February 27, 2020 Podcast

FRR Books Podcast: On The Advantage And Disadvantage Of History For Life by Friedrich Nietzsche

What is the point of studying history? The greatest argument I have heard is that if we know history we can change the future. Nietzsche makes this argument, but this ignores the fact that history is often a weight and a burden. Despite what most liberals believe, knowledge is not always 100% positive. Sloterdijk said that “Those who first uttered the phrase that knowledge is power didn’t mean only to make that equation, but to also intervene in the game of power.” This is the positive of knowing history, power! But, knowledge can also be a burden. Knowledge can function as a chain which limits us. What is heavier than history? It weighs not only on our minds, but our bodies. History is a given. We are shackled to the past by the libidinal economy of shared history and the history that lives in our bodies. I am against revolution because in my opinion no revolution has ever led to a society or situation which I find worth affirming, but should this limit me completely from any interest in revolution? I think so, but I am open to the idea that I am wrong. Can we view history from something other than a tautological mindset? Can we reject the gift of the given? What if we reject history, or change it?  What would that look like? What does it look like to make a history for ourselves? Can I view history from one of the many options Kundera provides for us: read more

May 25, 2019 Podcast Uncategorized

FRR Books Podcast: The Stirner Series Ep. 10, the Finale part 1!

I decided I was a fucking anarchist after reading the Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guinn when I was in my early twenties living in Hawaii.  I had no idea what an anarchist actually was, what an anarchist scene was..fuck I didn’t really know anything other than that I liked to surf and that I didn’t like the world that I lived in. Anarchy represented the most radical difference to that…this made it incredibly attractive to me.  It stayed incredibly attractive because I kept living in Hawaii, not knowing or meeting anarchists. I read, a lot. I’ve read a lot since I was a little kid. I didn’t make friends during childhood because I was too intense, too black and white morally and took the world way too seriously. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t cured myself of these childhood/childish ways.  I thought at a young age that there was a moral obligation to watch the news, pay attention, know everything, and that somehow this would be helpful in fixing things. All I can do now is laugh at myself, which might seem like a refrain for my life at this point. read more

March 26, 2019 Podcast Uncategorized

On Desire and Consciousness: FRR Books Podcast the Stirner Series Episode IX

Here we are again, back on the boat discussing Stirner’s ideas. On my best days I view this project as an attempt to break from the ideological & eschatological thinking that hangs like a pall over anarchists and humans alike. It is difficult to discuss Stirner because most people haven’t read him and also because many believe that they know what is contained in this book from whatever they have read or heard other people say. We are not attempting to do the work for you, but rather to provide a companion with which to interact while reading Wolfi’s rewriting of Stirner’s book. As someone who reads all the time, it is frustrating to have few people to discuss the books with. It is frustrating because I believe reading to both an anti-social(while doing it) and social(it changes me and then I interact differently when socializing) activity. When I read a book that makes me question myself, my idea, my ideals, and what I hold closest, I am compelled to share this new version of my self with friends, fuck it, with strangers too. So here sits our version of sharing, our hope that in talking with each other we can better understand ours elves and how to relate to each other and further complicate our selves and relations to revel in pretending we can see and understand the chaos for just a little bit. read more

March 4, 2019 Podcast Uncategorized

FRR Books Podcast. Stirner Series Ep. 8: What’s Love got to do with it?! <3

In episode VII we discuss the second half of the chapter My Intercourse in the Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner, translated by Wolfi Lanstreicher.

What happens when six friends(aided by adult beverages and friendly plants) get together on a sailboat(well a parked sailboat) in the Pacific Ocean to discuss Stirner’s seminal piece of writing. Did the world change? Did we change? Did we discuss whether or not this was even possible? I’m not so sure. What I do know is that there are few things I love more than reading a book and shooting the shit with a few friends who also enjoy battling over ideas and seeing if it possible to take them out of the realm of the platonic and into the realm of our lives. To listen to us is to listen on a conversation shared between friends that we do for our selves but also that we love to share. Here are some things we hit on: read more

February 10, 2019 Podcast

My Intercourse! How We Have it, Who We Do it With: FRR Books Podcast the Stirner Series Episode VII

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In episode VII of the Stirner Series we cover the second 50 pages of the chapter My Intercourse. In this episode Keehar, Big Cat, and rydra wrong discuss all things Stirner. We delve deeper into Stirner’s ideas and how they relate to our own lives. Some people have wondered what the purpose of this project is. The answer is simple: we are a group of friends who enjoy reading, talking, fighting, and laughing about books we like. If that isn’t of interest to you, then we probably wouldn’t get along very well if we met in the meat space. We do this project for ourselves, but we share it for our glory and because fuck, why not! read more

December 10, 2018 Podcast

FRR Books Podcast: The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner, a Close Reading Part 5!


Welcome to episode 5 of the FRR Books Podcast series on Max Stirner’s The Unique and its Property translated by Wolif Landstreicher.  In this podcast we cover section 2.1 Ownness and stop at section 2.2.1 My Power

This episode is hosted by Kahar, John, Big Cat, Chuck and rydra wrong. We are back on the sea packed 5 deep like sardines on the FRR sailboat.

