Then & Now: Philosophy, History & Politics

What can the Holocaust teach us about morality and ethics? Does the Holocaust pose a challenge for moral relativism? Zygmunt Bauman argues yes. In Modernity and the Holocaust, Bauman argues that the Holocaust proves that societal rules, norms and standards cannot be the only source of morality. Perpetrators often argued in court that they were only following the law of their country. How can we judge them if morals are the product of a relative social context? Instead, Bauman argues, the source of morality is in a fundamental responsibility to another in proximity. And there’s plenty of evidence for this. A biological repulsion to killing, for example. Or the distancing and division of labor that was required to scale the genocide. If proximity and responsibility are at the heart of a kind of moral objectivity, what might the consequences of this be?Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What drives ordinary everyday people to become mass killers? What are the psychological mechanisms and cultural factors that lead to genocide? What were the causes of the Holocaust? Can we theorize a psychology of genocide? A theory of genocide?The Holocaust was not perpetrated solely by a few sadistic psychopaths but by tens of thousands of everyday Germans, Poles, Frenchmen, Austrians, Slovakians, in fact, much of Europe took part. If any of us could be motivated under the right conditions to become mass serial killers, how can we protect ourselves against the threat? How might we innoculate our societies and cutlures from decending into genocide?There are a number of factors that lead to the Holocaust. Compartmentalization, euphemism, conformity, authority, rationalization, propaganda, anti-Semitism, victimhood, and association, in particular. Gustav Le Bon, for example, argued that individuals are more likely to conform in a crowd because of anonymity and mimesis. Stanley Milgram’s famous experiments looked at conformity to authority. This combined with rationalisations like ‘its either us or them’ or ‘they won’t survive through the winter anyway.’There was still a system of belief – an ideology – and almost a decade of propaganda disseminated by the Nazi Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP). Years of anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe led to conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination. While Britain, the USSR, and America were all consistently associated with ‘Jewish aggressors’.When a person perceives themselves as a victim and a prisoner as an aggressor in a war of survival and we combine this with the pressure to conform and submit to authority the probability for murder increases. In Nazi Germany, everything was made to fit this formula.Ervin Staub proposes a model of genocide that has three initial stages:First, there’s the frustration of basic needs.Second, An out-group is identified that’s the cause.Next, The in-group is motivated by a ‘utopian vision’ that excludes a certain group.And Herbert Kelman has also argued that the requirements are threefold: authorization, routinization, and dehumanization.How does all of this fit together?Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Winston Churchill once said that ‘Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.’ In the wake of what happened in Washington last week, I think this metaphor illustrates something deeper about the relationship between demagogues and their followers. Who are the tigers and why are they hungry? Riots - the voice of the unheard - clearly signify some issues within a society that if not resolved inevitably lead to the baring of teeth. Tigers only emerge from tears in the social fabric. The more the economic, social, or cultural chasm rips open, the more untamed emotions spill out of the void, and the more likely it becomes that a demagogue can saddle-up and offer a solution. Steve Bannon said that ‘we got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build a Wall….This was pure anger. Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls.”Many ancient philosophers were skeptical of democracy because it was vulnerable to the threat of demagogues. Plato argued in the Republic that because democracy must allow freedom of speech it was defenseless against strongmen who could make to the demos based on their fears and emotions. Joseph Goebbels said that ‘This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed.’ So why is it that democracy is vulnerable to demagogues? What do demagogues offer and how might we protect against it? Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we untangle Madness & Civilization and think clearly about what Foucault is saying, both in the book, and by extension in later works?Looking at some criticisms of him are a good way to try to pin down exactly what’s going on with his method and view of the world, so let’s start there.In 1987 Lawrence Stone, for example, criticized Foucault as being ‘unconcerned with historical detail of time or place or with rigorous documentation.’ He said that Foucault ignored ‘enormous differences in the degree and organization of incarceration from country to country’ in Europe.How might Foucault respond to some of his critics? To understand it's important to look closely at his method, too.In short, his method is ‘to write the history of madness will therefore mean making a structural study of the historical ensemble – notions, institutions, judicial and police measures, scientific concepts.’A Foucauldian method searches for the consistent and compatible conceptual frameworks that set the criteria for what a normal human nature is at any given time, and broadly suggest the attitudes, perceptions, and sensibilities any given society holds. These phenomena form epistemes that historically have changed over time.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The podcast delves into Michel Foucault's groundbreaking work on madness and civilization, exploring how societies have viewed and treated madness over time. It questions the blurred boundaries between reason and madness, the historical segregation of lepers and the mentally ill, and the paradox of madness as a form of wisdom in the Renaissance period. Foucault's work challenges traditional notions of reason, raising difficult questions about the nature of madness and society's attitudes towards it.

