Benjamin has been making the rounds on all my thinky spaces and I love it. ❤ showing we've been wrestling with this since Plato mybe before that.
@peternyc
Ай бұрын
Benjamin's idea that the the market has degraded the (21st c. digital) subject is huge. It deserves its own dystopian fiction novel. Orwell and Huxley have to make room for Studebaker.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
Great then people can read that in 20 or 30 years and think, man, it really is time for another great science fiction novel.
@eightiefiv3
Ай бұрын
B. Studebaker!! ❤
@gwelengu
Ай бұрын
Very interesting interview. Depressing but sober look at the structure of modern society. I always appreciate that Studebaker tries to put things a way even an ignorant worker like me can understand. I very much sympathize with Doug’s questions as they reflect my own hope for building better connections with other people. But I will admit I work a lot and am tired and not social after work. I want what Doug wants, but where are the public forums? They’re online in these awful, fractured subcommunities. People posting pictures of their food, memes and cats on discord and then going back to watching tv or playing video games for an hour to relax before going to sleep and waking up for work the next day. Then posting an ironic Garfield meme about Mondays
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
Never call yourself an ignorant worker. Is there any value in getting each other’s backs by demanding life become more satisfying and that culture should be less alienating and work less draining? Perhaps we should stick it to bosses and the like, the flesh and blood cogs of the machinery, stand up, but also get the backs of others if and when they do, such that it begins to be felt in our very viscera in reality.
@djl8710
Ай бұрын
More of this guy please.
@emilioh6317
Ай бұрын
I’d love to see a Studebaker and Cutrone conversation
@timjkoala7556
Ай бұрын
Studebaker is a much better communicator than Cutrone and less condescending as well
@christiaangreer8798
Ай бұрын
They’ve been together, i think on this podcast a few months ago. I saw Cutrone questioning Ben about his book. Only limited interaction. Cutrone asked Ben, why not a political revolution if you don’t think a social one is possible.
@RoesingApe
Ай бұрын
Not sure I totally buy the idea that the state is dis-empowered by his take. Systems have their own rules. But, I feel vindicated in some of my criticism of here and Varn about how most Marxists completely avoid taking into account the physical and mental state of the populace. Here he points to this being an effect of infinite splitting of positions, but I would also maybe have a hard look at American numbers. How many aren't medically, neurologically, physically, chemically, or digitally handicapped against any organizing of political power, and then take that number and split it up amongst all the positions that hate each other. We are fucked, before we even get to the capitalist part. We are domesticated cogs, drugged and distracted. That's the proletariat. Not nerds with big words. Enjoyed the discussion. A+.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
Who would ever make the claim that a mentally and physically healthy proletariat is inessential for successful proletarian revolution?
@RoesingApe
Ай бұрын
@@alexanderbuchanan3552 I dunno. But I wasn't talking about such a subjective term as 'health'. I think there's health, and then there's 'handicapped against any organizing of political power'. That Venn diagram isn't necessarily a circle.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
@@RoesingApe I don't know what you mean by "Venn diagram isn't necessarily a circle," a little too abstract for me. So, you mean to say that when you said "handicapped against any organizing of political power," you meant it as a metaphor? What then is the material force which causes this metaphorical "handicapping"?
@RoesingApe
Ай бұрын
@@alexanderbuchanan3552 It can be any number of things. It's mainly to point out that populations don't exist in a vacuum. There's a reason it took a bunch of free people to win the civil war for slaves. Because it is possible to keep a population under control, for centuries. Another example would be the Soviets resistance to and then embrasure of alcohol. If populations have triggers, they also have buffers. A theory might be that giving a majority of the population ADHD with phones triggering mass spikes in isolation and inability to gather and communicate would form a positive feedback loop inhibiting any change to the status quo. It's not rocket science. If you keep all the dogs in the pound sedated they don't bark as much. The idea that populations are kept in control on a completely cerebral or ideological level is a result of narcissistic anthro-centrism. At least that's what this marijuana is telling me.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
@@RoesingApe Well I'm capable of interpreting your marijuana-inspired thoughts. I find them interesting. I think you have hit on something, although it's a little scattered. It all fits for me, except "the idea that populations are kept in control on a completely cerebral or ideological level is a result of narcissistic anthro-centrism." Yet even in typing your words out, I think I get what you're saying all the way to the point of this term, "narcissistic anthro-centrism." Maybe narcissism is key here, but what is "anthro-centrism"? Okay, and then, but are you getting at the fact that, control systems or social control exists? If so, I agree. In other words, if you're suggesting that there are conditioning mechanisms which make a populace more subservient and exploitable, and that it isn't some mere matter of a purely ideological phenomenon, I agree with you. There's a tangible material component to a conditioning process, like rewiring people's brains to respond to this stimulus or that, and be less prone to be able to communicate in more socially powerful or healthy way. I think there's probably a lot of truth in the idea that "giving a majority of the population ADHD with phones triggering mass spikes in isolation and inability to gather and communicate would form a positive feedback loop inhibiting any change to the status quo." I agree with your thesis! So, what to do? I wrote this the other day, and thought about "posting it," but I'd rather share it here with a person directly. It goes. 'I have no patience for the lack of patience conditioned into the mass psyche of today.' And in fact, I think this sentence finds much affinity with what you have written here in your above paragraph. So, maybe there's something to it.
