WHAT IS POLITICS?

Human beings have free will, but our actions are constrained by material realities.  Understanding how material and practical conditions shape human behaviour can make all the difference between success and catastrophic failure when it comes to the whole spectrum of political action, from private sector negotiation, to crafting legislation, to making a revolution. In this episode we look at: The relationship between economic activity and the high status of women in traditional Haudenosaunee / Iroquois society How World War I helped women win the right to vote in Europe and North America  How World War II catalyzed the Black civil rights movement in the United States.   The success, failure, and accidental success of the English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 The implications of the Anarchist Revolution in Spain in 1936-1939 for the future of industrial civilization.   FULL TRANSCRIPT! Music in this episode is by Tony Ezzy and Cheap Wig link to open the audio podcast in your podcast app on your device: http://www.podfollow.com/worbs Patreon YouTubes tweeter: @worbsintowords rss feed (copy and paste into your podcast app to add it): http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS RELATED READINGS: Ember & Ember 1971 – The Conditions Favoring Matrilocal Versus Patrilocal Residence, American Anthropologist, Vol. 73, N° 3  Pasternak 1997 – Family and Household: Who Lives Where, Why Does It Vary, and Why Is It Important? in Ember & Ember (eds.) 1995 – Cross-Cultural Research for Social Science Abigail Higgins 2019 – American Women Fought for Suffrage for 70 Years. It Took WWI to Finally Achieve It, history.com  Sally Roesch Wagner 2015, How Indigenous Women Inspired The Feminist Movement, Bust Magazine Cathleen D. Cahill / Sarah Deer 2020 – In 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote. Here’s What’s Next, New York Times Annette McDermott 2018 – Did World War II Launch the Civil Rights Movement?, history.com Paul Foot 1981 – “This bright day of Summer”: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; see also the lively original audio version of this speech Sam Dolgoff 1973 – Anarchist Collectives Thomas Kuhn 1962/2012 – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions https://archive.org/download/08-AGENCY/08%20-%20AGENCY%20AND%20MATERIALISM.mp3

What would happen if you could end sexism overnight by giving everyone a magic pink pill? Why we need to target material and practical conditions if we want to eliminate cultural hierarchies. A thought experiment about political strategy which lays bare the whole class reductionism vs. race reductionism debate, and which is crucial for any kind of effective political strategy on any issue. Backed up by a real “pink pill” example of how post-revolutionary rural China totally failed at fighting patriarchy and male baby preference via education and propaganda campaigns.   PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO! Especially on Reddit – most political subs don’t let you post your own material, and I have no other way of getting these out there! FULL TRANSCRIPT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY WHAT IS POLITICS? PATREON Help me make this podcast/channel all it can be, and help it be less torture for me to produce these! WHAT IS POLITICS? VIDEO CHANNEL (video version of this and all episodes available here, plus other stuff) And look for my upcoming interview on the Fight Like an Animal Podcast https://archive.org/download/PINKPILLZ/07.1%20-%20PINK%20PILLZ.mp3

Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies?  According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way.  Meanwhile according to Jordan Peterson, it’s just human nature.   Thankfully for humanity, both of these views are very, very wrong.   all music by *69 FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/07-male-dominance/07%20-%20MALE%20DOMINANCE.mp3

Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others.  Was this always the state of the human world?  Is hierarchy in our nature?  Are egalitarian societies possible for human beings?  If so, under what conditions?   And is freedom compatible with equality? FULL TRANSCRIPT + BIBLIOGRAPHY tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/06-anthropology-of-equality-hierarchy/06%20-%20ANTHROPOLOGY%20OF%20EQUALITY%20%26%20HIERARCHY.mp3

This episode is for everyone who keeps writing to me to insist that one or the other wrong, incoherent, popular definitions of Left and Right is actually the correct one.   How do we know the left and right refer to equality and hierarchy? To answer this, we look at who was considered as being on the left and on the right in three different time periods:  The early French revolution in 1789, which is what the whole left-right political spectrum is an analogy to. The 3rd republic in France where seating in the National Assembly was first purposefully arranged on a left-right spectrum, analogous to the early French Revolution.    The different branches of late 19th and early 20th Century socialist movement: Anarchism, Revolutionary Party Socialism and Parliamentary Socialism. And we apply all of the junk cold war definitions – the market vs. the state, the individual vs. the collective, big vs. small government, equality vs. liberty – and we watch them all crash and burn, leaving only the equality vs. hierarchy / class conflict paradigm left standing. Apply this exercise on your own to any historical period from 1789 until the rise of the USSR and the cold war, and you get the same results.   Now can everyone accept it and move on? Bonus episode to follow shortly to explain why Fascism is on the far right and Communism is on the far left when Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR are both archetypical “totalitarian” societies. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/05-left-right-history/05%20-%20LEFT-%20RIGHT%20HISTORY.mp3

Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy combine to give police incredible power.  This is a key reason why they’re rarely punished, even for the most egregious abuses. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/bleepbloop01/BLEEP%20BLOOP%2001.mp3

Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators and political actors. The definition of government that journalists and academics use makes us blind to the people who rule over us in our private lives. Popular definitions of left and right propagated by media and academia (the state vs. the market, big vs. small government, liberty vs. equality), frame the world in right-wing terms, while the historical definition (hierarchy vs. equality) frames the world in left wing terms. Competing definitions of racism have different consequences in terms of peoples’ ability to discuss racism, and on how we relate to people from different cultural categories than our own. FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @worbsintowords Video version: https://youtu.be/TaFkzIQk-1o Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/04-relativity/04%20-%20LINGUISTIC%20RELATIVITY%20AND%20POLITICSes.mp3

Most journalists and Doctor-Professor academics don’t really know what the left-right political spectrum is about, but you will after listening to this episode! FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics video version: https://youtu.be/P3cmjNrXWms https://archive.org/download/03leftrightandyou/03%20-%20LEFT-RIGHT%20AND%20YOU.mp3

How can people who don’t have official decision-making power exert their influence over those who do?  A quick overview of some basic political concepts: POLITICS PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE POLITICS POLITIES GOVERNMENT DEMOCRACY AUTOCRACY CONSENSUS POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ECONOMICS CAPITALISM IDEOLOGY CLASS THE MARKET BARGAINING POWER CONTRACTS FULL TRANSCRIPT Tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords Original You-Tube version: https://youtu.be/dQjcmDGY2vA help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics https://archive.org/download/01whatispolitics/01%20-%20WHAT%20IS%20POLITICS.mp3

Dive into the murky waters of political jargon, where terms like capitalism and socialism often lose their meaning. Discover how unclear definitions can twist our understanding and manipulate beliefs. The conversation pokes fun at the chaos that ensues from vague language, revealing how it divides us despite shared goals. With insightful humor, the hosts encourage us to reclaim political clarity and bridge ideological divides, urging listeners to engage meaningfully in the political realm.