This is a rewrite of an essay that appeared on my friend Mido’s podcast “Growing Pains” at UBC. I hope you enjoy it.
I spent the summer working my first desk job. I was the lowest-ranking employee by far, so I did lots of paperwork, copying and filing for five to eight hours daily. While doing that, I mostly listened to podcasts, which helped fill the empty airspace and keep my brain from turning into mush.
I mainly listen to political podcasts. This habit worked well for me; this was a summer of intense political turmoil, so I listened to countless discussions about abortion rights, gun control, and economic sanctions in geopolitical rivalry. I am far from well-informed, but I try to maintain the base level of information required to function in the world. However, even the “base level” is a balancing act. I’ve found it challenging to regulate the attention I pay to issues in the news. I often feel like I have two modes: I either see a news story and dismiss it offhand so I can continue functioning, or I see a story and immediately begin discussing, tearing the issue apart, teasing out all of its elements and trying to fix it or make sense of it somehow. And then, I attempt to come up with a critical perspective, just in case someone asks. This process is exhausting, so for me, one symptom of information overload is the tendency to disengage, to let my eyes glaze over and the news cycle run amok. Unfortunately, it is paradoxically impossible for anyone to form a critical thought about every news story, and similarly impossible to reel through the world uninformed and unopinionated. Amid the chaos, listening to others make sense of things has been incredibly helpful.
My favourite political podcast is Sandy and Nora Talk Politics. The show is run by two writers and activists, who mainly discuss current events. Their perspectives are steeped in political knowledge, leftism, skepticism, and years of experience, presenting highly valuable opinions largely missing from mainstream discussion. They point to current events (often legitimate governmental failures), compare the rhetoric to the real ramifications, and provide solutions. Another, more radical show I’ve listened to, called Rev Left Radio, features two political philosophers and commentators who move through their political reasoning on several issues with care and nuance. Their episodes are dense and theoretical, discussing alternative takes on relevant issues. They encourage wrestling with the complexity and implications of each political position. For example, when addressing the seemingly progressive idea of point-of-sale gun control, they mention how this legislation could disproportionately disarm people of colour and propose alternatives to counteract this possibility. While I don’t agree with all opinions presented on either show, watching intelligent and informed people question their ideas sets an excellent example.
I also appreciate how Sandy and Nora direct their listeners to action: they emphasize the importance of community organizing, in any sense of the term. They encourage participation in environments which bring together ordinary people, allowing them to share the circumstances of their reality, whether that space is a rally or a cooking class. They argue that these interpersonal connections are a fundamental basis of change.
While brainstorming this essay, I saw a joke about capitalist realism. If you aren’t familiar with the term, “capitalist realism” describes the pervasive idea that capitalism is the only viable political and economic system. It explains that capitalism is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that it is nearly impossible to imagine a coherent alternative. The joke got me thinking about [insert anything] realism, the idea that to change anything, you must first fully imagine a situation in which things are different. I think realism is a valuable framework for processing the troubling newsfeed, small-scale issues, or the various arguments you may entertain with other people about the minutiae of your inevitably political lives. Yes, it is okay to state bluntly that things are bad, but it is even better to imagine a coherent alternative. But this conclusion brings me to a further issue: if I cannot even learn to reason politically without the example of a podcast, how can I imagine this coherent alternative? And what if I imagine it, but I’m wrong?
The answer to this question also circles back to community organization. Because to imagine this coherent alternative, to wrestle with an issue, poke holes in it, return and mend them with logic, most people need other people. Even the philosophers we cite in these arguments couldn’t do it alone. Behind Marx’s Communist Manifesto were discussions with his uncredited wife and daughter, who helped him imagine the feminist considerations of his work. Plato believed strongly in the power of debate; his critical dialogues were brilliant as they led the reader to complex conclusions through a simulated debate, where each side defends a fluid opinion refined throughout the conversation and eventually settles at a place between the two original perspectives.
I am not advocating centrism. I am not suggesting that you give airtime to bigoted opinions or try to engage with them in a way that leads you closer to their conclusion. You do not need to overwhelm yourself, tackle every issue, or develop a correct and critical position. Instead, I am encouraging conversation, both as a means of connecting with others and as a way to understand your own ideas better. Specifically, conversation in which both parties are allowed to be wrong, encouraged to question, deconstruct, argue, and reason until a new idea is reached. To understand and improve flawed systems, we must search for realism, that coherent alternative. And, ideally, we should do so with other people.
When you don’t have time for that, consider a podcast.