Encounter #6 — The Necessity of Revolution, Models for Social Reorganization, and the Importance of Storytelling

The Bullshit Artists

In this episode, Rory begins by asking Jack for his thoughts on what Rory had previously suggested as the ‘necessity’ argument for political revolution in the face of impending climate catastrophe. Out of that discussion emerges a two-pronged conversation about, first, how the Mondragon worker cooperative in the Basque region of Spain could serve as a model for broader social and economic reorganization, and, second, the importance of story and narrative for any transformative political project. Somehow this conversation then segues into a discussion of obscure political theorists, including the utopian socialists Charles Fourier and Edward Bellamy—the latter of whom, Rory suggests, may provide us with something of a vision for what life could be like if the Amazon corporation were expropriated and put to public use through the distribution of goods according to need. Finally, the pair return to the topic of storytelling and begin to consider the possibility of creating a quasi-religious myth that could serve as a foundation for a new sociopolitical order that more adequately maps onto current material conditions as well as higher moral principles.