Episodes
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
/349/ The PMC & Their Politics ft. Dan Evans & Catherine Liu
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
Excerpt: /347/ Feminists Touch Grass w/ Amber A’Lee Frost
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
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Feminism against Progress, Mary Harrington, Regenery
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Reactionary Feminist, Mary Harrington, Substack
Monday May 29, 2023
Excerpt: /343/ Reading Club: Freedom (4)
Monday May 29, 2023
Monday May 29, 2023
On Martin Hägglund's This Life.
We continue on the theme of freedom by discussing Martin Hägglund's case for 'democratic socialism'. In this episode, we leave the book itself to one side and attempt to "put the concepts to work".
We survey the many intelligent responses the book has generated and discuss what their strengths and weaknesses are.
- Is 'secular faith' just a therapeutic ethos to do with caring about your loved ones?
- What guarantees that we will use our free time appropriately? Why would we work freely for others?
- How does Hägglund’s vision work on a global scale?
- What kind of post-capitalist “state” does Hagglund actually propose?
- Does Hägglund evade class struggle? Does he have any vision of agency?
For access to the Reading Club, join for $10/mo at patreon.com/bungacast
Readings:
- Limited Time: On Martin Hägglund’s This Life, Robert Pippin – and response by Martin Hägglund (pdf)
- Response 2: The Problem of Agency, Lea Ypi, The Philosopher
- Socialism For Our Time: Freedom, Value, Transition, Conall Cash, Boundary2 (esp. Sections IV and V)
- LA Review of Books symposium. Pieces by Walter Benn Michaels, Benjamin Kunkel, William Clare Roberts and three-part response by Hägglund: 1, 2, 3
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Excerpt: /342/ Maybe Don’t Abolish the Family? w/ Amber A’Lee Frost
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Tuesday May 23, 2023
On family abolition.
Amber A'Lee Frost joins us to talk through recent radical proposals to do away with the family as an institution. Author Sophie Lewis claims that "ever since the capitalist victory over the long Sixties, the shout for abolition of the family has been buried beneath a strange kind of shame”, but that now it’s back. Why?
What problems does family abolition address? And how do contemporary accounts sit in relation to earlier radical proposals by the Old and New Lefts?
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Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, Sophie Lewis, Verso
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Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, Sophie Lewis, Verso
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Haven in a Heartless World, Christopher Lasch
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Vulnerability as Ideology, Peter Ramsay, The Northern Star
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The Lockdown Left: socialists against society, Philip Cunliffe, spiked
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Anti-Social Socialism Club, Dustin Guastella, Damage
Tuesday May 16, 2023
/340/ How to Grow a Backbone ft. Russell Jacoby
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Tuesday May 16, 2023
On utopia and individualism.
Renowned intellectual historian and critic Russell Jacoby joins us to talk about his lifetime of left critique. We discuss his early criticisms of psychology in light of the advance of therapy culture over the past 50 years, before moving on to the question of utopianism.
Will the breakdown of the neoliberal era lead to new utopian thinking? Does enthusiasm for a universal basic income signal serious thinking about the nature of work? Or are we still in a world where only dystopian thinking is permitted?
The episode concludes by discussing how all the talk of diversity today obscures the reality of increasing homogeneity. What does this say about the individual? Is the way children are brought up today killing the capacity for imagination and making us all conformists?
Part two of the interview, and our After Party, is available at patreon.com/bungacast
Selected books by Jacoby:
- Social Amnesia: A Critique of Contemporary Psychology (Beacon Press, 1975; Transaction, 1997)
- The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe (Basic Books, 1987; new edition with new Introduction, Basic Books 2000)
- The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in the Age of Apathy (Basic Books, 1999)
- Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age (Columbia University Press, 2005)
- On Diversity: The Eclipse of the Individual in a Global Era (Seven Stories Press, 2020)
Other recent articles and interviews:
- D’une pensée critique sous emprise – Un entretien avec Russell Jacoby, Comptoir
- A Climate of Fear, Russell Jacoby, Harper's
- The Takeover, Russell Jacoby, Tablet
Thursday Apr 27, 2023
Excerpt: /336/ Reading Club: Freedom (3)
Thursday Apr 27, 2023
Thursday Apr 27, 2023
On Martin Hägglund's This Life.
[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]
We continue on the theme of freedom by discussing Martin Hägglund's case for 'democratic socialism'. Would we actually work under socialism, or do we need the threat of starvation or the promise of profit to motivate us? And what, if anything, is to structure all that free time we would gain?
Why is Hägglund's critique of religion – specifically the critique of 'political theology' – so central to his arguments? And how do we avoid the various temptations to retreat from passion, be it therapy-junk, new age buddhism, the goon cave, or post-politics?
For local Reading Clubs, email info@bungacast.com
Readings & resources:
- This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free, Martin Hägglund, Profile Books ––Chapter 6 and Conclusion
- On time, work, freedom and necessity: /298/ Working For Freedom ft. Alex Gourevitch
- On Hegel and contradiction: /167/ The Kingdom of God Is on Main Street ft. Todd McGowan
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
/334/ Cancellation is Cancelled ft. Norman Finkelstein
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
On the US cultural climate.
Renowned/notorious writer Norman Finkelstein joins us to discuss the themes of his latest and last book, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!
