Studying the Sermon on the Mount: Reflections from Jordan Peterson’s Peterson Academy Lectures

Dining with Plato: The Dawn of Thought & The Quest for Ultimate Reality

Join us for an extraordinary intellectual feast as we sit down with one of history's most influential philosophers—Plato. In this episode of Dinner with the Dead, we explore the timeless wisdom of the man who shaped 2,500 years of Western thought. Discover why Alfred North Whitehead claimed that all of Western philosophy consists of "footnotes to Plato," and how this ancient Greek thinker's ideas remain startlingly relevant to our modern struggles with truth, power, and meaning.

Studying the Sermon on the Mount: Reflections from Jordan Peterson’s Peterson Academy Lectures

In this episode, I reflect on the major themes from Dr. Jordan Peterson’s eight-part Peterson Academy lecture series on The Sermon on the Mount.This discussion is intended as personal study preparation and commentary, not as a replacement for the original Peterson Academy course. The episode focuses on the central ideas explored across the lectures, including humility, responsibility, judgment, prayer, moral orientation, resilience, truth, and the challenge of aligning one’s life with the highest good.The Sermon on the Mount remains one of the most influential moral and spiritual teachings in the Western tradition. Through Peterson’s psychological, biblical, and philosophical lens, the lectures examine how these teachings apply to character formation, personal transformation, social responsibility, and the pursuit of meaning.Topics discussed include the Beatitudes and the structure of wisdom; the relationship between humility, suffering, and moral development; the danger of hypocrisy and performative virtue; prayer, attention, and proper orientation toward the good; judgment, discernment, and responsibility; the call to seek, ask, and knock; and resilience, catastrophe, and building life on a solid foundation.This episode is part of my study process as I prepare for the Peterson Academy exam on the course.

Why Toxic People Weaponize Victimhood

Some people don't just play the victim -- they weaponize it. In this deep dive, we break down the psychology behind how toxic individuals flip the script, turning their own harmful behavior into a shield of manufactured suffering. From DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) to covert narcissism, we examine the mechanics of how guilt is engineered, empathy is exploited, and accountability is avoided. If you've ever walked away from a confrontation feeling like the bad guy when you weren't -- this episode will connect the dots.

The Science Behind the Boy Crisis

What happens when fathers disappear from the home -- and what are they actually building when they're present? This deep dive examines the boy crisis through hard data from the University of Guelph, the Department of Justice, and clinical research. We explore how dad's "why" questions wire a toddler's brain, why rough-and-tumble play is actually an emotional workshop, the surprising link between child support payments and cognitive development, and the silent epidemic of male suicide after divorce. This isn't a culture war episode -- it's a mechanism episode. Fatherhood isn't just a domestic matter. It's a public health issue.

Shakespeare's Blueprint for Political Manipulation

Forget the dusty high school English class -- Julius Caesar is one of the greatest political thrillers ever written. In this deep dive, we crack open Shakespeare's text and examine it purely through the lens of modern democracy. From the fickle voters cheering whoever wins, to Caesar's masterful populist theater, to Brutus convicting a man for crimes he hasn't committed yet, to Mark Antony's devastating masterclass in demagoguery -- this episode unpacks the timeless mechanics of political manipulation, mob psychology, and what happens when the defenders of a republic become the ones who destroy it. If you've ever wondered who's playing the role of Mark Antony in today's digital forum, this one's for you.