John Protevi: Towards rhizomatic acts of mutual empowerment
Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration
Kaméa Chayne
4.8 • 694 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What are the psychological aspects of how military combat personnel are often socialized in training to feel more comfortable with carrying out acts of violence? Why is it important to note that many people, not just those in positions of power, actually desire fascism and power imbalance, and aren't simply operating from states of being deceived?
In this episode, we speak with John Protevi of Regimes of Violence: Toward a political anthropology.
Join us as we explore the nuances of violence in regimes and their roots, while landing on what it means to partake in joyful, rhizomatic acts of mutual empowerment.
We invite you to:
- tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app;
- tap into our bonus extended and video version of this conversation on Patreon here;
- and read highlights from these conversations via Kaméa’s newsletter here.
Episode song features:
- “The Valley Below” by Zoë & Nessi Gomes (Check out Nessi’s voice work here)
- “Sisters of Winter” by MILCK
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What they say is that to understand fascism, you have to understand that. |
| 0:08.3 | In certain conditions, people want it. |
| 0:10.9 | It's a matter of desire. |
| 0:12.4 | It's not a matter of being fooled. |
| 0:28.5 | You're listening to Green Dreamer, and I'm your host, Kamehashane. |
| 0:39.0 | Today, we're speaking with John Pratevi, who takes us through a wide-ranging examination of the roots of violence in human societies. |
| 0:46.7 | John is professor of French studies and philosophy at Louisiana State University, and he's also the author of Political Affect, Life, War Earth, and The Edges of the State. His latest latest is regimes of violence, which we'll be |
| 0:57.0 | centering our conversation on today. I found it really nuanced and thought-provoking to learn |
| 1:03.7 | about, for example, the psychology of how military combat personnel are trained and conditioned |
| 1:10.6 | to feel more comfortable in killing |
| 1:13.6 | and carrying out acts of brute violence. |
| 1:16.7 | We also talk about the possible collective daddy issues that people might have from our societal |
| 1:24.1 | upbringing in how many people actually enable, desire, and gravitate towards systems |
| 1:31.7 | of command and power asymmetry. |
| 1:34.7 | That's probably one of my favorite parts of this layered discussion, which, by the way, |
| 1:40.4 | was made possible through the direct financial support from our community, including on |
| 1:45.9 | Patreon and on Substack. So if you feel inspired by our people-powered show, we do really need you. |
| 1:53.1 | It would help us out so much to have your direct support through ways that you can find at |
| 1:58.1 | greendreamer.com slash support. And yeah, as we get started, I would love to |
| 2:04.5 | invite you to take some deep breaths to ease into this present moment with us here, trusting that you |
| 2:13.5 | are right where you need to be. Thank you so much for joining us today, and I hope you enjoy this episode. |
| 2:24.8 | I was born in 1955, and so I was 13 years old in 1968, which was a kind of coming up age |
... |
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