WHAT IS POLITICS?
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 these words actually mean. This series aims to make sense out of the political muddle that we've inherited from media, academia, and from decades of cold war propaganda, so that we can figure what it is that we want when it comes to politics, and how we can achieve it.
Tue, April 01, 2025
12.1 – The Secret History of Israel / Palestine, Part I: the Jews of Europe and the rise of Zionism
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 of Zionist immigration in 1882. Cover image: Marc Chagall, Falling Angel (1923-1947) 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 TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: ko-fi.com/whatispolitics TRANSCRIPT: (TBA) BIBLIOGRAPHY: (TBA) YOUTUBE VERSION (full of illustrative graphics and articles): https://youtu.be/am5HpdExLjo AUDIO PODCAST: https://www.podfollow.com/worbs or search for “worbs” on your podcast app AUDIO PODCAST RSS FEED: <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOL
Tue, April 30, 2024
Q&A on the ABCs of Israel/Palestine
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. TIMESTAMPS BELOW! BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102834580 (no paywall) I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me months to make the scripted episodes, so please help if you can! PATREON PER EPISODE DONATIONS: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics PAYPAL ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XJ6HBHFJ6C3RU KO-FI ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: ko-fi.com/whatispolitics VIDEO VERSION: https://www.youtube.com/@WHATISPOLITICS69 RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS tweeter: @worbsintowords ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE: starsixnine.bandcamp.com https://spotify.link/uYoXHLwmkDb 0:00 intro 1:55 Rashid Khalidi on the Comedy Cellar Podcast 5:33 Why I Became a Lawyer 11:36 Israel’s assaulton Gaza is pointless 13:28 Hamas’ 2020 conference on what to do after victory 14:31 Oct 7 happened because the IDF was AWOL 15:56 israeli vs palestinian propaganda 18:12 Israelis unconsciously aware that the war is just for revenge 20:26 Mowing the lawn and keeping Gazans on a diet 22:12 Why I don’t cover current events 24:54 How hard it is to figure out what’s true with Israeli/Palestine history: 27:32 Did Zionists do terror against Jews in Baghdad to convince Jews to emigrate? 28:34 Did Israel steal Yemeni Jewish babies to give to holocaust survivors? 33:50 What I’m bringing to the table 36:15 Israeli views on Arab civilian casualties, 2002 vs 2024 43:09 Hamas isn’t nationalist 43:29 Hamas vs Fatah members’ teeth 44:01 Hamas did not “win by a landslide” 46:40 the Hannibal directive 51:52 victories for activism: forcing Israel to let more aid into gaza 55:22 BEGIN Q&A 55:56 left and right / the social psychology of voting 57:20 critique: i “both sidesed” the conflict 57:53 cancer eviction story 59:35 could we make a little interpersonal violence legal? 1:01:08 why present both sides? 1:09:58 cancel culture in pro-Israel politics 1:18:12 academia’s role in neutralizing activism 1:20:33 “you don’t understand the n
Tue, April 23, 2024
Brainstorm: Israel/Palestine – Who Started It?
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 Israel/Palestine conflict which will appear in more detail (and coherence) in the next scripted episode. At 5hrs long, I didn’t even get to the QnAs yet … oops! 0:00 intro: ‘why is everything so stupid and shitty?’ / the “alignment problem” of our society 12:46 the social function of academia and universities from pre-WWII to today 31:17 freedom of speech is to protect the weak 41:06 recent activism victories regarding the assault on gaza (Canada and USA) 49:10 why i’m doing “brainstorm” episodes in between scripted episodes 1:10:00 Israel Palestine disinformation in news and history 1:20:40 why the assault on gaza is pure sadistic revenge and does the opposite of its purported goal of protecting israelis 1:31:38 war and violence 1:36:00 what israel could have done in response to oct. 7 1:45:50 who started the israel/palestine conflict? BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102824946 (no paywall) 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 TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: ko-fi.com/whatispolitics VIDEO VERSION: https://www.youtube.com/@WHATISPOLITICS69 FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS tweeter: @worbsintowords ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE: starsixnine.bandcamp.com https://spotify.link/uYoXHLwmkDb https://ia600305.us.archive.org/30/items/12.1-israel-palestine-brainstorm/12.1%20-%20ISRAEL-PALESTINE%20BRAINSTORM.mp3
Tue, March 05, 2024
12: From “Never Again” to “There are No Uninvolved Civilians”: The ABC’s of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
