totally different ending.Um, and when I looked at it, [00:31:00] he'd also divided it into acts and scenes, like Roman numeral acts and little- Mm ... Roman numeral scenes. And I was like, “This, what is this? This is like a Shakespeare play.” Like, that's what it looked like. And then sure enough, I found out he was imagining, he was thinking of a Shakespeare tragedy when he wrote The Shining.And that was the first moment where I was like, “What? This is insane.” Like, this- Yeah ... like, ob- obviously that became, for me, the story I wanted to tell about that particular set of manuscripts, was sort of uncovering, like, what's the Shakespeare play? Like, what's the tragedy? And I didn't wanna ask him because I didn't want- I wanted to go in with my mind clear, like, of any outside influence.I just wanted to see what my Shakespeare brain, because I'm so embedded in Shakespeare. I also have a Shakespeare podcast I do with my best friend. Like, we're, I'm always thinking about Shakespeare and how it relates to everyday life. You know, and so I'm like, “Well, how does it relate to The Shining?” Which is, like, an ur-American text.Like, this, like, say what you want about horror, [00:32:00] like- I'd be shocked if people don't know what The Shining's about, even if they haven't read it even if they haven't seen the film. Like, you probably know something about The Shining, right? Right. So I was like, if there's a Shakespeare tragedy at the foundation of this, you know.And here's the thing about Stephen King that I came to learn, again, reading all of his notes and finding these edits, and I did find traces of Macbeth in the first draft of The Shine, um, that he ended up taking out. So I was like, “Oh, is it Macbeth? It feels like it could be Macbeth.” There's so many things it has in common with it, with hallucinations and with baby bashing.And, you know, all of these horrible things that are in Macbeth are certainly in that book. Um, but I really wanted to go in, like, just on an adventure, like, see what I saw. So I didn't ask him which chi- tragedy until I was fully done with all my research and I felt like I had it all done. And that's when he drops that he was thinking of Hamlet.And once he said that, of course, it became so ... I mean, I [00:33:00] had seen traces, there were references to Ophelia that also didn't make it into the final published draft. So you wouldn't know this. This is the beauty of archival work, like you're gonna see things that other people will never know about unless you tell the story.That's why I felt so passionate about this. Like, “I need to tell people-” Yeah ... “that Ophelia was in the first draft, that he was thinking of Ophelia.” ‘Cause of course, you know, again, even if you don't know The Shining, the woman in the tub, the woman in the bathtub, like a drowned woman in a tub, like ah, Ophelia.Yeah. Like Ophelia's another one of those ur, like she's so, she's such a part of our cultural air, right? I mean, like no matter what country you're in. Right. There's a reason Taylor Swift has a whole, you know, song The Fate of Ophelia. Like people know what that means. Um, so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible.This is even deeper than I thought it was gonna be.” Um, but also it made me appreciate how much that book is about intergenerational trauma. Um, and it's not ... So he doesn't like the Kubrick film [00:34:00] for reasons that, you know, a couple different reasons. One is that it flattens out the character of Jack Torrance, and Jack Torrance is an abused child himself, and he passes on that abuse to his son, Danny, right?Um, but you wouldn't know that from Kubrick's film. While Hamlet, of course, is about a father's ghost coming forward. Like, “The past is a ghost,” King writes, which is so f- powerful, right? Um, here's this ghost saying, “You need to kill for me.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah. And that's what happens to Jack. Yeah, so anyway, that's a long way to say that wasEach chapter was my favorite in different ways, but that one I loved being able to do the deep Shakespeare dive.Jennie: And was that ... You know, so I started that question by saying I, I had heard or understood or maybe inferred that, um, you know, King himself had this sort of desire- Okay ... to be taken more seriously.Was that, that must have been, I don't know, powerful for both you and him, uh, to [00:35:00] come to that? Not like, “Oh, you're the only person that's ever made him feel that way” or-Caroline: Yeah,Jennie: no,Caroline: I agree ... or agree with that, but. Like I, yeah. And, um, I mean, I will say I think part of the reason he was always really ... I mean, first of all, he's just so generous, and any writer who's ever worked with him has the same experience.Like he just gives his time. He just loves writing and writers so much that he will just, he'll just t- like any email I would send him, he'd write back in like an hour with a response. The part about how he feels about academia, you know, and I never directly asked him that because I didn't wanna ... You know, if he wanted to bring it up, great.But I think- Yeah ... my, after going on this journey with him, he clearly loves talking about- literature. He's the most well-read person I've ever met. I'm just gonna say that hands down. Like, the guy reads- Really? ... cons- constantly and if you read his early works, like even when he was 17, he wrote The Long Walk, okay, which just came out as a film, [00:36:00] and in that, he's citing T.S.Eliot, he's cit- he's citing Poe at 17. Okay? So he's, he, he, this, he comes by this honestly. He's not just trying to seem smart. Like, he literally is constantly reading and it's clear when you read his manuscripts or when you read his published books, he's making references to all, whether it's Shirley Jackson or Wallace Stevens or, you know, uh, he's so capacious in his knowledge of literature.And, like, just a couple months ago, he sent me an email, I don't, I can't remember, we were talking about something about Salem's Lot, and he was like, “Yeah, when I was writing Salem's Lot,” which again, this is 1975 when he's writing Salem's Lot, so that's a long time ago. He's like, “I was really into James Dickey's poetry.”Jennie: Whoa.Caroline: You know, who was an American no, you know, poet laureate. Uh, he's like, “And I was reading everything I could read of, of his and then I read Deliverance, and then I went back to his poetry, and that really impacted how I wrote the chapters [00:37:00] about the Lot,” which if you've read Salem's Lot, has some very lyrical, poetic chapters about the town, like, “The town knew about darkness.The town had its secrets and knew how to kept it.” And then he, like, sends me the entire poem that he was thinking about that James Dickey wrote. So I mean, it's, he's, and it's not performative. He's not, like, he has nothing. He doesn't need to prove anything to me, you know?Jennie: Right, to anyone, yeah.Caroline: He just literally loves, he loves literature.Like, this guy, he loves poetry. I mean, he actually writes poetry. He wrote poetry as an undergraduate. Uh, it was actually the core start for him of The Stand, was a poem he wrote called The Dark Man one day when he was, like, hungover in the school, like, cafeteria. Like, so it's like he, he's been thinking about literature and living with literature and, uh, since he was a teenager, if not earlier.His mom brought him, uh, Bram Stoker out of the public library when he was nine, so I mean, the guy- Whoa ... ‘cause he asked for it. He asked for Dracula. [00:38:00] I wasn't reading Dracula when I was nine. Were you? I mean-Jennie: No,Caroline: no. I was reading Little House on the Prairie. I mean-Jennie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Wow. So- I mean, this book, again, it's called Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Carolyn Bicks.It's just incredible, whether you're a King fan, whether you're a horror fan, um, but for sure for all writers, which are all our listeners. If you can, if you can bear it.It's very specific, um, a very specific- specific exploration of, of how good writing works really. Yeah. Right. And, and how you... You know, there's always that perennial question of how do you get emotion on the page? How do you make your reader feel something? And you, you show it very specifically, and I wanted so badly [00:39:00] to, to get into the details, and I, and I, I just, I just couldn't.Um, maybe someday, but, um, I just, I just can't recommend it enough for, for, um, this audience and, um, you know, anyone who's interested in any of these things we've talked about.Caroline: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I will say, like, the Pet Sematary chapter, which is the first one, that was the first day I was in the archives.One of the things I discovered about him day one was how much attention he pays to word sounds. So I think for any writer interested in sort of doing a deep dive into, like, how one word change, right- Yeah ... can make a difference, you know? Yeah. And I didn't appreciate that about his writing until I went in there and saw his notes to the copy editor where he's like, “Nope, the word's clitter, not clatter.This is why.” You know? Like,Jennie: he's- There's a, um- Yeah ... yeah, there's a book I love, it's probably right behind me, um, called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, in which she [00:40:00] shows examples of that kind of very careful change in, um, The Gre- The Great Gatsby and The English Patient and various works of, of literature, and your, your whole book is like that.It's, it's just amazing. Um- Thank you ... so is the next book gonna be the Shakespeare one you had thought of before? Or are you gonna- ... go in the, in the personal direction?Caroline: You know, it's such a good question. I think right now I'm just taking a break, you know, because I'm the kind... Like, I immerse myself in a project, and this has been so all-consuming.Um, and I'm back to doing my Everyday Shakespeare podcast, which I love and I missed. Um, so I'm doing that. And I, I really don't like to think too far ahead about what I'm going to write. I like to have it come organically.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, so I could go back into the archives. I could write another one of these kinds of books, but I don't know if that's the [00:41:00] right thing for me right now.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, I want to make sure whatever I write next- You know, I loved writing this book so much. It's my favorite... I mean, it's, it was such a powerful experience for me, um, because I could bring my personal experiences into it and my scholarly self into it. I don't... You know, it's gonna be hard to recreate that.Yeah. I think it can be done, but I don't wanna force it. Yeah. So I'm gonna wait and see what the next, what the next oneJennie: is. Don't you, don't you love the interviewer who's like, “Hey, congratulations. You wrote a book. What, what's your nextCaroline: one?” What are you working on now? What are you doing now? I know. And I get that.I'm like-Jennie: So mean ...Caroline: I'm just, I'm just reading books I wanna read. I'm doing my laundry. I'm getting to know my dog again. You know?Jennie: Oh, wow. Well, thankCaroline: you. But, you know, it's a fair question. Yeah.Jennie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for coming and chatting about this, and for writing such a cool book. And- Thank you ... um, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next.Caroline: Thank you, Jennie. It was a [00:42:00] pleasure.Jennie: Well, for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

