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An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, found via podcast feeds. Just Stop Oil and the imprisonment of Roger Hallam and others has provoked an outcry, on both sides of the dispute. And the heightened emotions have made me think. What’s going on here? What is at stake? I… Continue reading Hallam v the State, and free speech. The Just Stop Oil desecrations are calling to our humanity

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. Randomness and luck, fate and providence. How do these facets of life relate to one another? Or is everything, actually, mechanically determined with synchronicities, say, being no more than coincidences? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert… Continue reading Chance and accidents, indeterminism and prayer. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Dante’s Divine Comedy, available via podcast feeds. Rowan Williams and Jesse Armstrong talked at The Idler festival, partly around the idea, caught in the expression, “boring as hell”. But is that right, they asked, when a drama like Succession so clearly appeals to us? The… Continue reading Is hell really boring? Rowan Williams & Jesse Armstrong, Dante & William Blake

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. At one level, Blake is clearly Christian. It’s even trivial to say so. And yet, his identification with Jesus is often sidelined, even written out, of accounts of the poet’s work today. There are many reasons for this… Continue reading Cultural Christianity kills. Taking Blake’s Christianity seriously. William on Jesus

An audio version of this thought can be found at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. Three “trans” issues seem to be proxies for vision in contemporary politics, feeding the sense of despair and disillusion. Trans activism, which is not the same as trans pathology. Transhumanising, the techno-utopian dream of tomorrow. Transitioning… Continue reading Trans activism, transhumanising, economic transition. Proxies for vision & the lost soul of politics

An audio version of this talk can be found at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. There is a link between rising levels of mental-ill health and political disillusionment. Feeling cut off is not just an economic and psychological problem, but is a symptom of a wider alienation arising from modern consciousness.… Continue reading Cut off in the literal age. Owen Barfield & Carl Jung on alienation and political disillusionment

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. William Blake lived during the period in which the modern world was born. A prophet, he detected the tendencies that now powerfully shape our age. The love of abstraction was high on his list of troubles. Such generalisations… Continue reading To Generalise is to be an Idiot. William Blake on politics, disillusionment and abstraction

An audio version of this talk can be found at my podcast, Dante’s Divine Comedy, available via podcast feeds. Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life.… Continue reading Dante and civilisational decline. Another dispatch on disillusionment in politics

An audio version of this discussion is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. The new movie Freud’s Last Session is well worth a watch, particularly if either man is of interest. The issues you might expect are aired between them, not least belief in God. But also the more shadowy sides… Continue reading God, sexuality & the psyche. CS Lewis and Sigmund Freud tabletalk. Thoughts on Freud’s Last Session

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. I’ve been thinking about politics and disillusionment that seems most characteristic of now, in the West at least, and thinking about the prepolitcal – what politics needs to work well. I’ve thought about Plato on beauty and Aristotle… Continue reading The kingdom within. A thought on Jesus and politics