Kali Tribune Podcast

Pasionirani čitatelj postavio je KT pitanje: "Što je duša?" Dok nitko ništa nije pitao, bilo je jasno što je, no jednom kad je palo pitanje, odgovora niotkud. No ipak, nakon kraće konzultacije klasične literature, malo introspekcije, par pitanja Bogu (još nije odgovorio), kakav takav odgovor se kristalizirao. U ovom podcastu bavimo se pojmom duše u tradicionalnoj metafizici na osnovi tri zamjenjive definicije: duše kao supstancijalnog oblika, duše kao entelehije i duše kao čina tijela. Otud se priča račva u par pravaca: postavlja se pitanje odnosa duše i tijela, razlike mogućnosti i zbiljnosti, neadekvatnosti moderne filozofije za ovakva pitanja, etc, etc.

n this episode of KT Q&A podcast, we address the request of our regular reader. In summary, we answer the question: what is soul? The subjects contained therein are the nature of soul, its relation to body, what it means for something to be substantial form, traditional understanding of actuality/energy and possibility/potency, unity of human being provided by the soul, soul as a "horizon" (Thomas Aquinas) between physical and spiritual world, the powers of the soul and the critique of many souls instead of one, potentially posthumanist implications of denying the unity of the soul and much more.

Is there a substantial difference between revolutionaries of the Left and Right? Or, conversely, is there an even deeper identity between nihilists of traditional and progressive bent? What does it mean to be "against the modern world"? KT offers some answers.

Politički interseks slijedeći je stupanj u odmotavanju LGBTIQ spirale, gdje se spol, a ne naprosto rod, pretvara u titrajući spektar. Ima li povratka, hoće li prirodne znanosti vratiti zdrav razum i može li bijeg u zoološki vrt, odnosno nastojanje da se pobjegne od čovjekove prave prirode u životinjstvo, pomoći? Na ta pitanja nakon analize, naravno, slijedi jednoznačno negativan odgovor.

In our day and age, the word "system" is as prevalent as it is ambivalent; moreover, bearing in mind that we are living in an epoch supposedly deprived of metaphysics, 'system' sometimes appears to be an ersatz formula for something that used to be a metaphysical notion. However, no age is free from metaphysics and 'system' is a metaphysical notion tailor made by modernity for modernity, and beyond. In this podcast we'll trace the genesis of the system principle and contrast it to traditional metaphysics, to which the system is as repugnant as it gets, although its very rarely perceived as such by contemporary historians and philosophers. In this episode we take an example of system building thinking from early German Idealism, from J.G. Fichte's Wissenschaftlehre.

Sustainable development is fundamentally incompatible with some of the main supposition of Karl Marx and, by derivation, Marxism. In the second and final episode of our podcast on the subject, we lay down and compare some of the fundamental ontological propositions of sustainable development and Karl Marx to demonstrate their incompatibility.

The ease with which a number of popular contemporary conservatives identify ontology and politics of sustainable development (aka 'degrowth', 'The Great Reset', 'green politics', etc.) with Marxism and its derivations is comparable only to their ignorance of the original philosophical assumptions of Karl Marx and their roots in classical German philosophy; ignorance that, in a peculiar sense, appears so blatant that it seems almost wilful. To set the record straight, in the series of podcasts we'll outline the rift existing between these two, modern and postmodern, totalitarian projects, based on their root assumptions. In the first episode we sketch the basic propositions of Hegel's metaphysics that inspired Marx' project.

Oni koji prate što se zbiva u razvijenijim društvima nešto Zapadnije od našeg dijela Europe i preko Atlantika, sigurno su primijetili naoko neobičnu promjenu u procesu navodno neproblematične, neminovne i neizbježne normalizacije i prihvaćanja “LGBTIQ osoba”. Naime, otkako je transgender opcija, odnosno skup manjinskih identiteta i njihovih političkih zahtijeva okupljenih pod slovom T skraćenice, došla na red za potpuno ostvarenje njezinih prava, cijeli LGBTIQ sustav našao se u svojevrsnoj šizmi. Lijeva strana, odnosno ono što je pokriveno LGB polovicom akronima, došla je u sukob s dojučerašnjim drugaricama i drugovima s desna, za sad utjelovljenim uglavnom u transgender pokretu, koji, poput nekoć njihovog vlastitog pokreta za “gej prava”, mediji i relevantne institucije maksimalno podržavaju. Međutim to nije sve: premda bi čovjek očekivao kako će konzervativci LGBTIQ šizmu i njezin značaj, ako već ne dokučiti – kako ćemo mi to pokušati u recima koji slijede – onda barem pozdraviti, sve je više na djelu naoko bizaran savez LGB aktivista i konzervativaca. Izvorni članak: http://kalitribune.com/normalizacija/

