Zero Squared #103: Norman Finkelstein on Academic Freedom
Norman Finkelstein is a controversial figure on the left and he’s the guest this week. However, while Finkelstein is famous for his books about the Israel/Palestine conflict, we don’t discuss that topic, but instead discuss a book he’s working on entitled On Academic Freedom.
Many believe that socialism is a struggle to overturn the market and that revolutionaries should attempt to deprogram the masses who have been suckered, brainwashed, and ultimately corrupted by cheap consumer goods. In this third episode of WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY author MK Hobson (Native Star-https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003F3PKFY) and Zero Books publisher and author Douglas Lain (Bash Bash Revolution-https://www.amazon.com/Bash-Revolutio...) question this view as they explore and explain the topic of “Anti-Consumerism” while taking an excerpt from Swift’s “A Left For Itself”
WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY is a new monthly video series modeled on educational television programs like 3...2...1 Contact and Square One Television, only rather than explaining the natural sciences, WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY aims to explore Critical Theory of the Marxist variety.
Also Starring:
Noah Lain as the boy with his damn hat.
Zero Books Logo Animations and other animations donated by Brian Cole
https://www.instagram.com/robotbloodco/
Related Books
A Left for Itself: Left-Wing Hobbyists and the Rise of Identity Radicalism by David Swift
https://www.amazon.com/Left-Itself-Left-Wing-Hobbyists-Radicalism/dp/1789040736
Adverts Cited
That’s Some Spicy Meatball by Alka Seltzer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQhwNtY3N2k
Teach the World to Sing by Coca-Cola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q
Video and Music Clips from Storyblocks and the Prelinger Archive
Other Music Includes
Zero Squared Theme or “Untitled” by Nik Walton
An Acoustic version of Macintosh plus by The Guests
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Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyepZ2d7lt8
This video is a mash-up of a conversation recorded for our Pop the Left series with Patrick Higgins and an essay written by Douglas Lain entitled Gramsci and Bordiga Were Communists. Higgins is an editor of the journal Former People and the podcaster behind Radical Thoughts, while Douglas Lain is a novelist and the publishing manager for Zero Books.
Radical Thoughts Podcast
https://www.buzzsprout.com/865147
Relevant Book
Proletarian Power by Gwyn A Williams
https://www.amazon.com/Proletarian-order-councils-communism-1911-1921/dp/0902818651
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIiWc7wddhQ
Todd McGowan is committed to the idea that theoretical exploration of questions about existence, the psyche, and society can contribute to radical politics. He is the author of "Emancipation After Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution" and a cultural critic. In this video he talks to Douglas Lain about Hegel and claims the old philosopher is perhaps more radical than Karl Marx.
Relevant Reading
Emancipation After Hegel
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/emancipation-after-hegel/9780231192705
Todd McGowan's youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOMku8U1zFKsBudd3BcgSAw
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zero Books aims to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr7LR54Qqis
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
Books mentioned in this podcast:
The Trouble with Diversity - by Walter Benn Michaels
https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Diversity-Learned-Identity-Inequality/dp/1250099331
Our America - by Walter Benn Michaels
https://www.amazon.com/Our-America-Modernism-Post-Contemporary-Interventions/dp/0822320649
The Shape of the Signifier - by Walter Benn Michaels
https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Signifier-1967-End-History/dp/0691126186
Bash Bash Revolution - by Douglas Lain
https://www.amazon.com/Bash-Revolution-Douglas-Lain-ebook/dp/B07H472CHB
Walter Benn Michaels is a well known literary theorist and the author of political books such as The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and essays like The Beauty of a Social Problem. He is a controversial guest and one I was glad to talk to especially in the context of the reaction to my video critiquing intersectionality.
If you like this week’s podcast you should support us on Patreon. Patreon supporters receive access to a second podcast every week. Our patrons are helping us continue and expand our online production including doing more podcasts like Symptomatic Redness and expand the content on our youtube channel. We currently have 493 patrons and we’re hoping to reach 500 patrons by this time next week.
