The Rule of Midwits with Brian Chau

Lockdown diaries became a literary fad in 2020, but few if any were memorable. What if the real literature of lockdown was written over a century ago? This is the hypothesis behind "The Machine Book of Weird," an anthology of fiction from the late 19th and early 20th century that explores isolation, domestic confinement, and the uncanniness of home. Publisher Tim Abrahams joins me to discuss this project, plus Freud, Mark Fisher, and more. You can donate to the project's Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mbow/machine-book-of-weird

In this special episode, guest host Daniel Hadas interviews Medical Nemesis on covid, Illich, industrialized medicine and thought, and more. https://twitter.com/DanielHadas2 https://twitter.com/Medical_Nemesis https://medicalnemesis.substack.com/

Matthew Crawford joins me to discuss his essay, "Was the Sexual Revolution a Government Psy-Op?," the politics of masturbation, Wilhelm Reich, the Frankfurt School, masculinity, the therapeutic state, and more. https://unherd.com/2022/12/the-politics-of-masturbation/ https://mcrawford.substack.com/

Brian Chau returns to Outsider Theory to discuss ChatGPT's woke catechism. https://cactus.substack.com/

Blaise Bayno (@urgurlblaise), former critical theory PhD student and co-organizer of the conference "Society Must Be Inoculated," joins me to discuss how critical theory became uncritical cheerleading for biopolitical authoritarianism, academic labor issues, the history of the UC Santa Cruz History of Consciousness program, and more.

Thomas and Brett from Psyop Cinema join me to discuss Hollywood and cultural engineering. Psyop Cinema: https://www.spreaker.com/show/psyop-cinema My Psyop Cinema episodes on Roland Emmerich: https://www.spreaker.com/user/15144188/shullenberger-interview https://www.spreaker.com/user/15144188/geoff-shullenberger-2

Brian Chau (Cactus Chu on Substack, @psychosort on Twitter) joins me to discuss institutions and why midwits rule them, decentralization, sorting mechanisms, right-wing aesthetics, Curtis Yarvin, William F. Buckley, and more. https://cactus.substack.com/ https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/rule-of-midwits

Jon Askonas joins me to discuss his ongoing series of essays in The New Atlantis, "Reality: A Post-Mortem." Read the series here: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/collections/reality-a-post-mortem

Essayist and poet Alice Gribbin joins me to discuss her recent essay in Tablet, "The Great Debasement," on the ideological transformation of museums and other cultural institutions into propaganda organs; the utilitarian attitude to art; the continued relevance of John Berger's "Ways of Seeing"; and more. https://substack.com/profile/5192682-alice-gribbin https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/great-debasement-art https://quillette.com/2021/06/05/the-artist-and-the-censor/

Tablet senior writer Jacob Siegel joins me to discuss the rightward trajectory of certain insights of Frankfurt School-derived critical theory, especially in light of the history of the journal Telos and its founder and editor, Paul Piccone. We also discuss Piccone's friend Paul Gottfried, the continued relevance of Herbert Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance," the Thiel-affiliated New Right's cultivation of a counter-elite, the recent Vanity Fair profile of the Thielverse, and more. Telos http://www.telospress.com/ Jacob's work https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/elon-vs-obama https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/red-pill-prince-curtis-yarvin https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/spencer-gottfried-alt-right https://manifesto.fireside.fm/ The Thielverse https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance" and the right https://outsidertheory.com/right-marcuseanism/