9 Hours and 55 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.This is the first 10 episodes of our ongoing Continental Philosophy series with Thomas777. He covers Aristotle, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Grotius, and Hegel.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

AI will not make you a better leader. For most people it will make them dumber, by quietly taking over the one thing that made them worth following in the first place. Dr. Chris McAlister and co-host Mark Stanifer get into the human capacity AI can never replace: phronesis, the hard fought wisdom Aristotle called the chief virtue. A story about an 18 year old, a church in open revolt, and the prompt that would have weaponized him. Why the first move AI hands you is almost always the wrong one. And the one question worth sitting with before you touch the keyboard: are you leading for impact, or for validation? Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:41 The book is live 4:37 An 18-year-old, a church in revolt, one decision 8:17 The twist: what if he had asked ChatGPT? 10:37 AI as amplifier: it makes your first move worse 12:25 Phronesis: the wisdom Aristotle prized most 17:01 IBM 96 percent, and the 4 percent only wisdom can handle 18:24 Outsource your thinking and AI makes you dumber 22:39 Why Chris built his AI to slow down 24:38 Impact or validation? The most intimate question 28:23 The volunteer he hired too fast, then had to fire 30:54 Hard fought for wisdom: scars and receipts 32:15 Double down on being human (next time, the why) Take the Identity Fear Quotient® (IFQ®), four questions in about 15 minutes, to see the fear that quietly drives how you show up under pressure: www.taketheifq.com Get into the SightShift ecosystem at www.sightshift.com Find the new book, The 3% Shift: The Human Edge in the Age of AI, at www.threepercentshift.com

In this audio episode of Blind Techie Geek Speaks, host Kathleen Masciana discusses iOS 27, her experience as an Apple developer beta tester, and the ideas of Aquinas, Aristotle, and Oderberg. The episode focuses on Screen Time, Time Allowances, Ask to Browse, Siri, ethics, practical wisdom, and human purpose.

Is beauty just personal preference, or is it real? Rev. Kyle Verage, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Pleasant Prairie, WI, joins the podcast to trace how Scripture answers a question philosophy never could. Verage starts with the common phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and shows where it breaks down — some things are simply more beautiful than others, whether or not we can always articulate why. He walks through the history of aesthetics from Socrates' pragmatism through Aristotle's search for objective standards to Kant's retreat into pure subjectivity, showing how each falls short apart from revelation. The heart of the conversation is word study: Verage searched the Old and New Testaments for every occurrence of "beauty," "beautiful," and "handsome," and found the data points overwhelmingly to the Hebrew term yafeh (used of people) and pa'ar/tif'arah (used of constructed things — garments, crowns, the temple). From there he traces the Greek pairing kalos kai agathos — the beautiful and the good — through figures like David and Abigail, into Zechariah's messianic prophecy, and finally to Christ himself as the true bridegroom who makes His bride beautiful. The conversation closes on the Divine Service: where objective beauty — art, music, architecture, rhetoric — is wedded to God's Word, and where Christ clothes His people in beauty not by their achievement, but by His declaration over them. Topics covered: The history of aesthetics: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant Word studies: yafeh, pa'ar/tif'arah, kalos, horaios, tov Kalos kai agathos — the beautiful and the good — in David, Abigail, and Zechariah 9 Christ as the exemplar of true beauty How the Word of God declares believers beautiful Beauty in the Divine Service as the marriage of external art and God's Word ----more---- Host: Fr. Paul Schulz Guest: Fr. Kyle Verage ----more---- Become a Patron! You can subscribe to the Journal here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/subscribe/ You can read the Gottesblog here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/ You can support Gottesdienst here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/make-a-donation/ As always, we, at The Gottesdienst Crowd, would be honored if you would Subscribe, Rate, and Review. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support. 

Why do so many Muslims feel intellectually insecure today?In this episode, we are joined again by Ustadh Saad Yacoob to explore how the history of debate in the Muslim world, from the influence of Aristotle to the impact of colonialism, has shaped the way Muslims think, argue, and understand their faith today.Together, we discuss righteousness, justice, revelation, the thought of Muhammad Iqbal, and why the modern culture of debate may reveal a deeper crisis: many Muslims have come to defend Islam on someone else's terms rather than their own.Has modern debate brought Muslims closer to the truth? … or further away from it?JOIN OUR WEBSITE MEMBERSHIP! @ https://ansaripodcast.comThe Debt Clinic: https://www.mydebtclinic.com/ansariProvision Capital: https://www.provisioncapital.com00:00 Intro00:44 The History of Muslim Debates05:44 Ad07:15 Importance of Aristotle in Muslim Debates14:07 Why are Modern Debates So Bad?31:36 Ad32:28 The Source of Muslim Insecurities38:46 European Insecurities41:12 The Struggles of Muslims in Recent History46:00 Muhammad Iqbal's Thought57:10 What is the Point of Revelation?01:00:44 What are We Doing With the World?01:03:07 What Makes Islam Different that Every Other Religion01:10:57 How to Raise a Generation of Muslims that aren't Insecure?01:14:54 Mamdani's Significant Role01:23:49 23. Does the Future of the Ummah Include Shia?01:29:07 Final Thoughts01:29:52 Outro#debate #history #dawah #philosophy #civilizationListen on All Audio Platforms: https://tr.ee/JeX-ILYSyjFollow The Ansari PodcastInstagram: https://instagram.com/ansaripodcastTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theansaripodcastTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/ansaripodcast

In this episode of See See by Ceci, Dr Stephen Cave, philosopher of technology, intelligence and the human quest to outlive death, joins us in our Berlin studio. At heart, this episode turns on two questions most of us would sooner leave undisturbed: why do human beings insist on ranking one another, and why can we not make our peace with the fact that we die? Academic Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and Co-Director of the Institute for Technology and Humanity, both at the University of Cambridge, Dr Cave took his PhD in philosophy at Cambridge before spending the better part of a decade as a British Foreign Office diplomat. He is the author of Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization, a New Scientist Book of the Year, and, with the philosopher John Martin Fischer, Should You Choose to Live Forever?: A Debate. He is also co-editor of AI Narratives, Imagining AI and Feminist AI, all published by Oxford University Press. In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr Cave traces the idea of "intelligence" across two and a half thousand years, from Aristotle's "natural slaves" to Francis Galton's invention of both eugenics and the IQ test, showing how so slender a concept came to serve as the perfect instrument for justifying patriarchy, colonialism and scientific racism. It is precisely this buried history, he argues, that explains the dread super-intelligent machines now inspire in us. The real peril, he suggests, lies not in what artificial intelligence might do to us, but in the deep-seated biases and failings already entrenched our societies, that is, in what we might be tempted to do to one another with it: in surveillance, in the automation of labour, and, above all, in the quiet erosion of the human relationships that hold a society together and lend our lives their meaning. He then turns to mortality: the four stories every civilisation tells itself to outwit death, why a genuine immortality would prove a curse rather than a gift, and how our very finitude is the thing that makes a life worth living. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Borges's deathless troglodytes, from Dorian Gray to the laboratories where great fortunes are now spent in pursuit of longer life, he asks what such a life is truly worth if it is not also a life of meaning, and warns that "work, scroll, repeat" is no less hollow at two hundred than at eighty. He arrives, in the end, at something disarmingly simple: an answer that has rather less to do with intelligence than we might expect, and everything to do with finitude, and with what, and whom, a life is spent upon. With reflections from the philosopher and cognitive scientist Paul Thagard on whether a machine can ever truly care; from the posthumanist scholar N. Katherine Hayles on the human aura in the age of the deep fake and the promised revision of the Enlightenment; from the drummer, composer and Berklee professor Terri Lyne Carrington on music and the eternal present; from the historian Philip Matyszak on the Roman afterlife and the building of "moral muscles"; and from the cognitive neuropsychologist Alfonso Caramazza on the remarkable flexibility of the human mind. This is an episode about power and the stories it tells to justify itself; about the older stories we tell to cheat death; and about a quiet, radical proposition: that to be human is not to be the cleverest thing in the room, but to know that our days are numbered, and to spend them building and delighting in our bonds with one another.

What is happiness? Why do we need art? What is virtue? Aristotle had answers to these deep questions. Now a new book, Aristotle - The First Teacher by Philip Freeman, takes a closer look at the Greek philosopher and how his 2000-year old ideas still resonate today. WSHU's Joan Baum has this review.

697.Kevin explores how true happiness isn't about physical fitness but about living a life of virtue. He unpacks Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, sharing insights on achieving fulfillment through balance, practical wisdom, and meaningful relationships. Discover how exercising virtues, not just muscles, can lead to lasting happiness.Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. Find Get-Fit Guy on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to the newsletter for more fitness tips.Get-Fit Guy is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.comhttps://www.facebook.com/GetFitGuyhttps://twitter.com/GetFitGuy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we're doing another NPC Deep Dive, and this time its Aristotle De Laurent: Book of Nod scholar, Malkavian, cult leader, and kind of chill dude(?) Check it out! https://www.patreon.com/BlankBodies http://blankbodies.com our theme is: Millions of Dead Cyborgs - Paralyze https://paralyzeevm.bandcamp.com/track/millions-of-dead-cyborgs Portions of the materials are the copyrights and trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit worldofdarkness.com.

