The Pugcast

With Halloween merch already showing up in stores, it’s a good time to do a Pug take on vampires, so this week, the Pugsters riff off an article by John Schuler looking at the implicit philosophical ideas in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. They start off with a discussion of the difference between modernity and the “old centuries” before moving on to scientism, the nature of evil, natural and artificial symbols (in Schuler’s terms), meaning, natural law and the supernatural, and a bunch of other rabbit trails suggested by the article.

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In today’s show Tom introduces themes from Paul Tyson’s book - 7 Brief Lessons in Magic. In the book, Paul defines classical ways of seeing reality beyond the reductive naturalism of our modern way of thinking. Unpacking these classical ways, Paul engages magic and enchantment, and the ways in which they related to meaning, value, and other realities which modern reductionism cannot make intelligible within the narrow confines of its worldview. Glenn and Chris join in with various aspects of the classical vision and the distinct Christian worldview.

Today Chris introduces the guys to Christopher Lasch and a chapter in his book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. The chapter is, The Soul of Man Under Secularism. In the chapter Lasch riffs on Oscar Wilde’s, The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Wilde believed that Socialism would free people from the responsibilities of property and manual labor so that they could pursue the development of “personality”. If that sounds self-indulgent and unrealistic, that’s because it is. But that is remarkably similar to the way so many young people and tech gurus think in our time. The pugsters use Lasch and Wilde as a basis for reflection on the loony character of our time. Tune in and join the conversation!

This week, the guys discuss pilgrimage. Glenn summarizes the early history of pilgrimage, noting both the practice and the arguments against it even in the early church. From there, the guys discuss more of the history of pilgrimage and talk about whether there are “thin places” made somehow holy by long centuries of prayer, or alternatively, made evil by great evil done in them in the past.

Tom returns to the big topic of technology and addresses the rapid changes to our conceptions and interactions with its impingement upon reality. Glenn and Chris jump into the topic with Tom by supplying various insights into how the riches of Christian wisdom and virtue provide a path through the thickets of changes which allows us to use and relate wisely to the increasing impingement of technology in all aspects of our lives.

Evidence indicates that slavery was a universal institution. It was practiced on every inhabited continent. It isn’t a particularly western institution at all. What has been peculiar to the West is the effort to abolish it. That effort has been largely successful when it comes to legislation—nevertheless slavery is still with us. Why is that? What are the conditions in which slavery spontaneously emerges, and how can a culture address those? And what is it about Christianity that got the effort to abolish slavery underway? Tune in to learn what the Pugcast guys think.