Albert Camus - In Our Time

Last Wednesday's In Our Time paid attention to the French writer Albert Camus. When I was younger, he was my favorite writer, no competition. Later I grew a little tired of him. He did not write that much fiction and his philosophical work did not connect with me in the end.

As I have read him so carefully in addition to a lot of works about him, little of what I learned in the podcast was really new to me, but some did put more clearly what I had found. There was even a statement I do not agree with - an evaluation of Camus' position in the Algerian war. So be it, what remains the most interesting, I think, is his fictional work, notably the three novels: L'etranger, La peste and La chute. (The Stranger, The Plague and The Fall)

In Our Time's guests noted, as I did, how Camus' philosophy develops and how these three works have quite a different morality about the individual and his life in relation with others and society. The first work, The Stranger, places the most emphasis on personal happiness and no one nor society should or can stop the individual. The Plague, allows for personal responsibility regarding the group and praises the personal commitment to serve the greater good. The Fall returns to the personal level, but does so by focusing on guilt, to the extreme. For me, these novels remain great and the development is neither bothering nor irrelevant.

Previously on In Our Time:
The Nicene Creed,
Four humor medicine,
The Sassanian Empire,
Mutations,
The Fibonacci Sequence.

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Dan Carlin interviews James Burke

Dan Carlin reveals in the latest version of Hardcore History he has a hard time achieving a timely production of the show. The aim is to release one show every 45 days or so, but usually it takes more. As a consequence he is to begin with some experimenting. A new kind of podcast to be interjected between the regular ones.

The first of this experimental kind consists of an interview with science historian James Burke. Dan Carlin assumes the listener knows who James Burke is and it is surely discernible Burke is a great example for Carlin in the making of his history shows, but I would have appreciated a bit more of an introduction. Another weak point in the podcast is the free style of the interview; Carlin has some prepared build up in his questions, but allows the conversation to take Burke and himself where it gets them. This can mean great listening provided one is able to bear with the speakers in their lines of thought. I imagine though, that most listeners like myself had a hard keeping up.

As far as content, the discussion between the two delivered some great remarks and thought provoking statements. Burke takes Carlin on a train of thought where he starts with the fact that for the large majority of people in history, life has been 'nasty, brutish and short.' History as we know it, is the history of people with access to power and knowledge. He proposes an entirely different way of looking at the past. Fascinating stuff that deserves a much more systematic address.

More Hardcore history:
Assyrians,
Nazis,
Depression,
Succession in Macedon,
The Plague.

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Social anxiety disorder - Wise Counsel

Dr. David van Nuys takes the Wisecounsel podcast to a couple of subjects that have appeared before: anxiety and CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and medication. He speaks with Dr. Richard Heimberg, Ph.D., and cannot wait to ask him whether anxiety should be treated with CBT or medication, or both and what would be the merit of each approach.

First thought, anxiety needs to be defined. Anxiety is distress that every body feels normally, but that turns excessive and interferes with the person leading a regular life. There is a Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) which is haunting people who worry excessively, uncontrollably and takes over the sufferer's life. Heimberg doesn't want to engage in the question about treatment for GAD.

His research has been directed more specifically to Social Anxiety Disorder or Social Phobia (old terminology). This disorder is seen with people who excessively worry about how they are perceived, evaluated and judged by others. The effect is, varying to the intensity, that the patient avoids social contact. In this category, he reveals that both CBT and medication have their benefit. Roughly, medication has more of a short term success, but entails a bigger chance of relapse. CBT takes longer to kick in, but ultimately has more persistent success. The situation can require either or both.

Other guests on Wise Counsel were a.o.:
Tony Madrid,
Francine Shapiro,
Amy Baker,
Marsha Linehan,
Deirdre Barrett.


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To know and be known

Philosophy Bites about friendship, consists of a discussion with Mark Vernon who has written about the subject. In ten short minutes lots is said, I'll throw in just a crumb and hope to entice you with that into listening to a very worthwhile issue.