Aristotle in his POETICS made a simple yet incisive claim-good dramatic work has a 3 act structure-a beginning, a middle, and an end. Horace in classic Rome expanded this to a 5 act structure.  In the age of cinema, a slightly modified three act structure has been the dominant approach in American screenwriting. Yet many, if not most movies, actually deviate from this structure. And filmmakers like Kurosawa and Kubrick embrace other structures like the symphonic structure-4 movements. Yet, ultimately, many variations can still be harmonized to a progression of 3 distinct parts. Secret Movie Club programmer.founder Craig Hammill looks at Pulp Fiction, Memento, The Thin Red Line, 2001, Mad Max and many others to discuss all the different kinds of successful and discovered structures. And what that might say about an even more profound structure in successful cinematic work. 

The Daily Quiz - Entertainment, Society and Culture Today's Questions: Question 1: Which Spice Girl made a guest appearance in an episode of Sex and the City? Question 2: The Greek God Apollo Accidently Killed His Friend Hyacinthus with what? Question 3: What is the term for the amount of money a company makes after accounting for all its costs? Question 4: Which member of the Monty Python comedy team has travelled extensively, making programmes such as 'Pole to Pole' and 'Around the World in 80 Days'? Question 5: What is the name of the character played by Eric McCormack on the show 'Will and Grace'? Question 6: Which of the following describes Aristotle? Question 7: Adam Scott and Britt Lower star in which 2022 TV dark comedy? Question 8: What is the French word for 'five'? This podcast is produced by Klassic Studios Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⚖️ "No man should either do evil, or return evil for evil, or betray the right." — Socrates, CritoThe day before his execution, Socrates's oldest friend arrives with a plan and an argument: escape is possible, the money is ready, the friends are waiting. All that's needed is Socrates's agreement. What follows is one of the most searching conversations in Western philosophy — not about whether the verdict was just (Socrates has already argued it wasn't), but about whether a just man can break an unjust law. Socrates says no. This is the complete, human-read audiobook of Crito, with the full text on screen and original illustrations by Marwa El-Sayed. Translated by Benjamin Jowett and narrated by Mark Cassidy.

Aztec Philosophy, Ethics, and the Outward Path with Dr. Sebastian PurcellWhat if living a good life isn't about chasing happiness, but about building strong relationships and fulfilling your responsibilities to others?In this episode of Tales From Aztlantis, Kurly Tlapoyawa and Ruben Arellano Tlakatekatl sit down with philosopher Dr. Sebastian Purcell to discuss Aztec (Nahua) philosophy, ethics, language, and his groundbreaking books Discourses of the Elders and The Outward Path. Together they explore why Nahua philosophy deserves to stand alongside Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophical traditions, and why many of its teachings remain surprisingly relevant today.Dr. Purcell shares the story of how he transitioned from computer science and mathematical logic into philosophy before discovering the rich intellectual tradition preserved in Classical Nahuatl texts. He explains the challenges of producing the first intentionally philosophical English translation of the Huehuetlahtolli and why translating philosophy requires different choices than translating historical documents.The conversation then turns to one of the central ideas in Nahua ethics: that living well is fundamentally a social endeavor. Rather than viewing ethics as an individual pursuit, the Nahuas understood human flourishing as something achieved through cooperation, mutual obligation, and healthy communities. Dr. Purcell contrasts this worldview with Aristotle, Confucius, Stoicism, and Buddhism, arguing that Nahua philosophy emphasizes an "outward path" that begins with our relationships before turning inward.Along the way, the discussion explores the meaning of concepts such as in ixtli in yollotl (face and heart), in kwalli in yektli (the good and the right), rootedness, centeredness, and the famous Nahua metaphor of the slippery earth. The hosts also discuss whether modern scholars sometimes underestimate the philosophical sophistication of Nahua texts by insisting on overly literal translations.The latter portion of the interview examines how to distinguish Indigenous teachings from later colonial Christian additions in the Huehuetlahtolli. Dr. Purcell proposes that passages emphasizing intrinsic reasons for acting well are more likely to preserve precolonial Nahua thought, while passages grounded primarily in divine punishment often reflect later Christian influence.Finally, the conversation tackles one of the most debated subjects in Nahua studies: the controversial concept of Ometeotl, Miguel León-Portilla's influence on the field, and what current scholarship can and cannot confidently say about pre-Hispanic Nahua theology.Whether you're interested in philosophy, Mesoamerican history, Nahuatl language, archaeology, or Indigenous knowledge, this episode offers an engaging introduction to one of the world's richest philosophical traditions.Topics DiscussedDr. Sebastian Purcell's path from mathematics to philosophyTranslating the Huehuetlahtolli into EnglishWhy Nahua philosophy deserves recognition as philosophyEthics versus morality in Nahua thoughtThe social nature of virtue"The Outward Path" and why relationships matter more than individual happinessFace and heart (in ixtli in yollotl)The slippery earth and rootednessNahua concepts of virtue and the good lifeClassical Nahuatl and philosophical languageDecolonizing interpretations of Nahua textsSeparating Indigenous teachings from Christian interpolationMiguel León-Portilla, Ometeotl, and ongoing scholarly debatesBooks MentionedDiscourses of the Elders: The Aztec HuehuetlahtolliThe Outward Path: The Wisdom of the AztecsMemorable Quotes"Acting well is inherently a social activity, not an individual activity.""You're not really after happiness. You're after a rich, meaningful life with your friends and family around you.""The goal of ethics is to help you live better.""Go outward first, then come in."Connect With Tales From AztlantisIf you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to Tales From Aztlantis, leave a review, and share it with someone interested in Indigenous philosophy, Nahua culture, and Mesoamerican history.Listen wherever you get your podcasts.listener comments? Feedback? Shoot us a text!Use the promo code “KURLY” in the "How did you hear about this adventure?" field when you sign up for a $200 discount.Visit skeptoid.com/adventures to learn more and reserve your spot. I hope you'll join me this December as we explore the mysteries of the Maya together. This December, I'll be joining Skeptoid Adventures as your guide for The Mysteries of the Maya, where we'll travel through the Yucatán exploring remarkable archaeological sites, uncovering the real history behind the Maya civilization, and separating fact from fiction along the way. To reserve your spot, all you need is a fully refundable $500 deposit. Your deposit is refundable through August 1, so you can reserve your place with confidence. After Au Lignum is a haven for culture, rest, and resistance. We believe in celebrating community and honoring the land that holds us. At our urban “milpa,” we practice indigenous science that respects the natural cycles of the region, and most of our workshops are hosted by indigenous and local experts. Every project we do is grounded in collective memory, creativity, and respect for the land and its people.  Order "NEVER WILL IT BE LOST" and get $5 off!Support Lignum: A Cultural Haven in MéridaYour Hosts:Kurly Tlapoyawa is an archaeologist, ethnohistorian, and filmmaker. His research covers Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, and the historical connections between the two regions. He is the author of numerous books and has presented lectures at the University of New Mexico, Harvard University, Yale University, San Diego State University, and numerous others. He most recently released his documentary short film "Guardians of the Purple Kingdom," and is a cultural consultant for Nickelodeon Animation Studios.@kurlytlapoyawaRuben Arellano Tlakatekatl is a scholar, activist, and professor of history. His research explores Chicana/Chicano indigeneity, Mexican indigenist nationalism, and Coahuiltecan identity resurgence. Other areas of research include Aztlan (US Southwest), Anawak (Mesoamerica), and Native North America. He has presented and published widely on these topics and has taught courses at various institutions. He currently teaches history at Dallas College – Mountain View Campus. Find us: Bluesky...

Send us Fan MailDr. Shane McLoughlin is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, where he works in the world-leading Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. He is a leading expert on Aristotle's concept of practical wisdom, and his work brings together moral philosophy and psychology, character education, behavioural science, differential psychology, clinical psychology, coaching psychology, and psychometrics to explore how people develop the good character and judgement needed to live and act well.Shane is the author of Practical Wisdom Coaching, published by Routledge, and serves as Programme Lead for the MA in Character Education. His research focuses especially on practical wisdom, virtue, flourishing, measurement, and the limits of “one-size-fits-all” approaches to education, coaching, clinical practice, and human development. Across his work, Shane treats wisdom as a practical capacity: the ability to discern what matters, respond proportionately to complexity, and choose well when no rulebook can do the choosing for us.A Couple Quotes From This Episode"Intelligence is knowing how to do things. Wisdom is knowing whether you should do them.""You're finding the right amount at the right time for the context that is conducive to flourishing."ResourcesBook: Practical Wisdom CoachingAbout The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Attend The Global Conference in Toronto, October 28-31.About  Scott J. AllenWebsiteWeekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for LeadersMy Approach to HostingThe views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic. ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.

