KPFA - Against the Grain

In a world in perpetual crisis, how do we live our lives in a way that is both ethical and fulfilling? How do we keep from being buffeted by fear and other negative emotions? William Irvine and Mark Vernon discuss what ancient philosophy can offer us today.

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Israel and its boosters argue that it’s an exceptional state in the Middle East and a necessary ally for the West. Its technical prowess is purportedly part of what makes Israel so indispensable, on full display during its assault on Gaza. But security scholar Rhys Machold contends that the idea of Israel as a innovative pioneer obscures it dependency on the West since its inception. And he suggests that such mythologies serve to deflect attention from genocide.

Rhys Machold, “The Myth of Israeli Innovation” Jewish Currents

Rhys Machold, Fabricating Homeland Security: Police Entanglements across India and Palestine/Israel Stanford University Press, 2024

Photo credit: Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash

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Nothing sounds more wholesome than kids and sports. But as legal scholar Dionne Koller illustrates youth sports have become increasingly commercial, unregulated, and competitive with companies, including private equity firms, replacing publicly-subsidized recreational programs. This highly lucrative industry profits from, among other things, clubs, camps, equipment, mega facilities, and youth sports tourism — exacting a high cost from families and even greater physical and mental cost from children.

Dionne Koller, More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport UC Press, 2025

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

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The drive to put prices on everything is a basic feature of capitalism. Political theorist Alyssa Battistoni asks then why capitalism has failed at putting a price on so much of nature, which she believes helps illuminate capitalism’s destruction of the natural world. She also argues that the relationship that capitalism forces us to have with the rest of nature makes us less free as human beings.

Alyssa Battistoni, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature University of Princeton Press, 2025

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Since the global financial crisis, and even more over the last five years, capitalism’s popularity has fallen, while the fortunes of the capitalist class have risen steeply. Polls show that a majority of people under forty, of any political affiliation, view democratic socialism positively and capitalism negatively. Even a majority of Republican voters believe that our economic system favors corporations and the wealthy. Journalist John Cassidy discusses capitalism through the eyes of its critics. (Full-length presentation.)

John Cassidy, Capitalism and Its Critics A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025

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As the environmental crisis worsens, not everyone is drawing the same lessons. On the far right, xenophobic and racist ideas are increasingly dressed up as means of protecting nature. And, as scholar Alexander Menrisky posits, contemporary American culture furnishes a wealth of material for the right, from the ubiquity of apocalyptic and misanthropic ideas to concerns with Wellness and bodily purity. (Encore presentation.)

Alexander Menrisky, Everyday Ecofascism: Crisis and Consumption in American Literature University of Minnesota Press, 2025

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On the occasion of C. S. stepping down as regular co-host of Against the Grain after a 22-year run, he presents some reflections, reminiscences, and excerpts from cherished interviews.

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If the problem is religious polarization and inequality, isn’t the solution secular governance? Secularism, after all, promises the equality of citizens regardless of religious affiliation. In a 2016 interview, Saba Mahmood argued that modern secular governance, contrary to its grand claims, has in fact exacerbated religious inequalities. It has also, she said, constrained our political imagination to a significant degree.

Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report Princeton University Press

Obituary: Dr. Saba Mahmood, 1962-2018

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How did a fringe rightwing movement calling for lower taxes become one of the most successful efforts in U.S politics, leading to a chronically underfunded government? The answer has more than a little to do with racism. Michael Graetz traces the rise and triumph of the anti-tax movement and the ways that politicians and think-tanks harnessed racial resentments for the benefit of the wealthy.

Michael J. Graetz, The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America Princeton University Press, 2024

Photo credit: Mike Meadows, Los Angeles Times

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In the 1950s the CIA took a keen interest in Kerala, a newly formed Indian state led, beginning in 1957, by a Communist ministry. Richard Franke describes the turbulent events that led to the ministry’s dismissal and the evidence he and T. M. Thomas Isaac have unearthed about CIA stances and ambitions vis-a-vis Kerala.

T. M. Thomas Isaac and Richard Franke, Toppling the First Ministry: Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice Monthly Review Press, 2025

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