October 26, 2024

#124 - The Wages of Rebellion: Chris Hedges on the Death of Liberalism, the Decline of Moral Institutions, and the Moral Imperative of Revolt

1 hour 3 minutes

“Totalitarian states use propaganda to orchestrate historical amnesia, a state-induced stupidity. The object is to make sure the populace does not remember what it means to be free. And once a population does not remember what it means to be free, it does not react when freedom is stripped from it.”

-Chris Hedges, The Wages of Revolt, 2015

Original YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXE6T1ySNRM

The Sanctuary for Independent Media:

https://www.youtube.com/@mediasanctuary

Description, per @mediasanctuary:

Chris Hedges, whose most recent book "Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt" (Nation Books) was published on May 15, 2015 is also the best-selling author of "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (2003), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. A quote from the book was used as the opening title quotation in the critically-acclaimed and Academy Award-winning 2009 film, The Hurt Locker. The quote reads: "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug."

Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In "Wages of Rebellion," Chris Hedges--who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books "Empire of Illusion" and "Death of the Liberal Class"--investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges' message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.

Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as "sublime madness"--the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this "sublime madness."

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