We're not in a blank spot in history, there's just not yet a dominant philosophy to describe the new millennium. For all we know, the meta narrative that will one day be used to describe the first half of the 21st century has already been developed and written about, just not popularized. After all, the culture of modernity had been going on for centuries in some capacity before the public started talking actually talking about modernism.
well, since the internet makes it AT LEAST seem like we can now all openly talk about our individual philosophies, and since critical thinking is at least in western culture seen as something good, "the one dominant philosophy" would be more or less a miracle if it existed. now that the most prominent philosophy would have to be the one we can see on the internet, this dominant philosophy would have to REALLY be the philosophy of most of ALL people, not just of the ones who participate in academic science/philosophy. so the really difference is the difference between the academic view on the world and the view of the people.
I think it's just that, since so many more people now have a voice, we hear many more narratives; there's so much competition that one never wins. Because master narratives come from those who leave records of their time, what they thought was important. In reality, there was probably as much disagreement as there is now.
I was just thinking that, it's easy to define an era after it has happened, not during. Most people don't even realize they're in a movement until it is brought to the wide public's attention, because to us, this is just reality and normal to us
A coherent sentence spoken in a soothing voice does not an expert make. I appreciate most of your videos, being well-researched, thought-provoking, and articulate, and indeed the story you weave here in this video is compelling and seductive, but the sort of unthinking gushing that I see in the comments, a natural response to the self-assured position you take in this video, compels me to respond all the more vigorously against the holes, false conjectures, and unsound leaps of thought that you make. First, there is no consensus that postmodernism is dead. Much of this video is based on the thinking of Alan Kirby and "The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond", but there are scores of academicians who disagree with his thinking. In fact, is it even possible for postmodernism to die? Postmodernism is so hard to pin down, and if you can't even define what postmodernism is, how can you say that it's dead? I understand the urge to think that postmodernism is dead, because at a gut level we seem to have moved on past the alienation, irony, and distaste for authority that so signified the West from the 1950's to the 1980's. Or have we? It's not obvious that contemporary Western society has moved past the criticisms of authority that postmodernism champions - if anything, this idea against authority, both intellectual and political, has been accepted as part of the mainstream. The culture that created Julian Assange, the tea party movement, Donald Trump, and Twitter are firmly within the philosophical stew that is postmodernism. And finally, the death of print journalism is perhaps the strongest indication of our society's rejection of narrative as dictated by an "establishment". As for the new technology that you pin your arguments on - the "hypertext" that links related ideas together in an ever-expanding web of references - this is not new. If anything, it was born of and within the postmodern tradition. The post-structuralism of Derrida and Barthes as well as the works of Borges, Vonnegut, Pynchon, and more recently David Foster Wallace are all manifestations of this "new" form of information that is not book-based. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this is nothing new. Again, postmodernism wanted to break down traditional ideas of narrative structures in a grander project of breaking down authority as a whole, and the non-hierarchical way to consume information that hypertext offers is a manifestation of, and product of, postmodernist thought. Finally, the prevailing pessimism about the course of history, where you cite the failures in democracy and the chaos in markets and the EU, are also not as new as you make it seem. This pessimism first started with the failures in Vietnam, the first time in which the US was unable to bring stability to a region with democracy. At that time, with the belief that democracy the ideal political structure as proven by World War II, the failure of Vietnam was a serious blow to the liberal intellectual establishment in their projects towards creating an intellectual framework for reading history. Combine that with the recessions of the late 1960's through the 1980's and the chaos in post-colonial Africa, and you get the pervasive pessimism about the future of history. This pessimism continues to this day, and postmodernism formed in response to and tries to address these problems. The theories that postmodernism espoused during the Vietnam era that felt so radical at the time has, by now, settled into the accepted cultural milieu of contemporary society. Irony has become the norm, and self- and inter-reference has become a vehicle of media. The endless remakes and parodies that we see in contemporary media is a sign that our culture has embraced and accepted postmodernism, not moved past it. Postmodernism may have lost its edginess, but that only means that we have firmly moved into it, not past it.
+dandy-lions "Postmodernism may have lost its edginess, but that only means that we have firmly moved into it, not past it." - Interesting idea. Almost contradicts a more commercialist notion that the things that are exciting and fashionable are the things that are relevant; but rather than what is intrinsic and mundane is truly "current".
+dandy-lions nebulous and hard to pin down. I agree with that. We're binding ourselves to the narrative now by no longer wanting to be bound to a narrative so much. The whole thing is sort of silly.
+noddwyd So you agree with the idea that rather than being a post-postmodern society we simply embraced postmodernism as a norm and therefore are reeling in a cycle of self and inter-reference?
Definitely. But I don't truly feel the titles like "postmodernism" "postpostmodernism" and "atemporalism" matter all that much until long, long after the fact. Which I though might have been the true point of the video, but it got lost in the terms somewhere. Personally I think of it as the "short attention span" era.
+dandy-lions I also found this video less convincing than others on this channel and was glad to see some insightful criticisms. The self-assured sentence at the end about finally being "able to see with clear eyes" made me think twice. Surely it was only ever the best historians who were actually concerned about their own values clouding their judgement and the poor ones who imagined they could see the past clearly.
I don't know... atemporality sounds more like hypermodernism to me. Not so much something new as it is the old, only electrified. Überindividualism with ADHD. Each of us is constantly devising our own personal metanarratives, publishing our own personal commentaries on world history in every tweet. Each one of our narratives meets its demise almost instantly upon being posted, of course. If we are lucky, our text is made hyper. It gets linked to bits and is soon unrecognizable. If modernism was about making the machine, and postmodernism was about fighting it, then atemporalism is about coming to terms with the fact that we have now become the machine. We are *in* it, of it, surrounded and engulfed. It is just a remix of the same old "end of history" song.
Hmmm... I'm struggling with the constant use of the terms "we", "us", "our", etc. As if humans only exist as a group. Just using such terms and seeking meaning for their object enacts the metanarrative impulse, making any claims to have outgrown metanarratives naïve and any enactment of them regressive. What is the forward motion here? If we don't go back to making grand statements from implicit and unconscious values and we don't abstain from making grand statements, then what _do_ we do? Why must our values be unknown? Acting them out without stating them has not been very useful for conflict resolution purposes at any scale and we've already been there and done that to death? Why can't we move out of that position?
the last two or three sentences are bullshit: not knwoing your own values doesn´t make you more objective. the opposite is the case: you still have values, but since you don´t know them, it´s even harder to TRY to overcome their subjective nature.
I agree. Not only that, but he argues about fading confidence in the nation-state, insecurity about the future, lack of confidence in the markets, all such things. Those are not neccesarily 'atemporal'. On the contrary, it's very symptomatic of our current day and age so in fact, very temporal in a way. He would be right about us, as a society not being sure what our values are. But it is therefore all the more neccesary to look to the past, understand how the enlightenment and what pre-enlightenment thought looked like, and then follow the progression of (Western) civilization's values and ideals to understand where we stand now. And that requires you to take a long hard look at your ideas and figure out how the 17th century man saw his place in the universe, and how that was to change in the next 400 years.
yep. it creates a nice snappy ending, but a) i disagree that our societies do not have clear values. many people might disagree on what they are, but it does not follow that individuals will not know them b) even if the above was possible, not knowing one's values does not remove one's bias. it makes it harder to see one's bias. had me until those nonsense claims, nerdwriter.
nicer, yes. more constructive? should i give him my own alternative opinion? he is, according to my view and arguments, wrong about the point i wrote about. i simply wrote that. yes, the word "bullshit" is terribly harsh and i was cruel for even thinking that his opinion was bullshit instead of "just wrong", but i guess you can already smell the sarcasm through the screen so i´ll end this sentence now.
I think it also shows a kind of 'rose-tinted glasses' view of past societies. I always believed that the clear value systems we attribute to past societies were perhaps not quite so clear to each individual actually living within them. Overarching value systems, I think, are one of the many things that are easier to see from the outside looking in or in retrospect.
I remember stumbling across your videos way back in 2012 and have been following your channel ever since. You are definitely one of my favourite channels of all time, and when you stopped making videos for a while I really felt like TH-cam lost something special, so knowing you're making these full time makes me so happy. I recommend you to everyone I know because I truly think you deserve success because your content is of the highest quality (though selfishly I do love you being smaller so you can really answer questions in the comments). I guess there's no real point to this other than to tell you that I love all the enlightening stuff you do and that I'll try and give as much money as I can. Thanks again. Matt
I definitely think there's something to this. The way we understand history has completely changed; we used to frame history as being propelled forward by specific people and specific events, all viewed in isolation from one another so that each historical moment is unique and stands alone. But the trends-and-forces model is on the rise; we're coming to understand that all historical moments come together to form patterns, and that people and events only shape history as much as history shapes them. We're looking at our past in a significantly more comprehensive way now, bringing in all our increasing knowledge of psychology, sociology, economics, and other fields of study as being more relevant than any one important person. In other words, it's not just about Caesar anymore; it's about every detail of the world that Caesar was born into, and where he fits into its natural trajectory.
***** I think you made some great points and I really, really don't want to pick a fight with you here, but I'd feel remiss not to point out that religious inclination has been on a pretty steady decline for a good while now... I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, and I'm not saying that any one historical trend can be attributed to it, and I'm not saying that it portends any state of religiosity in the future. I'm just stating it as a fact that societies overall have been departing more and more from religion as a cornerstone of social functionality (compare today's religion-based social norms to those of three hundred years ago, and compare three hundred years ago to six hundred years ago... the differences are rather striking). Interpret that however you like.
+Chilling Goat 'The only religion that seems to cause way too much harm is Islam' - felt I needed to point out that this is almost definitely incorrect.
