@@doomkitty8386 I used to think he's at least a "sensible" liberal then I watched his salem witch trials happen because of capitalism and I know he is what my language calls berdasar (based)
Thank you for this essay. I've really struggled to understand why Murray Bookchin and many social anarchists insist on prioritizing local production and giving people direct involvement in as much of their means of life as possible. I think your essay helped me see why this is important.
Babe, wake up. Malcolm dropped another historical video essay! But seriously, you're my favorite youtuber and every time a new video comes out, I learn something and think sbout the world slightly differently.
this philosophy is so, incredibly important if we want to preserve our world. ive come to an almost identical structure on my own from different philisophical roots, as well as the need to spread it memeticly or mythalogicaly. you do the work of all humanity, friend.
I haven't read a lot of theory yet, I've mostly been radicalized via youtube, so I really really appreciated you explaining the part about alienated labor versus unalienated labor. It gave me a big realization that I don't actually dislike doing labor, I just find it extremely hard to be invested in very abstracted labor and I've always gravitated towards tasks and roles that serve a direct benefit for me or the people around me. Alongside that, it hit me like a truck that part of why I love and can get addicted at time to the videogame Valheim (survivalcraft game where you gather resources to make better stuff to explore new areas and fight bosses to become worthy of Valhalla), is because it's a simulation of unalienated labor but also in an environment where I am alone so I have full abilty to direct, build, and provide for myself. So I can do 'labor' I find fun and fulfilling while also not having the same stress as real survival, but enough stress I feel engaged and like I'm 'doing well' and accomplishing things I'm proud of. Really makes me wonder what roles neurodivergence (I'm AuADHD) plays in relation to the sense of satisfaction of labor, like I've never been able to understand people who take up careers because a field makes money rather than them actually being interested in the job. I'd keel over from boredom and lack of fulfillment (not to mention stress!) in trying to say be a doctor or laywer long before I'd ever see the money I might make from those professions.
Atun-Shei is a Union dick rider. He made a video called "Guns that killed racists" which were guns used by the Union, same platoons using the same guns went to kill Native-Americans after the civil war. Just another Dutch Van Der Linde irl who uses brown people as political canon fodder and war fantasy.
I think taking a global view of the extinction of megafauna is probably the most damning evidence that humans were primarily responsible just about everywhere. The time-line matches up too perfectly. It's also important to think about how the first people to step on any continent were in effect an invasive species, meaning only that they were outside of their evolutionary context. It's no coincidence that native megafauna survived best in places where our lineage evolved for the longest. You can even see, on a genus level, that megafauna seemed to hang on longer in areas which had a long term presence of Homo erectus before the arrival of our species. We were a new threat. It seems that the more novel we were, the more easily we caused systemic imbalance.
interesting angle. Although one must take caution when comparing the changing of the mammoth steppe in the northern latitudes after the last ice age to the climate and fauna of the tropics.
This is compelling enough, but as the video points out, we still need to establish a mechanism of causation in order for it to be a compelling argument for any given species in any given place.
I don't quite understand why the topic is racialised as much as it is, especially in North America, which is in terms of its biosphere pretty similar to northern Eurasia still. Mammoths have died out pretty much everywhere. Humans were not the only factor, but a contributing one. I'd assume humans were a bigger factor in the extinction of megafaunal predators. For one, humans hunted the same prey items as they did. Another thing is that humans are special in that they actively hunt predators preemptively. Few other animals do that. Ritualised hunts on lions, bears, tigers and jaguars are found on several continents. Bear hunts are an important ritual practice in northern Eurasia and America. It is logical, out of all the animals that are dangerous to humans, large predators are the biggest danger. Frankly imagine stepping foot on Australia and suddenly having to compete with megalania, giant crocodiles and marsupial lions. In the case of Australia, well there is also ice age desertification, but the arrival of humans happened much earlier than the last ice age. Also in cases of New Zealand and Madagascar the impact of humans on megafauna is pretty obvious. Though none of that should be racialised. The most common thing people bring up is the extinction of horses and less often large camelids on the Americas and the lack of large domesticated animals, saying that like since Native Americans tamed horses so quickly, it was their folly to have hunted them to extinction in the first place, instead of domesticating them.
Excellent essay. The ending reminded me a lot of how Jonas Ceika might end a video. I particularly appreciate your clarity and care, taking your time to fully work through your points. As a social anarchist, your description of the economic and social structure of Haudenosaunee society really goes to show just how much early anarchists and socialists took from their understanding of indigenous Americans and from Haudenosaunee society in particular. The indigenous youtuber Twin Rabbit, who I believe tends to lean toward an anarchistic framework, has a great video on that as well. In any case, in solidarity, from a black anarchist to all those fighting for Land Back and Indigenous Autonomy, I hope you and I get free together. Editing to add that the philosophy of hopeful realism has been an important counterbalance for me on the scale of nihilism. In such a philosophy, we have hope not because we believe the arc of history or the universe to bend toward some eventual "good" or justice, but because we understand that conscious action by everyday people is what creates and changes our reality. Hope then exists anywhere that humans seek to abolish capitalist and colonial hegemony.
Malcolm you have become one of my favorite speakers on native philosophy and history. No one else does such a good job of combining beautiful native beliefs and life lessons with caloric values lol. It creates a truly honest conversation that is our only way forward. Thank you for all you do!
