The Regrettable Century

This week Jason and Kevin discuss the Liberal Socialism; what it is, where it comes from, its impact on the development of the left, its prospects, and its limitations. What Is Liberal Socialism? https://www.liberalcurrents.com/what-is-liberal-socialism/ The Idea of a Liberal Socialism https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-idea-of-a-liberal-socialism Liberal Socialism Now https://aeon.co/essays/the-case-for-liberal-socialism-in-the-21st-century Toward A Liberal Socialism? https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/toward-a-liberal-socialism/ Socialists Don’t Want to Destroy Liberalism. We Want to Go Beyond It. https://jacobin.com/2020/10/socialism-liberalism-marx Support the Show.

We are back at it again covering Otto Bauer's unique Marxist take on the national question. This week we began to cover Chapter I. A link to the PDF: https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer Support the Show.

Jason, Varn, and Sean are back and talking Fourth Political Theory once again. Check out Varn Vlog: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts Check out the ANTIFADA: https://www.patreon.com/theantifada Support the Show.

The Marxist/Christian dialogue continues! This week Jason and Ben sat down with Daniel Saunders to discuss an article he wrote called Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism and Christianity: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nbfr.12642 Daniel's paper "explores Christianity’s ambiguous relationship to capitalism by engaging Marx’s notion of the fetishism of commodities as a way of rethinking Marxism’s critique of religion from the standpoint of political economy. " Other Daniel stuff can be found here: https://daniel-saunders.com/ Support the Show.

This week we tried something new, we put out a call on our Patreon and Discord for questions and y'all responded with 10 pretty good questions. Questions about democracy, ethics, children, etc... We answered them. Enjoy! Support the Show.

They said it wasn't possible for a Marxist to break down the national question in a sophisticated and nuanced way, but Otto Bauer has done it. This book from 1907, which no one on the Anglophone Left has ever read, is quite possibly the best book on the subject. We are here to read it and let you know. This week we covered the introductory materials. A link to the PDF: https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauer Support the Show.

This week we are joined by Jon (thelitcritguy of HorrorVanguard fame) to discuss his new book A Primer on Utopian Philosophy: An Introduction to the Work of Ernst Bloch which was just released on Zero Books. We discuss nihilism, optimism, hope, and dialectical pessimism and the ever pertinent work of Ernst Bloch. Check out Horror Vanguard Here Check out Jon's Blog Here Buy Jon's Book Here Support the Show.

This week we sat down with our old comrade and actual Psychiatrist, Dr Byron, to talk about mental health, the left, and how TikTok is ruining everyones brains. Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness (review for relevant book) https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/03/psychiatric-hegemony-marxist-theory-mental-illness/ What the Anti-Psychiatry Movement Got Wrong About Mental Illness https://jacobin.com/2022/03/anti-psychiatry-movement-mental-illness-psychological-suffering Psychiatry Won’t Solve Our Mental Health Crisis — Only Politics Can Do That https://jacobin.com/2023/12/psychiatry-history-trauma-politics-medicine-mental-health This Is Not the Way to Help Depressed Teenagers (NYT discussing the WISE Teens Study) https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/teenagers-mental-health-treatment.html The functions of the mental health system under capitalism https://joannamoncrieff.com/2022/03/28/the-functions-of-the-mental-health-system-under-capitalism/ Support the Show.

Jason and Varn are joined again by Sean KB of Antifida and continue with their close reading of The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin. Check out Varn Vlog: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts Check out the ANTIFADA: https://www.patreon.com/theantifada Support the Show.

This month we return to Richard Seymour's essay about the new forms of nationalism. At this point the essay is a few years old, so we were able to discuss how things have developed since it was written. We also did not know that a book by the same name by Seymour was coming out soon... Prepared for the Worst: Disaster Nationalism https://salvage.zone/prepared-for-the-worst-disaster-nationalism/ Disaster Nationalism: THE DOWNFALL OF LIBERAL CIVILIZATION https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761156/disaster-nationalism-by-richard-seymour/ Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions. Support the Show.

This week the boys got together to talk about political apostasy. From the old left, to the new left, to whatever the hell it is that we have now. We discuss the motivations and consequences of jumping ship. The Ex-Communist’s Conscience https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1950/ex-communist.htm Turned Around: Why Leftists Go Right https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/why-leftists-go-right From Memoirs of a Trotskyist by Irving Kristol https://www.pbs.org/arguing/nyintellectuals_krystol_2.html The Neoconservative Counterrevolution https://jacobin.com/2015/04/neoconservatives-kristol-podhoretz-hartman-culture-war How Ex-Communists Shaped American Conservatism https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/how-ex-communists-shaped-american-conservatism/426849/ Trotskycons https://www.nationalreview.com/2003/06/trotskycons-stephen-schwartz/ The Neoconservative Journey https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817945725_105.pdf The Legacy of the Trotskyist Right https://www.toqonline.com/archives/v6n2/SneigoskiTOQV6N2.pdf Like our theme song? Check out Autumn Brigade here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot Support the Show.

This week Jason and Varn sat down to have a primer discussion about the different types of American Conservatism. Don't worry, we will be back later this month with more Dugin. Check out Varn Vlog here: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog Support the Show.

Welcome to our seventh and FINAL reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. We had a lot of fun with this series and will be starting a new one soon. Head on over to the Discord if you would like to be involved. Special thanks to our comrade Connor at Autumn Brigade for our new intro music. Check his music out here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution Support the Show.

As recovering Third Campists ourselves, we sit down to discuss the lingering problems that the third camp of Trotskyism has always had and how they are much dumber in their contemporary incarnation. Resignation from the Fourth International - Natalia Sedova Trotsky https://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm Against Campism, for International Working-Class Solidarity https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/winter-2020/against-campism-for-international-working-class-solidarity/ The Third Camp, Socialism From Below, and the First Principle of Revolutionary Socialism https://newpol.org/issue_post/third-camp-socialism-below-and-first-principle-revolutionary-socialism/ Libya’s revolution, U.S. intervention, and the left https://isreview.org/issue/77/libyas-revolution-us-intervention-and-left/index.html Ukraine and fetishising the anti-NATO call https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2022-05-04/ukraine-and-fetishising-anti-nato-call Like our theme song? Check out Autumn Brigade here! Support the Show.

This is a Patreon episode that we recorded in April of 2022. We decided to post this on our main feed at the request of several of our patrons who said more people should hear it. Continuing in the spirit of our discussion about the synthesis of socialism from above and below, we decided to dive a bit deeper into a topic that we have referenced many times in passing. The liberal narrative about the revolution is that it was a coup carried out by the Soviet Union against the will of the Czechoslovak people, but a cursory glance at how the revolution unfolded reveals a much different tale. Czechoslovakia 1948- By Joseph Grim Feinberg in Jacobin Magazine The Czechoslovak Revolution- By Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart in Foreign Affairs Magazine Duchacek, Ivo. “The February Coup in Czechoslovakia.” World Politics2, no. 4 (1950): 511–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/2008933. Myant, Martin. Socialism and Democracy in Czechoslovakia: 1945 - 1948. Soviet and East European Studies 33. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981. Music: Hej, slnko vychodí - (Hey, the sun is out) composed by Bartolomej Urbanec and sung in Slovak. Support the Show.

Jason and Varn continue with their close reading of The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin. **This is a 30m preview of a 3 hour long episode** Check out Varn Vlog here: https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts Support the Show.

This episode of InForm:Podcast is a re-release and cross-post of an older interview done with From78 (of Lost Horizons fame). It was originally posted several lifetimes ago, in 2020, but has been re-released by InForm so we decided to promote it here. Go check out the full episode: https://www.surplusjouissance.com/inform-podcast/ Support the Show.

Not really, but we do talk about the history of Zionism as a settler colonial project. Pappe, Ilan. “The Framing of the Question of Palestine by the Early Palestinian Press: Zionist Settler-Colonialism and the Newspaper Filastin, 1912-1922.” The Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies : a Multidisciplinary Journal 14, no. 1 (2015): 59–81. https://doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2015.0104. Zionism: False Messiah (1998) by Lance Selfa https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/selfa/1998/xx/zionism.htm Zionism from the standpoint of Its Victims (1979) By Edward Said https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Edward-Said-Excerpt.pdf Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims Author(s): Ella Shohat https://palestinecollective.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/sephardim-in-israel_-zionism-from-the-standpoint-of-its-jewish-victims.pdf The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/the-long-history-of-zionist-proposals-to-ethnically-cleanse-the-gaza-strip Like our intro music? Of course you do! Check out Autumn Brigade here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot Support the Show.

Varn and Jason discuss this new collaborative project "Boundless and Bottomless Seas" and discuss why talking about Dugin and his Fourth Political Theory is worth doing. This is episode was recorded before the first episode of the series and is meant to be a sort of primer and introduction to the project. Support the Show.

This week we've got a podcast that we recorded with Subjective Conditions a few months ago. This podcast deals with Walter Benjamin as a vibe and, in true Regrettable Century fashion, the discussion is guided by the World Spirit. Check out Subjective Conditions here: https://www.patreon.com/subjectiveconditions/posts Check out Autumn Brigade here: https://autumnbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/geist-ist-tot Support the Show.