One of the significant challenges of our current environment is that our own imaginations have been turned against us. Much of our needs come from our imaginations and are very much focused on the way acts and products signify - their sign value. What this means is that our very real desire for change ends up being recuperated and being sold back to us products that reinforce the very system we wish to change. Traditional skills and ways of living become “Trad Wife”, anti-capitalist movements are sold back to us in posters and t-shirts, and despair becomes a market opportunity. In this environment, the imagination becomes a central territory for understanding and, importantly, enacting resistance.
Books I mention in the lecture:
Karl Marx, Das Kapital Volume 1
Jean Baudrillard Simulacra and Simulation (warning, English Translation is a bit dodgy and the early Semiotext(e) edition is incomplete and hence confusing (or more confusing, it is plenty confusing in French))
Jean Baudrillard Symbolic Exchange and Death
Georges Bataille The Accursed Share
George Orwell 1984 (The Appendices are written retrospectively about the world of Oceania and Newspeak that did not endure)
Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör
Wes Cecil. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Wes Cecil och inte av,
eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.
