The Wes Cecil Podcast

Often discussed as an ‘implicit’ good, health is nonetheless a relatively low priority in many modern societies. We have both a poor understanding of what constitutes health as well as a strong cultural resistance to pursuing health as a key value in our lives. Any attempt to prioritize health will generally provide a powerful education in the underlying cultural values that shape our lives and, more often than not, resist the notion of health as a core good.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A reflective look at how abstract ideas can overshadow real, lived experience. Conversations about unused luxury kitchens and how perfect designs can become mere symbols. Thoughts on tools shaping choices, from lawnmowers to appliances. Stories about designing for human experience, including a vineyard created to preserve tactile work.

An introduction to why values shape how we perceive and interpret the world. A tour of value categories like ethical, aesthetic, epistemic, instrumental, and intrinsic. Arguments against single-minded fanaticism and for mixing values like a buffet. Uses philosophy, fiction, biography, and cross-cultural examples to show how changing values transforms experience.

A brief case for reading biographies as a gateway to history and fresh ideas. Personal stories used to humanize eras and clarify philosophical work. Tips on choosing worthwhile biographies and warnings against hagiography. Reflections on how lives can inspire creativity, offer new perspectives, and serve as congenial company.

A long footnote to the Late Capitalism series in which I discuss the, at least to me, very important difference between these two concepts. While commodification is still going on, it is really the advent of this new financial world that has come to dominate our world in many quite dangerous ways. Perhaps a long discourse that interests only me.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An invitation to explore the power of being wrong. In a culture that emphasizes the importance of rightness over a whole range of other possible values like harmony, beauty, health, fabulousness, inspiration, and so on, being wrong can be a liberating and enlightening experience. Once one begins being wrong, it lifts a burden of outlook and opens up a whole range of different experiences and orientations that are simply impossible within the RIght/Wrong dialectic.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month. https://www.patreon.com/WesCecilImage Attribution: “Guiding Light” by Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While our particular brand of history is unique, people have been living history for a long time. By looking back to some earlier patterns of living that were more health-giving and joy-supporting than the form of life relentlessly promoted to us today, we can gain a few clues as to how we can adapt in the face of our challenges. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month. https://www.patreon.com/WesCecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nietzsche is not just presenting a series of arguments, he is modelling a very different approach to thinking and understanding our world than we usually encounter. To conclude our read-along, I reflect on the structure of his arguments and how they are as, or even more, important than the actual content. In the end, like a poem, Nietzsche invites us to participate in the creation of our own understanding. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month. https://www.patreon.com/WesCecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A reflection on the global structure of Late Capitalism encapsulated in Cheerios as an example that can help us understand the nature of the world we inhabit. I also cover the unanswerable question, “Why has 70 years of efficiency and progress made Cheerios so expensive” and the unspeakable word - “Deflation”. Hopefully having these small examples in our minds will help us to address the complexity and estrangement that assaults us everyday. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month. https://www.patreon.com/WesCecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final section finds Nietzsche in usual form attacking the notion of ‘levelling’ and ‘universal good’ and ‘Equality’. HIs driving force, following on Will to Power, is the pursuit of individual ideas that suit individuals and hence refute the drive towards universality or assumptions of ‘good’ or ‘true’. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month. https://www.patreon.com/WesCecil Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.