Conclusion: Political, Social and Cultural Criticism and Theory 

Probably the best series of lectures on philosophy out there. Fascinating to see how relevant this is even tho it was decades ago.

This lecture showcased the fact that "teaching could be considered more than just a "craft or skill," but a piece of fine "art". It's amazing.

A ruthless interpretation of the 20th century philosophy. And I love it.

These lectures are phenomenal and I am beyond thankful for your decision to upload them. Your father is in my prayers!

Dr. Sugrue please come back and help us through 2021!

Just when you think there's nothing interesting on RU-vid you stumble onto a channel like this. Thanks for posting. You're making cooking dinner and cleaning my house more stimulating as I consume this content. Also: as a Gen Xer, I'm appreciating the early 90s VHS quality.

The depth and span of this lecture is truly astonishing, then consider the amount of information contained within its parameters is mind boggling. This man is a treasure.

you can see the thrill Sugrue gets from these discussions

The depth and breadth of Dr. Sugrue's knowledge are stunning. Thank you for uploading these lectures!

How wonderfully generous of spirit to release these lectures on RU-vid. I am grateful for your time and effort in uploading all these videos. There is something very special about this man. Thank you.

Thank you so much for all these lectures. I've watched them all many times. I studied medicine and always regretted having to turn my back on the humanities, which was always my most intense passion. Professor Sugrue, cheers to you sir for a life spent well. Bless.

Thanks so much for uploading these. Your father gave a true gift to humanity with his lectures.

"“May I suggest to you that our concern with marginalized discourses is a means to take control of the state... postmodernism is the will to power of contemporary intellectuals.” Dr Sugrue argued this, what, 30 years ago? Surely, this kind of insight is the benefit of true scholarship.

I've enjoyed about a dozen or so Michael Sugrue lectures on RU-vid so far. Very fascinating to find this video at the end of the series, which is an absolute lightning strike of prescience regarding life in the 2020s.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on almost all important philosophers and their philosophies. I am impressed by your clarity of thought and communicative agility. The lectures are succinct but comprehensive. These lectures reflect profound knowledge, deep erudition, and great eloquence. As a teacher, you are an inspiration for me.

What this course illuminates more than anything is the importance of human dedication to politico-cultural study, interpretation, and postulation, and I can hardly think of a better lecturer to inspire others to these grand goals.

Thank you for offering this content for free. Proves your commitment to technology brightening and expanding intellectual discourse.

2:06 Metaphysics Ended 3:05 Ethics become Asthetics Morals are as Tastes, opinionated Absolute Relativism 4:21 Politics, Will to Power 6:00 Be a Hero 7:07 Doubt Your Self 8:19 Uncertain, Fragmented 9:00 No Meta Narratives 9:39 Social Construction 10:15 Unescapable Broken 10:53 Machines Calculation Storage and Retrieval 12:07 Erosion, Effectiveness 13:47 Biospheric Limitation -Equality- Reality 15:44 Technology 16:10 Distraction from distraction by distraction 17:03 Tail wags Dog 17:30 Liberation Oppressive Surveillance Video Camera - convict authority Anti-oppression 19:55 Fragments 20:17 State-Coercion 25:18 The Intellectual Class 28:01 We only see what is Good for the public 29:01 Respect, Taken Seriously 31:59 Free Play. Existentialism. Commitment Legitimizes 33:03 Marxism in Universities 33:53 Renegade, Socratic Marxist 36:02 Welfare State run by Intellectuals 37:22 Pragmatism 38:57 Separate Languages 39:45 Self-Destructive Machine 42:25 Singapore 🇸🇬 Spiritual Pioneers Religion is Pre-Modern 43:56 Irony, Alienation is an end in itself 45:00 A. Provincial Marginalized & Alienated

‘Postmodernism is the will to power of contemporary intellectuals.’

Never has more ground been eloquently covered in 45 minutes time. Bravo. If I'd have been listening on audio, I'd have thought this was recorded last week.

Seriously this conclusion it's pretty prophetic. Thank you Doc.

Your videos deserve many, many more views! Excellent stuff.

I’m absolutely blown away about Sugrue’s brevity in concluding the critique and condition of our time. It is almost poetic in some sense, but a stark reminder of many unpleasant conditions

Wow!!! Your conclusions are absolutely brilliant and insightful. Now, I'm going to go to the beginning of your lectures and listen to them all.

Mr. Sugrue is a hero and it is beyond me how can a person know so much. If he is able, can Mr. Sugrue make like a list of 20, 50 books that are must read? That would be awesome.

