Thank you

Great episode and investigative direction. Honourable mentions The Flumps: watch?v=5Wh64XSkwwM, Rainbow - Naughty Zippy watch?v=M62SnbNizIM, Fingerbobs watch?v=3BA2L7E_u-I

Who is it please referred to by both gents at around 47 mins, sounds like "getian" ?

What do you do if ALL and ANY investments don't return a profit? Zombie companies, like Italy. They are not bankrupt, they can pay off the interest but never pay off the principal.

Finally a stimulating guest!

This is a great discussion. Love it.

Another one I’ve been waiting for- not sure what it’s about yet, but the name caught my eye 😊

I've been a hardcore atheist rational type my whole life, but I got really into cognitive science and quantum field theory and consciousness studies, and after a while, something "broke", I intuited some more Mystical aspect of reality, an aspect that my rational mind was filtering out as irrelevant noise. I was plunged into a bit of a "bad trip" state, light headed, the walls started to dissolve, the material world was unorganised and frothy, I lay on the bed, panic was creeping in, and then a voice said "it's fine", it came from "over there" within consciousness, it felt like my voice, but also not my sense of self's voice.. and with that voice came a warm light, comfort flowed up through me, and i got the sense that a simple material epistemic pillar had crumbled, and these spiralling tendrils of light formed a new pillar. It felt like a really poignant epistemic shift, and it's something I'm happy to allow myself to take seriously. The whole universe was refreshed for me on that day, everything became fascinating again, the blinkers are off. I'm now more rational than I was before, the mental realm is ontologically significant.

Coke with no wrapper = socialism? Thats not gonna work.

An very insightful and relevant piece. I think it would be good to see this type of conversation circulate around intellectual circles more. Somehow even though this can be a daunting perspective to undertake, at least there is a different perspective concerning modern life which stands out from more commonly referenced philosophies found online.

Added to the reading list!!

The idolisation of Plato here is rather disturbing. With all due respect, you seem to put Plato and other philosophers on a pedestal. Yet the Lord condemns High Places. The fact he called Plato a “proto-Christian” baffles me. Gods truth, His foreshadowing and plan for redemption has existed since the fall of man. Then brought forth into the post-flood world by Noah and his family. The Golden Thread of redemption throughout every book in the Bible is beautiful. But those who hold Plato and Platonists in high regard (above Christ it seems) fail to see the forest through the trees. Yet you claim to be in search of beauty. God’s plan came first. Everything else is a corruption of that plan as a means of deception. Yet Platonists see the corruption as the foreshadow of Christ. It’s no wonder why the Church has strayed so far from what Jesus and the Apostles taught. Add a sprinkle of Gnosticism and legalism then you have the Council of Nicaea. I actually felt sick listening to this. 1 Corinthians 3:19: "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness.’"

Always great to hear JMG tied in.

Some say that Stirner destroyed ‘philosophy’ and calling him a ‘philosopher ‘is to totally miss the “creative nothing”/ ‘unique.’ Most who encounter Stirner “lose it.” No exception here- Steiner.

And there we have it, an excellent podcast, a great interview and an intriguing discussion on one of my favorite topics!

Okay… trying to resist an early bias against the knowledge that this work was done with George Dunn (eye roll).

Mark McCutcheon, Max Stirner. Kamal Salibi.

Insightful discussion, thanks. Deceit, Desire and the Novel (Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque) is a tremendous chef d'oeuvre. I'd like to highlight that one needs not be a Christian to read Girard - same for his other books

This is the most French man that’s ever been..

i'd like to learn more from what Greer mentioned at the beginning, about the universal meaning of symbols and gestures, esp since i wish that the heil salute and the swastika would be reclaimed from stupid naxi appropriation already... it makes me angry that more people dont push back on their now 'owning' ancient symbols

Very interesting. Sad it ended, could have listened for hours.

Thank you. A book certainly deserves to be written.

