On The National Interest.

Aufhebunga Bunga co-founder and contributing editor Phil Cunliffe joins us to talk about his new book about politics after the age of globalisation. We ask questions about his book – and then put him on trial for wrongthink.

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Who is the 'national interest' good for? Is it a domestic or a foreign policy concern?

Why did the 'national interest' disappear from our political vocabulary?

Is the national interest an abstraction anyone can rhetorically claim? Is that not dangerous?

What happens if leading politicians – or elites in general – adopt the national interest? Would this be good or bad?

Will Trump's re-assertion of US interests push others to defend theirs?

Does the national interest stand against class interests? Is this anti-socialist?

Was Stalin-style socialism-in-one-country actually correct? Has Phil come around to supporting Roosevelt-style social democracy?

Links:

The National Interest: Politics After Globalization, Philip Cunliffe, Polity

On image-enhancing drugs.

Jason Myles of This Is Revolution is back on, talking to George and Alex H about his article in Damage on increasing steroid use.

What does the discourse around 'fake natties' tell us about authenticity? Do SSRIs provide "fake happy"?

If steroids are a short-cut, how do we understand the "work" in "working out"?

Is the taboo on drug use completely gone?

Are we medicating to counter the side-effects of other meds?

How do issues such as steroids and trans reveal contradictory attitudes to the body?

Have the links between body, image, sex, and eroticism been erased?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Self-Catfishing with Steroids, Jason Myles, Damage 

Shedeur Sanders and the Marketization of College Sports, Jason Myles, Damage 

/359/ Apollo Gets High ft. Benjamin Fong

On Franz Jakubowski's Ideology and Superstructure in Historical Materialism.

We focus on a very short section from Jakubowski's 1936 book, and delve into wider questions regarding ideology, social totality, and the middle classes.

Is ideology “false, partial consciousness”?

Is Jakubowski right that capitalism is the least ideological social form so far?

Is it true that the middle classes only come into contact with the commodity when it is in circulation?

How is the middle class' social position reflected in its worldview? How has this changed over 100 years?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Ideology and Superstructure in Historical Materialism, Chapter: “Ideology and the Classes of Bourgeois Society” (pp. 49-52)

OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations (FULL)

The Middle-Class Leviathan: Corona, the "Fascism" Blackmail, and the Defeat of the Working Class, Elena Lange & Joshua Pickett-Depaolis

The Rise of the Professionals, George Hoare, Compact

On resistance and reform in southeast Asia.

Historian Sean Fear talks to Alex H and Lee Jones about Vietnam on the 50-year anniversary since the end of the war.

How is Vietnamese identity wrapped up with the notion of resistance?

Is Chinese influence as great as resistance to China?

How is the ‘American War’ thought about in Vietnam today?

How similar is Vietnam to China: defying Fukuyama’s thesis by retaining a state-socialist political system while adopting capitalism?

Why has Vietnam achieved rapid growth and development while neighbours have failed?

How is Vietnam reacting to being at the centre of Trump tariff disputes?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

The Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation Building, Sean Fear, Tuong Vu (eds.), Cornell UP

/115/ Singapore Shangri-La ft. Lee Jones

Post-Cold War Vietnam: stay low, learn, adapt and try to have fun – but what about the party?, Adam Fforde

On the end of the end of history and what comes next.

Phil is back on the pod, talking with George and Alex about the big themes of the podcast. In particular, we look at a recent essay in Foreign Policy by historian Christopher Clarke called "The End of Modernity".

To what extent was the 1989 moment as significant in Beijing as Berlin?

Is Trump actually Stalin (but in a good way)?

Is Russia the revisionist power? And if so, in what regard and what are the consequences?

Who says the choice is between "liberal democracy" and "authoritarian populism"?

Then, we take your questions and comments from the past month.

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

The End of Modernity, Christopher Clarke, Foreign Policy

The End of the End of History: Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Bungacast, Zer0 Books

Into the Abyss, Ed McNally, Tribune

On the "return of religion" in Britain.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Journalist Lamorna Ash talks to George and Alex about how and why young people might be turning to religion today.

Have things moved on from the New Atheists and their critique of religion?

What are the divides in Christianity today? How do culture wars over sexuality play out?