KT's Department of Nihilism Forecast and Discernment presents the first in the series of articles on the nature of the LGBTIQ principle and politics it originates, which will, as we hope, dispel some misconceptions and provide perspective on this important issue. In the first article, we discuss whether LGBTIQ can be truly identified with liberalism, as is often been done today. If you don't feel like reading, the short answer is, no. If you want to know why, read on.

In this episode of our ongoing series "Basic Notions of Metaphysics", we talk about univocal concept of being as explicated by John Duns Scotus. It is hard to overestimate the influence of the idea that being is an univocal concept, that is: the simple, indivisible and, above all, indifferent notion present in all other concepts - from the spec of dust to God Himself. We argue that univocity represents the point of departure from traditional metaphysics towards modernity and postmodernity; whereas, traditionally, being was understood as reality or act/ἐνέργειᾰ, with univocity it becomes a concept and hence opens the horizon of modern metaphysics with its conceptual systems and reliance on subjectivity. Naturally, we on KT have few objections about that.

Novi KT dajdžest s crnjak fronta. Teme kojima se bavimo su LGBTIQ i moderne političke ideje, kako su transdžender žene otkrile da su duševnije od lezbijki, kako je Noah Kraljević obesmislila referendum o braku iz 2013. i ostale crne točke na tamnoj podlozi 2023. Ovaj put, za lijene čitatelje, pored teksta, postavljamo i audio varijantu.

In this episode of our regular podcast Basic Notions of Metaphysics we provide an account on principle of analogy - a veritable sacred bond of the universe, according to Medieval scientia transcendens. We follow the genesis of this genuinely Christian transformation of the principle already partly known in the ancient world, its relevance in the context of the problem of mediation between equivocal and univocal predication of being, its roots in the doctrine of transcendentals and, ultimately, its nature as the form of the revelation of the presence of God in His creatures.

In this episode of our regular Q&A podcast we answer the seemingly simple question, what is ontology? We delineate three thinkers and three notions of the primary philosophical science, out of which only one qualifies as ontology. Those thinkers are Christian Wolff, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, whereas Wolff is the one who, in 18th Century, introduced ontology as a discipline in the "system of philosophical sciences". We proceed to demonstrate that ontology, as modern invention, is a far cry from what Aristotle and Aquinas considered inquiry into "being qua being" to be. Off course, there are number of random digressions into all kinds of related subjects, from traditional notion of genera/species relation, nature of ens universalis, Kant's blending of metaphysics with Wolffian system and more.

We, philosophers, suffer because most people tend to despise our vocation, whereas some - admittedly, a minority - usurp it and tend to render it actually despicable soon enough. This makes 'being philosopher' quite an unenviable path through life. However, some things, dear reader, cannot really be comprehended without due brush with philosophy. One of those is the thing behind the LGBTIQ acronym.

Mi filozofi trpimo zbog toga što nam profesionalnu kvalifikaciju ljudi ili preziru ili uzurpiraju, pa je onda objektivno i naprave dostojnom prezira. Međutim, neke stvari bez filozofije, dragi čitatelju, nećete moći shvatiti. Jedna od njih je stvar što leži iza LGBTIQ akronima.

Immortality is not such a tall order as it may seem at the first glance. The situation in which man can claim the right to become a woman and at the same time cannot affirm his right to exist for eternity is in fact quite the recent occurrence, as we shall see in the new KT Miscellanea.

