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What can JD Vance's arguments with Pope Francis teach us about selfishness, altruism, and the morality of the modern world?

Join the team at the IAI for four articles about egoism, self-sacrifice, and everything in between, analysing a range of subjects, including: Friedrich Nietzsche and his rivalry with former maestro Arthur Schopenhauer; the 10 Commandments and their relationship to jealousy; why God might be "stupid, indifferent, and evil"; and of course the aforementioned showdown between JD and the Pope.

These articles were written by Slavoj Žižek, Steven D. Hales, Kristján Kristjánsson, and Guy Elgat.

Slavoj Žižek is a Hegelian philosopher, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, and a Communist. He is the author of 'Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist'. Steven D. Hales is Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, and author of 'The Myth of Luck: Philosophy, Fate and Fortune'. Kristján Kristjánsson is Professor of Character Education and Virtue Ethics at the University of Birmingham. His work spans topics in moral philosophy, moral psychology, and moral education. He is also the editor of the Journal of Moral Education. Guy Elgat is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of 'Nietzsche's Psychology of Ressentiment' and 'Being Guilty: Freedom, Responsibility, and Conscience in German Philosophy from Kant to Heidegger'.

And don't hesitate to email us at [email protected] with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

To witness such debates live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

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Between 1945 and 1952, ‘happiness trains’ transported 70,000 children from southern to northern Italy to live with wealthier families.

It was a scheme organised by the Union of Italian Women and the Italian Communist Party in an attempt to make the lives of southern Italian children better.

Ten-year-old Bianca D’Aniello was one of the passengers to travel from Salerno in the south to Mestre in the north where she was looked after by a family with more resources.

Bianca’s life in Mestre was miserable because of Italy’s fascist regime and the devastation her city faced in the wake of World War Two. Her journey was nerve-racking as she jumped on a train for the first time saying goodbye to her mum and siblings. What she didn’t realise was what life had in store for her in her new life.

Bianca speaks to Natasha Fernandes about how that ‘happiness train’ changed her life forever.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Children on board an Italian 'happiness train' kiss and wave goodbye to their parents. Credit: Instituto Storico Modena)

We begin with a slightly idiosyncratic - and highly stylised - discussion of how Ireland went from a nation of farmers to a high-tech economy, missing out on industrialisation. Our focus is on one very simple question: Having got Ireland to ‘here’, why is the current crop of leaders incapable of dealing with known problems that have known solutions?

Previous generations of politicians and civil servants eventually took big and brave decisions. Perhaps backbone discovery requires a crisis. But we have had plenty of those recently, and have at least one right now. And nothing ever changes. Where are the giants now? The ones who, like Alan Dukes - and others - many years ago, took great personal career risks to do the right thing?

Has democracy reached its limits? Small, sometimes single-person, blocking coalitions can impede or stop any policy they don’t like. NIMBYism on steroids. Many economies will recognise this one.

Today’s crop of very smart politicians have worked out that the route to success - or mere survival - is to never make a mistake, never annoy anyone. That means never taking a decision. Let others do that and watch them fall by the wayside. Rise without trace.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Composer Steve Reich is one of the most influential musicians of modern times. In the 1960s he helped rewrite the rules of composition, using analogue tape machines to experiment with rhythm, repetition and syncopation. As the godfather of musical minimalism, his influence on Philip Glass, David Bowie, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and many other composers, has been enormous. Countless dance music producers also owe a debt to pieces including It’s Gonna Rain, Drumming, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians. His music has been performed in concert halls all around the world, and his many awards include three Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, the Polar Prize for Music and the Premium Imperiale.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Mortifications, loneliness, working day and night. Anne Marie Allen, who was recruited to Opus Dei at the age of 15 and escaped after 7 years has written a book on her on her life as a fifteen-year-old in Opus Dei 'Serve My Lost Years at the Heart of Ireland’s Opus Dei'

This week, we’re calling up one of our fan-favorite guests from season two: Rose.

