WHAT IS POLITICS?
WorldWideScrotes
Politics is one of the only practical disciplines where none of the main concepts have clear, coherent definitions. We define ourselves with terms like "left” and "right" and we believe in things like "democracy," “markets,” "capitalism" and "socialism" even though we don’t really know what any of these words actually mean. This series aims to make sense out of the political muddle that we've inherited from media, academia, and from decades of cold war propaganda, so that we can figure what it is that we want when it comes to politics, and how we can achieve it.
Q&A on the ABCs of Israel/Palestine
This is a Q&A where I respond to questions and critiques about episode 12: The ABC’s of Israel/Palestine (https://youtu.be/OLr_VCqnId0) and also go off on a whole bunch of related tangents. TIMESTAMPS BELOW! BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102834580 (no paywall) I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me months to make the scripted episodes, so please help if you can! PATREON PER EPISODE DONATIONS: https://www.patreon.com/what
Apr 30, 2024 • 0:00
Brainstorm: Israel/Palestine – Who Started It?
What was supposed to be an informal QnA about the “Israel/Palestine ABCs” episode, turned into a What is Politics “live” brainstorm session à la Matt Christman “grillstream,” where I discuss my arguments and readings on who and what started the Israel/Palestine conflict which will appear in more detail (and coherence) in the next scripted episode. At 5hrs long, I didn’t even get to the QnAs yet … oops! 0:00 intro: ‘why is everything so stupid and shitty?’ / the “alignment
Apr 23, 2024 • 0:00
12: From “Never Again” to “There are No Uninvolved Civilians”: The ABC’s of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Elites 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 get a grasp of the basic events, and the conflicting historical narratives that Israelis and Palestinians learn, which interpret all of these events in completely different ways, with opposite moral implications, so that we can then proceed to look at
Mar 5, 2024 • 0:00
9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People: when right wing politics masquerade as left wing politics
When 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 and symbols of radicalism and egalitarianism. The replacement of the word “equality” by the word “equity” in the worlds of academia, NGOs, activism, and corporate HR departments, is an example of the attempts by elite pe
Aug 10, 2023 • 0:00
11.1 Why the Russian Revolution Failed: When Rich Kids do all the Socialism
The 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 government via the “free association of the producers”. Instead the revolutions resulted in the establishment of the Soviet Union: an authoritarian state where the government became the sole employer and the state contro
Mar 21, 2023 • 0:00
11. Why are Communist countries all one-party dictatorships?
Why 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 why not? Is it “capitalist encirclement”? Richard Wolff can’t answer this question for some reason. Neither can Freddie de Boer. Yet the answer is very simple, and we can learn a lot from it. Listen, and find out… ALL MUSIC BY STAR
Nov 4, 2022 • 0:00
10.4 What Causes Seasonal Social and Political Structures? The Dawn of Everything Chapter 3:
In 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 the result of conscious choice, grand theatre, play and expedience. In doing so, they repeatedly invent various things that they attribute to famous anthropologists like Clause-Levi Strauss and Marcel Mauss which those authors never said. They also
Apr 26, 2022 • 0:00
10.3 The Ingredients of Hierarchy: Graeber & Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything Chapter 3, ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”
We 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 paleolithic europe. In doing so we also look at the difference between dominance hierarchy and democratic hierarchy, and what the necessary criteria are in order to establish a a dominance hierarchy. We also discover that Graeber & W
Feb 22, 2022 • 0:00
10.2 The Dawn of Everything: How Graeber & Wengrow’s book sets us up to fail like Occupy Wall Street
In 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 the following: How the book’s underlying thesis: that human social structure is ultimately a matter of choice and experimentation, is fundamentally incoherent, and how this idea sets us up for future dramatic political failures, similar to those of Occupy Wall Stre
