Do Not Reproach the Master, but We the Wise, Eat the Master's Food

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"I realized why i had been wandering around such an obvious truth for so long," he says. "In order to think and speak about the life of humankind, one must thinkspeak and think the life of mankind." He adds: 'The truth had always been the truth, like two, two times two equals four, but i had not acknowledged it' But in acknowledging that 2/2 + 4 = 3 /4 meant i was not a good man - which led me to hate myself.'

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Leo Tolstoy’s 'Confession.' When we left him last time, the famous author had bottomed out just years after writing two of the greatest novels ever written. Our eventual death, Tolstoy thought, strips life of all meaning and purpose – all answers to the question “so what?”. How does he emerge from this state of suicidal depression? What role does faith or “irrational knowledge” play in his account? What’s the meaning of the cryptic dream at the conclusion of the memoir?

Plus, bombarded with this recommendation, we were going to talk about a certain article that came out in Qualitative Research about masturbating to Japanese shota comics – we even had a guest – but had to scrap it. Instead, we discuss a recent study on conspiracy theories that shows that liberals are just as likely to believe in them as conservatives. Mostly we just talk about the conspiracies.