Jeremy Lent on How To Find Meaningful Altenatives To Neoliberal Philosophy

Current Affairs

Comedy, Government, News, Culture, Politics

4.4 • 645 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2021

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Author Jeremy Lent discusses his new book "The Web Of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place In The Universe." Jeremy's book shows how the individualistic philosophical underpinnings of capitalism destroy our ability to find meaning and our appreciation of the wonders of nature. He shows us the environmental horrors that are unleashed by free market thinking, but then begins to construct an alternative worldview that can help us live harmoniously and sustainably in the universe. He integrates both the insights of the hard sciences and wisdom from traditional religious and cultural practices around the world, showing how even slime molds have something to teach us. The Web Of Meaning can be purchased from New Society Press: https://newsociety.com/books/w/the-web-of-meaning Jeremy's demolition of Steven Pinker can be read here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/steven-pinker-s-ideas-are-fatally-flawed-these-eight-graphs-show-why/ and the article in which Nathan J. Robinson cites Jeremy is here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/05/the-worlds-most-annoying-man https://www.jeremylent.com/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Good evening, current affairs listeners. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor of Current Affairs Magazine, and I am here tonight with one of my favorite thinkers and writers.
0:22.1	I think one of the most profound people I've read,
0:24.7	and one of the most interesting,
0:26.1	the author of both the patterning instinct
0:30.1	and the new book, The Web of Meaning.
0:34.0	I first came across his work when I was writing about Stephen Pinker, and he had written
0:39.8	a wonderful debunking of some of the claims made by the kind of Panglossian school of thought
0:47.1	that Stephen Picker represents. But I'm here with Mr. Jeremy Lent. Hello, Jeremy.
0:53.3	Hi, Nathan. It's such a pleasure to be in conversation
0:55.6	with you. Thank you. Well, I really have been looking forward to meeting you because, and I would
1:01.6	already recommend that all of our listeners pick up your new book, The Web of Meaning, because it made
1:06.5	me cry at various points. It's very beautiful. And it does something that I think is so necessary.
1:14.7	And this is what I want to get into with you, which is that I think a lot of us have an
1:21.6	understanding of all the problems with contemporary society and with the human approach to nature
1:27.3	and such. And we'll discuss that.
1:29.3	But what you try and do is you try and lay a new philosophical foundation for how we can think
1:34.8	about the world differently. It's a very constructive book. But I want to start with you with
1:40.9	where things have gone wrong and awry and why you feel this this new foundation
1:46.8	it needs to be laid. And so let's start with what you call in the book, the Uncle Bob story.
1:55.1	Absolutely. Yeah. You want me to lay out Uncle Bob. Oh, yeah, Uncle Bob. Yeah. Well, he want me to lay out Uncle Bob.
2:01.3	Yeah, Uncle Bob.
2:04.4	He's actually a character who joins us right from the beginning of the book.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Current Affairs, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Current Affairs and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.