Political Philosophy

I delve deeper into GK Chesterton’s late work, The Outline of Sanity, as criticizes more deeply the prevailing capitalist free market imaginary and, more importantly, lays out what distributism would be like and the steps he proposes to get there. One of the strongest recommendation he gives is to break up monopolies and protect experimental uses of property from innovation-destroying competition. For more from me: https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Interested in possible Summer 2021 seminars, one-time sessions, or reading groups? Please fill out this form to be put on the email list: https://forms.gle/WxikMpNx1M64GeTEA

In Chapters 2 and 3 of GK Chesterton’s The Outline of Sanity (1926) we get perhaps one of the first identifications of and arguments against capitalist realism, the idea that we can do no better. He also anticipates some aspects of neoliberal capitalism which we are all too familiar with today, particularly the idea that workers must simply sacrifice for the greater good rather than hope to really get ahead and be happy themselves. Chesterton lays the groundwork for his proposal of a third way economy of Distributism. For more from me: https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Interested in possible Summer 2021 seminars, one-time sessions, or reading groups? Please fill out this form to be put on the email list: https://forms.gle/WxikMpNx1M64GeTEA

This video introduces you briefly to GK Chesterton and then discusses his definitions of Capitalism, Socialism and Distributism. I point out that Aristotle’s views on property in The Politics may be the origin of distributist thought, and give some background information that may help understand why Chesterton defines Capitalism and Communism as he does. Chesterton criticizes Capitalism for really being “Proletarianism” or a system of wage dependency. He criticizes Socialism for being dangerous because it places all resources and decisions into the hands of the state. Both of them concentrate property into a few hands, whereas Distributism calls for spreading property ownership more evenly. Spain’s Mondragon corporation is used as an example of contemporary distributism at work. For more from me: https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Interested in possible Summer 2021 seminars, one-time sessions, or reading groups? Please fill out this form to be put on the email list: https://forms.gle/WxikMpNx1M64GeTEA

Alex Blanchette’s Porkopolis is the source of this discussion among friends, including Bryant Macfarlane, Jakob Hanschu, and Spencer Hess. We are all reading Blanchette’s book about the US pork production industry. Our conversation ranges from the limits and costs of ever-increasing efficiency in production, to squeezing pennies out of runts, to the endless quest for the uniform (and therefore efficiently processed) pig and the impact this has on the workers involved. We segue into a conversation about the reality and value of universalization/homogenization in both production and societies. Thinkers discussed include Karl Marx, Jacques Ellul, Eugene McCarraher, and Adorno and Horkheimer. For more from me: https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Interested in possible Summer 2021 seminars, one-time sessions, or reading groups? Please fill out this form to be put on the email list: https://forms.gle/WxikMpNx1M64GeTEA

Alex Blanchette’s recent book Porkopolis shows how human and animal lives become intertwined in a relationship of dependency that distorts both natures. How should we understand this type of production? What does it do to the people involved every step of the way with animals who no longer feed, procreate, give birth or die without humans intimately involved? Blanchette explores these questions from the vantage point of someone who did many aspects of the work and talked openly with people involved in many steps of the process. Do we treat the people involved as interchangeable, expendable and dependent as the industrial pigs they tend? What does that say about the food system we’ve created and which most of us rely upon and benefit from? For more from me: https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Interested in possible Summer 2021 seminars, one-time sessions, or reading groups? Please fill out this form to be put on the email list: https://forms.gle/WxikMpNx1M64GeTEA

Alex Blanchette’s Porkopolis (2020, Duke University Press) has had more than the usual impact for a book that started out as a dissertation. Blanchette spent quite a bit of time embedding himself in the work of pork CAFO’s and processing facilities. As a result he has a book that goes beyond the usual animal or human welfare argument to expose the Taylorist/Fordist nature of pork production that yields cheap meat at the expense of dehumanizing workers and merging to the point of inextricability the manufactured pig and the manufacturing human. This video introduces who Blanchette is and some of the themes in the book. For more from me: https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Interested in possible Summer 2021 seminars, one-time sessions, or reading groups? Please fill out this form to be put on the email list: https://forms.gle/WxikMpNx1M64GeTEA

Inspired by Charles Taylor’s Malaise of Modernity, Chapter 8, I discuss Taylor’s points about whether rejection of all authority and previous cultural accretions in the name of authenticity is necessary or whether it entirely misses the point. Is it even possible to be “original?” If we think that it is, are we not susceptible to the worst suggestions for how to achieve our “originality” or authenticity, whether those suggestions come from unscrupulous leaders or purveyors of commercial products?. Taylor’s analysis of how this problem plays out in our relationship to the environment is especially interesting. We treat it as though it is an extension of ourselves to be molded and shaped any way we want, and yet it won’t completely comply–because it is not an extension of ourselves but an actual external reality with (recalling Jakob Hanschu’s treatment of New Materialism and his development of Dark Materialism) its own uncontrollable ramifications? Hanschu’s thesis on Dark Materialism: https://theoreticalcapriccio.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/dark-materialism-notes-on-a-critical-politics-for-the-new-materialisms/ https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Here’s the URL to the Political Philosophy Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/608141959786172/about/

Thinkers and philosophers Jacques Ellul, Sheldon Wolin, and Wendy Brown discuss the bigger picture behind recent events, exploring concepts like technique, neoliberalism's impact on government and personal lives, and the appeal of populism.

In this second part of our conversation, Spencer and I discuss topics such as antinomianism in Christianity, the cooptation of the ideal of sacrifice by capitalism, why McCarraher’s solutions (though insightful) call for more work, whether re-enchantment (via Charles Taylor) is desirable or scary, or both, Wall Street as a demonic force, Adorno and Horkheimer’s ideas of Enlightenment and Nature, McCarraher’s differences with Marxism, and why we can swallow camels but choke on gnats. Enchantments of Mammon playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLkfggTCOx9g6UbY3rSwMKeCwsGtAZtr https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 Here’s the URL to the Political Philosophy Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/608141959786172/about/

In this first part of our recent conversation, Spencer and I discuss what we took away from Eugene McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon. I did a series on this book not long ago, and I”ll put the playlist in a link below. We discuss the question of where Christianity started going wrong, McCarraher’s adoption of Romanticism, his preference for socialism and socialism’s compatibility with Christianity, and his even greater preference for some sort of Christian anarchism. What is the role of the church in creating community–and why doesn’t the church do it well? And we don’t mean getting together for a book club or coffee klatsch. Enchantments of Mammon playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlistlist=PLsLkfggTCOx9g6UbY3rSwMKeCwsGtAZtr https://lauriemjohnson.com/ https://politicalphilosophy.video.blog/ iTunes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-philosophy-dr-laurie-m-johnson/id1473457784 https://mortc.com Here’s the URL to the Political Philosophy Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/608141959786172/about/