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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerveldt. We

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Speaker 1: have a new season coming for you starting June third,

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Speaker 1: but in the meantime, I wanted to bring you this

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Speaker 1: interview that reporter Adam Lowenstein did with journalist and author

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Speaker 1: Malcolm Harris. You may have come across Harris's work in

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Speaker 1: New York Magazine or his book Palo Alto. I particularly

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Speaker 1: enjoyed his take on the Abundance Bros. Recently in The Baffler.

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Speaker 1: Harris has a new book out now called What's Left

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Speaker 1: that tackles how we can save both democracy and the planet.

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Speaker 1: It's a great read, and this conversation is a great

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Speaker 1: listen enjoy.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for being here, Malcolm, Yeah, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you to start. I have

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Speaker 2: my own of this, but I'm curious what you see

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Speaker 2: as the purpose of your book.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I'll hear your theory, and I should hear it

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Speaker 3: before I hear you hear my theories, and then you're

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Speaker 3: going to copy me. When I set out to write

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Speaker 3: this book, at first, I thought I'm going to worry

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Speaker 3: about why I'm right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone

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Speaker 3: who even sort of agrees with me is wrong, and

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Speaker 3: they all need to completely agree to me. With me,

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Speaker 3: and I have the only explanation for how we get

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Speaker 3: through the climate crisis, and when people read my brilliant explanation,

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Speaker 3: they'll have no choice but to agree with me in

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Speaker 3: my understanding. And then I like thought about that for

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Speaker 3: a second and thought like, well, that's that's not true,

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Speaker 3: Like that won't happen. Even if I make a spectacular argument,

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Speaker 3: I could convince you know, some people, but most people

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Speaker 3: are probably doing what they're doing, even people on the left,

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Speaker 3: as I'm broadly considering it, who don't agree with me

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Speaker 3: on specifics or doing what they're doing for a number

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Speaker 3: of reasons, not just because they're particular convinced, but because

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Speaker 3: they have a like temperamental affinity with what they're doing.

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Speaker 3: They have like interpersonal commitments, you know. People. We live

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Speaker 3: in a society, you know, and I wasn't going to

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Speaker 3: remake that society by making an argument, And so I

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Speaker 3: decided the most useful thing I could do was operating

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Speaker 3: from some base of shared understanding, give a sort of

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Speaker 3: showcase of what I think are the relevant ideological paths

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Speaker 3: that the left has opened to it right now. And

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Speaker 3: this is mostly you know, like I wrote this during

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Speaker 3: the Biden administration, and so we had some left wing

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Speaker 3: people within some proximity to power for some period of

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Speaker 3: time who were working on economic policy, and so from

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Speaker 3: that the left wing of the Biden economic team all

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Speaker 3: the way to insurgent communists. I think there was a

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Speaker 3: certain level of agreement about some important terms, such that

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Speaker 3: we could have a conversation about what everyone believes and

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Speaker 3: then how we fit together. And so this book was

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Speaker 3: my attempt to sort of give the strongest presentation I

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Speaker 3: could of these different paths, even if even if I

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Speaker 3: don't agree with everything in there, both strengths and weaknesses,

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Speaker 3: and then think about the whole field in a way

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Speaker 3: that's holistic and realistic. But you, as a reader, what

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Speaker 3: was your take? That's more interesting to me?

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Speaker 2: I will say on the you know, having written it

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Speaker 2: during the Biden era, but of course readers are consuming

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Speaker 2: it in the second Trump era. The mentions of Lena

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Speaker 2: Khan made me somewhat wistful and nostalgic for a time

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Speaker 2: that feels very far away, even though it was not

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Speaker 2: that long ago. So what it felt like to me

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Speaker 2: was that it was essentially a bracing bucket of cold water,

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Speaker 2: which itself will be kind of a valuable commodity in

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Speaker 2: the not too distant future. Like, there's no benefit to

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Speaker 2: pretending that the problem is not as bad as it

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Speaker 2: is and that the crisis is not as acute and

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Speaker 2: real and world spanning as it is. We'll get into

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Speaker 2: this a little bit later, I'm sure, but there is

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Speaker 2: a sense of inertia the way that capitalism works that

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Speaker 2: all of us, including those of us on the left,

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Speaker 2: can get very comfortable with that. What it felt like

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Speaker 2: to me was you repeatedly reminding people that it's as

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Speaker 2: bad as you think, probably worse, and there is. We

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Speaker 2: don't do ourselves any favors by avoiding the discomfort of

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Speaker 2: that reality.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just true. Right. So if we're talking about

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Speaker 3: like foundation, I'm against deluding ourselves. I'm interested to see

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Speaker 3: how much people will focus on different like think about

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Speaker 3: it as an optimistic or pessimistic book or whatever, or

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Speaker 3: hopeful or hopeless, And I try not to work within

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Speaker 3: those boundaries. Usually I feel like they're not they don't

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Speaker 3: guide us in the right directions because try to be

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Speaker 3: a very dialectical thinker. Right, So there's hope even in

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Speaker 3: the most hopeless moments, and then there's despair even in

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Speaker 3: our best strategies. But yeah, I don't think there is

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Speaker 3: any point. I think that's a premise for the project,

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Speaker 3: is that there's no point scouting ourselves and that I'm

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Speaker 3: not going to lie to my readers about what I

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Speaker 3: understand the situation to be. And the situation is it's

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Speaker 3: pretty dire, but we can also you know, people have

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Speaker 3: been in dire situations for a long time. It's not

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Speaker 3: We're not the first people to see the end of

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Speaker 3: the world, and we can learn from other experiences with that.

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Speaker 3: So for me, it's a it's a forward looking book,

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Speaker 3: not a not a backward looking book or a you know,

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Speaker 3: skyward despairing looking book. It's a forward looking book. I'm

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Speaker 3: thinking about where we are, where you go, and to

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Speaker 3: go anywhere, you have to start from where you are.

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Speaker 3: You can't imagine you're somewhere else. It's not a path

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Speaker 3: for movement.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you say early on that the message to me

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Speaker 2: at least was it's worse than you think. But you

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Speaker 2: also write pretty early in the book that I'll assume

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Speaker 2: from the beginning that success is possible, which is right.

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Speaker 2: It's both very pessimistic and very optimistic at the same time,

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Speaker 2: which I guess maybe is just a way of describing

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Speaker 2: being realism in some ways.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think that the I cite the great late

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Speaker 3: and great Mike Davis who says, well, we have to

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Speaker 3: be realistic even about our realism, that you can look

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Speaker 3: at the situation ecologically and turn to stone is what

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Speaker 3: he says is like it is, it's very bad, and

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Speaker 3: you can look look at the situation and see how

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Speaker 3: bad it is and freeze. There's there's a real temptation

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Speaker 3: to do that, and there's a temptation to ignore it right,

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Speaker 3: to just not look. But I think realistic about our

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Speaker 3: realism is to find a middle in between those and say, like,

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Speaker 3: the situation's bad and we can still move. We are

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Speaker 3: not Stone, right. We have the ability to think and

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Speaker 3: we have the ability to act, and we can do

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Speaker 3: both collectively.