@riddlerdon
Ай бұрын
“You can win an election without being liked by very many people at all” that is the UK GE in a nutshell. Most people loathe starmer- yet he won a landslide. Doesn’t bode well for politics in general I’d say
@nickprobst6841
Ай бұрын
I think a conversation between Studebaker and Sean KB would be helpful. If there is anything you can do to foster this.
@GrouchoGrouch
Ай бұрын
This is the sort of thing I think about when hearing about MMT/Federal Jobs Guarantee/UBS. Can we all really agree enough to implement this stuff in a way that doesn’t just replicate what we have now?
@JCT1926
Ай бұрын
This is the single most tortured metaphor I've ever heard This guy is very interesting, though.
@peternyc
Ай бұрын
I haven't read Pettis' book, but I know his work. Perhaps a more fun way to get at the same issues Pettis gets at would be to look at Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation.
@kushluk777
Ай бұрын
Let me cast a ray of hope, and make an argument: the situation of cumulatively increasing atomisation and disagreement resulting in social disintegration is not an inevitability emerging from a mediatic technological-economic situation - namely, social media, the algorithm, and pathological changes in the countenance of capital relations, but rather is a knowingly adopted and explicit control strategy that leverages current situations to create a prison-like political metagame from which novel consensus is unable to form or escape. That is entirely on purpose. The winner of that status-quo deadlock, inertia, and stupification is neoliberal capital homeostasis. But just like past combinations of then-extant technologies that were defensive in nature, like Castles, British Naval supremacy, or the Swiss Pike Square, they’re actively maintained, have their weaknesses, and inevitably create the space for meta-strategies that these defense-in-depth systems cannot deal with, leading to their eventual abandonment or defeat. Contemporary times support and elucidate the condensed core of this argument. In recent times social media agreement over very basic topics, such as prices or official abuses, in countries like Lebanon and Chile, resulted in massive political actions where millions participated, filling the streets, ready to act to achieve collective aims in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood over and above other differences. How then could it happen that some parts of the world could use social media to seek massive democratic agreements instantly - while others, which are wealthier, only seem to leverage the same technology as rage bait machines, nepenthe kiosks, or shout-boxes? Because they are organised, in richer societies, intentionally, like the castles or the pike squares. Algorithmic control, ‘misinformation’ campaigns, and a permanent machine of spin that emanates from the monopolistic controllers of social media, who are very few, prevents simple cooperation over issues millions can agree on. Issues as simple as “peace, bread, and land.” That is the big difference - that in the richest nations, they have battened down the hatches of potential agreement, already. A current example might include the observation that President Biden is not mentally capable to lead or run a campaign, which as true as it is, is most likely algorithmically suppressed - despite being a thing most people could agree on, indeed already agree on among US democrats. But remember: this castle, like all castles, does not defend itself. Potential meta-strategy against this meta-strategy includes a demand to end monopolistic control or ability to control over social media, converting these into true discussion fora. If this is done, then massive actions that can and do form in countries of moderate wealth, may also form in the richest ones - and why not? Another meta-strategy is restriction over the use of algorithmic content itself, demanding that interactions be organically emergent from users rather than the subtle manipulations of monopolists and their direct power-relations with/between government(s). In conclusion, all swords cut both ways, and that machine which is so capable of capturing and imprisoning millions by themselves, if somehow defeated, may be the same link by which millions and billions can agree on those most basic and fundamental aspects of their lives, dignities, and futures.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
The second paragraph is a brilliant dialectic of investigation! When you wrote, “this castle, like all castles, does not defend itself,” are you pointing to the essential weakness of them, that, if their "king" were isolated within one, it would become their own trap? In effect, if one can turn the defenders of tyranny against tyranny itself, tyranny doesn’t have a chance in hell? A specific question on this exact prediction; “a demand to end monopolistic control or ability to control over social media, converting these into true discussion fora. If this is done, then massive actions that can and do form in countries of moderate wealth, may also form in the richest ones.” What makes you so sure that the masses of the 20s, for instance, would be moved at the concept of monopoly? Or what makes one so sure that social media itself will become an object that people care enough about to protest over? And this, “demanding that interactions be organically emergent from users rather than the subtle manipulations of monopolists and their direct power-relations with/between government(s).” I second this. It is very well put. However, its very idea will likely be met by charges of “techno-phobia,” or “Luddite-ism.” I agree with your conclusion. But what are the precise conditions of “defeat” of the prime mover of tyranny here?
@bernardeugenio
Ай бұрын
There is a book about these social media revolts. I do believe all of them were a massive failures.
@champagnebulge1
Ай бұрын
Funny what DL says about Fall Guy. So true. I'm as nostalgic as the next person, but even the beloved and widely-thought-to-be *good* shows from the 70s-80s are actually cringe-y but from the pov of today's far smarter dramas. Yes MacGyver, that includes you.
@Mai-Gninwod
Ай бұрын
This one is really really neat to me
@johnnyecoman9121
Ай бұрын
Bring back Larry Law's Spectacular Times. I love Benji though, he is very clear thinking and strategically savy but I think there is a crossover between him and Law's thoughts.
@eightiefiv3
Ай бұрын
Mondo 2000 mention!! ❤
@ldjkfg
Ай бұрын
'The greatest advance of the masses hitherto has been religious war, for it proves that the masses have begun to deal reverently with conceptions of things. Religious wars only result, when human reason generally has been refined by the subtle disputes of sects; so that even the populace becomes punctilious and regards trifles as important, actually thinking it possible that the "eternal salvation of the soul" may depend upon minute distinctions of concepts.' Aphorism 144 from the Gay Science Just replace "religious" with "culture" or "ideological." Granted I think Nietzsche's "praise" is a little backhanded here. The sects are dogmatic, and it's not as if the adherents are breaking rank, or modifying or criticizing the ideological minutia of the sects to which they already belong. Belonging to the right sect will save your soul, but based on what do people decide what sect to follow? Individuals are apparently not dealing "reverently with conceptions of things" on their own in their spare time. Based on what are people really attached to their soul-saving dogmas?
@Pinstripe0451
Ай бұрын
Only humans can create something so ingenious as the market, that in return, dumbs them down again.
@AnnoyingCitizen
Ай бұрын
I would love it if the next big social justice phenomenon was called “Shire” - so huge I really can’t explain
@coyoteblue4027
Ай бұрын
Sort of depends what one means by "Narcissist/narcissism" I mean, if you are talking about pathological narcissism, then the question is irrelevant because that is fairly small protuon of the population. If you're talking about american hyperindividualism, probably, but you know.. it's not good. If you're talking about collective narcissism, then again, yes, but it's not good, ranging from chauvenism to outright fascism and ethnonationalism.
@Djordj69
Ай бұрын
Modern tech makes counter culture impossible as they say .
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
Why?
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
@ChucklesMcGurk Yes, I think you put it well. But to push back a little. Is it REALLY rendered "impossible"? How so?
@kushluk777
Ай бұрын
It is not the technology itself inherently, it is how it is deployed on a battlefield of politics. And any deployment can be defeated using the correct tactics, to take advantage of the weaknesses in any opponent's arrangement of their chess pieces. There is no perfect system of power, and what is a division machine today may be a unification machine in other circumstances.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
@@kushluk777 Yes!!
@kushluk777
Ай бұрын
@@alexanderbuchanan3552 Basically what I wrote in the big comment no one read lol. "Why can some areas make effective and really massive social media agreements/actions/protests/stoppages" and others can't? Because it's a tactic as described above. It's a chess strat, and one that can be beaten.
@Djordj69
Ай бұрын
Doug fighting his inner democrat , Cheap and invalid no doubt. A false immpresion ?
@Djordj69
Ай бұрын
Love the name Benjamin ,and so far the person . But is he a good writer ?. I don't know , not read his books. He seems like apretty good historyn. Is he a good speller !?
@peternyc
Ай бұрын
Maybe I'm being unrealistic, but perhaps the solution to overcoming the problems laid out in Bowling Alone are not so different from the reasons the red meat Republican base are able to overlook things that should be recognized as garbage. They organize around fear, shame, and hate. But if you think about it, Trump was able to become the magnet for the right wing because he stood up to power right from the start. During the first Republican Primary debate, he told the audience that in the past he had given donations to every single candidate on stage that night. There were possibly 12 candidates on stage, and he had just said that they are all prostitutes, in effect. This one move on Trump's part separated him from the pack and the others never really had a chance. The left never tells the truth to power. They pretend to do this by hiding behind a stupid rainbow colored flag, but who are they fooling? When the average working class conservative sees a liberal virtue signaling, they know that they, the working class, will have to pay for the virtue of the PMC via higher taxes and loss of living standards. Telling truth to power has to be centered around social class and economics, and must at the same time reveal the virtue signalers as malignant phonies who are "steering the herd back into the village." Both have to be done at the same time. And it would be better if done while not looking like an actor playing a part. No "working class hero" outfits. No conspicuous display of race, gender, etc.
