Chris Hedges at Moravian College: The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies
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- Опубликовано: 23 окт 2013
- Christopher Lynn "Chris" Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist specializing in politics and society, spoke at Moravian College on Tuesday, October 22. Hedges is the seventh Peace and Justice Scholar in Residence at Moravian College. His talk was drawn from his most recent book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.
This speech may have been 8 years ago, but it is even more true today in 2022.
True. What do you think about Dr. Thomas Sowell?
Mama ain't raise no fool dawg. Homeboy could see into the future! Future....future.....future.....future......future....future.... *echo with gradually decreasing volume*
Ikr
Thank you for making the date clear
@@barackthecomposer6642 Smart man worth listening too !
The analogy he made to modern life and Moby Dick was just exquisite in his critique and overall direction of this lecture. I am haply we still have men of greatness around to subdue the grasp the current social veneer has on the public. Thank you Chris and I am a better man for hearing you speak.
Majority of people overlook what is happening before us, but Chris Hedges is reminding us what we've been ignoring. Give this talk enough time and it will be historic one. I thank Chris for his honesty and courage to speak up!
Listen to the talk with Alex Epstein who demolishes him! Love Alex Epstein! Many YT videos with Alex.
This man is my hero, a wonderful man with great values. He has shown me that not every person in this world is a scum. Thank you chris for the amazing words of wisdom.
His notion of faith is not at all the boilerplate Xian response at all. Faith is actually not even the bible verse idea of:
'Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen ' no it is more about trust, or acceptance of the good in strangers to not be suspicious of them and be fear driven to the point of shying away from them.
Your words resonate powerfully with my feelings. 🌹
Chris moves me everytime.... What a speach.. Tears ran down my face. I love this man... He reminds me through his words, deads and writings how sublime this struggle of life against oppressive tyrannies corporate/individual or other is life affirming. Thank you Chris for illuminating this struggle...
Your words are still relevant even today. Nothing has changed for the better. God help the people at the bottom.
100%
Agree
so pleased to have watched this. i can listen to Chris. for hours.. thank you
Thank you, Chris Hedges for all your years dedicated to truth.
Chris Hedges articulates the reality, fear and desperation, of what is and what's to come, superbly!
I believe that we need to take Hedges' ideas very seriously. There does seem to be a fierce urgency of now...as MLK once was quoted as saying. I worry about our environment, about the vast disparities between the rich and the poor, about the negative effects of a corporate state, about the pessimism and apocalyptic themes on TV and on the internet, and the disallusionment of our youth. It seems that many people are not dreaming about good days ahead but are fearful about the future.
Light and truth is such a rarity.
A j 0
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Wonderful to hear another Hedges talk. Thanks for posting!
I’ve been saying we will see the most heroic acts of rebellion in world history when this maniacal insanity finally falls.
And why is college tuition so high? Because students are made to take out loans. And the loans are backed by the government. So your clever colleges can jack up tuition as high as they please.
So often revolutionaries become the new tyrants. Once they taste power and control. And the liberals and radicals can be the most intolerant of any on the scene. They have their agenda and methods as evil as the state which needs these rebels to make into scapegoats. Which is exactly what Hitler did to the Jews. Scapegoats to blame. As happened in our time with the Spanish Inquisition. The globalists no longer need migrant farm workers because of robotazition on the factory farms. They don't need the migrant farm workers. Therefore the Spanish are made into criminals and put into Concentration Camps. ONLY IN AMERICA
A fantasy....you will be a victim of humanity, which is greedy, violent and sadistic.
That is part of the reason.
Let's not forget that under Clinton, they changed the laws and now student debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
@@footlicker6585you sound vaccinated.
So true I went to one of the top art schools in the world and I tried to get people to talk about politically agitating and no one cared because 70 percent of them were 1 percenters. Such a contrast from the state school I went to for my core classes.
His description of capitalist culture is deep and on point The social inequality is growing as the economy goes from crisis to crisis
He's great on inequality but his apocalyptic stuff makes him look like an idiot
Chris Hedges speeches make me happy
Me too
More relevant than ever. Me. Hedges, your serious attitude and brilliant oration keeps me sane and focused. As an older working class female, I am surrounded by pawns and imbeciles of the corporate state, ( who has also captured all aspects of mental health, and shoved the culture of “toxic happiness “ down everyone’s throat.
