JOIN our Locals community to hear *Stephen* answer audience questions: triggernometry.locals.com/ CHAPTERS👇 00:00 Trailer 00:39 We’re living in a meaning crisis 02:36 What is meaning? 04:38 Ideological nihilism 06:37 Losing our religion 09:15 Architecture betrays ideology 11:08 People no longer sacrifice for higher causes 14:41 Importance of beautiful buildings 18:26 How city living affects us 22:14 SPONSOR: 321 Course 23:24 Will decadence inevitably lead to our demise? 25:53 Ravenous for meaning 27:31 Transcendence through selflessness 32:27 What is Western civilization? 37:11 Upholding the sanctity of the individual creates successful societies 40:45 Freedom also creates instability 43:08 We’ve knocked out our own load-bearing structures 45:15 Malicious iconoclasm 47:42 SPONSOR: SimpliSafe 48:51 We must call evil by its name 51:52 The psychological brokenness behind woke rebellion 54:20 We’ve failed our young people 56:03 Modernisation has led to dislocation 59:12 We are not adapted to handle this technology 1:00:58 Why people turn to Marxism & other ideologies 1:05:53 What’s the one thing we’re not talking about?
For life to have meaning we have to understand the meaning of life and few know that today. Atheistic science has put the nail in the coffin of meaning by positing that only the material or elemental exists. Meanwhile they are clueless about consciousness. It is the so-called ‘hard problem’ for philosophy. Now atheism is coming up with its next ideology: trans humanism. Religion, the definition of which is that to which we are bound, which is essentially Reality will be a bulwark against that ideology. The trans human proponents do not know what Reality is and that is their problem.
@triggerpod How possible could it be that George Floyd's autopsy was falsified by an unregistered foreign agent with the political authority to do so? Could establishing the illusion of modern systemic racism in the US also give foreign governments plausible deniability of any guilt, by also claiming to be victims of false accusations motivated by racism?
I really do think Francis is thoughtful and asks excellent questions to bring out important points. This is why I started watching them in the first place as they started.
Yes Francis does have valuable insights …his talking about mortality is valuable. Mortality is what people have always feared throughout the ages and a lot of what people do is just a distraction from contemplating this ….trying to do something meaningful with your life so that you do something that transcends your life is also a distraction. People can find the answers through looking inwards at their minds, looking at their reactions to various triggers and quieting the mind. This is real transcending, if done with a viable teacher who has ‘arrived’ themselves.
America has stopped dreaming. I remember the late 1950's and early l1960's, America dreamed about how the future will be. Today, we don't dream anymore, we stopped moving forward.
@@robertbrandywine Yes, sitting in a comfortable couch with all the world's collected information in your hand while literally interacting with your entertainment system... It sure sounds awful.
Dreaming never helped…it’s just hope and life never turns out as you hope/dream. Dreaming is not the answer. Knowing that you cannot change the world but you can change yourself if you find the right way/teacher and make considerable effort, then you let go of trying to do the impossible and are more effect in what you do do but don’t cry when things out there aren’t perfect…it leads to peace of mind and unless people find peace of mind, you can forget about peace out there.
I red Viktor Frankl when I was in my twenties and it absolutely changed my life, now more than ever we have to return to the great values of our lives, leave the nihilistic world views!
They make an excellent team, between them they get to the heart of things very quickly. With humility and humanity, always ready to be funny and insightful, questioning as needs be. Hence the quality of guests they get,have done since COVID started. When they were essential in debunking that nonsense. Thanks lads
The main problem I have seen with work is people who want to sell themselves as leaders yet very obviously are about "me first". In such a situation you are naive to trust them and need to consider yourself first, if not you'll be abused. So a breakdown of ethics causes a breakdown of trust, and here we are.
This interview is exactly what my thoughts are all about these days. I would even add 'morality' to meaning, which I'm sad had only been left to religion (and the mob 😅)
In regards to islam ... it spread globally owing to overwhelming violence rather than evangelisation ir pursuasion, and direct penalties for those who attempt to leave . All religions are NOT the same.
This is a great discussion. I have never had religion, do not desire to have religion, and I have never had a crisis of meaning. Of course, I was also not subjected to Marxism or postmodernism as a foundational view and come from late Gen X culture.
Merci de nous rappeler le bien que cela fait d'aider l'autre, l'inconnu ou celui proche de vous. So good for oneself to be able to help the other, be it your friend or a stranger.
Wonderful, deep discussion. This discussion goes far, far deeper than just being against or for certain issues such as trans. And by coincidence, I just read Victor Frankl's path-breaking book when he survived Auschwitz, written in 1945 in just nine days straight off, "Man's Search For Meaning". This discussion and that book go right together as a pair.
Makes so much sense. So refreshing. I was very very left leaning in my youth; it just seemed that the 'right' was dictatorial, but when the hippies came to town, and selected the wealthiest business district to squat, I began to question the left. The left, of course was lauded by Hollywood and TV, and even the news reporters. They seemed to regard them with a certain awe, as if this type of behaviour had never been witnessed by society before. Learning about history, of course I learned that this has been done by previous groups, but they called themselves different names. These anti social groups posing as liberators bring instability, and eventually these beatniks become lawyers and doctors and captains of industry, because they saw their alternative lifestyles were not sustainable. At a certain point, they eschew squalor and their bank accounts vote in favour of viable careers. It's too bad that the media doesn't follow the trajectory of the arc that these so called free thinkers end up in.
Watching this made me realize that, to the best of my knowledge, Konstantin & Francis haven't yet had a recorded conversation with Matthew B. Crawford, an interesting philosopher & highly skilled motorcycle mechanic. Although less abstract, his ideas & ideals strike me as quite similar to the ideas & ideals that Stephen Blackwood is discussing in this conversation. Maybe Konstantin & Francis could have a recorded conversation with Matthew B. Crawford?
It would be interesting to compare discussions of meaning between diverse cultures. In other words, do you think that in a village in Africa or a small town in Ecuador or a mid-sized city in Thailand that they could more easily answer the question "What is meaningful to you," or "In your life, what are you prepared to dedicate time to, even if you will not see it completed?" or "Do you think there is a crisis of meaning in your country?" I think Americans assume that their "angst" is the same "angst" the world over. I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but I would like to see both quantitative and qualitative data before I believe that what we are talking about is universal.
I definitely couldn't listen to him for more than few minutes. His voice just comes in one ear and comes out another. I totally tuned out from what he was saying, more than once.
Whenever im asked whats the purpose of Life, my answer is: Life is the purpose. After this, nothing that i can tell you will make any sense, much less convince you (if that were to be my objective. Which it isnt) of the truth that resides on said affirmation. You will have to see/understand/realize for yourself, as i did myself. Dont worry, you will see the same as i did, with slight changes (not differences) as you are a different vessel from me. We are One.
Right , my words would be - being is meaning, that is they can not be separated. There is non-clarity.not understanding..if there was no meaning there would be no being. We can add wrappers which is what this guy is talking .
It’s about running around outside, in nature, with not a question at all about the meaning of life because the sun on your shoulders and the clean air in your lungs and your heat beating is what it is - perfection.
@@tim2muntu954 yes and no. Whilst one can indeed realize Life as the purpose, it will forever fall short of realizing the Nature of Life. Everything is beautifully designed (even what we might consider ugly,bad or disgusting). As such, so it is our capability to embrace knowledge so vast that it would take 2 brains to get a glimpse of it. We arent designed with 2 brains so there's limits to what we can know. And for good measure, for it may not be even beneficial to know all of it in our current form. Imagine a planet where a majority had already realize Life as the purpose and imagine the infinite possibilities from it. It would be tremendous.
Also Darwinism has devalued humans as being from another prototype, not from its own unique human prototype. The higher age perspective was of fourteen version of the human to its own unique prototype in a universal cycle. Darwinism destroyed that perspective. We are at risk from Atheism which comes up with bizarre ideologies; the next up is trans humanism or humans embedded with technology.
Read Camus, Myth of Sysiphus. In a world without meaning, you have to create it. And there are worthwhile things and idea. And Camus would sy being alive - playing soccer, dating, romance, running, being in the moment.. Hinduism basically says it's all of us and it, everything seen and unseen, that is divinity. Net of Indra - we are all connected, what you do to one effects all, each gem reflects the others.
@11:10 Why would you care to build something magnificent and lasting like a cathedral if you don't believe in your own immortality? Because you know that life continues after you're gone, just not for you personally. There is an egotism about religion that is so obvious, yet seldom recognised. It is this attitude of "Why should I care about anything if I don't get to exist forever?" Real humility is in recognising that your life really is limited, but your inevitable demise will not mean the end of life altogether. I am reminded of a few lines by a Finnish poet whose name escapes me... "When I've gone / When I've gone / The summer goes on / Summer!"
Someone got to Triggernometry. A host fell for a honey trap, or something. This is just demoralization propaganda. It's not antiwoke in the least and doesn't help. "We've knocked down OUR own load-bearing structures"? No. This was *done* to us. And all the people who did it have names and addresses.
I suggest that a significant part of the crisis we have arrived at today is owed to contemporary philosophy, i.e. postmodernism with all its leftist/marxist affiliates and genealogies. As Mr Blackwood stated at the beginning of this interview, man needs to have before him what is greater than himself -what opens a person to what is beyond himself - to become ourselves, and these have traditionally been summarized as the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Yet precisely philosophy today -and its derivatives, that have taken over our schools, universities and institutions --(leftist ideologies such as CRT, DEI, gender ideology) deny that such categories exist in the world, but are rather social constructions based on power dynamics, all of which can be replaced by the subjectivity of the individual and technology. Such a society is bound, paradoxically, not to genuine creativity and a genuine sense of self, but to the most completely uniformity, in turn subject to the control of these same ideologies. I find Stephen Blackwell fascinating and rarely insightful in his observations.