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Speaker 2: So in understanding the status quo, the stakes of the

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Speaker 2: present moment or the state of the present moment, I

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Speaker 2: guess you talk about the oil value life chain. Can

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Speaker 2: you explain what that is as kind of a fundamental

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Speaker 2: premise for where we are right now?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Actually, the concept for this book is really this

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Speaker 3: oil is life syllogism which I awoke from a dream

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Speaker 3: with I was like in to pitch a whole different book,

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Speaker 3: And the night before the conversation with my agent, I

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Speaker 3: woke up for a dream with this phrase, the oil

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Speaker 3: is life.

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Speaker 2: Fossil fuels are they're in your brain?

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Speaker 3: Well they are in so many ways microplastics alone.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point literally in another.

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Speaker 3: Way, literally like oil is life. So we know the

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Speaker 3: phrase the water is life from the code access struggle,

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Speaker 3: and that's true. Right, everyone knows that you can't literally

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Speaker 3: can't live without water. We know that, and that should

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Speaker 3: be decisive, right, that should, like everything should flow from

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Speaker 3: that fundamental truth if we are operating rationally, one would think.

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Speaker 3: And yet the assertion, the phrase, the truism of truth

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Speaker 3: that water is life has not shifted our politics, It

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Speaker 3: has not shifted our state behavior, It hasn't affected the

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Speaker 3: path we're on that much, except in this insurgent way.

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Speaker 3: And so the question is why there has to be

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Speaker 3: something truer than at least in our society. Water is life.

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Speaker 3: And the more you think about it, or the more

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Speaker 3: I thought about it, once I had this phrase, whatever

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Speaker 3: wouldn't leave me alone? It's true that oil is people's lives.

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Speaker 3: People's lives are tied up very very very literally in

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Speaker 3: the fossil fuel system, and not just the gas that

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Speaker 3: they put in their car, although certainly the gas that

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Speaker 3: they put in the car, or the polyester clothes that

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Speaker 3: they used to put on their children, but also you know,

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Speaker 3: the dividends from the Exxon check that is going into

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Speaker 3: their pension fund. You know that people's lives are really

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Speaker 3: really tied up in these systems, and not just in

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Speaker 3: their need for consumable energy that can be replaced with

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Speaker 3: a solar panel. And until we're realistic about that, unless

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Speaker 3: we acknowledge that, we can't change it. And that's to

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Speaker 3: me explains why every group, every agency, every state, every commune,

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Speaker 3: unity that has tried to address this imminent crisis is

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Speaker 3: currently a lapsing crisis of climate change has found itself

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Speaker 3: really totally unable to do it, not at the scale

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Speaker 3: is necessary. Even when we talk about and I'd write

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Speaker 3: in the book, and when we think about China, which

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Speaker 3: is as a state maybe done the most to address

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Speaker 3: the exigencies of climate change at scale, it's not there.

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Speaker 3: It's not a reasonable reaction to what's happening in the world.

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Speaker 3: Were not able to do that. And it's because oil

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Speaker 3: makes our life for everyone in the world almost that

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Speaker 3: we face this block. And you need value as that

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Speaker 3: center term to explain why it's not just oil itself

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Speaker 3: that shapes our lives, but the fact that oil is

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Speaker 3: valuable and valuable is the structure that explains and organizes

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Speaker 3: the entire social metabolism. Means neither of these things are

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Speaker 3: easy to cut off from each other. Right, It's not

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Speaker 3: that we just use so much oil in our household production.

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Speaker 3: We don't necessarily even for like it's heating and driving

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Speaker 3: is mostly what people use fossil fuels directly for. I

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Speaker 3: mean some cooking too. But it's not like you can

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Speaker 3: get an ev and get an induction stove and the

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Speaker 3: whole problem is solved. It is a problem at the

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Speaker 3: level of value. And as long as fossil fuels have value,

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Speaker 3: which they do because you can use them to accomplish

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Speaker 3: a whole number of things, And as long as value

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Speaker 3: is the term that structures our whole world, we're going

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Speaker 3: to find ourselves unable to control our social situation, to

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Speaker 3: control our ecological situation. I'm able to control what I

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Speaker 3: call our social metabolism.

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Speaker 2: I think one of the main points that I took

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Speaker 2: from this, or I found clarifying about this, was the

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Speaker 2: idea that our entire society is structured around the idea

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Speaker 2: of value for value sake or value production for value

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Speaker 2: production sake is an Inherit aren't good on its own.

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Speaker 2: That's the kind of the basis for this whole system

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Speaker 2: we live in. And as long as that's the case

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Speaker 2: and oil is valuable, then that chain will be unbroken.

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Speaker 2: Is that a reasonable interpretation.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And we can see the implications very simply. And

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Speaker 3: I start with the story of going to the Shell

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Speaker 3: conference where they wanted me to speak and talking to

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Speaker 3: this engineer slash finance guy for a Shell who's explaining that, well,

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Speaker 3: when we stop using a well because of climate pressure

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Speaker 3: or whatever, we sell it to somebody else and they're

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Speaker 3: going to use it, and so the oil in that

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Speaker 3: whale is still going to get used, even though we're

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Speaker 3: complying with our climate commitments or whatever. We'll just sell

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Speaker 3: it to some gangster, like literally, just like some gangster

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Speaker 3: who can operate it at a lower cost because they're

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Speaker 3: evading the safety responsibilities that have been foisted upon shell.

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Speaker 3: They're avoiding the labor responsibilities they have been foisted upon

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Speaker 3: shell because that oil is valuable, Like you could still

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Speaker 3: use that, and it's like, well, if you get replaced.

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Speaker 3: You know, two hundred million gas powered internal combustion engine

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Speaker 3: personal vehicles in the United States. With electric vehicles, those

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Speaker 3: cars don't just disappear. They're going to be sold somewhere

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Speaker 3: where they don't have as many cars because suddenly you

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Speaker 3: can get a car for way cheaper. And then those

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Speaker 3: cars are still they need to be powered with gasoline.

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Speaker 3: That's still going to power the car that someone will

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Speaker 3: find money in being able to supply. That person who's

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Speaker 3: able to sell the gasoline for that car is going

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Speaker 3: to be able to live, right, They're going to be

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Speaker 3: able to reproduce their lives. Maybe they're going to be

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Speaker 3: able to improve their lives and the lives of people

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Speaker 3: around them and their loved ones. And I'm not going

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Speaker 3: to be able to convince them not to do that.

