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What is the connection between Turner’s ethereal paintings of the Rhine and today’s nativist stories, in Germany and across the pond? How is it that the Romantics venerated individual sensitivity and universalist ideals, and yet prominent Romantic thinkers were so often beguiled by authoritarians? Why did Fascists find it so easy to repurpose this soft, dreamy material for their own ends?
Thomas Mann was scathing about it: he famously described the Nazi project as German Romanticism “breaking out into hysterical barbarism.” Whether or not the average person in Germany is aware of this line of thinking, I do think some glimmer of it echoes in the plain, functional aesthetic - a fear that next to something pretty or moving could be the abyss. This has always struck me in contrast to the British nostalgia for frills and bunting, or the catchy sentimentalism of American Country music. People in Germany flirt with the vibe of course, in the ubiquitous opera houses, at Oktoberfest and with garden gnomes - but it has to be historic or formalized or a bit silly, and so ultimately deniable.
Helmut Schneider is Professor Emeritus for Modern German Literature at Bonn University (with stints abroad, explaining this material to the anglosphere), so he seemed like a good person to answer such questions. His own interest in the period was fuelled more by the beauty of the language, the poetry in particular, than by its historical or political dimensions.
But I was particularly struck by one of his psychological observations: that the Romantics’ preoccupation with the internal, with feeling, particularity, mysticism, and Nature writ large made them uninterested in institution building, or the frictionful mechanics of government. As a result, they were susceptible to anyone promising them a safe container for their solipsism. Kind of obvious and tracks to the stereotype at an individual level, but I’d never thought it through. It’s a squeamischness about mixing one’s creative labor with the outside world, whether in technology, commerce or politics. But failing to participate in shaping a society that values and protects what they contribute is a problem for any sensitive free spirit.
The uncategorizable Goethe provides a possible answer, in an early 19th century survey of mediveal German art (that had been looted out of Church and feudal settings by the French). Against his contemporaries’ calls for a German Louvre, Goethe argued that the art should remain distributed, embedded in its historical locals and accessible to the population. Instead of a great central insitution, he advised the Kaiser that the way to elevate regional treasures was to strengthen their connectedness, into a web of culture that would incorporate the characters of particular settings. It was through greater communicative connection that the work would become an organic whole, greater than the sum of its parts.
Music outro credit: "Mondnacht" — music by Robert Schumann, text by Joseph von Eichendorff. Performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone) and Günther Weissenborn (piano).
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Dr. Bettina Wolfgarten is a third generation radiologist specialising in breast cancer. As we unpack what this means, it turns out the technology has changed so much that the job would be unrecognizable to her grandfather. But the throughline remains strong, in Bettina’s telling: a fundamental drive to look into the body as deeply and precisely as possible, embracing emerging technologies in an entrepreneurial way. The courage required to be decisive, and the importance of human trust even when the work is deeply technical.
What stands out is how Bettina insists that the way she and the team (including her husband, indefatigable Dr. Matthias Wolfgarten) work should always help the whole person. Their combined practice and complementary offering at Forum Wolfgarten seeks to model what humane, holistic care along the entire patient journey could look like. Beyond their clinical work, they have founded the inter-disciplinary non-profit f.em to promote education, best practices, and civil society engagement at the interface between acute healthcare and healing.
It’s truely astonishing what Bettina and Matthias do every day to better diagnose and cure this disease, which affects 1 in 8 women. It’s a passion project of theirs to enlist everyone else to help patients not just to survive, but to experience treatment in an environment of trust, and then to re-enter their lives and thrive again.
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My very dear friend Marie-Theres Strauss challenged me to trade seats for this one. I think I agreed to talking about the pod, but ended up answering questions about myself.
Marie felt that anyone following these conversations is entiteld to know more about where I am coming from. So it’s a bit different and I’m not sure my bio is inherently interesting, but I’ll offer it.
What is true though: I believe in live dialogue as a uniquely rich format for learning because there are two subjectivities involved. People always communicate at multiple intellectual, emotional, and embodied levels, briefly mixing their worlds with a third, shared reality. That’s what makes talking to another human being different to chatting with an LLM… Engagement goes both ways. We can be intrigued, or triggered, or bored, or actually inspired. If the conversation is any good, it isn’t controlled by either of us.
