WHAT IS POLITICS?

WHAT IS POLITICS?

By WorldWideScrotesEducation
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WHAT IS POLITICS? episodes

  • 9.1. Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture

    The terms “cancel culture” and “political correctness” are used to delegitimize ideas like gender equality and racial equality by conflating them with toxic dominance behaviour practiced by up-and-coming elites who disguise their power plays in egalitarian social justice language.

    In this segment, by seeking to properly define these terms, we look at:

    The Class Filter: how ideas that are a threat to power historically get mutated into tools of power once they pass through elite institutions, in this case Ivy League universities, and corporate HR departments.  

    The Interloper Left: how elites and aspiring elites (who by definition are right-wing actors) will disguise dominance behaviour in egalitarian language in order to gain legitimacy and prestige in democratic societies.

    Poison/Sugar Pilling: how elites will de-legitimize popular ideas which are a threat to power by conflating them with unpopular ideas, and how they will convince people to accept things they don’t like by associating them with popular terms.

    How egalitarian language and ill conceived “anti-racism” trainings like “White Fragility” are being used in the corporate world to divide workers and prevent them from banding together in defence of their rights. 

    How to spot some of the red flags that distinguish movements rooted in equality and solidarity from toxic “cancel culture” and “political correctness” power plays.


    FULL TRANSCRIPT

     

    link to share this podcast (opens the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device): http://www.podfollow.com/worbs

    YouTube Channel

    Patreon

    tweeter: @worbsintowords

     

    https://archive.org/download/SPITBALL02/02%20-%20CANCEL%20CULTURE%20IS%20YOUR%20MANAGER.mp3

    WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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  • 9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment

    The foundation of “cancel culture” and “political correctness” is the wage labour employment contract.

    ARTICLES QUOTED:

    Corey Robin, Chris Bertram and Alex Gourevitch 2012 – Life at Work, Crooked Timber

    Amanda Hess 2013 – How Sexy Should A Worker Be? The Plight of the Babe in the American Workplace, Slate

    Yvonne Abraham 2015 – Tom Brady has more rights than most American workers, Boston Globe

    link to share this podcast (opens the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device): http://www.podfollow.com/worbs

    YouTube Channel

    Patreon

    tweeter: @worbsintowords

    https://archive.org/download/SPITBALL01/SPITBALL%2001%20-%20EMPLOYMENT%20CONTRACT.mp3

    WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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  • 8. Idealism vs. Materlialism – How History is Made: Haudenosaunee Women / the Suffragettes / the Double V Campaign / The English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 / The Anarchist Revolution in Spain 1936-39

    Human beings have free will, but our actions are constrained by material realities.  Understanding how material and practical conditions shape human behaviour can make all the difference between success and catastrophic failure when it comes to the whole spectrum of political action, from private sector negotiation, to crafting legislation, to making a revolution.

    In this episode we look at:

    The relationship between economic activity and the high status of women in traditional Haudenosaunee / Iroquois society

    How World War I helped women win the right to vote in Europe and North America 

    How World War II catalyzed the Black civil rights movement in the United States.  

    The success, failure, and accidental success of the English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381

    The implications of the Anarchist Revolution in Spain in 1936-1939 for the future of industrial civilization.  

    FULL TRANSCRIPT!

    Music in this episode is by Tony Ezzy and Cheap Wig

    link to open the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device: http://www.podfollow.com/worbs

    Patreon

    YouTubes

    tweeter: @worbsintowords

    rss feed (copy and paste into your podcast app to add it): http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS

    RELATED READINGS:

    Ember & Ember 1971 – The Conditions Favoring Matrilocal Versus Patrilocal Residence, American Anthropologist, Vol. 73, N° 3 

    Pasternak 1997 – Family and Household: Who Lives Where, Why Does It Vary, and Why Is It Important? in Ember & Ember (eds.) 1995 – Cross-Cultural Research for Social Science

    Abigail Higgins 2019 – American Women Fought for Suffrage for 70 Years. It Took WWI to Finally Achieve It, history.com 

    Sally Roesch Wagner 2015, How Indigenous Women Inspired The Feminist Movement, Bust Magazine

    Cathleen D. Cahill / Sarah Deer 2020 – In 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote. Here’s What’s Next, New York Times

    Annette McDermott 2018 – Did World War II Launch the Civil Rights Movement?, history.com

    Paul Foot 1981 – “This bright day of Summer”: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; see also the lively original audio version of this speech

    Sam Dolgoff 1973 – Anarchist Collectives

    Thomas Kuhn 1962/2012 – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

    https://archive.org/download/08-AGENCY/08%20-%20AGENCY%20AND%20MATERIALISM.mp3

    WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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  • 7.1. Material Conditions: Why You Can’t Eliminate Sexism Just by Eliminating Sexism

    What would happen if you could end sexism overnight by giving everyone a magic pink pill?

    Why we need to target material and practical conditions if we want to eliminate cultural hierarchies.