Almost twenty years ago, Rose was kicked out of her college sorority. “You know what you did,” was the only explanation she was ever given. All these years later, Rose still wants to know what it is she did.

Credits

This episode was produced by Jonathan Goldstein, Kalila Holt, and Kaitlin Roberts, with editing by Jorge Just, Alex Blumberg, and Wendy Dorr. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Stevie Lane, Misha Glouberman, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Kate Bilinski. Music by Christine Fellows and John K Samson, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions, Michael Charles Smith, Hew Time, and Keen Collective. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Adam Biles speaks with acclaimed author Geoff Dyer live from Shakespeare and Company about his new memoir, Homework. Dyer reflects on growing up in 1960s Cheltenham, navigating family, class, and the formation of self. With characteristic wit and insight, he paints portraits of his quietly disappointed mother and parsimonious father, capturing an era that feels remote yet familiar. The conversation explores the power of memory, the weirdness of grammar schools, the ambient presence of war, and the subtle tyranny of the English class system. Dyer discusses how language, books, and music shaped him—and how the past persists in surprising phrases and daily habits. By turns hilarious and moving, this event reminds us why Dyer remains one of the UK’s most original and generous literary voices.

Buy Homework: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/homework-3

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Geoff Dyer is an award-winning author of four novels and numerous non-fiction books, including Out of Sheer Rage, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, Zona and, most recently, See/Saw. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, Dyer lives in Los Angeles, where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.

Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Campaigning journalist Claud Cockburn – defiantly anti-establishment and proudly Communist – had as his watchword ‘believe nothing until it is officially denied’, a saying borrowed by his son Patrick, himself a legendary foreign correspondent, for his biography of his maverick father. Described by schoolfriend Graham Greene as the greatest journalist of the twentieth century, Cockburn was born at the heart of the establishment it became his life’s work to satirise, lampoon and undermine, with reports from Berlin during the rise of Fascism and Spain during the Civil War, as well as New York, Washington and Chicago, where he once conducted an interview with Al Capone.

Patrick Cockburn spoke at the shop about Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied (Verso), and its lessons for journalism then, now and in the future, with journalist Duncan Campbell.

Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod

Listen to Neal Ascherson discuss Claud Cockburn: https://lrb.me/aschersonpod

Get the book: https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/believe-nothing-until-it-is-officially-denied-claud-cockburn-and-the-invention-of-guerrilla-journalism-patrick-cockburn

Topics discussed in this episode include:

Matthew Buckley Smith over at SLEERICKETS

Alice Allan over at Poetry Says and In Future Posts

Ethan McGuire over at The Flummoxed

Zina Gomez Liss over at The Beauty of Things

Cameron Clark over at Minor Tiresias

Rationalist, Socialist, Humanist, Bicameral Demo-Oligarchic Utopia?

Ironkraft and Cheesecraft

An incomplete list of people I envy: Kendrick Lamar, Shane McCrae, James Matthew Wilson, Chris Childers, Dick Davis, Amit Majmudar, Matthew Buckley Smith, Bill Coyle, Don Paterson, etc. etc.

An incomplete list of people who inspire me: Yvor Winters, Irving Babbitt, Matthew Arnold, William Shakespeare, John Milton, the Attic Tragedians, E.A. Robinson, Wallace Stevens, Edgar Bowers, Richard Wilbur, Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, Vyasa, Simone Weil, William Morris.

The Book of Job

Isaiah 45:7

Alitu and Buzzsprout

Kol Nidre

My episode with Zina and David on Fireside Chat

Harold Bloom

The Archimedean point

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

On 11 September 1951, the 9.55am train from Prague to Aš, in Communist Czechoslovakia was hijacked and driven to freedom in West Germany.

One hundred and eleven people were on board and 34 of them never returned, starting new lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

The remaining 77 returned to Czechoslovakia to face state security, the Státní bezpečnost, and many were jailed.

Rachel Naylor uses an archive interview with Karel Ruml, one of the hijackers, who went on to move to the United States.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: A steam train in Czechoslovakia in 1960. Credit: Alamy)