Listening to podcasts is giving me a new route to picking up on themes not talked about in the mainstream media. Among the reasons why Boris Johnson has not been able to fight on as the lonely hero is that, unlike Trump in the religious USA, he is not supported by prophets proclaiming him as a sign from God. Nonetheless, his successor will need to recognise Britain is not powerful enough to keep Europe and NATO afloat if American divisions (and preocccupation with China) prove too debilitating for 'leading the free world'.
The connection of current events to podcasts on 'post-modern' philsophers is the sense that we are in a 'post-truth' age (when was the truth age?) with no reliable truth to fall back on. The old Kantian faith in reason as foundation for morality looked busted a century ago.
Thinking of which podcaster Stephen West makes French postmodernist Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) a more interesting thinker than I had realised. Indeed, I largely agree with Deleuze about flows; in social affairs as well as many physical phenomena. But I disagree with him on what philosophy is. Concept creation is an interesting proposal, but it hardly makes sense to include all concept creation as 'philosophy' - otherwise the entire process of language formation and abstract thought from the earliest human history would count. No doubt some of that was philosophical (for instance, about the spirit world), but not all. I suggest philosophy (and sometimes science) goes on when the basic principles behind (whatever) are being considered. So, Homer never painted his characters as philosophers, although they had plenty of concepts. But the thinkers and teachers of the so-called 'axial age' (500 BCE approx) in various cultures were indeed philosophers.