Bungacast

/485/ Can Games Teach Us Agency? ft. Pawel Kaczmarski

On the promise of videos games.

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Pawel Kaczmarski – a literary critic who teaches modern and contemporary Polish literature at the University of Wrocław – talks to George and Alex about his piece in Damage, "The Promise of Video Games".

• How are things gearing up for Poland's election later this month?

• Are video games moving culturally "upstream"?

• How does a game like Helldivers 2 promise to teach us agency but fails?

• Is the problem with video game criticism, and literary criticism, not so much their difficulty but rather that they are boring today?

• Has anyone managed to write a good "novel of the internet"?

Links:

• The Promise of Video Games, Pawel Kaczmarski, Damage

• /162/ Gaming & Politics ft. Jonas Kyratzes

• Gospels of the Flood

/484/ No Justice in Politics ft. David Broder

On the charges against France's Marine Le Pen.

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Alex and George discuss some main stories from the past month. After the death of Pope Francis, what's behind left-wing sympathy for the late Pope – and more widespread appreciation for Catholicism? Why do we want a progressive Pope, and would a reactionary one be better for us? Why is the US deporting people to Nayib Bukele's Salvadorian prisons, and what makes this so dystopian?

Then Alex calls up Jacobin's Europe editor David Broder to understand the charges against Marine Le Pen.

• Is Marine Le Pen a victim of lawfare, or has she been hoist by her own petard?

• What are the consequences for the Rassemblement National, and for French politics?

• What has the European radical right's response been to Trump II so far?

And we respond to your questions and comments from the past month on:

• Holding politicians to account on free speech

• Listening to poetry

• Redistribution as the obvious solution to the crisis

• Clientelism and hyperpolitics

/483/ Reading Club: Why Invent Traditions?

On the mass-production of loyalty.

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We are exceptionally making this episode of the Reading Club freely available. See the full syllabus here: 2024/25 Reading Club. If you'd like to join, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast/membership.

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The second reading in this block on Inter/Nationalism in the 21st Century is The Invention of Tradition (eds. Eric Hobsbawm & Terrence Ranger, 1983), specifically Hobsbawm's chapter "Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe 1870-1914".

• How much did ordinary people buy into invented national traditions?

• Why did industrialisation allow for mass-producing traditions?

• Does the sense of belonging fostered then still exist today?

• If nation-states don't require active participation any more, what does this mean for the mass-production of loyalty?

• Are things like social media campaigns, national holidays for diversity, or even global events like the Olympics the new “mass-produced” traditions?

/482/ The Philippines' Dynasty & Duterte's Arrest ft. Walden Bello

On Filipino politics and geopolitics.

Renowned public intellectual Walden Bello talks to Alex and contributing editor Lee Jones about his recently published memoirs, former president Rodrigo Duterte's arrest, warring political dynasties and more.

• What's behind Duterte's arrest? Is it lawfare?

• How did the Philippines comes to be an ‘anarchy of families’?

• What are the barriers to doing left-wing political work in the Philippines?

• How has Walden been involved with the social-democratic party Akbayan?

• What does China's rise mean for developing countries and the global South?

• What are Walden's key lessons for the ‘end of the End of History’?

Links:

• GLOBAL BATTLEFIELDS: Memoir of a Legendary Public Intellectual from the Global South, Walden Bello, Clarity

• Duterte Is Right to End the U.S.-Philippine Military Exercises, Walden Bello, NYT

• /52/ Duterte’s Despotism ft. Nicole Curato

• /351/ Eating the Left’s Lunch? ft. Cecilia Lero & Tamás Gerőcs

/481/ Everything is Plausible: Oligarchy – or Worse ft. Corey Robin

On Trump's government, his motives and his modus operandi.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and contributing editors Lee Jones and Alex Gourevitch about Trump II from a domestic perspective. We look at the three main things he's done so far: cutting the civil service, imposing economic sanctions domestically, and his immigration terror politics.

• Is Trump a strong president? Does the reliance on executive orders indicate weakness?

• What happened to the #Resistance?

• Why has the tariff issue, instead of uniting Republicans as in the 19th century, divided them?

• Is the bond market the main force limiting Trump's agenda?

• Has Bernie Sanders' prediction come true – this is now an oligarchy?

• Does Trump just represent patrimonialism and even gangsterism? A degradation of democracy?

• What does reaction looks like when there’s very little left to react against?

Links:

• /129/ The Right Is Weak ft. Corey Robin | Bungacast

• Notifications, Corey Robin, Sidecar (on Trump & tariffs)

• Corey Robin's facebook posts

• The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, Princeton UP

/480/ Reading Club: 21st Century Internationalism

On Perry Anderson's "Internationalism: A Breviary".

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We kick off the second block/theme of the 2024/25 Reading Club on Nations & Internationalism in the 21st Century by looking at a 2002 essay which charts nationalism against internationalism from the Atlantic revolutions through to the age of globalisation. It is particularly apposite to revisit this text in light of an acceleration in de-globalisation brought on by the second Trump presidency.

