Okay this one was super fun and different. Fully deconstructing what social organization looks like to the core is the kind of thinking I feel we were just taught to NOT think about, and doing it anyway while watching this video was really fun.
Absolutely! Throughout the entire runtime of the video, I wouldn't stop thinking, "Man, this is totally different to how I've been taught about human history, and how I've been taught how to *think* about human history!"
While it doesn't have the same excellent production values, a great companion piece on 'civilised' and 'uncivilised' i suggest is: Prof. Christopher Sebastian Meat Eating, "Whiteness" & Black Liberation It is simply stunningly amazing.
On the late 2000s a handful of us were passing around the meme of post-civ. The anti-civ movement popular at the time was very primitivist coded with an awful lot of malthusianism being vaguely gestured at if not said outright. Post-civ was rooted in a critique of modern civilization without a blanket rejection of all culture, art, language, science, and technology. The refrain at the time was "keep what's good and compost the rest." I like to think that solarpunk is at least a reflection of what we were talking about back then.
The humans as domesticated animals unlocked a new theory in my brain. That is the reason the Alpha wolf theory is so popular even if it only applies to wolfs in captivity. It applies to humans because we *are* in captivity.
This is one of the painfully unfunny things you'd constantly hear from the worst social medias like reddit, Facebook, Instagram, etc from 2019 - 2020. How did it persist into this year in this comment section of this video? Is this a simulation?
@@Grundrisse Did you bother to pay attention to the video? The true definition of the word 'meme' is- a virus of the mind. And was used to describe religious beliefe systems. This is the definition I think Andrew is presenting as the concept for an as yet undefined manifestation of what the reverse of the current mind-melting meme-slop that has played a part in the epidemic of confident incompetence would look like. No one genuinely thinks society is going to be improved or saved by reformed incells posting 'woke-jacks' on Blusky or some sh!t. In regards to my comment, I wouldn't say it's 'painfully' un-funny, I think if it elicits a negative response of anything more than a 'meh' that's a You problem. Why don't you try to simulate a better personality? It would probably improve your perspective on reality. There, was that CRINGE enough for ya! 8D
The best definition of "Civilisation" is, 'those that behave and are organised bast according to the norms and values of the watcher'. So cannibals can declare us barbarians, for good and or awful reasons.
"the systemic inertia of hierarchy might be superseded by the systemic inertia of anarchy, as a society where a particular form of organization is predominant tends to reproduce individuals with the values associated with that form of organization. the predominance of anarchy would mean the predominance of anarchic values, including the conscious opposition to hierarchy, making new hierarchies very difficult to impose." the way you've worded this fit right into my brain, and honestly gave me a lot of hope for the future. i feel i learn a lot here. thank you.
I would argue that it’s actually that we are all produced hierarchy propagating cogs, and it’s just our cognitive ability to understand apposite. Even abstract opposites. We can cognitively interpret and physically do actions that would be considered anything, anarchist actions, climate change action etc But does it matter if 99% of the structural world works in a capitalist hierarchy. I personally believe hope comes in a pseudo not that violent militancy populist action to this real life nodes of the grand structural propagators of these hierarchies That be having some delta plan ready to buy the property before from oil conglomerate does and flexing openly Or breaking shit. But that’s just my hope
I’m a history student and I’ve experienced this more times than I can count people that would be considered civilizations aren’t because they don’t have hierarchies and it’s frustrating
For a long time I have had a favorite saying... Us humans forgot how to animal. Also I have struggled with cities/town since I went back to the woods to wake up 20 years ago. The heightened senses needed to exist with nature become an awareness of the onslaught of trauma we all endure under civilization.
[sighs...I was editing my comment a bit, and when I finished it, the filter detected offensive wording and sent it into the abyssmal newest first. Now I have to do a repost, which is likely followed by numerous attempts.] "Us humans forgot how to animal." While thousands of years of philosophy have been attempting to set humans somehow "above" the nature and other non-human lifeforms, there is this "Dionysian pessimist" named Nietzsche who always reminds "us" that "we" are animals and shouldn't make special exceptions for "ourselves." >Error has turned animals into men; might truth be capable of turning man into an animal again? * Human, All Too Human At the same time, N. is not exactly a great choice of quote here since he's a well-known archist and isn't really that anti-humanist. Nietzsche wasn't against having laws. He did think that the free spirits would be 'vandals and law-breakers,' but he was generally talking about breaking moral laws. A well ordered Society with laws that are enforced to oppose that order had been one of the phases of human development, which has refined the human being into a "civilized animal." N. did once raise the possibility of an "extra-moral" phase of human development... at which point, surely "we" might re-evaluate the laws we have. Either way, I may oppose humanism and humanity vehemently, but it does not follow that I desire to relegate the human to animality, to a kind of Darwinian nihilism, placing the human in the category of a mere higher order of animal.
@@Grundrisse it's hard to tell exactly what you are saying with your comment, maybe due to the reposting. it appears that maybe there is an assumption that "animality" is somehow inherently "lower" than what is (potentially) "human". i would strongly push back against this notion, if that's the point. the "Darwinian nihilism" you refer to is as much a construct of thought as any notion of the "human" (humanisms etc). there are many many works on nonhuman agencies coming from posthumanist traditions that are relevant here. (Bayo Akomolafe might be a helpful reference.) there simply is no "mere animal" to serve as substitute in relegation-this always was just a way to assert a fantasy of supremacy.
@@myca9322 You're partially right that the repost has erased a longer elaboration of my gripes with some anti-humanist anprims who want to do away with "humanity" so that they can establish another abstraction called "animality." However, I didn't use the term "mere animal" nor did I imply some fascizing notion of neo-anthropocentrism as a desirable thing. I was trying to make a point about overcoming "humanity" and "animality," doing away with the fixed constructs of "the human" and "the animal." I have no space in my universe for holding sacred and untouchable artifacts the way most people do (and that's why they're most people). It's my goal to root out and deface sacred abstractions so that they can't hold sway over me any longer - if "animality" limits me from doing discourses and activities that I find liberating, then it's time to think about changing the way "human" and "animal" are constructed and coupled together, and what other interesting theoretical machines might be deployed to sketch out uncovered modes of existence that doesn't value one over the other because they are no longer distinguishable as fragmentary modes of living. Towards the expansion of the possible horizons for anarchy. I appreciate your recommendation insofar as it rarely appears in places like this, but it should be remembered that I've read plenty of authors from that field and your attempt at browbeating with obscure academic references won't work on me, if that's what you're trying to do. Although I found Akomolafe, Ayesha Khan and similar authors to be helpful in attacking modern psychotherapy and its ties to settlerism, I can't exactly vibe with their current of posthumanism. For Akomolafe specifically, I find his works to be much less interesting in comparison to say, the Afropessimism of those like Frank Wilderson. Hell, all of them pale in comparison to the more insane tendencies related to the Akephalos (the headless version of Dionysus).
@@Grundrisse thanks for the response, no "browbeat" intended, just searching and sharing i agree with you fully now that i understand, of course you did not say "mere animal" directly. i thought that was what was being alluded to in your last sentence when they appeared near each other. i'll read more closely.
I like how Andrew keeps some mystery to his public self with the cartoon face that has expression changes, using a audio-based presentation style with some nice images to go with it. That's cool.
i love how you take on the assumptions behind the word and bring up egalitarian societies and structures. and "there is no single right way to live" was an excellent quote. bless up. recently i have been discussing the idea of open source civilization in the context of open source ecology, and examining the luddites, but perhaps there might be a better way or word to articulate the concept and to free ourselves from the associations attached to a word first used by colonizers.
