It seems telling to me that Fukuyama would focus in on the Berlin Wall as the end point of history, an event that occurred during his lifetime. I think that mixed in with the collective juvenoia we experience as a culture there is often a real sense that the generations ahead of us would like history to be over. People who believe the world is ending have a similar stance: in a sense they have seen that bus on the horizon and the end is nigh. This is a compelling view of the world because it places our individual lives at the climax of history rather than forcing us to confront the absolute truth that history is going to keep happening for a long time and none of us alive today are likely to see the end.
I'm sorry but I don't see in 2017 a greater historic event than the Berlin Wall Fall. Even if a world war breaks out and USA loses, I don't see how it would change the political/economic system as drastically as the Berlin Wall and the end of USSR
I don't think most viewers of this channel understand what the words "Liberal" and "Conservative" mean in the sense used by political scientists and historians and the like. Those words are used too often in common discourse as meaning very different things, so you probably should have explained them a bit. Liberal, in the way it is used by Baudrillard and similar, means any system that sees the rights of the individual as more important than those of an over-arching 'state' or larger collective organization. Conservative, in that arena, refers to things like monarchies where the concerns of individuals are seen as properly subjugated to the concerns of the 'state'. For instance if you wanted to round up and eliminate a large number of people in order to reduce the demand for food, a Liberal society would find that unthinkable because the destruction of individuals is seen as unacceptable even if it helps the state, whereas a Conservative would see it as the proper duty of those individuals to be destroyed in order to better serve the state. The concerns of what helps the 'state' (its not always actually a nation, it can be a church or a race or similar, any group which is seen as more important than its constituent members and separate from them) are what truly matter to a Conservative in that way the word is used. It is very, very different from how 'conservative' is used in common speaking and because history has ended and liberalism has won, many people aren't even aware such ideas used to be how the entire world worked.
I'm sorry, but are you _absolutely deranged,_ CrashDavi? There have been times in American history where political discourse lead to eg mass lynchings and literal civil war. That statement is so willfully uninformed it boggles the mind.
+Mitchell Davis I'm not concerned about the results of political discourse, I'm concerned about the health of political discourse itself and the effect that american society has on it. The fact that it promoted so little change since then and now is proof of how ill it has become.
"The fact that it promoted so little change since then and now is proof of how ill it has become." People aren't as openly sexist or racist as before, and by and large people that display overt sexism, racism, and (new developments) homophobia, and often transphobia and general otherism are demonized and punished. Is it shit? Yep. Has it been shit? Unquestionably. Is it less shit than it has been in the last several centuries? One would have to be entirely uninformed to think otherwise. I find it almost amusing that you are complaining about the state of political discourse based on an entirely uninformed position. That smacks of a general disregard for honest discourse.
+Dustin Rodriguez You're right that popular discourse and usage of the terms liberal and conservative are not in line with the theoretical meaning, or in any case, to an extent. But your example overemphasizes the distinction. US politics uses the two terms in strange bipolarity and very singular. In more common Western political systems, liberalism usually is associated with center-right political parties that are direct descendants of 18th and 19th-century democratic parties that ascribed to the ideals of the French and American revolutions and most often form bastions for business interest. While conservatism was often a religious movement that formed a reactionary opposition to the modernisation and individualisation of Western democracies. I think your claim that conservatives would sacrifice individual rights for the good of the whole, and even when that would mean the destruction of individuals, is overstated to the point that it makes no sense. The specific positions of political exponents of these ideologies in the various Western countries differ greatly, as one might imagine. In Europe nowadays, liberal thinkers often are socially progressive, but economically conservative, and interestingly conservatives often end up in socially conservative, but economically progressive positions (meaning more social-democratic). Without a clear two-party system, it's the relative unpredictability of political stances and alliances between the three main political movements that create the changes in coalitions.
As a History student, I despise Fukuyama. In saying that the end of history was the end of the Cold War and end of the fight between capitalism and communism, he ignores the role the rest of the world plays in world history. He has put all of their civilisations into a footnote of the ideological battle between two essentially western ideologies. I know his idea of history is more of one of progress, but that's only a western perception of it, and this also ignores the wide cultural knowledge history can enrich us with. Imagine if somebody said to the west that an event in Africa between two different ideologies ended all of world history.
Except that it wasn't an event in the west. It was the end of a struggle between the two largest powers in the world, one of which was in the west, and one of which was in the east and the subject of their struggle was the entire world. They were involving themselves in ideological events in Africa. It was a global indirect conflict.
There may be other civilizations in the world but to me (i am not a historic or geopolitic student), communism and capitalism were the two main ideologies confronting each other. And capitalist won. What i see in the world right now is every country adopting this model, from Asian countries to African countries. There are still some military dictatures in the world but there is no way their systems take over the world. I can't see other countries than the western ones changing history right now. China might have this power but they have adopted a capitalist economic system. So it seems like it's the western countries that forged our world, they were there first and everyone has to play by there rules now (unless you are a little African kid in Somalia waiting to die from denutrition or malaria)
Yeah fair point (although I wouldn't call Russia typically eastern). However, do you see that in calling this event the end of history, you make the empires of Egypt, Mesopatamia, China, Mongolia, Ottoman and so on a footnote to the history of Capitalism?
Regardless of your perception of what's western and eastern, Russia is very much in the eastern hemisphere and more eastern than both Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. I'm not saying I agree with the conclusion, but it was very much about a global conflict between the two most powerful nations the world had ever seen, one in the western hemisphere and one in the eastern hemisphere, fighting each other on dozens of different stages around the world. It was more significant than every empire and conflict than had ever come before it. I can understand the conclusion Fukuyama made, regardless of my disagreement with it.
@Dabbo100 For now, as we are in this capitalist area, I'd say that these empires have had a lesser role in the achievement of capitalism. Of course our current technologies and knowledge took a lot of them (like mathematics, the basis of astronomy, medicine) but it didn't set the start and achievement of capitalism in the world. To me, what started it all was the Watts machine and the industrial revolution. Before that, we didn't have such tools for mass production. So I'd say we have a lot of heritage from these ancient cultures but more indirect. Maybe when we enter a post capitalist era, we'll see these events as important as those which set capitalism. Like Mike said, History might start again! @RogueNite I wouldn't know where to put Egypt and the Ottoman Empire in my classification but to me Russia - despite its eastern geolocalisation - comes a lot from European culture, influenced by Christianism and European litterature (I am not saying that Russian litterature had a huge impact on Europe, of course they did too). We can also see that the most influent Russian cities are closer to Europe than to what I'd call East
Malandirix Our knowledge of the past is increasing, but I think you mean our understanding and rationalization of it has been lost. I think we are confused and directionless about the story of our past.
Once every artifact, memory, and historical record of a time period or culture is lost, that world has ended. If the planet without people is just "earth," then people are what make it the "world."
speaking as a historian(which is something i can actually officially describe myself as now), history is a matter of the recording and analyzing of the past which is why we do say there is a time before history because we didn't used to keep permanent records of what has happened. what you are talking about in this video is particular narratives viewed in history and claiming those narratives have come to an end which means history has ended(like saying Idea Channel ended in 2012 because mike's mustache came to an end), and yet events continue to happen and be recorded and analyzed. history can end, but only at such a time as we no longer record what has happened, or have records of what has happened, or care to study it.
I wonder if this is why we continue to have a love affair with post-apocalyptic narratives. They put characters in a situation where they are removed from history and forced to interact with the planet after the "world" has ended.
When the video started, I thought Mike was wearing a neck brace and thought "OMG, is he ok?" Then I realized that bright white thing on his neck was just his neck.
"the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands"... oh my god... that.. sounds... AMAZING!!!
I thought this was gonna be about the idea of history being over because of the relative transparency of our lives. following down that rabbit hole to the idea that events in any future textbooks on 2017 being so readily fact checkable against the gallons of personal data out there, the narrative aspect of history will eventually be subsumed by data aggregation and what we thought happened will not matter in the because the internet will tell us what exactly happened and when. I'm pleasantly surprised but that might have been an interesting topic.
thats where my mind went as well, history used to be a matter of record keeping and who's interpretation of those records could achieve the most dominant influence, but now there's so much information available its created a paradoxical narrative space where because everything is verifiable its almost like nothing is, because its all ultimately verified by itself as a whole. if that makes any sense
Can you clarify your last point? I'm some trouble parsing what you mean. I guess when I think about the narrative being "subsumed" as I said, I was thinking not only about Data aggregation but like person histories. Yes I do mean facebook and the like chronicling exactly how the general public feels, but I also mean the best selling autobiographies of every member of Congress talking ( at different points in their lives) about exactly what was going on with them at crucial moments in history. I guess where my head went with it is that we talk about ww1 being "caused" by the assassination of a man. Now when we talk about what happened in 2017 we are going to be able to see so much more of the picture that it ceases to be able to be explained so simply. At the same time (in the future) we will be able to take massive amounts of data and, using computerized parsing and writing, draw a complex picture with it. At that point we wouldn't be writing history but we'd still be the author of its pieces.
