ex.haust

Emmet and Mike talk about Agamben's book, Where Are We Now?: The Epidemic as Politics, and reflect on life since the pandemic. They discuss Carl Schmitt, security theater, anti-social civics, the cultic gnosticism of scientific faith, the need for physical practices and spiritual mentors, bare life, their own intellectual failings during the pandemic, and more.

Subscribe to the Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month!

Check out Emmet's new podcast and newsletter, Nuclear Barbarians.

Closing Song: Leprosy - Death.

This is a teaser! Subscribe to our Patreon to get the rest, plus two exclusive episodes a month.

We return to our Lasch series and talk about Georges Sorel and the syndicalist moment in the late 19th and early 20th century. Property, proprietorship, and centralization are the major themes of the chapter. We brought some of these issues into the present by discussing control over one's data, discretion as empowerment, and selective quietude as rebellion.

Professor of film and media studies and author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class, Catherine Liu joins Emmet to talk about the death of the humanities in higher ed, the meritocratic nightmare of Common Core, why the humanities are important, the HRification of everything, and more!

The Apotheosis of the Professional Class by Catherine Liu, Catalyst.

Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month!

Closing Song: Shimmering Neck by Landowner.

Contributing editor at Unherd Mary Harrington joins Emmet to talk about why everything feels like porn, the smooth hell of life online, the culture of fear in the time of COVID, how women get forgotten, and more!

Read Mary Harrington's work at Unherd.

Mary's website.

Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month!

Emmet and Mike hash out MacIntyre's provocative lecture at Notre Dame's conference on the idea of human dignity in the secular age last month.

This is a teaser. To listen to the rest subscribe to our Patreon and get two exclusive episodes a month.

Special Guest: Mike.

River Page joins Emmet to talk about the new woke institutions and how they reify previously existing class structures. They go into standpoint theory, identity politics, the CIA's relationship to the New Left, PMC projections of the working class's soul, and much more. They close by contemplating the possibility of a better left populism.

The Standpoint Bureaucracy by River Page, Twink Revolution

River's Substack.

Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month!

Canada Mike and Emmet take a look at three pieces to consider different lenses for human development. The first is an essay on Engels by Wolfgang Streeck, the second is a lecture on thermoeconomics by John Constable, and the third is an overview of arguments for human evolution by Michael E. Mann. Emmet and Mike touch on the Meiji restoration, why we should read old thinkers, British coal, why Steven Pinker sucks, what kind of revolution was the Industrial Revolution, civilizational skillsets, and more!

Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month!

Closing Song: Kids See Ghost - Feel the Love (KEIFERGR33N)

Special Guest: Mike.

Emmet and John forge ahead through the longest and most difficult chapter in Lasch's The True And Only Heaven. They question his use of Thomas Carlyle, delve into the Calvinism in both Carlyle and Emerson, what it means for America to have an anti-progressive tradition, Boethius's Wheel of Fortune, appreciating fate, and more!

Subscribe to the Patreon to here the rest!

Emmet sat down with Joseph Keegin to talk about his pice for Tablet, The High Church of Wokeism, which traces certain elements of woke ideology back to Unitarian Universalism. They talk about the unacknowledged power of divinity schools in shaping American progressivism, repairing the "broken middle," identity talk as soul talk, and much more.

The High Church of Wokeism by Joseph Keegin, Tablet.

Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month.

Closing Song: Memorial by Moss Icon.

Emmet sits down with Percy Menzies of Assisted Recovery Centers of America to talk about the opioid epidemic in America. Percy walks through the history of opioids, how OxyContin changed everything, and how fentanyl has changed everything again. He and Emmet discuss misunderstandings about addiction, the forces aligned against solving the crisis--including the methadone lobby--treating the whole person, and more.

If you'd like to get in touch with Percy with questions, comments, or support, you can reach him here: pmenzies [at] arcamidwest.com.

Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month!

Closing Song: Ugly Truth (Concrete Foundations Forum, Hollywood, Ca. September 23, 1989) by Soundgarden.