RevolutionZ

Episode 405 of RevolutionZ moves from Community and race last episode to Kinship, patriarchal sex gender relations, and feminism this episode. We start by noting, however, that after our What Is To Be Undone episodes that criticized long-standing left orthodoxies we got nearly no pushback at all--and none publicly--and wondering why that was while also hoping that soon reactions will appear. Then...

Episode 404 of RevolutionZ continues the excerpted materials from the seven author work,Liberating Theory, this time with a chapter that insists we need to address a “community sphere” to understand society, not as a feel-good add-on, but as a core part of how society persists or changes. Community affiliation is shaped by social relations, history, and culture, and it follows us into every other...

Episode 403 of RevolutionZ takes a side trip away from our current ideology sequence to revisit the issues surrounding the development of Artificial Intelligence. Media is full of smart sober folks saying the end is near but also with smart sober folks saying utopia is near. Are we on a deadly trajectory to hell? Or is heaven on earth the next stop on the technology express? Or maybe it is just...

Episode 402 of RevolutionZ moves from part one of a sequence about ideology to part two of it, from critique of an old ideology to transcend to offering a a new one to consider and extend. Too often activists agree on outrage but fracture over the explanation, strategy, root cause, and solution. The last few episodes have argued that Marxism Leninism not only doesn't preclude such divisions, but...

Episode 401 of RevolutionZ addresses our Trump Problem and, to finish out a sequence, our Marxism Leninism problem. Trump doesn’t need everyone to love him to become even more deadly dangerous. He only needs enough of us to look away, stay tired, or treat politics like a bad weather system that will pass on its own. What is we refuse that comfort story and ask the harder question: What can we...

Episode 400 of RevolutionZ assesses Classical Marxism are a conceptual framework for guiding political activism. A revolutionary theory can feel powerful precisely because it is big, elegant, and confident. The problem is, big and elegant or not, what does the theory help with or hinder when you try to use it on Monday morning. This episode takes a hard look at classical Marxism as a practical...

Episode 399 of RevolutionZ continues the "Ideology Sequence," this time criticizing Leninism based largely on last episode's presentation of Bolshevik practice. Why do revolutions that promise liberation so often end up with new bosses? Leninist strategy is a living set of assumptions about leadership, discipline, “efficiency,” compromise, and more and about how to think about and apply each. The...

Episode 398 of RevolutionZ discusses how a revolution that topples a targeted regime can nonetheless fail to meet its grass roots aims even while celebrating victory. It continues a sequence of episodes aimed to assess Marxism Leninism as an ideology that might or might not usefully guide contemporary revolutionary practice. Having presented Classical Marxism and Leninism in the prior two...

Episode 397 of RevoluionZ takes a careful walk through classical Leninist strategy, presenting it as sympathetically as we can so that the real strengths and real weaknesses show themselves without caricature. The context is Marxism-Leninism as an ideology--Classical ideologies as a way to read social conditions, determine goals, choose strategy, and treat organization as a complex revolutionary...

Episode 396 of RevolutionZ presents Classical Marxism as Marxist Leninists typically utilize it. It is part of a sequence of episodes aimed at helping to assess classical ideologies to determine whether activists should opt for one or reject them all and move on to something better. Marxism can feel like a master key: one theory that explains why society is stuck, who holds power, and how history...