Latest Contrapoints Podcast Episodes
12: From “Never Again” to “There are No Uninvolved Civilians”: The ABC’s of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
WHAT IS POLITICS? - March 05, 2024 11:33 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsElites 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 →
9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People: when right wing politics masquerade as left wing politics
WHAT IS POLITICS? - August 10, 2023 10:45 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsWhen 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 Readi...
11.1 Why the Russian Revolution Failed: When Rich Kids do all the Socialism
WHAT IS POLITICS? - March 21, 2023 10:31 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe 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 Readi...
11. Why are Communist countries all one-party dictatorships?
WHAT IS POLITICS? - November 04, 2022 11:48 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsWhy 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 →
11. Why are Communist countries all one party dictatorships?
WHAT IS POLITICS? - November 03, 2022 10:55 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsWhy 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 →
10.4 What Causes Seasonal Social and Political Structures? The Dawn of Everything Chapter 3:
WHAT IS POLITICS? - April 26, 2022 10:33 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsIn 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 →
10.3 The Ingredients of Hierarchy: Graeber & Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything Chapter 3, ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”
WHAT IS POLITICS? - February 22, 2022 11:36 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsWe 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 →
10.2 The Dawn of Everything: How Graeber & Wengrow’s book sets us up to fail like Occupy Wall Street
WHAT IS POLITICS? - December 19, 2021 12:06 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsIn 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 →
10.1 Graeber & Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”: What is an “Egalitarian” Society?
WHAT IS POLITICS? - October 27, 2021 09:02 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsIn 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 →
10. David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The “Dawn of Everything”: The Wisdom of Kandiaronk
WHAT IS POLITICS? - October 04, 2021 11:01 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsA 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 →
7.1. Pink Pilled: Why You Can’t Eliminate Sexism Just by Changing Culture
WHAT IS POLITICS? - August 09, 2021 10:06 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsWhat 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 →
Interview: Fight Like an Animal / Arnold Schroeder
WHAT IS POLITICS? - July 20, 2021 10:12 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsInterview 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 →
Spitball Session 2: Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture
WHAT IS POLITICS? - July 15, 2021 11:31 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe 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 ...
9.1. Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture
WHAT IS POLITICS? - July 15, 2021 11:31 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe 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 ...
Spitball session: Cancel Culture is Your Boss
WHAT IS POLITICS? - June 07, 2021 10:00 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe 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 →
9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
WHAT IS POLITICS? - June 07, 2021 10:00 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe 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 →
Spitball Session 1: The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
WHAT IS POLITICS? - June 07, 2021 10:00 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe 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 →
How to imagine our better angels
Infinite Lunchbox - April 26, 2021 20:41 - 59 minutesNEW INC invited me to give an artist talk about Deep Reckonings, moderated by the illustrious Kat Cizek. In it, I do something I've never done before: guide people in writing Deep Reckonings scripts! In other words, guide people in imagining our better angels. In this case, the better angel of J...
Steel Man: From Call-Out To Call-In
Infinite Lunchbox - April 14, 2021 18:25 - 6 minutesCall-out culture is all about straw manning: representing the weakest version of someone's position (or the weakest version of something they tweeted a decade ago). So call-IN culture would be all about STEEL manning: representing the strongest version of someone's position. But what would that ...
Post-Pandemic Education
Infinite Lunchbox - April 13, 2021 20:27 - 10 minutesThe New York Times has a headline this week: "Online Schools Are Here to Stay, Even After the Pandemic." The article does the predictable tug-of-war between online and in-person learning, ultimately arriving at the obvious conclusion that online learning works better for some students than other...
How about a new game, Bezos?
Infinite Lunchbox - April 02, 2021 04:05 - 6 minutesAmazon workers in Alabama are trying to unionize. And influential people are trying to convince Jeff Bezos to support the campaign: Bernie, Danny Glover, even THE PRESIDENT. But what might actually move Bezos to support unionization, and more broadly, *change the game*? Also -- for those of yo...
Influencers, Greek Gods, and LeBron James
Infinite Lunchbox - March 30, 2021 22:57 - 3 minutesHow are religious myths metaphorically true? What if influencers are our modern-day Greek Gods? In which case, perhaps the issue is less the fact that there are influencers, and more *what* they're influencing? Be in touch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephlepp Join the party on Patreon:...
COVID: Health vs. economy?!
Infinite Lunchbox - March 29, 2021 22:52 - 10 minutesAfter a year of living with the pandemic, it's painfully obvious that we can't treat health and economy as either/or. So how to we treat them as both/and? What's the equivalent of sustainable development -- which economic development with sustainability -- for integrating economic development wi...
Disney and the Evolution of Consciousness
Infinite Lunchbox - March 27, 2021 02:15 - 5 minutesHave you noticed the evolution of Disney? Have you noticed how the concept of good vs. evil, the women characters, and other aspects of the storylines have evolved over time? WELL THEY HAVE. But does that mean I only want my daughter to watch the most recent Disney movies, with more redemptive c...
Gun Legislation and the Power of "Formers"
Infinite Lunchbox - March 25, 2021 22:44 - 7 minutesIn the aftermath of the Atlanta and Boulder shootings, we're doing the gun legislation impasse rigamarole. What could move things forward? Might it be helpful to hear from public servants who *expanded* their views on gun control — to include both gun rights and gun safety? Introducing the power...
The Inner Transition from Coal to Wind
Infinite Lunchbox - March 24, 2021 19:19 - 12 minutesThe New York Times' The Daily podcast on 3/16/21 was about how conservative lawmakers are increasingly embracing wind. Host Michael Barbaro and reporter Dionne Searcey refreshingly bring up the phenomenon of *identity* -- and talk about how a shift from coal to wind isn't just a change in jobs, ...
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
WHAT IS POLITICS? - March 19, 2021 10:15 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsHuman 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 →
8. 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
WHAT IS POLITICS? - March 19, 2021 10:15 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsHuman 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 →
8. Social Change, Consciousness and Material Conditions: Haudenosaunee Women / the Suffragettes / the Double V Campaign / The English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 / The Anarchist Revolution in Spain 1936-39
WHAT IS POLITICS? - March 19, 2021 10:15 ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsHuman 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 →
How To Transcend Post-Truth? A New Enlightenment
Infinite Lunchbox - March 04, 2021 14:02 - 16 minutesWhat if the way to transcend our post-truth crisis is not to double-down on our Enlightenment-era relationship with truth and knowledge? What if transcending post-truth requires...a NEW Enlightenment? For years, I've been scared to share these thoughts. But I just shared them in a VPRO documen...
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