Human Nature and The Left (Ft. What is Politics?)

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In this episode of 1Dime Radio, I am joined by Daniel Bitton from the YouTube channel What Is Politics?, a YouTube channel that uses anthropology, political theory, and evolutionary psychology to explain the basic questions most political discourse skips over: what is politics, what are left and right, where does hierarchy come from, and what does human nature actually tell us about socialism?

We discuss David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything, the “noble savage” myth, hunter-gatherer egalitarianism, why human beings are neither angels nor devils, how material conditions shape power, the difference between democratic hierarchy and domination, why Leninism failed, how left-wing ideas get captured by a new clergy class, and why the terms “left” and “right” have become so confused that they may now obscure more than they reveal.

There are two Backroom episodes from this conversation this week. In Part 1, we get into Canadian immigration, the new clergy, socially conservative leftism, wokeism and cancel culture, Iran, Zionism, Palestinian history, and the way anti-imperialism can collapse into third-world campism. In Part 2, we go deeper into desire, decay, democracy, dating apps, monogamy, the family, IQ, education, Enlightenment racism, political theology, property, and the limits of far-left projects.

Timestamps:

0:00 The Backroom Preview

03:16 Introduction

07:50 Graeber & Anthropology on The Left

21:58 Egalitarianism vs Hierarchy, Communism, Cults & Charismatic Authority

42:36 Delegated Power and Equality

47:46 What Is Politics?

50:39 The Distribution of Power

54:17 The New Clergy Class

01:05:40 Conservative vs Liberal is not Left vs Right

01:13:24 The Backroom Preview

GUEST:

Daniel / What Is Politics?

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WHATISPOLITICS69

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