Current Affairs20 Maalis 2024

Why We Need Utopias (w/ Kristen Ghodsee)

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs !

Kristen Ghodsee is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of books like Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism and, most recently, Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life. Today she joins to explain why she believes utopian thinking, and studying the utopian experiments that people have engaged in across history, can help us figure out what life ought to be like and how to change the world for the better. From Charles Fourier to Star Trek, Ghodsee takes us on a fascinating tour of attempts to dream up and build mini-paradises. We discuss where utopias go right and where they go wrong.

The Liza Featherstone review of Ghodsee's book in Jacobin is here. The angry Wall Street Journal review is here.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge,” said Albert Einstein in 1931. “For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” We stand on the cusp of a new age, with many of us striving toward a more positive vision of the future like the one Roddenberry once provided, where human beings find a way to build a better world for subsequent generations of humanity. Our old ideas about patrilineality and patrilocality are no longer fit for that purpose. We need new ideas, new dreams, and the courage to imagine alternative futures. Now is the moment to “think different.” If we can imagine them first in a galaxy far, far away, it’s only a matter of time before we boldly go and begin figuring out how to translate these inspired visions into our own everyday utopias. — Kristen Ghodsee

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(600)

Democrats’ Victory Will Be Wasted Without New Leadership

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipIf Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries remain in power, Democrats will squander their mandate and give...

14 Marras 29min

Zionism Is a Racist Ideology (w/ Benjamin Moser)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipBenjamin Moser is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag: Her Life and Work and the new book An...

10 Marras 43min

The Case for Centrism Is Collapsing

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership There is no such thing as a red state. The toxic Republican Party can be defeated everywhere. But ...

6 Marras 20min

Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life Simple Again

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipThe NYC mayor is trying to build a city that functions like a city in a children's picture book, whe...

30 Loka 12min

Zombie Simpsons and How Capitalism Killed Culture

🌹 Use the code "ZOMBIES" for a 20% discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipJon Greenaway is a writer, critic, and co-host of the podcast Horror Vanguard. He joins Curren...

28 Loka 51min

Why We’re Banning AI

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipWe urgently need to protect human thought and creativity. Our magazine is committing itself to remai...

23 Loka 16min

How Bill Maher Lost His Mind (w/ Kyle Kulinski)

🌹 Use the code "KRYSTALKYLE" for a 20% discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipKyle Kulinski is the host of The Kyle Kulinski Show, co-host of Krystal Kyle & Friends, an...

20 Loka 40min

Israel’s Election Won’t End the Genocide

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipWill McCaffery is a leftist content creator focused on anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, and anti-capi...

16 Loka 37min