It was called “weird” fiction from the beginning. First when they were serialized in magazines, in US and UK. Editors asked writers for weird fiction in the 1800. There is a reason the magazine was called Weird Tales, well before Lovecraft supposedly coined the term.

21:56

Self-flagellation was the word.

Added to the reading list!

I found the early stories to be very enjoyable when given the time and attention they require (as with all Theroux, really). It was nice seeing the seeds of what would come specially with the Summer B story. Enjoy the Cat! It's a real treat. I look forward to your review of it.

muy weno. Most of the time we glue our faces to digital media or recur to our drug of choice is a form of pain avoidance. often times boredom feels like pain. but from boredom springs creativity. Thank you James.

Have you read Laura Warholic?

“What the Deuce?”

I appreciate what Rupert says about JMG

Suttree is one of my favorite novels. It would be interesting to see your thoughts on the novel "Solenoid" by Cartarescu.

Great !! Finally, someone agrees. Suttree is, in my view, McCarthy's masterpiece. Absolute gold. Great podcast thank you for this.

Did you read the Vanity Fair piece about Cormac McCarthy's "secret muse," a 16 year old girl he met at a motel, who he had sexual relations with when she was underage? Great guy. The Vanity Fair piece is terribly written, but it seems like what the woman says is probably true. She has letters written to her as evidence.

So, to maximize the suffering that leads to spiritual growth, choose to remain trapped by and dependent on the system, oh, and get a neuralink for the extra challenge of overcoming even more technological tyranny.

Cheers mate, great interview, Ive had the book or a while, this gave a nice background to dive in.

Interesting comments on Girard. I haven't been too impressed with his takes on Nietzsche either, and agree that he seems a bit to eager to try and force everything into his model.

finished reading this book, but my gracious I felt like i never finished it at the same time since the brilliant Simon Critchley kept bringing the titles of all those books written based on personal experiences of the main heroines and heroes of this wonderful book, and i personally admire Simon's admission that while he is doing Philosophy as his daily job he is also in battle with philosophy as one cannot stand in the corner and denying mysticism as other worldly as some extreme rationalists insist on. I sincerely appreciate this level of writing.

53:14: How much of what we call mental illness is actually a _healthy_ adaptation to an unhealthy world?

It was Arthur Schopenhauer who introduced Giacomo Leopardi to the world. Arthur had great admiration for his works. Pessimism, as a philosophical position, has never been well received by Western civilization which is puzzling as the Old Testament is highly critical of worldly existence. If it weren't for the thoughts of Voltaire, David Hume and Fyodor Dostoevsky who made pessimism acceptable many of us who hold this world view might be risking a stake surrounded by sticks and branches. Leopardi made the darkness beautiful and by questioning wanton suffering ameliorated its impact and gave some personal glory to the individual who is the victim of pain.

James sounded like he couldn't be arsed throughout most of this

This guy is so predictable. The whole “America doesn’t have a leftist party” is exactly the sort of generation of ‘68 boomerism I would expect from this pseud. He said NOTHING in this episode. Please stop having him on, James. Your channel has outgrown him.

Goes out of his way to shit on modern art right out the gate. Yawn.

Yes. I'm definitely interested in a book about this, James.

I love that you're brave enough to synthesize knowledge, strains of thought, based on your own intuition and analyses (I know that's the action of Geist, but Geist is useful within its limited scope), drawing threads through thinkers whose work was perhaps not previously seen as commensurate. And you have the bravery to do it publicly, subjecting yourself to all kinds of critique, attack, and humiliation. I hope that you will synthesize all of this further into a work of your own, maybe drawing the input of these three men together into your mind and coming out with your own response, in your own voice...yes, perhaps a book even.

1:33:10 BASED

1:28:25 "it's gonna be plague-ridden, little man pathetic crap, it's gonna be government lackey, regulatory, will-driven shite" this is one of my favorite quotes by YOU. Great stuff, man.

Loved this. It all had something of a Pythonesque quality.