Rev Left Radio - UNLOCKED: Deep Into History...

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

(This was originally a patreon exclusive episode. To get access to hundreds of bonus episodes like this one, join and support the show here: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio) Arjun - from Deep into History - joins Breht to discuss their love of history, and a deep and wide-ranging conversation ensues... - Support Deep into History HERE - Deep into History on Apple - OR find Deep into History on your preffered podcast app!

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Rev Left Radio and Deep Into History. Today, we are collaborating with my good friend and recent co-collaborator, Arjun, from Deep Into History, to talk about history, to talk about why we're into it, how we got into it, the importance of studying it, and we thought this would make a really cool, not only addition to our broader episode where we went, you know, pretty in depth about American history in particular, but for our Patreon listeners on both podcasts to get a little extra discussion, because this is something that, you know, as I was talking to you and doing our previous episode, I knew almost immediately I would love to do an episode like this with you. So first

of all, how are you doing? And for those on my end of the audience spectrum, who might not be familiar with who you are, can you kind of introduce yourself as well? Yeah, thank you for having again. It was such a blast, and I'm glad we get to continue our conversation because it's so rare that you get to kind of share your love of history with someone who loves it as much as you do, which is a really fun experience. And I think, like, our audiences have a ton in common. So it would be really great if all of us, you know, get together. Definitely.

I host the narrative history indie sensation called Deep in a History. And I tell history as a story so that it sticks with you, so that you can recall it in the way that you recall one of your favorite movies. And, you know, so that when you're armed with that knowledge, the world around you suddenly starts to make more sense. Definitely. And I want to get into, like, history as essential for, like, self-knowledge and understanding the world. But the first thing I want to ask you is how you got into it. And I think this is obviously, like, sort of on one level, an obvious and easy question.

But on another level, it's a little deeper because, you know, at least my experience in the American educational system and probably being, beyond America. Growing up, and you know, there's many factors for why this is the case, but often history is taught in a very dry, dead way. It is a remembering of names and dates. And, you know, the moment you pass the test in your history class, you completely purge everything you learned, all the things you had to memorize for the test. And I think a lot of people find themselves in that situation where, at least in my instance,

it was like, I didn't get into history until more or less after, you know, normal K through 12 schooling had completely ended. I had no spark of interest whatsoever in history growing up. And I can't lay that at the feet entirely of the educational system. I certainly had, you know, fine teachers. It was also, you know, my own immaturity and the underdevelopment of my intellectual interests and, you know, sort of breadth, if you will. But, you know, I got deeply into it after I came out, and I guess I'll answer this question. after you get a chance at it first so yeah how did you get into history what when did you start becoming fascinated by it and maybe what historical period was the first one that got you into it

well i have kind of a strange relationship with history because i didn't actually get into history itself um i was introduced to mythology my mother's people are yavana which means greek in sanskrit so they're like the remnants of the indo greeks that stayed behind um from from when when Alexander marched back to Babylon a large contingent stayed behind in Punjab and like their roots flow from there so it's always been a tradition in our family that it's sexist as hell but the eldest son is raised you raise him with the Iliad so I was read the Iliad at a very young age and you know being a kid I thought it was real it was real it was real and it was a conflict with like my grade six teacher when I was in that it's real and he said no it's fake it's mythology it's all this kind of stuff that literally started my first trip to dig into the library and look into stuff like Troy um so ancient history kind of opened up to me that way and in grade school I agree with you 100 percent I had some wonderful history teachers but I also had some ones the ones that were just utterly terrible

and um that's when I started getting into World War II and things like that because scholastically, it was something my teachers could relate to. But as I kept going, I started realizing that, okay, every single thing that I'm learning, every single event that I'm learning about

is kind of a thread in this vast web of our story where our modern time is kind of like the center of it. And, you know, when you start filling in those, each thread, you can kind of tell, like, you know, sometimes something from ancient Rome, you'll get a, you'll get something's moving on that side of the web. And you can see how it all kind of interconnects and relates to each other. And I don't know, I just became utterly enchanted with history, especially when I hit university. Yeah, that's interesting. So there was like this initial interest in Greek mythology, and then you had a certain cultural context that sort of bolstered that interest.

And then it sort of developed from there. It was very interesting. You said that because you just sparked a memory in myself, which is that I was very around that same age, too, fifth or sixth grade. I got very into Greek mythology. It must be like probably part of the curriculum where it's at least mentioned or I can't exactly remember how I got into it. It almost had to be through school. But I remember getting a book on Greek mythology and like, you know, all the different. gods and goddesses and what they represented and I got really deep into it but still it wasn't

enough to like launch me into a broader interest in like Greek history or ancient history or anything at that time but you know it's a little spark that you know might have taken hold later the ways that I personally got into to history was like sort of indirectly so as my you know my late teens I was just kind of you know kind of fucking around I didn't I didn't I dropped out of college. I was working at a gas station, just kind of, you know, living for the weekend sort of thing that you do when you're, you know, 18, 19 years old or whatever. And then I, me and my longtime girlfriend at that time, unexpectedly, she got pregnant. And so then I had this radical shift inside of me of like, oh my God, like I'm 19 years old. I don't know what the fuck is going

on. I'm going to be a father. I have to teach another human being how to be a human being. and that really lit a sort of fire under my ass to like I just remember thinking of myself like oh you got to learn a lot like you have nine months to like figure out who you are and learn about the world so that you can be a better father and a better you know sort of tutor to to your daughter who's coming and I remember like at the gas station I had I was working late night shifts so there's you know there could be like 30 minutes or an hour where not even a single customer would come in and I just started like voraciously and randomly just reading books and um and um very, very quickly into that. I got into philosophy. And then that, you know, sort of shifted into

me wanting to go back to college, newly inspired. I have a thirst for knowledge now. It's not like a chore to go to school. I'm actually excited about it. And, you know, it's also going to hopefully at that time set me up to be better prepared to take care of my, my daughter and my growing family financially, you know, as opposed to just having a college or high school diploma and, you know, working shitty jobs that I was working. So, but by getting into philosophy, A huge part of that is the history of human thought, how human thought has developed over time. And so immediately, even though you're not studying history or you're not overtly into history, by studying philosophy, you are dipping your toes in history. And then you have to, you know, who's the father of modern philosophy, René Descartes, you know, what was the enlightenment and why is it important?

And, you know, so these historical questions start immediately cropping up when you start venturing into the world. of philosophy and of course you're introduced to ancient Greek philosophy and you know Christian philosophy with you know St. Aquinas and whatnot and so that was a huge element of it but also in the early 2000s in particular there was of course the war on terror there was like hardcore Islamophobia everywhere the Christian conservatives were in power as I was coming to age and one of the big debates back then was like creationism versus evolution right um and uh you know it fed into all of these various bigotries that i was seeing rise around me where you know like muslims were being denigrated all over our society um you know being framed as

as terrorists etc and and the locus of power that this was coming from was like the political christian right um and so you know as i was coming to intellectual maturity i was immediately in battle you know through debates and stuff online as social media was rising um with people who were arguing against stuff like evolution and i had already a deep ingrained love of nature and then as i was defending you know the scientific legacy of the enlightenment against like creationists i would learn a lot more about evolution and evolution is of course deep history it's how you know species evolve over time so pretty quickly you're you're not only back into ancient evolutionary history but also the debates that came in the enlightenment and the post enlightenment and you know the rise of

Darwin. I remember reading his like 500, 700 page biography and being fascinated by it. So it was like these indirect ways in which I came into contact with history. And then by studying things like evolution or Darwin's life or philosophy, you start filling out that mental map of human history in your head. And I kind of think about it like a mental map. Like if I told you right now, anybody listening like close your eyes and picture like the contiguous USA. You have a mental map of the geographical terrain you know if i said where is japan in relation to china on the globe you in your head are picturing where china is in relation to japan and that's also true for history right you start filling out the story of where you came from first by the most immediate past like oh yeah world war

two happened in the 60s and music right and then you start getting deeper and deeper and as you learn history you fill out this mental map of the story of you the story of humanity the you know thousands of years that led to you sitting here thinking deeply about this thing or reading this book or having this conversation, it is inexorably tied to like this entire movement of human history over time. So yeah, all those things contributed to started getting me into it and then eventually especially as I embraced Marxism, I got overtly and directly interested into the study of history. That's beautiful. I've often always thought that, you know, if time is a river, then history's kind of the water flowing through it like it is it is kind of a lifeblood of of everything even if

you're not aware about aware of it like if you don't it doesn't matter what you study it doesn't matter if it's economics even if you're a wall street douchebag like everything that um uh you've learned and everything that you use um happened before and um the the the the more you um i mean it's like you said i by the way it was very beautiful I was very moved when you said that you wanted to be a better person for your child because like that's that's just incredible um but there's um an ongoing movement and uh to deny us um our actual story um and it you know it's happened before it'll happen again and it's happening right now because when you when you only tell you know certain um events to fit a narrative. It happens on the left. It happens on the right. What you're doing is a massive disservice because you have to know the entire narrative, the entire flow of what you're talking about and share it because that's the only way to avoid behavior that has happened

before. Right? Like I don't think history repeats itself, but you know, it rhymes. It there There are patterns of human behavior that do repeat themselves. And the only way our civilization can protect our planet against these ongoing series of tragedies that are eventually leading to its destruction is for us to be informed and educated. And the beauty about one of the great things I love about history, depending on who you read, of course. Some things are super inaccessible and academic. Like even for, you know, some of my friends who are PhDs,

they'll read a paper and be like, what is this person saying? But there are a lot of, like, great books. There's a lot of self-education that can happen. By going back to, like, you know, original sources and all this kind of things, I think that's how I kind of got trapped for a long period, you know, in the ancient world because I can read primary sources. I don't have to