No way, OP. The internet is a giant misinformation spreading machine. Netizens share anything that *sounds* true or is interesting. We cannot fact check with this mess. Especially with its role in recent politics.
Every time I see a question mark in a title Betteridge's law of headlines jumps into my mind. It states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
I think it's interesting how so many philosophers spend much of their work arguing that whatever social, political, or economic system they live in is the final step in human progress. If there's anything I've learned on the internet, it's that trends are nearly unpredictable. Political systems are composed of just as many diverse people as the internet, so why would they be any easier to predict or declare complete? I'm reminded of the way people comment about how some memes are the pinnacle of their form, and how everyone can move on to the next one, as nothing can be funnier or more absurd. Political philosophy, it feels, follows a similar path, declaring that humanity has peaked, only to come upon the next major event and see everything change again.
I'm actually in the middle of a thesis class right now centered on construction of history and the past so this is extremely interesting to me! This idea of "history" in terms of large events and linked to each other in a linear progression of cause and effect is only ONE method of thinking about and engaging in history, albeit it is the dominant Western method, which is why it is so pervasive. It is the "dominant narrative" construction of history. Narratives are meant to function as this kind of story with large events and specific characters, which is really not how the actual past writ-large takes place. I find it much more interesting recently to examine "counter narratives" or the narratives, memories, and histories that go against or are erased by these dominant narratives: the history of oppressed groups, the kinds of lives lived by people who historians of the past did not find "worth" documenting in the Western tradition. In his essay about the institution of the monument and works of counter memory, James Young wrote "Memories of the past are like all common-sense forms, strange composite constructions, resembling a kind of geology, the selective sedimentation of past traces.” "History" as we know it is not one solid line, it is like a tangled mass of unspooled yarn that are constantly intersecting and interweaving.
I think history is over because we've stopped recording most of it on paper, stone, etc, and instead is mostly in electronic formats and therefore is less permanent on a long term scale.
Summary: The concept of the "end of the world" is up to interpretation, because we live in an age of humans, and as such, the end or the beginning is a matter of perspective -- at least until Earth itself, or our environment, promotes an event so important that forces our age to terminate and some other age to begin.
To call the collapse of the Berlin Wall the "last great historic event" is not only to ignore all other candidates from within Europe (Brexxit), but also to ignore all of those from outside of Europe. I know western philosophers and historians are Eurocentric as hell, but damn... this really takes the cake.
I feel that Fukuyama's assertion that history has "started back up again" really means "the end of a period where one nation is dominant." Maybe he's biased, maybe I'm biased, but I feel that the period between 1989 and now can be described as an America dominated era of the world. (You can debate amongst yourselves when that period actually ended or if it existed in the first place. I certainly don't want to.) What I'm getting at is that a period of relative stability in the world is actually history in the same way that periods of instability are history. Just because something is boring and unchanging doesn't make it any less "historyish" It's also worth looking at all aspects of that time. I'm not a history expert, but I can guarantee that there were some parts of the world that were going through periods of instability while others were more stable.
I don't have anything important to add i just want to say that idk why but this is the first idea channel video that i feel like i've completely understood from start to finish which is really cool
I DO believe that the history of a country a person or a planet for that matter, has ended the moment they no longer want to change the way things are and create new ones around them. Like now, when the vast majority of human beings are just existing, consuming, accepting, following... instead of creating, questioning, challenging or trying to make things better. Climate change, Racism, Inequality, corruption are just examples of thing we have stop caring about and that are so simple to end... If only more people cared.
You can see how happy he was coming out with so many ebin lines in one ep, this was a great chunk of throught as much for his facial expressions as 'twas for the reasoning.
The Roman Empire lasted over 500 years, the Byzantine went for another 800. Western Democracy hasn't been around for very long & to think that this 'empire' is here forever & nothing will ever change significantly is pretty short sighted. There have been plenty of times in history when people have probably thought that their way of life, the ruling class & the limits of the known world would last forever. Spoiler alert: they didn't.
Everything already being at an end reminds me of stories of Pre-Apocalyptic Certitude like "These Final Hours" and "Melancholia," and how we navigate our actions in the presence of this awareness makes those stories compelling.
"The new history isn't about progress but 'intimacy': between ourselves & the non-human." I really, truly hope so. I work in student affairs at a university in southern Ontario, and the school over the last few years has gone to great lengths to strengthen and build its relationship with its aboriginal community (both on campus and across the city). I was lucky to get a chance to work closely with members of our Aboriginal Student Services a while back; more recently, I've worked with colleagues on projects that respond to and seek new understanding and ways of learning because of the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions's final report. All this is to say I've gained a new appreciation for the beliefs and ways of knowing from my Aboriginal colleagues. My learning is VERY much in its infancy and I have a long way to go before I have a deep understanding of their experiences. This video's conclusion, though, reminds me of some of the values I've learned about from my colleagues, specifically Mike's quote above, as well as "...we are only tenants of 'the Earth'." (Though I would argue that, even though we've been acting like the worst possible tenants so far, we're actually family to the Earth and should start acting as such.) We would do well to learn from Aboriginal perspectives and values in the Intimacy Epoch. I say bring on new-History! End "the World" and let us start anew. Hit "New Game" at the menu screen, and this time, let's take the best from what we learned on our first pass, ask friends that have different ways of knowing and being for guidance, and be something better. Because-just like Undertale-even though we hit "New", we carry our previous play through with us, always. Which, I suppose, is why this epoch is about "ourselves" and "the non-human", or all that which is outside of us. We've learned (I hope), just like a toddler, that we are not the centre of the universe; there are people and a world outside of us that we must acknowledge and care for. We may, just maybe, be still on the path, as a people (i.e. humans) to "growing up." I sure hope so.
For the sake of the argument, what is the difference between having a few discrete histories, each defined by a specific set of characteristics, and having one history, with times of activity and inactivity, where each period of activity and social revolt is followed by a times of status quo, which exists only to be upset again by revolutions or natural occurences.
I know this has nothing to do with the contents of this video, but I kept get distracted by Astro Boy who looked like he was considering trying to lift Thor's hammer.
If I understand correctly, The history of us, of people getting settle in and finding out how to function and live together is now over. But now we are beginning the chapter of history in which humanity has to learn to deal with external forces, other non-human beings and objects, as well as what we create. Am I getting this right ?
Thank you for this Mike! I just came home from my philosophy class on the role of our different worldviews on our perceptions and attitudes toward the environment, more specifically the current "global ecological crisis". Looking at this episode through this lens there is a lot to pick at: the fact there are still people trying to develop new economic and governmental systems, the effect such bleak writings have on public will, and for me most of all Morton's writing you reference in the episode. Your explanation of how as we enter the "Anthropocene", a pretty common phrase at this point, we arrive at a place of intimacy is really encouraging to me. In my class we've spent the last few weeks and will spent the next couple discussing the role of religious and spiritual practices and proper long-winded philosophies regarding environmental attitudes, but this idea of a secular and downright bleak realization that we all must realize, that we are not the sole engineers and managers of the Earth's many systems, is hopeful. It, to me, seems like an argument that might be able to convince some of those apathetic and/or cynical hold-outs who still claim that there's no point in trying because it all will come to an end. If they understand that yes the world as they know it has ended (R.E.M. is now stuck in your head, you're welcome.) and that a new history of intimacy between human and non-human nature, maybe there is room for a homocentric ethic that till holds the environment as a top priority. Trying to find a way to explain the importance of other living things to people who don't see it has been on my mind a lot as of late, with the current political and literal climate somewhat at odds with one-another and a great many people who seem keen on staying ignorant out of fear or whatever else. For me it has always seemed obvious that other life and intact ecosystems are important merely because they exist and that, as a bonus, we absolutely need them in order to continue to exist. So I am grateful that it seems Morton's writing may be a way forward for some who don't see this intrinsic value.
didn't Kafka nail this down with "The Penal Colony?" It isn't a question of ending, but understanding how, throughout history, the pendulum swings from anarchy to totalitarianism and back constantly. That no matter how we cut it, suffering is parcel and present to all of us and is not about accepting suffering or rejecting it, but whether we can attribute meaning to it to be our best selves, or bear the lingering stigma of the absurd.