Guido Hülsmann examines the interest rate through both economic analysis and moral theology—tracing the debate from Aristotle through Aquinas and Heinrich Pesch to the Austrian School. His conclusion overturns the traditional doctrine: interest income from voluntary lending is intrinsically just and good, both for the contracting parties and for society as a whole, because it funds the division of labor in finance, strengthens social bonds between savers and borrowers, fuels economic growth through longer production processes, and creates a natural saturation mechanism that prevents capital accumulation from becoming an end in itself.However—and this is the essay's most important turn—the legitimacy of interest income is corrupted when it arises through unjust institutions, particularly the fiat money system. Central banks override the natural saturation of capital accumulation, inflate credit markets beyond any limit that would exist under sound money, and redistribute income from the poor to those closest to money creation. The scholastics were wrong to condemn all interest as usury. But the income generated by today's monetary system—artificial, coerced, and redistributive—is precisely the institutionalized usury that Bernard Dempsey warned about in 1943.Read the original article: https://mises.org/articles-interest/economics-and-ethics-interest-rates

The two great confusions about money and interest, from Aristotle's “money cannot beget money” to modern credit expansion, and how monetary manipulation by banks and governments produces inflation and the business cycle.

Drawing from one of John's 20 books, this episode will explore 10 steps to building successful habits. We are all creatures of habit, and if you make good habits, good habits will make you. This wisdom has been around since ancient times. Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” The subconscious mind – the “habitual” mind – is over one-million times more powerful than the conscious mind. This means that we spend a substantial amount of our lifetime on “autopilot,” playing out the latent mental programs that govern our behavior. The subconscious mind is so vast and powerful that we do not even know what it is thinking or capable of. It truly runs our lives – whether we know it or not. As creatures of habit, many people struggle with breaking habits. In this episode of The Change Mastery Show, John will help you through this very common, very challenging life experience by giving you ten steps to replace destructive habits with successful ones. If you have habits you intend to change, please join us and share this episode with others. You will discover: How to exchange bad habits for good habits. What are some practical and useful steps for making this transition? The Ten Steps: Where do I begin and how do I finish? Maintain the Gain: How do I avoid falling back into old habits?

In this episode of Blind Techie Geek Speaks, host Kathleen Masciana explores the clash between Kant's moral philosophy and Aristotle's Virtue Ethics. She examines whether building character is the key to addressing the impact of technology on attention spans. The episode features social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's research on how digital devices affect young people. It discusses his four recommended reforms: delaying smartphone adoption until high school, restricting social media access until age sixteen, implementing phone-free school environments, and increasing opportunities for independent play and real-world responsibility for youth.

Drawing from one of John's 20 books, this episode will explore 10 steps to building successful habits. We are all creatures of habit, and if you make good habits, good habits will make you. This wisdom has been around since ancient times. Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” The subconscious mind – the “habitual” mind – is over one-million times more powerful than the conscious mind. This means that we spend a substantial amount of our lifetime on “autopilot,” playing out the latent mental programs that govern our behavior. The subconscious mind is so vast and powerful that we do not even know what it is thinking or capable of. It truly runs our lives – whether we know it or not. As creatures of habit, many people struggle with breaking habits. In this episode of The Change Mastery Show, John will help you through this very common, very challenging life experience by giving you ten steps to replace destructive habits with successful ones. If you have habits you intend to change, please join us and share this episode with others. You will discover: How to exchange bad habits for good habits. What are some practical and useful steps for making this transition? The Ten Steps: Where do I begin and how do I finish? Maintain the Gain: How do I avoid falling back into old habits?

What happens inside a leader when decisions must be made under extreme pressure, uncertainty, and with life-or-death consequences? In this episode, host Doug Bytes sits down with Brigadier Dan Fortune, one of Australia's most experienced and decorated special operations commanders. As a two-time recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross and the US Bronze Star, Dan brings over 30 years of elite military experience to a profound, no-nonsense conversation about leadership, moral courage, and the dangerous reality of relying on "gut feelings" in high-stakes environments. Doug and Dan engage in a sharp, Socratic dialogue challenging the modern perception of intuition. Dan argues that true intuition isn't an abstract vibe dropped by the universe; it is the subconscious byproduct of deep competence, relentless hard work, and muscle memory. From the battlefields of Afghanistan to the systemic failures of modern institutions, this episode unpacks what it takes to build a coherent ethical framework, why leaders must own their outcomes, and how true courage is entirely contagious. Key Takeaways • The Risk of Raw Intuition: In high-stakes environments, relying on unearned intuition or "schoolboy antics" can get people killed. True intuitive judgment must be anchored in deep competence and lived experience. • Moral Courage is Uncomfortable: Acting with moral courage means standing outside the dominant narrative, often without data to back you up. It rarely feels good in the moment, but it relies on an ethical framework built before the crisis hits. Connect with the Guest – Dan Fortune Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderingwarriorslimited/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderingwarriors/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WanderingwarriorsOrg Website: https://wanderingwarriors.org/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wandering-warriors/ Connect with Doug Beitz: Email: info@dougbeitz.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dougbeitz/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dougbeitz/ Website: https://buymeacoffee.com/dougbeitz Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6mQ258nugC3lyw3SpvYuoK?si=7cec409527d34438 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/intuitive-conversations-with-doug/id1593172364 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-beitz-472a4b338/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dougbeitz178

Why do we say a stone "obeys the law" of gravity? What is a "law" of nature, anyway? The idea that nature has laws — universal, mathematical, binding — was born in the seventeenth century, when Descartes and Newton assumed a divine lawmaker had legislated the cosmos. Modern science dismissed the lawmaker but kept the laws. This episode traces the history of science's deepest unexamined assumption, from Aristotle's purposeful cosmos through the Scientific Revolution to Laplace, Einstein, and the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" — and confronts a question physics still can't answer: if nothing governs the universe, why is it so perfectly well-behaved? Support the show and unlock supporter-only episodes, including the companion to this one, "The Questions AI Might Ask": https://www.patreon.com/bradcoleharris

What does it mean to live a good life?  Is an ethical life always a desirable life, and vice versa?  And what exactly is a 'virtue', anyway?  Aristotle, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, had important and interesting answers to these questions. Join the Gwartney Institute for a discussion of Aristotle's conception of Ethics, and why we still in intellectual debt to this most excellent Ancient Philosopher.

For the last episode in the second series of Magic and Medicines, we're talking about Palmistry and Phrenology!We start by looking at uses of palmistry across the world, from Vedic astrology with Hindu Jyotish over to the divination practices of the Chinese Ming dynasty.We discuss whether or not it's true that Aristotle discovered an ancient palmistry text and got Alexander the Great into the art, and explore the stereotypes associated with fortune telling in general, and some nasty xenophobic history.Then, we have a look at our own hands, and try and work out whether we've got 'fire hands' or 'air hands', and what the lines in our palms say about us.In the third part of the episode, we look at the concept of phrenology, from its roots as possible brain science through to its manipulation and abuse by proponents of eugenics, and its alarming similarity to the work done by some algorithms today...We really hope you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Thursday with a new tale from the Red Fairy Book, Minnikin!Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the Mark Levin Show, this American Marxism movement is a threat and it traces back to self-identified progressives from Woodrow Wilson onward who rejected the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. They imposed redistribution of wealth, oppressor-oppressed frameworks, and related policies through the Democrat Party, which has never fully accepted Americanism or constitutionalism—evident in the rise of Democratic socialists, Marxists, and radical Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran-supporting Islamists within it. Another converging threat is the Woke Reich neo-fascists - authoritarians in Republican and other circles who attack Christianity, Judaism, Israel, and Christian Zionists while holding pro-Putin and pro-Sharia positions. Later, what made the Declaration of Independence remarkable was that it was unprecedented in human history. The Declaration serves as the foundational basis for the nation and its Constitution, celebrating America's purpose. Critics like Presidents Obama and Woodrow Wilson have rejected or downplayed its first part on the Creator and principles, focusing instead on the list of grievances against the king to advance new ideologies; however, President Coolidge defended these enduring, universal ideas from Aristotle and Locke as perpetual, not to be dismissed. The Declaration's concise statement of American identity is incompatible with Marxism, Islamism, and fascism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Thursday's Mark Levin Show, what made the Declaration of Independence remarkable was that it was unprecedented in human history. The Declaration serves as the foundational basis for the nation and its Constitution, celebrating America's purpose. Critics like Presidents Obama and Woodrow Wilson have rejected or downplayed its first part on the Creator and principles, focusing instead on the list of grievances against the king to advance new ideologies; however, President Coolidge defended these enduring, universal ideas from Aristotle and Locke as perpetual, not to be dismissed. The Declaration's concise statement of American identity is incompatible with Marxism, Islamism, and fascism. Also, President Reagan was a great admirer and friend of Milton Friedman. He often sought his input on economic policies. During Reagan's presidency, there was massive economic growth, and he won two historic landslide elections, popular vote and electoral college, like no Republican before or since. Alexander Hamilton would grow increasingly supportive of a powerful central government. He would argue with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on their approaches to government during the Washington administration and beyond. Hamilton argued for implied powers under the Constitution, which infuriated Jefferson and Madison. Hamilton claimed the necessary and proper clause was essentially a ticket to significantly expanding federal action. Later, Americanism and capitalism are philosophies enabling individual decision-making under the Declaration and Constitution, whereas ideologies are fanatical beliefs imposed society-wide regardless of consequences. Communism is defective and anti-human, misreading human nature by suppressing free will, reason, debate, and academic freedom in favor of brainwashing, conformity, and central control, as seen in places like Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, and China, and similarly with Islamists. Nationalists, populists, and Marxists attack the American experiment, economic system, and culture through emotion, slogans of equality, and activist government, showing overlaps reminiscent of 1930s fascists and communists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is a replay from The Existential Stoic library. Enjoy! Are you lonely? Do you find it hard to meet people and make new friends? In this episode, Danny and Randy discuss friendship in the age of distractions.Subscribe to ESP's YouTube Channel! Thanks for listening!  Do you have a question you want answered in a future episode? If so, send your question to: existentialstoic@protonmail.com 

