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The Wes Cecil Podcast
Reading Jung's The Red Book - Ep. 3
HOW TO KILL THE HERO:
The power of Jung’s approach becomes a little more clear as we move into these later chapters. Jung is quite explicitly at war with his inherited cultural values. While it is one thing to recognize this, it is very much more difficult to try and reimagine one’s values - and hence one’s understanding of the self. Jung tries to murder the image of the hero - casting himself as an honorless assassin. He also articulates the powerful insight that the message Jesus teaches us is that we can torture and kill the gods.
Siegfried from the Niebelungenlied:
Now Siegfried was of noble birth, a prince without peer,
His fame had spread so widely, all held him dear.
His strength was like no other; his deeds could not be missed,
For he had conquered dragons and the Nibelung's treasure list.
In Burgundy’s bright court, his presence was a light,
With golden hair and armor, he dazzled every knight.
The ladies gazed in wonder, the men sang of his skill,
For none could match bold Siegfried’s grace and will.
As an exercise, make a list of all of the key values you sense in our culture - the importance of wealth for instance - and then try and embrace not just rejecting those values but actually overthrowing them. While it is generally fairly straightforward to make such a list, to actually internally transform ourselves, as Jung is striving to do, is extremely difficult.
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1. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 1
53:55||Season 1, Ep. 1LECTURE 1: WHAT IS AN AMERICAN?In my introductory lecture I explore the uniquely powerful role America plays in the contemporary world and the history that underlies its global dominance. 250 years ago, the United states had a tiny population, was loosely organized and beset by internal conflicts. A rapid and massive demographic and geographic expansion brought this relative backwater onto the world stage and then to global dominance. The cultural transformations that proceeded with this transformation created a society that is, for good or ill, extremely influential and uniquely American.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
2. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 2
34:51||Season 1, Ep. 2Q & A #1 - WHAT IS AN AMERICAN?Wes and Jeremy take questions from listeners on Lecture I: "What is an American?" Apologies for the audio quality on this one—it improves as the series moves along.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
3. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 3
42:32||Season 1, Ep. 3LECTURE 2: NO HISTORY FOR YOU!In my second lecture I explore the bizarre and necessary historical amnesia that besets American culture. For the first 200 years of American settlement, the Native American culture was forcibly erased, then actively ignored once the ‘Natives’ problem had been “solved”. Also, the invisibility of the African American presence in much of the US, which represented 40-50% of the population in some states, created a further barrier to American history. Finally, the internal patterns of settlement and mass migration cemented a near total disregard for framing our cultural understanding in any historical sensibility.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
4. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 4
38:48||Season 1, Ep. 4Q & A #2 - NO HISTORY FOR YOU! Wes and Jeremy take questions from listeners on Lecture II: No History for You!Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
5. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 5
01:02:47||Season 1, Ep. 5LECTURE 3 - AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM:This lecture explores the evolution of the American conception of the individual and why it has become so dominant within American culture. Devoid of a deep history and often in strange surroundings with strange people, many Americans have, for generations, felt thrust out on their own. What for most societies was considered a severe punishment - banishment - became, in America, a common and perhaps necessary mode of life. Over time, a virtue was created from this necessity and the peculiar form of American individualism became cemented as a core element of American values. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
6. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 6
41:14||Season 1, Ep. 6Q & A #3 - AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISMWes and Jeremy take questions from listeners on Lecture III: American IndividualismSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
7. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 7
01:01:30||Season 1, Ep. 7LECTURE 4 - NIHILISTIC MATERIALISMThat American culture is materialistic is an accurate but often unhelpful distinction as it is our particular kind of materialism that America manifests that is important to understand. In this lecture, I explore the peculiar Nihilistic elements that shape American materialism. Significantly, all the standard critiques of materialism - that material goods will not give your life meaning, that shopping is just coping mechanism for deeper ills, that the press of consumerism is driven largely by corporate greed - have little to no grip on the American psyche because everyone knows them and consumes anyway! America combines both a disbelief in consumerism with aggressive consumerism into a curious and counterintuitive set of outlooks and behaviors that shape important elements of American society.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
8. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 8
56:39||Season 1, Ep. 8Q & A #4 - NIHILISTIC MATERIALISMWes and Jeremy take questions from listeners on Lecture IV: Nihilistic MaterialismSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.
9. A Cultural History of The United States - Ep. 9
51:40||Season 1, Ep. 9LECTURE 5 - AMERICAN CALVINISMIn this lecture I explore the deep and abiding influence of Calvinism on the American cultural outlook. Whether Christian or not, Americans believe in purity, the centrality of moral judgements, visible signs of success and more. These attitudes are rarely traced back to their true origin - the specific beliefs and social forms developed by John Calvin. America is a Calvinist country par excellence.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.