When talking about posthumanism and its intellectual dependencies the philosophical groundwork that made it possible often tends to be neglected. In this series we'll provide an incentive to reflect upon these presuppositions by outlining the implications present in the work of premiere philosopher of modernity, Immanuel Kant, that opened up the intellectual horizon for posthumanism. In the first part we focus on Kant's groundbreaking intuitions about the nature of consciousness and its constitutive role at the heart of reality itself as both irrevocable departure from pre-modern intellectuality and necessary condition for assumptions of contemporary posthumanism. We do this by giving a broad outline of Kant's arguments from the central part of his Critique of Pure Reason - "the transcendental deduction of the categories of pure reason". In the second part we'll sketch how posthumanists rely on Kantian understanding of subject/object split for building their utopian quasi metaphysics.

Our regular podcast spreading dark medieval lore, formerly known as wisdom, across the interwebs is back: in this episode of Basic Notions of Metaphysics we analyze classical Aristotle's notion of nature. As definition goes like this: "Nature is intrinsic principle of movement", we talk about what it means for something to be "intrinsic", "principle" and in "movement". We advertise one thing, provide you with three things and charge you with no-thing. Only on KT.

International support to Ukraine brought forward one word, being repeated so many times now, that even birds are tweeting it: “Slava!”, “Slava!". We decided to put forward some thoughts on awkwardness this Slavic word acquires when taken up by certain demographics.

In this podcast we address the problem of "maps of meaning" as an inadequate and dangerous attempt to "make sense" of the world mediated through flow of information. The subject is nothing new for KT, yet Russians were kind enough to provide us with some original examples and incentives to revisit some problems we already discussed at length, such as: limits of human intellectuality, inadequacy of "meaning" as the substitute for "purpose/end", incomprehensibility of evil, nuances of the blanked term "West" that get lost to most Westerners, Russian information offensive, how one evil doesn't justify other evil, etc.

The idea that Russia is now being ruled by cost/benefit rationality could be a terminal mistake. In this podcast we elaborate upon messianic impetus behind Russian drive to expansion and why the Third Rome can be a great, empty space - a wasteland, even - without losing its appeal to Russians. Also it seems that Alexander Dugin should've been taken more seriously. On KT we've written extensively about him but always with tongue in cheek. In this podcast we remedy that injustice.

Why does one get an impression that countries of the European cultural circuit, commonly held to be the ones most progressive in providing civic and political freedoms, now, in the course of the Corona upheaval, ended up as also being the ones most progressive in limiting of civic and political freedoms? KT offers one possible answer.

We usually point out how modern philosophy tends to invert traditional philosophical questions. So why not do it the other way around? In this podcast we examine the supposedly fundamental metaphysical question, as proposed by Martin Heidegger in his 1929 Freiburg lecture "Was ist Metaphysik?" and come to conclusion that it is not as "fundamental" as it seems.

Zbog čega se u kontekstu korona krize doima kako su one države europskog civilizacijskog kruga, koje se uobičajeno drži najnaprednijima po pitanju omogućavanja građanskih i inih sloboda, danas također najnaprednije po pitanju progresivnog ograničavanja građanskih i inih sloboda? Stožer za političke pandemije, prevenciju nihilizma i međupesimističku solidarnost KT nudi vam poslovično neugodan odgovor. 

Odsjek za metafiziku Kriznog stožera KT za borbu protiv nihilizma, subtržišne strategije i brojanje sitnih bobica Kali Tribune u novom podcastunudi neka razjašnjenja o naravi i povijesti metafizike. U ovoj epizodi razjašnjavamo zbog čega neka pitanja koja se uvriježilo nazivati "metafizičkim" ili naprosto "filozofskim" to ili uopće nisu ili se ne mogu primijeniti na predmodernu tradiciju filozofije. Govori se o Heideggeru, modernim inverzijama tradicionalnih filozofijskih pitanja, ontološkim raspoloženjima i još koječemu, a ima i par riječi o ničemu.