Do we truly have free will, or are our choices shaped by biology, habits, and unconscious forces? This fascinating panel explores one of humanity's oldest and most important questions.Join philosopher Tamar Gendler, psychologist Jeffrey Schaler, and classicist Michael Fontaine as they debate free will, consciousness, Aristotle, and what ancient wisdom can teach us about making better decisions today. Whether you're interested in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, ethics, or personal development, this conversation offers thought-provoking insights into how we become the people we choose to be.KEY TOPICS COVEREDWhat free will actually meansPhilosophy vs. psychology on human choiceAre our decisions determined by biology?Consciousness and self-awarenessAddiction, habits, and responsibilityAristotle, Plutarch, and ancient ideas of characterCan neuroscience explain behavior?Moral responsibility and the justice systemBuilding better habits and exercising self-controlAncient philosophy for modern lifeTIMESTAMPS00:00 Introduction & panel introductions06:40 What is free will?17:45 Ancient philosophy on choice30:10 Habits, character & Aristotle42:05 Neuroscience vs. free will56:20 Addiction, agency & responsibility01:10:35 Ozempic, habits & behavior change01:12:32 Do we really choose our actions?01:15:03 Audience Q&A begins01:20:55 Consciousness & self-awareness01:25:58 Plutarch on becoming better01:27:08 Final reflections & closingIf you enjoyed this discussion, subscribe for more conversations exploring ancient wisdom, philosophy, psychology, and the ideas that continue to shape the modern world.Comment below: Do you believe we truly have free will, or are our choices determined by factors beyond our control?

How do we encourage human flourishing? How, in fact, do we make the thriving of all 8 billion humans and the More than Human World central to all that we are and do?  It's a core tenet of this podcast, that if each of us were able to discover what's ours to do - and, more importantly, to be - and were supported in the inter-becoming that would arise from bringing the best of ourselves to the table…we'd be well on the way to the transformation we need to get us through the pinch points of the climate, cultural and technological apocalypses that are heading our way. So in today's episode, we're talking with someone who crosses many disciplines in search of eudaimonia - the concept of human flourishing, of 'finding our best self' proposed by Plato and expanded by Aristotle.  Dr Jenna Mikus is an engineer and architect by training, and is now a consultant and strategic advisor who specialises in balancing architectural science with wellbeing science to promote flourishing health and wellbeing by design across a wide range of environments.  As you'll hear, she did her PhD during lockdown in the ways it might be possible to help elderly people find meaning and purpose - in scientific terms, to attain self determination - in their lives.  And now she is an academic and consultant who acts as an ideas "alchemist," helping companies curate environments & experiences for eudaimonia to support optimal health and wellbeing, precipitate ineffable emotions like delight & awe, promote meaning, inspire creativity, & catalyse belonging, and innovate. She's founder of the Eauda-Group and helped found the 'Flourishing by Design' (FxD) community of practice affiliated with Harvard's Human Flourishing Network. In a world where those who accumulate wealth are increasingly leaning towards mass extinction as if it were somehow going to be useful, it's so refreshing to explore the ways we can be differently human.  Enjoy!Jenna on LinkedInJenna on Google Scholar—About Accidental Gods—We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are hereManda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

On this episode, philosopher and author Charlene Elsby joins the show to discuss her novel Poor Damned Souls.The book follows a nameless narrator who works behind the glass at a payday loan business called The Money Store and lives with her partner, Scott.When she begins to suspect Scott is cheating, she investigates and uncovers something far worse than another woman.Rather than running, she is pulled deeper in.Charlene explains why the narrator is wounded more by being shut out than by the killing itself.We get into her view that the deepest fear is other people existing beyond our control, and the unsettling idea that to truly possess someone is to destroy them.She shares how her PhD in philosophy shapes the book, drawing on Aristotle, Stoicism, phenomenology, and existentialism.The conversation wanders into the Jungian shadow self, Nietzsche, consciousness, and why revealing our darkest thoughts feels so dangerous.Charlene also reveals that the Money Store is autobiographical, drawn from her own time working at a payday loan center.She breaks down how that job erodes empathy, why the bullet resistant glass is a quiet calculation on the value of a human life, and how corporate language like a folder labeled Human Resources sanitizes violence.We talk about the narrator's flat, methodical voice, the dark humor running through the book, and why grotesque discoveries sit right beside ordinary household routine.It is a bleak, funny, and deeply philosophical conversation about love, control, and the horror of never fully knowing another person.Author Websitehttps://charleneelsby.com/Social MediaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlene_elsby/X/Twitter: https://x.com/ElsbyCharleneFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/charlene.elsby/Where to BuyMerigold Independent: https://www.merigoldindependent.com/charleneelsby-poor-damned-soulsAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Charlene+ElsbyBarnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22Charlene%20Elsby%22Support The Dark Mind Podcasthttps://www.patreon.com/c/thedarkmindpodcast

John Vervaeke and Thomas Jockin join Andrew Sweeny at Parallax for a conversation on beauty, Plato, Aristotle, the sacred, and the meaning crisis. What if the meaning crisis is also a crisis of beauty — and what if beauty is not merely something we like, but something that asks us to change our lives?John Vervaeke: https://johnvervaeke.com/Thomas Jockin: https://thomasjockin.com/Thomas's Parallax course, Beauty Changes Your Life: Plato, Aristotle, and the Beautiful, begins Monday, July 6, 2026, with live sessions on July 6, 13, 20, and 27.Course link: https://www.parallax-media.com/courses/beauty-changes-your-life-thomas-jockinSubscribe to Parallax for more conversations on philosophy, spirituality, culture, and transformation.

