Mark Twain - What is Man? (1906)

Best essay ever. Mark Twain. 'Nuff said.
*Horatio Alger is here pictured as the "Young Man" and Twain as the "Old Man" to contrast the wise Twain with the most foolish of his contemporaries.
Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_...
Text: www.gutenberg.org/etext/70

[@themadmannn]

Thanks for reading all that, you did a great job and the text is a masterpiece.. Thanks again for recording all this.

[@alexking1950]

Don't be such a nit picker, I for one very much enjoyed this reading and thank the gentleman for his efforts to bring the wisdom of Mr Clemens to a wider and hopefully a younger audience. My God they need it! if fact we all need it.

[@cursorcurs6597]

This is the first time I've come across Mr Twain's work, (I'd only heard his name) thanks for making this available!

[@aokjunebug91]

WOOOOOO I am so glad to help at least one person discover Twain for themselves. That makes it all worth it!

[@LearnEnglishESL]

Thanks for sharing the debate... "Man is even as steel, the essence of which is hidden: through admonition and explanation, good counsel and education, that essence will be brought to light. If, however, he be allowed to remain in his original condition, the corrosion of lusts and appetites will effectively destroy him.” ~Baha'i Faith

[@Rebdomine23]

Firstly - I agree with most of what he says. People today are conditioned beyond belief. They follow whatever it is that their parents or teachers preach and usually never question it. People everywhere seek comfort too - that is fact. HOWEVER, Transcendentalism, with the likes of Thoreau and Mccandless highlight the flaws in Twains argument. Both these men gave up comforts ENTIRELY and chose to live a life on their OWN - no comfort or 'peace of mind' seeking there, nor external influencing.

[@philipinchina]

Very profound in a witty comical way. He was a true master!

[@coreygodofall1]

it appeases me to hope your very well appeased by posting this!, and in turn, it do believe that nourishes me to thank you for doing so, :)

[@MarkLucasProductions]

It's so good that you created this video. I loved it.

[@aokjunebug91]

Well it's my Twain in old age impression. When the Young Man is talking, that's my regular voice. Two characters are speaking, so the Young Man has my regular speaking voice and the Old Man has my Twain impression (which also wavers at times). It's not focused on sounding southern so much as distinctive. Sorry if you had difficulty understanding it, but it also wouldn't make sense to do the whole thing in one voice.

[@aokjunebug91]

@marswun thanks! i'm glad someone actually listened to it, lol--it's ridiculously long, i know, but Twain is a genius.

[@johnken35]

2:32:41 of pure joy,time well spent thank you.

[@BiggerFatterBlog]

Thank you for doing this.

[@antondubiel7239]

Thanks, beautifully read!

[@DrawSprocket]

No wonder people hated Mark Twain; he's a god damn genius.

[@johnmiller7453]

agree

[@contenterror15679]

Should I comment on a 10 year old video to compliment, and thank, the reader for doing such a wonderful job? Yes

[@daveyjohnsson7111]

Good outside influence ;) love looking at the world different

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial More Freemasons: William F. Cody aka "Buffalo Bill", popular Western-themed entertainer; George M. Cohan, American "morale composer" of WWI with songs like "Over There", "The Yankee Doodle Boy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag"; Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes in the burgeoning detective fiction genre, invented by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was not a Freemason, but Lincoln and Stalin both enjoyed his writing, for different reasons. If you can't see how that relates...

[@aokjunebug91]

@jerryp85 That would be amazing, and could actually work as a play or radioplay. The parts when they tell stories to illustrate their points could be pantomimed and such. However, since I've already done a single reader version, I'm satisfied with that for now. I'm rather busy with another project at the moment, but I shall revisit Twain when I have the chance. Thank you very much for the suggestion! And of course, anyone is free to adapt the work as they wish, so if you have an idea, go for it!

[@aokjunebug91]

@sonoki82 thank you for thanking me! and the reader is me, Alex Kravitz :) This is why I like not having classes over summer, so I have time to do projects like this. When I have a free week or so I want to record more Twain stuff.