To make up for the pain suffered by KT junkies because of the longest withdrawal in the history of this Europe spanning intellectual behemoth, KT Ministry of Non-Current Events and Putting Current Events out of Focus invited the head of our Carpathi-Black Sea division, Mihai Marinescu to join the General Secretary for the high level talks. Topis covered are Covid19 crisis and how we on the outskirts on Europe deal with it, peculiar developments in Western Europe, why the most progressive societies appear to be at the same the most progressive in limiting civil freedoms, why ideologies are in fact an attempt at political metaphysics, sexual politics as the crucial denkverbot for genuinely dissident minds, liberalism classical or otherwise, Aristotle's understanding of primordial duality of human being and Christian application of this fact, symbolism, Communism and much more.

A lot of buzzwords floating through communication channels from academia to caffeteria seem to rather obscure than reveal their correct meaning. One of those words is "socialism", quite popular and prevalent -ism both to be praised and reviled, depending on which side of popular political debates one takes. But what is the reality behind the -ism? In this podcast we inquire about precisely this: what were and, we would argue, still are the basic outlines of socialism as a quite well defined form of modern metaphysics, something most of its proponents and enemies rarely recognize let alone understand.

In today's KT podcast we address a number of issues related to the deeper significance of the shift in mentality produced by the advent of Internet. We point out the peculiar instability of political and religious convictions people acquire online and try to offer some guidelines to understanding whence this quality of fleeting unreality that nevertheless informs lives of the real people to an increasing extent. For this purpose we once again throw an analytic glance of the ultimate metaphysical subversive - system thinking and its ability to represent the unreal as real.

In the third and final part of our series, we offer some examples of how Hegel's idea of absolute modernity as fulfillment of all ages is mirrored in later spiritual forms of modern age which, at the first sight, seem to be quite non-Hegelian.

In the second episode of our series on Hegel as an exemplar of the modern metaphysics, we go with some depth into main points of this metaphysics - the notion of encyclopedia, absolute knowledge and, above all, his attempt to abolish "the given" in identifying essence and appearance. We proceed to point out his relative convergence with Jacob Boehme in an idea of nature as the "body of God" and why this naturally follows from Hegel's Science of Logic and why it is, rather than being an instance of Christian metaphysics, in reality its almost total inversion, ending up with the notion of absolute knowledge as absolutely secular "wisdom of the world". Throughout we give remarks on Hegel's influence and his congeniality with those who were apparent opponents. In the third episode this congeniality in disparity will be the focus of the discussion.

KT presents new series of podcasts on Hegel's speculation as a prototype of modern metaphysics. It will include reflections on some remarkable spiritual forms of modernity and their disturbing congeniality with its "dark side" of totalitarian ideologies, mass warfare and nihilism. The podcast is partially inspired by Glenn Maggee's book "Hegel and Hermetic Tradition" although with reservations due to author's superficial understanding of some thinkers he considers Hegel's predecesors, as we will point out in this episode. Hegel is unique in that he wanted to build the bridge between Tradition and modernity and not simply make a radical, yet superficial, cut more characteristic of Enlightenment and scientism, that are more in vogue nowadays mostly due to dominance of modern Anglo-Saxon culture and mass appeal it still holds. This is the common trait he shares with the greatest minds and artistic talents of past 200 hundred years, especially his German contemporaries and their late 19th and pre WWII successors. However, we'll attempt to show that his unequivocal choice of modernity and its promise of ultimate resolution of the past in the ascension of man to identity with the creative "Spirit of the world" is precisely the "mark of Cain" that cannot be erased and is a taint shared by such diverse figures as Thomas Mann and Alfred Rosenberg; moreover, we'll suggest that this is were the true spirit of modernity should be sought because, after all, the deviation is always primarily inner and only secondarily an external reality - in a word: it is a form of metaphysics. And not all of its fruits are bitter. Its only that they all seem to be poisonous.

"No more great art, no more great figures of art. No more, even, great interest in art. But, above all, no more great writers especially of 'greater than life' variety". This is the lamentation that begs the question, why. In this podcast we'll attempt to indicate why in our day some of the most valued and comprehensible spiritual forms vanished, seemingly, overnight, focusing on the figure of great writer as an exemplar. We propose that dialectical character of modernity, consisting of permanent flux and an attempt to retain stable forms of the flux, eventually dissolves everything formed by modernity into nothing.

Widespread and evermore spreading love and affection for animals - dogs in particular - is understood to be a cultural achievement and a sign of advanced society as opposed to such hellholes where dogs are actually forbidden from participating at the family table.

