Hemlock #39

Nuclear war, and nuclear risk, are still just as real and just as close as they have been during the tensest eras of the Cold War. I had questions about where suspected nuclear flashpoints were forming - in South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan, and Iran - and wanted to review Trump's record of militarizing outer space, resuming nuclear testing, pre-emptively attacking Iran's nuclear reactor sites, and spending billions in a never-ending American quest for "Star Wars" or missile defense (in this latest iteration: not Reagan's SDI, but rather The Golden Dome). Which is why I invited Jack on the show.

Jack Kennedy is the nuclear risk editorial fellow for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He is a doctoral candidate and research associate at the Centre for International Security at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. His research focuses include strategic stability under conditions of multipolarity, extended deterrence, and coercive diplomacy. He previously worked at the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office, and as a journalist. He holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 

You can read Jack's very insightful article Washington's neglect of South Korea's security concerns is a proliferation problem here. We had a wide-ranging and largely in-tune conversation about horizontal proliferation, nuclear latency, real policy wonk shit like specific treaties, and dug into the nuclear histories of the US, Iraq, Pakistan, South Africa, and North Korea.

All this to say: this is how you don't blow up the world.

References:

1981 Iraqi Osirak Reactor Bombing (Operation Opera)

Seymour Hersh Article about Iran's Nuclear Reactor Strike:

I sort-of misremembered this article - estimates vary on how much the US strike set back the program. I said 'sixty days' which I heard somewhere but can't recall. Sy Hersh suggests 'years' but others imagine less, given that the centrifuges were likely not destroyed but merely buried. The size of the setback is ultimately immaterial to the point being made, a question of tactics. The principle of the strike itself was what made the situation dangerous and destabilizing and ultimately unworkable.

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/was-it-obliteration?utm_source=publication-search

Buy Graham's book on Terence on Amazon!

Graham's website: https://www.edgecentral.net/

Reputable information about psilocybin and harm reduction:

https://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms.shtml

James Fadiman's book/manual: https://www.psychedelicexplorersguide.com/

"We are the inheritors of one million years of striving for the unspeakable"

-Terence McKenna

More on Patreon:

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A Creative Commons Zero "No Rights Reserved" free, open-source audiobook, narrated by William Engels. This is from Part 1, titled "The Window," Chapters 1-5.

One of the most beautifully written and mind-expanding works of modernist literature, Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse (1927) has recently entered the public domain. I wanted to celebrate by performing my way though the many "head-hops", metaphysical digressions, synesthetic collages, and iridescently shimmering prose passages that make up this short but potent work. Enjoy.

Support this work on Patreon

History of Philosophy Audio Archive, Episode #177

I have always loved Michael Sugrue, and I will never stop posting his talks. RIP to a legend (1957-2024). Always been curious about Goethe’s Faust (Parts I and II) and thought this was serve a good introduction. If looking for a physical copy, I have heard that the scholarly, complete, Princeton edition is really good.

Hear all the updates on where the channel is going on my (free!) Patreon (Link to Hemlock Patreon).

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References

• Stephen Skowronek // "The Politics Presidents Make" (1993)

• Rational Choice Theory (1955) "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice" by Herbert A. Simon

• The Nixon movie I couldn't remember was "Secret Honor" (Robert Altman, 1984)

• Abramowitz et. al study of Southern Republicans https://journals.shareok.org/arp/article/view/366

• Goldsboro Nuclear Disaster (1961)

• Palomares Nuclear Incident (1966)

• Notable Esoteric Platonists: Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom

• Aspasia and Pericles the Younger

• Group 40/Project 40 and Richard Nixon

• Otto Ambros (Third Reich Scientist/Operation Paperclip)

Dialogues by Plato:

• Meno (Knowledge, geometry, 'rememberance')

• Republic (Justice, the Noble Lie)

• Laches (Instruction in courage)

• Symposium (Love, homosexuality, Diotima)

• Crito (Fidelity to the state, homeliness)

• Seventh Letter / Seventh Epistle (Esoteric Platonism)

GAZA LINKS:

Oxfam - https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/emergencies/gaza-and-israel-emergency-appeal/

MSF (Doctors Without Borders) - https://www.msf.org/gaza-israel-war

Palestinian Youth Movement - https://www.palestinianyouthmovement.com/

Support this work and unlock more of it (for free!) on Patreon

https://patreon.com/c/hemlockpatreon

This is from Hubert Dreyfus' 2008 Berkeley undergraduate course Philosophy 7 "Existentialism in Literature and Film"

https://archive.org/details/ucberkeley_webcast_itunesu_461120622\

Course Description: The course will be organized around various attempts to reinterpret the Judeo/Christian God, and to determine in what sense, if at all, such a God is still a living God. We will study Dostoyevsky's and Kierkegaard's attempts to preserve a non-theological version of the God of Christianity, as well as Nietzsche's attempt to save us from belief in any version of God offered by our tradition. We will view and discuss three films that deal with related issues.

