Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Frye. We spent all of this week
Speaker 1: talking about Peter Kerpotkin and anarchistic communism, not something we
Speaker 1: have spent a lot of time really diving into on
Speaker 1: the show before. I thought about doing this episode during
Speaker 1: early COVID. It didn't work out, but it was because
Speaker 1: there was such flourishing is the wrong word, because it
Speaker 1: was happening in response to a government action that was
Speaker 1: not happening, but like there was an influx of mutual
Speaker 1: aid programs, organizations of people trying to like work in
Speaker 1: their own communities, trying to help people, trying to meet
Speaker 1: needs that were not being met, of which there were many.
Speaker 1: And I realized pretty quickly that it was it would
Speaker 1: need to be a much bigger episode than what I
Speaker 1: was sort of thinking. Right, I just didn't quite have it.
Speaker 1: But then here we are now in the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, Still a lot of need happening, Still a
Speaker 1: lot of mutual support and aid going on for a
Speaker 1: lot of different reasons. Still also a lot of calls
Speaker 1: for change, in the government the US, and Wow, at
Speaker 1: least for me, I don't know why why algorithms, algorithms
Speaker 1: think that I want this, but I am continually being
Speaker 1: served discourse about like people who want to make reforms
Speaker 1: within the existing government of the United States and people
Speaker 1: who want to throw it all out and start over,
Speaker 1: just what kurpot can advocating. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: if you're I think, if you're in any way looking
Speaker 1: at anything political these days, you're going to get that eventually,
Speaker 1: because I get it too, just the same arguments over
Speaker 1: and over. There are a lot of things that Krapotkin
Speaker 1: wrote about that I definitely find appealing. So I love
Speaker 1: the idea of everybody having enough and nobody being left behind,
Speaker 1: and nobody being you know, under the thumb of an
Speaker 1: oppressive government machine, all of that in favor of But
Speaker 1: I'm also like, we live in such an even more
Speaker 1: globally interconnected world than during Krapotkin's lifetime, right right, just
Speaker 1: vastly vastly interconnected. Like I was sort of just thinking
Speaker 1: this morning, I was like, international air travel, how would
Speaker 1: one do that without governments? And some people are probably like,
Speaker 1: we just wouldn't have international air trap anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: which I just think of Star Trek. They figured it out,
Speaker 1: they did well, there was still like there were still governments, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So like the the communism slash socialism questions like those
Speaker 1: are there's one. That's one set of questions. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like the sort of Star Trek utopia of everyone having
Speaker 1: enough and they're not being you know, capitalist monetary structures happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's one thing, but the not having governments like
Speaker 1: that is an additional whole thing. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it starts to be like how do you define
Speaker 1: a government? Right? Like could there be a coalition of
Speaker 1: transportation organizations that enable something like that? But then so
Speaker 1: you know, if they are all all of this depends
Speaker 1: on like the goodwill out truism and noble efforts of humans,
Speaker 1: which is where things get tricky because if you had
Speaker 1: a coalition of transportation organizations that we're doing this outside
Speaker 1: of government, things like regulations would not be an issue
Speaker 1: because they would all be trying to do the best
Speaker 1: by all things. Yeah, I'm about to invoke Anakin and
Speaker 1: padme right, Like that's the problem is that I'm literally
Speaker 1: working through this as I'm talking. Right, there's that whole Listen.
