Best eclectichumanist Podcasts (2024)

1
Early Modern Feminism 2: Li Zhi 40:33

2y ago40:33

40:33

This episode concludes the two-part series on Early Modern Feminism by skipping across the Eurasian landmass to look at a precise contemporary of Jane Anger, the Elizabethan thinker and writer we looked at last week. Li Zhi was a cantankerous thinker and writer who suffered neither fools nor dogma gladly, and who was not afraid to take on some of t…

1
Early Modern Feminism 1: Jane Anger 46:31

2y ago46:31

46:31

This episode and the next one lean hard into the “eclectic” side of “Eclectic Humanist.” Following up on the series on Roe v. Wade, I'd like to turn the clock back a few hundred years and look at a couple of examples of Early Modern feminism. There is, after all, an ongoing and unabashed effort from the religious right to turn the clock pretty far …

1
Roe v. Wade 3: My Daughter’s Enemy 20:19

2y ago20:19

20:19

This episode wraps up, for now, the series I've been doing on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It discusses the marriage of White Evangelical Christianity with the anti-choice cause in the wake of that 1973 decision, and begins to address the influence of the Christian nationalist ideology known as Dominion Theology on American politics generally an…

1
Roe v. Wade 2: ”Water of Bitterness” 25:25

2y ago25:25

25:25

This episode is the first of three devoted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In this installment, I address questions of bodily sovereignty, and look into statistics relevant to abortion ranging from the 1930s to the present. The episode paints a picture of what the pre-Roe US looked like in terms of abortion access and maternal mortality, thus gi…

1
Roe v. Wade 1: View from a Vacant Lot 15:30

2y ago15:30

15:30

This episode is the first of three devoted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In this installment, I address questions of bodily sovereignty, and look into statistics relevant to abortion ranging from the 1930s to the present. The episode paints a picture of what the pre-Roe US looked like in terms of abortion access and maternal mortality, thus gi…

1
A Re-Introduction 12:06

2y ago12:06

12:06

This episode re-introduces a project that I had effectively abandoned about a year ago. As such, I'm treating it as a new beginning and laying out my reasons for starting again, most importantly the threat to humanism, and human well-being, currently posed by the religious right. This decision is a direct response to the US Supreme Court's move to …

1
Crossed Trails and What Hobbes Got Wrong 35:56

2y ago35:56

35:56

This episode, continuing last week's theme of COVID-19, human nature, and social responsibility, begins with a random encounter in the woods. It then wanders through some speculation on Hobbesian and Confucian state-of-nature arguments, a brief digression into primatology, and some thoughts on North America's ongoing epidemic of selfishness and soc…

1
What Would Mencius Do: A Confucian Response to COVID 19 30:30

2y ago30:30

30:30

This episode kicks off a new sequence, or maybe a couple of new sequences. I've been wanting to explore both Buddhism and the figure of the cyborg since first starting this little project. As it turns out, by starting with Buddhism, I can do both at the same time as much of my take on both cyborgs and post-humanism generally is rooted in that and o…

1
Diamond Sutra: A Brief Sketch of Mahayana Buddhism 36:15

2y ago36:15

36:15

This episode kicks off a new sequence, or maybe a couple of new sequences. I've been wanting to explore both Buddhism and the figure of the cyborg since first starting this little project. As it turns out, by starting with Buddhism, I can do both at the same time as much of my take on both cyborgs and post-humanism generally is rooted in that and o…

1
Lucretius Book 6: Concluding with a Plague 28:22

2y ago28:22

28:22

This episode concludes our little traipse through Lucretius's On the Nature of Things. In Book 6, Lucretius implicitly addresses the sufficiency of a naturalistic worldview in the making of great art, then brings us face to face with the concrete reality of dying. In describing a historical plague in Athens, he describes in painful detail the doubl…

1
Lucretius Book 5: From Primeval Ooze to Poetry 47:01

2y ago47:01

47:01

In Book 5 of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius presents a naturalistic account of the origins of life and, quite frankly, the origins of species in a well articulated explanation of evolution by natural selection. While he of course lacks the observational mechanisms that we now possess, or that Darwin possessed, he was pretty solid in the broad s…

1
Lucretius Book 4: How We Know Things 39:33

2y ago39:33

39:33

Ever wonder how we know things? Lucretius certainly did, and he also recognized that, without a naturalistic account of knowledge, his proposed Cosmos consisting of nothing other than matter and void would be a non-starter. He argues, necessarily, that all knowledge comes through the senses, and accordingly proposes an empirical epistemology that f…

