Academy of Ideas

Nov 08 2024 50 ep. 14 mins 1.9k

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The Academy of Ideas podcast explores the ideas of the greatest philosophers and psychologists of history. Become a Supporting Member and access extra content: www.academyofideas.com/members

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The Psychology of Narcissism – A Modern Epidemic

Nov 08 2024 18 mins

One of the surest ways to ruin our life is to be in a close relationship with a narcissist. Whether it be a narcissist as a parent, husband, wife, colleague, or friend, if we are forced to deal with a narcissist on a daily basis we suffer. But even worse than having a narcissist in […]

Why is Modern Man so Weak and Powerless? – Carl Jung

Oct 17 2024 17 mins

Many believe that the most important social divide in the West today is between the political left and right. Much of the discourse in the corporate and independent media revolves around this battle, and many believe that its outcome will have existential ramifications for the future of the West. But is this political conflict acting […]

Carl Jung and the Archetypes – Making the Unconscious Conscious

Sep 17 2024 22 mins

“. . .when a living organism is cut off from its roots, it loses a connection with the foundation of its existence and must necessarily perish.” Carl Jung, Aion Carl Jung dedicated his life to a single goal, which as he notes in his autobiography, was to “penetrate into the secret of the personality.” […]

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Aug 17 2024 15 mins

“The warrior’s approach is to say “yes” to life: “yea” to it all…Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. Negativism to the pain and ferocity of life is negativism to life. We are not there until we can say “yea” to it all.” Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art […]

Social Distancing – Why They want You Isolated and Alone

Jul 19 2024 15 mins

…totalitarian domination as a form of government is new in that it… bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism Many people have amnesia regarding that fact that a mere few […]

Free Speech, Censorship, and the Threat of Totalitarianism

Jul 02 2024 20 mins

“…in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech.” Silence Dogood, pseudonym of Benjamin Franklin, The New-England Courant, Number 49, 2-9 July 1722 Freedom of […]

How Depression Facilitates Self-Transformation

“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel’s Journal Depression is the darkest of human experiences. It saps our energy, weakens our will to work, destroys our desire to socialize, decreases our motivation to exercise, and sometimes even jeopardizes our […]

Pursue Pain, Not Pleasure – Why Comfort is Crippling You

May 09 2024 19 mins

In the 1st century AD, the Greek orator and philosopher Dio Chrysostom wrote: “Luxury makes pains seem even harder, and dulls and weakens one’s pleasures. For the person who is always luxuriating and never touches pain will end up unable to endure any pain at all, and also not able to feel any pleasure, not […]

Are We Enslaved to One Side of the Brain? – The Sickness of Modern Man

Apr 21 2024 22 mins

“It seems to me that we face very grave crises indeed and that, if we are to survive, we need not just a few new measures, but a complete change of heart and mind.” Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World There seems to be […]

Why Democracy Leads to Tyranny

Mar 30 2024 17 mins

“Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and [destroys] itself. . .It is in vain to Say that Democracy is … less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all […]