As a trotskyist socialist, there's a few points I think are important to bring up regarding the nature of stalinism, and of liberal democracy under capitalism I'd argue that stalinism was not in fact real socialism. Socialism, as argued by key theorists Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky etc was the worker's collective control over the means of production. And that a temporary worker's state (the term 'state' referring to a tool used by one class to oppress another) could be used to transition from capitalism to communism (a stateless, classless society), and once in this society, the workers state would wither away as the previous oppressing capitalist class would be eradicated. Stalin's theory was Socialism in One Country, which is inherently oxymoronic because in order for a state to survive in a global capitalist economy it would need to capitulate to the nature of global capitalism. Trotsky's theory was Permanent Revolution: where in order to transition to communism, worker's states would have to develop in other countries, led by the vanguard party, to keep the marxist revolution going until communism was achieved. The rise of stalinism was not inevitable, in order for Stalin to rise to power he had to brutally kill or drive to suicide the thousands of true revolutionaries in Russia. The revolution in russia was meant to be a placeholder, aided by other states in achieving communism. Despite revoltionary struggle and mass general strike waves occuring internationally, the key determining factor for this was the German revolution of 1918-19. If the working class in one of the biggest world imperial powers was able to seize control, Russia wouldn't have been isolated and depleted of resources and the revolution could have spread internationally. Unfortunately, despite immense strike waves and the establishment of workers councils (which is what the term "Soviet" actually translates to) the material conditions for worker's revolution were not met in Germany as the revolutionary vanguard party, the Spartacists, were developed in the midst of struggle, rather than prior, so they were inexperienced, as well as making some careless mistakes, and their leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Ultimately stalinism was just a highly beaurocratic state-capitalism, not real socialism or communism. For a more detailed critique analysis of stalinism in theory and in practise, from a marxist perspective I'd recommend this article: www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/into-mainstream/ch01.htm I'd argue that we don't live currently live in a democracy, but an extreme plutocracy, where control over the means of producing wealth (farms, factories, offices, transport infrastructure, telecommunication networks etc) are centralised into the hands of a small minority, and that all proclamations of democracy are merely a smoke-screen to disguise this system and to give the masses an illusion of choice and participation in the system. Given that 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as 3.6 billion people, (the third richest billionaire, warren buffet has even stated that "There's class warfare, all right. But its my class, the rich class that's making war, and we're winning"), as well as the fact that billionaires have immense power in terms of lobbying and control over the media, this isn't too controversial of a point to make. However we have seen glimpses of real democracy with the establishment of workers' councils, and revolutions in Russia, (both in 1905 and 1917), Germany 1918, Hungary 1956, poland 1981 all the way up to the 2011 arab spring revolutions
Personally as a history major I don't think cultural hegemony or stagnation results in history "ending". Also kinda sells history short if one thinks it is mainly comprised of "media images". Living history is an amazing way to connect to history in a sensory way. Walk around a renaissance fair or a civil war reenactment. Sure the guy with a musket in his hand may have a cell-phone in his pocket but he smells the gunpowder and stands on the same ground in more or less the same conditions as a soldier 200 years prior to him. That has to symbolize some lasting longevity or depth independent from media manipulation. Edit: I somehow intuitively agree with the statement the "world" ended (or was severely altered) when the atomic bomb was first dropped. Oppenheimer's quote captures that sentiment perfectly.
I'd say that there are a few valid points raised by Fukuyama and Baudrillard, but truthfully, I think that they (much like their contemporaries) lack the kind of foresight, optimism, and courage to *build* a future. Further, I'd posit that the points they raise are only valid BECAUSE the people of my parents generation were complacent to shop, shop, shop and never stop and think about the emptiness and infinite disposability of their shallow consumer existence. Where F&B fail is that their critiques don't go far enough. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was the end of history because since then, there's been nothing WORTHY of documenting. Most events since that time has been sanitized, corporate marketing. "Buy, buy, buy." History is kind of like speedrunning. Every time the community thinks we're reaching the absolute lowest possible time, someone comes along with new strategies and techniques that move the goalposts and shave countless seconds off the clock. I'm strongly in favor of a Star Trek future. Where humanity is governed by the sound principals of tolerance and exploration. And the Zero-sum Philosophy has been abolished.
It's so creepy that this video was made exactly when I needed it for my project on Baudrillard. Anyway, thanks a whole lot! It really helped me understand a lot lol
Eh... the mistake is thinking that history and human progression is based on political states and not on cultural. The political structure is not the keystone of each segment of time and groupings of people under it but rather is merely the byproduct of the cultural culmination of the current environment and the people in it. While it is certainly a nice breaking point between cultural eras, as the 90s and 00s certainly saw the rise of the subculture era and demise of the nationalism (which liberal democracies also encouraged, see the entire cold war from the US perspective for that.) It is hardly a stopping point, more so just the intermission period, which I would argue has already ended. Of course the most notable example of a turning point in our time line of when the next period started is easily seen as 9/11, but really it was changing long before that.
it seems a little narcissistic and presumptuous to assume that democracy is the end. I have a hard time accepting and allowing the idea that democracy is as good as we're going to do let's throw our hands up and walk away from the table. And do we really think democracy is likely to survive in the long term ? I wonder, as the world gets smaller, whether democracy will continue to feel fulfilling.
I think I understand the angle that Fukuyama tried to pitch in his "The End of History?". I think he feels what I feel when I play Civilization, and I conquer every other player and think "oh well, there is no one else to fight, I won, this game is over". If you believe that History is a log of powers and ideologies struggling against one another then, yeah, History SEEMS like it was over in 1989, after the Berlin Wall went down. But this is a matter of perspective and of definition - Fukuyama called History over because it felt like Western Liberal society had been victorious. BUUUUT (real emphasys on 'but'), it was not quite that simple. I tend to disagree with Fukuyama because (i) I don't agree that History is simply the log of people struggles; and (ii) the "victory" of Western Liberalism is way more complicated than that. To back me up, I like to reference Hurtington in his "Clash of Civilizations", that predicted, quite accurately, that a post-Cold War society would engulf itself in cultural skirmishes, and the dominion of Western Liberalism wouldn't last long, as cultures (such as Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and Slavic, only to name some) would acknowledge that Western Liberalism is (ahem) good, but far from perfect - and that would prompt these cultures to adapt and emulate the modernity of the West, but without all the Western culture embedded. So, I like more the Clash of Civilizations theory - the victory of Western Liberalism was not the last act of History; it is another act (a very important one, but not the last) in the unfolding of a still alive History.
Having an ideal (or maybe just optimal) form of government can't be all there is to "history", can it? We still have an unfurling environmental crisis to deal with. In a few years, we could be facing a global health crisis too, or economic collapse, or a giant meteor heading straight towards us - you can have the best form of government imaginable and humanity will still face serious challenges that need to be overcome, and these aren't trivial things as Fukuyama (and others who have that whole, "politics is everything" framework) seems to imply. Boiling history down to how we structure our government strikes me as missing the forest for the trees.
one interesting way of looking at how history has ended (which in my view it has) is that what many people referred to as history for many years was a matter of records. History is the story we remember based on what's been written down, and deemed factual. However in our current era, we've reached a point where so much is being "written down" all at once that their is a lot of room for different groups to amass power by portraying reality a certain way to certain people, as in recording entirely different sets of facts and presenting them as historical truth. I think this phenomenon is at the core of our current political paradigm, as the different followers of the different parties and factions really follow their own distinct narratives of whats going on in the world, based on a different set of facts and beliefs. Its as if there are a whole bunch of different histories playing out all at once. Which in fact, is how its always actually been, but before now the technology to write things down and create a historical record was a technological capability relegated to the upper echelons of society. Today access to those means of historical production have become more widespread than ever before, which has "ended" history in that it has shattered the story and created cultural and societal division down to the level of historical fact itself. And this is reflected in the content of our culture itself as well. Look at all the conspiracy theories, apocalypses, alternate realities, split personalities, and even this very youtube channel.
I can definitely get on board for the "history has ended" thing, at least as a possibility. Although we're at risk of it not being true, if say North Korea does something impulsive--it does otherwise seem like we're just inches away from going "Okay, yep. This is the best way for humans to live." Hence why I'm a humanist. But the "world has ended" thing I can't get on board for. It just seems like one of those philosophy tricks where you define your argument into sounding truthful. You can accuse the world of being whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it just is a rock with humans living on it with various societies, and that's all "the world" is by most definitions. Being artsy with your language doesn't really do much except force the person listening to you to try to cram tangible concepts (physical bodies/populations, a physical planet, the literal habits we have in survival) into some less tangible abstraction for no reason except to make it sound like you have something to say. And I'm talking about Timothy Morton's argument here, specifically. I'm not accusing Mike of any of this :P
Fukuyama later edited his claim that history had ended. In the book Our Posthuman Future, he writes "there could be no end of history unless there was an end of Science." Apologies if this is already a comment or you omitted it intentionally.