On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it's worth asking: What was the American Revolution actually about? We all remember the broad strokes we learned in school: Independence from the British crown. Taxes on tea. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But on a deeper level, the American Revolution was—and is—a revolution in political theory, reimagining what a legitimate government is and what its relationship to its citizens should be. Washington's troops won the ground war 245 years ago at Yorktown, but the ideological battle continues against forces on both the left and the right who are pursuing a ruthless assault on America's core values. The American Revolution isn't over. Inscribed inside the dome of the Jefferson Memorial are the words: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Thomas Jefferson wrote that in an 1800 letter, but that feeling of hostility toward the tyranny of a distant monarch is what drove him and his fellow revolutionaries in 1776. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch summarized the Declaration's core ideas in an interview with Reason: "The Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it. That all of us are equal. That each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government. And that we have the right to rule ourselves." That's why Jefferson declared that a legitimate government requires the "consent of the governed." Thomas Paine put it more scathingly in his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, writing that "government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens." Monarchy was the Devil's most effective and enduring form of "idolatry." We don't fret over tyrannical kings in today's America. Only ceremonial vestiges of hereditary monarchy remain in the modern world. The Revolution achieved a complete victory in that sense. Yet a counterrevolution is underway, one that views the American Revolution and the republic it birthed as a failed liberal regime that has outlived its usefulness. And these counterrevolutionaries sit remarkably close to the levers of power. Self-Rule Under Threat Three years before he became vice president, J.D. Vance told podcaster Jack Murphy that America had reached a point of no return. "We are in the late republican period," he said. "If we're going to push back against it we have to get pretty wild and pretty far out there and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with. Indeed, among some of my circle the phrase 'extra-constitutional' has come up quite a bit." Vance regularly cites and associates with a group of so-called "postliberals." He appeared on a panel with one of this movement's leading intellectuals, Patrick Deneen, a Notre Dame political science professor and the author of Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future, in 2023. Deneen believes there is an unbridgeable divide between the "elite" and "ordinary" people. "What is needed," he writes in the book, "in short, is regime change—the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class," which will be replaced by a more virtuous one. He envisions the kind of aristocratic government favored by the ancients like Plato and Aristotle, endorsing "aristopopulism," where an elite class works to further the interests of the masses. "The replacement of the current elites in our society ought to be more closely aligned to the interests of ordinary people," Deneen said at the panel. He invokes a "premodern conception of liberty—expressed in the pages of Plato, Aristotle, the Bible," where institutions like the family, the church, and the state worked together to impose "guardrails" protecting individuals from becoming "slaves" to their own desires. My colleague Stephanie Slade writes about the postliberal right for Reason magazine. "He says people like [himself] should just be in charge of our government. That's what he means by regime change," Slade says. "[That] we should replace the current elites." She notes that postliberals are willing to frame the entire American Founding as a mistake: "They might say, yeah, America did have a liberal founding and that's why it was a mistake. Actually, this whole experiment was a mistake, and it maybe took a couple hundred years for that mistake to play out….We now can see that it doesn't lead to good conservative outcomes." In his book Common Good Constitutionalism, Adrian Vermeule, a postliberal Harvard Law professor and appointee to President Donald Trump's Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, wrote that "the central aim of the constitutional order is to promote good rule, not to 'protect liberty' as an end in itself." That's a rejection of the spirit of 1776. Paine saw the existence of government as a necessary evil because of "the inability of moral virtue to govern the world." A minimal state, in his view, should be restricted to supplying "freedom and security." As Gorsuch put it in the same Reason interview: "If you think of the Declaration as kind of our mission statement, our ideals, and the Constitution is the how-to manual—well, the Constitution is all about dividing power. Madison realized men are not angels and that their aspirations for power need to be checked and checked and checked again." The "regime change" Deneen and Vermeule call for isn't explicitly violent. Deneen describes "Machiavellian means to achieve Aristotelian ends." The strategy manifests as a steady expansion of presidential authority, as we've seen under Donald Trump's second term: the 143 executive orders he signed in just his first 100 days, more than any other president in history; his decision to send troops to American cities without permission from local authorities; his declaring of 21 national emergencies while in office; and his decision to send illegal immigrants to overseas prisons in defiance of the judicial branch. Incidentally, one of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence was King George III's penchant for shipping the accused "beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses." Before he became vice president, Vance encouraged Trump to emulate Andrew Jackson and dare the Supreme Court to try enforcing its rulings against him. "If I was giving him one piece of advice," Vance said, "fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people, and when the courts—because you will get taken to court—and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.'" "That's a really dangerous idea to be even casually trotting out there, let alone for somebody who is now the sitting vice president to be on the record," Slade says. "He said it a number of years ago when he was just a candidate for office, but I've never seen anything from him since he's been in office that makes me think that he doesn't ultimately believe in that sort of approach to politics." Some postliberals call for measures far more dramatic than the steady erosion of constitutional restraints currently underway. Michael Anton, who worked in Trump's State Department over two terms, wrote in his book The Stakes about the prospect of a "Red Caesar"—a right-wing dictator who would rise from the ashes of the fallen republic. "Caesar's word replaces constitutionalism and even, in the final analysis, law," he wrote. In a podcast conversation with pro-monarchist blogger Curtis Yarvin, Anton discussed what that might look like. "Caesarism is a form of monarchy, but that follows a nonfunctioning republic, a republic that doesn't work anymore," Anton said. Yarvin proposed that the path to power would begin with declaring a state of emergency in an inaugural address, "taking direct control over all law enforcement authorities….Basically like Caesar, you're using all of the force available to you."  "There is just clearly much more of a sense that government power is meant to be used to advance our side in the face of our enemies," Slade says. "And the enemies are the left, the political left, and anyone on the right who isn't going to line up with [them]. [They believe] political power should be used to reward our friends and punish our enemies, and that to me is a clear violation of one of the core principles of rule of law, which is equal treatment for everyone under law." In the COVID era, President Joe Biden imposed national mandates by executive fiat, and his administration tried to suppress dissent by pressuring tech companies to censor critics. The Democratic Party has also flirted with the idea of packing the Supreme Court to get its way, which is not a new impulse for the party. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the Court in 1937, it cost him the support of progressives who had previously backed the New Deal. FDR is revered by progressives and cited by Yarvin as a prototype for an American Caesar. "Was FDR a dictator? What does it mean to be a dictator? What does this pejorative word mean?" Yarvin asks. "A dictator is somebody who rules alone. And that, I think, is a beautiful thing." The Revolution was, first and foremost, about self-rule: We would no longer abide by a diktat from an overseas king. From the very beginning of the republic, power-seeking men have tried to undermine that vision. In its earliest days, there was a plot to install a Prussian prince as king of a new American monarchy. Jefferson accused John Adams and Alexander Hamilton of being monarchists, recounting in horror a dinner conversation in which Hamilton told him "the greatest man…that ever lived was Julius Caesar." But monarchy is seductive because strongmen promise order in chaotic times. In the wake of Shays' Rebellion, a post-Revolution farmer's uprising, Jefferson worried the Constitution's drafters were overreacting by creating a powerful presidency that would devolve into a monarchy. "What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" he wrote. And then, famously: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Hopefully, patriots won't be shedding blood anytime soon. But Jefferson's point stands: Preserving the promises of the Revolution will always be an ongoing battle. Self-rule was one of those promises. Another was self-ownership, which includes the right to do what you want with your own property. The Rise of 'Right-Wing Progressivism' The Declaration accused the king of "cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world." The American colonies experienced unprecedented economic growth, a topic of keen interest to the laissez faire economist Adam Smith, whose book The Wealth of Nations also turns 250 this year. Smith was fascinated by the American colonies, observing that their "progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America. Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity." Other imperial powers, such as the Spanish and Portuguese, mandated that their colonists trade only through state-created monopolies. Smith pointed out that because American colonists could export lumber to the wider European market, they were incentivized to clear and improve land. Low taxes enabled them to reinvest their profits. Smith criticized England's Navigation Acts for prohibiting colonists from buying from other countries and for discouraging manufacturing to protect domestic competitors. Although England's "mercantile spirit" hampered the economy, Smith believed that in virtually every other respect the liberty of the English colonists "to manage their own affairs their own way is complete," concluding that both England and the colonies would be better off with an independent America that traded freely with England. Like the American revolutionaries, Smith described economic freedom as not just smart policy, but as a natural right. "To prohibit a great people…from making all that they can of every part of their own produce," he wrote, "is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind." That revolutionary understanding is still under attack today from both the left and the right. Socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani talk about individual profits as if they are the property of the collective. And Trump has the same mercantilist instincts toward trade that Smith argued against 250 years ago. "I love tariffs. Most beautiful word," Trump said in September 2025. "I said my favorite word in the English dictionary is the word tariff."  The postliberal right argues that laissez faire economics has undermined the working class. "Conservatives have outsourced our economic and domestic policy thinking to libertarians," Vance said at a 2019 National Conservatism Conference. "Do we serve pure unfettered commercial freedom, do we serve commerce at the expense of the public good, or do we serve something higher? And are we willing to use political power to actually accomplish those things?" "It is really important to recognize that what the postliberal right is pushing in terms of economics is progressivism," Slade says. "It's not conservatism." Tucker Carlson made the point in 2019 when he praised Elizabeth Warren's "economic patriotism" platform, noting it "sounds like Donald Trump at his best." What the so-called "economic patriots" of the left and right are converging on is a rejection of the spirit of 1776 and an embrace of monarchy. In the 18th century, many colonists could trade only through state-licensed monopolies. Warren has proposed remarrying corporations and the state through "stakeholder capitalism," in which political appointees sit on corporate boards to steer them in the right direction. Trump took a major step toward the corporatist approach in 2025 when directing the federal government to take a 10 percent stake in Intel. Before him, President Barack Obama took stakes in GM and Chrysler as part of a bailout package. "I don't think it's really a sustainable political equilibrium to have two parties that are both economically leftist," Slade says. "The American people are not on board with that. That is the horseshoe in action. And it's part of why I think there is an opportunity for old-school Reagan-style free-market conservatism to make a comeback." The slow abandonment of the revolutionary ideas of self-rule and private property that American patriots fought for in the late 18th century is downstream of a third, fundamental aspect of the American Revolution that is also under attack: freedom of conscience. Remarrying Church and State The postliberal right wants to tear down the wall between church and state. "They want to integrate church and state instead of separating them," Slade says. In some cases, it's Catholic integralists like Harvard's Vermeule, who has described a strategy of turning the government Catholic by "strategically locat[ing]" integralists "within liberal institutions…to undo the liberalism of the state from within." Deneen has suggested passing "blue laws" that would ban pornography, online gambling, and operating businesses on Sundays. A Protestant variety of Christian nationalism is embodied by pastor Doug Wilson—a spiritual mentor to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who invited Wilson to lead a prayer at the Pentagon. In a recent interview, Wilson said the "governing authorities should recognize formally that Jesus rose from the dead" and that "the basis of law would have to be Christian, and I would want it to be Protestant." Most of the revolutionaries were Christian Protestants, but they insisted on separating church and state to avoid the horrific religious wars that had ravaged Europe. "Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world" to end religious discord by establishing state churches, wrote James Madison in opposition to taxes that would have funded an official church of Virginia. An even deeper problem for these devout believers in divine providence was that marrying religion to the state removed the very freedom to choose faith that God desires. In his opposition to the Virginia law, Jefferson wrote that "Almighty God hath created the mind free" and that "all attempts" to force religious belief "are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion." Madison argued historically that Christianity reached its "greatest lustre" in the times before it incorporated with the state, and that religious laws would counterproductively discourage nonbelievers from entering a region he hoped would become a beacon of Christianity. "Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man." Slade draws on her own Catholic faith in making the case. "I am a libertarian because I'm a Catholic, because I believe that every person was created in the image of God," she says. "I just think it's morally wrong from a Catholic or Christian perspective to try to use the coercive, violent power of the state to make people live a certain way. Even if the way that these guys would like to make people live—going to church on Sunday, praying, investing in your community and your family, self-sacrifice—all these good Christian values. They're good Christian values, but they can't be coerced or imposed from the top down. It's wrong and morally offensive from a Christian perspective." Slade says she understands the despair postliberals feel about the collapse of faith and virtue in contemporary America and that they have a point about the progressive capture of institutions. "What they're channeling is a really influential belief, which isn't totally wrong, that the left made a very concerted effort to make what is often referred to as a 'long march through the institutions' and to capture so many of our elite institutions—both at the governmental level but also at the cultural level: higher education, Hollywood, the mainstream media." Critics of the progressive agenda—or "wokeness"—often describe it as its own kind of religion. Linguist and social critic John McWhorter has argued that it has "slowly transmogrified into a kind of replacement for Protestant Christianity" among its adherents. Whether religious or not, progressives have imposed their social values on Americans through public school curricula, federal policy, and civil rights law. They have violated the freedom of conscience that Jefferson and Madison wrote about in a way very similar to how mandating religion would. Postliberalism is part of the political backlash. A poll conducted in early 2021 of people who voted for Trump in 2020 didn't find agreement on nationalist economic policies—tariffs, industrial policy, any of that—but found near-universal agreement on a sense of cultural siege. About 90 percent agreed with statements like "the mainstream media has become just an arm of the Democratic Party" or "Christianity is under attack today." "This sense that the culture has been captured by people who are hostile to people like me and who hate me and want to drive me out of the public square has created so much resentment and so much of a backlash that's driving this postliberal right-wing politics," Slade says. "I don't think it's possible to understand what's going on on the right without looking at what's been going on on the left, definitely ramping up during the period referred to as the great awakening." Slade's new book argues that the remedy to this postliberal moment is a rediscovery of "fusionism"—the reintegration of liberty and virtue. "A good society needs to be both free and virtuous. And the Founders certainly believed this," she says. John Adams wrote just 13 days before the signing of the Declaration that "the only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People…they will not obtain a lasting Liberty." "What he's saying is, we can have a limited government in a free society, but if the people aren't naturally virtuous, if they don't trust each other, if they aren't good to each other—that [the Republic] is going to end up succumbing to tyranny and to a strongman government," Slade says. His fellow revolutionary and intellectual adversary Jefferson flipped the equation by writing that liberty "is the great parent…of virtue." Balancing liberty and virtue means reconstructing some of the civic "guardrails" that Deneen laments having lost in modernity—but not handing the power to regulate our conscience to the government. "What we're seeing a lot is people who are focused either on liberty but don't spend a lot of time thinking about how do we cultivate virtue, or who say, forget your liberty, we want virtue at the point of a gun," Slade says. "Government's job is to protect our basic rights and liberties. It should be prioritizing the protection of liberty." "That doesn't mean that virtue isn't important. In fact, it's the highest, most important thing in life—to pursue a virtuous life," Slade continues. "But it's not OK to expect government to do that for us. Government protects our freedom and we use that freedom to pursue virtue." The solution, Slade argues, has to be ground-up. She invokes Alexis de Tocqueville, who observed when he came to America in the 1830s that Americans excel at coming together and creating voluntary community solutions to social problems. "We should have some muscle memory here. We should be able to get back to that idea of thinking of ourselves as being on the front lines of solving problems, building new civil society institutions, nongovernmental institutions that can try to solve the problems we see in our society," Slade says. "Good policy can make this easier. And bad policy can crowd it out and make it a lot harder." The Declaration of Independence is 250 years old, but the Revolution it started is as vital as ever. During the final days of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was famously asked what kind of government they were in the process of designing. "A Republic," he said, "if you can keep it." Photo Credits: Horst Galuschka/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom/ Dennis Flaherty / Jaynes Gallery / DanitaDelimont.com / Danita Delimont/ Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom/ TIA DUFOUR/UPI/Newscom/Antonio Perez/TNS/Newscom/ Aaron Schwartz - Pool via CNP/picture alliance / Consolidated News Photos/Newscom/ Ron Adar / SOPA/ Images/Sipa USA/Newscom/ JT Vintage/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom/ AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom/ Hugh Rooney / Eye Ubiquitous/Newscom/ Bonnie Cash - Pool via CNP/CNP / Polaris/Newscom/AdMedia/Newscom/ Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Newscom/ Polaris/Newscom; Eric Lee - Pool via CNP/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Department of Defense The post The American Revolution Isn't Over appeared first on Reason.com.

