We Need A New Culture

[@Sammit00]

Andrew: *puts up a picture of doubles* Me, a British person sitting in the cold watching this: man that looks tasty Andrew: British people are very easily swayed by better food Me: oh my god he’s right!

[@Catthepunk]

Hey, I'm in the uk too! How's organising going on your end?

[@mikeciul8599]

Jokes aside, I'd love to hear more about this subject. I recently heard that British cathedrals used to be colorful, but the culture changed to encourage a more bland appearance. Is the same true of British food? I've read a little bit about how the English used to make amazing "roast beef" - not the oven roast we know today, but a very flavorful dish made by spit-roasting before an enormous fire. It would be amazing to see how these changes in cuisine were related to behaviors of colonial domination.

[@juicyjames2074]

@@mikeciul8599I think British food went bland because they got upset that poor people started incorporating spices into their food. So to exalt their own food, they made it bland so they can say that their food is great and it didn’t even need spices…which is a perfect analogy of colonization overall. The consequences of imperialism is becoming generic.

[@diosamurcielaga9418]

For sure, I have never felt as mentally hungry (imagining food after eating, craving mentally to great detail) as during my year as a student in England. No wonder the brits went crazy with imperialism and navigation aggressive maneuvers, it was though the boats that your ancestors found so many places filled with delicious mangoes, bananas, teas, spices, coffee and fun stimulants and psychedelic substances. As I ate a totally forgettable humble meal, I often wondered in silence what food was like 600 years ago in that island, or 1500 years ago. I felt so bad for them. Greetings from Mexico

[@Nomxla]

I am blown away every time by your ability to distill extremely intelligent and complex ideas into essays that even us non-theory-heads can understand

[@cometogether]

i think a big part of building a culture is having shared cultural touchpoints, and you're actually providing that with your videos!!

[@bramvanduijn8086]

Very well said. Theatre, music, jokes, movies, work, and other shared experiences are what gives us a shared vocabulary. This allows us to talk to each other not only more efficiently, but more importantly, while we feel deeply connected. That's culture: The understanding we have of each other simply because we know that we share similar experiences. So if you want to build a culture, tell people about your favourite movies and listen, reallly listen! when someone is telling you what they enjoy. Even if you don't get it, pay attention! Even if you don't get it, or interpret it differently, simply by having both experienced it, you form a shared culture. Yes, this even includes having arguments. Arguing builds culture no less than agreeing (not to say there is anything wrong with finding people you agree with!)

[@unpredictableaxolotl3762]

oh shit, you're right.

[@iloveowls8748]

@@bramvanduijn8086 yes! great reminder:)

[@episdosas9949]

a culture based on youtube videos. lol. the internet got people lost in space.

[@KnjazNazrath]

Welcome to an atomised society fuelled by parasocial relationships@@episdosas9949.

[@ohmhasmeaning7292]

animals are capable of culture. the debate is whether it matters or not. its easiest to see in birds. songbirds have to teach their babies the specific songs. if the babies are orphaned they just make stuff up and rebuild off of trial and error. in Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A, the mayor once captured and clipped the wings of several Canadian Geese for no reason, and now the city has a population of flightless Canadian geese. their wings work fine but the founding generation couldn't teach the babies how to fly so now generations later non of them can.

[@Malachite7]

That's really interesting. Do you know the major's name? I'd love to hear more about that lol

[@MilosRoom]

Great argument for veganism and veganism is a great idea for a new culture

[@newagain9964]

I hope the mayor went to jail. Cruelty to animals.

[@katakana1]

I'm curious about this and can't find anything related using a google search. Do you have a source for this?

[@crimlum5224]

@@katakana1​​⁠​⁠I asked ChatGPT if it could find anything about a Philly mayor instituting this policy; and if geese wouldn’t be able to learn to fly without parents to teach them; and it couldn’t find anything regarding the former, and was highly skeptical of the latter. Either @ohmhasmeaning7292 is sharing a simple urban legend; or we’ve just discovered the sequel to the rat-shaped hole in a Chicago sidewalk. Either way, we’re making culture here and now. 🙃

[@iloveowls8748]

Besides the video: can we just appreciate the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of people around the world in different kinds of landscapes, from different social layers; following this channel, waiting for new videos to come out? Smiling, laughing, crying, gasping or yelling --but learning and unlearning! People that understand each other in some way, but have never met, all but through little avatars and texted statements. So crazy and spine-tingling to think about, and definitely gives me hope!! Imagine if all of us actually met somewhere and made some shit happen haha, would be amazing. Perhaps we have though, without realizing it. Love you all, even though I don't know you personally.

[@francis2410]

This comment made my day. I'm glad to be a part of this small culture

[@bamboo_craft]

Hello from New Zealand

[@HereNow731]

Hello from ohio!

[@nothinginteresting1662]

❤

[@callistine8559]

Hello from delhi!

[@timurtheterrible4062]

Good video, comrade. Solidarity from the Dominican Republic.

[@teany6181]

this channel keeps me hopeful

[@Andrewism]

I'm glad :)

[@judsoncurry9637]

Same

[@TheXFireball]

Watching Andrewism while waiting for a bus is apart of my culture.

[@sonicjoydivisonswans]

Me too

[@miroslav3919]

As a person waiting for a bus, I could not agree more!

[@Zephyrsag]

I swear I wish all of us could meet as people who are open to change

[@r.e.m2676]

I love the idea of individual culture but as your comment section exposes. You and your cultural practices are not alone. Does that classify all you bus stop andrewism listeners as a culture?

[@phoenixschallert2720]

does this apply to those waiting for a train as well?

