/432/ Median Left Thought and its Monsters ft. Ben Burgis (Patreon)

On Naomi Klein & Naomi Wolf and "political diagonalism"

Episode in association with Damage magazine. Patreon Exclusive.

Ben Burgis talks to Alex and George about his review in Damage of Naomi Klein's Doppelgangers. We discuss:

Whether Naomi Klein is representative of the average left-wing position this century

What Klein's trajectory and that of Naomi Wolf tell us about contemporary politics

What is "pipiking" – Philip Roth's term for making everything a farce?

What role do conspiracy theories play for the Right today? For the Left?

What's wrong with the idea of "settlers" and "indigenous", and how does it play out with regard to Jews and to Native Americans?

Are we right to hold up “proper left” and “proper right” as ideals to which the ideological confusion of our times should return?

Links:

Left Identitarianism Is Also A Mirror World, Ben Burgis, Damage

Ben Burgis' columns at Jacobin

What comes after wokeness?, Alex Hochuli, Substack

The Making of a New Political Subject, George Hoare, Café american