Mike and Darren: Unplugged ep. 2 

If you're looking for feedback on whether or not you should keep doing these, please keep doing them. People who browse RU-vid with a philosophical interest really enjoy things like this. Just two thinkers firing questions off together and freely exchanging whatever ideas that come up. It's terrific, and all of us sincerely enjoy it. Edit: Also we'd love to hear your thoughts on Richard Rorty. You mentioned decades ago that behind every pragmatist is a positivist with a broken heart. I'd love to hear more

This is what internet technology was meant for. Being housands of miles apart and still being a student of some great teachers. 🙂

This is like a dream from when I bought all those cassettes of you guys in 90 or 91. God bless Tom Rollins.

"But you have to understand that people's tolerance for your whinging is really limited." and "Constant revolution is a kind of stasis." are definitely going to be referenced in my next philosophy discussion attacking existential tripe. Thank you!!

Yea! comment for the algorithm and to give my continued appreciation for how much useful perspective you add to my understanding of the world Dr Sugrue.

after giving this a listen, I've enjoyed the back-and-forth between you two rather than just taking turns like in the first episode. Thanks again

I could practically listen to this stuff all day. Satiating.

Every episode from you gentlemen collaborating is a treasure, thank you both!

*What’s Overrated?* 1:45 🇺🇸 Walt Whitman • _Leaves of Grass_ 3:31 🇺🇸 F. Scott Fitzgerald, • _The Great Gatsby_ (Pamela Sugrue disagrees) 5:07 The Bell of Amherst, Emily Dickinson 5:27 🇺🇸Edgar Allen Poe - Gothic becomes a bit tedious - Uninteresting romantic horror + “Nevermore” 6:58 • Contrarian 8:12 🏛Sappho and Arcilicus 🏺 11:02 🇺🇸 John Rawls • he has legitimate critics who critique his work • 500 page gloss on 1 line of God’s Word 16:48 The Fail of The Veil 19:26 The Beats 📚 • Ellen Ginsburg Anti-War Rally at the Pentagon, LEVITATE, narcotics, psychos 20:26 “I’m not sure the lionizing of mental illness is actually in _anybodies_ best interests.” 23:07 Shelly, Byron, Quincey, Russian Roulette, living on the edge. 24:25 Charles Dickens 🇬🇧 32:08 The Aneid 🏛🏺 35:44 Sartre, Camus. 🇫🇷 • tiresome 🚬

A grand discussion. Are we any closer to solving society and ostracizing stupidity as it should be in light of our limited life spans?

I was in the army for 9 years, and I was in the infantry, Im a knuckle dragger and I nearly failed highschool, however listening to these podcasts and the lecture videos have somehow peaked my interest in a subject I never thought I would be interestesd in. I am not sure if its because I am getting older and finding an appreciation for these things but I am grateful to have access to this content so please keep it going 👍

Wow! Pulling no punches on this one! I LOVE IT! Too bad it ended so abruptly. I was "digging" what Sugrue was saying. 😀

Thank you, professors

The wisdom of these gentlemen is severely underrated.

Since you're historians, I'd love to see a discussion on philosophers and their work during troubled times. Given current times, I'm curious how this affects the philosophy produced, as well as the public response to it. I'm bad at history, but it does seem that many philosophers dealt with turbulent times (Plato, Aurelius). Surprisingly, this usually is not treated as if it were impactful to their thoughts, as far as I'm aware anyways. But surely it should be somewhat significant.

Michael, thank you for continuing to input to your wonderful channel. Do you plan to do some more lectures on Plato/Socrates?

Loved it. Would love to hear more. By the way, when I started reading Dostoevsky, I immediately realized how dumb I was for esteeming Hemingway in my early twenties. It’s like the Bible compared to an Archie comic as far as I am concerned.

Thank you both. I enjoyed this discussion about writers very much. Thank you. ❤️

It would be interesting to see a discussion on favourite philosophers and philosophical works.