I mean this is the worst example but I don't have to read about I don't know does Bill O'Reilly have like a killing Caesar book yet probably you know probably right like you don't have to take it through these the lenses that

people put on it you can go back and see that okay this was the original material and compare to what, you know, quasi historians are writing now and say that, okay, well, they left out this, this, and this. Why would they be doing that? You know, it kind of gives you a broader picture of the forces that are manipulating us and how we can, in fact, combat them with simple knowledge. Yeah. Yeah, well said. And I, and what you're getting at and what I totally agree with is that, you

You know, history is a terrain of struggle. There's the sort of cliche line that history is written by the victors, and that's certainly true to a large extent. I mean, you know, the dissident or revolutionary histories are often suppressed when they're overthrown as the left-wing history of the United States has thoroughly been throughout our entire lives. So the historical revisionism runs rampant. The people, you know, the ruling class of any period, you know, descends their ruling ideas to the masses, and the masses sort of internalized them. and the way you tell history is a powerful way of doing that. And you don't need to look any further than Florida in present-day America and the reactionary reaction against Black Lives Matter

and then this invented CRT scandal controversy where it's all leading after a historical uprising of black people in America demanding to be treated as equals and not being slaughtered by the fucking police in the streets for no crime whatsoever. you know there's after that huge rise there's of course a reaction and part of that reaction is not just the rise of white supremacist organizations over fascism etc but also immediately is this fight over history this fight over how do we tell american history and this is of course nothing new it just has you know different iterations throughout american history but coming back after a crisis or after an uprising or something and then the the various sides attempt to now tell history in honestly a new way like you can even think of the 1619 project whatever you think of it as a historical document or you know it's tinged with certain liberal principles and values is certainly not necessarily synonymous with a radical or historical materialist analysis but it is this attempt to extend American history back beyond the revolution include more people show you know the history of slavery and racism and how it was fundamental to the shaping of the American experience.

So that's one way in which liberals are much more tethered to reality trying to regain history and retail history, while the right is on this sort of book-burning fiasco where they're trying to suppress actual history because it makes what white people look bad. It sort of complicates the kindergarten ass pledge of allegiance version of American history that we're taught in school. and there's a real political project inherent in trying to maintain that, you know, sort of cushy version of American history that makes, like, even white reactionaries comfortable. Because one of the problems of being a white reactionary in the U.S., but reactionary more broadly, is that you're always on the wrong side of history. When you go back and look at reactionaries from a generation ago, what were like the right, yeah, what was right-wing people doing about slavery?

Oh, they were 100% for it. What about Jim Crow? They were leading the charge to maintain it. Like, so, like, you already have a problem. If you identify with that tradition, you're going to have to engage in historical revisionism on some level. I always, I always like to point out to, you know, people, there are some people who are a little skeptical, you know, of, like, and I share your critique. It's absolutely, it's absolutely correct. But all you have to do is point out during the rise of colonialism and, you know, the subsequent rise of, you know, the subsequent rise of,

racism to justify the slave trade and and you know of the subjugation of colonized people what is left out of the history books even starting at that time the Mongol empire it disappears it disappears from western history because you cannot have the notion that these people that you're subjugating around the world once almost controlled it all right we're stuck in like a tale of old as old as time but there's also like I find like in a lot of history books and you know as particularly like you know the driest teachers they take the human element out yeah for example like I always remind my listeners that you know every person you read about in a history book no matter how far back you go it was exactly exactly like you or I. But they had, they were born in a vastly different time

with a vastly different mindset, a different worldview, and also, you know, societal kind of prisons on, the mental prisons, on, you know, where your thought could go. But, um,

that doesn't mean that what they believed was, was stupid because it drove them on to do everything that they've ever did. Like, for example, my favorite go-to example is this, is if you read about Gaius Marius, his rivalry with Sulla

during the late Republic, which was already rotting, basically led to the rise, made it possible for Rome to weaken all the structures and made it possible for Caesar and then Augustus to basically turn it into an empire.

this is always mentioned as a footnote in in 99% of any histories of marius is that towards the end of his life he started telling people that when he was a child he received a prophecy um that because he found a clutch of seven eagle's eggs took them to an oracle and the oracle told him that jupiter optimist maximus Zeus their highest god had proclaimed that he would attain the pinnacle of power seven times, meaning he would become consul of Rome seven times in the legal action.

You'd have to break the republic to attain it. But that's what he did. He believed in the prophecy so much that he literally shattered the republic through his rivalry with the Sula

in order to fulfill it. And again, going back to that, just to touch on that clutch of seven eagle eggs, he believed in the symbol of the eagle and the prophecy so much that he changed during the Marian reforms, he changed the legionary standards to all be carrying eagles. And if you look at the prevalence of the eagle as a symbol, in the Roman Empire

and all in throughout the West for the rest of history all happening because a 12 year old boy outside of the village of Saratay in Italy found a clutch of seven eagle eggs in 145 BC

like it's magical yeah and then it's now the universal symbol of the of the modern empire that rivals Rome in some ways the American Empire. So yeah, it's literally the image of the new empire. Yeah, totally. I mean, there's so many examples of this. So like, you know, that little tiny thread had so much resonance

that, you know, to this very day, it's still the symbol of power. Yeah. Yeah. And there's this, there's this way also, you made me think of it as you were talking, the way that history sort of becomes myth over time. As you get further and further away from the actual events and all you have left, if there's no living person who remembers this historical event is the sort of narratives constructed by posterity of that event handed down through the ages. And there's a way in which that itself can become myth and how we mythologize figures from the past

who were just very human, imperfect, you know, had the full spectrum of human emotions and behaviors and follies. But, you know, with enough time, some of those figures, and you can see this in American history, of course, but throughout all a history, this way in which it does sort of become a myth. And that myth-making is it can lend itself sometimes either to inspiring people or to a sort of historical revisionism, right? There's a way in which telling, like, I remember coming across Howard's ends of people's history of the United States and how it turns American history on its head.

You know, the version of American history we were taught growing up in K through 12 is inverted and is told from the position of women who were subjected, from indigenous people who were subjugated, from, you know, black Africans who were stolen from Africa and brought over here as chattel slaves from their perspective. And that for me was also a radical sort of radicalizing experience to have a connection with that counter history, that history that is suppressed in the United States. And what comes out of it, at least for me, one of the deep things that I appreciated about that and my interest in history and the sort of subaltern of history is, is that, especially in the U.S., like this is our history, this is our tradition. And if you're on the left and you have criticisms of the U.S. Empire and you have criticisms of capitalism, this just-so story about these beautiful founding fathers who came and made the shining democracy on a hill, it's hollow.

It rings so hollow because it doesn't take into account the tragedies that this country is built on and maintained by. So when you come across a worker's history and you get to touch base with the way that the indigenous people resisted, colonialism, the way that Africans resisted slavery, workers resisted capitalism, you can all a sudden then feel connected to a history. It's not the official version that our ruling class would like us to identify with, but it is our history and they've tried to suppress it. And folks like you and me and many, many, many others are trying to unearth it. You know, like archaeologists saying, no, hey, if you're on the left, if you're working class in this country, we have a whole history that is up against this empire, up against this behemoth of colonialism and genocide

and slavery and imperialism, and you can find pride and more importantly, deep connections with the people that came before you, not again in this kindergarten-ass version of American history, but in the real ways that real people fought back against their annihilation, their destruction, their exploitation, et cetera. And so, like, yeah, people's history of the United States and other various people's histories that have sort of propagated sense. then I think are incredibly crucial. I see you and I as sort of in that tradition of trying to get people into history first and foremost and then unearthing these traditions that have been suppressed by the ruling elites of the empire.

Totally. I completely agree. And I think that the way we tell it, we don't need to make it intrinsically... When you tell history, I think it's fair to say the way we do it. And like you said, other people, people are doing great work, you don't need, we don't have to point out the class struggle element or the injustice element or anything like that because history explains itself. I think that Shining City on the Hill narrative and, you know, I mean, everyone subsequent has tried to do this, but the masterpiece of blending myth with politics, in my opinion, was Augustus having the Aeneid written, right? Because Augustus had taken control of become de facto emperor of Rome.

