Bungacast

Excerpt: /283/ Reading Club: Trust & Mistrust

On Anthony Giddens' The Consequences of Modernity (ch.3)

[Patreon Tier 2&3 Exclusive]

In the second episode of the Cynical Ideology section of the 2022 Reading Club, we look at what trust is and why it has declined so precipitously in recent decades, especially in relation to institutions. 

Is the opposite of trust mistrust, or is it existential angst? What's the link between the absence of trust and a sense of impending apocalypse? Is money or the market the only abstract entity we still trust? And what about the state?

Reading:

The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens (1990), ch. 3

Excerpt: /278/ Reading Club: Cynicism & Ideology

[Patreon Tier 2&3 Exclusive]

 

On Zizek's "How Marx Invented the Symptom" from The Sublime Object of Ideology.

 

We kick off the second phase of the 2022 Reading Club, on Cynical Ideology, with this selection from Slavoj Zizek's landmark first book in English. How does he supplement Marx's conception of ideology? Are we post-ideological or trapped in cynical ideology? How would we go about breaking free of it?

 

Reading:

The Sublime Object of Ideology (ch. 1), Slavoj Zizek 

Excerpt: /275/ Our Reply to Critics: Review of Reviews

On reviews of our book, The End of the End of History

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

A year since the book came out, and two years since we finished writing it, we take a look at published reviews the book has received and respond to them.

 

Questions addressed include: have we overstated our case? Do we ignore the importance of the 1970s in favour of the 1990s? Might war matter more than class struggle? Is it useful to understood History in the metaphysical/Hegelian sense? Should we be less modernist and dispense with the politics inherited from 1848-1980s? And are we too critical of left-populism?

 

Reviews

• War at the End of History, Adam Tooze, Chartbook 109
• The End of the End of the End, Sam Kriss, First Things
• Book Review: The End of the End of History, Jason C. Mueller, Critical Sociology
• How long is the end of history?, Connor Harney, Platypus
• Beginning of the End, or End of the Beginning?, Park McDougald, American Affairs
• Book Review: The End of the End of History, Dan Taylor, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
• Certainly the End of Something or Other, Joseph Keegin, The Bellow
• New Perspectives journal roundtable (forthcoming) on The End of the End of History: Daniel Zamora, Anton Jäger, Richard Sakwa, Nicholas Kiersey 

Excerpt: /266/ Reading Club: Foucault & Biopolitics

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

 

On neoliberalism and biopolitics.

 

In the fifth session of the "Emergency Politics & Control" theme of the 2022 Reading Club, we take on The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault's 1978-9 lectures at the College de France (no's 4-6, 9-10).

 

How does Foucault trace a line between German ordo- and American neo-liberalism to biopolitics? What role does human capital play? Is 'biopolitics' a critique or a manual? And how useful a tool is it to understand the management of the Covid pandemic?

Excerpt: /260/ Reading Club: Fear II - Furedi

[Patreon Tier 2 Exclusive]

On Frank Furedi's How Fear Works.

Following on from last month's discussion of Corey Robin's Fear, we examine a differing attempt to demystify the politics and culture of fear. 

To join a local Reading Club where you are, email info@bungacast.com 

/258/ Conformist Rebellion ft. Elena Lange & Joshua Pickett-Depaolis

On Marxism & the Left.

We talk to Elena & Joshua about their new edited collection, The Conformist Rebellion: Marxist Critiques of the Contemporary Left. Who or what is "the Left" today – merely the left wing of Capital? And what distinguishes a specifically Marxist critique of the Left? How has Marxism and the question of exploitation been sidelined in favour of a libera concern with discrimination?

Over on Patreon you can hear the second part of the interview, plus our After Party debating the contemporary Left's connection to Marxism, the history of social democracy, and moral versus materialist critique. 

Readings:

• Counterattack journal
• Counter Attack telegram 
• Elena's substack
• Value without Fetish: Uno Kōzō’s Theory of ‘Pure Capitalism’ in Light of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy, Elena Lange

Excerpt: /255/ Reading Club: Fear I – Robin

[Patreon Tier 2 Exclusive]

On Corey Robin's Fear: The History of a Political Idea. 

This is March's Reading Club, the third in the Emergency Politics section of the 2022 Syllabus.

/246/ Why Isn’t There Revolution? ft. Vivek Chibber

On class & material self-interest.

