Episode 1421
Sanctions are a weapon / Nicholas Mulder
Jan 4 2022
I think we have to just really be laser focused on the pro-democratic project. That doesn't mean that we ignore the harms that this authoritarian incursion has put upon our society, our government, et cetera. I think there are many things that probably need to be unwound, right? Either fully or partially in terms of autocratic state capacity. But I also think that it is not going to be just enough to undo because the systems and the structures that we've been living in have not delivered for people for decades. We've been in a sort of cost of living crisis for decades. People have been struggling with healthcare, the cost of education, the cost of housing for decades. And so simply undoing what Trump has done is not going to be enough to actually create the society, the democracy, and the economy that we need and we deserve. And frankly, in my opinion, it's not going to be enough to win an election, right? I don't think people are looking for just the opposite of what we're experiencing right now. I think people are looking for policy makers who truly listen. Who truly understand and who truly are putting forth their best effort to address the concerns of regular people and put power back in the hands of regular people. So just as the administration and its allies have really kind of laced our political institutions with an authoritarian administration, such as retooling the IRS to be used for surveillance as opposed to in tax enforcement. A pro-democracy coalition has to do the same thing. And so a big question I think for all of us and all of your listeners is what are the different ways in which we can kind of weave in a pro-democracy bias into our state institutions? This is not to be clear about partisanship. This is about democracy. How do we make sure that our democratic institutions are sort of fundamentally oriented towards helping people, helping society, and building that trust back in the public sector?
Rakeem Mabud speaks with This Is Hell! about her new essay for Common Wealth that she co-wrote with Melanie Brusseler titled “The Power Grab: The Authoritarian Coalition’s Strategy of Power Consolidation”.
Rakeen is an expert on how economic trends impact people’s everyday lives. She was most recently the Chief Economist at Groundwork Collaborative, and has also held roles in the US Treasury Department, Roosevelt Institute and Time’s Up. She holds a PhD in Government from Harvard University, and a BA from Wellesley College.
We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will... read more
Follow
Weekly Mailing List
New interviews every Monday
Dec 13 2021
Dec 2 2021
Posted by Matthew Boedy
12-2-21 The Durian Witches
Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
There are a lot of unsturdy judgments laymen have come to about science and medicine. It seems the more we probe and discover about the universe the more fodder amateurs have to build mistaken beliefs on. And the more we probe mistaken beliefs, the more certain we become that what we call the nature of reality reflects not aspects of the universe so much as our prejudices. Prejudices about social stratification and the way society ought to be. Being a layman myself, and an especially dilettantish layman to boot, I exhibit these prejudices as much as, if not more than, anyone.
There’s an efficiency model of evolution, where a Darwinist mechanism weeds out losers within a generation or two, rapidly leaving a species better adapted to be its best self, without being weighed down by feeble kin. This model pairs nicely with an über-capitalist view of winner-takes-all, losers weepers. It also feeds the neo-Nazis’ and other eugenics enthusiasts’ Nietzschean argument that the weak masses of humanity have polluted our species. They have manipulated collective morality, fooling the strong into wasting time and resources taking care of them, whereas in some putative state of “nature” they would have been left to die for the good of posterity.
That state of nature exists in some parallel universe where humans are not communal animals with an innate impulse to care for each other. It’s a fantasy where humans are lonely gatherers competing in an austere landscape for limited resources.
Research lately indicates that beings caring for less self-sufficient members of their own species is a rule rather than an exception. Trees in a forest sense each other’s needs through a mycological nerve network and respond to the distress of others by redirecting nutrient resources and water their way. Lizards form bonds of affection. Vampire bats have been observed sharing blood with needy vampire bats nearby, even those outside their kinship circles. Nature as the realm of the rugged individualist is a pathological rationalization for maladaptive, greedy, cruel treatment of others. It is not somehow more real than the instinct for compassion and mutual aid.
On an only slightly related topic, I recently... read more