Rev Left Radio

Breht and Alyson explore Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity, a foundational work of existentialist ethics that asks a deceptively difficult question: if there is no God, no predetermined human purpose, and no absolute moral order written into the universe, why shouldn't anything be permitted?

They examine Beauvoir's understanding of ambiguity -- the strange condition of being finite, situated creatures who are nevertheless free, desiring, future-oriented, and responsible for what we make of ourselves. From childhood and bad faith to the sub-man, serious man, nihilist, adventurer, and passionate man, they explore the different ways people flee from or embrace the anxiety of freedom.

Finally, they turn to Beauvoir's challenge to revolutionary politics: how can we struggle seriously against oppression without turning History, the Party, or the Revolution into new absolutes? What responsibilities remain when liberation requires coercion, sacrifice, or violence? And what would it mean to build a revolutionary ethics capable of pursuing collective freedom without losing sight of the dignity and freedom of the people liberation is supposedly for?

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Through one family's journey from socialist China to the United States, we explore the gulf between the mythology of the American Dream and the realities of American capitalism. From the Cultural Revolution and Voice of America to racial and class hierarchies, liberal academia, and suburban alienation, we examine how Western propaganda manufactures illusions of capitalist superiority.

We connect these experiences to the broader history of US imperialism, anti-communist operations, and contemporary China's challenge to American hegemony. Ultimately, this is a conversation about ideology, class consciousness, and how lived experience can expose truths that even the most highly educated elites fail to grasp.

Check out Zhao's clothing line: https://goodsforthepeople.com/

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Gabriel Rockhill joins Breht to discuss his book Requiem for French Theory, coauthored with Aymeric Monville, and to challenge the radical reputation of thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze. Situating their rise within the Cold War, Rockhill examines how intelligence agencies, capitalist foundations, universities, and publishers helped elevate intellectual (and broader cultural) currents that appeared radical or revolutionary while undermining the theoretical and political foundations of communism.

Along the way, Breht and Gabriel explore French Theory's rejection of dialectics, its contested relationship to May '68, capitalism's ability to turn rebellion into a consumer product, and the difference between liberal representation and material liberation. They also discuss Western Marxism's retreat from anti-imperialism, the lessons of actually existing socialism, and the necessity of criticism and self-criticism within a living Marxist tradition.

At the heart of the conversation is a practical question: how do we reclaim theory as a collective instrument of working-class liberation rather than another commodity in the capitalist marketplace?(Caliban by Retamer is attached as a full pdf on the free, public post of this same episode over at our patreon; link below)

Check out Critical Theory Workshop HERE

Follow Rockhill's work on his Substack HERE

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Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio

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Check out Unlearning Capitalism for more political educational resources

October 22 is the National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality (O22), a day of coordinated action across the country demanding justice for those killed and brutalized by police and an end to the epidemic of police violence in the United States.

In this episode, Breht is joined by Mia and Charlotta from Families Demanding Justice (FDJ), a national organization of families and loved ones of victims of police brutality, to discuss the upcoming O22 protests and the broader struggle to build a mass movement against police violence.

Together, they explore the relationship between policing, racism, capitalism, and state repression, the lessons of the 2020 uprisings, Charlotta's heartbreaking and enraging personal experience losing a loved one to police violence, and the importance of centering impacted families in the struggle for justice. They also discuss FDJ's organizing efforts and strategies, the necessity of sustained mass resistance, and how ordinary people can get involved in building a movement capable of confronting police brutality at its roots.

Finally, they discuss how listeners can participate in the October 22 National Day of Protest, connect with FDJ, and contribute to the ongoing fight for justice for all stolen lives.

Get involved and find out more: https://familiesdemandingjustice.org/

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In this episode Alyson and Breht enter the strange and unsettling world of Nick Land: Marx, Nietzsche, Delueze, cybernetics, accelerationism, and the possibility that capitalism is becoming something more than a human social system.

For Land, techno-capital may be an inhuman process using humanity as a temporary vehicle - accelerating through markets, machines, computation, and artificial intelligence toward a future in which we are no longer necessary. We trace this vision from Land's anti-humanism and theory of deterritorialization to the Dark Enlightenment and neo-reaction, asking whether his philosophy is best understood as a kind of inverted Marxism: not humanity escaping capital, but capital escaping humanity. In the process, we discuss consciousness, artificial intelligence, historical and dialectical materialism, Land's influence on the techno-oligarchs, philosophy, and much more.

After explaining and exploring Land's philosophy and politics, Alyson and Breht dismantle it via a Marxist Critique.

Check out our episodes on:

Julius Evola

Louis Althusser

Nietzsche

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Breht reads the speech he recently gave in-person at the 2026 Socialism Conference in Chicago. In the Speech, he analyzes the role of human subjectivity in revolutionary politics, explicates Che's argument in his famous essay "Socialism and Man in Cuba", articulates his notion of the Bodhisattva Revolutionary archetype, and argues in favor of Buddhist meditation as a potent and time-tested tool for the deliberate cultivation of a revolutionary and liberatory subjectivity.

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Breht went on The Deprogram to discuss the philosophical strains and core arguments of his upcoming book from Iskra Books titled "A Letter to Young Revolutionaries" as well as his recent speech at the Socialism Conference (and the subsequent controversy around it). This is the first show Breht has gone on to discuss his upcoming book at length! Enjoy! Check out more from The Deprogram: PODCAST: https://open.spotify.com/show/7tk1sTZDeE8p9lnxYLy4Ky PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheDeprogram YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@thedeprogram9999

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Breht discusses the importance of reading, writing, meditating and spending time alone in nature as essential to a well lived life; as well as mental-emotional protection from the techno-oligarchic assault on our minds, attention spans, and ability to think critically.

Learn more about the show at: https://revleftradio.com/

Breht sits down with philosopher Colin Bodayle for a wide-ranging exploration of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, one of the most influential and notoriously difficult works in modern philosophy. Together they unpack Hegel's account of consciousness, contradiction, freedom, recognition, history, and the dialectical movement through which human beings come to understand themselves and the world. Along the way, the conversation traces Hegel's immense influence on Marx and considers why his philosophy remains so important for anyone trying to think seriously about liberation, social transformation, and the development of human consciousness.

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Breht reads, reflects upon, and elaborates on Che Guevara's famous essay "Socialism and Man in Cuba" wherein Che argues that socialism cannot be reduced to changing property relations or economic structures; it must also produce a new kind of human being, less alienated, less governed by private self-interest, and more conscious of themselves as a social being. His central claim is that material transformation and the transformation of consciousness have to develop together, through education, collective struggle, moral incentives, self-discipline, and revolutionary practice.

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Check out Unlearning Capitalism for more political educational resources