Is Everything Fascist?
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2023
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Adorno on America’s Fascist Culture
The influential philosopher Theodore Adorno was notorious for his crankiness about everything from slippers to jazz music. And his tendency to perceive seemingly-innocuous things as fascist remains a punchline. But were Adorno’s philosophical concerns about modern culture justified? Was he right all along? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition: Did Adorno Predict the Rise of Fascism?
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Written by Michael Burns
Researched by Tom Whyman
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Michael Luxemburg
Edited by Andrew Nishimura
Produced by Olivia Redden
Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound
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#philosophy #Adorno #wisecrack
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"Fascist, 7 Across."
Hey, Michael & you all should probably know that Masterworks’ advertising & numbers can be pretty misleading. Not sure if you want to push them quite as much.
ua-cam.com/video/6ojOkPmm8lw/v-deo.html
Masterworks is a scam. Find a real and reputable sponsor or you'll see people unsubb.
Nice sponser, jackasses.
Now you can participate in the money laundering of the elite, with none of the benefits.
@@michaelfried3123 👍 Agreed, was just about to say likewise. Time-Sharing for art? Pu-lease. 🙄
Maybe the real fascism was the friends we made along the way
Nah it was probably corporate power in league with the government propping up monopolies creating command economy disguised as a free market
Just lol
Ok but why is this true lol
😂
🤣
I can only speak for myself, but I have never finished listening to Langston Hughes or B.B. King and thought “I think it’s time to subjugate a whole division of people”.
I usually just felt melancholy after listening to bb king
I just like to think to myself "i have no enemies"
Any Tracy Chapman???
It’s much more complicated than that unfortunately, he more saw jazz music as a step towards a society becoming more disillusioned with reality at the hands of capitalism, which allows the perfect conditions for a populist leader to use that disillusionment to their advantage with propaganda.
Coming in the form of being more concerned with dreams than the reality you live in, or more concerned about what happens after you die than what is happening to you right now, a populist leader can use those dreams, or that religion to take power.
“Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.” - Langston Hughes most famous line
“I'm working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven to get my reward, my reward.” -BB King
You may see why an anti capitalist Jew who escaped the Holocaust might have some concerns with that one ^
You clearly have never been playing Stellaris while listening to jazz.
I do suspect that Adorno might have gone a little too paranoid (over slippers at least), but his experience in Germany and its crimes did help him recognize one important thing: some certain values, that should really not be welcomed by society, can indeed hide in ordinary objects or actions, or thoughts and opinions.
Precisely.
It's like the terrible feeling you might get when going to a movie theatre... what you see is all just another form of play, but there are real hopes, dreams, fetishes, stories and work put behind them.
To NOT analyze this aspect is pretty damned stupid.
Yet critical thinking has created an environment that fosters those exact values he was against.
How wrong he was outweighed how right he was. Honestly, he’s done a disservice to academia, since his theories are the most
Popular yet the most easily disproving, it makes people distrust us more than they already do
@@terrymustang73 "us?"
@@Virjunior01 claiming everything is fascist and ignoring specific historical and cultural nuances is the antithesis of analysis. It’s just laziness and if you analyze these claimed analysises you kinda see it.
They use the term critical theory, say we need to analyze everything, yet refuse to allow themselves to be analyzed, refuse to be critiqued in any academic sense. It’s a cult mentality, be careful
Something fascist that probably isn't: assuming vanilla to be the default ice cream flavor.
Is there one?
@@Gadget-Walkmen In some countries I've seen the base ice cream flavor be called "milk" or "sweet cream". Hard to find that in the US though - it all has vanilla added to it.
VANILLA SUPREMACY!
@@pyrrhicvictoly it’s because vanilla is basically seen AS the default ice cream color due to its “creamy whiteness” flavor, mainly.
@@pyrrhicvictoly Thats strange honestly (to me based on my experience) because I've never thought about it. However I have made icecream at home without vanilla and thought it was fantastic, so it is strange vanilla in america is the base flavor.
I can really see where Adorno's coming from in regards to horoscopes. In the modern day, we see terms like "alpha male", "beta male", and "sigma male" used to justify cruelty and excuse defeatism. It's essentially zodiac signs for insecure men, and insecure masculinity is a fertile garden for the weeds of fascism.
Exactly, that alpha beta stuff.
Also that INTJ, INFJ type stuff can be considered astrology of Psychology. I mean maybe those MBTI personality tests might be useful to professionals, but non pros make astrology out of it, you get memes and stuff.
Yes, men should just shut up and accept their place in modern feminism.
Taking to its maxim, then it just applies to all religions. If anything, judeochristian philosophy is the least susceptible to fascism and eastern philosophies are the most according to Adorno. I doubt critical theorists would accept that view though lol
As much as the terms alpha and beta are overrused and stupid they are still somehow a reality.
@@Enigmashoot yup. Not to mention, the concept isnt unique to fascism. Many far left groups used variations of “alpha male” concepts to push the same cruelty and excuses of defeatism. I respect OPs comment, but it’s a bit shallow and American centric
Would have loved to hear Adorno's review of Whiplash. As a Hollywood film depicting vicious authoritarian Jazz instruction, it seems like the apotheosis of everything he found wrong with the world. Can't remember if anyone is wearing slippers in it...
Adam Neely did a review of Whiplash...
It's a good watch and goes into many of the problems with the film. Basically, that some writer decided to treat a jazz band like it was a competitive sport, which is not how jazz bands work.
ua-cam.com/video/SFYBVGdB7MU/v-deo.html
Whiplash attained godhood? huh.
its an OK film. its odd the way it depicts jazz, since I thought jazz was ons if the music genres famous for its improv and freedom of expression
@@theprecipiceofreason Used in the figurative sense, not the literal sense. If I had said it seems like the "literal apotheosis" of everything he found wrong with the world, this could have been a sick burn. But I did not. Alas.
@@robertstarnes6878 the word 'literally' has no meaning, any longer. Not every comment is meant to be a 'sick burn'. A hyperbolic tendency doesn't have to be defended (or defensive) and a comment can just be a comment.
"Fascist, 7 Across."