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 get a grasp of the basic events, and the conflicting historical narratives that Israelis and Palestinians learn, which interpret all of these events in completely different ways, with opposite moral implications, so that we can then proceed to look at what actually happened, and what the moral implications of that are for the present and future. Doctors Without Borders in Gaza and West Bank: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.ca/gaza-msf-provides-medical-care-and-donates-supplies-amidst-conflict/ Palestine Children’s Relief Fund: https://www.pcrf.net If you’re in the U.S. demand that your representative vote to stop funding this massacre. This episode took me almost five full time months to make – there’s no way that I can do these without your help: 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 TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: ko-fi.com/whatispolitics TRANSCRIPT: (coming soon) BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99426446 (no paywall) VIDEO VERSION (you’re missing a lot in this episode without all the image and articles!): https://www.youtube.com/@WHATISPOLITICS69 FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS tweeter: @worbsintowords ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE: starsixnine.bandcamp.com https://spotify.link/uYoXHLwmkDb https://archive.org/download/12-israel-palestine/12%20-%20ISRAEL%20PALESTINE.mp3
Thu, August 10, 2023
9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People: when right wing politics masquerade as left wing politics
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 and symbols of radicalism and egalitarianism. The replacement of the word “equality” by the word “equity” in the worlds of academia, NGOs, activism, and corporate HR departments, is an example of the attempts by elite people and institutions to transform historical movements for racial and gender equality, into ideas that promote the interest of elites – in particular, economic inequality and the division of the working classes. In this episode we explore how forms of oppression based on cultural factors like skin colour or gender or religion, etc, can only be understood and effectively combatted by understanding them in the context of economic exploitation and economic competition which is what the human propensity to discriminate evolved for in the first place. PLEASE SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!! I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me weeks to make these (this one took almost 3 months!), so please help if you can! PATREON PER EPISODE DONATIONS KO-FI ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS PAYPAL ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS TRANSCRIPT BIBLIOGRAPHY YOUTUBE CHANNEL RSS FEED tweeter: @worbsintowords All music by STARSIXNINE https://archive.org/download/9.2-lizards/9.2%20-%20LIZARD%20PEOPLE.mp3
Tue, March 21, 2023
11.1 Why the Russian Revolution Failed: When Rich Kids do all the Socialism
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 government via the “free association of the producers”. Instead the revolutions resulted in the establishment of the Soviet Union: an authoritarian state where the government became the sole employer and the state controlled the workers instead of the other way around. This then became the model for “communist” countries around the world. Why did the Soviet Union fail at socialism? What can we learn about this failure to apply to our political struggles in the present and future? ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE PLEASE SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!! I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me weeks to make these (this one took 4 months!), so please help if you can! PATREON (PER EPISODE DONATIONS) KO-FI (ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS) PAYPAL (ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS) BIBLIOGRAPHY TRANSCRIPT VIDEO VERSION tweeter https://archive.org/download/11.1-RUSSIANREV/11.1%20-%20RUSSIAN%20REVOLUTION%20I.mp3
Fri, November 04, 2022
11. Why are Communist countries all one-party dictatorships?
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 why not? Is it “capitalist encirclement”? Richard Wolff can’t answer this question for some reason. Neither can Freddie de Boer. Yet the answer is very simple, and we can learn a lot from it. Listen, and find out… ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE PLEASE SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!! I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me weeks to make these, so please help if you can! PATREON PAYPAL ONE TIME OR RECURRING DONATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY : TRANSCRIPT VIDEO VERSION tweeter https://archive.org/download/11-communism/11-%20COMMUNISM.mp3
Tue, April 26, 2022
10.4 What Causes Seasonal Social and Political Structures? The Dawn of Everything Chapter 3:
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 the result of conscious choice, grand theatre, play and expedience. In doing so, they repeatedly invent various things that they attribute to famous anthropologists like Clause-Levi Strauss and Marcel Mauss which those authors never said. They also claim that those authors attribute social phenomena to conscious choice when in reality they attribute them to material conditions. We also discover that Claude Levi-Strauss goofed up Nambikwara social organization. And we look at materialist explanations for phenomena such as: Why did the traditional Inuit have private patriarchy and private property in summer but gender equality and communal property in winter? Why did the Lakota have an Akicita police force that would punish crimes and enforce rules in the buffalo season but not the rest of the year? The similarities between Nuer prophets and ancient Israelite prophets in the Old Testament. Finally, we apply the authors’ logic about conscious choice and seasonal social structures to McDonalds employees and have a good a laugh. all music by *69 PLEASE SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69
Tue, February 22, 2022
10.3 The Ingredients of Hierarchy: Graeber & Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything Chapter 3, ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”