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Why do people enjoy conventional couple dances even when they eschew conventional gender roles in real life? Is there some broader virtue that is cultivated in this highly codified, chivalrous language? What’s satisfying about setting aside important aspects of identity for the duration of a dance, and instead, pracitcing a kind of whole-body-listening with a stranger?
Soroa Lear is a professional dancer, though she’ll hasten to say that Tango is not her area of expertise. I’ve spoken to her about free-form dancing more generally (episode #4). This conversation is a follow-on from that, in response to popular demand :)
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What are the stories we tell about the boundaries of Self - and why should we interrogate them with science, contemplative practice, and psychedelics?
Dr. James Cooke believes that any deep first-principles understanding of the human condition requires us to tackle the fundamental construct of separateness. He’s not denying that everyday narratives of reality are predictive, rather he’s interested in the psychological wellbeing that exists on the other side of these stories of self.
James is a neuroscientist and director of a new contemplative science research programme at Oxford University. He also teaches contemplative practices that draw from non-dual traditions, as well as being an author and podcaster.
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Nobody isn’t going there, nobody’s parents aren’t going there—and yet so many of us show up at the threshold surprised and unprepared.
Modernity seems at a loss when it comes to the dying process. Among the oldest evidence of human meaning making are artefacts to mark this passage, but today we often find ourselves without any conceptual frame that dying doesn’t break. It’s outside the event horizon.
Wolfgang Schmidt Ulm Dos Santos is a trained Death Doula. He’s done many other things - men’s fashion, startups - but it is in this work that he now finds joy. We’re old friends, and it was wonderful to hear him speak about this unexpected calling. Not entirely inappropriate in the run-up to Easter perhaps.
To see how an appreciation of mortality is at the root of both the contemplative and the poetic impulse, and maybe all true delight, here’s One Or Two Things by Mary Oliver. In the conversation, we touch briefly on Rilke’s Todeserfahrung.
1
Don’t bother me
I’ve justbeen born.
2
The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes
for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze of the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower
3
The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things; I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever,
4
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.
5
One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning --- some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.
6
But to lift the hoof!
For that you needan idea.
7
For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then
the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.“
Don’t love your life
too much,” it said,
and vanished
into the world.”
― Mary Oliver
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We continue the conversation with the Odyssey myth. Marzia interprets the story of Odysseus (Ulysses) as Penelope’s dream of individuation.
I enjoyed this archetypally Jungian move. Rather than the story be about the return of the hero protagonist after the Trojan war, the entire thing is dreamed up by his wife, Penelope, known as the faithful spouse who for twenty years awaits his return to Ithaca. In fact, Odysseus is a projection of her “animus” - her masculine aspect - which through encounters with various female characters eventually returns and is reunited with her. In this telling, as Marzia says, “fidelity is not fidelity to a man, it is fidelity to herself.” A thought provoking perspective.
Marzia Santori is a practicing Jungian psychoanalyst in London and Rome, as well as teaching at the CG Jung institute in Zurich. An economist in her previous life, she worked in the finance industry before turning to the Unconscious.
This is Part (iii) of a 3 part mini series. Archetypes Part (i) discusses the concept and its application in analysis in general, Part (iii) is Marzia’s interpretation of the Odyssey with the help of an expansive Penelope archetype.
(With apologies for the suboptimal sound quality this time)
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Continuing with the theme of archetypes, Marzia suggested that we talk about the symbol of the snake, working through association and the real example of a snake dream of one of her clients (to which of course that client had consented).
We talk about why Jungian Psychoanalysts pay such close attention to dreams, whether they contain messages from the unconscious mind, and how archetypal dreams can be a bridge to instinct. If you are categorically impatient with other people’s dreams then perhaps this one isn’t for you, if you’re intrigued then maybe it is.
Marzia Santori is a practicing Jungian psychoanalyst in London and Rome, as well as teaching at the CG Jung institute in Zurich. An economist in her previous life, she worked in the finance industry before turning to the Unconscious.
