Dan Chodorkoff is an anthropologist and co-founder of the Institute for Social Ecology, which he founded with Murray Bookchin in 1974. His new book, Sugaring Down, is a fictional story about a group of New Left radicals in the mid to late ‘60s establishing a commune in rural Vermont. The book is genuinely a page-turner (at least for the commune-enthused like myself) and Dan is a wealth of history, information, and insight on the left’s past, and proposed roads for its future. It was truly a pleasure to talk with him.
Interviewing is an uneasy concept to me, as listeners to this interview will likely be able to tell-the fact of the matter is Bracero is an outlet for my thoughts as a reader of and hobbyist in philosophy, and by the nature of my work I’m much more inclined to discussions than interviews, which is a self-serving way of saying I’ve never been very good at asking questions. But then, what better way to get better? I’m not sure whether this will become a more regular occurrence, though I would like it to be more than a one-off. Bracero will hopefully always be, principally, a writing project. As much as podcasting offers the temptations of a larger audience and a bit less of a grind than the often painstaking and time-consuming writing process, writing has long been a passion of mine, and it remains my favorite way of expressing myself.
That being said, I love having this blog as an opportunity to talk to interesting and brilliant people like Dan, with the added benefit of turning this into a bit less of an inherently navel-gazing project. I hope you find it worthwhile.
Dan Chodorkoff on Sugaring Down, Communalism, Democracy, Green Capitalism and Identity Politics