@@greatestone4eva but doesn't civilisation have equivalent words in cultures and languages that didn't engage in colonial projects (at least in the same way as the West?). China or Vietnam, for instance? I'll admit that I'm perhaps too focused on how to take the information from this video and apply it to my rhetoric when engaging with people who are sympathetic to leftist causes but who are likely to hear "post civilisation" and think of collapse and chaos (the kind that kills people).
@@trekman10 So thinking along these contexts while I don't know about the words used in other languages I think the general concept of civilization as described here is defined on the basis of an "in group" particularly within an imperialistic society. China was at least on the basis of what has been translated in some form definitely imperialistic in the sense that conquest was a core part of Chinese history and narratives and a distinction was set between them and outsiders. The main difference it would seem is that they took a different direction compared to the all consuming pyramidal infinite growth through sustained conquest aspect likely because such conquest wasn't feasible logistically. An empire which fails to expand generation after generation to sustain its uncontrolled growth is left to collapse or atrophy its ambitions in a cycle of "rise" and "fall" of dynasties. I don't know nearly enough about Vietnamese peoples however so I will not comment on that. The point here that I think is crucial is that the duration of sustained growth of European imperialism was and is unprecedented enabled by technological advancements and a set of memes which allowed them to bypass natural moral constraints on what they could or could not do to outsider groups etc.. This allowed the notion of out of control sustained growth to become culturally engrained as a meme within the imperial core for around a millennia which in memetic generation timescales has let it evolve into a more virulent and metastatic form such as the viral blight that is modern capitalism. Empires are in the basis of thermodynamics civilizations which support a long term unsustainable level of growth within their imperial core on the basis of exploitive and extractive means beyond what the Earth system can support. Civilization is as far as I can tell a meme within that context which helps support the replication of that society at the expense of externalized people places things and other resources. The idea that ideas and or new technologies could help them sustain the growth indefinitely in such a case where such an expansive imperialistic growth it is all that anyone in such a "civilization has known when all external views are dismissed as savage and other becomes understandable especially if the concept of diminishing returns as a system reaches a critical point or equilibrium value is not known or not connected to the larger Earth system level of which any society is necessarily a subcomponent of. Once such ideas have persisted for so long hey can transition towards the generally "conservative" preferences of the "elite" which means that technological advancement for advancement sake as technological advancement has been repressed in some earlier civilizations particularly if their is no obvious immediate uses which benefit those elites, becomes somewhat self fulfilling within the span of any given generation up until the larger system starts to reach its natural limits. This lets the delusion that they are above nature and her limits to flourish until those conditions inevitably break down once low hanging fruit to fuel the exploitive system start to run out. One natural example is of course fossil fuels which are along with nuclear energy the only form of energy not directly constrained by the modern annual solar energy budget and thus have allowed people to do things which are energetically unfavorable and or expensive to achieve such as say separating out lithophile elements from the oxygen they are generally bound up in rocks with in complex covalently bound lattices or numerically brute forcing crude neural networks that they don't understand until they get results. Both "feats" would be basically impossible without effectively "free" and seemingly inexhaustible energy and thus would likely not be attempted by a society which had a more long term oriented focus on sustainability as they would d naturally come to recognize that burning millions of years worth of fossilized organic material full of chemical energy from the ancient sun is unsustainable.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how to critique civilisation without falling back on the "noble savage" trope and putting indigenous people on a pedestal. I think we need to emphasise that indigenous and non-state societies don't exist in a primitive state of nature, but rather have their own set of social and ecological technologies which are just as "advanced" as our own but have developed in a different direction. For example, the people in the eastern woodlands of North America at the time of colonial contact were not just living off the bounty of the land, but actively shaping it, practicing what we would today call permaculture and agroecology; and likewise had not simply not gotten round to inventing the state yet, but instead had constructed complex systems of self governance and direct democracy in direct opposition to the monopolisation of violence (the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace being one example). These achievements came from a lot of effort and care, not just as an inevitable result of people in a state of nature. As much as it's racist to assume that indigenous people live in a pure naïve state of "primitive communism" (as Marx put it) untainted by authority, its equally racist to assume that we have nothing to learn from indigenous lifeways. This is why I find the framing of "primitivism" problematic; it takes the same myth of linear progress that serves as the ideology of our civilisation and flips the moral valences, supposing the "primitive" to be superior to the "developed" while still upholding these concepts in the first place. "Re-indigenisation" might be a better framing, speaking to the need to build relationships with the land and think about how to live in relation to the rest of our ecosystems, without evaluating "progress" through a western lens. I think the other, really important thing we need to do is stand with indigenous people in their fight for sovereignty today. It's not fair to learn from indigenous cultures, take wisdom that they have developed over millenia, and not give anything back. that just reproduces the colonial dynamic. it's so so important for anarchists, and especially anti-civ anarchists, to support the LandBack movement, and to consistently oppose any appropriation of indigenous land or culture, irrespective of how ideologically pure we think those indigenous people are or whether they support our own political projects. Solidarity is not just a tool but an obligation.
@@heatherwoods360 this reminds me of some writings by Kropotkin, if I recall correctly. He mentions how there were many practices in Europrean "civilisation" that would be viewed as abhorrent by the "barbarians" in other parts of the world, yet they aren't granted the title of civilisation.
Half way through you defined you terms and why you were making the video. That intelectual clarity - avoiding simple us vs them arguments. That got me. I'm impressed and subscribed to see what you'd come up with next.
Daniel Quinn was the writer who got me questioning society/civilization and appreciate seeing him referenced in this video. I was also wondering if ”Civilized to Death” was going to come up. I like your taste in books and really wish I could just sit and pick your brain over your beverage of choice. Blessings brother!
The roots of the ideas of civilization was an interesting thing to learn. I'm sharing this around to try and get different takes on it, and I'll be reading some of the books you mention or show on screen.
6:25 so, by that definition, a society lacking a state religion would not be a civilization? I mean, thinking about the United States that either means it is uncivilized (alright by me by any metric), or we could argue that capitalism is the state religion, and financiers and entrepreneurs/CEOs make up the priestly class, which honestly also makes a lot of sense to me.
@@M4TCH3SM4L0N3 as someone who watches a lot of history and archeology from generally progressive if not outright leftist channels and the view of civilization for me would include plenty of societies with little to no hierarchies. Personally, I would still consider the society/world advocated for and imagined in Andrewism's channel to still be civilization since it would still have all the technologies, sciences, art, etc that are popularly associated with civilization, and in fact said things would be better and more inclusive. That just sounds like a better civilization, not "post" civilization.
@trekman10 I don't have any problem with that definition of civilization, but I would encourage you to consider the point that this term has many denotations and connotations from past uses that may not be as desirable as the largely desirable denotations you have been raised to believe in. In fact, I would say that the problem with civilization is strictly that it has been used and misused for so long as a scale of the presumed desirability of living in any given society, heedless of the cost/benefit trade-offs associated with said societies.
@@M4TCH3SM4L0N3 I'm aware of the negative connotations and denotations, I've always pushed back against them when I encountered it by pointing out hypocritical views that arise from believing that civilisation only includes Europe, or only includes societies with hierarchical social relations by bringing up examples of cultures that fit the rest of the description (ie, improved health, standards of living, access to information/education, etc). For me it's like other terms like terrorist. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Likewise, what one culture calls barbarian another culture might consider civilized. Europeans were called barbarians by the Japanese and Chinese when first encountered, for example. I'm mostly focused on outreach to people who are keyed into that capitalism isn't good and isn't working but who haven't had a lot of experience in intellectual environments like this youtube channel, and I feel like if I start talking about "post civilisation" people are gonna think of Planet of the Apes or Mad Max and not solarpunk.
