Johnathan Bi's Podcast Insights from the Great Books

An introductory lecture summarizing the key ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
Full Transcript at https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/art-and-science-are-poisoning-you


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An interview with Professor Brian Leiter on Nietzsche's critique of free will.
For the full video and transcript, visit: https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/nietzsches-guide-to-living-without


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An introductory lecture to Friedrich Nietzsche’s On The Genealogy of Morality.
For the full video and transcript, visit: https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/nietzsches-guide-to-greatness-the


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Christianity exposed the injustice of scapegoating and, in doing so, robbed us of the cathartic tools which early human societies used to contain and resolve violence. Today, the Katechon which prevents violence from overflowing is three institutions that limit and channel violence: Law, Capitalism, and War. By tracing a genealogy for all three institutions, Girard comes to the terrifying conclusion that these final bulwarks against apocalypse are on the verge of collapse. More precisely, their collapse is already underway.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:13 Violence in Modernity
00:09:05 Mimetic Contagion in Modernity
00:11:21 Scapegoating in Modernity
00:14:20 Divinization and Institutionalization in Modernity
00:18:51 The Katechon of Law
00:21:42 The Monopoly Over Violence
00:28:08 The Price of Equality
00:34:54 Kinetic and Potential Violence
00:37:15 Prestige, Catharsis, and Violence
00:41:50 The Logic of Retribution and the Logic of Guilt
00:46:05 The Katechon of Capitalism
00:55:36 Capitalism and Violence
00:59:17 Incendiary Global Trade
01:02:32 The Katechon of War
01:06:58 The Gentleman's War
01:10:38 Napoleon and Total War
01:14:56 The Bomb
01:17:47 The Case Against Political Action
01:21:42 Conversion
01:27:21 Holderlin and the Case for Withdrawal
01:30:45 The End


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Rescued by Christianity, modernity is distinctly different than the violent, deceitful, and stagnant societies of yore. We are the most loving, truthful, and innovative culture ever to exist. Resting uneasily alongside this fundamental affirmation of modernity, however, is Girard’s puzzling insistence that things have barely changed at all: we now simply persecute victims under the banner of love, rigidly adhere to scientific dogmas under the guise of free inquiry, and package trivialities as radical innovations. Despite our high-minded ideals, stubborn human nature refuses to budge and, so, the perversions of modernity take on the shape of hypocrisy. Even humanity’s greatest triumph is terribly ambivalent and limited.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:11 Modernity as Rupture
00:08:09 Modernity as Continuity
00:11:18 Metaphor of the Rocket
00:13:40 The Force of Love
00:22:08 Theatre
00:24:49 Hypocrisy
00:34:13 The Force of Truth
00:38:11 The Epistemology of Love
00:47:50 The Church of Science
00:59:39 The Blindspots of Science
01:05:06 The Force of Innovation
01:15:49 Fashion
01:22:00 An Ephemeral Triumph


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For Girard, Christianity is radically different from all other religions in one crucial aspect: it takes the side of the innocent victim and, in doing so, exposes the violence and deceit of worldly order. We will explore how this intuition of innocence begins to take root in the Hebrew bible and blossoms into a resounding declaration in the Crucifixion. Girard presents us with an anthropology of the Cross: a translation of Christian phenomena into this-worldly, humanistic language. Girard’s success in placing this world in the foreground, however, forces the other world and even God himself to retreat into the background. In Girard’s unorthodox Christianity, God’s absence is just as loud and jarring as humanity’s presence.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:36 The Myth Vaccine
00:08:56 Cain and Abel
00:14:19 Joseph and His Brothers
00:18:30 The Incompleteness of the Hebrew Bible
00:21:31 Completing the Message
00:26:51 The Crucifixion
00:30:18 Christ's Innocence
00:33:50 Christ's Truth
00:37:31 Christ's Love
00:41:28 An Anthropology of the Cross
00:42:31 Girard's Interpretation of Satan
00:44:57 Girard's Interpretation of the Christian Revelation
00:45:47 Girard's Interpretation of the Anti-Christ
00:49:05 Girard's Interpretation of the Kingdom of God
00:50:08 Girard's Interpretation of the Apocalypse
00:51:08 A Christian Dictionary
00:54:10 Girard's Unorthodoxy: The Sacrificial Reading
00:56:45 Girard's Unorthodoxy: God's Absence
01:03:17 Girard's Unorthodoxy: Historical Christianity
01:05:39 Girard's Unorthodoxy: Apocalyptic Ambivalence


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