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 paleolithic europe. In doing so we also look at the difference between dominance hierarchy and democratic hierarchy, and what the necessary criteria are in order to establish a a dominance hierarchy. We also discover that Graeber & Wengrow actually have no arguments for why human inequality supposedly has no origins! all music by *69 *PLEASE* SHARE AND LET PEOPLE (ESPECIALLY MATT CHRISTMAN) KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!! TRANSCRIPT BIBLIOGRAPHY YOUTUBE CHANNEL (live action! graphics!) RSS FEED PATREON tweeter: @worbsintowords https://archive.org/download/10.3-smurfs/10.3%20-%20SMURFS.mp3
Sun, December 19, 2021
10.2 The Dawn of Everything: How Graeber & Wengrow’s book sets us up to fail like Occupy Wall Street
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 the following: How the book’s underlying thesis: that human social structure is ultimately a matter of choice and experimentation, is fundamentally incoherent, and how this idea sets us up for future dramatic political failures, similar to those of Occupy Wall Street or the Great Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. What the standard narrative of human origins actually is, vs. the caricature elevator pitch version that Graeber & Wengrow claim to be debunking. Why most anthropologists believe that human beings began as egalitarian hunter-gatherers despite knowing about all of the evidence that Graeber & Wengrow present in order to argue the otherwise. How and why Graeber & Wengrow flush down the toilet the analytical tools that they need in order to answer their own questions about how we got stuck in dominance hierarchies. How social structure actually works. How Graeber & Wengrow’s arguments are great material for right wing talking points. Why there is room for deliberate social change in a world where social structure is largely a matter of conditions and relative bargaining power, rather than a matter of “choice”. all music by *69 BIBLIOGRAPHY FULL TRANSCRIPT PLEASE SHARE THIS SERIES! YouTube Channel : live with graphics! Patreon : Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture and destructive for my income for me to produce these! They takes 2-6 weeks full time to put together during which time I’m not earning any money, so I need your help to continue! Audio Podcast : click the link on your device to open the audio podcast in your mobile app, or else search for “worbs” on your podcast app. Full transcripts available on the episode pages. Audio Podcast RSS Feed <source type="audio/mpeg" src="https://archive.org/download/10.2-ernie-and-bert/10.2%20-%20ERNIE%20AND%20BER
Wed, October 27, 2021
10.1 Graeber & Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”: What is an “Egalitarian” Society?
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 Kandiaronk. Given that the conclusion of the chapter is a tirade against the concept of “equality” we first examine what the world equality means in a political context, and what the term “egalitarian society” implies, followed by an examination of the history of the anthropological literature on egalitarian hunter gatherer societies. We also cover material from Graeber’s Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and On Kings in order to look at how his treatment of egalitarian societies over his career routinely ignored 50 years of research on extremely egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies, a practice which he and Wengrow continue in this chapter. all music by *69 PLEASE SHARE THIS SERIES! Bibliography YouTube Channel : live with graphics! Patreon : Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture and destructive for my income for me to produce these! They takes 2-6 weeks full time to put together during which time I’m not earning any money, so I need your help to continue! Audio Podcast : click the link on your device to open the audio podcast in your mobile app, or else search for “worbs” on your podcast app. Full transcripts available on the episode pages. Audio Podcast RSS Feed BIBLIOGRAPHY / SUGGESTED READINGS GRAEBER AND WENGROW Graeber & Wengrow 2021 – The Dawn of Everything Graeber & Wengrow 2019 – La Sagesse de Kandiaronk (deepl or googl translate will give you a decent English translation) Graeber & Wengrow 2015 – Farewell to the Childhood of Man Graeber & Wengrow 2020 – Hiding in Plain Sight, Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas . David Graeber 2004
Mon, October 04, 2021
10. David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The “Dawn of Everything”: The Wisdom of Kandiaronk
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 that: The European Enlightenment was heavily influenced by Native American critiques of European culture. That European intellectuals reacted against this by developing the theory of “stages of human progress” where we went from from egalitarian hunter-gatherers to pastoralists to farmers to market civilization. That Jean-Jacques Rousseau synthesized the Native American critique and the stages of progress theory into a seemingly egalitarian critique of European social hierarchies which resigns us to accept hierarchy as the price of civilization. That this synthesis was the birth of the “intellectual left”. That the concept of human equality has no meaning and should be discarded [these guys *really* needed to listen to this podcast before writing this…] TRANSCRIPT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Graeber & Wengrow 2019 – “ La Sagesse de Kandiaronk, la critique indigène, la mythe du progrès et la naissance de la gauche “, chapter from The Dawn of Everything (2021), published in French in Journal du MAUSS Sally Roesch Wagner 2015, How Indigenous Women Inspired The Feminist Movement , Bust Magazine PLEASE SHARE THIS SERIES! YouTube Channel : live with graphics! Patreon : Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture and destructive for my income for me to produce these! They takes 2-6 weeks full time to put together during which time I’m not earning any money, so I need your help to continue! Audio Podcast : click the link on your device to open the audio podcast in your mobile app, or else search for “worbs” on your podcast app. Full transcripts available on the episode pages. Audio Podcast RSS Feed <audio class
