The Living Philosophy

Karl Marx is the most (in)famous critic of Capitalism. Or is he? As with all stories, it's not so simple. Marx isn't a reactionary dreaming of a tribal communal paradise but more of a sci-fi visionary looking to the society that will transcend Capitalism using its foundation as a jumping off point to a much more interesting, much better world. ____________________ 📚 Further Reading: - The...

Following on from the last episode on Jordan Peterson's brilliant 2005 essay on "Peacemaking" this time we look at what went wrong and at JBP's arc as that of the classical tragic hero. And having a bit of fun with this we compare him to the villain in one of my favourite fantasy series Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. We look at Aristotle's definition of tragedy, and at mapove...

In 2005, long before he became a household name, Jordan Peterson wrote an article with the title "Peacemaking Among Higher Order Primates" and it is amazing — partly for its own beauty and pathos and partly for the contract it provides with The Daily Wire Peterson we have today. It is a brilliant ode to what peace looks like and how it might be achieved and a stark reminder of the potent...

Why it Matters is back (kind of). This video revisits the Prophet archetype with a bit more passion and a little less bookishness. It is great to have the previous video as a foundation but as with the old Why it Matters videos the point of this video is to get into why I care so much about this topic and why I think you should as well. We're going to be looking at the Prophet through the lens...

In approaching the underworld there are a couple of terms that people use. Sometimes it can get a bit confusing who's using what and what we should be using. In this episode we look at the term subconscious vs unconscious and what the meaning and background is of each. As we'll see it wasn't always so clear cut — the French psychological heritage from Pierre Janet started with one term...

In this palette cleanser we are going to talk about the philosophy of romcoms for a change. I reckon this should remove any accusations of important work being done on The Living Philosophy. We'll be looking at two romcoms — the classic Norah Ephron  When Harry Met Sally  and the lesser known  Just Like Heaven  starring Reese Wetherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. One is reflective of a type of art tha...

You can get "Become Who You Are" here: http://designingthemind.org/becoming It's rare that you encounter a fresh take on a path as well-trodden as happiness. I've read a lot of books on the topic and I have to say that Ryan Bush's take is fresh and yet simultaneously ancient. I think this is part of the reason I'm so enthusiastic about it: it integrates a trend in academi...

We modern serfs have forgotten something: we've forgotten how to live. You don't question the meaning of life when leisure is the heart of life rather than work. But with the rise of modern urban life, the intrinsic mode of living has died at the hands of the instrumental mode of life. Our entire lives have been colonised by "utility". We don't relax or rest for their own sak...

Before the Axial Age the religious archetypes were those of the Priest and the Magician. But with the increased complexity and evolution of society a new archetype emerged: that of the Prophet. This is the archetype of liminal transformation in the midst of a society paralysed by its own success. The Prophet comes in from the edge of inside and shows the society where it has lost its way. ________...

Philosopher and anthropologist Rene Girard once described justice and public vengeance. Nietzsche expressed the same in his Genealogy of Morals. Why then do we value justice so highly and look down so judgingly on revenge? And what, if this is true, is the purpose of justice? How is it in any way different from vengeance? The answer is that it is profoundly different and in this video we explore w...

Would you rather live in a better world or a happier one? In this video we are going to explore how equality has made the world a better place but also how, like the Edenic apple of knowledge, it has come with a cost. The world looks better from the outside but seen from the subjective side it seems that things have only gotten worse. This is following up on the recent episode on Nietzsche's c...

In The Ritual Process the anthropologist who put Liminality on the map Victor Turner gave a list of contrasts between Liminality and Structure. There is an uncanny resemblance between these values and the values of Leftism. That is what we are going to explore in this episode which in the final episode in our exploration of Victor Turner's work in this field.  ____________________ 📚 Further...

"When all you have is a hammer every problem begins to look like a nail." Good philosophy is always trying to break up and recreate its map of the world. In this episode we are going to break up the Individualist model of the world a little and broaden our map to include the Collectivist perspectives. We talk a lot about Nihilism and the Meaning Crisis as if they are only to be understoo...

