Postmodernism, History and Adolf Hitler

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This video explores the effect postmodernism has had on historiography and how it should help inform how we view figures like Adolf Hitler.

[@thetruth4654]

"We learn from History that we do not learn from history"-Hegel

[@romanski5811]

Damn, coming from Cuck Philosophy, this is the first video I watch and the quality is so intriguing that I'd actually like to support you on patreon. Why the fuck does this have so few views? Can't wait to watch your entire channel..

[@ThenNow]

That's very kind! Glad to have you and hope you enjoy!

[@maxque5075]

So glad I found this channel. I have rudimentary knowledge of philosophy, but I am trying to learn more. I think it has the power to unlock my understanding of the world, or at least make my lack of understanding more tolerable! Cheers my man.

[@OdinMMA]

Fantastic video, I really do hope you continue to make these. I learned a lot and I am sure that word of your channel will get out to a greater audience over time. Just to discuss a point some historians have made about Hitler's role in WW1, it is clear that even though some of the men in the trench (understandably) had less respect for dispatch riders, it is too easy for the historian, comfortable in his ivory tower of academia to talk about the "ease" of the job. Dispatch riding could be a relatively safe job but as evidenced by Hitler's wounds, delivering messages to the front was extremely dangerous. He was evidently experienced enough danger in this role to earn two Iron Crosses. I think that the dismissal of the difficulty and danger of Hitler's role in WW1 assuages some of the idea that war psychologically scared him, which it evidently did. As you very correctly argue, the dismissal of Hitler's courage reflects on how society views courage as something only possessed by "good" people, which I find frankly quite ridiculous. How is good measured, and it's ironic that many "war heroes" were simply the ones killing for the "right" side.

[@boblemmonz]

One of the best videos on post modernism I've seen. Keep it up

[@donrayjay]

Excellent video and analysis, incredibly impressed

[@davidschmidt5507]

Love the videos. Although sometimes you go a little over board with the music.

[@ThenNow]

Thank you! Toning it down in the new ones :)

[@congydave]

Insightful and clear. Really helped me to get my head around postmodernism in history. Looking forward to seeing more of your videos, thank you! (First Comment!!!!)

[@ShiddyKong]

That bit about how the past is what's left behind while history is of the present really impacted me. Good video!

[@LS-jn1yl]

Thank you. The video is really well made!

[@rodrigodeamoriza6879]

Fantastic video!

[@omg9261]

thank you for this video, it was interesting.

[@temirlankusmanov1762]

Thank you for your video! Btw what is a soundtrack playing?

[@frankchilds9848]

Thank you for a realistic and humble approach to a most challenging and controversial topic and human being.

[@EventHorizon1208]

History is written by the victors. The Americans conducted no atrocity at Carentan, the Russians conducted none with the 195,000 German prisoners from Stalingrad, the Khmer Rouge ran reeducation camps in Cambodia, the war in Kosovo was conducted by the Geneva Convention.

[@rumination2399]

Evil can't be physically courageous? I absolutely disagree. Evil takes many shapes but I think it's cowardice tends more to the emotional than the physical.

[@uniquechannelnames]

I'm gonna give you some constructive criticism here, in the first half you had me practically re-writing my paradigm of reality and history, but you hit a wee hard on the triumphant music notes after about 8:00 (it was both the tone and the music overpowering your voice). Chill a little on the Spielberg moments lol, you're opening plenty of interesting discourse with your words, and a little more subtetly. Overall great video, keep the work up!

[@bidjglecia9641]

Which book of Hayden White do you read in creating this video? I'm interested.

[@Lokarter]

Hello! Can you please do a video about Edward T. Hall? :)

[@farrellballettheatre8395]

Well done.

[@SSNewberry]

Oxford comma should be in the title.

[@Missrehearsal]

The loud music at the end made impossible for me to understand what you were telling.

[@kevinkilpatrick7510]

This video is really good. I didn't have the slightest understanding of post modernism before watching this. I've been thinking lately--without labelling as post modernism, because I didn't know what it actually meant--about how there's so often an agenda behind not only the "meta narratives" of culture, but in all levels of human communication. IE simple stories shared or opinions expressed between two friends or a group of acquaintances. People are constantly taking liberties with how they share the "truth" and feigning the opinions they express in order to climb the social ladder, to get what they want out of another person or group, to make an interaction more comfortable, or even to make an interaction more UNcomfortable and thus amusing in some way. BUT I believe from my experience that there are also genuine expressions of feelings and honest tellings of stories. So if people are honest sometimes on a small interpersonal scale, maybe there's hope for society? Maybe "history" will be a bit more trustworthy someday.