I think a good portion of this could be related to the fact that everyone's beliefs and meaning seems to be surrounding luxury beliefs. Many people in America give the absolute minimum of their attention to their current lives and their activities. Instead of looking at the things affecting them personally, they go out and march for a war on the opposite side of the planet. It's detached. It's probably just the internet in general causing this. Before, you focused on the immediate and had issues that affected you personally and it was all a very personal and meaningful experience, but in the modern day, Americans are crying in their cars over what a leader of Israel, Russia, or Ukraine said.
The hosts and guest express the idea that cities and too much density inherently leads to social ills. However, a high density city like Tokoyo is quite safe whereas low density Atlanta is quite unsafe. Maybe this is much more about how we design our cities? Buildings in cities are not necessarily ugly either, nor are they inherently unfriendly to human sensibilities. That is a choice. Conservatives needs to start asking themselves why cities has become so ugly, so alienating, so noisy, so human unfriendly.
They have done experiments with rats to show the effect of overcrowding/high density living. The rats got stressed when there were more of them in a high space and started attacking each other and were more susceptible to illness. Space and nature in particular is incredibly healing on the level of the body and the mind.
@@theinngu5560 Well, humans aren't rats. And real life examples show that you can have high density cities without much crime. Are there any evidence that American city dwellers are less stressed or less ill than their European or Japanese counterparts? I do agree that people need nature, but we are not all going back to living in nature. It is not gonna happen. Many people like the city, and need it as a center for economic activity. It is really a discussion about how cities are going to look, not if they are here to stay.
@@LightsaberGoBrrrrrr While Japan has a very high suicide rate (16.5 per 100k, Wikipedia), it is not the highest in the world. It is not even the highest among developed countries. In comparison, US has a suicide rate of 14.5. In general, I don't see a clear connection between population density and suicide. Yes, you have high density countries like Japan and South Korea with high rates, but you also have high density countries like Germany & UK with low rates. You have low population density countries like the baltic countries with high suicide rates, and you have low population density countries like Sweden and Norway with low suicide rates. But if you don't like Japan as an example, then take Western Europe where both crime and suicide is lower than America, despite much higher population density.
I've watched Peterson and others trying to define meaning and have not been satisfied. Defining "meaning" seems similar to a lefty defining a woman. ie it has meaning because its meaningful. Or because its something bigger than you. By that definition a Nazi camp guard was doing something meaningful! The closest I can interpret what they are saying is that things that engage you and lead to concentration/flow will be satisfying.
You are trying to talk about something "the sanctity of the Individual". Human rights. Without acknowledging that these are not Greek or Roman or Middle Eastern concepts ! They are Druidic. You ignore the fact that Western Europe was Druidic. From Galway Ireland to Galicia in Turkey. Religion Tradition and Law. That is the difference. Druidic society is Bottom Up not Top Down. That is why the Law is as it is. (Or ment to be)
Human beings are endowed with an immortal soul at the first moment of conception by The Living God!We are created by God to share fully in his life for ever and ever Amen! This relationship with the origion and source of all being is the missing link in the western world today!Without God man remains incomprehensible to himself and ends up in disspare!Only true contact God gives us validation of self completes our self and consulates our self total union with God and the unity of all humanity!
Cathedrals were built by people who needed to feed their families. Mortality is of course something close to all of our hearts but family knocks that right out of the park in my book. Looking at a cathedral or pretty building is not on the same page as seeing my granddaughter smiling in her rugby kit. so I will do anything on a daily basis to try to keep that going . It doesn't even have to be family , we all get emotional seeing strangers succeed hence the success of Olympics etc so we all have a desire to enjoy each others success and build on them. We don't need stories and buildings we need to be allowed to love each other and share. Just my thoughts.
Yeah, I really like Brutalist Architecture. It is about the simplicity of materials in the natural environment. It was about form and function over gaudiness of the large Cathedrals. Brutalism was about practicality.
Goal realism becomes as more information is gathered. When you're young, you have these lofty goals and can fool yourself into believing you'll achieve them, but as you grow up, you start to see the invisible barriers around you. How many of those barriers are real vs how many are like the dog with the invisible screen door effect. You train your brain by watching examples online, of people doing the things you want to do but failing, and this builds up a catalogue of "experiences" that your brain uses to justify whether something is worth the effort or not. Too much accumulation of negative experience may lead to a sort of "what's the point" attitude, thereby reducing the sense of meaning.
Odd though I never had had any lofty ambitions and have had a great life to date. Just bought into trying to do my best with what I had and not to beat myself up when I was crap at something. I suppose realising life is short and fun was to be had was my main driver. Maybe we over think stuff when we have time.
This may be another reason I hate the corporate motivational business and megachurch movement. No, people do not just get what they want because they put their mind to it.
The discussion on 'transcendence of self' did not cover the point, in relation to religion, that it is primarily the appeal to human inherent selfishness in the form of a reward (as is promised in the case in Christianity and Islam) that makes it attractive - not transcendent altruism.
This is very 'mid wit' stuff' and Francis, needless tis say, doesn't really rise to that relatively low level. One thing I would take issue with is the idea that the West is 'successful.. It might have been for a few hundred years, notwithstanding two world wars, but right now it is failing, undermined by more lunacies and demented pathologies than any societies in the history of the world.
@@KindGulagDehl3 That's very true. I cannot think of a sin that exists now that didn't exist 2,000 years ago. The difference between then and now is the visibility of those sins. And if you don't like the word sin, replace it with harmful behaviors.
Yeah, i think terry crews said that if you are brought up without your father, you miss your inheritance. Not as in the monetary sense, but in the sense that the story arc of your family through the ages.
Why are we in this mess? Humanity need intermittent periods of existential threat to make people appreciate what we have. And since the development of nuclear weapons we haven't had "little" wars in western democracies. And we become complacent and take things for granted and think only about ourselves. And it will only get worse.
Great topic though the guest didn’t quite land for me. Maybe a mismatch as he’s slow and not funny, and you guys are fast and humorous. He also spoke in little speeches rather than having a conversation. It makes him less meaningful ironically. I also don’t trust he really knows who’s suffering from the meaning crisis now.
Young boys turn to Andrew Tate because he's one of the few people speaking directly to the issues they feel they are facing. Many young people are turning to Marx because he is one of the few people who remarked on Alienation.
🌴🌴🩵🌈😎G-D BLESS YOU + THANK YOU, FRANCIS, KONSTANTIN + Stephen Blackwood. Ada v. (Australia - Toronto) BRILLIANT INTERVIEW + BRAVO 2 ALL YOUR FAB INTERVIEWS 💙💜🩵🌴🌴🌴
Left wing thinking needs to be phased out. It has caused so many problems. The right wing isn't necessarily the solution but it is causing less problems. We need something new which would resemble the ring wing but have a more spiritual element.
@@theinngu5560 It is a long road but it starts with the right having more kids and making sure they are not indoctrinated into left propaganda. Within a generation, we will see a positive impact.
@@theinngu5560 I argued to tolerate things like shrooms and DMT to aide in spiritual experience for all. One can argue that people should try to get spiritual experience without those. What is arguable is whether spiritual experience will show up to everyone in a timely manner.
We have a crisis of meaning, because we dissociated the body as a culture. We have a crisis of meaning, because we became alienated from each other through envy and narcism. Were cut off from what gives life meaning and full of shit that is actually pointless.
Wokeness has became a religion. Here, listen to a word from our sponsors; 3-2-1 Christianity. Self help is eventually leading us all back to church, huh? Like Elton John sang in that lion movie, it's the circle of life...
With regards to meaning, I feel like understanding reality in the context of a video game can be useful to some limited extent. In a video game you know (I would hope) what the purpose of the video game is, you will usually find out the bigger picture (or get told straight away) and discover the details of the game (more so as you play it). Given this, you can apply logic/etc/whatever to how YOU want to play the game. Obviously life is not exactly like a video game, there is (as far as I'm aware) no consciousness inside a video game, among many other dissimilarities. But real life is a bit like being thrown into a video game whereby you don't choose your character. Like all characters (I assume) you start off mostly ignorant. You don't choose the point in time/history you are in, etc, etc. You don't know the rules of the video game (laws of nature, etc), you don't KNOW the bigger picture (including whether the 'video game' has a creator or not, etc). You are (imo) both individually and collectively unlikely to 'figure out' the 'video game' of life during your/our life time. With the intergenerational transfer and development/recording of 'knowledge' hopefully our ignorance decreases over time. And so my point being, it's no wonder people struggle. Beliefs about this 'video game' that help us know how to orient our character within the video game (e.g. the bigger picture, the details, who our character is, etc, etc) are what enables us (imo) to have meaning, purpose, satisfaction, etc, in life. As I said, video games have no consciousness, reality is not a video game. Because consciousness exists (including suffering), morality is a real concept and something worth pursuing/holding on to. But my point is, looking at reality, to some extent, as like being thrown into a strange video game where we don't even know if it's a video game or not is imo conceptually helpful to benefiting people in life (regarding how to orient themselves, etc). I wish I had this view/mindset in my late teens/early 20s. I would have told myself to investigate reality, arrive at high level beliefs about the bigger picture (existential beliefs), the details (how reality works) and my character (who am I?), etc. Once I've established enough of these related beliefs I will (I think) find meaning, find purpose and begin to actually start my life. Note: this doesn't assume a one size fits all answer. Some will say the bigger picture is a particular kind of God and so that will affect how they interact with/view the 'video game' of life.'. Also. in my opinion, some aspect (perhaps a lot) of life are speculative and given the diversity of perspectives/points of view, variety of orientation would exist even without this level of speculation.
Religion GAVE ppl meaning. Without religion you personally have to think for yourself and create your own meaning. Live a purposeful life. It's work. It can be done. But most ppl would not take the responsibility but rather take the easy way of dictated meaning.
Besides, there is no insurance policy that the religions that exist actually give everyone meaning. If the Christpill worked, people who were forcibly Christpilled wouldn't decide to be redditors.
Fitting that a philosopher would explain to us why we have a lack of meaning, when it is philosophers who deconstructed everything to the point of meaninglessness.
10:14 I'd say a better example instead of brutalist buildings would be the communist flat blocks. Brutalism is at least making a statement in the language of aesthetics. The communist blocks aren't.
