Hotel Bar Sessions Panic Now? (with Ira Allen)
Jun 13, 2025
Ira Allen, an Associate Professor at Northern Arizona University and author of 'Panic Now', joins the bar to discuss the necessity of panic in times of crisis. He reframes panic from a sign of weakness to a vital response to challenges like climate change and late capitalism. The conversation touches on concepts such as the 'CaCaCo assemblage' and how panic can foster collective action and emotional engagement. With humor and depth, they explore panic's transformative potential, urging listeners to embrace it wisely.
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Ira's Duct Tape Anecdote
- Ira Allen shares how he duct tapes his vehicles together when they break down, a habit from his student days to now as a professor.
- This illustrates a personal, resourceful approach to managing breakdowns, relevant to the book's theme of navigating collapse.
Kakako: Root of Polycrisis
- The Kakako complex—carbon, capitalism, and colonialism—locks us into a polycrisis with no easy technological or political fix.
- This assemblage underlies a dead man walking world, requiring honest acknowledgement of our stuckness.
Panic as Apprehension of Ending
- Panic represents apprehending an ending, a limit where old horizons collapse.
- Wise panic opens space to live with this ending and rethink our investments in the world.
