Virtue in the Wasteland Podcast

What is a cult?  How do we balance tolerance and critical thinking when it comes to new religious movements?  Are their authoritarian personalties in my own, established religious community?  How are multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes like cults?  Is cult a bad word or is it a concept we need to preserve for the good of a safe and healthy society?  We wrestle with these questions and more.  We mention Jim Jones, Swedenborgianism, the Guru Maharaji, Amway, Scientology, and the FLDS. We love everyone.  Please don't sue us; we have no money and few assets, so it wouldn't be worth it.   Moreover, we are critical of ourselves and our own communities, various states that never really done nobody wrong, and the entire Inland Empire on occasion.  So it's all in good fun.  If we talk about your group, and you don't think we've represented it properly, feel free to explain where we were mistaken in the comment section.  Or, better, stage a press conference explaining why you think Virtue in the Wasteland is bad, making sure to get coverage from the major media outlets, and making sure to wear your sect's most distinctive clothing and strange hairdos, if applicable.  

Direct download: ViW56_Culty.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am PDT

We discuss the promises and perils of making books into movies.  We focus on Steinbeck's East of Eden and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but we also mention and/or discuss the following: Ian Flemming's James Bond stories, Michael Crighton and Jurassic Park, Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, the Cohen Brothers and Huckleberry Finn, musicals, The Last Temptation of Christ, Jungian archetypes, the value of mythology, and the importance of fairy tales.

 

Direct download: ViW55_When_Books_Become_Movies.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am PDT

We freestyle chat about the nature of the good life and the ways in which we measure life's success.  This is about vocational questions for young people looking to the future or folks who want to redirect their lives later in the game.  We mention Daoism, LeBron James and The Decision, Stoicism, and whether you might want to rethink your current path.

Direct download: ViW54_The_Good_Life-Barometers_of_Success.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am PDT

Whether you've read this book before or thinking about giving it a shot, you can join in.  We discuss important historical, religious, literary and philosophical themes in this important Russian Novel.  We talk especially about the Grand Inquisitor, the novel's most famous chapter.  

Direct download: ViW52wc_Brothers_Karamazov.mp3
Category:Wasteland Companion -- posted at: 5:00am PDT

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