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

Bunga Holiday

Just a short announcement about what's coming up, while we're off on summer holidays.

Subscribe to the podcast to support us and get two new, original, paywalled episodes a month ($5/mo). For $10/mo you also get access to the Reading Club. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

/281/ Foreign Fighters, Left & Right (I) ft. Stefan Bertram-Lee

On Rojava and Ukraine.

We talk to Stefan Bertram-Lee, former volunteer fighter for the the YPG in Rojava, about whom a Hollywood movie is being made. We ask him about the type of person who volunteers, and how this compares to those who have gone to Ukraine. How does this stop you "being a teenage nihilist"? And who would win in a fight: ISIS, Azov or the YPG?

Part two of this episode is available at: https://www.patreon.com/posts/70597308 

Reading:

• Ukraine the Day after Tomorrow, Stefan Bertram-Lee, Sublation
• The Nazification of Ukraine, Stefan Bertram-Lee, Sublation
• ‘Stefan Vs. ISIS’ Pic In Works, Deadline

Excerpt: /280/ Three Articles: Liberal Nationalism

[Patreon Exclusive]

With European liberals waving Ukraine flags, how might the war and escalating geopolitical tensions between major power be prompting a return to nationalism and patriotism? Is it just a means for elites to extract sacrifices from the people? And how 'real' are nations anyway?

Articles:

• As we unite for the jubilee, let’s believe Britain’s best days are ahead, not behind, Lucy Powell, The Guardian
• The Return of Liberal Nationalism, Sohrab Ahmari, Compact
• What Putin and liberals share, Aris Roussinos, Unherd

/279/ Society of the Speculative ft. Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

On our financialised world. 

We talk to Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou about his new book, Speculative Communities. How has speculation become the very practice around which modern societies coalesce? And how does speculation actually give voice to the  waning legitimacy of neoliberalism? 

Do dating apps, Tik Tok and other social media give birth to 'speculative communities'? And is populism a speculation on the future, a leap into the unknown?

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 

/276/ Broken Promises ft. Fritz Bartel

On the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism.

Fritz Bartel talks to us about his new book in which the 1970s crisis and its aftermath takes centre-stage. How did the response to this global crisis differ in Western democratic capitalism versus Eastern state socialism? And why did this determine which side won the Cold War? How did the twin factors of global finance and energy emerge then, to the extent they still seem so determining today?

We discuss Bartel's striking claim that democracies, rather than authoritarian systems, were better able to 'break promises' – that is, impose economic discipline. And we conclude by discussing whether it could have been otherwise, whether neoliberalism and the collapse of the 'really existing socialism' were inevitable.

Readings: 

• The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism, Fritz Bartel, Harvard UP
• Democracy and Discipline: Review Essay, Alex Hochuli, American Affairs

/273/ Eco-Leninism? [UNLOCKED]

On the climate emergency.

We are specially unlocking this episode of our monthly Reading Club – the concluding episode of the first half of the 2022 syllabus (download it here). If you'd like full access to all of the Reading Club, go to patreon.com/bungacast

We discuss Andreas Malm's Climate, Corona, Chronic Emergency and Adam Tooze's review essay, "Ecological Leninism". How convincing is Malm's call for Soviet war communism as a model for responding to climate change? 

We also approach these readings in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the knock-on consequences for energy politics. And what should we make of Tooze's  contrast of social democratic time-frames with the eco-Leninist one? 

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: /274/ Aufhebonus Bonus: July 2022

[Patreon Exclusive]

On your questions & criticisms.

We discuss the link between Covid and war in Ukraine and return to the question of who exactly is the ruling class. Plus: inflation, what actually happened in the 1990s, contemporary art, and the politics of abortion.  

/272/ As Late As Necessary ft. Alex Gourevitch

On abortion.

After the US Supreme Court ruling, where does this leave women in the US? Political theorist Alex Gourevitch joins us to discuss Roe v Wade, and how the fact it rooted abortion in a right to privacy was problematic.

How can we ground the right to abortion in an argument for freedom in general? And is the US really faced with a rising tide of reaction, as liberals claim? Are same-sex marriage and contraception imperilled by the decision.

Reading:

• Wrong Life and Abortion, Ethan Linehan, Sublation
• The Left killed the pro-choice coalition, Kat Rosenfield, Unherd
• A Defence of Abortion, Judith Jarvis Johnson  
• How to Win the Abortion Argument, Helen Lewis, The Atlantic

/270/ Russia vs the West ft. Richard Sakwa

On the endgame to war in Ukraine.

 

Eminent Russian expert, Putin and Gorbachev biographer and ex-Sovietologist, Prof Richard Sakwa, joins us in advance of his imminent retirement from the University of Kent. We talk about the geopolitics of NATO expansion and the dynamics of the Ukraine war reaching back to 2014. How high is the risk of nuclear war now, and how might the Ukraine war play out?

Readings:

• Whisper it, but Putin has a point in Ukraine, Richard Sakwa, The Spectator
• The Dual State in Russia, Richard Sakwa, Post-Soviet Affairs
• A Review of 'Frontline Ukraine' by Richard Sakwa, Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday
• Putin Redux: Continuity and change, Richard Sakwa, openDemocracy

Excerpt: /269/ Three Articles: The 90s

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

On the whatever decade.

 

People are turning back to reinterpret the 1990s. Clearly, they were peak End of History years. But does that mean that no politics actually happened? If it's the period of the cultural turn, does that mean we should seek to understand that decade culturally?

 

And what are the political consequences of how we interpret the 1990s?

 

Readings:

• The 1990s: An age without qualities, Gavin Jacobson, New Statesman (attached)
• Were the 1990s Really Devoid of Politics?, Ryan Zickgraf, Jacobin
• The ‘90s: The decade that never ended, Jason Farago, BBC

Anti-Politics & Beyond (Munich Book Launch - Audio)

If the End of History was characterised by post-politics, and the 'populist decade' of the 2010s dominated by anti-politics, then how should we understand more recent phenomena? Are the following of a qualitatively different nature to anti-politics, namely: the intensification of culture wars, growing polarisation that does not always align neatly with class, of increasingly hysterical and personalised politics, and of the competition between escalating emergency politics? 

To commemorate the publication of the German edition of The End of the End of History, co-author Alex Hochuli was in conversation with historian of political thought, Anton Jäger at the Monacensia in Munich.

Ruling Class Hysteria (Berlin Book Launch - Audio)

To commemorate the publication of the German edition of The End of the End of History, co-author Alex Hochuli was in conversation with David Broder, Europe editor of Jacobin Magazine at Spike Magazine, Berlin.

 

The crumbling of the liberal, technocratic order over the past decade has led to a variety of hysterical reactions from the establishment. Faced with new challenges to their authority, they have reacted by calling their opponents "fascist", blaming misinformation or adopting conspiracy theories of their own. How are we to understand these reactions and the apparent conflict between neoliberal technocracy and "populism"?