The Exploding Head

Can we turn something as exclusive as an independence day into something else? And why should we want that anyway? In this episode, I talk about a very personal experience of being from "a small country no-one knows about" and what dilemmas it has resulted in. Those dilemmas - how not to be a jerk when I talk about our independence days - can be solved, it turns out, moving from that personal expe...

The dance between democracy and authoritarianism can take different forms. And Brazil presents to us yet another one.  What the hell has been happening in Brazil for the past five years and what recent event sparked this episode? In short, it’s an alarming situation that involves large-scale corruption. For a longer story, listen to this episode! It’s a dense one. You can find the article on...

Let me say: how weird is this question? Interestingly, it's a question we find behind some pretty strange yet uncommon statements people make about politics. Although this episode - and an almost identical one in Lithuanian! - was sparked by something that has just happened in Lithuania, I talk about something universally important: political representation. What is the current paradigm when it co...

Įrašiau epizodą lietuviškai apie peticiją prieš Tomo Raskevičiaus poziciją kaip Žmogaus Teisių Komiteto pirmininką. Neišvengiamai, čia gvildenu daug temų: apie LGBT situaciją Lietuvoje, apie tai, kas yra - ir kaip kuriamas ir vartojamas - mitas, ir ko turime nepamiršti kalbėdami apie politinę reprezentaciją.  Nors to neplanavau, iš dalies tai - ir epizodas Kovo 8-ajai. Kodėl? Nes negalime kal...

What is the role of the media in portraying this conflict? Can its role be "neutral"? Definitely not. I invite you to notice three categories of this role: silence, information that is incomplete, and - the worst one - indirectly blaming the Palestinians for their own occupation. Give it a listen. You can find the article that I mention in my episode here: https://wp.me/pc6sQr-6d 

What might we find at the very core of debates surrounding this conflict? Certainly not always, but sometimes, there is a layer of hypocrisy we need to cut through. When we do that - including inspecting our own hypocrisy sometimes, ouch - is a very simple answer to the real question here. In the end, we might have different values. And there’s a benefit in clarifying where we disagree exactly. Yo...

Controversy: this is one of the first words that might come to your mind when you think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s so confusing. Too complex to analyse. And indeed, each conflict is complex, and there is no solution that wouldn’t require political will. But whose political will is needed to end a military occupation? And why is this a controversial question? In this episode, I ai...

What does Australia Day have in common with the carnival in São Paulo? A quick answer: a parallel that is probably insulting to the very point I’m trying to make in my episode. And who is the person who has the same initials - JP - as mine but whose work I would recommend over mine in a heartbeat? (seriously, don’t listen to my podcast, watch his documentaries instead) In this episode, I talk abou...

This is an episode on what is the ultimate Exploding Head concept for me: conflicts. I did fight my desire to insert ALL my comments on ALL the conflicts - I’ve cut and edited this heavily, but the narrative still goes from something a bit loose, from stories and observations to political science tools. And how we need so much more than political science! There’s even a quote by Kurt Vonnegut hidd...

This is my attempt to do a deep dive into concepts like political ideology, economic systems, and, ah, the focus of my rather dense episode, political attitudes. What does it mean to be liberal or conservative according to the framework of political attitudes? Is it always straightforward? (You’ve guessed correctly: no). In this episode, I also point to two interesting things about U.S. politics,...

Just when we thought 2021 might be the new beginning we were all waiting for, the insurrection happened in the U.S. To see an attempted coup in established democracies is, thankfully, rather rare, which makes it very much podcast-worthy. I talk about the concept of political trust and how it serves as an interesting framework to use when analysing this situation. In what might seem like various de...

In this very first episode, I pick up my magnifying glass and look for the positives in 2020. And I do find them! I talk about political changes that took place in Argentina, Bolivia, and Belarus. Why the women in Argentina can breathe more easily, why the indigenous population of Bolivia is hopefully feeling safer, and why what the people in Belarus are engaging should inspire us all. Check it ou...

In this short episode, I introduce myself, how this podcast came about, and what it will be exploring. Even if you don’t get anything from this introduction, at least you’ll get to listen to the upbeat music I have so carefully chosen for it.