Deeper Dive - DSU's podcast

Real and raw economic insecurity is driving the electoral turmoil on both the left and the right. The anxiety is energized by the brutal awareness that the deep seated, Liberal-Enlightenment belief in perpetual economic prosperity and political influence is colliding with the emergence of a new economic and political paradigm characterized by rapidly diminishing human value and the end of the nation-state. In this free-wheeling episode, "Globalization and the Managed Devaluation of the Western Social- Welfare Democracies," we investigate what the new economic and political paradigm means for our sense of "value," our income potential, happiness, and political efficacy. Enjoy.

Headlines scream: On both the Left and the Right, the Election Process is Rigged. The Panama Papers have shone a bright light into the obscure and byzantine ways political leaders and the wealthy "steal" public wealth through tax evasion. And last week, thousands of protestors were arrested in an attempt to "take back the Democracy." What is going on? In our most recent episode, "From the Panama Papers to the Primary Election Process: The Re-Emergence of Aristocratic Governance," we examine the emerging crisis between the overt power and influence of the intellectual and economic aristocracy and the masses who are still committed to the mythos of representative democracy. Enjoy.

As the political season of discontent continues to heat up, we have a little fun investigating Thoreau's and Foucault's account of Resistance and Civil Disobedience. In our latest episode, "From Thoreau to Foucault: Metaphysical and Postmodern Accounts of Resistance and Civil Disobedience," we examine and compare Thoreau's metaphysical account of resistance and civil disobedience to Foucault's postmodern account of resistance and ethics. Despite very important philosophical differences between Thoreau and Foucault, we identify some very interesting and important similarities in the thought of these unique and fascinating political philosophers. Enjoy!

In recent months we have listened to Donald Trump suggest there might be riots if he is denied the Republican nomination, witnessed several acts of political violence, and now we hear the emerging chants from a group called Democracy Spring promising the largest civil disobedience action in American political history. In our most recent podcast, "Civil Disobedience and the Season of Political Discontent," we examine the current political environment through the lens of Henry David Thoreau's and Martin Luther King's account of civil disobedience. We begin by investigating what Thoreau and King meant by civil disobedience, what makes civil disobedience civil, and how they differ. We conclude the episode by reflecting on the question of whether the coming season of political discontent will remain civil, or if it will slip towards something more ominous. Enjoy.

In our most recent episode, "Foucault, Disciplinary Power, And Your Threat Score," we investigate Foucault's account of Disciplinary Power and the way the primary strategies of Disciplinary Power--the control of space and time, surveillance, and the examination--fabricate subjectivity. In addition, we identify the way these techniques and strategies write and document our "identity" and constitute the substance of our "identity." We conclude this discussion by examining the relationship between Disciplinary Power and what is now called our "Threat Score." Did you know you had a Threat Score? Do you know you what your Threat Score is? Enjoy.

The recent episodes of political violence, emanating from both sides of the ideological spectrum, shocked the nation. Rhetorically ratcheting up the tension, Donald Trump mused that there might be riots if he is denied the nomination, while a left leaning critic of Donald Trump characterized the billionaire-populist as an "existential threat" to America. In our most recent episode, "De- legitimization, Political Violence, and Lockean Revolution," we examine these events and words from the broader perspective of a Crisis of Legitimacy in American economic, social, and political processes and institutions. We conclude the episode by linking this Crisis of Legitimacy to Locke's account of Revolution. Enjoy.

In a recent interview, Noam Chomsky said, "fear, along with the breakdown of society" is responsible for the ascendency of Donald Trump's political influence. In this episode we investigate Chomsky's claim by locating fear in a broader historical and philosophical context, and we discuss how fear is both constitutive of the Modern, Liberal political-philosophical experiment and a mechanism for the unraveling of it. We conclude by trying to measure the extent of Chomsky's claim that we are witnessing the collapse of the American political experiment.

In our most recent episode, Walker and Professor Dungey wade into the emerging political and constitutional crisis surrounding the appointment of the next Supreme Court Justice. Has ideological conflict now made it impossible to function within the existing legal and constitutional framework? Are we lurching toward the dissolution of the philosophical, institutional and social commitments that hold the Republic together?

Our most recent podcast, "Foucault in the Real World: Disciplinary Power and the Construction of Human Agency," is our final episode of a Four Part Series. In our last episode, we examined what a Nietzschean and Foucaultian account of Language meant for their interpretation of Power and Human Agency. In this episode we illuminate what these ideas mean in and through an examination of Foucault's critique of the Enlightenment. What is disciplinary power? And why, according to Foucault, are we simultaneously prisoner in and guard over our own consciousness? Enjoy!

Our most recent podcast, "The Implications of the View that Language is Power: Foucault's account of Power and Identity," is Part III in an ongoing series investigating the debate between Orwell's metaphysical account of Language and Human Agency and the emergence of a Nietzschean and Foucaultian account of Language as Power. In this episode, we investigate what Nietzsche and Foucault's Post-Metaphysical account of Language means for how we conceive of Power and Human Agency/Subjectivity/Identity. In this episode we move beyond Orwell's Liberal and Enlightenment account of freedom, language, and politics. Enjoy!