1
Lucretius Book 3: Death of the Soul and Other Good Things 43:10

2y ago43:10

43:10

In this episode, we continue our exploration of Lucretius's humanist masterpiece, On the Nature of Things. In Book 2, Lucretius begins to explore what it means to live in a Cosmos in which divine interference lays no role and all phenomena are subject to natural laws and naturalistic explanation. Beginning with the smallest objects that can be obse…

1
Lucretius Book 2: Fun with Atoms 37:25

2y ago37:25

37:25

In this episode, we continue our exploration of Lucretius's humanist masterpiece, On the Nature of Things. In Book 2, Lucretius begins to explore what it means to live in a Cosmos in which divine interference lays no role and all phenomena are subject to natural laws and naturalistic explanation. Beginning with the smallest objects that can be obse…

1
Lucretius Book 1: The Material Cosmos 51:12

2y ago51:12

51:12

This episode begins our hands-on discussion of Lucretius's Humanist masterpiece, On the Nature of Things. Book One (of six) presents the best surviving Classical argument for a purely material cosmos consisting of nothing but atoms moving in a void. The argument is the first step in both an overall understanding of how the Cosmos works and, perhaps…

1
Season Introduction and an Introduction to Lucretius 33:08

2y ago33:08

33:08

Greetings, folks, and welcome back. This kick-off to Season Two begins with a brief catch-up as it's been a couple of months since we've been in touch, and then jumps right into the subject matter with which I'd like to begin the year. The topic of the first few little talks will be what, to my mind at least, is the most important work of ancient W…

1
Remembrance Day 1:15:41

2y ago1:15:41

1:15:41

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, and Veterans' Day in the US. So, for this episode, as an act of remembrance, I will simply be reading several poems and a chapter from a great and devastating war novel, written by soldiers who served on the Western Front. I am confining the location and time largely for histo…

1
Gratitude, Compassion, and Electoral Politics 25:12

2y ago25:12

25:12

So the US election has been called, and it's all over but the temper tantrum. What do we do now? Where do we go? Well, speaking as an outsider, my first impulse is to rejoice in the triumph of electoral politics over authoritarianism, and I will stand by that impulse (fight me). My second impulse, though, is to ask what those Americans who have liv…

1
Rodger Has Election Jitters 52:43

2y ago52:43

52:43

As the US election closes in, I find myself unable to think about anything else. So, having attempted a couple of other ideas and failed to complete them, I've surrendered to the zeitgeist and recorded an election episode, as much an exorcism of my ambient demons as anything else. The talk ends up revolving around the political philosophy of the an…

1
Attack of the Fundamentalists 4: Stand Against the Dominion 55:19

2y ago55:19

55:19

Here, finally, is the concluding installment in the "Attack of the Fundamentalists" sequence. This one takes a bit of a turn from what I'd originally intended, which had been simply to outline the history of Christian Dominionism inthe US, and instead speaks more broadly about the ongoing cultural conflict between the religious right and reasonable…

1
Thinking Out Loud 32:01

2y ago32:01

32:01

This episode departs from the ongoing series on the rise of Christian Fundamentalism to just plunge, stream-of-consciousness style, into some thoughts that have been occupying my mind lately. It is quite personal, so maybe not for everyone, and simply presents an hour's worth of taking through various thoughts on subjects such as lockdown, mental h…

1
Attack of the Fundamentalists 3: Gimme That Old Time Religion 58:29

2y ago58:29

58:29

Well, folks, I've finally managed to finish the third installment in the Attack of the Fundamentalists series, and I do apologize for the delay. This one roughly spans the time period of the Cold War and touches, in a helter skelter fashion, upon a handful of road markers along Evangelical Christianity's rise to power: McCarthyism, rock and roll, t…

1
Attack of the Fundamentalists 2: Deep Time, Darwin, and Denial 1:09:12

2y ago1:09:12

1:09:12

Damn you, Darwin! This episode picks up the challenge to religious authority posed by modern science, focusing specifically on the emerging knowledge of the age of the Earth in the 19th century and, most importantly, on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. While a literal reading of the Old Testament suggests an age of about 6,000 yea…

1
Mythic Meanderings 2: Revelation, Ragnarok, and Reality 1:06:28

2y ago1:06:28

1:06:28

In the second part of the Mythic Meanderings sequence, I dig into two end-of-the-world myths: the biblical narrative culminating in Revelation, and the Norse Ragnarok tale. These myths, and the differing understandings of human nature, the divine, and time underlying and articulated in them, have a certain amount of common ground, but oppose each o…

