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The old forms of the left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a dialectical pessimism and develop a Marxist salvage project capable of putting up a good fight as the world burns around us. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
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This week we tried something new, we put out a call on our Patreon and Discord for questions and y'all responded with 10 pretty good questions. Questions about democracy, ethics, children, etc...We answered them.Enjoy!Support the show
They said it wasn't possible for a Marxist to break down the national question in a sophisticated and nuanced way, but Otto Bauer has done it. This book from 1907, which no one on the Anglophone Left has ever read, is quite possibly the best book on the subject. We are here to read it and let you know.This week we covered the introductory materials.A link to the PDF:https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauerSupport the show
This week we are joined by Jon (thelitcritguy of HorrorVanguard fame) to discuss his new book A Primer on Utopian Philosophy: An Introduction to the Work of Ernst Bloch which was just released on Zero Books. We discuss nihilism, optimism, hope, and dialectical pessimism and the ever pertinent work of Ernst Bloch. Check out Horror Vanguard HereCheck out Jon's Blog Here Buy Jon's Book Here Support the show
This week we sat down with our old comrade and actual Psychiatrist, Dr Byron, to talk about mental health, the left, and how TikTok is ruining everyones brains. Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness (review for relevant book)https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/03/psychiatric-hegemony-marxist-theory-mental-illness/ What the Anti-Psychiatry Movement Got Wrong About Mental Illnesshttps://jacobin.com/2022/03/anti-psychiatry-movement-mental-illness-psychological-suffering Psychiatry Won’t Solve Our Mental Health Crisis — Only Politics Can Do Thathttps://jacobin.com/2023/12/psychiatry-history-trauma-politics-medicine-mental-healthThis Is Not the Way to Help Depressed Teenagers (NYT discussing the WISE Teens Study)https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/teenagers-mental-health-treatment.htmlThe functions of the mental health system under capitalism https://joannamoncrieff.com/2022/03/28/the-functions-of-the-mental-health-system-under-capitalism/Support the show
Jason and Varn are joined again by Sean KB of Antifida and continue with their close reading of The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin. Check out Varn Vlog:https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/postsCheck out the ANTIFADA:https://rss.com/podcasts/the-antifada/ Support the show
This month we return to Richard Seymour's essay about the new forms of nationalism. At this point the essay is a few years old, so we were able to discuss how things have developed since it was written. We also did not know that a book by the same name by Seymour was coming out soon... Prepared for the Worst: Disaster Nationalismhttps://salvage.zone/prepared-for-the-worst-disaster-nationalism/Disaster Nationalism: THE DOWNFALL OF LIBERAL CIVILIZATIONhttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761156/disaster-nationalism-by-richard-seymour/Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.Support the show
This week the boys got together to talk about political apostasy. From the old left, to the new left, to whatever the hell it is that we have now. We discuss the motivations and consequences of jumping ship. The Ex-Communist’s Consciencehttps://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1950/ex-communist.htm Turned Around: Why Leftists Go Righthttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/why-leftists-go-right From Memoirs of a Trotskyist by Irving Kristolhttps://www.pbs.org/arguing/nyintellectuals_krystol_2.html The Neoconservative Counterrevolutionhttps://jacobin.com/2015/04/neoconservatives-kristol-podhoretz-hartman-culture-warHow Ex-Communists Shaped American Conservatismhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/how-ex-communists-shaped-american-conservatism/426849/ Trotskyconshttps://www.nationalreview.com/2003/06/trotskycons-stephen-schwartz/The Neoconservative Journeyhttps://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817945725_105.pdf The Legacy of the Trotskyist Righthttps://www.toqonline.com/archives/v6n2/SneigoskiTOQV6N2.pdfLike our theme song? Check out Autumn Brigade here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-totSupport the show
This week Jason and Varn sat down to have a primer discussion about the different types of American Conservatism. Don't worry, we will be back later this month with more Dugin. Check out Varn Vlog here: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlogSupport the show
Welcome to our seventh and FINAL reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. We had a lot of fun with this series and will be starting a new one soon. Head on over to the Discord if you would like to be involved. Special thanks to our comrade Connor at Autumn Brigade for our new intro music. Check his music out here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-totTraverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolutionSupport the show
As recovering Third Campists ourselves, we sit down to discuss the lingering problems that the third camp of Trotskyism has always had and how they are much dumber in their contemporary incarnation. Resignation from the Fourth International - Natalia Sedova Trotskyhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm Against Campism, for International Working-Class Solidarity https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/winter-2020/against-campism-for-international-working-class-solidarity/ The Third Camp, Socialism From Below, and the First Principle of Revolutionary Socialism https://newpol.org/issue_post/third-camp-socialism-below-and-first-principle-revolutionary-socialism/Libya’s revolution, U.S. intervention, and the left https://isreview.org/issue/77/libyas-revolution-us-intervention-and-left/index.html Ukraine and fetishising the anti-NATO call https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2022-05-04/ukraine-and-fetishising-anti-nato-call Like our theme song? Check out Autumn Brigade here! Support the show