Stephen Blackwood's claim that 'meaning has to be found in something that transcends you, like family, beauty, or truth' is false. Meaning is not derived from something beyond yourself; it is grounded in values that serve your life and rational self-interest, such as truth, beauty, freedom, and, where appropriate, family. The only objective basis for justifying values is their contribution to your survival and flourishing as a rational being. This is the true unity of the practical and the moral. By glorifying transcendent values detached from individual needs and reality, one opens the door to arbitrary and ultimately impractical ideals. Ayn Rand got it right when she established meaning in rational self interest. As opposed the irrational ideals of mystics and the absent ideals of the nihilist.
Meaning is bimodal, bruv. People here aren't really understanding skepticism *proper* a la...Socrates, Hume, Kant, Karl Popper and Fresian traditions. From this stream of thought, ontological undecidability is precisely inevitable, necessarily so, by the nature of how our phenomenology intersects with epistemology. But the end result isn't solipsism, relativism, and the current-day plethora of postmodern mutations. At least not necessarily. There was another path. We need to go back to Kant and avoid Hegel et al. Meaning is neither exclusively found in the subject or object, the "first-person" or "third-person" perspective because neither can have ontological supremacy. But we can "save" empirical realism, if you want to "save science" and the like. We do not, however, have to sacrifice the numenous--the transcendental.
What we need ti do is create a decentralized system and structure for collective ideation, reasoning, and truth determination that keeps an immutable public record of what everyone believes is true and why through time.
@@KindGulagDehl3 Well nip down to Smiths in the morning, buy some Biros and get going ..... TIP the idea of "truth determination" is utter gibberish btw.
There is such a thing as human nature, and we find natural meaning by pursuing the answers to four essential questions brought to the forefront by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein… Who are you? And what do you want to do about it? What’s the biggest, most important problem you can solve with your gifts and skills? And what’s your plan to solve it? We find transcendent meaning when we build a community focused on helping our loved ones answer those questions. “How can I help you develop the skills you need to get the results you want? Because I can’t wait to see what you can become.”
You cannot help loved ones find the answers to transcendence until you know the truth yourself. Of course you can help loved ones in practical ways and comfort when needed but unless you have the purity of mind yourself which is very hard to attain, you cannot really help others to be really happy.
For the first time in history so many of us can spend real time learning and thinking and finding new food for our brains. Those of us who choose this path are content. Life is precious to us. The old ways of marry, have children and farm are not our final path. They are an easy place to fall on, just because it was done before. No need to destroy in order to build, that is also an old concept. Better to build on top of what worked
One of the few episodes I really disliked. Too much reliance on Christianity. I fear that we are resigning ourselves to the past without critically revisiting it and considering why it didn’t fit like a glove back then. I grew up in the church (Presbyterian), definitely not a bad place - but definitely doesn’t have all the answers. I struggle to understand why people can’t see the ultimate beauty of life through humanist secularism & science. Is the statistical improbability of our lives not more magical than something we’ve made up to get through the day? Can we not find joy in disciplining ourselves and aiming to be our most developed/sophisticated selves without some fictional character above us? Also, there’s a very unrealistic ideal in always « going back to the way things were » and slaughtering the animals ourselves. The Left has fallen for romanticisms of this sort not too long ago and now I fear I see the Right doing the same.
Ideas come from above not below. Look up, not down, you only see dirt. To think that someone is always higher than you, more intelligent than you, more peaceful than you, beautiful art , dancing,shining, free,singing and pure.
You fail to recognize just how much secular humanism is repackaged Christianity. We are innately religious. If not Christianity, then that longing for reunion with divinity will simply be applied elsewhere. If not secular humanism than political obsession, wokeness, or nihilism. Besides, of Christianity being of the “past” we need to break from is Progressive theology that arose after WW2. And God doesn’t live in the sky like a person.
Regarding endeavors such as building cathedrals over several generations, there are several examples, I think, of this happening today. As an example, would be the way that power systems are built to meet the needs of today but also in a way that aligns with future build outs to meet the needs of tomorrow. The difference is that one day the cathedral will be built; however something like a power system will forever evolve and change to meet the needs of current and future generations.
In my country I think that's an example of how electricity is nolonger built for future generations. In the 19th century beautiful hydro power plants were built. Today they clear forests, to install solar panels built in China with a life of 10-15 years and call that progress.
Are there drugs that induce meaning? People talk of ayahuasca like it gave them a window into another world. Perhaps there are chemically induced ways to either enhance meaning or render meaning a meaningless concept.
People do not see the long term effects of drugs like Ayahuasca, in wanting a quick fix, which will actually serve to make them more deluded in the long term. No, no, no chemically induced means are more likely to send you into a mental institution than any real understanding of meaning. The truth can be found by seeing the truth of mind and matter through right meditation.
I do not know if such things do or do not exist. However, I also suspect the drug war exists, because some people will never get any spiritual experience, and screw them. They will just have to fill that hole buy buying stupid stuff.
How does every other living species manage to live without the human notion of meaning? Or do other animals have meaning in their lives, or alternatively, do animals suffer from a similar lack of meaning? Are the squirrels digging up my bulbs in crisis?
Scott Peck wrote that we left the concept of 'evil' to religions, and science and psychology steered way clear of it. But that crippled us. I would like to reclaim it. When I was following Gabor Mate 's Compassionate Inquiry course, I was paired up with a priest and it was one of the things that bothered him the most. Compassion, yes - up to 90%, but not 100%
Know people by their actions not by what they say …no idea how they make a living but more importantly is to focus on our own faults and change that rather than what society does almost constantly…look at others and see their faults …
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
This analogy doesn't work because light is something that exists in the universe whereas meaning is a human construct. With the same approach you could prove the existence of god. If there is no god in this world, we couldn't think him. We think therefore he is. If you then understand that the same rings true for the Spaghetti Monster, you're all set to grasp the difference between a concept and objects in space.
@@felixmidas2020 I think you’re missing the point implied by the “no beings with eyes part”-if meaning isn’t something that exists then we shouldn’t have any organ, or part of an organ as the case is, to perceive it. And yet we all do. We don’t have any way of perceiving ‘spaghetti monsterfulness’ though haha.
In the Victorian era, people hated Victorian architecture. They liked Baroque architecture. In the Baroque era, people hated Baroque architecture. They liked Renaissance architecture. In the Renaissance, people hated Renaissance architecture. They liked Gothic architecture. This guy forgets that his view of beauty is biased and not fundamental at all.
@@ajs41 Popular opinion is pretty well documented from 1800 onwards and even earlier. With the previous eras you are probably correct. The point is, there's generally a long gestation period on aesthetics. Conservatives like Blackman have an even longer gestation period on aesthetics. Remember that Impressionism was once an affront to art and all things civil. Now it's bathroom calendar art in every home in Utah. Blackman would've been calling Impressionism an affront to all things civil if he were around in the Victorian era.
Speaking of ''finding a meaning''... i wonder what it makes me then when i think that, there really isnt any meaning to life in general!? We exist to consume, to suffer and everything we do is to ease the suffering. This is the only ''meaning'' you can actually prove and point your finger at! At the end of the day, nothing matters, we are all going to die in the end and everything we did in life matters not after we are gone!
@@theinngu5560 You really cant go beyond that because everything revolves around it for a living being. Definition of life itself is suffering. Every other ''meaning'' you conjure up is simply an imagination that gives you comfort to deal with suffering!
I have never heard of this "crisis of meaning" thing, and it is not defined in this video. From watching the video, it appears to mean that there are more than a few people who do not have something personal to give their life a meaningful focus "that they'd be willing to die for" (guest's words). But all that is meaningless. I am not being apathetic here. I assert that the pathological need for meaning is artificial, and a problem for people who USED TO have an answer to "meaning," but lost it and are now in a crisis... I am pleased that Stephen Blackwood brought up Viktor Frankl's book (Man's Search For Meaning), but his take-away is very different than mine: While in a National Socialist concentration camp, Frankl saw men commit suicide by running from the guards and tackling the barbed wire. Frankl found a short-term focus to council the other Jews to think of something that was worth fighting for, so they'd strive and persist and not kill themselves, thus the name of the book... I am skeptical that selflessness leads to "transcendence." It seems to me that this will lead to self-abnegation. Put another way, the "sanctity of the individual" (Konstantin Kisin's words) is the fundamental building block of every adult, but government is full of children who are too infatuated with the lens of woke-ness to have solid building blocks, and so their transcendent groupthink ideology is their blueprint instead of logic.
Hmm. Like your general drift. But neoMarxism? Marx was a socialist. Socialism values the group rather than a few. His communist manifesto is a dream, an ideal very much like the US Constitution. "Each according to his need." "Each according to his abilities." Marxists have values. I wish many of the socialist groups would focus on class rather than Woke. Love the socialism in Western Europe. It's based on values and ... frankly, it's nice. Society works.
We have a crisis of meaning because of a lack of faith. People today are taught that there is no free will or a creator. Taught that self deterministic is in the hands of external forces. There is no self autonomy. Made to feel desperate with no hope. That's hell!!!!! Suffering without a path forward. Lost faith left with a failure to thrive...
I would argue faith or a relationship with God is one form of connection to "the greater" but not the only one. This connection to "the greater" is where we derive meaning from.
@KindGulagDehl3 I'm not familiar with "the greater" you write about. Any part that may appear to make me great is just my obedience to truth, which our creator has given us. There is nothing greater to seek than by his word.
People today are not taught that there is no free will or a creator. It's just obvious to anybody who has a single independent thought in their head. A creator and free will are the superstitions notions of the Dark Ages.
But this kind of faith, whilst it may be helpful and better than the aimlessness that so many have/feel today, is based on blind belief….belief in a Creator God that no one has ever seen and though deemed to be all compassionate and omniscient, this Creator God chose to create deformed, sick, poor humans who fight with each other because they hold different views. It doesn’t add up …if the Creator God was so powerful and also infinitely compassionate, why would they create humans subject to so much suffering ? No there is no Creator God. Consider that the modus operandi of life is cause and effect….this leads to meaning! You get to see that if you help others, others will not only help you but you will feel happier if you help with a good intention …if you are good, generous, kind etc , that will come back to you and if you are nasty, angry, steal, greedy, then this will also come back in you and make you feel miserable. Once you see this you will search for a way which will change your habits so that you do become a ‘better’ person so that you will become happier and less selfish…….