1
Mythic Meanderings 1: Myth, Mind, and Metaphor 53:13

2y ago53:13

53:13

This episode took on a life of its own. Simply put, it is a look at several mythologies in which I explore such elements as time, creation myths, the nature of the gods, and the nature and construction of the other. It ranges freely across several different bodies of thought—Sumerian, Christian, Hindu, Daoist, Greek, Roman, and Celtic—and therefore…

1
Friedrich Nietzsche vs Robert E. Lee 1:00:02

2y ago1:00:02

1:00:02

This episode plunges into contested territory. In many countries, people are calling for the removal of monuments to slavery and genocide while others decry these demands as an assault upon their "culture." It occurs to me that Nietzsche, in his early work _On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life_, has something worthwhile to say on t…

1
A Mohawk Tale 55:40

2y ago55:40

55:40

This episode ended up taking me on an unexpected journey. When I started out, the plan was simply to tell the story of the Six Nations First Nation near Brantford, Ontario applying for membership in the League of Nations in 1923, and the underhanded ways in which the government of Canada, and especially Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs Dunca…

1
The Final Solution to Our Indian Problem: Canada’s First Nations Genocide 52:29

2y ago52:29

52:29

In this episode, I give a brief history of Canada's genocide against First Nations with a particular focus on the infamous residential schools. The episode touches upon important pieces of Canadian legislation,and discusses a number of the methods by which first the colonial and later the federal government has tried to eliminate Canada's Indigenou…

1
Moral Charisma: A Confucian Approach to Jacinda Ardern and Donald Trump 56:52

2y ago56:52

56:52

The pre-release of my new humanist podcast series continues with this discussion of Jacinda Ardern and Donald Trump with reference to the Confucian notion of "moral charisma" as the two leaders offer very different responses to both domestic and global crises.By eclectichumanist

1
Mencius in Minneapolis 54:58

2y ago54:58

54:58

This episode considers the ongoing Black Lives Matter demonstrations, which I support and in which I am participating, from a Confucian perspective, particularly with reference to Mencius (Mengzi). Mencius would be deeply critical of a regime that, on the one hand, has established such an inequitable system as the one in which many minorities find …

1
Series Introduction 20:54

2y ago20:54

20:54

A quick introduction to my new podcast. What I hope to do with this little project is to explore a wide selection of humanist thought, both ancient and modern, and apply it to questions and concerns of contemporary life. The aim is both educational and political. Humanism is currently under threat, particularly from the fundamentalist religion and …

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Eclectichumanist Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

1
An Eclectic Humanist

eclectichumanist

1
Early Modern Feminism 2: Li Zhi 40:33

1
Early Modern Feminism 1: Jane Anger 46:31

1
Roe v. Wade 3: My Daughter’s Enemy 20:19

1
Roe v. Wade 2: ”Water of Bitterness” 25:25

1
Roe v. Wade 1: View from a Vacant Lot 15:30

1
A Re-Introduction 12:06

1
Crossed Trails and What Hobbes Got Wrong 35:56

1
What Would Mencius Do: A Confucian Response to COVID 19 30:30

1
Diamond Sutra: A Brief Sketch of Mahayana Buddhism 36:15

1
Lucretius Book 6: Concluding with a Plague 28:22

1
Lucretius Book 5: From Primeval Ooze to Poetry 47:01

1
Lucretius Book 4: How We Know Things 39:33

1
Lucretius Book 3: Death of the Soul and Other Good Things 43:10

1
Lucretius Book 2: Fun with Atoms 37:25

1
Lucretius Book 1: The Material Cosmos 51:12

1
Season Introduction and an Introduction to Lucretius 33:08

1
Remembrance Day 1:15:41

1
Gratitude, Compassion, and Electoral Politics 25:12

1
Rodger Has Election Jitters 52:43

1
Attack of the Fundamentalists 4: Stand Against the Dominion 55:19

1
Thinking Out Loud 32:01

1
Attack of the Fundamentalists 3: Gimme That Old Time Religion 58:29

1
Attack of the Fundamentalists 2: Deep Time, Darwin, and Denial 1:09:12

1
Mythic Meanderings 2: Revelation, Ragnarok, and Reality 1:06:28

1
Mythic Meanderings 1: Myth, Mind, and Metaphor 53:13

1
Friedrich Nietzsche vs Robert E. Lee 1:00:02

1
A Mohawk Tale 55:40

1
The Final Solution to Our Indian Problem: Canada’s First Nations Genocide 52:29

1
Moral Charisma: A Confucian Approach to Jacinda Ardern and Donald Trump 56:52

1
Mencius in Minneapolis 54:58

1
Series Introduction 20:54

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