Althouse: Gad Saad talks with Joe Rogan about Marcus Aurelius.

May 13, 2022

Gad Saad talks with Joe Rogan about Marcus Aurelius.

ADDED: Joe takes a druggy off-ramp midway through.

24 comments:

MikeR said...: Really annoying how they _keep_ talking about the "ancient Greeks". Surely they both know that Marcus Aurelius was Roman, but they keep lumping him in with the Greeks.; 5/13/22, 11:30 AM
Carol said...: Leave it to Rogan to link Stoicism to psychedelics. It's as tiresome as Scott Adams flogging shrooms all the time.

I don't know why but the reductionism seems to diminish the actual insights.

We get it, dudes. You like to get high.; 5/13/22, 11:35 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I watched this video the other day. They were struck by how some of the things we come across as deep and authentic thoughts, the Greeks philosophers already covered it.; 5/13/22, 12:21 PM
Readering said...: Summarizes a benefit from traditional "liberal education"(minus the acid trips).; 5/13/22, 12:27 PM
robother said...: Wonderful dialogue to start, similar to my sensed universality in first reading the Stoics, but Gad quiets down when Joe goes off on his LSD trip.; 5/13/22, 12:35 PM
Narr said...: No 'drugs' tag?

Robert Graves was on the Freaky Greek train in the 1920s and 30s already.

As for philosophy, Saad is exactly right. The Ancients went as far as humans can in that regard--any 'advances' since are just narcissistic professorial word games.; 5/13/22, 12:52 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Leave it to Rogan to link Stoicism to psychedelics. It's as tiresome as Scott Adams flogging shrooms all the time."

Ha ha. I know!

They really think it's the key to human progress.; 5/13/22, 2:03 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "... but Gad quiets down when Joe goes off on his LSD trip."

Yeah, not much benefit to him in expressing doubt.; 5/13/22, 2:03 PM
Jupiter said...: 6:40 is about 5:40 more Joe Rogan than I'm up for. I guess some people prefer their banalities bite-size.; 5/13/22, 2:08 PM
Tom T. said...: Naming a child Gad Saad makes God sad.; 5/13/22, 2:08 PM
Howard said...: Psychodellics may be cures for depression and PTSD. The fact that they make people feel good reflexively makes some people angry Karen prohibitionists. Alanis Morresette should write a cheesy pop song about it.

Everyone whomever has been to a Grateful Dead show knows that the term Holy Cow was first started in India from eating magic mushrooms growing in cow patties. That's why the South Asian people don't eat beef. IPSO factoid, 'shrooms are the cure for Global Warming.; 5/13/22, 2:13 PM
lonejustice said...: This was really interesting until Joe turned it into a discussion on psychedelics.

That's when I tuned out.; 5/13/22, 2:20 PM
Eleanor said...: Tucker Carlson did an hour long interview with Gad Saad. It was time well spent to watch it. This not so much.; 5/13/22, 2:55 PM
Ralph L said...: That gilded bronze statue of MA survived because people thought it was Constantine, the first Christian emperor. It's horrible to think what we've lost to recycling.

I'd respect MA more if he'd organized a better succession, as the earlier Antonines did.; 5/13/22, 3:16 PM
William said...: I suppose you could say that Plato's cave anticipates the simulacrum, but he had nothing useful to say about quantum physics....Some of the reverence for these ancient, deep thinkers is misplaced. We are more often lodged in their sinus cavity than standing on their shoulders looking at the far horizon. For example, that belief in the balance of humors set medicine back hundreds of years. Mankind's great leap forward came during the 19th century, and those early industrialists and engineers were not particularly deep thinkers. They had nothing useful to say about how to live a good life, but their inventions and methods have allowed us to pursue happiness with more hope than the average helot.; 5/13/22, 3:36 PM
CWJ said...: "Summarizes a benefit from traditional "liberal education"(minus the acid trips)."

I agree!

Two points. People have been people since the dawn of civilization. Things change, but the raw material of humanity has stayed the same. It's pure conceit when people imagine themselves superior, more enlightened, than those who have gone before. It's the classic mindset of one's sophomoric stage in life out of which most of us grow. A traditional liberal education sets the mental stage to use subsequent experience to make that transition.

The question about which I wonder is where can one find a traditional liberal education anymore? Even I recognized at the time the loosening rigor my own 60's 70's education much less what's on offer today.

Any current examples?; 5/13/22, 3:50 PM
Carol said...: Not saying it didn't happen, but I think the reason drugs cheapen philosophy is because the experiences are all so bloody subjective.

You'd hope that a philosophical observation would be quite OBjective.

Or else who tf cares?; 5/13/22, 3:56 PM
Dave Begley said...: "Mediations" is a favorite book.; 5/13/22, 4:04 PM
Carol said...: "They really think it's the key to human progress."

...if only everyone would get on MY trip...; 5/13/22, 4:07 PM
Robert Cook said...: I can't say I've read Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations," though I do have the book on my shelf. However, I have always loved this passage from the book:

"In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his senses a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful. In short, all that is of the body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors; life a warfare, a brief sojourning in an alien land, and after repute, oblivion."; 5/13/22, 4:15 PM
Narr said...: Dave Begley mentions "Mediations" at 404pm as a fave--labor lawyer?

Anyway, there's a big difference between JR's amateur enthusiast's link between Greco-Roman philosophies and tripping, and a simple inability--which I have always found interesting--to find anything significant at all in the fact of drug use. (N.B. I've never done anything more psychoactive than hashish, myself. Not counting booze of course.)

But historians as a guild are as staid and uptight about drugs as any clutch of youth pastors or Leninists; I give credit to Saad for being polite as Rogan rambled--I assume that if he could object to the historical point, he would have.

But Rogan rambling is why I don't really follow Rogan.

William makes fair points; I'll circle back with some observations later.; 5/13/22, 6:56 PM
robother said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/13/22, 7:04 PM
gpm said...: >>That gilded bronze statue of MA survived because people thought it was Constantine, the first Christian emperor. It's horrible to think what we've lost to recycling.

The one Michelangelo put in the Campdoglio? Now in the museum with a replica outside? The Dying Gaul is

Commodus does seem to have been the real beginning of the Decline and Fall . . . Not sure how much validity there is to the movie with Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, etc. Probably more than the egregious Gladiator.

Constantine is another story, in many, many respects. One of the last Restitor Orbis types, unless you put Justinian in that category. Another one who is a story in many, many ways.

--gpm; 5/13/22, 7:23 PM
farmgirl said...: It’s always about drugs- &I’ve always been scared of them. Altered personalities result in abuse of even the seemingly most harmless. I’ll stick to the occasional glasses of wine or a little Arametto snuck into a cup of strong coffee.; 5/13/22, 8:54 PM