The Wes Cecil Podcast

Wes Cecil

My lectures are dedicated to making Philosophy in particular and the world of ideas in general available to everyone. My exploration of topics and thinkers is designed to provide a foundation for listeners to engage in further reading and thought and develop their own conceptions of the topics I introduce. I have PhD in Literature and Philosophy and was a college professor for over 20 years. I am working to remove the barriers that prevent many from experiencing and understanding the lives and thoughts of some of the world's greatest thinkers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Episode 1

    New Series! The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 1

    Resistance rather than revolution and Joy rather than suffering. Within our contemporary cultural environment, understanding the tensions in how we respond to the world can help feel more powerful. Creating meaning and joy will also transform our sense of ourselves and, by extension, our world. Books Mentioned:  Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right by Karl Marx The Rebel by Albert Camus Mai 68, l’heritage impossible by Jean-Pierre Le Goff Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    New Series! The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 1

  2. Episode 2

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 2 - You are Not A Resource

    2,000 years ago Cicero warned us against the idea that other people are functionally prey from whom we extract the profit. Unfortunately, his arguments have been forgotten and we inhabit a society that insists that the exploitation of others is not only acceptable but necessary and admirable. As Deleuze and Guattari and others have demonstrated, this logic leads to an idea of the self that is entirely devoid of human sympathy. We think we are exploiting others but we are in fact re-conceptualizing ourselves as extraction/consumption machines that have no other values or functions. Within this context, caring for others as valuable and even beautiful is an act of resistance. Books mentioned: Cicero De Officiis Book 3 50-57  Deleuze and Guattari A Thousand Plateaus - Plateau 6  Delueze and Guattari Anti-Oedipus  Koran Al-Mutaffifin and Al-Isra (amongst many other passages) Deluzism by Ian Buchanan particularly the last chapter. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 2 - You are Not A Resource

  3. Episode 3

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 3 - Revolution is a Trap

    The overriding narrative of revolution features a defined enemy inhabiting a defined space that we can, with courage, suffering and sacrifice, overthrow and inaugurate a new and better world. However, as Kafka and Musil demonstrated we live in a world that is diffuse, multi-layered and without center. These more uncomfortable and less entertaining versions of our world demonstrate the fundamental naivete of the notion of revolution that, functionally, becomes a disabling myth. Rather than revolution or nothing, in which we get nothing because we can’t have the revolution, I argue for the value of resistance, which is both available and immediate.  Books I mention in the lecture: Kafka The Metamorphosis Kafka The Castle Musil The Man Without Qualities Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 Lem The Invincible Raymond Aron The Opiate of the Intellectuals Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 3 - Revolution is a Trap

  4. Episode 4

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 4 - Sign Value and Recuperation

    One of the significant challenges of our current environment is that our own imaginations have been turned against us. Much of our needs come from our imaginations and are very much focused on the way acts and products signify - their sign value. What this means is that our very real desire for change ends up being recuperated and being sold back to us products that reinforce the very system we wish to change. Traditional skills and ways of living become “Trad Wife”, anti-capitalist movements are sold back to us in posters and t-shirts, and despair becomes a market opportunity. In this environment, the imagination becomes a central territory for understanding and, importantly, enacting resistance. Books I mention in the lecture: Karl Marx, Das Kapital Volume 1 Jean Baudrillard Simulacra and Simulation (warning, English Translation is a bit dodgy and the early Semiotext(e) edition is incomplete and hence confusing (or more confusing, it is plenty confusing in French)) Jean Baudrillard Symbolic Exchange and Death Georges Bataille The Accursed Share George Orwell 1984 (The Appendices are written retrospectively about the world of Oceania and Newspeak that did not endure) Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 4 - Sign Value and Recuperation

  5. Episode 5

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 5 - Imaginations Under Siege

    Following on last episode's discussion of the philosophical critiques of how commoditization influences our world, I thought it would be worth taking a moment to reflect in a concrete fashion on how our imaginations are used against us to distort the world and colonize our subconscious. I’ve been a bit heavy with the references so I thought I’d save a few up for next time. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 5 - Imaginations Under Siege

  6. Episode 6

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 6 - Subjects of History

    Camus’ critique of Romanticism is grounded in a belief in the contingency of human existence. We are not isolated heroes who can, or perhaps cannot, utterly transform the world. We are limited humans living in an environment shaped by forces beyond our control or even comprehension. As such, we can at best attempt to resist according to our own sense of joy while keeping our communities in mind. Hence the importance of joy. To find joy in the ongoing struggle is the approach Camus recommends. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 6 - Subjects of History

  7. Episode 7

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 7 - The Students are Marching

    As if just to illustrate the ideas we’ve been exploring, the students of France are out on the streets to protest the latest French government budget. Not only is this a repeat of some of the key elements that led to the revolt in May 1968, it also underlines the degree to which the government will go to not have to admit they have utterly failed to deliver on its many promises over the last 20 years. The joy of resistance is getting very real indeed. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 7 - The Students are Marching

  8. Episode 8

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 8 - Meet The New Boss

    There are many critiques of the power of ideology to shape our perception of the world and freeze us in a sense of powerlessness. However, less discussed is that while we may feel nothing really changes, in many ways the world has changed dramatically in a relatively short period of time. When we reject our cultural presumptions about the world, we can liberate our past, presents and future. A few selected texts: Althusser Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus Jameson Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Zizeck Ideology Today Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month: https://www.patreon.com/wescecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 8 - Meet The New Boss

  9. Episode 9

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 9 - Violence

    What of violent resistance? This is one of the most vexed questions surrounding the ethics and viability of resistance. What constitutes violence? When, if ever, is it justified? Does it actually work? It is clear that it often takes the application of some kind of force to get states to change, yet states claim only the state can deploy force. This fundamental disequilibrium between citizens and states creates a difficult and confusing challenge. "A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."— Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919) "Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man."— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) "Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all."— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651 "Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws..." — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1689) "The state is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class."— Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917) "Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy."— Hannah Arendt, On Violence (1969) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 9 - Violence

  10. Episode 10

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 10 - Success

    The notion that resistance is doomed and only violence or resignation to the status quo are viable options actually belies the historical reality. In the cases of marijuana legalization, gay marriage, socialised medicine or gay marriage, joyful, even celebratory resistance has often led to dramatic and even rapid change. Joy has a proven track record as a winning strategy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Joy of Resistance: Ep. 10 - Success
See All Season 19 (10)

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About

My lectures are dedicated to making Philosophy in particular and the world of ideas in general available to everyone. My exploration of topics and thinkers is designed to provide a foundation for listeners to engage in further reading and thought and develop their own conceptions of the topics I introduce. I have PhD in Literature and Philosophy and was a college professor for over 20 years. I am working to remove the barriers that prevent many from experiencing and understanding the lives and thoughts of some of the world's greatest thinkers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Wes Cecil
  • Episodes
    254
  • Seasons
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Wes Cecil
  • Show Website
    The Wes Cecil Podcast

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