+Elizabeth Wear The internet has broke from conventional methods of writing history. Suddenly every single person can hypothetically chip in, erasing an overarching conception of how things were. A lot of mainstream media has now become illusory built on fragmented viewpoints and not eye witness testimony. The reporter of yesterday that went out to find the news is now playing telephone/instant message with somebody who saw it first. Remember that age old game of telephone when we were kids, when it gets to the last person it's an abstraction of what was really said.
soccered888 Writing history has always been based on fragmentary evidence and doesn't always use eye witness testimony. Besides eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable, subjective and rubbish at seeing the big picture. There rarely is, or ever has been, an overarching conception of history, let alone one that actually stands up to sustained criticism. The 'Chinese whispers' effect you describe can be seen at any period of history writing, it's not a uniquely modern phenomenon.
soccered888 NowhereMan2710 I'm inclined to agree with nowhereman. The further back you go in history the more inaccuracies you can expect to find because of peoples' reliance on word of mouth as opposed to documentation. The line between fact and fiction was not as clearly defined in the ancient world, and historians (who in some times and places were singers/orators rather than writers) were fully expected to take liberties in order to tell a more interesting story; it was par for the course to exaggerate numbers and to treat legend as fact. The telephone effect of which you speak holds much greater sway in a world without camera phones, and still more in a world with limited literacy. Nowadays so much that goes on has visual and/or audio recording, which is as significant of a leap in historical documentation as the transition from spoken word to written word was. The advent of photos, videos, and audio recordings was as big of a deal to our understanding of history as the advent of widespread written language was a few thousand years prior, and the use of the internet to share these things is similarly comparable to the introduction of the printing press. These innovations are a very, very big deal for our understanding of modern events. That's not to say that our development of modern history is factually flawless, but it certainly makes it a more sophisticated task to corrupt. On the whole I think our trajectory is moving closer to accuracy, rather than further from it. I can watch a video of JFK's assassination if I want to, in order to suss out as many of the finer details as I can; I cannot say the same of Julius Caesar's assassination. God what I wouldn't give for video recordings of Caesar's time.
Only now have I discovered the treasure trove that is your channel. This video summarised and pinpointed a feeling that has been swimming inside me for a long time. I love your clarity. Please continue your work. I have offered my support to you on Patreon. The 'network' seems like a maelstrom of fear right now. The only strong narrative is fear and fear doesn't need an ending. It can go on and on. Voices like yours are needed my friend. Thank you for sharing.
As far as universal trends go, I think 'atemporality' is the best worldview to go with. The less society believes that any given history is a continuous, linear narrative heading towards some social/psychological climax (cough, cough, The Singularity, cough, cough), the better. It's important to realize that, often times in history, people take one step forward in the direction of one particular school of thought, and two steps back. I think this is part of the reason why we agree there's some intrinsic value in learning history, because it helps us in a search for a golden philosophy that's been forgotten. A couple of questions: 1) Do you think Wikipedia (or sites with similar conceits) has a mission to bridge the gap between The Network and The Canon? On one hand, Wikis have the potential to have every datum of knowledge documented, sorted, and indexed. On the other hand, there will never be a 'Chapter One' of the Internet. 2) Have you read Film Critic Hulk's essay 'Post-Modernism...Not a Thing'. I'll link it if you haven't. As a person who regularly uses "post-modern" to describe my favorite art films and literary movements of the late 20th century, I think the essay is a great read, and hilarious, even in the very few paragraphs where Hulk gets a tad bit simplistic. filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/post-modernism-not-a-thing/
I understand that the world has become more complicated, connected and diverse and therefore a little bit more difficult to label. But doesn't the difficulty mostly arise the fact that it's extremely hard to label the time you yourself live in and that the transactions are fluid but most of all that the people and the culture are simplified in hindsight, and set with arbitrary dates which doesn't really match reality and would feel foreign for a citizen of that time?
this is where I thought the video was going to be about honestly. I doubt the modernist and postmodernist called themselves so. To think the past was any less complex than the present is kind of arrogant. We have the advantage of hindsight, knowing what happened and why. Just as we don't know the future, people of the past didn't either. There are many moments in history of collective uncertainty and unease. Now is no different.
I didn't feel convinced by the conclusion of this video. On a wider level you have a point, but on a personal level this is tragic. My best friend died recently and it's making me think deeply about my own attitude to life. My friend held strong convictions. He looked up to 20th century liberal thinkers and his convictions drove him in life, gave his life purpose. Few months before he passed we had an argument about ideology. I said ideology is a straight jacket. Everyone should make decisions based on a case by case basis, because life is too complex and multi-faceted. If you label yourself with an ideology, you're tempted to bend your decisions in accordance with it and inevitably sometimes this will cause you to make the wrong decisions, because no ideology is a silver bullet. My friend counter-argued that ideology is the only way to bring about change in the world. Unless a lot of people rally around a single idea, no progress or change can ever be accomplished. Well, he's gone and my uncertainty about my own values is working against me now. I don't know why I'm alive. I want my life to be meaningful and I want to have a positive impact on the world, but I don't know how that might look like. I do feel like we're disconnected from history, but that just means we have no way of defining our own impact of the future. Isn't that a problem?
I find the contemporary push to discount and sweep aside ideologies as decrepit, restrictive or simply of no use (my words, not yours) is in itself an ideology of resistance and challenge that has saturated the minds of people at all levels of 'Western society' (the rise of which has its roots in European enlightenment thought) but I don't yet see how this new hyper-individualistic and supposedly liberating idea provides any better outcomes for the well-being of humanity than long held belief systems. Rather, it seems to leave people more (privately) confused and less willing to work together than when they were bound together and stratified by their specific ideology (the opposition to ideology itself being the catalyst of disagreement and dispute as much as the content of the ideology under dispute). Of course, I have a mental tapestry of grounded reasons as to why I hold this opinion which I couldn't properly articulate in this small space, but still, I just felt a need to comment. I think ideology is fine and useful provided it doesn't incite bigotry and hatred, which, sadly, is often what doctrine births, but it isn't ideology that's the problem in this regard. It's ignorance, vanity, chauvinism, and 'othering'; qualities usually cultivated and socialized early on, then self-reinforced later, which don't have to be directly tied to an ideology. Also, it's technically impossible to be disconnected from history. History, meaning 'what people did in the past' is responsible for our physical and intellectual environment, excluding almost nothing. If you mean personally, consciously disconnected, then yeah, that's probably the case for many people. Most likely because they don't know much about it and aren't aware of the pervasiveness of it in the 'everday'. I feel for you Themarquess. We're all searching for meaning and purpose in our lives (or at least we should be). Sorry about your friend.
Existentialism > Post-Modernism. As UT-Austin philosophy professor Robert Solomon aptly put it, "I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses."
@@b.martinyu-artist2138 i believe it means that if you believe you are wholly the byproduct of society or that your actions, beliefs, feelings, and thoughts are simply because of things out of your control, you give up the idea that you can do anything of your own free will or have any semblance of independence. Nothing you do is initiated by you or, if it is, your response is what has been culturally ingrained in you. You're a good person? You can thank your culture for instilling those good beliefs in you. You're a bad person? You can thank society for molding you in such a way that facilitates bad behavior. Society can be your excuse for any and all behavior if you believe you are simply a construct of society, and with that, you give up a sense of personal responsibility for your actions.
I needed seeing something like this today, I have been in a serious serious state of depression for over two years, and I am hoping that SOMETHING SOMEDAY does change that reality. Or, barring that something finally clicks and I find myself in a place where I can find some happiness in my life. You are doing amazing work, and looking forward to digging through some more of your catalog.
Nerdwriter, your own video on "Child of men" movie shows how we are not free of opinions. Not knowing one's values leads either to consumerism or to depression, and both are easily manipulated by politics the like of Trump. The only way I can understand you is that you see "no values" as some kind of Socratian constant quest for Truth. Still, that is a value. He had to have a value to believe in strongly to die for it. I do really think we cannot hold such high values as searching Truth without tradition, without education and classical arts. There are simply too many sharks out there in the world of politics, ideology and consumerism. Thank you much for your videos. Cheers from Russia :)
My Russian friend, We cannot cling to our rendition of history or tradition without fully examining what those traditional values spring from and what their continued espousal will lead to. A small town has a traditional festival where the poorest member of the town is mocked and violently beaten. This then forces all the town's members initially to work as hard as possible to not be the poorest, bringing at first growth and productivity, but over time dishonesty, theft, and corruption. Believing for example that a strong leader who forces his populace to maintain traditional social norms, and is the one who most effectively uses force and terror to maintain control, is one of those traditions that is sadly common in both hemispheres. -A friend from the US
Why do you think that the internet's job is to provide a coherent narrative? I've always thought of the internet's job as increasing connectivity. It's about ease of access to information and the contrasts that creates, not about creating anything coherent. You're statement "the internet is not doing it's job" makes the inherent claim that somewhere, someone has decreed what it's intent is. The internet has no intent. It has uses, and quite a lot of them, and the people who use it have intent. The intent of those individuals never crosses over into creating a single system with a unified goal, nor should it.
+sean rodgers The internet and the people using it will accumulate accepted "truths" about a subject, feed it's users that info, and only propel that "truth" further, like a snowball effect, until one day, once the reliance on the internet is SO massive, that the only thing feeding the internet knowledge are subjects of the internet its self.
+sean rodgers I think what he meant was that the growth of internet connectivity and information access was expected to produce greater, end-all explanations and understanding by the generations who experienced life without it. Instead, like you said, it became a hallmark for epistemological diversity and access. More current generations are in a better position to see it not as an overarching network that can explain everything but as an infrastructure that connects different people and information, respecting it for the connections rather than the conglomerate
Some great comments and discussion here. If all this video achieved was the sharing of insightful ideas in a non-inflammatory manner, then it was worth posting.
I love your video editing style. The combination of music, video, lighting, vocabulary, makes your videos not only give a unique perspective but very enticing to listen to.
Thank you for this video. It's so amazing to see where you got from the early videos of your channel. The quality was astonishing back then, too, but now it's just this symbiosis of content and form you create... by watching I enter this state of flow, which makes everything you present so clear and understandable. Maybe this is what 21st century philosophy should look like. Focused, nice to look at and inspirational.