Kant also posited an end to history (if it came up in this video, I missed it). I don't normally respond to philosophical thought in a trivial way. But sometimes it helps to ground things a little. I feel like (emphasis on 'feel') as long as human beings are involved in the process, history will never reach its conclusion. Because human beings are never satisfied. Every new strata of quality of life becomes submersed in the rising tide of expectations. Because human beings are all too ready to step on each other to reach higher. Because human beings are not always rational. I think it's fair to say that we've hit a lull, and I think it's fair to say that those regimes which challenge democracy and liberalism are not preferable. But I am also not ready to say that the system we currently employ in the west is incorruptible, or that it embodies the greater needs of all mankind. It is still a system by which some exploitation must occur. In the case of feudalism, for example, the exploitation was that of the serfs, in order to better the lot of the aristocracy. In the case of western capitalism/democracy, the exploitation has largely been shifted to capital-colonialism. The exploitation of under-developed countries in order to reap their resources and wealth and redistribute it amongst the capitalist classes of the west. Not that we can fully deconstruct capitalism/democracy this way, it has other functions and provides other goods, but if any class of people are being exploited by another, then history can only end if you are ready to say that those who are necessarily exploited are in their rightful place and will never progress. Their history must be over as well. And I don't think that can be said. Even in such a case as all places develop democracy and capitalism, we will be met with incredible friction as those people in nations who are exploited by their wealthier compatriots push back against this form of capital-colonialism, which the wealthier nations require in order to maintain their privileged lifestyles.
There is no reason to think history must be at an end. The "consent of the governed", as the title of that book you were talking about last time suggests, is manufactured. We should build a society based on mutual aid solidarity, and the freedom of all, and save the planet in the process.
On the current state of history see Georg Sørensen's "Democracy and Democratization," which outlines the current state of democratization, or rather, the stalled democratization of many of the world's emerging democracies. Sorensen directly reviews Fukuyama and muddies the waters by arguing in concert with many democracy scholars that not only is democratization and ever continuing process within a state, but that it is one that can take as many paths as there are states. He ends his book with a comparison between Kant's Pacific Union, described as a proto-democracy peace theory that asserts that democracy promotes peace between states due to shared values and trade, and its counter part found in Neo-Realism. For the Neo-Realists, reports Sorensen, no democracy, no matter how consolidated is always at risk of "changing stripes" and sliding back into authoritarianism, often referred to as "reversals." I found the initial description at the top of the video of an ever increasingly technically focused world that sets itself to solving problems of efficiency without the drama of a great ideological conflict both bothersome and yet plausible. Bothersome as the logic in this description felt reminiscent of Carl Schmitt, the former Nazi philosopher that argued, among other things, that humanity or a people turns on itself when without a clear definition of friend or foe, preferably an enemy that constantly tests the state and unites its members. In this case the lack of an existential threat posed by a Soviet Union apparently meant the loss of this defining force. Schmitt aside, I found the description plausible in that it described a world obsessed with technical efficiency. This bureaucratization of the world has troubling ethical implications outlined in Adam's and Balfour's "Unmasking Administrative Evil" where they argue that an obsession with Technical Rationality has created environments of "Moral Inversion." The smoking gun of this argument being the Holocaust of the Second World War, where men like Schmitt contributed to an extremely efficient bureaucratic machine that systematically slaughtered millions. Ultimately I'd argue that history is far from over, not simply because events are still recorded, but because the assertion that altered or better political systems are still possible, or at least that democratic reversals make it possible that we might need to strive to end history again. Sorensen leaves his readers with a discussion of the importance of civic engagement and cultivating what Robert Putnam referred to as Social Capital, the trust that held communities together. As long as liberal democracies, like the United States, rely on an engaged and connected public there will always be the threat that of democratic reversals when said public lapses in its civic duties.
I've always hated Fukuyama's notion of history because it seems to define all "political, ideological, and cultural progression" of humans as the one single political/economic axis Fukuyama and his contemporaries were interested in at the time: democratic liberalism vs. authoritarian command economy. And that's always struck me as very short-sighted. For example, since the Berlin Wall fell we've seen an almost complete rethinking of what gender means in popular society - that's a pretty major cultural progression that though it falls outside the political-economic axis Fukuyama seems to have been interested in, still represents a major question society has to work out. The global prominence of Islam, with the variety of approaches to it we see and the backlash against it and fear that it all is really just one approach is another major question, and it's no surprise Fukuyama was blindsided by it if his eyes were only on the last century's big political questions. I appreciate that you guys tried to look at history and the world from a broader view than Fukuyama did, but I still would caution against anyone claiming the great questions of society have been resolved simply because we living in this moment aren't sure what questions are looming on the horizon. I share your anxiety about the times we live in and I would absolutely agree that it is necessary we not waste time in building a better world, both from an environmental sustainability and a political stability point of view. However, I'm skeptical of any claim that we are living in a unique axis point in history. Any time I hear arguments to that effect, I think back to for example the early Christians who were absolutely convinced that the 2nd coming of Christ would be within their lifetimes - they were convinced with equal certainty that their moment was the one that all of history turned upon. I would say there is no end to history so long as thinking people live because there is no axis moment - or rather, that we are constantly living in the middle of history because *every moment* is an axis moment. The challenge is not to escape the end of history (hopefully, assuming we don't completely destroy ourselves), the challenge is to get our eyes out of the limited viewpoint of the present and to try to imagine each moment's potential in the grand scheme of time.
the important thing is that whhther liberal democracy ends, capitalism will survive it and the basic issues with it. this episode is pretty spooked. pro tip: the soviet union was not communism and there are good explanations why not. furthermore the fall of the soviet union does not mean the triumph of capitalism: boht the soviet union and america were imperialistic capitalist societies. i wish mike adressed this, not just repeat the capitalist version of history.
Can we do one on the crumbling sense of adulthood? It seemed to me that when we were kids there was a point that you became an adult, but I think as current politics show... it doesn't exist.
God, it’s been 3 years and “things are... tense” hits like a freight train
brb, ordering new business cards with "Mr. Dr. Joe Hanson" on them 🙃
It seems telling to me that Fukuyama would focus in on the Berlin Wall as the end point of history, an event that occurred during his lifetime. I think that mixed in with the collective juvenoia we experience as a culture there is often a real sense that the generations ahead of us would like history to be over.
People who believe the world is ending have a similar stance: in a sense they have seen that bus on the horizon and the end is nigh.
This is a compelling view of the world because it places our individual lives at the climax of history rather than forcing us to confront the absolute truth that history is going to keep happening for a long time and none of us alive today are likely to see the end.
I'm sorry but I don't see in 2017 a greater historic event than the Berlin Wall Fall.
Even if a world war breaks out and USA loses, I don't see how it would change the political/economic system as drastically as the Berlin Wall and the end of USSR
I don't think most viewers of this channel understand what the words "Liberal" and "Conservative" mean in the sense used by political scientists and historians and the like. Those words are used too often in common discourse as meaning very different things, so you probably should have explained them a bit. Liberal, in the way it is used by Baudrillard and similar, means any system that sees the rights of the individual as more important than those of an over-arching 'state' or larger collective organization. Conservative, in that arena, refers to things like monarchies where the concerns of individuals are seen as properly subjugated to the concerns of the 'state'. For instance if you wanted to round up and eliminate a large number of people in order to reduce the demand for food, a Liberal society would find that unthinkable because the destruction of individuals is seen as unacceptable even if it helps the state, whereas a Conservative would see it as the proper duty of those individuals to be destroyed in order to better serve the state. The concerns of what helps the 'state' (its not always actually a nation, it can be a church or a race or similar, any group which is seen as more important than its constituent members and separate from them) are what truly matter to a Conservative in that way the word is used. It is very, very different from how 'conservative' is used in common speaking and because history has ended and liberalism has won, many people aren't even aware such ideas used to be how the entire world worked.
The USA since JFK is the worse thing to ever happen to political discourse.
I'm sorry, but are you _absolutely deranged,_ CrashDavi? There have been times in American history where political discourse lead to eg mass lynchings and literal civil war.
That statement is so willfully uninformed it boggles the mind.
+Mitchell Davis
I'm not concerned about the results of political discourse, I'm concerned about the health of political discourse itself and the effect that american society has on it.
The fact that it promoted so little change since then and now is proof of how ill it has become.
"The fact that it promoted so little change since then and now is proof of how ill it has become."
