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Mark and Wes recap The Praise of Folly. At the end of the book, Erasmus seems to reverse himself and praises the asceticism (preference of the spiritual over the bodily) that he’s been otherwise making fun of. After all, he is a Christian, so his Nietzschean critique of pretention and stolidity can’t be entirely thoroughgoing.
In the full episode, Dylan joins us too, and we get seriously personal. How does folly play into our lives? We also look at the sexism in the book and how to modernize his argument that love provides a respite from the serious life. Plus, the folly of fandom and the role of humor in philosophy.
Start with part one.
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