Episode 43: Fear and Being Interested in Many Different Things (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Oct 31, 2022

For a Halloween special, Alec and Nick take up Søren Kierkegaard’s frightening text “Fear and Trembling” as a starting point to discuss fear as it relates to philosophy, music, film, and life. Discussing the chilling crisis of faith during Abraham’s binding of Isaac and the subsequent “Teleological suspension of the ethical”—the conversation evolves into a broader exploration of universal vs. situational fear, affects of fear vs. the motivations of fear, and the administration and control of fear in everything from the music of Scott Walker, Kubrick’s The Shining, Krzysztof Penderecki, climate protesters actions toward paintings, alien surveillance, Sasquatches on the beach, and more. Ultimately, the discussion arrives at tautologies or “degree zeros” of existential fear—from John Cage confronting his own circulatory system in an anechoic chamber, to capitalism and environmental collapse in Lars “TCF” Holdus’ new blogpost “Undoing nihilism.”