People aren't as openly sexist or racist as before, and by and large people that display overt sexism, racism, and (new developments) homophobia, and often transphobia and general otherism are demonized and punished.
Is it shit? Yep. Has it been shit? Unquestionably. Is it less shit than it has been in the last several centuries? One would have to be entirely uninformed to think otherwise.
I find it almost amusing that you are complaining about the state of political discourse based on an entirely uninformed position. That smacks of a general disregard for honest discourse.
+Dustin Rodriguez You're right that popular discourse and usage of the terms liberal and conservative are not in line with the theoretical meaning, or in any case, to an extent. But your example overemphasizes the distinction. US politics uses the two terms in strange bipolarity and very singular. In more common Western political systems, liberalism usually is associated with center-right political parties that are direct descendants of 18th and 19th-century democratic parties that ascribed to the ideals of the French and American revolutions and most often form bastions for business interest. While conservatism was often a religious movement that formed a reactionary opposition to the modernisation and individualisation of Western democracies. I think your claim that conservatives would sacrifice individual rights for the good of the whole, and even when that would mean the destruction of individuals, is overstated to the point that it makes no sense. The specific positions of political exponents of these ideologies in the various Western countries differ greatly, as one might imagine. In Europe nowadays, liberal thinkers often are socially progressive, but economically conservative, and interestingly conservatives often end up in socially conservative, but economically progressive positions (meaning more social-democratic). Without a clear two-party system, it's the relative unpredictability of political stances and alliances between the three main political movements that create the changes in coalitions.
Every time you say "the world" with all that emphasis I keep expecting a Dio GIF.
Arcus Veles ZA WARUDO
Arcus Veles MUDA!
HINJAKU HINJAKU
WRYYYYYYYYYYY
or a clip from the 4th op
As a History student, I despise Fukuyama. In saying that the end of history was the end of the Cold War and end of the fight between capitalism and communism, he ignores the role the rest of the world plays in world history. He has put all of their civilisations into a footnote of the ideological battle between two essentially western ideologies. I know his idea of history is more of one of progress, but that's only a western perception of it, and this also ignores the wide cultural knowledge history can enrich us with. Imagine if somebody said to the west that an event in Africa between two different ideologies ended all of world history.
Except that it wasn't an event in the west. It was the end of a struggle between the two largest powers in the world, one of which was in the west, and one of which was in the east and the subject of their struggle was the entire world. They were involving themselves in ideological events in Africa. It was a global indirect conflict.
There may be other civilizations in the world but to me (i am not a historic or geopolitic student), communism and capitalism were the two main ideologies confronting each other. And capitalist won. What i see in the world right now is every country adopting this model, from Asian countries to African countries.
There are still some military dictatures in the world but there is no way their systems take over the world.
I can't see other countries than the western ones changing history right now. China might have this power but they have adopted a capitalist economic system. So it seems like it's the western countries that forged our world, they were there first and everyone has to play by there rules now (unless you are a little African kid in Somalia waiting to die from denutrition or malaria)
Yeah fair point (although I wouldn't call Russia typically eastern). However, do you see that in calling this event the end of history, you make the empires of Egypt, Mesopatamia, China, Mongolia, Ottoman and so on a footnote to the history of Capitalism?
Regardless of your perception of what's western and eastern, Russia is very much in the eastern hemisphere and more eastern than both Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. I'm not saying I agree with the conclusion, but it was very much about a global conflict between the two most powerful nations the world had ever seen, one in the western hemisphere and one in the eastern hemisphere, fighting each other on dozens of different stages around the world. It was more significant than every empire and conflict than had ever come before it. I can understand the conclusion Fukuyama made, regardless of my disagreement with it.
@Dabbo100 For now, as we are in this capitalist area, I'd say that these empires have had a lesser role in the achievement of capitalism. Of course our current technologies and knowledge took a lot of them (like mathematics, the basis of astronomy, medicine) but it didn't set the start and achievement of capitalism in the world. To me, what started it all was the Watts machine and the industrial revolution. Before that, we didn't have such tools for mass production.
So I'd say we have a lot of heritage from these ancient cultures but more indirect. Maybe when we enter a post capitalist era, we'll see these events as important as those which set capitalism. Like Mike said, History might start again!
@RogueNite I wouldn't know where to put Egypt and the Ottoman Empire in my classification but to me Russia - despite its eastern geolocalisation - comes a lot from European culture, influenced by Christianism and European litterature (I am not saying that Russian litterature had a huge impact on Europe, of course they did too). We can also see that the most influent Russian cities are closer to Europe than to what I'd call East
"History" is not the right word to describe this idea. You're really talking about "Progress".
Gabriel Bryant I disagree. Humanity can still progress but history can be lost. Like now for instance. We are missing so much history.
Malandirix What do you mean by the word "History"?
Gabriel Bryant Knowledge of the past I guess.
Malandirix Our knowledge of the past is increasing, but I think you mean our understanding and rationalization of it has been lost. I think we are confused and directionless about the story of our past.
Gabriel Bryant But there are certainly things we will never know about the past.
Once every artifact, memory, and historical record of a time period or culture is lost, that world has ended. If the planet without people is just "earth," then people are what make it the "world."
speaking as a historian(which is something i can actually officially describe myself as now), history is a matter of the recording and analyzing of the past which is why we do say there is a time before history because we didn't used to keep permanent records of what has happened. what you are talking about in this video is particular narratives viewed in history and claiming those narratives have come to an end which means history has ended(like saying Idea Channel ended in 2012 because mike's mustache came to an end), and yet events continue to happen and be recorded and analyzed. history can end, but only at such a time as we no longer record what has happened, or have records of what has happened, or care to study it.
because less then a year ago i completed my 4year BA in History, meaning i am now officially a trained Historian.
I wonder if this is why we continue to have a love affair with post-apocalyptic narratives. They put characters in a situation where they are removed from history and forced to interact with the planet after the "world" has ended.
I must say, this episode is much more entertaining if you imagine Mike as DIO shouting [ZA WARUDO] every time it is mentioned.
When the video started, I thought Mike was wearing a neck brace and thought "OMG, is he ok?"
Then I realized that bright white thing on his neck was just his neck.
"the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands"... oh my god... that.. sounds... AMAZING!!!
This is may be your best video yet! Thank you
This episode went over my head
I thought this was gonna be about the idea of history being over because of the relative transparency of our lives. following down that rabbit hole to the idea that events in any future textbooks on 2017 being so readily fact checkable against the gallons of personal data out there, the narrative aspect of history will eventually be subsumed by data aggregation and what we thought happened will not matter in the because the internet will tell us what exactly happened and when. I'm pleasantly surprised but that might have been an interesting topic.
I concur
thats where my mind went as well, history used to be a matter of record keeping and who's interpretation of those records could achieve the most dominant influence, but now there's so much information available its created a paradoxical narrative space where because everything is verifiable its almost like nothing is, because its all ultimately verified by itself as a whole.
if that makes any sense
kaemon bonet i too thought so
Can you clarify your last point? I'm some trouble parsing what you mean.
I guess when I think about the narrative being "subsumed" as I said, I was thinking not only about Data aggregation but like person histories. Yes I do mean facebook and the like chronicling exactly how the general public feels, but I also mean the best selling autobiographies of every member of Congress talking ( at different points in their lives) about exactly what was going on with them at crucial moments in history.
I guess where my head went with it is that we talk about ww1 being "caused" by the assassination of a man. Now when we talk about what happened in 2017 we are going to be able to see so much more of the picture that it ceases to be able to be explained so simply. At the same time (in the future) we will be able to take massive amounts of data and, using computerized parsing and writing, draw a complex picture with it.
At that point we wouldn't be writing history but we'd still be the author of its pieces.
No way, OP. The internet is a giant misinformation spreading machine. Netizens share anything that *sounds* true or is interesting. We cannot fact check with this mess. Especially with its role in recent politics.
Every time I see a question mark in a title Betteridge's law of headlines jumps into my mind. It states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
This is one of your best episodes yet.
Dude, "Beyond the End" as a phrase is metal
This channel makes PBS spacetime seem like high school physics. I feel my brain imploding in on itself.
Using Horse E-Books to sum up Baudrillard. I...I think that was peak internet.
I think it's interesting how so many philosophers spend much of their work arguing that whatever social, political, or economic system they live in is the final step in human progress. If there's anything I've learned on the internet, it's that trends are nearly unpredictable. Political systems are composed of just as many diverse people as the internet, so why would they be any easier to predict or declare complete?
I'm reminded of the way people comment about how some memes are the pinnacle of their form, and how everyone can move on to the next one, as nothing can be funnier or more absurd. Political philosophy, it feels, follows a similar path, declaring that humanity has peaked, only to come upon the next major event and see everything change again.