I was reading the first paragraph and thinking "I wonder whose essay Malcolm is sharing as he is clearly educated." I say that in all senses of the word, as your way of presenting information shows formal education, and your videos document you seeking to self-educate yourself as well as non-white traditional education. My father only graduated 8th grade yet was more educated than many who attended University. But he had a way about him typical of those that had already learned how to learn and could educate himself on any subject. My middle brother is basically the same having only graduated grade school and then motorcycle mechanics school
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate the actionable hope that you have and the things that can be done x I hope you know that you are not only planting your own trees, but inspiring others to do so as well. I have only planted one so far, and it's been growing well the past 2 years. I hope to carry on and leave a forest in my wake by the time I'm gone
I know the term "The Blond Beast " has come a far way from Nietzsche and was used with varius meaning so this is not a critique of its use in ths essay but a sidenote. Nietsche originally did definitely not mean "white supremacy". Sadly his reputation is tarnished by the actions of his sister who was married to an antisemitic right wing nut, had a crush on A.H and tried to get attention by falsifying his Philosophy while he was already mentally gone. Nietzsche called himself a "Anti-Antisemite" and despised German nationalistic "Deutschtümelei", one of the reasons he broke with Richard Wagner
It's from Nietzsche? Interesting, I got it from Roland Chrisjohn who got it from Chris Simpson who used it to personify a predatory system of order, not specifically white supremacy.
@@MalcolmPL Thats's how i understood it in this video but in the context of colonialism and the history of somehow equating it with the "nordic Übermenschen" of the 3. Reich propaganda i wanted to point that out. The first sentence in "The Splendid Blond Beast" actually mentions him: "Friedrich Nietzsche called the aristocratic predators who write society's laws "the splendid blond beast" precisely because they so often behave as though they are beyond the reach of elementary morality."
@@alexanderleuchte5132Also on this note: I heard it said that the blondness of the beast is a reference to lions, not to north eurasian ancestry. I did a quick check on Wikipedia and this explanation fits with the given quotations. In Nietzschean philisophy the lion is a metaphor for the second stage in a process in which the individual emancipates itself from its surrounding moral code and becomes an Übermensch. The blonde beast appears when an empire (can be Japanese as well as European) shows raw aggression and lust towards outsiders despite its high moral code for those on the inside.
@@Luziferrum The way I read that segment from thus spoke Zarathustra (the soul transitioning from the camel to the lion to the child) is that the lion represents the rejection of all conventional moral values. The camel is burdened by values that are not theirs, carrying things for the sake of others. The lion is an agressive animal tearing these values apart. However this leaves a nihilistic void that can not sustain someone for long, so they become the child, which is a new beginning and ability to create your own values
@@Luziferrum Yeah he often used the lion as a symbol like in "The Three Metamorphoses". Blond also has that connotation of innocent and naive, in ithe mean version of "blond jokes" even stupid. And finding a way to regain some "naive" life that is not corroded by christian platonic morals and the consequential resulting Nihilism was his goal
You seriously have a gift for communicating theory in a way that makes it totally understandable and accessible to us otherwise ignorant masses. Theory is very valuable, don’t get me wrong, but it is often communicated using somewhat esoteric language. But you make your essays accessible to the common person, and for that, I and many other people are very grateful. I get the impression that this video took a lot out of you, so I want you to know that a lot of people really appreciate what you’re doing and hope that you can continue to open our eyes and expose us to these new perspectives.
Hello again Malcolm. Id like to respond to some of your essays while I listen, since I think the reciprocal nature discussion is a really valuable thing and is a bit lost on youtube as a format. I'll slap the same disclaimer on my comments that these are just my opinions and not exhaustively researched or peer approved. Anyway: Essay#2 Materialism: I remember your example of limited need for specific goods (such as beaver fur) pre connection with the european market from a previous video.And how the introduction of universal currency lead to totally unsustainable shift in consumption. Its a very good example and i definitely use it in my thoughts about these types of things. Viewing each good as a having shifting and independent value i think is an important concept for understanding how societies might function differently under those conditions. Minute 34ish: One thing I feel like you did not directly address, is the effect of specialization and its relation to trade. Even in the scenario where the means of production are readily available, people's interest in certain activities vary. I may find axe making much more interesting than corn planting. And if I do it more frequently, i might get quicker and better at it. So even in a scenario where the barriers to entry of an activity are low, you could end up with conditions that encourage specialization and trade. Minute 37ish: Something i notice about your discussion of the conditions of a global market and the inefficiencies of turning a beaver pelt into a wool hat: Perhaps a more succinct way to describe this is the “inefficiency caused by the separation of the consumer and the resource”. In your example, haudenosaunee communities, underwent the process of hunting the beaver. They then made the most efficient use of this energy expenditure. They designed a garment that took advantage of its unique strengths (warmth, water resistant) compared to other materials in the area. They used all the other resources generated by the hunt (skin and guard hair). The proximity to the production of this resource led to more efficient use of it. The European market on the other hand, through the efforts of profit driven middlemen, sought a specific type of material for an existing clothing making process. When beaver underfur was found to be superior for this, it was acquired specifically, and its by-products were ignored/wasted. Now one question I have that lingers after this discussion, is how does this framework fit with the local extinction of the Eurasian Beaver in western europe. The Europeans had their own beaver as well. At some point this resource was familiar to them as well. I can't find good general summaries of its extinction pattern in the countries that were exploiting the fur trade in the northeast woodlands. The closest I found is a small paper discussing it becoming extinct in the Netherlands around the 1500s. That would imply around 100+ years before the fur trade started ramping with the north east woodlands. To me that makes some sort of sense. That is enough time that while the material is remembered for its strengths, the nitty gritty of effectively utilizing it is lost. But of course i would love to hear the opinion of anyone who has looked at this more thoroughly. Minute 40ish: Your conclusion to the materialist essay here is a good one, that the immorality of supporting polluting industries is qualified by our effective power to change it. I think it provides nice support to the position that these problems can not be solved on the level of the individual, and must be systematically addressed. I think in general this is a good topic for societal discussion. We are a bit lost as a society still in this idea that we need to solve the environmental crisis on the individual level. And that our failure to address the climate crisis is due to the personal individual failures of all of us. I think that idea is counter productive and destructive. No big societal problem has ever been solved on the level of the individual. That's literally what societies are for, to solve problems too big to address on our own. We need to stop blaming individuals and work together to demand a structural solution. I guess its interesting and relevant here to discuss how native environmentalism was co-opted to start this whole misdirection. The 1970 Crying Indian Ad campaign, featuring an italian-american in redface, was funded by Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Pepsico and others specifically to shift responsibility to us. The tagline “People started pollution. People can stop it” was incredibly effective at this, and we are still clawing our way back to put responsibility where it can actually be effective.
