“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.
Check us out on Patreon for regular Patron Book Clubs, Regrettable Geopolitics updates, Real Nerd Hours, and more...
Visit the NEW AND IMPROVED Regrettable Century Merch Shop
Episodes
Tuesday May 24, 2022
Tuesday May 24, 2022
Continuing what has become a series on Czechoslovak Socialism, we discuss the attempt to reform the ČSSR in 1968.
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 (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Monday May 16, 2022
Monday May 16, 2022
This week we are joined by Comrade Adam, a Lost Horizons alumnus of Red Library fame, to discuss what sort of dialogue can be had between Marxism and Buddhism. We decided to branch out, and cover a non-Christian faith in this continuation of our series on Marxism and religion. We hope to continue touching on other faiths and their interaction and overlap with the emancipatory project.
Dharmic Marxism- A blog that posts about Marxism and Buddhism
https://dharmicmarxism.wordpress.com/
Subjective Conditions Podcast
https://sites.libsyn.com/subjectiveconditions?fbclid=IwAR3KGWIeoFCwqPy8A0Cmbhher7JsWW9iAfGYqEmwajic8yVd_BeNweLYp28
Music- YOB- In Our Blood
Monday May 02, 2022
Monday May 02, 2022
Welcome to the first part of our reading series on Roland Boer's Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. We are joined by our Comrades in Christ, Mir and Ben for the first two chapters, which mostly deal with Karl Kautsky's writings about early Christianity and how it informs the communist tradition.
Boer, Roland. Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. Studies in Critical Research on Religion . Haymarket Books, 2020.
Music: Ktož jsú boží bojovníci written by Jan Čapek z Klatov in 15th Century as a battle anthem for the Hussite rebels.
Wednesday Apr 20, 2022
Wednesday Apr 20, 2022
In this episode, we discuss another Chris Wickham article about feudalism. This is a stand-alone episode, but it is in spiritual continuity with our previous series discussing Chris Wickham's The Other Transition. We will be back soon with another series on a similar topic.
Reuter, Timothy, and Chris Wickham. “The ‘Feudal Revolution.’” Past & Present, no. 155 (1997): 177–208. http://www.jstor.org/stable/651130.
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Monday Apr 18, 2022
Monday Apr 18, 2022
Continuing in the spirit of our discussions about the relationship between "Socialism From Below" and "Socialism From Above," we've decided to dive in a bit deeper into a topic we've referenced many times in passing...
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 (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Wednesday Apr 06, 2022
Wednesday Apr 06, 2022
Once again, we continue our unending project of reuniting the cold and the warm streams of Marxism. This time we are joined by our comrade Ben to talk about the need for a dialogue between Marxism and Christianity.
We once again ask what Christians can learn from the liberatory message of Marxism and what Marxists may be able to take away from the liberatory message of Christianity.
Marxists and Christians: The Fate of the Dialogue The Urgency of Marxist-Christian Dialogue by Herbert Aptheker; Marxism and Radical Religion: Essays toward a Revolutionary Humanity by Thomas Dean; John C. Raines; Church in a Marxist Society by Jan Milic Lochman Review by: Charles C. West The Journal of Religion, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), pp. 304-317
Monday Mar 28, 2022
Monday Mar 28, 2022
Wherein a group of us get together to read and discuss the latest issue of Jacobin magazine, its analysis of the current political situation, and what to do about it... and the extent to which it actually does those things.
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 (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Monday Mar 21, 2022
Monday Mar 21, 2022
Here is about an hour's worth of bonus content recorded before our last episode of No Royal Road. We were just riffing about neoliberalism, left delusions, anti-imperialism, paleo-cons, liberals, conservatism, inflation, Volcker Shock, internet tankies, and a bunch of other things we thought might be worth recording. So, we hit record.
Enjoy.
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog/posts
Music: Tragedy- Conflicting Ideas
Monday Mar 07, 2022
Monday Mar 07, 2022
The American left's response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is as depressing as its prospects. We at the Regrettable Century are against invasions and World War 3 and think you should be too. We talk about what orientation if any, it would be useful for Marxists to take in response to the unfolding tragedy in Eastern Europe.
The Ugly, Embarrassing Spectacle of ‘Milling’ Around Online
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/03/russia-ukraine-invasion-twitter/624168/
Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine
Armed Nationalists in Ukraine Pose a Threat Not Just to Russia
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/ukraine-nationalism-russia-invasion.html
Music:
Україна і Росія - Ukraine and Russia by The State Choir of the Ukrainian SSR "Dumka" (Державна капела УРСР «Думка»)
Sunday Feb 27, 2022
Sunday Feb 27, 2022
Some Real Nerd Hours covering the emergence of a conscious German "National Bolshevism" during the Weimar Era between the World Wars...
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 (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)