But where the Roman society was always insecure was that they knew that they never had a deeper history than the Greeks. Right? They were, the Greeks went back so far. They had created democracy. They didn't done all these kinds of things. And there was a cultural kind of inferiority to them and to other, you know, conquered peoples at that time. So what Augustus did was he hired Virgil and or, you know, was a patron of Virgil. And he tied Rome to the Iliad, to Troy.

now suddenly Annius is the the forefather of Romulus and Remus is a prince a prince of Dardania, a prince of Troy so therefore Roman and Greek their cultural heritage

their history is equal and the love that he got from that literal myth like the Anita is a myth like the innate is a myth allowed him to maintain control and

skyrocketed his popularity because he had addressed the insecurities of his society and I don't think there's ever been anyone else who's ever been able to do that again like you see examples of it throughout

like the Nazis were digging dying. They had sent missions to Nepal they had they had they lured who were looking everywhere for their arians the origins of their arians and they couldn't find them but um but the arian myth still persisted in in germany in augustus's case he tied it to a myth they all learned growing up and and and it flowed so beautifully into the story that they already knew that no one was ever been able to replicate it but to this very day every society, every culture, every country has its own, you know, national mythos, if you will.

And they've all been trying to go back to that. And, you know, in America, Hollywood is a powerful tool. And for example, like we were talking about earlier, but we both kind of got into World War II. I don't know if it was the same for you, but when I initially learned about World War II, you know, in grade school and stuff, I had no idea about the Soviet, the people's army. Right. Like, I heard about Stalingrad. I heard that the Nazis, like, you know, apropos of Napoleon,

they went too far into Russia and basically, you know, winter killed them, right? There was brutal slaughter, all that kind of stuff, very general. I had no idea that, you know, the DDA invasion had to happen because they were terrified about the Red Army. taking over Europe you know that kind of stuff came came afterwards it's very interested

interesting when you see like you know an east-west kind of paradigm in history as well like and what they leave out the fact that like all the Hollywood movies you see you know especially like you know the classics you know greatest Gabe dirty dozen

all you know all of those that came out not once is the fact that the most titanic war in human history is happening on the eastern front. Right. Right. Yeah.

And I think that speaks to this element of learning history that is deeply inspiring and keeps you going, which is like this felt sense of like visceral excitement at a discovery. Because, you know, there's so much history so you can never know it all. So there's so much more to always explore. Plus you have the narratives of those who are, you know, rulers or victors who push on you a certain narrative. And then when you start getting into yourself, you start reading, like even like have, the exhilaration of having like a common trope that you've grown up with and everybody around you believes overturned by your own reading of history is like, it's like discovering

a diamond in the rough, this excitement that you're like, oh my God, you know, this clicks that into place, that makes me understand this so much better. Of course, they don't want you to know about this part of history. They're never going to teach you that in school because it goes against their interest. And there's this way in which that becomes its own momentum to keep going, to keep looking. and keep discovering because there's so much there. But another thing that you are obviously showing so much interest in, and this is probably the weaker part of my historical knowledge,

is the ancient world. My, I have, like I told you earlier, very interested in like this pre-civilization, evolutionary history, hunter gatherers, you know, how humans expanded out of Africa and populated the world, all these other humanoids, hominids that died out, that competed with Homo sapiens, but never quite made it. I was always fascinated with that. And then, of course, as I was saying earlier with philosophy,

I'm very interested in the Enlightenment and how this sparked like a brand new shift in the way humans thought about reason versus faith, etc. As I got into Marxism, right, I immediately become much more interested in World War II. It shapes the world I'm living in right now. Communists and socialist were absolutely crucial to that fight against fascism.

I got into Marxism in large part due to anti-fascist organizing locally after like the rise of Trump and this insurgent fascist movement like all cities you started seeing swastikas pop up. You started seeing these organizations on the far right pop up these figures. And so getting into anti-fascist organizing and then seeing the history of fascism and oh like, oh, communists and socialists, the people that I identify with have always fought these motherfuckers, have always, you know, met them in the street, have. always refused to let them do what they want to do have always been the main obstacle to these assholes and i am like without even fully knowing the history you know i'm like in this tradition doing this same thing as well and then i go deeper into to marxism and theory and history and then yeah it opens up all this fascination of the 1800s 1900s how the socialism and communist and fascist and liberal movements evolved and shifted and changed so that was all very interesting and those are

big blocks of time, but what you see that's missing is all of ancient and a lot of like medieval history that only in the last few years have I started really becoming fascinated and interested in. So, but you seem to like have started with an interest in ancient philosophy. So like, can you kind of talk about like why? What about ancient philosophy is so fascinating? I think some people might, you know, they could be interested in World War II, but they don't necessarily see the relevance of like Greek or Roman history, 2,500. years ago, you know, it's harder for people to see, like, why is it important to understand

this? This is so far removed from my life. So, yeah, if you could just kind of take that in whatever direction you want to take it and I'm interested. Yeah, no, totally. So, the best example I can give is what I'm, like, currently completely steeped in. It was supposed to be a friend of mine, a longtime supporter of the show, had asked me to do an episode about Julius Caesar, right? Easy, right? I've read plenty about Julius Caesar. Everyone knows his story.

It's very simple. But then I wanted to give context as to why his rise of power was even popular, and I went back further and further. And it brought me to this turning point in the Republic. I call the series versus. It's ongoing. It's probably going to take me another two years to finish it. But it was basically a bunch of titanic personalities coming against each other.

And again, primarily Marius versus Sula. And the thing about that era and how it, I'm not trying to take any kind of a historical move. Remember, I always say that, you know, it's a thread in the web. It's just resonating. It's ringing. Rome was a republic before it was an empire. And the more that I kept reading, you know, really, really researching it, I came to find not one to one, but very, very close similarities to our time.

For example, the Iraq. War and Afghanistan. Brett, what would you say that, like, what did the general public, what did you reveal about the leadership of the United States? What would you say? The Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Yeah. There's the, so, I mean, a lot.

Obviously, there's like the racism, the crusading mentality that is deeply present in Western leaders, minds, the bigotry that came up. along with it the these also irrationality of it right like like it was saudi arabians like that that were like behind the attack and all of a sudden now we're blowing up iraqis and afghanis um so i don't know there's a lot of ways to answer that question but yeah what are you getting at corruption it was it in it in the late republic you know they they existed but then something happened called the gigurthian war which was against um new midi Gigertha was the king of the media.

I go into it in depth. You guys listen to verses if you haven't heard it. It's a smash shit. You guys will love it. The Gigerthian War showed laid bare the utter corruption at every single level of Roman government. Even these like even because what happened was that Gigertha bribed everyone. He bribed anyone. everyone, and was trying to buy himself out of the war.

And this happened literally before the eyes of everyone, you know, the citizens of Rome. And I kind of draw that, draw a very, like a similar parallel between what we learned about, you know, Cheney and his connections to the, oh, God, what was that? Halliburton. Halliburton, yes, and then also, like we find out that there is also a plethora of other defense contractors in addition to this logistical supply, like defense contractors that he's beholden to, Rumsfeld in particular as well, they were, they all made a ton of money for themselves with this facade that they were fighting terror. The only purpose of that war was to, enrich themselves and not even they said you know the common thing even the right will say this Trump said it that we went to Iraq for the oil. No not really you went to you went to you went to do Afghanistan and Iraq so that you would have you could loot the public

treasury for what is it a generation yeah. Right? Yes. And it's plain. It's bare to see for everyone. Now, leftists in America and around the globe take the right view of it. Like, hey, look how corrupt this is. We have to do something about it.

The same thing happened during the Gigerthian War in Rome. And the lessons that we learned from the structural chaos that that created. And the fact that they were using. the same rhetoric that all these norms have been broken, but they never took the next step of codifying those norms into law. We aren't either, right? Which means that, again, it will never be one-to-one. That is a historical. But we are headed down a direct path to something like, empire or fascism in our case because our inability to solve this problem collectively is is a result of like the very leaders we believe in dividing us and this has happened before that's why I always kind of push back

against the narrative that you know I agree in effect America is an empire however it is still a Republic that hasn't fallen internally, right? And if you, even if you look at the way that the American Empire functions, it, sorry, the American Republic functions internationally, it is very much a resource

extraction machine that is exactly how the Roman Republic functioned, right? They had tax farmers that were required to pay the state a certain amount

and anything above that was their profit, literally going and harvesting these resources, which is very much akin to what America has done around the world. And it was an age of demagogues, it was an age of false promises, it was an age of false profits. It's so close to our time that it's shocking. But the thing is,

the lessons we can learn from that teach us how to avoid things like false populist. I would name Gaius Marius number one. He was a false populist. He wasn't moved by helping the people. It was a convenient vehicle for him to fulfill a prophecy.

You know, it's very interesting. I don't know. What do you think about that? Yeah, so I have so many thoughts. One of the things that jumps to mind and sort of what you're getting at with everything you just said there is like going back to this idea that, you know, history doesn't exactly repeat, but it rhymes.