regarding the narrative of "we got better after we drove the megafauna to extinction", this is actually a sentiment recorded in maori oral history. the peopling of aotearoa was recent enough that the extinction of the moa (a group of birds that filled all the large herbivore niches) is still remembered, and the memory is detailed enough that there are accounts of some 19th century maori without colonial education who were able to correctly identify captive emus as a related species
Wow! Once again your reasoning is brilliant and flawless, at least to me. Alienation of work is a new concept for me. Thank you for this excellent introduction. I can see the ripple effects of this alienation in numerous problems and malaises of the modern world, from incels, through school shooters, climate change deniers, and much more. As a small farm owner, I certainly wonder and worry if the fruiting trees I'm planting will ever benefit my grandchildren. My children are too demoralized by the modern world with its hate and changing climate to currently want children. Listening more, I can't say I like being described as the blonde beast, but it is all too true. Towards the end I began to fall into hopelessness. Our problems, the result of our past actions and inaction, seem insurmountable. I see many of the same problems that you cite, the racism, the othering, the terrible results of unbridled capitalism, the alienation-especially of the young[like my children]. I am not native, and certainly have not faced the myriad challenges you have. But like you I seek to spend the remainder of my days outside the ratrace, beautifying, nourishing, and restoring a piece of land. I plant trees, shrubs, and plants in hopes of providing a haven for my children and their children or at least for someone's children. As a settler, I can't undo the past or even the evil deeds of my government. I am sorry though but my guilt remains. Justice to the native peoples of the Americas would mean the return of all of the Americas to native control, but that is unworkable, where would the immigrants like my forefathers, the huddled masses yearning to be free go? Europe, Asia, and Africa couldn't take back 500+ North Americans of settler ancestry. Do you have any ideas towards a workable compromise that brings a meaningful amount of justice to native peoples? In the face of climate change, pollution, and the struggle against billionaires and corporations does it even matter? The short-sightedness of the uber-rich continues to surprise me. Instead of realizing that we are all passengers in the terrarium we call Earth and devoting their time to mitigating climate change and inequality, they are building space ships to leave for dangerous places where they can never have one one hundredth of their current standard of living on a raw unterraformed planet or space station. I suspect that you have no interest in politics, but that is precisely why far-sighted people like yourself are needed at all levels of government. There are also many other ways to lead. Often, the leaders we need most don't want to "waste" their time and sanity in politics or other leadership but that just leaves politics to power hungry, conmen, and egoists. Just give it a thought.
Hi Malcolm, I've watched your channel for a while and I think you do really interesting and valuable work here on yt and in the speculative archeology space. I haven't gone through all the essays yet but having finished the first one I think there's a big assumption you make that I don't think holds up. You are probably correct that killing one mammoth would be a large expenditure of energy if done by spearpoint one at a time, but what is to say that this is the only way that they were hunted? It seems like it would make sense to use other means like gravity, a real world example of which would be "the buffalo jump". I could Imagine a group of early humans driving herds off of cliffs drastically impacting the numbers in one fell swoop. Obvious speculation but who knows. Anyway I'm mostly commenting for the engagement. Thanks for all the work you put in, I'd love to see an atun-shei collab :)
The main point of that essay is to inject uncertainty into a topic that is often frustratingly black and white. I freely admit that I don't know squat but I don't think anybody else does either. we don't have the evidence to make good arguments about broad sweeping events. As to the specifics. we don't have evidence for other hunting methods beyond spears. For instance, There is only one cliff formation in South western Ontario and we haven't found a deposit of bones at the base a la headsmashedinbuffalojump.
Some thoughts about planting oaks for your grandchildren. I don’t plan on staying in this suburb my whole life. Ironically, part of the reason I want to leave is how detached the town is from the land. I still planted oaks and pines and native plants in my yard. I encourage others to do similar things, regardless of wether or not you expect your current home to be generational. You are planting oak trees for someone’s grandchildren, and hopefully someone will plant oak trees for yours. I don’t think one needs to live in one place to be attached to the land, although it does certainly incentivize it. I think one just has to try for a reason that matters. I would also like to thank you for turning on comments for this video.
You aren't wrong, but I would like to expand and clarify my point. My point is more that with rootedness, there is a direct material incentive to behave in an ecological fashion. But without this incentive the motive of action is brought into the realm of individual morality. The inner engine. And while an individual may well possess exemplary personal morality and shape their little corner accordingly, these inner engines are not a good explanation as a catalyst of broader systems. For while an outer engine, such as material incentives, exerts similar pressure on all those under similar circumstances, the inner engines differ widely from person to person. Even assuming similar psychologies, exemplary morality has as a prerequisite a certain base level of economic privilege and is thus not open to all.
I havent read a book that wasnt strictly related to my field of study in a long time. I missed the heart and stimulation that came with reading a good piece. Thanks. I believe there will be people who refer to you as one of the great thinkers you mentioned in your essay.