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Speaker 3: You're not going to be able to convince them not

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Speaker 3: to do that. State regulations aren't going to be able

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Speaker 3: to convince them not to do that. You know, I

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Speaker 3: compared it to the War on drugs. There's theoretically a

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Speaker 3: war between every government in the world, and like drug

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Speaker 3: dealers and drug dealers are winning that war and have

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Speaker 3: been winning that war for decades. And it's not because

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Speaker 3: they have bigger armies or whatever. It's because there's drugs

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Speaker 3: are valuable, and value is the way that we find

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Speaker 3: our way to life.

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Speaker 2: So you organize this book around three collective strategies, as

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Speaker 2: you call them, and I actually don't want to spend

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Speaker 2: a ton of time on each one of them, because

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Speaker 2: that's what the book is for, and there's so much

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Speaker 2: nuance in each of these that people should just go

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Speaker 2: read the book for that. But just as a little

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Speaker 2: bit of scene setting, can you just give a bit

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Speaker 2: of an overview of what the three different strategies are

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Speaker 2: that you outline in the book.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I describe them as and I use the strategies

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Speaker 3: as the names and the organizing principle rather than like

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Speaker 3: identity ideology thing. So not socialism in the middle term,

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Speaker 3: it's public power. I describe it as public power because

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Speaker 3: I want to keep focused on the strategies themselves rather

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Speaker 3: than these kind of political identifications or identities. So the strategies,

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Speaker 3: as I describe them our market craft, which is using

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Speaker 3: the states to intervene to break the connection between fossil fuels,

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Speaker 3: oil and value by building a clean energy economy and

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Speaker 3: by regulating fossil fuels out of existence. And so I

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Speaker 3: call that market craft. It's a term designed by the

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Speaker 3: political scientist Stephen Vogel that I really like. But it's

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Speaker 3: a pretty broad spectrum of policies even within this chapter.

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Speaker 3: The second one is called public power, which people might

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Speaker 3: understand as like democratic socialism or just socialism, which is

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Speaker 3: where the state is actually doing the green transition itself.

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Speaker 3: It's loosening both the connections between value and life and

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Speaker 3: between fossil fuels and value by building a clean energy

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Speaker 3: economy and providing a basic quality of life for all

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Speaker 3: people independent of their relation to the value system, such

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Speaker 3: that fossil fuel can't make the same demand on us

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Speaker 3: that they make now for us to ruin our lives

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Speaker 3: and ruin the collective life life. And that'sized through organized

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Speaker 3: labor developing itself in the interests of the entire society

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Speaker 3: and taking control in that collective interest.

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Speaker 2: And we saw some of those first and second, the

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Speaker 2: market craft and public power strategies during the Biden years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you could point to examples for sure, more

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Speaker 3: market craft than public power. I think you can definitely

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Speaker 3: definitely point to examples. And then the third one is

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Speaker 3: what I call communism, which is breaking that connection between

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Speaker 3: value and life and organizing life itself around different principles,

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Speaker 3: specifically to each according to their needs, from each according

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Speaker 3: to their abilities, rather than according to their ability to

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Speaker 3: produce value.

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Speaker 2: And you talk in the book about choosing the word

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Speaker 2: or settling on the word communism rather than something more

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Speaker 2: complicated that might have this not have the same political baggage.

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Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, I'm not scared of the word communism,

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Speaker 3: and maybe I should be, and I would be now

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Speaker 3: more if I read it again now. But for me,

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Speaker 3: I think having an honest relationship with my readers is

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Speaker 3: really important that I'm never going to try and dumb

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Speaker 3: things down. I'm never going to try and like handle

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Speaker 3: my reader strategically in that way with regard to the

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Speaker 3: truth or what I think. I'm not going to give

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Speaker 3: the reader or anything less than what I think. And

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Speaker 3: that's a pretty pretty firm commitment from me as a writer,

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Speaker 3: which becomes difficult in these kind of situations where I'm

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Speaker 3: taking something that's pretty I don't want to say theoretically dense,

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Speaker 3: but definitely fraud that's very important for my thought, and

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Speaker 3: then I have to find a way to share it

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Speaker 3: with a broad audience. And the best way I've found

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Speaker 3: to do that is pretty straight up, and sometimes I

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Speaker 3: need a note to explain to the reader, like, look,

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Speaker 3: this is what I'm doing. I trust you to trust

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Speaker 3: me to get us where we're going, and not need

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Speaker 3: just call it like communism or like communalism or whatever

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Speaker 3: something else. If I'm talking about to each according to

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Speaker 3: their needs, from each according to their abilities, I'm talking

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Speaker 3: about communism Like I'm a Marxist. I'm not afraid of that.

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Speaker 3: I think society should be less afraid of that, and

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Speaker 3: it's my duty to make society less afraid of that.

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Speaker 3: In some ways, so I trust, I trust my readers,

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Speaker 3: maybe to my own detriment or downfall, but I can't

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Speaker 3: help myself.

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Speaker 2: I feel like it's just a good operating principle for

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Speaker 2: a writer and just for a human being in the

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Speaker 2: world of just to trust people, give them the benefit

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Speaker 2: of the doubt.

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Speaker 3: I think so, but I find a lot of writers

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Speaker 3: don't feel the same way necessarily. A phenomenon I see

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Speaker 3: a lot is writers trying to write down to their

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Speaker 3: reader from a place that's not very high to start with. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and so people who are assuming they're like, you know,

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Speaker 3: too clever, too informed for their broad readership, and they're

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Speaker 3: taking something that's already not first rate and diluting it

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Speaker 3: down further to the point where like the readership can't

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Speaker 3: really get anything out of it, and there's there's just

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Speaker 3: not much there. And so I'd rather like look straight

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Speaker 3: across the table at my reader, because that's where I

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Speaker 3: that's where I will always think they are right. I'm

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Speaker 3: always writing for curious, thoughtful readers the best I can.

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Speaker 2: Unless we get diverted into the conversation just about the

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Speaker 2: writing process, which I would love to have but is

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Speaker 2: probably not what people signed up for. I do have

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Speaker 2: a note written on a sticky note tape to my

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Speaker 2: monitor here that says, respect your reader, trust them to

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Speaker 2: get it, don't hit them over the head with it.

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Speaker 2: And I don't always succeed in that. I probably usually don't,

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Speaker 2: but I at least try to remind myself that people

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Speaker 2: are smart.

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Speaker 3: I've had a lot of luck, I've had a lot

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Speaker 3: of luck respecting my reader and respecting readers in general.

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Speaker 3: And I think there are there are a lot of

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Speaker 3: smart readers out there, way more than people think there are,

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Speaker 3: way more than a lot of writers think there are.

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Speaker 2: So coming back to the book, there is an interesting

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Speaker 2: theme throughout, which is this idea of class conflict. And

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of points in each of the three strategies,

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Speaker 2: and then the book more broadly where you make the

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Speaker 2: point that whatever you think or have convinced yourself that

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Speaker 2: this fight taking on climate change is about at its core,

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Speaker 2: any sort of realistic, long term solution involves class conflict.