This was very interesting. Enjoyed it quite a bit. Thank you! Truly
I'm actually in the middle of a thesis class right now centered on construction of history and the past so this is extremely interesting to me! This idea of "history" in terms of large events and linked to each other in a linear progression of cause and effect is only ONE method of thinking about and engaging in history, albeit it is the dominant Western method, which is why it is so pervasive. It is the "dominant narrative" construction of history. Narratives are meant to function as this kind of story with large events and specific characters, which is really not how the actual past writ-large takes place.
I find it much more interesting recently to examine "counter narratives" or the narratives, memories, and histories that go against or are erased by these dominant narratives: the history of oppressed groups, the kinds of lives lived by people who historians of the past did not find "worth" documenting in the Western tradition.
In his essay about the institution of the monument and works of counter memory, James Young wrote "Memories of the past are like all common-sense forms, strange composite constructions, resembling a kind of geology, the selective sedimentation of past traces.” "History" as we know it is not one solid line, it is like a tangled mass of unspooled yarn that are constantly intersecting and interweaving.
I think history is over because we've stopped recording most of it on paper, stone, etc, and instead is mostly in electronic formats and therefore is less permanent on a long term scale.
Summary: The concept of the "end of the world" is up to interpretation, because we live in an age of humans, and as such, the end or the beginning is a matter of perspective -- at least until Earth itself, or our environment, promotes an event so important that forces our age to terminate and some other age to begin.
the first idea channel video i have to watch more than once!
To call the collapse of the Berlin Wall the "last great historic event" is not only to ignore all other candidates from within Europe (Brexxit), but also to ignore all of those from outside of Europe. I know western philosophers and historians are Eurocentric as hell, but damn... this really takes the cake.
I can't believe you just quoted horseebooks as serious philosophical thought. I love it and it works but man, I didn't think I would see the day.
What is the music at 8:40? I've been hearing it in the other episodes too and it reminds me of music from Spyro or something.
I feel that Fukuyama's assertion that history has "started back up again" really means "the end of a period where one nation is dominant." Maybe he's biased, maybe I'm biased, but I feel that the period between 1989 and now can be described as an America dominated era of the world. (You can debate amongst yourselves when that period actually ended or if it existed in the first place. I certainly don't want to.)
What I'm getting at is that a period of relative stability in the world is actually history in the same way that periods of instability are history. Just because something is boring and unchanging doesn't make it any less "historyish" It's also worth looking at all aspects of that time. I'm not a history expert, but I can guarantee that there were some parts of the world that were going through periods of instability while others were more stable.
It's really helpful to finally get an explanation of the phrase "end of history".
Anybody know where I can look at the diagram on 2:21, would be nice to take a look
I don't have anything important to add i just want to say that idk why but this is the first idea channel video that i feel like i've completely understood from start to finish which is really cool
I DO believe that the history of a country a person or a planet for that matter, has ended the moment they no longer want to change the way things are and create new ones around them. Like now, when the vast majority of human beings are just existing, consuming, accepting, following... instead of creating, questioning, challenging or trying to make things better. Climate change, Racism, Inequality, corruption are just examples of thing we have stop caring about and that are so simple to end... If only more people cared.
You can see how happy he was coming out with so many ebin lines in one ep, this was a great chunk of throught as much for his facial expressions as 'twas for the reasoning.
In the end slate, we can see the bottom few pixels from the footage of Mike beneath the brown overlay. Just wanted to point that out. Cheers!
The Roman Empire lasted over 500 years, the Byzantine went for another 800. Western Democracy hasn't been around for very long & to think that this 'empire' is here forever & nothing will ever change significantly is pretty short sighted.
There have been plenty of times in history when people have probably thought that their way of life, the ruling class & the limits of the known world would last forever. Spoiler alert: they didn't.
Everything already being at an end reminds me of stories of Pre-Apocalyptic Certitude like "These Final Hours" and "Melancholia," and how we navigate our actions in the presence of this awareness makes those stories compelling.
"The new history isn't about progress but 'intimacy': between ourselves & the non-human." I really, truly hope so.
I work in student affairs at a university in southern Ontario, and the school over the last few years has gone to great lengths to strengthen and build its relationship with its aboriginal community (both on campus and across the city).
I was lucky to get a chance to work closely with members of our Aboriginal Student Services a while back; more recently, I've worked with colleagues on projects that respond to and seek new understanding and ways of learning because of the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions's final report.
All this is to say I've gained a new appreciation for the beliefs and ways of knowing from my Aboriginal colleagues. My learning is VERY much in its infancy and I have a long way to go before I have a deep understanding of their experiences. This video's conclusion, though, reminds me of some of the values I've learned about from my colleagues, specifically Mike's quote above, as well as "...we are only tenants of 'the Earth'." (Though I would argue that, even though we've been acting like the worst possible tenants so far, we're actually family to the Earth and should start acting as such.) We would do well to learn from Aboriginal perspectives and values in the Intimacy Epoch.
I say bring on new-History! End "the World" and let us start anew. Hit "New Game" at the menu screen, and this time, let's take the best from what we learned on our first pass, ask friends that have different ways of knowing and being for guidance, and be something better. Because-just like Undertale-even though we hit "New", we carry our previous play through with us, always.
Which, I suppose, is why this epoch is about "ourselves" and "the non-human", or all that which is outside of us. We've learned (I hope), just like a toddler, that we are not the centre of the universe; there are people and a world outside of us that we must acknowledge and care for. We may, just maybe, be still on the path, as a people (i.e. humans) to "growing up."
I sure hope so.
So Oppenheimer was right when he said : "I am become death ,destroyer of worlds,"
Fukuyama himself has said that the word "end" does not mean what you're saying it means. It means "purpose."
best idea channel episode in a while. love the meme editing, made me laugh a lot.
4 years later and the world seems to be unreal now more than ever
For the sake of the argument, what is the difference between having a few discrete histories, each defined by a specific set of characteristics, and having one history, with times of activity and inactivity, where each period of activity and social revolt is followed by a times of status quo, which exists only to be upset again by revolutions or natural occurences.
4:39 when you don't have enough patience to argue if 2000 actually happened so you just use a music album as prof, lol
I think I need some time to think about this....
*goes to weep in the corner as my mind splits in half*
I know this has nothing to do with the contents of this video, but I kept get distracted by Astro Boy who looked like he was considering trying to lift Thor's hammer.
Idea. "Wholesome Memes" is trying to change internet etiquette to be more pleasant by turning being wholesome into a meme.
Well, I'm impressed with your channel. I will keep learning until I'm not.
Very enjoyable. Thanks.
shit... I'm now going to need a lot of coffee to think about... stuff... like... I can't even
Unrelated but if you ever read this, what boards do you frequent on 4ch (or whatever you browse)?
Peter Mullen's Classic Dungeon Crawl Art Folio!!!
I haven't been this excited about your backdrop since Television's Marquee Moon. . .
If I understand correctly, The history of us, of people getting settle in and finding out how to function and live together is now over. But now we are beginning the chapter of history in which humanity has to learn to deal with external forces, other non-human beings and objects, as well as what we create. Am I getting this right ?
Thank you for this Mike! I just came home from my philosophy class on the role of our different worldviews on our perceptions and attitudes toward the environment, more specifically the current "global ecological crisis". Looking at this episode through this lens there is a lot to pick at: the fact there are still people trying to develop new economic and governmental systems, the effect such bleak writings have on public will, and for me most of all Morton's writing you reference in the episode.
Your explanation of how as we enter the "Anthropocene", a pretty common phrase at this point, we arrive at a place of intimacy is really encouraging to me. In my class we've spent the last few weeks and will spent the next couple discussing the role of religious and spiritual practices and proper long-winded philosophies regarding environmental attitudes, but this idea of a secular and downright bleak realization that we all must realize, that we are not the sole engineers and managers of the Earth's many systems, is hopeful. It, to me, seems like an argument that might be able to convince some of those apathetic and/or cynical hold-outs who still claim that there's no point in trying because it all will come to an end. If they understand that yes the world as they know it has ended (R.E.M. is now stuck in your head, you're welcome.) and that a new history of intimacy between human and non-human nature, maybe there is room for a homocentric ethic that till holds the environment as a top priority.