26:56 love when Mike perks up when Jude is mentioned

Tom (Rollins) was an intellectual according to Willard Spiegelman. Since 2012, when the Teaching Company was handed over to other people who I call simply businessmen, there are 20 competitors to get hands on the company and produce trash stuff. The '90s professors used to work wonders. Tom will always be there as one of the GREATS for employing profs like Mike and Darren

Please continue this series! I love the insights, especially the take on Rawls.

another wonderful episode. you guys make a GREAT conversation team. please keep going :)

Just found out about you Michael, from your lectures about Marcus Aurelius. I have watched several of other lectures here, now getting into the Unplugged series with Darren. Thank you for all of your work, and putting everything out to us. Greetings from Sweden

looking forward to these

Just a gem of a conversation between two great minds.

These are amazing!! Please continue this series!!

These are so heart warming and fun to listen to . Thanks for the upload !

Thanks to you both. Donation is to express this in the current neoliberal fashion. Thanks from Aotearoa New Zealand

Thank you

I love this discussion, thank you

Great conversation! Looking forward to many more of these

This was alot of fun to listen to! Would love to hear kind of the inverse of this: books or thinkers that you think are underrated.

AMAZING!

Wonderful as expected!! Thank you so much for this. I am a hardcore skeptic of virtual social networks but I could defend its existence and development based on these interactions only. Its worth it after all. Also I learned already that we have two ladies in the back scene, Geneviève Sugrue & Tatiana Staloff, would'nt it be nice to get to know them one of these days? Cheers & have a wonderful 2023!!

You two are amazing

Hope you're feeling well, Dr. Sugrue.

Literary choices and preferences change as we age…

Carver is i think one of the best American authors

I really liked this „episode“! Especially the part on Rawls, I hd, of course, a similiar critique on him, but I never drew the connection towards christianity. Very interesting! You‘re both a joy to listen to!

İ always happy when ı see new video !!!🎉🎉🎉🎉

this is gold!

Please do more of these so enjoyable

It's always nice to hear someone agree with me on the Aeneid. I would love to hear your thoughts on Tolstoy, his two great novels, and the Tolstoyan movement.

Dance to the Musicof time? A book which has not stood well with the passing of time. Very grounded in the thought of a past age.

I love the schadenfreude aspect of this discussion!!! It’s a Festivus discussion so let’s hear those grievances about those authors! Cheers 🍻

Great ending!

Marcel Proust “a la recherche du temps perdu” is a piece of art beyond literature.

Very glad the Beats AND Dickens were mentioned here. I love SOME Dickens, he was a great storyteller, but The Battle of Life makes me want to set fire to myself

Ends too soon!

Excellent discussion! I agree on the Gatsby take.

Powell's "Dance" is coolly brilliant and dare I say FUN to read. As for Proust's "Remembrance of Lost Time," it should really be called, "I wrote this book about myself just for you."

Next episode, I'd love for you to cover the books you love most.

So epic I can die happily

Having read Proust and all 12 volumes of Powell's Dance To the Music of Time, and I must agree. Powell's 12-volume work is a raucous and brilliant and colorful picaresque account of the destruction of pre-WWI Britain. His character development is just perfect. Proust? A windbag. He says nothing.

ITS HERE WOO

This "haymax logomenon" was mentioned by Michael recently. This notion made it to N. Texas in the seventies, via a Yale Ph.d. I don't recall it from my four semesters of Greek. And I'd really like to know what it looks like in Shakespeare and Dante! That poem, "Plum," gives me a clue but I'm dense and will need some help with this mystery. I've recently finished "As I Lay Dying." I wonder if Faulkner too has an ehmach logomenon. My New Year Resolution now, after listening today: Read some Thomas Hardy. Read the Art of Love. Continue with Faulkner studies. By the way, I enjoyed the "Bergson" by Michael. Faulkner read him and it shows. A related video today, that came up: Dr. Jimena Canales on Bergson and Einstein, their 1922 "debate." I had not known that Bergson influenced significantly the author of "Being and Time." Bergson helps explain Heidegger's focus on the new EVENT. Put otherwise, time as "chairos." In other words, Heidegger's redefining truth as "aletheia." Bergson had an issue with Einstein's "block of time." His lack of "creative evolution." To her great credit, Canales does not take sides in this interesting debate. But Faulkner is clearly on the side of Hamlet: "the time is out of joint." By the way, I find it hard to believe that Einstein felt that his theories exhausted the notions of time. It occurred to me while listening to the enhanting Dr. Canales, that Einstein fully understood the very simple notion (even I get it) that there are TWO SPHERES, as Vedanta teaches us--the absolute sphere, and the relative sphere, and that in this LIGHT, past, present and future are "illusions." But this would contradict the philosophy of Christianity: BEING AND TIME ARE ONE.