Absolutely love these lectures, this channel has definitely been the one i've visited the most last 2 years or so. Dr. Michael, you are the best teacher I've had, your lectures have enriched my life by orders of magnitude. I teach maths but I am now planning on pivoting towards cognitive science and your teachings played a major role in the realization that this is where my passion is. Calling you an absolute legend would be an understatement - thank you once more and cheers from Poland

13:22 whipping out his crystal ball

"I suspect that 50 years from now Post-Modernism will be a cul de sac, something no one reads anymore and.. I'm not so sure that's a bad idea." !!! Omfg I fucking "DIED" LAUGHING! 🤣🤣🤣. Prof dropped some banger lines in here. Especially the one about Colleges being a safe "Jurassic Park" for modern intellectual Marxists that couldn't survive out in the Darwinian "Real World", so that we can observe them! Props professor Sugrue. Dropping gold bombs I swear.

Phenomenal conclusion to an outstanding series. The professor is a master

Dr Sugrue, thank you so much for making these available and for the podcast on spotify. These works are of indispensable value. I am a master's student in Philosophy and the Humanities and have found these to be, though accessible, to be of a quality that transcends conventional undergrad/grad/postgrad level distinctions.

Unbearably good, thank you for posting!

Thank you so much. Having immersed myself in all your lectures, I now say goodbye to the world of Tables and Chairs, Bootstraps and Swine. Now...

Holy molly guacamole. What a prescient lecture. Dr Sugrue was decades ahead of his time. Thank God for the gift of such a brilliant mind!

The most relevant talk I've listened to this year, wow! There is so much going on behind the facade of the current political landscape and it's nice to hear some substantiation to this idea.

This whole series was absolutely amazing, but this last lecture will really stick with me. Thanks for posting these, they're an incredibly valuable resource!

Grateful for Dr. Surgue's series, all of them. Loving, too, that he mentions "Cybernetic Communications" here, in the pro and con-- the pro, for me, being that these lectures made their way onto RU-vid, some years after the fact.

Thank you so much for the very insightful lectures. My knowledge base in the history of Western philosophy has been greatly enhanced.

To this day, I listen to his Marcus Aurelius lectures several times a month, never get tired... I have shared with many of my friends and they have become Michael Sugrue followers as well. Last I heard of he was at Ave Maria University in Florida,, any updates on him would be appreciated

I will not lie; sometimes, I have to re-watch some parts because of how deep it can get

comrade sugrue, thank you for your contribution

Professor Sugrue I do not know the year of this lecture, but it is remarkably insightful and stands up extremely well in 2022.

Wish i could have been there to give a standing ovation! Simply fantastic! Useful, inspiring, challenging, and really quite life changing! Thank you Doctor!

Prophetic presentation. Thank you.

Amazing! Really enjoying these, thank you

Mr. Sugrue brilliant as usual!

One of the best critiques of post-modernism I’ve heard.

Thank you for making this accessible to all with an internet connection

Solid gold, as usual.

Brilliant as always, thank you again for sharing this invaluable content

It is not without a little wistfulness and sadness that I listened to this last lecture especially since it seems to portend the conclusion of a journey and perhaps finally reaching a destination...if in philosophy we ever attain to such. On the road behind lies scattered the dust of misapprehensions, false beliefs, ignorance....of dragons slain and mountains summitted. We stand hopefully wiser, humble, more compassionate. It remains to thank our guides and conductors: Michael's daughter, her acolytes and lastly, the man himself, Michael, our Messiah.

Love this, 10/10. A shame that pomo has taken over more and more. Hopefully there will be more lectures to watch in the future from Dr. Sugrue. If not, back to Plato's dialouges for meditation

So on point! How amazing to hear some common sense in the age of informational manipulation

Thanks for this channel. Gracias desde Galicia, España.

This intro music is top tier

" Luxuriating in the pleasure of text " sounds really luxurious. 👍🏻

In a time of such division, it’s nice to look back. He gently hit on topics I was trivial over with a new insight I wasn’t expecting.

Thank you, Dr. Sugrue

My favorite professor

Thanks for the teachings. Happy Tahv Mindedness!

He doesn't even fumble a bit. Very good speaker.

His explanation of Nietzsche was an insightful look into the future we are experiencing today. Moral relativism and chaotic politics

Finished all the lessons. What à banger

Amazing!!

So lucky to have access to these lectures.

blimey, what a conclusion - a very interesting take on post-modernism

I'm not a scholar. If I can understand these lectures. It is because the Professor is amazingly clear..love listening to all his lectures...

His discussion of the Marxist and postmodern Jurassic Park of the modern University is so spot on and even more of a reality in 2023.

I don't always fully agree with Sugrue's takes on these thinkers but his passion for the subject and his ability to communicate their concepts accessibly are incredible. If I had to show anyone a single video explaining why philosophy is worthwhile his lectures would top the list.