Mark gives us Aristotle and the other Greek philosophers who thought high of friendship and made it figure quite centrally in their philosophies. Friendship represents an exquisite quality of life, a love that is maybe more pure than others. If family love is the need to care and be cared for and sexual love is the need to have and be had, friendship is to know and be known. I must say, that resonates with me more than anything else.

Later philosophy started paying less attention to friendship. Also, it was less valued. Nietzsche went as far as to call friendship feign. Since you can't tell the truth to a friend as you can to strangers. With a friend you are sparing sensitivities, which with a stranger you would not. I wonder however, if with a close friend, where the sensitivities are so well known as well as the mutual respect, one really can't tell the truth. Besides, with a friend, with all the mutual knowledge, how can the inconvenient truths can truly horrible and unspeakable?

More on Friendship.
More Philosophy Bites:
Egalitarianism,
Skepticism ,
Thought experiments (and Avicenna).

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We'll have sponge cake

The show with Rachel Naomi Remen Krista Tippett did on Speaking of Faith, was so wonderful, I proceeded immediately to listen to the full, unedited interview (download) and found in that one even more gems of thought.

Rachel Naomi Remen is a medical doctor who has discovered how much healing is different from curing and how it needs to involve listening, what she calls generous listening - let the patient talk as long as he needs. Apart from explaining how this works, she really delves into the essential roots of this and that is how we deal with loss, or alternately with the imperfections of our lives. That, of course, is more universal than just disease and dealing with being ill, or the illness of a close one.

What she insists is that we can have the good life, even if it doesn't seem perfect, easy, or in any way exemplary, heroic, successful or whatever grand goals we are taught to strive for. In her opinion we do not need to be perfect and the next step is even more important. What does it mean if we do not need to be perfect; it means our wounds, our imperfections, our failures and drawbacks are an integral part and we are still exactly what is needed. That is not just consoling (one should hope), but is also pulling us back to our own responsibility to actively live the life we live.

There is so much more to say. You must hear Remen explain the importance of stories, you must hear two specific stories. One of these stories involves the sponge cake and unfortunately it has been cut from the broadcast parts of the interview. Hence, listen to this podcast and also, please do, to the uncut interview.

More Speaking of Faith:
Rumi,
New Evangelicals (2) On Rick and Kay Warren,
New Evangelicals (1) On Jim Wallis,
V. V. Raman,
Reinold Niebuhr.

More on curing, healing and how we deal with it:
The Popperian Pathway,
The Four Humors,
A useful map into Bio-Ethics,
Stem Cell Research: Science, Ethics, and Prospects,
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

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Iran - to strike or not to strike

Adam Garfinkle editor of The American Interest spoke at the University of Texas, the LBJ School of Public Affairs, about an American strike on Iran, the likelihood of such a strike and the measure to which such a strike would be good or bad. UChannel Podcast recorded and published the lecture.

The first part of the question is answered very briefly: no. The US is not likely to strike Iran. There are too many uncertainties around such a venture; the chances of success, the amount of time it would take and the effects it may have. The government and the president himself will not want to go on such a path and rather 'hedge' as Garfinkle calls it. I understand he means by this a policy of small backstage activities and wait and see.

A much larger part of the lecture is spent on the question whether the US should attack Iran. The point of such a strike would be to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power. This questions receives neither a clear negative, nor a clear positive answer. The frightening thing is that one gets the feeling a pre-emptive strike in order to maintain the delicate balance in the region, might seem the better option. The risks are not downplayed at all, the risks of allowing Iran to acquire even a weapon, though nuclear, of negligible power, appear worse. Too many other players around who'd press for the same. Too many elements to disturb the balance.

Previously noted UChannel podcasts:
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,
The Popperian pathway,
Less Safe, Less Free (Losing the War on Terror),
Beyond the Genome: the challenge of synthetic biology,
Israel, Iran, terrorism (UC podcast).


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