
Unseen Secret to Humanity’s Survival
02/05/25 • 17 min
Previous Episode

God on Our Side? The Cultural Dangers of Invoking Divinity in Sports, Politics, and War
Throughout history and into our contemporary world, the invocation of divinity in everyday life—particularly in non-religious arenas such as sports and politics—highlights the deeply rooted cultural inclination to attribute human successes or failures to supernatural favor. When a professional athlete declares that a victory occurred because “God was on our side,” it potentially diminishes both the skill and the diligence that contributed to the win.
Next Episode

Tracing the Uncanny Valley: From Freud to Mori and the Next 150 Years
The late nineteenth century marked a pivotal shift in how “the uncanny” was understood in art and literature, though the roots of eerie resemblance and disquieting near-human forms reach back further. By the 1870s, a transitional period was well underway in Europe, shaped by industrialization and the popularization of automata exhibitions. The public fascination with life-sized clockwork dolls that blinked their eyes or played musical instruments set the stage for the eerie feeling that occurs when something appears human but clearly lacks a human essence. Even before Sigmund Freud offered his famous essay “Das Unheimliche” in 1919, there were tantalizing experiments and anxieties circulating among intellectuals and the general populace. The German psychologist Ernst Jentsch, writing in 1906, introduced the word “uncanny” (in German, “unheimlich”) to discuss that peculiar shiver one feels when faced with an automaton or a wax figure that seems too close to life. His ideas laid much of the groundwork for Freud’s subsequent interpretation.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/david-boles-human-meme-346067/unseen-secret-to-humanitys-survival-83649875"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to unseen secret to humanity’s survival on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy