“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.
I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-- Antonio Gramsci
The old forms of the Left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a Dialectical Pessimism and develop a salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism.
A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
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Episodes
Thursday Oct 12, 2023
Thursday Oct 12, 2023
This week we discussed a book about the collapse of the Soviet Union and guess what, it wasn't the result of the United States' efforts to defeat the Evil Empire. It's much dumber and worse than that.
Serhii Plokhy. 2015. The Last Empire : The Final Days of the Soviet Union. New York: Basic Books, A Member Of The Perseus Books Group.
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.
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
The original dudes are back, with an original dudes topic revisiting our pessimism (because of intellect) and our optimism (because of will). No it's not just a doomer affectation that we can use to sound as cool as we look, its a critical method of engaging with the bleak reality that faces us.
The only way out is through but getting through is possible.
Revolutionary Pessimism: The Worst is Yet to Come
https://www.christiansocialism.com/2020/05/12/covid-peter-fleming-revolutionary-pessimism-capitalism/
Pessimism of the Will
https://viewpointmag.com/2020/05/28/pessimism-of-the-will/
CRITICAL PESSIMISM AND THE LIMITS OF TRADITIONAL MARXISM
https://www.jstor.org/stable/657342
For A Refresher:
The Proper Amount of Bumming People Out: Pessimisms and Optimisms of Intellect and Will
https://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/1410229-the-proper-amount-of-bumming-people-out-pessimisms-and-optimisms-of-intellect-and-will
Scattered Thoughts on Melancholia and the Organization of Pessimism
https://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/1320682-scattered-thoughts-on-melancholia-and-the-organization-of-pessimism
Pessimism of the Intellect, Pessimism of the Will
https://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523/889740-pessimism-of-the-intellect-pessimism-of-the-will
Music- Англия - Сказочный мир
Monday Sep 18, 2023
Monday Sep 18, 2023
This week we start a new series where we read from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them forever.
Hilton, Rodney. Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism. A&C Black, 1985.
Check out Varn Vlog:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Wednesday Sep 13, 2023
Wednesday Sep 13, 2023
Welcome to our fourth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss the revolutionary intellectual.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
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.
Monday Sep 04, 2023
Monday Sep 04, 2023
We think degrowth is going to be necessary, but we also think the debate about degrowth has been all wrong. We read the newest issue of Monthly Review and had a discussion about the politics of degrowth.
Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/planned-degrowth/
Nine Theses on Ecosocialist Degrowth
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/nine-theses-on-ecosocialist-degrowth/
(Here’s the whole issue)
https://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-075-03-2023-07/
Music: Bad Religion- Watch it Die
Sunday Aug 27, 2023
Sunday Aug 27, 2023
Back with another book that Chris read in grad school, this time we are dealing with the problem of repopulating the Soviet Union after the Second World War.
Please forgive the intermittent audio problems with Jason's track, we are still trying to figure out how to record in the same room and actually make it sound good.
Mie Nakachi. Replacing the Dead : The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press, 2021.
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.
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
This week the Law Boyz are back with a special guest, Kevin. We discuss the concept of the lumpenproletariat and their historical role as foot soldiers of reaction. Then we all argue about the police.
Peter Stallybrass (1990) Marx and Heterogeneity: Thinking the Lumpenproletariat, Representations, No. 31, Special Issue: The Margins of Identity in Nineteenth-Century England, pp. 69-95
Nicholas Thoburn (2002) Difference in Marx: the lumpenproletariat and the proletarian unnamable, Economy and Society, 31:3, 434-460
Robert L. Bussard (1987) The ‘dangerous class’ of Marx and Engels: The rise of the idea of the Lumpenproletariat, History of European Ideas, 8:6, 675-692
Music: Johnny Cash- This Side of the Law
Wednesday Aug 16, 2023
Wednesday Aug 16, 2023
I know we said we were done with our Czechoslovak Socialism series, but like George Lucas we just couldn't leave well enough alone and have made a prequel. It turns out there is an interesting pre-history to Czechoslovak Socialist Republic that is worth discussing.
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.
Monday Aug 07, 2023
Monday Aug 07, 2023
No Royal Road is back with part four of our discussion of Evegny Morozov's
"Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."
Check out Varn Vlog here:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Sunday Jul 30, 2023
Sunday Jul 30, 2023
Our third reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss Concepts, Symbols, and Realms of Memory.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ; New York: Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2783-revolution
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.