Radio Free Beszel
Radio Free Beszel
Latest Episodes
Discourse, the Demon of Social Justice
Discourse is at the heart of social justice: the idea human beings are not free actors in the world, but are instead constrained by language, in the form of discourses that have been established over time. And we do not create our identities fr...
Racecraft: Constructing Race
"Racism always takes for granted the objective reality of race . . . [which] transforms racism, something an aggressor does, into race, something the target is, in a sleight of hand that is easy to miss." — Karen & Barbara Fields,
Witchcraft's Reason
We need someone to blame. When something bad happens, we don't want to hear that it's because of chance or nature, because then it's meaningless. We want a social explanation. That's what witchcraft delivered for the Azande people, studied by E...
What Are Social Constructions Made Of?
"When a dancer stops dancing, the dance is finished." - Bruno LatourWhat Latour calls "critical sociology" (an intellectual foundation of social justice) does three things. 1) It replaces the activities of real people with abstract forc...
The Invention of White Privilege
Plantation owners in 17th century Barbados had a problem. They purchased white indentured servants and black slaves. At that time, there was little difference: life expectancy was so short that most indentured servants never saw freedom. The de...