More King In Orange Podcasts
Apr. 25th, 2021 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
The publisher of my new book The King In Orange is rather more enthusiastic about marketing via podcasts than my publishers have generally been, or maybe it's just that this book is more appealing to the podcastoisie than my other titles. One way or another, I've been spending a good deal more time than usual on the phone talking to podcasters in the last few weeks, and the podcasts are starting to go live. Those of my readers with just a little free time on their schedule can take in a nice crisp 45-minute podcast with Richard Syrett on his podcast Conspiracy Unlimited, which you can listen to here. Richard and I had a good thoughtful conversation and covered most of the basic concepts of the book, focusing on the political dimension of the Trump phenomenon.
Those of my readers who have more time on their hands may want to tune in to the Michael Decon Program, where Michael, co-host Myke Hideous, and I spent upwards of two and a half hours talking about -- well, The King in Orange, yes, but also politics, the current virus panic, unidentified flying objects, Japanese monster movies, Elon Musk, and much, much more. You know those late night conversations over a couple of beers that spin out in every direction you can imagine and some you can't? This was one of those. It was a wild time and worth a listen. You can take it in on YouTube here, on iTunes here, and on Castbox here. By the way, I was struck with another example of the almost Nietzschean revaluation of all values currently under way in our society. For many years the cultural cliché has been that thinkers in the mainstream are calm, tolerant, and broadminded, while conspiracy theorists out on the fringes are tense, obsessed, and fixated on some improbable narrative or other. It's been a source of some amusement to me that these days, it's the mainstream that's tense, obsessed, and fixated on a whole flurry of improbable narratives. As for the hosts of these two conspiracy-themed podcasts -- you guessed it, they were calm, tolerant, and broadminded, as we discussed the decidedly edgy perspectives of The King in Orange. It really is getting weird out there...
The King as America's Shadow
Date: 2021-04-27 02:14 am (UTC)It occurs to me that the King is part of America's Shadow. We were founded on a rejection of monarchy in favor of a republican form of government, and modeled ourselves on the Roman Republic, which did the same thing. But remember that Rome ended up with a kind in all but name: there's a quote by I think G.K. Chesterton, which I can't find now, to the effect that Romans hated and feared kings so much that they ended up inventing the position of emperor (which of course became a kind of monarch above a king) rather than admit that they had a king.
Several years ago, I ran across the idea that the American presidency has become an "elected monarchy." (https://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2015/04/hail-to-the-king.html) Certainly the last several presidents have all relied increasingly on executive orders. The Covid-19 pandemic saw nearly if not all lockdown/mask rules put in place by executive order at the state level (contrast this with the Spanish Flu, where mask requirements seem to have been put in place by legislatures), and the Democrats criticized Trump for not using executive powers to do more, even when the Constitution clearly didn't give him the power they blame him for not using.
As you said, the King archetype is an outgrowth of the Father archetype, but I think you may have the causation backwards: perhaps we have issues with masculinity because we reject the King, rather than vice versa. It's possible that the demonization of masculinity is a result of the cognitive dissonance of repressing the King while moving toward installing an actual king.
Re: The King as America's Shadow
Date: 2021-04-27 03:56 pm (UTC)