Oranges and Lemons Greg & Bird

Recorded 11/18/2023Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: orangesandlemonspodcast@gmail.com

Published five years before his infamous Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel. It is written in his characteristic style of magical realism and explores the themes of shame, shamelessness, and violence in a fictitious country that is "not quite Pakistan." In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the work, covering topics including the morality of body modification, religion in totalitarian regimes, the value of formal literary critique, the concepts of shame and shamelessness, ...

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and professor at NYU best known for his contributions in the field of moral psychology. He has written three books, including the highly regarded The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, which presents his Moral Foundations Theory and its supporting research. In their discussion of the book, Greg and Bird cover topics including moral intuition vs. moral reasoning, the necessity of conversation for changing one's mind, th...

The Old Man and the Sea (1952) was Ernest Hemingway’s last major publication of fiction. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and is considered by many to be a classic of American literature. Topics discussed include how one should read great literature, the author’s views on death as expressed in the novel, the purpose of art and its transcendent qualities, the influence of companionship on suffering, man’s place in nature, and more. Also discussed is William E....

Written almost 2,000 years ago, Meditations is a collection of the private notes of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. While the author likely never intended his notes to be published, the collection has nevertheless become a cornerstone of Stoic philosophy literature and is still widely read today. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the work, covering topics including a brief overview of the author and stoicism generally, the nature of responsibility with respect to one's own inner well-bein...

Often regarded as a standard of modern political literature, George Orwell's 1984 maintains broad cultural influence and recognition to this day. The novel depicts a terrible future in which totalitarian governments, bearing a strong resemblance to Stalinist Russia, have snuffed out all individuality and free thought. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the novel and its prescience, touching on a range of topics including power as a motivation in itself, self-awareness in malevolent actors...