A Conversation Between China Miéville and David Bentley Hart

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I had a conversation recently with China Miéville, the celebrated novelist, essayist, political theorist, and generally amiable soul. The proximate occasion, I suppose, was the appearance of his most recent book, A Spectre, Haunting, though our exchange ranged over his books and mine, fiction and non-fiction, and any number of topics that interest us both. And, of course, who can resist a conversation between a heterodox Marxist and a classical Christian socialist on the phenomenology of awe? I know I can’t.
This recording appears also on the Substack site for Leaves in the Wind.

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5 окт 2022

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Комментарии : 40

@Dragonface013 Месяц назад

I've been a massive fan of China Miéville for years, and have only recently discovered Mr Hart's work, and I must say: wow... I don't think I can even begin to express how much I enjoyed this conversation! So many issues that I feel I've been struggling to articulate my own thoughts on my whole life, and these two have somehow succeeded in discussing them in ways that are simultaneously accessible, profound, and deeply stimulating to me! I really hope they have more conversations with each other in the future!

@Gumbi1012 Год назад

An immensely enjoyable conversation. I frankly can't thank you enough. Please do another one. And thanks a lot for making these publicly available.

@luchio2112 Год назад

What a brilliant crossover - two of my favourite authors. Exuberant dialogue. Thanks David.

@Jasonbeck2753 Год назад

I just came across China Miéville’s “A Spectre Haunting Europe” the other day and then had this recommended. Very timely!

@jasonegeland1446 Год назад

Excellent interview!

@colingallagher1648 Год назад

Great interview

@danielclaro6049 Год назад

I was watching a video on how to make a full British breakfast, and somehow I ended up here

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

Naturally. Subtle are the ways of the algorithm.

@danielclaro6049 Год назад

@@leavesinthewind7441 cant say that i understood more than half of the conversation, but it was certainly very interesting

@thestorymerchant28 Год назад

As a boy, when I discovered the metapolitical allegory of Animal Farm, I loved it even more...Strange.

@balthysar68 Год назад

Thank you so much for this immensely illuminating conversation. I have been working at connecting my love of Jesus, Kropotkin, Cornell West, and Ruskin with elements of Marx into a coherent Xian Romantic socialism. I am not there yet but this conversation certainly propels me further in that direction. Thank you again. I hope you two have another conversation here. Thank you for your rich and wonderful work David. I have learned a great deal from both you and your brother Addison.

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

Well, that certainly sounds like the right path to me.

@jasonegeland1446 Год назад

I've been an ardent fan as of around 2020 into 2021. You deserve way more acknowledgement than you've received, no doubt about it as far as I'm concerned! You've helped to bring me slightly ever so closer to the knowledge of the truth! Thank you, David for never pulling any punches and putting yourself out there for us all! Just curious, but have you by chance read, 'A Discussion of the Doctrine of Universal Salvation: Question: Do the Scriptures Teach the Final Salvation of All Men?'? It's from 1854 (author listed as T.J. Sawyer and Isaac Westcott). I got it for approx. $75.00 after shipping taxes but excited to read it, especially considering it's somewhat of a rarity to acquire these days.

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

I’ve never seen it.

@jasonegeland1446 Год назад

@@leavesinthewind7441 Neither have I until a few months back. I just got it in the mail yesterday and I haven't been able to determine the publishing date of the book, but maybe 1978, which is what was written in ink at the front of the book. It's a has a nice textured feel to it on the face of it. If I were more tech-savvy, I'd upload images from it, but knowing my luck, I wouldn't be able to figure it out! Nothing of great importance, really; I just thought it was an interesting find. I wish I'd discovered you way sooner as I've really enjoyed your insights on various topics, especially spirituality and religion. Still trying to persuade my wife of the salvation of all but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Anyway, sorry to ramble on so much! Look forward to catching more of your material. Best!

@Alkemisti Год назад

This is not a conversation I expected to exist, but it is something that made me a bit happier. I have been writing a doctoral thesis on Christian socialism and Hart's thought and a novel inspired by classical metaphysics and criticism of capitalism. The latter has progressed better than the former.

@IosefDzhugashvili Год назад

Amazing

@cuddywifter8386 Год назад

You guys reminded me of a quote from the movie Interstellar, between Cooper & Brand. Cooper: Love has meaning, yes, social utility, social bonding, child rearing. Brand: We love people who have died, where's the social utility in that? Cooper: None Brand: Love is that thing we are capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of space and time. End quote We see this even in elephants 🐘 who cry for a skull of another elephant even one they never knew in life.

