[teaser] American Canon: TS Eliot's "Tradition and Individual Talent"

May 2nd, 2021  |  2 mins 19 secs

Emmet and John talk about Eliot's essay on what it means for a writer to fit into a tradition.

Episode 35: Two-Piece: Gentry Elites, Dead WASPs, and the End of Fair Play Culture

April 20th, 2021  |  1 hr 9 mins

america, american politics, elites, political history, politics, populism, wasp culture

Emmet and John discuss two articles and try to fine-tune their understanding of who the American elites are and how they've changed over time.

[teaser] Bull Sesh: Decline, Decadence, and the Aesthetic Education of the Soul w/ Canada Mike

April 18th, 2021  |  3 mins 48 secs

Canada Mike swings by the pod to talk about decadence, decline, and the aesthetic education of the soul. This is a brief clip from the episode.

Episode 33: Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of the American Electric Grid ft. Meredith Angwin

April 6th, 2021  |  1 hr 7 mins

Emmet and John sit down to speak with Meredith Angwin about her new book on America's fragile electric grid.

[teaser] After Virtue II: The Waning of Telos and the Problem of Human Rights

April 4th, 2021  |  5 mins 3 secs

John and Emmet discuss the failure of the Enlightenment's ethical project and highlight MacIntyre's skepticism of human rights.

Episode 32: The Lasch Files: The Cultural Cold War and the Birth of Psychopolitics

March 30th, 2021  |  1 hr 6 mins

christopher lasch, cia, cold war, congress for cultural freedom, cultural cold war, korean war, mccarthyism, nixon, psyop

Emmet and John discuss Christopher Lasch's essay, "The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom."

Episode 30: TFW NO GF: A Pro-Friendship, Anti-FUDposting Movie Review

March 16th, 2021  |  1 hr 17 mins

alex lee moyer, altright, charlottesville, incel, kantbot, loneliness, media criticism, tfw no gf

Emmet and John review Alex Lee Moyer's documentary TFW NO GF.

Episode 29: After Virtue Pt. I: Emotivism and Its Discontents

March 9th, 2021  |  1 hr 17 mins

after virtue, alisdair macintyre, christopher lasch, communitarianism, cultural decay, culture, ethics, marx, marxism, politics

Emmet and John begin their reading series on Alisdair MacIntyre's classic work After Virtue.

Episode 27: [teaser] Vax Traxx III: Medical Nihilism, mRNA Production Rundown, and the Downfall of the CDC ft. Canada Mike

February 28th, 2021  |  3 mins 15 secs

bayesian statistics, corona, corona virus, coronavirus, covid19, logistics, pfizer, supply chains, vaccine

A teaser for our first Patreon episode.

Episode 26: Line Go Down: A GameStop Debrief ft. Matt Stonks

February 23rd, 2021  |  1 hr 13 mins

chamath, deepfuckingvalue, economics, elon musk, finance, free markets, gamestop, populism, the big short, wall street bets, wire card

Matt Stonks joins the lads to talk through financial fundamentals, what happened with GameStop, and what the whole kerfuffle might mean for the future.

Episode 24: The Self-Design of American Nihilism

February 9th, 2021  |  1 hr 20 mins

altright, borges, capitol riots, conspiracy theory, heidegger, incel, leo strauss, nihilism, philosophy, politics, qanon, yukio mishima

We talk through three pieces: Strauss's lecture on German Nihilism, Bradley Troemel's video essay on QAnon, and Boris Groys's essay Self-Design and Aesthetic Responsibility to understand the current state of American Nihilism.

Episode 23: Vaccine Breakdown II: Decentralization Boogaloo ft. Canada Mike

February 2nd, 2021  |  1 hr 7 mins

america, american history, christopher lasch, corona, corona virus, coronavirus, covid19, ivan ilich, logistics, pfizer, supply chains, vaccine

Canada Mike joins us to talk about why America's vaccine rollout plan doesn't make sense and why it's not going well.

Episode 22: Poe, Emerson, and Literary National Identity

January 26th, 2021  |  1 hr 8 mins

19th century history, america, american canon, emerson, german philosophy, national identity, nationalism, philosophy, poe

We conclude (for now) our readings of Poe and Emerson by taking a look at how they conceived of American literary nationalism.

Episode 21: Two Piece: Anger And Its Limits

January 19th, 2021  |  1 hr 4 mins

1/6, anger, capitol building, justice, neostoicism, politics, ryan holiday, stoicism, taleb

Emmet and John discuss two different articles that take on stoicism and anger.

Episode 20: We Are the Information Supervisors

January 12th, 2021  |  1 hr 10 mins

cancel culture, facebook, flash animation, joshua harris, social media, tristan harris, twitter

We offer a brief obit for Flash animation and then discuss two documentaries that deal with the problem of social media.

Episode 19: Who Will Entertain In America?

January 5th, 2021  |  1 hr 16 mins

covid, fight island, music, nba, nba bubble, ufc

In our first episode of 2021, we speak with Ian Corey about his series of articles on art and entertainment in the age of COVID.