Bungacast

/504/ Vietnam's Victory: American War to Globalisation ft. Sean Fear

On resistance and reform in southeast Asia.

Historian Sean Fear talks to Alex H and Lee Jones about Vietnam on the 50-year anniversary since the end of the war.

• How is Vietnamese identity wrapped up with the notion of resistance?

• Is Chinese influence as great as resistance to China?

• How is the ‘American War’ thought about in Vietnam today?

• How similar is Vietnam to China: defying Fukuyama’s thesis by retaining a state-socialist political system while adopting capitalism?

• Why has Vietnam achieved rapid growth and development while neighbours have failed?

• How is Vietnam reacting to being at the centre of Trump tariff disputes?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• The Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation Building, Sean Fear, Tuong Vu (eds.), Cornell UP

• /115/ Singapore Shangri-La ft. Lee Jones

• Post-Cold War Vietnam: stay low, learn, adapt and try to have fun – but what about the party?, Adam Fforde

/503/ Effervescent Decadence in the Third Modernity

On the end of the end of history and what comes next.

Phil is back on the pod, talking with George and Alex about the big themes of the podcast. In particular, we look at a recent essay in Foreign Policy by historian Christopher Clarke called "The End of Modernity".

• To what extent was the 1989 moment as significant in Beijing as Berlin?

• Is Trump actually Stalin (but in a good way)?

• Is Russia the revisionist power? And if so, in what regard and what are the consequences?

• Who says the choice is between "liberal democracy" and "authoritarian populism"?

Then, we take your questions and comments from the past month.

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• The End of Modernity, Christopher Clarke, Foreign Policy

• The End of the End of History: Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Bungacast, Zer0 Books

• Into the Abyss, Ed McNally, Tribune

/502/ Their Own Personal Jesus ft. Lamorna Ash

On the "return of religion" in Britain.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Journalist Lamorna Ash talks to George and Alex about how and why young people might be turning to religion today.

• Have things moved on from the New Atheists and their critique of religion?

• What are the divides in Christianity today? How do culture wars over sexuality play out?

• Why do ritual, quiet, and the 'new monasticism’ hold appeal today?

• Is Gen Z's pessimism a type of apocalyptic thinking? Is it related to environmentalism?

The After Party, following the interview, is at 00:51:30.

Links:

• Don't Forget We're Here Forever, Lamorna Ash, Bloomsbury

• The Tyranny of Structurelessness, Jo Freeman, Damage

• Reading Club on Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

/501/ Reading Club: The Lower-Middle Class

On Arno Mayer's "The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem".

We kick off the third block of the 2024/25 Reading Club, which is dedicated to the question of the middle class:

The abatement of class struggle between workers and owners has shone a light on the role of the middle classes. Beyond the resurgence of the debate around the much-maligned professional-managerial class (PMC), what is the true role of the middle class in politics and society? Who rules today – and how would we go about answering that question?

In this episode we discuss:

• Is the lower middle class still the main recipient/consumer of popular culture?

• Is the condition of the lower middle class in fact universalised across society today?

• Is the lower middle class a "classless class"?

• Is this class united or in fact divided? Is is the main site of political contestation today? Of culture wars?

For access, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem, Arno Mayer

• Regime Crisis: The Persistence of Arno J. Mayer, Verso Books blog

/500/ Disrupt, Decline, Decay

We celebrate 500 episodes of Aufhebunga Bunga with a cold, hard look at the decay around us.

Alex and George plus contributing editors Lee Jones and Alex Gourevitch wrangle with four principal questions:

• What does it mean to say our era is one of decay or decline?

• How does this relate to the non-death of neoliberalism – its intellectual destitution, its practical weakening, but also its mutation and perpetuation?

• How does neoliberal decay relate to the decline of a unipolar world under total US hegemony, and the decline of the liberal globalist order?

• To what extent is the decay of representative democracy cause or consequence of the above?

And finally, as we have been asking since we started this podcast in 2017: what comes next?

For all Bungacast content, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast, and for our monthly newsletter, click here.

Readings:

• Geopolitics at the End of the End of History, Lee Jones, The Northern Star

• Technofeudalism vs Total Capitalism, Alex Hochuli, American Affairs 

• Regime Change in the West, Perry Anderson, London Review of Books

• Changing the Regime, Building the Nation, Phil Cunliffe, The Northern Star

• An Audacious Book, Roberto Schwarz (review of Robert Kurz's 1991 Collapse of Modernisation), Meditations Journal

• The new historical simultaneity, Robert Kurz, Libcom

Past landmark episodes

• 100: What was the end of history? 

• 200: Which country crystallises world-history from 1900-2020?

• 300: The threat of nuclear annihilation

• 400: The political oppositions of the next decade

/499/ Shame! Shame on Bungacast! ft. Taylor Hines

On shame, guilt and responsibility.