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Speaker 2: Can you explain a little bit about why that is?

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Speaker 2: Because I feel like, especially a lot of us on

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Speaker 2: the left, or maybe more of the like liberal progressive

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Speaker 2: left rather than the capital l left we've been taught

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Speaker 2: and we're still very hesitant to say the class word.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you have to go to the mode

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Speaker 3: of production because capitalism is a mode of production, and

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Speaker 3: you have to look at what are the conditions and

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Speaker 3: relations of that mode of production. And that's what we

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Speaker 3: do as Marxists, is we look at the capitalist mode

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Speaker 3: of production, which is the mode of production we live

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Speaker 3: under it's the most motive production nee mode of production. Right,

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Speaker 3: it's the archetype for all other understandings of motive production.

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Speaker 3: And we look at are what are its relations? Right? Well,

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Speaker 3: we see a relation between a capitalist class and a

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Speaker 3: working class. There's a class that produces value and there's

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Speaker 3: a class that receives that value. It's a funny inversion, right,

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Speaker 3: because the capitalist class creates the work and the working

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Speaker 3: class creates the capital. That's at a little Mario Trante

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Speaker 3: for our p our warning, and so that that is

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Speaker 3: the basis for this production system, production for production's sake,

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Speaker 3: that organizes our entire global society, and that which we

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Speaker 3: find ourselves unable to control. So it's ultimately a relationship

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Speaker 3: that we're unable to control. It's not the machines themselves, right,

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Speaker 3: we can't fetishize the objects that are produced by the

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Speaker 3: system of production. It's this relationship that we're unable to control.

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Speaker 3: And that's true for emissions, right, That's true just at

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Speaker 3: the very like basic level. It's that it's not like

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Speaker 3: the machines are dragging us into this situation or whatever.

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Speaker 3: It's our social relation and on our individual social relations.

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Speaker 3: But the social relations at the class level, which is

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Speaker 3: what enables production in the first place, and so without

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Speaker 3: disturbing that, and I don't necessarily claim that you have

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Speaker 3: to abolish it in order to have a path through, right,

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Speaker 3: that's what I think. I'm an anti capitalist. I think

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Speaker 3: we need to abolish capitalism, but from a market craft perspective,

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Speaker 3: you can change the way that capitalism works, and I

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Speaker 3: think it's worth acknowledging that and trying to understand that

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Speaker 3: perspective as well. But to do that, do you still

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Speaker 3: have to understand the class relation as an obstacle to

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Speaker 3: any sort of control over the social metabolism. And so

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Speaker 3: whether you have to like absolutely destroy capitalist production or

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Speaker 3: not is a question that this book leaves open because

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Speaker 3: I think it's a question that's on the left. But

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Speaker 3: if the premise is that the oil value life chain

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Speaker 3: is wrapped around the gate to positive future and we

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Speaker 3: need to find some way to break it or to

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Speaker 3: bend it to slip through that gate, then we're going

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Speaker 3: to have to change the production mode that we have,

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Speaker 3: at least such that it's unrecognizable. And that is a

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Speaker 3: class conflict. That's a relation between two classes of people,

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Speaker 3: not a relation of objects.

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Speaker 2: One of the challenging parts of the book I found

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Speaker 2: was the reminder that this is not as simple as

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Speaker 2: if we can provide some sort of organizing force for

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Speaker 2: workers to unite around, then everyone will be naturally drawn

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Speaker 2: to that, and workers of the world will unite and

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Speaker 2: rise up. It's there are a lot of people and

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Speaker 2: a lot of institutions of organized labor more broadly, that

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Speaker 2: have a lot invested in quite literally jobs, but also

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Speaker 2: the broader economic and political status quo, which I feel

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Speaker 2: like it's already hard enough just to organize all the

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Speaker 2: workers if all we had to do is create a

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Speaker 2: platform for people to gather and rise up. But actually

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Speaker 2: it's not as simple as that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, honestly, I don't think it becomes easier by

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Speaker 3: pretending it is easier, and I think some people run

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Speaker 3: into you run into that problem with some of the

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Speaker 3: more vulgar public power advocates, where if we focus on

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Speaker 3: the easy solution, then it will actually become that easy.

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Speaker 3: But the truth is that there are striations and huge

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Speaker 3: conflicts within the working class. You see that domestically, and

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Speaker 3: you see it absolutely, you see it internationally, and we

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Speaker 3: have to be really serious about that. You know, we're

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Speaker 3: really serious about our situation, and if we pretend that

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Speaker 3: all workers in the world have the same sets of

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Speaker 3: interest and American workers are not advantaged by the exploitation

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Speaker 3: of workers in Brazil in any way, shape or form,

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Speaker 3: because we're all members of the working class. Like, that's

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Speaker 3: that's true from one perspective. There's an important perspective from

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Speaker 3: where that's true, but it's not the whole truth. It's

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Speaker 3: not realistic enough, and so we need to map the

436
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 3: conflicts within the working class in order to build the

437
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 3: working class as a real force. We can't just pretend

438
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 3: that like, oh no, there's no issues with gender within

439
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 3: the working class, which doesn't mean that like working class

440
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 3: people or sexist or whatever. It's about the structure of

441
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 3: these abstractions in really impersonal ways. Obviously there are personal,

442
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,640
Speaker 3: you know, interpersonal personal ways as well, but what I'm

443
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,119
Speaker 3: talking about is the impersonal structures of these things. And

444
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 3: so you have situations where you have like construction workers

445
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 3: lobbying in favor of gas powered crypto minds is one

446
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 3: of the examples that I use, and like, well, that's terrible,

447
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 3: that's bad planning. That's in your own like very very

448
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 3: narrow interests that isn't in the interest of the like

449
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 3: global working class at all, and so we need to

450
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 3: we need to be serious about what the composition of

451
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 3: the working class is and not just treated as some

452
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 3: self evident abstraction.

453
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 2: How do you think about the fact that for a

454
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 2: lot of people, and I include myself in this, I

455
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 2: think none of us are immune to it, but many

456
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 2: of our beliefs, including for a lot of people all

457
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 2: things climate and environment, they seem to be downstream from

458
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 2: our political identity. These days, if you are a Republican,

459
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 2: you know, self identified, and that's part of your identity,

460
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 2: you are probably not going to be, to put it,

461
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 2: mildly enthusiastic about democratic efforts to tackle climate change. And

462
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 2: that seems like a you know, overcoming kind of entrenched

463
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,919
Speaker 2: political identities, or maybe loosening them a little bit. And

464
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 2: so people can vote Republican while also believing in climate change.

465
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 2: And obviously this is a little bit of a kind

466
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 2: of a micro example, but of a broader phenomenon of

467
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 2: what people believe being downstream from how they see their identity.

