One of the most incisive and intriguing podcasts I've ever heard.

2.13k subscribers ?? The most underrated pod on YT. Thank you great as always....

@runamucker

10 ай бұрын

I marvel every time I come and see that maybe 7 people have liked the video. Maybe this channel is just Yascha's pet project and he doesn't promote it at all?? This deserves a viewership on the scale of Coleman Hughes or Glenn Loury.

@explrr22

8 ай бұрын

​@@runamucker Regarding comparison to Coleman Hughes and Glen Lourey... I find the analysis process here is in general superior to either of those, but often enjoy those more for probably rather shallow reasons of charisma and style appeal. I follow all three. Though I like Coleman, he's recently shown an inclination towards conspiratorial thought that I found disappointing. That said, I'm somewhat disappointed by most everyone these days, including myself of past and present. Maybe that's just getting in touch with reality! 😄

ms. neiman, the examples of what you consider progress in this video are excellent examples of why we need to be awakened. the german jews had full citizenship (not just to sing and dance) and the rights that went with full citizenship..… until they didn’t. my understanding of woke is that the movement encourages investigation into the structures of a society that allow for governments to oppress and worse.

I finished reading Yascha's recent book on "Identity trap" and I'm in the middle of Susan's book on "Woke is not left". What an interesting conversation, both for its convergences and small divergences. I hope there will be a continuation of debating issues related to "being Jewish" in another episode. Thank you very much!

SN is part of the good fight against anti-universalism. good question by YM on how the woke 'hermeneutic of suspicion' models itself on Marxism, with not a great answer by SN because she does not contribute to Marxist theory. Henri Lefebvre talked about this in the 70s in fact and I've written about it in a few places. the problem with the term 'cultural Marxism' is that, despite having being concocted by the far right, it has a spontaneous truth that many postmodernists and post-structuralists, like Judith Butler for example, subscribe to, and that is an eclectic approach to materialism that retains from Marxism its critique of liberal ideology but transposes that to issues that are defined around race, gender and sexuality ( rather than class ) that do not quality as Marxist though they may qualify as ideology critique or as part of a broad set of concerns among progressives. Zizek is one of the most formidable cultural theorist on these issues, as attested by his contribution to Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (Verso, 2000), which is a benchmark in this discussion, which is not the same today as among the ancients... the most widely used term on the postmodern left, in that regard, is _social constructionism_, and you find a version of that in discourse theory and in anarchist or autonomist immanentism, which reduces subject to object in a non-dialectical and highly textual manner. the irony of much of this kind of postmodern leftism is that it tends to reinforce the social democratic leftism that SN champions, but on the other hand, it does attack universality. this leftist attack on universality is a widespread theme on the activist left since the culture wars of the 80s, but it has become a problem now, after BLM and MeToo eclipsed OWS, because the alt-right has picked up on this in their version of the anti-woke culture war ( not to mention the neoliberal attack on the left as a white male thing ), which you can find a good analysis of in Angela Nagle. my own take on these issues, and on what I refer to as "decadent Marxism," involves a materialist and class-based analysis of the cultural and political attitudes of the petty bourgeoisie, from the postwar era to the 80s, when it became conservative. and it's in the 90s that the all-out attack on emancipatory universality started on the left because it was now OK on the cultural studies pseudo-left to be anti-Marxist and anti-communist. take for example Lawrence Grossberg denouncing Marxism, Bruce Robbins denouncing Balibar, or Martin Jay falsifying Zizek and Badiou. the situation for Marxist theory improved for a while in the 2000s but things are slipping again, especially with postmodern and anarchist identitarians, but largely because of the commitment to identity, ontology, or standpoint epistemology, etc, with almost every so-called leftist gone the way of intersectionality and decoloniality, in part because counter-cultural activists - and not so good scholars - love trends and bandwagons, now facilitated by social media, which has its own problems. Hardt and Negri seem quite opportunist in their recent 180 degree turn towards identity in the last few years, compared to their previously more Deleuzian stance. lastly, this civil society discourse has its criticisms on the Marxist left - i.e. the absence of any analysis of class and capitalism. if the workers have no country, what DOES it mean to be a good German today?

"... it was the age of nonsense, it was the age of incoherence... "

THIS from Yascha, the Paul McCartney of woke nonsense. Goodness. D.A., J.D., NYC

Corporate Americas loves DEI programs based on racial and gender identities because they can be progressive without paying their fair share of taxes. It is an awesome smoke and mirrors tactic that creates a lot of distraction and anyone with retirement accounts benefits from this behavior. For the executives there is the added bonus of less shareholder accountability. This is why corporate DEI is so popular.

@lrvogt1257

3 ай бұрын

People are defended "based on racial and gender identities" because they are discriminated for their racial and gender identities. It is the attackers who define the problem as such... not the defenders.

Dont be a coward. You ARE bashing the woke. Do it.