But blind belief in a Creator who is deemed omniscient and compassionate yet has never been seen won’t stop the crisis and if looked at with even a tiny bit of objective enquiry, one would have to question why a creator would create disabled, poor people who have different views over which some will fight and who ultimately die ? Faith is good when based on wisdom but not if blind.
I never thought I with my atheism, my eclectic attempt to learn from everybody's wisdom, my constant self-doubt and re-adaptation, was responsible for the downfall of civilisation.
Don't conflate atheism with skepticism. It really is a shame that the "woke mind virus" actually took down both "movements" from the inside out. Ironic, though lol People aren't really understanding skepticism *proper* a la...Socrates, Hume, Kant, Karl Popper and Fresian traditions. From this stream of thought, ontological undecidability is precisely inevitable, necessarily so, by the nature of how our phenomenology intersects with epistemology. But the end result isn't solipsism, relativism, and the current-day plethora of postmodern mutations. At least not necessarily. There was another path. We need to go back to Kant and avoid Hegel et al., so that we can better understand/grapple with Nietzsche. Meaning is neither exclusively found in the subject or object, the "first-person" or "third-person" perspective because neither can have ontological supremacy. People need to read Aristotle, bruv lol But we can "save" empirical realism, if you want to "save science" and the like. We do not, however, have to sacrifice the numenous--the transcendental. "God" is the shortcut to get there. It's a heuristic. An effective one, at that. So much so, it's obvious why it would get corrupted. Religion and politics are both avenues of mass influence and control. The smaller government argument applies here one-to-one. So find something between atheism and dogmatism. Good luck. The only way to do so, is to put in the WORK. Build your worldview from the bottom up. Sure, take influence from others. Use teachers. Don't blindly follow them. Do the work.
I was always skeptical about everything I was told about belief. I have to wonder if I would collapse Plato's Republic because I would seek the truth behind so called "Noble lies."
Just as a disclaimer, this guy is known as a bit of a hack in academia. His “university” that he founded isn’t accredited nor is it recognized as a serious organization by any of the thousands of actual Universities that practice philosophy. I’m currently in my 4th year of a philosophy major at University of Toronto, and though this guy attended my school, he’s not so much a philosopher as a historian of specially Boethius. The title is rather misleading as studying Rome and even Roman philosophy is very, very different from studying philosophy (which spans everyone from Thales to modern-day). Not saying he’s wrong, but just be sure to take what this guy says with a grain of salt, and do your own research. I wouldn’t trust his word on anything other than specifically Boethius, especially given he seems to have a political motive. P.S. for a good, reputable sources on philsophy I suggest Michael Sugrue on TH-cam (a former Princeton Philosophy Professor) and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) for more in-depth reading (it’s free and online).
@@avengemybreath3084 It depends on what it is. Philosophy is a discipline much in the same way STEM is, meaning there are clearly right and wrong interpretations of thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc. Though it’s not as clear-cut as STEM, there is still some black and whiteness there (you can’t claim Descartes is an empiricist, Plato a relativist, or Kant a skeptic). Given that, there is a high likelihood that a university not being recognized by Academia has much to do with a lack of proper representation of core concepts, as supposed to any ideological agenda. Further, without the basis of over 200 years of academic philosophy, it’s very hard to judge the validity of claims without becoming a scholar yourself. I’ve read and studied most major (western) philosophers, but assuming you haven’t, you’ll have a hard time verifying his claims. This is why sources like the SEP are so valuable, as they let you openly verify any claims, and see which are clearly true (Kant’s copernican revolution) and ones that are debatable (whether Hume was a skeptic or not). Disregarding academia based purely on the conception that it’s “woke” is dangerous, as it allows openly false opinions to be seen as valid purely because they’re said by people you have sympathy for. Again, not saying you’re doing that, but ignoring the thousands of academics who study this for careers, in favour of a guy who’s clearly politically motivated and only studied one philosopher, is imho dumb. Do your research, and come to your own conclusions. Academia is just another source that helps you, albeit one that is rigorous in its maintenance of professional standards and clarity.
It's not so exactly meaning, though that plays a big part, it's a crisis of identity. We humans create meaning by myths and rituals - in both of which meaning of course plays a big part - but what makes identity is when we actually ritualize and mythologize some meaning. For example, separating trash into color coded trash dumpsters or bins, is a modern ritual with a modern mythology. That recycling is largely dysfunctional is something people would often resent you for mentioning - because they sense it's hollowing out their ritual which in turn challenges their identity as highly moral individuals. Of late it seems going to demonstrations to shout Jihadist-Islamist propaganda is also becoming a ritual granting a strong sense of identity to many. Tl;dr to solve crisis of identity in west there is a need to create new, hopefully healthy, myths and rituals.
Modern architecture is very bland and lifeless. Their fatal flaw is they lack culture and sense of history. No one goes to the UK to see the Shard because an artless glass and concrete building could be found in the US, Europe, China, India, or really anywhere. It's a Western style but artless and found everywhere
Wow, no need to insert religion, looking at the data one could make the case that religion brings more harm than good. The most religious regions of the U.S. have some of the worst health and education stats. Ideology (any) is too malleable for personal benefit, there is a tendency to dehumanize those outside of the ideological group (and often those within). We've had a good run from the 50's till now, and no doubt we have to excise the post-modern left wing ideology, but we should continue on the path that got western society to where it was prior to that poison. Let's act on the facts, not try and insert a "better" ideology.
@@homemaintenance1234 I said ANY ideology that includes Communism. Show me a healthy democratic system that has fallen into chaos? That is what is starting to happen here with post modern identity politics....no need for religion to reverse this trend. In fact religion will not succeed as it replaces one flawed ideology with another.
@@Eclipto14 Even "dumb" people know when they're being manipulated, they are leaving religious dogma behind in droves. It won't work, we need to go straight after the identarian left.
Stop saying “they themselves”…it’s redundant! They and themselves means the same thing. It’s like I Myself personally think…it’s just “I think”. Simple grammar and word meanings. I, myself, and personally mean the same thing.. I think.
if you want buildings that look as though they were built 200 years ago, why don't you drive around in a horse and cart and forget flying, take a sailing ship?
@@avengemybreath3084Buildings serve a purpose. They need to be adapted to the times. The needs of the time of horse and buggy are very different from the needs of the modern era.
JOIN our Locals community to hear *Stephen* answer audience questions: triggernometry.locals.com/
CHAPTERS👇
00:00 Trailer
00:39 We’re living in a meaning crisis
02:36 What is meaning?
04:38 Ideological nihilism
06:37 Losing our religion
09:15 Architecture betrays ideology
11:08 People no longer sacrifice for higher causes
14:41 Importance of beautiful buildings
18:26 How city living affects us
22:14 SPONSOR: 321 Course
23:24 Will decadence inevitably lead to our demise?
25:53 Ravenous for meaning
27:31 Transcendence through selflessness
32:27 What is Western civilization?
37:11 Upholding the sanctity of the individual creates successful societies
40:45 Freedom also creates instability
43:08 We’ve knocked out our own load-bearing structures
45:15 Malicious iconoclasm
47:42 SPONSOR: SimpliSafe
48:51 We must call evil by its name
51:52 The psychological brokenness behind woke rebellion
54:20 We’ve failed our young people
56:03 Modernisation has led to dislocation
59:12 We are not adapted to handle this technology
1:00:58 Why people turn to Marxism & other ideologies
1:05:53 What’s the one thing we’re not talking about?
This is exactly the topic that I needed to listen to. Thanks team!
For life to have meaning we have to understand the meaning of life and few know that today. Atheistic science has put the nail in the coffin of meaning by positing that only the material or elemental exists. Meanwhile they are clueless about consciousness. It is the so-called ‘hard problem’ for philosophy. Now atheism is coming up with its next ideology: trans humanism. Religion, the definition of which is that to which we are bound, which is essentially Reality will be a bulwark against that ideology. The trans human proponents do not know what Reality is and that is their problem.
@triggerpod How possible could it be that George Floyd's autopsy was falsified by an unregistered foreign agent with the political authority to do so? Could establishing the illusion of modern systemic racism in the US also give foreign governments plausible deniability of any guilt, by also claiming to be victims of false accusations motivated by racism?
I really do think Francis is thoughtful and asks excellent questions to bring out important points. This is why I started watching them in the first place as they started.
Me too
You two make such a good team. I know Konstantin is on an intellectual journey but Francis is the grounding which he needs. Don't fuck it up with ego.
Yes Francis does have valuable insights …his talking about mortality is valuable. Mortality is what people have always feared throughout the ages and a lot of what people do is just a distraction from contemplating this ….trying to do something meaningful with your life so that you do something that transcends your life is also a distraction. People can find the answers through looking inwards at their minds, looking at their reactions to various triggers and quieting the mind. This is real transcending, if done with a viable teacher who has ‘arrived’ themselves.
America has stopped dreaming. I remember the late 1950's and early l1960's, America dreamed about how the future will be. Today, we don't dream anymore, we stopped moving forward.
The tone of movies made then and the ones starting in the 1970s changed dramatically and has gotten worse and worse.
Yeah, Rafael! And we never did get our little Jetson's flying cars. I'm pissed!
@@TTFN55Or my jetpack
@@robertbrandywine
Yes, sitting in a comfortable couch with all the world's collected information in your hand while literally interacting with your entertainment system...
It sure sounds awful.
Dreaming never helped…it’s just hope and life never turns out as you hope/dream. Dreaming is not the answer. Knowing that you cannot change the world but you can change yourself if you find the right way/teacher and make considerable effort, then you let go of trying to do the impossible and are more effect in what you do do but don’t cry when things out there aren’t perfect…it leads to peace of mind and unless people find peace of mind, you can forget about peace out there.