These essays have helped to crystallize a lot of recent thought that I've struggled to put into words. Thank you. I hope that they reach a much larger audience, but in the meantime, know that your work is making a meaningful impact.
If you talk about Vine Deloria Jr in one video essay, you bet I'm subscribing, brother. Very well put together so far. I'm chewing through it a bit a time.
I really appreciated your telling ans illumination of The Great Law of Peace, is there further reading you'd recommend from Iroquois authors about the subject? Either from a more mythological standpoint or a more philosophical perspective (I say this knowing there's probably only so much I can glean and understand as a non-indigenous American only through writing, but your video really inspires me and I'm extremely greatful for your multiple contextualizations throughout this video)
these essays are excellently composed and should be required listening. As a subscriber of both yourself and Atun-Shei, I feel like there is much overlap and I hope he signal boosts these essays. I hope that you do consider collaborating with him, if only as so much as to create an introduction from which people can come and encounter these essays
Brilliant essay, and although i know these long form video essays are a pain to record and edit for an individual, this and the beaver war essay are incredible work. I hope you keep it up as long as is feasible for your life. Thank you.
Idk if anyone will respond, but does anyone know how to harden the marrow inside the antler? I am attempting to make an axe like yours and I don’t exactly know how to harden the marrow.
A long dry essay presented without music or vision, more please. Thanks for the content. Atun Shei is cool btw, I hope you find a means to collaborate.
I'm very happy for the effort you've put in for this project. I very much love the conciseness with which you described Indigeniety and slavery as mutable political categories... Been a viewer of yours about a year, I hope my thinking can keep growing in part due to your work !
Would love to hear the words determinate abstraction. I also liked how you described Incidental communism. Similarly to how I would, by comparing it to civil relations (law state etc).
Thanks for more great content. I still believe you somewhat downplay the influence of individual action. I agree that people are a product of their environmental conditions, and that the Haudenosaunee are not unique in their response to an evolving geopolitical situation. I do also think that the actions of Kondiaronk, Captain Civility, and Joseph Brant/Thayendanegea clearly shaped modernity through the ideals of their personal diplomatic persuasions. Perhaps they could be replaced by others who would perform the same function out of geopolitical necessity, but I think that their contributions were more than the product of environmental determinism.
You misunderstand, it is not that individuals have no agency, it is that human agency is conditioned by our environment. For instance, Napoleon conquered. Someone else in Napoleon's shoes would probably not have done the same, or if they had tried, might not have succeeded, his agency had an effect. But Napoleon was only able to act as he did because France at the time was ready to support him in those actions due to structural factors beyond individuals and dating back centuries. Napoleon was only allowed to exist because his context allowed him to exist. Our context conditions the actions available to us, our agency allows us to select one course from present possibilities. More broadly. In analyzing history, one has a choice of which lens to use. Some choose a micro lens to focus on individuals, I do not have that luxury. Microhistory in my field is the study of Europeans and defectors, it is Eurocentric. That is, history through a colonial mindset. I find the broader lens afforded by materialism offers a useful set of tools for constructing a decolonial view of the past.
Hi there, not sure how else to reach you but here. I was coming by to revisit an older video where you talked about why anyone should care about history in the first place, but it seems like it’s nowhere to be found. Was it taken down or am I just really oblivious?
Could mammoth extinction have caused extinctions of other megafauna in a domino effect? Mammoths as a keystone species, their absence causing environmental change other megafauna can't adapt quickly enough to? Also, if one agrees with 11:14, would one also have to object to Indians' authority to dictate the excavation and burial of Paleo-Indian remains?
I think, it is presumptive to assume that any population sustains it’s caloric intakes from hunting X… I don’t believe that the Iroquois sustained their communities by hunting deer… they ate everything that was edible and available…including at times decaying flesh, but if you consider catching clams, to catching crayfish, to catching fish, to catching Geese ( they moult in summer and cannot fly ) to catching a deer… Deer were not the major source of protein…Deer likely had a much higher status, due to their difficulty in catching…
Can you (continue to) be Mohawk in Germany? You are very welcome. In the east we have forests full of game and the mines are already abandoned. Jokes aside, I want to bring an "Old World perspective" to this question. Nobody is native or indigenous per se, but only in relation to the country or area they currently live in. In almost every country in the world, outside the Americas, Australia and small island nations, the native population is the overwhelming majority. If you can migrate from the Old World to the New and keep up e.g. your native German culture in Ontario, why not the other way around? Are the Boers still the same Dutch as in 1600? No, but neither are today's Dutch folks in Holland. Cultures change anyway, in the diaspora and the homeland. You can't keep every tradition and neither should you.
The second paragraph of the warning is the truest thing I’ve ever seen.
Man, an Atun-Shei collab would have been awesome. He would probably be glad to have you ruin his reputation.
Seriously, their politics overlap more than that concern suggests.
I think hes worried about all the libs who watch Atun Shei getting upset. Atun is really great but his audience is mostly white liberals.
@@doomkitty8386 I used to think he's at least a "sensible" liberal then I watched his salem witch trials happen because of capitalism and I know he is what my language calls berdasar (based)
you are one of my favorite creators on this platform. your essays are so much more engaging than the average “video essay.”
Thank you for this essay.
I've really struggled to understand why Murray Bookchin and many social anarchists insist on prioritizing local production and giving people direct involvement in as much of their means of life as possible. I think your essay helped me see why this is important.
Babe, wake up. Malcolm dropped another historical video essay!
But seriously, you're my favorite youtuber and every time a new video comes out, I learn something and think sbout the world slightly differently.
this philosophy is so, incredibly important if we want to preserve our world. ive come to an almost identical structure on my own from different philisophical roots, as well as the need to spread it memeticly or mythalogicaly. you do the work of all humanity, friend.
