I love these conversations between the Artist and the Prof. Please keep this series going. It is a breath of fresh air to see these in-depth and insightful conversations on here. Our TV programmes these days are very much dumbed-down and catering for those audience who has an attention span for only sound bites. It is also superb when all three men are on the same wavelength with an ability to glide from one subject to the next, from philosophy to art effortlessly. John David Ebert is wonderfully learned and full of fascinating nuggets of information.
1:28:00 This is explained by the migrations of Franks, Visigoths and Vandals all German tribes into the regions of France and Spain as well as Lombardy (Northern Italy).
I’ve watched this like 10 times already 😂. I’ve been reading Spengler and watching John for years and I just can’t get enough of this discussion on contemporary issues because these are all the questions I would ask John too! One thing I think you guys sorely missed and I was kicking myself over was your discussion on the demographic and cultural threats to Europe and America. The thing you missed is that it is around this time on Spenglers political chart that the Caesars appear to rescue the civilisation from its decline. They seize the reigns from all of these threats that result from Republican decline just at the same time the finale of the spiritual charts culminate with “lecture hall psychology”. An important point here is that Jordan Peterson’s Judeo Christian revivalism is precisely the Second Religiousness that develops concurrently with the rise of the Caesar’s. In this sense I think Johns optimism is unwarranted and that the threat is in fact Overwhelming! We need Caesars immediately in Europe if it is to survive.
I dug the opening of ur rant but where u ended up is problematic in the extreme. a Caesar is not gonna be able to put the oil back in the underground aquifers, are they? can a Caesar equip u to accept that the low-hanging fruit has all been greedily picked? in ur collective fear and stupidity, u destroyed what took a billion years to put in place. the idea that capitalism (grift and avarice) cant exist forever on a planet with finite resources seems beyond ur ability to grasp. all of u Faustian cheerleaders miss the forest for the trees every single time, exhibiting what appears to me as a clear stopgap to ur kind of intelligence, and a continued danger to the planet as a whole living system. but u keep fixating on problems the west created as if they are external threats, that's nuts!
@@skyjuiceification wow you really haven’t read Spengler have you lol. Capitalism and materialism is the prime enemy of the conservative revolution, the counter enlightenment, the cultural critics of Germany etc. The Caesars are the ones who bring an end to capitalism. Read the book before you comment please.
John's optimism is indeed unwarranted but not for the reasons u give. why does it not occur to u guys that death is as unavoidable for cultures as it is for living organisms when they have reached too far into the storehouse of becoming but consistently avoided taking heed of its hard but ultimately ennobling lessons? this is not just conjecture boy and girls, childhood is supposed to come to an end.
Perhaps a respectable commentary on human history has never been written and can never be written, not by a human. perhaps that would be a great use for AI.
How is he not Eurocentric, though, he has this universal holistic analysis, that seems very Western ? Maybe a little more cyclical and pessimistic than most European schools of thought, but he is in many ways just in the spirit of the times that he lived in, and not too dissimilar from other thinkers from around the time period, being very quick to challenge this idea of eternal Western progress like most of his peers at the time, due to the horrific nature of the World wars. His bleak view depends on one single thing, scepticism about the future, which is also very Western.This, in itself causes these events to commence, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. With that being said, I think a lot of his predictions are true, but I also feel that with the West becoming global, it's going to become increasingly hard to outmode the Western state of being. Maybe it will survive in unexpected ways and places, like how Rome survived and transformed into Byzantium. The real question is where does technology fit into all of this, will we see non-Western cultures retain all of the West's technology and improve onto it. If that's the case Western science ain't going anywhere, no matter what kind of spiritual system is adopted.
To respond to your, Brandon’s, point about it being nonsense to to not be able to know other cultures: I believe full-heartedly in the zoomed out [cosmic-]multipolar aspect of world observation, but I do believe that we are still in the pax-Western epoch. To say that your cross-cultural observation does not have a bias towards Western thinking is to me the classic exuberance of Western thought [but I guess, wouldn’t that go without saying?] Especially surprising that you believe the West is essentially dead. Many of my favorite modern/contemporary East Asian thinkers have used the Western model of observation to at least some extent-which tells me that the world, for the foreseeable future, will have a substantial Western aspect. Which linguistic, governmental, and yes I believe also, philosophical models were available to the premier ‘subaltern’ leader Lee Kuan Yew when he went about unifying his country of Singapore? To Ebert’s point, it was a local and pragmatic cross-pollination of all that was available to the leader, but to quote Lee Kuan Yew himself, Singapore “imbibed the values and ideals which moved British [civilization] toward a more just and equal society.” *Kausikan was here* I only note here a question, as a Western multipolar observer myself: to what extent has remote expatriation worked as a universal model of multipolar observation? Or isn’t that the point of multipolarism: to observe others conscientious of our own civilizationalism. Oh yeah! Ebert is one of the great Western philosophers. His world-historical outlook is unmatched
This notion, in Paglia and certain other scholars, that androgyny is a sign of decadence is, quite precisely, utterly incoherent. Decadence implies a return to base, animalistic drives severed from higher dimensions of being (civil consciousness, spirituality, etc.) Thus, it might be true that sexual promiscuity IS a sign of decadence, and yet, in a way that conservatives never seem to grasp, androgyny is a transcendence of the merely animal. There is a GOOD REASON WHY the shamans in Pre-Colonial civilizations were often intersex, androgynous, transgender, and/or gender nonconformists, and why even religious fingered like Christ and Buddha take on androgynous appearances in art. It is because androgyny breaks the fetters of mere nature (animal kingdom decadence and slaver to mere drive) and is, as Paglia herself admits elsewhere (as she is not consistent) an Apollonian and civilizing impulse, precisely BECAUSE it goes against the arbitrary drive-based , instinctive and uncritical flailing of mere nature, with it’s pretty-prefrontal-cortical divisions of labor along sexed/gendered lines. It is frustrating just HOW LITTLE CRITICAL THINKING people on the right, or who are right-adjacent, are willing to do in terms of this so-called “issue”. The obvious and inevitable transcendence I of obsolete gender roles has nothing to do with anti-spiritual materialistic hedonism.