Nerdwriter1 Yeah. Gives even more chills when you think about the different nationalities your fanbase consists of... Across all ages and social classes. That's the true magic of the Internet (and danger) . You introduced me, as a relatively young viewer and someone who would otherwise probably never have had the support to overcome the initial hurdles, to the realm of philosophy, by that I mean the necessary mindset. I discovered the School of Life, started to read my fellow Germans Nietzsche and Adorno and now I actually study it in university. So thank you again and don't you dare to ever stop making them videos! (cause I always look smart when I mention your ideas in my conversations)
I've seen your videos for a few months now, and every video is very interesting. I have never seen such clearness and objectivity about these subjects, it's really amazing! Good luck with your new videos and I am happy to give my pledge
I really appreciate your channel. Having a boring, inconsequential job which demands all of my time during the day and the weekend, really does not leave me any time to read and cultivate myself. Through your channel I have at least something to think about when serving customers at the counter.
I wonder if it's a detachment from history, or a wider understanding of subjective histories? With modernism and postmodernism, you had a small group of a very privileged kind making large statements, but out contemporary age has a larger outpouring of voices-the internet has lead to that, to a democratization of voices so that previously underprivileged viewpoints can carve out an audience where before they couldn't. As evidenced by people like Junot Díaz with "Oscar Wao," we might be more attached to history than ever-just not the Western canon of it. I might wager that these giant movements like modernism and postmodernism may not happen again because people from vastly different backgrounds and cultures have voice, with all their different cultural histories involved. (Interestingly, in previous literary movements that happened at the same time as bigger ones, we don't group them because of the differing viewpoints-modernism and the harlem renaissance are not connected in history despite happening at the same time, and there being a fair amount of cross-pollination between them. These underprivileged viewpoints cannot be so easily disconnected now.)
If you want film, try Channel Criswell, Every Frame a Painting, and see who they follow also. For regular type philosphy or art conversations, check *****
***** i'm not really sure what you're referring to but I'm referring to the original Vsauce with Michael, not the other channels. That channel has arguably more substantial videos than nerdwriter.
***** they are like 3 other channels with other personalities and I don't care for them that much, that's probably what you saw. Some of his videos are comical but they are incredibly informative and entertaining.
What are you saying? Postmodernism isn't finished, we're right in the heart of it. This video, particularly the conclusion, is echoing the postmodern narrative (or lack of narrative indeed).
Dude, your chanel is one of the best of it's kind! I'm a musician, work on scoring visual media and your content gives me the tools to analyze film and narrative in a much deeper way, also this kind of more general sociocultural videos help me to open my mind and understand culture and ultimately art itself, thanks for the great content :)
So, the following comment is more a comment about your channel and not really specific to that video. but i guess as much time as i spend on that channel, i feel like i have to write sth. i just love the kind of videos you are making specially when it comes to philosophy, some films i watched and politics. Your perspective is always great, reflected but still - you have a grounded opinion without getting lost in intellectual pathways of the mind. but what i like the most is that you see your videos as a kind of art. not only to blog or to inform people but the way you create them is somehow different. more creative. or no, other videos are also full of creativity but let's say you make videos out of the box. well, as you might see, i am not a native speaker and somehow i do regret that when i watch your videos. i recognize that you use a great way to express yourself, but sometimes i fail to grab the deeper meaning of the language. it's a pity, because i love language, well, good language. also a point i love, cause not many people try to express themselves beautifully. yes, well anyway, cheers from Germany!
I found this channel about a month ago, and honestly, it's amazing! I am thoroughly enjoying your content and I'm learning so much too. Thanks again for such thoughtful, entertaining and informative videos!
The characteristics you ascribe to atemporality are inherent to postmodernism. Or at least the deconstructing of historical and cultural discourses, most notably historical ones. Similarly, the changes attributed to this current technological network were predicted by theorists speculating about a media we have continued to embrace. Flusser, Baudrillard, McLuhan, for example. These are all essentially postmodern in their outlook. Its certainly true that postmodernism evades definition, but I would argue this is because it is not a critique of modernism per se, but the narratives that embody power structures like modernism, in particular temporality. This is yet another good synopsis of the questions of our time, but I think it represents rather than refutes postmodernism.
I love how your videos never feel like lessons. Obviously they're incredibly informative, but just like the Network itself, it feels like a conversation more than a passive dump of knowledge. One of my old professors spoke about how the power relationships in art have also shifted now, before we had icons and masters, but now art is built upon not just the artefact itself, but how the public responds to it and how they interpret or reinterpret it. Fanart/Fanfiction is possibly the clearest example of this. Anyways, loved this, as always.
Amazing video, thanks Evan. I have a similar thought that as an artist I have to CHOOSE my values and aesthetics, that for the first time ever in human history we have the power to transcend those defining thoughts and ideas. You could apply this to any human endevour, I'm using it as a metaphor. The caveat is that we need to be responsible of our choice. Thanks again
i am so glad you are doing this full time now. which is also an interesting reflection about feeling lost after post modernism. 20 years ago one guy could not talk to 1,254,018 people about his personal take on things without producers, editors, and advertisers etc. controlling his every move. the lesson of out time will take apart the hierarchies of the past, well i guess thats what post modernism was supposed to do but now we have to live with it, we have to allow many perspectives
Thank you so much for your work, it's honestly so thought provoking and inspiring. It's like you planted an idea in my head and now i'm trying to nurture it and make it grow. you're one of the few people who make TH-cam a creative space worth investing time in. Cheers from Singapore!
Dude. I'm so glad I found your channel. I was kinda worried you'd be a whiny academe dudebro, but your video essays are well-researched and nuanced, while bring provocative without being controversial. After two videos, I happily subscribed. Wela'lioq
I think that the lack of a cohesive ideology of an age is a thing of the past. However that doesn't mean that people are no less drawn to big movements. The diversity of the network will simply give way to many big movements all moving on their separate paths simultaneously. I, personally would love an age of atemporality to continue on. Great video by the way, keep it up!
John Smith I believe it will continue on. It surprises me that Sterling is so convinced it will pass on to something new, but then he's way smarter than me.
As an aspiriational philosopher, struggling to find a place in contemporary society this was a very relatable, insight! well done for conveying this accurate perception with brilliance! p.s I have binge watched all your videos, the deepness of this channels content just draws me in one philosophical video at a time
There was a conversation about history in William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition" that really struck me as so outside of any perspective I'd heard before on the subject, and it's fascinating to see the philosophy behind that conversation elaborated upon in this video.
I find your content extremely insightful and more useful than any other educational material I had studied in school or in the internet -I think that´s due to your huge passion and love towards the topics you choose. As the great Charles Chaplin once said, ´´we think too much and feel too little´´, I feel that your true love for a multi-faceted or multi perspective philosophy is the is the very reason why your videos, as short and straightforward as they are, are so impactful, because at the end knowledge is nothing without any source of real passion and love that can instill such ideas to others. Keep up the great work my friend.
You articulated and brought concrete form to all my shapeless thoughts about today's world, this video was exciting and brilliant. You're very talented my friend, and I aspire to write and formulate ideas like you! Cheers.
Determining the truth value of information in a network or in a library is both difficult. You may think it is easier in one system or the other, but eventually you will come down to the fact that, perspective is in everything, that things are only superficially either black or white, that beyond the scope of what you dare look at there's always more and that the whole bloody thing is an ever moving target anyway, no matter how much you "preserve" that in books or otherwise. These concepts are universal and will make you suffer for knowing they're true: * change (and that things flow at any given moment, no matter how much you are looking for anchors and foundations) * infinity (and that your physical or mental walls are but your own boundaries) * duality (and that's it's still not just black and white= * relativity (no, not that Einstein crap, just basic "I view things that way")
Always thought of this !brilliant video and thanks for giving a name that is "atemporal" to my thoughts which kinda haunted me .wonder what the future will be like i.e to say no one will ever care about history anymore and there''ll be a 'digital door ' or something similar to it ..through which the future generation will traverse and have a glimpse of their past.
This is so interesting. But I've always wondered: what if people living in the past didn't "know what [their] values [were]" either? What if, say, during the Romanticism period, people didn't really know that the trend was Romanticism, or they didn't have one idea that they all found popular, but instead had many different ideas? What if historians saw it as a clear set of values, but at the time it wasn't? What if in the future, historians will look at our time period and label it without seeing it much more diverse than the modernism period?
Jean Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation', 'The Ecstasy of Communication' and other texts in his discourse provide for a comprehensive articulation of the themes in this video. I'd check them out. Really surprised they weren't used for reference! Great vid. Subbed.
This gave great context to my own thought processes and personality. Our values are shaped by the social engineering of the day, and all the values we create can be reduced to two main viewpoints of humanity--the love, or the hate of it.
A stunning exposé . Too often people see the post-post-modern era we live in as an end of times. It is refreshing hear you end on an optimistic conclusion.
You inspire me to create videos like these to hopefully inspire people in my country, and maybe to bend and widen perspectives as well. Keep it up man. Awesome. :)
much love for this channel, keep up the great work. based on my reading of DeLillo and company, I would say that atemporality was one the more prominent themes and narrative techniques of postmodernism. I would add to your definition of the movement: it was reaction to the failures of modernism to reflect or encapsulate a reality that those writers could recognize around them . I paraphrase DeLillo, "too much has been disfigured in the name of symmetry." We live an increasingly asymmetric world, and so what ever you want to call it, I think the idea of postmodernism lives on in art that resists the reshaping of truth to fit old narrative forms.
Jesus Christ.... I wanted to procrastinate from English homework... I did not expect to be mind blown. Interesting video and really well edited and put together.