Hag
"Hag, 3 down"
Fascism, wonderful
Underrated comment
The greater good
There’s no way in heck that masterworks is not a money hole in actual reality. Diligence, wisecrack?
They don't care. I understand getting your money, but lying to our faces is something else.
I know if I see a Raid sponsorship, they don't mean a single thing they are saying. I can't keep up with all these new and exciting scams.
They need to pay rent. Just like you.
Just how you were smart enough to think the ad is a scam you can also figure out why they need to take ads from less than perfect businesses.
Basically all 'sponsor segments' are absolute garbage. There have been way too many scams.
Who else remebers the Established Titles thing? It was everywhere until it got exposed as a scam
@@Youbetternowatchthis Investment scams are by far the worst though. They aren't just convincing people to buy a sub-par product, they are convincing people to gamble away their savings.
As an anarchist, I've always been worried about "the seeds of authoritarianism". They are hidden everywhere. They can grow, and develop into authoritarian actions, and movements, and societies. Those seeds are not fascism, but they can lead to it if they are left to grow unchecked.
Authoritarianism =/= fascism. Those seeds lead to authoritarianism
@@Leonard-nb7jk Correct, but "they can lead to it" was the key part here. Can.
@@wandererstraining I think a majority of what he claims “can lead” fo fascism do not even lead to authoritarianism. 99 percent of the the examples he gives are the equivalent of saying “clean drinking water can lead to fascism” or “the written language can lead to fascism” it’s not really academic and there’s no true analysis. His whole teachings is anti critical analysis of anything. His whole shtick is conflating causation and correlation, and in doing so prevents actual proper useful analysis from occurring. Todays society, which is built on a hegemony of critical theory, is proof of this.
@@Leonard-nb7jk Yes, Adorno went too far, that's for sure. As someone who was raised for part of his life in a brutal fascistic, but not outwardly so, environment, I can understand being very sensitive to authoritarian or fascistic tendencies. I can easily imagine how someone who would have lived in Nazi Germany would be sensitive to it to the point where they get false positives.
@@wandererstraining yeah I agree. that’s why it’s the antithesis of critical thinking. If he can’t even see beyond his own implicit bias, something you are even able to see beyond with your own experiences, then his whole thought experiment is fruitless. And it shows how fragile it truly is, because his bias was so overbearing that he intentionally formed his entire philosophy using western centric and Anglo centric viewpoints. It’s completely built upon the foundation of ignorance of the outside world.
I can sympathize with him but only to a point. I might sympathize with a 9/11 survivor, but I won’t try and justify his clouded and racist views towards Islam. His experiences only justify his actions to a point, and it went way past what was excusable
When I was an MA student I got really into Adorno’s work, and very quickly fell for the idea that anything and everything can be a way in which capitalism represses us. One of my lecturers, himself an expert on the Frankfurt School, told me that just because we *can* read society in his terms doesn’t mean we *must* and that (like many critical theorists) Adorno is basically taking advantage of the essential ambiguity of the world along with our inevitable drive to ‘fill in’ the missing pieces.
Put simply, blaming everything - no matter how trivial - on capitalism (or fascism) is not much different from the age old idea of the ‘god of the gaps’; we need to explain something but have no way to analyse it, so we create something which does the job for us, a placeholder until we understand it better.
If everything is fascist then we have no hope of ever escaping fascism; it also means that anti-fascism is fascist, and that we have only one option: embrace fascism. I have no desire to be so pessimistic.
It’s also very religious in that sense. It’s using arbitrary, unprovable yet supposedly concrete stances to fill in the “blanks” of the unexplained.
And if you point out a flaw in the philosophy, you are discredited for “not being educated(read a priest)” in the teachings and called a “fascist/racist(heretic)”
The same thing goes for describing everything in terms of sexism or racism. I don't doubt that fascist, capitalist, sexist and racist ideas have a significant influence on our world. But if "everything is X" is simply assumed as a sort of axiom, the idea becomes unfalsifiable and no longer useful.
It's because, reduced to the very very very core, Fascism, and i mean not just any fascism but the Idea Of Fascism is just "Liberated Violence".
Yes, anti-fascist organizations can be (too) violent and therefore fascist.
But what is Violence?
I think this is a most interesting question.
Violence is a "destroying force" ethimologically. It is an emergent behaviour of living things. It is, in this sense, "natural" as any force.
You cannot survive after all if you are without force. It's the primal interaction with the world.
It is, deep down, asserting one's existence.
Therefore there will always be a small amount of fascism.
We can only learn to coexist and respect our boundaries the more justly possible.
@@sethheristal9561 Describing fascism simply in terms of violence, and calling violent political organizations therefore as fascist to some degree, does not seem particularly useful to me.
Defining terms like fascism, socialism or liberalism is difficult, if not impossible. Even the people who describe themselves as fascist use this word to describe radically different ideas. But there are a lot of associations, like nationalism and authoritarianism, that usually go with it. As vague as it is defined, these associations make it something distinct from other forms of ideology.
Violence on the other hand is a rather common feature of reality. And by reducing fascism only to violence you're back at square one, where pretty much everything is fascist.
@@neuralnetwork17 The definition doesn't have to be useful/instrumental, but useful/true. I don't want to define fascism to fight against it, as some antifa org, or I'm being just derivative. I want to define fascism to understand it. Fighting it, or better MANAGING it, is a consequence.
The affirmation of the self. The struggle to exist. This is violence, this is fascism at the very core.
I don't find it useful to give it a right-wing property because right wing takes from fascism in this sense, not the opposite. Fascism is the broader concept.
Of course, this doesn't mean that we can call everything fascist.
Mine is a perspective of acceptance and containment.
But containment not forever - sometimes it us indeed necessary to fight back against other's prevarication. That doesn't make you fascist in a "bad" way.
Yes, I think it's time to remove the taboo, and the immediate association with evil, from our understanding of fascism. It is an obstacle to our dialectical growth.
In this reasoning, as fascism is the ethics of violence and affirmation, it's possible also to define "communism" as the ethics of equality, envy, admiration, comparison and justice. And "liberalism" as the ethics of freedom, creation, relativism, indipendence but also detachment, egoism and abandon of community.
