We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alexander Herbert. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alexander below.
Alexander , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
I am a full time professor of history at a technical college. Haven gone through a liberal arts education and receiving my Phd in 2023, working for the past two years at a technical college has revealed a lot to me about how student perceptions of the future and job market are impacting their lives. My technical students see the world more materialistically, which means they have a firm understanding of what is practically useful. It also means that many of them struggle to understand more abstract philosophical concepts. My job as a history teacher has been to link their materialist conception of the present world with a materialist conception of history and philosophy.
I think that grounding their understanding of the world in a materialist understanding of how societies and cultures are formed in major part by economic relations helps them connect their sense of what is important for their own future.
In the past 20 or so years there has been a lot of skepticism over academia and the corporate structure of institutions which hand out degrees and push their students into an increasingly shrinking workforce. A lot of that frustration comes from the fact that liberal arts students are taught philosophical and abstract ideas and concepts that are not firmly grounded in real-world experiences. If they cannot relate the philosophy to their lived experience, it is going to be difficult to apply it to their job or to their interpretation of world events. Thus, I do all I can to present them with a cohesive understanding of how the world works, and I do do through historical perspective.
But I don’t believe that this kind of education should be limited to those with the means to enter academia. I run a substack page (https://alexherbert.substack.com/) where I write about some everyday ideas and experiences through a Marxist perspective. I’ve rendered many of these articles into audio “podcasts” because I also understand that not everyone has the time, patience, or ability to read.
This ethos of engaging with people stems from my punk background, which was always very humanist and compassionate. For a long time I ran a Punk fanzine called “Punks Around” where I explored various topics within the punk scene — women in punk, all-but-cis punks, mental health, straight edge, People of color in Punk, and other topics to try to communicate experiences across identitarian divides. I believe that “identity,” although hugely important in shaping world views and experiences, is a distraction from the real issue of class differences, and that as members of a collective “underclass,” we all have a lot more in common than we think. I’ve converted that attitude into my academic and personal blog, in the hopes that my ideas and teaching can help readers and students see the metaphysical forrest through the trees.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I think much of this was addressed in the last question, but I am involved in many things.
First is my blog: https://alexherbert.substack.com/ which includes a Podcast “Alex’s Substack Podcast” that can be accessed anywhere you stream podcasts.
I also publish monthly videos on Youtube, Tik Tok, and Instagram through the handle @Lenin_in_45_Volumes. In each episode I cover a volume of Lenin’s Collected Works. The purpose of this is to dispel many assumptions and misunderstandings of Lenin, a character who is increasingly more in vogue as Marxism, Socialism, and Communism re-emerge as millennial and genZ buzzwords. My point is not to discredit Lenin, but to display the rich progression of his ideas and to situate them in historical context. This is about public education, which I excel at and which makes me feel the most fulfilled as a revolutionary.
I have also written two books: “What About Tomorrow? An Oral History of Russian Punk from the Soviet Era to Pussy Riot” (Microcosm Publishing, 2019) and “Fear Before the Fall: Horror Films in the Late Soviet Union” (Zer0 Books, 2022).
I used to publish @punksaround fanzine, which I guess because I still use that instagram account as my main social media qualifies as a “brand.” Reprints of Punks Around are available through Microcosm Publishing.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Class consciousness, public education, liberation. I am devoted to making education as free and accessable as possible, and I believe there is no idea too difficult for anyone to understand.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I don’t have a huge social media presence (maybe you can help change that @alextherbert on X and @punksaround on Instagram) but the following do have came from collaborating with as many people as I could in my writing, teaching, and zine making. I believe that collaboration is the best way to ‘network’ and it also helps people who may still feel apprehensive or insecure about their writing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://alexherbert.substack.com/
- Instagram: @punksaround @lenin_in_45_volumes
- Twitter: @alextherbert
- Youtube: @lenin_in_45_volumes