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by William Engels
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- Apr 1, 202631 min
Hemlock #49: Three Passions feat. Bertrand Russell WARNING CONTAINS SOUNDS OF HUMAN BODY DRINKING
A few reflections on Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Third Earl and author of some of my favorite books.
- Mar 30, 20261h 48m
Hemlock #48 Peace in Iran: Jack Kennedy from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists talks Strait of Hormuz, Petroyuan, Albert Camus, Strategic Bombing, French and Israeli Nuke Programs, Kissinger
Nuclear Risk Editorial Fellow Jack Kennedy https://jackkennedy.ie/about/ comes back for the second time to talk Strait of Hormuz, Israel's nuclear option, NATO proliferation risks, Nixon, Kissinger, and Vietnam. "Belt of radioactive cobalt" mentioned. By the way, ships are already paying in Yuan to access the Strait, and the IRGC has confirmed control of a working route through the Strait - if you pay in Chinese money...Follow Jack on BlueskyFollow Will on Substack - by the way, if you haven't rated the show on Spotify or Apple, please do so. The algo is suppressing my ratings to some degree. The Patreon version of this show has better music.Sources Mentioned:Iran’s Parliament working on bill to impose fees on ships in Strait of Hormuz (March 26 2026, AP)Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter Admin, Operation Cyclone) admits to using Mujahedeen fighters to create quagmire for Soviets - Jan 1998Poland seeks as much autonomy as possible in terms of nuclear arms, Tusk says (Reuters, March 3 2026)Not One Inch - M. E. SarotteGoverning From the Skies by Thomas HipplerThe Samson Option by Seymour HershWAS IT OBLITERATION? The US attack on Iran may not have wiped out its nuclear ambitions but it did set them back years by Seymour HershCamus editorial after Hiroshima (Aug 8th 1945)In The Loop (2009 British Diplomatic Comedy)The Thick of It (Also British Political Comedy)Inside the Kremlin's Cold War by Zubok and Pleshakov 1890 treatise Alfred Thayer Mahan The Influence of Sea Power on HistoryMusic and Image Credits:Didn't Know What I Was In For by Better Oblivion Community CenterCurb Your Enthusiasm Song Cover (YouTube)Cover Image: by Domiri Ganji (permission requested)GeneralOperation Unthinkable (Churchill)Arkangel Intervention / North Russia intervention<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-remains-are-headed-to-the-moon-despite-ob
- Mar 25, 20262h 3m
Hemlock #47: Teaching Nagasaki feat. Franco Castro Escobar - Disaster Storytelling, Youth Antinuclear Education in Japan, Militarism and Nuclear Abolition, Iris Chang, & The Bells of Nagasaki
Hiroshima rages while Nagasaki prays. FULL EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON PATREONI'm joined for a second time by friend of the show Franco Castro Escobar, a PhD researcher at Keele University in the UK. This time we discuss life in Nagasaki before, during, and after the nuclear attack, trauma and education, the developmental origins of youth antinuclear activists, hibaku Maria and the destruction of the Urakami Cathedral, Iwo Jima and the Pacific Theater, disaster storytelling and kataribe, militarism in San Diego, efforts to rewrite and suppress history in Japan, Iris Chang and Nanking, and American imperial activities vis a vis the dreaded "counterproliferation" - empowering allies to acquire nuclear weapons or attack adversary states with nuclear breakout potential as an alternative to diplomacy.We also talk about the beautiful camphor trees in Nagasaki, many of which are still alive today despite being charred and cracked by nuclear blast, the longstanding commitment to nonviolence and prayer as an alternative to hatred in Nagasaki, and some important poetry and theology connected to the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) movement that expresses the 'ultimate aspiration' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be the last cities attacked by atomic bombs as we transition to a more peaceful world, one that must be free of nuclear weapons and threats of their retention and use.This episode aims to answer a few questions that ought to be important to all of us, namely:How can children be taught the truth about the historical effects and current reality of nuclear weapons proliferation?Why did the United States really attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki?How do religious beliefs (and the lack thereof) influence how people interpret collective tragedies and respond?SHOW NOTESFranco's article Youth antinuclear socialisation in Japan: early encounters with the concept of nuclear weaponsUrakami Cathedral, largest Catholic cathedral in AsiaBook: The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi NagaiResearch Center for Nuclear Weapons AbolitionKataribe StorytellingDisaster StorytellingMinamata Mercury Poisoning ScandalBarefoot Gen (Best Hiroshima teaching resource for kids, acc to Franco, genre: Anime and Manga)Book: Nagasaki by Susan SouthardBook: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor CoerrBook: Flags of Our Fathers by James BradleyBook: When We Say Hiroshima: Selected Poems by Kurihara SadakoBook: Command and Control by Eric SchlosserBook: Nuclear War: A Scenario by Anne JacobsenBook: The Rape of Nanking by Iris ChangThe 1971 Blood Telegram (Bangladesh Genocide/US State Dept)Music Credit (Fair Use Asserted by Author): 福山雅治 - クスノキ-500年の風に吹かれて-（KUSUNOKI PROJECT ver.） https://youtu.be/JumRmUwmOgs