I'm merely an historian, not an actual science fiction author like Bruce Sterling. So forgive me if I'm intruding. But for what it's worth, I can tell you that history most certainly *is* a science. The process of creating and debating a theory about who King Arthur might have been is indistinguishable (except in particulars) from the process of creating and debating where, how and when early hominid species proliferated. Creating a narrative about what happened in your kitchen yesterday (assuming you want to do so in a rigorous way) involves the same tools and methods -- and involves handling data and evidence in exactly the same way -- as does creating a theory about the evolution of the solar system. *Doing* history is a creative process, sure, but so is *doing* physics and biology. And all of these processes are narrative centred: theories are merely explanations, and all explanations must take the form of narrative. But all of these processes are also scientific processes, and what makes them scientific processes is the fact that they are *highly* constrained (art and literature are, by contrast, loosely constrained processes). All scientific processes -- history included -- are constrained in the same ways. A successful scientific theory -- whether it pertains to an historical or psychological or biological domain -- will be constrained chiefly by the knowledge surrounding it (i.e. the other successful theories on which it builds). It will also be constrained by its particular scope (i.e the data it selects to explain), and by needing to be coherent, specific (claiming no more than is necessary to explain the selected data) and difficult to vary (one should not be able arbitrarily to change components of the explanation to arrive at the same conclusion: this is why horoscopes are not good theories). A theory will be judged successful or not based on its explanatory power (i.e how much, of all the available data, the theory *can* explain), and by its parsimony (how little speculation the theory requires in order to account for outlying or *difficult* data). And of course the judging is done by a community of jealous specialists, each of whom is attempting to gain notoriety for themself by discrediting the theories of others, especially their predecessors. You may not feel, when you are *consuming* history -- by which I mean listening to and enjoying the theories proposed by professional historians -- that you are encountering scientific theories, theories that were produced under the constraints listed above. But you are. You may feel, as you pop casually into Wikipedia articles about the War of the Roses, that the epistemological status of an historical claim is in some intrinsic sense more humble than that of claims emanating from the physical or chemical sciences. But it is not. There is no difference whatsoever in how physical and historical theories are built and tested. It can be uncomfortable to confront this: not (I think) because we are being asked to elevate our esteem of the discipline of history to the levels usually accorded to the physical sciences; but rather because we are actually being asked to reduce the ridiculous levels of respect Western civilization typically pays to the physical sciences. A good physical explanation, like a good historical explanation, can be incredibly powerful. It can also be enjoyable, even beautiful (evolution by natural selection has to be the front-runner here). But each is incomplete, and waiting to be ousted by an improved theory that *will* one day come. No theory, therefore -- whether physical or historical -- should ever command your loyalty. Admiration is enough.
@Dan Helman Thank you for the clarification. I liked particularly the "community of jealous specialists"-trying-to-disprove-a-theory part. When I was taking my bachelor in Biology I was very disappointed and disillusioned when I realized that scientists, and therefore the knowledge they create/discover, aren't always objective. It saddens me that we didn't have a History of Science subject in our curriculum that would've enlighten us on how social, economical, political, cultural and religious norms influence scientific research and theory (and we're not even counting the personal part). It's especially important now that people have access to all sorts of information relating health and lifestyle and don't realize that sometimes that information is refuted by other studies. I personally have heard by different people that caffeine is either beneficial or damaging to your brain/body; I suppose it depends on the dose and varies with each person. I end this with something regarding scientific theory and people's worldviews: Max Planck, considered the father of quantic physics, said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” He said this when the development of quantic physics went against his own philosophical views, which kind of shows that he was aware that part of his revulsion for the theory (as it was then) was not due to it's lack of logic; rather self-aware of him.
@Dan Helman Thank you for the clarification. I liked particularly the "community of jealous specialists"-trying-to-disprove-a-theory part. When I was taking my bachelor in Biology I was very disappointed and disillusioned when I realized that scientists, and therefore the knowledge they create/discover, aren't always objective. It saddens me that we didn't have a History of Science subject in our curriculum that would've enlighten us on how social, economical, political, cultural and religious norms influence scientific research and theory (and we're not even counting the personal part). It's especially important now that people have access to all sorts of information relating health and lifestyle and don't realize that sometimes that information is refuted by other studies. I personally have heard by different people that caffeine is either beneficial or damaging to your brain/body; I suppose it depends on the dose and varies with each person. I end this with something regarding scientific theory and people's worldviews: Max Planck, considered the father of quantic physics, said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” He said this when the development of quantic physics went against his own philosophical views, which kind of shows that he was aware that part of his revulsion for the theory (as it was then) was not due to it's lack of logic; rather self-aware of him.
History would be so very much more a worthy serving - should it be what it is sold to ... "truth" a representation of the past - rather than the largely "Brotherhood of Main Streat Academics desiring to be Science" and supporting a 19th Century "Theorist", telling the stories that fit the ideas, that the Powerful deem worthy to their Global objectives. The ignoring of artifacts that are cast aside or escape through museum basements, because they disrupt the agreed upon *versions* that flow through the Cirriculm Textbooks - leads one to the vision of them continuing to try to put Cinderella's shoe on Drucella's foot. The idea that - any theory repeated long enough becomes fact in ones subconscious - is a sad but true, in the minds of the naive. Ethics - must surely escape, when the Ego is drawn in with guarantees and Tenure.
With how everybody retractis into their own echo chamber communities, i think you are right that no movement becomes dominant enough for us to see it from our viewpoint. however, there are at least as many, if not more, movements than before, with more people with more access to more ideas. More paralel movements at once, or plurality.
Have you read David Foster Wallace's essay on New Sincerity? Can't it be said that your easy acceptance of this apparently inherent atemporality of society is mainly somewhat of an optimistic take on postmodern cynicism? Love this channel, btw~
Thanks for taking the time to craft such reflective content! Your videos introduce me to ideas and new ways of thinking about the world! Atemporality is a cool idea, but i'm not sure society today can really lay claim to it. The Internet has changed our outlook, yes, but i would call its effect democratization, not atemporality. It's easy to contribute info now, as well as discuss it, so now more people have more access to more content. But it hasn't cured us of any historical biases, it just represents the whole gamut of contributors and allows our biases to coexist and interact. We're not seeing more clearly, we're just networked to listen to more voices. So our worldviews are in a constant state of flux, depending on the last thing we heard online that sounded plausible and which parts of the Internet we frequent.
Excellently articulates the strands of ideas I have had but been unable to bring together. I studied History to Master's level, and that absence or instability of meaning and purpose inside the subject is still a confusing thing to understand, and in direct opposition to the way History (with a capital 'h') is perceived by those outside academic - that the study of History is infallible and leads to absolute conclusions.
What I don't have in available funding, I hope I can make up for with written support :) You're doing a kick-ass thing here, man. I really love your videos, and I've been a subber for quite a while. It just keeps getting better. I share almost every video you make and you keep popping up on blogs that I follow too! So good on ya! Keep thinking and writing and creating and I'll always be here watching. Cheers. Aaron
I like to think how much I would’ve enjoyed living in the ages where some of my favorite music was made, but I definitely feel privileged of living in this crazy day and age.
It would be amazing if you could add the music you used as background to the description box =/ a great amount of joy your channel gives me is due to the music you use and it is very pleasant to listen to while studying, but i wasn't able to get the title - neither from comments nor from shazam or something... anyway, great channel tho :)
So interesting. I think it's our increased awareness of our own time period itself that makes it impossible for a new period to arise. We're constantly watching for it, or if not, saying "fuck it I'm just gonna make my own thing regardless of context," which disperses any possible universal narrative.
I really have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful content you provide. especially the case studies on art. thank you thank you thank you
I think Deleuze & Guattari's conception of the rhizomatic construction of knowledge accurately describes the shift from authoritative to network culture. Trying to discover what post-postmodernist paradigm is the most persuasive account of that shift, I think, should begin with their works.
Very interesting. I agree with most of what you say, but I'm less optimistic than you (maybe because I'm a lot older). I think we all suffer from the frantic speed of change and information overload, both things that are driven essentially by economic forces, i.e. greed. If you've read Toynbee, you know his idea that the end time of a civilization--in this case the still dominant European Civilization (he called it Western Christian)--is marked by retreats into the fantasies of archaism (nostalgia for an imagined better past) and futurism. I believe this duality accurately labels much of what you describe.
We're not in a blank spot in history, there's just not yet a dominant philosophy to describe the new millennium. For all we know, the meta narrative that will one day be used to describe the first half of the 21st century has already been developed and written about, just not popularized. After all, the culture of modernity had been going on for centuries in some capacity before the public started talking actually talking about modernism.
well, since the internet makes it AT LEAST seem like we can now all openly talk about our individual philosophies, and since critical thinking is at least in western culture seen as something good, "the one dominant philosophy" would be more or less a miracle if it existed. now that the most prominent philosophy would have to be the one we can see on the internet, this dominant philosophy would have to REALLY be the philosophy of most of ALL people, not just of the ones who participate in academic science/philosophy.
so the really difference is the difference between the academic view on the world and the view of the people.
I think it's just that, since so many more people now have a voice, we hear many more narratives; there's so much competition that one never wins. Because master narratives come from those who leave records of their time, what they thought was important. In reality, there was probably as much disagreement as there is now.
I was just thinking that, it's easy to define an era after it has happened, not during. Most people don't even realize they're in a movement until it is brought to the wide public's attention, because to us, this is just reality and normal to us
A coherent sentence spoken in a soothing voice does not an expert make. I appreciate most of your videos, being well-researched, thought-provoking, and articulate, and indeed the story you weave here in this video is compelling and seductive, but the sort of unthinking gushing that I see in the comments, a natural response to the self-assured position you take in this video, compels me to respond all the more vigorously against the holes, false conjectures, and unsound leaps of thought that you make.
First, there is no consensus that postmodernism is dead. Much of this video is based on the thinking of Alan Kirby and "The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond", but there are scores of academicians who disagree with his thinking. In fact, is it even possible for postmodernism to die? Postmodernism is so hard to pin down, and if you can't even define what postmodernism is, how can you say that it's dead? I understand the urge to think that postmodernism is dead, because at a gut level we seem to have moved on past the alienation, irony, and distaste for authority that so signified the West from the 1950's to the 1980's.
Or have we? It's not obvious that contemporary Western society has moved past the criticisms of authority that postmodernism champions - if anything, this idea against authority, both intellectual and political, has been accepted as part of the mainstream. The culture that created Julian Assange, the tea party movement, Donald Trump, and Twitter are firmly within the philosophical stew that is postmodernism. And finally, the death of print journalism is perhaps the strongest indication of our society's rejection of narrative as dictated by an "establishment".
As for the new technology that you pin your arguments on - the "hypertext" that links related ideas together in an ever-expanding web of references - this is not new. If anything, it was born of and within the postmodern tradition. The post-structuralism of Derrida and Barthes as well as the works of Borges, Vonnegut, Pynchon, and more recently David Foster Wallace are all manifestations of this "new" form of information that is not book-based. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this is nothing new. Again, postmodernism wanted to break down traditional ideas of narrative structures in a grander project of breaking down authority as a whole, and the non-hierarchical way to consume information that hypertext offers is a manifestation of, and product of, postmodernist thought.
