The Political Animals | Right-Wing Radical, Left-Wing Heretic | E1
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- Welcome to the relaunch of The Political Animals Podcast!
A show where two political philosophers, one a right-wing radical, the other a left-wing heretic, come together to discuss the social, political and cultural issues of our day.
The Political Animals is co-hosted by:
Jonathan Cole, an academic interested in conservatism, libertarianism, political ideology and political theology; and
Holly Lawford-Smith, an academic working in moral and political philosophy, with a particular interest in feminist theory and movement.
Jonathan is not on social media because he is sensible, but you can find Holly on Twitter as @aytchellesse and elsewhere on UA-cam as @hollylawford-smith and as a co-contributor to @feminist heretics.
The book Holly was talking about in the episode is:
Lewis, Hyrum., & Lewis, Verlan. The Myth of Left and Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).
There's a good discussion of the book, with the authors, on the Conversations With Coleman podcast.
So refreshing to hear curiosity about different perspectives than your own 🙏🏻
My 2 cents regarding the left/right terminology and the utility of labels like this: I came away from this discussion with a relatively decent understanding of what Johnathan thinks is wrong with our society, what ought to be done to fix these issues, and what his ideal society would look like. Admittedly, I'm aware of what minarchism means, so I may have an advantage there, but his identification of key elements of state control such as defense illustrated what in his mind this society ought to end up looking like.
I have no such idea what Holly Lawford-Smith's ideal vision for society looks like, how we get there, what is wrong with our current society, and what needs fixing. My advantage in this is that I'm aware she is a gender-critical feminist, and I've seen a couple interviews she has conducted and a couple of lectures she has uploaded on UA-cam. Yet I struggle to imagine what in her mind society ought to end up looking like. She used the term 'utopian' but that doesn't aid much in understanding what that society in her mind looks like, as I tend to project a vague image of grassy hills and lots of trees and picnicking families when trying to imagine a 'utopia'.
I'm going to guess it would involve a number of key policies or social norms that cohere with gender-critical feminist views, such as sex-based rights and scepticism of sex work as a positive.
But I'm still very unsure about how the society would be organised. How governments would form, where political legitimacy would come from, and so on. Feminism is quite broad and involves camps that regard familial structures as the fundamental issue that requires restructuring, and other camps that regard marital structures as pro-woman.
I understand the suspicion of the left-wing/right-wing label, but I think the utility here from my perspective as a viewer is that I am coming away from this discussion with a clearer idea of one figure's ideal vs the others. At least as a starting place for a discussion, I think it's useful.
to be clear, I think this is a consequence of jonathon's commitment to the right wing label, and not from a lack of clarity from either party. In saying "I am right wing" it was quite organic to interrogate what kind of right wing, and what that means to him and why. This isn't a criticism of Holly Lawford-Smith's ability to communicate, rather I think it's a consequence being able to linguistically narrow down our categories with follow up questions.
@@thirstywhitehead4443 thanks for this thoughtful comment. i don't consider feminism to be a comprehensive political position, meaning it's not a rival to jonathan's view. it's not that he had a right-wing comprehensive political view and i had a left-wing comprehensive political view and we were putting them side by side to see whose was better. rather, he had a comprehensive political view and i did not. for me, feminism can be plugged into nearly any political view; it's a component rather than the whole picture. (not least for the obvious reason that feminism is about women and a comprehensive political view should be about everybody!) our aim was to talk about the ideas of left and right and why we dis/identify with them, rather to defend each side's vision. (that would be an interesting conversation, but i would have needed to take a quite different approach!) cheers!
@@hollylawford-smith I appreciate the reply, and I understand your point about feminism being a framework through which one could orientate their political actions and views. As you say, feminism can be plugged into most political systems and the majority of them would argue that they provide a vision of society that is "good for women". I'm curious though about what your ideas of that ideal society would look like!
Maybe in an upcoming episode? 😁
What bought on the change in format?