And then the question becomes, well, what do we mean exactly when we say that history rhymes? And if insofar as it does rhyme, what's behind this rhyming that seems to occur? Because it very much feels, even just going over American history, as we talked about in our public episode recently, like these doom loops that we're living in, like one example is just the inability to fully and materially deal with. the history of racism and slavery and Jim Crow in the United States consistently brings back to the four over and over again, you know, racial conflict, race riots, uprisings, white reaction, right? We keep living through this at different iterations, right? Our struggle is different than the struggle of the people, you know, in the 60s, the civil rights era, different than the

people, you know, struggling during reconstruction after the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery. but the basic pattern is repeated. So there's a way, there's a sense in which there's a rhyme there. And the reason for that particular rhyme in the U.S. context is its inability to fully deal with and repair that damage, that fault line in American society. And until we fully do that materially, not symbolically, right, not through letting a few people of marginalized identities into the ruling class, but really materially deal with it for all Americans and everybody that has been impacted by that legacy.

We're going to continue to have to deal with it in different ways, shapes, and forms, but the same basic thing is continually coming up. So one answer to this question of why history seems to rhyme could be something about, you know, the natural inclinations of human beings in our relationships with power, with crises, etc. I'm reading a book right now, actually, and I don't know if you're familiar with this. This is certainly not a Marxist text by any means, but it is called The Fourth Turning is here. and it's this new version of like the William Strauss's and I think his name is Neil Howe's book I think in the 80s or 90s called The Fourth Turning and the basic premise of this entire book

and this new text that came out is like there's these patterns of history right these patterns of history and what they do metaphorically is they basically break them down into seasons there's like you know the spring there's like the winter crisis spring addressing of the crisis in the summer there's a new awakening in the fall there's a the third turning is like an unraveling and then back to winter which is a crisis and these these

full cycles take place roughly 80 to 100 years i'm still skeptical about some of this stuff um just i'm just trying to explain um this idea so let's go ahead and and just put that whole seasonal idea into the context of recent american history so we had the crisis of the great depression in World War II, right? That was, though, a winter. And in response to that, we have, you know, the very simple, I'm simplifying a lot by necessity here, we have the rise of FDR, unions, et cetera. Now, there's a new consolidation after World War II, after the New Deal, where most

Americans, of course, some were left out, we all know the complicated history, but for most people, most of the time, there was like a consolidated ideology, a generalized patriotism, a period of renewal, you know, high union rates, inequality shrinks to the bottom or to low rates, lowest rates in American history, right? And then we have, that's the spring. So after these crises are resolved, the Great Depression in World War II, the U.S. comes out on top. We have a new period of renewal in spring. Then it keeps going, right? And then we have this awakening in the 60s, which they refer to as the summer, the second turning. You have this new awakening so this new countercultural ideas challenging the norms and you know basis of society this

causes lots of upheaval but it's only allowed to happen because of the general comfort and basic stability that was accomplished in the post-war era and then after the 60s what do we have what's the fall what's the unraveling the introduction of Reagan and neoliberalism that's when all of the accomplishments of the post-war era begin to be systematically rolled back wealth and equality begins to soar union participation rates go down the minimum wage never gets raised working people no longer have a seat at the table and then when

do we start entering that's the 80s and 90s and then we have the war on terror and we have the great recession in 2008 that's the beginning and they're telling of this new crisis period and these crisis periods these fourth turnings these winters tend to last roughly

a generation you know sometimes they're much shorter sometimes they're a little longer but more or less like these 20 year periods so Like if the crisis more or less started in 2008, 2010, we have until the 2030s. And then they're predicting a new shift, a new renewal, a realignment of political values, political parties, a new consolidation, a new consensus. And that users in us into spring. Now, I say all of that, not to say that I agree with this or that this is in any way necessarily a Marxist analysis of history, but just to say that this is one way and this is a very popular way.

that some historians try to figure out what's behind the fact that history rhymes. Well, it's these cycles, and these cycles last over generations, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't know, like, if you have any thoughts on that, I've much more to say here, but I'll pause and let you hear your thoughts. That's fascinating. First of all, I'll say I have not read the book. I'm going to go to my bookstore and get it because it sounds really, really interesting. I would say that we're people, right?

And we always have it. It doesn't matter. You and I are exactly the same as any citizen of the Roman Republic, right? Humans as a group tend to have repeat cycles of behavior because that's kind of our nature. when you add things like wealth into the mix though um this particular like i would i would be very fascinated for them to try to apply that um the season cycle to the late republic because the way i look at um that that particular time period is we have the gilded asian the 20s uh capitalism destroyed itself in great depression new deal built everything back up and i look

at everything after that as an attempt to bring us to today, which is completely undoing the new deal and bringing us back to a new yielded age where you know, I mean, you'll even hear it on mainstream channels. Well, let's say they'll bring up the idea of

like neo-feudalism. Exactly. You know, where you have this titanically rich class. The, the, sorry, I'll let you finish. I want to get back to Rome. No, but I mean, yeah, what you're saying right there is a perfect example of sort of what they're arguing because yeah you did have this gilded age and one way that

they talk about it is like these periods of hyper individualism and unraveling followed by these periods of consolidation and a remembrance of state power so in the 20s and stuff yes you have a massive inequality you have massive individualism you know people are partying the roaring 20s right and the party has to come to an end and it does with the great depression and then now what after that then we're like sort of shaken awake by history and what happens after we reconsolidate as community we remember the power of the state over the power of corporations and business we re-entrench the power of the state to regulate business in the interest of of most people not in the interest of a few and then yeah and then the 60s is this awakening period it's a reemergence

also of like hardcore individualism and that is it has some benefits of course there's a certain conformism to consensus and whatnot in the 50s were certainly a stifling time for anybody that didn't fit into the conformist idea of who you were supposed to be, you know, gay people, people that did not fit the cookie cutter molds. There's a sort of conformism in those periods of renewal and consolidation that are then challenged by a new era of individualism. But the 60s individualism, which is sort of social and libertine in one way, eventually gives way to economic libertarianism of the Reagan and Needs. neoliberal period, hyper individualism in the realm of the markets. Government is not to be trusted.

You know, you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's all on you. Government's not here to help you or give you any handouts, etc. And that just tears the fabric of society apart. And, you know, what are millennials in Gen Z? Who are we, if not? This new crop of people who came of age during the unraveling and the crisis period, right? The unraveling of neoliberalism and in the crisis period of the great recession and the pandemic and everything that's happened since what are we saying what are millennials saying we're saying like hey I don't give a fuck about wealth about being rich about going to work and dedicating my life to work so I can make it and get status I don't give a fuck about that I just want to be able to afford housing I want community I want to take

care of my neighbors right it's like this whole new spirit coming back online after 40 years of rampant individualism and corporate capitalism having a say so now of course I'm a Socialist. I'm a communist. I would like for us to have a socialist revolution in America. That certainly has never happened yet, although socialist and communist and anarchists have been crucial for any reforms that we have gotten and have been present all throughout, you know, American history. But I could see much more likely than like a, you know, like a Bolshevik style communist or socialist revolution is like at the end of this crisis, a period of renewal of either Democratic. socialist or some form of community-minded, you know, big government regulating business for the benefit of regular working people instead of, you know, letting this sort of rat race continue indefinitely and tear apart society. There's also the question of climate change as well, which feeds into this where we have now a sense of responsibility, not just to one another, but to the whole world, to the planet, to other species. You know, this in some sense

is kind of new, but it feeds back into this need for a communal revival out of this desert of individualism and winner takes all bullshit that is like crushing our lives. So I don't know, I just find that, I find that very interesting. I totally agree with you that there's something in our human nature, just, you know, not human nature like capitalism is human nature, right? That phrase is very fraught in left-wing circles, but human nature, meaning the full spectrum of human behavior and how we organize and interact with one another in societies. There's a pattern there that, as you were saying, continually sort of brings history back

around. And it is tied in some deep way to our natures as human beings in big groups, right? But I can't exactly pin down what that is. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think any of us are actually meant to. it's like because it's it's such a hard thing to fathom that okay societal behavior whether you're talking about like you know feudal japan or uh feudal um europe right these two societies on the opposite sides of the world with no contact with another one another at when it was established the chivalric code and the code of the samurai are almost identical right how do you explain that absent the fact that we're all just

people and when you want to have a society that is propping up a feudal system and you need a brutal warrior class then they have to have the exact same code as the public facing version of the code anyway

um like yeah it's such a it's such a you know a challenging and kind of monumental uh idea to kind of grasp but it doesn't matter it doesn't mean it's not super fun to think about absolutely and it also and it also

doesn't mean that like history isn't fun or all around us or like we don't we don't always have to make it like innately political the way that I find a lot of utility bringing people um not only building an audience but just building bridges with people is to bring like history back to things like fantasy or um science fiction right because some of the most iconic stuff that's ever happened in history uh sorry in in hollywood are literally depictions of things that happened in the past um brett do you like star wars i was more of a star trek guy myself to be honest okay okay i i can i can admit that but i i'm a star trek got myself ds9 i like i'll get a tattoo if you want you know if you want in solidarity we can do it together i love the dominion war i can watch it over and over

again um the um things like like uh for example purists is war elephants purists of a pyrus was um one of the most insane stories ever um i i won't go into it but basically he was one of the successor kings alexander the great's cousin alexander the great stars all of the Macedonia Empire splits apart. He's a peerless warrior and he is sent to relieve the colonies of southern Italy, like the boot

and and Sicily of this incursion of this upstart they called barbarians, which was the Republic of Rome. It's fascinating because from this story we got so much of like popular culture. Heurus was advised by two necromancers.