Speaker 1: I know, not everybody likes Attack of the Clones, and
Speaker 1: that's fine, But there's that whole Meadow scene where he
Speaker 1: describes what he thinks how he thinks government should work,
Speaker 1: and he said, it's just me smart people getting together
Speaker 1: and talking through and she's like, what do you think
Speaker 1: we're doing, Doc, That's exactly what we're up to. But
Speaker 1: everybody doesn't agree, and that's the tricky part. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on there. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that felt to me very idealistic in his
Speaker 1: writing at the time that he was writing it, in
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth early twentieth century. And then I was like,
Speaker 1: and then now, on top of that, we have an
Speaker 1: internationally interconnected food supply chain. Yeah, right, and so if
Speaker 1: there were to be a giant revolution, it would have
Speaker 1: to happen in a way that doesn't lead to lead
Speaker 1: to a collapse of the food chain and people starving, right,
Speaker 1: And it's just like, yeah, unending questions and issues. I
Speaker 1: do wonder if he were alive today, I would want
Speaker 1: to read his thoughts about the billionaire class that has
Speaker 1: emerged in the world and individual people having enough money
Speaker 1: and power to like buy information distribution channels like newspapers
Speaker 1: and just used them to whatever end. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we can extrapolate how he would feel about it,
Speaker 1: but I would love to hear I would love to
Speaker 1: hear his words on it, because I enjoyed I enjoyed
Speaker 1: reading his writing a lot. Ye, a couple of random
Speaker 1: things that I cut out of the episode because I
Speaker 1: just kept getting longer and longer. When he was a kid,
Speaker 1: he used his brother. Number one. One of their big
Speaker 1: amusements as a family was to go to plays and
Speaker 1: to the ballet, right, and so he and his brother
Speaker 1: and then I'm assuming like younger half siblings after they
Speaker 1: were born, they would amuse themselves by putting on plays
Speaker 1: at home. And their stage was the door between their
Speaker 1: bedroom and the classroom, because that was divided with a curtain.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I love that. That's perfect, absolutely
Speaker 1: great natural perscenium in place. Yeah, I love it. Also,
Speaker 1: multiple sources that I read about him, or lectures that
Speaker 1: I listened to or whatever, all took a moment to
Speaker 1: talk about his social identity opinions. A lot of anarchists
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth early twentieth century were also like
Speaker 1: sex reformers, and we're calling for things like free love,
Speaker 1: acceptance of relationships regardless of people's sex or gender. Right,
Speaker 1: if did I already say free love, free love? If
Speaker 1: I didn't already say that, you did. And it seems
Speaker 1: like Krapotkin not one of those people and was more
Speaker 1: conservative along those lines. And there are some interpretations of
Speaker 1: him that come to the conclusion that he was homophobic.
Speaker 1: And apparently one of the things that has led to
Speaker 1: this conclusion is that when Oscar Wilde was on trial,
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde was a huge fan of Kerpotkin and Kerpotkin's
Speaker 1: writing and political thought, and Oscar Wilde wrote to him
Speaker 1: for help, and he didn't acknowledge or respond to it, apparently,
Speaker 1: and people have interpreted that as like him not being
Speaker 1: in support of Oscar Wilde. And then I have also
Speaker 1: read that he had conversations with Emma Goldman, who was
Speaker 1: on the more like sex reform side of the anarchist movement,
Speaker 1: and that Emma Goldman modernized his opinions a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I didn't find documentation or quotes or anything about
Speaker 1: any of that. It was like I kept hearing people
Speaker 1: make those same arguments, and I couldn't trace them back
Speaker 1: to source material somewhere, And I also didn't have a
Speaker 1: good place to put any of that discussion in the
Speaker 1: actual episodes, right, especially when it's nebulous. Yeah there was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nebulus is a good word. We talked about how his
Speaker 1: language of the time reflected words like savage that are
Speaker 1: unacceptable today but were in wide use. So it's not
Speaker 1: totally surprising to me that someone who was raised in
Speaker 1: the society that he was raised in would still have
Speaker 1: biases that maybe other parts of the movement would be
Speaker 1: on a different perspective on. I mean, especially when you
Speaker 1: consider his origins, right, Like right, I mean, I'm marvel
Speaker 1: at somebody who literally is born into extraordinary privilege and
Speaker 1: is like, let's get rid of all of that, Like
Speaker 1: that's a very unusual thing in and of itself, But
Speaker 1: like he still has that hardwiring of like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is how the social more's work, and he's probably not
Speaker 1: even cognizant that that's just like part of the conditioning
Speaker 1: you get as a kid in that environment. So you know,
Speaker 1: totally possible that he never really thought about it until
Speaker 1: Emma Goldman was in my imagination, like, hey, what were
Speaker 1: you doing with Oscar Wilde not answering Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I can see a world where like he didn't know
Speaker 1: how to answer and was thinking it over and it
Speaker 1: got away from him. I mean, yeah, sure, I do
Speaker 1: that with just completely benign texts from people where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that question. I got
Speaker 1: to think about it. Yeah. Two weeks later, do you
Speaker 1: hate me? Oh no, I just forgot. Oh yeah. I
Speaker 1: literally had that happen with an email that a listener
Speaker 1: sent to us asking for a contact elsewhere in my heart,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know who to direct them to. And
Speaker 1: I sent a note to someone asking if they knew
Speaker 1: and it was not in my brain anymore, and that
Speaker 1: person didn't get back to me, and I didn't follow
Speaker 1: up on it, and then I found an email in
Speaker 1: my drafts like three weeks later. I was like, whoops, uh, oh,
Speaker 1: sorry about that. Happens all the time. One of the
Speaker 1: articles that I read for this was by a scholar
Speaker 1: from Russia and said that a lot of work on
Speaker 1: Krapotkin and on anarchism is still basically banned in Russia today.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, which is like unsurprising. But also I couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out how to really confirm that right to what
Speaker 1: extent That's just that's a very broad thing to go
Speaker 1: try to track down, right. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's harder and harder to ban information right in places
Speaker 1: that have internet access. Yeah. But also I think about
Speaker 1: like the stuff that came up when we were talking
Speaker 1: about France banning various things right in the Tayefield Steinlin
Speaker 1: episode where I love the work around of like I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go across the border and have my pamphlet
Speaker 1: printed and then I'll come back with it. Everything's cool now,
Speaker 1: everybody'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, even with like you know,
Speaker 1: the so called Great Firewall in China, like there are
Speaker 1: still ways to get information around things. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: the last random thing that I had written on my
Speaker 1: list of random things to talk about was the fact
Speaker 1: that the sun went down at three o'clock in the
Speaker 1: evening when he was in prison, because living in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: where in the wintertime the sun is down by like
Speaker 1: four fifteen or four thirty, Yeah, for part of the winter,
Speaker 1: Like the idea of it being even earlier than that,
Speaker 1: I was like, that hurts my heart for you that
Speaker 1: you were not only was the sun going down early.
