The UltraViolet Podcast

When I was a kid, conspiracy theories were something fun to think about when you skipped school and got stoned behind the abandoned Arby’s. The comforting glow of green text on the black background of an Angelfire site you found at the end of a webring you came across by searching Netscape for “bill cooper majestic 12?” Sadly, cults and conspiracy theories have made the leap to the mainstream, and our modern political landscape is now promogulated with the kind of nonsense you used to have to search hours to find on the darkest corners of 4chan.

On today’s episode I’m joined by Dave from Echoplex Media, a man who has spent a long time studying these movements and their effects on our culture. We talk about the difference between cults & conspiracy theories, what makes them tick, and how those elements have infiltrated our mainstream political discourse.

Check it out!

Links at www/reasoningaloud.org/echoplex

We all like to think that we live our lives with agency, with freedom. That’s broadly the point of this system of governance that we’ve constructed for ourselves: to insure our liberty. But the truth is that, in many ways, some more obvious than others, we live our lives constantly in the presence of hierarchy and authority. For much of the history of liberalism, this has been seen as a worthwhile trade off: handing the monopoly on violence to an impersonal government allows us to, ostensibly, develop a more civilized society. Living our lives as we do, enmeshed within such a system, it’s very easy to think that the way things currently are is the only way that they could ever realistically be.

But the truth is that there *are* other ways of doing things. Other ways of thinking and being that are very much worth considering, particularly as they highlight the limitations and the failures of our current model. Anarchism is one of those different ways. A broad and diverse philosophy that sets as its primary goal the dissolution of hierarchical structures, including the nation state, and in so doing, the total liberation of humanity.

Most Liberals tend to dismiss anarchist criticisms of the status quo as naïve or simple. But I believe that we ignore them at our peril. Whether you’re ultimately a believer in their long-term project, I firmly believe that the lens of analysis that their philosophy provides is essential to dissecting some of the more insidious elements of our modern world. Many of which we accept at face value without a second thought.

In this interview I sit down with a young anarchist YouTuber to chat about the ins and outs of his worldview, his philosophy, and his hope and vision for a brighter and freer future.

Check it out!

Links at www.reasoningaloud.org/stdrew

Ethics are a funny thing. If you asked most people on the street what they believe about what’s right or wrong, they probably wouldn’t be able to give you a very robust explanation. That’s because we don’t often spend a whole lot of time thinking about the valance of moral decisions, for most of us it just comes down to our culture and what we feel is the best thing at any given moment.

But claims about how we should behave, or about how we know how we should behave, have incredibly broad implications in not just our everyday lives but our world as a whole, so it’s well worth our time to think critically about them every now and again.

On today’s episode we do just that! I have the pleasure of being joined by Dr. Aaron Rabinowitz, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and host of the Embrace the Void Podcast. Aaron and I discuss the how’s and the whys of what it means to be good in a world without God, or anything else supernatural, and the different ways that different people can come to very similar ideas about ethical principles, even if we start from different places. www.reasoningaloud.org/arronrabinowitz

In this episode I’m once again by George (@RichardHannay17) to talk about the Greek Civil War. The history of this conflict is filled with political intrigue, guerilla fighters, and more. It also carries with it a powerful lesson for would-be revolutionaries and asks that we make deliberate, sober, decisions about the future of our political movements. A must listen for any leftists interested in the history of revolution. Links and references on the website at www.reasoningaloud.org/greekcivilwar

In this episode I’m joined by the knowledgeable and insightful Sam Hoadley-Brill. Sam is a PhD candidate in philosophy at City University of New York and he’s also very well educated on the subject of Critical Race Theory, which is what we talk about today.

Sam and I talk about the Critical Legal Theory that CRT emerged from, the origins of CRT, racial essentialism, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s position on the subjects discussed by CRT scholars, the propaganda model being used by those who are using CRT to create a new moral panic in America, standpoint vs deference epistemology, corporate diversity trainings, white privilege vs white license, and how those of us on the left can have a meaningful dialogue about race.

Overall, it was a great conversation that I found both fun and highly informative. So, check it out!

References on the website: www.reasoningaloud.org/SamHoadleyBrill

In this episode I sit down with the awesome and thoughtful Roderick Graham, an Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University. We have a long and fruitful conversation about Critical Race Theory, the recent rise of the so-called “anti-wokes” and their regressive activities--both in the intellectual and legal sphere. We talk about the way we gain knowledge and how that can be used against us by cynical operators. Finally, we touch on Roderick’s recent research into the internet “Manosphere”, the shadowy world of men who feel betrayed by society--to the extent that they’ve taken to the web in order to build their own, often toxic and highly reactionary, spaces away from prying eyes. www.reasoningaloud.org/rodgraham

In this episode I’m joined by Vicki Ryder, the Co-Lead for outreach for Better Ballot NC, an organization dedicated to bringing Ranked Choice Voting to my homes state of North Carolina and partners with other organizations who are doing the same all over the US. We discuss the failures of our current winner take all voting system, how it leads to polarization and minority rule, and then we discuss what Ranked Choice Voting is and how it would solve these problems and more. You can find links to everything discussed in this episode on the website at reasoningaloud.org/rankedchoice

In this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Hannay about the terrifying rise, and the eventual fall, of the openly fascist and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party of Greece. We talk about what fascism is, how it grows, and what we can do to stop it. You can find links to the media and creators discussed in this episode on the website at www.reasoningaloud.org/richardhannay-antifascism

A short podcast unbraiding one of the worst arguments made to justify the continued occupation and brutalization of the Palestinian people. If you're able, please consider donating to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund: https://www.pcrf.net/

On today’s episode I have the pleasure of talking with YouTuber and political commentator Di’Rico Baker. We talk about public intellectuals and the common man breaking into the public conversation, police brutality, masculinity in a changing world, winning the culture war for the left, and the changing face of the global economy. Check it out!

Links to Di’Rico’s content can be found on the website at Reasoningaloud.org/ricorants