This is a Patreon episode that we recorded in April of 2022. We decided to post this on our main feed at the request of several of our patrons who said more people should hear it. Continuing in the spirit of our discussion about the synthesis of socialism from above and below, we decided to dive a bit deeper into a topic that we have referenced many times in passing. The liberal narrative about the revolution is that it was a coup carried out by the Soviet Union against the will of the Czechoslovak people, but a cursory glance at how the revolution unfolded reveals a much different tale. Czechoslovakia 1948- By Joseph Grim Feinberg in Jacobin Magazine The Czechoslovak Revolution- By Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart in Foreign Affairs Magazine Duchacek, Ivo. “The February Coup in Czechoslovakia.” World Politics2, no. 4 (1950): 511–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/2008933.Myant, Martin. Socialism and Democracy in Czechoslovakia: 1945 - 1948. Soviet and East European Studies 33. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981.Music: Hej, slnko vychodí - (Hey, the sun is out) composed by Bartolomej Urbanec and sung in Slovak. Support the show
Jason and Varn continue with their close reading of The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin. **This is a 30m preview of a 3 hour long episode**Check out Varn Vlog here:https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/postsSupport the show
This episode of InForm:Podcast is a re-release and cross-post of an older interview done with From78 (of Lost Horizons fame). It was originally posted several lifetimes ago, in 2020, but has been re-released by InForm so we decided to promote it here.Go check out the full episode: https://www.surplusjouissance.com/inform-podcast/Support the show
1Not really, but we do talk about the history of Zionism as a settler colonial project. Pappe, Ilan. “The Framing of the Question of Palestine by the Early Palestinian Press: Zionist Settler-Colonialism and the Newspaper Filastin, 1912-1922.” The Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies : a Multidisciplinary Journal 14, no. 1 (2015): 59–81. https://doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2015.0104. Zionism: False Messiah (1998) by Lance Selfa https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/selfa/1998/xx/zionism.htmZionism from the standpoint of Its Victims (1979) By Edward Said https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Edward-Said-Excerpt.pdfSephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims Author(s): Ella Shohat https://palestinecollective.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/sephardim-in-israel_-zionism-from-the-standpoint-of-its-jewish-victims.pdfThe long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/the-long-history-of-zionist-proposals-to-ethnically-cleanse-the-gaza-stripLike our intro music? Of course you do! Check out Autumn Brigade here:https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-totSupport the show
Varn and Jason discuss this new collaborative project "Boundless and Bottomless Seas" and discuss why talking about Dugin and his Fourth Political Theory is worth doing. This is episode was recorded before the first episode of the series and is meant to be a sort of primer and introduction to the project.Support the show
This week we've got a podcast that we recorded with Subjective Conditions a few months ago. This podcast deals with Walter Benjamin as a vibe and, in true Regrettable Century fashion, the discussion is guided by the World Spirit. Check out Subjective Conditions here:https://www.patreon.com/subjectiveconditions/postsCheck out Autumn Brigade here:https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-totSupport the show
Sean KB from the Antifada joins Jason and Varn for a new series that examines the work of right wing thinkers. This week they are discussing the first chapter of Alexander Dugin's, 'The Fourth Political Theory' to break down and understand why people from all over the political spectrum are influenced by this seminal work of post-fascist thought. **This is a 30m preview of a 2.5 hour long episode**Support the show
This preview is from our sixth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss different conceptions of freedom, liberation, and the liberation of time. This was supposed to be the final episode, but it looks like we will have to do one more... Special thanks to our comrade Connor at Autumn Brigade for our new intro music. Check his music out here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-totTraverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolutionSupport the show
This week we continue our series reading from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them forever.Hilton, Rodney. Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism. A&C Black, 1985.Check out Varn Vlog:https://www.patreon.com/varnvlogSupport the show
Head on over to our Patreon to hear us discuss the Napoleon movie with our comrade Matthew. Support the show
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It seems to me there is a tension in this episode between wanting to define classes based on their relationship to production and wanting to define classes based on which "side" you think they will be on. The later is an obstacle to doing the former.
Well, I see that the time honored tradition of finding the most pedantic nerd imaginable that can hold the banner high to embaress swedes throughout the world is still honoured.
This is an extremely podcast for every human to listen to.