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End Times with Renata Salecl: What Post-Socialist Societies Teach Us About Today

What does a society that is tearing itself apart look like?

End Times with Renata Salecl: What Post-Socialist Societies Teach Us About Today

We’ve normalised the idea that the world is ending, that society is tearing itself apart, that our countries — wherever we live — are falling apart. But what does that really look like? What does it feel like? What emerges in the aftermath?

In this episode host Aman Sethi speaks to Renata Salecl,  a Slovenian philosopher, sociologist and political theorist to decode how the experiences of post-socialist countries can help us understand the crisis gripping the West.

A Passion For Ignorance - https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8711/9780691240992

The Spoils of Freedom - https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8711/9780415073585

On Anxiety - https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8711/9780415312769

The Tyranny of Choice - https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8711/9781846681868

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Credits:

Presented by Aman Sethi

Story production by Ayodeji Rotinwa

Audio engineering by James Battershill

Theme song ‘Odyssey’ performed by Edward Abela

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:30 Post socialist societies

07:22 The modern respect for cunning

08:45 Lessons from pop culture

10:16 The (mis)use of fake news

13:53 On accelerationism

16:11 The dissolution of societies

18:53 Times when nothing and everything changes

20:50 Those that enjoy life the wrong way

22:24 Neoliberal collapse


openDemocracy Author

Aman Sethi

Aman Sethi is editor-in-chief of openDemocracy. Before joining us he was deputy executive editor at HuffPost. Before that he was the executive editor for strategy at BuzzFeed, editorial director with Coda Media, editor-in-chief of HuffPost India, associate editor with the Hindustan Times, and foreign correspondent (Africa) and Chhattisgarh correspondent with The Hindu. His award-winning reportage both in India and around the world has touched on some of the most pressing issues of our time, such as migration, land grabs, labour rights, public health, nationalism, democracy and insurgency. He is the author of the critically acclaimed non-fiction book ‘A Free Man’.

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