David has recorded seven albums since 2000. Usually one wants to avoid the term "Beatlesque," but David is a Beatles freak who once recorded his performances all 209 Beatles songs over 209 days. We discuss "Time to Go" from David Brookings and the Average Lookings (2016), "Dead Battery" from Chorus Verses the Bridge (2005), and the title track from Obsessed (2007). We conclude by listening to "If I Don't Make It Back" from The Maze (2013). Opening music: "You’re So Right, It Went So Wrong" from the current album.

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More on the 1967 Situtationist book. Do we buy Debord's critique? Is any merely partial critique (i.e. no revolution) just more spectacle? Is technology inherently dehumanizing? Don't these passivity/anti-technology arguments even apply to books? Could Debord's model of authenticity catch on in society as a whole?

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End song: "Millionaire" by The Mekons (1993); Jon Langford appears on Nakedly Examined Music #22.

What is culture? In modern capitalism, Debord’s 1967 book describes it as all about the economy. It’s not just our jobs that keep us trapped, but our life outside of working hours is also demanded by “the system” via our activity as consumers, and this commoditization infiltrates every corner of our lives. Debord wants us to WAKE UP, break our chains, and live lives of immediacy, vitality, and authenticity.

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More on Darwin's famous book. Why does it matter for philosophy, beyond providing an alternative to intelligent design? Is it really anti-religious? How can well tell if it's really a scientific theory? Talking about a species evolving trait X to enable survival sounds teleological; is it really, and is that bad? Why would the mind develop through natural selection?

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End song: "I Live" by Jason Falkner, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #47.

Continuing on the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), ch. 1–11. We go more into natural laws vs. ordinances; does it make sense to say that God makes rules for people? Also, how does Spinoza deal with alleged miracles given that natural laws are absolute regularities?

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End song: "Spinoza's Dream" by Dave Nachmanoff, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #20.

On Benedict de Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), ch. 1–11. For Spinoza, the Bible was a political issue, and he was interested in a way to read it that didn't lead to people fighting wars and persecuting each other. Spinoza argues that a respectful reading is one that looks for the central message and doesn't paper over many places where the text was tailored to its original audience's prejudices, or where for historical reasons we can't now really know what it meant to them.

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More on the novel with guest Corey Mohler, considering Dostoyevsky qua existentialist in terms of his analysis of the crisis of meaning and his consequent views on religion.

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End song: "Don Quixote" by Nik Kershaw, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #37. 

On Fyodor Dostoyevsky's philosophical novel from 1869. Could a morally perfect person survive in the modern world? Is all this "modernity," which so efficiently computes our desires and provides mechanisms to fulfill them, actually suited to achieve human flourishing? Dostoyevsky's Russian existentialism says no! 

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