The Douglas Murray episode clarifies that the post-colonial struggle in Dr. Kavanagh’s mind is real. The Brits may be paying fair-market value for high-street chippies and off-licenses in Belfast, but they’re living rent-free in Christopher’s brain. Or leasing at below-market rates with an option to buy; there’s no public register for brain real-estate deals. I checked. In any case, Dr. Kavanagh could well spark joy by decolonizing and decluttering that brain: Kendi, Kondo; Kendi, Kondo; rinse, repeat.
Since the podcast focuses on guruspheric delivery, I think it only fair that my review should follow suit. Christopher disguises his Oxford Illuminati pedigree with an everyman’s Hibernian brogue. He even lays it on a bit thick for belief, if you ask me. The last time I heard something that thick was Jordan Peterson enlightening Sam Harris on the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. To Christopher, every “th” becomes an “ll”. Do you even lift (your tongue for a voiced dental fricative), bro? It took me some time to suss out who this “Heller Heying” person was. But I was determined to know, come Heller high water. Are these mannerisms a performative affectation, or an unfortunate accident of origin? If the latter, forget I said anything. My muller and faller taught me better.
Now to Dr. Browne. Given his fawning admiration for Carl Sagan, can he not see the backwardness of his galaxy-brain schema? Does he not realize that we are but one galaxy in a galactic cluster, one galactic cluster among—wait for it—billions and billions? From this perspective, a galaxy brain is but a modest thing. A pale grey dot, if you will.
I have given Dr. Browne and Dr. Kavanagh five stars on the assumption that the denominator is the aforementioned one billion stars. Gauge theory shows that five over a billion reduces to 0.0000000050 stars. The last zero is for Dr. Browne, who as a statistician, will appreciate the significant figure—in his case, particularly significant. I refer the podcast hosts to my Gauge Theory of Reviews, co-authored by Eric Weinstein. It’ll rock their puny minds when it comes out. Any day now. Aaaaaany day now. No, strike that. They don’t deserve it. Cretins!
Occasionally, this antipodean Abbot and Costello will stumble toward making a genuine argument. A ray of insight will peek through the clouds. Hallelujah! In their favor, they avoid the hand-waviness of a Russel Brand or a Deepak Chopra. They eschew the Chopratic method. Thank heaven for small mercies. [Dry Scott Adams chuckle]
Insights or not, there’s no excuse for the theme music. Holy Shankar, Batman! A real sitar would be appropriation enough, no matter how ironic. But a synthesized sitar? How would these hosts like it if I appropriated the greats of their canon—Erasure, Vangelis, Astley—and set them to sitar? I feel assured that they would give me up, let me down, run around and desert me. And who could blame them?
Finally, Drs. Kavanagh and Browne betray xir lily-white CIS sympathies by never bothering to list xir pronouns. Microaggress much? In the interests of inclusivity, I’m happy to disclose my pronouns: personal pronouns, antecedent pronouns, relative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, reflexive pronouns, intensive pronouns, possessive pronouns, interrogative pronouns. I include them all, without fear or favor. Additionally, my pronouns are object pronouns for object case and subject pronouns for subject case. To who it may concern: This is plain common sense.
In short, Decoding the Gurus is a long-form podcast that’s short on form and long on long. It’s a bubble bath after the IDW salt mines, an aural dose of Goop-remover, a conceptual penile implant with unbelievable thinkers that the world doesn’t know. Except Iceland. Apparently, they’re huge in Iceland.