This is Part (ii) of a 3 part mini series. Archetypes Part (i) discusses the concept generally. Part (iii) is Marzia’s interpretation of the Odyssey myth as Penelope’s dream, thereby giving an entirely unexpected flavor to the Penelope archetype.
(With apologies for the suboptimal sound quality this time)
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When are we in contact with an archetype—and when are we merely stereotyping, denying ourselves the insight of a full human archetypal pattern? What if we’re stuck in one aspect of an archetype, with “success” thinkable only along one narrow trajectory, but many ways to fail? Is there such a thing as a flexible hero?
In this episode, we look at these questions through concepts as different as those of God, Chair, Mediterranean Mother and Hero (as told in the Odyssey).
Marzia Santori is a practicing Jungian psychoanalyst in London and Rome, as well as teaching at the CG Jung institute in Zurich. An economist in her previous life, she worked in the finance industry before turning to the Unconscious.
This is Part (i) of a 3 part mini series. Archetypes Part (ii) discusses the snake archetype through dream analysis. Part (iii) is Marzia’s interpretation of the Odyssey through the archetype of Penelope.
(With apologies for the suboptimal sound quality this time)
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Not being native to the Rheinland, Rhenish Karneval is a phenomenon that begs explanation.
So I asked a local legal mind to summarise the rules for me. That turns out to be rather difficult: a loosely pro-social subversion of the usual social order is the whole point. Instead of rules, the region is seized by a passionate pre-Lent commitment to the themes of Love, Cologne, and Kölsch. I even did this one in German to try and catch the cultural nuance— but in the end, the thing has to be seen to be believed. Immerse to comprehend.
Gernot Lehr is a prominent German media lawyer. While he’s in the business of upholding boundaries and counselling caution, he’s also a big advocate of adopting a more relaxed posture for a few days a year, to participate in the collective “psychological regeneration” that is Karneval.
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What does it mean to innovate within a defined form? In what sense is it important to be true to the vision of the composer—when can we straddle the shoulders of artistic giants and go somewhere new, when does that end up some kind of insensitive appropriation? And what is our cultural responsibility to restore a musical lineage severed by genocide?
Musicians must keep asking themselves these questions, says Elina Ahlbach. Her view is that if Bach had known the e-guitar, he would have used it. Elina is better-placed than most to assert such a thing: she is the founder and artistic director of the chamber music group Continuum, an internationally recognised harpsichordist and Glenn Gould Bach Fellow.
There is something both very soulful and unflinchingly clear about Elina’s music, and in her leadership style as she conducts her ensemble from her instrument. I’ve been meaning to get into some of these questions with her for a while, but being family is not always conducive to that kind of conversation. The pod has been an effective, if somewhat baroque excuse for that.
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This is a foray into unfamiliar territory. But it’s almost Christmas, and the Christmas story is perhaps the only part of the Bible that even non-Christians know by heart: a miraculous pregnancy, a humble family’s journey to comply with government diktat. The search for shelter, finally bedding down in a stable, and the divine child born there in the cold.
Hardly a story of domination, points out Donata Lasson. Donata is a lawyer, author, and vocal Christian. We talk about the role of biblical stories in creating shared culture, and the emerging variants of “muscular Christianity” on the Right.
In particular, we discuss a recent podcast by Sam Harris with Douglas Wilson on Christian Nationalism (#443). Sam Harris is a prominent member of the “New Atheists” (among other things), Douglas Wilson is a pastor and proponent of Christian Nationalism, whose ideas have received attention recently because of his connection to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Their conversation is a version of the Atheist vs Believer debate on morality, meaning, and where you think you stood before you chose your epistemology.
What they didn’t tackle clearly enough, in my opinion, was the promise that there is moral certainty and consistency in theocratic government. But this seems to be at the core of what some people find so appealing about that vision: that instead of the messy democratic process of grinding out a compromise that is never finally locked down, we could simply turn to an eternal law revealed in Scripture.