Necromancers. Necromancers. I said that right. They were priests from this place that is in modern Albania, which used to be called Epirus. It was called the Necromantean of Akron. And they were believed that it was believed to be built on the places that it was thinnest. The veil between the underworld and the living world was at its thinnest. So the priests of this were called necromancers. And they were believed to be. be able to challenge the channel the voices of dead relatives particularly for their patron who was King Pyrus of a pyrus. Now

to reach that state and for him to be able to attack to talk to, in his case Achilles and Alexander the Great they ate mushrooms okay so he's being advised

in his invasion in his invasion of Italy by two guys who are high on mushrooms all the time and pretending to be other people so it's it's

utterly insane number one but that gives us the concept in all the fantasy of necromancers from there and then his war elephants he brought ten Indian war elephants with him give us George Lucas's ATAT walkers

in Empire Strikes Back and his entire invasion of Italy and then Sicily is the direct directly causes the first Punic War which I would argue is kind of like the turning point in ancient Mediterranean history it's when the Republic says you know what we have to whether they admitted to themselves or not

we have to be an empire you know like we have to expand, like beyond Italy, beyond everything. Yeah, it's so fascinating that all of our traditions and everything that we find cool and good and wonderful and popular culture has its roots in the past. And I, and going back, like, to bring it together with what you were saying, is that, like, I just think we have humans as a species, have a proud election to go back to, um, go back to what is familiar. Because what is familiar seems comfortable and the right thing to do.

Yeah. And there's these, and it's archetypal as well. Like, you know, like there's certain archetypes that, um, are sort of formed from just basic human behavior in the spectrum of human beings

that repeat throughout history, um, that we, that, that help us make sense of, of our own times, our own futures and our own lives as well. Um,

and you're also talking earlier about how, you know, sort of, totally independent cultures can come to similar conclusions at similar times in history and how interesting and weird is that convergence and you know there's a part of it that's that's driven by like basic underlying human realities and psychology and biology but from a marxist perspective as well there's like these advancements in the forces and relations of production that sort of happen you know at different times at different places but there's very similar results or

similar ways in which communities deal with these shifts. One of the biggest shifts in human history is, of course, the shift from peer hunter gathering to agricultural societies, which of course give rise to class societies, as some people in society have more leisure time and others work to build a surplus for those people who have leisure time to continue to exist and do whatever they do, art, politics, etc. So on one hand, the shift to agriculture and sort of sedentary societies allowed human civilization to rise, but it also marked it to this day with the mark of class stratification, which before the agricultural revolution was not so much present.

Now, of course, that jump from hunter-gatherer to agricultural revolution is not, you know, this thing that just happened over a hundred-year span or something, as you were saying as well. like rediscovered, discovered randomly by different people in different parts of the world who had no connection with one another. And because of the benefits, even though there were some downsides, I mean like nutritional health, for example, plummeted. But there were these new ability to generate surpluses to build city-states, eventually, you know, nation-states that exist to this very day. And that was, in so many ways, a shift in the forces and relations of production from hunter-gatherer, small tributtal. societies, almost like, what, proto-communist, primitive communist societies that were, you know, compared to what we have today, relatively egalitarian to these, you know, rapidly stratifying class societies that then give rise to, you know, ancient slave societies, the Roman Empire, feudalism, medieval monarchism, you know, mercantialism, eventually capitalism, etc. So I find that interesting. And that also leads into this question I have for you, which is, like, how do you define yourself politically

and how does your politics and your interest in history sort of interact with one another? I don't list myself as like any particular, um, adhering to any particular ism. Um, I am definitely far left, you know, if, if, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if anyone needs to know that, I, like, just because our, I believe in a society driven by compassion.

And the ancient Greeks had many, you know, they had a belief that you had, you had, in order to be a complete person, you had to be able to experience every aspect of love. Thus, they had, I think, six or seven words for it. um one of them was agape which was universal love you know happiness uh compassion compare um caring for others and um was supposed to be the ideal ideal basis for all for any great society now i don't believe in all of human history since then unfortunately i don't think any any society has ever actually attain that but to me all of that exists on one side of the spectrum which is the left um i the reason i don't i um you know i i'll probably get in hot water with with some people for saying

this but the reason i don't commit as a communist or uh a socialist is and don't get me wrong i understand there are some um pretty successful democratic socialist societies is that I have never experienced a set example where any of them actually thrived and achieved its actual promise. But I think that is something that we all need to work towards now, desperately. Because another thing about history

is that it links us all together. right uh the all i often call it our story because like it everything that ever happened ties to you it doesn't matter um your your race creed anything like that everything that ever happened resonates with you whether you like it or not and um by that metric a society based on on compassion and meeting the needs of the basic needs of everyone so that no one has to worry about having a roof over their head or whether they can feed themselves or their kids is the bare minimum that I expect and to get there it's all my politics are are completely on the left I don't believe in any paradigm where I can be like economically conservative that's poor shit right like it's complete bullshit shit. The only reason that these

conservative types can't recognize, like apropos of what you were saying earlier, the DeSantis types, the reason that they will not, the conservatives, will not allow you to have the Americans to have an honest reckoning with history is because if you do that, it destroys their

entire ideology because a reckoning with history forces compassion and understanding. And that is the one thing they cannot have. Yeah. capitalism cannot have that because it just rips the entire facade apart yeah no i'm sorry i hope i answered the question no definitely yeah that's a lot of food for thought there and i would just say like in a very friendly way like you know you're you're saying like you know i'm hesitant to

say socialist or communist because the societies that have called themselves that have not you know accomplished or in some cases even come really close to the ideal that they were you know promoting or ostensibly standing and fighting for. And while I agree that that's true, the way I think about it is like, this is a long protracted process. Like, it's very, it's going to be incredibly similar to the process out of feudalism and toward capitalism. We call that time period, which was several hundred years, you know, mercantilism, for lack

of a better word, where there's this new class of mercantilists who are not tied to necessarily property or aristocratic lineage. but because of, you know, various trade routes and whatever various circumstances, we're able to begin, you know, amassing profit and wealth as a merchant of one sort or another in the period of colonialism, et cetera. So this process that we say is like capitalism displaced feudalism. We look back and say, how did this actually happen? Was this like the first time a revolution in a feudalist society occurred, immediately won over

and instantiated capitalism of course not it was this long protracted process so it was very fuzzy to everybody involved very few people during the mercantile era were like consciously conceiving of what they were doing as moving to a new mode of production right but this is precisely what

happened and so what's happened with socialism is the Russian revolution is the first historical attempt ever to move beyond capitalism consciously to a new system and that is that's never going to be perfect it's starting i mean russia's starting and similar to china and like not even like the most

advanced western state but is like a semi-feudal you know european backwater at the time so this idea that they're going to shift magically or beautifully into like ideal socialism or anything even approaching it is just an utter impossibility but what it was was this first human attempt and also i would say the first conscious human attempt um because these these shifts from like hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies, agricultural societies to like ancient slave societies to eventually monarchical feudalism. Nobody was conscious of these shifts happening. Nobody was conceiving in their minds that we are now shifting to a new mode of production. It was really with the advent of Marx and Engels's historical materialism that we can start making sense of it and for the first time

be conscious of ourselves as now trying to usher in this new era. But it's not going to to be one or two revolutions it's going to be i mean sadly and some people won't like to hear this and some people say that we shouldn't talk like this but hundreds of years um if history is any guide to how these shifts actually happen uh it is not happening over one or two generations or even a century it is a much much longer process that you know i consider myself and many people listening who identify as a socialist or a communist or whatever as being in the tradition of we're fighting for that shift, whether or not that comes in our lifetime or it could come in one country and then it gets rolled back. You could look at Athenian democracy and these first attempts like a Roman

Republic to try to get more people involved in decision making and have structures, right? That was like a very interesting period that eventually got rolled back, right? And like after the French revolution, this radical left-wing revolution against the ancient regime of France also is then met with hardcore reaction. It gives birth to Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon becomes emperor, which is anathema to the core ideas of egalitarian French Revolution, right? So that was a stuttering step forward and then three steps back. And so I kind of think as like the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, and many others as these imperfect, you know, clumsy steps forward trying to move in that direction that maybe in

500 years, we'll look back and say, oh, that was like the early mercantilists, right? That was the beginning of this process that eventually did move us out of capitalism. But it was this long protracted process. It took dozens and dozens of revolutions over, you know, two, three centuries to accomplish. And now it makes sense in high insight. But at the time, it looked like, you know, communism was dead in the early 21st century. And this was an old ideology that was never coming back. But here we are in the 25th century.

and it's basically Star Trek. We did it, right? I don't know if that's how it's going to play out, but it's worth thinking about. No, no, I'm right there with you, because don't get me wrong, I find, I find communism, socialism, like I said,

I'm not an ist, but I favor that, like, I am on that, that is my worldview. Yeah. I want to live in like a Star Trek type society, but it's very important to remember that, like you said, This is very, very recent. Yeah.

