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/361/ A Nightmare on the Brains of the Living ft. Benjamin Studebaker (Patreon)

Published:
2023-08-29 05:09:05
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

On US politics being stuck.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We talk to political theorist Benjamin Studebaker about his new book, The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut. Studebaker holds that hope is a problem because it's used by professionals to keep people engaged in a system that simply doesn't deliver. Hence the culture wars and the focus on various 'vices'.

How are both left and right complicit in this situation? What's the solution? Are we dependent on oligarchs going rogue to shake the system? Do we need to hit rock bottom to rekindle our political imaginations?

Files

Comments

Craig Range

Imbedded democracy is an absurd idea.

Conor

:)

Surface Envy

Listening to Mr Studebaker on his various podcasts (I heartily recommend The Lack) always provides me with a double benefit: firstly, his very interesting insights. Secondly, a wonderful calming sensation from listening to someone with such order and clarity of thought. It's like ASMR for quasi intellectual pseuds like me

Jonas Kyratzes

A lot of interesting stuff here, if very US-centric, but I don't buy the idea that we can or should abandon all historical parallels. Glibly deployed historical parallels used purely as fodder for shitty articles are bad, but trying to understand how history works is not something we can give up. Particularly when it leads us to statements like the US being an incredibly old democracy and this meaning that it can't change, which any serious examination of the fall of the Roman Republic would easily disprove. In fact, that era demonstrates a lot of historical mechanisms that are profoundly relevant to us today, such as the displacement of popular frustration into moralism and autocratic populism after all avenues towards economic reform were closed off (by liberals). Studying the past isn't going to provide us with all the anwers we need, but completely cutting ourselves off from it is wilful ignorance and would greatly hamper precisely that very necessary project of constructing a movement capable of actually opposing the status quo. What's really necessary is to remove all the fetishistic bullshit that Marxism has accumulated, the Left's obsession with its own symbols and history, and to consider why we are consistently overrun by various types of moralistic cultural nonsense. Not just now, but from the get-go. How do you save Marx from the Marxists?

Roman

Is it really possible to come up with something *completely* new? The enlightenment project of a society based on rational thought rather than superstition still has to be the foundation for a new and improved political and economic system that can replace what he have today. Thinking about the role of capitalism and how to control it, or overcome it, is also impossible to get around and consign to the past. So while I agree that over-reliance on historical analogies is counterproductive we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Gabo Goff

This summed up my frustration with USA so well. Feel often left attacks each other ignoring the extent of the intractable problem. There’s not much say aoc can do in this conjecture.

NigelBOpinion

Fascinating and genuinely original ideas, with great interviewing and contributions by Alex.

Davka Smolah Collective

Very glad to see how mad Studebaker is making leftists with his demand that socialists and Marxists should learn from the past and try something new instead of Soviet Union or Maoist China reruns.

Samuel Lieblich

This is such a good episode. Please please open it up to the public so I can share widely.