The thing is, reading is ALWAYS interpretation - framing, emphasis, projection, an interaction with prior knowledge - of which the sheer number of denominational categories is surely proof (besides being the bread and butter of all lawyering). If a large and complex compilation of texts is to deliver us any certainty, it is only via placing our trust in the authority of someone’s interpretation of it. And that seems to me the fundamental flaw. Perhaps, for those who are attracted to it, it’s a feature. If that is true, then to move away from secularism is necessarily to court authoritarian rule.
And all of this said, I did find something about Douglas Wilson’s overall conversational posture resonating with me. Trying to figure out what that was, it is perhaps best described as a refreshing friendliness— while the entire discussion was respectful, it felt like Sam Harris was having to hold his nose. His version of winning would have been to persuade decisively, and then walk away asap. Whereas the pastor was ultimately concerned with Sam’s redemption, and there was a sense he’d have invited us all back for dinner and a prayer, however far he got with it. I can see why that offer might be attractive in these fearful, atomised times.
Donata says there is a word for that, it’s called proselytizing, and it comes with spiritual arrogance and manipulative intent. I can’t argue with that view. But to me it seems that all other things equal, even such good will is better than none. It may be ultimately conditional on conversion, but Douglas Wilson confirms that deathbed conversions count, so that should secure us his benevolence in our lifetimes.
This conversation left me thinking about what a secular Liberal version of such benevolence looks like. Even if we all gather and part ways again with irreconcilable visions of Paradise, if we fundamentally want others to join us there, the experience of talking about it would be way more enjoyable this Christmas season.
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What makes a voice listenable? Are we looking to be soothed? How do the idioms of techno and jazz differently show up the nature of time? Does silence even exist?
This is a pretty whimsical conversation about the nature of sound. Professionally, I’ve dealt a lot in writing and comparatively little in voice, but I’m interested in its different characteristics - in the extemporaneous nature of spoken conversation, and the way paying attention to sound forces the listener into the present moment. You can’t skim listen to music. You pretty much have to trust that the people on the podcast will eventually get to a point that was worth hanging on for (or you don’t, and you’ll never know).
Michael is a percussionist and sound designer based in Berlin who lives and breathes this medium. Even so, at some point he had to resort to Bill Evans channeling God. Perhaps we can’t truly admit sound without experiencing something esoteric.
Recommend Michael for all your sound design needs - a versatile composer and overall joy to work with.
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Peer group circles are an extremely powerful format for reflection, supportive camaraderie, and building strength. It’s not like coaching, though similar insights can emerge. It’s not like friendship as we usually understand that, with its layers of intertwinement, loyalties and expectations, although a well-run circle can lead to mutual well-wishing that, as Toby says, borders on love. It is under-utilised social design in my opinion.
Toby Sawday runs a programme of peer group retreats for CEOs he calls “Campfire Circles”. I poke him a bit on the male-only requirement - not because I think mixed is always best, but because I am curious where it is that he thinks men can and need to go with other men, that they can’t when there are women in the room.
This was a fun conversation with an old friend, and I bet #Campfire is amazing, to the point I feel completely confident recommending it to anyone who is male, middle-aged (I think that requirement might be softened in the face of sufficient inner maturity :), and an acute or recovering CEO.
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Caryl Emerson is Emerita Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton. She is also my dearly beloved, indefatigable octogenarian aunt.
Caryl’s fascination with Russian culture dates back to when she was a teenager in the 1950s, a time when most people in the West were even more wary of all things Russian than they are today (or rather, the opposite political camps were). This young girl fell in love: a literature full of “heroic” narratives, artists so severely constrained by totalitarian government that their work could emerge only with startling creativity and courage… a world away from the American entertainment industry, or the British bourgeois novel’s marriage plot.
I’m interested in that story, but the bigger theme I’m chewing on here is why it is so important to engage in deep, immersive reading. In one’s native language or any other. Because it’s hard, and quite different to the interruptible skimming of short-form, mixed audio-visual content that dominates our feeds. If you happen to observe children working to acquire literacy, you remember what a feat that cultural technology really is. Mastering it at all, and then developing it to a level that can sustain the inner universe of a novel.