    A thought experiment about political strategy which lays bare the whole class reductionism vs. race reductionism debate, and which is crucial for any kind of effective political strategy on any issue.

    Backed up by a real “pink pill” example of how post-revolutionary rural China totally failed at fighting patriarchy and male baby preference via education and propaganda campaigns.  

    PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO!

    Especially on Reddit – most political subs don’t let you post your own material, and I have no other way of getting these out there!

    FULL TRANSCRIPT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

    WHAT IS POLITICS? PATREON

    Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture for me to produce these!

    WHAT IS POLITICS? VIDEO CHANNEL

    (video version of this and all episodes available here, plus other stuff)

    And look for my upcoming interview on the Fight Like an Animal Podcast

    https://archive.org/download/PINKPILLZ/07.1%20-%20PINK%20PILLZ.mp3

    WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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  • 7. The Origin of Social Hierarchy and Male Dominance: why David Graeber and Jordan Peterson are Wrong

    Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies? 

    According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way.  Meanwhile according to Jordan Peterson, it’s just human nature.  

    Thankfully for humanity, both of these views are very, very wrong.  

    all music by *69

    FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY

    tweeter: @worbsintowords

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

    https://archive.org/download/07-male-dominance/07%20-%20MALE%20DOMINANCE.mp3

    WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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  • 6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works

    Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others.  Was this always the state of the human world?  Is hierarchy in our nature?  Are egalitarian societies possible for human beings?  If so, under what conditions?   And is freedom compatible with equality?

    FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY

    tweeter: @worbsintowords

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

    https://archive.org/download/06-anthropology-of-equality-hierarchy/06%20-%20ANTHROPOLOGY%20OF%20EQUALITY%20%26%20HIERARCHY.mp3

    WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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  • 5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917

    This episode is for everyone who keeps writing to me to insist that one or the other wrong, incoherent, popular definitions of Left and Right is actually the correct one.  

    How do we know the left and right refer to equality and hierarchy?

    To answer this, we look at who was considered as being on the left and on the right in three different time periods: 

    1. The early French revolution in 1789, which is what the whole left-right political spectrum is an analogy to.
    2. The 3rd republic in France where seating in the National Assembly was first purposefully arranged on a left-right spectrum, analogous to the early French Revolution.   
    3. The different branches of late 19th and early 20th Century socialist movement: Anarchism, Revolutionary Party Socialism and Parliamentary Socialism.
    4. And we apply all of the junk cold war definitions – the market vs. the state, the individual vs. the collective, big vs. small government, equality vs. liberty – and we watch them all crash and burn, leaving only the equality vs. hierarchy / class conflict paradigm left standing.

      Apply this exercise on your own to any historical period from 1789 until the rise of the USSR and the cold war, and you get the same results.  

      Now can everyone accept it and move on?

      Bonus episode to follow shortly to explain why Fascism is on the far right and Communism is on the far left when Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR are both archetypical “totalitarian” societies.

      FULL TRANSCRIPT

      tweeter: @worbsintowords

      YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

      Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

      https://archive.org/download/05-left-right-history/05%20-%20LEFT-%20RIGHT%20HISTORY.mp3

      WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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    5. Understanding the News: How Tax Cuts Fuel Police Brutality

      Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy combine to give police incredible power.  This is a key reason why they’re rarely punished, even for the most egregious abuses.

      FULL TRANSCRIPT

      tweeter: @worbsintowords

      YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

      Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

      https://archive.org/download/bleepbloop01/BLEEP%20BLOOP%2001.mp3

      WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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    6. 4. How Political Definitions Shape Reality

      Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators and political actors.

      The definition of government that journalists and academics use makes us blind to the people who rule over us in our private lives.

      Popular definitions of left and right propagated by media and academia (the state vs. the market, big vs. small government, liberty vs. equality), frame the world in right-wing terms, while the historical definition (hierarchy vs. equality) frames the world in left wing terms.

      Competing definitions of racism have different consequences in terms of peoples’ ability to discuss racism, and on how we relate to people from different cultural categories than our own.

      FULL TRANSCRIPT

      tweeter: @worbsintowords

      Video version: https://youtu.be/TaFkzIQk-1o

      Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

      https://archive.org/download/04-relativity/04%20-%20LINGUISTIC%20RELATIVITY%20AND%20POLITICSes.mp3

      WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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    7. 3. The Left-Right Political Spectrum is About Class Conflict

      Most journalists and Doctor-Professor academics don’t really know what the left-right political spectrum is about, but you will after listening to this episode!

      FULL TRANSCRIPT

      tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords

      help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

      video version: https://youtu.be/P3cmjNrXWms

      https://archive.org/download/03leftrightandyou/03%20-%20LEFT-RIGHT%20AND%20YOU.mp3

      WHAT IS POLITICS? is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/

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    About WHAT IS POLITICS?

    From the publisher's feed

    Politics is one of the only practical disciplines where none of the main concepts have clear, coherent definitions.

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