We talk to Vivek Chibber about his new book, The Class Matrix: Social Theory After the Cultural Turn, which seeks to answer why capitalism has proven remarkably stable. Vivek explains why classical Marxism does not need 'ideological supplements' to explain why there hasn't been revolution; instead, structural class theory already provides the answers. 

We go back to basics, looking at the role of interests, debate what the real role of ideology is (not 'false consciousness'), and look at why particularism, rather than the universal collectivism of class, now dominates. 

Part two of the interview, plus the After Party, is available over at patreon.com/bungacast

Excerpt: /245/ Reading Club: Emergency Politics II - Agamben

On Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception (2005). 

How did a darling of the left during the War on Terror become a resource for the right during Covid? Is Agamben right to blur the boundary between fascism and liberal democracy? And if we are in a 'permanent state of exception', what is the right response?

And we discuss your questions.

The full episode is for $10+ subscribers. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

Other links:

• The Crisis of the Crisis: Is Covid politics the real emergency?, Geoff Shullenberger, The New Atlantis 

/238/ Reading Club: Emergency Politics I (Extended Excerpt)

On Carl Schmitt's Political Theology (1922).

We ask why people are scared of sovereignty – as opposed to state power per se, and analyse what is significant about the way in which Schmitt defines sovereignty. And what is the meaning of 'political theology'?

And we discuss your questions. 

This is an extended excerpt of the first 30 mins of the episode. For the full thing, go to patreon.com/bungacast

Other links:

• The shibboleth of sovereignty, Martin Loughlin and Stephen Tierney, Modern Law Review, 2008 (pdf) 
• The Fed policy error that should worry investors, John Hussman, FT 
• The Death of the Central Bank Myth, Adam Tooze, Foreign Policy
  
  

 

 

Excerpt: /232/ Reading Club: Cold, Hard / Warm, Soft

On Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism

How has the cold and hard world of bureaucratic, instrumental rationalism penetrated the intimate sphere of love and relationships? And how has open communication and emotional understanding been used to advance economic interests?

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This is a free sample. For the full episode, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

 

Excerpt: /227/ Reading Club: All That Is Solid

On modernity's contradictions.

 

In this month's Reading Club, we discuss the introduction to Marshall Berman's marvellous All That Is Solid Melts Into Air.

 

This is an excerpt. For the full episode, subscribe for $10/mo at patreon.com/bungacast

 

Can we revive, as Berman intends, the truly dialectical, 19th century attitude to modernity? What value is there in talking about "modernity" rather than “capitalism”? And how to we recognise possibilities for transcending today's impasses, where the question of "modernity" isn't even on the table?

 

The final Reading Club of 2021 will be on Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies.

Excerpt: /221/ Reading Club: Truth About Class

This month we discuss GM Tamas' essay "Telling the Truth About Class" published in the Socialist Register. Is Tamas' division between Marxist and Rousseauian socialism useful? Does it help us to understand the Left today? And is Tamas right that "authentic proletarian revolution... has never occurred in its anti-capitalist purity anywhere"?

 

Reading Clubs are for patrons $10+, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

 

Additional readings:

• Why the left must abandon the myth of British decline, David Edgerton, New Statesman
• Ellen Meiksins Wood on the Nairn-Anderson thesis and the Bourgeois paradigm, Verso Books blog

Excerpt: /210/ Reading Club: Psychoanalysis & Spirit of Capitalism

We discuss Eli Zaretsky's essay, "Psychoanalysis and the Spirit of Capitalism" (also available as a chapter in his book Political Freud).

 

How convincing is Zaretsky’s idea that, as capitalism was becoming more organized and systematic, it also liberated relations between the sexes and enhanced a sense of individual subjectivity?

 

Was Freudianism a victim of its success? Did it ‘win’ and thereby make itself obsolete - socially if not intellectually? And what is today’s "spirit of capitalism"? Are we still within the spirit that was reshaped in the 1960s - the world of the New Left?

 

Reading Clubs are only for patrons $10 and up. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

Excerpt: /201/ Reading Club: The New Class War

We discuss Michael Lind's The New Class War.

Lind identifies new lines in the class war, between working class and managerial overclass, between those in the "heartlands" and those in the "hubs". How convincing is this account? What is his critique of technocratic managerialism and its symptom, populism? How convincing - and realistic - is his solution of "democratic pluralism"? And is this only achievable as a result of a new cold war with China?

Reading Clubs are for higher-tier subscribers only. Sign up for $10/mo for full access: patreon.com/bungacast