I think it's time we build a bridge of meaning and scientific understanding and method through all of our ideologies. So that we can progress as community of sapiens. Ideologies too are "valid".
Those that have experienced trauma often become hypervigilant in identifying warning signs and precursors. I have no doubt that Adorno was experiencing hypervigilance... but he was right about a lot of it as well, just not the slippers thing.
Are slippers not a testament to our love of convenience?
Word
@@evanfinnian lol, I guess it depends.
I used to drive a cab about 9 years ago, and my god... after half a year doing 12 hours overnight for 4-5 days a week, I found it was _excruciatingly_ painful to bend down and tie my shoes, even to the point where laying down was horribly uncomfortable.
A local Chiropractor fixed that with 40 bucks and 5 minutes.
Anything that promotes repetition in such a fashion can be dangerous in different ways. I don't think humans were really meant for that without breaks and each other.
@@Virjunior01 For sure, I myself love convenience and anything that does the dangerous work that used to be up to humans to do
I said it elsewhere, but Adorno’s guidelines of fascism encompass such a broad aspect of historical systems. According to his definitions, tribal indigenous Americans were fascist. It’s a reductionary anti-academic philosophy
Since I was a very young child I always recognized that we were no more than a hop, skip, and a jump from falling back into fascism anywhere at anytime 😢
Well, yeah. Fascism will never go away, just as no other ideology will ever go away. And Marxists, despite professing hate of Fascists, tend to support fascists if they have even a hint of left-wing lipservice to boot. That's never gonna change either.
"For centuries, the richest among us have used art to launder money, and now so can you!"
"One art please." - Dr. Zoidberg
Fun fact: the Red Army Faction (left wing revolutionary organization in West Germany) used "The authoritarian personality" to decide which politican, landlord, capitalist and other enemies to assasinate.
Communist minded anarchists say : FASCISM is everywhere.
MEANWHILE : anarchy is the law of the jungle... literally opposite to fair equal social life...
TALK ABOUT MAKING NO SENSE those commy anarcho mofos without wits. -Signed: an atheist left-centrist
@@chrisohalloran9106 there are 2 scales!!!! you are misunderstood : fascism and communism are on the same side of the TOTALITARIAN scale.... both are 100% totalitarian vs anarchy which is 0% totalitarian (but isd the law of the jungle). And then you have the other scale ,the good old political scale of left (commy) to right (fascism)
The masterworks ad makes me sad. It's likely a scam, at best they grossly misrepresented risk & reward.
What's sad is that we all need money to live
A lot of these things don't portray the laws and science of economics. Value, most applicable FAIR MARKET value, requires a reasonable buyer and seller. Art is a tough thing to apply supply and demand to, and estimating "value" for capital preservation purposes... Yeh those ads make me sad too lol
It’s the latest bridge to sell
@@LuisSierra42 see you don't need money so long as you are willing to acquire all the things you may want or need on your own. Food? Forage or hunt. Shelter? Build it like your ancestors.
Be careful in trusting some other organization's definition of "art" or any investment like masterworks that makes claims about its recent gains or exits. The whole game is to buy low, not buy high.
Ask a trumpet player what they think of their reed colleagues and you will know why dude was concerned with fascism in jazz 😂
"Don't be a fascist"
Spicy take in the year of our lord 2023 in the US right now
A spicy take is that fascists should be afraid to show their faces.
An even spicier take is that Marxists should also be afraid.
I cant stop laughing at "slippers are monuments to the hatred of bending down" 🤣
Jazz Music: Literally nicknamed "The Music of freedom" and is almost universally despised by Fascists
Adorno: Is This Fascism?
Jazz music, or any form of artistic pop culture, can be used to indoctrinate / normalize a social philosophy. If what he's worried about is American consumerist "individualism", jazz fits the bill just fine.
Cue: "Yet you participate in society. Curious."
It doesn't mean Jazz is in itself bad. More than one thing can be true
@@user50 Indoctrination into swing beats and insane improv doesn't sound so bad to me
@@user50 anything can be used to indoctrinate anyone. The point that he singled out Jazz, which was punk before punk, just shows Adorno’s lack of actual sociological understanding and maybe a little spritz of the “ism”. He’s conflating social popularity and acceptance with authoritarianism. Eventually the maxim of that very belief devolves into its own form of hipster consumerism and gatekeeping . “I liked it before it got big”.. “normies ruined the genre”…”this is too corporate man”. Hell, socialism as an ideal has devolved into consumerism. How man big screen big budget story lines mind numbingly repeat middle school level quips of “capitalism bad” or some poorly rehashed DEI trope as a positive development? No one would call DEI or socialism authoritarian
Adorno basically tried to say the old “bread and circus” meme from the ancient Roman’s, but muddled it up so badly it lost actual rationality. “You mean, we can use entertainment to control people! Woah how did no one think of this!.” Such a shallow and overdeveloped concept, just like all his other crap, offered nothing new or insightful to metaphysical thought
@@geraldwashington6588 DEI is incredibly authoritarian.
Adorno also hated African American culture. He notoriously claimed that African American culture is “banal” because it doesn’t challenge capitalism or whatever.
Pretty dumb take by him.
@@WisecrackEDU and this is the guy that most post 2010 social justice movements are founded upon. I can get why people call it out
In my country the word *"banal"* means holy
Funnily enough, when you have laws configured to destroy the educational prospects and opportunities for a given community, that community struggles to resist or even identify the root causes of its plight. You can see this in action today with African Americans and British Americans. In the latter case, the republican base has had its education eroded to the point where they don't even recognise that republicans are the source of their woes. That's why you should always treat anyone trying to destroy a balanced education with absolute hostility, it's always the first step towards subjugation.
@@geraldwashington6588 Not really
Dude tried to get kids who disagreed with him arrested? He sounds like a fascist himself. I agree with him on astrology, and I find it intriguing the type of person who tends to buy into astrology.
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean I'm wrong." - I forgot where I heard this, but it is my best answer for this video's ending question.
When I was using substances before I got sober my friends and I would always tell each other "stay paranoid". Our motto was "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you." I don't know where we found that quote, but its true a lot of times.
