Really True Fiction

Just a couple of rebels sitting around trying to take down the Empire. In this episode of The Liberal Soul I am so pleased to be joined by my wonderful friends Alex Wan and Billie Schultz. The three of us also do the Nothing To Fear podcast where every week we watch a scary movie and talk about it so you don't have to!  However, in today's episode we go back to our roots: Star Wars. The saga is on...

This episode is part two of a four part series on the book The Open Society And Its Enemies by Karl Popper. Please listen to episode one before this as it will give context for this episode. In this episode I discuss: - Plato's formulation about who should rule is a useless question - rather we should ask how we can make institutions that prevent bad rulers from doing too much harm, as many to mos...

First episode on George Orwell. My guest for this episode is my great friend Danica Weager. We take as our launchpad the Orwell essay Politics and the English Language. It's been a goal of this podcast to also talk about language and how we use it. Orwell is the perfect writer in this regard. In todays episode we talk about: - The ease of invoking names without understanding the underlying princip...

Welcome to part one of a four part mini-series on the book The Open Society And Its Enemies by Karl Popper. This book is a Promethean level of fresh air intellectually when it comes to understanding how a free society can operate; and what are the kind of mentalities that are opposed to that. Even though it is mentioned as unknowing in the episode, this book was published in 1945. It comes in two...

Welcome to double digits of The Liberal Soul! For today's episode I will be talking about Jonathon Haidt's book from 2012: The Righteous Mind (Why good people are divided by politics and religion).  I wanted to do this episode to draw in some moral psychology into political and religious philosophy. Haidt's careful consideration of why people believe different things and his analogies for how the...

In this solo episode I talk about the 1841 essay Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This essay had a profound effect on my life when I first read it, and I still go back to it every year or so for inspiration. Emerson talks about the psychological importance of non-conformity, of trusting your own mind, and being the author of your own creations and endeavors. Here is a link to the essay if you...

In this episode of The Liberal Soul, I speak with musician, sound engineer, and my cousin Zach Gerber. Zach lives in Ontario and has been involved professionally in music for the last decade. Zach is a touring musician with the Canadian band Walk Off The Earth, so he has lots of great stories about festivals and concerts. Music being my first love, I wanted to have an episode talking to Zach about...

In this episode of The Liberal Soul I take a little detour down a Karl Popper path and discuss a section from his book The Open Society And Its Enemies. There is an incredible section of that book where Popper dissects the difference between individualism and egoism; and how Plato conflated them for his own propaganda. By equating individualism with egoism, Plato made it easy to dismiss as uncarin...

Annyeong! In this episode of The Liberal Soul I talk to my good friend David Harris. David lives in England and we met each other while living in Gwangju, South Korea. It was a real pleasure having Dave on the podcast; he is a ton of fun to talk to. We spend most of this episode talking about football (soccer) and what it means often to people living in England. Some of the things we talk about ar...

This episode is the second in a two-parter talking about the book A Thousand Small Sanities by Adam Gopnik. In part two, I'll be talking about Gopnik's observations of why the Right and Left politically dislike liberals.  Some of the things I talk about are: - Liberals and Conservatives having different temperaments - and that they both share a tragic view of life but the liberal believes in the p...

In this episode of The Liberal Soul I talk with my friend Cole Kander. I wanted to talk to Cole because he and I have had a very similar life trajectory. We were both born and raised in a very Protestant house and church culture, and we both have decided that kind of life isn't for us. I know this can be a really hard thing to talk about for many people, so I'm really proud of Cole being able to p...

This episode of The Liberal Soul is part one of a two part reflection on the 2019 book A Thousand Small Sanities by Adam Gopnik. I have mentioned this book a couple times in the first couple episodes, so I wanted to give it its due here. This book was the proximate impetus for this podcast as I recall being quite inspired and educated when I first read it. In part one I talk about: - Liberalism be...

Hello RTF listeners. Here is the second episode from my new podcast The Liberal Soul. For the second episode of The Liberal Soul I'm very pleased to be joined by my cousin and cohost of our other podcast Really True Fiction: David Parker. In this episode, David and I chat about the seminal and foundational liberal essay On Liberty (1859) by John Stuart Mill. Here is a link  if you want to read it:...

