SOCRATIC CITIZEN: Recent Episodes
S. Patrick Cunningham
Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and a Socratic citizen knows that the unexamined society is not worth living in. We explore topics of philosophy, politics, and the social sciences, examining the society in which we live from the perspective of the free philosopher, seeking and speaking the Truth as best we understand it.
Bianca della Sophia joins SOCRATIC CITIZEN for a discussion of physarum polycephalum, the "many-headed slime" that can solve mazes and "learn" despite having no brain--indeed, no recognizable body parts of any kind.
We talk more about the consciousness of the universe, and the insignificance of humankind--despite our very persistent delusions of grandeur.
We talk about the Juneteenth holiday, and the politics of it. Some people believe that Juneteenth is a "fake liberal holiday" designed to "demonize the white man," while others--like us here at SOCRATIC CITIZEN--believe that any end to any slavery anywhere is something worth celebrating, and those who would politicize it be damned.
New York Times bestselling author and investigative journalist Ron Kessler joins Socratic Citizen to talk about investigative journalism, writing a book that got President Bill Clinton to fire FBI director William S. Sessions, and his relationship with Trump during his years in the White House.
A cop does a controversial PIT maneuver on a car that doesn't pull over fast enough--and is unfazed to find that it's driven by a pregnant lady. "DemocraticFascist" joins the chat for a discussion of voting rights. The IRS is a political tool of the powerful, handing out tax records of billionaires to progressive journalists.
Patrick meditates on what it means to be a leader, what it means for a society to "govern ourselves," and where real power comes from. Bianca della Sophia joins us for a discussion of aliens, government conspiracies, and waking up in Hillary Clinton's basement.
We talk about the new app "Citizen" that lets users report on and track crimes in their neighborhood--which of course gets them immediately accused of promoting racism--and we talk more generally about who deserves to be trusted with guns: the cops, or the citizens? Whose country is it, anyway?
We meditate on what to do when everything seems to be going wrong, and you just want to crawl back into bed and go back to sleep until things look better. Featuring Viktor Frankl and Socrates!
"I ain't about to ball out; I'm about to go pay taxes." That's YouTuber and freethinker Cannon Hotep, who joins Socratic Citizen to talk thinking for yourself, spending his ammo money paying taxes, and solving your own damn problems yourself.
60 Minutes aired an episode on the detrans movement--but the people they interviewed, the transgender people who regretted their transition and wanted to go back, were deeply dissatisfied with the results. "We didn't get to tell our stories," they said. So Socratic Citizen aims to rectify that wrong, by bringing on Carol F., detransitioned butch lesbian and "gender apostate," to talk about trans activism, transitioning, and detransitioning.
Patrick meditates on dealing with large crowds, and discusses Kim Kardashian getting sued by her gardeners with Bianca della Sophia.
Dr. Roderick Graham joins S. Patrick Cunningham on SOCRATIC CITIZEN to talk about race in America. Dr. Graham is a sociology professor at Old Dominion University, focusing on cybercrime in his professional time and race in his free time. We talk colorblindness, critical race theory, and what "racism" really means in America today.
A woman with a fake badge and a fake gun actually convinces people--at least for a while--that she's a cop. We talk differing ideas about how to reform the police. We tackle the idea of President Biden using a private company to surveil the social media pages of members of the military, looking for "extremism"--whatever that is.
We begin this week's episode with a discussion of a study discovering that cells of a bacterium called Stentor can "make decisions," i.e., can respond to stimuli in a way that makes it look like they're "deciding" what to do. Then, we bring on Bianca to talk about Chrissy Teigen's bizarre and public comments on the sexuality of toddlers, and.....yes, you heard it correctly.....whether "aliens are the mermaids of the sky."
We talk Israel and Palestine--namely, the bombing of the al Jazeera building by the Israeli Defense Force this past week; many people have opinions on the Israel-Palestine situation, but few people really know what they're talking about. This begs the question, "should I get involved, and if so, how?" Can we really fight evil when we can't even get a clear picture of what's going on? Then, aura consultant Bianca della Sophia joins us for a little comic satire on the dating habits of billionaires.
We chat with the live show audience about gas and oil prices--specifically, about the gas shortage that recently rocked the East Coast and led to lines at the pumps, as well as people (though who knows why) buying up all the toilet paper in town.