Those films are, for the record:

• Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)

• The Third Man (Orson Welles, 1949)

• Breathless, French: "À bout de souffle" (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

The books being read are:

• Fear and Trembling & The Sickness Unto Death (Kierkegaard)

• The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)

• Twilight of the Idols & The Gay Science (Nietzsche)

Cover art is Caspar David Friedrich, "Monk by the Sea"

Support Sabrina's work and educate yourself on Israel, Palestine, and the US while connecting with likeminded people:

Not only will you learn about the history, Zionism, US involvement and more, but it's a great way to connect with others who care about what's happening and learn ways that you can take action. The next class session starts January 10. Reserve your spot by December 12th and get a class journal (digital download) with space for notes, reflection questions, resource lists, an FAQ guide, and more!

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SIGN UP LINK FOR THE CLASS:

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Demolishing the White House is just the beginning.

Subscribe to Will Sanchez on Substack!

https://substack.com/@philosophicalrebellion

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

First: we are going to be soon starting a new audiobook series - this time it will be To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - I will release it chapter by chapter, and the first chapter or two should be out within a week, if the Great Tao should accommodate. You can get updates on that and future open source audiobooks, narrated by me on the Patreon page.

Second is that as we approach the finish line with Hubert Dreyfus’s Great Books course, I am looking for suggestions about where to go next, in terms of content - so if you are on Spotify please check the audience survey in this episode and vote on the things you want - If you’re not on Spotify then just email me with your desires, fantasies, crackpot ideas, and degenerate art and I will respond to you there: [email protected]

Last is that this is an episode about politics in America, and William Sanchez and I leave no stone unturned, so if that’s not your cup of tea, then watch out for the fascism-free Virginia Woolf stuff that I’ll be making, as well as the more lighthearted project that I’m doing with my buddies Thomas and Richard over on Bad Role Models. But if it is your cup of tea, then you should support William’s work on Substack, and listen to my other interview with him. Links in the thing, as always.

REFERENCES

Paying for the Ballroom with Silicon Valley Tribute Money:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/youtube-to-pay-24-5-million-to-settle-lawsuit-brought-by-trump-808f6823?reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

$50K Signing Bonus for ICE Officers

https://bbc.com/news/articles/cqle5newg0no

Bipartisan Bill to Force Release of Epstein Files Being Jammed

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5482096-massie-discharge-petition-epstein/

Reagan and US Indicted by ICJ in 1986 for Terrorism Against Nicaragua

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_vUnitedStates

Book: Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State by Garry Wills

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7254108-bomb-power

Bernie Sanders' Saving American Democracy Amendment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_amendment#Saving_American_Democracy_Amendment

Even the dead are not safe.

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.” This statement, deliberately provocative, was made first by Continental philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard before its later canonization by Mark Fisher in his 2009 theoretical masterpiece Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?. For Fisher, it is a call to action, and a structuring limit. Strictly speaking, it is probably an overstatement, at least without the implicit qualifier:

As long as things continue as they have up until now.

This is the statement: that our world is more likely to collapse from trophic exhaustion, reactive warfare, and molecular violence, than it is to shed capitalist practices and norms in favor of any of the many proposed alternatives. This same thought was expressed in another form - a case of convergent evolution emanating elsewhere in the landscape of literary Quotatia - humanity will go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective.

Advisory: discussion of death and suicide.

References, Media Usage, and Sources:

"NO" by Joy Harjo - September 2004

"Resisting Left Melancholy" by Wendy Brown

NB: If you cannot access this, try using sci-hub.se

"Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin - 1940

Cover Art: "Smoldering Ghost: Happy Painting" by Michael Prettyman

Ambience Tracks (Creative Commons) from Nemo's Dreamscapes

Outro Song: Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 30, Movement 3, performed by Anastasia Huppmann (Creative Commons, YouTube)

Excerpt from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson.

Ode to Mark Fisher: Part 1 - Introduction to Fisherology (Hemlock Substack)

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Originally published as "On Wings of Art" (1984).

"In this six-part series, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell introduces and explores the unifying themes and mythological symbolism in James Joyce's three greatest literary works--A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake--arguing that these three major works were the precursors to a fourth, even greater novel that Joyce never got to write."

From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916):

He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.

Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!

He halted suddenly and heard his heart in the silence. How far had he walked? What hour was it?

There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of his blood.

He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies: and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast.

He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watchers, trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer or a flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than other.

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Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.

Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:

⁠⁠Amjad Hamad and his Family⁠⁠

⁠⁠Rulin and Family⁠⁠

⁠⁠Sammar and her Husband⁠⁠

⁠⁠MSF (Doctors Without Borders)⁠⁠

⁠⁠Palestinian Youth Movement⁠⁠