Mini-Decoding: Indulgent Monologuing
Decoding the Gurus
Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2024
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sometimes our intrepid Decoders like to focus on a specific rhetorical technique or recurrent pattern that can be observed across the Gurusphere. Here, Matt and Chris take a look at a bite-size portion of the philosopher John Gray's recent appearance on Sam Harris' Making Sense podcast.
Gray was invited to outline his critique of New Atheism, and his response is a remarkable monologue that encompasses a vast range of intellectual topics, philosophical thinkers, and historical periods. We travel from ancient religion to medieval peasants and finally to (almost) the contemporary era.
It is a veritable tour de force of an erudite philosopher's mind palace. So join us for a hike around through that palace and see if you agree with our assessment that the notable features reflect some common issues in academic, philosophical, and guru discourse.
Alternatively, you might find Gray's approach vibes with your interests, and that it is Matt and Chris who are simply showcasing their grumpy materialist perspective (again).
It will probably be impossible to tell unless we first consider what Spinoza said to Oldenburg in 1665 while taking due consideration of the Kokutai doctrine as elaborated by the Mito School in Meiji Japan, but that, of course, leads us to ancient Egypt and the pharaohs...
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| 0:00.0 | And I'm Oh, Hello and |
| 0:25.0 | welcome to Decoding the Guru's mini-decoding |
| 0:30.0 | with Matt, the psychologist and Chris, the psychologist, and Chris, the psychologist slash I am, |
| 0:35.2 | anthropologist, two things, really, but we don't need to dwell on that. |
| 0:38.0 | What we are here to dwell on today is a very specific technique that |
| 0:46.0 | Guru's also some other people academics perhaps in general are a little bit prone to but I find a rather egregious example of it in |
| 0:58.2 | content recently so I wanted to highlight so this is a many decoding but a specific guruish technique. |
| 1:08.0 | Understood, understood. I haven't heard this yet. No you have. |
| 1:12.4 | You have not. and it's from a recent podcast with Sam Harris. Now it's not |
| 1:21.1 | focusing on Sam Harris. |
| 1:23.2 | Okay? We've already had enough talking to |
| 1:26.8 | with about Sam recently. |
| 1:29.7 | This is not about Sam. |
| 1:31.6 | It's something that his guess does and his guess in this instance is a |
| 1:39.3 | philosopher called, what's this name, how did a second ago, called John Gray, and it's from a recent episode called |
| 1:48.0 | Is Moral Progress Fantasy? |
| 1:50.0 | Again, this is not important, the kind of topic of that. |
| 1:53.8 | We're not hugely invested in this issue of his moral progress. |
| 1:59.8 | No, you would think it is, but nonetheless, John Craig might have some arguments against that, but let's set aside the philosopher's tendencies. |
| 2:13.7 | I don't know how to put it, |
| 2:14.7 | what they like to do, arguing things |
| 2:16.9 | that seem like you should be able to argue them. |
... |
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