[@Nunocesarsa]

im not sure that was what the guy said but ok

[@PinoSantilli-hp5qq]

I think your videos will be better without music or keep it very light in volume

[@teluobir]

The music is just too loud towards the end, can't hear what's being told…

[@creepycrawlything]

I take from the narrative of this video, that post-modernist thinking reduces history to being narrative which is mediated across particular contingency: and flags an alternative view of history which centres in a notion of accessible objective truth (or at least an ongoing approach to such truth); as being just another narrative. Such that the key to understanding the post-modernist offer and resistance to that offer; is the associated ideas of narrative and what narrative mediates, and of course the meta-narratives in play which do the contingency aspect of things. What we then have to consider, is: what sees individuals accepting or rejecting this post-modernist offer; or perhaps accepting and rejecting the offer in different moments and personal circumstances. Where, when we look for what effect post-modernism is having, we have to look to the general population, rather than to effect on institutional elements and matters. When I do social things, like advocating for someone or having thoughts and presenting how I see and understand things, I'm very much informed by post-modernist thinking and understanding. However, very rarely can I make any direct reference to anything post-modernist; because if I do, others who are involved aren't going to understand what I'm meaning and driving at. Across this particular consideration, post-modernism is like an iceberg: its direct demonstration may be the superficial feature; while below the waterline is the vast bulk of how post-modernist understanding (altered of course) has diffused through a population.

[@omg9261]

one more comment, just in order to support the video (by making youtube algorithm think the video is discussed and commented)

[@scruff8072]

Re: Good vs Evil - is this what Nietzsche was getting at in Beyond Good and Evil?

[@CuFhoirthe88]

@- Joseph "and a right wing one at that" Okay and? Surely all the substance we need is that it is a narrative. Not its particular orientation within a certain political schema.

[@davidstrickland1412]

Morgoth and Keith Woods sent me here. And, although I disagree wholeheartedly with P-modernism, this was a good video.

[@cangjie12]

I agree that value judgments are not necessarily the foremost concern of the historian. However, it is terrible to suggest (not referring to this video, but to today’s climate in general) that the value-free ideal has no place in philosophy or in the arts. It obviously does, in a huge way! Science, too, has an underlying logic and objective rationality, despite how it is taught in schools today, and despite what the anti-science postmodernists say. Newton and Einstein’s laws are real, not mere figments of the imaginations of dead white males. If the postmodern ‘blob’ (i.e. its spokespeople and enforcers in academia, culture and journalism) insists on continuing with its attacks on every single damn thing they find objectionable, more and more people will turn to unsavoury sources of meaning and fulfillment, such as fascism or religious extremism. And this is ALREADY happening. And by the way, the way to be anti-Nazi is not to disbelieve in everything, like some kind of radical skeptic. The way to be anti-Nazi is to be PRO another belief, such as to strongly believe in the sanctity of human life, for example, or to strongly believe in democracy and liberalism, or to strongly love your country or your people. What nonsense is it, to say that to believe in anything is to become a kind of Nazi?! Do you think the people who stood up to the Nazis thought like modern postmodernists? NO, because they had actual VALUES! As long as humans exist, there are going to be ideas and values. Instead of trying to stamp everything out (and replacing it with a purposeless and decadent culture), we need to be sifting through them and finding out what works, what is beautiful and what is true. This spirit of enquiry, of reaching out, used to have a name: the great Western intellectual tradition. It is a spirit that has, unfortunately, become taboo, forbidden, in the west now. Now all we have is anti-foundationalism, anti-rationalism, the value-free ideal (itself an oxymoron), deconstruction... in short, a nasty, nihilistic and debilitating cultural graveyard, filled with garbage journalism, inane quarrels, a pornographic popular culture, and hideous art and architecture.

[@Declan_Moriarty]

The music was a little loud and you were talking a little bit too fast but excellent content otherwise.

