Exploding Appendix Podcast 5: Greg and Bradley’s Institute of Idea Diary – Day Two

This episode is the second part of a three-part audio diary (see part 1) recorded at the Institute of Ideas‘ annual “Academy” event. Every year the Institute of Ideas chooses a topic and delivers a series of lectures on it. In a way, these two days offer an alternative vision of what a university could be like, a space where intellectual rigor is combined with a welcoming of controversial and thought-provoking ideas, where the theorists of the past help us explore the challenges of the present. The theme of this year’s Academy was “From Universal Man to Identity Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Self.” During their time at this event, Exploding Appendix’s Bradley Tuck, and Culture on the Offensive‘s Greg Scorzo, kept an audio diary, where, each night, they would discuss the day. These were often after a few drinks, after the jitters and exhaustion from the day. Because of this, they are not meant to be the final word, but part of an ongoing musing about philosophy, politics, culture and the Institute of Ideas itself. This episode, which was recorded on the 15th July 2017, the second night, after after the first day of talks, covers topics such as vulnerability, the history of the self, Marxism, liberalism, free speech, the aestheticisation of politics, and transgression from the cynics to the Quakers, from 60s counterculture to the alt-right. We discuss Frank Furedi, Teresa Bajan, and Josie Appleton who each spoke at the event, along with other figures such as Angela Nagel and Boyd Rice. You will also hear Frank Furedi talking at the event about ‘The emergence of the self in history’, and Teresa Bajan, also at The Academy discussing the Greek notion of parrhesia in her talk “Liberty of Conscience, Freedom of speech”, both of which can be listened to in full on the Institute of Ideas website. You will also hear John Water promoting RE/Search’s Pranks during the 1st Annual Pranks Film Festival in 2008, Angela Nagel and Douglas Lain discussing Gavin McInnes, Richard Spencer and Siouxsie Sioux in Episode 90 of Zero Squared, Boyd Rice appearing on Bob Larson’s radio show Talk Back in the 90s, and a segment from Christopher Morris’s Brass Eye Episode 2 “Drugs” from Channel Four in 1997.