Bungacast Bungacast

On Euro censorship + your comments and criticisms.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
We discuss censorship in Brussels and Berlin, and put it in the context of the incorporation of right-populism. How will European politics come to look as national-conservatives become part of the establishment? What's up with these "sovereigntists" who are unserious about sovereignty?
 
Also we discuss your comments:


If cultural production is already monopolistic, can it be democratically planned?


Should we problematise "mental health"?


Is love a dangerous political emotion?


What happens if you leave the left?


How do we kill the ghosts of the 20th century?


Is a generational analysis of left-populism wrong?


How do we get beyond a world of media and images?


Links:


NatCon: are centrists the real threat to free speech?, Alex Hochuli, UnHerd


 

On the Big Hard Dick industry.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
Clinicians and Damage authors & editors, Christie and Benjamin, tell us why the market for penis enlargement and hardness has exploded.
What is the "penis anxiety industry"
How does it serve individual, cultural and unconscious demands?
How does 'Big Hard Dick' provide a brittle solution to a deep social problem?
Is the Freudian analysis passé? Is it phallus-obsessed?
Does a making your penis bigger and harder help deal with imposter syndrome?
Does neoliberal capitalism make us feel "small"? Does the liberal elite want you to accept your smallness?
How might we be big – make ambitious, large-scale change – without falling for fake solutions?
Links:
Size Queen Nation, Christie Offenbacher & Benjamin Fife, Damage
/215/ Organize the Incels?! ft. Alex Gendler
The New Superfluous Men, Alex Gendler, American Affairs
On masquerade vs imposture: How Should a Woman Look?: Scopic Strategies for Sexuated Subjects, Jennifer Friedlander
Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life, Mari Ruti, Columbia UP

On melodrama and the bourgeois subject.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
We're back with the next installment of our series on the "emotional turn". Alex talks to Catherine Liu about whether politics is staged in a "melodramatic" fashion today.
What is the bourgeois subject, why was it good, and where did it go?
What is melodrama?
Does public crying make us feel connected? Is it all Oprah's fault?
Why is psychoanalysis the solution to, not the cause of, therapy culture?
How is indignation used today? Is the political scene just villains and victims?
Links:
Emotion Sickness I ft. Nina Power
Emotion Sickness II ft. Ashley Frawley
Emotion Sickness III ft. Alex Hochuli
Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery, Eva Illouz
Interview with Christine Gledhill, from the book Melodrama After the Tears 

On President AMLO and the rebuilding the working class.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
We continue our discussion with anthropologist Roger Lancaster who has lived and researched in Mexico for decades, on the past and present of Mexican radicalism.

How has popular conservatism served as a boost for radicalism and revolution 


Is there any basis for a 'romantic' anti-capitalism, in Mexico, or in the Global North?


Is President AMLO synthesising a new politics? 


Has he “ended neoliberalism” or on the way to it?


How socially conservative is AMLO really?

On A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics
 
[Patreon Tier III & IV Exclusive]
 
Continuing our theme of "the intelligentsia & the public," we discuss German critical theorist Jürgen Habermas's 2023 book, asking what sort of political culture is required for democracy.


What role do the institutions of the public sphere and the media have in producing, sustaining or undermining this culture?


How does Habermas' account contrast with B. Anderson on print capitalism?


Is 'deliberative' democracy a trap? Who sets the rules of deliberation?


Is a good media structure a 'constitutional imperative'?


How do interests fit into Habermas' model? Do we need to leave our interests at the door?

 

Links:

A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, Jurgen Habermas


Jürgen Habermas is a major public intellectual. What are his key ideas?, Duncan Ivison, The Conversation


/362/ Life Doesn’t Have to Zuck ft. Cory Doctorow - on social media

On Mexico, class, and sexuality. 
 
We welcome anthropologist Roger Lancaster onto the pod to talk about his new book, The Struggle to Be Gay – in Mexico, for Example.  
 
We discuss:


How much is being gay tied to being modern? And conversely, how much of globalized culture is itself "gay"?


Do you need to be middle class to be gay?


Why did neoliberalism provide more sexual freedom than corporatism in Mexico? 


How was Mexico ahead of the US in introducing ‘progressive neoliberalism’?


Is now a time of freedom, or should we think of it differently?


In part two, we discuss AMLO's "synthetic" presidency, and the way peasant conservatism in central America has traditionally provided a boost to radicalism – and ask whether this is still the case.
 
Only available at patreon.com/bungacast.
 
See also: /180/ Bunga Bunga (but Gay) ft. Mark Simpson & River Page