Great video. "One who's bias takes the form of innocent interest is bias towards the most interesting outcome." Very true
I haven't read a lot of theory yet, I've mostly been radicalized via youtube, so I really really appreciated you explaining the part about alienated labor versus unalienated labor.
It gave me a big realization that I don't actually dislike doing labor, I just find it extremely hard to be invested in very abstracted labor and I've always gravitated towards tasks and roles that serve a direct benefit for me or the people around me.
Alongside that, it hit me like a truck that part of why I love and can get addicted at time to the videogame Valheim (survivalcraft game where you gather resources to make better stuff to explore new areas and fight bosses to become worthy of Valhalla), is because it's a simulation of unalienated labor but also in an environment where I am alone so I have full abilty to direct, build, and provide for myself. So I can do 'labor' I find fun and fulfilling while also not having the same stress as real survival, but enough stress I feel engaged and like I'm 'doing well' and accomplishing things I'm proud of.
Really makes me wonder what roles neurodivergence (I'm AuADHD) plays in relation to the sense of satisfaction of labor, like I've never been able to understand people who take up careers because a field makes money rather than them actually being interested in the job. I'd keel over from boredom and lack of fulfillment (not to mention stress!) in trying to say be a doctor or laywer long before I'd ever see the money I might make from those professions.
We need an Malcolm-Atun Shei collab
Atun-Shei is a Union dick rider. He made a video called "Guns that killed racists" which were guns used by the Union, same platoons using the same guns went to kill Native-Americans after the civil war. Just another Dutch Van Der Linde irl who uses brown people as political canon fodder and war fantasy.
I think taking a global view of the extinction of megafauna is probably the most damning evidence that humans were primarily responsible just about everywhere. The time-line matches up too perfectly.
It's also important to think about how the first people to step on any continent were in effect an invasive species, meaning only that they were outside of their evolutionary context. It's no coincidence that native megafauna survived best in places where our lineage evolved for the longest. You can even see, on a genus level, that megafauna seemed to hang on longer in areas which had a long term presence of Homo erectus before the arrival of our species.
We were a new threat. It seems that the more novel we were, the more easily we caused systemic imbalance.
interesting angle. Although one must take caution when comparing the changing of the mammoth steppe in the northern latitudes after the last ice age to the climate and fauna of the tropics.
This is compelling enough, but as the video points out, we still need to establish a mechanism of causation in order for it to be a compelling argument for any given species in any given place.
I don't quite understand why the topic is racialised as much as it is, especially in North America, which is in terms of its biosphere pretty similar to northern Eurasia still. Mammoths have died out pretty much everywhere. Humans were not the only factor, but a contributing one. I'd assume humans were a bigger factor in the extinction of megafaunal predators. For one, humans hunted the same prey items as they did. Another thing is that humans are special in that they actively hunt predators preemptively. Few other animals do that. Ritualised hunts on lions, bears, tigers and jaguars are found on several continents. Bear hunts are an important ritual practice in northern Eurasia and America. It is logical, out of all the animals that are dangerous to humans, large predators are the biggest danger. Frankly imagine stepping foot on Australia and suddenly having to compete with megalania, giant crocodiles and marsupial lions.
In the case of Australia, well there is also ice age desertification, but the arrival of humans happened much earlier than the last ice age. Also in cases of New Zealand and Madagascar the impact of humans on megafauna is pretty obvious.
Though none of that should be racialised. The most common thing people bring up is the extinction of horses and less often large camelids on the Americas and the lack of large domesticated animals, saying that like since Native Americans tamed horses so quickly, it was their folly to have hunted them to extinction in the first place, instead of domesticating them.
Excellent essay. The ending reminded me a lot of how Jonas Ceika might end a video. I particularly appreciate your clarity and care, taking your time to fully work through your points. As a social anarchist, your description of the economic and social structure of Haudenosaunee society really goes to show just how much early anarchists and socialists took from their understanding of indigenous Americans and from Haudenosaunee society in particular. The indigenous youtuber Twin Rabbit, who I believe tends to lean toward an anarchistic framework, has a great video on that as well. In any case, in solidarity, from a black anarchist to all those fighting for Land Back and Indigenous Autonomy, I hope you and I get free together.
Editing to add that the philosophy of hopeful realism has been an important counterbalance for me on the scale of nihilism. In such a philosophy, we have hope not because we believe the arc of history or the universe to bend toward some eventual "good" or justice, but because we understand that conscious action by everyday people is what creates and changes our reality. Hope then exists anywhere that humans seek to abolish capitalist and colonial hegemony.
Bro has been cooking 🍳
The first video essay to make me go from 'wow yeah that's actually a really good point' to belting out a Stan Rogers song in the span of two seconds.
Malcolm you have become one of my favorite speakers on native philosophy and history. No one else does such a good job of combining beautiful native beliefs and life lessons with caloric values lol. It creates a truly honest conversation that is our only way forward. Thank you for all you do!
I was reading the first paragraph and thinking "I wonder whose essay Malcolm is sharing as he is clearly educated." I say that in all senses of the word, as your way of presenting information shows formal education, and your videos document you seeking to self-educate yourself as well as non-white traditional education.
My father only graduated 8th grade yet was more educated than many who attended University. But he had a way about him typical of those that had already learned how to learn and could educate himself on any subject. My middle brother is basically the same having only graduated grade school and then motorcycle mechanics school
Malcolm this is a treat
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate the actionable hope that you have and the things that can be done x
I hope you know that you are not only planting your own trees, but inspiring others to do so as well. I have only planted one so far, and it's been growing well the past 2 years. I hope to carry on and leave a forest in my wake by the time I'm gone
I know the term "The Blond Beast " has come a far way from Nietzsche and was used with varius meaning so this is not a critique of its use in ths essay but a sidenote. Nietsche originally did definitely not mean "white supremacy".