What happens when wonder is reduced to curiosity, and curiosity becomes a drive to master everything? In this second conversation with William Desmond, John Vervaeke returns to the question of astonishment: not as a passing emotional state, but as a deeper opening of the mind to reality. Desmond frames scientism as a philosophical interpretation of science that tries to make all essential questions answerable through determinate method, precision, and control. Science remains valuable, but scientism forgets the more original wonder from which inquiry arises. The conversation distinguishes astonishment, perplexity, and curiosity. Curiosity seeks determinate answers, while astonishment opens us to what exceeds our mastery. Vervaeke connects this with his own distinction between the having mode and the being mode, arguing that genuine wonder is bound up with transformation rather than mere information. From there, the dialogue turns to Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, logical positivism, AI, computation, relevance realization, and insight. Desmond and Vervaeke ask whether intelligibility can be reduced to determination, or whether the most important forms of understanding depend on a living act of insight that formal systems cannot generate on their own. The final movement turns toward spiritual practice, Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha, religion, trust, and forgiveness. If modern culture suffers from a dearth of astonishment, then the recovery of meaning may require more than better arguments. It may require practices, communities, and forms of dialogue that reawaken porosity, reverence, and an openness to the sacred. Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction and the Desmond conversation so far 03:00 - Science, scientism, and the desire to make everything univocal 06:30 - Astonishment, perplexity, and curiosity 14:00 - Plato, Aristotle, and the purpose of philosophical wonder 16:30 - Having, being, mystery, and transformation 22:20 - Whether knowledge dissolves wonder 26:10 - Logical positivism and the failure of total certainty 31:30 - The four kinds of knowing and propositional tyranny 34:00 - Insight, inference, and logical systems 41:40 - Relevance realization, computation, and AI 46:30 - What intelligibility means beyond determination 50:40 - Inexhaustibility and the hyper-intelligible 58:20 - Dialectic, dialogos, and the practice of astonishment 01:03:40 - Porosity, the buffered self, and vulnerability 01:07:00 - Meaninglessness, spiritual practice, and cultural homelessness 01:12:30 - Reawakening astonishment without commodifying experience 01:14:10 - Ancient dialogue as a response to skepticism 01:17:30 - Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha, and embodied wisdom 01:22:00 - Religion, the sacred, and suspicion of God 01:27:30 - Trust, forgiveness, and cultural metanoia 01:30:20 - Closing thoughts and the next conversation Key Insights Scientism totalizes science by treating scientific method as the answer to every essential question. Astonishment is more original than curiosity because it opens inquiry rather than merely directing it toward control. Perplexity matters because some mysteries are not failures of explanation but enduring features of the human condition. Insight depends on living participation in intelligibility, not only inference or computation. AI and formal systems can imitate aspects of thought, but they do not resolve the deeper question of living noetic activity. Modern meaninglessness is intensified when institutions, practices, and role models no longer help people recover reverence and connectedness. Religion must be discussed at the level of human vulnerability, longing, trust, failure, and mystery, not only at the level of institutional critique. Resources Astonishments and Science: Engagements with William Desmond - edited by Paul Tyson William Desmond, "The Dearth of Astonishment: On Curiosity, Scientism and Thinking as Negativity" William Desmond, God and the Between Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having Bernard Lonergan, Insight Charles Taylor, A Secular Age Augustine's Cassiciacum dialogues About William Desmond William Desmond is a philosopher whose work engages metaphysics, religion, art, science, and transcendence. In this conversation, he and John Vervaeke continue their exploration of astonishment, scientism, the between, and philosophical practice. Follow The Lectern for conversations on philosophy, meaning, wisdom, and the recovery of deeper forms of knowing. Thanks for listening!

Sports are one of the few remaining arenas of public life where tens of millions of people voluntarily agree to care about the same thing at the same time. As the World Cup reminds us every four years, sports can build identities, drive economies, organize civic loyalties, and transform old geopolitical wounds into something that at least resembles a game. Whether you played Little League, follow your city's team with religious devotion, or find the whole spectacle baffling, sports have philosophical stakes that run deeper than the scoreboard.What actually makes something a sport — and does the answer matter? What does that tell us about fairness, rules, and what it means to win? Can fandom build genuine community, or is it just tribalism? And when institutions like the NCAA funnel the passions sports inspire into donor pipelines and broadcast deals, what gets lost and who gets exploited?Grab a drink and join us as we step onto the field with Aristotle, Iris Marion Young, William James, and Bernard Suits to find out whether the philosophy of sport is worth playing.Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/sports---------------------SUBSCRIBE to the podcast now to automatically download new episodes!SUPPORT Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Patreon here! (Or by contributing one-time donations here!)BOOKMARK the Hotel Bar Sessions website here for detailed show notes and reading lists, and contact any of our co-hosts here.Hotel Bar Sessions is also on Facebook, YouTube, BlueSky, Instagram, and TikTok. Like, follow, share, duet, whatever... just make sure your friends know about us! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Get Huel today with this exclusive offer for New Customers of 15% OFF with code alexoconnor at https://huel.com/alexoconnor (Minimum $50 purchase).For early, ad-free access to videos, and to support the channel, subscribe to my Substack: https://www.alexoconnor.com.John Sellars is a Reader in philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, a visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Member of Wolfson College, Oxford. His books include Lessons in Stoicism, The Fourfold Remedy, Aristotle and his work has been translated into over a dozen languages.Get John Sellars' books here.TIMESTAMPS:(0:00) What's So Great About Aristotle?(03:06) Actuality and Potentiality(12:59) Forms: Aristotle vs Plato(20:02) The Four Causes(25:16) Evolution and Final Causation(29:40) Did Aristotle Believe In God?(32:38) The Unmoved Mover(38:58) The Soul (Is Not What You Might Think)(48:51) How Aristotle Invented Formal Logic(55:54) The Nicomachean Ethics(01:15:56) Ethics as Descriptive(01:21:04) Where To Start With AristotleCONNECT:Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cosmicskeptic Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cosmicskeptic Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/cosmicskepticTikTok: @CosmicSkepticBusiness Email: contact@alexoconnor.comBrand enquiries: David@modernstoa.co

