We’re starting a weekly podcast about the Western Canon.
Why the Canon?
You see, these are the books that built Western civilization. The instruction manual for the world you’re living in. The texts that invented how you think about justice, selfhood, truth, power, meaning and…the fine art of being depressed in an authentic versus merely bourgeois way (spoiler: it’s the difference between Kierkegaardian despair and “I need a new serums routine”)
They hardcoded all of it. You’re living inside their discursive prison and you don’t even have the cheat codes.
Most people inherit these ideas without knowing where they came from. They argue about politics without understanding Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau. They talk about authenticity without reading Rousseau or Heidegger. They critique power structures without understanding Foucault’s sources.
So, the idea of the podcast is to give you (and me) the intellectual framework to make sense of the world.
But, is a podcast really a substitute for the act…
