M. Michailidis on C. Castoriadis | Unregistered Podcast and Ancient Greece Revisited

[@nabzsta]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Michael! Youve just blown my mind. Brilliant.

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

Pleasure ...

[@RaineHoltz]

This is so thought provoking!!

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

Glad to hear that!

[@karlsapp7134]

This is extraordinary. Thanks for sharing.

[@umidnazarov5725]

Brilliant thoughts. These are the kind of concepts and ideas I was looking for.

[@ideocosmos]

"The beautiful and cold - hearted hellenism" as Cavafy describes. Something worth mentioning here, is Herodotus' view on why the Greeks won the Persian Wars. It was not the Greeks that won the war, he said, but "the sea waters of the Hellespont". This was due to an outraged act that preceded the war, when the Persian king Xerxes whipped the sea in order tame it, to allow his army to pass on the opposite side of the Hellespot. This takes us to the other important Greek imaginary concept, that of Hybris. An action that violates the natural order and always leads to tragedy, so at the end the natural order is restored back.

[@mmick66]

That is exactly what I meant by the example on this video. Well spotted. It’s yet another instance of Hybris. The Greeks loved those stories and told them indiscriminately about friend or foe. Aeschylus’ Persians tells the same ...

[@koningkont]

Found out about the channel via the podcast. Good stuff!

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

Thank you!!

[@DarthVidin]

Congratulations Michael, you are doing an excellent job! Your videos/podcasts are very important !

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

I am very happy to hear that!

[@Oblomovrising]

Brilliant !

[@Survivethejive]

That tragic poetic justice is beautiful though harsh. It has reason but no sentimentality which is why it is unpalatable to a sentimental culture

[@mmick66]

Which is why I have found this message so difficult to communicate. It’s not about alleviating anxiety :-)

[@Survivethejive]

@@mmick66 people approach religion feeling entitled to a consoling message. I think they approach all things that way which is why they are so gullible when it comes to the news

[@karlsapp7134]

Listening to the rest of the conversation I feel like you have put to words things I have come to in my own journey through Christian modernity, then post modernity and back to pre modern ways of thinking. There is a Book by Madeline L’engle where she proposes that story is truth. She was a Christian but that idea helped me explore how all we really need to anchor us is an emergence story that stands between not existing and existing with integrity to guide our way. The tribal people of the world still have a connection to this. My interactions with them were helpful in seeing that.

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

The tribal people of this world (I’ve always believed) have been expressing the best ideas in contemporary philosophy since the beginning of time (albeit in a half-conscious way). The rituals on initiation as described by Mircea Eliade, where the initiate must re-enact a “genesis” moment for the whole tribe, predates Castoriadis. The notion of some Polynesian natives that unless a man is tattooed and pierced, he is not really human, predates Hegel and his theory of “negating negation.” Carl Jung expressed similar views. Some of his patients, during their deepest delirium’s, would show beliefs that were found in mystical texts they had never read... it’s fascinating stuff..

[@karlsapp7134]

@@AncientGreeceRevisited Yes, I enjoy how you bring this back into your work. I’ve become fascinated by these old stories and how they influence our lives even today.

[@IIVVBlues]

Many decades ago, reading the Greek plays, I was struck by the idea of fate. You can't know it beforehand, but as it reveals itself in time, you realize it could have happened no other way.

[@hejsansvejsan3052]

What your view on Oswald Spengler?

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

Spengler follows a similar pattern regarding history with Castoriades, and only a handful of others. In their view, Progress is but one narrative of how cultures move through time. A “falling off” from a genesis moment would be another. Whether utterly convinced like Spengler or theorizing about it to gain clarity in certain aspects of culture like Castoriades, it’s a perspective that is radically foreign to how we moderns view things. The Liberal Order that rules over the West needs this narrative of Progress; because lacking the ability to justify its existence by objective standards of greatness, whether in art or politics, in word or deed, Liberalism needs a relativist perspective which says that it’s “not so bad as previous cultures were.” Therefore, voices like those of both Spengler and Castoriades will always be considered dissident by the current regime.

[@alessandrazacco1806]

In Italian we call it: IMMAGINARIO.

[@rueisblue]

This is strangely beautiful. Incredibly cold, but beautiful

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

It might be cold in modern terms of thinking but it’s also an attempt to broaden our minds.

