The Podcast Parlor

Here is something new in our world of podcast reviews that hopes to be an addition to this blog and also to that of other reviewers of quality audio on line such as Do It Yourself Scholar and The Re-education of Baxter Wood. We have begun our blogs, not just to relate to cyberspace what we think of the podcasts we find, also to exchange thoughts with people who enjoy the same material.

What this demands is, apparently, more than just the comment option in our blogs. We have comments, but no serious dialogs have been kicked off there. And so, we want to invite you all to join us in an on-line community, where you can discuss and write your thoughts on the material we bring to the forefront or the content you want to present yourself: The Podcast Parlor.

Signing up is easy and discrete. From there you can observe the discussions we trigger, participate and instigate discussions and posts yourself. Feel invited and than ks in advance for joining.

Anne, Dara (DIY Scholar) and Baxter.

Alternative hedonism - Philosophy Bites review

The great podcast Philosophy Bites generally publishes every week and even if it has lapsed a bit on that demanding schedule these past weeks, the podcast is as great, as valuable, concise, comprehensive and thought provoking as ever. As a matter of fact, on a filled playlist as I have, it matches better with my pace.

Last week's edition (there is a new one in the mean time) had a compelling title to begin with: Alternative Hedonism. It featured an interview with Kate Soper who takes an unusual approach to tackle the problem of the impending environmental catastrophe, which she takes is at least in part is caused by our consumerism. Even if you are inclined to believe that such a connection is not actual, one may consider our consumerism destructive on other grounds and the whole idea of an alternative hedonism remains appealing.

Hedonism lies to the foundation of consumerism and possibly also (I might add) our inherited mind of the hunter gatherer: enough is never enough. However, if it is pleasure we ultimately strive to, changing the terms of hedonism, could channel this basic instinct into a more healthy direction. If other experiences are to counts as pleasurable rather than the amassing of goods and the size of our wealth, we'd be more healthily inclined. This would be a matter of cultural values, so that massive possessions are less valued than experiences. A best example Soper suggests is sex - a hedonistic pleasure that will not burden the environment. An example Philosophy Bites tentatively suggests, with some nod of Soper, is the podcast Philosophy Bites. Safe, healthy and green pleasure.

More Philosophy Bites
Non-realism of God,
Virtue,
Nietzsche,
Kierkegaard,
Machiavelli.

Israel and Palestine - strategies for peace

The RSA Current Events is a podcast of many that are replicated in the compiled feed of UChannel Podcast. If you missed it in the one, you may run into it in the second - this has happened to me frequently also with other contributors such as LSE and CFR. A curiosity that struck me with the podcast Israel and Palestine - strategies for peace is that it appeared quicker in UChannel than in the original RSA feed. Apparently there was haste, haste to publish before the war in Gaza was over.

The Gaza war loomed heavily over this discussion forum and makes for more heat than debate. I have also picked up very little in the way of suggestions for strategies for peace. What remains is an experience of all the familiar accusations. Israel is committing atrocities and war crimes. Hamas has provoked the war. The Palestinians have mismanaged. The West has lost the moral ground to dictate the goings on in the Middle East.

What strikes me in this and many other debates I have witnessed is how old strands of western imperialist logic continues to dominate, on both sides. The old fashioned world view has an inherit hierarchy in which the West has the superior culture of morals and values. Other peoples are backward and barely capable to rule themselves. In the accusations of Hamas's incompetence this is present just as much as it is in the thorough victimization of the Palestinians - in neither picture they are capable of ruling themselves and take responsibility for their actions. Also when the West is accused to have lost the moral ground, the presumption is that the West had it in the first place or is supposed to hold the high ground. Any which way, this logic imbues the debates with strands of condescension that are strangling the dialog.

More Israel:
Terror and Martyrdom,
Gaza - podcasts on diplomacy and war,
Whither the Middle East,
Desiring Walls,
Gabriela Shalev,
UCLA Israel Studies.

More RSA:
Terror and Martyrdom,
Keynes.

