Bungacast

Latest Episodes:

/387/ Get Fungal to Save Culture ft. Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family) Jan 30, 2024

Show notes

On how to respond to conformity. Lias Saoudi, frontman of the British band Fat White Family, joins us to talk about rock, popular culture and contemporary unfreedom. We discuss:

Why are the kids taking less drugs?
Can we respond to our nihilistic times with nihilistic art?
What is the nature of conformity today?
How to challenge conformity without sneering at the masses?
Is there a romantic revival going on? Why is Lias interested in Ivan Illich?
If living cheaply in big cities is now very difficult for artists, will something new emerge from the provinces?

Links:

Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family & the Miracle of Failure, Lias Saoudi & Adelle Stripe, White Rabbit Books
Punk's spirit is broken, Lias Saoudi, UnHerd
Is modern medicine making us sick?, Lias Saoudi, UnHerd
Forthcoming album: Forgiveness Is Yours
/353/ Bunga Sells Out ft. Jason Myles - on music and the spectacle
/359/ Apollo Gets High ft. Benjamin Fong - on drugs in America

Excerpt: /386/ Reading Club: Globalisation (III & IV) Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

Double episode! On Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing. [Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive] We wrap up the 2023 syllabus by taking on the second half of Arrighi's book, in which he analyses the over-reach and decline of the US empire, and whether China's rise and role in world affairs presents a different model, one that might be more peaceful. We discuss:

How important was the neo-cons' Project for a New American Century?
What were the long-term consequences of the Iraq invasion?
What do we make of Arrighi's theoretical account of imperialism and the tension between territorial and capitalistic logics?
Did the USA represent a "world state" after WWII, and how did it fail?
What is the world-historic meaning of China’s development?
Do we buy Arrighi’s attempt at a Smithean vision of inter-civilizational harmony?

Links:

Adam Smith in Beijing:Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, Giovanni Arrighi
/305/ Techno-Feudal Unreason - on 'political' capitalism and plunder
/250/ Oil & Disorder ft. Helen Thompson - on imperialism, the world system and energy
/195/ No Shock China ft. Isabella Weber - on China avoiding neoliberal shock-therapy

/384/ Millennial Rule ft. Amber A'Lee Frost Jan 23, 2024

Show notes

On Dirtbag and the Millennial Left. Bungacast regular Amber A'Lee Frost is back to talk about her new book, Dirtbag — part memoir, part critical essays on millennial socialism. In this episode we discuss:

Why "millennial"? Does it make sense to talk in generational terms?
What are the left's "perversions" as Amber sees them?
'Occupy' was all leaderless, horizontalist crap. Why did Amber stick around?
Bernie Sanders did not leave an organizational legacy – why?
After the failure of left-populism, in US and Europe, was it all worth it?

At patreon.com/bungacast we continue discussing the problems of DSA, as well as look forward to the US election and ask whether there's a vibe-shift at Davos.

Links:

Dirtbag
OK Bunger! The Problem of Generations (5-part Bungacast docu-series on generations)

/383/ Stare into the Abyss with Us ft. Juliano Fiori Jan 16, 2024

Show notes

On what comes after human rights. Juliano Fiori, essayist and director of Alameda Institute, joins us to talk about catastrophism and organising around "the end". We discuss:

What was humanitarianism, and why was it the "last utopia"?
What does humanitarianism look like in an era of multipolarity?
Does Western liberal democracy have any gas left in it? What should we defend?
What politics are generated by the prevailing sense of anxiety and melancholia?
If modernity is over, do we need to reject all progressivism?
And how do we orient around catastrophe without falling into the trap of emergency politics?

