Dustbowl Diatribes 4: Talking Dustbowl Blues

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History Ph.D. candidate Bryant Macfarlane joins Spencer Hess and Laurie Johnson for a discussion of the conditions that made for the 1930’s Dustbowl and continue to operate today to deplete soil fertility and instigate climate change. Hannah Holleman’s book, Dustbowls of Empire is the subject of the first part of our conversation. Macfarlane later explains how Latin Common Law was practiced in the American Southwest prior to the Mexican-American War, and how practices that treated water as communal good rather than private property were eliminated by the advent of the English view of property. That began the era of accelerated metabolic rifts that led to the Dustbowl and our current dilemmas, such as ocean dead zones due to fertilizer runoff.

Dustbowl Diatribes 3: Metabolic Rifts & Abstract Domination

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Spencer Hess interviews Jakob Hanschu on the subject of metabolic rifts (what they are, and their implications for the environment we all depend upon for life) and the abstract domination of capital (the forces that largely control our lives but are not clearly perceived because they constitute our perceived reality). These are difficult concepts because of their abstract nature, but if we do not understand them adequately, we cannot see our way beyond the current system that is destroying our world.

Dustbowl Diatribes 2: The Spoils of Egypt

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Spencer Hess and Laurie Johnson talk about the “Spoils of Egypt” concept from Christian theology, how it has operated in the past, and what is keeping people from using it now. In the past, Christian theologians have often “plundered” secular theology for its riches, taking what was useful and true in light of Christian revelation, and leaving what was not. Today, much philosophy is left un-plundered because it is perceived to be “evil” and untouchable. This is certainly true of critical theory and Marxism. But while much of the positive claims of Marxism, such as atheism and materialism, can and should be left behind, the deposit of negative theory regarding the abstract and impersonal operations of capital and the market ought to be carried off as spoils, because in order to get anything done we must understand our world accurately.

Dorothy Day Guild

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We are an institutional supporter and member of the Dorothy Day Guild, dedicated to the canonization of Catholic Worker Dorothy Day. From the Guild website: Dorothy Day has been called many things:  an activist, a journalist, a radical, a bohemian, a mother, a convert, a mystic, a prophet, a faithful daughter of the Church.  After her … Read more

Dustbowl Diatribes 1: For the Courage of Hopelessness

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In this first episode of Dustbowl Diatribes, Spencer Hess and Laurie Johnson explain why they chose “Dustbowl Diatribes” as the title of this podcast, why Spencer made the trailer the way he did, and introduce themselves. Along the way, they bring up some issues this podcast will get into — climate change and how we’re all unable to act effectively to cope with it, what Christian responsibility and response might look like, why we have such a hard time doing anything to fix our social and environmental problems despite such tremendous activity that we can dream of colonizing Mars or building space colonies.

Introducing Dustbowl Diatribes

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Spencer Hess and I (Laurie Johnson) are getting ready to launch our new podcast, Dustbowl Diatribes, with a discussion of the US Dustbowl in the 1930’s in all its ramifications. But this isn’t a history podcast. The dustbowl symbolizes a slow moving disaster–environmental, economic, spiritual, political–which is materializing even now. We will be getting at this topic at first through an examination of Hannah Holleman’s Dustbowls of Empire. Coming in late March or early April, 2022.