468
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 2: I just wonder how you think about that that dilemma.

469
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm not a liberal, so I don't like

470
00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 3: get my marching orders from polling and stuff, and there's

471
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 3: a lot of contradictory pulling or like, you know, election results,

472
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 3: which sounds kind of silly because election results obviously play

473
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 3: a really important role in like structuring the field in

474
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 3: which we operate. But I don't think that like those

475
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 3: votes are the truth or something about anxiety. And if

476
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 3: you look at polling for like, oh, do you think

477
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 3: we should focus more on like economic growth or the environment.

478
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 3: The way we talk about people, you'd think people would

479
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,959
Speaker 3: say everyone says growth or whatever. It's not true, totally

480
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 3: not true. Americans are when they're polled and asked to

481
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 3: like how important the environment is, say, the environment's very important.

482
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 3: I think people believe in climate change. I think people

483
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 3: walk outside and believe in climate change in mind the

484
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 3: like apocalyptic floods and fires and stuff that are unavoidable. Like, yeah,

485
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 3: we have a very like polarized partisan political environment electorally

486
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 3: in the United States. I don't think that has any

487
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 3: or very much bearing on the actual truth of our

488
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 3: historical situation, and I try not to let it in.

489
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,639
Speaker 3: One's how I think about these questions, because I think

490
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:04,439
Speaker 3: then you end up looking like you know, two inches

491
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 3: in front of your face, often at some like reflection

492
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 3: in some mirror or something. I find it very hard

493
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 3: for people who orient themselves that way to get a

494
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 3: historical understanding, and I think that's the kind of understanding

495
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 3: we need.

496
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 2: I felt like there were a few different concrete messages

497
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 2: for progressives, mainstream progressives who are left of the Democratic

498
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 2: Party but might not be again capital L or might

499
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,880
Speaker 2: not think of themselves as capital L left yet.

500
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 3: I sure hope, So tell me what they are.

501
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 2: I mean, one of them, you say, very explicitly at

502
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,199
Speaker 2: one point, is you know, essentially break up with the

503
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 2: Democrats capital D Democrats, which I have to imagine after

504
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 2: the last few weeks there's a lot more openness to

505
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: maybe after the last couple of years, there's a lot

506
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,360
Speaker 2: more openness too among folks on the left that the

507
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 2: you know, the Democratic Party as an institution is not

508
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 2: is not the vehicle for change people might have anticipated

509
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 2: it to be. Again, to put it very mildly.

510
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I cite Kim Moody is maybe the

511
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 3: book I'm talking about, because that's really his argument is

512
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 3: that people we need a United States Labor Party in

513
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,959
Speaker 3: order to pursue the interests of workers. I think that's

514
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 3: an important perspective. I'm not one hundred percent convinced that's true.

515
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 3: I think the like, as far as I'm concerned, the

516
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 3: Democratic Party, and like even parallel institutions like the New

517
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 3: York Times or something are much like the United States

518
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 3: State itself, where I think the perspective that like, oh,

519
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 3: we need to this is a force for historical evil

520
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 3: in the world, and we need to like distance ourselves

521
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 3: from it, and there can be no progress through these things.

522
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 3: I think there's a strong argument for that perspective. I

523
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 3: think it's an argument worth hearing out, and we're thinking

524
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 3: through and sometimes conceding to. At the same time, I

525
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 3: think that these are internally contradictory structures. I don't think

526
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 3: everyone who works for the US US government is a

527
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 3: butcher of Gaza, right, even though the US government is

528
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 3: itself a butcher of Gaza. And so do those contradictions

529
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 3: within these institutions allow us to move in a positive direction.

530
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 3: I think it's possible. I'm not saying everyone who thinks

531
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 3: that is wrong certainly has that perspective like taken a

532
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 3: blow in the past months. Yeah, I think probably but

533
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 3: I think these are conversations we need to have and

534
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 3: like topics we need to think about. But what are

535
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 3: the other ones?

536
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 2: I'd say, the the other one, which is a little

537
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 2: bit less direct, but not much so, that emerged to

538
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 2: me while reading the book was this idea that you know,

539
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 2: as you put it, breaking the situation into ostensibly manageable

540
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 2: chunks is essentially a form of denial. And that's a

541
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 2: pretty bracing argument, I think, because I feel like a

542
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 2: lot of us realize that to some extent, Like if

543
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 2: you ask us very concretely map out how we get

544
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: from here to saving the planet and its creatures in

545
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 2: those little manageable chunks, we admit pretty quickly that it

546
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 2: can't be done. And yet it's such a comforting way

547
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 2: to see the crisis as something you can just break

548
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 2: up into small chunks and tackle sequentially.

549
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and it's something that is like broadly and

550
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 3: impersonally distributed, that's distributed by a collective logic that we

551
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 3: don't have to operate. That would be really nice because

552
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 3: then we could just like do our part. Everyone could

553
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 3: just do their part and it would get done and

554
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 3: we wouldn't have to like figure out what we're actually doing.

555
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 3: And that's how capitalism works, right, So that's actually not

556
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 3: how solving our problems works. That's how causing our problems works.

557
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 3: Is everyone just goes out, they're doing their little part

558
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 3: one day to the next, and we don't have to

559
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 3: try and get together and actually think of what we're

560
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 3: doing and decide what we're doing. Everyone can just worry

561
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 3: about their household size share. That's not going to work.

562
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 3: It doesn't work, it's not working. Really, do have to

563
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 3: make collective decisions organized to make collective decisions. I don't

564
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:08,959
Speaker 3: see any other way through. So, yeah, I'm glad that

565
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 3: came through because I think that's that's the ground for

566
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,479
Speaker 3: this project. Right. If that weren't true, then we wouldn't

567
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: need this book. But I think it is true, and

568
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 3: so I do think this book. We need ways, auspices,

569
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 3: you know, common understandings under which we don't have to

570
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 3: necessarily come all together and work in one organization. I

571
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 3: don't think that's going to happen. I don't think it's

572
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 3: very realistic. But we need some kind of what I

573
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 3: call coherence to these efforts.

574
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, to I think you put it at one point too,

575
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 2: that's the only way to actually tackle it at the

576
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 2: scale of what the problem is.

577
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what's the point of tackling it at another scale, right.

578
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 2: Besides making us feel better in the moment.

579
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 3: It doesn't make us feel better because we're not stupid,

580
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 3: like we.

581
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:54,959
Speaker 2: Know that that's not going to do it.

582
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

583
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 2: You, I don't think you even say trump in or

584
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 2: use that the letters in that order in the book,

585
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 2: But I have to assume that you wrote it with

586
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 2: the possibility of a second Trump term in mind.

