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WHAT IS POLITICS?

WHAT IS POLITICS?

WorldWideScrotes

Politics is one of the only practical disciplines where none of the main concepts have clear, coherent definitions. We define ourselves with terms like "left” and "right" and we believe in things like "democracy," “markets,” "capitalism" and "socialism" even though we don’t really know what any of these words actually mean. This series aims to make sense out of the political muddle that we've inherited from media, academia, and from decades of cold war propaganda, so that we can figure what it is that we want when it comes to politics, and how we can achieve it.

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Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best WHAT IS POLITICS? episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to WHAT IS POLITICS? for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite WHAT IS POLITICS? episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

When ideas and movements that threaten to overturn established hierarchies of power are absorbed into elite institutions like Ivy League universities and for-profit corporations, they get transformed into ideas that support the status quo, while remaining cloaked in the language and symbols of radicalism and egalitarianism.

The replacement of the word “equality” by the word “equity” in the worlds of academia, NGOs, activism, and corporate HR departments, is an example of the attempts by elite people and institutions to transform historical movements for racial and gender equality, into ideas that promote the interest of elites – in particular, economic inequality and the division of the working classes.

In this episode we explore how forms of oppression based on cultural factors like skin colour or gender or religion, etc, can only be understood and effectively combatted by understanding them in the context of economic exploitation and economic competition which is what the human propensity to discriminate evolved for in the first place.

PLEASE SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!!

I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me weeks to make these (this one took almost 3 months!), so please help if you can!

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TRANSCRIPT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

YOUTUBE CHANNEL

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tweeter: @worbsintowords

All music by STARSIXNINE

https://archive.org/download/9.2-lizards/9.2%20-%20LIZARD%20PEOPLE.mp3

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WHAT IS POLITICS? - 2. What is Politics and Why Should I Care? (video)
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01/15/20 • 36 min

How can people who don’t have official decision-making power exert their influence over those who do? A quick overview of some basic political concepts:

POLITICS
PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE POLITICS
POLITIES
GOVERNMENT
DEMOCRACY
AUTOCRACY
CONSENSUS
POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS
ECONOMICS
CAPITALISM
IDEOLOGY
CLASS
THE MARKET
BARGAINING POWER
CONTRACTS

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords

Original You-Tube version: https://youtu.be/dQjcmDGY2vA

help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

https://archive.org/download/01whatispolitics/01%20-%20WHAT%20IS%20POLITICS.mp3

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We cover the first part of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything: ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”, and we investigate the authors’ claims that human inequality has no origins based on archeology from upper paleolithic europe.

In doing so we also look at the difference between dominance hierarchy and democratic hierarchy, and what the necessary criteria are in order to establish a a dominance hierarchy.

We also discover that Graeber & Wengrow actually have no arguments for why human inequality supposedly has no origins!

all music by *69

*PLEASE* SHARE AND LET PEOPLE (ESPECIALLY MATT CHRISTMAN) KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!!

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tweeter: @worbsintowords

https://archive.org/download/10.3-smurfs/10.3%20-%20SMURFS.mp3

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WHAT IS POLITICS? - 6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works
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09/10/20 • 38 min

Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others. Was this always the state of the human world? Is hierarchy in our nature? Are egalitarian societies possible for human beings? If so, under what conditions? And is freedom compatible with equality?

FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY

tweeter: @worbsintowords

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

https://archive.org/download/06-anthropology-of-equality-hierarchy/06%20-%20ANTHROPOLOGY%20OF%20EQUALITY%20%26%20HIERARCHY.mp3

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Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies?

According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way. Meanwhile according to Jordan Peterson, it’s just human nature.

Thankfully for humanity, both of these views are very, very wrong.

all music by *69

FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY

tweeter: @worbsintowords

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

https://archive.org/download/07-male-dominance/07%20-%20MALE%20DOMINANCE.mp3

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The leaders of the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917 sought to establish socialism: a deeply democratic economic and political system where the employee/employer relationship is abolished, and where workers control their workplaces, the means of production and the government via the “free association of the producers”.