Tue, July 20, 2021
Interview: Fight Like an Animal / Arnold Schroeder
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 that, and which covers everything from history, to political psychology, to anthropology, psychiatry, animal behaviour, religious cults, and much more. I highly recommend everyone check out his show, and dig deep into the extensive bibliographies for every episode, which in and of themselves are a gold mine. And look for my interview on Arnolds show in the coming days All music is by me. www.againsttheinternet.com Fight Like an Animal Patreon What is Politics Patreon What Is Politics Video Channel (video version of this interview and all episodes can be found here plus other stuff) https://archive.org/download/arnoldschroeder/INTERVIEW%20WITH%20ARNOLD.mp3
Thu, July 15, 2021
9.1. Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture
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 this segment, by seeking to properly define these terms, we look at: The Class Filter : how ideas that are a threat to power historically get mutated into tools of power once they pass through elite institutions, in this case Ivy League universities, and corporate HR departments. The Interloper Left : how elites and aspiring elites (who by definition are right-wing actors) will disguise dominance behaviour in egalitarian language in order to gain legitimacy and prestige in democratic societies. Poison/Sugar Pilling : how elites will de-legitimize popular ideas which are a threat to power by conflating them with unpopular ideas, and how they will convince people to accept things they don’t like by associating them with popular terms. How egalitarian language and ill conceived “anti-racism” trainings like “White Fragility” are being used in the corporate world to divide workers and prevent them from banding together in defence of their rights. How to spot some of the red flags that distinguish movements rooted in equality and solidarity from toxic “cancel culture” and “political correctness” power plays. FULL TRANSCRIPT link to share this podcast (opens the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device): http://www.podfollow.com/worbs YouTube Channel Patreon tweeter: @worbsintowords https://archive.org/download/SPITBALL02/02%20-%20CANCEL%20CULTURE%20IS%20YOUR%20MANAGER.mp3
Mon, June 07, 2021
9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
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? The Plight of the Babe in the American Workplace , Slate Yvonne Abraham 2015 – Tom Brady has more rights than most American workers , Boston Globe link to share this podcast (opens the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device): http://www.podfollow.com/worbs YouTube Channel Patreon tweeter: @worbsintowords https://archive.org/download/SPITBALL01/SPITBALL%2001%20-%20EMPLOYMENT%20CONTRACT.mp3
Fri, March 19, 2021
8. Idealism vs. Materlialism – How History is Made: Haudenosaunee Women / the Suffragettes / the Double V Campaign / The English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 / The Anarchist Revolution in Spain 1936-39
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 political action, from private sector negotiation, to crafting legislation, to making a revolution. In this episode we look at: The relationship between economic activity and the high status of women in traditional Haudenosaunee / Iroquois society How World War I helped women win the right to vote in Europe and North America How World War II catalyzed the Black civil rights movement in the United States. The success, failure, and accidental success of the English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 The implications of the Anarchist Revolution in Spain in 1936-1939 for the future of industrial civilization. FULL TRANSCRIPT ! Music in this episode is by Tony Ezzy and Cheap Wig link to open the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device: http://www.podfollow.com/worbs Patreon YouTubes tweeter: @worbsintowords rss feed (copy and paste into your podcast app to add it): http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS RELATED READINGS : Ember & Ember 1971 – The Conditions Favoring Matrilocal Versus Patrilocal Residence , American Anthropologist , Vol. 73, N° 3 Pasternak 1997 – Family and Household: Who Lives Where, Why Does It Vary, and Why Is It Important? in Ember & Ember (eds.) 1995 – Cross-Cultural Research for Social Science Abigail Higgins 2019 – American Women Fought for Suffrage for 70 Years. It Took WWI to Finally Achieve It , history.com Sally Roesch Wagner 2015, How Indigenous Women Inspired The Feminist Movement , Bust Magazine Cathleen D. Cahill / Sarah Deer 2020 – In 1920, Nativ
Fri, November 27, 2020
7.1. Material Conditions: Why You Can’t Eliminate Sexism Just by Eliminating Sexism