Trying to find a way to explain the importance of other living things to people who don't see it has been on my mind a lot as of late, with the current political and literal climate somewhat at odds with one-another and a great many people who seem keen on staying ignorant out of fear or whatever else. For me it has always seemed obvious that other life and intact ecosystems are important merely because they exist and that, as a bonus, we absolutely need them in order to continue to exist. So I am grateful that it seems Morton's writing may be a way forward for some who don't see this intrinsic value.
didn't Kafka nail this down with "The Penal Colony?" It isn't a question of ending, but understanding how, throughout history, the pendulum swings from anarchy to totalitarianism and back constantly. That no matter how we cut it, suffering is parcel and present to all of us and is not about accepting suffering or rejecting it, but whether we can attribute meaning to it to be our best selves, or bear the lingering stigma of the absurd.
As a trotskyist socialist, there's a few points I think are important to bring up regarding the nature of stalinism, and of liberal democracy under capitalism
I'd argue that stalinism was not in fact real socialism. Socialism, as argued by key theorists Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky etc was the worker's collective control over the means of production. And that a temporary worker's state (the term 'state' referring to a tool used by one class to oppress another) could be used to transition from capitalism to communism (a stateless, classless society), and once in this society, the workers state would wither away as the previous oppressing capitalist class would be eradicated. Stalin's theory was Socialism in One Country, which is inherently oxymoronic because in order for a state to survive in a global capitalist economy it would need to capitulate to the nature of global capitalism. Trotsky's theory was Permanent Revolution: where in order to transition to communism, worker's states would have to develop in other countries, led by the vanguard party, to keep the marxist revolution going until communism was achieved. The rise of stalinism was not inevitable, in order for Stalin to rise to power he had to brutally kill or drive to suicide the thousands of true revolutionaries in Russia. The revolution in russia was meant to be a placeholder, aided by other states in achieving communism. Despite revoltionary struggle and mass general strike waves occuring internationally, the key determining factor for this was the German revolution of 1918-19. If the working class in one of the biggest world imperial powers was able to seize control, Russia wouldn't have been isolated and depleted of resources and the revolution could have spread internationally. Unfortunately, despite immense strike waves and the establishment of workers councils (which is what the term "Soviet" actually translates to) the material conditions for worker's revolution were not met in Germany as the revolutionary vanguard party, the Spartacists, were developed in the midst of struggle, rather than prior, so they were inexperienced, as well as making some careless mistakes, and their leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Ultimately stalinism was just a highly beaurocratic state-capitalism, not real socialism or communism.
For a more detailed critique analysis of stalinism in theory and in practise, from a marxist perspective I'd recommend this article: www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/into-mainstream/ch01.htm
I'd argue that we don't live currently live in a democracy, but an extreme plutocracy, where control over the means of producing wealth (farms, factories, offices, transport infrastructure, telecommunication networks etc) are centralised into the hands of a small minority, and that all proclamations of democracy are merely a smoke-screen to disguise this system and to give the masses an illusion of choice and participation in the system. Given that 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as 3.6 billion people, (the third richest billionaire, warren buffet has even stated that "There's class warfare, all right. But its my class, the rich class that's making war, and we're winning"), as well as the fact that billionaires have immense power in terms of lobbying and control over the media, this isn't too controversial of a point to make. However we have seen glimpses of real democracy with the establishment of workers' councils, and revolutions in Russia, (both in 1905 and 1917), Germany 1918, Hungary 1956, poland 1981 all the way up to the 2011 arab spring revolutions
Personally as a history major I don't think cultural hegemony or stagnation results in history "ending". Also kinda sells history short if one thinks it is mainly comprised of "media images". Living history is an amazing way to connect to history in a sensory way. Walk around a renaissance fair or a civil war reenactment. Sure the guy with a musket in his hand may have a cell-phone in his pocket but he smells the gunpowder and stands on the same ground in more or less the same conditions as a soldier 200 years prior to him. That has to symbolize some lasting longevity or depth independent from media manipulation.
Edit: I somehow intuitively agree with the statement the "world" ended (or was severely altered) when the atomic bomb was first dropped. Oppenheimer's quote captures that sentiment perfectly.
so "The world has ended" is like saying "God is dead"?
yah.
so you're saying the world never existed to begin with?
Pfhorrest you can argue that "the world" never existed.
Is it over now?
No.
Is it over now?
No.
Is it over now?
No.
I'd say that there are a few valid points raised by Fukuyama and Baudrillard, but truthfully, I think that they (much like their contemporaries) lack the kind of foresight, optimism, and courage to *build* a future.
Further, I'd posit that the points they raise are only valid BECAUSE the people of my parents generation were complacent to shop, shop, shop and never stop and think about the emptiness and infinite disposability of their shallow consumer existence.
Where F&B fail is that their critiques don't go far enough. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was the end of history because since then, there's been nothing WORTHY of documenting. Most events since that time has been sanitized, corporate marketing. "Buy, buy, buy."
History is kind of like speedrunning. Every time the community thinks we're reaching the absolute lowest possible time, someone comes along with new strategies and techniques that move the goalposts and shave countless seconds off the clock.
I'm strongly in favor of a Star Trek future. Where humanity is governed by the sound principals of tolerance and exploration. And the Zero-sum Philosophy has been abolished.
It's so creepy that this video was made exactly when I needed it for my project on Baudrillard. Anyway, thanks a whole lot! It really helped me understand a lot lol
Eh... the mistake is thinking that history and human progression is based on political states and not on cultural. The political structure is not the keystone of each segment of time and groupings of people under it but rather is merely the byproduct of the cultural culmination of the current environment and the people in it.
While it is certainly a nice breaking point between cultural eras, as the 90s and 00s certainly saw the rise of the subculture era and demise of the nationalism (which liberal democracies also encouraged, see the entire cold war from the US perspective for that.) It is hardly a stopping point, more so just the intermission period, which I would argue has already ended. Of course the most notable example of a turning point in our time line of when the next period started is easily seen as 9/11, but really it was changing long before that.
To call this useless information is giving it the undue honor of calling it information.
the end is always nigh and will continue to be
it seems a little narcissistic and presumptuous to assume that democracy is the end. I have a hard time accepting and allowing the idea that democracy is as good as we're going to do let's throw our hands up and walk away from the table. And do we really think democracy is likely to survive in the long term ? I wonder, as the world gets smaller, whether democracy will continue to feel fulfilling.
Immediate reaction from reading the video title:
Are you Okay, IdeaChannel?
Ever feel likes it weird that history is only made by conflict or war.. that's how we mark events in history
Well, Bill Paxton's history just ended, so perfect timing on that gif.
the world around us works in cycles and harmonics. history repeats itself and also has many harmonics overlapping and creating the ordered chaos
Hey Mike, are the watches you wear the Fuji by Normal Timepieces?
Damn I used to watch this channel religiously glad I've come back
Arguably the Anthropocene started 12,000 years ago, when the first people collectively built the first a standing stone structure.
Meanwhile in New Zealand, a river is granted legal personhood.
I think I understand the angle that Fukuyama tried to pitch in his "The End of History?". I think he feels what I feel when I play Civilization, and I conquer every other player and think "oh well, there is no one else to fight, I won, this game is over". If you believe that History is a log of powers and ideologies struggling against one another then, yeah, History SEEMS like it was over in 1989, after the Berlin Wall went down. But this is a matter of perspective and of definition - Fukuyama called History over because it felt like Western Liberal society had been victorious.
BUUUUT (real emphasys on 'but'), it was not quite that simple. I tend to disagree with Fukuyama because (i) I don't agree that History is simply the log of people struggles; and (ii) the "victory" of Western Liberalism is way more complicated than that. To back me up, I like to reference Hurtington in his "Clash of Civilizations", that predicted, quite accurately, that a post-Cold War society would engulf itself in cultural skirmishes, and the dominion of Western Liberalism wouldn't last long, as cultures (such as Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and Slavic, only to name some) would acknowledge that Western Liberalism is (ahem) good, but far from perfect - and that would prompt these cultures to adapt and emulate the modernity of the West, but without all the Western culture embedded.
So, I like more the Clash of Civilizations theory - the victory of Western Liberalism was not the last act of History; it is another act (a very important one, but not the last) in the unfolding of a still alive History.
You got me at "Proto-clickbait".
Democracy has entered a phase that Socrates warned about.
Someone write a song called "Our Giant Sky Rock"
Everybody continues to poop.
Trodgor! Let's Burninate the Countryside!
What a time to be alive. What a time to be young.
This is profoundly un-depressing.