What did Descartes know for certain? That he is a thinking thing, a cogito. But what does it mean to think? Descartes lists a few modes of thinking: Doubting, affirming, denying, understanding.Heidegger embarks upon a similar project to Descartes. What, he asks, is the fundamental nature of our experience? Of our existence? Heidegger agrees with Descartes. If we want to live life well we need to be clear about its most fundamental components. Descartes answer is summarised by his phrase cogito ergo sum, which translates as thinking, therefore, being. For Heidegger, Descartes has it the wrong way around. He thinks that Descartes has neglected the sum, the being. What is it to be something? Heidegger’s answer comes in a number of forms: he says as well as being thinking things we have care for things, we have an anxiety about the world, we are existential, but most importantly, we are beings-in-the-world.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Descartes’ Error is a 1994 book by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio which outlines the somatic marker hypothesis, a theory about how the mind and body not only interact, but are indissociable. Damasio argues that those feelings provide what he calls ‘somatic markers’ for the mind that aid decision making. They point us in the right (or wrong) direction.The rationalist or Cartesian view – what Damasio calls the ‘high-reason’ view – suggests that our mind is like a computer. We’re running through all of this incomplete knowledge about the job – the commute, the career prospects, the people, the location, while weighing up the advantages and disadvantages as if its a ledger. But Damasio writes ‘you will lose track. Attention and working memory have a limited capacity.’This is where somatic markers come in. He writes:‘before you apply any kind of cost/benefit analysis to the premises, and before you reason toward the solution of the problem, something quite important happens: When the bad outcome connected with a given response option comes into mind, however fleetingly, you experience an unpleasant gut feeling. Because the feeling is about the body, I gave the phenomenon the technical term somatic state.’He continues:The somatic marker ‘forces attention on the negative outcome to which a given action may lead, and functions as an automated alarm signal which says: Beware the danger ahead if you choose the option which leads to this outcome. The signal may reject, immediately, the negative course of action and thus make you choose among other alternatives.’Somatic markers – the collection of feelings we get from bodily and mental impulses – highlight certain options for us to deliberate while eliminating others. They’re a kind of screening process.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an introduction to Rene Descartes' Meditations. Descartes - born in 1596 - is often considered the father of modern philosophy. He was a radical innovator, completely sweeping away the old and inaugurating a new method – simple, pure, clear, individual thought. He claimed he read very little, and most of his work was in the sciences. When a man asked to see his library he pointed to a half dissected calf. He was primarily a mathematician. He invented the Cartesian coordinates, but today he's mostly remembered for his philosophy.There are two key philosophical works – the Discourse on Method and the Meditations – the latter is a more complete statement of his philosophy.It’s short, it’s reasonably simple, its’ groundbreaking, it’s entertaining. Descartes wants to doubt everything he knows so as to put thought and philosophy on a firm footing; he wants to discover what is certain, indubitable. He is, then focusing exclusively on reason, he’s a rationalist.So, how do we go about discovering what we know to be certain?Cogito Ergo Sum. I think, therefore I am.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore the revolutionary thoughts of Francis Bacon, the father of empiricism, who challenged the rigid philosophies of his time. Discover how he proposed a practical approach to knowledge through observation and the scientific method, advocating for starting from specific details to derive broader truths. Learn about his intriguing concept of 'idols' that distort our understanding of truth, as well as his efforts to reform the legal system in 16th-century Britain. Bacon's legacy continues to shape modern scientific thought.

What did Bacon give us? Induction, the scientific method, experimentation, his was a theory of epistemology – a theory about knowledge.He said that knowledge about the world comes from the senses and should be carefully and systematically collected to make use of instrumentally.Ok, so there are two lines of criticism I’d like to discuss today. First, the idols – the idea that knowledge is distorted by human cognition. Second, the idea of discovery, specifically the difference between discovery and creation. My main argument will be that Bacon neglected the subjective element in epistemology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.