Professor. Sugrue, I long for the day I can have a conversation with you and thank you for all your contributions. Would love to invite you on my podcast for a conversation, talking about all things philosophy, theology, and life in general. Thank you!

I think this is your best lecture yet ❤

I have really enjoyed the series and am grateful. I wish there was a few more diagrams or other visual aides as it would have helped to covey the information and to assist in analysing the information covered. Again thank you for your excellent series.

This lecture was so prophetic, we're gonna start calling this professor "Dr. Moses Sugrue."

Omg where are the rest of the videos? They are the best! You have the best dad

Fascinating as always. Thank you so much for these lectures. Will there be a new series of uploads?

Iv been binging these like a netflix special

"May I suggest to you..." !!... Sugrue kills it just after 28:00 🤣 sets it so straight up and BOOM!

" Distracted from distraction by distraction - TS Eliot " Coming across for the third time Prof Sugrue mentioning this in his lectures.

Wow! I mean, WOW!!!!

Thanks for all the uploads. Will there be a new series of lectures?

Thank You!

Amazing!

Amazing lectures sir,

I love you Michael sugrue

Hello, it has been a few short months since your last upload. I hope everyone is well. I listen to your lectures frequently and if there is anyway that I could help you to convert old recordings and get them uploaded it would be my pleasure to be of assistance. I know projects such as this can be quite time consuming, so I thank you for all you have done and for sharing your work. These lectures have made a difference in my life and helped me to change the way that I think in a positive way. Thanks very much.

Dear. Prof. /Daughter of the professor. Could it be possible to arrange these lectures in playlists so we can see the title of the series 🙏🏼please. Thank you SO MUCH professor for these lectures. I’ve learnt so much more here with you for free than in school/college 🤷🏻‍♂️🐸

I enjoyed this series immensely and learned quite a bit (even if some of the concepts were complex or maddeningly abstract). The lectures were eloquently presented by a master of his profession. (Many thanks for that!) Nevertheless, I'd be lying if I said that most of these brilliant minds were faithful to their theories and lived them fully. Many disconnects exist between their ideas and the way these people chose to live their lives. For the rest of us, that's understandable; philosophy is not our profession, nor do we assume to proffer words of wisdom about life in order to make a living. The standards for philosophers are supremely higher exactly because it IS their profession and livelihood. Electing to impart wisdom is a weighty responsibility; a higher degree of integrity and intellectual honesty is demanded. Some fall woefully short.

We would be so lucky to have intellectuals take the lead

i wish my professors were this on point

"Scratch every pragmatist and in every case you'll find a positivist with a broken heart." That one hit home.

Wow...Just wow. He helps build a window for a new Humanism in Philosophy...The Academy has become intellectualized into a self-worshipping cult. May the great thinkers of the 21st century bury the Empiricism, Positivism, and other forms of self denial or self hate. There is no limit on the value of human ideas. Philosophy is not pessimistic. Rather, it is a crowning achievement of human life and it signals the possibility of unending development of the greatest resource--explanatory human knowledge.

The series is pure academic gold, I really appreciate it a lot for a quick and often thorough recollection of all these thoughts (Sugrue should have not mentioned Luhmann, it was embarrassing). I thank him very much for it all. But in this final chapter, in this conclusion I really can smell the ressentment. It is not easy to bring forth a publicly likable judgement about titans of thought who thought so much richer and more imaginative than Sugrue does - and also, he does not have a theory of his own to present. But he still wants to make a strong point against postmodernism in the end and so after all the crazy-good thought he brings out the shallowest, most nonfallible argument of vulgar marxism - oh boy, "there is self-interest!" "Look out! The postmoderns use theory to gain power." But so do their academic opponents and so did Mother Theresa. To me that is like reaching out for the crowbar after having studied surgery for 8 years. Anyway, what a great great series, no complaints could offset the enormous value this collection has. It is a treasure.

Oh shit maybe I shoulda worked harder and gone to Princeton. If I had lecturers like this, life would have been different.

Can you please put all the lectures into a playlist in order? Love the podcast

Hello, did your dad ever give a lecture on Derrida? I'd love to hear it if he did. I am enjoying his work and wish you both Peace and Blessings!

Thanks for a most enlightening briefing on these ever pressing subjects. Any thoughts about the (plausible) importance of the (non post-modern) arts?

When where these lectures recorded actually? The 90's? Crazy to see him predict the future like that, especially with the post modernism lectures. Even though we are now on Carlton's level, these make me feel royally fresh. 🥁

When one stop to think that Dostoevsky predicted post-modernism on The Possessed (1872), one can really start to comprehend his geniuses.

One of a kind

It would be great to have the date of the recoding for these videos

Very spicy lecture, highly based. XD In all seriousness this is a sublime lecture and wonderfully thought provoking and clearly articulated in a balanced and non-biased manner