The old forms of the left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses 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 are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
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episode 6: Setting Fears Afloat (Liquid Fear: Part III -- Finale)
The boys are back and we are finally finishing this masterwork of left sociology by heavyweight Polish intellectual and dissident Marxist, Zygmunt Bauman.
From the publisher's note:
"Modernity was supposed to be the period in human history when the fears that pervaded social life in the past could be left behind and human beings could at last take control of their lives and tame the uncontrolled forces of the social and natural worlds. And yet, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, we live again in a time of fear. Whether its the fear of natural disasters, the fear of environmental catastrophes or the fear of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, we live today in a state of constant anxiety about the dangers that could strike unannounced and at any moment. Fear is the name we give to our uncertainty in the face of the dangers that characterize our liquid modern age, to our ignorance of what the threat is and our incapacity to determine what can and can't be done to counter it."
We cover the last two chapters and conclusion in this episode.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2006. Liquid Fear. Cambridge U.A.: Polity Press.
Music: Dimitri Shostakovich- Waltz No. 2