Can the androgynous be counted on to procreate and keep the population going? No. Good or bad, the continuing existence of mankind is enslaved to the act of fluid exchange. Society needs lots and lots of babies on a regular basis. We humans, hit upon a rather clever strategy for solving the population problem, while simultaneously mitigating the worst animalistic impulses we have regarding sex and also ensuring that as many men are sexually satisfied as possible. (Large amounts of sexually frustrated young men tend to cause massive heart-ache and chaos for societies.) This strategy is called Marriage. The institution of marriage enters people into a contract that demands the baser animal desires be subordinated to the the overall good of the partnership/family. A small amount of androgyny in any human population is natural, harmless and unavoidable, but a functioning and healthy society will inevitably have a majority of its population fall into the "hetero-normative" category. Any "transcendence" that doesn't take into account the messy reality of biology, isn't going to a transcend very much.
Came back to this today. Great stuff. Finger still firmly on the pulse.
utterly incredible interview, thank ye guys, john david's brain is aflame
Glad you liked it!
I love these conversations between the Artist and the Prof. Please keep this series going. It is a breath of fresh air to see these in-depth and insightful conversations on here. Our TV programmes these days are very much dumbed-down and catering for those audience who has an attention span for only sound bites. It is also superb when all three men are on the same wavelength with an ability to glide from one subject to the next, from philosophy to art effortlessly. John David Ebert is wonderfully learned and full of fascinating nuggets of information.
1:28:00 This is explained by the migrations of Franks, Visigoths and Vandals all German tribes into the regions of France and Spain as well as Lombardy (Northern Italy).
There was no France or Spain. They migrated into Gall, Those nations together comprised what would have been then called Gall and Iberia.
Interesting conversation. I rarely listen to philosophical topics but enjoyed it.
How can videos like this get so few views but WAP can get millions?
I feel like our cultural decline is inescapable.
It is inescapable. The West is becoming a rigid, totalitarian megalopolis devoid of culture and tradition.
Very true brother. We are living in the late empire.
I’ve watched this like 10 times already 😂. I’ve been reading Spengler and watching John for years and I just can’t get enough of this discussion on contemporary issues because these are all the questions I would ask John too! One thing I think you guys sorely missed and I was kicking myself over was your discussion on the demographic and cultural threats to Europe and America. The thing you missed is that it is around this time on Spenglers political chart that the Caesars appear to rescue the civilisation from its decline. They seize the reigns from all of these threats that result from Republican decline just at the same time the finale of the spiritual charts culminate with “lecture hall psychology”. An important point here is that Jordan Peterson’s Judeo Christian revivalism is precisely the Second Religiousness that develops concurrently with the rise of the Caesar’s.
In this sense I think Johns optimism is unwarranted and that the threat is in fact Overwhelming! We need Caesars immediately in Europe if it is to survive.
Caesars don't revive the original culture; they wage civil wars and weaken the civilization further.
I dug the opening of ur rant but where u ended up is problematic in the extreme. a Caesar is not gonna be able to put the oil back in the underground aquifers, are they? can a Caesar equip u to accept that the low-hanging fruit has all been greedily picked? in ur collective fear and stupidity, u destroyed what took a billion years to put in place. the idea that capitalism (grift and avarice) cant exist forever on a planet with finite resources seems beyond ur ability to grasp. all of u Faustian cheerleaders miss the forest for the trees every single time, exhibiting what appears to me as a clear stopgap to ur kind of intelligence, and a continued danger to the planet as a whole living system. but u keep fixating on problems the west created as if they are external threats, that's nuts!
@@skyjuiceification wow you really haven’t read Spengler have you lol. Capitalism and materialism is the prime enemy of the conservative revolution, the counter enlightenment, the cultural critics of Germany etc. The Caesars are the ones who bring an end to capitalism. Read the book before you comment please.
John's optimism is indeed unwarranted but not for the reasons u give. why does it not occur to u guys that death is as unavoidable for cultures as it is for living organisms when they have reached too far into the storehouse of becoming but consistently avoided taking heed of its hard but ultimately ennobling lessons? this is not just conjecture boy and girls, childhood is supposed to come to an end.