Taylor Hines, an editor at Damage magazine, talks to George and Alex about his essay "Fool Me Twice" in Issue 4 of the magazine, which deals with the theme Responsibility.

Remember, subscribers to Bungacast get a complimentary online subscription to Damage!

We discuss:

• Why is Robert Eggers' Nosferatu about shame? What about the Rape of Lucretia?

• What can Frédéric Gros’ A Philosophy of Shame tell us?

• What's the difference between shame and guilt?

• Do psychoanalytic thinkers like Christopher Lasch and Melanie Klein clarify the matter?

• Why do we need to Make Guilt Great Again – but not as affect, as a sense of responsibility?

For the full episode subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• Fool Me Twice, Taylor Hines, Damage

• Issue 4: Responsibility, Damage

• Do you often feel ashamed? Maybe you should, Nina Power, Daily Telegraph

/498/ After the 12-Day War ft. Eskandar Sadeghi

On Iran and its Axis of Resistance.

Historian Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi talks to Alex about the leadup and aftermath of the so-called "12-Day War between Iran and Israel and the US.

• Hamas and Hezbollah have been humbled, Assad is gone from Syria – how weakened is Iran?

• Did the 12-Day War actually happen? What prevented it becoming a wider war?

• What is the meaning of Israel's maximalist aims of regime change and regional dominance?

• Why is Iran now leaning into Iranian nationalism, even using pre-revolutionary symbols?

• Is a nuclear Iran now inevitable? What lessons will it draw?

• How has the region been reconfigured over the past two years? What about Saudi and the Gulf states?

Subscribe to this podcast at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• Iran and the ‘Axis of Resistance’: A Brief History, Eskandar Sadeghi, Jadaliyya

• Culmination, Eskandar Sadeghi, Sidecar

• The Failson and the Flag, Golnar Nikpou & Eskandar Sadeghi

/497/ Are We Living in Fast Times? ft. James Hughes & Eli Sennesh

On technology, transhumanism, and progress.

James Hughes (Exec Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) and Eli Sennesh (postdoc, Vanderbilt) present a futurist approach to Alex and contributing editor Leigh Phillips.

• What is wrong with the acronym TESCREAL?

• Why is it wrong to worry about future transhumanism when we need to grapple with the technologies of now?

• What are the limits of bourgeois futurism? What is an alternative futurism?

• Has AI changed everything? Will it?

• Are we actually living in an age of rapid technological advance?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

 

Links:

• Conspiracy Theories, Left Futurism, and the Attack on TESCREAL, James Hughes & Eli Sennesh

• /306/ AI Capitalism: Inhuman Power

• /335/ AI & the End of the End of History

• /446/ The Techno-Fantasy of Perfect Freedom ft. Amber Trotter

• /488/ Homo-Techno, Homo-Solo ...Post-Homo? ft. Alex Gendler

• The Obama-to-Yarvin Pipeline, Geoff Schullenberger, Compact Substack

/496/ Insane-Washing the War (Which Did Not Take Place)

On the war on Iran that wasn't (yet).

Alex and George review the past month in the world and on Bungacast:

• The crazy will-they-won't-they of a potential US war on Iran

• The ex post facto justifications on all sides

• Where does "sanewashing" come from

• Ways to understand and not understand US political polarisation

And we deal with your questions and comments from the past month:

• Woke Dungeons and Dragons

• Being Safe versus Feeling Safe

• More on victimhood, authenticity and the PMC

[For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

Links:

• Trump’s Tariff Gamble and the Decay of the Neoliberal Order, Lee Jones, American Affairs

• Sanewashing, and how Defund The Police stopped meaning Defund The Police, Inverse Florida, Substack

• Did Iran win the 12-day war?, Sohrab Ahmari, UnHerd 

• A Comprehensive History of Woke D&D, Mark of the Weather-Sun, Substack

/495/ Heritage America vs the World? ft. James Pogue

On land conflicts, MAGA , and the frontier.

Journalist James Pogue talks to George and Alex about his book Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West. The book concerns the events surrounding the 2016 armed occupation of the Oregon Malheur National Wildlife Refuge led by the rancher Ammon Bundy. We discuss:

• Why were these 2016 events so important and so telling?

• Is the Jacksonian concept of America still relevant?

• Does knowing how these people think enable you to predict what Trump – or JD Vance – will do?

• How is Mormonism the encapsulation of a certain America?

• Is the division on the Right about 'winners' versus 'losers' (or lost-causers)?

• Is this story also America First versus Globalists?

• How unique is the US's forms of political polarisation?

/494/ National Democracy or Globalist War ft. Wolfgang Streeck

On the dual crisis of the world.

Wolfgang Streeck, renowned economic sociologist, is back on to talk to us about the crisis of capitalist growth and of democracy. We focus on the solutions proposed in his brilliant new book, Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism.

Then, Lee and Alex discuss three key themes emerging from the interview: federalism and small states; the national interest; and the redefinition of democracy.

