In Being in the Colonies: Singapore, Western Australia & Tasmania philosopher Dr Rohan Price follows the ontological fortunes of three British possessions throughout key moments in their history.
The formula applied across the empire is simple. Violence = freedom and convenience. Prevailing in convenience = Being. Proportional violence = operating within Fate and retaining Being. Excessive violence = a fall from Fate and a loss of Being. Resistance challenges convenience and can transform into Being, too.
To resist is great but to hold Being is Divine! Well, as close as we can get to divinity...
Rohan reads six pages of his new book per episode.
Like the podcast? Order the book: Being in the Colonies (https://www.peterlang.com/document/1443302)
This episodes seeks Legality through the exceptions, exonerations and justifications in the body count and naming of the massacres in Singapore. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
28 Sept 2026
14. Legality and Fate (Singapore) Part 2
We continue our exploration of ethical considerations of the Sook Ching massacre after the fall of Singapore in 1942. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
9 Sept 2026
13. Legality and Fate (Singapore) Part 1
This work contains a formula for history: Being = Convenience within the Bounds of Fate The historical record centres not on Fate (the risk of losing Being by exceeding in order to and indulging in because I can). It is concerned, rather, with Legality and what behaviour it can explain or exonerate through fact selection as if it were, itself, Fate. This episode introduces the vexed relationship of Fate with Legality and offers the example of upright Japanese colonial administrator in occupie...
2 Sept 2026
15. Vacation SPECIAL: What is violence?
This is a short episode used to answer a basic but crucial question. Also, an opportunity to see if I can podcast from my phone. At least in Manila, if not Bicol? Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
31 Aug 2026
12. Being and Survival in the Fall of Singapore Part 2 (Good Doctors)
The experiences of a group of doctors who survived the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore (1942) are used to explore the difference between existing and Being in conditions of enemy occupation. Caught somewhere in the middle, were doctors survivors, resisters or Being-holders? Sartre is given descriptive credit for an idea of Being that met colonial conditions. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Niet...
25 Aug 2026
11. Being and Survival in the Fall of Singapore (Defend Thy Honour?)
The fall of Singapore occasioned the death of 5, 000-6, 000 Chinese civilian men who were shot by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Sook Ching massacre to prevent ongoing resistance in the former British colonial island state as Japanese forces surged southward. The question raised here: did the subsequent survival of the civilian population amount to Being or mere untroubling existence? Does Being expect ongoing resistance and did the Japanese forces jeopardise their Being through the scale ...
24 Aug 2026
10. The Extraordinary Ord? Western Australia Part 2
This episode gets to grips with the rudiments of Being in the colonies: contest, convenience, and Fate in white settler and Indigenous experiences in WA. Amor Fati is rejected and the illusion of free will within a determinist schema is given further explanation. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
22 Aug 2026
9. Weekend SPECIAL: Colonial Being and the God Question
This shortish episode ponders how God belief and God-talk formed part of the free will and determinist explanations of Being in the Colonies. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
21 Aug 2026
8. The Extraordinary Ord? Western Australia example
This episode begins with a brief recap of theories of Being. It then proceeds to an example drawn from the turn of the century cattle theft policing of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
19 Aug 2026
7. Conditions (Being as a colonial issue)
The specifically colonial conditions as a backdrop to Being won by convenience. The post-colonial wash-up of old battles for Being. Camus and his renunciation of violence as a driver of history. The empirical claim of Being won through competition. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
19 Aug 2026
6. Conditions (Theorists both kindred and kindling)
Being and cases for determinism and the theories of violence of Breazu and Deleuze. The cases against Collingwood and Eurocentrism led by Heidegger. Warning: contains dry jokes. I am sure you can spot them. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #Heidegger #Nietzsche #Being
18 Aug 2026
5. Conditions (Testing Being)
This reading begins the first chapter of the book by asking a range of questions about contemporary ideas of Being. It also seeks to justify the idea of Being pursued on the book of convenience pursued by violence. It frames the questions used as an inquiry throughout the book: who is enjoying convenience, who can sustain convenience through aggressive action, when did a group retreat from conflict to pursue survival instead and was the price of convenience too big for the exoneration of Fate...
14 Aug 2026
4. Imagining Being (Tasmania and Western Australia)
This episode concludes the reading of the introductory chapter. The exploration of convenience begins. Colonial Tasmania is depicted as a neurotic tussle against Palawa inhabitants who pursued their own idea of convenience and fought effectively for it. Western Australian settlers complained that there was too much red tape involved in the apprehension of Indigenous cattle thieves. Being is likened to membership of a gangster in-crowd. Polite and social until the moment violence is necessary....
13 Aug 2026
3. Imagining Being (Singapore 1942)
This episode briefly considers the challenge for making a reading of Being as a historical enterprise. Then we make our first assessment of the events after the fall of Singapore as a lesson in Being. It was a triumphal moment for the Japanese Imperial Army and then an excessive one. The question of whether Chinese survival without resistance constitutes Being is raised. Send us Fan Mail Or read the book? Being in the Colonies #ontology #warcrimes #colonialism #atrocity #violence #He...
12 Aug 2026
2. Imagining Being (Part 2)
This episode expands on the qualities of Being evident in a colonial context. It makes a case for a determinist reading of history turning on expected individual ontic force given limits by fate by those who holding presumptive Being. The question motivating the whole book is revealed: can a gross imbalance in the violence done to win Being in an ontic domain actually endanger it by leaving no source of comparison from a fellow striver. Thus, there is a tension. Absolutist acts of will dest...
11 Aug 2026
1. Imagining Being (Part 1)
Can we imagine a fresh approach to Being? One not explicitly relying on ego/super ego/id, Dasein, Geist, anima, essence, sentient equivalence, psyche, for itself, spirit or soul? This episode contends for Being as a conscious pursuit of convenience through measured violence at the expense of others. I explain in order to and because I can as modes of ontic action in conscious pursuit of Being. Fate is introduced as a roadblock on Being for those who act in the mode of because I can too often....
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