[@rueisblue]

@@AncientGreeceRevisited to view the world in terms so different from our own perspective is truly a wonderful experience. I agree, it makes someone a more complete person

[@alessandrazacco1806]

You couldn't be clearer than that!

[@oliverd.shields2708]

Hello. I'd be interested to know whether you have read Castoriadis' book on Thucydides (it was published in French in 2011). I want to know whether it's worth reading. Since you're rather enthusiastic about him, maybe you'd say yes without giving it a second thought, but I don't want to waste my time. I'm especially interested in his ideas (if there are any worth reading about) on direct democracy. What you have laid out here on ancient Greek culture is a reasonable enough hypothesis. To me it's not fascinating, merely an interesting starting point for discussing ancient Greek culture (as you say, its creation by a memetic big bang, etc.).

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

Thank you for asking. I believe that the book you mentioned is a collection of lectures that Castoriadis gave in 1985. If indeed you are refering to this: tinyurl.com/phpdxfca If that is the case, then yes, I have read the "book." It's not where you'll find his ideas about autonomy however, but more of what I mention on this video: the Greek conception of the world, of politics, and justice. If you are looking for Castoriadis ideas on direct democracy, and autonomy as a consequence you probably want to read his book on the ancient Greek City, which has not been translated in English. So perhaps you want to start from that: tinyurl.com/eezkb23f

[@oliverd.shields2708]

@@AncientGreeceRevisited It is indeed a printing of his seminars from the 80s. It sounds like a book worth looking through regardless (the simple fact that he’s Greek, I’m assuming he learned Classical Greek, reading the original and being aware of the literature in modern Greek on this topic). I’m wondering whether there is good scholarship by Greeks today on the ancient’s political system that I’d be unaware of. (For context, I’m trilingual in English, French and German and am underwhelmed by the scholarship, including, of course, the occult stuff that you talk about on your channel [you’re good at storytelling though!], and so I’m learning ancient Greek.) It’s possible I’ll take a look at “his book on the ancient Greek City”-state. After writing the previous comment, I watched an interview, here on KZbin, in French strangely titled “La démocratie n’existe pas!” (it should have been more like “Nous sommes pas en démocratie!”), which indicated to me that he had come to many of the right conclusions - today’s lack of direct democracy, participation, civic education - simply by engaging with the ancient Greek sources. It also indicated to me that he has an unfortunate way expressing his ideas, as a result of his life having been dominated by Marxist concepts (which I’m glad to know, he came to criticise sharply). The only positive message he had is going ignored by people in the comments under such videos, while his destructive criticism is appreciated only by the Marxists, negating his intellectual maturation and/or progress.

[@AncientGreeceRevisited]

@@oliverd.shields2708 I am not aware of any new scholarship in Greece itself. I think that the most important work on the subject has been done by the school of Leo Strauss. He and his students have dared to philosophise like Greeks rather than just regurgitate Greek knowledge from the past. Strauss can be very elusive, and he definitely does not give-off a revolutionary spirit in the political sense (ie preparing the grounds for a future revolution). Yet, his critique is very much like that expressed by Plato and Aristotle. In many ways, he is an "ancient among us." www.amazon.com/City-Man-Leo-Strauss/dp/0226777014

[@oliverd.shields2708]

@@AncientGreeceRevisited Thank you for taking the time to answer.

[@theopapoulis4239]

After all, the Olympian Gods had no control over the laws of the universe!

[@mmick66]

Yes, precisely. They were not creators but creatures of this world.

[@theopapoulis4239]

Dear @@mmick66, I am now watching your full interview with Thaddeus Russell and I think I have a video which will be helpful to you. You speak of the break point/inversion of western philosophy/society around the 16th and 17th centuries. There certainly was one. I believe the video linked below presents a good piece of the puzzle. It argues that the church had a monopoly on theology and psychic research. Thus, philosophy veered in the direction of where we find it today. You can watch the whole video but it is most relevant from about 10:00 onwards. All together it is a 26 minute long video. I hope it finds you well, leads you closer to answers, and intrigues you. Kindest regards, Theo kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4jQdWuaa7OSa9U

[@ΑλέξανδροςΑσλανίδης-π1ρ]

Εκπληκτικός.