This is such a great video on the subject. I've seen anarchists and related groups argue about civilisation for years at this point, and this is such a succinct and understandable piece on the subject of post/anti-civ philosophies (if I'm understanding your perspective on this, that is). I really feel I could show this to someone who is not even aware of this argument and they'd understand it perfectly, while also sparking the imaginations among those who are much more experienced in the discussion of these ideas. I particularly like the commentary on memes and units of ideas. I've never really seen civilisation discussed as a meme before, and it's kinda mind blowing to think of it and other axes of oppression in that way, as well as the revolutionary project. I wonder, if anarchy does ever supersede the ideas of hierarchy and civilisation, what ideas might come after to supersede anarchy? All power to ALL the people
honestly, I've never gave anarchy a proper look and always believed it was this flanderized meme of "return to monkey" but you've honestly opened my mind on this philosophy
Funny enough, this is sort of what I think about frequently. I'm very much an urbanist city dweller at heart - I like familiar communities, walkability, and public trans. I love being able to walk to the corner store for milk in the morning and kids being able to walk to school. But I've had the overwhelming longing to get away from things - to get a plot of land away and start a permaculture food forest. To just be able to spend every day in nature working my land instead of being pressed about getting to work on time. Pressed about making payments on time. Pressed about taking call, continuing education hours, and mandatory trainings. I'm a decently paid, educated professional. Capitalism and civilization say I should be happy. But I'm not. I long for something different. Less stressful. Less overstimulating. And more natural. Great video.
Beautiful! I'm well beyond the Meme that living to contribute to the societal structure is the Meaning of Life. My meaning lies within connection to others, arts and myself. Living in a students community has been my most cherished housing situation so far! I want to feel embraced by my people, make art for arts sake and live in the moment. I am human. It lies within trying to stop this whirlwind bringing humanity down. Studying climate physics is tough, but most of all it radicalises you! I don't want this to continue. We can do better, and this challenge is going to make or break us. "The right leader will fix everything" hit me hard. I want us to go on...
i hope this channel keeps growing and growing. it’s my hope for my life and the world, and i’m sure many others’. i hope ur words reach as many people as possible, everyone needs to hear them
In the face of western civilization, I'd rather be a barbarian. Insightful as always! Though how I'll start the "civilization needs to be destroyed" discussion is going to be interesting...
I think its better thought of as an intellectual exercise than good rhetoric for the goals of creating a world focused on mutual care or shared success. As I've said elsewhere, I don't see how changing to the world andrewism frequently talks about isn't still civilisation.
I take umbrage with the inclusion of "the meek will inherit the earth" among the list of lethal memes, and not only for religious reasons. Taken in context, "the meek will inherit the earth" is instruction for personal disposition and not at all inconsistent with challenging social norms-just look at who is being quoted. It is not a call to give carte blanche to any bully or institution to abuse you or others.
Yeah; there are definitely at least two competing interpretations of the phrase - something like "blessed are the rule-followers who keep their heads down, for they shall be rewarded" vs. "blessed are the downtrodden and oppressed, for they shall one day be free." I'm obviously more sympathetic towards the latter - so much so, that I've long since decided to use a modified version of the quote (which is deliberately meant to be provocative) as the motto of the specifist organization I intend to found: "Blessed are the damned, for _we_ shall inherit the Earth."
@@samk522 IMO that quite likely _was_ the prevailing interpretation for the first two centuries of Christianity; in which Christians were persecuted by Rome - but the message was evidently corrupted by the time Christianity was recuperated into empire, and most of its followers lost the plot (and by those select who used it from the beginning, alongside the infamous "he who spares the rod hates his son" verse, as a pretext to keep women and children "in their place.") 😒
It's a weird position to be both an anarchist who believes that the very concept of "civilization" is yet another construct used to maintain hierarchy, and a big fan of Civilization and Europa Universalis.
Even though I'm not an anarchist myself I have my sympathies for anarchism and I think it's good that anarchist exists. There was once an time when I thought it was foolish to be an anarchist I thought they were just naive fools that didn't know the sinful nature of humanity. But now after viewing a story that resonated with me more than any story has before I have changed my mind. The story that inspired me so much message was that if you have an dream no matter how ridiculous or impossible it seems to achieve it as long as it's an good dream you should give everything you have to achieve try to achieve it. This message resonated with me and inspired me to remember and follow my own seemingly impossible dream. And that dream is for me to achieve perfect discipline to be able to endure any suffering and resist any temptation. I know this dream is absurd but now I've been inspired I won't let the light of a dream burn out. And now I see that anarchist are trying to do on a societal level what I'm trying to do to myself an individual level because both of us are pursuing the highest possible dream we can conceive of even if it seems ridiculous. So I have no respect for you people and someday I may become an anarchist myself as long as it doesn't contradict with my Christian faith or my dream with the right evidence I can be convinced of pretty much anything. It's okay if no one ever reads this all the way through I was writing this for myself anyway but if you read to this part I sincerely thank you for putting up with my selfish writing.
Wikipedia has an article on Christian Anarchism that might be worth giving a read if you would like examples of how others connect the two concepts. Anarchism and the actual words and teachings of Jesus (as opposed to most modern church doctrines) rhyme way more than they are dissonant imo.
@@izzymosley1970 Leo Tolstoy was a known Christian Anarchist who wrote a lot about the harmony to be found with christianity and anarchism. You wouldnt regret giving his writings some time
Apologies, this comment has very little to say. I am no anarchist, but I love your videos, and find them very informative, your vision is inspiring. On a random note, the idea of a meme is a very cool one, and one that works very well in practice, it's a shame Richard Dawkins had to be a white supremacist. (Idk doesn't change much, it's just funny I suppose to see the prejudice in even the supposedly most intelligent and educated people of the world. I don't give him much praise. Heroes always seem to disappoint, even newton invested in the slave trade, not that you really need to hear any of this, I just felt like saying it to someone.) Thanks for the great videos, looking forward to more!
I don't pay close attention to him, but Dawkins seems to be more of a _Christian_ supremacist. I think that he would say that, pathology aside, anyone is fully capable of becoming civilized/Christian. Not that I agree that modern Christianity is the epitome of human culture, but that seems to be his position. 🤷♂
@@serversurfer6169 I don't really keep up with him that much either, but if I remember correctly, he went on about being a cultural Christian for a while, before suggesting that they were going to tear down historical cathedrals to build mosques, and also raved about celebrating something other than Christmas in Britain for a while. I think that this is regarded as white supremacy as Christianity is widely seen as a European/White cultural element, vs Islam, a primarily Arabic religion, essentially he is elevating white culture over that of others. His idea that Muslims or since he doesn't seem to think they belong, foreigners, are out to attack their culture, also seems to stoke the fires of white supremacy and xenophobia. Perhaps I'm being too broad with the definition, but I also think that holding white culture over that of others, or arguing that other cultures are dangerous or out to get you is white supremacy, despite the fact that it does not actually say that white people are genetically superior beings. But he definitely at least is a Christian supremacist. Thank you very much for your comment!
The phenomenon of hearing another organize your esoteric thoughts and articulate them back to you in way that is just outside of your own reach is always profound. I have come to the realization that reality is thought and existence is speech... the word. Thank you, I have been stumbling around in the dark following a path that I couldn't see, or maybe being led by something intangible to the point of questioning my own sanity. I know I didn't come up with these ideas but I was also intrinsically aware they existed. Knowing I'm not alone or crazy for being divergent in thought was very much needed.
A friend of mine once described me as "A feral person, tamed but not domesticated" and i felt like that was one of the best compliments anyone has ever given me. Not that i strive to be tamed, either, but at least it's not as bad as it could be.
I think we can have better than this. We don't have to give up certain things now that they're here, I agree, but I want us to have better than this and I don't think where we are is as a "civilisation" giving us that.
One thing our ancestors had that few people have today is the ability to survive on their own and with that they had no need for government. Learn how to survive outside the machine and you can walk away at any time.
