38:28 "Don't worry about the Capitalist or Communist. Fight to feel and to live anything."

9:00 First thesis of Debord's Society of the Spectacle: "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation."

For a brilliantly delivered lecture series, each part showcasing Roderick's masterful handling of Nietzsche and eloquence in translation and communication, he ends our tour on a powerful note rousing us inheritors of a dying world to LIVE.

Jo Rick Roderick is too real. i just had a discussion if he is a philosopher or a Professor for philosophy and I can asure everybody: He is nothing like any Professor for Philosophy I met and I studied Philsophy 😭 This is one of the most accessible interpretations of Nietzschian postmodern thougt.

Wow. Listening to this in 2017 - he is right on in his forecast.

@EugenTemba

5 жыл бұрын

No joke

@dethkon

3 жыл бұрын

Things have speed up since you left your comment, and I expect them to speed up much further. It seems to me that if society still exists at all, in 9/28/2020 (I haven’t been able to find it in either the bourgeoisie, nor in the petty bourgeois, nor in the proletariat. Maybe in the lumpen?), it seems to be made up of people from the modern period living in post-modernity, and of people from post-modern period attempting to live in modernity. What I mean by that is that the people from the post-War period, the so-called baby-boomers, are trying to make sense of post-modernity’s weirdness (either by hysterically fighting against it, OR by passively accepting everything about it). Meanwhile those of us who are of the post-modern period are looking backwards towards modernity for some sense of meaning to hold onto, whether it be the extremely unexpected (but now obvious) re-emergence of intense interest in social political projects like Fascism and Marxism, or the psychedelic milieu. (1. I don’t mean draw an equivalence between the Fascist political project and the Marxist one, except that they’re both remnants of modernity. 2. See *High Weirdness* by Eric Davis.). Terence McKenna claimed that “when any culture faces a major crises, it invariably looks towards it’s past.” Roderick makes a similar claim about a culture attempting a return to archaic values via neoclassicism during the enlightenment, “even though there hadn’t been a Roman around for 1000 years.” Which might explain why I can look on Twitter, Reddit, or (whatever the forum du jour is when your reading this) for politics and witness a simulacrum of the same debates being re-hashed, in real time, that were litigated during the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th Internationals. And I don’t even need to go to a congress or meeting, I can do it from my bedside! This is my interpretation, anyway.

@kubixis4786

Жыл бұрын

You forgot to mention the people born in the post-modern world who completely embrace the loss of the real and the emergence of simulation in everyday life. These people push the boundaries of simulation as far as possible. (aka creating Metaverse, VR, etc) Yet, still, I don't know what to feel about it. On one hand, the opportunity to live in a simulation that satisfies all desires is very attractive, on the other hand, it's unlikely to make us happy. This is what it's all about, the pursuit of happiness. The problem with simulation, is that it's made on the assumption that happiness is about joy, but it's not. By that standard, the happiest people on Earth should be drug addicts, as they consume huge amounts of dopamine all the time. In reality, our brains aren't built to be 'happy,' at least not in the dopamine kind of happy. I think true happiness is what Buddhists have found for a long time, which if I'm correct, is to be free from suffering. That is achieved by a control over thoughts, something only possible given years of meditation and mindfulness. It is the feeling of peace, when one does not need to do anything but exist. To be truly happy is to be in the moment with no desires, fears, emotions or thoughts.

@kubixis4786

Жыл бұрын

I guess it's possible for virtual reality to be fulfilling. It can happen if reality becomes obsolete and is replaced by the virtual reality. That is, if humans no longer need to work to survive like they do now. It is a likely possibility given the potential of AI. The emergence of general AI will be sufficient to remove 90% or more jobs, for the reason that it would be cheaper to buy a robot once rather than pay a living wage. It's hard to say whether such drastic replacement of jobs will lead to Utopia or Dystopia. It will depend on the adaptation of the government towards change. In that case, people will likely lose whatever motivation that they already had towards "real" life, and will further indulge in virtual reality.

@tehdii

Ай бұрын

Listening to this and reading Neuromancer in 2024 is a trip...

17:23 *postmodern homogeny* “The thing is I’m not even joking, because when you go to Switzerland there’ll be the same stuff. McDonald’s will be there too, the television will be on the same channels, the holiday inn will be open and the room will look just like the one does here and so on. This postmodern space is not a dream of theorists.. it is becoming our culture and way of life.”

There are a lot professionals of philosophy. NEVER have I heard one as profound as Rick Roderick. The very fact I am watching his video and living the replica experience of attaining his lectures can be a small comfort. RIP professor.

Rick Roderick was the brightest bulb on the block. I miss him and thank you for posting these.

Mr. Roderick is a fine teacher and lecturer whose ability is heretofore unmatched in my prodigious online and personal experience. I'm 68 years old.