Sadly his reputation is tarnished by the actions of his sister who was married to an antisemitic right wing nut, had a crush on A.H and tried to get attention by falsifying his Philosophy while he was already mentally gone. Nietzsche called himself a "Anti-Antisemite" and despised German nationalistic "Deutschtümelei", one of the reasons he broke with Richard Wagner
It's from Nietzsche? Interesting, I got it from Roland Chrisjohn who got it from Chris Simpson who used it to personify a predatory system of order, not specifically white supremacy.
@@MalcolmPL Thats's how i understood it in this video but in the context of colonialism and the history of somehow equating it with the "nordic Übermenschen" of the 3. Reich propaganda i wanted to point that out.
The first sentence in "The Splendid Blond Beast" actually mentions him:
"Friedrich Nietzsche called the aristocratic predators who write society's laws "the splendid blond beast" precisely because they so often behave as though they are beyond the reach of elementary morality."
@@alexanderleuchte5132Also on this note: I heard it said that the blondness of the beast is a reference to lions, not to north eurasian ancestry. I did a quick check on Wikipedia and this explanation fits with the given quotations. In Nietzschean philisophy the lion is a metaphor for the second stage in a process in which the individual emancipates itself from its surrounding moral code and becomes an Übermensch. The blonde beast appears when an empire (can be Japanese as well as European) shows raw aggression and lust towards outsiders despite its high moral code for those on the inside.
@@Luziferrum The way I read that segment from thus spoke Zarathustra (the soul transitioning from the camel to the lion to the child) is that the lion represents the rejection of all conventional moral values. The camel is burdened by values that are not theirs, carrying things for the sake of others. The lion is an agressive animal tearing these values apart. However this leaves a nihilistic void that can not sustain someone for long, so they become the child, which is a new beginning and ability to create your own values
@@Luziferrum Yeah he often used the lion as a symbol like in "The Three Metamorphoses". Blond also has that connotation of innocent and naive, in ithe mean version of "blond jokes" even stupid. And finding a way to regain some "naive" life that is not corroded by christian platonic morals and the consequential resulting Nihilism was his goal
You seriously have a gift for communicating theory in a way that makes it totally understandable and accessible to us otherwise ignorant masses. Theory is very valuable, don’t get me wrong, but it is often communicated using somewhat esoteric language. But you make your essays accessible to the common person, and for that, I and many other people are very grateful. I get the impression that this video took a lot out of you, so I want you to know that a lot of people really appreciate what you’re doing and hope that you can continue to open our eyes and expose us to these new perspectives.
Hello again Malcolm. Id like to respond to some of your essays while I listen, since I think the reciprocal nature discussion is a really valuable thing and is a bit lost on youtube as a format. I'll slap the same disclaimer on my comments that these are just my opinions and not exhaustively researched or peer approved.
Anyway:
Essay#2 Materialism:
I remember your example of limited need for specific goods (such as beaver fur) pre connection with the european market from a previous video.And how the introduction of universal currency lead to totally unsustainable shift in consumption. Its a very good example and i definitely use it in my thoughts about these types of things. Viewing each good as a having shifting and independent value i think is an important concept for understanding how societies might function differently under those conditions.
Minute 34ish:
One thing I feel like you did not directly address, is the effect of specialization and its relation to trade. Even in the scenario where the means of production are readily available, people's interest in certain activities vary. I may find axe making much more interesting than corn planting. And if I do it more frequently, i might get quicker and better at it. So even in a scenario where the barriers to entry of an activity are low, you could end up with conditions that encourage specialization and trade.
Minute 37ish:
Something i notice about your discussion of the conditions of a global market and the inefficiencies of turning a beaver pelt into a wool hat:
Perhaps a more succinct way to describe this is the “inefficiency caused by the separation of the consumer and the resource”.
In your example, haudenosaunee communities, underwent the process of hunting the beaver. They then made the most efficient use of this energy expenditure. They designed a garment that took advantage of its unique strengths (warmth, water resistant) compared to other materials in the area. They used all the other resources generated by the hunt (skin and guard hair). The proximity to the production of this resource led to more efficient use of it.
The European market on the other hand, through the efforts of profit driven middlemen, sought a specific type of material for an existing clothing making process. When beaver underfur was found to be superior for this, it was acquired specifically, and its by-products were ignored/wasted.
Now one question I have that lingers after this discussion, is how does this framework fit with the local extinction of the Eurasian Beaver in western europe. The Europeans had their own beaver as well. At some point this resource was familiar to them as well. I can't find good general summaries of its extinction pattern in the countries that were exploiting the fur trade in the northeast woodlands. The closest I found is a small paper discussing it becoming extinct in the Netherlands around the 1500s. That would imply around 100+ years before the fur trade started ramping with the north east woodlands. To me that makes some sort of sense. That is enough time that while the material is remembered for its strengths, the nitty gritty of effectively utilizing it is lost. But of course i would love to hear the opinion of anyone who has looked at this more thoroughly.
Minute 40ish:
Your conclusion to the materialist essay here is a good one, that the immorality of supporting polluting industries is qualified by our effective power to change it. I think it provides nice support to the position that these problems can not be solved on the level of the individual, and must be systematically addressed. I think in general this is a good topic for societal discussion. We are a bit lost as a society still in this idea that we need to solve the environmental crisis on the individual level. And that our failure to address the climate crisis is due to the personal individual failures of all of us. I think that idea is counter productive and destructive. No big societal problem has ever been solved on the level of the individual. That's literally what societies are for, to solve problems too big to address on our own. We need to stop blaming individuals and work together to demand a structural solution.