My actually literary friends may smirk at my naive questions (what even is a novel?), but I really enjoyed this conversation, and I’m glad I captured it. Somewhat to my surprise, Caryl is optimistic about “young” people’s reading habits. She did not give me a short answer to the question of why children should spend their precious time studying foreign languages, or develop the concentration span to read War and Peace. But I am perhaps a little closer to distilling my own, which is the sign of a great teacher at work.
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“Only connect”, said E.M. Forster in Howard’s End, and that ends up being the essence of this conversation. Nathan designs social spaces with variations on this goal.
We talk about the difference between rituals and games, what’s wrong with the New Stoics, and some things to try when small talk threatens to ruin an evening. We didn’t quite get to the bottom of games as “art in the medium of agency itself” (phrase curtesy of C. Thi Nguyen), but Nathan articulates quite beautifully why connecting to other people is necessary for getting in touch with reality.
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Sarah is one of the few people I know who can talk about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) without getting flustered. An endeavour that has inspired so much passion and such bitter resistance can be hard to even discuss, but she approaches it with thoughtfulness and empathy for everyone involved in the work of integrating DEI considerations into the challenging business of running an organization.
We talk about what each of the letters actually stands for, and how those principles interact with broader questions of management style and priorities. Sarah is a strong proponent of DEI aspirations, and she’s also a pragmatic thinker who wants us to get past the weaponization of acronyms, back to the first principles that most of us can agree on.
Sarah is the author of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - How to Succeed at an Impossible Job”. She is currently Strategic Advisor to StartSteps, an organization that helps people start a new career in the world of tech.
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People have always gathered to dance.
It’s a peculiar feature of Western modernity that we don’t anymore; or rather, that we limit the opportunities for dance into such contained and private subcultures. In doing so, I think we deprive ourselves of some pretty brilliant social tech.
Soroa Lear is a professional dancer and co-creator of Vibrant Body, a popular dance practice in Berlin Kreuzberg. We talk about how dance can be a playful take on traditional roles, a collective ritual of identity transcendence, or a very private pleasure practice. We also speculate about why straight white men seem to struggle so much more than everyone else with this deeply human form of self-expression.
Also, Soroa articulates why we should all go clubbing, in case anyone needs an intellectual framework for that.
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This is a conversation between three German-American siblings about the most German of Germans.
Undeniably a Great, I’m not aware of Mann being particularly fashionable at the moment, though his writing is a creative benchmark for anyone who enjoys his language. I only just learned a little about his life in exile, and his journey from Germanic monarchist to passionate democrat. Which seems timely to consider.
Thomas Mann made much of how good art had to be aloof. He was adamant it could have no political agenda, couldn’t be moralizing or “school teacherly”. Even beyond that, he seemed obsessed by the artist’s predicament of detachment - how having any skin in the game was antithetical to the ruthless eye required to observe, and the perfect pitch needed to create.
But when the time came he took a stand, at real personal cost. In 1933, he might have imagined his reputation and privilege would cushion him personally against Nazi persecution, had he spoken out less. And yet he persevered, and exiled himself from the “Fatherland” with which he was so deeply identified. He was completely clear, and scathing in his opposition to the regime. He never hedged his bets.
With thanks to my brothers, whose love of Mann has been a touch point of connection between us for two decades.
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Audrey and I had great fun doing this one. As usual when we set out to co-create something, the result is a little different than I had anticipated. It is more interesting.
My plan had been to talk seriously about co-leadership—when does it work, what are the trade-offs, what’s the difference to job sharing a role with less open-ended deliverables than “somehow make this startup fly.”
We did a bit of that. But then we got giddy, and what you will hear if you listen is a pretty intimate chat, shot through with the what-the-actual-f*ck-actually-just-happened incredulity of someone who recently gave birth, and their friend who also still bears the scars of that experience. Listening back, it seems to me to boil down to a conversation mostly about relationship across different domains of life; what mechanisms we have to make thinking and acting better together, and the limits of sharing. Also, reflections on running a consumer medtech startup, and how becoming a parent can both completely explode your faculties and somehow make them sharper, as well as somehow broader, than you ever thought was possible.
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