Compact Substack

I’ve recently been poring over old issues of the idiosyncratic critical theory journal Telos. Launched in 1968 as an intellectual resource for the New Left, Telos translated and published an enormous variety of European Marxist and post-Marxist thought, from the Frankfurt School to Gramsci and Baudrillard, before turning rightward in the 1980s and becoming the main vector of the Anglophone reception of Carl Schmitt and nouvelle droite thinkers like Alain de Benoist.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -46:27 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Trump starts a trade war with the great white north, Flock cameras cause controversy and privacy concerns, and America’s whackiest senator changes positions. Ashley Frawley and Geoff Shullenberger join Matthew Schmitz. Compact Magazine is reader-supported. Become a member and gain unlimited access here.

I expected my follow-up to last week’s post on “Woke 1” to be a trip down memory lane through some personal highlights of the Awokening, but it feels more relevant to comment a bit on the reaction to the death of Jason Arday. Not that more commentary is needed, but as Lear put it: “O reason not the need! Our basest beggars/ Are in the poorest thing superfluous.” Translated into take economy terms: One take is already too many, so why not another?

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -43:45 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Trump’s fury is pointed at South Korea, the blame for Jason Arday’s suicide is shifted onto the media, and the blame for Lindsay Clancy is shifted onto her husband. Ashley Frawley and Geoff Shullenberger join Matthew Schmitz. Compact Magazine is reader-supported. Become a member and gain unlimited access here.

Everyone is suddenly talking about how “crazy” things were during “Woke 1,” and many theories and accounts are being proposed as to what exactly it was. Jeff Lawrence has a rundown of the main items people are putting under this heading; some, of course, are denying the term has any referent at all. Below, I excerpt an older piece of writing that I believe has some relevance to this question.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -55:09 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Professor Jason Arday is outed as a fraudster, while Trump and RFK reduce vaccines for children. Ashley Frawley and Geoff Shullenberger join Matthew Schmitz. Compact Magazine is reader-supported. Become a member and gain unlimited access here. Discussion about this episode On our flagship weekly podcast, Matthew Schmitz, Geoff Shullenberger, and Ashley Frawley discuss current events.

“Communism is the greatest threat to our country,” declared the official White House X account on Wednesday, garnering around 10 million views. The backdrop was the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, the latest in the wave of victories Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates have racked up this summer.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -47:05 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed gains ground for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan, and a migrant crisis breaks out in… Africa. Ashley Frawley and Geoff Shullenberger join Matthew Schmitz. Compact Magazine is reader-supported. Become a member and gain unlimited access here.

This week, I reviewed Evan Barker’s Nothing Left, a book that offers an insider’s view of the machinery of progressive political campaigns.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -43:32 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Zohran Mamdani threatens to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, Canadian wildfires fill New York City with smoke, and daylight savings time threatens to become permanent. Ashley Frawley and Geoff Shullenberger join Matthew Schmitz. Compact Magazine is reader-supported. Become a member and gain unlimited access here.