And capitalism, especially the way it manifested in the post-New Deal era, would brook no rivals. There is no, they will not allow evolution of thought to be even possible because any socialist government or communist government is sanctioned. They're not allowed to evolve. because, you know, God forbid, let's just say Cuba, God forbid 90 miles off the coast of the United States, you have a communist utopia. Yeah.

Right? They cannot allow that to happen. And I will fight those kinds of sanctions, that kind of things, because if a society is not evolving, it is not changing. Yes. uh and and revolution as fred hampton so eloquently put is simply change that's all it is it doesn't have to be uh a blood bath and if enough of us if enough of us want everyone to have you know uh education bread uh well food um clothing and and shelter then it can go that way you but a but a But, I mean, you said it perfectly.

These systems are all very new. And unfortunately, for all of us and for our planet, we haven't been able to see any of these evolved outside of international pressure that forces totalitarianism upon it. Right. Which is such a tragedy. Yes. But it's precisely what you say. It is a direct result of this attempt by the powers that be to prevent the growth of these alternative systems. In some ways, the Napoleonic wars can be seen as that shift from feudalism to capitalism being repressed and attempted to be repressed by all the powers of Europe who are these aristocratic, feudal, monarchical powers of Europe who are not interested in turning European kingdoms into nation-states and republics. where the monarchs and the aristocracy no longer had any power.

And so, you know, Napoleon is this imperfect, weird figure that emerges from the French Revolution and then does a sort of Republican jihad across Europe and is met with these, with this cold. It's met with these old feudal powers and aristocratic powers that don't want this shit to spread at all. You know, it forced Hegel to call Napoleon history on horseback as he sort of like, spreading, you know, liberal republicanism throughout a feudal Europe that does not want to become Republican Europe. And in a very similar way, just with any attempt, any attempt, the smallest to the largest attempts of people to take back their natural resources from corporations, you know, structure their economy in an anti-capitalist or socialist way, is immediately met with a global coalition of capitalist powers who don't want that to happen. And if a lot of people, which I think a lot of people in America agree with you, we want everybody to have a house, we want everybody to have health care, we want everybody to have education, healthy food, good infrastructure, whatever it may be, these social goods, but it's precisely a threat to those who make money privatizing these needs.

And they have way more power, they have way more money. They are, you know, we might have more numbers, but they have all the other advantages on their side. And if our numbers aren't organized, the fact that we all think the same way doesn't mean shit to them, they can still suppress us. So our only benefit is our numbers, but that only works if those numbers are properly organized to take on the incredible organization of the capitalist class who does not want to see these things become human rights because then the ability to profit off of them goes away. So that's going to be the struggle. That is the struggle. We're currently living through it for sure. But yeah, I mean, I totally, I think you and I are in total agreement about.

you know where we want to end up what our basic values are how society should be and of course those ideas themselves like me and you are talking like matter-of-factly like health care is a human right housing's a human right these these ideas themselves are historically curated these are historical ideas that are bequeathed to us through the struggles of the last several centuries you know go back a thousand years and say hey everybody deserves free health care and free housing and they would be like you might as well be speaking a different language i don't know what those words mean you know I don't know what those concepts even mean. So even the ideas in our heads that we are willing to fight and die for are handed down to us because of historical processes, which make our present perfectly ripe for those ideas to at least take hold, if not succeed. Well, yeah, like, I mean, take for example, in the last couple of days, I've been, I mean, you know, it's social media. But ideas of, because it's in a, you know, a primary season is starting, ideas about UBI. we're getting thrown about it's completely disingenuous but you know ideas of it were being put out understand that in our current era it ubi is not going to come in as some kind of altruistic um leftist um general societal generosity to to people it is going to come in place when um there is

no other way for you know 20% of the population to maintain consumerism then it will come this is the exact same thing that happened in the late republic they introduced UBI

they just called it a grain doll right grain could be sold for denari it was it was a similar thing because in both cases the rich would not give up one iota of their wealth.

And what that, and the path, unfortunately, when the masses are always supportive of what we would call leftist policies, but those are suppressed, humanity's inclination is to seek out a one-man solution. And they always lie. It's always bullshit, but we always believe it. And then we get empires and we get fascists and we get, you. you know, all those kinds of governments. And, and like you said, it's kind of, it's bleak, but what I love about both our shows and,

and, you know, guerrilla history and, you know, quite a few others is that, I believe, like, our, we're reaching our audiences and we're also equipping our audiences with the, you know, our listeners with the, with the knowledge to begin to fight. back in their own ways, even if it's just correcting a certain, you know, a certain wrong comment that their friend saw on MSNBC, or if, you know, my favorite is like, everyone, I love hearing, like, you know, like, I mean, I don't listen to it, but, you know, the type, like the Pod Save America type of, like, podcast, where they're like, there's no way to, if these conspiracy theorists

can never be talked about the Q&on people can you never be talked about no that's bullshit give them the actual conspiracy tell them to look in to the conspiracy to undo the new deal

use their own language do your own research if someone's racist makes you uncomfortable makes racist jokes and they said you know it's always been like that call them a conspiracy theorist

because the original conspiracy theory that we're all living in The lie that we're all fucking exaggerated and stuck with is that races even exist. Right. Right. It was all to facilitate

wealth building for these European kingdoms that wish to become empires. Absolutely. And so, yeah, I mean, man, I could talk to you all day.

That's a great point. Yeah, same, same. A couple more points I did want to touch on. I know this has gone way longer than we thought. That's okay. As long as you have a little bit of time.

best time yeah for sure one idea that that pops up and um we've been kind of getting at i don't know if you have thoughts on this this is almost kind of philosophical in some sense but we're talking about how history rhymes you know the seasons of history you know what what causes these repetitive loops that we seem to go through how can people 2 500 years ago um have similar situations to us today even though so much has changed we're still human beings and we still have the same you know issues that we deal with but that leads to a big question about what is history is it a linear movement of progress as articulated by figures like m lk or obama who would make great use of this line that the moral arc of history is long but it bends towards justice again sort of

re-enchanting a liberal or progressive idea of human history almost teleologically pointed towards more and more justice. There's a way in which Marxists can be seen as also buying into an idea of progress, right? There's primitive communism, then ancient slave societies, then feudalism, then capitalism, and inevitably and inexorably socialism and eventually communism. That can be argued in a different way, but certainly people often say that Marxists have a sort of progressive, linear idea of history as well. some reactionaries

one of the big ones was like this weird sort of a cult right wing figure Julius Evela who called himself a super fascist and thought that like Nazi Germany was too far left right this aristocratic re-entrenchment of the elites is what he wanted

etc and one of the big things he argued is for cyclical time that know this whole idea of progress that we continually get better and better or continually work towards more perfection or that history has an end goal that we're moving toward in a more or less linear process is false

and really it's these cycles of time like in Hindu you know you have the yugas like the Kali Yuga is this period of time and you sort of cycle through these periods of times but you always come back right and in some sense when I was telling you earlier about this book the fourth turning I'm reading these seasons of history

it's cyclical and they make an explicit argument they have chapters about you know this historian debate between linear versus cyclical time. I kind of think of it in a dialectical way in which there's both of these things can maybe be true at the same time. Like could we have an evolutionary process that when you stand far back enough away from it, you can see that it is actually moving in a certain direction toward more and more whatever, freedom, democracy, human dignity, whatever it could be.

But within that broad arc of history are these smaller cycles that. that we live in, right? It kind of gives rise to this idea of the mental image of the dialectical spiral. Like if linear progress is just this left to right arrow going towards more progress and the cyclical conception of history is like these seasons and we always return eventually to the same place we started in, the dialectical spiral sort of takes both and welds them together because the spiral is pointing upwards, but it's cyclical and that the spiral is sort of these cycles that happen over and over and over again.

That eventually, you know, they do lead forward, like the struggle of black people to abolish slavery and then their struggle for civil rights and now there's struggle against the prison and carceral state, right? I would rather be struggling as a black person against the prison and carceral state than being enslaved and fighting against slavery, right? It's a shittier position to be in.

There's certainly progress, of course, created by black people fighting back themselves. There's a way in which, there's progress but there's also cycles you know you can't say that black people are the exact same position they were 400 years ago um but at the same time you can't say that it's always been this clean march in the direction of more rights and stuff no it's these constant cycles of uprisings and white reaction and these different iterations at higher levels um but yeah that's that's the big sort of philosophical debate about how to understand history cyclically or in a linear

progressive fashion and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts especially given your understanding of ancient history I think there yes there are there are cycles in history and I think it's how

it is applied because you know it's not a universal thing historical literacy isn't even close to you know the most of the population right if we all it's one thing to say that if we all had a natural understanding of, let's say

everything deep in the history and Rev. Left Radio put out. All of us, that was our baseline of knowledge, right? Then we could say knowing that and the fact that everyone else knows it, we could then

take an analysis of how a society functions on that in the sense, like, do we repeat the same? Even knowing that, you know, this led to a doom doom spiral and you know let's say any country 20 years ago all the way back to ancient history knowingly we're entering into that that that it's a conscious choice however since um

history you know like honestly to be fair this is the first time in history where we all have access to it absolutely you know if we want it yes and we should we should all really a appreciate that because it can lead to like international enlightenment and solidarity in a way that would never have been possible before yeah but um to say that history leans in a morally just way uh or um ultimately the arc of history even though there are you know spirals of disaster and and regression and progression. I don't really I don't really understand what that means

because if you think about it, there are so many other factors in the sense that, okay, technology has come in. Human, there has been a human evolution of thought that has happened. I mean, believe me, we're dragging the most of a lot of people behind us But I don't think that history itself is necessarily moral, just, cruel, awful.

