Professor Kozlowski wraps up his study of political philosophy by discussing the ups and downs of the project, summarizing some of the most important findings, and musing about the future (which will hopefully contain less Hobbes).

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Professor Kozlowski concludes his series on political philosophy with a look at the nature of propaganda and its (often-unnoticed) effect on language. By examining the ideas of George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit," and Jason Stanley's How Propaganda Works, we aspire to reach a deeper understanding of how language can serve, insidiously and invisibly, as propaganda. Finally, by examining some excerpts of Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice, we can see how we can clarify and combat these efforts to confuse and confound our discussions of justice and political decency.

Today Professor Kozlowski investigates a grab bag of other political perspectives, including the radical Utilitarianism of Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," the Cosmopolitanism prescribed by Martha Nussbaum, and the Native American perspectives on land, community, and individuality discussed by V. F. Cordova and Ted Jojola in their writings. It may not add up to a cogent perspective, but it should offer some enlightening critique of the dominant systems we've discussed so far.

The Ethics of Care presents one of the most cogent and effective alternatives to liberal government theory current today. It is revolutionary, empathetic, inclusive, and compelling. Today, Professor Kozlowski outlines the theory and practice of the Ethics of Care (as presented in Held's The Ethics of Care and Pirate Care by Graziano et al.) as a culmination of his discussions of liberal theory, anarchism, activism, and contemporary political practice. This is what the future could look like, folks. Don't miss it.

Additional readings today include:

Graeber, Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia

Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Silko, Ceremony

and a double video game recommendation - probably two of the greatest politically-minded games ever made:

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Professor Kozlowski examines some of the most famous political activists of the twentieth century.

Remember that all opinions expressed in this lecture are opinions, both for the speaker and the readings cited, and that you should trust the research, not the authority of the researcher.

Today's readings include:

Gandhi, Indian Home Rule

Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

MLK Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet

Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Additional readings include:

bell hooks' Ain't I a Woman?

De Beauvoir's The Second Sex

Warner, The Trouble With Normal

Foucault, Ethics

Keller, Out of the Dark

DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

Deloria, Custer Died for Your Sins

MLK Jr., A Gift of Love

Delany, Dhalgren

LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Butler, The Parable of the Sower

Gilman, Herland

Schuyler, Black No More

Ellison, Invisible Man

Kushner, Angels in America

and for my video game fans:

1979: Black Friday

Professor Kozlowski continues testing the limits of algorithmic censorship with a discussion of Communism and Anarchism. No references to the Cookbook here, but we are going to look deeply at some widely varied ideas underlying Anarchist thought, and their justifications for fighting against the state, as well as the underpinning ideas of many 20th century activist movements (which we will discuss in the next lecture).

Today's readings are:

Lenin's What is to be Done? and The State and Revolution

Kropotkin's "Law and Authority"

Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You

Goldman's "Anarchism"

Additional Readings include:

Thoreau, "On Civil Disobedience"

Mills, The Sociological Imagination

Foucault, Discipline and Punish

The Chomsky Reader

Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Hemingway, To Have and Have Not

Huxley, Island

Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don

LeGuin, The Dispossessed

And, of course, the preeminent masterpiece of video games about politics: Disco Elysium

Professor Kozlowski continues his idiotic life choices by reading and critiquing the neo-liberal political philosophy discussion surrounding John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. We'll talk about what Liberalism is, its dominance in the discussion of political philosophy, and its assumptions and blind spots - as well as just getting very frustrated by Nozick's particular brand of Libertarianism.

Our readings today come from:

FDR's State of the Union addresses in 1941 and 1944

Rawls' A Theory of Justice

Nozick's Anarchy, State, Utopia

Walzer's "A Defense of Equality"

And additional readings include:

Friedman's The World is Flat

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Caro's The Power Broker

Graeber's Bullshit Jobs

Huxley's Brave New World

Gibson's Neuromancer

Wallace's The Pale King

The Big Short (2015)

Sid Meier's Civilization

Fate of the World

Umurangi Generation

If you selfishly and freely wish to meditate on Professor Kozlowski's other individualistic contributions to society, thus patronizing his websites and encouraging more of the same, consider visiting his website: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/

Today, Professor Kozlowski tackles the preeminent development in political philosophy of the twentieth century - and spectre overhanging the twenty-first: Fascism and Totalitarianism. We'll examine Italian Fascism with Mussolini's own "The Doctrine of Fascism" as well as Umberto Eco's 2001 essay "Ur-Fascism"; Nazism with the Extra History video series Nazi Occultism and Folding Ideas' video essay "Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda"; and, finally, we'll read an excerpt of Hannah Arendt's compendious The Origins of Totalitarianism. Along the way we'll discuss how to recognize signs and symptoms of Fascism (including those in the Trump administration), its allure and its techniques for staying in power, its reliance on irrationality, mythology, and mysticism, its fundamental flaws as a system of government and its tendency toward self-destructiveness, as well as what we might do to fight it when it arises.

Additional readings include:

• Quotations from Chairman Mao
• Arendt - Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
• Stanley - How Propagada Works
• Koestler - Darkness at Noon
• Orwell - 1984
• Zamyatin - We
• Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
• Liu - The Three-Body Problem
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Papers, Please

If you're considering dedicating your whole life and well-being to my charismatic leadership, why not start by visiting my website: professorkozlowski.wordpress.com?

Professor Kozlowski invites the wrath of the Internet by proposing to discuss Conservatism. To do that, we'll explore the history of conservative thinking (and American Conservatism in particular) from Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and Romanticism (including Nietzsche's perspective in On the Genealogy of Morals), to the 20th and 21st centuries. We'll touch on major developments throughout history, including the New Deal, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the Christian Evangelical Right, and Neoconservatism (including Irving Kristol's "The Neoconservative Persuasion), all the way up to the MAGA movement and Project 2025. It's a massive lecture for a massive topic, but how else were we going to introduce the 20th century?

Besides the required readings linked above, the 20th century lectures will include many more additional readings. For our Conservatism discussion, they include:

• Nietzsche - Thus Spake Zarathustra
• Spencer - The Study of Sociology
• Tagore - Nationalism
• Stelzer - The NeoCon Reader
• Wallace - Consider the Lobster
• Peterson - 12 Rules for Life
• Sandifer - Neoreaction: A Basilisk
• Innuendo Studios - The Alt-Right Playbook
• Contrapoints - CONSPIRACY
• Rand - Atlas Shrugged
• Heinlein - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
• Bioshock
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
• Spec Ops: The Line - good luck finding it!

If you are incensed by this lecture and would like to vandalize Professor Kozlowski's other Internet projects, check out his website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠professorkozlowski.wordpress.com

The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential and divisive works of political philosophy. Yet it almost seems quaint and harmless in a modern world of global Capitalist reach, and more rhetorical than scientific compared to the more systematic and explanatory Capital. Is Marx's theory of capitalist greed and social upheaval still relevant in a post Cold War world? Or is this a harmless historical phenomenon, relevant only in its time?

Additional readings include: Bakunin's God and the State, Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism, Sorel's Reflections on Violence, Chernyshevsky's What is to Be Done?, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, and Morris' News from Nowhere. And while I suspect I should be able to find a better mechanical representation of political revolution in video game history, I'm stuck instead with Red Faction: Guerrilla, which is a smarter game then it first seems, but is still pretty dang dumb.

If you would rather check out Professor Kozlowski's other online projects than immediately rise up against your oppressors (all you have to lose are your chains!), check out his website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠professorkozlowski.wordpress.com