Books Referenced: -Faith, Hope and Poetry by Malcolm Guite Mentioned as the primary source for defining imagination as an "active power of perception" and "reason's twin faculty."-Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef PieperRecommended as a foundational work on contemplation, leisure, culture, and the rich inner life.-Disruptive Witness by Alan NobleMentioned as one of Noble's influential books.-On Getting Out of Bed by Alan NobleMentioned as another significant work by Alan Noble.-Fear and Trembling by Søren KierkegaardReferenced by Nathan in discussing imagination, fear, and possibility.-The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor DostoevskyUsed as an example of a book too rich to simply "download" as information.-Julius Caesar by William ShakespeareRecommended as a timeless lens for understanding political anger, betrayal, and power.Essays & Articles-Tradition and the Individual Talent by T. S. EliotDiscussed extensively as an example of entering "the Great Conversation" between tradition and individuality.-"The Great Conversation" (concept)Referenced as the tradition of engaging with classic works across generations.In this episode of Thinking Out Loud, Nathan and Cameron explore the power of imagination, its relationship to reason, and why it is essential for human flourishing, Christian discipleship, moral decision-making, empathy, creativity, and a rich inner life. Drawing on the insights of Malcolm Guite, Blaise Pascal, Josef Pieper, T.S. Eliot, Aristotle, Søren Kierkegaard, Shakespeare, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nathan and Cameron discuss how imagination helps people perceive reality, envision a better future, cultivate contentment, engage deeply with Scripture, and participate in the great conversation of human thought. They also examine the dangers of fantasy, distraction, and deception, while making a compelling case for reading great books, slowing down, practicing reflection, and developing the imagination as a gift from God. If you're interested in Christian worldview, apologetics, philosophy, theology, classical education, faith and culture, spiritual formation, and the role of imagination in everyday life, this conversation offers practical wisdom and thought-provoking insights.

What should shape the education of our children: Greek philosophy or biblical discipleship? In this episode, Scott Brown welcomes Kevin Swanson of Generations for a candid discussion on the foundations, goals, and methods of Christian education. The biblical model — as described in Deuteronomy 6 and the Proverbs — is family-centered, character-focused, life-integrated, and rooted in the fear of the Lord. Whereas the Greek model — central to many classical education programs — is rooted in the pride of man, emphasizing the “greet books” penned by such pagans as Aristotle and Homer. Their conclusion: we must bow the knee to God's word, not the “wisdom” of pagans, in how we teach our children. To learn more about Generations' God-centered, Bible-based, life-integrated, Christ-exalting, Gospel-emphasizing, family-discipleship curriculum, click here.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Demond Martin. Co‑founder and CEO of Well With All, a Black‑owned purpose‑driven wellness brand—joins Rushion McDonald to discuss health equity, entrepreneurship, his life story, his upcoming book Friends of the Good, and his new $1M AI Health Equity Prize. Martin shares how his difficult upbringing in the projects and rural North Carolina shaped his commitment to giving back. After a successful 21‑year career as the only Black partner at a major hedge fund, he launched Well With All to merge consumer products, wellness, and social impact. The brand donates 20% of its profits to health‑equity initiatives. He discusses product innovation, the importance of supplements in underserved communities, the power of Black longevity, and the need to prepare younger generations for healthier futures. He also explains his upcoming book—which uses Aristotle’s philosophy of “friends of the good” to show how meaningful relationships enable success. The conversation is energetic, inspirational, and focused on using business as a force for social good.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Demond Martin. Co‑founder and CEO of Well With All, a Black‑owned purpose‑driven wellness brand—joins Rushion McDonald to discuss health equity, entrepreneurship, his life story, his upcoming book Friends of the Good, and his new $1M AI Health Equity Prize. Martin shares how his difficult upbringing in the projects and rural North Carolina shaped his commitment to giving back. After a successful 21‑year career as the only Black partner at a major hedge fund, he launched Well With All to merge consumer products, wellness, and social impact. The brand donates 20% of its profits to health‑equity initiatives. He discusses product innovation, the importance of supplements in underserved communities, the power of Black longevity, and the need to prepare younger generations for healthier futures. He also explains his upcoming book—which uses Aristotle’s philosophy of “friends of the good” to show how meaningful relationships enable success. The conversation is energetic, inspirational, and focused on using business as a force for social good.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Demond Martin. Co‑founder and CEO of Well With All, a Black‑owned purpose‑driven wellness brand—joins Rushion McDonald to discuss health equity, entrepreneurship, his life story, his upcoming book Friends of the Good, and his new $1M AI Health Equity Prize. Martin shares how his difficult upbringing in the projects and rural North Carolina shaped his commitment to giving back. After a successful 21‑year career as the only Black partner at a major hedge fund, he launched Well With All to merge consumer products, wellness, and social impact. The brand donates 20% of its profits to health‑equity initiatives. He discusses product innovation, the importance of supplements in underserved communities, the power of Black longevity, and the need to prepare younger generations for healthier futures. He also explains his upcoming book—which uses Aristotle’s philosophy of “friends of the good” to show how meaningful relationships enable success. The conversation is energetic, inspirational, and focused on using business as a force for social good.

The Dean's List with Host Dean Bowen – A defense of 1776 challenges modern claims that America's founding ideals are mythology. By revisiting Jefferson, Aristotle, virtue, and classical learning, it argues that the founding generation understands happiness as moral formation rather than selfish desire, urging readers to recover old books, civic wisdom, and historical memory today...

You should absolutely care about Juneteenth. Tom Krannawitter joins us to talk about why.00:00 Introduction and Overview00:20 Two Dan Sullivans Running in Alaska02:57 Lawyers Using AI in Federal Court04:10 Foolishness of the Week: Switzerland's Population Cap10:12 Fear of Declining Living Standards12:03 Juneteenth with Thomas Krannawitter13:13 The Origins of Juneteenth16:03 Why the 13th Amendment Completed the American Founding18:59 Juneteenth and the Fourth of July24:21 America's Anti-Slavery Principles30:17 Jefferson, Slavery, and the Declaration of Independence32:46 The Truth Behind the Three-Fifths Compromise37:05 Jefferson's Personal Contradictions43:36 Why America's Founders Saw Slavery as Wrong48:01 Why Juneteenth Should Unite Americans52:04 Aristotle, Freedom, and Forgiveness55:41 Black Wall Street and the Promise of Liberty59:20 Jefferson's Grave and the American Story01:01:54 Lincoln, Equality, and Richard M. Johnson01:07:15 Why Juneteenth Matters Today01:08:18 Waypoints Teaching and Closing Remarks

9 Hours and 55 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.This is the first 10 episodes of our ongoing Continental Philosophy series with Thomas777. He covers Aristotle, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Grotius, and Hegel.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

Pull up a chair and pour yourself a drink! For the third installment in our occasional series on important conservative books, or important books written by or embraced by conservatives, we take up Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History, based on his 1949 Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago (where he taught for two decades) and published in 1953. To help us, we called on our friend Matt Dinan, a political theorist who's associate professor in the Great Books Program at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada. If you've listened to previous episodes and wanted us to go deeper on Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish political philosopher who came to the United States after fleeing Nazism, "Straussianism," and what they might have to do with American conservatism and our present political moment, here you go. After offering some background on Strauss and the context of Natural Right and History's publication, we discuss Strauss's patriotic appeal to Americans in the book's introduction, walk listeners through the chapters that follow (explaining what "natural right" is and why it's paired with "history" in the title along the way), and close out by exploring Strauss's ambiguous relationship to American conservatism—and more! Sources: Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (1953) — On Tyranny (1963) — Spinoza's Critique of Religion (1965) Harry V. Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics (1952) James W. Ceaser, "The American Context of Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History," Perspectives on Political Science, Spring 2008 Richard Velkley, Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises of Philosophy: On Original Forgetting (2011) — "On the Roots of Rationalism: Strauss's 'Natural Right and History' as Response to Heidegger," The Review of Politics, Spring 2008 ...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Charlie was always hopeful that the rising generation of American young people would be the one to reverse America's decline. In his speech at the 2023 CLS, Charlie shares this hope with Turning Point's grassroots leaders, telling them to remain committed to truth, purpose, and wisdom. Drawing on the teachings of Aristotle and Plato, Charlie encourages young people to pursue depth over distraction, build strong character, and become the leaders America needs. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.