213. What Is Evil?

Also: why is it smart to ignore what your podcast hosts look like? This episode originally aired on October 10th, 2021. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. 

Also: what’s the best way to handle rejection? This episode originally aired on October 3, 2021. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. 

Also: why are humans still so tribal? This episode originally aired on September 26th, 2021. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. 

<p>What is evil? Who is evil? Does evil exist? Who decides? Can we scream over turkey at grandma’s house? Let’s chat Critical Ponerology with scholar, professor, author of <i>Evil: A Critical Primer,</i> and a gem of a person, Dr. Kenneth MacKendrick of the University of Manitoba ... Show More

Menticide, or the systematic and intentional undermining of a person's conscious mind, effectively "killing" or destroying their independent thought and beliefs, is one of the most effective ways to supress revolutionary change in a society. So how do we protect our communities f ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss morality by taking a long hard look at the idea of guilt. The 18th century politician and philosopher Edmund Burke was once moved to comment: “Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it l ... Show More

This episode is an upload to Spotify of my response to Abigail Thorn's "Was Nietzsche Woke?" video. This video was previously uploaded to Youtube.Watch me spend more time than the entire length of Abigail Thorn's video explaining why it is a superficial hit piece based on straine ... Show More

<p>In this episode, we discuss Alasdair MacIntyre’s landmark book <em>After Virtue</em>. MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist and committed anti-liberal, offers a defense of the Aristotelian tradition and its search for the truly common good against the dominant tendency of liberal societies ... Show More

<p>Arthur Brooks, an economist and former head of the American Enterprise Institute, believes that there is only one remedy for our political polarization: love. In this 2021 episode, we ask if Brooks is a fool for thinking this — and if perhaps you are his kind of fool?</p><p> < ... Show More

David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of Existence," their strikingly modern perspectives on human life and behavior and ... Show More

<p>Steven Pinker’s new book argues that all our relationships depend on shared assumptions and “recursive mentalizing” — our constant efforts to understand what other people are thinking. He and Steve talk about the psychology of eye contact, the particular value of Super Bowl ad ... Show More