I believe that was the political revolutionary Elim Garak. A fascinating but often overlooked figure in totalitarian and fascist discourse, often seen as a sort of counter Putin figure. Coming from a similar background only to hold vastly different values in many key ares; and unlike Putin, Garak was openly what we would now consider pansexual.
"It's not paranoia if they ARE out to get you. "
I first heard it in a Nirvana song.
I also forget who said this, but you can come to a conclusion the wrong way and even if that conclusion is correct, you were still wrong to make it.
*It is great that Wisecrack is cautioning viewers that if one puts labels on everything-it would eventually lose its meaning and lets in the real danger of evil to come in. Keep up with the great work and content!*
Communist minded anarchists say : FASCISM is everywhere.
MEANWHILE : anarchy is the law of the jungle... literally opposite to fair equal social life...
TALK ABOUT MAKING NO SENSE those commy anarcho mofos without wits. -Signed: an atheist left-centrist
Yep. If everything is fascist, then nothing is fascist.
really enjoyed this. felt like some good solid philosophy discussion/teaching.
Shame about the Masterworks sponsorship, but y'all gotta pay them bills. Great vid as always.
I was hoping for an ironic, "Brought to you by MasterRace."
What's the problem with it?
I unsub from any channel that schills for that Masterworks scam. Yet another one down the tube...
@@erdood3235 they're very misleading about the prospects of using their service. It borders on being a scam. Everything is technically above board, but it's just a bit too sketchy.
@@michaelfried3123 I mean I think that’s a little dramatic. YT Channels are just businesses and they accept money from sponsors in order to earn a profit. Is masterworks a scam? Clearly it is, but if it means keeping the lights on and being able to continue making content, most channels are just going to bite the bullet and take money from wherever it comes. It’s not that big of a deal. We all know it’s a scam, if they want to give creators their money, let them
I think maybe Adorno recognized a basic nature of humanity to trend toward the path of least resistance. That path can easily include some strong man thinking the hard thoughts for us. So, like treading water, when we get tired, or distracted, we sink; as is the nature of anything more dense than the substance in which it floats. If we are not careful, and ever vigilant, we will sink as well. That is how easily, and inevitably, we will sink in to fascism.
I've grappled with wondering if I'm going crazy seeing so many parallels and echoes of history converging today. This gave me relief, but furthered my sense inevitable [apocalypse]. For lack of a better word. May hope and action keep us well.
You can also say humans are inherently submissive as a species believing in gods, kings, people with strength and power, these tendencies lead down to fascism.
@RSK I'm sorry for you, I'm sorry for anyone to think that such a negative outlook becomes reality. There are no definites, there are no answers - what we have is a situation, a problem - something to overcome. We/I/You can never be better if we're caught up in the bad, limiting ourselves to only what isn't possible
@@brettleighglass we should work together. One world, one people.
@@anonymousinfinido2540 This is true except for the part where you assume that humans are inherently anything. Speak for yourself.
"If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers.'
Wisecrack continued contribution to furthering Prussianism and Hegel's Progressivism.
Haha
As opposed to having any old moron off the street run a country just because you'd like to have a beer with them? We've seen how well that works before....
Fear or hate of intellect comes out of insecurity, jealousy and the desire to control and exploit people because the uneducated are the easiest to brainwash as the MAGA crowd clearly exemplifies.
"I am incapable of making a cogent point of my own so I take quotes from others to fill in my linguistic shortcomings" - Me as Mike Bannon over here
Hey I'll be over here being corgi not adding to anything useful to existence. A result of my being a fascist eugenic atrocity. I don't have decent leg to stand on and all I do is yap at humans who can read books on couches I can't jump up on. Burn the kindles learning anything is pointless in the grey dull life.
And if your going to be me over there covering my inadequacy with hypocrisy and unproductive cynical humor...
Good boy! 🐈
(tries to combine Hegel's theories with Prussianism) - (fails) nope, does not compute.
What is your definition of fascism?
I get confused by people assigning new or different meanings to words. George Carlin eloquently explained how words are used to conceal things we don't want to think about.
I enjoy the spicy topics and titles. Nice work!
Astrology is absolutely like this- I see people succumb to it all the time and let it control every part of their life, including who they interact with and hire.
Adorno: "You're a Fascist "
Towlie: "No! YOU'RE a fascist!"
Words have definitions. Slippers do not have any political opinions (unless you're on LSD) and they don't goose-step on their own.
Was this written as a spoof?
You be a crank, or you can be a snitch, but you should never be both a crank and a snitch.
You are completely correct.
A cranitch?
@@aliasfakename2267 A snank?
In short, don’t be an Orwell
Don’t be a critch
wisecrack videos are like a glass of wine at the end of the day
top tier comment. thank you.
@WisecrackEDU One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
Even though they weren't so great
"He tastes like you only sweeter"
Lolzzz. Do you enjoy your "dreams"?
@@WisecrackEDU basement garbage sponsor. You can do better. Think about it.
Totally agree.
"Old German philosopher calls cloud fascist."
This. 100% this.
Great video for someone who just started reading Adorno, further boosted my interest in his work.
Btw guys, let's not shit on wisecrack for the sponsorships they get. I think we all agree that promoting Better help, Masterworks, etc is far from ideal and that the entire video monetisation system is messed up, but I'd rather have these kind of ads I can skip rather than the forced upon ads by UA-cam. Also, my instinct tells me that a lot of hate comments against the sponsor can make them loose sponsors, and that over time can lead to the channel coming to an end. Just think of the sponsors as a necessary evil for those of us that can't afford to support directly (Patreon) and ignore them as much as possible.
Luis, thank you so much.
Same pinch 👍
You know that they only make money from these sponsorships because there are people who sign up to these things right? Wisecrack gets to walk away with a nice check completely risk free. That's exactly what happened with the whole FTX scheme.
I find it difficult to accept your "necessary evil" argument when there are other sponsorships available. Even friggin mobile games sponsorships are better than this. At the very least, let your viewers know that it's a risky investment with a lot of fees or seek a financial advisor for advice.
@@erwynn I can promise you that a "nice check" is extreme. We're dependent on sponsors to provide enough for us to keep making videos. And videos like these are way more expensive to make (especially if we're paying everyone fairly) than you might think.
The slippers quote is amazing. I'll try to use it often.
I shudder looking back at how susceptible I was to fascism as a teen, and young adult. Most of my favorite factions in fiction, and some real world interests were just straight up fascism. The Principality of Zeon from Gundam is almost literally a 1:1 for the Nazi's, The Clans in Battletech, Feudal Japan, and just... a lot of other things I can't remember right in this moment.
I'd agree with Adorno, we're not doing enough. And while he was definitely wrong about Jazz, there certainly is a lot of merrit towards his views on the film industry, particularly around the McCarthy era, and the House Unamerican Comity basically enshrining the problems media has with women to this day, under risk of being fired and never permitted to work again. Thus pushing it into the culture at large as well.
Finished the video, I think Adorno was pretty interesting, no wonder he felt the way he did. To escape before the horror only to find out about it afterword's and to be left with that level of survivors guilt there's no wonder he was so hypervigilant about what might one day be fascism. Thanks for the thoughts today, good vid!
OH One Complaint, please don't have written dialogue on the screen when you're also talking. There's some parts of black and white video in there that has my guess is translation, but it's incredibly distracting cause I often have sub on and having the words not match made it hard to follow what you're saying. Like not saying don't have foreign stuff on here, just if it's on the screen don't talk over it cause it's hard to focus is all. One or the other.
You can see the life coming out from his eyes when the sponsored content starts
Thank you for this, it’s definitely been enlightening and entertaining.
Birds can’t be facist, they’re not real ❤❤❤
You can label anything facist if serves your party's agenda. Its not philosophy at all. Its just word play. It works on a lot of things. Sex change? How about gender affirming care. Abortion? How about calling it pro-choice? The word "kill" can be gentrified to "unalive." Its actually funny.
For me, the phrase Banality of Evil kept coming to mind.
Not saying emperically that Dorno was correct, but i also remember how many of my Facebook friends that wound up in the Red Hat club, also had posts about astrology, or quotes from a prosperity preacher.
The astrology to antisemitism conspiracy pipeline is real. A lot of it could be seen during Covid
If you follow one conspiracy theory you're more likely to follow others. Like the deep state, flat earth, astrology, all that other shtuff.
Definitely. In my experience, magical thinking is a good indicator that someone can become vulnerable to conspiracy theories, group thinking and cults of personality that lead to authoritarianism.
As mentioned in the video, Adorno and his Frankfurt school colleagues did not only engage in theoretical philosophy but practical sociology. They authored seminal empirical studies that revealed how even in American society with its emphasis on and foundational myth of freedom and democracy, a significant minority of people showed authoritarian traits.
It's not hard to see how the Tea Party movement and Trumpism were able to take hold against the backdrop of a culturally pervasive American exceptionalism.
Interesting.
Although; The red hat club had the historically largest amount of secular atheists compared to any other GOP voting block in the past.
Also, minorities and are more likely to follow astrology than white men.
Nice observation, but it ain’t factual
I can tell you from experience and fact that people from Latin America are way more into astrology than Trumpists.
Loved Micheal jabbing back at having to do those “Gooder Assistance” ads
I was was watching another video describing the formation of fascism and defining it based on its foundational motives. Now this vid pops up in the midst of watching that one.... Must be my day to absorb the nuance of the philosophy... Woooo 😅
Sometimes the algorithm does good work
@@daralic2255 the coincidence was more that this vid dropped in the mid of my watch of the other. WC is a channel im subbed to, so i would have seen this vid pop up anyway
Enjoyed this video!
The clip you showed from Birth of a Nation gave me a possible video idea- should this film still be showed in film school? Is it worthy of critical analysis or do other films exemplify the cinematic techniques in the same way while also not focusing on racist themes the way that film does? I have a unique perspective as a film major and Pan African Studies minor. We studied it in both my film classes and my Pan African Studies classes in such different ways. I’d be interested to see a potential video on that and suggestions for what film history professors may want to use to explore the cinematic techniques shown in that movie instead! I do think it’s important to learn history so we don’t repeat it, but also think that we may be coming into an era where some films are not worth viewing anymore even from a historical perspective (in the same way that, for example, you wouldn’t be able to find Hitler’s book anywhere in Germany, even for academic research, and would be arrested upon even asking for it). Curious what everyone at Wisecrack thinks!
I agree, including Batman
I know for a fact at least one of you get this reference
Me
because he doent kill the joker ?
Thank you for having me, and showing how much of time and dedication all of te reseachers do for living, i am a dude of 20 years and learned so much in this 2 years following wisecrack, one day i maybe helping you amazing creations
I do think he did see a pattern that did exist, but there's definitely moments that seem to go a bit too far towards Quixote. I also want to mention that it's smart to take some queues from him, but to also acknowledge any potential harmful biases, be it intentional or unintentional from his work
Glad someone said it. His work as a whole should be disregarded, but there are some concepts and takeaways that make sense. Honestly, Adorno has had a net negative impact on the intelligence of the average American
He was a nut job...
It is miserable to see so many creators choosing to endorse something as scummy as the high art trade for a quick few bucks, especially ones who are usually against such things. Not all sponsorships are selling out, but this one *absolutely* is
Short answer: yes
🙆🏻 Took me a minute to wrap my head around the concept, but the end summary helped clear it up.
One of my French professors told me that Adorno was very afraid of a resurgence of fascism mainly because of the manichean view of Germany bad - Allies good. It goes like this: apparently, people mistakenly thought that fascism itself was gone with the end of Germany in WW2, which was incorrect, but was promoted by the Allies as a myth. Also, in the good spirit of let's rewrite history and make us what we aren't, especially in the anglo-saxon world, WW2 was portrayed as a battle between good and evil (which is kind of true since the true plans of fascism was to dominate the world (the world domination bad-guy trope in mainstream culture). I think Adorno's view of fascism is a very general and generous one, it encompasses all and every form of ademocratic or authoritarian-prone regime, but he kinda not explains that very clearly (it's like when you read Arend's works on totalitarianism - fascism and soviet communism - in the end she says that they're basically the same).
This makes sense. If you look at modern day critical theory in action it is the embodiment of authoritarianism
@@geraldwashington6588 could you perhaps provide an example?
@@lixav1 it’s inherently an elitist ideology, and many of its believers use academia as a “filter” or to otherwise gatekeep. The epitome of the ivory tower fallacy
I love this channel but it's annoying to see it partner with shady sponsors like this and betterhelp, really weird for such an ethics focused channel
they have accepted their place in the capitalist machine. without sponsors they would not make enough money to pay their rent,
and as nice as i would have been for them to have complete artistic freedom, I don't think they would have been able to make as much and with the same quality content if this channel was a non-profit project made in their spare time after a 8 hour workday
The ol' minor evil for a greater good. (And relatively non-evil sponsors, if there exists such a thing.)
Yes. If we did not have ads we wouldn't be able to make videos and pay our already very small team.
Bro chill, if it wasn’t better-help it would be raid shadow legends…
Always count your blessings
Blink if it's true, but I'm fairly certain that were it up to Michael, things would be... Radically different.
No, but closer than you'd think
Seems like Adorno really felt the urgency of the old Voltaire quip that belief in absurdity can lead to atrocity.
The quest to end human irrationality is certainly quixotic, but perhaps dividing and neutralizing irrationality is good enough. Let the utopian believers in equality and hierarchy form their opposing camps (or the climate change deniers and the apocalyptic degrowthers, etc). The center will hold for as long as the extremists are marginalized and reason prevails.
If only we manage to avoid a media ecosystem that amplifies controversy and purity contests we'll be fine... oh wait we're doomed.
"he thought anti-fascist movements were fascist" lol I'm fuckin' dead.
According to Reddit, yes.
It might have already been done but can we get a video on the A scale?
If society functions like psychological mechanics found in kindergarten how/who is the punishing teacher?
I can appreciate his point about Jazz. Celebrations of individuality without supporting actions to maintain the right to individuality are hollow and anesthetizing. Yuppies are a great example. Performative, but no substance. Jazz itself isn't bad, but many Jazz artists are exploited for purposes other than their own, which could mean a good trumpet solo serves the purpose of fascism. So we could say that anything can be co-opted by fascism and we need to maintain an awareness of when this is happening instead of seeing everything as benign and neutral.
Fascist that probably isn't fascist: trends. The obsession with doing what everyone else is doing at the same time.
Related to that: buying and playing videogames on the day of release.
I feel like this reminds me of my own frequent perception that "everyone faces challenges" and some respond to those challenges by recognizing "If I want to assert that I know what I'm talking about" or that "I'm doing the right thing and living a moral life," by "doing the work" to research, learn, question, and verify (on a regular basis
While others prefer to artificially create an illusion that the task is simpler than it really is, under the heading of "It shouldn't be hard, therefore I declare that it is easy."
In my mind, there are a great many who resolve the issue of "something is difficult" by distorting and denying and they then defend those "stories" and "illusions" because to recognize the reality that these stories and illusions are fiction would mean they no longer get to believe "what they want to believe (about themselves) while simultaneously not spending any more time or effort on maintaining those beliefs than they want to"
In my mind it's the classic "I don't like something, so I bury it and deny it is true."
In many ways I feel many live their whole lives in a kind of fantasy (while simultaneously accusing everyone else of living in a dream world).
"We save the best lies for ourselves," at the end of the day.
reminds me of the alt right playbook video series by Innuendo Studios
Everything you described is what current critical theorists do.
If they don’t like that Cleopatra wasn’t black, they’ll deny it.
They’ll claim indigenous Americans had a right to fight against colonization and distort history to also claim Europeans were racist for fighting back against Arab colonization.
They’ll say we need to have a broader view of cultures, and simultaneously develop a philosophy centered around western history.
They don’t like that chattel slavery and capitalism were born out of the Middle East so they’ll deny and rewrite history to make it look like it was invented by Europeans.
It’s a cluster shart of a belief system
@@Sumguysazz uhh... I don't see how anything you brought up matter to the point your trying to make.
Critical theory is bad because some people won't ever change their mind?
like come on, you haven't described a single thing about critical theory from your examples I'd think your talking about denialism.
Don't tell me it's bad. show me how. give me something with a bit more meat to it than this word salad. Give me some real mechanist or deterministic example of what every single critical theorist HAS to be believe, and because of that. critical theory bad. OR. OR. you can tell me that because they have to believe that thing it will cause something very terrible to happen BUT you also have to explain by what mechanism that works. the tougher of the two ways to do this.
@@CtrlAltSHIT primary reason it’s a flawed philosophy is it attempts to be “worldly” while remaining inherently American/ western centric. It doesn’t solve any systemic issues surrounding jingoism or intrinsic national biases, it just flips that existing jingoistic mentality of exceptionalism turning it to “exceptionally bad”. This is kinda hinted in the video itself, but there are many instances of this.
Its also historically revisionist, which stems from that jingoism and western centric thinking. For example, this idea that western culture is entirely stolen, therefore anything good must be stolen as well. “Cultural appropriation” statements that “braids are black culturethat only POC can have”, or “piñatas are Mexican culture that belongs to them” both of which are historically incorrect. Historical erasures as was seen with the current cleopatra “documentary” or the woman king are pop culture examples of this.
Other issues are that instead of solving ethnocentrism, it promotes and celebrates it. Perpetuating systemic oppressions they claim to want to end. Examples include the aforementioned concept of “cultural appropriation”. While most uses are historically correct, it’s also used as a way of promoting ethnic and cultural supremacy amongst groups. Combined with historical revision, this results in a resurgence of hate groups. Something that the ADL has actually written about back in 2016, explaining how there was an increase in black supremacist groups like the “black Israelite movement”.
To that point, critical theory also has an unintended consequence of actually silencing minority voices and ignoring POC suffering when it’s inconvenient. This happens by preventing any introspection within said communities or even promoting problematic behavior itself. Examples of this: ignoring that the majority of hate crimes in raw numbers, not even per capita (and no this isn’t that problematic crime fbi stat that white supremacists mention) are committed by minorities, as tracked by multiple orgs including the ADL and ACLU. ignoring issues of toxic masculinity in minority communities. Ignoring the treatment of LGBTQ+ treatment in these communities. And ignoring these larger issues, while focusing on less prominent/ problematic communities is a form of silence, and one can’t call themselves an ally of any of these groups if they aren’t willing to critique them, back to my point on why critical theory isn’t truly critical.
Someone else in the comments mentioned how his experience as a POC over the past 3 years regarding policing as an example of how critical theory promotes problematic behavior of silencing voices. He mentioned how 80 percent of minorities were opposed to reducing policing and how it used to be a civil rights statement that white communities always had more police than blacks. And yet critical theorists managed to ignore the black voices and went ahead and pushed for policing reductions in mainly black communities because it aligned with critical theory even though it didn’t align with the reality of black needs. And now years later black voters pushed back reversing those policies. I looked it up his statements line up with what the main stream reported on.
I could also mention how the philosophy ends up promoting fascism more than other philosophies etc. like how American critical theorists used it to use pro Russian pro putin propaganda to justify his invasion of Ukraine but not worth the time
Where did you find that image of Kierkegaard?! Did you DJ a hyper realistic open AI painting?!
Very interesting!!
Working from home = watching wisecrack at home
Art as an investment 🤔
That’s fascist!
…jk, but it’s also a little icky.
Great video. I didn’t read that much Adorno but I always think back on him and his negative dialectics, I think it’s an important reference to think of culture on these days or decades rather of normalized capitalism, so kudos on making a video on him.
Interesting video!
I think it's fascist that my friends are better than me at Mario Kart
Philosophers are really just drama queens with their heads in the clouds
Uh oh! Looks like *someone* failed a philosophy module and decided to take it out on the texts.
@@thefuturist8864 I have neither failed a class nor taken a philosophy class. Believe it or not not everything you disagree with is rooted in anger or failure
@@thefuturist8864 “im going to defend the guy who calls gatekeeping and educational classism fascist, by gatekeeping and propping up education fascism” ok bro
That add placement was ruthless.
Maybe a good companion video for this would be a video on Todd's understanding of desire and the "Everybody wants to be a fascist" piece by Guattari
I thought of I think you Should Leave when discussing Adorno's door quote and then you edited it in. Legendary time-travelling-mind-reading.
Wow! What a great video. I didn't know about his philosophy, but now that I know I agree with much of it (perhaps not the Jazz part ;)).
I can't help but ponder at the rise in popularity of that quintessential expression of "American Individualism" Libe Dancing and the rise of the Radical Right.
Years ago (Bush/Cheney years ago) I would discuss/debate the world with a hard right evangelical. Often, after a week of kicking around an issue, I could move him to a more centrist stance. But I noticed something: he'd occasionally go off to a religious/political retreat and fall back to his original hard right stance. Eventually I reminded him of a particular conversation and asked him why he reverted to his old view. To his credit he actually stopped and said "I don't know". A couple days later he told me his reason "It's not having to think about the details or consequences. There's a numbing, comforting, embracing blanket in being 'right' and surrendering to the group." I never heard anything more chilling because I knew it was true, and that democracy was in trouble.
for what it's worth I'm proud that several of the local churches here in the Arkansas River Valley are open minded and well mannered...
Even the church I grew up in, I know the people who listen to the pastor (he was our youth pastor growing up, and he was a positive influence in my coming out of the closet as well)
are being well served.
...but I do remember some of the youth retreats and stuff we went on (specifically one with my then-girlfriend, we went to Atlanta)
and yeah, the things you "surrender to" in the name of feeling part of the group...
teenage girls, mind you, many of whom DID actually pay for their own stuff... breaking CDs and tearing up books and movies that were even REMOTELY "non-spiritual" because of...what, I don't know...
but it's like, even my girlfriend did it...and maybe I should have done more to stop her and try to talk her out of it...
But watching that stuff it's like "you could just sell it back to the music store as a used LIKE NEW album...assuming you even want to sell it... it's not demonic or anything...just because you find it upsetting NOW doesn't mean you'll feel the same way tomorrow morning. DESTRUCTIVE DECISIONS should never be made with zero foresight or thought... SLEEP ON IT FIRST."
Sure enough on the bus ride back home to Arkansas, I heard half of the girls that had participated in what the hyper-aggressive pastors said to do (breaking their music CDs and only listening to gospel) expressing regret and frustration at what they'd done... Further evidence back to me trusting our youth pastor, he encouraged all of us to think for ourselves about what God wanted from us as individuals... he didn't want us to become just "part of the crowd"
As George Orwell states “ all art is propaganda”, indeed everything is propaganda your teacher your parents, religion in fact all authority. Not necessarily in a bad way of course but they are all guiding you to life based on their perspective of life. That is way we must turn against the current of life and find our own ways of being and reason, until then a person can never say they are truly a life until the expressions of one’s own mind.
George Orwell also said that the term fascist was nonsense and lost all meaning
@@Sumguysazz I suppose that is true, the way people throw it a round, hell that can be true of anything. All things are born pure then they begin to rot.
Every expression born of mind, every act and structure born of man. Everything will rot and fade we will all become chaos of an older age.
I know it's inappropriate to say, but I wonder if he was autistic. My guy's gaming social influences and factoring in how those influences influence each other and alter their outcome, all down to their logical conclusions decades ahead, makes me feel comfortable I'm not the only person who does this.
What an awesome video!
I agree with his point that the mundane and normal can devolve into fascism, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will. I can’t blame him for his beliefs and paranoia given the context of his life. We should be vigilant of fascism and be aware of the ways it functions and can emerge, but we shouldn’t operate as if everything is one step away from yelling “Sieg Hiel”. If everything is fascist, then nothing is. And suppressing everything because it has fascist potential sounds like a recipe for an incredibly repressive society. I can’t remember the word for something like that, I think it starts with an F?
I'm a fan of your channel from iran
And even though I've just got introduced to Adorno through your video essay & his view on fascism ; I've come to a similar understanding about the this matter, through my life's experience that got directly influenced by both the ideological totalitarian fascist Islamic Republic Regime, and by the worldview of people like Philip K Dick, George Orwell, Asimov, Kubrick & Tarkovsky; i have the same view on Hollywood & western media, specially American & British media, such as products like the Marvel franchise that act as a propaganda vehicle for the narrative that american corporations want printed on as many citizen's minds as they can!