[For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

With Streeck we discuss:

• Why is the revival of nation-state democracy "possible, although not very probable"?

• Have Europe’s right-wing populists given up on restoring governance to the national level?

• Why are Europe's globalists turning towards a militarised bloc with securitised external economic relations?

• Why haven’t left-wing populists been able to exploit the "dual crisis"?

• How has democracy been redefined to mean a set of discursive and moral principles rather than power struggle?

• Can we have an orderly de-globalisation?

Links:

• Taking Back Control?: States and State Systems After Globalism, Wolfgang Streeck, Verso

• Notes on the political economy of war, Wolfgang Streeck, Review of Keynesian Economics

• /218/ Stability Über Alles ft. Wolfgang Streeck & /219/ Stability Über Alles pt. 2 ft. Wolfgang Streeck

• /160/ Enemies of the People (Large & Very Small) ft. Wolfgang Streeck

• /170/ Reading Club: Streeck's Critical Encounters

/492/ The Armed Wing of the Deplatforming Movement ft. Alex Gourevitch

On the right to protest.

[For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

Contributing editor Alex Gourevitch talks to Alex H and George about restrictions on speech and protest at US universities and beyond – particularly with regard to Palestine solidarity demonstrations.

• How have uni administrators not just undermined by seemingly attacked the right to protest?

• Why is Trump going after the universities this way?

• How have progressives undermined the right of protest by talking up the role of 'harm'?

• How have pro-Israel groups been complicit in treating political speech as an attack on identities?

• Why have so many authorities chosen the defence of Israel as their hill to die on?

Links:

• The Right to Be Hostile, Alex Gourevitch, Boston Review

• /409/ Palestine, Protest, Repression: The Wider Context

/491/ Squeezed Between Two Empires ft. Maciej Szlinder

On Poland's election, its history, its self-conception.

Philosopher Maciej Szlinder joins us to talk about Polish politics, society and history. Maciej is a member of the general council of the left-wing political party Razem ("Together"), as well as the president of the Polish Basic Income Network, so we discuss these matters as well as the general context.

• How did Poland represent a beacon of neoliberal democracy to Western liberals in the 80s and 90s – and what happened next?

• What does Poland represent, to Poles and to the rest of Europe, today?

• Is the political duopoly of the centrist Civic Platform and the right-wing Law and Justice falling apart?

• Why is political turnout up – and what anti-establishment parties are the young voting for?

• Why is Poland the most pro-American country in Europe, and how does Trump affect that?

• What is Poland's huge economic success felt like on the ground?

• How does precarious employment and emigration impact Polish politics?

Links:

• In the Polish Mirror, Gavin Rae, New Left Review

• In Poland, Presidential Hopefuls Battle for Young Voters Who Don’t Like Them, NY Times

/490/ Reading Club: Who Is Anti-Nationalist?

On the former Yugoslavia and the ethnography of anti-nationalists.

[For the full episode, subscribe: patreon.com/bungacast]

[Reading Club LIVE: Sat 14 June, 9am LA, 12am NY, 5pm London, 6pm Berlin]

In the third installment of this block on inter/nationalism in the 21st century, we take a look at the other side of nationalism, through scholar Stefaan Jansen's “Anti-nationalism: Post-Yugoslav Resistance and Narratives of Self and Society”.

• Who are the Somewheres and Anywheres in post-Yugoslavia?

• How does Jansen understand the marginalisation of anti-nationalism in Serbia and Croatia?

• Is understanding nationalism and anti-nationalism as discursive practices a useful lens for understanding post-Yugoslav identities?

• Why is the act of forgetting or misremembering significant in the context of post-Yugoslav anti-nationalist narratives?

• How did the contrast between pre-war Yugoslavia and post-war realities shape anti-nationalist identities?

• Must individuality be anti-nationalist?

Reading Club 2024/25 Syllabus: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRn6kWzICbqUBo64Jp-c8TS0K4axTy3M/view

/489/ Boomer Death Rattle

On the end of the (very) long 1960s.

[For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

Contributing Editor Lee Jones joins Alex and George to talk through the themes and stories of the month, including MAGA's war on universities, right-populists in power, and culture war. Plus we deal with your questions and comments on: lawfare, video games, and the 'new class'.

• What is TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)?

• How should we respond to rightist attempts to rewrite the past?

• Why are Angela Merkel and Donald Trump representative of the age, in similar and different ways?

• Are people sick of subversion and just want order?

• What happens as the Boomers leave public life? Can we bracket 1960-2020?

• When should we throw the book at politicians?

Links:

• Trump’s Tariff Gamble and the Decay of the Neoliberal Order, Lee Jones, American Affairs

• The Techno-Populist Convergence, Alex Hochuli, Compact

• How Labor won the preference war (and screwed the Greens), Financial Review

• Saving Britain’s Universities: Academic Freedom, Democracy and Renewal, Lee Jones and Philip Cunliffe, Cieo