Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Culture (Page 2 of 23)

These are posts on culture from the blog Base and Superstructure. Mostly the focus is on American culture. But there might be a few posts on broader, international issues.

A photograph of an N99 respirator, used to represent Covid and masks in 2025.

Covid and Masks in 2025

December 8, 2025 /

A local guy named Mason (note: not his real name) goes to lots of local events – political events, activist meetings, festivals, and so on. He’s somewhat older, friendly but rather awkward, and overall a good natured person.

He also still wears a mask in 2025.

Sort of.

To put it more accurately, sometimes he wears a mask and other times he doesn’t. And there’s little discernible pattern to it. Whether or not he wears a mask doesn’t seem to follow any risk assessment related to Covid-19. It’s not just that he’s not at elevated risk – though he almost certainly isn’t – but at times I even see him wearing a mask while he’s outdoors and not in a crowd and then taking the mask off or wearing it on his chin when he joins an indoor meeting.

I’m not trying to pick on Mason here. He’s a good guy. My point is that his behavior tracks a lot of what I see. I’ve seen a few dozen or so local characters who fit a similar profile during the pandemic. Most of them gradually reduced or cut out their mask usage by last year.

A few remain holdouts.

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A photo of 7 Gen Z teenagers wearing loud fashion.

Gen Z and Risk Aversion

September 22, 2025 /

Every generation criticizes the generation after it. We all know it. We have evidence of it dating back to antiquity. To boot, the criticism follows the same rough outline: the kids these days don’t respect their elders, tradition, or society, etc.

But the world has changed in historically unique ways over the past few generations. The rise of the Internet – and later social media – ushered in changes that surely stretch beyond those of the radio or television. The neoliberal era brought finance capital to power in a way never before seen.

In other words, our everyday experience of the world is changing. And it feels like it’s changing faster than it used to.

Anyway, that’s the thought behind much of the generational critique. But we should get to the bottom of it.

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A photo of red banners at Harvard University, intended as a representation of professors in the Trump era.

Professors Won’t Save Us

September 15, 2025 /

In a short Current Affairs article titled “Don’t Expect Art to Save Us,” RS Benedict argues that artistic or cultural expression cannot meaningfully substitute for concrete political action.

It’s not a new claim. Nor, in my view, is it a very controversial claim, though, as with even most accurate claims, it draws its detractors.

However, I think we can learn a few lessons from the very first reason Benedict gives in favor of the claim.

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A portrayal of the reintegration process from the TV show Severance

Severance and Reintegration

July 7, 2025 /

After the first season of Severance, I blogged a couple of times about the issues it raises for having children and organizing in the white-collar world.

As I watched the second season, I had in mind that I might revisit these topics. Does the second season tell us anything new about organizing, for instance?

In some sense, perhaps it does. It provides more detail in how companies divide workers from one another and from their work. In addition, it gets into details about how workers can overcome these things. The four core workers throw off a ton of corporate bullshit and learn how to trust each other.

But I wanted to hit one new topic.

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RevLeft Radio: Liberal Socialism

January 6, 2025 /

In my 6+ years as a blogger, I’ve never written about one of the more compelling and interesting sources of leftist media: Revolutionary Left Radio (RevLeft Radio). This holds despite the fact that I’m a regular RevLeft listener. And in listening to a recent episode on the political theory of ‘Liberal Socialism,’ I found a chance to rectify my oversight.

RevLeft Radio is hosted by Brecht O’Shea. Politically, Brecht is a bit hard to pin down. But he appears to clock in roughly in the realm of Marxist-Leninist thought. I certainly don’t consider myself a fan of M-L, in general. And I clarify in my FAQ series why I rarely write about the sectarian left.

But Brecht often serves as a happy exception to these problems. On RevLeft radio, he interviews people with a wide range of leftist views. And he excels at drawing out the useful points even the ones he finds wrong. Even when I disagree with Brecht – which happens fairly often! – I find him insightful. I learn from him.

Anyway, readers should check out RevLeft Radio, especially Brecht’s interview with Matt McManus on a view McManus terms ‘liberal socialism.’ A dialogue between a Marxist-Leninist and someone with something similar to Bhaskar Sunkara’s approach to socialism is a thing we should encourage on the left.

We can learn from one another.

For my part, I found myself taking a middle ground between Brecht and McManus. Brecht helpfully points to the key failures of a social democratic route to socialism – its lack of success in the past, its susceptibility to capitalist assault, etc. And McManus serves as a check on the Marxist-Leninist tendency to offer apologia for authoritarian regimes.

Anyway, it’s a great RevLeft episode! And it’s a fine place for listeners to begin.

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