In this episode, Jack and Rory begin the conversation by dissecting the current state of public discourse regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in light of the recent dispute about misinformation between Neil Young and Spotify, the platform that hosts Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. Among other things, the two consider whether or not this spat concerns issues of free speech and censorship, as well as how it connects with the duo’s ongoing fascination with the two prevailing and increasingly politically polarized views of reality in the United States, i.e., what may loosely be considered the conservative and the liberal worldviews.

To that end, the interlocutors consider the failings and shortcomings of each of these worldviews, including especially the problems with the mainstream liberal position on certain public health policies that are not adequately supported by scientific research. This turn of the conversation then dovetails with a matter that has been of some concern to Rory, namely, the tendency he has noticed among self-identified leftists—whose perspective on politics ought to be at an elevated level of analysis that perceives bourgeois party politics for the charade that they are—to fall into certain reactionary thought patterns when considering best practices for COVID-related public health policies. Specifically, many supposed leftists have rejected vaccination in a knee-jerk reaction to vaccination mandates, failing to realize that they can simultaneously oppose those mandates while also choosing to get vaccinated because doing so nevertheless serves the common good.

Next, the conversation briefly touches on the issue of biomedical surveillance (e.g., in the form of NYC’s Covid Safe app) before turning to a different lens through which to examine COVID-related political dynamics: the psychological dimension, and especially how individual psychopathologies may be coalescing into an aggregation that is more than the sum of its parts. Rory suggests that understanding the malignant narcissism of the typical modern conservative in America, as exemplified by their champion, Donald Trump, could help us to navigate the political task of peaceful coexistence—a claim with which Jack agrees, having written previously about how Trump functions as a cult leader.

The dialogue then shifts to an examination of the failures of the Democratic Party, with a particular focus on its anti-worker neoliberal turn, before Jack shifts the shared line of thought onto the question of whether or not elite institutions—particularly, elite colleges and universities like Columbia—ought to exist. The pair ponder this question together, both expressing mixed feelings about the topic, before they bring the conversation to a close with a consideration of the contemporary value of a Great Books education.

In this episode—their final encounter of 2021—Jack and Rory begin the conversation with a brief discussion of the current state of the COVID pandemic. Then, Jack poses a question to Rory about his social media use, particularly regarding the kinds of posts Rory makes on Instagram and the purpose or intentionality behind them (if any). In response, Rory explains some of his personal and general views on social media, which has been a topic of some interest to him dating back at least to his 2013 TEDx talk titled “Friendship in the Age of Facebook.”

The conversation continues in this vein, with Rory further elaborating on his philosophy of social media and, more fundamentally, his position that human life is best conceived of as a work of art: the art of living (and, relatedly, the art of living well or beautifully). Weaving back and forth between contemporary aspects of social media use (e.g., selective self-presentation, performativity, etc.) and philosophical and psychological theories of selfhood and identity (e.g., Nietzschean aesthetics, Piagetian developmental constructivism, Hayden White’s notion of metahistory, etc.), the two interlocutors discuss and at times debate the validity of conceptualizing the human experience as a work of art—with Jack ultimately conceding to some of Rory’s claims, but nevertheless remaining unconvinced that “art” is the right word to describe the phenomenon of human life.

As the dialogue continues, the focus turns toward an examination of “beauty” more broadly—what it is, whether or not it has (or can have) moral or political value, and what existential impact(s) it may produce (if any).

Finally, the conversation concludes with a directive from Jack: activists, scholars, and other engaged humans in Rory’s generation (and younger) need to stop worrying about people over 40, and especially the boomers. In other words, Jack thinks—and Rory agrees—that the urgent transformative social change that is necessary for the survival of complex organized human life on Earth will only result from a concerted, unified, global youth movement aimed at either overtaking or overthrowing existing political institutions. Those few individuals in older generations (such as Jack himself) who are on the same page are welcome to join, of course, but by and large this moment of planetary crisis constitutes an unprecedented intergenerational conflict that the youth must fight and win, post haste.

In this episode, the discussion begins with Rory wriggling out of Jack's earlier demand that he come prepared with at least one joke to tell; to compensate for this failure, Rory explains to Jack a new social media project he has been developing, tentatively titled 'Philosophy in a New York Minute.' After some brainstorming about this project, the conversation turns to an examination of existentialism and absurdism, especially through the lens of works by Sartre and Camus. Jack and Rory have some small (or perhaps not so small) disagreements about the merit and usefulness of both of these schools of thought, but the pair ultimately agree on one of the central concerns for both existentialism and absurdism: the importance of meaning-making for humans. Finally, the topic of nondualism returns once again, with the interlocutors focusing this time primarily on the phenomenology of nondual experience: what might it be like to live life so thoroughly decentered from the conventional boundaries of the body and mind?