Militant Empathy

In 1905 celebrated cocaine addict Sigmund Freud coined the term “psychic impotence” to describe a form of sexual disfunction he had observed in men who failed to realise their arousal because they viewed women in binary terms - either as saintly Madonnas who should not be sullied by their desires, or as sex crazed harlots with whom they should not debase themselves. It’s been some 120 years since...

The term “justice” has suffixed a lot of political thought in the past decade - transformative justice, economic justice, social justice, environmental justice, reproductive justice, I could go on - but what do we actually mean by justice? And how far should we be willing to go to get it? In this episode, I’m going to take you on a bit of a rambling journey through a series of examples that I thin...

Post-2020 it’s safe to say people’s views on “the police” as an institution have been… not so great. Every couple of years seems to herald in some new landmark investigation into police misconduct, and a rotating cast of government officials continue to make bold promises of “root and branch reform” every time a news story hits the headlines - but how did we actually get here? Why are the police l...

We'll be back with you in a couple of months with some BANGERS, sorry about the wait, but it will be worth it.

Ever wondered what specifically happens to a person who gets the bubonic plague? Do you know specifically how bubonic plague is relates to the first forms of border control? Do you want to know? If so, then this episode is for you! If not, how does it feel to be a mentally healthy person? In this episode I take listeners through the history of borders and border control, paying particular attentio...

Ever stared blankly at the endless horizon and wondered “what the f*ck is ‘mental health’ anyway?”. Then this episode is for you! In this episode I take a look at modern discourses surrounding mental health, and dig down to the apparently endless calls to “protect our peace”. I touch on trends in the present like the so-called “corporatification of friendship”, and the ever present commodification...

In this episode I take a look at tropes surrounding "strong women". I explore where these tropes came from and what kinds of stories they can tell us, paying particular attention to black feminist thought from Sojourner Truth to bell hooks. In a perhaps uncharacteristically heartfelt episode, I ask for listeners to think about what implications these tropes have for different models of femininity....

In this episode I take a look at the breakdown of community in the present day. I come at this question a bit sideways and explore the question of why community breaks down through the theories of three different philosophers: Karl Marx, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard.

Militant Empathy is a new podcast for curious people, covering history, politics, philosophy, culture and vibes! Every month from April 5th 2025 there will be a new episode that'll take a stab at some of the big questions we face today. Questions like: why do communities fall apart? Where did borders come from? What do we mean when we talk about justice? Why are the police like this? What the hell...