Here’s a look at past episodes of Squaring the Strange that you might have missed:
Episode 12: The Mirror in the Last Haunted House
Pascual opens with a listener email on episode 6’s soundwave tattoo segment, then Ben discusses George Orwell’s 1984 and how much of that dystopian novel has become reality—and also how much our society has actually taken an opposite turn from Orwell’s vision. The guys discuss how many vastly overestimate the government’s desire (and ability) to keep its own citizens under surveillance, and how social media both defies much of what Orwell warned about and, at the same time, acts as a new type of non-government “Big Brother” due to online pileups and shaming. Ben brings up Trump’s use of doublespeak and ambiguity, and he parses the difference between censorship and efforts to discredit or distract. For the main topic, Ben talks about his upcoming ghost investigation book and goes over an article he wrote about his last ghost investigation at the St. James Hotel up in Cimmaron, New Mexico. The hotel is a little out-of-the-way run down place that capitalizes on its fame as a haunted and historic location. Peering into the mirror there in the wee hours led to Ben doing a deep, introspective dive into his own psyche and where the ideas of what is “scary” and where we get preconceived ideas of what a “ghost” would be. Mass-marketed depictions of what people are supposed to be afraid of (along with jump cuts and startling music) have ingrained in us all a sense of what to expect. Ben admits this will likely be his last ghost investigation, as eighteen years has been enough for him—the evidence has not improved, it’s all the same orbs and bumps and knocks.
You can listen to the show HERE!
Thanks, Lady Mondegreen. Bring it on 🙂 (To be honest, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is very much peripheral to anything I have studied, but I am sufficiently interested in language (as well as human cognition in general) to have an opinion on the matter. The Orwell reference was specifically aiming at the Newspeak idea)