A shift in focus for this week’s podcast to discuss a new book by Richard Seymour. the Subtitled “The Downfall of Liberal Civilization”, Disaster Nationalism investigates “a struggle for our collective soul”, along with the psychology of far-right movements.
As Richard warns, these can take many forms – including the perversion of liberal and leftist agendas into authoritarianism. “There is a fascist temptation for everyone,” he writes: “we all have our jackboots.” Rather than focusing on charismatic leaders, as if defeating them might solve the problem, he highlights the trends and tendencies that they exploit, and in the process suggests how to counter them.
Richard used to blog as “lenin”, so we start by discussing his political perspective, then explore other topics from purposeful living to the limits of materialism. He’s the author of multiple books, as well as a co-founder of Salvage, “a bi-annual journal of revolutionary arts and letters”, which “recognises that the catastrophe is already upon us and that the decisive struggle is over what to do with the remains.”
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Ancient Futures to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