[@aokjunebug91]

As for Twain on temperament -- the most deterministic claim -- what he says about one's emotional reactions to events proves rather true; some people just have happier temperaments than others. You think they have really happy influences and they of course do, but their parents might also say they were happy from the time they were infants. Others always threw fits. Twain treads a middle path: some things are inborn, others are outside influences. Does your experience contradict this postulate?

[@aokjunebug91]

Ah! A discussion! Yes, I'm saying that Alger was a foolish contemporary of Twain. Twain was more profound, but he was not oblivious about being more profound. Alger does have a philosophy. It's called "pluck", and it's a foolish philosophy. His stories are not just fun; they represent a fundamental view that one can pull himself up by one's bootstraps. Twain's oeuvre -- and "What is Man?" in particular -- argue precisely the opposite, that individuals owe nearly everything to outside influences

[@aokjunebug91]

@themadmannn thanks! This summer I will finally have time to record more Twain related stuff.

[@clairobics]

The beauty of it though, once one (ego) gets though 'the perceived selfishness' of self approval is that the more one evolves and becomes a joy-seeking being and truly loves the 'self' (which simultaneously becomes aware it is 'non-self' and in effect 'all') the more natural and benevolent it becomes and is more likely to serve and help others, albeit still through 'self-serving' conscience appeasement.

[@tonymalone5989]

Thanks for sharing.

[@ddivincenzo1]

I don't know if Sam Clemens ever met Oscar Wilde, but I wonder what their conversation would be like? LOL!!

[@Ryan-fc9lq]

I really enjoy the way this has been acted.

[@aokjunebug91]

I haven't checked these responses in like a decade and it is nice to know some people liked it :) thank you

[@felipezarco9502]

He would not have done so if it does not first secure his own spiritual comfort.

[@ThingsTerrestrial]

@aokjunebug91 : Henry Clay was Lincoln's mentor. Clay was an outspoken proponent of mercantilism a.k.a. corporatism.

[@aokjunebug91]

Well, Thoreau's most significant contribution to the world is his theory of civil disobedience. That's the opposite of living on one's own. According to Twain, Thoreau wanting to live on his own would be satisfying his master impulse to soothe his soul, thus making Thoreau's transcendentalism selfish even as his politics was anything but. I believe Jean-Paul Sartre would agree. Civil disobedience = good if everyone did it; living solitary = bad if everyone did it. The latter is bad faith.

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial lol, thanks. I'm glad this was just friendly 'cuz I didn't want to flame war, but I also couldn't leave Twain without a vigorous defense.

[@mooninquirer]

As an example, I recently became interested in chivalry, and I found many interconnections in history. Ultimately, I did not CHOOSE this interest ---- I stumbled upon a reference to Don Quixote, really by chance. As for Mark Twain, I recently became interested in him AFTER watching on YT the entire movie in claymation of "The Adventures of Mark Twain" I was very impressed by how profound Twain was. Indeed, I think MOST people do not associate deep theology and philosophy with Twain.

[@aokjunebug91]

No I think he's not determinist. I think he's existentialist, even if he predates the term. Huck would not inevitably decide to go to Hell in order to help Jim, but very little of the realization is due to anything inherent to him; the circumstances of his upbringing and the events of every preceding page in the novel build to a point where enough outside influences give him an epiphany. Huck himself still makes the choice, and in that moment, given all the same circumstances, he didn't have to.

[@aokjunebug91]

Naw, it's chill, don't worry about it

[@Jcolinsol]

Your words are as empty as your soul. Mankind ill needs a saviour such as you!

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial “The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence.”Source:Wikipedia, and if you honestly have a more reliable source that backs up whatever you think obscurantism is, by all means, share it.You're either ignorant of obscurantism (the doubt's benefit I grant you) or you honestly think Twain "darken[s] our idea of existence".

[@crimsonsamuraiftw]

When purpose is everything to someone, or their culture in more general terms, what more reason need there be? When the presence or absence of purpose is the sole cause, there is no need for drive, it is simply the next step in the chain of cause and effect.Obviously it's an exceptional cause, especially in Western Culture, however that does not deem it an impossibility.

