This week DPP is joined by academic, podcaster, former editor of Sublation Magazine and founding member of the Platypus Affiliated Society: Spencer Leonard to talk about the 1989 Civil War flick Glory. Leonard briefly taught Sam a course on Indian political history at the University of Virginia in the depths of the 2010s — so this is a homecoming of sorts.
Glory marked a high-water mark for a certain liberal and intergrationist conception of race-relations in the USA. In 1989, the struggle for civil rights 'appeared' to be over, the threat of radical alternatives to the American social compact was diminishing in day-to-day and week-to-week as the Soviet Union collapsed and Reganism ran its course. Yet, at the same time, left-liberal conceptions of 'recognition' and Rawlsian justice were at their height. Then, Gen X could look forward to a 21st century defined by postracial politics — not the Afro-Pessimism that actually emerged.
Can some men with moustaches and silly frock-coats run at each other with rifles without triggering a Hegelian meditation on The End of History? The answer is no.
Chase and Spencer Yank out on Civil War references, while Sam is left baffled and wishing this was all about an earlier, 17th-century civil war. Who exactly were James Montgomery, Robert Shaw?, and Frederick Douglass? And why do they matter so much to Gen X?
Find out in today's episode.
Leonard can be found at @SpencerALeonard, he formerly edited Sublation Magazine and his latest publication is Marx and Engels on Bonapartism: Selected Journalism, 1851–59.
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