587
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 3: Trump gets a couple of mentions, it's four. I'm looking

588
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 3: at the index. But yeah, I mean, I try to

589
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 3: write all of my books that way. I try not

590
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 3: to not be dependent on what's happening that week, month, year.

591
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 3: And so even with like my pal Alto book, when

592
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 3: it came out, people are like, well, why didn't you

593
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 3: write about crypto? There's all this crypto stuff happening right now,

594
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 3: Why didn't you write a whole chapter about crypto? And

595
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 3: it's like, well, that's not what I'm trying to do here.

596
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 3: This is a like trying to take a historical view

597
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: on the situation. And so my hope was that this

598
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 3: book works no matter who got elected president, and no

599
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 3: matter who gets elected president the next time around. Right,

600
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 3: that the truths that I try and unfold in this

601
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 3: book are larger than control over the White House.

602
00:32:56,960 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 2: Do you think that the return of at least return

603
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 2: to the White House and the government of MAGA types

604
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 2: changes any of the arguments you make in the book

605
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: or shifts the priorities for some of the different strategies.

606
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think there are paths that seem

607
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 3: more or less open depending on what the political system

608
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 3: looks like and who's in control and the Again, it's

609
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 3: like the MAGA rise or the rise of Donald Trump

610
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: is not an isolated event globally, right, this is part

611
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,719
Speaker 3: of a global right word shift in reaction. That is

612
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 3: absolutely one of the not just possibilities that I lay

613
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 3: out in the book. But one of the challenges, one

614
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 3: of the sort of inevitable challenges, is that there be

615
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 3: there's a reactionary movement you're actually pro fossil fuel movement

616
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 3: that you're going to have to confront as part of

617
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,479
Speaker 3: any of these strategies. And one of the reasons we

618
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 3: need coherence between them is that we're all vulnerable. But

619
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 3: also I don't think that necessarily any one strategy is

620
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 3: particularly worse off under Trump because you could look at,

621
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 3: you know, market craft and say, well, Donald Trump like

622
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 3: destroyed the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, He's like destroyed

623
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 3: Biden's all. Biden's climate work has been destroyed like with

624
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 3: the wave of a hand, which then salts the earth

625
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 3: for this kind of policy in the future, because capital

626
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 3: won't commit to doing these kinds of investments if they

627
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 3: know that there's a coin flip that the next president's

628
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 3: going to just dismantle it all in one second. Yeah,

629
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 3: that's that's pretty devastating for market craft. But like public power,

630
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 3: if he shuts down the Department of Education, then then

631
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 3: he's able to shut down whatever like Public Power Agency

632
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 3: that Biden should have set up instead, or whatever, like,

633
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 3: all of that would have been destroyed as well. Not

634
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 3: to mention his attack on organized labor, It's not like

635
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 3: he couldn't attack those things from the same position. And

636
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 3: communists as well. One of the major dangers of the

637
00:34:55,400 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 3: communist strategy, as I describe it, is susceptibility to governments.

638
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 3: And we've already seen that, right, We've already seen a

639
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 3: real qualitative jump in the kind of repression we're getting

640
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 3: from the Trump administration focused on the left and like

641
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,919
Speaker 3: in a way that people should be seriously alarmed about,

642
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 3: you know, like first they came for the communists kind

643
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 3: of way. And so all three we're all reeling, Like

644
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 3: everyone the entire left is obviously reeling. And anyone who

645
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 3: looks at the situation and says like, haha, you know

646
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 3: this is good for me and bad for you, I

647
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 3: think is wrong.

648
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 2: There is a series of two questions from the z

649
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 2: Kin collective. Is that right? Am I saying that right

650
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 2: that you cite at the end, And they're obviously somewhat rhetorical,

651
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 2: but they are will fossil capital defend itself to the

652
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 2: bitter end? And will it draw on the unique resources

653
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,720
Speaker 2: of the far right to do so? And I feel

654
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 2: like those questions are being answered quite clearly in the

655
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 2: moment that we're living in.

656
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's pretty obvious when they put it that way, right, Like,

657
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 3: I think that's a good phrasing of the question. Their questions, right,

658
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 3: because it's like, well, of course they're going to fight

659
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 3: for their own existence, and like, well, okay, they're going

660
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 3: to fight in the political sphere. They're going to have

661
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 3: to pick an avatar or whatever. Even putting aside to

662
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 3: our history of their relationship with the far right, it's like, well,

663
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 3: they're not going to pick the far left. I probably

664
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 3: pick the center at this point, Like the far right

665
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 3: is their best bet, like by a long shot, for

666
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 3: a number of reasons that are described in that book,

667
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 3: which people should definitely check out. So, yeah, that has

668
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 3: come to pass, right, And it seems obvious when we

669
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 3: think about it, and a clear problem with the sort

670
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 3: of climate policy by compromise that even I think the

671
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 3: left levels have been pursuing for a little while with

672
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 3: the hope that like will give capital and capitalists enough

673
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 3: so that this transition will be smooth enough for them

674
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 3: that they can agree to it while they also think

675
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 3: about all the things that they can lose in a

676
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 3: storm or whatever. And that's that's obviously not happening. That

677
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,839
Speaker 3: can't be the only solution, right, that can be the

678
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,359
Speaker 3: only tool we have. And one of the hopefully one

679
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 3: of the virtues of the structure of this book is

680
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 3: that then we've got a whole at least a small

681
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 3: set of different tools strategically, rather than just one perspective

682
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 3: that is blocked.

683
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: I was actually surprised to find just because of the

684
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 2: way the book is structured, it didn't seem like it

685
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 2: was leading toward an ABCD this is what we need

686
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 2: to do, kind of a solutions type of book, and

687
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: then the world will be solved and everyone will feel better.

688
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 2: But there was a very kind of a very clear,

689
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 2: very concrete proposal that you offer at the end. You

690
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 2: write that the left should lead the formation of community

691
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 2: disaster councils, and I feel like the value lowercase V

692
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 2: value of that suggestion, that proposal feels even clearer given

693
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 2: what we've seen over just the last couple of months.

694
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,879
Speaker 2: Can you just talk a bit about what those what

695
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 2: that means, because I feel like it's the kind of

696
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 2: concrete saying that many people are yearning for right now,

697
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:08,399
Speaker 2: and it's again lowercase V. Value feels very real right

698
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:09,879
Speaker 2: now as something people can do.

699
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think it's funny. I've had some

700
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 3: conversations about this where people I'm talking to have tried

701
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,240
Speaker 3: to figure out if there's something that they're not understanding

702
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 3: about what I'm saying because it seems so simple, and

703
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 3: I'm saying, like, no, no, it really is as simple

704
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 3: as I'm saying. It's that the institutions and individuals with

705
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 3: which we compose our communities needs to collectively study and

706
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 3: prepare for the social and climate disasters that we know

707
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 3: are upon us. Right So within wherever you live, you

708
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 3: can figure out what extreme weather events are likely to happen,

709
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 3: and you can figure out what responses to those are

710
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 3: most likely to keep people safe, and we can organize those.

