Last Born In The Wilderness

Rob Wallace—evolutionary epidemiologist, agroecologist, and author of Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19—joins me to discuss the complex interplay between the increase in infectious pathogens globally, the role of epidemiology within the neoliberal capitalist project, agribusiness and ecological destruction, and Empire at the end of the "cycle of accumulation" in late-stage capitalism. We reference his large body of work, but in particular two of his most recent Patreon pieces, A Spray of Split Seconds and Vic Berger's American Public Health. Zoonotic pathogen spillover into human populations is on the upward trend. The high-speed evisceration of the last remaining intact biodiverse regions on the planet, in conjunction with agribusiness’s rapacious exploitation of biological life, meets the conditions for highly contagious viruses to evolve and leap from animal to human hosts more successfully and frequently. Regarding this epidemiological reality, Rob Wallace is an archetypal Cassandra, having predicted a pandemic emerging under current conditions as only a matter of time. As we know all know, he was right. SARS-CoV-2 emerged at the very end of 2019 in Wuhan, China, and over the course of almost two years, has killed millions of human beings as it continues to mutate and burn its way through the global population, disrupting practically every governing system of human life in the process. We have entered into an age of pandemics. Unless a massive shift occurs in the global economic order (be it systemic collapse or revolution, you pick), the idea of a global pandemic only occurring every 100 years or so, and not every one to two decades (or less), would be delusional. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/rob-wallace // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Michael Beyea Reagan, historian and activist, joins me to discuss his book Intersectional Class Struggle: Theory and Practice, an "innovative study [that] explores the relevance of class as a theoretical category in our world today, arguing that leading traditions of class analysis have missed major elements of what class is and how it operates." In our time of increasing wealth disparity and widespread socioeconomic precarity for the working class (dubbed the "Second Gilded Age"), how can intersectionality, as a theoretical framework and practice, help us more deeply understand and appreciate the liberatory struggles of racial, economic, and feminist movements? Reagan, through his excellent historical documentation in ‘Intersectional Class Struggle,’ has provided a more nuanced, and richer, view of class consciousness that does not fit into crude boxes. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/michael-reagan // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Mark Freeman, narrative psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society at the College of the Holy Cross, discusses his book Do I Look at You with Love?: Reimagining the Story of Dementia, documenting the final twelve years of his mother’s life of cognitive decline with dementia. This interview explores the complex reality of the narratives of the self, memory, the “tragic promise” of dementia, relationship, and the final acts of care one can provide for a dying loved one. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/mark-freeman // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen, historian of religion and founder of the Nordic Animism project, returns to the podcast to discuss animism and the Raven totem flag project he, and others, have created to define and symbolize humanity's role in the climate disrupted present we find ourselves in. Through years of in-depth research into the history and contemporary practice of animist religious/spiritual traditions the world over, Rune has unique insight into the nature of the numerous crises the world finds itself in presently. In our first discussion on this podcast, he framed the global climate crisis through the myth of Ragnarök, famously depicted in the Old Norse poem Völuspá. In this interview, I ask him to help us understand, though a mythic lens, the roots of the widespread proliferation of conspiracist thinking (endemic within the United States) in our “post-truth” era. How has modernity produced this crisis of meaning in the Western world today? What value can animism provide, not only in identifying the source of this crisis, but also in rooting ourselves in a world that is undergoing climate cataclysm and civilizational rupture? // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/rune-rasmussen-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Writer, poet, and essayist Sophie Strand joins me to discuss the "emergency of storytelling" in our climate disrupted present and future, and the subjects she explores in her upcoming book releases, The Madonna Secret and The Flowering Wand. Sophie and I entered this conversation a bit fuzzy, a little stunned. We acknowledge this from the get-go. We were processing devastating news that morning: Hurricane Ida crashed and dragged itself from south to north across the East Coast, overwhelming the infrastructure, shutting down the grid and flooding cities. We discuss how climatologically, ecologically, we can feel how things have shifted tremendously — in the Northwest where I live, and in the Hudson Valley where Sophie lives. While, personally, I tend to explore this broad subject on this podcast, Sophie writes about it. // Episode notes + transcript: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/sophie-strand // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Journalist Shane Burley joins me to discuss his newest book, Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse, published through AK Press. In Why We Fight, Burley navigates this territory of the here and now, providing deep insights into the conditions that gave rise to some of the most dramatic developments of the past several years. In this interview, I ask Burley to provide updates on the evolution of fascist politics during this time, and what antifascist resistance to the far-right looks like, and must adapt to, in a time of apocalyptic rupture. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/shane-burley-5 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Journalist, activist, and author Eric Laursen joins me to discuss his recent book The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the Modern State, published through AK Press. Anarchism presents a unique challenge to State power. Since it emerged as a coherent political and social movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, anarchists of various stripes and creeds have pointed to the illegitimate power the State holds, and the role it has played in the dominance of Capital in forming and shaping the trajectory of human societies up to the present day. What would a contemporary critique and theory of the State look like through an anarchist lens? The State, like so much since the dawn of the 21st century, has had to adapt itself to the crises of the times we live in, from climate disruption, economic expansion and contraction, and the Covid-19 pandemic. We can then ask: has the State been up to the task? Or, instead, has it only further exasperated the conditions we live within? How can anarchism present a necessary counter to the overbearing power of the State in our modern moment? Laursen provides some insights into these pressing questions in this interview. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/eric-laursen // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Ecologist and prolific author Carl Safina joins me to discuss his work with the more-than-human (animal) world, particularly his writings about the cultures and emotional lives of various animal communities, beautifully documented in two of his most recent books, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel and Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace. Human beings, or to be more specific, human beings within modern industrial cultures, tend to believe that Homo sapiens are the only species on Earth that are cultural. As Safina has documented in his work, this is simply not the case. Numerous species have culture, including, but not limited to, various primates, birds, and whales. What can we learn about the evolutionary function of culture from these animal communities, including the role the perception and appreciation of beauty, plays in the evolutionary process? At the very end of this interview, I ask Safina to discuss his appreciation of Herman Melville's epic novel Moby Dick, represented in his essay Melville’s Whale Was a Warning We Failed to Heed published in The New York Times. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/carl-safina // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos joins me to discuss her most recent collection of essays, Girlhood—"a gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become." I first became aware of Melissa and her book Girlhood from an essay she published in The New York Times Magazine titled I Spent My Life Consenting to Touch I Didn’t Want, adapted from an essay published in the then-to-be-released Girlhood. Her personal reflections on the concept of "empty consent" from her experiences attending a cuddle party (pre-pandemic), compelled me to contact her to discuss the complex issues she deftly navigates through that essay. After reading Girlhood, I recognized the significance of her masterful writing and exploration of her own childhood and development into womanhood. We discuss, within the 47-minute interview, a few of the significant insights I drew out of my reading, including the gradients of consent and trauma, and the role men can, and must, play in upending patriarchy in our time. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/melissa-febos // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Oh goodness, finally, it’s done. It took too long to produce — a month or so longer than I intended to put this all together. I became exhausted, weary of hearing my own voice, editing hours of audio, listening and trimming and organizing and reorganizing and recording my wandering commentary, cutting and slicing and trimming, exporting, finding mistakes, fixing and then re-exporting, uploading chunky hi-quality audio files, writing provocative titles and descriptions, editing eye-catching designs — all about the end of things. Death, love, grief, anger, plagues and human resistance to systemic violence, denial-isms — the void at the heart of it. It’s all enough to make one take a long nap, and believe me, I took plenty. This long, seven part series (something I half-seriously call an episode) is a labor of love. With each part, I was able to pull at the threads of this work over the previous 100 episodes; each major theme I’ve explored through dozens of interviews coalesced into seven hours-long audio compilations. Part one: climate catastrophe and ecological collapse. Part two: my interviews in Brazil on the verge of the pandemic. Part three: the seismic ruptures brought on by the pandemic. Part four: the national reckoning with police (white supremacist) violence last year with the George Floyd rebellions. Part five: the conditions that led to the fascist coup attempt and Capitol riot on January 6th. Part six: intergenerational trauma and the ghosts that haunt us. Part seven: grief, despair, extinction, and love. Each of these seven parts were released as individual podcast releases. Many of you may have heard these — I thank you and I hope they resonated. Along with this, I’ve uploaded each part as individual “albums” on Bandcamp, which you can download for free, or pay for, if you would be so kind and willing to do so. Each album download comes with a PDF document of the designs I made for each release, as well. EPISODE 300: https://lastborninthewilderness.bandcamp.com WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast / https://venmo.com/LastBornPodcast BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast BOOK: http://bit.ly/ORBITgr ATTACK & DETHRONE: https://anchor.fm/adgodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior