Hi TOK List,

Here are a couple of articles and podcasts that I have stumbled across in the last 24 hours that I thought I would share. They have an interesting juxtaposition with the times we are in, where we have been and where we might be headed.

First, here is Thomas Friedman’s op-ed piece in today’s NY Times offering a slogan to Biden to counter Trump’s Make American Great Again. It is Respect Science, Respect Nature, Respect Each Other. It is a nice sentiment. But, from where I am currently sitting, it is way too anchored to the Blue Church (not surprisingly, given Friedman). For it to be what it can be and warrant the respect it ultimately deserves, the 21^st Century must update MENS (i.e., Modern Empirical Natural Science). This, folks, is really what the ToK/TOK is really about. We need a 21^st Century view on science to hold both ourselves and nature with respect.

Second, here is the pastor, Paul Vanderklay, talking about what everyone and everything is coming “unglued”. I don’t normally listen to pastors, but found him because of his connection to John Vervaeke, who hooked up with him because he had connected with Jordan Peterson. I recommend it because it is a nice, easy “narrative” about why everyone’s narrative is coming apart. Also, if you listen closely, he notes why narrative is so key to personhood, which is why this massive crisis of meaning we are experiencing is rocking us so hard.

Two older white guys, one hoping for a return to the Blue Church, the other spanning the old church through the ungluing of the modernist sensibility and wondering, with some justified trepidation what comes next.

Third, here is a Rebel Wisdom interview with Thomas Chatterton Williams on “unlearning race”. I thought he had a brilliant take on the race issues of our day, and was able to hold both the need to address systemic racism and the dangers of “racializing” everything. Also, given my recent exchanges, there was, coincidentally, a discussion about “black conservative thinkers” at the end of the podcast. It turns out for him, the problematic term was “conservatives”!

Fourth, here is an essay from Rachel Haywire called “Philosopher Queens”. This showed up on Alexander Bard’s Intellectual Deep Web List under a discussion of the possible emergence of a Dark Renaissance. It is edgy and cool and futuristic.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. As Zak Stein so aptly noted, we are in a time between worlds.

Peace,