Bungacast Bungacast

On the earth-shaking events of the 20th century, through a personal lens.
 
Regular contributor Alex Gourevitch sits down with political scientist Peter Gourevitch to talk about their shared family history.


Why did their grandparents/great-grandparents become Mensheviks?


How did one half of the family leave the USSR and the other half remain?


What was life like in exile in Berlin before the Nazis took power? And how did the family know to flee?


What was distinctive about fascism and the terroristic assault on democracy?


How was the escape from Paris just like the film Casablanca?


What happened to those who remained in the Soviet Union and how did one member meet death via torture?


What is the legacy of Menshevism – and what is the relationship between socialism and democracy?

Links:
Who Lived, Who Died? My Family's Struggle with Stalin and Hitler, Peter Gourevitch, Dio Press
 
Full episode for subscribers only. Go to patreon.com/bungacast. Members who sign up for $7/mo get 4 original paywalled episodes a month and a free subscription to Damage magazine.

On saving society from the antisocial-ists. In partnership with Damage magazine.
 
[Patreon Exclusive]
 
Trade unionist and researcher Dustin "Dino" Guastella joins us to talk about the deficiencies of a libertarian or antinomian approach to social problems. We start off with Dino telling us about the Teamsters union, before moving on to:


How have American cities developed such problems?


What are the pros and cons of the 'Portuguese Model' of drug decriminalization?


What is the problem with harm reduction, and how does it connect to notions of 'bare life'?


How are insecurity and precarity changing people's political demands and expectations?


Is there something to be learned from the Christian tradition? Should we all be reading Alasdair MacIntyre?


How do we build a politics of human flourishing?


Links:

Making the Present the Enemy of the Future, Dino Guastella, Damage


Anti-Social Socialism Club, Dino Guastella, Damage


Christianity, Morality, and Socialism, Dino Guastella, Jacobin


The left must embrace law and order, Slavoj Zizek, New Statesman


After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Alasdair MacIntyre

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?