[@sudhdeo]

Wow,

[@BobThebuilder-bh5jz]

Sad that youtube de monetizes videos like this

[@MichaelB1488]

Watch the Movie Gallipoli with Mel Gibson’s portrayal of a dispatch runner.

[@TheApeCollective]

yup. yup yup yup so much yup. Nice video.

[@davidlopez-fe2lb]

“that allows us to distance ourselves from heinous acts……because Hitler is a…Demon”, do we think there is a link here between this thought and Arendt’s writing on ‘banality of evil’?

[@georgiaharding5989]

loose the music its very difficult to focus on your argument

[@romanovrex]

A little counter point - truth( I would like to say objective truth, but even that could be presupposing too much) could exist even if we do not have the means to gain access to it.

[@romanovrex]

If OT exists or not is outside the capacity of human reasoning because we can only think with our given set of arbitrarily created signs - words, names, ideas - which may or may not correspond to actual reality, but are definitively different to it. What can be said is that the world of the human sign system has to be a subset of the actual reality (OT), but only a subset as such, so not the whole story.

[@SploderZimAnderzoon]

@@romanovrex Sounds similar to the Kantian notion of noumenal reality, I'd say.

[@opencarrydrift6308]

I came up with postmodernism without ever reading a book

[@JuanRamirez-xh3kc]

One knows that medals like the Iron Cross were given out to those soldiers who distinguished themselves during their war time service , attempting to redefine that criteria based on one's opinion of any given recipient's future conduct heinous as it may be is ridiculous.

[@antonioj123]

I'm a little confused on how you're equating Postmodernism with Revisionist History.

[@ThenNow]

I'd say that a postmodern take on a historical subject is almost always revisionist, considering that the traditionalist view is usually the one that dominates? Would like to hear your take though? Postmodern is a pretty broad term

[@Spenc1000]

Postmodernism is a break from traditional historical narratives. Once you deconstruct the narrative, you are better able to view events/people/themes in a larger perspective. As the video portrays, the binary view of good and evil can be used to place someone into a category without looking at multiple causal events taking place. There can be good with some evil and vis versa which is what postmodernist attempt to do.

[@ByzantineCapitalManagement]

Because Both are the Same.

[@SploderZimAnderzoon]

@@ByzantineCapitalManagement That's a little self-defeating. Are you saying that these two concepts possess enough similarities that justify their being conflated, with little regard to the intellectual developments that these two terms signify? Or that they are synonyms that refer to a single phenomenon? It's still self-defeating either way, I think.

[@ByzantineCapitalManagement]

@@SploderZimAnderzoon They are similar., if not same I'd say. To give you an example. Soon after the Civil War, the Confederate States were seen as the villians (a convention which is true even today).This was a " Modernist" interpretation of that time and was vigorously taught in schools throughout the USA. But educated elites from those Southern CSA States, including (and probably the most prominent being Woodrow Wilson) trying along with many such like minded scholars to portray the CSA soldiers as unfortunate farmers who depended on slavery for the economic growth in their region to justify racism. They tried to create alternate sympathetic image of the CSA which was way less harsher on the Pro slavery States. This alternate creation was partly responsible for maintaining racism in the South well into the 1960s.

[@TheOrangeDuke01]

Wilson's book isn't very good, and it's far from the definitive take on Hitler, he isn't even a historian.

[@nikolakostov3548]

Alas, a thumb down for a great content made hard to listen to with the annoying and unnecessary music playing in the background

[@LeandroVelez7]

Too many over reaching generalities are being presented here, Post modernism doesn't have so cohesive of a view. You might be failing to understand post-modern philosophy. Be skeptical when you believe you've got it "figured" out.

[@SploderZimAnderzoon]

It's helpful to keep in mind here, I think, that the postmodern tendency reserves the capacity to withdraw from the act of imposing objectivity as-is, or of instituting a new and improved metanarrative to organize reality as it is recorded. Also, since I believe you assert here a claim towards an "objective understanding" of what the video tackles, Postmodernism, care to explain it, in light of what the video was "too careless" to "overreach"?

[@LeandroVelez7]

@@SploderZimAnderzoonPost modernism doesn't do away with objectivity. Your conflating claims by post-modernism about meta narratives and rational objectivity and the two are not the same.

[@John-lf3xf]

Perfect example of fake news. Smh