[@przemeklisicki8741]

Great video as always, my one gripe with the existance of culture is that many people dislike if you are going counter culture intentionally or not. Personally i am autistic and often think about the world differently to my peers. I also jave different manerisms, speak differently and i don't just accept a norm or tradition if i don't like it or find ot illogical. I hate when people give thought terminating answers for certain questions. Such as every time a parent or teacher says because i said so. Or if you question certain religious organisations and it goes against their doctrin and the shut you down. Somethings can be subjective and not harmful in anyway but people still don't like if you don't follow these norms such as if you use different gestures or little to none or skipping in public to show youvare happy (provided you don't hit anyone) i just think many people just accept a cultute without questioning simply to be a part of a group or on a sub concious level and it doesn't matter if they internally agree with it. My question is: can you create a culture in which there aren't standards to submit to and everyone is free to express their internal desires without judgement. Sort of like a cultute of no culture aside from ones own. The goal is to create a society where no one rules over another and our culture idealy shouldn't repress that in anyway.

[@Andrewism]

Indeed, such a project as this is inherently counter culture. Thanks for sharing your lived experience. You raise an interesting question about the way that culture may transform under consciously anti-hierarchical socioeconomic relations.

[@przemeklisicki8741]

@@Andrewism Im interested in those ideas as its something i had to constantly deal with in my day to day life and is probably one reason why i gravitated towards anarchist and solarpunk ideas. No one seemes to want change or believe this is the best we got. As someone who is 17 right now i find it hard to believe as my generation never had a "good old days" born into the climate crisis and rapid digitalisation (the latter had mixed results), soon after the 2008 financial crash, a life of social isolation as our lives became more confined to the internet (personally i believe it is a problem because it contributed to a lot of trabalistic us vs them culture relating to the spaces you are in and the content you consume). Then covid hit and the world went into chaos, so many wars are happening, and the more you learn about the world, the more you listen to how the people currently in power speak about the world. Unless something magically changes upon reaching adulthood so that this all makes sense and is justified untill that point i will keep wishing for a peaceful society with no control over one another, care for the environment, inclusive systems designed with everyones needs in mind and a society where everyone can truely express who they are.

[@woody1646]

Hey, what you have said is exactly my thoughts also, and I’m Autistic. I’d be very interested in talking with you if you are looking to meet like-minded people.

[@illadelagos8770]

I think healthy cultures have always had a place for dissensus, for ways of being that aren''t traditional, for accepting polymorphous ways of being. It's just that now what we call modern culture is really just being trauma-brained. I see that people in positions of privilege or authority hear ways of being that might upset their security, comfort, safety and stability and they get triggered and upset because this new idea or habit might force them out of their comfort zone. The world is run by people in patho-adolescence, not true adults who are ablt to hear and accept new ideas. That's not how culture really works, its more how modernity-civilization works. Healthy culture has room for multiple viewpoints and change.

[@przemeklisicki8741]

@@woody1646 i would but idk where or how. But i agree i can't seem to find like minded people irl.

[@Wellyafoundme]

Yes, as someone who was raised in a place with many cultures and no particular culture to identify with, I have felt a sense of loss and envelopment by a need for routine with community. I hope to contribute to a good culture and encourage culture.

[@williamwhite6165]

I’m a graduate student studying anthropology, so I was excited to see a video discussing my discipline. Most people I talk to don’t know what anthropology even is. That said there was a lot in this video that I found odd, and I wanted to go through it to explain why. I have a lot to say so I’ll go in order. 3:38 The definition of culture quoted here from Richerson and Boyd is very flawed, and not reflective of how culture is usually defined by anthropologists today. The idea that “Culture is socially acquired information that is capable of affecting individuals behavior.” assumes that the atomized individual is the basic unit of analysis, and defines culture as something that exists outside of, and which acts upon, that atomized individual. These assumptions are both problematic and misleading. It is a vision of culture that might make sense in the context of human biology, where culture is often viewed as merely a layer on top of the biological substrate but I question how accurate it would be outside of those narrow disciplinary confines. The question of to what degree we as individuals influence and are influenced by culture is central to anthropology, and has been an ongoing debate since the discipline was founded. Today, most anthropologists will just say that this relationship is complex and multidirectional, and that going further than that is difficult or impossible to do with any validity. A more broadly useful definition of culture would need to address the ways that culture influences groups of people as well as how culture is socially produced by and through social interaction. 4:59 The comparison between cultures and nations here is also misleading. While nations are sometimes synonymous with a particular culture in everyday speech, either because members of that culture created the nation in question, or because the national government implemented policies designed to create a homogenous culture within their subjects, which can include the elimination of minority peoples, religions or languages, local practices and traditions. But it is impossible to completely destroy cultural diversity within a nation. Cultures also aren’t “imagined communities” in the same way that nations are. Cultures are differentiated by very real distinctions between how people live, act, think, and see the world. This is not true of nations, which exist independently of what their constituent members think or feel, and must be created and recreated, over and over again, through political or military force. Cultures are also not sovereign, and are not limited spatially in the way that nations are. Cultures can expand across time and space, the people who make up those cultures can live side by side with those of other cultures, people can be part of many cultures at once, and the distinctions between different cultures can blur or disappear in different circumstances. 5:16 Many animals have culture. This has been widely accepted as fact among anthropologists for some time now. 9:33 The idea that the modern world is uniquely multicultural is a common trap that people fall into. Colonization and globalization have increased the number of cultural contact zones, and the rate at which they occur, but you need to be careful not to oversimplify the past. IPeople have always syncretized their practices, traded material culture, and shared their beliefs widely. They’ve always had multiple cultural identities, and the boundaries between cultures have always been fluid. 9:51 I love Geertz and I generally agree with this statement, but I would be careful of taking his words here as a universal truth about anthropology or cultural research. Geertz was a pioneer of a very particular school of anthropology which is no longer popular today, and even back then he was criticized for his lack of epistemological rigor. The debates that he was a part of in the 70’s are not so prominent today. 12:00 I would be hesitant to take any suggestion that it is possible to measure cultural diversification at face value. This is especially true in archeology given the inherent biases that the archeological record has. 12:35 The section on Harris is a little odd. It presents Harris and his work as much more moderate than they actually were. The idea that historical and ecological circumstances influence what it is possible to do today is self-evidently true, yes but it’s also not particularly useful - you can follow the chain of cause and effect back to the big bang if you try hard enough, but it very quickly becomes meaningless. Harris went much further in his work, suggesting that the origin of all cultural change ultimately derives from particular kinds of historical and environmental conditions, even if, as the video mentions, he acknowledges that the final form of these changes can be fluid. The position of most anthropologists today on social change is that it happens for many reasons and is limited by many factors, of which history and the environment are just two examples. Which factors affect social change is always contingent, and different factors will play larger or smaller roles in different times and places, or for different types of social phenomena. Harris’ adoption of the idea that cultures evolve to suit their present conditions is also controversial, because, like Richerson and Boyd, it describes culture only as something extrinsic to the individual that influences their behavior. It also rests on the assumption that cultural change is always adaptive, when this is plainly not true. People often act against the interests of themselves and their communities, and this often results in cultural patterns that are self-destructive. Our society's refusal to properly tackle climate change is an excellent example of this. Furthermore, we need to be careful not to assume that people will always act rationally, in “ways that make sense” to us. Or that we as scientists are better able to tease out the hidden, rational, origins of social phenomena than other people. More often than not attempting to find a ‘scientific’ explanation for things just means translating them into a language that makes sense to the author, which only results in misrepresentation. This is a sin that anthropologists have been more guilty of than other disciplines because we have historically focused on researching other cultures, particularly in colonial contexts. Indigenous and anti-colonial scholars have done a lot of work to dispel and discredit this kind of faulty logic. 15:40 There’s nothing too noteworthy about this section, but I felt it was worth pointing out that few anthropologists today would discuss cultural change in genetic or evolutionary terms. This was common in the 19th century but fell out of favor because it usually oversimplifies culture, and because it was used for many years to justify colonialism by providing a veneer of scientific respectability to colonial ideas like the White Man's Burden. It has seen a resurgence in the subfield of biological anthropology recently, which is concerned with finding explanations for human behavior in our evolutionary history but personally I still find it both distasteful and epistemologically unsound. Your discussion of “cultural selection” is a good example of the kinds of problems this brings up. You mention many kinds of selection pressure here, but you include personal taste alongside the basic need to survive,and the ability of a certain trait to solve practical problems. But how can we disentangle all of these factors? If people just deciding that they like something is a part of the same category as people adopting something under threat of death, how useful is this category really? And how does it differ from the general idea of cultural change? 18:18 I know this might be getting old by now, but I want to caution again that we should be hesitant to accept explanations for social phenomena originating from simplistic, universalizing explanations like schismogenesis. While we might be able to find certain cases that seem to fit the rule, there’s also a temptation to fit other cases to the explanation. The examples presented in this video seem particularly dubious to me. The notion that we could find any single universal answer to why gender binaries exist is absurd, given the many variations in gender between cultures. And explanations for the differences between nations like Athens and Sparta, England and France, or these unspecified indigenous peoples, that fail to account for material or historical differences will never be believable. I would also add that diffusion (the spread of cultural features from one culture to another) and ideological conflict between two cultures are not mutually exclusive, in fact, they often go hand in hand. 21:10 I discussed my general problems with Harris above, but I’ll say here that the categorization of a whole culture (every culture even) into these three levels is a gross oversimplification of reality, that says more about the man who created it than it does any real culture. The rest of the video drifts away from anthropology and into more general leftist theory, so I won’t comment on it. But I do want to say that in anthropology we generally talk about culture as being contested. What a culture is, will be, and is perceived to have been, are determined through the competitive and cooperative actions of every member of that society. Cultural change is impossible to implement on your own, and only happens when large numbers of people move in the same direction. I’d also like to say that I hope I didn’t come across as too negative here, I genuinely liked the video, as I have the other videos that I’ve seen from this channel .All of the parts of the video I didn’t explicitly reference were excellent, and I just didn’t have anything to add.

[@alexisthewunk]

this is really interesting and i learned a lot, thank you!

[@emmaklijn]

I’m a first years anthropology student, and I wanted to add something to the conversation (it’s not necessarily relevant but still sorta). This year we’ve learnt a lot about the different ways of looking at ‘cultures’, specially because they are often seen as separate entities that can be seen as wholes, like a ‘mosaic of cultures’, which you said at the end, implying the existence of different stones, all with their own borders. This could also be called the ‘island conception of culture’, since they are non-overlapping wholes as well. We learned that this is problematic in the sense that culture is something socially made, socially constructed, which has been shown throughout the world to mix, overlap and change according to situation and time. Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t differences, there obviously are, but instead of ‘mosaic’, looking at it through a ‘diasporic notion’ might be more accurate, as it brings importance to the fluidity and overlapping of culture that has been happening for centuries, not just more recently with globalisation, like the trading diaspora in the Indian Ocean. We could also change our language to ‘cultural patterns’ instead of ‘cultures (as entities)’. For example, our professor talked about sharing more values with his friends from supposed ‘other cultures’ in the Middle East than he does with most people from his ‘own culture’ in the Netherlands. Now I don’t believe that you think cultures are separate, because you also talked about the changing and overlapping nature of them, but I think the wording that we use to talk about ‘cultures’ is something worth thinking about. For me, talking about this in class really made me reflect on the language we use and the (possibly not intended) assumptions that it brings with it. Which is especially important today with cultural racism being so prominent, seen in almost every argument against refugees or immigrants. “They’re just fundamentally different from us. Their culture doesn’t fit.”

[@callistine8559]

This is such a beautiful video essay. As a Queer Anglo-Indian Keralite, watching how culture enfolds holds so so much and its especially important in times such as this. In a country like India, it seems that the idea of 'the nation' has warped up so much with colonial imprints and rising ethno-nationalism. The current ruling government at the center seeks to promote a hegemonic identity: hindi/hindu and north india centric that risks alienating most of the country allowing for the ideology of "Hindutva" to join hands with Feudal Capitalism and enforce dictats on regional, linguistic and religious identities. While my home state of Kerala is currently being ruled by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the left in India has historically been class-essentialists and not adequately reaching out to indigenous cultures and philosophies to cement socialist relations; something that was attempted at China with confuscianism. India has such a rich, diverse, pluralistic culture that, as you mentioned about culture schimosos, both drew distinctions as well as similarities to hold different cultures together; cuisine, indo-islamic architecture, songs, revivialist religious reform movements and syncretic cultures. With the rise of majoritarianism (mostly led by a minority of caste elites who have garnered social and economic hegemony) we stand to lose all this. Its also interesting to note how as society develops, identities are politicised. While loving the same gender would'nt have been an issue in Ancient Greece, queerness for me living in South India allowed me to analyse forms of hierarchy and oppression that led me to leftist theory, liberation theologies and socialist philosophies. The last point about building alliances and connections is so so important because various identity groups need to rally behind shared ideals. In India, this might in legal terms be protecting a democratic, socialist, secular nation-state but the current state of affairs only proves how the concept of the state drawn by colonial powers have failed and continue to lead to minority alienation, resource extraction, attacks on indigenous communities and the rise of fascism. It is this pivot towards 'dangerous' cultures that ultimately decay and fester within broader alliances of cultures; lead to more fracturing of human relations and harder identity groupings that inhibit collaboration and self-determination. While we are under a progressive constitution, the words haven't really translated into action leaving millions to be left to capitalist exploitation while cultures and communities are pitted against eachother. As an Anglo-Indian, a minority community within Kerala, I hold both my linguistic, ethnic and regional identities together while also noticing how all those have been inherently patriachial and casteist. Hierarchies of oppression pervade many cultures and the current slide into neoliberal authoritarianism only further seeks to make the 'idea of our selves' like cookie-cutter assembly parts - allowing fascism to use 'specific cultures' (like religion and language) to enforce similiar reproduction - the same way a factory churns out the same products in an assembly line to enhance profitability. I am saddened at the loss of the general acceptance of this mosaic of cultures and identities we are set to lose. Things are bleak. But videos like this keep me hopeful. Thankyou.

[@mimiayako]

Thank you for continuing making such inspiring videos on subjects not enough spoken about ❤

[@eduadelarosa]

The problem with any form of determinism is that it minimizes the contingent and historical nature of reality. Even in "pure" biological evolution where natural selection is so ubiquitous, if we were to "rewind the tape" of life everything will be vastly different and we, as a species, wouldn't even exist. And while there is clearly selection phenomena in cultural evolution, the main driver of change is not darwinian selection but intentionality (in many ways more in line with lamarckism). As you've said in the vid, it is precisely our abilities of imagination, planning and problem-solving which permitted such a rapid cultural evolution. And this is in spite of environmental pressures and constraints, which under a deterministic/reductionistic framework is inexplicable.

[@solarpunkpresents]

Love this. We had a video back in our third season about how to change cultural norms - I think we raised more questions and didn't end up providing many answers in it, lol. This is a good answer video, I feel ;) - Ariel

[@Andrewism]

I'll check it out!

[@alexwelts2553]

Culture, the accumulated personification of everything you have lived through and your ancestors that got you to where you started. Now i have to listen to hole live through this.

[@unpredictableaxolotl3762]

That quote explaining a distinction between determinisms was really eye opening.

[@seafarersubmerged3161]

Thank you for the subtitles!

[@uuneya]

Great video as always! I don't know if you came across this in your research, but I would argue a lot of the problems with modern culture relate to how many people were/are traumatized as children. When you mentioned authoritarian parenting, I was reminded of how complex PTSD from a childhood of abuse leads to lifelong problems with emotional regulation, long-term/abstract thought, and forming healthy relationships with others. Is it any wonder we have a global population struggling with feelings of isolation, agitation, and hopelessness?

[@TheErikaGuy]

I absolutely love you for pointing out the distinction between Black as an ethnoracial group, and black as an ethnocultural term

[@johnalgodon6087]

I disagree with his ethno-racial categorization of “Black Americans”at 8:19; Black American is not an ethnic group proper. The host of the channel should have no issue seeing this since he believes that “there is no white culture, but rather several predominant white American subcultures (9:13).” This same nuance would then apply to Americans who happen to be Black (again if he believes that there isn’t just one way to administer white supremacy as inferred from 9:06). Clearly anyone from the Black diaspora who has the legal status of American is unquestionably Black American but [as implied as 6:39] we don’t share common traditions, beliefs or settled habits about how to contend with the sociopathy of white culture, namely what it is to be culturally Black. African Americans have persistent cultural traits tied to a level of historical progress having lived among white Americans for centuries and are therefore considered a distinct ethnic group. To claim otherwise alludes to the commonly held notion within the diaspora that African Americans have no culture.

[@terrakim218]

Ah so happy to see my drawing! Wonderful video as always, was really cool to see anthropology spotlighted

[@nsjhdhdhdbhsudgvdydb7751]

thanks for all the videos!! 🙂 im a social sciences student and they are helpful.

[@noosy530]

Andrew... you're producing intellectual gold with your work. I need to come back to this later, its so richly layered detail condensed in a short amount of time, on such a deeply interesting yet individually instrumental topic. Thank you!!!

[@funkstienn1002]

We cannot forget the importance that the mode of subsistence plays and the kinship system (family structure - blood, marriarge and adoption)

[@sage.shawaman]

Your work is seriously so wonderful. I hope we one day have the collective attention span as a human species that content like yours is the type getting millions of views.

[@reboottalks]

I can’t be the only person who read this as “how to create a creature”

[@l.franciscobattista2559]

"Andrewism teaches you to become your own personal sandbox G-d" is a video I would watch for sure.

[@jb8408]

Culture is replication of ideas, habits, choices, values, etc. To erase hierarchies (inequities? disparities?) would necessitate erasing all cultures from the world and creating a monoculture, which would be evil, impractical, and authoritarian Best we can do is realize disparities always will exist, along with hierarchy (especially caused by meritocracy, which is just), and work to create a better future, more just, with more freedom. This includes reforming ourselves first, our families, and our neighborhoods

[@andresanguianozuniga6798]

Yeah... I think more like an egalitarian world we need a fair one. The egalitarianism Will come depending on the context. Because yes, not everything will benefit everyone everytime.

[@Sidsidsids]

This is a very helpful essay! I'll be listening to it multiple times for sure! Educational, Informative, and Encouraging. Thank you!

[@cleonawallace376]

Another brilliant, thoughtful video, thanks :) I'm so glad you mentioned the Dawn of Everything, by the two Davids! I absolutely LOVED that book. And also the Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches book too. I think the more you know a place and people, the more you realize the complexity of culture...as a Londoner myself, I thought 'Irish' until I met my now husband who's from Cork, and I thought 'Italian' until I moved here back in 2001. Now I know that each of these cultures has a huge number of subcultures. I spend a lot of time imagining what a Solarpunk relationship to culture will be...the tension between celebrating the local culture, and the fact that it can become a bit stifling (I see this a lot where I live, in rural Italy...I love the local culture in many ways, but I LONG for a good curry, or less rigid approach to food, religion or social norms. I hope that as a pagan, vegetarian, solarpunk, permaculture person, I can bring about a little cultural mutation here :)

[@KBird204]

What a lovely community you have fostered! 😁 I am very fortunate to have come across your content at a time when I’ve begun to be more conscious and critical of modern society and the effects on its people. Thank you for your contributions to elevating public consciousness and for giving us hope that a better future is indeed possible.

[@jackbaxter2310]

I have never heard a better definition of culture and ethnicity, someone finally clearing up why there is no “white” culture

[@johnalgodon6087]

Of course there is white culture. White culture is not an aggregate term for European cultures any more than Black culture is a surrogate for Nigerian, Jamaican, African American or Afro Brazilian customs. White and Black are socio-political constructs with historical reverberations that allows for predictions of which of these racial groups writ large will lack power and resources presently. The group in control of the cultural apparatus will use that axis to help maintain the racial disparity. That group is white people. That maintenance is white culture. White culture is not croissants, paella or country music; it’s a set of behaviors and norms that support the belief that white people should run the free world and that they be thee normative standard. Black culture is not kente cloth or Rastafari; it is a responsiveness of moral and political attitudes to white s#pr3m@cy.

[@keeb__]

You are an incredible teacher! Keep it up

[@PamSesheta]

Premium, quality content. Hope you continue making great videos

[@znirich]

You make some of the best videos out there!

[@matthewgoetzka8855]

Thank you for holding this conversation 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@Andrewism]

Glad it could help🙌🏽

[@drgutman]

Hey, I think you might be interested in this paper "Market, Hierarchy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of Capitalism by prof. Paul S. Adler" I think it's one of the most important papers I've read, so much that I've made an audio version of it and uploaded it. Let me know if if you're interested in discussing how to get to and apply such a system.

[@ssj400buledi3]

Thank you for your efforts

[@miss_chelles1338]

As someone who's realize that I really didn't understand culture, this couldn't have come at a better time. 😂❤

[@RNNNPTH]

I've thought about many things in this video for a while but I've never been able to process it with such clarity and specificity. Thanks for your work.

[@francegamer]

I think one of the most essential things about culture is to realize you're a part of it. I think a lot of people feel like America has no culture, and that's.... wrong. America has every other culture in the world within it thanks to immigration, significant regional cultural differences and numerous subcultures (Like furries! :3). It's just that especially with it being so globally prevalent people tend to lose sight of how they too part of a culture. It's hard to see the beauty of a mountain while you're standing on it.

[@Amaling]

I think part of the sentiment comes from the origin of American culture. There is ton over the past 150 years or so, but much of this has derived from hollow capitalist means. You can call me delusional, but cultures in Eurasia were largely formed before the global exploitative scale of capitalism. I would say the same of elsewhere in the world but places like Africa and the Americas and many small islands of the world were victims to the cultural destruction via colonialism and the following global exploitation

[@markigirl2757]

@@Amalingand colonizers discovered American or those part of the colonizer groups so I understand from the outside why others sees us with no true culture bc we are a salad bowl of cultures baha

[@emilyrln]

This video started bleak but ended in such a beautiful place of hope and excitement! Love your discussions 💕

[@koryfail]

Un-ironically we need to seize the memes of production.

[@SpinSurgery]

that’s awesome

[@andresanguianozuniga6798]

Andrew, i don't know if you will read this...but your content is GOLD. As someone who is starting his Sociological carrer, someone who wants to create art that can have a positive effect in the human species and is on a Identitarian journey (i'm a white mexican who wants to cather more to his spaniard heritage) i think videos like this are very important. Because its important to understand the world to fix it, changing things or just giving it a little "upgrade" or even returning to somenthing. And you, colega...you are bringing that. Thank you very much.

[@docjackson8165]

As a long time viewer and Trini I absolutely loved this video and it gave a wonderful fundamental perspective to understanding and thinking about culture

[@thepeculiarmaple]

I love sociology, and this video was so good that I shared it with my mom! I feel like this is very insightful and informative. Thank you so much!

[@littlejohn8100]

This is amazing as usual. If you haven't looked at What is Politics' videos, I think you would really like them. He covers anthropology and culture and his research is very thorough like yours. He pointed out that there are two requirements for a hierarchical society. 1. The ruling class must control the most important resources. 2. The ruling class must remove all alternatives to their system. Anarchists seem to have a good plan for attacking #2, trying to begin living the system they want for their future.

[@mesastreatexit]

l cheered out loud when you brought up schismogenesis. that idea is such a crucial missing piece, i've been waiting to hear ppl talk about it in this kind of context ever since i first read Bateson. thank you!

[@ericrae7531]

A great video for anyone looking to create art that encourages revolution. Like me! Thank you!

[@diosamurcielaga9418]

Wonderful reflection, thanks for sharing Andrew. It is a topic that often fills my mind and guides my observation. A big hug from a random Mexican comrade!

[@Sugar3Glider]

Change the incentive, change the world.

[@GratefulEd]

Really enjoyed this. Thanks as always

[@semi-relatablerants3964]

Crazy to hear Robert Boyd cited, he was my professor and one of my letter of recs for grad school LOLOL

[@francis2410]

Thaks for this amazing video! As a trans woman with a Burundian mother and a (white) Quebecois father with autism (I have autism as well), I struggle on a daily basis to fit within the strict cultural norms of my family and the society I live in. When I'm in Tio'tia:ke / Montreal, my culture doesn't match the one of my white peers, because my mother raised me with different norms and values. When I'm with my Burundian family, wheter in the same city or in a trip in Burundi, me and my brother are seen as the white cousins. Now that I'll soon get access to hormonal therapy and that I won't be able to hide my trans identity for long, I know that I'll have another reason to be culturally excluded from my own people. Of course, autism is also a great factor of exclusion for me, as it makes social interactions in general feel like I'm constantly doing cultural mediation no matter the culture of who I'm interacting with. Because of all of these experiences, I struggle with organizing with black people who are not allied to queer struggles, and with white queer folks who don't realize their uncounscious racist biases. If we want to create meaningful change in this world, we need to change even our cultures to put an end to the oppressions they reproduce.

[@Amaling]

Good luck girl lmao, for what it's worth I'd imagine there's enough queer people around where you live that with enough struggle you can find some queer (effectively outcast) groups where you can find a sense of belonging

[@francis2410]

@@Amaling Yes thanks! I recently made a few queer friends of colour in an anarchist event and they introduced me to groups and resources for queer people of colour in my city. Meeting other people at the same intersections as me helps a lot

[@markonarrates641]

This is why “culture is the cure” is the slogan of the nonprofit I work for. It’s the ultimate mechanism for change.

[@DavidLindes]

Great vid. One small nitpick (it's to an assumption you have ("unlike genetic evolution"), rather than a case you're making), from 15:53 - actually, genetics/DNA can _also_ have horizontal transmission... to borrow your wikipedia technique, here's a brief summary: «Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT) is the movement of genetic material between organisms other than by the ("vertical") transmission of DNA from parent to offspring (reproduction).» There are several methods by which this can happen (not even counting the artificial ones humans have concocted), and in some contexts, it's even a quite frequent occurrence. Just to let you know. :) (But yeah, memes go horizontal, too!)

[@justzephan2267]

I’m so happy you brought Anthropology. It’s in fact the thing that radicalized me, it broke down my previous biases and reasons I didn’t believe communism would work

[@nevreiha]

Hi there, do you remember where you got the graphic from at 16:52 shown while talking about cultural drift. Though definitely a generalised random selection of different outfits popular at the time (within the american or british fashion scene) I'd still fancy looking through it. Great video, I think what you are doing is quite important and I'm glad the internet lets things like this be proliferated with such ease.

[@Andrewism]

Here it is: mymodernmet.com/womens-fashion-history/

[@nevreiha]

@@Andrewism Thanks

[@neverendingparty2060]

I am going to be in charge of roughly 20 inner city teenagers for six weeks. When I ask educators what I should do to enact change and they can only start with "Safety and Trust" Good advice but I am look for a way to organize them to take care of themselves. So they can grow, find their voice and claim their program because it is made to serve them. You have been very helpful thank you

[@injinii4336]

Keep on brother. We are building it.

[@gabrielsilbert1144]

This was a wonderful video, and I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who got into anthropology because of The Dawn of Everything and other David Graeber texts.

[@lmarie777]

I found you because of Aaron. I’m so glad he mentioned you. ❤

[@OHMYGORDNESS]

14:35 "Just because something IS so, doesn't mean it was INEVITABLY so, or has to CONTINUE to be so." 😍😍😍🤩🤩🤩

[@Devibaba]

Great video. Many thanks for sharing!!

[@joelhicks5468]

fantastic food for thought!

[@SpinSurgery]

attempting a social revolution in such deeply rooted dna of the social dna of a group seems extremely risky to me. Even if the entire cultural entity of a people was mappable and programmable, there are external social and environmental forces, largely unforeseeable which will always leave humans bitter, saying “the road to hell is paved…” you get the point. With social engineering we are tweaking only the known variables of a MASSIVE programmatic system, much of which is hidden in a black box. Much of my own thought is based on the assumption of an often unpredictable reaction to any change in the social order, which is like a way for the current system to protect itself. At least it appears as such. And without the proper knowable and humility, can lead to absolute living hell for the people we are attempting to help. I think you have a very clear mind, sir. I hope for the greatest lives to all. I just hope a theory worthy of a praxis may come into existence, although its use in the wrong hands is a scary thought. i’ve hit the reset button and am currently trying to picture what a possible and realistic better world could even look like. It’s all a bit doomer so i’ll spare you the details lol but it’s always nice and refreshing to see a pure heart and a sharp mind in one person out to do some good.

[@wanderinggstars]

im at 14:57 and i have never heard the word fatalism but you just connected the logical dots for me. really well worded and you explained something i couldnt put into words myself.

[@sammason9763]

Never heard of "Doubles" before. Got a new food to learn to cook. Greatly appreciated. The people demand more references to foods in Trinidad!

[@philliphessel6788]

Our facility for culture is the outstanding advantage of our species! It enables more rapid adaptation to circumstances than does genetics, and brings to bear the collective power of diversity in cooperation that belies an estimate considering only our individual weaknesses relative to members of other species. The understanding that “we need a new culture” evidently goes back to the emergence of philosophies that developed into the “great world religions” in a period called (originally by Karl Jaspers) the Axial Age, from about the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. Many thoughtful people saw that the agricultural revolution and rise of civilization had brought dynamics that are deranged in terms of long-established human nature. Meanwhile, there was no abandoning of civilization without deadly catastrophe. It was needful to find ways to adapt civilization to humanity, instead of distorting humanity to serve an alien system. The question, “What then is to be done?” has had a long series of hypothetical answers, given varying degrees of experiment with varying results. Some have proven definitely bad, only making things worse. Others point to what seem broadly sound principles, but more difficult when it comes to practical details of implementation. Always, there are individuals and (more importantly) classes whose perceived selfish interests are contrary to the health of the rest, and so warp what could be good means instead to bad ends.