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
In other words the left has lost its ability to authentically challenge power?
@peternyc
Ай бұрын
@@alexanderbuchanan3552 Absolutely. All dissent gets funneled right back into the two parties. I say funneled back into both parties because the libertarian dissenters are brought back into the Republican fold and the non libertarian dissenters are funneled back into the Democratic Party. The fact is that social class - your ability to live a decent life, is erased from the collective mind of the American public. There is no institution that can facilitate a true solidarity movement. That is the topic of this video. I believe if there is a chance, it has to be in the form I mentioned in the comment - the message and the messenger have to be aligned against partisan sectarianism. Red and Blue are poison pills.
@Panama_lewis
Ай бұрын
Studebaker great. Have Ian Wright on!
@tobi9466
Ай бұрын
fuck that hurts :(
@FakhryBFTaha
Ай бұрын
Critiquing China and Vietnam's state capitalism is not fare and square "stato-phobia" it might be just Cold War Orientalism.
@sublationmedia
Ай бұрын
Would you say the same about those Marxists who also refuse to accept Iran and Russia as leader nations of socialism? How about those socialists who refuse to accept Denmark as the model for socialism?
@FakhryBFTaha
Ай бұрын
It's better to think "Adorno-think" about this on a case by case basis. What I disagree with is over optimism or over pessimism about any capitalist state, once we do either, this is when the "Resignation" already have happened. The 1920 Baku congress is a good example of Stalinist reverse orientalism, were it was implied that eastern peoples have an inherent mystical superiority that would allow the October revolution to overcome what the Germans and Western Europeans failed in 1919. Fast forward to Vietnam in the 1960s and to Palestine now. On the other side, you have too much pessimism against the Rest of the world created during the Truman era. Fascism, Stalinism, the development of the technology of death and repression right until the atomic bomb have created the paranoid Cold War University. This is how we kept jumping between orientalism and reverse-orientalism, demonizing the East and demonizing the West, 1968 and 1989. There was never a middle-ground, either pessimism about the Self or pessimism about the Other.
@sublationmedia
Ай бұрын
What i think is that the US might have more potential for socialism than any other nation that I'm aware of precisely because of the character that I find most leftists despising, including Ben Studebaker. The "Maverick" or cowboy spirit that I think arose out of the American revolution and the constitutional order. I think this spirit also arises out of the fact that we are a nation of immigrants without any real ethnic basis. I say this even as I think the US state is monstrous and the people are nihilistic and despairing.
@FakhryBFTaha
Ай бұрын
I oppose the Left's demonization of the pioneer figure and bourgeois subject. The same way in which the right says "this is Socialism" about several Stalinist experiments, the Left, like Hans Gruber, say this is "the cowboy" about the Cold War and War on Terror's neoconservatism. It's bedazzling how the Left and the Zionist Right both agree that the West Bank settler, a subject produced by Israeli state bureaucracy, is "the cowboy." In the 1950s the US state department sought to use the inspiration of "yeomen democracy" and "homesteaders" to apply land reforms in Iraq, Syria and Egypt. But the fact that such ethos were not organic but simulated by State Department bureaucracy, meant that the "civilian" and liberal Cold Warriors were vulnerable before the priorities of the national security state and empire. Education that the "cowboy" is the figure we need is not enough, we should overcome the capitalist state that either exploits this subject as a hero in the Bush era or exploits this subject as a (racist, sexist) villain in the Biden era.
@kushluk777
Ай бұрын
"Orientalism" now seems to mean "immunity from criticism" rather than the possibility of Westerners misunderstanding something and making unfair criticisms.
@cleonanderson1722
Ай бұрын
Oh no, someone said the n-word
@AnnoyingCitizen
Ай бұрын
How is “Whiteness” not a perfect descriptor for the non-revolutionary subject that Benjamin is describing?
@sublationmedia
Ай бұрын
Because it holds onto the misperception that the atomization we are experiencing has something to do with ethnicity or race. It does not.
@AnnoyingCitizen
Ай бұрын
@@sublationmediaya but does that matter at this point? Assuming we take Studebaker at his word and just “perch”
@AnnoyingCitizen
Ай бұрын
Benjamin is saying that the historical bourgeois subject can’t be remade, or is gone. So fuck it then right? I’m happy being humbly perched on my bar stool, phone in hand, tweeting the days events.
@sublationmedia
Ай бұрын
Here's how I think of it, there is no reason to give up on public reason even if it is difficult and makes you (and me) feel uncomfortable. Given that public reason and what we might call bourgeois subjectivity is the best hope for both freedom and a future that includes meaningful subjectivity, why not double down?
@alexanderbuchanan3552
Ай бұрын
@@AnnoyingCitizen In the 60s, the attitude towards a similar problem was to "turn on, tune in, drop out." What do you gather was the long-term strategic viability of this?
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