Do Foreign Black Lives Matter to the New York Times?

David Gornoski host of the FM/AM radio show “A Neighbor’s Choice” takes on the obscene media hypocrisy on social justice. The NY Times, Washington Post, and major television networks have consistently pushed the case for perpetual war overseas, costing the lives of millions of people of color overseas and laying waste to survivors’ communities, property, […]

THINGS HIDDEN 11: Coronavirus Scapegoating and Rainmakers

David Gornoski explores the anthropological origins of the recent attempts to quarantine guilt onto the back of President Trump, China, and other entities for the coronavirus pandemic emergency. Sir James Frazer’s classic book “The Golden Bough” is explored to see how primitive societies used rainmakers, chiefs in charge of good weather to blame when bad […]

THINGS HIDDEN 10: Tom Holland Interview

How did Christianity change the world? Can we trace a path towards a less violent world due to the impact of the story of Jesus’s death on humanity’s sense-making? David Gornoski talks with acclaimed historian Tom Holland on his new book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World and how his study of history […]

THINGS HIDDEN 9: The Impotent Sacrifice

David Gornoski explores how our forms of collective violence increasingly fail to deter violence because of our lack of appetite for publicly sanctioned brutality. This phenomenon, a product of the Gospel’s influence in the West, will continue to render state coercion impotent in foreign nation building campaigns and domestic wars on nonviolent choices. Media ecology […]

THINGS HIDDEN 8: The Origins of Political Correctness

Where did political correctness come from? Why is it unique to the West? What force provides the context by which this contagious complex of victim-posturing for power arose? David Gornoski explores how our gradual demystification of historical texts acts as a blame-the-messenger self-obsession with attacking Western institutions and traditions.

THINGS HIDDEN 7: Why Nations Rage

David Gornoski explores why politics is failing to contain our violence and animosity increasingly in AD 2020. We examine the anthropological forces at play as division grows in politics the longer cultures steep in the story and values of the crucified one.

THINGS HIDDEN 6: How Myth Makes Modern and Ancient News

In this episode, David Gornoski analyzes the Apollonius of Tyana mythologically-intermediate story of a miracle in Ephesus. The pagan miracle worker is often favorably compared with Jesus of Nazareth by moderns anxious to posture rebellion towards their parents’ Christian affinity. We then use this demystification process to deconstruct a modern news report on a pharmaceutical […]

THINGS HIDDEN 5: The Sign of Jonah, Susanna, and Mythic Justice

David Gornoski explores how the story of Jonah, Susanna’s persecution, and Daniel’s imprisonment serve as evidence of early Christianity’s deeply anti-sacrificial meaning and aesthetic. These stories deal with averted sacrifice and mercy for the weak, misfits, and outsiders.

THINGS HIDDEN 4: What Binds Us Together?

We talk about human sacrifice in history and our modern times. What binds us together? What is the psychological-social force that unites us out of our personas? We look at the earliest depiction of the Cross of Christ in history–a telling piece of street graffiti meant to deride the new concept of Christ followers that […]

THINGS HIDDEN 3 : Joker Film Analysis

Things Hidden host David Gornoski analyzes the movie ‘Joker’ while using its themes about culture, scapegoats, hierarchy, doubles, envy, and the breakdown of myth with the support of the Mimetic theory founded by Rene Girard. Saturnalia and other winter solstice carnival festivals preceding sacrifice, Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, Jesus and the Demoniac, and […]