I guess its interesting and relevant here to discuss how native environmentalism was co-opted to start this whole misdirection. The 1970 Crying Indian Ad campaign, featuring an italian-american in redface, was funded by Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Pepsico and others specifically to shift responsibility to us. The tagline “People started pollution. People can stop it” was incredibly effective at this, and we are still clawing our way back to put responsibility where it can actually be effective.
1.5h Malcolm P.L. video? Absolutely glorious. Thank you! 🥰
Wasnt expecting to hear about Atun-Shei here, but it makes sense to me your content seems well aligned
Btw "Autochtone" is the standard word in Quebec for indigenous people
Interesting. I did not know that.
@@MalcolmPLthe Spanish equivalent is also used in Spanish autóctona
regarding the narrative of "we got better after we drove the megafauna to extinction", this is actually a sentiment recorded in maori oral history. the peopling of aotearoa was recent enough that the extinction of the moa (a group of birds that filled all the large herbivore niches) is still remembered, and the memory is detailed enough that there are accounts of some 19th century maori without colonial education who were able to correctly identify captive emus as a related species
Wow! Once again your reasoning is brilliant and flawless, at least to me. Alienation of work is a new concept for me. Thank you for this excellent introduction. I can see the ripple effects of this alienation in numerous problems and malaises of the modern world, from incels, through school shooters, climate change deniers, and much more. As a small farm owner, I certainly wonder and worry if the fruiting trees I'm planting will ever benefit my grandchildren. My children are too demoralized by the modern world with its hate and changing climate to currently want children.
Listening more, I can't say I like being described as the blonde beast, but it is all too true.
Towards the end I began to fall into hopelessness. Our problems, the result of our past actions and inaction, seem insurmountable. I see many of the same problems that you cite, the racism, the othering, the terrible results of unbridled capitalism, the alienation-especially of the young[like my children]. I am not native, and certainly have not faced the myriad challenges you have. But like you I seek to spend the remainder of my days outside the ratrace, beautifying, nourishing, and restoring a piece of land. I plant trees, shrubs, and plants in hopes of providing a haven for my children and their children or at least for someone's children.
As a settler, I can't undo the past or even the evil deeds of my government. I am sorry though but my guilt remains. Justice to the native peoples of the Americas would mean the return of all of the Americas to native control, but that is unworkable, where would the immigrants like my forefathers, the huddled masses yearning to be free go? Europe, Asia, and Africa couldn't take back 500+ North Americans of settler ancestry. Do you have any ideas towards a workable compromise that brings a meaningful amount of justice to native peoples? In the face of climate change, pollution, and the struggle against billionaires and corporations does it even matter? The short-sightedness of the uber-rich continues to surprise me. Instead of realizing that we are all passengers in the terrarium we call Earth and devoting their time to mitigating climate change and inequality, they are building space ships to leave for dangerous places where they can never have one one hundredth of their current standard of living on a raw unterraformed planet or space station.
I suspect that you have no interest in politics, but that is precisely why far-sighted people like yourself are needed at all levels of government. There are also many other ways to lead. Often, the leaders we need most don't want to "waste" their time and sanity in politics or other leadership but that just leaves politics to power hungry, conmen, and egoists. Just give it a thought.
Hi Malcolm, I've watched your channel for a while and I think you do really interesting and valuable work here on yt and in the speculative archeology space. I haven't gone through all the essays yet but having finished the first one I think there's a big assumption you make that I don't think holds up. You are probably correct that killing one mammoth would be a large expenditure of energy if done by spearpoint one at a time, but what is to say that this is the only way that they were hunted? It seems like it would make sense to use other means like gravity, a real world example of which would be "the buffalo jump". I could Imagine a group of early humans driving herds off of cliffs drastically impacting the numbers in one fell swoop. Obvious speculation but who knows.
Anyway I'm mostly commenting for the engagement. Thanks for all the work you put in, I'd love to see an atun-shei collab :)
The main point of that essay is to inject uncertainty into a topic that is often frustratingly black and white. I freely admit that I don't know squat but I don't think anybody else does either. we don't have the evidence to make good arguments about broad sweeping events.
As to the specifics. we don't have evidence for other hunting methods beyond spears. For instance, There is only one cliff formation in South western Ontario and we haven't found a deposit of bones at the base a la headsmashedinbuffalojump.
@@MalcolmPL gotcha, I guess I missed the point. Thanks for the clarification.
Some thoughts about planting oaks for your grandchildren. I don’t plan on staying in this suburb my whole life. Ironically, part of the reason I want to leave is how detached the town is from the land. I still planted oaks and pines and native plants in my yard. I encourage others to do similar things, regardless of wether or not you expect your current home to be generational. You are planting oak trees for someone’s grandchildren, and hopefully someone will plant oak trees for yours. I don’t think one needs to live in one place to be attached to the land, although it does certainly incentivize it. I think one just has to try for a reason that matters. I would also like to thank you for turning on comments for this video.
You aren't wrong, but I would like to expand and clarify my point.
My point is more that with rootedness, there is a direct material incentive to behave in an ecological fashion. But without this incentive the motive of action is brought into the realm of individual morality. The inner engine. And while an individual may well possess exemplary personal morality and shape their little corner accordingly, these inner engines are not a good explanation as a catalyst of broader systems. For while an outer engine, such as material incentives, exerts similar pressure on all those under similar circumstances, the inner engines differ widely from person to person. Even assuming similar psychologies, exemplary morality has as a prerequisite a certain base level of economic privilege and is thus not open to all.