[@str4ng3-b34ut1ful]

ive been thinking a lot recently about the creation of trans culture, which i think definitely relies of schismogenesis due to the dynamic of defining ourselves as separate from cishet-oriented cultures that don't value us-for example, with musical movements like hyperpop, that revel in harsh noise and autotuned singing which are disdained by the dominant culture's engagement with music.

[@Bea-rq1uf]

Thanks for another great video, culture is so interesting!

[@Linhadefug4]

I really liked the video - I believe that Deleuze would give a very interesting spice in your thinking process, especially on this topic - can greatly refine the ideas of the video

[@jackmcphaden3964]

as someone who comes from an irish immigrant family (my grandparents moved to canada in the 60s) i can not express how confusing and beautiful being an active part of both my "local" Canadian culture and my families micro culture that's Irish-Canadian. what culture groups you're a part of and where and how they overlap and contrast will always be interesting!!!

[@heck3143]

I have a very similar background, but my great grandparents came before ww2. I really relate to what you said here. One thing that I think is wild is how Irish and Canadian politeness culture conflict one another. In my family we always say please, thank you, and sorry and we always hold the door for people. But my family is also chronically guilty for the Irish goodbye. Out of curiosity, is your family descended from Catholics or Presbyterians? Mine is the latter.

[@mustafa.ib.rah7]

@15:50 The evolution of culture consists of cultural mutation, cultural drift, and cultural selection. Very interesting. 🙏🏾

[@happinesstan]

Loving it man. You're bang on about race. There is one race, the human race, anybody defining another as a different race, assumes the authority to do so and that authority needs to be refused.

[@crpCph]

I was pleasantly surprised to see David Graeber, the Dawn of Everything is a great read!

[@heck3143]

This video gave me a great new way to rebuild culture for myself, and analyze the culture I come from. Canadian culture is very very very weird and the more thought that one puts into it, the less cohesive it seems.

[@nelson5953]

Speaking of culture, could you do a future video on how our modern education system contributes to the devaluation of every aspect of our society?

[@Andrewism]

The first video essay on this channel was on the education system :) but not to worry, I will be releasing an updated and expanded exploration of education this year.

[@iloveowls8748]

I first thought you were drawing from Zoe Baker's new book Means and Ends when talking about powers, drives and consciousness. Did you come across this yet? Can definitely recommend that for anyone wanting a good, accessible read on anarchist history and theory🙌

[@Andrewism]

It's on my list! I got my understanding of powers, drives, and consciousness from Prefigurative Politics by Paul Raekstad and Sofa Saio Gradin.

[@twig8523]

I appreciate the video about culture & the resources to learn more about this. I've been thinking for awhile about culture arising from the shared conditions & experiences of communities of various sizes. But I was getting stuck on the feedback loop of cultural reinforcement & modification. 🖤

[@all_time_Jelly_Fish]

the key is to select an appropriate media for your chosen microorganism

[@pongop]

Wow, amazing video and guide! TI've never had doubles, but it looks good and I want to try it! You can't go wrong with curry and roti. =) Thanks for the always interesting, helpful, and uplifting content.

[@illadelagos8770]

Part of decolonizing is rewilding as in indigenous rather than capitalist-hierarchical ways of living, and this means animism. Gods of the land, spirits of the forest, fairyfolk, wildkin, plant intelligence, these are all participants in cultural creation. The mythological bases for cultures are not made up, they are stories of more-than-human nature-beings that actually exist. In the Dawn oif Everything they mention cultures that engage in ritual play, cereminial cultural creation, this is where humans dance with the gods in liminal spaces in altered states and receieve new ways of being, new stories, new values, new traditions.

[@renaigh]

"rewilding" sounds colonial to my ears, as if the act of decolonizing destroys civilisation rather than building on what was destroyed.

[@ThemermaidPearl]

​@@renaighYeah it feeds into that savage trope

[@ZalamaTheDragonGod]

Rewilding? LMAO

[@illadelagos8770]

​@@renaigh ​ @ZalamaTheDragonGod @ThemermaidPearl This isn't about policing for colonizers, if we attack each other for using the wrong word, we shut down discourse and we are no better than than fascists and colonizers who impose dogmas on one another. We should have an open mind and assume that when someone uses a word, they have the best of intentions. Being wild means living in a mother-earth centric culture, being of the land, of a community, of one's self-body-soul-instincts. I'll use another word, reindigenizing, and before you start screaming about cultural appropriation, yes even white people can once again discover their own indigenous way of life. Check out Jurgen Kremer's Ethnoautobiography on unlearning coloniality and whiteness as well ass relearning indigenity. Check out Jeanine M. Canty's work on recovering the ecological self, perhaps you're more comropftable with that term. Or check out gesturing towards decolonial futures and Vanessa De Oliveira's Hospicing Modernity. Shutting one another down is the way of the colonizer.

[@illadelagos8770]

@@ZalamaTheDragonGod Mocking someone for using a term that sounds wrong to you is as colonial as it gets. Why not engage with curiosity and express one's doubts with friendly discourse, why not try to understand what the person is saying in a way that brings us closer to relationship (the way of indigenity) rather than separate us (the way of the colonizer) with attacks and mocking ? Civilization and coloniality run on domestication, we have all been domesticated through separation from the outdoors, childhood trauma, schooling, etc, it stands to reason that if domestication is what keeps humans in a colonized society, then recovering our wildness is important to figure our cultures that aren't colonial.

[@Bearbun38]

Thank you brother. In order to change culture you must learn to guide the already existing drive for change that people have.

[@Andrewism]

Absolutely

[@retnowidowati6542]

The last part is beautiful and interesting. In regard with these topics, I'd love to hear your review on Vincent Bevins' book "If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution." Thank you!

[@zackpumpkinhead8882]

Yes! YES!!! This is what I've been telling my microbiology class for years!

[@austinprince2109]

Anthropology mentioned

[@Andrewism]

😁😁

[@meenki347]

I don't think all culture has to be destroyed. Rather the working class have to seize power and build of society encouraging working class values. This drive to convert the working class to adopt petty-bourgeois values is class cooperation with predatory capitalism.

[@Andrewism]

Who's saying all culture has to be destroyed? 👀 And perhaps instead of valorising "working class values" and condemning "petty-bourgeois values," which you really should define instead of just vaguely gesturing toward, you could recognise that the struggle for social revolution entails the self-abolition of the proletariat.

[@josiahmodaff6406]

I have my own theory how cultures work. I start with the belief that all actions are performed to fulfill a need. I also think that needs can be broken up into different categories such as: physical, mental, social, spiritual, and subconscious. The next thing which I believe is that culture is a verb. It's made up entirely of actions. A specific fashion is only a part of a culture when it's worn by them. If culture is an action, and all actions are performed to fulfill a need, and needs can be categorized, then cultures can be broken up along those lines also. I'm using this method to understand culture easier and compare and contrast them eazier.

[@HedgeWitch-st3yy]

Thanks for this, the video I didn't know I needed but which spoke to some things I've been wrestling with in a much less coherent way. ❤

[@thomasf.webber4933]

Still trying to figure out more of what those new societal agreements need to be, and the narrative shifts that encapsulate those changes. I hope through self transformation, I can identify what action (and group facilitation) is available. One rung at a time, one change at a time, with mindful reflection every step of the way.

[@AngelTail]

Moi's not able to help create culture and organize in our own physical community spaces here because of wageslave work... Moi's always had this dream of organizing different urban poor communities here around LGBT stuff, fun community events, teach-ins, discussion groups on the poverty/lack of meaningful work/lack of any power over resources/dependence on elite groups, drag shows/beauty pageants, concerts, protests, and other ways to organize folks offline... but can't carry them out because moi alone doesn't have resources... But moi work forces moi to come into contact online with diff peeps in VRChat and diff streamer and discord communities... Where peeps basically form virtual third spaces... mostly aimed at escaping the hardships and alienation of capitalism, mostly in the Global North... Most of the culture shared by moi friends online revolve around anime/games and pretty much "escaping the world"... they themselves most likely not fully understanding that it's these systems of control under capitalism and elite power all over the world that's the problem, not the world, not culture itself? because they do like the good ideal things promised by anime/game/VR/song culture.... songs and dreams and hopes about love, about being free. But most of it is abstract... Moi's decided to start working with a few folks, and moi hopes to achieve something a bit more tangible in these online worlds... like starting networks of support about trans folks that go beyond just service-oriented, self-help stuff... finding ways to connect and create social bonds and solidarity, even hopefully finding ways to control those worlds built online with real-world world creation like the ones in Zapata country, in Rojava country... gomen, sorry for starting this way! Moi believes that Andrew-sensei's idea here is mostly on the physical world... This is the only thing that moi could do now from our corner here in the islands of the Philippines, extending to VRChat and online... All the best to minna, everyone else's projects! Moi hopes we could meet and CONNECT somehow and tangibly, materials support each other... Maging malaya! Let's be free! 🍉🌈🏳‍⚧✊🏽

[@rosemarymcbride3419]

I think in order to begin building a larger movement towards prefigurative politics we should focus on storytelling as our most essential social technology. Because our origin stories will always be to a certain degree obscured due to time and the enduring violence of hierarchical systems we need to start experimenting with narrative to give us a different relationship to our pasts which will in turn help us better determine the directions we wish to go in from this present. So many people can tell they are suffering in this present but the stories they have been given to orient themselves in this moment serve to reify the social conditions that lead to this moment. So they need stories that grab them right in their guts and can ground them to the broader reality like a lightening bolt hitting the ground. I have been experimenting with this kind of story telling on a small scale and I've seen the kinds of reactions it can illicitly but we need more. Storytelling should be the first means of production we take back because a spear was not the first tool, nor a bag, but a poem.

[@curtissjamesd]

Still my favorite channel on the platform.

[@benjohnson6251]

This was really good. I'm not entirely convinced by prefigurative politics. im half way through Vincent Bevins' If We Burn and it seems like prefiguration might be something that is nice in theory but can break down in practice. An example might be when small horizontally organised groups have to suddenly on-board a large number of people. That said, I enjoy what I've seen of the Hambach Forest groups who lived in tree houses to stop coal mine expansion.

[@elizabethdavis1696]

Please do a video on lifeboat ethics and the lifeboat foundation

[@SpinSurgery]

I can’t say for sure if i agree with all of your politics, but this video was brilliantly put together and would make a wonderful baseline for people of all politician persuasions. Just as you mention schizomogenesis, i was in the middle of typing how the missing piece of the culture question exists because of the human tendency to define themselves by being able to react and reject, thus creating new cultural elements that may otherwise seem to exist ex nihilo. And over enough time and events leading to splinter groups the complexity of traditions and their emergence begins to make a lot more sense.

[@missZoey5387]

Funny enough, I first encountered anthropology as a scientific field through anarchist content online, and I eventually went on to study it during my undergrad years. I have found as in my studies that anthropology has validated the ideas of various radical thinkers, Marx especially and, I suspect, the anarchists.

[@AnnCatsanndra]

Volume seems a little low, but I'm 5 minutes in and the content's good so far.

[@stephenwilliams163]

The anarchist project is, ar its core, a long reaching cultural project. People who believe they need kings may depose individual heads up state but will never overthrow the entire monarchy. People who believe they need police may advocate for various reforms but will never work for police and prison abolition. Even if a brave group of freedom fighters were able to accomplish a full scale revolution from withing the current day'scultural framework, they would find it necessary to use authoritarian tactics to defend their their egalitarian vision against those who still believe in hierarchy. All of the things we do right now to alleviate immediate suffering and show glimpses of a possible future world are incredibly important, but our movement will not achieve victory until the day that the larger culture shifts. By the time we win our ideas will seem so commonplace and self evident that our victory will be an inevitable non-event.