I'm so sad I've gone three years since the release of this until finding it, but I'm beyond grateful to have found it now. It's like I've been hacking my way through the bramble for years, trying to make sense of this world, and then I stumble a couple feet over and find out there's been a road there all along.
I just came here as a recommendation from Anark, and I'm loving your channel so far. You are teaching me more political literacy than what I've ever received from School. Thanks for the Spanish subtitles too :)
I've been on the left since 2011. It took me 5 of those 11 years to piece the kind of coherence of understanding presented here together for myself. Honestly never with the level of clarity and simplicity of delivery either. I now recommend your politics playlist as a foundation to any baby leftist I meet setting out to learn political theory. You're doing the proletarian gods work.
thank you! that’s why i do it! i honestly didn’t even realize what a mess things were until i sat down to make a video on what left and right mean, and then i eventually realized that i didn’t really know, and then realized as it turned into a bigger and bigger research project that most poli-sci phd authors don’t know what those words mean or what any political words mean! so i realized i needed to rebuild ABC political theory from the ground up for it to make any coherent sense. i think it’s not a coincidence that this total muddle is considered to be acceptable in our society!
very important video... very important series. this is top-notch educational entertainment.. These concepts need to be understood by regular people, including those who consider themselves politically savvy individuals. Should have 100x more views...
--->Politics = anything relating to decision making in a human group --->Government= rule making and enforcing institution. Government exists everywhere, groups and individuals. --->bargaining power is the most important thing
[Algo-boosting] Truly grateful for your podcast lecture! This will help me for years to come I hope you'll reach more PolSci students that are struggling due to their professors being an absolute pain in the ass.
Super awesome start! Was directed here from St. Andrewism channel. As someone whose majority of political education happened online, i can't stress enough how much confused political thinking and the language used in service if it is. And this is consistent across the political spectrum. I will definitely suggest this podcast to people who are new to political thinking (in all it's meanings).
thank you very much, and thanks to saint andrew, he really got me a lot of views and susbscribers, i need to check out his channel, i like him already before having seen it!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 i just saw that you also did a podcast with Arnold Schroeder from Fight like an animal. Always great to see good people talk good politics! You should definitely look up Anark and Zoe Baker on youtube.
@@arjunravichandran7578 fight like an animal is i think the best political podcast out there! i like anark and zoe baker too but don’t know them personally
A random person in another comment section told me about this channel, so I added this video to watch later months ago. I finally came back around to it, and I really like it! Excited to watch the whole series. You have a way with worbs ;)
This was really good. Great concept for a series. Especially now that people are getting exposed to all sorts of political ideologies. I saw this linked in the red scare subreddit
cool, i very much appreciate that you’re enjoying it! can you post the link to the thread where the link was posted? i couldn’t find it. i do think it’s relevant to red scare rn, cause theyre talking alot about "the left" without defining what that means...
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Sorry, I've been seraching and can't find it. I think I was looking for several subreddits' reaction to their Steve Bannon interview. There was back and forth about what qualifies as right wing populism vs left wing populism cuz Bannon didn't support single payer, then someone linked your 4th video in the series
Absolutely fantastic work here. The word "worbs" to describe those particularly weaselly ill-defined terms is such useful thing to have. I can't recall all the times I've asked someone I'm talking with to just define the words they're using so we can come to an agreement on what each other is even trying to say. What's worse than that, is when the person rolls their eyes at you and accuses you of being "elitist" for wanting to define clear and precise terms before getting into a confusing topic. For as much as I hate bourgeois contractual legalese, one great concept that I wish politics and sciences would inherit from the legal field is the clear and precise definition of terms before engaging in any subject. The first part of any legal document is literally just defining all of the terminology used in the rest of the document -- this is **specifically** to make sure there is absolutely nothing confusing about what is being discussed, and to avoid the issue of "worbs". I feel like books and political essays should be **legally required** to define their terms on page 1, with the punishment being a swift slap to the face to anyone who doesn't comply. Anyway, I'm stealing "worbs" -- thanks for this great term. Though I might put my own spin on it and call it "worbies" to relate how these weaselly terms rot the brain, not unlike a an untreated rabies infection. And just like rabies, they're infectious and spread among the population like... well... rabies. It's literally word-rabies. Worbies.
ha, i love this! i totally agree people should be required to define their terms when writing about politics - maybe not by law but at least by convention, like you automatically fail any essay and get a bad review etc. excellent point that in contracts, we define all our terms - largely because money is at stake! but in politics i think that the reason there’s zero rigour or precision is because the institutions of power in our society don’t really want us thinking very clearly about the institutions of power, because otherwise we’d be in a better position to critique and threaten those institutions. not a conspiracy but just the way power works… i’ll be talking a lot more about this soon, so do check out my upcoming episode 10.1 and if you like this, please share and let other people know about it, it’s hard to get the word out in a supersaturated media environment!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Haha, yeah the "by law" comment was a bit of joke -- I like to throw around "legally required" in my sentences as hyperbole. Not really serious. I just think that anyone being intentionally obtuse should be called out on it. Unfortunately I don't think any sort of real publishing standards could be realistically enforced at this point anyway. The advent of the Internet means that anyone can pretty much publish anything -- anyone can write a book and get it sold on Amazon, or make a video series and publish it on UA-cam and become their own TV network of sorts. This "democratization of publishing" is overall a net benefit for society, but is still a double edged sword. Dissemination of information is no longer locked behind a giant paywall, limited to only those with finances and connections. But on the other hand, any bad-faith actor can publish any misleading horseshit too. But really, I'm not saying anything new or interesting here. There's been tons of articles written on the dissemination of "fake news" and other issues of the internet. For every well researched, well thought-out video essay like yours... there's 10 other people writing/recording what ever "hot take" they have that is politically convenient for them or their interests.
@@jameso2290 one ray of hope is that people do realize that social media, and garbage media in general are poisoning us in various ways. maybe making something that can set a bit of an example might generate a taste of higher standards. ultimately for profit media is the culprit, but that’s a whole other can of worms. and i dont think people are purposefully obtuse most of the time, though there are some cynical people who purposefully manipulate the meaning of words (like the world socialism being used in right wing media to mean something that jeff bezos and george soros support in order to prevent other people from being rich!!) - mostly people are just used to living in a haze of confusion and not defining their terms etc. it’s bad habits, which are not corrected because at the end of the day the’re habits that serve the interests of power.
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Yeah, "bad habits" is a good way to frame it. A lot of it really is just the snowballing of bad habits over lifetimes -- because really, how can someone know something they don't know, until they actually learn it? I like the term Marx used: "Muck of Ages" -- just all that gunk, bad habits, traditions, social relations, thought processes, behaviors, etc, that have trickled through the millennia and accumulated in the present. Like leaves clogging a gutter, they inhibit the flow of free human expression, only occasionally letting drips of insight to slip through.
I genuinely think this is the best political content EVER, before this i might as well have been blind about the world I live in. I wish I had money to contribute to this content but Im just a broke student😭
PS I meant surprising in the context of the rest of the politics-oriented podcast-landscape. Well that and in the context of the most popular video on this channel.
random comment from a random commenter who thanks you and the algorithm. It showed it to me 3 years after the fact and i hope it does to many more. This is, if nothing else, food for thought
An-Com here, this is the first video of yours I'm checking out, and I'm loving your mix of attitude with correct information and explanations. Found your channel cause someone posted it in Anark's (anarchist theorist) discord.
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Could be, the people who follow Anark are amazing people so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. If you don't know who Anark is, I'd highly recommend having a browse of his channel. Idk where exactly you sit in terms of politics but you seem at least left-leaning so I'd highly recommend him if you want to get to know modern anarchist positions.
What amazing videos... Truly changing our lives a bit. Thanks so much for putting all this time, passion and effort into them. We'll become Patreons soon. In the meantime we're spreading the word.
I was going to start this exact channel this year. Have written scripts and all! Then you've come along, two years in the past future past and stolen all my worbS!stolen all my worbs! Awesome work!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 No need for apologies! Love your work, you've knocked out of the park! This is one of the best politics channels I've come across. The radical/ fundamental basis you are starting from is what makes it so good, you've identified THE key issue and notice the gap on YT. Your humour, use of language and presentation is awesome. 1,000,000 internet points for you lol
@@thomasfoot3023 i’ll take them! thanks so much, it really means a lot to me especially after my brain is melting from doing a 2.5hr hour recording session 3 times in a row because my mic wasnt working properly..!! these type of comments make it worth it to keep going!
@@thomasfoot3023 and btw the gap isnt just on youtube, it’s the same problem in academia and journalism, such a huge issue with huge implications. it’s be great to generate a culture where it’s unacceptable not to define terms when publishing a book or teaching a course etc
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Oh I 100% agree on both points. I studied Communications and Philosophy. I've worked in Politics (comms admin) in two countries and am extremely aware that political economy/ political illiteracy is a huge issue in the general population. It's by design, those who rule us would find it difficult to fool us if we all knew what is going on behind the scenes/ how professional manipulators operate/ their motivations.
great podcast!!! that was so true. in france we talk about novlangue which is inspired by the novel 1984 from Orwell . and we organize lessons To fight against political "woodtongue"
thanks for this comment - i didn’t know this, what kind of lessons? can you tell me more about this? I looked up « langue de bois » and am finding lots of cool stuff, but would love some links on anti political langue de bois lessons!
Good thing that this channel exists, lately I express myself towards other people and have realized how difficult it is for me to actually explain to them.
thanks! yes, the ambiguous use of all of these terms make it very difficult to express anything or to be understood. i feel like that’s a plus for the powers that be
Great video! We need more Politics and no advertisement in the electoral process. A few observations: work place Politics is researched and wrote about in administration books since the dictatorial model is rarely effective except on some types business. Edward Deming - the guy who popularized statistics based quality control - has on his principles for quality control the need to teach the technique to work floor employees and make data available to them in a clear and objective manner so workers will be able to provide inputs about the process that could improve quality - and one of the principles "hear work floor employees because their input is the most valuable" (paraphrased). I understand this is not exactly democracy but it's also not exactly dictatorship and these statistical quality controls are used in assembly lines and not inside the research dept. of Intel. Once again: great video! Off to episode 2 now. Thanks!
i’d say that’s still dictatorship, because the workers still have no power. the owner is just asking the workers opinions to help him maintain his power and profits, he has no obligation to listen to them, only if it benefits him. if all the workers said that the company will be more efficient if they owned it collectively, he won’t implement that policy!
It's a dictatorship that pulls democratic theatrics. Like the modern trope of a thoroughly burned out worker having to conduct an interview with the HR department after resigning, where the worker will be asked to spout again all his critiques and ideas for a better workplace that have been systematically ignored in their face before. It's a half assed mechanism designed to tell society "see? we're doing what you like". So, does it depend on how the egalitarian/egotistical person lottery comes out regarding your boss? Marginally, the lottery is broken because that's were class systems come in, instilling interests and values on individuals depending on their social class. For the same reason that the vast majority of monarchs were uptight predatory extractors of wealth, the vast majority of bosses are self-interested exploitators performing civility.
Thank you so much for including Spanish Subtitles!!! My fiancee is Mexican and I look forward to indoctrinating her with the ONE CORRECT IDEOLOGY of Scotes-ism!!!
haha, love this! glad people are getting good use of the spanish subtitles, i hope your financee see’s the light - if not, you’ll need a new one of course
Haha, well I wouldn't be engaged to her if I had any intention of treating her as replaceable... Part of the reason I'm deep diving on anthropology right now is because I've become completely disgusted with feminism (let's not mince words - woke ideology came from feminism...) However the question of how men and women can live in harmony is a central one to everyone who dreams of a more egalitarian society... therefore comparative anthropology is important. But I digress... Do you have a playlist of all the videos you have that have Spanish subtitles? I noticed that not all of them do. Keep up the awesome work! If I have anything to say about it, you're going down in history.@@WHATISPOLITICS69
21:49 I’m reminded of Robert La Follette, progressive politician who supported the Bolshevik’s until he visited the Soviet Union in 1923 and immediately changed his mind. Late algo boost
Really putting words to a lot of observations I had sort of made but not really fleshed out. Absolutely fantastic work and really can’t argue with anything proposed.
Thank you for making this, it was very good! I find it extremely hard to talk to other people about politics, because I feel like we end up discussing semantics and definitions of words more than ideas with substance. Language matters, and if each of us is using the same word to mean different things, it's exhausting just trying to understand what the other is saying. This has happened to me when talking to people who I disagree, but also with people I agree with! The thing that I, and many people, tend to forget is that words are not just static definitions, they are used in a certain way to steer the world in a certain direction. So it's not just important to know what these words ARE, it's important to understand what they DO in a given context. Anyway, good luck with the rest of the podcast, I loved it so far! :)
thank you so much, that’s exactly why i’m doing this, it’s so good to hear that people appreciate it! episode on left and right is coming out in a couple of days - maybe share it with your friends next time you want to argue with them! btw, where did you find out about the podcast?
I am recommending this podcast to my friends, family, co-workers and others. If you are a 9th grader you or a seasoned veteran you; a red or blue or purple you, this show will ring some bells.
Thank you! Just found your work! Amazing! Shared and sharing far and wide. Supporting on Patreon. Please keep it up! Your critique of Dawn of Everything is phenomenal!!!
too often people treat political parties like being fans of a sports team, our team is cool and correct and wants the best for us, while the other teams are bad and stupid and eat babies, regardless of what those parties actually do
Interesting discussion I encountered - how does this definition of Politics fit into things? Like I'd argue that art or video games can be political, but are they decisions related people in groups? Is the definition perhaps broader or is it applied different to things?
so if politics is anything pertaining to group decision making, art can be political if it’s trying to influence peoples’ ideas about how things should be decided. like you have art in support of the nazis, or art critiquing commericalism, or art breaking sexual taboos to make a statement about repression etc.
Fine I'll watch the whole thing from the start. The other episodes I've seen are very good and they keep making references to other things that sound interesting and were covered in greater detail previously so I think I just need to see it all.
Wow. Seriously, I am sitting right here taking notes like quoting what you say. Like... to then look at it, criticize and maybe disagree. But mostly, THIS is just cleaning up a serious mess in my head right now, which was caused by a lot of "worbs" or idk "idio(t)logy" or "confucepts". Been studying Political Science for a while and quit cause I thought "everything is so dumb". I didnt know what the problem really was back then was but it was pure confusion. Now its slowly going away and its like a veil of ignorance is being lifted. Thanks a LOT. Like... I've only watched your episode on male dominance something and the first 16 minutes of this one so I'll probably become disillusioned with you not being able to make my life's decisions for me or provide me a new religion or something, but since that's exactly what you don't want... never hecking mind :D Greetings from far away, keep it up and maybe you'll hear some constructive criticism from me after a while :3
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 I think actually one of the worst parts of that kind of learning is the implicit lesson of hierarchy. If I take your definitions here seriously and I think you have a point, then almost any university I know is dominated by the political right or centrism (which when it does nothing really leftist is kind of right-wing too, isn't it?). While I cannot judge which direction is *the* better (I have my own opinions tho), I think it is really stupid to teach supposedly "neutral" and "objective" thinking about politics when the whole structure you have going on is super-duper biased by some kind of hierarchical ideology and does not take people serious who actually have come there to *study* and want to *figure out things* *understand the world* or something like that. Instead they serve them something they are "supposed to know". Dude, that's not what I asked for. That's not university like in universal. Thats very particular... should be called particulity or something... Okay, rant over. Thanks for the space.
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 I came across your video on a link someone posted as a comment on an article on facebook. Its really word of mouth unless you're spending money on ads...I would definitely suggest you scour facebook groups on politics, economics, and related fields and post links and short intro into the work...people that enjoy this kind of content, which is EXCELLENT, will know within the first 3 minutes this is quality stuff. Additionally, getting interviews with alternative politics on youtube, Young Turks, Rational National, Sam Seder and ESPECIALLY Michael Brooks....I found it quite interesting because I've recently started reading the work of economist Michael Hudson, his work on economics is as refreshing as your work on politics, more than fresh, it is insightful. I wish you the best of luck, and will certainly follow your work!
@@ralfnoya8388 thanks! please share or tell people about it if appropriate circumstances pop up - i will be doing interviews with people involved in making change happen, hopefully julia salazar and jane mcalevey and others, and thinkers like corey robin - i don’t think sam seder or michael brooks will care about interviewing me just yet!
I've seen all your episodes multiple times and I believe the universe would be a worse place if we didn't collaborate in some manner. I have practical experience that needs to be mined by the right person, and I think you're one of those people. Get in touch
If the essence of capitalism is the free exchange , noncoerced exchange of goods ,services and money and socialism is worker control of the means of production , then they are not mutually exclusive . Is capitalism now actually mercantilism ? please clarify . Awesome channel .
i think capitalism is a system based on contract and property rights with unlimited rights of accumulation. in such a system the government is basically enforcing the power of the wealthy over the people who depend on their property. in socialism you can’t own property that other people depend on to live, so yes they’re mutually exclusive as i see them
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 working on sharing it however I can! I found you through a recommendation from the Saint Andrewism UA-cam channel. keep up the good work :)
@@distinctlyspruce3540 yes, his shout out gave me as many subscribers and views as i normally get in like 8 months, so big thanks to him! i think i need a few more people of that stature to do that for this to be sustainable! or a zillion small shares!
Hello. I liked this first episode a lot. I've already listened to some of the following episodes and loved them. I'm trying to get my closest friends to listen to it, which I think would help them a lot since all of them are very interested in politics, whether they know it or not. Also, in case you're interested, I found your channel through mentions in the comments sections of Matt Christman's Dawn of Everything reviews. Looking forward to a lot of your new content!
thanks, glad you like it! if you like matt christman too, you got good taste! was it me posting in the comments or other people? i think you’ll like me DoE critiques if you haven't seen them yet
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Aw, thank you! Actually, I saw both you commenting and your channel being mentioned. And yes, I already watched the first DoE critique and I'm so looking forward to the next ones. Hope you have a great week 😄
Love your videos! One thing I was really surprised and mad at the same time was how meanings of words change in different languages. To give the word "politics" as an example, it's called "politika" or "siyaset" in Turkish which means the same thing (siyaset is the equivalent term mostly used in the East and politika is from West) you would expect them to be different things since politics, as you mentioned means "decision making progress among groups or other forms of power relations among individuals" meanwhile siyaset means "the art of regulating and conducting government affairs". And no, there are no differences between politika and siyaset in Turkish language. Even though its roots means a whole different thing. Learning an another language is crucial in order to escape the terms and meanings forced upon you by the one pure society which will determine most of your thinking process. Most of the people don't even bother checking definitions in their languages yet there is another problem, the difference of definitions of the same terms in different languages. Oof.
it’s the formulation i came to from looking at various dictionaries (including historical ones) and reading Elizabeth Anderson’s book Private Government, and thinking about it…
I find these videos fascinating, compelling, and thoughtful. But I have to pull a deconstruction here - when your political project begins with determining very precise, immutable definitions of words, that is both dangerous and ultimately unstable. Words, and language, just don't work that way. I agree with your contention, which pops up throughout, that post-modernist (there's a worb for you) academia has had a sometimes detrimental effect on leftist/revolutionary politics, but these insights - of Wittgenstein, Saussure, Derrida, etc. - cannot just be dismissed. They must be worked through in order to find the polyglossic revolution on the other side.
hi - did you see episode 4? i think we’re on the same page there, I explain that of course words can mean whatever you want them to mean, and they don’t have fixed immutable meanings that we must conform to - but i elaborate criteria for how and why i choose particular definitions, and that we should keep those types of criteria in mind when we use political langauge and decide between competing definitions or even if we might want to articulate new definitions etc
Im curious about something You mentioned Orwell briefly in this video. How do you feel about his various controversies from the racism, to his list of names of various leftists, to the attempted sexual assault?
Great video. Seems like a worthwile project. Defining concepts before going to argue about them is one of the steps to guarantee a productive discussion. I do have one criticism (I haven't watched the rest of the series, so it might get addressed): you seem to place great importance on bargaining power, how important it is to politics, yet there wasn't much in terms of definition (is it rhetorical skill, legal/financil power to coerce your opponent?) You don't want this to become a worb, do you?))
hm, no i never thought to define bargaining power, because I don’t think it has any potential contentious or ambiguous meanings. it’s not rhetorical skill, it’s simply the leverage that you have against your opponent - having something that they need, how badly they need it relative to what you want from them. it can come from having a lot of money, but also from other factors, like laws (laws that make it illegal to fire unionized workers), or the weather (i have an umbrella, and you don’t) etc.
I've always wanted a word for worb. I knew there was a name for and have noticed when ever you repeat a word over and over it turns into nothing. Nice word.
seriously! the worst example of this i can remember was Foucault’s book “Power and Sexuality” where he only defines the words “power and sexuality” like 280 pages into the book and he defines them in really unusual ways, so that until page 280 the entire book is incomprehensible gibberish and you have to start it all over to understand what the f dude is talking about…
Great video. Thank you sir. I admit my own short-comings in this regard. Thanks for the encouragement to better my understanding of these very important concepts.
thank you, that’s much appreciated! and yes, I also was guilty of repeating words with no definition and it wasn’t until I sat down to make a video about what left and right mean that I realized holy crap I don’t even really know what they meant!
The idea that Politics is bad and that all politicians are corrupt got traction with the idea that markets are better at doing what citizens want than Politics. Also took traction at the same time the idea that Freedom is the ability to do what one wants to one's self because what others want is not one's business. We add to this the other idea that elected officials are only proxies for the voters will and not people who the voters put trust on to fight for them - and fighting for the voters often mean not doing what the voters want. Looking forward for the episode about democracy, btw.
you can see episode 4 for how i choose definitions - basically look through dictionaries and encyclopedias, including very old ones and then figure out which definition is most useful and coherent - which one helps us see the world more clearly vs muddling up concepts and confusing us
This is really good but you should edit out the parts where you stumble over words maybe? Other than that this is the most important kind of political discussion I think. Descriptivism is the technical term for the methodology dictionary writers use to define terms, they see how people are using those terms and they report back in the dictionary, but they're going over a lot of words and are not necessarily as online as many people today are. Arguably the way people learn words to begin with is a similar process, just recognizing patterns in when people use certain words and figuring out what they mean from context. Understanding that words can genuinely mean different things to different people because of exposure to different experiences is important to understand language, particularly political language. The pattern recognition system machine learning uses could be a good metaphor for this, and was designed based on a simplified model of how people think pattern recognition in the brain works iirc. Just like in machine learning, there is a danger of "overfitting," which is how people end up not knowing that other meanings for words exist than the ones they're familiar with. To combat this thoroughly, you have to make your "sample data" as representative of the real world (or whatever problem you're working on) as possible, which requires understanding what can potentially bias sample data.
Hi - thanks for the comments. For the stumbling, unfortunately I caught a couple of errors at 18:28 and 31:39 after I had posted it and I can't change the video. I edited it in the audio podcast version though. If you know of other errors, please let me know! That's a really interesting analogy about machine learning. I won't be going so deep into the weeds - I'll be looking at it from the perspective of political and practical implications of different definitions (or non-definitions). For example if you think left/right means collectivism/individualism, or big government/small government, how does that shape your thinking, where does that focus your attention versus the historically accurate definition of left/right which is equality/hierarchy. Then I'll look at how and why the definition changed over time, and why I think it's important to use the original definitions.
What is politics?: "What does it mean to be gay?" General Population: "Being gay means like, men who wanna have sex and stuff with other men" What is politics?: "Well, historically, that's not what gay ment, it ment happiness, you will be shocked to hear that the church didn't oppose gay-ism. People who where very religious carried the name (gaylord) with (pride). So technically, we haven't tried real gayness yet." I'm kidding I love your channel keep up the good work!
2:05 Sure, I'll give it a shot. left: egalitarian right: in favour of political, social and/or economic hierarchical structures, elitist capitalism: socio-economic system in which distribution of resources and goods is driven by property (capital) socialism: socio-economic system in which distribution of resources and goods is driven by labour and/or egalitarian principles "the market": system of trade government: lawmakers ideology: prescriptive belief system democracy: egalitarian distribution of political power class (political): group of people with aligned socio-economic interests (due to socio-economic hierarchical structures) economics: system of distribution of resources and goods politics: systems of influence on social and economic outcomes
I've learned that in both biology and social sciences words are worbs. Ask a few biologist what life is, or what a gene is, and you'll get a lot of very different and incoherent answers. Same goes in cognitive sciences with words like cognition, emotions, attention, etc. And don't ask my anthropology teachers what culture is, you'd end up with a headache. As far as I can tell, the fundamental definitions of a field are always a little bit undefined, vague, floating concepts that nobody can really define. And that's ok, that's just the limits of trying to create discret categories for a universe that is continuous and inseparable. Don't get too mad at people in political sciences, my first teacher in the field did a great job at defining most of the main concepts and gave us a "political sciences toolkit" to analyse political systems with, it was even better that the other fields I studied in. I absolutely love the video tho, and I'm looking forward to watch the rest of the serie
thank you! and yes, very good points - i know that the terminology is a mess in anthropology too and most social sciences as well, though i’d argue that these are all political at the end of the day. but I didn’t realize this about biology, and hadn’t thought about cognitive sciences. But i’d say that all the terms you mention are all just terms that we don’t exactly understand very well. Like life and cognition are just very difficult concepts to grasp, that maybe no one fully understands. But in surgical or ER medicine there is a very precise definition of “life” and “death” because the need a practical definition to declare someone dead. In general in practical fields you have to have clear definitions. In political fields there’s an interest for many people to not have clear definitions in order to spin whatever web they want to weave.
hey i want to cite this for something i’m working on, should i include an author’s name? i’m having a hard time finding a name to connect to you. or if not your name, is there something you’d prefer to go in its place?
hi - that’s really cool and i’m interested to read that whatever it is! i don’t like plastering my name on the internet so much - i think my name is out there if you look hard enough, but if you write me an email (its at the end of each episode, worldwidescrotes gmail) ill give it to you. and send me your piece when you’re done if you remember!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This is real good. Here's some algorithm engagement comment. Please keep it up.
thank you! please let people know about it! i’m totally lost as to how to promote this. how did you find it btw?
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 I found it from googling how to get pee pee unstuck from toaster
I'm so sad I've gone three years since the release of this until finding it, but I'm beyond grateful to have found it now. It's like I've been hacking my way through the bramble for years, trying to make sense of this world, and then I stumble a couple feet over and find out there's been a road there all along.
thank you, hope these help you be more effective at achieving your political goals
I just came here as a recommendation from Anark, and I'm loving your channel so far. You are teaching me more political literacy than what I've ever received from School.
Thanks for the Spanish subtitles too :)
thank you, hope you find it useful in your life!
I've been on the left since 2011. It took me 5 of those 11 years to piece the kind of coherence of understanding presented here together for myself. Honestly never with the level of clarity and simplicity of delivery either.
I now recommend your politics playlist as a foundation to any baby leftist I meet setting out to learn political theory. You're doing the proletarian gods work.
thank you! that’s why i do it! i honestly didn’t even realize what a mess things were until i sat down to make a video on what left and right mean, and then i eventually realized that i didn’t really know, and then realized as it turned into a bigger and bigger research project that most poli-sci phd authors don’t know what those words mean or what any political words mean! so i realized i needed to rebuild ABC political theory from the ground up for it to make any coherent sense. i think it’s not a coincidence that this total muddle is considered to be acceptable in our society!
very important video... very important series. this is top-notch educational entertainment..
These concepts need to be understood by regular people, including those who consider themselves politically savvy individuals.
Should have 100x more views...
thank you! share it!
--->Politics = anything relating to decision making in a human group
--->Government= rule making and enforcing institution. Government exists everywhere, groups and individuals.
--->bargaining power is the most important thing
[Algo-boosting] Truly grateful for your podcast lecture! This will help me for years to come I hope you'll reach more PolSci students that are struggling due to their professors being an absolute pain in the ass.
love to hear it, thanks
Super awesome start! Was directed here from St. Andrewism channel. As someone whose majority of political education happened online, i can't stress enough how much confused political thinking and the language used in service if it is. And this is consistent across the political spectrum. I will definitely suggest this podcast to people who are new to political thinking (in all it's meanings).
thank you very much, and thanks to saint andrew, he really got me a lot of views and susbscribers, i need to check out his channel, i like him already before having seen it!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 i just saw that you also did a podcast with Arnold Schroeder from Fight like an animal. Always great to see good people talk good politics! You should definitely look up Anark and Zoe Baker on youtube.
@@arjunravichandran7578 fight like an animal is i think the best political podcast out there! i like anark and zoe baker too but don’t know them personally
A random person in another comment section told me about this channel, so I added this video to watch later months ago. I finally came back around to it, and I really like it! Excited to watch the whole series. You have a way with worbs ;)
This channel > my political science master
This was really good. Great concept for a series. Especially now that people are getting exposed to all sorts of political ideologies. I saw this linked in the red scare subreddit
cool, i very much appreciate that you’re enjoying it! can you post the link to the thread where the link was posted? i couldn’t find it. i do think it’s relevant to red scare rn, cause theyre talking alot about "the left" without defining what that means...
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Sorry, I've been seraching and can't find it. I think I was looking for several subreddits' reaction to their Steve Bannon interview. There was back and forth about what qualifies as right wing populism vs left wing populism cuz Bannon didn't support single payer, then someone linked your 4th video in the series
@@dudehighmrksup cool, good enough, thanks for looking!
Great stuff. I loved the Graeber critique. But who are you? Is there a name we can put on all this wisdom and sharp insight?
Absolutely fantastic work here. The word "worbs" to describe those particularly weaselly ill-defined terms is such useful thing to have.
I can't recall all the times I've asked someone I'm talking with to just define the words they're using so we can come to an agreement on what each other is even trying to say. What's worse than that, is when the person rolls their eyes at you and accuses you of being "elitist" for wanting to define clear and precise terms before getting into a confusing topic.
For as much as I hate bourgeois contractual legalese, one great concept that I wish politics and sciences would inherit from the legal field is the clear and precise definition of terms before engaging in any subject.
The first part of any legal document is literally just defining all of the terminology used in the rest of the document -- this is **specifically** to make sure there is absolutely nothing confusing about what is being discussed, and to avoid the issue of "worbs".
I feel like books and political essays should be **legally required** to define their terms on page 1, with the punishment being a swift slap to the face to anyone who doesn't comply.
Anyway, I'm stealing "worbs" -- thanks for this great term. Though I might put my own spin on it and call it "worbies" to relate how these weaselly terms rot the brain, not unlike a an untreated rabies infection. And just like rabies, they're infectious and spread among the population like... well... rabies. It's literally word-rabies. Worbies.
ha, i love this! i totally agree people should be required to define their terms when writing about politics - maybe not by law but at least by convention, like you automatically fail any essay and get a bad review etc. excellent point that in contracts, we define all our terms - largely because money is at stake! but in politics i think that the reason there’s zero rigour or precision is because the institutions of power in our society don’t really want us thinking very clearly about the institutions of power, because otherwise we’d be in a better position to critique and threaten those institutions. not a conspiracy but just the way power works… i’ll be talking a lot more about this soon, so do check out my upcoming episode 10.1 and if you like this, please share and let other people know about it, it’s hard to get the word out in a supersaturated media environment!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Haha, yeah the "by law" comment was a bit of joke -- I like to throw around "legally required" in my sentences as hyperbole. Not really serious. I just think that anyone being intentionally obtuse should be called out on it.
Unfortunately I don't think any sort of real publishing standards could be realistically enforced at this point anyway. The advent of the Internet means that anyone can pretty much publish anything -- anyone can write a book and get it sold on Amazon, or make a video series and publish it on UA-cam and become their own TV network of sorts.
This "democratization of publishing" is overall a net benefit for society, but is still a double edged sword. Dissemination of information is no longer locked behind a giant paywall, limited to only those with finances and connections. But on the other hand, any bad-faith actor can publish any misleading horseshit too.
But really, I'm not saying anything new or interesting here. There's been tons of articles written on the dissemination of "fake news" and other issues of the internet.
For every well researched, well thought-out video essay like yours... there's 10 other people writing/recording what ever "hot take" they have that is politically convenient for them or their interests.
@@jameso2290 one ray of hope is that people do realize that social media, and garbage media in general are poisoning us in various ways. maybe making something that can set a bit of an example might generate a taste of higher standards. ultimately for profit media is the culprit, but that’s a whole other can of worms. and i dont think people are purposefully obtuse most of the time, though there are some cynical people who purposefully manipulate the meaning of words (like the world socialism being used in right wing media to mean something that jeff bezos and george soros support in order to prevent other people from being rich!!) - mostly people are just used to living in a haze of confusion and not defining their terms etc. it’s bad habits, which are not corrected because at the end of the day the’re habits that serve the interests of power.
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Yeah, "bad habits" is a good way to frame it. A lot of it really is just the snowballing of bad habits over lifetimes -- because really, how can someone know something they don't know, until they actually learn it?
I like the term Marx used: "Muck of Ages" -- just all that gunk, bad habits, traditions, social relations, thought processes, behaviors, etc, that have trickled through the millennia and accumulated in the present. Like leaves clogging a gutter, they inhibit the flow of free human expression, only occasionally letting drips of insight to slip through.
@@jameso2290 ooh muck of ages, sometime marx really hit the nail on the head
I genuinely think this is the best political content EVER, before this i might as well have been blind about the world I live in. I wish I had money to contribute to this content but Im just a broke student😭
thank you! and no worries, that’s why i make everything free for everyone!
Surprisingly good shit, told some of my friends who are local politicians about this, and they were blown away by the clarity this podcast offers.
PS I meant surprising in the context of the rest of the politics-oriented podcast-landscape. Well that and in the context of the most popular video on this channel.
@@nl4006 very cool! local politicians tend to be the least narcissistic of all politicians in my experience
12:00 - 12:40 Definition of Politics
random comment from a random commenter who thanks you and the algorithm. It showed it to me 3 years after the fact and i hope it does to many more. This is, if nothing else, food for thought
thanks! i think you’ll get a lot out of the rest of the series if you liked this
An-Com here, this is the first video of yours I'm checking out, and I'm loving your mix of attitude with correct information and explanations.
Found your channel cause someone posted it in Anark's (anarchist theorist) discord.
hello! is that why i got a huge bump of views all of a sudden this week?
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Could be, the people who follow Anark are amazing people so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.
If you don't know who Anark is, I'd highly recommend having a browse of his channel.
Idk where exactly you sit in terms of politics but you seem at least left-leaning so I'd highly recommend him if you want to get to know modern anarchist positions.
@@AnarchoQrow oh yes i do know who he is!
What amazing videos... Truly changing our lives a bit. Thanks so much for putting all this time, passion and effort into them. We'll become Patreons soon. In the meantime we're spreading the word.
thank you so much, that’s what i love to hear, that’s why i do it!
I was going to start this exact channel this year. Have written scripts and all! Then you've come along, two years in the past future past and stolen all my worbS!stolen all my worbs! Awesome work!
apologies! and thank you!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 No need for apologies! Love your work, you've knocked out of the park!
This is one of the best politics channels I've come across.
The radical/ fundamental basis you are starting from is what makes it so good, you've identified THE key issue and notice the gap on YT.
Your humour, use of language and presentation is awesome.
1,000,000 internet points for you lol
@@thomasfoot3023 i’ll take them! thanks so much, it really means a lot to me especially after my brain is melting from doing a 2.5hr hour recording session 3 times in a row because my mic wasnt working properly..!! these type of comments make it worth it to keep going!
@@thomasfoot3023 and btw the gap isnt just on youtube, it’s the same problem in academia and journalism, such a huge issue with huge implications. it’s be great to generate a culture where it’s unacceptable not to define terms when publishing a book or teaching a course etc
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Oh I 100% agree on both points.
I studied Communications and Philosophy. I've worked in Politics (comms admin) in two countries and am extremely aware that political economy/ political illiteracy is a huge issue in the general population. It's by design, those who rule us would find it difficult to fool us if we all knew what is going on behind the scenes/ how professional manipulators operate/ their motivations.
Wow this is comprehensive. Happy to have stumbled here.
Interesting channel concept.
great podcast!!! that was so true. in france we talk about novlangue which is inspired by the novel 1984 from Orwell . and we organize lessons To fight against political "woodtongue"
thanks for this comment - i didn’t know this, what kind of lessons? can you tell me more about this? I looked up « langue de bois » and am finding lots of cool stuff, but would love some links on anti political langue de bois lessons!
Good thing that this channel exists, lately I express myself towards other people and have realized how difficult it is for me to actually explain to them.
thanks! yes, the ambiguous use of all of these terms make it very difficult to express anything or to be understood. i feel like that’s a plus for the powers that be
Fantastic. Came back to the start of this playlist from your recent Lizard People video.
I hope you keep going. This channel is great and needed right now.
thanks! yes, i keeping on … just takes a lot of time to make certain episodes, but lots more is coming
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Awesome!
Great video! We need more Politics and no advertisement in the electoral process.
A few observations: work place Politics is researched and wrote about in administration books since the dictatorial model is rarely effective except on some types business. Edward Deming - the guy who popularized statistics based quality control - has on his principles for quality control the need to teach the technique to work floor employees and make data available to them in a clear and objective manner so workers will be able to provide inputs about the process that could improve quality - and one of the principles "hear work floor employees because their input is the most valuable" (paraphrased). I understand this is not exactly democracy but it's also not exactly dictatorship and these statistical quality controls are used in assembly lines and not inside the research dept. of Intel.
Once again: great video! Off to episode 2 now. Thanks!
i’d say that’s still dictatorship, because the workers still have no power. the owner is just asking the workers opinions to help him maintain his power and profits, he has no obligation to listen to them, only if it benefits him. if all the workers said that the company will be more efficient if they owned it collectively, he won’t implement that policy!
It's a dictatorship that pulls democratic theatrics. Like the modern trope of a thoroughly burned out worker having to conduct an interview with the HR department after resigning, where the worker will be asked to spout again all his critiques and ideas for a better workplace that have been systematically ignored in their face before. It's a half assed mechanism designed to tell society "see? we're doing what you like".
So, does it depend on how the egalitarian/egotistical person lottery comes out regarding your boss? Marginally, the lottery is broken because that's were class systems come in, instilling interests and values on individuals depending on their social class. For the same reason that the vast majority of monarchs were uptight predatory extractors of wealth, the vast majority of bosses are self-interested exploitators performing civility.
Thank you so much for including Spanish Subtitles!!! My fiancee is Mexican and I look forward to indoctrinating her with the ONE CORRECT IDEOLOGY of Scotes-ism!!!
haha, love this! glad people are getting good use of the spanish subtitles, i hope your financee see’s the light - if not, you’ll need a new one of course
Haha, well I wouldn't be engaged to her if I had any intention of treating her as replaceable... Part of the reason I'm deep diving on anthropology right now is because I've become completely disgusted with feminism (let's not mince words - woke ideology came from feminism...) However the question of how men and women can live in harmony is a central one to everyone who dreams of a more egalitarian society... therefore comparative anthropology is important. But I digress... Do you have a playlist of all the videos you have that have Spanish subtitles? I noticed that not all of them do. Keep up the awesome work! If I have anything to say about it, you're going down in history.@@WHATISPOLITICS69
21:49 I’m reminded of Robert La Follette, progressive politician who supported the Bolshevik’s until he visited the Soviet Union in 1923 and immediately changed his mind. Late algo boost
interesting, i hadn’t heard of that thanks
What a gem of a channel. Nice content. You have won my interest ... if future episodes are as good, then you will have won my subscription. :)
thanks - how are you going to know about future episodes if you don't subscribe?
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Ohhh me so hungy hungy. Me subscribed.
@@jzk2020 haha, that’s how we do it! thanks!
Finally, someone who gets what politics actually is.
Really putting words to a lot of observations I had sort of made but not really fleshed out. Absolutely fantastic work and really can’t argue with anything proposed.
love to hear it!
Thank you for making this, it was very good! I find it extremely hard to talk to other people about politics, because I feel like we end up discussing semantics and definitions of words more than ideas with substance. Language matters, and if each of us is using the same word to mean different things, it's exhausting just trying to understand what the other is saying. This has happened to me when talking to people who I disagree, but also with people I agree with!
The thing that I, and many people, tend to forget is that words are not just static definitions, they are used in a certain way to steer the world in a certain direction. So it's not just important to know what these words ARE, it's important to understand what they DO in a given context.
Anyway, good luck with the rest of the podcast, I loved it so far! :)
thank you so much, that’s exactly why i’m doing this, it’s so good to hear that people appreciate it!
episode on left and right is coming out in a couple of days - maybe share it with your friends next time you want to argue with them!
btw, where did you find out about the podcast?
I just came here to add you from hearing you on varncast but I am subscribed already.
This feels like some good stuff. Many people who will listen might get their political standings redefined. And I guess I’ll be one of them.
Hey, this is Manchego from RAG. Mark just told us all to look you up. Enjoyed this very much.
hey! say hello to everyone! i’ve been too busy for ages to attend, but see some of the videos of the meetings and read some of the stuff when i can
Can't wait to binge listen to this Playlist over and over at work.
haha i can’t imagine listening to more than one of these at a time cause they’re so dense, but excellent!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 I may need to take breaks here and there 😅
I am recommending this podcast to my friends, family, co-workers and others. If you are a 9th grader you or a seasoned veteran you; a red or blue or purple you, this show will ring some bells.
"uhhh it's like business or something?" 😂 I love your sense of humour!
Brilliant channel. Clear concise theory, easy for just about anyone to understand
thank you! i try!
Thank you! Just found your work! Amazing! Shared and sharing far and wide. Supporting on Patreon. Please keep it up! Your critique of Dawn of Everything is phenomenal!!!
i saw you subscribed to patreon earlier, thanks so much it means a lot and helps a lot!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Happy to help support you and your work!
too often people treat political parties like being fans of a sports team, our team is cool and correct and wants the best for us, while the other teams are bad and stupid and eat babies, regardless of what those parties actually do
…just watched your video on left-right political spectrum, it talks exactly about my point lol
The way you say “buh-huks” (books) is life.
Interesting discussion I encountered - how does this definition of Politics fit into things?
Like I'd argue that art or video games can be political, but are they decisions related people in groups?
Is the definition perhaps broader or is it applied different to things?
so if politics is anything pertaining to group decision making, art can be political if it’s trying to influence peoples’ ideas about how things should be decided. like you have art in support of the nazis, or art critiquing commericalism, or art breaking sexual taboos to make a statement about repression etc.
Bro, you just continue to hit it out of the park
Much love mate! I'm listening!
Fine I'll watch the whole thing from the start. The other episodes I've seen are very good and they keep making references to other things that sound interesting and were covered in greater detail previously so I think I just need to see it all.
Wow. Seriously, I am sitting right here taking notes like quoting what you say. Like... to then look at it, criticize and maybe disagree. But mostly, THIS is just cleaning up a serious mess in my head right now, which was caused by a lot of "worbs" or idk "idio(t)logy" or "confucepts". Been studying Political Science for a while and quit cause I thought "everything is so dumb". I didnt know what the problem really was back then was but it was pure confusion. Now its slowly going away and its like a veil of ignorance is being lifted. Thanks a LOT. Like... I've only watched your episode on male dominance something and the first 16 minutes of this one so I'll probably become disillusioned with you not being able to make my life's decisions for me or provide me a new religion or something, but since that's exactly what you don't want... never hecking mind :D Greetings from far away, keep it up and maybe you'll hear some constructive criticism from me after a while :3
haha this must be one of my best comments ever - ‘university poli-sci is so dumb’ encapsulates it all right there!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 I think actually one of the worst parts of that kind of learning is the implicit lesson of hierarchy. If I take your definitions here seriously and I think you have a point, then almost any university I know is dominated by the political right or centrism (which when it does nothing really leftist is kind of right-wing too, isn't it?). While I cannot judge which direction is *the* better (I have my own opinions tho), I think it is really stupid to teach supposedly "neutral" and "objective" thinking about politics when the whole structure you have going on is super-duper biased by some kind of hierarchical ideology and does not take people serious who actually have come there to *study* and want to *figure out things* *understand the world* or something like that. Instead they serve them something they are "supposed to know". Dude, that's not what I asked for. That's not university like in universal. Thats very particular... should be called particulity or something... Okay, rant over. Thanks for the space.
@@nissigaleano4252 haha yes good points. i think you’ll like my other episodes!
Oh man, you are so good at it. Keep it up!!
Great content! Look forward to the next episode.
thanks, it’s on its way - where did you find out about it? trying to figure out how to get people to know it exists...
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 I came across your video on a link someone posted as a comment on an article on facebook. Its really word of mouth unless you're spending money on ads...I would definitely suggest you scour facebook groups on politics, economics, and related fields and post links and short intro into the work...people that enjoy this kind of content, which is EXCELLENT, will know within the first 3 minutes this is quality stuff. Additionally, getting interviews with alternative politics on youtube, Young Turks, Rational National, Sam Seder and ESPECIALLY Michael Brooks....I found it quite interesting because I've recently started reading the work of economist Michael Hudson, his work on economics is as refreshing as your work on politics, more than fresh, it is insightful. I wish you the best of luck, and will certainly follow your work!
@@ralfnoya8388 thanks! please share or tell people about it if appropriate circumstances pop up - i will be doing interviews with people involved in making change happen, hopefully julia salazar and jane mcalevey and others, and thinkers like corey robin - i don’t think sam seder or michael brooks will care about interviewing me just yet!
Just discovered the channel, will be working my way through the whole playlist now
I've seen all your episodes multiple times and I believe the universe would be a worse place if we didn't collaborate in some manner. I have practical experience that needs to be mined by the right person, and I think you're one of those people. Get in touch
Just found your videos. I really like the quality of your teachings. It helps so much to clarify my thoughts on so many topics.
thanks! and i saw you signed up for my patreon earlier today, so extra thanks - that really helps financially and motivationally!
This channel has to pop off sooner or later. The information disseminated here has the power to reframe everyday political matters for the better
15:43 Definition of Government
You got my like
Good stuff. Finding this pod is a bright spot.
If the essence of capitalism is the free exchange , noncoerced exchange of goods ,services and money and socialism is worker control of the means of production , then they are not mutually exclusive . Is capitalism now actually mercantilism ? please clarify . Awesome channel .
i think capitalism is a system based on contract and property rights with unlimited rights of accumulation. in such a system the government is basically enforcing the power of the wealthy over the people who depend on their property. in socialism you can’t own property that other people depend on to live, so yes they’re mutually exclusive as i see them
This is genious!, I cant understand how it doesnt have more likes 😉
share if you can!
This podcast is incredible.
Excellent series! Can’t wait to watch the rest :))
So grateful for these!
Excellent content! Accessible and informative. This podcast needs a wider audience.
thank you! I agree, please share if you can, it’s extremely hard to get the word out!
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 working on sharing it however I can! I found you through a recommendation from the Saint Andrewism UA-cam channel. keep up the good work :)
@@distinctlyspruce3540 yes, his shout out gave me as many subscribers and views as i normally get in like 8 months, so big thanks to him! i think i need a few more people of that stature to do that for this to be sustainable! or a zillion small shares!
Hello. I liked this first episode a lot. I've already listened to some of the following episodes and loved them. I'm trying to get my closest friends to listen to it, which I think would help them a lot since all of them are very interested in politics, whether they know it or not. Also, in case you're interested, I found your channel through mentions in the comments sections of Matt Christman's Dawn of Everything reviews. Looking forward to a lot of your new content!
thanks, glad you like it! if you like matt christman too, you got good taste! was it me posting in the comments or other people? i think you’ll like me DoE critiques if you haven't seen them yet
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Aw, thank you! Actually, I saw both you commenting and your channel being mentioned. And yes, I already watched the first DoE critique and I'm so looking forward to the next ones. Hope you have a great week 😄
@@drarp you too!
Go, youtube algorithm, go, and take with you this marvelous content.
Love your videos! One thing I was really surprised and mad at the same time was how meanings of words change in different languages. To give the word "politics" as an example, it's called "politika" or "siyaset" in Turkish which means the same thing (siyaset is the equivalent term mostly used in the East and politika is from West) you would expect them to be different things since politics, as you mentioned means "decision making progress among groups or other forms of power relations among individuals" meanwhile siyaset means "the art of regulating and conducting government affairs". And no, there are no differences between politika and siyaset in Turkish language. Even though its roots means a whole different thing. Learning an another language is crucial in order to escape the terms and meanings forced upon you by the one pure society which will determine most of your thinking process. Most of the people don't even bother checking definitions in their languages yet there is another problem, the difference of definitions of the same terms in different languages. Oof.
true!
Where did you get your definition of politics (decision making in groups)?
it’s the formulation i came to from looking at various dictionaries (including historical ones) and reading Elizabeth Anderson’s book Private Government, and thinking about it…
btw see episode 4 for how i choose definitions
I find these videos fascinating, compelling, and thoughtful. But I have to pull a deconstruction here - when your political project begins with determining very precise, immutable definitions of words, that is both dangerous and ultimately unstable. Words, and language, just don't work that way. I agree with your contention, which pops up throughout, that post-modernist (there's a worb for you) academia has had a sometimes detrimental effect on leftist/revolutionary politics, but these insights - of Wittgenstein, Saussure, Derrida, etc. - cannot just be dismissed. They must be worked through in order to find the polyglossic revolution on the other side.
hi - did you see episode 4? i think we’re on the same page there, I explain that of course words can mean whatever you want them to mean, and they don’t have fixed immutable meanings that we must conform to - but i elaborate criteria for how and why i choose particular definitions, and that we should keep those types of criteria in mind when we use political langauge and decide between competing definitions or even if we might want to articulate new definitions etc
Im curious about something You mentioned Orwell briefly in this video. How do you feel about his various controversies from the racism, to his list of names of various leftists, to the attempted sexual assault?
i wasn’t aware of any of these things - where would i read about it?
Wow. This is really good.
Great video. Seems like a worthwile project. Defining concepts before going to argue about them is one of the steps to guarantee a productive discussion.
I do have one criticism (I haven't watched the rest of the series, so it might get addressed): you seem to place great importance on bargaining power, how important it is to politics, yet there wasn't much in terms of definition (is it rhetorical skill, legal/financil power to coerce your opponent?) You don't want this to become a worb, do you?))
hm, no i never thought to define bargaining power, because I don’t think it has any potential contentious or ambiguous meanings. it’s not rhetorical skill, it’s simply the leverage that you have against your opponent - having something that they need, how badly they need it relative to what you want from them. it can come from having a lot of money, but also from other factors, like laws (laws that make it illegal to fire unionized workers), or the weather (i have an umbrella, and you don’t) etc.
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 Okay, thank you for your response!
I've always wanted a word for worb. I knew there was a name for and have noticed when ever you repeat a word over and over it turns into nothing.