I rebelled against that culture and now I have been ostracized, blacklisted and living a tortured life as a targeted individual! I wish I had listened to this 9 years ago because this how long I have fought to survive corporate America jobs only to end up just as he described it! 😢
Yes. Toxic positivity wears away at you as much as despair. It's exhausting to be forced to be agreeable constantly - especially about our own disenfranchisement.
🙏🙏🙏true insights..! Thanks,Chris
Good man. You inspire us.
"When we do the good, it draws the good to us." ~ Chris Hedges
Sure man,let's smoke a joint and go to Woodstock
For 40 years now we have been talking about "changing course."
Might be too late.
Honest, insightful, and disturbing. This is the brutal truth of what is happening all around us. It’s a sad reality but I applaud Chris Hedges and others for bravely waving the warning flags of civilizations demise- and the planet we occupy. Unfortunately, those in authority will do nothing and the masses (us) are trapped with no real collective power. It’s game over for our species.
I'll tell you what we're being prepared for: the dehumanization of the poor lost souls who supported Trump and were ready to risk their livelihoods and their lives for him. The next time, they will be greeted with force.
Trump wasn't the cause, Trump was the sign of the cause.
Don't not threaten use of force unless you understand the consequences.
History is full of examples, and they are stained with blood of millions.
11:35 "the power elite will not respond rationally to collapse "
Chris Hedges on fire.
2013? ...I wonder how these people feel NOW?
GREAT question.
free for humanity
LOVE CHRIS
I'm even more a misanthrope than ever before.
Thank you Chris.
Capitalism is a two-edged sword. One edge is exploitation. The other edge is unemployment.
You do not grasp meaningful usage of that metaphor, but it is true that cap. brings those two negatives
This video was in Oct 2013, it is now Nov 2019 and I readthis week in TheNation where there are people in their 30s and 40s who cannot buy a car, or a house, and must delay expenses for those and some must pay premiums for Dr bills first in order to pay on Student loans, and I also read that retired folks whose pensions were lost in 2008, are paying on Student loans from their meager Social Security, that the GOP hopes to take away or to lessen the benefits of.
I feel the same way you do toward Hedges. Wish he were our president. He tells it as he sees it, and his vision is startlingly clear.
Th last 5 minutes were so powerful.
A lot is wrong in the world. He's just telling it like it is. No use putting your head in the sand. By acknowledgement hopefully he would be in the process of seeking solutions. I find AWAKE Magazine presents problems and yet always addresses solutions to what it presents. Try reading it
Is this 8 years or 8 weeks ago
Mr Hedge's should read Michael Rowbotham's book Grip of Death to begin to form some hypotheses about this dark force pushing us forward into destruction. Karl Polanyi also wrote copiously about this process from when it was first observed in the West. The form of money itself compels us forward into this destructive "progress". There could be alternatives to the debt-based form of money that grips more and more of us to choose death. But, they will require a new awareness of details about money. The etymology of the word "mortgage" says it all.
May Allah bless you with more light in your heart and give you long life by eluminating other. Fe Aman Lillah
Thankyou
I have shared the same sentiments of the last woman who posed her question.
It would be great if Hedges turns his mind toward Asia in his next book and examines modern-day nationalism and tribalism here.
So were all well aware of the problems we face, how about some actions we (every day people) can take?
Good talk. Chris is a hero
and the video ended just as i feel right now... why is it worth living?
no matter what we achieve the majorities will always stay ignorant... and ignorance will always diminish any achievements knowledge can create.
'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.'
4.5k likes tells you all you need to know about the state of this world. This should have hundreds of millions
Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex
~ Frank Zappa
3:23 Chris Hedges
yes thank you
My favourite public intellectual along with Chomsky. His talks, lectures and debates are virtually unrivalled in terms of their brilliance and passion. But Hedges was wrong about the BBC. This UK corporation is little more than a passive reporter of the awful status quo. Certainly the BBC was complicit in the establishment hatchet job that was carried out against Jeremy Corbyn. And on Israel the BBC has utterly failed to shine an honest light on the continuing state repression of the Palestinians. The political and economic systems of the Western world are demonstrably unjust, but the BBC has never really been interested in asking the fundamental questions about the system within which we live.
