Episode 43: Do You Need to Live Your Politics?
40 minutes long. Link to audio file. Link directly to this episode.
This episode discusses lifestyle politics and the false dichotomy of 'the personal is political' (false because it excludes politics), touching on housing cooperatives, communes, normalised drug use in sub-cultures, the delusion of aesthetics as politics, anarchist clubs for boys, and we conclude that giving the impression of politics, rather than doing politics, is symptomatic of social movements in decline.
Should politicians be held to a higher standard in their personal and professional lives? What's the line where hypocrisy becomes too stark and a political figure is longer a credible advocate? Other themes include how unchangeable ideological values trump unchangeable sexual orientation (at least in public). How everyone acts in their own interests, not in a cynical calculated way, but overall ideologically. Radical feminists view of psychology as a 'male field' meaning child development doesn't feature in radical feminist theories. The vulnerability and discomfort of accepting how childhood powerfully shapes us.
Other topics include Jen's trip to Russia and the quick-adaptation to cultural norms, the psychoanalytic understanding of homophobia, identity politics in feminism during the 1980s. We also discuss 'manosphere' self-help therapy rhetoric and expansive self-advancement vs. today's feminine 'sisterhood' risk of lowering your horizons, retreating into 'stringy' relationships based on a claim of 'loving' or liking all 'womyn' and withdrawing into the world of the home and online sphere.