Thanks for this deeply insightful reflection, Owen. It is well worth the time to read through and sit with. G From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Owen Cox Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 2:17 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Joe Rogan's deal Dear all, As a young man, the JRE feels like the thing more than anything else that I share in common with guys of my generation. There's something for everyone to connect around, both intellectual and non-intellectual types. I feel like if and when we are older, Rogan's show will be looked back on as one of the defining features of our era. Then there's the fact, not really mentioned in the article, about how instrumental his show was in the rise of Jordan Peterson, who became a one man lightning rod for the culture wars. Meanwhile, Rogan was there in the background, doing his thing. There's a couple of lenses through which to look at what makes him so popular. One is about the nature of the "priesthood" in society. Following the work of Alexander Bard, we know the priesthood are responsible for creating and managing symbolic power, the stories that tell people who they are, the nature of things, and how to be in the world. At the beginning of Capitalism, the function of priesthood ceased to be located in the Church and Monastery and instead moved to academia (and journalism as downstream from it). The new capitalist priesthood were concerned with the dominant metaphysical ideas of the time, namely rationality and objectivity. The problem? As we know, rationality and objectivity offer no answers to the fundamental existential questions of life. The academic priesthood is incredibly powerful in wielding its machine, namely science, but also pathetically dry at taking care of the human needs of people. There is barely any space for the all-too-human in the halls of the capitalist priesthood. In fact, the place the human surfaces is in tabloid magazines, reality TV etc. And culture is starved. Rogan is of a different sort. He is connected to the profound thinkers and ideas and gets the stories out, but is also a deeply human person, and isn't afraid to laugh, make jokes, get wasted, talk about sex and partying, hunting and fighting. All in a way that is deeply friendly and respectful to his guests at the same time. And in doing that he achieves everything that the capitalist priesthood are supposed to do with their bourgeois "good manners" and elite degrees, but avoiding the snootiness of it all. His connection to the martial arts world also gives him a deep respectability and trustworthiness. You know he could kick your ass and as such he's not trying to compensate for anything. And in a supposedly post-religious world, a martial arts school is one of the few places one can experience what religion is supposed to be. Deep belonging to a trusting and legitimate community. One can rely on people who choke each other out for fun. The other lens relates to the Blue Church phenomenon and mass infantilisation of broadcast society. The method for managing human complexity involves making a few people the "adults" in charge of thinking and deciding, while the rest are dripfed their information and their lives via the TV tube and the newspaper. And the "adults" meticulously curate their elite world and who can enter it - again with fancy degrees and etiquettes of behavior. Rogan puts two fingers up at this. Of course he is also an informational, priestly elite - there will always be an elite so long as human capacities are unevenly distributed. Nonetheless, he is elite in a way that is far more accessible to non intellectuals, and thus blurs the lines between middle and working classes. Meanwhile, his stoned explorations into the nature of reality and his simple dudeliness bring back the element of existential questions and the all-too-human that are scoffed at by the capitalist priesthood. This disruption is deeply dangerous - the blue church strategy for managing complexity held a lot of shit together. Broadcast era mass infantilisation worked for some purposes. The digital world, of which Rogan is at the spearhead, is a wild west and perfect for the genesis of bloodthirsty, AI backed cults. Such is where we are... Hungoverly, Owen On Tue, May 26, 2020, 4:38 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Hi List, As I have repeatedly noted, there is a major shift happening in the media, such that more and more information is being shared in nontraditional ways and outlets. Joe Rogan, the King of the Podcast World, is an example. Here is a mainstream article on whether or not he exemplifies what might become the new mainstream media in the strange digital world that is emerging. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/joe-rogan-spotify-podcast.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nytimes.com_2020_05_25_opinion_joe-2Drogan-2Dspotify-2Dpodcast.html&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=TisbEBZ7XrZNmLLXC45zbzDKJsL3sGbPuSuT5DBr8Ck&s=rWU8x6ngISz_-DOES87aVB5iez1Y2SC-03yOH9caKaw&e=> Best, Gregg ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1