I red Viktor Frankl when I was in my twenties and it absolutely changed my life, now more than ever we have to return to the great values of our lives, leave the nihilistic world views!
I read the Bible cover to cover this summer. I wished I'd have done it sooner. The big picture was liberating.
They make an excellent team, between them they get to the heart of things very quickly. With humility and humanity, always ready to be funny and insightful, questioning as needs be.
Hence the quality of guests they get,have done since COVID started.
When they were essential in debunking that nonsense.
Thanks lads
The main problem I have seen with work is people who want to sell themselves as leaders yet very obviously are about "me first". In such a situation you are naive to trust them and need to consider yourself first, if not you'll be abused. So a breakdown of ethics causes a breakdown of trust, and here we are.
This interview is exactly what my thoughts are all about these days. I would even add 'morality' to meaning, which I'm sad had only been left to religion (and the mob 😅)
In regards to islam ... it spread globally owing to overwhelming violence rather than evangelisation ir pursuasion, and direct penalties for those who attempt to leave . All religions are NOT the same.
We planted trees, that we would never enjoy the shade of
This is a great discussion. I have never had religion, do not desire to have religion, and I have never had a crisis of meaning. Of course, I was also not subjected to Marxism or postmodernism as a foundational view and come from late Gen X culture.
Merci de nous rappeler le bien que cela fait d'aider l'autre, l'inconnu ou celui proche de vous. So good for oneself to be able to help the other, be it your friend or a stranger.
Thanks guys, great conversation - as always ❤
Thanks!
Wonderful, deep discussion. This discussion goes far, far deeper than just being against or for certain issues such as trans. And by coincidence, I just read Victor Frankl's path-breaking book when he survived Auschwitz, written in 1945 in just nine days straight off, "Man's Search For Meaning". This discussion and that book go right together as a pair.
Many congratulations on your first million followers 🎉 guys
Fascinating connection between consciousness and meaning.
Makes so much sense. So refreshing. I was very very left leaning in my youth; it just seemed that the 'right' was dictatorial, but when the hippies came to town, and selected the wealthiest business district to squat, I began to question the left. The left, of course was lauded by Hollywood and TV, and even the news reporters. They seemed to regard them with a certain awe, as if this type of behaviour had never been witnessed by society before. Learning about history, of course I learned that this has been done by previous groups, but they called themselves different names. These anti social groups posing as liberators bring instability, and eventually these beatniks become lawyers and doctors and captains of industry, because they saw their alternative lifestyles were not sustainable. At a certain point, they eschew squalor and their bank accounts vote in favour of viable careers. It's too bad that the media doesn't follow the trajectory of the arc that these so called free thinkers end up in.
Watching this made me realize that, to the best of my knowledge, Konstantin & Francis haven't yet had a recorded conversation with Matthew B. Crawford, an interesting philosopher & highly skilled motorcycle mechanic. Although less abstract, his ideas & ideals strike me as quite similar to the ideas & ideals that Stephen Blackwood is discussing in this conversation. Maybe Konstantin & Francis could have a recorded conversation with Matthew B. Crawford?
Well this was incredible! 🔥
It would be interesting to compare discussions of meaning between diverse cultures. In other words, do you think that in a village in Africa or a small town in Ecuador or a mid-sized city in Thailand that they could more easily answer the question "What is meaningful to you," or "In your life, what are you prepared to dedicate time to, even if you will not see it completed?" or "Do you think there is a crisis of meaning in your country?" I think Americans assume that their "angst" is the same "angst" the world over. I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but I would like to see both quantitative and qualitative data before I believe that what we are talking about is universal.
We have a crisis of having too many crises.
That’s what Schmachtenberger, Vervaeke and Hall refer to as “meta-crisis.”
We have a crisis of histrionics.
This guy could definitely do audio acting. His voice is relaxing but you still have to listen
His voice is a bit abrasive to me, but I'm British so maybe that explains it.
I definitely couldn't listen to him for more than few minutes. His voice just comes in one ear and comes out another. I totally tuned out from what he was saying, more than once.
Whenever im asked whats the purpose of Life, my answer is: Life is the purpose.
After this, nothing that i can tell you will make any sense, much less convince you (if that were to be my objective. Which it isnt) of the truth that resides on said affirmation.
You will have to see/understand/realize for yourself, as i did myself.
Dont worry, you will see the same as i did, with slight changes (not differences) as you are a different vessel from me.
We are One.
Right , my words would be - being is meaning, that is they can not be separated.
There is non-clarity.not understanding..if there was no meaning there would be no being.
We can add wrappers which is what this guy is talking .
So, life is of intrinsic value. Cool answer.
It’s about running around outside, in nature, with not a question at all about the meaning of life because the sun on your shoulders and the clean air in your lungs and your heat beating is what it is - perfection.
Another way of saying, "I don't know."
@@tim2muntu954 yes and no.
Whilst one can indeed realize Life as the purpose, it will forever fall short of realizing the Nature of Life. Everything is beautifully designed (even what we might consider ugly,bad or disgusting). As such, so it is our capability to embrace knowledge so vast that it would take 2 brains to get a glimpse of it. We arent designed with 2 brains so there's limits to what we can know. And for good measure, for it may not be even beneficial to know all of it in our current form.
Imagine a planet where a majority had already realize Life as the purpose and imagine the infinite possibilities from it. It would be tremendous.
very good interview.
one of the Best lately.
keep going
Great point. We're so blessed that we have forgotten how to survive.
And it's good or bad?
Also Darwinism has devalued humans as being from another prototype, not from its own unique human prototype. The higher age perspective was of fourteen version of the human to its own unique prototype in a universal cycle. Darwinism destroyed that perspective. We are at risk from Atheism which comes up with bizarre ideologies; the next up is trans humanism or humans embedded with technology.
@@jacklondon999a life that is too comfortable and without tension is not good. It will make people feel empty
@@jacklondon999 Death still comes for us all. Forgetting how to survive then is pretty bad.
@@brianmeen2158 agree. so, is life good?
Read Camus, Myth of Sysiphus. In a world without meaning, you have to create it. And there are worthwhile things and idea. And Camus would sy being alive - playing soccer, dating, romance, running, being in the moment.. Hinduism basically says it's all of us and it, everything seen and unseen, that is divinity. Net of Indra - we are all connected, what you do to one effects all, each gem reflects the others.
@11:10 Why would you care to build something magnificent and lasting like a cathedral if you don't believe in your own immortality? Because you know that life continues after you're gone, just not for you personally. There is an egotism about religion that is so obvious, yet seldom recognised. It is this attitude of "Why should I care about anything if I don't get to exist forever?" Real humility is in recognising that your life really is limited, but your inevitable demise will not mean the end of life altogether. I am reminded of a few lines by a Finnish poet whose name escapes me... "When I've gone / When I've gone / The summer goes on / Summer!"
If people feel a lack of meaning, its because they have bought into the lack of meaning industry.
Someone got to Triggernometry. A host fell for a honey trap, or something. This is just demoralization propaganda. It's not antiwoke in the least and doesn't help. "We've knocked down OUR own load-bearing structures"? No. This was *done* to us. And all the people who did it have names and addresses.
Engaging discussion, thank you
I suggest that a significant part of the crisis we have arrived at today is owed to contemporary philosophy, i.e. postmodernism with all its leftist/marxist affiliates and genealogies. As Mr Blackwood stated at the beginning of this interview, man needs to have before him what is greater than himself -what opens a person to what is beyond himself - to become ourselves, and these have traditionally been summarized as the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Yet precisely philosophy today -and its derivatives, that have taken over our schools, universities and institutions --(leftist ideologies such as CRT, DEI, gender ideology) deny that such categories exist in the world, but are rather social constructions based on power dynamics, all of which can be replaced by the subjectivity of the individual and technology. Such a society is bound, paradoxically, not to genuine creativity and a genuine sense of self, but to the most completely uniformity, in turn subject to the control of these same ideologies. I find Stephen Blackwell fascinating and rarely insightful in his observations.
We should apply this philosophy to the creation of our systems, laws, the UN, social networks, unions and other things that define our way of life.
I think a good portion of this could be related to the fact that everyone's beliefs and meaning seems to be surrounding luxury beliefs.
Many people in America give the absolute minimum of their attention to their current lives and their activities. Instead of looking at the things affecting them personally, they go out and march for a war on the opposite side of the planet. It's detached.
It's probably just the internet in general causing this. Before, you focused on the immediate and had issues that affected you personally and it was all a very personal and meaningful experience, but in the modern day, Americans are crying in their cars over what a leader of Israel, Russia, or Ukraine said.
They way people distrust they may as well be as threatening to cause everyone to lock themselves in until there is no reason to live. Success!
The hosts and guest express the idea that cities and too much density inherently leads to social ills. However, a high density city like Tokoyo is quite safe whereas low density Atlanta is quite unsafe. Maybe this is much more about how we design our cities?
Buildings in cities are not necessarily ugly either, nor are they inherently unfriendly to human sensibilities. That is a choice.
Conservatives needs to start asking themselves why cities has become so ugly, so alienating, so noisy, so human unfriendly.
They have done experiments with rats to show the effect of overcrowding/high density living. The rats got stressed when there were more of them in a high space and started attacking each other and were more susceptible to illness. Space and nature in particular is incredibly healing on the level of the body and the mind.
Small space …typo error
@@theinngu5560 Well, humans aren't rats. And real life examples show that you can have high density cities without much crime.
Are there any evidence that American city dwellers are less stressed or less ill than their European or Japanese counterparts?
I do agree that people need nature, but we are not all going back to living in nature. It is not gonna happen. Many people like the city, and need it as a center for economic activity. It is really a discussion about how cities are going to look, not if they are here to stay.
