Savage Minds

Working-class lecturer and filmmaker Deirdre O’Neill discusses the possibility and potential of working-class filmmaking today as she highlights her experiences in the British film industry and the eclipse of the working class behind and in front of the camera. Arguing that “class is not an identity”, O’Neill considers the relationship between the forces of production and the paucity of analysis today amidst the myriad identities fighting for their visibility while class is entirely eclipsed from the debate. Criticising feminism and identity politics, noting the damage they have inflicted on class politics, O’Neill debates the effects of the open letter she co-authored with Julian Vigo directed at the British Film Institute’s platforming of Munroe Bergdorf during its “Woman with a Movie Camera” summit, observing that Bergdorf is neither a woman nor a filmmaker. O’Neill details her work in cinema in the UK and in Venezuela, noting the kinds of films that are made today, who has access to having their work produced, and the types of cinema that superficially address working-class issues today.

In this episode, co-founder of Stonewall Simon Fanshawe OBE deliberates his involvement in the formation of Stonewall in 1989 in response to Section 28 of the Local Government Act. Discussing gay rights during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and the stigma of AIDS that would come to mark the 1980s, Fanshawe notes that Stonewall pushed back against Section 28 through an appeal to the right of free speech. Taking up Stonewall’s recent political trajectory that focuses on trans rights, which he characterises as the “Trojan horse for gender ideology”, Fanshawe elaborates on how this essentialist ideology has moved against the rights and interests of women and gay men and lesbians while gaining enormous academic traction where the political today has become personal. Fanshawe addresses the paucity of diversity of differing points of view within Stonewall today, expanding upon how a community’s struggle for freedom has been subsumed by a highly individualistic narrative where personal identity does not match material reality. Covering the history of camp within gay culture, Fanshawe analyses the drag queen who transgresses social codes simply because there is no pretence of “the real”. In drag there is no affirmation of identity—there is only camp, which exposes “the flaw in masculinity” which lies in direct contrast to gender ideology’s “dull conformity that’s demanded by this lack of humour”.

English economics and politics journalist and author Grace Blakeley discusses her latest article, “How Corporate Welfare Props up the Billionaire Class”, and the larger issues surrounding class politics today and the increase in wealth of the billionaire class is not a fluke but is very much part of the architecture of capitalism and the “direct intervention of capitalist states all over the world”. Discussing the Global Financial Crisis, Blakeley maintains the response to the crisis could be considered a form of “corporate welfare”, noting how central bank policies are creating an even richer billionaire class through “quantitative easing”, where banks create new money to purchase assets from the private sector (e.g., government and corporate bonds), which have led to an explosion in stock and property prices. Blakeley covers the housing crisis and the “evictions ban” during the pandemic and the “fundamentally irrational” features of capitalism, noting how the private landlord class contributes to an upward, intergenerational transfer of wealth within the context of massive disparities in wealth and income between the older and younger people. Noting the end result of the rentier system is that huge amounts of wealth are transferred from those who must work and who are struggling to those who monopolise necessary resources (e.g., land, housing, capital), Blakeley argues quite effectively that this is making our economies work less well.

In this episode, Laura Dodsworth, author, journalist, photographer and filmmaker, discusses her latest book, A State of Fear: how the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic, addressing how SPI-B (the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behajulianviour), a team of behavioural scientists working inside Whitehall that advise SAGE and ministers, has worked to create a climate of fear amongst the British population in order to encourage compliance with lockdown. Criticising the totalitarian tactics of terror that suppress rational thinking across the population, Dodsworth analyses the government’s use of behavioural psychology and the weaponisation of fear in order to treat people as if we were systems to “manage” noting how this form of fear mongering raises serious questions about the society being created and the government that thinks using fear as a form of social control is acceptable. Giving copious examples as to how the British government has used the pandemic to divide society along the lines of compliance, where masks are used to signal obedience, Dodsworth notes the misleading use of statistics, bad science and the media’s complicity in spreading misinformation.

In this episode, Susan Evans, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and Marcus Evans, a psychoanalyst, discuss their latest book, Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Work ing with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults (Phoenix, 2021) wherein they analyse some of the psychoanalytic ideas regarding gender dysphoria and the political and social climate surrounding transgender identity today. Covering some of the issues relevant to gender dysphoria, Evans and Evans cover the mental health co-morbidities often conterminous to adolescent and childhood gender dysphoria as well as adjacent familial and social issues that inform the exploration of gender identity. Detailing some of the frameworks for delivering therapy—to include its complexities—Evans and Evans note that oftentimes adolescent gender dysphoria is fraught with anxiety related to the subject’s inability to tolerate ambiguity and confusion, and they detail how best to work with adolescents and help them accept who they are.