We on KT beg to differ.

In this ruthless attack on love towards innocent tail wagers we discern how sentimentality as a counterfeit of love is being at work as an ideal for human relations, why children love animals and why it is natural, whereas it is not so natural later on in life and why children are not and never can become wiser than grown ups (except in Spielberg's movies), what is Christian agape and why it has nothing to do with most things we call love today, especially not with sentimentality and how humanization of animals leads to animalization of humans.

Nationalist of all nations unite! Sounds good, doesn't it? Logical too,  bearing in mind that "globalists" are one unified political block, then  all those opposing them should form a unified political block of their  own. Yet unified nationalists of the world is an idea that can exist  exclusively as such - an idea in virtual mindscape. In this podcast  we'll attempt to outline why.

Political debate or, rather, debate about politics can resemble the  labor of Sisyphus - nothing particularly new about that. However, what  if we would claim that in present circumstances, with chatter jamming  all communication channels, conversation is in fact impossible on  principle?

In the second part of our Q&A on corrosive influence of Heidegger,  we turn to actual (not in the sense of presence, but in the sense of  energeia) texts, i.e. to concrete examples of how he misinterprets  Aristole's notions of energeia, kinesis, entelehia.We conclude with overall evaluation of Heidegger's influence and remarks on low grade philosophy found online.

Notes

Quotes used:

On Heidegger's philosophical and philological misrepresentations of fundamental Aristotelian concepts:

Francisco J. Gonzales, "Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heidegger’s Interpretation of Energeia and Dynamis in Aristotle", in: Southern Journal of Philosophy(2006) Vol XLIV

Francisco J. Gonzales, "Beyond Good and Evil? Heidegger's Purification of Aristotle's Ethics", in Heidegger and the Greeks: Interpretative Essays. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), pg. 127 - 156.

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In this episode of our regular q&a podcast we answer reader's  questions about the influence of Martin Heidegger on Internet based  rightist identiterian movements. In the first episode we give an outline  of the current state of Heideggeriana in the mainstream academia which  seems to lead us to conclusion that Internet fringe apparently  understood him far better than his academic followers and interprets.  This was made clear mainly by finalization of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe and  publication of the so called "black notebooks" - diaries which, judging  by his own evaluation, contained Heidegger's most intimate thoughts and  the central point of his philosophy. As the end result is that it is  now obvious that he was indeed a committed national socialist, at least  in the sense of what he understood as meta-political essence of national  socialism, and that this is also at the very least quite close to his  project of the destruction of traditional metaphysics, the sizeable  chunk of contemporary philosophers now seem to realize how they have  been building their academic houses quite near the entrance of the  underworld, if not even somewhat further down the hole.

In the second part we'll provide focused criticism of some crucial  points in Heidegger's interpretation of traditional metaphysics that  seem to be especially endearing to both average academic Heideggerian or  deconstrutionist and fringe dwelling identitarian.

“You don’t have to be religious … it’s just common sense” – one often sees this kind of preface to arguments against practices sometimes branded as fruits of what is sometimes called “culture of death”. But is this so? Compromise is unavoidable in political struggle, but can there be a compromise between mind and reality? In this two parts essay we’ll argue in favor of the negative answer. We take an example of the most consequent form of advocating for equality of death and life – the advocacy for the institutionalized euthanasia – and attempt to show how it runs directly contrary to primary act of knowledge – that most obvious, yet rarely examined, state of mind we call “being in touch with reality”. In the first part we examine the notion of reality and life as forms of ἐνέργειᾰand why modern system based thinking, which is the presupposition of most modern and postmodern political debates about religious and metaphysical issues, runs counter to it and can never touch, let alone grasp, it.

Original essay: http://www.en.kalitribune.com/

In this episode we talk about objections to Stoicism and "Stoic  attitude" in our own day. We discuss two seemingly different, but in  fact quite congenial, attacks, i.e. about APA's document Guidlines for  Psychological Practice with Boys and Men" and the survey "Stoicism and  Well Being". In the process we discuss fruit of contemporary  "dissolution mentality", clearly expressed in the first document and lay  out the origin and nature of the pleasure principle which is at the  base of the critique laid out in the second one. Finally, we discuss  Christian evaluation of Stoicism.

