Against the Vortex w/Anthony Galluzzo
We have our friend Anthony Galuzzo on to talk about his upcoming book, Against the Vortex: Zardoz and Degrowth Utopias in the Seventies and Today, which will be published by Repeater later this year. Anthony uses John Boorman’s Zardoz — first a box office flop, now a cult film — to tell the intellectual history of utopian thought and to sketch out his own political manifesto.
Talking to Anthony, we realized that Zardoz perfectly predicts the Silicon Valley of today: a sterile techno-utopia built on global exploitation, a place where people want to live forever and where no one’s fucking or having fun. In the ep we go over all sorts of things: the politics of technology, degrowth, the Enlightenment, post-leftism, Prometheanism, Soviet cosmism, and the difficulty in getting people interested in de-consumerized and de-industrialized political alternatives today.
We last had Anthony on in August 2022 about what he’s termed “the Jetson left.”
He is a lecturer at the New School. His focus is on early American and Romantic literature. You can follow him on Twitter and read some of his work here and here and here.
—Yasha
Want to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians.
Against the Vortex w/Anthony Galluzzo
I meant to comment here a while back, but time has flown as it is wont to do. I just have two points. For one, these are such important subjects, the survival of the human race, as well as the poor belieuguered critters we are dragging down with us is, that it's hard to understand how no one is shouting it from the rooftops and the street corners. Oh well. Second, I've always been drawn to the centaur and the chimera as a visual metaphor for human dual nature, and made images of these beings as long as I can remember.. I don't think this website will let me post an image, but here as a link to some of these pics if you are interested.
https://dmitrymyaskovskyart.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/new-and-available/
Great show. I haven't watched Zardoz for over 20 years but I dress just like that with a red loincloth, leather boots, and ponytail all the time.
Just a note if you liked Zardoz, as wonderfully surreal as it is, you should check out John Boorman's first American film called Point Blank. It's a crime noir revenge film with a similar surreal vibe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3gj5_6DHRY