Episode 325: It Is Happening Again
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler return to Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and Profane and discuss the chapter “Sacred Time and Myths." How does viewing time as circular give us a periodic window into the sacred? What does it mean to reactualize the creation of the universe in ritual and to view time as “starting anew”? How did Christianity radically change the experience of time by locating the incarnation of the sacred in the historical past? Plus, do you believe in conspiracy theories? A new study says you should think twice about putting them in your dating profiles. Green, R., Kamitz, L. C.,...
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Episode 324: Irruption of the Sacred
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler consecrate their podcast with a discussion of "The Sacred and the Profane" by Mircea Eliade. We focus on the first chapter on sacred spaces, where the divine breaks through (or irrupts) our homogenous and chaotic reality, creating a center that gives us meaning and allows us to orient our lives. Plus speaking of the profane, a new study shows that cursing makes you stronger – but why in god’s living fuck do they always end up spewing nonsense about the “underlying psychological mechanisms”? Stephens, R., Dowber, H., Richardson, C., &...
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Episode 323: Debate Me 'Phro
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler dive into Plato’s Euthyphro, part of our intermittent Back 2 Basics series. A young cocksure priest, confident in his holiness, bumps into Socrates on his way to court to prosecute his father for a wrongful death. After a few rounds with Socrates on the nature of piety, he becomes a little less sure of himself. We talk about Plato’s decision to set the dialogue in the days before Socrates’ own trial, the famous Euthyphro dilemma, the seemingly little progress that’s made in defining piety, and much more. Plus Oliver Sacks wrote books where the truth seemed...
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Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler return to William James’ monumental “Principles of Psychology”, this time wading through his famous chapter “The Stream of Thought.” We talk about his rejection of empiricist theories of consciousness in favor of a view that consciousness is a continuous stream of thoughts, sensations, and emotions without any elements (atoms) that repeat or appear in other people’s streams. We talk about how vividly James captures certain features of consciousness, like trying to recall a forgotten name, or the ways that the subjective per of two people differ radically in the...
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Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler begin their long journey home to Homer’s Odyssey, the tale of king Odysseus' 10 year journey home after the Trojan war (maybe the greatest story ever told). We dive into the first two books, which focus on Odysseus’ 20-year-old son Telemachus, the swarm of suitors who have descended on Odysseus’ house during his long absence in the hopes of marrying his clever and beautiful wife Penelope, and the goddess Athena, whose plan to get Odysseus home to Ithaca is finally set into motion. (Much more to come on this monumental work for our beloved Patreon supporters). Plus...
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Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story “The Hunger Artist,” a story that brims with metaphorical possibilities but also implores us to accept it on its own mysterious terms. Plus gooning. by Daniel Kolitz [harpers.org] [urbandictionary.com] [wikipedia.org] [kafka-online.info]
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Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud’s 1917 article “Mourning and Melancholia,” in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from normal grief, and arrives at some ideas that laid the groundwork for his later theory of normal human development. Plus, another blind ranking segment--this time Tamler gives David a list of rappers to rank blindly. Finally, in between segments we make an announcement about the topic of our next bonus series (it's gonna be epic). [wikipedia.org] [sas.upenn.edu] ...
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Episode 318: A PTA Meeting
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many connections between the two movies - Pynchon adaptations, shadowy forces, snitches who abandon their families, the blend of comedy and political fatalism, and the intrinsic and external forces that threaten relationships and resistance to power. [Note: some spoilers to OBAA in the opening segment but we note where they begin, and of course full spoilers to Inherent Vice.] A really fun...
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Episode 317: For Shame
Very Bad Wizards
What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and Tamler dive into Richard Shweder’s “Towards a Deep Cultural Psychology of Shame.” We talk about the methodological challenges of studying shame in other contexts and languages, the virtues of ethnographic approaches, studying literature, and more. Plus, bloody hell are the Brits starting queues at pubs? Bollocks! by Will Dunn [newstatesmen.com] Shweder, R. A. (2003). Social Research: An International...
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Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")
Very Bad Wizards
David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” We dig into his characteristic themes of courage, cowardice, shifting power dynamics in marriages, and what it truly means to live a happy life. Plus, neuroscience may be complex, but can these AI generated neuroscience jokes tickle David’s funny bone? And a super timely discussion of an urgent issue: The Cracker Barrel logo. [apnews.com] [punsify.com] by Ernest Hemingway [wikipedia.org]
info_outlineDavid and Tamler heed the call to journey into the realm of Joseph Campbell. What are the unifying elements shared by myths and religions across time and culture? Does myth give us a portal into the hidden cosmic forces of the universe? Can it take us into depths of our unconscious and the nature of our own being? What is the legacy of Campbell’s thought today?
Plus, three brave scholars of fascism at Yale flee the country to form in a center of resistance at…The University of Toronto.
We’re Experts in Fascism. We’re Leaving the U.S. | NYT Opinion [youtube.com]
Joseph Campbell [wikipedia.org]
The Hero with a Thousand Faces [wikipedia.org]
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell [amazon.com affiliate link]