In the new episode of our "Ask Kali" series, we address MT White's  remarks and questions on the subject of Stoicism and peculiar attitude  contemporary psychologists hold towards what is considered to be  "ideology of masculinity". Whereas the very fact that American  Psychologists Association can indulge into such semantic nonsense as  defining "masculinity" - or even "masculinities" - as ideology rather  calls for the application of flame thrower, than that of the rational  argument, we, as rational creatures, cannot help but try to argue the  point instead.

On the other hand, there is an argument that stoic attitude doesn't bode  well with liberal optimism and hence indicates to a certain pathology  in stoic person, that, for some reason, cannot see that he lives in the  age of infinite progress in happiness and well being and not in the wake  of the decline of the Roman Empire.

Again, flash of fire before mind's eye ... and ... trying the argue the point again.

However, before we address the peculiar understanding of what  contemporary academic and psychic hygiene experts have of male  "stoicism", we'll devote a full first part of the two-part podcast to  drawing an outline of the original Stoic doctrine as it developed in the  Mediterranean of mid to late Antiquity.

In this podcast we comment upon some remarkable passages from Eric Voegelin's New Science of Politics explaining his understanding of what he calls Gnostic "dreamworld",  carried over from the Ancient world to modernity. In the first half,  after providing some preliminary explanations of Voegelin's terminology,  we discuss the theoretical, or rather anti-theoretical, assumption that  is a calling card of a Gnostic: a prohibition of questions; we talk  about this strange attempt to constrain the intellect while  simultaneously advocating for unbridled progress, especially in the  paradigmatic example of Karl Marx and communist movement. Also, we point  out the genuine anti-theist character of Gnostic intellectuals and the  way how modern philosophy for the most part assimilated it. In the  second part we talk about the very instructive, yet not so very well  known, example of the one specific Gnostic neverland: Yugoslavia. We  provide the main features of Yugoslav ideology, the mentality of its  adherents, both past and present, and put the phenomenon in the context  of our day and age. In conclusion we discuss the hypothesis of the  prevalence of Gnostic ideologies in the global politics of today.

Metaphysics is due to be resurrected! Or zombified? In this podcast we  compare the Traditional understanding of Being with its inverted  counterpart, we might, for the lack of the better term, call  infraphysics, exemplified by its contemporary philosophical proponents.  We proceed from somewhat simple framing of Traditional understanding of  knowledge as a three phase process of Being-Logos/Intentio-name to its  exemplary inversion in materialism and Kant's transcendental philosophy,  ending up with fruits of modern inversion of metaphysics in  contemporary "object oriented ontology".

We touch upon Rene Guenon's analysis of the main discrepancy of  materialism and how this analysis is being reiterated by some  contemporary thinkers bound to reach beyond and below the materialism;  we expound on transformation of thinking into computation and the  centrality of self referential systems for subphysics; also we explain  why we will soon see the drive to liberate inanimate things and  individual bodily organs from human tyranny and throw in some insights  on various contemporary issues along the way.

In this podcast we provide the exposition of traditional notion of evil as privation, with the customary KT spin: as contemporary intellectual climate tends to reject the old  fashioned metaphysics of evil - where evil is just an addendum to the  metaphysics of good - because it is, supposedly, inadequate to explain  the "horrors of 20th Century", we introduce two real life examples of  evil people to illustrate just how deep into depravity the seemingly  innocuous act of privation can go.

In the third episode of our Q&A podcast we address the questions  about the nature of substance, being, person and soul, while pointing  out the pitfalls of confusing the popular Science Fiction narratives  with the philosophy proper.

In the third part of his series of essays, Mihai provides us with the exposition of traditional Christian outlook to dogma and its role in ascetic life, a qualification rarely pointed out today, as dogmatic seems to have become a subject of endless discussions instead of the guideline to spiritual life.

In this podcast Mihai attempts to answer questions of ethnicity, race,  nationalism and the ontological place of sexes from the perspective of  Eastern Church and its Tradition.