Discussed in this episode:

  •  What is the difference between freedom and ownness
  • Does Stirner hate freedom! It has nothing for you!  What does that mean? Can he let go !?
  • Freedom apparently meanings being “rid of things”
  • Occupy Stirner! What the fuck
  • We discuss how our dating lives are relevant to Stirner, are they?
  • Does consent matter when it comes to ownership and property(in the Stirnerian sense)?
  • Take when you want and throw away the rest:  Is this just a cliche or actually useful
  • Concepts! What the fuck is a concept! How do we use them
  • Who does Stirner give the status of capital B Being to ?
  • Can a slave be inwardly free? Is this trivial?
  • Stirner says there is freedom and unfreedom! No such thing as half way crooks! But is he just creating a binary of freedom and unfreedom to destroy the concept! woooooah
  • Chuck says romantic relationships are being trained to treasures!  Benefits vs a chain!
  • John says chosen bondage is freedom, like being in a dungeon! We discuss!
  • What the fuck is Stirner’s problems with rocks.  Rydra fights with Stirner in a landslide of discontent.  Also panpsychism is so last year.
  • Kahar likes his Christians out of the closet, he is pleased!
  • Kahar and Big Cat argue over Kahar’s belief that selves can be divided into parts
  • Impulses and desires and relationship to Taoism

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    December 2, 2018 Podcast

    FRR Books Podcast: The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner, a Close Reading Part 4

    Welcome to episode 4 of the FRR Books Podcast series on Max Stirner’s The Unique and its Property translated by Wolif Landstreicher.  In this podcast we cover section 2.1 and stop at section 2.2.1 My Power

    This episode is hosted by Kahar, John, and rydra wrong.  This is our first go recording podcasts at sea!  We are floating on water as we speak!

    Discussed in this episode:

    –  Criticism as thought, the downside of criticism

    –  The 3 types of liberalism

    –  Human rights!

    –  rydra hates phenomenology and wants to fight about it!

    –  morality and stirner

    –  what is religion?

    –  Conflict avoidance and how to avoid it!

    –  Cult of celebrity and “Absolute Monarchy”

    –  Stirner crushes Social Justice

    –  Is Stirner related to Nietzsche?

    This podcast was produced by rydra wrong

    This podcast was edited by Big Cat

     

    November 14, 2018 Podcast

    FRR Books Podcast: The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner, a Close Reading Part 3

    Welcome to episode 3 of the FRR Books Podcast series on Max Stirner’s The Unique and its Property translated by Wolif Landstreicher.  In this podcast we cover section 1.3 The Free.  This episode is hosted by Cornelius, Chuck, and rydra wrong.

    Discussed in this episode:

  • How do we eat the profane?  What have we held sacred that we no longer do?
  • Fear!  How do we develop an intimate relationship with fear! Another excuse to talk about surfing!
  • Talk of shit!  Another excuse for rydra to bring up Kundera
  • Talk of Christianity being spread among the non-secular
  • Dissolution of the object and the flavors of abstraction! There are many to choose from!
  • We are in a sea of phenomenology says Cornelius!
  • Children!  Talk of Kids!
  • Chuck says part of humanity is thinking of yourself in relation to an ideal human, we discuss this!
  • Cornelius feels limited by society, even suffocated but she remains more interested in the physiology and bacteria living within human beings!

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    October 31, 2018 Podcast

    FRR Books Podcast: The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner, a close reading Part 2

    
    Welcome to episode 2 of the FRR Books Podcast series on Max Stirner’s The Unique and its Property translated by Wolif Landstreicher.  In this podcast we cover section 1.2.3 The Hierarchy, completing section 1.2, stopping just before section 1.3 The Free.

    In this episode we discuss:

  • What is a fixed idea?  Can we be free of fixed ideas
  • Is Kahar a nihilist? Is Stirner a nihilist?  Can Kahar defend nihilism against Rydra’s devilish advocacy
  • Can we actually abandon objective morality
  • Ethics as a semantic and non-meaningful replacement of morality
  • What is a self?  Are our selves continuous, discontinuous, or something else
  • Nev always desires to be bad and that is kind of hotttt
  • We discuss essence and if we have an essence using Francis Bacon’s Scream painting and Milan Kundera’s thoughts on them
  • How hard is rydra’s solipsism? Can Kahar avoid being negated by it? Does he care or is he just a tentacle of rydra’s octopus.
  • Discussion of how we can trust another person with the context being them changing over time

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    October 17, 2018 Podcast

    FRR Books Podcast: The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner, a close reading Part 1

    This podcast covers the translator’s introduction and stops at section 1.2 Human Beings of Ancient and Modern Times.

    The book can be read online here:  https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property

    The book can be obtained here:  http://littleblackcart.com/books/anarchy/the-unique-and-its-property-en/

    FRR is expanding our scope by attempting a larger project.  Instead of doing one podcast on a book we are doing a slow/deep/close reading of Wolfi Landstreicher’s translation of The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner.  We attend a reading group together which is slowly working its way through the book, so every other week we will read a portion of Stirner, attend reading group, then record a podcast on the section we read and the thoughts and ideas that came up during reading group.  We will rotate different hosts through the series of podcasts.  We are doing this because we would love to have had this type of discussion available to us when reading some of the books that we love the most, so we are doing it ourselves.  We are also attempting to do a close reading which means to read something more than once, many times over, taking notes, discussing it, and engaging deeply with it.  Feel free to email us or comment on this page if you have thoughts/feelings/whatever about it!

    In Episode 1 we discuss the following:

  •   Is there an individual/self.  Stirner is not an individualist?  It is not an individualist book
  •   Relationship between Taoism and Stirner
  •   Can anyone actually be an egoist?
  •   Rydra strong arms the conversation and questions objective reality through Stirner
  •   Abritrary nature of values and a transient idea of an “I”
  •   Can nihilism/egoism be separated
  •   Talk of translation in general
  •   How do we apply the implications of this reading

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