• What are the cultural aspects of "internationalism"?

• While nationalism can be good or bad, internationalism is usually seen as positive. Is this still the case?

• How has internationalism accompanied, seperated from or stood against nationalism throughout the latter's history?

• How is internationalism different from cosmopolitanism today, if at all?

• How could we update Anderson's charting of internationalism along 5 coordinates: capital, geography, philosophy, nation-definition, and class relations?

Internationalism: A Breviary, Perry Anderson, New Left Review

/479/ El Tarifazo: Trump's Tariff Thwack ft. Lee Jones

On Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs and the end of globalisation.

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Contributing editor Lee Jones talks to Alex about the tariffs, as they try to reconstruct the Trump admin's thinking, and consider avenues and consequences.

• Why is this a retro-80s moment, and how much does China take the role that Japan used to in Trump's thinking?

• How much strategy is there to this? Is it possible to disentangle the competing logics?

• Is this a return to the 19th century: small state, no income tax, high tariff walls?

• How credible an attempt at reindustrialising the US is this?

• Is Trump trying to weaken the dollar? What store to put in the Mar-a-Lago accord?

• Do Europeans kick the can down the road and hope for the best?

• Is this a global restructuring or just a reset in terms more favourable to the US? The end of neoliberalism or a new iteration on it?

Links:

• Will anybody buy a ‘Mar-a-Lago accord’?, FT

• A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, Stephen Miran, Hudson Bay Capital 

• Is Trump 2 the End of ‘Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome’?, Lee Jones, TNS 

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Breaks Down Trump's Tariff Plan and Its Impact on the Middle Class, Tucker Carlson, YouTube

• Back to the ’80s?, Andrew Liu, n+1

• MAGA and the Fragmentation of Europe, Tim Pendry, Substack

/478/ Should You Listen to Satan? ft. Orlando Reade

On revolution, epic poetry, John Milton, and freedom.

George and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch talk to Orlando Reade, who teaches English at Northeastern University London.  We discuss Orlando’s new book What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost and the history of readings of John Milton’s great epic poem.

• Is Paradise Lost a poem about darkness?

• What does a poem written in the seventeenth century have to tell us about the age of Trump and the contemporary Right?

• What can we learn about freedom today from the rebellious Satan in the poem? Or the disobedient Eve?

• What did Malcolm X get from the poem and why is Jordan Peterson so hot on epic poetry?

Links:

• What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost, Orlando Reade, Penguin

• John Milton’s Paradise Lost Mourned a Revolution Betrayed, Orlando Reade, Jacobin

• Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?, Orlando Reade, The Nation

/477/ Talking Turkey in the Group Chat ft. Djene Bajalan

On Erdogan's World and the revolt against it.

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Historian Djene Bajalan joins George and Alex to review the past month – ceasefires in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, winning and losing US patronage, Trump's inconsistent strategy and leaks, and the gold rush. We then turn to a country exemplary of the contradictions of the end of the End of History: Türkiye. And finish by answering your questions and comments on internationalism, free speech, Die Linke, anti-immigration, and domination.

• What's driving the protests and how do they compare to past revolts against Erdogan?   

• What is the meaning of charges – corruption & terrorism – against Istanbul mayor and potential opposition leader İmamoğlu?

• Who is the opposition?

• What has sustained Erdogan's rule – repression, conservatism, modernisation, growth?

• Why is Erdogan one of the winners of the past 20 years, and how is he a world-historic figure? 

Links:

• Erdoğan's new world order, Lily Lynch, UnHerd

• /339/ Erdogone? People vs Nation in Turkey ft. Alp Kayserilioglu

• Kultur Kampf TR, Selim Koru, Substack

/476/ Freedom against the New Nihilism ft. Jensen Suther

On critical theory and autonomy.

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Jensen Suther, a junior fellow at Harvard working in philosophy and literature, talks to Alex H and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch about art, culture, and socialism. He also offers a riposte to previous guest Anna Kornbluh's discussion of immediacy, and its cultural forms such as autoficition.

• What does Suther think Kornbluh gets wrong – and right – in her critique of contemporary culture?

• How autonomous is art from society and the economy?

• To what extent can we tie cultural forms to deep changes in the economy?

• What is the right response to the historical defeat of the working class? What does it mean for critical theory?

• What is the difference between immanent critique and critique from the outside – and how dow this relate to freedom?

• And what does it matter if you read Hegel right?

Links:

• The Theory of Immediacy or the Immediacy of Theory?, Jensen Suther, Nonsite.org

• /458/ The Society of Pure Vibe ft. Anna Kornbluh

• /473/ Make Alienation Great Again ft. Todd McGowan (features a different response to the question about critical theory after the defeat of the working class)

• Jensen's thread on X on capitalist totality and the end of the working class

• Jensen's thread on X on the return to Hegel, against economic determinism

/475/ Class Power: Professionals, Petits and Proles ft. Dan Evans

On class formation, fragmentation, pessimism and optimism.