711
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 3: And we need to do that not at the level

712
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 3: of like necessarily just government disaster response, which now we're

713
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 3: seeing undermined obviously by conservatives. But even if that weren't

714
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 3: the case, we need to organize ourselves, not just rely

715
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 3: on the state to organize our response to what are

716
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,760
Speaker 3: social wide problems. This partly because the state is unable

717
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,359
Speaker 3: to and unwilling to solve that at the level that

718
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 3: we need. And I think the left, as I outline,

719
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 3: it is in a particular position to lead this kind

720
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 3: of structure that society as a whole is in desperate

721
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 3: need of. That's something that we all can do, and

722
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 3: something we all can do collaboratively. Whether you are a

723
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 3: staffer for a state senator who believes in market craft,

724
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 3: or whether you're a shop steward who believes that labor

725
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 3: should be directing the entire thing, or you're someone who

726
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 3: knows the forests around where you live very well, right, Like,

727
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 3: we need the resources of all of those kinds of

728
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 3: people as well as the institutions and social networks that

729
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 3: they represent, and we need ways for them to cohere,

730
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 3: to work together to respond to these things that we

731
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 3: already know are happening. Right, So, disasters are organizing us already,

732
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 3: whether they organize us, whether we organize in advance of them,

733
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 3: in response to them, or we organize in a disorganized

734
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 3: way after they have occurred to us. Disasters are organizing

735
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 3: us regardless. And so I think a community, disaster councils

736
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 3: and community, as I write and think, can also be

737
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 3: like global. Right, if you're climatologists, let's say working the IPCC,

738
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 3: that's a community. It's a community of people working together

739
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 3: on this project. And I think local communities need to

740
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 3: find ways to work with those international communities, global communities

741
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 3: of experts to inform our efforts as well. But that's

742
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 3: not crazy, right, Like the idea that we should have

743
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:52,760
Speaker 3: like civil structures that are responding to these like big

744
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 3: things that we know are coming and that will upend

745
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 3: all of our lives collectively in a similar way, or

746
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 3: in a at least a shared way, like let's get

747
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 3: ahead of that. You know, we can't. I don't think

748
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 3: we can just rely on There's this line that we

749
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 3: can rely on the generosity of other people in terms

750
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 3: of crisis, and we should let that sort of like

751
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 3: guide us into a new future or whatever. And I've

752
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 3: been sympathetic to that line, and I think it's true

753
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 3: to a certain degree, but I don't think it's sufficiently

754
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 3: responsive to our current situation. I think we need to

755
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 3: like think in advance and plan in advance and organize

756
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 3: in advance for these problems that are absolutely knowable.

757
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 2: I think there's something remarkably empowering about that type of

758
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:38,240
Speaker 2: work too, at a time when a lot of people

759
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 2: feel like things are out of control and that we

760
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 2: don't have any agency and we're all just doomscrolling and

761
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 2: watching democracies collapse in the world. Burn gives you a

762
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 2: sense of agency empowerment, and then, as you note in

763
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,399
Speaker 2: the book, it also can provide kind of a use

764
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,760
Speaker 2: case for this different world that we're hoping to build

765
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 2: that if if the Left can lead these you know,

766
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 2: this this broader response to these disasters, which is you

767
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 2: you note are happening already and are inevitable that they're

768
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,720
Speaker 2: going to continue happening. We are, you know, potentially proving

769
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 2: that another way of organizing a society works, because you can't,

770
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 2: just as we were talking about earlier, you can't just

771
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 2: tell people give up the way you've experienced society the

772
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 2: only world that any of us have ever known, and

773
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 2: trust us that this other one will be better. That

774
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:28,439
Speaker 2: involves huge sacrifice from you and your family, potentially much

775
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 2: easier if you have a demonstrable evidence that you can

776
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,720
Speaker 2: point to that like, this is another way to organize

777
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:35,240
Speaker 2: a society, and we showed that it works.

778
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think people even if it's risky. I

779
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:40,840
Speaker 3: think people are willing to take the risk of the

780
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 3: unknown if it's when it's offered to them. At this moment,

781
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 3: I feel like that we don't have enough, We don't

782
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,240
Speaker 3: do enough recruiting on the left in some ways into

783
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 3: these conversations and into these efforts, and that can't just

784
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 3: be like, oh, we have the right idea or whatever.

785
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 3: Necessarily ask to be like, how are we going to

786
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 3: solve these collective problems? And how are we going to

787
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 3: solve these collective problems. How are we going to make

788
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 3: sure that the people in our community, if there's a

789
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 3: flood or a fire, have access to the life saving

790
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 3: medication that they need next week. Well, where's the medication held? Well,

791
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 3: there are seven pharmacies in our city. There are pharmacists

792
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 3: who work at those seven pharmacies, So we can talk

793
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,359
Speaker 3: to them. We can talk to those pharmacies. We can

794
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,439
Speaker 3: organize the pharmacists of our city such that we will

795
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 3: have a disaster plan and we'll be ready to enact it.

796
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 3: And we're not going to go check with CBS Corporate

797
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 3: and follow their plan or whatever. And we're not going

798
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 3: to wait for the National Guard to give us a

799
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 3: plan because somebody needs their heart pills next week. In fact,

800
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,839
Speaker 3: we know how many people need their heart pills next week.

801
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 3: We have a list of and we know where they live,

802
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 3: and we have pharmacists who are ready to fulfill those

803
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 3: needs in the event of a disaster. Like that's not

804
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 3: an illusory sense of control, right, that's actual control over

805
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 3: your circumstances. Right, You're organizing actual community control over your

806
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 3: circumit stance. It's not right now, but in the event

807
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 3: of these disasters that we know are going to ellapse,

808
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 3: that are ellapsing, and so I think that's really a

809
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 3: place for left wing leadership, our place that we can

810
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 3: build the cohesion and use it at the same time.

811
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 3: Among this really a pretty diverse swath of people, but

812
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,880
Speaker 3: people who all share, I think, are a common interest

813
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 3: and belief and desire for a better world.

814
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 2: I wanted to come back to this idea because I

815
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 2: feel like it has been pervading this conversation and certainly

816
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 2: the book as well. That recognizing, acknowledging, accepting, even I guess,

817
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 2: embracing in some ways the scale of the problem, the

818
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 2: scale of the crisis, can feel to me at least,

819
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 2: it feels kind of liberating because you can kind of

820
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 2: drop all the artifice of like we're just going to

821
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 2: hack our way out of this crisis or something. And

822
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,399
Speaker 2: once you let that go and you realize, I should say,

823
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:57,319
Speaker 2: once I in my mind let that go. I don't

824
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 2: want to speak for anybody else, but except that, yeah,

825
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:04,240
Speaker 2: things are potentially going to get really bad. I realized

826
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 2: how much work it was taking to create these false, soothing,

827
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 2: comforting futures in my mind, and all of a sudden

828
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 2: it kind of freeze up all this energy in brain

829
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 2: space to think about actually tackling it rather than existing

830
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 2: in sort of a comforting world of my own making.