Finally, the prevailing pessimism about the course of history, where you cite the failures in democracy and the chaos in markets and the EU, are also not as new as you make it seem. This pessimism first started with the failures in Vietnam, the first time in which the US was unable to bring stability to a region with democracy. At that time, with the belief that democracy the ideal political structure as proven by World War II, the failure of Vietnam was a serious blow to the liberal intellectual establishment in their projects towards creating an intellectual framework for reading history. Combine that with the recessions of the late 1960's through the 1980's and the chaos in post-colonial Africa, and you get the pervasive pessimism about the future of history. This pessimism continues to this day, and postmodernism formed in response to and tries to address these problems.
The theories that postmodernism espoused during the Vietnam era that felt so radical at the time has, by now, settled into the accepted cultural milieu of contemporary society. Irony has become the norm, and self- and inter-reference has become a vehicle of media. The endless remakes and parodies that we see in contemporary media is a sign that our culture has embraced and accepted postmodernism, not moved past it. Postmodernism may have lost its edginess, but that only means that we have firmly moved into it, not past it.
+dandy-lions "Postmodernism may have lost its edginess, but that only means that we have firmly moved into it, not past it." - Interesting idea. Almost contradicts a more commercialist notion that the things that are exciting and fashionable are the things that are relevant; but rather than what is intrinsic and mundane is truly "current".
+dandy-lions nebulous and hard to pin down. I agree with that. We're binding ourselves to the narrative now by no longer wanting to be bound to a narrative so much. The whole thing is sort of silly.
+noddwyd So you agree with the idea that rather than being a post-postmodern society we simply embraced postmodernism as a norm and therefore are reeling in a cycle of self and inter-reference?
Definitely. But I don't truly feel the titles like "postmodernism" "postpostmodernism" and "atemporalism" matter all that much until long, long after the fact. Which I though might have been the true point of the video, but it got lost in the terms somewhere. Personally I think of it as the "short attention span" era.
+dandy-lions I also found this video less convincing than others on this channel and was glad to see some insightful criticisms. The self-assured sentence at the end about finally being "able to see with clear eyes" made me think twice. Surely it was only ever the best historians who were actually concerned about their own values clouding their judgement and the poor ones who imagined they could see the past clearly.
I don't know... atemporality sounds more like hypermodernism to me. Not so much something new as it is the old, only electrified. Überindividualism with ADHD. Each of us is constantly devising our own personal metanarratives, publishing our own personal commentaries on world history in every tweet. Each one of our narratives meets its demise almost instantly upon being posted, of course. If we are lucky, our text is made hyper. It gets linked to bits and is soon unrecognizable. If modernism was about making the machine, and postmodernism was about fighting it, then atemporalism is about coming to terms with the fact that we have now become the machine. We are *in* it, of it, surrounded and engulfed. It is just a remix of the same old "end of history" song.
Hmmm...
I'm struggling with the constant use of the terms "we", "us", "our", etc. As if humans only exist as a group. Just using such terms and seeking meaning for their object enacts the metanarrative impulse, making any claims to have outgrown metanarratives naïve and any enactment of them regressive.
What is the forward motion here? If we don't go back to making grand statements from implicit and unconscious values and we don't abstain from making grand statements, then what _do_ we do? Why must our values be unknown? Acting them out without stating them has not been very useful for conflict resolution purposes at any scale and we've already been there and done that to death? Why can't we move out of that position?
This "atemporality" seems to be more of a recipe for disaster...
Extremely insightful and perceptive of you to gather and present this info. Thanks again for the content.
***** My pleasure!
Nerdwriter1 Have you seen Grave of the fireflies ?
+Nerdwriter1 Our pleasure. i mean your work is amazing and is a pleasure to view.
Link to this piece of graphic on your screen, please?
:)
fui nos comentários pra ver se alguém tinha notado as imagens de são paulo, e encontro um paulista foda nos comentários .... q surpresa agradável
the last two or three sentences are bullshit: not knwoing your own values doesn´t make you more objective. the opposite is the case: you still have values, but since you don´t know them, it´s even harder to TRY to overcome their subjective nature.
I agree. Not only that, but he argues about fading confidence in the nation-state, insecurity about the future, lack of confidence in the markets, all such things. Those are not neccesarily 'atemporal'. On the contrary, it's very symptomatic of our current day and age so in fact, very temporal in a way. He would be right about us, as a society not being sure what our values are. But it is therefore all the more neccesary to look to the past, understand how the enlightenment and what pre-enlightenment thought looked like, and then follow the progression of (Western) civilization's values and ideals to understand where we stand now. And that requires you to take a long hard look at your ideas and figure out how the 17th century man saw his place in the universe, and how that was to change in the next 400 years.
yep. it creates a nice snappy ending, but
a) i disagree that our societies do not have clear values. many people might disagree on what they are, but it does not follow that individuals will not know them
b) even if the above was possible, not knowing one's values does not remove one's bias. it makes it harder to see one's bias.
had me until those nonsense claims, nerdwriter.
nicer, yes. more constructive? should i give him my own alternative opinion? he is, according to my view and arguments, wrong about the point i wrote about. i simply wrote that. yes, the word "bullshit" is terribly harsh and i was cruel for even thinking that his opinion was bullshit instead of "just wrong", but i guess you can already smell the sarcasm through the screen so i´ll end this sentence now.
I think it also shows a kind of 'rose-tinted glasses' view of past societies. I always believed that the clear value systems we attribute to past societies were perhaps not quite so clear to each individual actually living within them. Overarching value systems, I think, are one of the many things that are easier to see from the outside looking in or in retrospect.
He's arguing that a constantly changing and updating of your moral values. Not just having no clue about your values I think is your misunderstanding.
I remember stumbling across your videos way back in 2012 and have been following your channel ever since. You are definitely one of my favourite channels of all time, and when you stopped making videos for a while I really felt like TH-cam lost something special, so knowing you're making these full time makes me so happy. I recommend you to everyone I know because I truly think you deserve success because your content is of the highest quality (though selfishly I do love you being smaller so you can really answer questions in the comments). I guess there's no real point to this other than to tell you that I love all the enlightening stuff you do and that I'll try and give as much money as I can. Thanks again.
Matt
Matthew Gray Thanks Matt. Patreon keeps The Nerdwriter alive, but comments like this are what really keep me going.
+Matthew Gray I like your profile pic
awww : ) That's the cutest thing I've seen today,
and I have seen a dog trying to cuddle a baby sloth
I definitely think there's something to this. The way we understand history has completely changed; we used to frame history as being propelled forward by specific people and specific events, all viewed in isolation from one another so that each historical moment is unique and stands alone. But the trends-and-forces model is on the rise; we're coming to understand that all historical moments come together to form patterns, and that people and events only shape history as much as history shapes them. We're looking at our past in a significantly more comprehensive way now, bringing in all our increasing knowledge of psychology, sociology, economics, and other fields of study as being more relevant than any one important person. In other words, it's not just about Caesar anymore; it's about every detail of the world that Caesar was born into, and where he fits into its natural trajectory.
***** I think you made some great points and I really, really don't want to pick a fight with you here, but I'd feel remiss not to point out that religious inclination has been on a pretty steady decline for a good while now... I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, and I'm not saying that any one historical trend can be attributed to it, and I'm not saying that it portends any state of religiosity in the future. I'm just stating it as a fact that societies overall have been departing more and more from religion as a cornerstone of social functionality (compare today's religion-based social norms to those of three hundred years ago, and compare three hundred years ago to six hundred years ago... the differences are rather striking). Interpret that however you like.
+Chilling Goat 'The only religion that seems to cause way too much harm is Islam' - felt I needed to point out that this is almost definitely incorrect.
+Elizabeth Wear The internet has broke from conventional methods of writing history. Suddenly every single person can hypothetically chip in, erasing an overarching conception of how things were. A lot of mainstream media has now become illusory built on fragmented viewpoints and not eye witness testimony. The reporter of yesterday that went out to find the news is now playing telephone/instant message with somebody who saw it first. Remember that age old game of telephone when we were kids, when it gets to the last person it's an abstraction of what was really said.
soccered888 Writing history has always been based on fragmentary evidence and doesn't always use eye witness testimony. Besides eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable, subjective and rubbish at seeing the big picture. There rarely is, or ever has been, an overarching conception of history, let alone one that actually stands up to sustained criticism. The 'Chinese whispers' effect you describe can be seen at any period of history writing, it's not a uniquely modern phenomenon.
soccered888 NowhereMan2710 I'm inclined to agree with nowhereman. The further back you go in history the more inaccuracies you can expect to find because of peoples' reliance on word of mouth as opposed to documentation. The line between fact and fiction was not as clearly defined in the ancient world, and historians (who in some times and places were singers/orators rather than writers) were fully expected to take liberties in order to tell a more interesting story; it was par for the course to exaggerate numbers and to treat legend as fact. The telephone effect of which you speak holds much greater sway in a world without camera phones, and still more in a world with limited literacy. Nowadays so much that goes on has visual and/or audio recording, which is as significant of a leap in historical documentation as the transition from spoken word to written word was. The advent of photos, videos, and audio recordings was as big of a deal to our understanding of history as the advent of widespread written language was a few thousand years prior, and the use of the internet to share these things is similarly comparable to the introduction of the printing press. These innovations are a very, very big deal for our understanding of modern events. That's not to say that our development of modern history is factually flawless, but it certainly makes it a more sophisticated task to corrupt. On the whole I think our trajectory is moving closer to accuracy, rather than further from it. I can watch a video of JFK's assassination if I want to, in order to suss out as many of the finer details as I can; I cannot say the same of Julius Caesar's assassination. God what I wouldn't give for video recordings of Caesar's time.
This is hands down the best channel I've subscribed to so far.
+Kara Lu Same for me :)
+Kara Lu i could not agree more.
Very low standard then
@@victortisme care to share similar contents, please?
Only now have I discovered the treasure trove that is your channel. This video summarised and pinpointed a feeling that has been swimming inside me for a long time. I love your clarity. Please continue your work. I have offered my support to you on Patreon.