- Mar 21, 20261h 2m
#185: Eleusis in the Spring (Vernal Equinox Special) feat. Joseph Campbell - The Eleusinian Mysteries, the Rites of Orpheus, Fertility and Persephone, the Descent into Hades, and the Resurrection
Happy Equinox. The Beginning, is at last: beginning.Music Credit: Beethoven / Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" Gernot Schmalfuss / Music Director and Chief Conductor Gwhyneth Chen / Piano Evergreen Symphony Orchestra National Concert Hall, Taipei, Taiwan 13 Nov. 2020 (Creative Commons).Percy Bysshe ShelleyHymn to the Spirit of Nature (1820).from Prometheus Unbound (Act II, Scene V):Life of Life! Thy lips enkindleWith their love the breath between them;And thy smiles before they dwindleMake the cold air fire; then screen themIn those locks, where whoso gazesFaints, entangled in their mazes.Child of Light! Thy limbs are burningThrough the veil which seems to hide them,As the radiant lines of morningThrough thin clouds, ere they divide them;And this atmosphere divinestShrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.Fair are others; none beholds Thee;But thy voice sounds low and tenderLike the fairest, for it folds theeFrom the sight, that liquid splendor;And all feel, yet see thee never,—As I feel now, lost for ever!Lamp of Earth! Wheree'er thou movestIts dim shapes are clad with brightness,And the souls of whom thou lovestWalk upon the winds with lightnessTill they fail, as I am failing,Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
- Mar 21, 20261h 38m
#184: Gaza, or How to Normalize Genocide: Keynote Speech by Chris Hedges at The Sanctuary for Independent Media
You can find the full talk from March 2025, officially-titled "Normalizing Genocide and the New World Order" at the link below, via The Sanctuary for Independent Media, which Chris has lectured at for years. Chris also writes on Substack "The Chris Hedges Report" and has a podcast of the same name.Hedges also wrote something like 12 books, which I've read about 9 of, personally. Each was life-changing. I would start with "Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison" (2014) by Chris Hedges.Rest of episode description available free on Patreon.
- Mar 18, 20261h 32m
Hemlock #46 Congress: feat. Dr. Maya Kornberg - Citizens United, Steve Bannon, Jan 6, Gerrymandering, Watergate Babies & Her New Book: STUCK: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress
Full episode description on PatreonI am joined (just in time for the all-important Vernal Equinox on March 21st) - with the brilliant and timely Dr. Maya Kornberg https://www.mayakornberg.com/.Her new book STUCK: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress was released March 10th and can be purchased now. (Non-affiliate link). Personal Disclaimer: I was given a hardcover of this book to review by Page One Media. I have never paid anyone, nor has anyone ever paid me, nor will anyone ever pay, to come on my show.Dr. Kornberg is a senior research fellow at NYU Law's Brennan Center for Justice and the author of Inside Congressional: Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process.SOUND AND IMAGE CREDITS:Intro: Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major by Max John. Link's to Max's work in other episode descriptions or by searching YouTube.Please watch as much Frank Capra as possible, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) from which I derive the cover image as well, apparently, as the absolutely bizarre trailer at the end, which you can watch here, courtesy Sony Pictures Entertainment (don't DMCA me, you swine! - it is artistic commentary and I assert Fair Use!):https://youtu.be/bXoF7w6IWAc
- Mar 15, 20261h 36m
#183: Tribute to Jürgen Habermas (1929-2026) feat. Rick Roderick and Michael Sugrue
RIP Habermas. Rick Roderick and Michael Sugrue (both also gone, Sugrue earlier this year) remember the life and theory of Jürgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School."Don't think that this is some fancy-Dan academic exercise. A lot of people have died because they read a book the wrong way. "-Rick Roderick on Habermas and the importance of the humanities.