What unites the leading intellectual proponents of wokeness today, people like Ibram X Kendi or Kimberlé Crenshaw? How do they differ from anti-racist and liberationist heroes of the past? What continuities are there between today's cancel culture and the politics of the New Left?
We discuss the definition of wokeness and ask whether we have already reached peak wokeness, and examine the emergence of anti-wokness.
Subscribe to the podcast: patreon.com/bungacast
Readings:
I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom, Norman Finkelstein, Sublation
Thursday Apr 06, 2023
UNLOCKED: /306/ AI Capitalism: Inhuman Power
Thursday Apr 06, 2023
Thursday Apr 06, 2023
On Inhuman Power.
[Unlocked episode from Bungacast 'Reading Club', originally released 6 December 2022]
Contemporary capitalism is possessed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) question – one of the few areas today in which capitalists still seem to have ambition. Why is this so, and is there something about AI that gets to the nub of what capitalism is, as a mode of production?
Is capitalism without humanity anything more than a dystopian Skynet nightmare? And would the creation of a surplus humanity still be capitalism? Would it be techno-feudal, or something else?
Reading:
Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen and James Steinhoff, Pluto Books
Sunday Apr 02, 2023
Excerpt: /330/ Reading Club: Freedom (2)
Sunday Apr 02, 2023
Sunday Apr 02, 2023
On Martin Hägglund's This Life.
We continue on the theme of freedom. In this episode, we look at what Martin Hägglund describes as 'spiritual freedom', which can ultimately be seen as a question of what we do with our time. Across the two chapters in question, Hägglund ties together his philosophical vision rooted in the notion of mortality and temporal life, with a social critique that draws on Hegel and Marx. He does this by centring the question of time, the only truly scarce resource.
How can we negotiate anxiety-inducing freedom today? Where do our 'existential identities' come from, and does Hägglund put too much emphasis on identity? And is Buddhist karma a system analogous to the market?
For local Reading Clubs, email info@bungacast.com
Readings & resources:
- This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free, Martin Hägglund, Profile Books ––Chapter 4 and 5
- On time, work, freedom and necessity: /298/ Working For Freedom ft. Alex Gourevitch
- On Hegel and contradiction: /167/ The Kingdom of God Is on Main Street ft. Todd McGowan
- On Sartre: Being and Nothingness (1943) and his subsequent 1946 essay summarising ideas in the book, "Existentialism Is a Humanism"
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
/329/ Justice Warriors ft. Matt Bors & Ben Clarkson
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
On depicting dystopia.
Acclaimed cartoonists, writers and artists Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson join us for something a little different: to talk about their new comic book, Justice Warriors. Set in a grotesquely unequal world, a police procedural (of sorts) encounters an astrology-based social movement seeking justice.
We talk about how dystopian fiction often serves to manufacture consent and about how fiction can confront us with images of social decline. We also debate free will and determinism in a world that presents few opportunities, social justice warriors and politics that perpetuate the present, and why there is no 'pure' people set against the elite.
Links:
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The Nib - political satire & cartoons
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
Excerpt: /325/ Reading Club: Freedom (1)
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
On Martin Hägglund's This Life.
[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]
We begin the 2023 Reading Club with the theme of FREEDOM. In this episode, we examine Martin Hägglund's arguments for secular faith presented in the first half of his book. Is Hagglund right in arguing that much of religious belief, especially in relation to morality, is actually motivated by secular faith?
Hägglund's enemy is not so much religion as the "Stoic" attempt to withdraw and detach from the temporal world. Instead we should be engaged and committed to the persons and projects we care about in this life. But does Hägglund underestimate alienation? Is his approach overly demanding?
And what about disenchantment? How would we go about re-enchanting the secular world?
For local Reading Clubs, email info@bungacast.com
Readings:
- This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free, Martin Hägglund, Profile Books ––Introduction; Chapter 1 (Sections 2, 3, 4); Chapter 2 (Sections 2, 4, 6)
- From Western Marxism to Western Buddhism, Slavoj Zizek, Cabinet Magazine
- Vulnerability as Ideology, Peter Ramsay, The Northern Star
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
/321/ Covid Dissensus ft. Toby Green & Thomas Fazi
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
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The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left, Toby Green & Thomas Fazi
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/213/ The Leopard Lockdown ft. Adam Tooze
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/38/ The Economics of Exit ft. Thomas Fazi
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
/318/ The Dead Left ft. Steve Hall & Simon Winlow
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Excerpt: /306/ Reading Club: AI Capitalism
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Friday Nov 04, 2022
Excerpt: /301/ Reading Club: Neo-Feudalism
Friday Nov 04, 2022
Friday Nov 04, 2022
On Joel Kotkin's The Coming of Neo-Feudalism
We start off by discussing your points on the last RC, on conspiracy theory.
Then we delve into Kotkin's book, asking whether he has an adequate understanding of feudalism, and whether this is the right lens to understand transformations underway now. Is 'techno-feudalism' not just a downturn in 'systemic cycles of accumulation', related to the decline of the US empire? And what are Kotkin's politics and how do they relate to his analysis?
Thanks for all the questions received on this one, we discussed them as we went through the episode.
Reading:
- The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, Joel Kotkin, Encounter Books
- Techno-Feudalism Is Taking Over, Yanis Varoufakis, Project-Syndicate
Next month: Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen and James Steinhoff, Pluto Books