Sideways - new 8 part series on R4

[Serial_Apologist]

4pm - Sideways: 1/8
Matthew Syed returns with the series in which he takes an unexpected view of a social or cultural phenomenon to explain deep psychological traits in humans. Today, how the release of two space-related disaster movies in 1998, Armaggeddon and Deep Impact, proves how humans evolved as a collective brain but also how we treasure originality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s2kt

I'm intrigued to find out to what extent the ideas in this programme tangentially overlap with similar ones to do with language/representation and brain adaptation to our living in increasingly complex times, which I've been worming into other subjects on the forum lately, or rather trying to.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, in answer my own curiosity, it did satisfy in one way. To have talked about the coincidence of Romanticism, originality (in the worlds of artistic expression, not just scientific theory or invention) and copyright and emergent capitalism, or to have drawn attention to the mediated world of common encrypted knowledge as always at one step removed from the world of actuality, might have been just as interesting, if not more so, but it would not have served the intention behind Syed's theme.

The programme is well worth listening to, nonetheless.

Some of the following uploadable programmes from the past pursuing similar topics look inviting for anyone with a lifetime to spare; scroll down:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/topics/Sociological_terminology