Perhaps a respectable commentary on human history has never been written and can never be written, not by a human. perhaps that would be a great use for AI.
Oswald Spengler is unique for his non Eurocentric approach.
How is he not Eurocentric, though, he has this universal holistic analysis, that seems very Western ? Maybe a little more cyclical and pessimistic than most European schools of thought, but he is in many ways just in the spirit of the times that he lived in, and not too dissimilar from other thinkers from around the time period, being very quick to challenge this idea of eternal Western progress like most of his peers at the time, due to the horrific nature of the World wars. His bleak view depends on one single thing, scepticism about the future, which is also very Western.This, in itself causes these events to commence, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. With that being said, I think a lot of his predictions are true, but I also feel that with the West becoming global, it's going to become increasingly hard to outmode the Western state of being. Maybe it will survive in unexpected ways and places, like how Rome survived and transformed into Byzantium. The real question is where does technology fit into all of this, will we see non-Western cultures retain all of the West's technology and improve onto it. If that's the case Western science ain't going anywhere, no matter what kind of spiritual system is adopted.
@@invidusspectator3920 have you read decline of the west?
I read it, and he was indeed a "European". if the name is not suggestive of this I don't know what is.
Ok, random thought: Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke and John David Ebert.
Yeah, all passive-aggressive culture warriors.
Vallejo should do a podcast
To respond to your, Brandon’s, point about it being nonsense to to not be able to know other cultures:
I believe full-heartedly in the zoomed out [cosmic-]multipolar aspect of world observation, but I do believe that we are still in the pax-Western epoch. To say that your cross-cultural observation does not have a bias towards Western thinking is to me the classic exuberance of Western thought [but I guess, wouldn’t that go without saying?] Especially surprising that you believe the West is essentially dead.
Many of my favorite modern/contemporary East Asian thinkers have used the Western model of observation to at least some extent-which tells me that the world, for the foreseeable future, will have a substantial Western aspect.
Which linguistic, governmental, and yes I believe also, philosophical models were available to the premier ‘subaltern’ leader Lee Kuan Yew when he went about unifying his country of Singapore? To Ebert’s point, it was a local and pragmatic cross-pollination of all that was available to the leader, but to quote Lee Kuan Yew himself, Singapore “imbibed the values and ideals which moved British [civilization] toward a more just and equal society.”
*Kausikan was here*
I only note here a question,
as a Western multipolar observer myself: to what extent has remote expatriation worked as a universal model of multipolar observation? Or isn’t that the point of multipolarism: to observe others conscientious of our own civilizationalism.
Oh yeah! Ebert is one of the great Western philosophers. His world-historical outlook is unmatched
Art teacher here doesn’t understand the basic difference between the reactionary and philosophy of art.
I almost got beaten up because I was relating Buddhist ideas to some students (positive ones). Our society has become very absurd.
This notion, in Paglia and certain other scholars, that androgyny is a sign of decadence is, quite precisely, utterly incoherent. Decadence implies a return to base, animalistic drives severed from higher dimensions of being (civil consciousness, spirituality, etc.) Thus, it might be true that sexual promiscuity IS a sign of decadence, and yet, in a way that conservatives never seem to grasp, androgyny is a transcendence of the merely animal. There is a GOOD REASON WHY the shamans in Pre-Colonial civilizations were often intersex, androgynous, transgender, and/or gender nonconformists, and why even religious fingered like Christ and Buddha take on androgynous appearances in art. It is because androgyny breaks the fetters of mere nature (animal kingdom decadence and slaver to mere drive) and is, as Paglia herself admits elsewhere (as she is not consistent) an Apollonian and civilizing impulse, precisely BECAUSE it goes against the arbitrary drive-based , instinctive and uncritical flailing of mere nature, with it’s pretty-prefrontal-cortical divisions of labor along sexed/gendered lines. It is frustrating just HOW LITTLE CRITICAL THINKING people on the right, or who are right-adjacent, are willing to do in terms of this so-called “issue”. The obvious and inevitable transcendence I of obsolete gender roles has nothing to do with anti-spiritual materialistic hedonism.
Can the androgynous be counted on to procreate and keep the population going?
No.
Good or bad, the continuing existence of mankind is enslaved to the act of fluid exchange.
Society needs lots and lots of babies on a regular basis.
We humans, hit upon a rather clever strategy for solving the population problem, while simultaneously mitigating the worst animalistic impulses we have regarding sex and also ensuring that as many men are sexually satisfied as possible.
(Large amounts of sexually frustrated young men tend to cause massive heart-ache and chaos for societies.)
This strategy is called Marriage.
The institution of marriage enters people into a contract that demands the baser animal desires be subordinated to the the overall good of the partnership/family.
A small amount of androgyny in any human population is natural, harmless and unavoidable, but a functioning and healthy society will inevitably have a majority of its population fall into the "hetero-normative" category.
Any "transcendence" that doesn't take into account the messy reality of biology, isn't going to a transcend very much.
I never understood why anyone took this guy seriously.