Radio Free Beszel
The world is changing. What was stable has become unstuck: mass movements and class conflicts, elite hubris and institutional failure, authoritarianism and a collapse of authority: and everywhere a crisis of meaning. How should one live in this world? In this podcast, I take books I read and ideas I find and try to bring them down to earth, to understand what is happening here and now. I seek lasting principles, not hot takes. Topics include the professional class; critiques of social justice and identity politics; the information society; myth, narrative and meaning. I want to see clearly and speak freely. "Who knows, doesn't talk. Who talks, doesn't know." — Tao Te Ching
Episodes
20 episodes
Discourse, the Demon of Social Justice
Discourse is at the heart of social justice: the idea human beings are not free actors in the world, but are instead constrained by language, in the form of discourses that have been established over time. And we do not create our identities fr...
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Season 1
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Episode 20
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8:45
Racecraft: Constructing Race
"Racism always takes for granted the objective reality of race . . . [which] transforms racism, something an aggressor does, into race, something the target is, in a sleight of hand that is easy to miss." — Karen & Barbara Fields,
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Season 1
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Episode 19
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7:45
Witchcraft's Reason
We need someone to blame. When something bad happens, we don't want to hear that it's because of chance or nature, because then it's meaningless. We want a social explanation. That's what witchcraft delivered for the Azande people, studied by E...
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Season 1
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Episode 18
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10:03
What Are Social Constructions Made Of?
"When a dancer stops dancing, the dance is finished." - Bruno LatourWhat Latour calls "critical sociology" (an intellectual foundation of social justice) does three things. 1) It replaces the activities of real people with abstract forc...
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Season 1
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Episode 17
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12:51
The Invention of White Privilege
Plantation owners in 17th century Barbados had a problem. They purchased white indentured servants and black slaves. At that time, there was little difference: life expectancy was so short that most indentured servants never saw freedom. The de...
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Season 1
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Episode 16
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7:14
The Matrix and the Heresy of Progress
The Matrix echoes the Gnostic heresy: the world is a prison for our souls, the creator is evil, and knowledge brings freedom. In the film, what appears to be reality is in fact an illusion created to enslave humanity. The...
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Season 1
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Episode 15
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13:47
Live Not for Others
Affirmation is a trap. It makes us dependent, weak and unhappy.It starts in school. Some comply and are rewarded. They do well in school: but if they have come to expect praise, they may be lost or angry in lie. Others resist and are pu...
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Season 1
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Episode 14
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10:02
Joseph Tainter: Collapse and Complexity
As society becomes complex, it reaches a point where the cost of coping with problems exceeds the benefits. Then, people may choose collapse as the lesser evil. But in a globalized world, no society can collapse in isolation. The alternative is...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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13:13
Shawshank: The Prison of Professional Life
The lesson of The Shawshank Redemption is compliance. The film is about life, and Shawshank prison stands for the institutions to which professionals devote their careers.It seems to be a story of freedom. It is not. The film af...
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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9:38
Like Bad Parents
We punish adults as though they were children - in ways that don't even work on kids.We say that we are handing out "consequences" - as though we are parents and they are our children. Of course it doesn't work - no-one likes being trea...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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8:55
Pandemic of Hate
"Treat them like the plague-spreading lepers that they are. You want to be put in isolation camps? That's where this is headed, you will have deserved it, and I'm all for it."— highly up-voted comment on Reddit, September, 2021There...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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18:43
Fanaticism Without Faith: The Internet and the French Revolution
"Fanaticism without faith, discipline without loyalty, excommunication without communion." Augustin Cochin.Sound familiar? The Internet is not the first time a new forum for communication turned society upside down. The French Revolutio...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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15:11
Hierarchy vs Centralization: Equality Against Itself
"Equality facilitates the exercise of power." - Mirabeau to Louis XVI, during the French RevolutionThere is no escape from organization and structure. We may try to create groups without structure, in which everyone is equal: but the re...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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8:53
Lest We Be Barbarians
"You must pick up the gun to defend civilization against barbarism. Those who pick up the gun are barbarians." — Kenneth HiteJustice is not only about punishing the perpetrator: it's about ourselves, and who we become. We are what we do,...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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8:49
René Girard: Contagion and Scapegoat
Humans respond to plagues and social disorder with collective murder. Since antiquity, communities have chosen victims who are marginal or different. The perpetrators truly believe that the victim is guilty - a belief confirmed when the murder ...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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11:14
René Girard: Identity and Desire
Does desire come from within? René Girard argues no: we imitate the desires of others. We pursue the fantasy that if only we could uncover and achieve our own, authentic desires, we would be happy. In fact, our desires are copies; when we achie...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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10:11
Hitler's Students: Elite Overproduction Then and Now
When there are too many elites, chaos follows. In essence, this is historian Peter Turchin's theory of elite overproduction. Tracing the history of civilizations around the world, he finds that an oversup...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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12:48
"A conscious decision": How Copyright Sold Out U.S. Industry
"My job was to be in charge of the intellectual property policy of the United States . . . if you go to a shopping mall in this country you cannot buy anything made in the United States anymore. It all comes from China or some other place like ...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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11:07