As a Post-Civ Anarchist I love this video👏thank you Soo much for bringing up the concept of Civilization and it's colonialism and domestication. I define Civilization by Mass Society that enforces it's will on nature and spreads. It's a leviathan. Though I'm no longer a Anarcho-Primitivist I still love Ria Montana's, John Zerzan's, and Kevin Tuckers ideas. Now more Margaret Killjoy who is a amazing writer for this topic
I have knowledge that human society absolutely has enough collective wisdom and technology to create a beautiful, sustainable, egalitarian, post-capitalist society, kind of like Star Trek, but on Earth, within the next 10-30 years as a Transition Time, but, and this is a BIG BUT, we need to plant the seeds and lay the foundation of that new system today and do it with a platform that is secure, well-structured, bottom-up and dependable. That is what I feel is most missing. Great ideas floating out there. Excellent motivation for most people to build a better society, but we need the means. We need the platform. We have been taken back from our collective ownership of the means of production so it won't be easy to get it back and we can't force people to change, we have to create a better model that everybody and their grandpa can see is better and choose to join that movement. Of the movements I see most promising are fairly limited at this point and still developing, but there is the One Small Town initiative and The Zeitgeist Movement, soon to get a revamp because Zeitgeist: Requiem, the 4th Zeitgeist film should be out soon (trailer online already), and a new platform to be released after that.
Excellent video as always! Would love to see a second part on the topic of civilization. I've increasingly been feeling that the concepts of anarchy and degrowth must have a critique of industrialism. Now note that I say a critique, not rejecting all technology whatever that means. In other words, evaluating every "innovation" according to its social and ecological effects. The thought of Ivan Illich is useful here. Smartphones, plastic, cars, and AI are all examples of technologies that harm human and environmental health and don't lead to convivial ways of relating. Also thanks for having ItHadToBeSaid on as a guest, I love his videos.
I recently did a video on being tech critical! And earlier this year examined tools for conviviality by Ivan Illich in my "Should We Be Luddites" video
When you asked that question at the very beginning "Are you civilized?" my immediate kneejerk reaction was "No, I'm not civilized, I'm domesticated." It wasn't supposed to be a joke, I was genuinely speaking in earnest (mainly to myself) and then holy crap... you bring that up in the video. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion.
I absolutely love your voice and accent bro. It sounds like Welsh with a healthy sprinkling of patois, instantly my favorite intonation and I can’t wait to hear more 👍
All this discussion of the work of David Wengrow and The Dawn of Everything is making my heart sing, I've been telling everyone I know to read it since it came out! Great work as always!
I remember watching Syriana shortly after it came out and I realised that the measure of civilisation was the comfort and acceptance of organised violence against those "less civilised" than one's self.
More people need to discuss how slippery language is used in propaganda. The same way civilization has a number of meanings, country does too. Do you mean the people? Geographic location? Government? We're tricked into identifying with abstractions
Thank you for these videos. Your proposed future is one of the only ones I've heard online that i don't disagree with. I've had such long arguments with anprims who tell me that the only way to a sustainable life is for most of the world's population to die. I just can't take it seriously. I came to anarchism because i value human freedom and dignity most of all, so i can't advocate for a future that doesn't include people like myself, trans, disabled, etc. Solar punk is a kind future, one worth striving for
I like to think there’s a difference between ‘civilised’ and ‘domesticated’. I think most humans are ‘domesticated’, like a dog compared to a wolf. The ability to think *critically* and for oneself is near non-existent in *at least half* of the population.
We all show morphological signs of domestication, similar to those of domesticated animals. It isn't positive or negative, it just shows that we adapted to life in larger groups.
I’m yearning for conversations with others who think to this degree… I met James.C Scott if only to thank him for his incredible writing as everybody else was swimming around to do the same when I saw him lecture at SOAS in 2012, his fairies and research into agronomy, civilisation and resistance against it completely transformed the foundations of interrogation that I was standing on at that time. A simple term that has helped me process the discrepancies and questions surrounding our so-called civilisation is… Epochism!
This is a really thoughtful take. I'd describe myself as a "soft" an-prim and I feel you've done a good job of creating a great primer of how civilisation can be a "trap" that is extremely hard to do, mentally and culturally even more so than physically.
To a disturbing number of people, "being civilized" simply means "deserving to live because they are us"...
Barbarian comes from not knowing another language and considering it babbling
@@juanbarrios1211yup
The Greeks weren’t very interested in learning other languages in ancient time
@@juanbarrios1211I think barbar literally means blabla
@@marko112kgthere's actually a whole ethnic group in north Africa that are called barbars
Call out to the #EnlightenedBarbarianBrigade! what what!
Last time I was this early humanity hadn’t discovered how to harness fire yet
same bro
Nice to meet you, immortal Homo erectus! 😮
*Prince of the universe starts blasting*
I really love how you manage to be critical, well read and positive at the same time.
I appreciate that! Always trying to improve
Those are the three attributes with which I would describe all Andrewism videos
Okay this one was super fun and different. Fully deconstructing what social organization looks like to the core is the kind of thinking I feel we were just taught to NOT think about, and doing it anyway while watching this video was really fun.
Absolutely! Throughout the entire runtime of the video, I wouldn't stop thinking, "Man, this is totally different to how I've been taught about human history, and how I've been taught how to *think* about human history!"
While it doesn't have the same excellent production values, a great companion piece on 'civilised' and 'uncivilised' i suggest is:
Prof. Christopher Sebastian
Meat Eating, "Whiteness" & Black Liberation
It is simply stunningly amazing.
On the late 2000s a handful of us were passing around the meme of post-civ.
The anti-civ movement popular at the time was very primitivist coded with an awful lot of malthusianism being vaguely gestured at if not said outright.
Post-civ was rooted in a critique of modern civilization without a blanket rejection of all culture, art, language, science, and technology. The refrain at the time was "keep what's good and compost the rest."
I like to think that solarpunk is at least a reflection of what we were talking about back then.
ah yes, "keep what's good and compost the rest" is one of the expressions i appreciate most in the anarchist milieu
also as a trans person ive been told that im the downfall of civilizations, and now i can consider it a compliment
As you should. Civilisation is very overrated, especially in the face of being genuine and free to express oneself.
Saaamee haha ＼(^o^)／
The Western civilization will crumble with us!
@@tomnelsonastcivilization is fine. People just need to respect their neighbors.
Its definitely projection, “my sexist and restrictive ideas arent the downfall of society, you are!!!”
The humans as domesticated animals unlocked a new theory in my brain. That is the reason the Alpha wolf theory is so popular even if it only applies to wolfs in captivity. It applies to humans because we *are* in captivity.
Whoa.... Love that thought. That's rattling a few neurons....
Ahhhh fascinating. Need to think on this more!
This is brilliant.
You can try to live in the wilderness, with no other people, if you like...
We must change the maddened minds of the masses with memes; dank ass memes.
"Memes. The DNA of the soul."
- Metal Gear Rising
Hideo Kojima knew it! KOJIMBO!
This is one of the painfully unfunny things you'd constantly hear from the worst social medias like reddit, Facebook, Instagram, etc from 2019 - 2020.
How did it persist into this year in this comment section of this video? Is this a simulation?
@@Grundrisse Did you bother to pay attention to the video? The true definition of the word 'meme' is- a virus of the mind. And was used to describe religious beliefe systems.
This is the definition I think Andrew is presenting as the concept for an as yet undefined manifestation of what the reverse of the current mind-melting meme-slop that has played a part in the epidemic of confident incompetence would look like.
No one genuinely thinks society is going to be improved or saved by reformed incells posting 'woke-jacks' on Blusky or some sh!t.
In regards to my comment, I wouldn't say it's 'painfully' un-funny, I think if it elicits a negative response of anything more than a 'meh' that's a You problem.
