In this episode I look at Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae, in particular her deep dive into Apollo and Dionysus as archetypal social drives.More at natureandthenation.com

Nature and the Nation

Review: Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia

In this episode, I look at Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy. I take care to examine his impressions of Apollo and Dionysus as potentially political archetypes of social, aesthetic, behavioral and ontological experiences.More at natureandthenation.com.

Review: The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche

In this episode I look at the most fundamental components of the Basic Writings of Carl Jung including empiricism, the unconscious especially the collective unconscious, and the archetype.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: The Basic Writings of Carl Jung edited by Violet Staub De Laszlo

In this episode I look at Carl Jung's Modern Man in Search of a Soul, where Jung details the relationship of the unconscious and the psyche to religion. I talk about the evolution of the collective unconscious and it's role as a carrier of intergenerational wisdom, and the plurality of forces that play upon the psyche, holding each other in balance and keeping any part of the psyche from dominating the others.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Jung

In this episode, I look at Alain de Benoist's On Being a Pagan. De Benoist makes a comprehensive comparison between paganism and Christianity, and I focus in the value comparisons that echo Nietzsche, the criticisms of duality, and the effect of original sin and innocence at birth on the two ethical systems and senses of guilt.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: On Being a Pagan by Alain de Benoist

In this episode I look at Larry Arnhart's Darwinian Conservatism, a great book that explores many of the same themes I've been spotlighting elsewhere, but all in one spot and finally putting the tail on the donkey and labeling the evolutionary premise behind Burke's and Hayek's ideas: Darwinian Conservatism. Arnhart talks about spontaneous order and the natural order, customary order, and rational order. I also point out Arnhart's take on the differences between men and women.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart

In this episode, I explore James Burnham description of liberalism as an ideology founded on an unsound notion of the pliability of human nature. I also look at his notion of guilt as the driving emotion of liberal activity.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: Suicide of the West by James Burnham

In this episode I look at What is Conservatism, Frank Meyer's collection of essays by mid-20th century conservative thinkers. The essays I focus on give a deeper analysis of the ways in which the state is dependent upon the particular traditions of a people, and the traditions of the people are dependent on a transcendent shared appraisal of reality. The authors I focus on include Russell Kirk, Garry Wills, and Stanley Parry.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: What is Conservatism by Frank Meyer

In this episode I explore Viktor Frankl's moving exploration into the meaning of life, Man's Search for Meaning. I focus on virtuous behavior in the face of suffering, the importance of having tasks to fulfill, obligations, and the need for love.

Review: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

In this episode I explore the 'master' and 'slave' morality proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals, with a particular focus of how the master morality may relate to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks, and how it relates to modern conservatism and progressivism.More at www.natureandthenation.com

Review: The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

In this episode I explore Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. I look at eudaimonia and the mean between defect and excess in virtuous behavior. I also examine Aristotle's work on courage and pride, two natural virtues he describes.More at natureandthenation.com.

Review: The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle

In this episode I continue the exploration of the evolutionary roots of morality with Jonathan Haidt's fantastic book, The Righteous Mind. In this book, Haidt delivers the killing blow to the rationalist delusion that I've been discussing since the early episodes. In addition, I examine the broad array of virtues encompassed by Haidt's moral foundations theory. This theory, and its political ramifications, continue to draw together evolutionary psychology, conservatism, and the golden mean proposed by Aristotle.more at natureandthenation.com

Review: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

In this episode, we explore Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, in which he explains his research in the two modes of thought: System 1, the fast, intuitive, unconscious thought of associations and heuristics, and System 2, the slow, deliberate, calculative, resource-depleting conscious thought.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

In this episode I look at Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue. In particular I look at the prisoner's dilemna and potential strategies to achieve cooperation and reciprocity among evolving selfish genes. I also examine the sexual division of labor in early humans, with males doing most of the hunting and women doing most of the gathering.More at natureandthenation.com

Review: The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley

Richard Dawkins' best-selling book, The Selfish Gene, examines the fundamental nature of the replicating gene in a competitive environment, and all of the consequences thereof. I look specifically at the origins of life and DNA, and the evolutionarily stable strategy of behavior development in a game theory context.More at www.natureandthenation.com

Review: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Nature and the Nation explores politics, philosophy, psychology, sociology and economics from a naturalistic, paleoconservative perspective, using the format of a book review. I examine books published in a wide array of time periods, with a special emphasis on the early to middle 20th century, the ancient Greeks, and of course the present.

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Nature and the Nation

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