Hey RTF Listeners! I recently started a new podcast called The Liberal Soul. This is the first episode and I'm including it on this show because it was directly inspired by many things David and I talked about on RTF.  This podcast is going to be about what it's like to be a person open to the world and curious about the passions of others. Also, it's a podcast where I will be talking about famous...

For our 75th episode, we do a film that is sort of fiction? 2007's Into The Wild is a treasured film for both David and Luke. In this episode we talk about avoiding sanctimony, not jumping down others throats, camaraderie and hard work, the dichotomy of Los Angeles, homelessness, being hardwired for cross purposes, tragedy as emergent instead of super imposed, becoming a person worthy of others an...

A return to the wonderful and bizarre year of culture that was 1999. In this episode we are joined by my friend Danica Weager as a guest for our considerations on American Beauty: The greatest movie about nothing. We contemplate the slow sliding into personal hell that is unconscious living, finding meaning in life while still caring for others, vital masculinity, perfectionism/achievement, becomi...

What a pain in the Arrakis! David and I want to say a big thank you to our guest Josiah Martinoski for this episode on the novel Dune. We dive into the Frank Herbert 1965 Sci/Fi classic. We talk about leadership, management, subterfuge, religion, competence, the macro vs micro world, and all the lore in between. Hope you enjoy it!  Additional Spoilers: Monsters Inc - 1:03:12 The Island - 1:17:08 T...

A very Merry Christmas to everyone! This has been an extremely difficult year, and we hope you all can find a meaningful way to spend these holidays. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy our take on the classic 1843 Christmas tale: A Christmas Carol. Additionally, we also recorded a bonus intro on our thoughts on the modern classic from 1965: Merry Christmas Charlie Brown. We talk about all things...

We return with the third book. In this episode, we are pleased to be joined by our friend Alex Wan as a guest. Alex is one of three cohosts (along with Luke and Billie, whom you can hear on episode 62) of the Nothing to Fear podcast. Alex joins us remotely to talk about the third Harry Potter novel The Prisoner of Azkaban (the darkest entry yet!). In this episode we hit many topics including: -Exp...

In this episode we conclude (for now) our thoughts on Hawkins, Indiana. We talk about Joyce, Hopper, Nancy, Jonathan, Steve and stuff about the show and 80s culture in general. We discuss being committed to your own eyes and ears, having the strength of your own opinion, being pulled by the truth over self-interest, the importance of being able to triage, and being able to see into the lives of pe...

We are back with our foray into Hawkins Indiana. We are starting with season one of the great nostalgic show! In this episode we talk about the kids of Hawkins (Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Eleven) and all their travails. We talk about really listening when a person presents new information, being a young hero, the vitality of being a kid and not equivocating on ethical standards, the goofball fa...

In this episode we dive into the second novel in the Harry Potter franchise: the nearly flawless Chamber of Secrets. In this episode we talk about initiating kindness, gossip, loneliness and betrayal, Enlightenment stuff, carrying on a vision, Harry's choice, rebirth, not being serious about reality, and intent vs. impact. Hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed reading this book. Additi...

In this episode of Really True Fiction we talk about the 1951 Isaac Asimov novel Foundation. We discuss the Noble Lie vs. Noble Truth, Science as problem solving vs. ultimate truth, the tragic vs. utopian sense of life, and the importance of engaging with physical reality. We hope you enjoy! Additional Spoilers: The Social Network  23:50 The Matrix  28:18 Star Trek Beyond (major spoiler)  1:07:30...

Our first bonus! In this episode we discuss the South Park Pandemic Special (but really this is another meditation on the corona virus and the lockdown). This episode is also a first in RTF's attempt at remote recording (Luke was in Alberta and David was in Ontario). David was not at a location with a decent microphone, which is why you will hear a discrepancy in audio quality between our voices....

We begin the great journey! We have decided to do the Harry Potter books (though not all in a row). In this episode we talk about being born with fame and how that would make a person feel, the inability to let sarcasm go, the importance of naming things, the depression of incuriousity, the gross nature of superiorism, deeper truths, and how to organically be a team. Reading this book was a real t...