In the second part of our Q&A session we answer to questions about  what is ethnicity (or people) and can it be defined, whereas Christian  dictum of turning the other cheek is at odds with historical reality,  why the political community should have origin that its member cannot  re-create, how Internet based Right could just be a homosexual grooming  operation and much, much more. Also we provide some thoughts on  Schopenhauer and the way we discern between what is useful and what is  superfluous for the kind of philosophy we practice on KT.

Special thanks to Han Fei for questions and Ivan Karamazov for his contribution in the comments.

As the podcast is hour long we provide timestamps:

0:00 On nature of ethnicity, nation and its relation to nationalism.

24:00 On morality in politics and the nature of Christian principle of "turning the other cheek".

46:27 On Internet based Right and its peculiar homoerotic tendencies.

48:15: On Christianity and Manicheanism.

KT wishes you merry, mask-free, Christmas

In the second part of his series of essays, Mihai puts forward one of the most important subjects one could think of, although it occurs surprisingly rarely: that of memory and the struggle between oblivion and recollection. In the Christian Tradition the faculty of memory is being traditionally understood as a sort of backdoor for the divine influence - aptly so, because we tend to forget about having it throughout our daily lives - and "thief in the night" rarely enters the house through the front door. Mihai draws our attention to some traditional notions about memory as such and the nature of its object and then proceed to explain why the proper use of this faculty is essential for overcoming the perils posed by essential flaws in human nature.

As we received quite a lot of question and none of them an easy one,  we'll need more than one podcast to provide answers. In this one, we  pick two easiest ones: what is Ego and what was Rene Guenon's charge  against psychoanalysis. These two subjects are not unrelated and can be  treated quite similarly from the metaphysical perspective which  encompasses what is usually understood as purely psychological set of  problems. We explain how Ego can be a metaphysical principle, why it is  in fact the most precise expression of what is meant by elementary  material particle, how it relates to time and why it is by its very  nature destructive towards the past. Finally, we give some everyday  examples of Ego-principle working in our day and age, especially as a conditio sine qua non of popular culture and entertainment.

As for Guenon's verdict on psychoanalysis, we explain his method and  approach, as well as why he did consider it to be a crypto-diabolic  practice.

Atheism seems to be quite self explanatory term.  Granted, we do live in atheistic societies, in the sense that religion  in the proper sense of the word is almost completely ejected from  political and cultural deliberations. Even more so, this applies to  academia. Finally, at least half of the peoples which we could still, at  least by their geographical situation or ancestry, call Europeans are  actually shedding the residues of their religious past.

Yet, are we to blame this on atheists of our age, especially the so called “new atheists”?

In this podcast we’ll answer this question in the firm negative.

Source & transcript

We all heard so much about infantile masses, of an ability to hide in  the anonymous mass – in a word: the first association we tend to get  when we think in terms of mass man is irresponsibility. However, rarely  do we hear anything about equally deprived mass responsibility; rarely,  of course, except on Kali Tribune.

In this podcast we’ll address the subject of the flip side of popular  power – popular responsibility as exemplified by idea, prevalent among  the masses, that every problem and indeed everything occurring in this  world is due to man or, more  precisely, average man.

To demonstrate the absurdity of this notion and some of its possible  roots, we’ll employ the help Joseph de Maistre, with the special focus  on ideas from his essay On the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions, most eminently his insight into impossibility of creating the a priori legislature and the inferiority of written, i.e. systematized, laws and the impossibility of sovereignty coming  from below.

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Why does one forget so many things  in the course of one's life? Why, on the other hand, the knowledge we  retain has some peculiar, non-quantifiable, qualities to it? What it  means to be in the know?

These are the questions we'll try to  answer in this podcast, by referring them to one all encompassing  distinction - that between 'Being' and 'having being'. As always we  begin with real life examples of the problem and in the course of  discussion touch upon the important subject of personal identity, i.e.  we denounce the error of identifying the person with the consciousness,  an error that becomes quite apparent when reflecting on act of sleep and  of having dreams. Also, we turn to our previous work on Nicholas of  Cues' De Visione Dei to provide us with some aid in addressing the  problem on the higher level, once we abandon the ground of everyday  experience.