Bungacast

In part five, we explore the professionalisation of friendship, by speaking to Dutch director and producer Menna Laura Meijer about her documentary on life coaching, Now Something Is Slowly Changing. The global rise of coaching seems to encapsulate many of the themes we've explored so far: an inward focus on the self, combined with marketisation, and bound together by ‘solutionism’ - quick fixes to deep social problems.  

 

#CaliBunga is a special multipart series on the Californian Ideology: the seemingly paradoxical hybrid of New Left and New Right ideas - the synthesis of hippies with yuppies, all tied together with the promise that technology might liberate us.

 

Thanks to UC Irvine School of Humanities for sponsoring this series.

 

Links:

Now Something Is Slowly Changing, mint film office

In part four, we broaden the scope, to talk about the Frankfurt School, the humanities and 'romantic anti-capitalism'. If modernity features a battle between romanticism and rationalism, then the hippies represented an attempt to re-enchant a disillusioned world. But as that spirit was incorporated into market dynamics, it became rationalised and commodified. George and Alex sat down with Catherine Liu and Tyrus Miller (UCI Humanities and expert on Lukacs) to mull over these questions.

 

#CaliBunga is a special multipart series on the Californian Ideology: the seemingly paradoxical hybrid of New Left and New Right ideas - the synthesis of hippies with yuppies, all tied together with the promise that technology might liberate us.

 

Thanks to UC Irvine School of Humanities for sponsoring this series.

 

Subscribe for full access: patreon.com/bungacast 

In part three, we move from the Californian Ideology to talk about the Californian reality: class, suburbs and social mobility. We meet up with Joel Kotkin to discuss the new Californian class structure and the end of the Californian dream. Also, more bar chat, as friend of the podcast, Tim Abrahams, joins us to chat about the idea of LA, Californian urbanism and mobility. 

#CaliBunga is a special multipart series on the Californian Ideology: the seemingly paradoxical hybrid of New Left and New Right ideas - the synthesis of hippies with yuppies, all tied together with the promise that technology might liberate us.

Thanks to UC Irvine School of Humanities for sponsoring this series.

Readings:

• The New Class Conflict, Joel Kotkin
• Californian Feudalism, Joel Kotkin

In part two, we chat about recreational drugs and mental states in a Hollywood bar with friends of the podcast, Amber A'Lee Frost and Alex Gendler. But mostly, we delve deeper into capitalism and depression with the 'States of Wellness' group at UC Irvine (Catherine Liu, Thomas Williams, Michael Mahoney, Benjamin Kruger-Robins).

#CaliBunga is a special multipart series on the Californian Ideology: the seemingly paradoxical hybrid of New Left and New Right ideas - the synthesis of hippies with yuppies, all tied together with the promise that technology might liberate us.

Thanks to UC Irvine School of Humanities for sponsoring this series.

Special multipart series on the Californian Ideology: the seemingly paradoxical hybrid of New Left and New Right ideas - the synthesis of hippies with yuppies, all tied together with the promise that technology might liberate us.

In part one, we talk to Richard Barbrook about the Californian Ideology today before discussing health and mental illness with the 'States of Wellness' group at UC Irvine (Catherine Liu, Benjamin Kruger-Robins, Michael Mahoney, Thomas Williams).

Thanks to UC Irvine School of Humanities for sponsoring this series.

Readings:

• Natural Causes, Barbara Ehrenreich
• The Happiness Industry, William Davies
• Coming Up Short, Jennifer Silva

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Synthesising what we learned about neoliberalism (ep74), discussing some concrete examples and drawing out the broader importance of it all.

 

-What gets called 'neoliberal' but actually isn't? And vice-versa?

-Was the postwar social-democratic state more racialised than the neoliberal one?

-Should we bring back 'rationalisation'?

-Are Orban, Trump and Bolsonaro 'neoliberals'?

-Is the EU peak neoliberal? Is Brexit necessarily anti-neoliberal?

 

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On the unexpected origins of neoliberalism. We talk to Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists, about how neoliberals look back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the League of Nations. Why does neoliberalism talk about freedom, but promote order? Is neoliberalism about more or less state - or is it about what kind of state?

