Politics is one of the only practical disciplines where none of the main concepts have clear, coherent definitions. We define ourselves with terms like "left” and "right" and we believe in things like "democracy," “markets,” "capitalism" and "socialism" even though we don’t really know what any of…
Why are nationalist / populist / far right candidates and parties getting elected all around the world? Why isn’t the populist left enjoying the same success? PAYPAL ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XJ6HBHFJ6C3RU PATREON PER EPISODE DONATIONS: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics KO-FI ONE... Continue Reading →
This series focuses on those aspects of the origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict that partisans on both sides mutually ignore. This episode examines jewish life in Europe and the conditions leading to the rise of Zionism until the first wave... Continue Reading →
This is a Q&A where I respond to questions and critiques about episode 12: The ABC's of Israel/Palestine (https://youtu.be/OLr_VCqnId0) and also go off on a whole bunch of related tangents. BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102834580 (no paywall) I purposefully don't monetize my channel... Continue Reading →
What was supposed to be an informal QnA about the “Israel/Palestine ABCs” episode, turned into a What is Politics “live” brainstorm session à la Matt Christman “grillstream,” where I discuss my arguments and readings on who and what started the... Continue Reading →
Elites use identity, particularly national identity, as a way of advancing their own interests, often against the interests of the populations that they pretend to represent. But before we can understand this, we need an ABC of the conflict, to... Continue Reading →
When ideas and movements that threaten to overturn established hierarchies of power are absorbed into elite institutions like Ivy League universities and for-profit corporations, they get transformed into ideas that support the status quo, while remaining cloaked in the language... Continue Reading →
The leaders of the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917 sought to establish socialism: a deeply democratic economic and political system where the employee/employer relationship is abolished, and where workers control their workplaces, the means of production and the... Continue Reading →
Why has every communist country so far been a one party dictatorship? Is it something inherent to Socialism or Marxism? Is human nature incompatible with political equality? Has “true” communism never been tried yet? If so, then... Continue Reading →
In this episode we cover the rest of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow's book The Dawn of Everything. In this chapter, the authors claim that the seasonal social structures of the traditional Nambikwara, Lakota and Kwakiutl were... Continue Reading →
We cover the first part of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow's book The Dawn of Everything: ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”, and we investigate the authors' claims that human inequality has no origins based on archeology from upper... Continue Reading →
In this episode we cover chapter 1 of David Graeber & David Wengrow's book The Dawn of Everything, entitled Farewell to Humanity's Childhood; or Why This isn't a Book About the Origins of Inequality. In doing so, we look at... Continue Reading →
In this episode we read and critique the conclusion of Chapter 2 of Dawn of Everything, “Wicked Liberty: The Indigenous Critique and the Myth of the Noble Savage”, which was previously released in French in 2019 as La Sagesse de... Continue Reading →
A critical reading of “The Wisdom of Kandiaronk, The Indigenous Critique, the Myth of Progress and the Birth of the Left” from David Graeber & David Wengrow’s upcoming book The Dawn of Everything. In this chapter Graeber & Wengrow argue... Continue Reading →
Interview with Arnold Schroeder of Fight Like an Animal, a wonderful and endessly fascinating show that looks through 20 years of experience of hardcore climate activism, at why left political movements are so weak and ineffective and how to change... Continue Reading →
The terms “cancel culture” and “political correctness” are used to delegitimize ideas like gender equality and racial equality by conflating them with toxic dominance behaviour practiced by up-and-coming elites who disguise their power plays in egalitarian social justice language. In... Continue Reading →
The foundation of “cancel culture” and “political correctness” is the wage labour employment contract. ARTICLES QUOTED: Corey Robin, Chris Bertram and Alex Gourevitch 2012 – Life at Work, Crooked Timber Amanda Hess 2013 – How Sexy Should A Worker Be?... Continue Reading →
Human beings have free will, but our actions are constrained by material realities. Understanding how material and practical conditions shape human behaviour can make all the difference between success and catastrophic failure when it comes to the whole spectrum of... Continue Reading →
What would happen if you could end sexism overnight by giving everyone a magic pink pill? Why we need to target material and practical conditions if we want to eliminate cultural hierarchies. A thought experiment about political strategy which lays... Continue Reading →
Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies? According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way. Meanwhile according to... Continue Reading →
Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others. Was this always the state of the human world? Is hierarchy in our nature? Are egalitarian societies... Continue Reading →
This episode is for everyone who keeps writing to me to insist that one or the other wrong, incoherent, popular definitions of Left and Right is actually the correct one. How do we know the left and right refer... Continue Reading →
Why police get away with murder, why their budgets keep inflating while other services keep getting cut, why we suddenly have the power to do something about it, and how we can use that power. tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon:... Continue Reading →
Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators and political actors. The definition of government that journalists and academics use makes us blind to... Continue Reading →
Most journalists and Doctor-Professor academics don’t really know what the left-right political spectrum is about, but you will after listening to this episode. help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/03leftrightandyou/03%20-%20LEFT-RIGHT%20AND%20YOU.mp3
How can people who don’t have official decision-making power exert their influence over those who do? A quick overview of some basic political concepts: POLITICS PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE POLITICS POLITIES GOVERNMENT DEMOCRACY AUTOCRACY CONSENSUS POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ECONOMICS CAPITALISM IDEOLOGY CLASS THE... Continue Reading →
Politics is unique among practical fields in that almost all of the main political terms are worbs: words that everyone (including academics and journalists) uses without really knowing what they mean. This rots our brains. It makes us easy to... Continue Reading →
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