@@Foobarskiforget crime. What about mental health rates? What about suicide rates? Japan has the highest suicide rate of any country by far
@@LightsaberGoBrrrrrr While Japan has a very high suicide rate (16.5 per 100k, Wikipedia), it is not the highest in the world. It is not even the highest among developed countries. In comparison, US has a suicide rate of 14.5. In general, I don't see a clear connection between population density and suicide. Yes, you have high density countries like Japan and South Korea with high rates, but you also have high density countries like Germany & UK with low rates. You have low population density countries like the baltic countries with high suicide rates, and you have low population density countries like Sweden and Norway with low suicide rates.
But if you don't like Japan as an example, then take Western Europe where both crime and suicide is lower than America, despite much higher population density.
I listened to the podcast. This guy sounds like Paul Rudd trying to speak like Jordan Peterson but accidentally channeling Simon Sinek.
Thanks for doing this episode with Stephen Blackwood. I really enjoyed it.
❤FRANCIS❤
Nice...the naked ape informed my 30s...glad to have read d morris too
I've watched Peterson and others trying to define meaning and have not been satisfied. Defining "meaning" seems similar to a lefty defining a woman. ie it has meaning because its meaningful.
Or because its something bigger than you. By that definition a Nazi camp guard was doing something meaningful!
The closest I can interpret what they are saying is that things that engage you and lead to concentration/flow will be satisfying.
You are trying to talk about something "the sanctity of the Individual". Human rights.
Without acknowledging that these are not Greek or Roman or Middle Eastern concepts !
They are Druidic. You ignore the fact that Western Europe was Druidic. From Galway Ireland to Galicia in Turkey. Religion Tradition and Law.
That is the difference. Druidic society is Bottom Up not Top Down.
That is why the Law is as it is.
(Or ment to be)
Human beings are endowed with an immortal soul at the first moment of conception by The Living God!We are created by God to share fully in his life for ever and ever Amen! This relationship with the origion and source of all being is the missing link in the western world today!Without God man remains incomprehensible to himself and ends up in disspare!Only true contact God gives us validation of self completes our self and consulates our self total union with God and the unity of all humanity!
Consumates
Cathedrals were built by people who needed to feed their families. Mortality is of course something close to all of our hearts but family knocks that right out of the park in my book. Looking at a cathedral or pretty building is not on the same page as seeing my granddaughter smiling in her rugby kit. so I will do anything on a daily basis to try to keep that going . It doesn't even have to be family , we all get emotional seeing strangers succeed hence the success of Olympics etc so we all have a desire to enjoy each others success and build on them. We don't need stories and buildings we need to be allowed to love each other and share. Just my thoughts.
Yeah, I really like Brutalist Architecture. It is about the simplicity of materials in the natural environment. It was about form and function over gaudiness of the large Cathedrals. Brutalism was about practicality.
Goal realism becomes as more information is gathered. When you're young, you have these lofty goals and can fool yourself into believing you'll achieve them, but as you grow up, you start to see the invisible barriers around you. How many of those barriers are real vs how many are like the dog with the invisible screen door effect. You train your brain by watching examples online, of people doing the things you want to do but failing, and this builds up a catalogue of "experiences" that your brain uses to justify whether something is worth the effort or not. Too much accumulation of negative experience may lead to a sort of "what's the point" attitude, thereby reducing the sense of meaning.
Odd though I never had had any lofty ambitions and have had a great life to date. Just bought into trying to do my best with what I had and not to beat myself up when I was crap at something. I suppose realising life is short and fun was to be had was my main driver. Maybe we over think stuff when we have time.
@@chrisbuggy4849 Having time to sit and think is both a gift and a curse.
This may be another reason I hate the corporate motivational business and megachurch movement. No, people do not just get what they want because they put their mind to it.
This hurt my feelings and should be illegal in not just California but across the country...
/sarcasm
Get David Benatar on the show
The discussion on 'transcendence of self' did not cover the point, in relation to religion, that it is primarily the appeal to human inherent selfishness in the form of a reward (as is promised in the case in Christianity and Islam) that makes it attractive - not transcendent altruism.
Why do animals have a limited understanding? Animals don't build like humanity doing. It is because they want to reach the stars.
This is very 'mid wit' stuff' and Francis, needless tis say, doesn't really rise to that relatively low level. One thing I would take issue with is the idea that the West
is 'successful.. It might have been for a few hundred years, notwithstanding two world wars, but right now it is failing, undermined by more lunacies and demented pathologies than any societies in the history of the world.
I think you underestimate just how much crazy stuff people from every other time period believed as a comparison. It's just public now.
Amen. ❤
If the West was not a success, has there been a success and what was that success?
@@KindGulagDehl3 That's very true. I cannot think of a sin that exists now that didn't exist 2,000 years ago. The difference between then and now is the visibility of those sins. And if you don't like the word sin, replace it with harmful behaviors.
@@jimbo9305 internet addiction?
When fathers are excluded from the lives of their children they cannot pass on concepts and ideas to them. Look to the causes of absent fathers.
Yeah, i think terry crews said that if you are brought up without your father, you miss your inheritance. Not as in the monetary sense, but in the sense that the story arc of your family through the ages.
Why are we in this mess? Humanity need intermittent periods of existential threat to make people appreciate what we have. And since the development of nuclear weapons we haven't had "little" wars in western democracies. And we become complacent and take things for granted and think only about ourselves. And it will only get worse.
What a glorious conversation. Live WITHOUT thinking, "What's next." !!
Wish they had spent more time on the individual responsibility between self and Self.@mr.mithmoth
Great topic though the guest didn’t quite land for me. Maybe a mismatch as he’s slow and not funny, and you guys are fast and humorous. He also spoke in little speeches rather than having a conversation. It makes him less meaningful ironically. I also don’t trust he really knows who’s suffering from the meaning crisis now.
Like most Americans, the guest is too fond of his own voice for my liking as a British person. Sorry if that offends anyone.
Interesting article 👍 👏
Sorry to say guys, but the rapid frequency of ads in this episode make it unwatchable.
it's all about the dumdumdidditydum
Their own ads were interrupted by YT ads
Young boys turn to Andrew Tate because he's one of the few people speaking directly to the issues they feel they are facing. Many young people are turning to Marx because he is one of the few people who remarked on Alienation.
@@good_ant If the church men don't make effective valid points, grifters will attract people with valid points.
High purpose ? REVOLUTION
🌴🌴🩵🌈😎G-D BLESS YOU + THANK YOU, FRANCIS, KONSTANTIN + Stephen Blackwood. Ada v. (Australia - Toronto) BRILLIANT INTERVIEW + BRAVO 2 ALL YOUR FAB INTERVIEWS 💙💜🩵🌴🌴🌴
Left wing thinking needs to be phased out. It has caused so many problems. The right wing isn't necessarily the solution but it is causing less problems. We need something new which would resemble the ring wing but have a more spiritual element.
Yes but how ?
@@theinngu5560 It is a long road but it starts with the right having more kids and making sure they are not indoctrinated into left propaganda. Within a generation, we will see a positive impact.
@@theinngu5560 I argued to tolerate things like shrooms and DMT to aide in spiritual experience for all.
One can argue that people should try to get spiritual experience without those. What is arguable is whether spiritual experience will show up to everyone in a timely manner.
When your metaphors aren’t load bearing your whole argument falls down
We have a crisis of meaning, because we dissociated the body as a culture. We have a crisis of meaning, because we became alienated from each other through envy and narcism. Were cut off from what gives life meaning and full of shit that is actually pointless.
Wokeness has became a religion.
Here, listen to a word from our sponsors; 3-2-1 Christianity.
Self help is eventually leading us all back to church, huh?
Like Elton John sang in that lion movie, it's the circle of life...
With regards to meaning, I feel like understanding reality in the context of a video game can be useful to some limited extent. In a video game you know (I would hope) what the purpose of the video game is, you will usually find out the bigger picture (or get told straight away) and discover the details of the game (more so as you play it). Given this, you can apply logic/etc/whatever to how YOU want to play the game.
Obviously life is not exactly like a video game, there is (as far as I'm aware) no consciousness inside a video game, among many other dissimilarities. But real life is a bit like being thrown into a video game whereby you don't choose your character. Like all characters (I assume) you start off mostly ignorant. You don't choose the point in time/history you are in, etc, etc.
You don't know the rules of the video game (laws of nature, etc), you don't KNOW the bigger picture (including whether the 'video game' has a creator or not, etc). You are (imo) both individually and collectively unlikely to 'figure out' the 'video game' of life during your/our life time. With the intergenerational transfer and development/recording of 'knowledge' hopefully our ignorance decreases over time.
And so my point being, it's no wonder people struggle. Beliefs about this 'video game' that help us know how to orient our character within the video game (e.g. the bigger picture, the details, who our character is, etc, etc) are what enables us (imo) to have meaning, purpose, satisfaction, etc, in life.
As I said, video games have no consciousness, reality is not a video game. Because consciousness exists (including suffering), morality is a real concept and something worth pursuing/holding on to. But my point is, looking at reality, to some extent, as like being thrown into a strange video game where we don't even know if it's a video game or not is imo conceptually helpful to benefiting people in life (regarding how to orient themselves, etc).
I wish I had this view/mindset in my late teens/early 20s. I would have told myself to investigate reality, arrive at high level beliefs about the bigger picture (existential beliefs), the details (how reality works) and my character (who am I?), etc. Once I've established enough of these related beliefs I will (I think) find meaning, find purpose and begin to actually start my life.
Note: this doesn't assume a one size fits all answer. Some will say the bigger picture is a particular kind of God and so that will affect how they interact with/view the 'video game' of life.'. Also. in my opinion, some aspect (perhaps a lot) of life are speculative and given the diversity of perspectives/points of view, variety of orientation would exist even without this level of speculation.
Religion GAVE ppl meaning.
Without religion you personally have to think for yourself and create your own meaning. Live a purposeful life. It's work. It can be done. But most ppl would not take the responsibility but rather take the easy way of dictated meaning.
Besides, there is no insurance policy that the religions that exist actually give everyone meaning.
If the Christpill worked, people who were forcibly Christpilled wouldn't decide to be redditors.
This conversation fundamentally does not understand people.
This guy has spent too much of his life just reading books instead of just BEING
Academics. Am I right?