The 'network' seems like a maelstrom of fear right now. The only strong narrative is fear and fear doesn't need an ending. It can go on and on. Voices like yours are needed my friend. Thank you for sharing.
As far as universal trends go, I think 'atemporality' is the best worldview to go with. The less society believes that any given history is a continuous, linear narrative heading towards some social/psychological climax (cough, cough, The Singularity, cough, cough), the better. It's important to realize that, often times in history, people take one step forward in the direction of one particular school of thought, and two steps back. I think this is part of the reason why we agree there's some intrinsic value in learning history, because it helps us in a search for a golden philosophy that's been forgotten.
A couple of questions:
1) Do you think Wikipedia (or sites with similar conceits) has a mission to bridge the gap between The Network and The Canon? On one hand, Wikis have the potential to have every datum of knowledge documented, sorted, and indexed. On the other hand, there will never be a 'Chapter One' of the Internet.
2) Have you read Film Critic Hulk's essay 'Post-Modernism...Not a Thing'. I'll link it if you haven't. As a person who regularly uses "post-modern" to describe my favorite art films and literary movements of the late 20th century, I think the essay is a great read, and hilarious, even in the very few paragraphs where Hulk gets a tad bit simplistic.
filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/post-modernism-not-a-thing/
I understand that the world has become more complicated, connected and diverse and therefore a little bit more difficult to label. But doesn't the difficulty mostly arise the fact that it's extremely hard to label the time you yourself live in and that the transactions are fluid but most of all that the people and the culture are simplified in hindsight, and set with arbitrary dates which doesn't really match reality and would feel foreign for a citizen of that time?
this is where I thought the video was going to be about honestly. I doubt the modernist and postmodernist called themselves so. To think the past was any less complex than the present is kind of arrogant. We have the advantage of hindsight, knowing what happened and why. Just as we don't know the future, people of the past didn't either. There are many moments in history of collective uncertainty and unease. Now is no different.
Why we label things around us? I kinda irritated by the idea humans tends to labelize stuff to simplify things,it's just not working anymore.
I didn't feel convinced by the conclusion of this video. On a wider level you have a point, but on a personal level this is tragic. My best friend died recently and it's making me think deeply about my own attitude to life. My friend held strong convictions. He looked up to 20th century liberal thinkers and his convictions drove him in life, gave his life purpose. Few months before he passed we had an argument about ideology. I said ideology is a straight jacket. Everyone should make decisions based on a case by case basis, because life is too complex and multi-faceted. If you label yourself with an ideology, you're tempted to bend your decisions in accordance with it and inevitably sometimes this will cause you to make the wrong decisions, because no ideology is a silver bullet. My friend counter-argued that ideology is the only way to bring about change in the world. Unless a lot of people rally around a single idea, no progress or change can ever be accomplished. Well, he's gone and my uncertainty about my own values is working against me now. I don't know why I'm alive. I want my life to be meaningful and I want to have a positive impact on the world, but I don't know how that might look like. I do feel like we're disconnected from history, but that just means we have no way of defining our own impact of the future. Isn't that a problem?
I find the contemporary push to discount and sweep aside ideologies as decrepit, restrictive or simply of no use (my words, not yours) is in itself an ideology of resistance and challenge that has saturated the minds of people at all levels of 'Western society' (the rise of which has its roots in European enlightenment thought) but I don't yet see how this new hyper-individualistic and supposedly liberating idea provides any better outcomes for the well-being of humanity than long held belief systems. Rather, it seems to leave people more (privately) confused and less willing to work together than when they were bound together and stratified by their specific ideology (the opposition to ideology itself being the catalyst of disagreement and dispute as much as the content of the ideology under dispute). Of course, I have a mental tapestry of grounded reasons as to why I hold this opinion which I couldn't properly articulate in this small space, but still, I just felt a need to comment. I think ideology is fine and useful provided it doesn't incite bigotry and hatred, which, sadly, is often what doctrine births, but it isn't ideology that's the problem in this regard. It's ignorance, vanity, chauvinism, and 'othering'; qualities usually cultivated and socialized early on, then self-reinforced later, which don't have to be directly tied to an ideology.
Also, it's technically impossible to be disconnected from history. History, meaning 'what people did in the past' is responsible for our physical and intellectual environment, excluding almost nothing. If you mean personally, consciously disconnected, then yeah, that's probably the case for many people. Most likely because they don't know much about it and aren't aware of the pervasiveness of it in the 'everday'.
I feel for you Themarquess. We're all searching for meaning and purpose in our lives (or at least we should be). Sorry about your friend.
Existentialism > Post-Modernism. As UT-Austin philosophy professor Robert Solomon aptly put it, "I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses."
Muamurko that’s in waking life! I love that film
Better ignore reality then, if you feel like thinking = looking for excuses.
Excuses? Excusing from what? Just curious.
@@b.martinyu-artist2138 i believe it means that if you believe you are wholly the byproduct of society or that your actions, beliefs, feelings, and thoughts are simply because of things out of your control, you give up the idea that you can do anything of your own free will or have any semblance of independence. Nothing you do is initiated by you or, if it is, your response is what has been culturally ingrained in you. You're a good person? You can thank your culture for instilling those good beliefs in you. You're a bad person? You can thank society for molding you in such a way that facilitates bad behavior. Society can be your excuse for any and all behavior if you believe you are simply a construct of society, and with that, you give up a sense of personal responsibility for your actions.
I needed seeing something like this today, I have been in a serious serious state of depression for over two years, and I am hoping that SOMETHING SOMEDAY does change that reality. Or, barring that something finally clicks and I find myself in a place where I can find some happiness in my life. You are doing amazing work, and looking forward to digging through some more of your catalog.
This is absolutely terrific!!!
+Filmmaker IQ also borderline terrifying
Nerdwriter, your own video on "Child of men" movie shows how we are not free of opinions. Not knowing one's values leads either to consumerism or to depression, and both are easily manipulated by politics the like of Trump.
The only way I can understand you is that you see "no values" as some kind of Socratian constant quest for Truth. Still, that is a value. He had to have a value to believe in strongly to die for it.
I do really think we cannot hold such high values as searching Truth without tradition, without education and classical arts. There are simply too many sharks out there in the world of politics, ideology and consumerism.
Thank you much for your videos.
Cheers from Russia :)
My Russian friend,
We cannot cling to our rendition of history or tradition without fully examining what those traditional values spring from and what their continued espousal will lead to.
A small town has a traditional festival where the poorest member of the town is mocked and violently beaten. This then forces all the town's members initially to work as hard as possible to not be the poorest, bringing at first growth and productivity, but over time dishonesty, theft, and corruption.
Believing for example that a strong leader who forces his populace to maintain traditional social norms, and is the one who most effectively uses force and terror to maintain control, is one of those traditions that is sadly common in both hemispheres.
-A friend from the US
Why do you think that the internet's job is to provide a coherent narrative? I've always thought of the internet's job as increasing connectivity. It's about ease of access to information and the contrasts that creates, not about creating anything coherent. You're statement "the internet is not doing it's job" makes the inherent claim that somewhere, someone has decreed what it's intent is. The internet has no intent. It has uses, and quite a lot of them, and the people who use it have intent. The intent of those individuals never crosses over into creating a single system with a unified goal, nor should it.
+sean rodgers Talking about emergent phenomena in terms of behaviour makes it easier to talk about. It's not inferring intent; It's a literary device.
+sean rodgers The internet and the people using it will accumulate accepted "truths" about a subject, feed it's users that info, and only propel that "truth" further, like a snowball effect, until one day, once the reliance on the internet is SO massive, that the only thing feeding the internet knowledge are subjects of the internet its self.
+sean rodgers I think what he meant was that the growth of internet connectivity and information access was expected to produce greater, end-all explanations and understanding by the generations who experienced life without it. Instead, like you said, it became a hallmark for epistemological diversity and access. More current generations are in a better position to see it not as an overarching network that can explain everything but as an infrastructure that connects different people and information, respecting it for the connections rather than the conglomerate
I feel like this comment thread is an interesting example of what he's talking about.
Man, hats off truly. Every painting, film, philosophical nugget, whatever it is you decide to examine you do it incredibly well my friend. Well done!!
Some great comments and discussion here. If all this video achieved was the sharing of insightful ideas in a non-inflammatory manner, then it was worth posting.
I love your video editing style. The combination of music, video, lighting, vocabulary, makes your videos not only give a unique perspective but very enticing to listen to.
Yours is definitely one of the most inspiring, and one of the most intriguing, channels I have subscribed to.
Thank you for this video. It's so amazing to see where you got from the early videos of your channel. The quality was astonishing back then, too, but now it's just this symbiosis of content and form you create... by watching I enter this state of flow, which makes everything you present so clear and understandable. Maybe this is what 21st century philosophy should look like. Focused, nice to look at and inspirational.
Norman Marquardt What a nice thing to say. I have the best fans on TH-cam, without question. For god's sake, just take a look at this comment section.
Nerdwriter1 Yeah. Gives even more chills when you think about the different nationalities your fanbase consists of... Across all ages and social classes. That's the true magic of the Internet (and danger) . You introduced me, as a relatively young viewer and someone who would otherwise probably never have had the support to overcome the initial hurdles, to the realm of philosophy, by that I mean the necessary mindset. I discovered the School of Life, started to read my fellow Germans Nietzsche and Adorno and now I actually study it in university. So thank you again and don't you dare to ever stop making them videos! (cause I always look smart when I mention your ideas in my conversations)
I've seen your videos for a few months now, and every video is very interesting. I have never seen such clearness and objectivity about these subjects, it's really amazing! Good luck with your new videos and I am happy to give my pledge
I really appreciate your channel. Having a boring, inconsequential job which demands all of my time during the day and the weekend, really does not leave me any time to read and cultivate myself. Through your channel I have at least something to think about when serving customers at the counter.
Your videos are fucking great man. Thanks for making them.
jwrightsedam Thanks for watching them.
