On post-woke strategies.
Ryan Z is back on, talking to Alex and George about the US Democrats' attempt to respond to Trump/MAGA.
In association with Damage magazine.
Can the Democrats escape the shadow of woke?
Is Big Woke dying? Everywhere?
Who are the groups and think-tanks pushing for a reorientation, and what are they proposing?
Will the Dems adapt to Trump’s challenge or pretend nothing is happening?
We then take listener questions and comments on transport infrastructure, left-wing gatekeeping, and the crisis in education everywhere, high and low.
For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
Links:
Can the Democrats Escape the Shadow of Woke?, Ryan Zickgraf, Damage
Inside the Democratic identity crisis, Ryan Zickgraf, UnHerd
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34:55
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34:55
/522/ At the Bottom of the Tar Pit ft. Benjamin Studebaker
On legitimacy and chronic crisis.
Benjamin Studebaker talks to Alex and Lee about his book, Legitimacy in Liberal Democracy – and why the absence of the threat of revolution makes the crisis drag on.
What's wrong with 20th century accounts of legitimacy crises? What's changed?
Why is contemporary politics so stuck? Is it inescapable?
How does the breakdown of consensus make the emergence of a social majority so difficult?
Is there no common programme we can agree on, focused on bread-and-butter issues?
Do we need to stare despair in the face? Is catastrophe the only way out?
For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
Links:
Legitimacy in Liberal Democracy, Benjamin Studebaker, Edinburgh UP
UNLOCKED: /361/ A Nightmare on the Brains of the Living ft. Benjamin Studebaker
Debilitated democracy: When the legs get ripped off, Dirk Jörke and Benjamin Studebaker, European Journal of Social Theory
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53:40
/521/ Too Smart to Read ft. C. Derick Varn
On the crisis in literacy.
Poet, podcaster and teacher, C. Derick Varn – who has taught in Mexico, Korea, Egypt and the US, at various levels – joins Alex and George to interrogate the coming "post-literate society".
What do we mean when we say 'post-literate'?
This seems a global problem – so is it a problem of the education system?
Is it as simple as blaming smartphones?
How else has education become degraded? How have progressives and conservatives combined to do this?
Are we becoming on oral culture again? What are the consequences?
For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
Links:
Are we becoming a post-literate society?, Sarah O'Connor, FT
Have humans passed peak brain power?, John Burn-Murdoch, FT
Visible Learning (synthesis of meta analyses), John Hattie
Why Knowledge Matters, ED Hirsch, Harvard
Seven Myths about Education, Daisy Christodoulou
Insensitivity Readers!, Nina Power
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59:48
/520/ Conspiracy Culture & Paranoid Styles ft. Catherine Liu
In this special episode, we present talks given by contributing editor Catherine Liu and co-host George Hoare on the paranoid style at a recent conference at UC Irvine, co-hosted by the Palm Springs School for Social Research.
00:01:23 – Catherine Liu: Opening Remarks, on Richard Hofstatder’s classic essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”
00:12:18 – George Hoare: The Paranoid Style in British Politics
00:36:06 – Catherine Liu: "Zombies Clowns and Gangsters"
For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
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/519/ Reading Club: White Collar & Post-Mass Culture ft. Dustin Guastella
On the middle classes and cultural compression.
For the concluding episode of the 2024/25 Reading Club, we discuss C. Wright Mills' White Collar, plus some additional short texts on what mass culture is like today.
credit: Ryan Zickgraf, based on The Wilson Quarterly/Russell Lynes 1949
For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
Does Mills' account of the “economic psychology” of the White Collar worker still ring true today?
What about their "political psychology"?
What is the state of White Collar trade unionism today?
Is there no possibility of the middle class leading a political movement?
Do the distinctions of high- middle- and low-brow still make sense today, in our era of levelling-down and slop?
Should we defend democracy in the economy and elitism in culture?
Readings:
White Collar: The American Middle Classes, C. Wright Mills, 1951 (esp final two chapters)
Highbrow, Middlebrow, Lowbrow, Russell Lynes, Wilson Quarterly, 1976 reprint of 1949 article (pdf attached)
Post-Mass Culture, Dylan Riley, Sidecar
Unionizing the “Cultural Apparatus”, Nelson Lichtenstein, Jacobin
The global politics podcast at the end of the End of History. Politics is back but it’s stranger than ever: join us as we chart a course beyond the age of ’bunga bunga’. Interviews, long-form discussions, docu-series.
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