My favorite sophists

Next episode suggestion: I would love to hear your opinions on what the nature of various literary forms / genres. E.g., I know that Michael always talks about comedies & tragedies as always ending in marriage & death respectively. So what are some markers of other literary forms, like e.g.,documentaries or historical fiction. I was once taught that short stories always follow the same form: Man in conflict with the natural world.

Walt Whitman wrote The First Dandelion in March of 1888, in celebration of Spring. A day or two after he submitted it, the great blizzard of '88 hit the American northeast killing 400 people and damage was in the millions. I just learned this and found it very sad but interesting.

Waiting for episode 3

My favorite works by Fitzgerald are a few of his stories. Diamond as Big as the Ritz, The Camel's Back, The Lees of Happiness and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are pretty great short stories, but I like dr. Staloff, I also don't understand the "hype" surrounding The Great Gatsby. I really appreciate Fitzgerald and I think we're living a somewhat similar era to the roaring twenties he described (notice that many of his stories are about a form of existential emptiness), though.

darren: how about edger allen poe? Mike: hold my beer!

lets goooo

I absolutely love Mike's Utilitarian perspective. I mean, Poe is Lovecraft with a stylist. Effin A.

Wow I was thinking what books I thought were overrated and the first book I thought of was the Aeneid! It was cool to then see that Dr. Staloff agrees!

The poem fragment by Archilochus that Prof Sugrue was getting at is ‘Some Saian glories in my shield, the blameless armour that I left by a bush against my will. But I saved my own skin. What’s that shield to me? To hell with it! I’ll get another just as good’ (trans: Laura Swift). It involves the Spartans as Prof Sugrue was recalling Plutarch’s statement that ‘When the poet Archilochus came to Sparta, they drove him out immediately, because they discovered that he had composed a poem saying it was better to throw away your arms than to be killed: 'Some Saian...just as good.’ I agree with Prof Staloff that Nozick and Rawls are best studied together especially given how much of what they wrote was in conversation/disagreement with each other. I find the communitarian critique of Rawls to be just as valid that behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance is the fallacious homo economicus. Honestly, Rawls becomes difficult to be as impressed by after reading how sophisticated MacIntyre’s philosophical anthropology treatments of justice were.

A hot take episode. The doctors are going for the algorithm

I really love your series that you guys did and are doing now. I wondered if you could possibly elaborate on the secret of the 153 FISH that are mentioned in the Bible and Western Culture, book of John, part 1 lecture, (TS 30:00 or so) and about the metasymbolism of "the net" (TS 32) and the idea of it as an "unbroken net of images". At one point you say that "it makes particle physics look simple" and you refer to some sources, but don't specify them, though you mention a 30 page paper (TS 35). Any chance that you could post any refs? Sounds fascinating. Does it all relate to the Pythagorean cult? Are these the "secret teachings"? Is there any link or continuum with any of the Gnostic texts/teachings? Thanks.

Hello Dr. Sugrue, Dr. Staloff, Happy New year and thanks for another great discussion! Dr. Sugrue, I have been wondering for some time if you had any thoughts / opinion on some of the writings of Rudolf Steiner? I realize he was fringe in some of his thinking. However, of particular interest, what if any influence did he have on society in the early 20th century with his work, “The Philosophy of Freedom?” Thanks as always and look forward to the next, -Marc

I’d be curious to hear both these professors’ opinions on Infinite Jest, which Darren brought up briefly when discussing Philip Roth. It is probably the most celebrated work of American literature of the last 25 years, which marks it out for any list of overrated works. Additionally, its attempt to transcend the nihilism of the postmodernists while retaining a lot of their stylistic and structural trappings, and Wallace’s broader attempt at forging a new post-postmodernist literary movement, makes it worthy of discussion by these two.

Did either of you see the validediction of Rawls in the West Wing episode? I recognized it from Darren's lecture and yelled out "my g-d he's talking about John Rawls' as soon as they mentioned the veil of ignorance. Impressed the hell out of the crowd I was with 🙂

would love to know what you think of Perry Anderson works in general? huge fan of his and yours.

