The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

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Ep. 251: Simone Weil’s Ideal Society

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On “Theoretical Picture of a Free Society” (1934). What’s the ideal living situation for us all, given the peculiarities of human nature? Weil describes fulfillment as coming from being able to picture goals and plans and knowingly put them into effect, so social groups need to maximize that power by being small and cooperative.

End song: “Libreville” by Bill Bruford, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #25.

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Ep. 251: Simone Weil’s Ideal Society (Citizen Edition)

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On “Theoretical Picture of a Free Society” (1934).

What’s the ideal living situation for us all, given the peculiarities of human nature? Weil describes fulfillment as coming from being able to picture goals and plans and knowingly put them into effect, so social groups need to maximize that power by being small and cooperative.

End song: “Libreville” by Bill Bruford, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #25.

Is “Do What You Love” Elitist?

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Thanks to JSully for pointing me–in the context of our discussions here of New Work–in the direction of the recent Slate article, “In the Name of Love,” by Miya Tokumitsu. Tokumitsu here describes the Steve-Jobsian commandment to “do what you love” as elitism, in that only the elite can afford such a luxury, and valuing only work done through love Continue Reading …

Episode 83: New Work with Guest Frithjof Bergmann

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Talking with Frithjof Bergmann, Prof. Emeritus from U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor about his book New Work, New Culture (2004, English release coming soon). New Work is an alternative to the current, dysfunctional job system that aims to enable people to do work (which is not the same as a “job”) that they really, really want. Learn more.

End song: “We Who Have Escaped,” a new song by Mark Lint.

Robert Skidelsky on Work

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Robert Skidelsky in How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life (2012) uses a 1930 essay from John Maynard Keynes (which you can read here) as a jumping-off point to argue, like Bergmann, that productivity gains enabled by past technological advances make it totally reasonable that we now should be working fewer hours than we are. However, Skidelsky’s range Continue Reading …

Topic for #83: Frithjof Bergmann on the Job System

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Listen to Mark’s introduction to this topic via our Precognition mini-episode. On Saturday, 9/21, we’re scheduled to interview Frithjof Bergmann, Professor Emeritus from the University of Michigan, about his book New Work, New Culture (published in German in 2004 and due for English-language release this year). I’ve written on this topic several times on this blog already, so perhaps you’d Continue Reading …

Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness” and Gary Gutting’s Modern Response

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One of the resources raised in our Not School Bergmann discussion was Bertrand Russell’s 1932 article “In Praise of Idleness,” which you can read here. Here’s his snarky definition of work: Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. Continue Reading …

Iván Szelényi Lectures on Marx & Alienation

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I referred in the episode to a number of lectures on Marx that helped me to put the German Ideology into perspective with Marx’s other texts and filled me in on few of the Young Hegelians that he criticized. These were from Yale’s Foundations of Modern Social Theory course by Iván Szelényi. (Get them from iTunes U.) Lectures 9-13 are Continue Reading …

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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