Instead the revolutions resulted in the establishment of the Soviet Union: an authoritarian state where the government became the sole employer and the state controlled the workers instead of the other way around. This then became the model for “communist” countries around the world.

Why did the Soviet Union fail at socialism?

What can we learn about this failure to apply to our political struggles in the present and future?

ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE

PLEASE SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!!

I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me weeks to make these (this one took 4 months!), so please help if you can!

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https://archive.org/download/11.1-RUSSIANREV/11.1%20-%20RUSSIAN%20REVOLUTION%20I.mp3

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WHAT IS POLITICS? - 9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
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06/07/21 • 19 min

The foundation of “cancel culture” and “political correctness” is the wage labour employment contract.

ARTICLES QUOTED:

Corey Robin, Chris Bertram and Alex Gourevitch 2012 – Life at Work, Crooked Timber

Amanda Hess 2013 – How Sexy Should A Worker Be? The Plight of the Babe in the American Workplace, Slate

Yvonne Abraham 2015 – Tom Brady has more rights than most American workers, Boston Globe

link to share this podcast (opens the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device): http://www.podfollow.com/worbs

YouTube Channel

Patreon

tweeter: @worbsintowords

https://archive.org/download/SPITBALL01/SPITBALL%2001%20-%20EMPLOYMENT%20CONTRACT.mp3

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Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy combine to give police incredible power. This is a key reason why they’re rarely punished, even for the most egregious abuses.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

tweeter: @worbsintowords

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

https://archive.org/download/bleepbloop01/BLEEP%20BLOOP%2001.mp3

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WHAT IS POLITICS? - Interview: Fight Like an Animal / Arnold Schroeder
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07/20/21 • 0 min

Interview with Arnold Schroeder of Fight Like an Animal, a wonderful and endessly fascinating show that looks through 20 years of experience of hardcore climate activism, at why left political movements are so weak and ineffective and how to change that, and which covers everything from history, to political psychology, to anthropology, psychiatry, animal behaviour, religious cults, and much more.

I highly recommend everyone check out his show, and dig deep into the extensive bibliographies for every episode, which in and of themselves are a gold mine.

And look for my interview on Arnolds show in the coming days

All music is by me.

www.againsttheinternet.com

Fight Like an Animal Patreon

What is Politics Patreon

What Is Politics Video Channel (video version of this interview and all episodes can be found here plus other stuff)

https://archive.org/download/arnoldschroeder/INTERVIEW%20WITH%20ARNOLD.mp3

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WHAT IS POLITICS? - 4. How Political Definitions Shape Reality
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05/31/20 • 37 min

Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators and political actors.

The definition of government that journalists and academics use makes us blind to the people who rule over us in our private lives.

Popular definitions of left and right propagated by media and academia (the state vs. the market, big vs. small government, liberty vs. equality), frame the world in right-wing terms, while the historical definition (hierarchy vs. equality) frames the world in left wing terms.

Competing definitions of racism have different consequences in terms of peoples’ ability to discuss racism, and on how we relate to people from different cultural categories than our own.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

tweeter: @worbsintowords

Video version: https://youtu.be/TaFkzIQk-1o

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics

https://archive.org/download/04-relativity/04%20-%20LINGUISTIC%20RELATIVITY%20AND%20POLITICSes.mp3

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FAQ

How many episodes does WHAT IS POLITICS? have?

WHAT IS POLITICS? currently has 24 episodes available.

What topics does WHAT IS POLITICS? cover?

The podcast is about House, News, Capitalism, What, Podcasts, Economics, Education, Current and Politics.

What is the most popular episode on WHAT IS POLITICS??

The episode title '9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People: when right wing politics masquerade as left wing politics' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on WHAT IS POLITICS??

The average episode length on WHAT IS POLITICS? is 31 minutes.

How often are episodes of WHAT IS POLITICS? released?

Episodes of WHAT IS POLITICS? are typically released every 64 days, 4 hours.

When was the first episode of WHAT IS POLITICS??

The first episode of WHAT IS POLITICS? was released on Dec 6, 2019.

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