Almost forgot to like!!!!

Will we get the rest of this conversation soon? Also wanted to share a few video suggestions that I think would be very valuable: Jesus as historical figure; Shakespeare overview; understanding the rise and ideological foreground of nazism and maybe also communism; "new media" and philosophy, how film and television and now the internet will affect the future of philosophical discourse.

"Manna from heaven" is the same analogue Thomas Sowell has used to describe the redistribution mantra. It's interesting how contagious some of these ideas become, and although seldom implemented, remain relevant among factions of the intelligentsia decades on end. The cynic in me wants to reduce it all down to linguistic tricks to justify otherwise implausible positions or to conceal the real intent with false frames "Jury-rigging" is a nice term

I would love to hear Dr. Sugrue’s further opinions on Rorty. Talk about overrated.

My neighbors just heard me laugh at the Richard Rorty (presumably) / Walt Whitman line

Alice in Wonderland was probably the hardest book for me to get through. I hated it and I don't know why people love it. I agree with these two about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edgar Allen Poe.

As a pleb, I'm glad to hear a learned man call Dickens overrated. I'm not nearly well-read enough to opine on who's overrated, but I never really liked Dickens relative to how prevalent he is in pop culture. Being forced to read him in school didn't help I'm sure.

I think Orwell’s essay on Dickens has some valid observations: sometimes describing the problem isn’t enough … how about describing a solution … reminds me Tolstoy’s criticism of the kruetzer sonata: how art sometimes doesn’t know where it is leading you and just leaves you there… btw Dickens is still a wonderful author

i would love to participate on one of the lectures that this 2 use to give about ukraine :)))

Great material gents: how about one on the telos of humanity?

It would be great if you talk about threat great religion that most humanity believe on and they help in sorting the human problems and also what evil they can cause if they are misinformed. This would really help since entire humanity believe on religion except some odds which also actually do believe but afraid to say about it.

Thank you, Professors Sugrue and Staloff for doing this. I found the conversation to be enjoyable, especially the discussion of Rawls' A Theory of Justice. After I watched Prof Staloff's lecture on the book on this channel (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DxvgWjsHynk.html), I lamented that insufficient time was devoted to his critique of the book. I was delighted when Prof Staloff finally made good that deficiency and expanded on his critique in this video. As a possible topic for Mike and Darren: Unplugged, I would suggest that both professors take turns in talking about points/topics they wished they had covered in their series of video lectures, or materials that were taped but ultimately left on the cutting room floor. Greatly appreciate the effort and please keep up the good work!

What surprise that the two learned gents are never surprised at their choices! Rather .. oh yeah then they kick in.. rather than WTF? . Perhaps a dialogue without Platonism? Or “of course..”. “Perhaps I do them an injustice, for it could be that they are not so unknowing as they appear, but merely hungry, and therefore, for a very dry piece of bread teach anything that would please a high ministry.

Louis Lamour was a great American writer.

I can't help but psychologize between the two personalities. Great discussion nonetheless.

I would be interested on your views on Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies

WE WANT A TOUR OF THE BOOK COLLECTION

Please sir, can I have some more?

Can you take pictures of your libraries?

wahoooo

mike slagging off whitman and then taking a slug of beer is first-rate content lol

First episdoe was 1:15:00+, was this cut off?

Doctors, do either of you enjoy Thomas Wolfe?

The savagery is beautiful to see. I can appreciate and respect both approaches taken in the discussion, but I think the difference hilariously illustrates, right out of the gate, the rapidly dwindling reserve of fucks Dr. Sugrue has to give about potentially subjecting an innocent viewer to the intellectual violence that is a disagreeable opinion. For example, contrast Dr. Staloff's diplomatic way of setting up the format by framing the works as, "great, but perhaps not quite as great as some might say," with Dr. Sugrue describing Walt Whitman's work as, "This giant, lyrical shellfish has washed upon the shores of America." LOL!

Freat talk! No surprise Sugrue doesn't like the beats after dissing Whitman, their vastly superior spiritual grandfather. Camus is too good to lump with Sarte, as he himself felt. Being and Nothingness is a supreme example of tedious pseudointellectualism.

Gen Z here and couldn’t agree more about The Great Gatsby. It had potential but it was inconsistent and it gets boring.

What does literary criticism have to do with history?