- Mar 15, 20261h 20m
#182a - The Radiance of Perfection and the Mystic Ascent: Plotinus on the Good and the One, Plato's Symposium, The Myth of Psyche and Eros (Aphrodite), Socrates' Teacher Diotima, feat. Pierre Grimes
If you enjoy this work, please support the show on Patreon!Will (the host) writes a Substack page about various and sundry topics. Plotinus (204-270 CE) was a mystical philosopher who transformed Plato's metaphysical ideas about the Forms and the divine intellect or nous into a spiritual path. In this lecture, Pierre Grimes (1924-2024 CE) introduces Plotinus and his work as recorded by his student Porphyry in The Enneads - a six-part treatise on the mystical ascent of the soul."That which gives pre-eminence to the members of any class...is the word 'Greatness... No one would have an interest in that experience, if it was not also Beautiful"-this 03/24/1998 lecture, catalogue number NSPRS 092You can find the original video, with chalkboard explanations here.https://youtu.be/Cvs52cBjpgU?list=PLp6rnhCy8XkqKXmCtLRqC4hOFnEaVVWZxThe Internet home for the Noetic Society is available here, on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@NoeticSocietyPierre Grimes had a remarkable life. He was an American boy who volunteered to fight Fascism at the age of 17, and earned a Bronze Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart, and a Bronze Arrowhead (for the amphibious landing at Dramont "Red Beach" in the south of France, part of Operation Dragoon). For WW2-heads he served in the 1st Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment (part of the 36th Infantry Division). He saw heavy combat in the European theater, and participated in the grotesque and shocking liberation of 'satellite' concentration camps outside of Dachau.After the war, Grimes used philosophy to work with alcoholics on substance abuse. He thought the Socratic method of maieutics or 'midwifery' was a broadly-applicable dialectical procedure that could show false and disempowering beliefs for what they were, thus eliminating the root cause of a patient's substance-seeking and self-defeating behaviors. He wrote a pair of modern Socratic-style dialogues titled the Vinodorus and the Alcibiades in an attempt to promote philosophy as psychotherapy, and philosophy as a way of life.In this way, he resembles another philosophical psychotherapist whose work was transformed by his experience of the Nazi Holocaust, Jewish survivor Viktor Frankl. Frankl, like Grimes, was horrified at how casually otherwise decent people could commit acts of total moral worthlessness. He saw their easily parallelized nature, a normalized schizophrenia: at once decent family men who put others first and strove for wisdom and faith, and at the other extreme: disciplined killers and torturers who accomplished their task with vigor, clarity, enthusiasm, and yes, even Joy (As in Joy Division). The shock of Grimes' experience liberating these camps, combined with the heavy fighting he saw near the Monte Artemisio ridge and elsewhere left a deep mark, and triggered a search for wisdom in Greek and Hellenistic philosophy as well as the classics of Indian, Hindu, and Buddhist spirituality.In 1967 he started the Noetic Society to study Socrates, Plato, and the Neoplatonists along with Indian religion, tantra, and Zen. One of his most intriguing experiments was the software program "To Artemis: The Challenge to Know Thyself" which used "400 structured questions" to model a process users could follow to solve their own problems and explore their beliefs. Thi
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About History of Philosophy Audio Archive
Curated lectures, interviews, and talks with philosophers, social scientists, and historians together in one place. Each week, we explore brand new research in history, economics, psychology, political science, philosophy, indigenous studies, and human rights while presenting the work of canonical scholars in a way that is accessible to newcomers while retaining interest for students and specialists. If you are an author in nonfiction or a scholar in the humanities/social sciences and are interested in being interviewed for the show please email me at williamengels@substack.com or @Bluesky.
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