@poimandres Год назад

Great talk! Thanks. About the last 20 minutes of discussion though: Dennett is not saying that consciousness does not exist - he is saying that conscious experiences do not have the “special” characteristics that most would grant; namely their purported ineffability, their inexhaustible, entirely private nature etc… at that point in analytic philosophy the qualia concept had a very specific definition (which I’m sure you know) and did not mean ‘subjective states’ nor simply just ‘consciousness’/‘subjectivity’ as such! I’m not an eliminativist myself but I feel like the argument should be given it’s fair due and not be straw-manned.

@poimandres Год назад

Again, he’s not saying that there isn’t something that it is like to be Daniel Dennett, he’s saying that there’s nothing about his being Daniel Dennett that is ineffable, unanalyzable … and with this, I for one might not agree, but it’s something other than saying that no phenomenality, subjectivity etc exists (at least according to my reading of his works anyway)

@jasonegeland1446 Год назад

Just wanted to quickly mention (despite my previous chatter), that I enjoyed your interview with Larry Chapp as well. The Gnostic part of the interview jumped out at me the most. I'm 47 now and much of this I'm just now learning of, but I suppose it's better late than never! Just curious, but is there any part of the Gnostic era you'd recommend studying more over another?

@davidgreenwood5602 Год назад

Two very interesting blokes.

@gooders7366 7 месяцев назад

What is China’s reference at 39 minutes?

@tumasdedaan2146 Год назад

China sitting there talking about Bond villains looking like Blofeld's steroid years

@paradanmellow Год назад

metaphor ftw! I think what's wrong with allegory is that it's referring to a metaphor, in the sense that it takes a metaphor literally and poses as a metaphor to that literal misconception :))))

@WackSmackAttack Год назад

what do you make of the "what problem of consciousness?" crowd? it seems that consciousness isn't any more ineffable than anything else. if we never came into existence and the universe was just composed of gray rocks bumping into each other, it'd be equally as perplexing (arguably even more so). "My soul, what's lighter than a feather? Wind. Than wind? The fire. And what than fire? The mind. What's lighter than the mind? A thought. Than thought? This bubble-world." - Francis Qualres

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

Intellectual laziness looks like a respectable posture only so long as one can bluff one's way past serious questions. That's not very long at all.

@garychartier8365 Год назад

An aside: So, I’m not an enthusiast for the soteriology on offer in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I don’t mean this as a defense of it. But didn’t CSL say, at any rate, that he intended Narnia not as an allegory but as an envisioning of how the Word might be present in another world? Of course, you could respond that he might have intended this but didn’t pull it off.

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

I'm not sure, practically speaking, what difference that would make. Whatever the case, the second part of the book always struck me as a little insultingly obvious, and unnecessary. The frst part is pure brilliance. And I love The Silver Chair--which, even at its most didactic, is still a wonderful fairy tale.

@garychartier8365 Год назад

@@leavesinthewind7441, I suppose the practical difference would be an evident absence of wooden correspondence. To the extent that such correspondence is evident, of course, then either I’m wrong about Lewis’s intentions or he didn’t succeed in realizing them. In any case, no need to get distracted by this tangent. Thanks for a characteristically literate and engaging conversation.

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

@@garychartier8365 I find the whole betrayal, sacrifice, and resurrection of Aslan part very wooden in its correspondences.

@garychartier8365 Год назад

Sadly, I fear you're right.

@samrowbotham8914 Год назад

China means Mate we say hello me old China when we see mates we have not seen for a while. I tend to read eclectically but tend to read books in the same genre so I have periods where I will read books on Theology then move to Sci-Fi then some Horror then some Magik etc.

@colingallagher1648 Год назад

David,when you recover your innocence at the far end of your experience do you think your love of Tolkien will be rediscovered? on the other side of this world? The silver glass of valinor in the undying lands…

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

Umm… no. But, you know, de gustibus…

@leavesinthewind7441 Год назад

@Sazu Thanks. I’m not an interviewer, though. This page is simply an annex of my Substack page, and these are just conversations with friends and acquaintances on shared interests, literary, philosophical, and spiritual. For interviews with strangers I’d have to invest time I don’t have right now. But if our paths cross some time in the future, it may happen.