May 4 2024
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, part 3: Was David Foster Wallace a hideous man?
Starts with light and breezy over-sharing of our masturbatory habits, ends with a downer discussion about how we should re-contextualise Wallace's work thru the lens of the abuse allegations against him.
The main stories we talk about:
Brief Interview #59: Logically coherent masturbation fantasies (00:01:34) is this a universal experience, why are adolescent boys so creepy, the rare 'gooner to godhood' pathway.
Brief Interview #28 (00:10:20) Does feminism create a double bind for modern women, was the sexual revolution a mistake, what's with the neo-trad movement, why everyone should have the freedom to make mistakes and explore their preferences.
On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand... (00:30:02) a paean to r/childfree? do parents sometimes secretly hate their children, why small kids are sociopaths, was the father an unreliable narrator, 'radical honesty' is a terrible idea, are lies of omission morally permissible, rich's experience of fatherhood.
Church Not Made With Hands (00:52:42) dreamlike disorientation, modernist subjectivism redux, what does the title mean, ego and pride as an obstacle to healing.
The Mary Karr abuse allegations (01:10:38) what are the allegations against DFW, can mental health ever absolve people of responsibility, a framework for separating art from artist, should we reanalyse DFW’s work in light of what we know about his life, to what extent is he telling on himself in this book.
Brief Interview #20 and #46: The Granola Cruncher and the Viktor Frankl guy (01:27:25) are harm and traumatic events 'good' if they lead to more meaningful lives, could you weaponise this argument to justify anything, epic levels of cope never before conceived of.