I wonder if it's a detachment from history, or a wider understanding of subjective histories? With modernism and postmodernism, you had a small group of a very privileged kind making large statements, but out contemporary age has a larger outpouring of voices-the internet has lead to that, to a democratization of voices so that previously underprivileged viewpoints can carve out an audience where before they couldn't. As evidenced by people like Junot Díaz with "Oscar Wao," we might be more attached to history than ever-just not the Western canon of it. I might wager that these giant movements like modernism and postmodernism may not happen again because people from vastly different backgrounds and cultures have voice, with all their different cultural histories involved. (Interestingly, in previous literary movements that happened at the same time as bigger ones, we don't group them because of the differing viewpoints-modernism and the harlem renaissance are not connected in history despite happening at the same time, and there being a fair amount of cross-pollination between them. These underprivileged viewpoints cannot be so easily disconnected now.)
Nerdwriter is a god tier channel.
+Eric Needs definitely check out the original Vsauce channel, nerdwriter takes a lot of his style from that channel.
If you want film, try Channel Criswell, Every Frame a Painting, and see who they follow also. For regular type philosphy or art conversations, check *****
***** i'm not really sure what you're referring to but I'm referring to the original Vsauce with Michael, not the other channels. That channel has arguably more substantial videos than nerdwriter.
***** they are like 3 other channels with other personalities and I don't care for them that much, that's probably what you saw. Some of his videos are comical but they are incredibly informative and entertaining.
Man, I'm really a HUGE fan of your channel. One of the better ones on youtube. Thanks for that.
What are you saying? Postmodernism isn't finished, we're right in the heart of it. This video, particularly the conclusion, is echoing the postmodern narrative (or lack of narrative indeed).
They didn't say it ended, just that people kind of pay a lot less attention to the word "postmodernism" because it has become the default position.
Your style of speaking is so good! Like enthusiastic, open and questioning. Not arrogant, righteous, dry or pessimistic. And really interesting :)
Dude, your chanel is one of the best of it's kind! I'm a musician, work on scoring visual media and your content gives me the tools to analyze film and narrative in a much deeper way, also this kind of more general sociocultural videos help me to open my mind and understand culture and ultimately art itself, thanks for the great content :)
So, the following comment is more a comment about your channel and not really specific to that video. but i guess as much time as i spend on that channel, i feel like i have to write sth. i just love the kind of videos you are making specially when it comes to philosophy, some films i watched and politics. Your perspective is always great, reflected but still - you have a grounded opinion without getting lost in intellectual pathways of the mind.
but what i like the most is that you see your videos as a kind of art. not only to blog or to inform people but the way you create them is somehow different. more creative. or no, other videos are also full of creativity but let's say you make videos out of the box.
well, as you might see, i am not a native speaker and somehow i do regret that when i watch your videos. i recognize that you use a great way to express yourself, but sometimes i fail to grab the deeper meaning of the language. it's a pity, because i love language, well, good language. also a point i love, cause not many people try to express themselves beautifully. yes, well anyway, cheers from Germany!
Great presentation! I found you by accident which is how I discovered all my favorite people on TH-cam. You've gained a new fan.
This is by far the best Channel on TH-cam! Excellent video!
I found this channel about a month ago, and honestly, it's amazing! I am thoroughly enjoying your content and I'm learning so much too. Thanks again for such thoughtful, entertaining and informative videos!
Your intellect is incredibly attractive! Not only am I thoroughly enjoying the message and learning but also swooning a little.
Nice to see images from the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil from 4'54 to 5'01.
why not do a cowboy bebop analysis. please
+Derek Omar yes, please.
+Derek Omar If you want a little something to watch on the subject, here's a decent video I found.
where...
+Derek Omar because anime is trash
Eric Miesbauer R.I.P slayeeedddd
The characteristics you ascribe to atemporality are inherent to postmodernism. Or at least the deconstructing of historical and cultural discourses, most notably historical ones. Similarly, the changes attributed to this current technological network were predicted by theorists speculating about a media we have continued to embrace. Flusser, Baudrillard, McLuhan, for example. These are all essentially postmodern in their outlook. Its certainly true that postmodernism evades definition, but I would argue this is because it is not a critique of modernism per se, but the narratives that embody power structures like modernism, in particular temporality. This is yet another good synopsis of the questions of our time, but I think it represents rather than refutes postmodernism.
I love how your videos never feel like lessons. Obviously they're incredibly informative, but just like the Network itself, it feels like a conversation more than a passive dump of knowledge. One of my old professors spoke about how the power relationships in art have also shifted now, before we had icons and masters, but now art is built upon not just the artefact itself, but how the public responds to it and how they interpret or reinterpret it. Fanart/Fanfiction is possibly the clearest example of this. Anyways, loved this, as always.
zzrdz32 This makes me so happy! I hate smugly didactic content. I hope Nerdwriter videos feel like stories.
I am loving all of these videos!
This video has inspired me so much. Thank you Nerdwriter! I sincerely appreciate you and all of your content!
Amazing video, thanks Evan. I have a similar thought that as an artist I have to CHOOSE my values and aesthetics, that for the first time ever in human history we have the power to transcend those defining thoughts and ideas. You could apply this to any human endevour, I'm using it as a metaphor.
The caveat is that we need to be responsible of our choice.
Thanks again
i am so glad you are doing this full time now. which is also an interesting reflection about feeling lost after post modernism. 20 years ago one guy could not talk to 1,254,018 people about his personal take on things without producers, editors, and advertisers etc. controlling his every move. the lesson of out time will take apart the hierarchies of the past, well i guess thats what post modernism was supposed to do but now we have to live with it, we have to allow many perspectives
Thank you so much for your work, it's honestly so thought provoking and inspiring. It's like you planted an idea in my head and now i'm trying to nurture it and make it grow. you're one of the few people who make TH-cam a creative space worth investing time in. Cheers from Singapore!
Dude. I'm so glad I found your channel. I was kinda worried you'd be a whiny academe dudebro, but your video essays are well-researched and nuanced, while bring provocative without being controversial. After two videos, I happily subscribed.
Wela'lioq
I think that the lack of a cohesive ideology of an age is a thing of the past. However that doesn't mean that people are no less drawn to big movements. The diversity of the network will simply give way to many big movements all moving on their separate paths simultaneously. I, personally would love an age of atemporality to continue on. Great video by the way, keep it up!
John Smith I believe it will continue on. It surprises me that Sterling is so convinced it will pass on to something new, but then he's way smarter than me.
As an aspiriational philosopher, struggling to find a place in contemporary society this was a very relatable, insight! well done for conveying this accurate perception with brilliance! p.s I have binge watched all your videos, the deepness of this channels content just draws me in one philosophical video at a time
There was a conversation about history in William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition" that really struck me as so outside of any perspective I'd heard before on the subject, and it's fascinating to see the philosophy behind that conversation elaborated upon in this video.
I find your content extremely insightful and more useful than any other educational material I had studied in school or in the internet -I think that´s due to your huge passion and love towards the topics you choose. As the great Charles Chaplin once said, ´´we think too much and feel too little´´, I feel that your true love for a multi-faceted or multi perspective philosophy is the is the very reason why your videos, as short and straightforward as they are, are so impactful, because at the end knowledge is nothing without any source of real passion and love that can instill such ideas to others. Keep up the great work my friend.
I became a Patron because of your film analysis videos. This single video is making me feel the need to double it. Thank you.
You articulated and brought concrete form to all my shapeless thoughts about today's world, this video was exciting and brilliant. You're very talented my friend, and I aspire to write and formulate ideas like you! Cheers.
Determining the truth value of information in a network or in a library is both difficult. You may think it is easier in one system or the other, but eventually you will come down to the fact that, perspective is in everything, that things are only superficially either black or white, that beyond the scope of what you dare look at there's always more and that the whole bloody thing is an ever moving target anyway, no matter how much you "preserve" that in books or otherwise.
These concepts are universal and will make you suffer for knowing they're true:
* change (and that things flow at any given moment, no matter how much you are looking for anchors and foundations)
* infinity (and that your physical or mental walls are but your own boundaries)
* duality (and that's it's still not just black and white=
* relativity (no, not that Einstein crap, just basic "I view things that way")
I just found your channel and I've been binge watching your videos for hours, your videos are really insightful and interesting. Keep up the good work
this is one of your most insightful analysts! absolutely brilliant!!
I want to thank the creator and anyone who patreon this channel while I can't, I love it, and you make it possible. Thank you all, again
The most accurate reflections that I've heard. Good to see excellent content and depth, thanks for the video man.
I return to this video often and always end up with new essays I want to write. I don't think I can give any higher praise than that
This guy is the best intellectual person on the whole of TH-cam, one of the best thinkers
Always thought of this !brilliant video and thanks for giving a name that is "atemporal" to my thoughts which kinda haunted me .wonder what the future will be like i.e to say no one will ever care about history anymore and there''ll be a 'digital door ' or something similar to it ..through which the future generation will traverse and have a glimpse of their past.
you rock dude. keep going as long as you can put out interesting stuff like this.
This is so interesting. But I've always wondered: what if people living in the past didn't "know what [their] values [were]" either? What if, say, during the Romanticism period, people didn't really know that the trend was Romanticism, or they didn't have one idea that they all found popular, but instead had many different ideas? What if historians saw it as a clear set of values, but at the time it wasn't? What if in the future, historians will look at our time period and label it without seeing it much more diverse than the modernism period?
Really awesome video man, keep up the great work. Beautiful, thought provoking, and positive insights!
Fascinating and educative as always
This is my favourite video of yours. Introducing a new theory to me and talking about philosophy instead of movies
This video resonates a lot with Adam Curtis' documentaries primarily "Hypernormalisation"
Jean Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation', 'The Ecstasy of Communication' and other texts in his discourse provide for a comprehensive articulation of the themes in this video. I'd check them out.
Really surprised they weren't used for reference! Great vid. Subbed.
This channel is a diamond in the rough! You deserve more viewers!
SaifX5896 Go get me some.
This gave great context to my own thought processes and personality. Our values are shaped by the social engineering of the day, and all the values we create can be reduced to two main viewpoints of humanity--the love, or the hate of it.
A stunning exposé . Too often people see the post-post-modern era we live in as an end of times. It is refreshing hear you end on an optimistic conclusion.
This was a great great video.All the more fun to watch since I'm a history student! Very insightful and perceptive!