George and contributing editor Leigh Phillips talk to Dan Evans, a writer and academic based in South Wales. We discuss his piece in the New Socialist, ‘Is the Working Class Back?’ and themes emerging from it.

• How important are definitions of class?

• If the working class remains weak and fragmented, and its politics increasingly chaotic, what is to be done?

• How does Gabriel Winant's pessimism about the industrial working class compare to Evans'?

• What are the class contradictions of the contemporary Left?

• Who is the real oppositional class today? Should we be more positive about the petite bourgeoisie?

Links:

• Is the Working Class Back?, Dan Evans, New Socialist

• A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie, Dan Evans, Repeater Books

• /349/ The PMC & Their Politics ft. Dan Evans & Catherine Liu

/474/ Urban Power in a Planet of Slums ft. Ben Bradlow

On cities and the politics of development.

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Ben Bradlow, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton, talks to Alex about his book Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg.

• If our future is urban – and it is – why is it different to what we imagined?

• Are Johannesburg and São Paulo representative of what is going on in cities?

• How did democratic promise and neoliberal disappointment go together in the 1990s, through to today?

• What has been the role of social movements (e.g. for housing) in transforming cities and municipal government?

• Is the radical right in the global North and South fundamentally different? What is the urban dimension?

• What does China's lead in industries like electric vehicles mean for countries like Brazil?

• Is industrial upgrading possible under post-neoliberalism?

Links:

• Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg, Benjamin Bradlow, Princeton UP

• A processual framework for understanding the rise of the populist right: the case of Brazil (2013–2018), Tomás Gold and Benjamin Bradlow, Social Forces

• Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation, Peter Evans, Princeton UP

/473/ Make Alienation Great Again ft. Todd McGowan

On Embracing Alienation.

Todd McGowan is back on the pod, talking to George and Alex about his book, Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try To Find Ourselves.

• Why is alienation good actually? What does it give us?

• How is alienation related to subjectivity and freedom?

• What is the problem with anti-alienation politics of Left and Right?

• What happened to the 1960s concern with alienation, where did it go?

• Why is an embrace of the public realm, against therapy culture, the right response?

• What is the task of critical theory today?

Links:

• /167/ The Kingdom of God Is on Main Street ft. Todd McGowan

• Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try To Find Ourselves

/472/ Munich, MAGA, Musk, Malema ft. Will Shoki / Ryan Zickgraf

On Trumpworld: Vance in Munich; Musk in South Africa.

[This contains only the interview on South Africa – for the full episode subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

Alex, George and Ryan Zickgraf round up events in Germany: first the elections, then US Vice-President JD Vance's speech to the Munich Security Conference where he called out Western elites' hypocrisy on liberalism and democracy.

Then Alex speaks to Will Shoki, editor at Africa Is A Country, about what Musk wants from South Africa, why the global radical right has fixated on land reform in South Africa, and what is really at stake for South Africans.

We round out by taking your questions and comments – and by welcoming in carnival by discussing drinking & socialising, and its anti-social enemies.

Running Order

• 00:03:10 – German elections

• 00:08:20 – Vance's Munich speech

• 00:26:00 – Will Shoki on South African politics

• 01:04:55 – Musk and the global radical right

• 01:13:20 – Letters to the Editors

• 01:23:10 – Carnival and social drinking

Links:

• Trump’s Tool: The Limits of Bannon’s Postmodern Nationalism, Alex Gourevitch, The Northern Star

• Make Afrikaners great again! National populism, democracy and the new white minority politics in post- apartheid South Africa, Danelle van Zyl-Hermann, Ethnic and Racial Studies 

• Why Trump loves corrupt Democrats, Ryan Zickgraf, UnHerd

• The Case for Social Drinking, Ryan Zickgraf, Jacobin

• The Hangover and Life as a Commodity, George Hoare, Damage

• Segregation Is Still Alive in Mardi Gras’s Birthplace, Ryan Zickgraf, Jacobin

/471/ Reforming the Deformed ft. Nathan Sperber & George Hoare

On Gramsci in the 21st century.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Sociologist Nathan Sperber and our own George Hoare talk to Alex H and Lee Jones about the new edition to their book, An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci: His Life, Thought and Legacy, which includes a new chapter on Gramsci's relevance to contemporary politics and events and a new section on Gramsci's influence on the New Right. We discuss:

• How does this book differ from other introductions to Gramsci?

• What is wrong with the post-Marxist, post-colonial or culturalist version of Gramsci?

• What are Gramsci's top 3 insights into politics?

• How has Gramsci been taken up by the political Right?

• How has Gramsci been used and abused by the Left? What to make of the post-Marxist radical democracy of Laclau and Mouffe ("left-populism")?

• Why is the concept of the "national-popular" that Gramsci takes from the Jacobins so important to rediscover?