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 bare the whole class reductionism vs. race reductionism debate, and which is crucial for any kind of effective political strategy on any issue. Backed up by a real “pink pill” example of how post-revolutionary rural China totally failed at fighting patriarchy and male baby preference via education and propaganda campaigns. PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO! Especially on Reddit – most political subs don’t let you post your own material, and I have no other way of getting these out there! FULL TRANSCRIPT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY WHAT IS POLITICS? PATREON Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture for me to produce these! WHAT IS POLITICS? VIDEO CHANNEL (video version of this and all episodes available here, plus other stuff) And look for my upcoming interview on the Fight Like an Animal Podcast https://archive.org/download/PINKPILLZ/07.1%20-%20PINK%20PILLZ.mp3
Thu, November 26, 2020
7. The Origin of Social Hierarchy and Male Dominance: why David Graeber and Jordan Peterson are Wrong
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 Jordan Peterson, it’s just human nature. Thankfully for humanity, both of these views are very, very wrong. all music by *69 FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/07-male-dominance/07%20-%20MALE%20DOMINANCE.mp3
Thu, September 10, 2020
6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works
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 possible for human beings? If so, under what conditions? And is freedom compatible with equality? FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/06-anthropology-of-equality-hierarchy/06%20-%20ANTHROPOLOGY%20OF%20EQUALITY%20%26%20HIERARCHY.mp3
Thu, September 10, 2020
5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917
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 to equality and hierarchy? To answer this, we look at who was considered as being on the left and on the right in three different time periods: The early French revolution in 1789, which is what the whole left-right political spectrum is an analogy to. The 3 rd republic in France where seating in the National Assembly was first purposefully arranged on a left-right spectrum, analogous to the early French Revolution. The different branches of late 19 th and early 20 th Century socialist movement: Anarchism, Revolutionary Party Socialism and Parliamentary Socialism. And we apply all of the junk cold war definitions – the market vs. the state, the individual vs. the collective, big vs. small government, equality vs. liberty – and we watch them all crash and burn, leaving only the equality vs. hierarchy / class conflict paradigm left standing. Apply this exercise on your own to any historical period from 1789 until the rise of the USSR and the cold war, and you get the same results. Now can everyone accept it and move on? Bonus episode to follow shortly to explain why Fascism is on the far right and Communism is on the far left when Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR are both archetypical “totalitarian” societies. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/05-left-right-history/05%20-%20LEFT-%20RIGHT%20HISTORY.mp3
Tue, June 09, 2020
Understanding the News: How Tax Cuts Fuel Police Brutality
Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy combine to give police incredible power. This is a key reason why they’re rarely punished, even for the most egregious abuses. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/bleepbloop01/BLEEP%20BLOOP%2001.mp3
Sun, May 31, 2020
4. How Political Definitions Shape Reality
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 the people who rule over us in our private lives. Popular definitions of left and right propagated by media and academia (the state vs. the market, big vs. small government, liberty vs. equality), frame the world in right-wing terms, while the historical definition (hierarchy vs. equality) frames the world in left wing terms. Competing definitions of racism have different consequences in terms of peoples’ ability to discuss racism, and on how we relate to people from different cultural categories than our own. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords Video version: https://youtu.be/TaFkzIQk-1o Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/04-relativity/04%20-%20LINGUISTIC%20RELATIVITY%20AND%20POLITICSes.mp3
Sat, March 28, 2020
3. The Left-Right Political Spectrum is About Class Conflict
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! FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics video version: https://youtu.be/P3cmjNrXWms https://archive.org/download/03leftrightandyou/03%20-%20LEFT-RIGHT%20AND%20YOU.mp3
Wed, January 15, 2020
2. What is Politics and Why Should I Care? (video)
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 MARKET BARGAINING POWER CONTRACTS FULL TRANSCRIPT Tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords Original You-Tube version: https://youtu.be/dQjcmDGY2vA help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/01whatispolitics/01%20-%20WHAT%20IS%20POLITICS.mp3
Fri, December 06, 2019
1. Worbs: when political terms have no meaning
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 manipulate and it divides people who share many common goals into competing tribes of hooting apes, and prevents us from achieving common goals. FULL TRANSCRIPT Tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 https://archive.org/download/01worbs/01%20-%20WORBS.mp3
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