Phi Fic

On "Critique of Violence" (1921). What is violence? Benjamin gives us a taxonomy: law-creating, law-preserving, mythological, and divine. Then he deconstructs his own distinctions to demonstrate that all state power is rotten through its being founded on and continually re-established by violence or the threat of it.

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On The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020).

What is it to be nonviolent in political activity? Most ethics allow for self-defense, but Judith has a problem with defining "self" as well as "violence," and offers a full critique of the individualism that underlies typical Western approaches to both ethics and politics.

Mark, Seth, and Wes interview Judith about these issues and the connection to Gender Trouble.

End song: "Dancing with Death," discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #111 with Marty Willson-Piper.

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There was some element of loneliness involved—so easy to be loved—so hard to love.

-Tender is the Night

This episode we are reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Reflected upon by Ernest Hemingway: “…in retrospect, Tender is the Night gets better and better,” which came a good time after his first comment to F. Scott: “Not as good as you can do.”

The novel follows the emotional demise and world of Dick Diver. Diver, a Yale-educated psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole—once his patient and a diagnosed schizophrenic—are extremely well-to-do (thanks to Nicole’s family), and are living as expats in the French Riviera. While there, Dick meets Rosemary Hoyt, a teenage movie actress phenom whose beauty and innocence attracts him despite his commitment to Nicole. He ends up having an affair with Rosemary, as his identity and sense of meaning fall apart. As Dick suffers, Nicole gets stronger and leaves him for another man. After they divorce, Diver returns the U.S.—to work in obscurity.

The book is written in 3 non-linear sections detailing the evolving, internal, suffocating weaknesses of Dick Diver––as a husband, as a doctor, as a man. Fitzgerald once said: “A whole lot of people just skimmed through the book for the story,” [he] complained, “and it simply can’t be read that way.”

“…it was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were complete themselves.”

-Tender is the Night

Join Nathan, Cezary, Laura, Jennifer and Daniel, as we tackle this intriguing novel—and try to make sense of sentences such as:  “Like most women she liked to be told how she should feel…” as well as the meaning of the title, which was taken from John Keats’ poem Ode to a Nightingale.

It was noted by the critic, R.W.B Lewis about Fitzgerald’s prose: "His words are never in love with themselves.”

Watch the 1962 movie starring Jason Robards and Jennifer Jones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7PEi096qUQ

If you have thoughts, recommendations, or questions that you want to send our way, please do via [email protected].

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Thanks to Allan Bowley for help with audio.

Thanks to Christopher Nolen for the music.

Mark, Erica, and Brian discuss Michael Schur's NBC TV show. Is it good? Does it actually teach moral philosophy? We talk sit-com tropes, TV finales, the show's convoluted structure, the puzzle of heaven, and more.

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This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life network and is curated by openculture.com.

Concluding "Gender Trouble" (1990), with just Mark, Wes, and Seth going carefully through pt I, sec v: "Identity, Set, and the Metaphysics of Substance," and pt III, sec iv: "Subversive Bodily Acts: Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions."

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End song: "I'm a Boy" by Lys Guillorn as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #44.

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More Gender Trouble (1990) with Jennifer Hansen. We get into the metaphysics of substance (is gender an attribute that a person has, or is there a better way to describe the situation?), performatives, Beauvoir vs. Irigaray on femininity, and the available mechanisms for changing gender norms.

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On Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). Is gender socially constructed, and if so, how?

Butler describes gender not as an essential quality of a person, but as "performed," as habits of acting in certain ways in accordance with customs. Her idea of social construction is so totalizing that even biological sex itself is constructed. With guest Jennifer Hansen.

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We consider The Irishman in the context of Scorsese's body of work and the styles and themes that his films tend to exhibit.

Writer/podcaster Colin Marshall joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to talk about connecting with Scorsese's sensibility and their status as "art films." Plus S's use of music, comments on Marvel, CGI age alternation, and more.

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This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life network and is curated by openculture.com.

Concluding Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): "The Woman in Love" and "Myths" with guest Jennifer Hansen.

We continue on the ailments of women under patriarchy as well as the existential problems that we're all subject to. Are we doomed to isolation, or does existentialism allow for intimacy? Is marriage in "bad faith"? We also talk narcissism, abjection, and the film Marriage Story.

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End song: "Easier than Leaving" by Michaela Anne, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #114.

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