Neema Parvini is well known on Youtube for his channel, Academic Agent, and for his para-academic work at the Academic Agency. He discusses a broad range of topics in political philosophy, and does not shy away from any topic, from elite theory to Marxism, from Julius Evola to Guy Debord. We discuss how he moved from literary theory to political philosophy; what politics really demands and why it is not the same as theorizing, the "take economy", or expressions of individualism; we discuss the difference between Evola & Nietzsche; and we try to come to an understanding of how it is that politics as most people experience it and understand it is fake. Join us for what I believe to be a fascinating conversation about the illusions of politics, and hopefully a step in the direction of disillusioning ourselves.

Neema's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AcademicAgent

Academic Agency: https://www.academic-agency.com/

Melanie Coughlin, a scholar whose work focuses on Nishitani and the Kyoto school, joined me for a conversation that will hopefully provide a nice conclusion to the recent focus on Buddhism. We discussed karma, the misleading nature of intentions, Nishitani's theory of affect, emptiness-as-affect, the important difference between Nietzsche & Feuerbach, and the insights of Nishitani regarding technology and the modern world. Melanie's latest article: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/speculative-philosophy/article/doi/10.5325/jspecphil.40.3.0269/411454/Cripping-Epistemic-Justice-Yoritaka-s-Model-of?guestAccessKey=57a4823a-0672-4798-aff3-1a0d6f49f975

How did the bicameral mind emerge, and how did consciousness eventually take its place? Join me for an exploration of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, in which Julian Jaynes traces the evidence over the centuries that suggest a disappearance of the gods and the emergence of subjectivity. The episode concludes with a brief tour of the shift to subjectivity found in the Old Testament.