“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
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Lacanian psychoanalysis has left an indelible mark on the left, with prominent philosophers like Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou keeping a Marxist Lacanianism relevant... and we don't really know anything about it.
As the only non Lacanian podcast on the Lost Horizons network, we had to look to our network comrade Neil to get a little bit of an understanding.
Turin Theory of the Subject of the School
http://www.amp-nls.org/page/gb/60/the-turin-theory-of-the-subject-of-the-school
Music: ROME- We who fell in love with the sea
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast
Well... Here we are still, after all.
https://well.transistor.fm/
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Last week, we read and discussed The End of Policing by Alex Vitale in order to get a better grasp on the history of the police, over-policing, the failure of technocratic reforms, and some of the ideas for the uses of funds after police defunding (be it partial or wholesale).
Whether or not the revolt against the police will produce lasting systematic reform reform remains to be seen, but we have to admit that the conversation about how to fix the problem of policing has begun on favorable footing.
Vitale, Alex S. The end of policing. London Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
While we were reading about Covid 19 in Salvage last week, an uprising against police brutality began in Minneapolis. We didn't (don't) know what to make of it yet, but it sure did take over a discussion that was supposed to be about pestilence and the left's role in troll vigilantism.
Listen to our uninformed and incomplete takes from day one of the unrest.
We have a much more complete and thought out take coming for you in a few days.
We Are All Unclean- Salvage Editorial Collective
https://salvage.zone/articles/we-are-all-unclean-dispatch-two-from-a-changing-world/
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
We are joined by veteran of the podcast wars, C. Derick Varn, for his third appearance on the show, to talk a little about historical Bonapartism and a little more about contemporary Bonapartism. We talked about the contemporary left's perceived need to seek out a Bonapartist savior and drift further and further from the utopian horizons we once sought.
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/
Music: Cro Mags- Hard Times
Pop the Left- With Douglas Lain and C. Derick Varn
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/dietsoap/episodes/2019-11-25T07_11_58-08_00
The Emancipation Network
http://emancipation.network/
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
Marxism had always contained within it a multiplicity of variations and is possessed, in equal parts, of the potential to be used for illumination and obfuscation. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than the early responses of Marxists to fascism.
In our third installment of our series on the history of fascism, we dive into some more Marxist theories of fascism; specifically the German and Austrian Social Democratic Theories, Trotsky and Thalheimer, and then wrap up with a bit of Horkheimer.
Our primary source of info for this episode is this wonderful book:
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1233-marxists-in-the-face-of-fascism
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Monday May 04, 2020
Monday May 04, 2020
This week we sat down with Patrick of the Radical Thoughts Podcast to talk about Walter Benjamin and his ideas of myth and rationality, capitalism as religion, and a number of other disconnected things that were just fun to talk about.
Please check out Radical Thoughts as they read through the entire Zero Books Radical Thinkers series and subscribe to their patreon for bonus episodes.
https://www.patreon.com/radicalthoughts/posts
Capitalism and Religion-
https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/capitalism-as-religion-benjamin-1921/
Benjamin, Walter, et al. Selected writings. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1996.
Benjamin, Walter, and Rolf Tiedemann. The arcades project. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1999. Print.
The Lost Horizons Network
https://losthorizonsnetwork.com/
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Sunday Apr 26, 2020
Sunday Apr 26, 2020
This week we have something special for you guys, our very first Lost Horizons Network collective podcast release, Here We Are Together, Still...After All.
Join Chris and Jason from The Regrettable Century, Adam from Red Library, and Neil from the From78 Podcast as we talk about what it means to be dialectically pessimistic.
The Lost Horizons Network Podcast:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c3bf81dd
Red Library Podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/redlibrary/posts
From78 Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/from78
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
On Easter Monday, April 24 1916, 1,200 members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army mustered in Dublin and declared the formation of the Irish Republic. Marxist and Irish Republican, James Conolly, led the Irish Citizen's Army in hopes that the Easter Rising would touch off a revolution in Ireland that would lead to the establishment of a Workers' Republic, the death of the British Empire, and the beginning of a socialist world revolution.
Over a century later, Ireland is still ruled in the north by what remains of the British Empire, The Republic of Ireland is a Bankers' Republic, and hopes for the world revolution are a nostalgic memory... for now.
Manifesto of the Irish Socialist Republican Party (Connolly):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1896/xx/isrp.htm
Connolly and the Paris Commune
https://jacobinmag.com/2016/04/james-connolly-paris-commune-easter-rising-tactics?fbclid=IwAR2NFon_XDCsFniTFdsVD1qM_u3m23fbJ88qKzokacYaSqghGlaPIAevu40
Socialism Made Easy (Connolly) -- the only long-ish one:
https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2017-07-26/james-connollys-socialism-made-easy-1909-11-political-action-labor
Easter Rising Proclamation (original text):
https://www.onthisday.com/photos/easter-proclamation-of-1916
Socialism and Nationalism (Connolly):|
https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/01/socnat.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/xx/scirenat.htm
Socialism and Religion (Connolly):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1901/evangel/socrel.htm
Socialism in Ireland (Connolly):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1908/03/socinire.htm
Direct Action in Belfast (Connolly):
Wednesday Apr 22, 2020
Wednesday Apr 22, 2020
This week, Jenny, Chris, and Jason read and discussed Jodi Dean's essay: The Four Theses on the Comrade.
A comrade is much more than an identity that one adopts. It is an ethos, an ideal for the collective reorganization of the world. We talk about how this is a concept that the left has abandoned and needs to find again.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the full episode.
Monday Apr 13, 2020
Monday Apr 13, 2020
The old world is dying and a new one is being created before our eyes. Thus far, the left has had little if any input into this process. If we don't insert ourselves into the conversation with great haste, a much worse version of our current hellscape will be the outcome. What kind of project will be necessary to salvage the useful pieces of detritus needed to build a better world? To that end, we sat down with our good friend Michael to talk about how to build a better post-apocalyptic world.
The Mask of the Red Death: Dispatch One from a Changing World- Salvage Editorial Board
https://salvage.zone/articles/the-mask-of-the-red-death-dispatch-one-from-a-changing-world/
The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene- Salvage Editorial Board
https://salvage.zone/editorials/the-tragedy-of-the-worker-towards-the-proletarocene/
Under coronavirus, pro market ideologies are overturned around the world, But its too little, too late. - Jeff Sparrow
The world after coronavirus- Yuval Noah Harari
https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75?fbclid=IwAR2f2bCCh3iBuc61PT_Nt4zLbthYaPQuodJsg0ee6Qwoocln65faxeK0cpY
A Greater Depression? Nouriel Roubini