@stanleyogden8032

6 жыл бұрын

Happy 70th birthday

@mieliav

6 жыл бұрын

may I recommend y. harari... many of his themes are continuations of roderick's. and his delivery just as engaging.

@coolkid9967

2 жыл бұрын

I wish you well old fellow.

Fantastic lectures. Life changing I would say. Be at peace brother Rick 👏🏻👏🏻 what a Privilege to have found you here... wow 😮

19:43 "whatever combination you imagine, since under these conditions of virtual reality, whatever transgressive gender you have, you'll be able to live it out in a perfectly commodified way with a virtual reality suit." Rick was truly ahead of his time.

@ant1bliss

4 жыл бұрын

cough black mirror season 5 Striking Vypers

The ending lines were beautifully delivered

24:42 “If there will be battles over this new terrain and on it-many of them will be fought on the terrain itself... Television, radio, magazines. As I’ve called it the _obscenity of the saturated communicational culture._ Saturated with information, obscenely over-saturated, information up to your neck, beyond your elbows. Now of course I could be wrong about all of this, let me just stop and say that for a moment.” Well he wasn’t.

I often get the "mall fever". Alienation... These were brilliant lectures.

"The people that come after this time will have a different subjectivity, if we can still use that word-- it will be debatable. . . . The problem that we have in philosophy today, when they are posed on their highest level, is not one of believers and nonbelievers, but of human and the nonhumans". Wow! Gone to soon. Gone too soon.

@nightoftheworld

4 жыл бұрын

Ibraahiym Kadessh cigarettes and Big Macs..

In the movie, The Pawn Broker, the main character has an upturned nail on which he skewers and saves each receipt. Near the end, he slowly impales his hand on that nail, stifling his screams.

A lot of praise already for keeping Professor Roderick’s lectures and his spirit alive. But I want to add my appreciation as well. I return to these lectures periodically. Every time-I find something new (hopefully because I have incorporated enough of the rigor into my thinking that find myself ready for more). He was an absolute inspiration and he brilliantly completes the circuit from these theoretical concepts to how they are playing out in the world. Amazing

I've enjoyed this series of lectures, thank you.

22:43 “If there will be battles over this new terrain and on it many of them will be fought on the terrain itself-television, radio, magazines.”

I think this one is his best.

Immortal!

Thanks shinobirastafari for uploading this amazing series! If only he was around to see the full development of the World Wide Web, reality tv, and other technologically realized projections of post-modernism.

Truly remarkable insights from a truly beautiful mind.

14:24 *death of radical subjectivity* “Now we may just trod endlessly, solving one little technical adjustment after another, to the finely tuned echo-machines that we used to call our bodies.”

I'm so glad he never lived to see social media.

god bless you for these.

21:57 *neuromarketing obscenities* “The advertisements followed the story very closely. You known you’d have a little moment where one of the characters would sort of wistfully stop whining and look around-and then the next thing you know there’d be an ad for an Infinity car. So that answers that need to overcome the wistful desire, _’well I’m wistful and I’ve whined , but if I was in my Infinity...’_ An Infinity-an automobile. Well that’s _not_ just a way to get around is it? You see-commodities are no longer just things of use, _they’ve become part of what we are_ and we need to recognize it. I mean that’s one of the lessons I’m trying to drive home here today.”

24:01 *postmodern nightmare world* “So I could be wrong-I could be wrong.. and whether I am or not though (this is the nice part about an argument like this) whether I am or not-time will tell. Except that here if it tells one thing it won’t have mattered, as you may have guessed, since it won’t have told it _to_ anyone. If I’m right my argument has the peculiar characteristic that it will not have mattered. It will only have mattered if what I’ve said turns out to be wrong in ways that my argument has effected.”

26:55 *mark of the times* “Four pedants don’t make an age-and two or three weird philosophers don’t give birth to a century of unreason.”

A wonderful lecture .

Thank you Roderick🙏 hope you rest in peace😊 #2019

End of Transmission until further notice. 36:27

30:30 *incomplete ground* “We cannot with _reason_ defend the distinction between reason and unreason.” [...] “Nothing could be harder than to distinguish that fable [postmodernism] from its non-fable aspects-its real aspects.”

I had a Big Mac in Geneva Switzerland 3 weeks ago

Ok, "Nietzsche's Nightmare Squared' Gets my vote for a documentary title that should be made based on this talk. Someone please pass this idea along to Roderick! He says we cannot under estimate this period in history, and it is very strange according to him. We seem to live in a deeply embedded radical nihilism.

"[The atomic bomb] was perhaps our last change to realise a decent end to our species, one that would have been worthy of us. Now we might just trod endlessly, subbing one technical adjustment after another, to the finely tuned echo machines that are our bodies" - did I hear this correctly

@natiaober

7 жыл бұрын

This is what I heard, starting at 14:16: "It was perhaps our last chance to realize a decent end to our species, one that would have been worthy of it. Now we may just trod endlessly, solving one little technical adjustment after another to the finely tuned echo machines that we used to call our bodies."

@lucaswilkins9217

7 жыл бұрын

Change was a typo. We agree on trod, but not on subbing/solving. What's with trod? was he trying to say both tread and plod, is it Texan dialect? Maybe he got a little tongue-tied around that point ... but I don't really want to believe that because it's otherwise so brilliant and outrageous.

@natiaober

7 жыл бұрын

Trod is the past tense and past participle of tread. His use of the word is not likely to be attributed to dialect or being tongue-tied.

@lucaswilkins9217

7 жыл бұрын

it is, but that would also be ungrammatical.

18:46 *It’s okay to make a dollar* “Well now the virtual reality suit-they’re working on marketable versions. That means ones that are _cost effective,_ which means that we’re still living in relations of capital because that means somebody wants to make a dollar-which is _okay!_ So do I, so do you. There’s no reason in recognizing a necessity, no matter how cruel the necessity is.. you’ve gotta recognize ‘em sometimes.”

Not understanding comment on Nietzsche's politics as a person remark...Roderick himself knew and said several times on these lectures that Nietzsche the philosopher should not be tied to fascist politics to later take over his themes in Germany...and also...we just don't know much about "Nietzsche's personal politics"...can anyone out there explain these remarks?

A wonderful mind. Interestingly, he looks very much like Anthony Hopkins and many of his physical mannerisms even seem the same as well.

0:20 *Nietzsches Hegelianism* “There are no lasts-there are no last interpretations, there are no last desperate moments.”

Just a thought, if nihilism is now technologically possible, there is also the possibility that it could be turned off and therefore the conditions for the possibility of return of subjectivity, of human powers.

36:41 *the media wars* “The fights that remain, the living antagonisms and our possibilities to construct ourselves in anything like _free and autonomous_ ways will have to be fought across that barren, strange landscape-that unthinkable cultural future of deferred and indifferent _pseudo-experience._ And across that terrain the struggles for even moments of authentic, lived experience.. (authentic in quotes, who knows) of lived experience.. to feel something for god sakes, anything, will be the locus of struggle and of action we can hope.”

@davidd854

Жыл бұрын

The beginning of Terminator with the human skull being crushed by the tracks of the robot-tank comes to mind.

Knowledge and technology are great equalizers. TV replaces the subjective, Good debate vs bad debate. doesn't a gun replace a fist. The only thing that can stop a bad pamphleteer with an idea is a good one with a good idea.

Wow, on sport: I always thought sport was a hunt substitute.... and shopping a gathering substitute , millions of years doing something one way does not just go away

10:59 *humanity moves away into image*

Sadly, he died over a decade ago.

If anyone is in heaven is Rick

@virtue_signal_

Жыл бұрын

There is no heaven He is resting in peace as all the dead are.

Wow

life is what you make of it.

A true Prophet!

Technological Nihilism sounds like Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone. He addresses it.

Doesn't God have to exist before he/she/it can be considered 'dead'??? I'm not saying I'm a believer, just noting what appears to be a contradiction or at least a paradox...

@panthamor

10 жыл бұрын

the saying that god is dead does not refer to the (non-)existence of god, it says nothing at all about whether god really exists or not. it refers to the fact that the BELIEVE in god is vanishing!

@differous01

9 жыл бұрын

phaedris "God is dead!" is not pointing to atheism per-ce; rather it is the death of concepts of God, of the paradigms of civilisations. In Biblical terms it is like saying that new wine needs a new wineskin. Sensing the same shift W.B.Yeats wrote: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; ... And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? " [The Second Coming (1919)]

@Carltoncurtis1

6 жыл бұрын

If you take God to exist even as a fictional character then it’s not illogical to refer to it as dead anymore than it is illogical to refer to obi-wan as dead.

@nightoftheworld

3 жыл бұрын

God is unconscious

John Henry

Rick died in 2002.

forget the death of god. he is saying the real struggle is to have and experience a self. think about it. will the story of your life be yours? will it bring you joy?

helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hey 2017- wait till 2022…. 🤯🤯🤯🤯😷😷🤢😬😬😬😬

@S2Cents god is dead :) just joking

McDonald's makes its hamburger paddies from human embryos.

so skinny

So when do we get to hear about Nietzsche? I mean all the tangents were interesting but this is supposed to be about Nietzsche, not your half-wrong guesses about the near future and random political rambles.

@timhorton2486

5 жыл бұрын

A AA What precisely did you not understand about the title? This is actually a part of one long lecture he did on Nietzsche. And I’d also love to hear about what you think was “half-wrong” here.

@nightoftheworld

Жыл бұрын

seems like he was pretty close tho.. global corporate media based culture wars, postmodern superficiality of commodified life, McDonald’s/holiday inn franchises homogenizing every city into oblivion, vr suits..