Talking to ... Benedict Beckeld (Audio)

Undoubtedly, the question of oikophobia is a most puzzling social
phenomenon. If the 19th-century psychiatrists understood it as
the fear of being inside one’s home, the English philosopher
Roger Scruton understood it to mean becoming a stranger, no, even
more than that: an idiosyncrasy towards one's own culture that
can take on ‘a chronic form…in the guise of political
correctness.’ Benedict Beckeld – who grew up in Uppsala and
Stockholm, and emigrated with his family to New York as a
teenager – has taken up this concept as a comparative lens to
examine history for recurring patterns. As a classical
philologist and philosopher who studied and earned his doctorate
in Heidelberg, and who also performed research as a visiting
scholar at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and in Bologna,
he is highly predisposed to do so (he had also spent a year as a
student at the Sorbonne and was later a professor of philosophy
and classics at the American University of Paris). After all, he
has that fundamentally alien view distinguishing the historian,
enabling him to identify recurring patterns and structures.


Conversations with Dr. Beckeld are extremely stimulating as you
move effortlessly with him through world history. If Beckeld
follows the personality ideal of antiquity, he is also a child of
postmodernism - just as familiar with its twists and turns as
with various languages and philosophical systems of thought.
Consequently, he’s by no means unfamiliar with the world of
social media – in addition to his philosophical work, he also
runs a video blog where he regularly comments on the issues of
the day. He currently lives in New York and is working on a book
about aesthetics and a narrative about his experiences as a young
teacher in Namibia (which is why the young student in the photo
below not only declared him her favorite teacher but one whose
vast knowledge has changed her life).


Link to Benedict Beckelds website


Benedict Beckeld has recently published


Related Content


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with
other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
martinburckhardt.substack.com