Support us on Patreon and get access to the Herding Cats: Capital Reading Group
https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v4AipH4gzw
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
This video was made to celebrate passing the 25k subscriber mark and as an excuse to show off my Happy Wheels and Punch Out skillz. My son Benjamin joins me to answer youtube comments. Thanks for watching!
Bash Bash Revolution
https://amzn.to/2uxRbDO
Benjamin Lain's Twitter Feed
@chickenfrend
Watch the most popular Zero Books episodes: http://bit.ly/2KbC2hF
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayoCUxes1nw
Coming to Verso Books February 2024: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741197/the-double-shift-by-jason-read/
ABOUT THE DOUBLE SHIFT
“Why do people fight for their exploitation as if it was liberation?” How Marx and Spinoza can explain our attachment to work, and what we can do about it
In a world of declining wages, working conditions, and instability, the response for many has been to work harder, increasing hours and finding various ways to hustle in a gig economy. What drives our attachment to work? To paraphrase a question from Spinoza, “Why do people fight for their exploitation as if it was liberation?”
The Double Shift turns towards the intersection of Marx and Spinoza in order to examine the nature of our affective, ideological, and strategic attachment to work. Through an examination of contemporary capitalism and popular culture it argues that the current moment can be defined as one of “negative solidarity.”
The hardship and difficulty of work is seen not as the basis for alienation and calls for its transformation but rather an identification with the difficulties and hardships of work. This distortion of the work ethic leads to a celebration of capitalists as job creators and suspicion towards anyone who is not seen as a “real worker.”
The book is grounded in philosophy, specifically Marx and Spinoza, and is in dialogue with Plato, Smith, Hegel, and Arendt, but, at the same time, in examining contemporary ideologies and ideas about work it discusses motivational meetings at Apple Stores, the culture of Silicon Valley, and films and television from Office Space to Better Call Saul.
The Double Shift argues for a transformation of our collective imagination and attachment to work.
Support Zer0 Books and Repeater Media on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
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Other links:
Check out the projects of some of the new contributors to Zer0 Books:
Acid Horizon
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/acidhorizon
Merch: crit-drip.com
The Philosopher’s Tarot from Repeater Books: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/the-philosophers-tarot/
The Horror Vanguard
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard
Buddies Without Organs
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/buddies-without-organs/id1543289939
Website: https://buddieswithout.org/
Xenogothic: https://xenogothic.com/
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdSmhLmAjJw
Originally from Canada and a member of Nipissing First Nation, Ashley Frawley is a senior lecturer in sociology and social policy at Swansea University in Wales. She is also an editor for Zero Books and a frequent contributor to the Zero Books youtube channel and podcast.
From his Battle of Ideas Bio:
Ralph Leonard is a British-Nigerian writer who was born in Eastbourne, Southern England, in 1996. He is a contributor to Areo magazine and has done previous work for NOTA Network. He writes on issues to do with politics, religion, culture, human rights and international affairs. As an ardent secularist and leftist, Ralph is critical of certain failings of many sections of the existing Left.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN2IjR6ZGQg
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
This video is part of our Herding Cats: Capital Reading Group. It is a quixotic summary of Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 2 entitled “The Process of Exchange.” Here is a link to that chapter at marxists.org:
Capital Volume 1, Chapter 2, Exchange
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
Support us on Patreon and get access to the Herding Cats: Capital Reading Group
https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Watch the most popular Zero Books episodes: http://bit.ly/2KbC2hF
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWLHOH7Zsdk
These video critiques memes. It doesn't aim at judging which memes are based and which are cringe, nor at declaring this or that meme to be dead, but rather at explaining and critiquing the concept of the meme, starting with the original meaning as Richard Dawkins defined it.
Relevant Titles
The Memeing of Mark Fisher by Mike Watson
https://www.waterstones.com/book/memeing-of-mark-fisher-the/mike-watson//9781789049336
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zero Books aims to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qXvnA8P1k0