Conspirituality Awakener

Philosopher Thi Nguyen first visited us 150 episodes ago (!!) to discuss how social media gamification exploded online conspiracy theories and audience capture drags content producers toward the seductions of premature clarity—and the ecstasy of fascism. 
Nguyen returns to discuss “value capture”: how simplified and portable metrics in institutions, technology, and media landscapes erode our moral capacities as we pursue goals we never signed up for. (We even consider this influence on podcasting!)
Throughout, we also talk about the heart of Nguyen’s book, Games: Agency as Art, in which he explores the liberatory nature of games that offer the pleasures of striving and absorption. We wonder whether—if we valued and understood play for its own sake—we might not need to gamify the world. 
Show Notes
Games: Agency as Art 
Games and the Art of Agency (Philosophical Review) (2020 APA Article Prize; selected for Philosopher Annual‘s “10 Best Philosophy Articles of 2019”)
Value Capture (JESP)
Trust as an Unquestioning Attitude (OSE)
Transparency is Surveillance (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research) (short summary)
Hostile Epistemology (keynote for the 2022 NASSP.)
Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement (Mind) (audio)
Art as a Shelter from Science (Aristotelian Society Supplementary)
The Arts of Action (Philosopher’s Imprint)
Moral Outrage Porn with Bekka Williams (Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy) (selected for Philosopher Annual‘s “10 Best Philosophy Articles of 2020”)
How Twitter Gamifies Communication (Applied Epistemology, OUP) (And a shortened version for students, with suggested classroom exercises.)
Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles (Episteme)
The Seductions of Clarity (RIPS)
Cultural Appropriation and the Intimacy of Groups, with Matt Strohl (Philosophical Studies)
Trust and Antitrust — Annette Baier
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Russell Brand has accepted Jesus into his heart and been baptized in the spirit. But does his conversion to Christianity make sense along the New Age rebel to right-wing, conspiracy-theorist radicalization pipeline? Is Brand seeking absolution for his sins, or recognizing that most of his audience are Christians “oppressed” by authoritarian libs? 
Julian explores how the “enlightened outsider” uses pseudoscience to justify spiritual beliefs that are actually connective tissue between conspiracism, New Age metaphysics, and faux Christian victimhood.
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Russell Brand has accepted Jesus into his heart and been baptized in the spirit. But does his conversion to Christianity make sense along the New Age rebel to right-wing, conspiracy-theorist radicalization pipeline? Is Brand seeking absolution for his sins, or recognizing that most of his audience are Christians “oppressed” by authoritarian libs?

Julian explores how the “enlightened outsider” uses pseudoscience to justify spiritual beliefs that are actually connective tissue between conspiracism, New Age metaphysics, and faux Christian victimhood.

Two weeks ago, several university administrators asked militarized police units to smash pro-Palestinian encampment protests on quads and in occupied buildings. It happened at places like Columbia and CUNY, and the University of Texas in Austin where our guest today, Dr. Peniel Joseph, teaches on the history of the Black Power movement. 
In the midst of the news cycle frenzy, an old phrase began popping up in discussions of who the protestors were and whether the police actions were justified. Authorities said (and media figureheads repeated uncritically) that protestors were infiltrated and influenced by “outside agitators.”
It’s a phrase with a long history to it. Joining Matthew to unpack it is Dr. Peniel Joseph, a historian of the Civil Rights era, during which time the trope reached peak exposure, when it was lobbed at Martin Luther King Jr., as he sat in Birmingham Jail.
Show Notes
Peniel E. Joseph
NYPD Chief of Patrol on the “unknown entity”
Thursday's Headlines: NYPD Discovers Chained Bike Locks Edition
Nearly all Gaza campus protests in the US have been peaceful, study finds 
Unmasking The 'Outside Agitator'
Debunking the “Outside Agitator” Trope amid pro-Palestinian campus protests
Cost of repairing occupation damage at Portland State library estimated at $750K
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Matthew is in the guest seat today! Why? Because in 2019—just months before the pandemic and this podcast kicked off—he published a book titled Practice and All is Coming: Abuse, Cult Dynamics and Healing in Yoga and Beyond. It focused on survivor stories of assault and abuse within the cultic mechanisms of Pattabhi Jois' Ashtanga Yoga community. The book also proposed a path into co-creating safer yoga communities via enhanced critical thinking, self-and-other-care, student empowerment, and community resilience. 
In many ways, this book holds the keys to how one-third of the team has tackled the conspirituality era. Derek and Julian interview their colleague about it all on the occasion of the release of a second edition, now titled: Surviving Modern Yoga: Cult Dynamics, Charismatic Leaders, and What Survivors Can Teach Us (North Atlantic Books).
Show Notes
Surviving Modern Yoga by Matthew Remski | PenguinRandomHouse.com
Yoga’s Culture of Sexual Abuse: Nine Women Tell Their Stories | The Walrus
Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories | The Walrus
How a #MeToo Facebook Post Toppled a Yoga Icon | by Matthew Remski | GEN
Shielded for Decades, A Yoga Leader's Alleged Sexual Abuse Finally Comes Under Fire
How to Respond to Sexual Abuse Within a Yoga or Spiritual Community—Jubilee Cooke, Karen Rain 

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In 2020, former NY Times journalist Isabel Wilkerson published Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The book tells a compelling story: that the root of our social divisions is the invented hierarchical structure of castes, not, as we often assume in America, race. Race, she writes, is only another manifestation of caste.
While it’s certainly an important topic here in America, Wilkerson shows, by investigating the longstanding caste system in India, the social divisions in Nazi Germany, and America’s founding and expansion through chattel slavery, that caste is a universal phenomenon.
Derek discusses his thoughts on this powerful and important book.
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