Why don't you try to simulate a better personality? It would probably improve your perspective on reality.
There, was that CRINGE enough for ya! 8D
Hope-core memes but mantaining the disconformity with the present 😊
and mmms so many ms
I feel like everyone needs to hear "why civilization", that section is so important
The best definition of "Civilisation" is, 'those that behave and are organised bast according to the norms and values of the watcher'. So cannibals can declare us barbarians, for good and or awful reasons.
"the systemic inertia of hierarchy might be superseded by the systemic inertia of anarchy, as a society where a particular form of organization is predominant tends to reproduce individuals with the values associated with that form of organization. the predominance of anarchy would mean the predominance of anarchic values, including the conscious opposition to hierarchy, making new hierarchies very difficult to impose." the way you've worded this fit right into my brain, and honestly gave me a lot of hope for the future. i feel i learn a lot here. thank you.
I would argue that it’s actually that we are all produced hierarchy propagating cogs, and it’s just our cognitive ability to understand apposite. Even abstract opposites.
We can cognitively interpret and physically do actions that would be considered anything, anarchist actions, climate change action etc
But does it matter if 99% of the structural world works in a capitalist hierarchy.
I personally believe hope comes in a pseudo not that violent militancy populist action to this real life nodes of the grand structural propagators of these hierarchies
That be having some delta plan ready to buy the property before from oil conglomerate does and flexing openly
Or breaking shit. But that’s just my hope
I’m a history student and I’ve experienced this more times than I can count people that would be considered civilizations aren’t because they don’t have hierarchies and it’s frustrating
why yes, andrew, my childhood indeed consisted of countless dinosaur encyclopedias
For a long time I have had a favorite saying...
Us humans forgot how to animal.
Also I have struggled with cities/town since I went back to the woods to wake up 20 years ago. The heightened senses needed to exist with nature become an awareness of the onslaught of trauma we all endure under civilization.
[sighs...I was editing my comment a bit, and when I finished it, the filter detected offensive wording and sent it into the abyssmal newest first. Now I have to do a repost, which is likely followed by numerous attempts.]
"Us humans forgot how to animal."
While thousands of years of philosophy have been attempting to set humans somehow "above" the nature and other non-human lifeforms, there is this "Dionysian pessimist" named Nietzsche who always reminds "us" that "we" are animals and shouldn't make special exceptions for "ourselves."
>Error has turned animals into men; might truth be capable of turning man into an animal again?
* Human, All Too Human
At the same time, N. is not exactly a great choice of quote here since he's a well-known archist and isn't really that anti-humanist. Nietzsche wasn't against having laws. He did think that the free spirits would be 'vandals and law-breakers,' but he was generally talking about breaking moral laws. A well ordered Society with laws that are enforced to oppose that order had been one of the phases of human development, which has refined the human being into a "civilized animal." N. did once raise the possibility of an "extra-moral" phase of human development... at which point, surely "we" might re-evaluate the laws we have.
Either way, I may oppose humanism and humanity vehemently, but it does not follow that I desire to relegate the human to animality, to a kind of Darwinian nihilism, placing the human in the category of a mere higher order of animal.
@@Grundrisse it's hard to tell exactly what you are saying with your comment, maybe due to the reposting. it appears that maybe there is an assumption that "animality" is somehow inherently "lower" than what is (potentially) "human".
i would strongly push back against this notion, if that's the point. the "Darwinian nihilism" you refer to is as much a construct of thought as any notion of the "human" (humanisms etc).
there are many many works on nonhuman agencies coming from posthumanist traditions that are relevant here. (Bayo Akomolafe might be a helpful reference.) there simply is no "mere animal" to serve as substitute in relegation-this always was just a way to assert a fantasy of supremacy.
@@myca9322 You're partially right that the repost has erased a longer elaboration of my gripes with some anti-humanist anprims who want to do away with "humanity" so that they can establish another abstraction called "animality."
However, I didn't use the term "mere animal" nor did I imply some fascizing notion of neo-anthropocentrism as a desirable thing. I was trying to make a point about overcoming "humanity" and "animality," doing away with the fixed constructs of "the human" and "the animal."
I have no space in my universe for holding sacred and untouchable artifacts the way most people do (and that's why they're most people). It's my goal to root out and deface sacred abstractions so that they can't hold sway over me any longer - if "animality" limits me from doing discourses and activities that I find liberating, then it's time to think about changing the way "human" and "animal" are constructed and coupled together, and what other interesting theoretical machines might be deployed to sketch out uncovered modes of existence that doesn't value one over the other because they are no longer distinguishable as fragmentary modes of living. Towards the expansion of the possible horizons for anarchy.
I appreciate your recommendation insofar as it rarely appears in places like this, but it should be remembered that I've read plenty of authors from that field and your attempt at browbeating with obscure academic references won't work on me, if that's what you're trying to do. Although I found Akomolafe, Ayesha Khan and similar authors to be helpful in attacking modern psychotherapy and its ties to settlerism, I can't exactly vibe with their current of posthumanism. For Akomolafe specifically, I find his works to be much less interesting in comparison to say, the Afropessimism of those like Frank Wilderson. Hell, all of them pale in comparison to the more insane tendencies related to the Akephalos (the headless version of Dionysus).
@@Grundrisse thanks for the response, no "browbeat" intended, just searching and sharing
i agree with you fully now that i understand, of course you did not say "mere animal" directly. i thought that was what was being alluded to in your last sentence when they appeared near each other. i'll read more closely.
Stay out there brother, the cities just keep getting worse. I'll be out there soon basking in the true glory of the great mother
This made my week. So thrilled I caught this on the train just as it came out. Thanks for the thought provoking experience, as always!
HUH I LOVE THIS NEW EDITING STYLE
I'm glad! Decided to try something new
I like how Andrew keeps some mystery to his public self with the cartoon face that has expression changes, using a audio-based presentation style with some nice images to go with it. That's cool.
The young Andrew transition was a nice touch
i agree i thought that was rly cute
i love how you take on the assumptions behind the word and bring up egalitarian societies and structures. and "there is no single right way to live" was an excellent quote. bless up. recently i have been discussing the idea of open source civilization in the context of open source ecology, and examining the luddites, but perhaps there might be a better way or word to articulate the concept and to free ourselves from the associations attached to a word first used by colonizers.
@@greatestone4eva but doesn't civilisation have equivalent words in cultures and languages that didn't engage in colonial projects (at least in the same way as the West?). China or Vietnam, for instance?
I'll admit that I'm perhaps too focused on how to take the information from this video and apply it to my rhetoric when engaging with people who are sympathetic to leftist causes but who are likely to hear "post civilisation" and think of collapse and chaos (the kind that kills people).
@@trekman10 So thinking along these contexts while I don't know about the words used in other languages I think the general concept of civilization as described here is defined on the basis of an "in group" particularly within an imperialistic society. China was at least on the basis of what has been translated in some form definitely imperialistic in the sense that conquest was a core part of Chinese history and narratives and a distinction was set between them and outsiders. The main difference it would seem is that they took a different direction compared to the all consuming pyramidal infinite growth through sustained conquest aspect likely because such conquest wasn't feasible logistically. An empire which fails to expand generation after generation to sustain its uncontrolled growth is left to collapse or atrophy its ambitions in a cycle of "rise" and "fall" of dynasties.
I don't know nearly enough about Vietnamese peoples however so I will not comment on that.
The point here that I think is crucial is that the duration of sustained growth of European imperialism was and is unprecedented enabled by technological advancements and a set of memes which allowed them to bypass natural moral constraints on what they could or could not do to outsider groups etc.. This allowed the notion of out of control sustained growth to become culturally engrained as a meme within the imperial core for around a millennia which in memetic generation timescales has let it evolve into a more virulent and metastatic form such as the viral blight that is modern capitalism.
