Political Philosophy

For one brief liminal side-ways glance, we understand that we are high-tech dumb-shits still enthralled by toys, by yogurts with natural active cultures, iPhone 20’s, the latest Boris Johnson memes, or (more sophisticatedly), political parties. Constantly playing. … More Thracymachus Blushing (Short Essay)

Zizek's chapter on the Arab Spring in The Year of Dreaming Dangerously elicits thoughts on why revolutions get derailed and what if anything can be done about it. … More Rebellion and Beyond: Dreaming Dangerously 6 (audio)

I return to an interpretation of Zizek, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously, this time chapter 5: "Welcome to the Desert of Post-Ideology." Zizek, through Lacan, distinguishes the controlled pleasures of capitalistic rationalism from the excessive enjoyment of the unsafe smoker and pointless rioter, and then evaluates what things like the UK riots of 2011 mean for advanced capitalism. … More Un...

Classical conservative Michael Oakeshott identifies the marketplace and its attendant encouragement of trendiness as an area that runs counter to the conservative disposition. The conservative disposition can instead be seen in activities like friendship, fishing, a person's tool collection and how he uses it. Sawzall meme included. … More Not About the Market: Oakeshott on Friendship, Fishi...

In this second reading from Michael Oakeshott's essay "On Being Conservative" we get into what counts as a true conservative disposition and what does not. Two aspects of contemporary conservatism are questioned--the desire for rapid and ongoing change, supposedly for the better, and a sentimental nostalgia for an idealized past. … More Don’t be Nostalgic: Oakeshott on Conservative&#16...

The term "conservatism" is so laden with unfortunate meaning and associations by now that it's hard to explain to people what it meant before it was confused with liberalism. But it’s really important to do so, because unlike the revolutionary culture-, family- and community-busting market-prioritizing conservatism everyone knows about now, the older version has positive contributions to make in a...

In this section of the book, I explain Carl Jung's view that 20th Century ideological extremism is in part a reaction to the dehumanizing effects of industrialization and urbanization. … More Not Jordan Peterson’s Carl Jung (an audio reading from my new book)

In this final episode on the book An Other Kingdom, I outline how Brueggeman and crew discuss ideas for building more community, and aim their attention at the millennial generation and younger. … More Deeper Community—How? (Radical Christianity-Audio)

A discussion of the book An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture by Block, Brueggemann and McKnight, especially on the idea of the fear of death causing the consumer addiction, the loss of which can be quite disturbing: “Grief occurs to us because of the impossibility of perfection and immortality. The free market consumer ideology calls us to infinite possibility. It promises perfection...

In this second part of a series on the book "An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture" by Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, and John McKnight, we get into the foreboding wilderness of covenantal community and the scary idea of neighborliness. … More Radical Christianity 2: Contract vs. Covenant (Audio)

This is the second audio reading of my new book, Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right: The Political Thought of Carl Jung. This is from the first chapter, which explains the basics of Jung's psychological theories as they apply to political ideologies. https://www.routledge.com/Ideological-Possession-and-the-Rise-of-the-New-Right-The-Political-Thought/Johnson/p/book/9781138082120 &...

Block, Brueggemann and McKnight are authors of An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture. In these episodes, I introduce their critique of today's politicized and materialistic Christianity and begin to pose a radical break with the American entanglement of Christianity and the dominant civil religion. … More An Other Kingdom (Audio)