Is Liminality the real root of the crisis of Nihilism? In this episode we are going to explore this question and whether Liminality is a better diagnosis of the Meaning Crisis than Nietzsche's Death of God. When looking at Turner's qualities of Liminality the relations between it and Nihilism are striking; if nothing else if provides us an alternative angle on the crisis — a different pe...

For Nietzsche The Last Man stood as the opposite of the Ubermensch and the great danger of the "levelling" tendency of modernity. In this episode we are going to look at what Nietzsche meant by the Last Man and how his prophecy has come through. We look at The Last Man in 21st century society and what Nietzsche got right even while we should be cautious of fully embracing his ideal.  ___...

We live in an age of Liminality. It's at the roots of the Meaning Crisis of Nihilism and Leftist value structures. Coming from the same Latin word as subliminal (*limin* meaning "threshold") it is a term that has entered the mainstream from its roots in Anthropology with the work of Victor Turner.  Victor Turner developed the concept in his work The Ritual Process. In this episode w...

Apocalypse is traditionally a religious idea but the secular age has been more alight with an Apocalyptic fervour than any preceding age. In this episode we explore why by looking at predictions through the ages and across cultures in an attempt to triangulate on what it is about the end of the world that is so sticky to the human psyche. We are going to explore the archetypal phenomenon of the en...

Jung once described himself as a failed philosopher. Instead he chose the path of science with psychology. It is surprising then to see what Walter Kaufmann calls Jung's "wildly emotional overreaction" to thinkers like Heidegger and Kierkegaard. Is philosophy Jung's Shadow? In this episode we explore what Jung said about the philosophers and why.  For this we'll draw on le...

A summary of my Camino experience: what I hiked, why I hiked and what I learned.  ________________ ⭐ Support the channel (thank you!) ▶ Patreon: https://patreon.com/thelivingphilosophy ▶ Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/thelivingphilosophy _________________  💬 Discord  ▶ https://discord.gg/XNd4gTpfu9 _________________ ⌛Timestamps: 0:00 Intro: What the Camino is 02:15 What I Hiked 08:18 Why I Hiked 10:2...

83% of America's counties voted for Trump in the 2020 but these counties account for only 29% of America's GDP. Why aren't this lesser off rural/exurban population voting for the party who theoretically are most aligned with their interests i.e. the Democratic Socialists?  The answer might lie with Karl Marx who saw this population as "rural idiots" representing "barb...

Anthropologist Victor Turner, who popularised the term Liminality, found that human society has two modes of interrelatedness that function like a yin and yang — mutually dependant and without which human life would be impossible. Structure is the mode of status and hierarchy in society; Communitas of love, compassion and myth.  These two modes show up in very interesting ways in our current socie...

The term "reactionary" is associated with the right-wing but like the term radical this term is a concept that transcends the one-dimensional left/right model. That being said it is almost exclusively applied to the right and these days it is used almost exclusively as an insult rather than a self-identifier.  It was originally synonymous with right-wing, but it doesn't have to be a...

Radical is a word that's thrown around a lot these days but whose meaning is left a bit vague. This episode explores the meaning of the term radical and why it is such an accurate finger on the pulse of the Culture Wars. From Trump and Bernie to Marx, Antifa and the Proud Boys our age embodies the spirit of radicalism.  This is the first in a new theme on the channel where we're going to...

God is dead - Nietzsche's most notorious line and also one of his most commonly misunderstood. The Nietzsche God is dead statement is a New Atheist sentiment but the warning of a Postmodernist. It is commonly mistaken for a modernist sentiment proclaiming the death of Christianity’s God. But that is not what Nietzsche intended. It was not a declaration of atheism; atheism was already a trivia...

Spoiler Alert - this look at the philosophy of the Metamodern masterpiece Everything Everywhere All At Once deals with the whole movie so there will be spoilers. The Nihilism of the internet age's apology Everything Everywhere All At Once is an amazing movie. It is one of those rare movies that is not only unbelievably entertaining but also incredibly profound. Not only does it give a brillia...