Links:

"Notes on our Melancholy Present" in Amidst the Debris: Humanitarianism and the End of Liberal Order, Juliano Fiori
Towards a strategic catastrophism - a radicalism for catastrophic times, Juliano Fiori
About Alameda

Excerpt: /382/ Death of the Millennial Left ft. Chris Cutrone Jan 09, 2024

Show notes

On the missed opportunity of the 2010s. [Patreon Exclusive] Chris Cutrone of Platypus joins us to talk about his collection of essays, The Death of the Millennial Left. We discuss:

Why define it as the "Millennial" Left?
Was the anti-Stalinism of leaderless protests a good thing?
Did the talk of "winning" from 2015 onwards represent maturity?
Should the turn to a more public, statist capitalism make us more optimistic?
How will the 'lawfare' used against Trump play out?

Links:

The Millennial Left is dead, Chris Cutrone, Platypus
The Death of the Millennial Left: Interventions 2006-2022, Chris Cutrone, Sublation

UNLOCKED: /373/ Take a Stand: Be Neutral! ft. Lily Lynch Jan 02, 2024

Show notes

On NATO expansion and the end of neutrality Previously a Patreon Exclusive. For more like this, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Lily Lynch is back on the pod to talk about Northern and Eastern Europe and growing hawkishness. We discuss:

Why did Sweden and Finland give up decades of neutrality - and why now?
What happens with an enlarged alliance in light of the conflict in Ukraine?
How does the current moment compare to the apogee of the Non-Aligned Movement?
Why were the realists right?
How is tech mythology helping to build 'digital nationalism'?
Why is there beef over grain between Poland and Ukraine?
And what the hell are the "skin suit of social democracy" and the "Waluigi of neutrality"?

Links:

Joining the West, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
The realists were right, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
The EU’s great power delusions, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
Guns, grain, and history, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
Tech-Mythologies, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
Imperfect Unity, Lily Lynch, Sidecar

[FROM THE VAULT] /161/ Culture is Bad for You ft. Mark Taylor Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

FROM THE VAULT: GEORGE'S PICK (1)

On “culture”. We discuss who produces culture and who consumes it – and what those inequalities reveal about culture today. Also, we ask what’s the ploblem with culture anyway and end up defending “low culture” from Red Hot Chili Peppers (well, sorta) to food guys. Reading: Culture is Bad for You, Orian Brook, Dave O'Brien and Mark Taylor, Manchester UP

[FROM THE VAULT] /46/ Exiting Capitalist Realism Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

FROM THE VAULT: PHIL'S PICK (2)
The third in our Neoliberal Breakdown series. In which we discuss the late Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, 10 years on. Does his analysis still hold? The mood music of the time - the age of 'TINA' and the end of history - was acutely described by Fisher. But did it only really describe Britain? And has the world now entered a new period?

Readings:

Capitalist Realism http://www.zero-books.net/books/capitalist-realism

'Exiting the Vampire Castle' https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/mark-fisher/exiting-vampire-castle

Mark Fisher's k-punk blog https://k-punk.org/

Cover image: 📸 Stephanie Jung

[FROM THE VAULT] /44/ Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome (N.O.B.S.) Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

FROM THE VAULT: ALEX'S PICK (1)

In which we lay the liberal establishment down on the shrink's sofa. It's a systematic analysis of liberal derangement: of the inability to accept, explain, or respond to the breakdown of the current order. Why can't the liberal establishment accept that the 2008 crisis would eventually have political consequences? Why can't liberals explain why they keep losing? Why can't they offer anything but more of the same?

Symptoms:

Incredulity and denial of political change
Unwillingness to take responsibility
Moralisation
No belief in political causation (things just happen)
Fetishising disinformation
Elite persecution complex
Hysteria & catastrophism
Nostalgia for a very recent past & rewriting history
Repetition compulsion

[FROM THE VAULT] /104/ The Aristocracy of Finance ft. Alexander Zevin Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

FROM THE VAULT: ALEX'S PICK (2)
On The Economist and the contradictions of global liberalism.

Alexander Zevin joins us to discuss his work on the 176 year history of the magazine that has accompanied liberalism's global expansion. Has it just reflected the world or has it actually influenced politics? How has The Economist balanced democracy against the interests of finance and the needs of empire? And is the magazine suffering from N.O.B.S.?

Subscribe: patreon.com/BungaCast

Running order: