We Have Always Been Animists

Graham Harvey, professor of religious studies at The Open University (UK), discusses animism and how our relations are damaged by ongoing efforts to separate (human) culture from ‘nature’ and humans from other species. Engaging with Indigenous knowledges, Harvey seeks to replace ‘nature’ with more respectful relationships with the world.
Graham Harvey is professor of religious studies at The Open University, UK. His research largely concerns “the new animism,” especially in the rituals and protocols through which Indigenous and other communities engage with the larger-than-human world. His publications include Food, Sex and Strangers: Understanding Religion as Everyday Life (2013), and Animism: Respecting the Living World (2nd edition 2017).
Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at hds.harvard.edu/.

[@mzequisite]

Daniel Foor's book 'Ancestral Medicine' led me to Graham Harvey. The puzzle pieces are coming together and things are being reaffirmed on my journey. This is enlightening.

[@Babbaha]

The paralyzed understanding "nature belongs to us" failed, It is like a conquerer intoxicated with victory and forget who he/she is.

[@exsistentialis]

14:30 the word that the one who make the subtitles did not understand is "Orishas": "The Yoruba diviner and the Orishas with whom he engages". 48:36 th inaudible word is "Descola", "from Descola and others".

[@jaykobwalson1941]

"We're all animals." -Roadhog, Overwatch.

[@danamorrell7972]

I was not expecting to find someone else who's interested in Animism, Overwatch, and Bionicles in the comments for this video!

[@DigitalBard1]

Intelligent animals, (Ahem! ) 😂🤣

[@frankfeldman6657]

Profound lecture and speaker. I'm a little shocked by the paucity of views and comments.

[@scientifico]

I showed up a little late. My illuminated moment, my "a-ha" was born in a literal dream. I woke up with a question: What is the religion of the Ainu? I dunno why the ainu (I'm not japanese, don't ive in japan and haven't even had sushi in months. But I googled the ainu and discovered they were/are animists. and its been a rocketship since!

[@brushbros]

Clever: Ask the audience to silence, or even better, turn-off their phones. Then pretend that your own phone hadn't yet been turned off and use deprecating humor to blunt your request.

[@TerryDavisSalamancaJr]

This lecture reminds me of a similar video by Dr. Rasmussen on Nordic Animism, where he placed the Voluspa in a environmentally conscious perspective, which is a unique consideration. That Ragnarok, despite the multiplicity of meaning and usage, could be taken as an introspective guess on what the future could be, based on how humans at the time interacted with the environment and how that human interaction had damaging consequences. So to think people could predict climate change based on how they interacted with the land is especially interesting to think about. Whether that's actually true or accurate, really just a guess. I'd like to think there were people or societies throughout history that made such environmental predictions, and took heed or preventative measures. That would be an interesting subject to explore. On an unrelated note, that speaker seriously looks like an older version of John Lennon.

[@erpthompsonqueen9130]

Thank you.

[@carlosrios3215]

That cellphone 📱 ringing in the beginning was the animist spirit of trickery. All hail the inanimate cellphone! We are not worthy! *bows down*

[@scientifico]

A modern interpretation of animism will serve man well during the collapse of the climate. it will serve during the tens or hunreds of thousands of years of disruption and strife that lay ahead as we once again become subject to the will of nature as it seeks equilibrium. Egocentrism and the religions that separate us from the god consciousness will disappear, we will see our place in nature... again and ANYBODY who dares to try and establish hierarchy will get run through with sharp sticks.

[@erincarr9411]

Have you heard of the term Rewilding?

[@zachleavitt87]

I hope so

[@kirkha100]

I’m sharpening sticks.

[@maa-riyyaa]

I think this is common sense for children

[@Jackofalltrades222]

Please leave indigenous rock band recommendations!!

[@goodboybupbup]

Heilung, Danheim, Wardruna. Not necessarily’rock’ bands. Give them a listen. They live the music they create, it’s it a gimmick.

[@user-mx6eh7ui8n]

Redbone, Blackfoot, The Cult, Indigenous

[@zipperpillow]

My Animism ate your Dogmatism.

[@mooshei8165]

My tradition, culture, religion, I don’t know is animism.