No
Without a transcendent narrative that you fit in (usually found in religion) this conversation is largely fruitless
How dare you accuse Beaver and Butthead of fruitless conversations. Their fans think that they are funny and cool.
@jacklondon999 all fans of a thing like the thing. That's not just obvious, it's tautalogical. Your statement was pointless and stupid
@@jacklondon999 I mean those dudes never scored. They are the incels of their time.
Fitting that a philosopher would explain to us why we have a lack of meaning, when it is philosophers who deconstructed everything to the point of meaninglessness.
They "deconstruct" everything to undermine society and fill in the power vacuum. They get offended when their sacred ideologies are deconstructed
10:14 I'd say a better example instead of brutalist buildings would be the communist flat blocks. Brutalism is at least making a statement in the language of aesthetics. The communist blocks aren't.
More to the point there is a crisis in the meaning of crisis.
Stephen Blackwood's claim that 'meaning has to be found in something that transcends you, like family, beauty, or truth' is false. Meaning is not derived from something beyond yourself; it is grounded in values that serve your life and rational self-interest, such as truth, beauty, freedom, and, where appropriate, family. The only objective basis for justifying values is their contribution to your survival and flourishing as a rational being. This is the true unity of the practical and the moral. By glorifying transcendent values detached from individual needs and reality, one opens the door to arbitrary and ultimately impractical ideals.
Ayn Rand got it right when she established meaning in rational self interest. As opposed the irrational ideals of mystics and the absent ideals of the nihilist.
Meaning is bimodal, bruv. People here aren't really understanding skepticism *proper* a la...Socrates, Hume, Kant, Karl Popper and Fresian traditions.
From this stream of thought, ontological undecidability is precisely inevitable, necessarily so, by the nature of how our phenomenology intersects with epistemology.
But the end result isn't solipsism, relativism, and the current-day plethora of postmodern mutations. At least not necessarily.
There was another path. We need to go back to Kant and avoid Hegel et al. Meaning is neither exclusively found in the subject or object, the "first-person" or "third-person" perspective because neither can have ontological supremacy.
But we can "save" empirical realism, if you want to "save science" and the like. We do not, however, have to sacrifice the numenous--the transcendental.
Indeed.
If everyone believes a lie does that make it true? People seem to believe we can have a poll on truth.
We do, every 5 years ....
It's called brainwashing and Propaganda. It works apparently.
What we need ti do is create a decentralized system and structure for collective ideation, reasoning, and truth determination that keeps an immutable public record of what everyone believes is true and why through time.
@@KindGulagDehl3 Well nip down to Smiths in the morning, buy some Biros and get going ..... TIP the idea of "truth determination" is utter gibberish btw.
@MrVorpalsword what do you mean?
Stephen reminds me of Carmine Lupertazzi Jr from The Sopranos.
There is such a thing as human nature, and we find natural meaning by pursuing the answers to four essential questions brought to the forefront by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein…
Who are you? And what do you want to do about it?
What’s the biggest, most important problem you can solve with your gifts and skills? And what’s your plan to solve it?
We find transcendent meaning when we build a community focused on helping our loved ones answer those questions.
“How can I help you develop the skills you need to get the results you want? Because I can’t wait to see what you can become.”
You cannot help loved ones find the answers to transcendence until you know the truth yourself.
Of course you can help loved ones in practical ways and comfort when needed but unless you have the purity of mind yourself which is very hard to attain, you cannot really help others to be really happy.
For the first time in history so many of us can spend real time learning and thinking and finding new food for our brains. Those of us who choose this path are content. Life is precious to us. The old ways of marry, have children and farm are not our final path. They are an easy place to fall on, just because it was done before. No need to destroy in order to build, that is also an old concept. Better to build on top of what worked
One of the few episodes I really disliked. Too much reliance on Christianity. I fear that we are resigning ourselves to the past without critically revisiting it and considering why it didn’t fit like a glove back then. I grew up in the church (Presbyterian), definitely not a bad place - but definitely doesn’t have all the answers. I struggle to understand why people can’t see the ultimate beauty of life through humanist secularism & science. Is the statistical improbability of our lives not more magical than something we’ve made up to get through the day? Can we not find joy in disciplining ourselves and aiming to be our most developed/sophisticated selves without some fictional character above us? Also, there’s a very unrealistic ideal in always « going back to the way things were » and slaughtering the animals ourselves. The Left has fallen for romanticisms of this sort not too long ago and now I fear I see the Right doing the same.
Ideas come from above not below. Look up, not down, you only see dirt. To think that someone is always higher than you, more intelligent than you, more peaceful than you, beautiful art , dancing,shining, free,singing and pure.
You fail to recognize just how much secular humanism is repackaged Christianity. We are innately religious. If not Christianity, then that longing for reunion with divinity will simply be applied elsewhere. If not secular humanism than political obsession, wokeness, or nihilism. Besides, of Christianity being of the “past” we need to break from is Progressive theology that arose after WW2. And God doesn’t live in the sky like a person.
@@F1ct10n17 Bollocks.
Well said.
@@openmind5973 closemind , blocks or let's say the other side of the coin.
Regarding endeavors such as building cathedrals over several generations, there are several examples, I think, of this happening today. As an example, would be the way that power systems are built to meet the needs of today but also in a way that aligns with future build outs to meet the needs of tomorrow. The difference is that one day the cathedral will be built; however something like a power system will forever evolve and change to meet the needs of current and future generations.
Ah yeah the analogy is even simpler. Banks. Both buildings and systems and hierarchies worshipping an abstract non existant concept.
Cathedrals are still being used 1000+ years later.
In my country I think that's an example of how electricity is nolonger built for future generations. In the 19th century beautiful hydro power plants were built. Today they clear forests, to install solar panels built in China with a life of 10-15 years and call that progress.
Power systems never "evolve" they only change. A king that stands up to Marxism is better than a democracy that allows it
Are there drugs that induce meaning? People talk of ayahuasca like it gave them a window into another world. Perhaps there are chemically induced ways to either enhance meaning or render meaning a meaningless concept.
People do not see the long term effects of drugs like Ayahuasca, in wanting a quick fix, which will actually serve to make them more deluded in the long term. No, no, no chemically induced means are more likely to send you into a mental institution than any real understanding of meaning. The truth can be found by seeing the truth of mind and matter through right meditation.
I do not know if such things do or do not exist. However, I also suspect the drug war exists, because some people will never get any spiritual experience, and screw them. They will just have to fill that hole buy buying stupid stuff.
How does every other living species manage to live without the human notion of meaning? Or do other animals have meaning in their lives, or alternatively, do animals suffer from a similar lack of meaning? Are the squirrels digging up my bulbs in crisis?
The animals don’t think about past/future …they act instinctively for the purposes of survival and spreading their genes.
@@theinngu5560 Doctor Doolittle? Do you talk to the animals? Animals don't think about the past or the future. Do they think at all, about anything?
@@theinngu5560 Cats and dogs do have a vague notion of the future and past.
Scott Peck wrote that we left the concept of 'evil' to religions, and science and psychology steered way clear of it. But that crippled us. I would like to reclaim it.
When I was following Gabor Mate 's Compassionate Inquiry course, I was paired up with a priest and it was one of the things that bothered him the most. Compassion, yes - up to 90%, but not 100%
Don't give up Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush 👊
They talk a good game but then go and look how they make a living.
Know people by their actions not by what they say …no idea how they make a living but more importantly is to focus on our own faults and change that rather than what society does almost constantly…look at others and see their faults …
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
This analogy doesn't work because light is something that exists in the universe whereas meaning is a human construct. With the same approach you could prove the existence of god. If there is no god in this world, we couldn't think him. We think therefore he is. If you then understand that the same rings true for the Spaghetti Monster, you're all set to grasp the difference between a concept and objects in space.
@@felixmidas2020Typical Sam Harris disciple.
@@felixmidas2020 I think you’re missing the point implied by the “no beings with eyes part”-if meaning isn’t something that exists then we shouldn’t have any organ, or part of an organ as the case is, to perceive it. And yet we all do. We don’t have any way of perceiving ‘spaghetti monsterfulness’ though haha.
@@Ranid-eq6so So?
@@francesmcfadden9325 We perceive meaning with the same organ we perceive the spaghetti monster with: Our brain.
“Until 80 years ago people generally built buildings that were beautiful.” Clearly he has not visited Britain.
It was post WW2 when our architecture became ugly.
What beautiful buildings have we built since the war?
In the Victorian era, people hated Victorian architecture. They liked Baroque architecture. In the Baroque era, people hated Baroque architecture. They liked Renaissance architecture. In the Renaissance, people hated Renaissance architecture. They liked Gothic architecture. This guy forgets that his view of beauty is biased and not fundamental at all.
I’m pretty sure he’s in Britain while doing this interview
@@joeketa6352 We don't really know what ordinary people thought in Victoria times, just the elite and critics.
@@ajs41 Popular opinion is pretty well documented from 1800 onwards and even earlier. With the previous eras you are probably correct. The point is, there's generally a long gestation period on aesthetics. Conservatives like Blackman have an even longer gestation period on aesthetics. Remember that Impressionism was once an affront to art and all things civil. Now it's bathroom calendar art in every home in Utah. Blackman would've been calling Impressionism an affront to all things civil if he were around in the Victorian era.
Speaking of ''finding a meaning''... i wonder what it makes me then when i think that, there really isnt any meaning to life in general!?
We exist to consume, to suffer and everything we do is to ease the suffering. This is the only ''meaning'' you can actually prove and point your finger at!
At the end of the day, nothing matters, we are all going to die in the end and everything we did in life matters not after we are gone!
Or we can find the meaning if we seek to go beyond suffering….
@@theinngu5560 You really cant go beyond that because everything revolves around it for a living being.
Definition of life itself is suffering. Every other ''meaning'' you conjure up is simply an imagination that gives you comfort to deal with suffering!