[@aokjunebug91]

@johnken35 much thanks! always good to know something you do mostly for your own love of something reaches so many others, too ^-^

[@aokjunebug91]

@MrAncientalien thanks! glad at least three persons have heard it now, lol.

[@keeperofthecheese]

If neither man nor machine "creates" anything (because they are guided by external influence) - then what does create?

[@mooninquirer]

My experiences have been that I often observe a word or concept being used a lot AFTER I first understand it or internalize it, so I PAY ATTENTION TO or seek out experiences where that concept is manifest. Still, ultimately there might very well be hard determinism. Our mind is definitely influenced by matter ( our brains ), but the CONVERSE might not be true. Free will seems to require the mind floating in mid air independent of the brain.

[@aokjunebug91]

I read the essay, yes. I did my best to make the old man sound Twain-ish and the young man like someone who honestly believes in "pluck". I do look up to Twain. I don't know whether Alger was a pedophile, but I was saying he was foolish because his works define the innocent boy as worthy of greatness and thus automatically receiving wealth, whereas Twain's Huck is not so innocent and receives virtually nothing, yet he makes a great moral leap forward from childhood to humanism.

[@MattsYoutubeChannel]

Yes. It is a simple idea but one with implications that strikes blows at the egotistic edifice constructed by many who, whether stated publicly or not, deem themselves especially righteous in deed because they act with "others in mind".

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial With regard to Freemasonry, Twain was indeed a Freemason, as were: Benedict Arnold, American traitor; Simón Bolívar, South American liberator; Richard E. Byrd, first to reach the South Pole; Henry Clay, the "Great Compromiser" who delayed civil war in both 1820 and 1850 through compromises that pleased no one--he was also slavery apologist who arrested his slaves who sued for freedom based on their prior "owner"'s promise, but he released them many years later.

[@Rebdomine23]

Mark Twain stated that humans and all other animals are mere machines (the former only being a more complex one). However a rat, an ape, a dog, a cat - whatever, will never seek purpose. Perfectly fit, healthy men and women often kill themselves when they conclude there is NO PURPOSE in living. No animal - ever has killed itself due to being utterly confused and anxious about its very existence. Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? - these questions are INNATE in ALL of us.

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial I would suggest to you that Lincoln liking the same author as Stalin does not make them equal, just as Twain being a Freemason does not make him: Benedict Arnold or Simón Bolivar; Byrd or Clay; Cody or Cohan. Of that short list, Doyle is the only one with any resemblance to Twain. So if by saying Mark Twain was a Freemason you hope to discredit his independent thinking, note that you'd be hard-pressed to find any Freemason with Twain's unique insight.

[@mooninquirer]

I wouldn't call it a postulate ---- it is more of a theorem, and it is not best derived from experience. I arrived on my own accord the theory of determinism, since we are shaped by our genes, and our experiences, and we had control of neither of those things. It can be a negativistic thought, even though it exculpates one from any failures. Sometimes I try to not think about it, and focus on things that are self motivating, like "As a Man Thinketh"

[@shishkabobby]

@Rebdomeine23. I disagree with your assessment of suicide. I do not believe that a lack of purpose alone can drive a person to suicide. Suicide is a choice. Some are to avoid pain (physical or psychological). Some suicide attempts are to gain attention. I think that you can easily explain suicide in the framework explained by Twain in this essay. A lack of purpose only indicates that the person does not see strong positive advantages to living; this is only part of the equation.

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial In the 18th century, Enlightenment philosophers used the term "obscurantism"to denote the conservative enemies, especially the religious enemies, of progressiveEnlightenment and its concept of the liberal diffusion of knowledge.Moreover, in the 19th century, in distinguishing the varieties of obscurantism found in metaphysics and theology from the “more subtle” obscurantism of Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy, and of modern philosophical skepticism,Friedrich Nietzsche said:

[@keeperofthecheese]

Its a shame this guy couldn't SLOW DOWN and actually make the two voices different - a lot of this is rushed, despite being a great debate.

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial Using fingerprinting (then a novelty not yet adopted by police), the simpleton (Pudd'nhead Wilson) proves that Tom--not the Italian--committed the crime. Yet he also discovers that "Tom" is actually "black" while "Chambers" is actually "white". "Tom"'s father then saves the man whom he raised as his son by selling him down the river as his property, and thus out of the police jurisdiction. "Chambers"--proven to actually be "white"--still speaks in black dialect.