Im facing oppression since my birth and i can see what these people have been portraying, specially regarding unprecedented bodies of power & discrimination, and the normalization of that unchecked power through media & consumerism that costs the citizens their individuality & freedom
#WomanLifeFreedom
the ad was kind of weird. love ya guys, but i dont get it. great video
we have ads so that we can afford to keep making videos and paying our team.
@@WisecrackEDU i understand. Still love you all. Go Burns!
OK, so Dialectic of Enlightenment was already on my agenda for THIS WEEK and Wisecrack delivers an Adorno video.
How are you in my head?
If we don't you we'd have to . . . you know.
@@WisecrackEDU Well, you inspired me to put plans into action and I was reminded it's been a while since I tackled philosophical German.
it will always be worth it to inspire positive change, no matter how small it is
Fascism is just a kind of out of control "sticking together" coming from the Roman concept of the Faces (think that's how you would spell it) which is a literal bundle of sticks. One stick by itself can be easily broken, but a bunch of sticks tied together is much tougher. This fairly reasonable standpoint, when valued over all other things leads to a stifling of dissent and extreme reliance on authority. It is not intrinsically racist or related to the Nazis (Mussolini came up with Fascism in Italy, Hitler just liked it), those connotations are just the flavors of fascism most well known since we all know about the Nazis from WWII. It's a really bad thing that we don't disentangle the two because fascism is a common issue in society, but now every time you say some one is a little too fascist it's like your saying they want to murder Jewish people.
Given how heavily the nazees were influenced by New Age and Blavatsky, Adorno might have sort of been onto something about the astrology connection :D
Hmm sounds like a pretty fascist comment to me…must be a Libra.
Ah yes, that explains all the feng shui loving notsees in south east Asia. Glad we got rid of all those astrology loving Aztec Not Seas and most them Apache not seas
Yeah, I’m Hispanic and we love astrology shit, not sure what you’re on about.
@@terrymustang73 Anybody who wants to die laughing at the nazis expense should type Blavatsky into youtube. She was a con artist from NY who owned a book about Tibet. So she said she traveled there and met the magical secret white people that ruled Tibet, and that the Buddhist swastika was the symbol of magical white people. Sixty years later the Nazis sent their scientists to Tibet and did indeed find swastikas, proving to themselves that it was all true. And THAT is why no religion on earth can have their swastikas anymore, because white people stole them and ruined them. Bonus fact: Also according to Blavatsky, Americans are a new superior race that is even better than white people. Sorry Germany, that's canon ;)
@@PedroOozeMan Magic can be used for good or evil. Fascism uses it to rip people off and kill them, just like any other cult.
Thanx for that one!
9:50 daddy issues lol but also, everyone should read Octavia E Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.
More like "a door, no!" lmao
😭😂
Not related to this episode and kind of random but I really hope wisecrack does a video on Breaking Bad. The ones y’all have are rather aged and this year marks 10 years since the finale and the show is still quite relevant
I like this channel more after every video!
All within the state, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. - Benito Mussolini, creator of fascism
To put it lightly and clearly, no.
Counter question: is seeing fascism in everything merely an irrational projection symptomatic of learned helplessness?
And if yes how much of the fascist phobia is merely a revelation of our growing collective psychological frailty?
Not really as much of a counter question as it is a rhetorical question made to virtue signal.
I wouldn't say "merely" an irrational projection, but calling everything and everyone a "fascist" is a great and easy scape goat to slander your political enemies and stir up your idiot masses.
Kinda funny that you couldn’t parse the clickbait title because 1) you didn’t watch the video you’re commenting on, and 2) you’re not as smart as your unnecessarily complicated diction might make you feel.
But we’re all happy that you got in your surface-level zinger for the day!
@@hermaeusmora2945 an individual’s psychological childishness is “mere” in comparison to the omnipresent fascism they imagine
@@BusinessPlot I’m literally questioning the underpinnings of the question itself. Yes it is a counter question. And if I do not IMAGINE fascism where there is none, then yes, I have a virtue that shockingly many do not.
This is great shit. Keep it up.
for what it's worth, at 6.21 that's Oxford station in London - not Oxford
Masterworks is a scam.
I think Adorno was right in a way that contradicted himself in the end. I think the root of fascism is dependence, like you said, but specifocally on perfectionism. So jazz music and Hollywood movies can be vehicles for fascism when the balance between aesthetics and purpose breaks and where perfect becomes the enemy of the good. In the end, I think trying to prevent fascist ideals and values from arising again leads to its own kind of fascism. I think what society needs is a large scale therapy session
Agree with this. There’s also an aspect of gatekeeping that comes with fascism. And like you said, those that try to prevent it will end up creating their own form of it, and that is seen today with critical theory and much of Adorno’s very own teachings. They set an almost perfect standard to grade western civilization so to give it an arbitrary failure, and use academic monoliths and the “ivory tower” fallacy to gatekeep any one that may question them. I personally think this movement is also a secular revival of Protestantism
@@PedroOozeMan I definitely agree, although I also think that it's just an early early fascist culture bubbling beneath an already existing xenophobic culture that's making a comeback, especially in America. I think it's a lot like OCD recovery where the fasciphobic culture gives power to the already existing xenophobic fascists, like how the American overly dramatized media gives power to white supremacists by painting them as having more power than they actually do. White supremacists can and do gain a lot of power when left unwatched, but, in dramatizing news in order to make more profit, there's now a smoke screen where the part of society that's trying to prevent fascism thinks they are fighting something bigger and so white supremacists and other types of fascists are able to work behind the scenes to gain power in areas that antifascists aren't looking. Similar to how Russia had been built up as a military bogeyman which they used to annex Crimea without repercussions, but their invasion of Ukraine has been a lot more difficult for them than they or anyone thought it would be.
Who says what that therapy session is for and what it is used to resolve? The very idea of a society-wide therapy session can be construed as re-education centers.