It's all of those things at once. It's the vast tapestry of everything that has ever happened. And I don't, there are lessons to be learned that can be applied today. but I think it is a very critical error to take anything that isn't immediate to our current time. So, like, you and I, when we're speaking about Fred Hampton's world in the last episode, you know, if you go from the, like, the post-New deal and then, you know, post-World War II that set up the G. geopolitics of now. Yes, we are in a doom loop of repeating the same patterns of behavior and you can point to that and say that needs to stop. But in the grand scope of history, I don't think those

lessons apply in a very broad sense. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're, yeah, you're getting at something really deep here, which is that like, yeah, this, like, if you can make a patterns and you can decipher the patterns in the cycles of modern history, there's so much that makes modern history, modern history, that it's very hard to then go and try to apply that schema to ancient history. And one of the ways that, oh, go ahead. It's dark. Like, yeah, the closer it is to our time, the darker it gets because it just, it gets a little gross that we're doing the same thing over and over.

Sorry. Yeah, yeah, and we're highly, and we're more and more conscious of the fact that we're doing the same shit over and over again. And it's, like, happening today, right now. And to your point as well, like, I was just thinking, like, okay, this liberal idea of, like, you know, bending towards justice, the long arc of history. Like, it'd be very interesting to apply that same rationale, like, at the peak or near the peak of the Roman Republic. Like, this is going to go on forever. Is it now we're going to get more republicanism. We're going to get more democracy.

More people are going to be led into the political and economic fold, right? like you could there's a period of perhaps of like roman upswing that you could have made a very similar like you know the three generations behind me there's been rapid progress i can see that you know a generation or two ahead of me we're going to still be going in this direction getting better at this stuff called democracy and representative republicanism or whatever but what actually happened is like that whole experiment eventually did fail you know the rome fell um you know the history afterwards is not a history of more republicanism and democracy it was a rolling back of that and then now in hindsight we look back and say there was a little spark that you know this wasn't this this rapid or you know history bending arc of progress it was like a little spark of progress that was then snuffed out for hundreds and hundreds of years and right now we could also be living through something like that we could think that okay because of technology and these advancements and social media and computing and all this stuff that we are very much on this this trajectory it's bumpy but it is a trajectory towards progress and then in a hundred

years who knows enter catastrophe x right happens and um you know we enter a new dark age we enter a new period of of empires we take five steps back instead of two you know a new dark age and then as generations go on we barely remember this time in the 20th century and 21st century where humans were like really at this amazing peak and then everything since then has been a collapse downward. Like that's possible too. And if that does happen, then it completely destroys at least the liberal idea

of this sort of, you know, consistent, bumpy, but consistent trajectory of progress and betterment, you know, piling on. So I don't know, it's very interesting. And I think the Roman Republic highlights that. Yeah, also to expand on what you said, Because, like, you know, like, those same liberal thinkers will always say, like, they'll never mention the fall of the republic. Because I think it kind of scares them because it does resonate very much with what's going on in America right now. And, you know, to be honest, every Western country where every Western democracy right now is witnessing, you know, the suppression of the left, which is leading to the rise of, like, left, right-wing lunatics.

Yeah. And to me, it's, it's very, very funny that, like, they always go to, the, they equate America, the fall of America with the fall of the Roman Empire, not the Republic. Well, if that's true, let's accept that as truth. Then how does the moral flow of history for the next, let's say, 1,500 years lean towards just, immorality. Exactly. Because you have the collapse of Rome, in their own definition, the light of civilization, the collapse of the Roman Empire.

And, you know, it exists in the East as the Byzantine. But then this period of, you know, it's called the Dark Ages. I know that term is, you know, hotly debated in all this. But the way I define a dark age is a time, is a period of time when mass literacy and learning disappears. And by that metric, you can very easily see that why they are called dark ages. That's great.

Yeah, I like that. And what happens in the meantime? You have the rise of feudalism and petty warlords and petty monarchies and every time a civilization falls, the pattern is to gross

injustice. Do you know what I mean? like it's it's nice to look at I think that narrative exists to make them feel good about themselves that we're generally moving in the right direction however what history teaches us is that progress can be wiped out in an instant absolutely and it does not take a significant percentage of the population to make that happen yeah absolutely yeah I mean it just kind of reminded me when you mentioned the dark ages of like the fascinating just trajectory that happens afterwards where yeah you have all all the roman and greek empires are totally in the past you have

this dark ages which of course as you're saying is hotly contested because there's still innovation there's still thinkers it's not you know a complete deprivation or reduction to barbarism or whatever there's things are still going on history is still sort of happening but then you have like this renaissance and then you have the protestant reformation and then you have the enlightenment it's all fascinating but yeah as you said like it seems like over hundreds of years yeah it's progress progress building up building up building up but it must have seemed like that to different peoples at different times as well and there's also a very interesting aspect of like I always think of like periods of time and I don't know exactly you probably know ancient I mean you definitely know

ancient history better than me but you know I could think of like the dark ages in medieval Europe or whatever periods of time when when generally very little change this was certainly true in like hunter gatherers societies um primitive communist societies where everything all the generations before you and the generations after you several of them um more or less nothing changed you were in the same cycles and that gave rise in these sort of very pre-modern societies of like this cyclical conception of time seasonal metaphors for the passing of time make much more sense when there isn't this rapid progress of productive forces and technological progress, etc.

and there have been human beings who have lived in periods of time where as far back as they can see and as far forward as they can see, things are more or less the same. The same, right? And modernity is totally different. We all have this sense of

like history speeding up. We had this sense of like, oh my grandparents you know, they were around when the TV and the car were invented and now I'm flying these international flights today and then tomorrow who knows flying cars or whatever like every generation is going to get brand new devices and now the quantum computers coming online and artificial intelligence on the horizon so to be in

modernity is to is to have this sense that that feeds well into the liberal idea of progress because it does feel as if not only are things changing they're changing fucking rapidly and it feels like things are speeding up quicker and quicker and quicker this could be a crescendo to a collapse right or it could be the the the up swing of like a totally new golden era that we can't even comprehend or anything in between. And so it's very interesting to think about how people in the past have lived in a totally different mental space with regards to their relationship to history than modern people like you and I are living through now.

Right. Like you and I cannot judge, we have no idea of our place in history. That will come only with the benefit of hindsight from future generations. Exactly. But what we do have is the ability to look back and say, okay, you know, with non-biased eyes, you know, to your point, we're like, you know, we're in this time where like, you know, we have these creature comforts, we have travel, everything is, you know, seemingly, at least technologically, meant to move us forward, make things better, make things easier, make things more accessible. But we don't know the actual, like, of course, we know like the societal things. toll that takes but it's not like the roman empire uh let's just take things like sewage or you know the second century common era invention of rudimentary steam engine in alexandria and egypt you know things were happening then too but i would argue that a large factor in the fall of

forget Rome, but any empire is stasis. And stasis usually or like we call it, maintaining the status quo. When wealth, the ability

to actually freely enjoy modernity in any sense, whenever you are throughout history, where the common men is restricted because wealth gets hoarded at the top is pretty indicative of a collapse.

And I hope it doesn't happen, but it feels like it's that kind of happening right now. I don't know. I'm not a doomer. I believe in people. I believe in reaching out to everyone and talking to everyone. I've done it. I've walked the walk.

I've done it by example. And it's totally possible. but at the same time I feel like the difference now between any other time in history is the ability for the people at the top

to direct force to forcefully and I'm talking like a multi-spectral thing not just guns and their transformer ravaged robots that are everywhere soon but

the ability for them to direct force and direct narratives has never existed to this point. Absolutely. Like even if you look at like, you know,

coming out of that second dark age after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the church basically, the church's power was that they had they had access to the ancient, the wisdom of the ancients, but they were the arbiters of it. Even that

compared to now, Now, our lead, whatever you're going to call them, leaders, the people who actually truly dictate the kind of path that we're all forced to go down, have an ability to control us that has never existed in any other point in history. And that is what kind of fuels not Dumerism. I'll never call myself a Dumer. but my skepticism as to whether we'll be able to get out of this in time in the context of all the challenges we're facing, right? Yeah. Because, yeah, climate, believe me, the climate narrative, like, if you see what's happening with the right, they're using, like, it fuels the racist narrative. Yes.