Plus why the genuine neoliberals didn’t care about the Cold War and how Murray Rothbard laid the ground for Trump.

Readings:

• Globalists, Quinn Slobodian
• Neoliberalism’s World Order, Adam Tooze
• Why I am not a conservative, F.A. von Hayek
• The EU is a betrayal of Europe’s exceptionalism, Douglas Carswell

Subscribe for access to the Synthesis Session, where the guys discuss the broader implications: patreon.com/bungacast

On 'Fully Automated Luxury Communism'. We talk about being pro-technology without being determinist. Does full automation mean the end of work? How do we craft a practical utopian vision? Plus some stuff about wolves and also Brexit.

 

Reading:

Fully Automated Luxury Communism, Verso Books

 

Subscribe to Aufhebunga Bunga at patreon.com/BUNGACAST

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

On the European Parliamentary elections. Is this the day the 20th century truly died? Traditional social democratic and conservative parties took a pounding. The Greens surged. The populists didn't surge - but are now entrenched. And the radical and populist Left has not capitalised. What's the meaning behind what are often purely symbolic euro elections?

Readings:

[pieces by Anton & Catarina coming shortly]

[This is a short preview. For the full episode, please subscribe to our Patreon.]

 

On 'Fully Automated Luxury Communism'. We talk about being pro-technology without being determinist. Does full automation mean the end of work? How do we craft a practical utopian vision? Plus some stuff about wolves and also Brexit.

 

Reading:

Fully Automated Luxury Communism, Verso Books

 

Subscribe to Aufhebunga Bunga at patreon.com/BUNGACAST

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

On 'neoliberal order breakdown syndrome' and the media. Glenn Greenwald talks to us about Russiagate and fake news, and is unimpressed with same old propaganda. We discuss about left-wing self-criticism, Bolsonaro and transgression, and ask how to be sceptical without sliding into cynicism.

 

Subscribe to Aufhebunga Bunga at PATREON.COM/BUNGACAST

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

On migration and identity. The question of migration and borders has become increasingly fraught across different societies. Why has immigration become the means through which grievance is expressed? Where has 'white' identity come from? And how durable is identity politics as a force?

Readings:

Looking Closer to Home, Kenan Malik on EU and migration 

The History and Politics of White Identity, Kenan Malik

 

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On Peterson vs Zizek. Did the 'debate of the century' live up to its billing? More importantly, what explains Peterson's appeal - and Zizek's? Why did the debate have such an odd, out of time feel? 

References:

The Fool and the Madman, Jacobin critique of the debate

Evaluating the Peterson-Zizek Debate, Doug Lain, Zero Books

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On Modern Monetary Theory. Doug Henwood joins us to discuss whether MMT offers a fiscal alternative for Left governments. What is monetary sovereignty and do all states have it? What are MMT's prospects for states as different as the USA, Nigeria or Brazil? Is it a suspect economic remedy, too much of a quick fix? Are MMT proponents guilty of avoiding political confrontation? 

Readings

Modern Monetary Theory Isn’t Helping, Doug Henwood, Jacobin

MMT Is Already Helping, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Jacobin

Modern Money Theory 101: A Reply to Critics (pdf), Éric Tymoigne and L. Randall Wray 

Modern Money Theory (MMT) vs. Structural Keynesianism, Thomas Palley

What Is Modern Monetary Theory and Why Is It So Important to the Green New Deal?, Jacob Weindling, Paste Magazine

We can't print our own money. So please help us out: PATREON.COM/BUNGACAST

On whether we can salvage anything from postmodernism. Have we left postmodernity - and if so, can can we be properly dialectical about it: see it as progress and catastrophe all at once? Is there a moment of truth to postmodernism amidst all the falsity?

We discuss the left intelligentsia's abandonment of materialism; phoney cultural populism; the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe; Knausgaard's six volume 'Min Kamp'; and the end of cultural rebellion.

Readings:

• The Apprentice in Theory: Fan, Student, Star, Catherine Liu & Devan Bailey on Avital Ronell, LA Review of Books
• Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Frederic Jameson, NLR 
• Itemised, review of Knausgaard by Jameson, LRB
• The Myth of Pruitt-Igoe, documentary

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