Gilles Kepel's view on Terror and Martyrdom - RSA podcast

The RSA Event with Gilles Kepel was simultaneously published in the podcast of RSA Current Events as well as UChannel Podcast. Another RSA podcast I saw show up in the UChannel feed even before it did in the RSA feed. With other suppliers to the UChannel Podcast, I usually see the original feed carry a podcast far earlier than the UChannel sampler. But that is merely an aside.

What I found especially interesting about Beyond Terror and Martyrdom, the lecture of Gilles Kepel (and also a book he wrote), is that he took on the overall terminology that has taken a firm grip on the Middle-East and its tense relations also with the rest of the world and showed a perspective from which this clinging on to 'terrorism' and 'martyrdom' fails. Neither the western view, that the Middle-East has become a victim of terrorism and that its terrorism has been exported to the rest of the world works, nor the Islamist view that it is fighting a holy war against modernity and Israel, the view of martyrdom has solid ground.

The War on Terror fails. The bringing of democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan has failed. The west has not been able to stop terrorism, nor taken aways its roots. The Islamists on their part haven't stopped modernization, or the achieved any weakening of Israel or the US or western Culture altogether, nor have they managed to unite the Islamic, or even the Arab world. Kepel concludes that the narratives are bankrupt. The narrative of the west that solidifies the idea of terrorism has failed and so has the narrative of the evils of western culture to which the martyrs of Islam must be sacrificed.

Kepel's work is a strong demand to get out of this dichotomy and start approaching each other differently. His so-called critics that are allowed to speak in the podcast, although they disagree on some analysis of Kepel, basically agree to this general tenet.

More RSA:
Keynes.

More Israel:
Gaza - podcasts on diplomacy and war,
Whither the Middle East,
Desiring Walls,
Gabriela Shalev,
UCLA Israel Studies.

Gwynne Dyer - Hardcore History interview

The latest issue of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is -again- an interview. As said before: Dan Carlin, as talented a podcaster as he is, is not cut to be an interviewer. His studio presence is too dominant, his voice too strong and it might help if he'd lower the audio level of the sections where he speaks, so as to enforce the guest. What is more, his questions are stemming from his own train of thought that, as fascinating as it is and makes for the brilliant Hardcore History shows, remains not transparent enough for an interview. There you find yourself listening to an analysis of the First World War causes, one moment and the next about ways to learn history and you suddenly wonder: How did we get here?

Still, this show has a truck load of veritable gems, partly because the lack of transparency is not permeating throughout and for a good deal thanks to the guest: Gwynne Dyer. Dyer manages to turn Carlin's shooting in all directions questions to relevant and deep interrogations and gives very fascinating and teaching answers. This alone makes for a great podcast.

By the end comes an additional highlight, when Carlin asks the closing question that boils down to: what haven't I asked you and you had wanted to answer to? Dyer then reveals he has been thoroughly interested in the geopolitics of global warming. He delivers a historic perspective on the test that the world stands to and that is really the cherry on the cake. A must listen.

More Hardcore History:
Interview with Victor Davis Hanson,
Punic Nightmares III,
Punic Nightmares II ,
Punic Nightmares I,
Under the Influence.

Moral Relativism - Thinking Allowed podcast review

I am still trying to get the hang of BBC's podcast Thinking Allowed. The personal touch of host Laurie Taylor is much less distanced than that of In Our Time's Melvyn Bragg and apparently I was expecting a social sciences show with a Melvyn Bragg. Taylor is more involved, more opinionated and even mildly joking from time to time. He is also actively relating to the audience. Now there is a nice opening for us podcast listeners: send mail to the show and interact with it.

The last show, about moral relativism almost begs for contribution. There is the beginning of discussion. The moral absolute and the tolerance of other cultures are sufficiently posed before each other and then what? The item is already over, because the show is really short (less than 30 minutes) and there is ample time used for Taylor's musings and reactions.

That is a pity because, as I see it, we were about to draw a major conclusion (or slide into the tedious and repetitive discussion between cultural tolerance and the absolute of human rights) and that is: our culture bears both principles within its moral framework. We have learned both to respect other cultures, opinions, values and morals and yet we have a couple of profound and allegedly universal values. The real issue is not how to choose between either, but rather how to weigh them together. Certainly the guests eventually seem to lean in that direction.

More Thinking Allowed:
Male Immaturity.