[@sstan1337]

can´t tell the difference between the 2 voices.

[@mooninquirer]

Are you saying that Horatio Alger was a foolish contemporary of Mark Twain ? They both were similar in writing stories about boys and in their concern for children in their real life, though Twain was obliviously more profound. But not being into philosophy and the ultimate meaning of life does not make one "foolish."

[@keeperofthecheese]

So... Is Twain essentially saying that "People only do things for themselves"?

[@mysteriousstranger3914]

a miserable little pile of secrets

[@Commiton]

Downloadable at LibriVox.org :D

[@Lostcount100]

When will this suffer from over experiences we the machine we will be intact and none of us can fail. Therefore it is to bad such attitudes is seen as far to rugged for our government sake

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial With regard to eugenics, Twain's only work on the subject is satirical: Pudd'nhead Wilson, which centers around a Roxy, woman modern police would describe as "Caucasian" were she on the run; in fact, she is one-sixteenth "black", which makes her a slave and her son a slave... despite being only one-thirty-secondth "black". Roxy switches her son with the master's son to ensure her biological child gets an upper-class upbringing. She named her son "Valet de Chambre", but he...

[@aokjunebug91]

An interesting theory. But not what Twain argues in this essay.

[@clairobics]

It was not meant to be 'pretentious' or make you feel contrast of any sort Jairo? I was expressing myself in the best way I knew/know. Peace

[@alanroberts5056]

Sad to dee so few new comments here. Are these great works of the masters like twain doomed to go by the wayside?. I don't worship things just because they're old but this one was so far ahead of his time it reminds me of the neuroscientist Steven Pinker and what he says about genes. It's all in the genes.

[@chairshoe81]

when he does the female voice it kills me

[@DividedFolk8426]

@thesuperbeast46 In actuality, nonsense often makes the most sense. You just got to be smart enough to interpret it.

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial lol, I don't have to defend Lincoln or Clay against undocumented claims. I defended Twain because he: 1. was a Mason but you implied that he was insidious given the words that followed; 2. Twain was skeptical of science and skeptical of Amish, so his opinions on science varied but certainly satirized--not endorsed--the racially deterministic Francis Galton of Galton's "Finger Prints"(1892); 3. Twain enlightened, not obscured. You took fact (Twain=Mason) and tried to slander.

[@MrLowrevia]

he was an atheist, in the USA that was abnormal in those days

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial "Masonic cops", TROLOL! So you're back on Masons again? What about James Mason? Was he a problem, too? Anyway, my only point is that whatever Masonic conspiracy you might "detect" cannot be attributed to Mark Twain, nor should Twain's involvement in the organization (of which we know some) be considered his life's mission or even his passion (since we have more documentation of his philosophies through his fiction and nonfiction essays like the one I read and recorded).

[@ThingsTerrestrial]

@aokjunebug91 : I've enjoyed Twain's short stories & allegories. What turned me off to his rhetoric is "Letters from the Earth." I find Twain's bashing of Christendom, or better: metaphysics, disingenuous.

[@aokjunebug91]

@ThingsTerrestrial ...is called "Thomas à Becket Driscoll" while the real Tom Driscoll is raised as "Valet de Chambre"... but, being thought of as "black", the masters disrespectfully call him "Chambers". Tom is raised aristocratically and becomes a total misanthrope, holding a special hatred for his slave Chambers due to Chambers "being" black. Tom murders someone and the authorities suspect both him and a visiting Italian. A simpleton who fools around with the "science"of fingerprinting enters

[@misael4096]

joo haz gud vocaboolary :|

[@noahgargano290]

Dads making me read this because he hates me

[@aokjunebug91]

Sounds like... love? Or at least it satisfies the spirit of the person assigning the reading lol. Either way, it is worth reading or at least listening to me read it, in my opinion.

[@aokjunebug91]

lol 'a wreck', not 'erect'

[@colemanadamson5943]

Poorly done.

[@chairshoe81]

when he does the female voice it kills me