Everything Chris Hedges says, my mind. Blown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything Chris Hedges says, another wealthy white liberal virtue signaling
Where is the transcript of the speech?
Such exquisitely painful honesty. I love it.
"Google Murray Bookchin" - Chris Hedges
He always has an important message. But I have yet to hear Hedges describe to us how, exactly, we can be successful in changing our situation. If anyone has read or heard that message, please share a source. The words are very dispiriting, even if they help the listener feel self-congratulatory. We need to know what to do.
We know what to do. We have enough info, we have the technology. Switch to renewable energy on a massive scale, fund conservation efforts, deploy electrified mass transit on a large scale to reduce the need for cars, remodel our cities to be walkable or bikeable to reduce the need for cars some more. Switch as much as we can to a plant-based diet to reduce the amount of land dedicated to growing animal fodder so we can re-grow the native ecosystems. Work to shield the most vulnerable costal cities, by concrete walls and mangrove floodlands. Shit, turn New York into New Venice if we must. Stop with the for-profit construction and focus on essential construction. Encourage local community agriculture, invest in permaculture projects, standardize electrical grids across countries and continents to enable power distribution in case of shortfalls. We've had proof-of-concepts on all of these. This has been done already, in places. Work with other nations no matter how much we dislike them. It's possible if we think about doing this not in terms of cost in money, but in terms of cost if we don't do it.
That's the problem: The cult of Consumerism is self-congratulatory.
Lot so much reality since childhood! There more be mad, along awards given in question.
And this was 5 years ago
I think that changing the focus to work creation is a must part of the needed solution. To keep 4 billion adults working within a minimum to maximum income you would need about 0.5-1 trillion per year of a currency. Go from there to make the planning of work based on needs, and wants, of which there many and some rather urgent.
No "system"is either just or unjust it is people who are either just or unjust.
There is 1 matter that Hedges rarely mentions, which is the responsibility of citizens to be judicious consumers and to have an understanding of what effect their consumption patterns have on the environment and on their fellow human beings.
That's probably because Americans are real sticklers about being told what they should and shouldn't buy. Can't expect to go the the "Land of the Free" and hope to get much ear time trying to dissuade them from buying monster trucks, personal jets or miniguns, its just not the American Way...
Warren Flood As Morris Berman has pointed out, it's not the "American way" unless you're part of a tradition that includes Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain and others. Berman speaks of a "New Monastic Tradition" which might include eco-villages, intentional communities, off-grid homesteads and lifestyles, etc. In all cases it would involve a more agrarian lifestyle with an emphasis on permaculture, integrated organic gardening and farming, etc.
pukulu Sounds great, now we just need to figure out how to get him a broader audience
I prefer the definition of fascism as being the merger of corporations and the state and I’m aware that every species of fascism is particular to the country it sprung from The United States has two species of fascism in competition one is the old school version that emphasizes race represented by the old organizations like the kkk and others The other version is a more subtle form which tolerates members of dispossessed groups in our country but in practice still promotes a system that encourages social inequality and maintains systematic racism
So, if one has learned some of lessons from history one can say that all of the political systems/ideologies have failed through time in terms of generating a stable society that prosper and generates progress and well being for the masses. Given that, a scan of the law systems through time, and the factual conditions of the then existing societies ought to yield fact as to what has caused the recurrent degenerating effect.
"Sublime Madness"
There was a video I saw that shows Chris getting up from an interview where he begins beating the fuck out of people who question his position. He uses a combination of skull crushing elbows and right hooks. He beat one guy unconscious with a Sunday New York Times. Then I woke up.
"shut the damn country down"! 👍🏻
I assume this is why rich people are racing to get into space...😒
The reality is someone made all this up in the first place
Plato's philosophy of unwritten poetry gives us the poetry of accidental philosophy....