Because, you know, these brown people are trying to come up. And I got news for you, they're going to keep coming, right? In larger and larger numbers, which will foster racism, which will foster division. at home which will foster all kinds of stuff so unless we're able to combat that with a better narrative that is available

freely I don't see us getting out of it and you know apropos of that like Amazon owns Audible and Audible won't post my Fred Hampton episode all the other episodes there

but they removed it and asked why and they wouldn't give me a reason. And the only reason I can think of is that it kind of, if you know Fred Hampton's life, he kind of refutes the idea of a multi, of a hegemonic corporation even existing. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's fascinating. So like, yeah, so like we're under a command and control structure that's invisible, but extraordinarily powerful that is seeking to divide and rule. And, and the like to bring back like ancient to modern those divide and rural tactics are exactly the same that caesar used in gaul or you know Alexander's father philip of macedon used to divide the greek city states it's the exact same playbook yeah fascinating so um us knowing about those kinds of things because they are quite simple but they're also they're also being used against us because enough people don't really

really appreciate that they're being taken advantage of. I have hope. Yeah. I have hope, but at the same time, my cynicism is not directed towards people, but at the system that we're all stuck in. And I share that sentiment. I have profound belief and love in regular-ass people and their principles and their values and the goodness that most people have in their hearts and most people want to do

good. But I also agree with you that we're taking on a ruling class, a global ruling class or a national ruling class that has more tools at their disposal than ever before to maintain their status quo and maintain their set of privileges. At the same time, that hypercoordination works both ways. I mean, you and I are talking right now 10, 20 years ago. This would have been utterly impossible for us to be having a real-time conversation on the internet. And that coordination, and that shrinking of the world, of course it works for the people of immense wealth and power to use that ability to coordinate their own interests. It also helps us in some ways to get out our narratives. You know, you and I, 10 years ago, nobody would know who the fuck we are.

Nobody would know except our close friends and family, what we thought or anything like that. We would not be able to really systematically help educate anybody or anything because the technology just wasn't on board. Now, we have that technology. we are doing those things more and more people have access to all this information but as you say at the exact same time so too does the you know the powers that be have the ability to control narratives control the platforms that you and i are talking on right now control corporate media and what is and isn't allowed to be said on those you know through those mediums etc and then you talk about climate collapse right and and there's there's like this naive idea on the left sometimes that like

If things get bad enough, you know, people will turn towards socialism and look for a different way of doing things. But what really happens when things get bad enough is that fear takes over and scared people are not necessarily going to be radically open to radical experiments and changing the way they live. A lot of times with crisis and fear comes hate, comes bigotry, comes the need for a strong man to take over. You know, fascism, other rising. Absolutely. It's not like this moment of like, I'm willing to share everything I have. It's like, let's get guns and defend what little we have. And so, yeah, I think that's a very big concern. And we saw with the Syrian Civil War and the subsequent migration push into Europe, which is peanuts to what's coming with the climate crisis driven mass migrations, that it gave rise to all number of fascist and white supremacist and reactionary political movements and politicians, etc. And so, So take that, times it by 100, and that's what you're looking at with mid-century mass migrations, and it's going to be brutal. I mean, on the Rio Grande right now, we're having the political debate about whether or not we should have these buoys laced with razor wire to prevent desperate migrants from coming into the United States, right? Governor Greg Abbott in Texas is militarizing the Rio fucking Grand so that if anybody swims out into the middle and tries to come over to U.S. territory, they'll be cut the fuck up by these razor blades. and drowned because they're unable to get on top of these cycling buoys that they've installed.

And this is somebody who thinks of himself as a follower of Jesus Christ, right? As a good Christian. Yeah, he set up a mass murder machine in the river. Yes. That would literally meant to kill people who are just trying to cross it. Including babies and children who come with families. And that is just the tip of the iceberg because, yes, spoiler alert. It is possible to actually seal the U.S. border if you built a wall like the walls of Byzantium and put mini-guns and just murked anyone who tries to come across.

And unfortunately, I think it was a historian Gwen Dyer pointed this out. He said that if you think that that can't happen, understand that rhetorically we're already there. Yes. It's just a matter of making enough people to think that it's okay. to murder anyone who tries to get into the country and i mean this if if if what if what uh abbott is doing right now it's not a soft launch for something like that i don't know what it is yeah exactly well said all right my friend well i think we're we're coming up on almost what two hours here i think oh my god it's time is flown it always flies when we talk right it does it does i think we talked like

yeah this would be like 30 minutes and it's like seven hours later yeah for yeah for the record uh everyone yeah we had originally said that just because we both love history and just like you know we're friends love to talk we just do like a short but yeah you know once once we got talking we don't stop absolutely but i think there's a lot of interesting stuff in here and i really think that both of our audiences are going to enjoy it um i do want to and i'll give you a chance to say your last words as well but um i'll give my last words and this is something i sort of wrote out that that really ties up this conversation um and something that i kind of i shared on my instagram but it's very private and small.

I kind of wanted to get this idea out there as well, because this is part of the reason why I wanted to have you on to have this discussion at all, which is this idea that understanding history is crucial to self-knowledge. So to not understand history is to not fully understand yourself because you and your entire life

and your society and your culture are the direct product of historical forces operating over thousands of years and countless generations of lives. I sometimes think about all the people who out of disinterest know virtually nothing about the history that produced them and their selves and their worldviews. It's kind of like waking up with amnesia, having no idea how you got here, why things are

as they are, or who you even are, and then not even being curious about it. Studying history is studying the human story, which is studying the premises and foundations of your own existence. True self-knowledge is impossible without this study. the whole history of humanity lives on within you through your genetic code to the ideas in your head to the bedrock beliefs and assumptions to your fears and desires to the part of the globe that you call home the whole tragic and beautiful human story culminates and continues in the particularity of you from our evolutionary origins to our ancient history to our modern reality you and i are the product of it all so know yourself that's kind of my uh my wrap-up clarion call for people to get into history if they aren't already. Do you have any last words? No, I'm, I'm speechless.

That, I can't top that. That was, that was beautiful, man. I have tears in my eyes. That's 100% right. Perfect. Perfect. And anyone in any of my deep into history, listeners, I cannot endorse you listening to Rev. Left Radio.

enough. Even if your political leanings, wherever they lie or wherever you think they lie, just go into it the way you go into like the last couple of modern era episodes that I ask you to just put everything aside and just listen to it with an open mind. And it will give you an understanding of, you know, what's wrong in the matrix. And it will give you an idea that, okay, we need to have understanding and the beauty of, uh, of, of that eloquent approach brett's brett just laid out is the essence of who we are you know the blood that flows in our veins is not is not represented um in the color of our skin but the knowledge that we are all the same yes deeply inexorably connected well my friend thank you so much for

coming on um as we wrap up here i i do want to give a quick recommendation and you can as well I also want to echo your call. You told your audience to come check out where I've left. I want to tell my audience, please check out deep into history. It's on every major podcast app. It's a really great show. You do a wonderful job, as you say, weaving storytelling expertise into the telling of history so that history is not this dry, dead thing, but this alive, emotionally connective thing

that is structured through a sort of storytelling narrative. And I can't recommend deep into history enough. Of course, I'll link to it in the show notes for anybody who is interested in checking that out. But I also watched a two-and-a-half-hour documentary on YouTube the other day from the YouTube channel Made in History. And it's called History of the entire world, ancient, medieval, and modern. It's two and a half hours. It literally follows us from when we climbed out of the trees to the modern day. And it's like this two-and-a-half hour sweep of history telling you basically the entire history of the world that produced you and

me and it's a fascinating way to at the very least become acquainted with elements of history that you might not have been acquainted with and at the most fill out this mental map of the entire story from us coming out of the African Sahara 200,000 years ago as modern biological human beings to us landing on the moon and building quantum computers today and everything that's happened in between. It's really wonderful. Before I let you go though, do you have any recommendations that you would want people to check out if they want to bolster their love

of history? Yes, in light of the attempted coup of Meatball Ron or Rob, whoever you want to call him, and you know, the attempt to obliterate African-American the rich tapestry

of African-American history, I would highly recommend checking out one Mike black history podcast. It's his his name his podcast name is country boy it's the perfect place

to spark further like intellectual inquiry and through it you can just start by picking out you know things you like there's sports stuff there's all kinds of stuff but understand that the reason that all this knowledge is trying to be blocked from

the youth is that it makes a reckoning impossible and there's actually beauty and peace that comes with reckoning with this recent history that brings a profound sense of peace within oneself because you get to know and relate to a culture that is so often just pictured in a negative way or in just a hyper-capitalistic rap style way where it forces a lot of understanding. So it's one mic, Black History podcast, highly recommend it.

Awesome. Yeah, it's actually you that, you mentioning that maybe in our last conversation or maybe on an off-air conversation, I subscribe to it and have started checking them out. That's a great recommendation as well. All right, my friend, thank you so much for coming on. This was awesome. I loved our public feed conversation as well as this, Patreon exclusive. And I think we're both in complete agreement that this is not going to be our last collaboration by any means.

Definitely not, brother. Thank you so much for having. having me on and everyone listening, yo, it's been an absolute pleasure. You guys are the best.