Remembering Bird

Recorded 11/18/2023Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Published five years before his infamous Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel. It is written in his characteristic style of magical realism and explores the themes of shame, shamelessness, and violence in a fictitious country that is "not quite Pakistan." In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the work, covering topics including the morality of body modification, religion in totalitarian regimes, the value of formal literary critique, the concepts of shame and shamelessness, pleasure and purity in the western world, and more.Also referenced is Ayelet Ben-Yishai's essay The Dialectic of Shame: Representation in the MetaNarrative of Salman Rushdie's Shame (Modern Fiction Studies, 2002).Before discussing the novel, Bird and Greg take a deep dive into season 4 episode 19 of Seinfeld, titled The Implant. If you are not interested in this segment, the book discussion begins at 0:34:05.This conversation was recorded in February 2021.Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and professor at NYU best known for his contributions in the field of moral psychology. He has written three books, including the highly regarded The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, which presents his Moral Foundations Theory and its supporting research. In their discussion of the book, Greg and Bird cover topics including moral intuition vs. moral reasoning, the necessity of conversation for changing one's mind, the book's 6 foundations of morality, the guys' results on the MFQ and Big 5 (and what the results say about their politics), identifying with groups, experiences of transcendence and loss of self, religion (what a surprise) and its influence on society at large, the value of holding certain beliefs as sacred, the author's conclusions on moral philosophy and pluralism, and more. The assessments discussed in the episode (the Moral Foundations Questionnaire and the Big 5 Personality Scale) can be found and taken for free here: yourmorals.org This conversation was recorded in August 2020. Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

The Old Man and the Sea (1952) was Ernest Hemingway’s last major publication of fiction. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and is considered by many to be a classic of American literature. Topics discussed include how one should read great literature, the author’s views on death as expressed in the novel, the purpose of art and its transcendent qualities, the influence of companionship on suffering, man’s place in nature, and more.  Also discussed is William E. Cain’s essay Death Sentences: Rereading “The Old Man and the Sea” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).  This conversation was recorded in June 2020.  Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Written almost 2,000 years ago, Meditations is a collection of the private notes of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. While the author likely never intended his notes to be published, the collection has nevertheless become a cornerstone of Stoic philosophy literature and is still widely read today. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the work, covering topics including a brief overview of the author and stoicism generally, the nature of responsibility with respect to one's own inner well-being, the power of external factors over one's mental health, equating what is natural to what is good, the value and limitations of reason, tragedy and comedy, impersonal communication on the internet, evil as ignorance, forgiveness, and more. Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Often regarded as a standard of modern political literature, George Orwell's 1984 maintains broad cultural influence and recognition to this day. The novel depicts a terrible future in which totalitarian governments, bearing a strong resemblance to Stalinist Russia, have snuffed out all individuality and free thought. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the novel and its prescience, touching on a range of topics including power as a motivation in itself, self-awareness in malevolent actors, the nature of the greatest threat to freedom, the danger of doublethink and its relationship to faith, the ultimate consequences of coerced betrayal, and more.  Warning: The novel/movie, Silence, is spoiled in this discussion.  Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of the most recognizable and studied works of twentieth-century dystopian literature. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the novel, along with the author’s later essay, Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958. Among others, discussion topics include sexuality, the experience of music, suggestibility and persuasion, individual and collective ethics, the value of suffering and the risks of eliminating it, the potential dangers of pursuing happiness as an end in itself, moral luck, and religion. Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

J. A. Baker's The Peregrine, at its simplest, is a poetic journal of the author's observations of peregrine falcons one winter in England, but it is perhaps better described as an aesthetic meditation on life, death, the natural world, and man's place in it. The guys discuss their experience reading this unique work of nonfiction, touching on a variety of topics including the nature and cost of genius and obsession, seeing the hidden beauty in the world, the effects of recreational drugs on the mind, fear of death, the beauty and tragedy of the natural world, and anthropomorphism and its usefulness.Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Bird and Greg discuss Viktor Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning.Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]

Bird and Greg discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment. Both read the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation. Warning: the ending of Breaking Bad is spoiled during this discussion.Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: [email protected]