I have never heard of this "crisis of meaning" thing, and it is not defined in this video. From watching the video, it appears to mean that there are more than a few people who do not have something personal to give their life a meaningful focus "that they'd be willing to die for" (guest's words). But all that is meaningless. I am not being apathetic here. I assert that the pathological need for meaning is artificial, and a problem for people who USED TO have an answer to "meaning," but lost it and are now in a crisis... I am pleased that Stephen Blackwood brought up Viktor Frankl's book (Man's Search For Meaning), but his take-away is very different than mine: While in a National Socialist concentration camp, Frankl saw men commit suicide by running from the guards and tackling the barbed wire. Frankl found a short-term focus to council the other Jews to think of something that was worth fighting for, so they'd strive and persist and not kill themselves, thus the name of the book... I am skeptical that selflessness leads to "transcendence." It seems to me that this will lead to self-abnegation. Put another way, the "sanctity of the individual" (Konstantin Kisin's words) is the fundamental building block of every adult, but government is full of children who are too infatuated with the lens of woke-ness to have solid building blocks, and so their transcendent groupthink ideology is their blueprint instead of logic.
To do or not to do
Hmm. Like your general drift. But neoMarxism? Marx was a socialist. Socialism values the group rather than a few. His communist manifesto is a dream, an ideal very much like the US Constitution. "Each according to his need." "Each according to his abilities." Marxists have values. I wish many of the socialist groups would focus on class rather than Woke. Love the socialism in Western Europe. It's based on values and ... frankly, it's nice. Society works.
💜
We have a crisis of meaning because of a lack of faith. People today are taught that there is no free will or a creator. Taught that self deterministic is in the hands of external forces. There is no self autonomy. Made to feel desperate with no hope. That's hell!!!!! Suffering without a path forward. Lost faith left with a failure to thrive...
I would argue faith or a relationship with God is one form of connection to "the greater" but not the only one. This connection to "the greater" is where we derive meaning from.
@KindGulagDehl3 I'm not familiar with "the greater" you write about. Any part that may appear to make me great is just my obedience to truth, which our creator has given us. There is nothing greater to seek than by his word.
People today are not taught that there is no free will or a creator. It's just obvious to anybody who has a single independent thought in their head. A creator and free will are the superstitions notions of the Dark Ages.
But this kind of faith, whilst it may be helpful and better than the aimlessness that so many have/feel today, is based on blind belief….belief in a Creator God that no one has ever seen and though deemed to be all compassionate and omniscient, this Creator God chose to create deformed, sick, poor humans who fight with each other because they hold different views. It doesn’t add up …if the Creator God was so powerful and also infinitely compassionate, why would they create humans subject to so much suffering ? No there is no Creator God.
Consider that the modus operandi of life is cause and effect….this leads to meaning! You get to see that if you help others, others will not only help you but you will feel happier if you help with a good intention …if you are good, generous, kind etc , that will come back to you and if you are nasty, angry, steal, greedy, then this will also come back in you and make you feel miserable.
Once you see this you will search for a way which will change your habits so that you do become a ‘better’ person so that you will become happier and less selfish…….
But blind belief in a Creator who is deemed omniscient and compassionate yet has never been seen won’t stop the crisis and if looked at with even a tiny bit of objective enquiry, one would have to question why a creator would create disabled, poor people who have different views over which some will fight and who ultimately die ? Faith is good when based on wisdom but not if blind.
I never thought I with my atheism, my eclectic attempt to learn from everybody's wisdom, my constant self-doubt and re-adaptation, was responsible for the downfall of civilisation.
No, it’s not a cause, it’s a symptom.
Don't conflate atheism with skepticism. It really is a shame that the "woke mind virus" actually took down both "movements" from the inside out. Ironic, though lol
People aren't really understanding skepticism *proper* a la...Socrates, Hume, Kant, Karl Popper and Fresian traditions.
From this stream of thought, ontological undecidability is precisely inevitable, necessarily so, by the nature of how our phenomenology intersects with epistemology.
But the end result isn't solipsism, relativism, and the current-day plethora of postmodern mutations. At least not necessarily.
There was another path. We need to go back to Kant and avoid Hegel et al., so that we can better understand/grapple with Nietzsche.
Meaning is neither exclusively found in the subject or object, the "first-person" or "third-person" perspective because neither can have ontological supremacy. People need to read Aristotle, bruv lol
But we can "save" empirical realism, if you want to "save science" and the like. We do not, however, have to sacrifice the numenous--the transcendental.
"God" is the shortcut to get there. It's a heuristic. An effective one, at that. So much so, it's obvious why it would get corrupted. Religion and politics are both avenues of mass influence and control. The smaller government argument applies here one-to-one. So find something between atheism and dogmatism.
Good luck. The only way to do so, is to put in the WORK. Build your worldview from the bottom up. Sure, take influence from others. Use teachers. Don't blindly follow them. Do the work.
I was always skeptical about everything I was told about belief. I have to wonder if I would collapse Plato's Republic because I would seek the truth behind so called "Noble lies."
Just as a disclaimer, this guy is known as a bit of a hack in academia. His “university” that he founded isn’t accredited nor is it recognized as a serious organization by any of the thousands of actual Universities that practice philosophy.
I’m currently in my 4th year of a philosophy major at University of Toronto, and though this guy attended my school, he’s not so much a philosopher as a historian of specially Boethius. The title is rather misleading as studying Rome and even Roman philosophy is very, very different from studying philosophy (which spans everyone from Thales to modern-day).
Not saying he’s wrong, but just be sure to take what this guy says with a grain of salt, and do your own research. I wouldn’t trust his word on anything other than specifically Boethius, especially given he seems to have a political motive.
P.S. for a good, reputable sources on philsophy I suggest Michael Sugrue on TH-cam (a former Princeton Philosophy Professor) and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) for more in-depth reading (it’s free and online).
Thanks for the added context/viewpoint
I love watching Sugrue. But I wouldn’t put much stock in academia or accreditation, especially in a non-stem field.
The fact he isn't recognized by the current crop of academia is a huge plus for me. It makes me think he is a free thinker and not lemming of sorts.
Sugrue is AMAZING, I particularly like his presentations on Hegel and Marx.
@@avengemybreath3084 It depends on what it is. Philosophy is a discipline much in the same way STEM is, meaning there are clearly right and wrong interpretations of thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc. Though it’s not as clear-cut as STEM, there is still some black and whiteness there (you can’t claim Descartes is an empiricist, Plato a relativist, or Kant a skeptic).
Given that, there is a high likelihood that a university not being recognized by Academia has much to do with a lack of proper representation of core concepts, as supposed to any ideological agenda.
Further, without the basis of over 200 years of academic philosophy, it’s very hard to judge the validity of claims without becoming a scholar yourself. I’ve read and studied most major (western) philosophers, but assuming you haven’t, you’ll have a hard time verifying his claims. This is why sources like the SEP are so valuable, as they let you openly verify any claims, and see which are clearly true (Kant’s copernican revolution) and ones that are debatable (whether Hume was a skeptic or not).
Disregarding academia based purely on the conception that it’s “woke” is dangerous, as it allows openly false opinions to be seen as valid purely because they’re said by people you have sympathy for. Again, not saying you’re doing that, but ignoring the thousands of academics who study this for careers, in favour of a guy who’s clearly politically motivated and only studied one philosopher, is imho dumb.
Do your research, and come to your own conclusions. Academia is just another source that helps you, albeit one that is rigorous in its maintenance of professional standards and clarity.
It's not so exactly meaning, though that plays a big part, it's a crisis of identity.
We humans create meaning by myths and rituals - in both of which meaning of course plays a big part - but what makes identity is when we actually ritualize and mythologize some meaning.
For example, separating trash into color coded trash dumpsters or bins, is a modern ritual with a modern mythology.
That recycling is largely dysfunctional is something people would often resent you for mentioning - because they sense it's hollowing out their ritual which in turn challenges their identity as highly moral individuals.
Of late it seems going to demonstrations to shout Jihadist-Islamist propaganda is also becoming a ritual granting a strong sense of identity to many.
Tl;dr to solve crisis of identity in west there is a need to create new, hopefully healthy, myths and rituals.
We need an atheist leader in ethics and philosophy. This is not it unfortunately.
Modern architecture is very bland and lifeless. Their fatal flaw is they lack culture and sense of history. No one goes to the UK to see the Shard because an artless glass and concrete building could be found in the US, Europe, China, India, or really anywhere. It's a Western style but artless and found everywhere
Wow, no need to insert religion, looking at the data one could make the case that religion brings more harm than good. The most religious regions of the U.S. have some of the worst health and education stats. Ideology (any) is too malleable for personal benefit, there is a tendency to dehumanize those outside of the ideological group (and often those within). We've had a good run from the 50's till now, and no doubt we have to excise the post-modern left wing ideology, but we should continue on the path that got western society to where it was prior to that poison. Let's act on the facts, not try and insert a "better" ideology.
Religion is ... a shortcut ...a heuristic. Sometimes you gotta dumb things down for people.
@@homemaintenance1234 I said ANY ideology that includes Communism. Show me a healthy democratic system that has fallen into chaos? That is what is starting to happen here with post modern identity politics....no need for religion to reverse this trend. In fact religion will not succeed as it replaces one flawed ideology with another.
@@Eclipto14 Even "dumb" people know when they're being manipulated, they are leaving religious dogma behind in droves. It won't work, we need to go straight after the identarian left.
Making people join a religion or destroying the one of others is always an excuse of totalitarians.
Stop saying “they themselves”…it’s redundant! They and themselves means the same thing. It’s like I Myself personally think…it’s just “I think”. Simple grammar and word meanings. I, myself, and personally mean the same thing.. I think.
You yourself have pointed this out.
I agree with most of his thoughts, but some of them are just vile
if you want buildings that look as though they were built 200 years ago, why don't you drive around in a horse and cart and forget flying, take a sailing ship?
So because cars are better than carriages, nothing from 200 years ago was better? I’m not sure what your point is.
@@avengemybreath3084Buildings serve a purpose. They need to be adapted to the times. The needs of the time of horse and buggy are very different from the needs of the modern era.
@@johnnemeth6913 is there in truth no beauty?