Nice word.
thanks! its a concept missing in our language…
Cannot download your video - Technology interference? Are you posted on any other channels? Kman
For the algorithm
Thank you for unveiling my mind !
never heard that one before, thank you!
I to wish that books would start with the definition of the words in its title!
seriously! the worst example of this i can remember was Foucault’s book “Power and Sexuality” where he only defines the words “power and sexuality” like 280 pages into the book and he defines them in really unusual ways, so that until page 280 the entire book is incomprehensible gibberish and you have to start it all over to understand what the f dude is talking about…
Thanks!
Great video. Thank you sir. I admit my own short-comings in this regard. Thanks for the encouragement to better my understanding of these very important concepts.
thank you, that’s much appreciated! and yes, I also was guilty of repeating words with no definition and it wasn’t until I sat down to make a video about what left and right mean that I realized holy crap I don’t even really know what they meant!
The idea that Politics is bad and that all politicians are corrupt got traction with the idea that markets are better at doing what citizens want than Politics. Also took traction at the same time the idea that Freedom is the ability to do what one wants to one's self because what others want is not one's business. We add to this the other idea that elected officials are only proxies for the voters will and not people who the voters put trust on to fight for them - and fighting for the voters often mean not doing what the voters want.
Looking forward for the episode about democracy, btw.
just to boost the algorithm.
you're doing good work!
can't decide between anarchy and socialism, or maybe even communism
OK, this is all well and good, but where do you get your 'true' definition of politics?
you can see episode 4 for how i choose definitions - basically look through dictionaries and encyclopedias, including very old ones and then figure out which definition is most useful and coherent - which one helps us see the world more clearly vs muddling up concepts and confusing us
This is really good but you should edit out the parts where you stumble over words maybe?
Other than that this is the most important kind of political discussion I think. Descriptivism is the technical term for the methodology dictionary writers use to define terms, they see how people are using those terms and they report back in the dictionary, but they're going over a lot of words and are not necessarily as online as many people today are.
Arguably the way people learn words to begin with is a similar process, just recognizing patterns in when people use certain words and figuring out what they mean from context. Understanding that words can genuinely mean different things to different people because of exposure to different experiences is important to understand language, particularly political language.
The pattern recognition system machine learning uses could be a good metaphor for this, and was designed based on a simplified model of how people think pattern recognition in the brain works iirc.
Just like in machine learning, there is a danger of "overfitting," which is how people end up not knowing that other meanings for words exist than the ones they're familiar with. To combat this thoroughly, you have to make your "sample data" as representative of the real world (or whatever problem you're working on) as possible, which requires understanding what can potentially bias sample data.
Hi - thanks for the comments.
For the stumbling, unfortunately I caught a couple of errors at 18:28 and 31:39 after I had posted it and I can't change the video. I edited it in the audio podcast version though. If you know of other errors, please let me know!
That's a really interesting analogy about machine learning.
I won't be going so deep into the weeds - I'll be looking at it from the perspective of political and practical implications of different definitions (or non-definitions).
For example if you think left/right means collectivism/individualism, or big government/small government, how does that shape your thinking, where does that focus your attention versus the historically accurate definition of left/right which is equality/hierarchy.
Then I'll look at how and why the definition changed over time, and why I think it's important to use the original definitions.
That's Mr. Dr. Prof. Einstein to you! ;)
Do you have a worb glossary?
ooh, no, but that’s a good idea - i am planning on doing a glossary of terms that i’ve defined on the show, so maybe that’s the same or similar idea
Rewatching your theory videos! Thank you for your hard work!
What is politics?: "What does it mean to be gay?"
General Population: "Being gay means like, men who wanna have sex and stuff with other men"
What is politics?: "Well, historically, that's not what gay ment, it ment happiness, you will be shocked to hear that the church didn't oppose gay-ism. People who where very religious carried the name (gaylord) with (pride). So technically, we haven't tried real gayness yet."
I'm kidding I love your channel keep up the good work!
haha, the general population definitions works fine in this case though!
2:05 Sure, I'll give it a shot.
left: egalitarian
right: in favour of political, social and/or economic hierarchical structures, elitist
capitalism: socio-economic system in which distribution of resources and goods is driven by property (capital)
socialism: socio-economic system in which distribution of resources and goods is driven by labour and/or egalitarian principles
"the market": system of trade
government: lawmakers
ideology: prescriptive belief system
democracy: egalitarian distribution of political power
class (political): group of people with aligned socio-economic interests (due to socio-economic hierarchical structures)
economics: system of distribution of resources and goods
politics: systems of influence on social and economic outcomes
"Socialism is when doggy doodoo is on your shoes." my new favorite "Socialism is..."
haha i don’t remember saying that, but that is funny!
One year late, but this video is very good
thanks! it’s never too late, i made these to be ever-green minus some comments about dem primaries. let people know about it if you get a chance
One year and three days but I concur.
I've learned that in both biology and social sciences words are worbs. Ask a few biologist what life is, or what a gene is, and you'll get a lot of very different and incoherent answers. Same goes in cognitive sciences with words like cognition, emotions, attention, etc. And don't ask my anthropology teachers what culture is, you'd end up with a headache. As far as I can tell, the fundamental definitions of a field are always a little bit undefined, vague, floating concepts that nobody can really define. And that's ok, that's just the limits of trying to create discret categories for a universe that is continuous and inseparable. Don't get too mad at people in political sciences, my first teacher in the field did a great job at defining most of the main concepts and gave us a "political sciences toolkit" to analyse political systems with, it was even better that the other fields I studied in.
I absolutely love the video tho, and I'm looking forward to watch the rest of the serie
thank you! and yes, very good points - i know that the terminology is a mess in anthropology too and most social sciences as well, though i’d argue that these are all political at the end of the day. but I didn’t realize this about biology, and hadn’t thought about cognitive sciences. But i’d say that all the terms you mention are all just terms that we don’t exactly understand very well. Like life and cognition are just very difficult concepts to grasp, that maybe no one fully understands. But in surgical or ER medicine there is a very precise definition of “life” and “death” because the need a practical definition to declare someone dead. In general in practical fields you have to have clear definitions. In political fields there’s an interest for many people to not have clear definitions in order to spin whatever web they want to weave.
Reallly loveeee it!!!!!!
I'm excited to start this journey :)
cool thanks, love that you’re getting into this so deep! hope you get a lot out of it
Nice
yay! new ukrainian subs!!
nice surprise eh? viewer from ukraine making these for me. episode two coming soon, very cool! glad people are interested to have them!
Very useful. Greetings from Munich!
YOU give good commemtary, I want more.
hey i want to cite this for something i’m working on, should i include an author’s name? i’m having a hard time finding a name to connect to you. or if not your name, is there something you’d prefer to go in its place?
hi - that’s really cool and i’m interested to read that whatever it is! i don’t like plastering my name on the internet so much - i think my name is out there if you look hard enough, but if you write me an email (its at the end of each episode, worldwidescrotes gmail) ill give it to you. and send me your piece when you’re done if you remember!
Vos vidéos sont vraiment très bien fait. Beaucoup de travail et une excellente structure. Par curiosité, avez-vous une formation en philosophie?
merci! non, j’ai une maîtrise en anthropologie et je suis actuellement avocat, j’aide les locataires qui sont menacés de rénoviction.
Doesn’t the Greek word Polis actually mean Household?
polis means city - i guess you’re thinking of oikos, household, which is the root word for econonomy
@@WHATISPOLITICS69 thanks!
@@FreerMasons you’re welcome!
This is awesome!
Thx.