Peter Benjamin
performer / producer / composer for media / educator
Creative Dialectic
Podcast
The Creative Dialectic Podcast is a conversational format covering a broad range
of topics between myself and my students, clients, musical compatriots, band
members, members of the local and regional music scene and many others...
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Introduction
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Episode 21 - Personality & Creativity: HOLAs, HOHAs, and HOELCs...
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Links to things discussed: Enneagram , Five Factor Personality Model ,
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Episode 19 - Disagreeableness & Beliefs - Part 1: The Ascendant Ideology
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Links to things discussed: Five Factor Personality Theory , Christianity/Beliefs , Ascendant Ideology/Wokeism
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Episode 20 - Disagreeableness & Beliefs - Part 2: The Tenets of Evangelicalism.
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Links to things discussed: Essentials of Evangelical Theology , Christianity/Beliefs , St. Anselm of Canterbury , Christology ,
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Episode 18 - Technopessimism: Pitfalls and Perils of Advancing Technology.
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As a response to the last episode, I offer my ideas on three socio-cultural spaces that have been negatively trending. This list is not intended to be comprehensive, of course.
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External links to ideas mentioned: The work of psychologist John Vervaeke, the work of Daniel Schmachtenberger, the problem of profilicity
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Episode 17 - Revolution Now: Advancements and improvements in Law Enforcement, Media, and Medical Technology...
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This episode is a partial bid at articulating a 'naive techno-optimism' worldview in three major realms of socio-cultural import/challenge. In the next installment of this miniseries, I will shift into techno-pessimism mode and articulate the potential pitfalls of our perennial persistent problems, or, PPP... :)
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Episode 16- Emerging from the Rock and Roll Wasteland part 4: 1975!
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Steve and I return with a look at the music of 1975! Of course, everyone's heard the old trope: 'Music used to be better than the garbage you kids listen to today!' However, I believe we may have finally discovered incontrovertible proof of this age-old wisdom! Here's something to ponder: How is it that music that adorned the top 10 of the pop charts 46 years ago still sounds so wonderful and relevant today? If you can answer that, you may have jut uncovered the secret of....the rock and roll wasteland....
Explicit language warning, as usual...
Episode 15 - Hierarchy vs. Justice??
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I'm back with another philosophically oriented monologue. This time I discuss a recurring philosophical tension between myself and many of my dear friends with whom I engage in the dialectical process. The tension in question has to do with the nature and necessity of hierarchies and their relationship to human well being. I argue for their inevitability both as an emergent feature of human life and a powerful tool for the procurement and maintenance of human flourishing. My interlocutors, by contrast, seek a flattening and or dismantling of hierarchies in their search for justice. Are hierarchies of value and action necessary for survival, or are they an obstruction in the path toward human fulfillment? I do not attempt to solve this riddle, but I do hope to further articulate my thinking around it.
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Episode 14- Emerging from the Rock and Roll Wasteland part 3: More like Tepid Country..!
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Steve Werner and I are back this time to listen and react to the Spotify 'Hot Country' chart for this week of May 14th 2021. What we find is not surprising- formulaic, uninspired, and all together too perfect production that belies the familiar tropes of country music, which of course are meant to validate an 'authentic working class, traditionalist' perennial American cultural ethos.
Explicit language warning, as usual...
Episode 13 - A Conversation about Health, Beauty, Identity, and Goodness with Sarah Coyle.
My good friend Sarah Coyle and I engage in one of our classic dialectical discussions around our disparate worldviews apropos of food, health, beauty, justice, value, goodness, identity, and other important topics. We have both experienced significant change in our respective outlooks on many important things and this conversation is something of a check-in with those changes given that we don't have as much opportunity these days to connect. Our conversations are always an attempt to practice and model what 'good faith' dialectical interchanges look like between two folks who see the world somewhat differently... Some explicit language
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links to things discussed: Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, Your Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor, Evolutionary Psychology, Memetic Theory, anti-racism
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Episode 12 - Emerging from the Rock and Roll Wasteland - Part 2: What is so pop about pop?
Steve and I ar back again with a reaction to the Spotiy Top 10 of the US Pop chart for this week in March 2021. Among other things, we discuss the essential elements of pop music as distinct from other popular genres, the specter of a 'generation gap' between lovers of all things musical in our 40's versus what we might suppose is a high point of music consumption in our 20's. Explicit language warning.
Episode 11 - Emerging from the Rock and Roll Wasteland - Part 1: Awakening from a musical coma..
My long-time creative writing partner, friend, and other half of musical parody group The Bon Crowes Rother Tolstoyevsky (aka Steve Werner) joins me for a discussion about the state of and future of rock music as we listen to the Spotify Rock This Top 10 songs... Explicit Language warning
Episode 10 - What Should I Do For Thanksgiving? - A meditation on the limits of our COVID-era moral reckoning...
Episode 9 - Scaling Down, not up! & being an Ally vs. being a friend. In this podcast, I discuss my idea of the importance of focusing the scale of one's creative output to other individuals, not to the masses. I then tie in what I believe to be an important call to reject 'allyship' in favor of a much more authentic way of being in relationship to others.
Links: download featured piano music 'Interregnum',
...making friends with those who stand for the who you want to become...
Episode 8 (in two parts) - Guitar player and educator George Turner and I discuss the precariousness of being an artist in a society bent strongly toward the endless trivialities facilitated by unchecked consumerism and 'commodity fetishism.' We also reflect on the conspicuous replacement of melody with technical prowess and production value in guitar playing and in music generally. Man, I really do sound like a Marxist sometimes...
part 1
Links to things discussed - Commodity fetishism, Marx's Theory of Alienation
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Episode 7 (in two parts) - A conversation with Jordani about relationship, joy, the sacrificial artist, experience of gender in the music workplace, mentorship, and the artist's responsibility to self-create a meaningful and fulfilling life...
part 1
part 2
Links to things discussed - Jordani's website, Rene Girard
Tuareg/Kel Tamashek Saharan guitar music
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Episode 6- Fantasy and Inspiration: Musings on creativity, identity, and the female/male archetypal foundations of our civilization as inflected through two fantasy films: Legend (1985) and Krull (1983).
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Other influential fantasy films of this era for me: The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Never-ending Story, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Dragonslayer, Conan the Destroyer.
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Addendum/clarification to/for Episode 7
featured track: 'Loved by the Sun' by Tangerine Dream
Episode 5 - Musings on Culture, Creativity, Art, Music, and Church with Dan Dameron
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Links to things discussed/mentioned in this podcast:
The Bridge Christian Fellowship Rachmaninov All Night Vigil recording
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disclaimer: the audio for this episode is not great due to its size. I'm working on a good solution for this....
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Jim's Martin Demo
Episode 4 - The Paradox of Isolation: Musings on a creative
person's mandate against interruptions....
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Featured Song: 'To Be Alone'
by Peter Benjamin
Episode 3 - A Space for Listening: Toward higher resolution and precision in music and communication.
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Related concepts/ideas: Pressure of Speech, Rule Omega, Be Precise in Your Speech
Edit: I should have said "interview," not "episode" there at the end...
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Episode 2 - Discernment: The first
step in the process of Deep Code Learning.
See also: Jordan Greenhall, David Schmactenberger, John Vervaeke, Jamie Wheal,
Episode 1 - "..So, you're calling Beethoven musically disingenuous..?"
Links to things discussed/mentioned in this podcast:
Kai's band Noizmesh The Microphones Ludvig von Beethoven
postmodernism Ayn Rand Fyodor Dostoevsk Bent Leg Fatima
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