The Regrettable Century
The old forms of the left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that talks about the need to organize a dialectical pessimism and develop a Marxist salvage project capable of putting up a good fight as the world burns around us. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we've cultivated one and would like to share it with you.
Episodes
It doesn't take much to convince someone that the capitalist system has exhausted its progressive potential and is in a state of decline. There are a number of theories that the prolonged state of crisis of the capitalist system is evidence that capitalism has peaked and is on its way out.
While we agree that capitalism has entered a state of decadence, does that necessarily mean that it will collapse completely, and if so will...
We sat down with our old friend, comrade, and fellow veteran of Trotskist hyperactivsm to discuss the concept of the Republic and whether or not is still useful to Marxist organizing/theorizing. The era of the bourgeois republic has been a simultaneous process of creation and destruction, of liberation and enslavement. As the final epoch of human civilization reaches its nadir, do we still have any use for the republic?
The Constitu...
This week we discuss the final chapters of the Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour in the conclusion of our three part series.
Seymour's book is an extremely black-pilling look into the trolls, e-celebs, pile-ons, live streamed suicide, and corporate surveillance that make up the social media cesspool.
Ultimately we conclude that the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Seymour, Richard. The tw...
It is clear that our activism has been largely fruitless for the past few decades but what should we be doing instead?
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in the discussions.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
This week we discuss chapters two and three of the Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour in the second of a three part series.
Seymour's book is an extremely black-pilling look into the trolls, e-celebs, pile-ons, live streamed suicide, and corporate surveillance that make up the social media cesspool.
Ultimately we conclude that the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Seymour, Richard. The twitt...
This week we discuss the introduction and first chapter of the Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour in the first of a three part series.
Seymour's book is an extremely black-pilling look into the trolls, e-celebs, pile-ons, live streamed suicide, and corporate surveillance that make up the social media cesspool.
Ultimately we conclude that the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Seymour, Rich...
This week Chris is temporarily replaced by a special guest that long time listeners will remember from the early days of the pod, Jenny.
The gang talks about the loneliness of social distancing, the long term effects of pandemic based hyper-alienation, and what the political prospects moving forward look like.
Society of the Spectacle (sections 28, 172, 221)
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm
The pandemic ...
Half the podcast crew and a couple of the extended family get together to steal a bit joy from the future by thinking aloud as to how a small handful of our myriad problems might begin to be addressed.
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and join the Discord to take part in more discussions like this one.
Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)
Support the show (http://patreon...
Last year during the unrest after George Floyd's murder, we read an article about recuperation and talked about the concept within the context of then unfolding paroxysms of rage against police brutality.
Does every movement for social change eventually get recuperated? Yes. Is it still worth engaging in social movements? Also yes.
The Recuperation of Authentic Outrage
We are now living in the most watched society in history. Our every move is tracked, our conversations monitored, our purchases logged, every link we click is logged, but its okay because its not the government doing it right?
You Are Now Remotely Controlled -- Shoshana Zuboff
Willing...
Like most other political terms, the word "neoliberal" has been used so much to describe so many disparate things that it has ceased to have meaning. Well, unfortunately neoliberalism is real and it is an economic idea and political project that completely dominates every aspect of modern capitalist society and even our resistance to it.
So, listen up and learn what we just learned about how much everything sucks.
Varn talk...
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
We were joined by some of our choicest patrons to discuss the question of the party form. Join us as we solve the party problem.
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
Support the show (http://patre...
Its been said elsewhere that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. Well, that may be true, but it doesn't take much imagining to conceive of the end of the world. We are currently living though the end of the world. Who would have thought it would be so boring?
Join us as we lament our collective willingness to go gentle into that good night.
Imagining the End of Capitalism Wi...
This week we are joined once again by Adam from Red Library for the final episode in our series.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pr...
Head over to our Patreon and join for $2 a month to hear the whole episode and sign up on our Discord to take part in future Patron Roundtables.
We were joined by some of our choicest patrons to discuss the question of the party form. Join us as we solve the party problem.
Join us on our Discord to plan out to plan out the next one, then remember to come join in the discussion. All patrons are welcome!
Support the show (http://patre...
This week we team up with our pal Jess to talk about the mixed legacy of the enlightenment and we ultimately determine that the enlightenment was good and also it was bad.
Smith, C. (1996) Hegel Marx and the Enlightenment: An Interim Report
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/interim.htm
Sherratt, Y. (2000) ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER’S CONCEPT OF “ENLIGHTENMENT.” British Journal for the History of Philos...
This week we are joined once again by Adam and Don from Red Library.
We continue our multi part series tackling the monster tome by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.
McCarraher believes that capitalism displaced religion and disenchanted the world and that Capitalism then became a religion itself, replacing the sacramental enchantment of the pre-capitalist world with a pec...
This is the second, but only peripherally related, part of our discussion with C. Derick Varn and PH from Radical Thoughts. In this episode we talk about the abysmal state of the left, the bankruptcy of liberalism, and how the hell we can possibly move forward.
The Washington Riot Was a Defeat for the Far Right, Not a Triumph
This week we are joined by C. Derick Varn, PH from Radical Thoughts Podcast, and Steven from Supreme Leap Forward to discuss how the Capitol Riot wasn't a coup, or a terrorist attack, and admonish the "left" for supporting the expansion of the security state.
The Washington Riot Was a Defeat for the Far Right, Not a Triumph
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/capitol-building-riot-business-trump?fbclid=IwAR0G-TkRfpMVUZdLE...
There are many on the left who seem to be incapable of letting a momentary upturn in struggle, or a softening of policy by the ruling class, pass without declaring the end of Capitalist realism.
The common ruin of the contending classes is all we have to look forward to unless we can find a way to assert our agency. Until we realize our world historic mission, capitalist realism and its devastating consequences are here to stay.
On ...
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