I havent read a book that wasnt strictly related to my field of study in a long time. I missed the heart and stimulation that came with reading a good piece.
Thanks. I believe there will be people who refer to you as one of the great thinkers you mentioned in your essay.
These essays have helped to crystallize a lot of recent thought that I've struggled to put into words. Thank you. I hope that they reach a much larger audience, but in the meantime, know that your work is making a meaningful impact.
If you talk about Vine Deloria Jr in one video essay, you bet I'm subscribing, brother.
Very well put together so far. I'm chewing through it a bit a time.
Brilliant! And I love your take on that absolute idiot, Aristotle.
I really appreciated your telling ans illumination of The Great Law of Peace, is there further reading you'd recommend from Iroquois authors about the subject? Either from a more mythological standpoint or a more philosophical perspective
(I say this knowing there's probably only so much I can glean and understand as a non-indigenous American only through writing, but your video really inspires me and I'm extremely greatful for your multiple contextualizations throughout this video)
hell yeah bring on the materialist analysis.
these essays are excellently composed and should be required listening. As a subscriber of both yourself and Atun-Shei, I feel like there is much overlap and I hope he signal boosts these essays. I hope that you do consider collaborating with him, if only as so much as to create an introduction from which people can come and encounter these essays
Brilliant essay, and although i know these long form video essays are a pain to record and edit for an individual, this and the beaver war essay are incredible work. I hope you keep it up as long as is feasible for your life. Thank you.
STAN ROGERS REFERENCE!YYYEEEHHHAAAWWW!
Always enjoy your work, thank you
Interesting to watch this and compare with the now-finished Atun-Shei video
Idk if anyone will respond, but does anyone know how to harden the marrow inside the antler? I am attempting to make an axe like yours and I don’t exactly know how to harden the marrow.
You can't. You need to shape the axe so that it only uses the solid material for the cutting edge.
Wew. Listened to the last chapter again. Thank you :)
A long dry essay presented without music or vision, more please. Thanks for the content. Atun Shei is cool btw, I hope you find a means to collaborate.
I'm very happy for the effort you've put in for this project. I very much love the conciseness with which you described Indigeniety and slavery as mutable political categories... Been a viewer of yours about a year, I hope my thinking can keep growing in part due to your work !
Would love to hear the words determinate abstraction. I also liked how you described Incidental communism. Similarly to how I would, by comparing it to civil relations (law state etc).
This was very compelling. As a completely biased communist shit head i adored every second of this.
Thanks for more great content. I still believe you somewhat downplay the influence of individual action. I agree that people are a product of their environmental conditions, and that the Haudenosaunee are not unique in their response to an evolving geopolitical situation. I do also think that the actions of Kondiaronk, Captain Civility, and Joseph Brant/Thayendanegea clearly shaped modernity through the ideals of their personal diplomatic persuasions. Perhaps they could be replaced by others who would perform the same function out of geopolitical necessity, but I think that their contributions were more than the product of environmental determinism.
You misunderstand, it is not that individuals have no agency, it is that human agency is conditioned by our environment. For instance, Napoleon conquered. Someone else in Napoleon's shoes would probably not have done the same, or if they had tried, might not have succeeded, his agency had an effect. But Napoleon was only able to act as he did because France at the time was ready to support him in those actions due to structural factors beyond individuals and dating back centuries. Napoleon was only allowed to exist because his context allowed him to exist.
Our context conditions the actions available to us, our agency allows us to select one course from present possibilities.
More broadly. In analyzing history, one has a choice of which lens to use. Some choose a micro lens to focus on individuals, I do not have that luxury. Microhistory in my field is the study of Europeans and defectors, it is Eurocentric. That is, history through a colonial mindset. I find the broader lens afforded by materialism offers a useful set of tools for constructing a decolonial view of the past.
Can't wait to watch it
Very excited to listen to this.
I think that you err, the greatest weapons to use in hunting a mammoth, are fire and topography…
Hi there, not sure how else to reach you but here. I was coming by to revisit an older video where you talked about why anyone should care about history in the first place, but it seems like it’s nowhere to be found. Was it taken down or am I just really oblivious?
It's gone. Too controversial.
Excellent video.
❤
Updoot
Could mammoth extinction have caused extinctions of other megafauna in a domino effect? Mammoths as a keystone species, their absence causing environmental change other megafauna can't adapt quickly enough to? Also, if one agrees with 11:14, would one also have to object to Indians' authority to dictate the excavation and burial of Paleo-Indian remains?
I think, it is presumptive to assume that any population sustains it’s caloric intakes from hunting X… I don’t believe that the Iroquois sustained their communities by hunting deer… they ate everything that was edible and available…including at times decaying flesh, but if you consider catching clams, to catching crayfish, to catching fish, to catching Geese ( they moult in summer and cannot fly ) to catching a deer… Deer were not the major source of protein…Deer likely had a much higher status, due to their difficulty in catching…
Fantastic work. I really enjoyed this and have enjoyed your other video essays.
Can you (continue to) be Mohawk in Germany? You are very welcome. In the east we have forests full of game and the mines are already abandoned. Jokes aside, I want to bring an "Old World perspective" to this question. Nobody is native or indigenous per se, but only in relation to the country or area they currently live in. In almost every country in the world, outside the Americas, Australia and small island nations, the native population is the overwhelming majority. If you can migrate from the Old World to the New and keep up e.g. your native German culture in Ontario, why not the other way around? Are the Boers still the same Dutch as in 1600? No, but neither are today's Dutch folks in Holland. Cultures change anyway, in the diaspora and the homeland. You can't keep every tradition and neither should you.
thank you for making this video