Empires are in the basis of thermodynamics civilizations which support a long term unsustainable level of growth within their imperial core on the basis of exploitive and extractive means beyond what the Earth system can support. Civilization is as far as I can tell a meme within that context which helps support the replication of that society at the expense of externalized people places things and other resources.
The idea that ideas and or new technologies could help them sustain the growth indefinitely in such a case where such an expansive imperialistic growth it is all that anyone in such a "civilization has known when all external views are dismissed as savage and other becomes understandable especially if the concept of diminishing returns as a system reaches a critical point or equilibrium value is not known or not connected to the larger Earth system level of which any society is necessarily a subcomponent of. Once such ideas have persisted for so long hey can transition towards the generally "conservative" preferences of the "elite" which means that technological advancement for advancement sake as technological advancement has been repressed in some earlier civilizations particularly if their is no obvious immediate uses which benefit those elites, becomes somewhat self fulfilling within the span of any given generation up until the larger system starts to reach its natural limits.
This lets the delusion that they are above nature and her limits to flourish until those conditions inevitably break down once low hanging fruit to fuel the exploitive system start to run out.
One natural example is of course fossil fuels which are along with nuclear energy the only form of energy not directly constrained by the modern annual solar energy budget and thus have allowed people to do things which are energetically unfavorable and or expensive to achieve such as say separating out lithophile elements from the oxygen they are generally bound up in rocks with in complex covalently bound lattices or numerically brute forcing crude neural networks that they don't understand until they get results. Both "feats" would be basically impossible without effectively "free" and seemingly inexhaustible energy and thus would likely not be attempted by a society which had a more long term oriented focus on sustainability as they would d naturally come to recognize that burning millions of years worth of fossilized organic material full of chemical energy from the ancient sun is unsustainable.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how to critique civilisation without falling back on the "noble savage" trope and putting indigenous people on a pedestal. I think we need to emphasise that indigenous and non-state societies don't exist in a primitive state of nature, but rather have their own set of social and ecological technologies which are just as "advanced" as our own but have developed in a different direction. For example, the people in the eastern woodlands of North America at the time of colonial contact were not just living off the bounty of the land, but actively shaping it, practicing what we would today call permaculture and agroecology; and likewise had not simply not gotten round to inventing the state yet, but instead had constructed complex systems of self governance and direct democracy in direct opposition to the monopolisation of violence (the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace being one example). These achievements came from a lot of effort and care, not just as an inevitable result of people in a state of nature. As much as it's racist to assume that indigenous people live in a pure naïve state of "primitive communism" (as Marx put it) untainted by authority, its equally racist to assume that we have nothing to learn from indigenous lifeways. This is why I find the framing of "primitivism" problematic; it takes the same myth of linear progress that serves as the ideology of our civilisation and flips the moral valences, supposing the "primitive" to be superior to the "developed" while still upholding these concepts in the first place. "Re-indigenisation" might be a better framing, speaking to the need to build relationships with the land and think about how to live in relation to the rest of our ecosystems, without evaluating "progress" through a western lens.
I think the other, really important thing we need to do is stand with indigenous people in their fight for sovereignty today. It's not fair to learn from indigenous cultures, take wisdom that they have developed over millenia, and not give anything back. that just reproduces the colonial dynamic. it's so so important for anarchists, and especially anti-civ anarchists, to support the LandBack movement, and to consistently oppose any appropriation of indigenous land or culture, irrespective of how ideologically pure we think those indigenous people are or whether they support our own political projects. Solidarity is not just a tool but an obligation.
Indeed, perhaps the whole idea of a primitive-advanced spectrum should be thrown out.
@@heatherwoods360 this reminds me of some writings by Kropotkin, if I recall correctly. He mentions how there were many practices in Europrean "civilisation" that would be viewed as abhorrent by the "barbarians" in other parts of the world, yet they aren't granted the title of civilisation.
Half way through you defined you terms and why you were making the video. That intelectual clarity - avoiding simple us vs them arguments. That got me. I'm impressed and subscribed to see what you'd come up with next.
The American Psycho reference was so immaculate I had to like and subscribe 🙏🏾💯
Wasn't sure what to expect by way of the thumbnail, but this is great! Thx for your work.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yeah sometimes I'm not quite sure how to package a video to communicate its thesis and still get people to click.
Dope watch as always 👊🏿🙏🏿
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Daniel Quinn was the writer who got me questioning society/civilization and appreciate seeing him referenced in this video. I was also wondering if ”Civilized to Death” was going to come up.
I like your taste in books and really wish I could just sit and pick your brain over your beverage of choice.
Blessings brother!
Cheers, brother, appreciate the kind words!
We going to solar punk with this one 🔥
The roots of the ideas of civilization was an interesting thing to learn. I'm sharing this around to try and get different takes on it, and I'll be reading some of the books you mention or show on screen.
This might be the best one yet
Ahh thank you!
6:25 so, by that definition, a society lacking a state religion would not be a civilization? I mean, thinking about the United States that either means it is uncivilized (alright by me by any metric), or we could argue that capitalism is the state religion, and financiers and entrepreneurs/CEOs make up the priestly class, which honestly also makes a lot of sense to me.
I like this take (the one you stated towards the end)
Well said! I’m pretty sure capitalism is the true religion of every state. Or nearly so.
@@M4TCH3SM4L0N3 as someone who watches a lot of history and archeology from generally progressive if not outright leftist channels and the view of civilization for me would include plenty of societies with little to no hierarchies. Personally, I would still consider the society/world advocated for and imagined in Andrewism's channel to still be civilization since it would still have all the technologies, sciences, art, etc that are popularly associated with civilization, and in fact said things would be better and more inclusive. That just sounds like a better civilization, not "post" civilization.
@trekman10 I don't have any problem with that definition of civilization, but I would encourage you to consider the point that this term has many denotations and connotations from past uses that may not be as desirable as the largely desirable denotations you have been raised to believe in. In fact, I would say that the problem with civilization is strictly that it has been used and misused for so long as a scale of the presumed desirability of living in any given society, heedless of the cost/benefit trade-offs associated with said societies.
@@M4TCH3SM4L0N3 I'm aware of the negative connotations and denotations, I've always pushed back against them when I encountered it by pointing out hypocritical views that arise from believing that civilisation only includes Europe, or only includes societies with hierarchical social relations by bringing up examples of cultures that fit the rest of the description (ie, improved health, standards of living, access to information/education, etc).
For me it's like other terms like terrorist. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Likewise, what one culture calls barbarian another culture might consider civilized. Europeans were called barbarians by the Japanese and Chinese when first encountered, for example.
I'm mostly focused on outreach to people who are keyed into that capitalism isn't good and isn't working but who haven't had a lot of experience in intellectual environments like this youtube channel, and I feel like if I start talking about "post civilisation" people are gonna think of Planet of the Apes or Mad Max and not solarpunk.
Brilliant video! I've really been enjoying your ideas around a new anarchism
Best Anarchist channel on youtube. Once again, great video. A worthy contribution to the human memepool.
This is such a great video on the subject. I've seen anarchists and related groups argue about civilisation for years at this point, and this is such a succinct and understandable piece on the subject of post/anti-civ philosophies (if I'm understanding your perspective on this, that is). I really feel I could show this to someone who is not even aware of this argument and they'd understand it perfectly, while also sparking the imaginations among those who are much more experienced in the discussion of these ideas.
I particularly like the commentary on memes and units of ideas. I've never really seen civilisation discussed as a meme before, and it's kinda mind blowing to think of it and other axes of oppression in that way, as well as the revolutionary project. I wonder, if anarchy does ever supersede the ideas of hierarchy and civilisation, what ideas might come after to supersede anarchy?
