Libsyn Directory

How to Be a Good Ancestor w/ Roman Krznaric

Release Date: 12/03/2024

From the Frontlines: Class Struggle and Class War in the US Southeast w/ Cecilia Guerrero

Upstream

Class is the thread that ties different systems of oppression together—whether it’s patriarchy, national oppression, racist oppression, reproductive injustice, anti-trans oppression. Although these forms of oppression impact individuals, they operate on systemic levels. These forms of oppression cannot be understood as single, isolated, or parallel struggles—they are all manifestations of class society and can only be abolished with the end of class society. Class is what ties it all together. When we understand this, we can begin to appreciate the importance of class-based...

[UNLOCKED] From the Frontlines: Revolutionary Disaster Response in Los Angeles w/ Gage and Sean of All Power Books

Upstream

One thing that has become quite clear in recent decades is that the best form of disaster preparedness is …community. Being plugged into an organized community can make all the difference when disasters hit. This is just as true for the slow violence perpetrated against all of us under capitalism as it is for responding to emergencies like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, or wildfires. In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about organizing in our communities—specifically focusing on some of the organizing taking place in response to the LA wildfires—but also zooming out...

Technofeudalism w/ Yanis Varoufakis

Upstream

Technofeudalism—you might already have some sense of what the term means, even if you haven’t sat down and unpacked it fully. A mode of production with one hand in the past and another the future—an updated form of feudal relations married to an advanced epoch of the productive forces that mark late capitalism—forces that we often associate with futuristic feats of technology. Except this is not some kind of techno-utopia—it’s really a dystopia. Is capitalism over? Have we entered into a new mode of production defined by feudal relations and the technological forces of the...

[TEASER] World on Fire

Upstream

This is a free preview of the episode "World on Fire." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our...

[TEASER] Four Ways to Be Anticapitalist

Upstream

This is a free preview of the episode "Four Ways to Be Anticapitalist." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also...

Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante

Upstream

Capitalism, imperialism, monopoly—far from being separate concepts that just happen to take shape parallel to one another or to overlap from time to time, these terms all really refer to the exact same overall process. We call it capitalism because it’s not always practical to call it “monopoly capitalism in its imperialist stage” or something like that, but really, capitalism is, as we’ll see, inevitably monopolistic and imperialist. The process of capitalism’s historical evolution from its so-called, and somewhat fabricated stage of free-enterprise to monopoly capitalism, and...

[TEASER] The More Than Human World

Upstream

This is a free preview of the episode "The More Than Human World" You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at or at . Thank you. "The More Than Human World" is a phrase...

A Solstice Celebration for 2024 w/ Manda Scott and Nathalie Nahai

Upstream

Happy Solstice! In this annual tradition, Della is joined by two fellow podcast hosts to reflect on the past year and set some intentions for the year ahead. Manda Scott is a novelist, smallholder, and host of the podcast , which showcases individuals and organizations at the emerging edge of our world to set the foundation for a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. Manda’s latest novel, Any Human Power, is out now and available . Nathalie Nahai is a behavior science advisor, author and host of the podcast , which focuses on psychology,...

Historical Materialism w/ Torkil Lauesen

Upstream

Historical materialism is the science of Marxism. It’s the theory developed by Marx and Engels that explains how human societies develop and change over time based on economic organization. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, historical materialism serves as a powerful tool in understanding the world around us. It explains why societies are arranged the way that they are, why there are classes, why revolutions happen—and when taken together with the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism, historical materialism becomes a rigorous scientific tool for...

[UNLOCKED] Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shaun Harrison

Upstream

Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on. And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness and anti-Blackness form a crucial intersection, and are ultimately one and the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural, weaponization, and deployment by the...

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It's been said that “the shortest path to the future is always one through the deepening of the past.” But how do we balance the past, present, and future, when all three weigh so heavily on our consciousness and our social existence?

Perhaps one way to find a balance—or at least to distill these various webbed threads of temporality—might be to pose them as questions: what can we learn from the past to help us in the present? And how can I be a good ancestor for the people of tomorrow? These are the questions that inform and guide the recent work of our guest on today's episode.

Roman Krznaric is a social philosopher, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, and the author of several books including most recently, History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity and The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World.

In this episode, we explore lessons from the past and what it means to be a good ancestor today. We look at how our conceptions of time can expand or limit the way that we answer these questions. We explore what it means to be on the radical fringes of a society, how to build and strengthen solidarity, and how to find meaning and community in a world that has grown increasingly isolating and alienating.

This episode was produced in collaboration with EcoGather, a collapse-responsive co-learning network that hosts free online Weekly EcoGatherings that foster conversation and build community around heterodox economics, collective action, and belonging in an enlivened world. In this collaboration, EcoGather will be hosting gatherings to bring some Upstream episodes to life—this is one of those episodes. We hope you can join the gathering on TK to discuss the topics covered in this episode. Find out more at www.ecogather.ing.

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Cover art: Nina Montenegro
Intermission music: “Seed of a Seed” by Haley Heynderickx

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