Step 35: Global Citizenship, Zackary Sietz

This week, I talk with Zackary Seitz, a doctoral student in Education and Social Studies at Univeristy of Texas at Denton.

We cover how to be a global citizen, especially when our globalized society is composed of multi-national companies, often dominated by them more than by the nation/states with whom we affiliate most often. This neoliberal, globalized capitalism works well for consumers (and those making millions of dollars), but we need to center the people who are hurt by these systems. This requires a new ethics of value, consumption, and desire, or perhaps a new means to measure happiness. 

Seitz and I discuss Marxian separation from processes of labor, hidden costs for ease and comfort, and ethical consumption versus poverty.  Humans behaving as machines, racist protocols and surveillance, and how animals factor into our humanity, and -of course- how we should reconsider our systems of power. We also discuss racial bias in technology. Towards the end of the hour Sietz discusses education, the failures of standardized testing, and the very narrow window of achievement they disproportionately focus on.