All power to ALL the people
Thank you for your kind words! The idea of civilisation as a meme came from Daniel Quinn, and it clicked for me too when I first read it.
This one is instantly rocketing into my personal top 3 of your videos, concise but powerfully argued and really compelling!
Thank you very much, I'm always striving to improve my writing, delivery, and argumentation so this means a lot!
honestly, I've never gave anarchy a proper look and always believed it was this flanderized meme of "return to monkey" but you've honestly opened my mind on this philosophy
1:55 using american psycho for this section is *chef kiss*
A true civilisation wouldn't need to call itself one. It and its people, would merely and freely, be.
Funny enough, this is sort of what I think about frequently. I'm very much an urbanist city dweller at heart - I like familiar communities, walkability, and public trans. I love being able to walk to the corner store for milk in the morning and kids being able to walk to school.
But I've had the overwhelming longing to get away from things - to get a plot of land away and start a permaculture food forest. To just be able to spend every day in nature working my land instead of being pressed about getting to work on time. Pressed about making payments on time. Pressed about taking call, continuing education hours, and mandatory trainings. I'm a decently paid, educated professional. Capitalism and civilization say I should be happy. But I'm not. I long for something different. Less stressful. Less overstimulating. And more natural.
Great video.
Beautiful! I'm well beyond the Meme that living to contribute to the societal structure is the Meaning of Life.
My meaning lies within connection to others, arts and myself. Living in a students community has been my most cherished housing situation so far! I want to feel embraced by my people, make art for arts sake and live in the moment. I am human.
It lies within trying to stop this whirlwind bringing humanity down. Studying climate physics is tough, but most of all it radicalises you! I don't want this to continue. We can do better, and this challenge is going to make or break us.
"The right leader will fix everything" hit me hard. I want us to go on...
It’s impressive the breadth and depth of information and ideas you communicated in under 30 minutes
i hope this channel keeps growing and growing. it’s my hope for my life and the world, and i’m sure many others’. i hope ur words reach as many people as possible, everyone needs to hear them
In the face of western civilization, I'd rather be a barbarian. Insightful as always! Though how I'll start the "civilization needs to be destroyed" discussion is going to be interesting...
I think its better thought of as an intellectual exercise than good rhetoric for the goals of creating a world focused on mutual care or shared success. As I've said elsewhere, I don't see how changing to the world andrewism frequently talks about isn't still civilisation.
Cool, so throw throw your phone at a rock like a true barbarian.
I take umbrage with the inclusion of "the meek will inherit the earth" among the list of lethal memes, and not only for religious reasons. Taken in context, "the meek will inherit the earth" is instruction for personal disposition and not at all inconsistent with challenging social norms-just look at who is being quoted. It is not a call to give carte blanche to any bully or institution to abuse you or others.
Yeah; there are definitely at least two competing interpretations of the phrase - something like "blessed are the rule-followers who keep their heads down, for they shall be rewarded" vs. "blessed are the downtrodden and oppressed, for they shall one day be free."
I'm obviously more sympathetic towards the latter - so much so, that I've long since decided to use a modified version of the quote (which is deliberately meant to be provocative) as the motto of the specifist organization I intend to found:
"Blessed are the damned, for _we_ shall inherit the Earth."
@@robynsun_love Right; that passage to me was always about the overturning of the social order in which the cruel have power over others.
@@samk522 IMO that quite likely _was_ the prevailing interpretation for the first two centuries of Christianity; in which Christians were persecuted by Rome - but the message was evidently corrupted by the time Christianity was recuperated into empire, and most of its followers lost the plot (and by those select who used it from the beginning, alongside the infamous "he who spares the rod hates his son" verse, as a pretext to keep women and children "in their place.") 😒
Thank you for making this you have said it and laid it out so well!
It's a weird position to be both an anarchist who believes that the very concept of "civilization" is yet another construct used to maintain hierarchy, and a big fan of Civilization and Europa Universalis.
Many such cases
Andrewism on the bus is my favourite pastime.
The part of me that relates to Enkidu needs this video
Good ol' Enkidu
Even though I'm not an anarchist myself I have my sympathies for anarchism and I think it's good that anarchist exists. There was once an time when I thought it was foolish to be an anarchist I thought they were just naive fools that didn't know the sinful nature of humanity. But now after viewing a story that resonated with me more than any story has before I have changed my mind. The story that inspired me so much message was that if you have an dream no matter how ridiculous or impossible it seems to achieve it as long as it's an good dream you should give everything you have to achieve try to achieve it. This message resonated with me and inspired me to remember and follow my own seemingly impossible dream. And that dream is for me to achieve perfect discipline to be able to endure any suffering and resist any temptation. I know this dream is absurd but now I've been inspired I won't let the light of a dream burn out. And now I see that anarchist are trying to do on a societal level what I'm trying to do to myself an individual level because both of us are pursuing the highest possible dream we can conceive of even if it seems ridiculous. So I have no respect for you people and someday I may become an anarchist myself as long as it doesn't contradict with my Christian faith or my dream with the right evidence I can be convinced of pretty much anything. It's okay if no one ever reads this all the way through I was writing this for myself anyway but if you read to this part I sincerely thank you for putting up with my selfish writing.
Wikipedia has an article on Christian Anarchism that might be worth giving a read if you would like examples of how others connect the two concepts. Anarchism and the actual words and teachings of Jesus (as opposed to most modern church doctrines) rhyme way more than they are dissonant imo.
How does Anarchism go against your Christian values? I'm a Muslim and I believe my faith strengthens my position
@ariace3602 I'm not saying it does or doesn't I just mean that I've not done enough research to know if it does or doesn't.
@@ariace3602umm not so sure on that
@@izzymosley1970 Leo Tolstoy was a known Christian Anarchist who wrote a lot about the harmony to be found with christianity and anarchism. You wouldnt regret giving his writings some time
Apologies, this comment has very little to say. I am no anarchist, but I love your videos, and find them very informative, your vision is inspiring. On a random note, the idea of a meme is a very cool one, and one that works very well in practice, it's a shame Richard Dawkins had to be a white supremacist. (Idk doesn't change much, it's just funny I suppose to see the prejudice in even the supposedly most intelligent and educated people of the world. I don't give him much praise. Heroes always seem to disappoint, even newton invested in the slave trade, not that you really need to hear any of this, I just felt like saying it to someone.) Thanks for the great videos, looking forward to more!
I don't pay close attention to him, but Dawkins seems to be more of a _Christian_ supremacist. I think that he would say that, pathology aside, anyone is fully capable of becoming civilized/Christian. Not that I agree that modern Christianity is the epitome of human culture, but that seems to be his position. 🤷♂
@@serversurfer6169 I don't really keep up with him that much either, but if I remember correctly, he went on about being a cultural Christian for a while, before suggesting that they were going to tear down historical cathedrals to build mosques, and also raved about celebrating something other than Christmas in Britain for a while. I think that this is regarded as white supremacy as Christianity is widely seen as a European/White cultural element, vs Islam, a primarily Arabic religion, essentially he is elevating white culture over that of others. His idea that Muslims or since he doesn't seem to think they belong, foreigners, are out to attack their culture, also seems to stoke the fires of white supremacy and xenophobia. Perhaps I'm being too broad with the definition, but I also think that holding white culture over that of others, or arguing that other cultures are dangerous or out to get you is white supremacy, despite the fact that it does not actually say that white people are genetically superior beings. But he definitely at least is a Christian supremacist. Thank you very much for your comment!
@adamkloc9 Richard Dawkins a white supermacist what ? have i miss something
Absolutely based. This is my new go-to resource to explain civilisation and post-civ ideas to people. Thank you 💙✨
0:00 Personally I would say so. But there are baseless allegations about me being a "menace". All unfounded rumors I assure you.