Having an ideal (or maybe just optimal) form of government can't be all there is to "history", can it? We still have an unfurling environmental crisis to deal with. In a few years, we could be facing a global health crisis too, or economic collapse, or a giant meteor heading straight towards us - you can have the best form of government imaginable and humanity will still face serious challenges that need to be overcome, and these aren't trivial things as Fukuyama (and others who have that whole, "politics is everything" framework) seems to imply. Boiling history down to how we structure our government strikes me as missing the forest for the trees.
beautiful editing
one interesting way of looking at how history has ended (which in my view it has) is that what many people referred to as history for many years was a matter of records. History is the story we remember based on what's been written down, and deemed factual. However in our current era, we've reached a point where so much is being "written down" all at once that their is a lot of room for different groups to amass power by portraying reality a certain way to certain people, as in recording entirely different sets of facts and presenting them as historical truth. I think this phenomenon is at the core of our current political paradigm, as the different followers of the different parties and factions really follow their own distinct narratives of whats going on in the world, based on a different set of facts and beliefs. Its as if there are a whole bunch of different histories playing out all at once.
Which in fact, is how its always actually been, but before now the technology to write things down and create a historical record was a technological capability relegated to the upper echelons of society. Today access to those means of historical production have become more widespread than ever before, which has "ended" history in that it has shattered the story and created cultural and societal division down to the level of historical fact itself.
And this is reflected in the content of our culture itself as well. Look at all the conspiracy theories, apocalypses, alternate realities, split personalities, and even this very youtube channel.
I can definitely get on board for the "history has ended" thing, at least as a possibility. Although we're at risk of it not being true, if say North Korea does something impulsive--it does otherwise seem like we're just inches away from going "Okay, yep. This is the best way for humans to live." Hence why I'm a humanist. But the "world has ended" thing I can't get on board for. It just seems like one of those philosophy tricks where you define your argument into sounding truthful. You can accuse the world of being whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it just is a rock with humans living on it with various societies, and that's all "the world" is by most definitions. Being artsy with your language doesn't really do much except force the person listening to you to try to cram tangible concepts (physical bodies/populations, a physical planet, the literal habits we have in survival) into some less tangible abstraction for no reason except to make it sound like you have something to say. And I'm talking about Timothy Morton's argument here, specifically. I'm not accusing Mike of any of this :P
Fukuyama later edited his claim that history had ended. In the book Our Posthuman Future, he writes "there could be no end of history unless there was an end of Science." Apologies if this is already a comment or you omitted it intentionally.
Jesus Christo my mind has been blown by the Lasagna Cat video. That was a hell of a return-on-investment for what was almost a throwaway line fammo
50 mph man. the editor really knows their cyanide and happiness
Kant also posited an end to history (if it came up in this video, I missed it).
I don't normally respond to philosophical thought in a trivial way. But sometimes it helps to ground things a little.
I feel like (emphasis on 'feel') as long as human beings are involved in the process, history will never reach its conclusion. Because human beings are never satisfied. Every new strata of quality of life becomes submersed in the rising tide of expectations. Because human beings are all too ready to step on each other to reach higher. Because human beings are not always rational.
I think it's fair to say that we've hit a lull, and I think it's fair to say that those regimes which challenge democracy and liberalism are not preferable. But I am also not ready to say that the system we currently employ in the west is incorruptible, or that it embodies the greater needs of all mankind. It is still a system by which some exploitation must occur.
In the case of feudalism, for example, the exploitation was that of the serfs, in order to better the lot of the aristocracy.
In the case of western capitalism/democracy, the exploitation has largely been shifted to capital-colonialism. The exploitation of under-developed countries in order to reap their resources and wealth and redistribute it amongst the capitalist classes of the west.
Not that we can fully deconstruct capitalism/democracy this way, it has other functions and provides other goods, but if any class of people are being exploited by another, then history can only end if you are ready to say that those who are necessarily exploited are in their rightful place and will never progress. Their history must be over as well. And I don't think that can be said.
Even in such a case as all places develop democracy and capitalism, we will be met with incredible friction as those people in nations who are exploited by their wealthier compatriots push back against this form of capital-colonialism, which the wealthier nations require in order to maintain their privileged lifestyles.
0:35 I JUST stopped binge-watchig Day6 related videos and now this? 😂😂 Chicken Little Sweg! XD
There is no reason to think history must be at an end.
The "consent of the governed", as the title of that book you were talking about last time suggests, is manufactured.
We should build a society based on mutual aid solidarity, and the freedom of all, and save the planet in the process.
interesting theories, but in the end they're just theories.
it's easy to find logic in these premises if one removes actual reality, i guess
On the current state of history see Georg Sørensen's "Democracy and Democratization," which outlines the current state of democratization, or rather, the stalled democratization of many of the world's emerging democracies. Sorensen directly reviews Fukuyama and muddies the waters by arguing in concert with many democracy scholars that not only is democratization and ever continuing process within a state, but that it is one that can take as many paths as there are states. He ends his book with a comparison between Kant's Pacific Union, described as a proto-democracy peace theory that asserts that democracy promotes peace between states due to shared values and trade, and its counter part found in Neo-Realism. For the Neo-Realists, reports Sorensen, no democracy, no matter how consolidated is always at risk of "changing stripes" and sliding back into authoritarianism, often referred to as "reversals."
I found the initial description at the top of the video of an ever increasingly technically focused world that sets itself to solving problems of efficiency without the drama of a great ideological conflict both bothersome and yet plausible. Bothersome as the logic in this description felt reminiscent of Carl Schmitt, the former Nazi philosopher that argued, among other things, that humanity or a people turns on itself when without a clear definition of friend or foe, preferably an enemy that constantly tests the state and unites its members. In this case the lack of an existential threat posed by a Soviet Union apparently meant the loss of this defining force. Schmitt aside, I found the description plausible in that it described a world obsessed with technical efficiency. This bureaucratization of the world has troubling ethical implications outlined in Adam's and Balfour's "Unmasking Administrative Evil" where they argue that an obsession with Technical Rationality has created environments of "Moral Inversion." The smoking gun of this argument being the Holocaust of the Second World War, where men like Schmitt contributed to an extremely efficient bureaucratic machine that systematically slaughtered millions.
Ultimately I'd argue that history is far from over, not simply because events are still recorded, but because the assertion that altered or better political systems are still possible, or at least that democratic reversals make it possible that we might need to strive to end history again. Sorensen leaves his readers with a discussion of the importance of civic engagement and cultivating what Robert Putnam referred to as Social Capital, the trust that held communities together. As long as liberal democracies, like the United States, rely on an engaged and connected public there will always be the threat that of democratic reversals when said public lapses in its civic duties.
But consider-Does expecting the end of history mean it has already happened? Just an interesting tie between two of the central ideas of this video.
as long as there's people with free will and a desire for power there can be history
I've always hated Fukuyama's notion of history because it seems to define all "political, ideological, and cultural progression" of humans as the one single political/economic axis Fukuyama and his contemporaries were interested in at the time: democratic liberalism vs. authoritarian command economy. And that's always struck me as very short-sighted. For example, since the Berlin Wall fell we've seen an almost complete rethinking of what gender means in popular society - that's a pretty major cultural progression that though it falls outside the political-economic axis Fukuyama seems to have been interested in, still represents a major question society has to work out. The global prominence of Islam, with the variety of approaches to it we see and the backlash against it and fear that it all is really just one approach is another major question, and it's no surprise Fukuyama was blindsided by it if his eyes were only on the last century's big political questions.
I appreciate that you guys tried to look at history and the world from a broader view than Fukuyama did, but I still would caution against anyone claiming the great questions of society have been resolved simply because we living in this moment aren't sure what questions are looming on the horizon. I share your anxiety about the times we live in and I would absolutely agree that it is necessary we not waste time in building a better world, both from an environmental sustainability and a political stability point of view. However, I'm skeptical of any claim that we are living in a unique axis point in history. Any time I hear arguments to that effect, I think back to for example the early Christians who were absolutely convinced that the 2nd coming of Christ would be within their lifetimes - they were convinced with equal certainty that their moment was the one that all of history turned upon. I would say there is no end to history so long as thinking people live because there is no axis moment - or rather, that we are constantly living in the middle of history because *every moment* is an axis moment. The challenge is not to escape the end of history (hopefully, assuming we don't completely destroy ourselves), the challenge is to get our eyes out of the limited viewpoint of the present and to try to imagine each moment's potential in the grand scheme of time.
Huh *stares at the distance *
Good lord Mike. Thank you and all that make this possible.
the important thing is that whhther liberal democracy ends, capitalism will survive it and the basic issues with it. this episode is pretty spooked. pro tip: the soviet union was not communism and there are good explanations why not. furthermore the fall of the soviet union does not mean the triumph of capitalism: boht the soviet union and america were imperialistic capitalist societies. i wish mike adressed this, not just repeat the capitalist version of history.
Can we do one on the crumbling sense of adulthood? It seemed to me that when we were kids there was a point that you became an adult, but I think as current politics show... it doesn't exist.