Lisa Marchiano, a writer and Jungian analyst discusses her book Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself (Sounds True, 2021). In this episode, Marchiano speaks with Julian Vigo about employing fairytales in Motherhood to recount Jungian psychoanalysis through stories of descent and emergence from the well, the central metaphor of her book. Outlining Jung’s concept of individuation, the lifelong process of discovery and experience of meaning in life, Marchiano expands individuation to include the openness of the subject to learning about the self. Discussing motherhood in the context of family and culture, Marchiano distinguishes between individuation and the current cultural drive towards individuality, noting how the current seeking out the “authentic self” is anything but authentic. Underscoring the importance of “sinking down into our embodied selves” in the context of the narrative of motherhood where sacrificing one’s youth is part of the experience of caring for a child, Marchiano notes that “feeling more ordinary” sits in diametric opposition to the contemporary “discovery of the self” which often revolves around a victimhood narrative.

Jo Phoenix, Professor at The Open University, discusses being de-platformed from a 2019 talk at the University of Essex after being accused of “hate speech” and “transphobia.” Addressing the points made in the the Reindorf report released earlier this week which details deeper institutional problems where the ideological capture by Stonewall within university policy, Phoenix and Julian Vigo explore how the University’s Supporting Trans and Non Binary Staff policy was based upon an “incorrect summary of the law” which was not reviewed by the university resulting in the curtailment of Phoenix’s and Rosa Freedman’s academic freedom. Considering how 121 universities and pubic and private organisations are members of Stonewall’s highly criticised “Diversity Champions”—to include the government and the Ministry for Justice—Phoenix analyses the most damning part of Akua Reindorf’s report: “In my view the policy states the law as Stonewall would prefer it to be, rather than the law as it is. To that extent the policy is misleading.”

Max Blumenthal, editor-in-chief  and founder of The Grayzone and author of The Management of Savagery (Verso, 2019), discusses the shift in coverage of the Middle East within mainstream media over the past two decades and the need for journalism to pay attention to the voices of the people. Drawing from his work in the West Bank and Gaza, Blumenthal scrutinises the disproportionate attacks by Israel on Gaza which in turn hits back demonstrating the “futility of Israel’s military strategy.” Analysing how Israel is engineering an “artificial Jewish majority” demographically manipulating the population in order for Israel to declare itself a “Jewish state,” Blumenthal notes how Gaza is a “human warehouse for a population that the Zionist ideology has mandated as surplus humans.” Blumenthal carefully runs through the history of the region that physically and ontologically has ensured the separation of Palestinians within Gaza likening this to a mass imprisonment that is “ethno-supremacist” at its root. Critiquing American unilateralism and its allegiance to a “rules-based order” designed to undermine the United Nations and circumvent international law, Blumenthal denounces these “rules” as mafia rule of law which wish to exist in a “state of legal exception outside of international law.”

Cultural and medical anthropologist Alyshia Gálvez discusses her groundbreaking book on changing food policies, systems and practices in Mexico and Mexican communities in the United States, Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies and the Destruction of Mexico, (UC Press, 2018). Elaborating on the ways Mexicans are impacted by trade and economic policies and the wider public health and cultural implications from the precipitous rise of obesity and diabetes in Mexico, Gálvez expands upon trade policies like NAFTA and USMCA that have chipped away at Mexican culinary traditions. Across the border, Gálvez considers the ways in which culinary culture is kept alive for expatriate Mexicans in the US by paqueteros, an informal brokering service of grassroots entrepreneurs who connect people on both sides of the border with goods that maintain culinary traditions that otherwise would have long been forgotten for emigrant communities.

Jay Lalezari, MD, is a physician and the Director of Quest Clinical Research who recently penned “Hope for Critically Ill Covid-19 Patients Within Reach”, wherein he describes the results of a randomised, double-blind study of a drug called leronlimab (Vyrologix or PRO 140), which demonstrates an 82% reduction in the rate of death at Day 14 for patients on a ventilator who received 2 weekly doses of leronlimab compared to a placebo. Stressing the urgency for the FDA to approve leronlimab under an Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), Lalezari examines the various obstacles to achieving this end—from the ways in which Small Pharma faces greater economic hurdles compared to Big Pharma to the effort by short-sellers to sink CytoDyn, the producer of leronlimab, to the politics that allow Big Pharma to overpower smaller pharmaceutical companies strategically and economically. To confirm the finding for the FDA, CytoDyn must perform another trial of leronlimab that will take months to complete. Meanwhile, critically ill patients in the Philippines are receiving leronlimab as part of the therapeutic treatment for critically ill COVID-19 patients, and in Brazil some patients are well on the road to receiving this life-saving drug in Phase 3 trials soon to be conducted in up to 45 clinical sites.