The Regrettable Century
The old forms of the Left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a Dialectical Pessimism and develop a salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-- Antonio Gramsci
- Update frequency
- every 5 days
- Average duration
- 53 minutes
- Episodes
- 315
- Years Active
- 2018 - 2025
Patreon Preview: Revolution by Enzo Traverso (Part V)
Welcome to our fifth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss different conceptions of freedom, liberation, and the liberation of time.
Tr…
Vive la révolution, Vive L'Empereur: The Mixed Legacy of Napoleon (Bonapart II)
This week we continue our discussion of Napoleon Bonaparte with our comrade Matthew. We start out tying up some loose ends and then discuss the upcoming Ridley Scott movie and the many variations of …
Vive la révolution, Vive L'Empereur: The Mixed Legacy of Napoleon (Part I)
This week we had our long time comrade and resident France expert, Matthew, back on the show to talk about the mixed legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte. Was Napoleon a force for progress or the death of th…
Patreon Preview -- William Morris: From Romantic to Revolutionary
A little bonus episode for you this week. Here is the audio of a lecture that Kevin gave at the Cascadian Midsummer festival this summer about William Morris.
Check out Cascadian Midsummer here: htt…
No Royal Road: Class Conflict and The Crisis of Feudalism (Part II)
This week we continue our series reading from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them forever.
Hil…
Patreon Preview -- The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union
This week we discussed a book about the collapse of the Soviet Union and guess what, it wasn't the result of the United States' efforts to defeat the Evil Empire. It's much dumber and worse than that…
Pessimism is an Optimism: A Return to Dialectical Pessimism
The original dudes are back, with an original dudes topic revisiting our pessimism (because of intellect) and our optimism (because of will). No it's not just a doomer affectation that we can use to …
No Royal Road: Class Conflict and The Crisis of Feudalism (Part I)
This week we start a new series where we read from Rodney Hilton's collection of essays about the Crisis of Feudalism. These are pretty short essays, but we will no doubt be talking about them foreve…
Patreon Preview: Revolution by Enzo Traverso (Part IV)
Welcome to our fourth reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss the revolutionary intellectual.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intell…
The Dialectic of Degrowth: Socialists and the Burden of Ecological Disaster
We think degrowth is going to be necessary, but we also think the debate about degrowth has been all wrong. We read the newest issue of Monthly Review and had a discussion about the politics of degr…
Patreon Preview: Replacing the Dead by Mie Nakachi
Back with another book that Chris read in grad school, this time we are dealing with the problem of repopulating the Soviet Union after the Second World War.
Please forgive the intermittent audio pro…
Lumpenization and its Discontents: Disagreements About the Lumpen Classes
This week the Law Boyz are back with a special guest, Kevin. We discuss the concept of the lumpenproletariat and their historical role as foot soldiers of reaction. Then we all argue about the police…
Patreon Preview: Daddy Masaryk and Czechoslovakism
I know we said we were done with our Czechoslovak Socialism series, but like George Lucas we just couldn't leave well enough alone and have made a prequel. It turns out there is an interesting pre-hi…
No Royal Road: Neo-Feudalism, or the Fuzzy Edges of Capitalism: The End of Techno-Feudal Reason (Part V of V)
No Royal Road is back with part four of our discussion of Evegny Morozov's
"Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason."
Check out Varn Vlog here:
https://www.patreon.com/varnvlog
Patreon Preview: Revolution by Enzo Traverso, Part III (Regrettable Book Club)
Our third reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss Concepts, Symbols, and Realms of Memory.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellect…
Podcasts From Nowhere: William Morris' Romantic Marxism
Kevin recently gave a talk about William Morris' transition from romantic anti-capitalism to Marxism and is thus well suited to school us on the subject. We decided to record it and share it with all…
Bathing in the Warm Stream: The Romantic and Gothic Strain of Marxism with Jon (TheLitCritGuy) of Horror Vanguard
This week we return to an old favorite topic of ours, the warm stream, romantic, or gothic in Marxism. This time we are joined by an accredited expert in all things gothic, Jon from the Horror Vangua…
Patreon Preview: Third Worldism, but Make it Racist
Ukrainian Nationalism and Third Worldism in the Cold War
This week we read and discussed Congo on the Dnipro: Third Worldism and the Nationalization of Soviet Internationalism in Ukraine by Thom Lloyd…
Much Ado About PATSOCS: Finding a Better Way to Talk About Working Class Patriotism
The Patsocs are coming, the Patsocs are coming!
There has been much fruitless discourse and claims of rising fascism among the keyboard proletarian vanguard about the problem of Social Patriotism. We…
Patreon Preview: Revolution by Enzo Traverso, Part II (Regrettable Book Club)
Welcome to our second reading group episode on Revolution: An Intellectual History, by Enzo Traverso. This week we discuss BODIES.
Traverso, Enzo. 2021. Revolution : An Intellectual History. London ;…