And, as to "where is the Church" on the question of "corporate capitalism" -- well, Chris: the RC Church is, basically, the Great, Great, Great (...) Grandfather of corporate capitalism.
Compound Interest and flesh-exacting Bankers included.
So much for Divinity School....
Of course you realize by watching this you could disappear.
This was posted 9 years ago. And... as CH says... "Like Ahab, we will not change course." And we haven't. 30:28 "The urban poor are in chains, and those chains are being readied for the rest of us."
Which of his books was he peddling on this speaking tour?
Stopped listening when he said CO2 was causing acidification never encountered in Earth's history. The CO2 record shows substantially higher CO2 in earth's history several multiples of current levels.
@@gregsaddie If they are prepared to lie on such a basic point, why should I trust the rest of the presentation?
Part of being an adult is learning to prioritize. I'll go and listen to someone being honest thank you.
@@EkuuleusNorth Found the 🤡
Keep shilling for the fossil fuel industry
Crisis cults? Qanon anyone? I hate that this shit is so applicable to our times, but he in fact is describing our current system.
Michael Parenti is a good one too
Inspiring relevance for a post-relevant age.
I think a lot about the other big elephant in the small room: methane. You rarely hear much about the results of a global warming that shall release unfathomable amounts of this gas from the Arctic tundra -- cubic centimeter by cubic centimeter far more potent. (Permafrost is estimated at 1,700 billion metric tons over an area of about nine million square miles; release rates are significant for temperature increases at the lowest levels regardless of anthropogenic contribution. This includes carbon dioxide and methane components as such.)
As to Moby Dick: Yes! Ahab, with his meticulous plotting of and moon-gazing into the whale's watery travels, finally "has" the great moral victory of a cosmic force that has played with him as it has plied its natural course.
And, Down We Go, mystic visions and all.
what leader can we elect in America who will do things differently given our current political system?
You can't elect such a leader in America
Where is Moravian College?
Bethlehem, PA. They changed their name to Moravian University two years ago.
@@EvonZundel thanks for the info; do you know why they changed ?
34:39 again??
I disagree with Hedges when he says " you dont even want to go near Princeton" at about 1:29:20
It was Princeton that identified that the US is now basically a fascist oligarchy : www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf
for any interested i suggest Osho's "The book of Understanding"
www.amazon.com/The-Book-Understanding-Creating-Freedom/dp/0307336948
save yourself three mins, jump to 3:23
Thomas Moore's Law states that computing hardware and intellegince will exponential increase on itself from inovation to inovaton, fair enough. And yes for a time and space that inovation has provided comfort, but it is increassingly making us slaves to the very efficiancy we created, no not in some Terminator way of some sentientiant beings of artificial being, but in a way we are now so attached to our Blackberries and iphones that we are blurred from the reality in front of us, and we are easily and so readilly barreling down a distopien future, where you and me are no longer needed, and everything is lost to the efficient and the easily quantifiable. The 99% fighting over fair wages are just the beganing.
There must be evil and good (no sense in arguing/denying it). And when the evil gets overprevalent; the killing takes place...just ask Jesus. So, if ya can't change the world... why keep trying?... isn't that. I N S A I N I T Y??? Be true with yourself; uncover and find your true uniqueness and follow its path out of blindness...and see what happens shortly. Everything has its purpose.
So basically what happened to Earth in the 2009 movie Avatar is what may happen. In the movie Earth is ruined economically and morally and looks to space to exploit the resources of alien worlds.
Started this talk and paused im reading moby dick when I finish ill be back.
I really enjoyed listening to this lecture until Chris Hedges started talking about the events in Czechoslovakia which I lived though and participated in. I find the description of those events quite misleading though. I would say Chris Hedges may have misunderstood them.
What sources would you recommend for an accurate account? I don't know much about the history of the former soviet republics.
Michael Swartz
First of all Czechoslovakia was a Soviet republic.
I do not really know any sources. My knowledge does not come from reading about them (especially not in English). I know Chris Hedges is somewhat wrong because I took part in those events.
How so? How is he mistaken I mean.