Why do ritual, quiet, and the 'new monasticism’ hold appeal today?

Is Gen Z's pessimism a type of apocalyptic thinking? Is it related to environmentalism?

The After Party, following the interview, is at 00:51:30.

Links:

Don't Forget We're Here Forever, Lamorna Ash, Bloomsbury

The Tyranny of Structurelessness, Jo Freeman, Damage

Reading Club on Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

On Arno Mayer's "The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem".

We kick off the third block of the 2024/25 Reading Club, which is dedicated to the question of the middle class:

The abatement of class struggle between workers and owners has shone a light on the role of the middle classes. Beyond the resurgence of the debate around the much-maligned professional-managerial class (PMC), what is the true role of the middle class in politics and society? Who rules today – and how would we go about answering that question?

In this episode we discuss:

Is the lower middle class still the main recipient/consumer of popular culture?

Is the condition of the lower middle class in fact universalised across society today?

Is the lower middle class a "classless class"?

Is this class united or in fact divided? Is is the main site of political contestation today? Of culture wars?

For access, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem, Arno Mayer

Regime Crisis: The Persistence of Arno J. Mayer, Verso Books blog

We celebrate 500 episodes of Aufhebunga Bunga with a cold, hard look at the decay around us.

Alex and George plus contributing editors Lee Jones and Alex Gourevitch wrangle with four principal questions:

What does it mean to say our era is one of decay or decline?

How does this relate to the non-death of neoliberalism – its intellectual destitution, its practical weakening, but also its mutation and perpetuation?

How does neoliberal decay relate to the decline of a unipolar world under total US hegemony, and the decline of the liberal globalist order?

To what extent is the decay of representative democracy cause or consequence of the above?

And finally, as we have been asking since we started this podcast in 2017: what comes next?

For all Bungacast content, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast, and for our monthly newsletter, click here.

Readings:

Geopolitics at the End of the End of History, Lee Jones, The Northern Star

Technofeudalism vs Total Capitalism, Alex Hochuli, American Affairs 

Regime Change in the West, Perry Anderson, London Review of Books

Changing the Regime, Building the Nation, Phil Cunliffe, The Northern Star

An Audacious Book, Roberto Schwarz (review of Robert Kurz's 1991 Collapse of Modernisation), Meditations Journal

The new historical simultaneity, Robert Kurz, Libcom

Past landmark episodes

100: What was the end of history? 

200: Which country crystallises world-history from 1900-2020?

300: The threat of nuclear annihilation

400: The political oppositions of the next decade

On shame, guilt and responsibility.

Taylor Hines, an editor at Damage magazine, talks to George and Alex about his essay "Fool Me Twice" in Issue 4 of the magazine, which deals with the theme Responsibility.

Remember, subscribers to Bungacast get a complimentary online subscription to Damage!

We discuss:

Why is Robert Eggers' Nosferatu about shame? What about the Rape of Lucretia?

What can Frédéric Gros’ A Philosophy of Shame tell us?

What's the difference between shame and guilt?

Do psychoanalytic thinkers like Christopher Lasch and Melanie Klein clarify the matter?

Why do we need to Make Guilt Great Again – but not as affect, as a sense of responsibility?

For the full episode subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Fool Me Twice, Taylor Hines, Damage

Issue 4: Responsibility, Damage

Do you often feel ashamed? Maybe you should, Nina Power, Daily Telegraph

On Iran and its Axis of Resistance.

Historian Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi talks to Alex about the leadup and aftermath of the so-called "12-Day War between Iran and Israel and the US.

Hamas and Hezbollah have been humbled, Assad is gone from Syria – how weakened is Iran?

Did the 12-Day War actually happen? What prevented it becoming a wider war?

What is the meaning of Israel's maximalist aims of regime change and regional dominance?

Why is Iran now leaning into Iranian nationalism, even using pre-revolutionary symbols?

Is a nuclear Iran now inevitable? What lessons will it draw?

How has the region been reconfigured over the past two years? What about Saudi and the Gulf states?

Subscribe to this podcast at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Iran and the ‘Axis of Resistance’: A Brief History, Eskandar Sadeghi, Jadaliyya

Culmination, Eskandar Sadeghi, Sidecar

The Failson and the Flag, Golnar Nikpou & Eskandar Sadeghi