[@wadetaylor1299]

What does your comment mean 🤔

[@canisronis2753]

There is a more parsimonious view on offer from 1819...Shopenhauer's master work World as Will and Representation. The common animist thread eluded to in this lecture is the Will which lie outside space and time, all the diversity are physical Representations of this Will within space and time.

[@Jaggerbush]

Harvey ... At Harvard... I'm no conspiracy theorist but.... 🤔

[@terminusadquem6981]

If Taylor missed the whole thing that animism is just a way of talking about things differently and not that it's wrong, mistaken or locally primitive, then you can't argue that we have never been modern for that assumes the animism of Taylor, don't you think? are you saying that as an additional critique or another point for discussion irrelevant to Taylor?

[@robertayoder2063]

What?

[@alst4817]

Yes, this is an obvious point, which has been ignored for probably ideologically driven reasons. The thing is, 'hippie' moderns like Mr Harvey want to at the same time affirm the cosmological truth of animists, while at the same time rejecting modernism because it divides nature and humans along arbitrary lines. Sorry, but so do animists, it's just that the arbitrary line is placed at a different point.

[@follonica1]

For me the fundamental difference is not so much from "social science" and "hard science" that modernity divides (they are both modern) and we should join (for not being modern anymore) but by forms of representation (both sciences are representations) and actual performance that does not have a control on reality because it acts on it. You can ritualise performances in order to have sustainable feedback based on sacred respect and controlled balance but how can you do that in a globalized world? It is impossible. Places are no more isolated niches. Post-humanism does not consider the dividing between natural world and artificial technology but this is a huge mistake. In a flat ontology we could also include the animism of technology but technology cannot be ritualized because it is linear and produces an excess of will of power (deterritorialization) that is entropic and out of scale in respect to nature, the species, the places and so on. Technology is pure performance...it produces the event of entropy that is out of control from any ritualistic order. If we want to consider technology from the point of view of terrestrial animism we should speak of evil spirits or black magic that cannot be exercised by nature-culture rituals. But the post-humanist will never say that because otherwise techno-capitalism does not give them big grants anymore. If I look at the way post-humanists behave and speak they look all bourgeois. As if post-humanism were an ideology of harmony to prevent a direct conflict with capitalism. If we should see technology from a real animist point of view we should create rituals where technology is destroyed. Destruction of the entropic excess is at the base of animism.

[@dglolz7227]

Lol. This is awkward now eh.

[@mohamadibrahim3799]

I am in no way close to being an expert on animism, but I have recently read Totem and Taboo by Freud and Man his Symbols by Jung, where animism is deeply discussed. I feel Professor Graham could have made much more value of his time in presenting a more organized rather than anecdotal presentation on animism and his work in this field. I felt his presentation did not reflect the magnitude and depth of this topic and his work.

[@BillMurey-om3zw]

Vegan animist

[@data-hz5sp]

Some rocks are alive, but in my experience most are not. Most plants are alive, but things like cars are not. When I say alive, I mean Aware. I know this , because Maria knows this.

[@chocolatethunder7453]

Yes idd everything is vibrate some so slow that u can't see others so fast that u can't see it... Right with u on cars and all these man made objects!

[@ApostatePajamas]

Looking back on this year-old comment, I now wonder if some self-driving cars and planes that can fly entirely on auto-pilot have some kind of awareness, because they perceive through instruments, and then evaluates and reacts based on the data. The AI is getting advanced enough for us to be able to ask these questions about our inventions. They might not be self-aware, but they have some rudimentary awareness of the environment.

[@tristanreynolds5135]

@@ApostatePajamas does it matter? Am I aware? If you zoom out far enough, there is no difference between me and any of these other things, and awareness still doesn't give experience any existential or qualitative difference. That's how I conceive of it. There is no fundamental difference between me and a rock. No need for panpsychism (but panexpierencialism, sure) or believing everything has a "soul" ala Aristotle

[@terminusadquem6981]

Is this comment literal? I don't think they are alive in the biological sense. Within the context of animism, they are only treated as such as it is a way of relating. 🙂

[@ja-qk4vd]

yes interesting implications for AI!

[@zipperpillow]

This should be a lecture about how to whisper boringly, without ever really saying anything.

[@elliottjames671]

Actually talk about something