Michael Swartz 1) Vaclav Klaus, who is mentioned as someone who fought the regime since 1977, did not take part in any activity against the regime. He only joined the opposition in the course of so called Velvet revolution.
2) Jan Palach died in hospital, not at the campus. He set fire to himself in January 1969, which was before new regime was established, so I doubt it was not reported in the media. At the time (1968-69) the Czechoslovak media were probably the freest ever.
3) Jan Palach's remains were moved to another sematary where it was burried. I do not know when. But I am sure it was burried there in 1980s because I lived about 5 km from that sematary at the time.
4) Marta Kubisova was not banned from the media, recording and touring immediately after Warsaw Pact armies invasion. It took another one or two years until the new regime was established.
5) So the Marta's song Chris Hedges mentions was released as a record and huge number of people had the record in spite of the fact that it was 20 years old.
Michael Swartz
It is also quite ironic to mention Havel in the speech which is also critical of US military actions. Havel was an enthuasiatic supporter of US military intervention in Iraq, Yugoslavia (he coined the orwellian term "humanitarian bombing"), Afghanistan and Iraq again. He wrote a letter to the US president asking him to invade Libya.
...even more, he goes further to say... lol did he also add to, and continue with?
Not since JFK...😢
Merton, Frankly, and classic from academia.
Hello?
This doesn't even have 2,000 views...that's simply wrong.
Who more than the churches?
Where is my comments I just made?
Don't ask me Sharon
Sharon...?
i guess i have to re-read Moby Dick with a new perspective
The phrase “honesty towards reality” used to introduce this guy? Now I’ve seen everything. Uninstalling RUclips LoL
Good ridance
Never has so called blacks doing this intro. Why? Strange!!!$
chris hedges is wonderful except that i find he too often focuses on what wrong and not enough about wat to do with it. my prescription would be:
1. ppl organize and protest in the streets and demand:
-democracy at work, 1 person 1 vote job. aka cooperatives
-lots of referendums aka direct democracy and less representative democracy
-public banks like the bank of north dakota
-digital libraries of movies, music , and book. cars should also be shared
-huge investment in research in technology
Well that was some bs
The whole planet will not go with you. You will hopefully regenerate with the help of the rest of the world. The key is not progress but to celebrate life based on more equity and justice
Such a scold. 😂He's the guy with the pitchfork in "American Gothic." Or Greta Thunberg all grown up and bald. Funny way to make a living.
Throw in a few token african quotes
Damn, I really need to read Moby Dick
Save time, Captain Ahab is killed by the whale
I usually enjoy Hedges, but this has to be one of the gloomiest speeches I've ever heard. While his prose was brilliant and sophisticated, it verged on a teenage level of angst and doom. I'm sure his audience left the room and went straight for the bottle.
And ironically this is an optimist's speech for what will happen
This is a false rhetoric of American history mixed with half truths, and they have the audacity to call others satinist. Go learn your real history from the American Heritage series by David Barton.
The puritans were often attacked by surrounding tribes but there were Native Americans like Samoset who helped the puritans, thanksgiving wasnt a horrific slaughter like the globalists will try and say, they literally had a thanksgiving to God for 3 days and played athletic games. The Native American and Pilgrim thanksgiving is a Biblical holiday that is about giving thanks to God, food, and athletic games.
Oracles seldom narrate, only advise ; an innate nurturing, 🦋ï🌴🙌, where in a Sacred Unbalanced Equilibrium, biosphere of choice 🌿☂️🌅🎶
As much as i agree with him on many of the things he say, he is dead wrong on the global warming subject, very disappointing.
it's disappointing that people will ignore the issue of environmental degradation because of a hyped-up label like "global warming." it's sort of pathetic, if you consider the fact that Our Very Lives depend on the biodiversity that we are destroying.
I do not disagree that we need to take care of our environment, I just think the entire "manmade global warming" crap is made up. A way to tax and control, and steal even more money from the the people, while a few ultra rich benefit from the deal , because of their investments in various companies that would benefit big time after a carbon tax.
Eddie Konjic most taxes are simply theft. Wesley Snipes is done serving time for refusing to pay taxes...i wish he'd publicly tell Everyone "It Was Worth It"