My God.. there is independently produced intelligent content out there! Thank you Nerdwriter1 for making the world a better place!
You inspire me to create videos like these to hopefully inspire people in my country, and maybe to bend and widen perspectives as well. Keep it up man. Awesome. :)
Jules Katanyag I will. What country are you talking about?
great stuff, even better delivery, props man!
much love for this channel, keep up the great work. based on my reading of DeLillo and company, I would say that atemporality was one the more prominent themes and narrative techniques of postmodernism. I would add to your definition of the movement: it was reaction to the failures of modernism to reflect or encapsulate a reality that those writers could recognize around them . I paraphrase DeLillo, "too much has been disfigured in the name of symmetry." We live an increasingly asymmetric world, and so what ever you want to call it, I think the idea of postmodernism lives on in art that resists the reshaping of truth to fit old narrative forms.
Jesus Christ.... I wanted to procrastinate from English homework... I did not expect to be mind blown. Interesting video and really well edited and put together.
I'm merely an historian, not an actual science fiction author like Bruce Sterling. So forgive me if I'm intruding. But for what it's worth, I can tell you that history most certainly *is* a science. The process of creating and debating a theory about who King Arthur might have been is indistinguishable (except in particulars) from the process of creating and debating where, how and when early hominid species proliferated. Creating a narrative about what happened in your kitchen yesterday (assuming you want to do so in a rigorous way) involves the same tools and methods -- and involves handling data and evidence in exactly the same way -- as does creating a theory about the evolution of the solar system. *Doing* history is a creative process, sure, but so is *doing* physics and biology. And all of these processes are narrative centred: theories are merely explanations, and all explanations must take the form of narrative. But all of these processes are also scientific processes, and what makes them scientific processes is the fact that they are *highly* constrained (art and literature are, by contrast, loosely constrained processes). All scientific processes -- history included -- are constrained in the same ways. A successful scientific theory -- whether it pertains to an historical or psychological or biological domain -- will be constrained chiefly by the knowledge surrounding it (i.e. the other successful theories on which it builds). It will also be constrained by its particular scope (i.e the data it selects to explain), and by needing to be coherent, specific (claiming no more than is necessary to explain the selected data) and difficult to vary (one should not be able arbitrarily to change components of the explanation to arrive at the same conclusion: this is why horoscopes are not good theories). A theory will be judged successful or not based on its explanatory power (i.e how much, of all the available data, the theory *can* explain), and by its parsimony (how little speculation the theory requires in order to account for outlying or *difficult* data). And of course the judging is done by a community of jealous specialists, each of whom is attempting to gain notoriety for themself by discrediting the theories of others, especially their predecessors. You may not feel, when you are *consuming* history -- by which I mean listening to and enjoying the theories proposed by professional historians -- that you are encountering scientific theories, theories that were produced under the constraints listed above. But you are. You may feel, as you pop casually into Wikipedia articles about the War of the Roses, that the epistemological status of an historical claim is in some intrinsic sense more humble than that of claims emanating from the physical or chemical sciences. But it is not. There is no difference whatsoever in how physical and historical theories are built and tested. It can be uncomfortable to confront this: not (I think) because we are being asked to elevate our esteem of the discipline of history to the levels usually accorded to the physical sciences; but rather because we are actually being asked to reduce the ridiculous levels of respect Western civilization typically pays to the physical sciences. A good physical explanation, like a good historical explanation, can be incredibly powerful. It can also be enjoyable, even beautiful (evolution by natural selection has to be the front-runner here). But each is incomplete, and waiting to be ousted by an improved theory that *will* one day come. No theory, therefore -- whether physical or historical -- should ever command your loyalty. Admiration is enough.
@Dan Helman Thank you for the clarification. I liked particularly the "community of jealous specialists"-trying-to-disprove-a-theory part. When I was taking my bachelor in Biology I was very disappointed and disillusioned when I realized that scientists, and therefore the knowledge they create/discover, aren't always objective. It saddens me that we didn't have a History of Science subject in our curriculum that would've enlighten us on how social, economical, political, cultural and religious norms influence scientific research and theory (and we're not even counting the personal part). It's especially important now that people have access to all sorts of information relating health and lifestyle and don't realize that sometimes that information is refuted by other studies. I personally have heard by different people that caffeine is either beneficial or damaging to your brain/body; I suppose it depends on the dose and varies with each person.
I end this with something regarding scientific theory and people's worldviews: Max Planck, considered the father of quantic physics, said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” He said this when the development of quantic physics went against his own philosophical views, which kind of shows that he was aware that part of his revulsion for the theory (as it was then) was not due to it's lack of logic; rather self-aware of him.
@Dan Helman Thank you for the clarification. I liked particularly the "community of jealous specialists"-trying-to-disprove-a-theory part. When I was taking my bachelor in Biology I was very disappointed and disillusioned when I realized that scientists, and therefore the knowledge they create/discover, aren't always objective. It saddens me that we didn't have a History of Science subject in our curriculum that would've enlighten us on how social, economical, political, cultural and religious norms influence scientific research and theory (and we're not even counting the personal part). It's especially important now that people have access to all sorts of information relating health and lifestyle and don't realize that sometimes that information is refuted by other studies. I personally have heard by different people that caffeine is either beneficial or damaging to your brain/body; I suppose it depends on the dose and varies with each person.
I end this with something regarding scientific theory and people's worldviews: Max Planck, considered the father of quantic physics, said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” He said this when the development of quantic physics went against his own philosophical views, which kind of shows that he was aware that part of his revulsion for the theory (as it was then) was not due to it's lack of logic; rather self-aware of him.
History would be so very much more a worthy serving - should it be what it is sold to ... "truth" a representation of the past - rather than the largely "Brotherhood of Main Streat Academics desiring to be Science" and supporting a 19th Century "Theorist", telling the stories that fit the ideas, that the Powerful deem worthy to their Global objectives.
The ignoring of artifacts that are cast aside or escape through museum basements, because they disrupt the agreed upon *versions* that flow through the Cirriculm Textbooks - leads one to the vision of them continuing to try to put Cinderella's shoe on Drucella's foot.
The idea that - any theory repeated long enough becomes fact in ones subconscious - is a sad but true, in the minds of the naive.
Ethics - must surely escape, when the Ego is drawn in with guarantees and Tenure.
With how everybody retractis into their own echo chamber communities, i think you are right that no movement becomes dominant enough for us to see it from our viewpoint. however, there are at least as many, if not more, movements than before, with more people with more access to more ideas. More paralel movements at once, or plurality.
These videos are so fascinating, keep it up!
I dig the video... You threw me off with all those boxes of prints at 2:40 mark, all that ilford paper...😍
Great vid man. I have a request. Please do a video of Sigmund Freud ( if that's how it's spelled) and his impact on the modern world.
TheLuisberg Top Commentor God I would fucking love to do that.
Lol.
Have you read David Foster Wallace's essay on New Sincerity? Can't it be said that your easy acceptance of this apparently inherent atemporality of society is mainly somewhat of an optimistic take on postmodern cynicism? Love this channel, btw~
Some nice analysis and thoughtful ideas from this likeable man.
Thanks for taking the time to craft such reflective content! Your videos introduce me to ideas and new ways of thinking about the world!
Atemporality is a cool idea, but i'm not sure society today can really lay claim to it. The Internet has changed our outlook, yes, but i would call its effect democratization, not atemporality. It's easy to contribute info now, as well as discuss it, so now more people have more access to more content. But it hasn't cured us of any historical biases, it just represents the whole gamut of contributors and allows our biases to coexist and interact. We're not seeing more clearly, we're just networked to listen to more voices. So our worldviews are in a constant state of flux, depending on the last thing we heard online that sounded plausible and which parts of the Internet we frequent.
wow you do not get enough views! Truly wonderful video, man, subscribed!
I love the shout-out to another great channel, The School of Life :')
I really like that you included video from "Mankind: The Story of All of Us"
Great content man, thank you so much for your what you're doing with this channel.
Excellently articulates the strands of ideas I have had but been unable to bring together. I studied History to Master's level, and that absence or instability of meaning and purpose inside the subject is still a confusing thing to understand, and in direct opposition to the way History (with a capital 'h') is perceived by those outside academic - that the study of History is infallible and leads to absolute conclusions.
What I don't have in available funding, I hope I can make up for with written support :) You're doing a kick-ass thing here, man. I really love your videos, and I've been a subber for quite a while. It just keeps getting better. I share almost every video you make and you keep popping up on blogs that I follow too! So good on ya! Keep thinking and writing and creating and I'll always be here watching. Cheers.
Aaron
***** Written support is great. Also, sharing always helps.
I like to think how much I would’ve enjoyed living in the ages where some of my favorite music was made, but I definitely feel privileged of living in this crazy day and age.
It would be amazing if you could add the music you used as background to the description box =/ a great amount of joy your channel gives me is due to the music you use and it is very pleasant to listen to while studying, but i wasn't able to get the title - neither from comments nor from shazam or something... anyway, great channel tho :)
So interesting.
I think it's our increased awareness of our own time period itself that makes it impossible for a new period to arise. We're constantly watching for it, or if not, saying "fuck it I'm just gonna make my own thing regardless of context," which disperses any possible universal narrative.
I really have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful content you provide. especially the case studies on art. thank you thank you thank you
Your editing is fantastic.
Nice that Bruce Sterling has been throw into this. I've always loved his idea on Spimes
I think Deleuze & Guattari's conception of the rhizomatic construction of knowledge accurately describes the shift from authoritative to network culture. Trying to discover what post-postmodernist paradigm is the most persuasive account of that shift, I think, should begin with their works.
Best essay you've done so far.
Very interesting. I agree with most of what you say, but I'm less optimistic than you (maybe because I'm a lot older). I think we all suffer from the frantic speed of change and information overload, both things that are driven essentially by economic forces, i.e. greed. If you've read Toynbee, you know his idea that the end time of a civilization--in this case the still dominant European Civilization (he called it Western Christian)--is marked by retreats into the fantasies of archaism (nostalgia for an imagined better past) and futurism. I believe this duality accurately labels much of what you describe.
you're definitely my favourite.. it's actually painful waiting for your next upload haha..