Speaker 1: But also you were in prison for it. But he
Speaker 1: had books to read, so at least there was that,
Speaker 1: I mean, the imprisoned part I get. I don't care
Speaker 1: about the sun so much. I have a hard time
Speaker 1: in the winter. I know I have a like I've
Speaker 1: never been formally diagnosed with, like seasonal effective disorder or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah, but I have a noticeable pattern
Speaker 1: of feelings and behavior over the cold, dark winter months.
Speaker 1: I do, but I call it winter rage disorder because
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's dark, but I hate being
Speaker 1: cold so much that it makes me angry. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I will say we had a very mild winter this year,
Speaker 1: and while I don't like what that means in the
Speaker 1: bigger picture, it was nice to not get angry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did not have that. Yeah, you guys kept getting
Speaker 1: like piles of snow at every turn. Yeah. That just
Speaker 1: did not go away for a really long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I went on an actual, for real hike this weekend.
Speaker 1: I had been on walks. Hike is a little different thing,
Speaker 1: both because of like weather and because of time, and
Speaker 1: there it gets to a point where when everything is melted,
Speaker 1: I know the places where I can usually go hiking
Speaker 1: are gonna be swampy, and I was not really up
Speaker 1: for the swampiness. But yeah, I will say I am
Speaker 1: not seeking advice on what to do about my winter stuff.
Speaker 1: But things that do help me are making sure I
Speaker 1: am getting enough vitamin D, including whenever the weather permits
Speaker 1: going outside. Yeah, it helps me a lot, helps me
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, I'm like twenty percent vampire DNA. I
Speaker 1: think I just don't care. Yeah, yeah, I can't. If
Speaker 1: I've said before, before I was born, my dad was
Speaker 1: in the Army and he was stationed at Alaska, and
Speaker 1: my mom also struggled with the cold dark of Alaska,
Speaker 1: and she made homemade chocolate chip cookies every week because
Speaker 1: that made their their you know, their apartment or wherever
Speaker 1: they were living, smell so nice. Yeah, to have freshly
Speaker 1: baked cookies, which I love it. I love it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't have to wait for you know, miserable weather.
Speaker 1: You could just do that, yeah, for fun. Yeah. I'm
Speaker 1: also very fond of Peter Kropotkin, and I think there
Speaker 1: are people who people who are fans of Peter Kerpotkin
Speaker 1: really really love him. So I hope those folks who
Speaker 1: maybe in the audience think we did him justice. There
Speaker 1: are things we didn't even mention that, like that he
Speaker 1: wrote a book on Russian literature. Yeah, all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 1: Like if if people were still calling people polymaths as much.
Speaker 1: I feel like that that label of polymath was not
Speaker 1: quite as frequent in its use at the very very
Speaker 1: end of the nineteenth beginning of the twentieth century. I
Speaker 1: more saw him described as a scientist and a political philosopher,
Speaker 1: not as a polymath. But I think polymath also suits him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I will confess there were times where we would read
Speaker 1: a passage of his and I would have to refrain
Speaker 1: from going right on. Yeah, yeah, Whatever is happening coming
Speaker 1: up on your weekend, I hope it includes things that
Speaker 1: make you say right on, And you know, if not,
Speaker 1: then I hope you're able to have some quiet, some
Speaker 1: moments to yourself, something that will be rejuvenative and restoring
Speaker 1: that you're able to take a couple moments to care
Speaker 1: for yourself and for the people around you. We will
Speaker 1: be back on Monday with a brand new episode. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I know what it's going to be about.
Speaker 1: We be back with a Saturday Classic Tomorrow stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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