Menace or not, your antics are appreciated🤣
Never thought I’d see an American Psycho reference in an Andrewism video. Anyways great video!
The phenomenon of hearing another organize your esoteric thoughts and articulate them back to you in way that is just outside of your own reach is always profound. I have come to the realization that reality is thought and existence is speech... the word. Thank you, I have been stumbling around in the dark following a path that I couldn't see, or maybe being led by something intangible to the point of questioning my own sanity. I know I didn't come up with these ideas but I was also intrinsically aware they existed. Knowing I'm not alone or crazy for being divergent in thought was very much needed.
A friend of mine once described me as "A feral person, tamed but not domesticated" and i felt like that was one of the best compliments anyone has ever given me. Not that i strive to be tamed, either, but at least it's not as bad as it could be.
Did they pet you and give you head scritches? :3
🤣🤣🤣
I have been thinking about this for many years and you have spoken about it in a way that really resonates with me thank you
So glad to see you mention Walkaway. I'd wish more people would read the book so I could talk to other anarchists about it.
wow, so inspirational. thank you
it's always interesting how the 'civilized' always seem to reap the most benefit from the structural organization the descriptor produces.
Love that quote from Daniel Quinn. A lot of people are so limited by their imaginations! Great video.
I think we can have better than this. We don't have to give up certain things now that they're here, I agree, but I want us to have better than this and I don't think where we are is as a "civilisation" giving us that.
As a Chickasaw man, I greatly appreciate this video. We have lost so much wisdom through forced assimilation.
14:27
- Jokes on you, my home is this box!
One thing our ancestors had that few people have today is the ability to survive on their own and with that they had no need for government. Learn how to survive outside the machine and you can walk away at any time.
As a Post-Civ Anarchist I love this video👏thank you Soo much for bringing up the concept of Civilization and it's colonialism and domestication. I define Civilization by Mass Society that enforces it's will on nature and spreads. It's a leviathan. Though I'm no longer a Anarcho-Primitivist I still love Ria Montana's, John Zerzan's, and Kevin Tuckers ideas.
Now more Margaret Killjoy who is a amazing writer for this topic
really appreciate your videos. keep making
I have a lot of faith in humanity, I am sure we we will make it right and society will mature
I have knowledge that human society absolutely has enough collective wisdom and technology to create a beautiful, sustainable, egalitarian, post-capitalist society, kind of like Star Trek, but on Earth, within the next 10-30 years as a Transition Time, but, and this is a BIG BUT, we need to plant the seeds and lay the foundation of that new system today and do it with a platform that is secure, well-structured, bottom-up and dependable. That is what I feel is most missing.
Great ideas floating out there. Excellent motivation for most people to build a better society, but we need the means. We need the platform. We have been taken back from our collective ownership of the means of production so it won't be easy to get it back and we can't force people to change, we have to create a better model that everybody and their grandpa can see is better and choose to join that movement.
Of the movements I see most promising are fairly limited at this point and still developing, but there is the One Small Town initiative and The Zeitgeist Movement, soon to get a revamp because Zeitgeist: Requiem, the 4th Zeitgeist film should be out soon (trailer online already), and a new platform to be released after that.
What if civilization has not even yet begun? Someone asked me that recently and it changed my perspective quite a lot.
25:00 ItHadToBeSaid is awesome too! Sweet that you 2 collabed!
Excellent video as always! Would love to see a second part on the topic of civilization. I've increasingly been feeling that the concepts of anarchy and degrowth must have a critique of industrialism. Now note that I say a critique, not rejecting all technology whatever that means. In other words, evaluating every "innovation" according to its social and ecological effects. The thought of Ivan Illich is useful here. Smartphones, plastic, cars, and AI are all examples of technologies that harm human and environmental health and don't lead to convivial ways of relating. Also thanks for having ItHadToBeSaid on as a guest, I love his videos.
I recently did a video on being tech critical! And earlier this year examined tools for conviviality by Ivan Illich in my "Should We Be Luddites" video
@@Andrewism Cool yeah enjoyed both of those! Keep up the good work
Even before I was anarchist, the idea of civilization as explained in my history classes always was off-putting for me. Good video.
'All power to all the people, peace' is a sentiment which needs to rise in a chorus of a billion voices across this beautiful globe.
that face at the end lol
When you asked that question at the very beginning "Are you civilized?" my immediate kneejerk reaction was "No, I'm not civilized, I'm domesticated." It wasn't supposed to be a joke, I was genuinely speaking in earnest (mainly to myself) and then holy crap... you bring that up in the video. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion.
I absolutely love your voice and accent bro. It sounds like Welsh with a healthy sprinkling of patois, instantly my favorite intonation and I can’t wait to hear more 👍
from time to time I run into your videos and they are always amazing!
All this discussion of the work of David Wengrow and The Dawn of Everything is making my heart sing, I've been telling everyone I know to read it since it came out! Great work as always!
Thank you for your energizing calls for praxis and the idea it isn’t over!❤
I remember watching Syriana shortly after it came out and I realised that the measure of civilisation was the comfort and acceptance of organised violence against those "less civilised" than one's self.
More people need to discuss how slippery language is used in propaganda. The same way civilization has a number of meanings, country does too. Do you mean the people? Geographic location? Government? We're tricked into identifying with abstractions
Thank you for these videos. Your proposed future is one of the only ones I've heard online that i don't disagree with. I've had such long arguments with anprims who tell me that the only way to a sustainable life is for most of the world's population to die. I just can't take it seriously. I came to anarchism because i value human freedom and dignity most of all, so i can't advocate for a future that doesn't include people like myself, trans, disabled, etc. Solar punk is a kind future, one worth striving for
I love the “pandemic of ideas” that was beautiful
So well read ! 🔥 thanks for all the references, I'll empty my bookshelves to fill them again
"From Usborne and DK to Haymarket and AK"
Bars
I don't wanna connect with most of the 'civilisations' around me rn so yeah I guess I'm uncivilised
🤣🤣🤣
I like to think there’s a difference between ‘civilised’ and ‘domesticated’.
I think most humans are ‘domesticated’, like a dog compared to a wolf. The ability to think *critically* and for oneself is near non-existent in *at least half* of the population.
We all show morphological signs of domestication, similar to those of domesticated animals.
It isn't positive or negative, it just shows that we adapted to life in larger groups.
Evolution deciding to remove critical thinking is the biggest humanity throw since coveting virginity
Loved the "The Dawn of everything" nudge XD I was waiting to see when you are gonna bring it up!
Andrew as the Thinker is something I didn't know I needed. ❤
Aw sht. It’s here
i made popcorn for this video. 🍿
a great honour!
Love finally hearing someone say exactly what I've been thinking
Engagement for the engagement god!
Thank you for this gift ❤
Great video. Thanks!
Great piece, thank you! (btw apart from the excellent content, you have an amazing voice and presentation)
Good timing! I just finished the Dawn of Everything. Also, another great video essay.
1:15 real talk! FACTS! Shout out to AK Press‼️
I’m yearning for conversations with others who think to this degree… I met James.C Scott if only to thank him for his incredible writing as everybody else was swimming around to do the same when I saw him lecture at SOAS in 2012, his fairies and research into agronomy, civilisation and resistance against it completely transformed the foundations of interrogation that I was standing on at that time.
A simple term that has helped me process the discrepancies and questions surrounding our so-called civilisation is… Epochism!
Wonderful work there...
Your videos are so amazing!
Great video.
I would argue this line of reasoning is correct and similar ones also apply to religion.
I like all those effects you added
Omg my boy Quinn. I found his stuff back around 2007, and it changed me.
This is a really thoughtful take. I'd describe myself as a "soft" an-prim and I feel you've done a good job of creating a great primer of how civilisation can be a "trap" that is extremely hard to do, mentally and culturally even more so than physically.