The Wes Cecil Podcast

If you feel confused and uneasy in a seemingly directionless world you are not crazy. We are experiencing a rapid transformation in all of the elements that create a sense of meaning and belonging and we both need, and perhaps, must create a new set of values if we are to regain a sense of peace. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wow, after all the build up, Socrates - through the voice of Diotima - delivers a truly radical conception of the nature of love. That it might lead us to personal divinity is perhaps the single most powerful in this section of the dialogue. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s we...

Thanks for the questions and comments. A quick follow up to techno feudalism exploring some of the ideas in a little more depth and clarity - at least hopefully. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...

When our social narratives fail us, we are thrown back onto the values we create and defend. We can, and should, be the final arbiter of our world. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...

The final set-up for Socrates’ speech establishes both the importance of one who knows above generally accepted wisdom as well as the complete dismissal of the mythological concepts as presented so far. Plato has Socrates present a stunning refutation of the whole idea that what everyone has said so far can actually be true as a way of beginning his presentation of THE TRUTH. Sign-up for Wes’...

Jean-Francois Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, Baudrillard all discussed major aspects of what is today often called Techno-Feudalism. While some of the modern conceptions are certainly apt and insightful, they often overlook the fundamental trick being played on us of extracting value from us while pretending to provide value for us. Further, this is not post-industrial but rather industrialism...

A further exploration of the ways in which a willingness to open ourselves to the cultural influence of West Africa could potentially really help transform our lives for the better. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on A...

While these speeches seem very different - and they are on the surface - they actually articulate a similar outlook expressed in very different terms. The idea of love driving us towards a unity with a universal force is key to understanding Plato’s ideas of Love and why and how he has been so influential. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain acces...

If you feel your current values are failing then one needs to search for new values. One readily available set of values is provided by the influence of West Africa that still exists in the United States. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / m...

So much for Phaedrus. Plato quickly moves to present core elements of his world view while undercutting the simple love for the gods. Again, everything is political, philosophical and very critical of his society all at the same time. Notice all of the now common concepts that Plato is sneaking in under the guise of a simple set of hymns to praise the gods. What could be wrong with that?? Sign-up...

Shockingly, people are immersed in a series of internal narratives that impose a sense of threat and fear as a core element of existence. Embracing Joy, like Play, fundamentally alters our experience of the world and more accurately reflects the world we find ourselves inhabiting. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, rea...

The first speech comes from Phaedrus. He is sincere and well intentioned but delivers a seemingly very limited take on the nature of Love. As ever, there is a level of philosophy, politics and religious argumentation going on that is not that obvious on the surface. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, pee...

In a world of almost unimaginable opportunity to express ourselves, we still maintain a sense of ‘work’ as our defining characteristic. Embracing a sense of Play in our lives seems like we are abandoning our duties and subjecting ourselves to soul crushing poverty. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonu...

We reach the text itself. Hopefully I clarify why there is this strange framing element to the Symposium and the degree to which many of the seemingly odd asides and quotes are actually core to Plato’s general assault on the mytho-poetic concepts of Hellenistic society. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists,...

Well, forgot to mention that both the Reformation and the Enlightenment were heavily influenced by Platonic thought(!). As a test, if you’ve ever thought that SCIENCE is THE path to the TRUTH; congratulations, you’re a Neoplatonist. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diar...

YOU ARE NOT A SLAVE: Despite being by almost any measure some of the freest people in history, we consistently use language and express patterns suggesting we are in fact still peasant, serfs or slaves. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / mon...

Two main points in this introduction: First, Plato is in deadly earnest in these dialogues trying to work out how his society and his class were crushed in a war and subject to tyranny and what, if anything, could be done.  Second, Plato has had an unbelievable impact on our conception of the world through his influence on Christianity. Further, as we will explore in later episodes, his think...

Just a follow up to discuss the forces that shape the global real estate market and how our standard response - supply and demand - reveals the degree to which our minds are captured by a wild oversimplification of economic forces and the benighted nature of our collective imaginations faced with economic challenges. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus,...

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY: Another aspect of confusion comes from a loss of our immediate community that throws us onto an ever increasing sense of individualism and, hence, isolation. We struggle mightily to address the very rapid transition from life patterns established in small scale communities to individualism and national or even global patterns of thought. Sign-up for Wes’s PAT...

CONCLUSION: The conclusion to the capitalism series wherein I ramble a bit about the major concepts we have explored and why I think it is so important at this juncture in history to think about the influence capitalism has had on our conception of ourselves and our world. Also, I checked the Euro Disney prices for a family of four, not counting transportation or hotel—the cost will be between 800...

SCARCITY AND ABUNDANCE: We have inherited a set of values that are a misfit for the world we now inhabit. The tension between our past and our present is creating a strong sense of confusion and dislocation. This series explores some of the elements of this problem beginning with why, in a world of overwhelming abundance, we still feel beset by scarcity. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get...

The past tells us that our future with Capitalism is unlikely to suddenly change. Rather, we are likely to experience a slow evolution of values that undermines and constrains the power of capitalism and frees us to pursue other sets of values and create new worldviews that combine elements of the past but create new ideals for a new world. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your question...

In this short parable from the Analects we see the idea that wisdom is relative both to situations and individuals. This approach to wisdom is markedly different from the notion of universal laws and absolute ontology that informs much of the Western philosophical tradition. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading l...

I know this sounds like a joke, but the joke was on me. This moment in the coffee shop highlighted how deeply I have internalized our cultural definition of wealth and riches despite, in theory, spending much of my life critiquing these kinds of cultural mindsets. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus...

We reach today and discover, like 16th century Catholics, we know all the critiques of our condition but have difficulty imagining any possible alternative. This leads supposedly quite determinedly different arguments about both politics and economics to, upon reflection, represent very similar or perhaps even identical positions. Herein lies our struggle. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to g...