Dec 19, 2021 • 0:00
10.1 Graeber & Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”: What is an “Egalitarian” Society?
In 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 Kandiaronk. Given that the conclusion of the chapter is a tirade against the concept of “equality” we first examine what the world equality means in a political context, and what the term “egalitarian society” implies, followed by an examination of the history of the
Oct 27, 2021 • 0:00
10. David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The “Dawn of Everything”: The Wisdom of Kandiaronk
A 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 that: The European Enlightenment was heavily influenced by Native American critiques of European culture. That European intellectuals reacted against this by developing the theory of “stages of human progress” where
Oct 4, 2021 • 0:00
Interview: Fight Like an Animal / Arnold Schroeder
Interview 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 that, and which covers everything from history, to political psychology, to anthropology, psychiatry, animal behaviour, religious cults, and much more. I highly recommend everyone check out his show, and dig deep into the extensive bibliogr
Jul 20, 2021 • 0:00
9.1. Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture
The 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 this segment, by seeking to properly define these terms, we look at: The Class Filter: how ideas that are a threat to power historically get mutated into tools of power once they pass
Jul 15, 2021 • 0:00
9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
The 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? The Plight of the Babe in the American Workplace, Slate Yvonne Abraham 2015 – Tom Brady has more rights than most American workers, Boston Globe link to share this podcast (opens the audio podcast in your p
Jun 7, 2021 • 0:00
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
Human 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 political action, from private sector negotiation, to crafting legislation, to making a revolution. In this episode we look at: The relationship between economic activity and the high status of women in traditional Hauden
Mar 19, 2021 • 0:00
7.1. Material Conditions: Why You Can’t Eliminate Sexism Just by Eliminating Sexism
What 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 bare the whole class reductionism vs. race reductionism debate, and which is crucial for any kind of effective political strategy on any issue. Backed up by a real “pink pill” example of how post-revolutionary rural China total
Nov 27, 2020 • 0:00
7. The Origin of Social Hierarchy and Male Dominance: why David Graeber and Jordan Peterson are Wrong
Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies? According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way. Meanwhile according to Jordan Peterson, it’s just human nature. Thankfully for humanity, both of these views are very, very wrong. all music by *69 FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY tweete
Nov 26, 2020 • 0:00
6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works
Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others. Was this always the state of the human world? Is hierarchy in our nature? Are egalitarian societies possible for human beings? If so, under what conditions? And is freedom compatible with equality? FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://ww
Sep 10, 2020 • 0:00
5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917
This episode is for everyone who keeps writing to me to insist that one or the other wrong, incoherent, popular definitions of Left and Right is actually the correct one. How do we know the left and right refer to equality and hierarchy? To answer this, we look at who was considered as being on the left and on the right in three different time periods: The early French revolution in 1789, which is what the whole left-right political spectrum is an analogy to. The 3rd republic in France where
Sep 10, 2020 • 0:00
Understanding the News: How Tax Cuts Fuel Police Brutality
Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy combine to give police incredible power. This is a key reason why they’re rarely punished, even for the most egregious abuses. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/bleepbloop01/BLEEP%20BLOOP%2001.mp3
Jun 9, 2020 • 0:00
4. How Political Definitions Shape Reality
Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators and political actors. The definition of government that journalists and academics use makes us blind to the people who rule over us in our private lives. Popular definitions of left and right propagated by media and academia (the state vs. the market, big vs. small government, liberty vs. equality), frame the world in right-wing terms, while the hi
May 31, 2020 • 0:00
3. The Left-Right Political Spectrum is About Class Conflict
Most journalists and Doctor-Professor academics don’t really know what the left-right political spectrum is about, but you will after listening to this episode! FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics video version: https://youtu.be/P3cmjNrXWms https://archive.org/download/03leftrightandyou/03%20-%20LEFT-RIGHT%20AND%20YOU.mp3
Mar 28, 2020 • 0:00
2. What is Politics and Why Should I Care? (video)
How can people who don’t have official decision-making power exert their influence over those who do? A quick overview of some basic political concepts: POLITICS PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE POLITICS POLITIES GOVERNMENT DEMOCRACY AUTOCRACY CONSENSUS POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ECONOMICS CAPITALISM IDEOLOGY CLASS THE MARKET BARGAINING POWER CONTRACTS FULL TRANSCRIPT Tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords Original You-Tube version: https://youtu.be/dQjcmDGY2vA help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https:
Jan 15, 2020 • 0:00