831
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 2: So I'm just wondering how you think about that, you know,

832
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 2: the idea that it is painful to see it for

833
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 2: what it is, but it's also kind of liberating in

834
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 2: a way that all of a sudden it frees you

835
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 2: up to get after it, I guess, instead of convincing

836
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:40,479
Speaker 2: yourself it's not so bad.

837
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the real

838
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 3: benefits of the radical imagination. And so that's a lens

839
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:50,719
Speaker 3: that I've used to think about the world since I

840
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 3: was a kid. That's how I've always thought. Not always,

841
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 3: but you know, since I took hold intentionally of the

842
00:45:57,360 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 3: way I thought about the world. That's about the world.

843
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 3: There's some downsides that in terms of communicating with people

844
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 3: who are thinking about the world differently. You know, it

845
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,879
Speaker 3: can be the part you can get, as I read

846
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 3: in the book, you can get really obsessed with the

847
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 3: complicity of everyone who doesn't see it the same way

848
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 3: as you get really like isolated and angry. And I

849
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 3: spent a lot long time, particularly when I was young,

850
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 3: being angry all the time at the whole rest of

851
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 3: the world, and so there are perils to thinking that way,

852
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 3: but I think there are also real benefits, and that

853
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 3: something that I try to share with my readers is

854
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 3: the benefits of that sort of radical imagination that when

855
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 3: you think about the world historically and in its actual shape,

856
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 3: it is freeing. Absolutely should be freeing. The truth is freeing, right,

857
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 3: trying to tell yourself that what is happening isn't happening

858
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 3: and constantly recalibrating, right, It's like the frog in the

859
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:56,800
Speaker 3: pot being like, well, this isn't this isn't that hot,

860
00:46:57,200 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 3: but it's getting hotter, And so you have to constantly, constantly,

861
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 3: constantly tell yourself this is fine, this is fine. Well

862
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 3: it's much worse than it was two weeks ago. Well

863
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 3: they did overturn row, Like, but this is fine now,

864
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 3: Like this is how it will be fine. That can

865
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 3: take up your whole mental space. Right. There are people

866
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 3: who spend all of their mental effort constantly reassuring themselves

867
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 3: that things are still fine. And the fact that things aren't,

868
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 3: the fact that things are very bad, it doesn't mean

869
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 3: that you give up. It doesn't mean that then you

870
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 3: are relieved from having to do stuff, or that you

871
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 3: then can just spend your time wallowing in despair, at

872
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 3: least not for me. Like I said, I think there's

873
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:38,919
Speaker 3: a whole spectrum of middle activity where we say, all right,

874
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 3: you look at the world and say things are bad,

875
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 3: and then you say, all right, what are we going

876
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 3: to do about it? Some people talk about that as

877
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 3: pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, and that's

878
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 3: one of the things that the Marxist tradition has to offer.

879
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 3: Having lost a number of times, right, where the people

880
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:01,760
Speaker 3: who are like losing adds up to something is the idea,

881
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 3: and I think that's true. I believe that I'm a radical,

882
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 3: and I want to share what I think of the

883
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 3: benefits of that perspective with as many people as possible

884
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 3: in a way that I hope it's not alienating, right,

885
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 3: that doesn't make them feel like this person has thinly

886
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:18,919
Speaker 3: veiled disgust for me, or is not willing to see

887
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:22,280
Speaker 3: things from my perspective, or like thinks I'm an idiot

888
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 3: or whatever, because I don't think those things, and I

889
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 3: think there is this space for coherence among people with

890
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 3: different beliefs.

891
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 2: Last question for you. You cite reference a lot of different

892
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 2: books and films and pieces of art in this book,

893
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 2: and I'm wondering if there are any pieces of art

894
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 2: or content that are giving you or bringing you clarity

895
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 2: or comfort in this current moment.

896
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 3: Ooh, that's a really good question. Let me pull up

897
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 3: the answer. It's a series that the Streamer movie has

898
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 3: been doing called Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot by

899
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:02,439
Speaker 3: the South African artist William Kentridge. And it's a nine

900
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 3: part video series. Yeah, a nine part visual series in

901
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 3: the studio of this artist, William Kentridge. It's done was

902
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 3: filmed during the most intense lockdown periods of COVID. Amazing.

903
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 3: I mean, he's an amazing artist in general, but it's

904
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 3: an amazing view of his mind, of his techniques, but

905
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 3: also his perspective on history. And he does this great

906
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 3: thing where he doubles himself and so he's constantly talking

907
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 3: back and forth with himself. There are two of him,

908
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 3: and they create this amazing dialectic between a lot of like,

909
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 3: you know, different positions. Right now, because there are a

910
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 3: lot of contradictory truths antonomies, I guess that we have

911
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 3: to hold in this historical moment, and one of the

912
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 3: ways he does that is by splitting himself and arguing

913
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 3: with himself. Fantastic, fantastic series. Ultimately, I think hopeful in

914
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 3: the useful ways and despairing in the useful ways that

915
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 3: you can be hopeful sparing at the same time, if

916
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:05,480
Speaker 3: you're dialectical enough, you can be hopeful and de sparing

917
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 3: at the same time. And that's definitely a piece that

918
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 3: really lately captured it for me. It's fantastic. Strongly, I

919
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 3: beseech readers to go check that out.

920
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 2: Amazing. I feel like in this moment in particular, being

921
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:21,360
Speaker 2: hopeful and despairing in useful ways is a pretty worthy

922
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 2: aspiration for all of us.

923
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 3: I think so. I think people are trying to trying

924
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 3: to figure that stuff out. It's hard, it's a hard

925
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 3: environment in which to think. And I don't fault anyone

926
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 3: who feels completely overwhelmed by even just the task of

927
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 3: thinking critically in this moment. Oh, we got to do it.

928
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 3: I don't think that there's no other choice.

929
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 2: Well, congratulations on the book, Malcolm, and thanks so much

930
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:44,840
Speaker 2: for this conversation.

931
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much for reading it. And this has

932
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 3: been really great.

933
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: That is it for this week. Make sure you're subscribed

934
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Speaker 1: our homepage. Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. This

944
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: episode was reported and hosted by Adam Lowenstein and produced

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Speaker 1: by Peter duff. Our fact checker is Shilpa Gindia. Artwork

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Speaker 1: by Matt Fleming. James Wheeton of The First Amendment Project

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00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: is our First Amendment lawyer. The show was created by

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Speaker 1: me Amy Westervelt. Thanks for listening and we'll see you

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Speaker 1: next time.