What is Modernity? Foucault, Governmentality, & the Plague

[@ThenNow]

Apologies for the poor audio on this one, I need a new microphone. Hope you all enjoy regardless, let me know what you think of this format! Have a restful weekend.

[@humanbeing9079]

A good stopgap solution would be to clip your mic on the shirt's neck line/collar; A higher proportion of your voice will be picked up vs the echo, since the mic is physically closer to your vocal cords, it's their intended position anyways. Also consider applying an eq to the recording, most video editing software have it built-in, if not Audacity will suffice. Applying a reduction to the 100-150 Hz range will make the echo less audible. In any case, it's still an enjoyable video and I look forward to what's to come.

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

Then & Now I like the new format I disagree with your definition of modernity I think your definition of modernity is a modern trap Modernity has to do with the prevalence of the idea of "today"

[@julesdudes853]

@@cathyrinepsycoor7056 can you expand on this idea, please?

[@anthonyclark6162]

@@julesdudes853 I guess not

[@liamsibai2325]

love the idea of follow up discussion episodes

[@matthewmacdonaldchannel1]

Had to stop the video short to type this before something silly hijacked my attention. I am relatively new to your channel, brought here by the hallowed algorithm, likely due to the buckets of philosophy-centric content I gorge myself on. Your work is fantastic, sir, and as much as I enjoy the full-production pieces, these plague-themed recent videos are by far my favorite. You are perhaps better at straight-up vlogging than you’ve realized; I am never not gripped by your assured tone and dashes of topic-adjacent humor. I have recently begun my own content odyssey, with a focus on my long (sometimes too long) journeys through various stages of mental health care, sobriety & recovery institutions, and the genuine weirdness of much of my life, corroborated by friends and family members to show that I’m not a one-upper (yuck) or confabulating (ick) my stories. You are an influence and an inspiration, and I thank you deeply. So please, carry on with what feels best, and know that some of us really enjoy your forays into more direct communication (my phone carries around podcast versions of Then & Now to keep me sane on the crazymaking mazes of Southern California roads). Oh, final thing... would you ever consider talking about the work of Ray Brassier and his “we are already extinct” axiom? It’s nihilism with the throttle nearly melted into slag, but interesting nonetheless. At any rate, cheers from an American fan. :)

[@beejash]

I’ve really been enjoying these lockdown chats, keep it up!

[@uncharted1990]

I think your previous format works better as you select thoughts more carefully as what should be needed in such discussions! Thanks!

[@danilthorstensson8902]

David Harvey is excellent on this topic. “The Condition of Postmodernity” is great in tracing the lineage of modernity.

[@0sba]

Westworld's recent season comes to mind when talking about Foucault

[@avicennam7708]

Great video like the chilled atmosphere

[@stuarthicks2696]

I like the informal Covid presentation. The audio the only thing that’s a slight distraction. Still great stuff.

[@TheSienn]

I really like the discussions/debriefings! Maybe monthly or bi monthly wrapping up your Videos?

[@maxwaller734]

*¡Paul-Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984)!* - 3:35 am Pacific Standard Time on Sunday, 13 February 2022

[@danielteegarden8982]

I Love Looking At You.

[@FERGahDsSAK]

These are awesome. You are awesome. Love ya, stay safe, all the things.

[@MrStranger1944]

This was great. As soon as this pandemic hit I immediately thought of that short section in Discipline and Punish and went back to reread it. I felt like you did an adequate job of explaining it and making it relevant to present day circumstances.

[@MexTexican]

You are so brilliant. How do you know all that you do? Are you an academic person? Thank you for this and for all your videos. Yes I like the informal format.

[@Wkumar07]

Excellent video that explains the root of the concept of modernity.

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

W Kumar it actually simplifies and covers up the trap that is modernity

[@roxannephillips8766]

Thanks for the videos and the channel in general - in light of the times we live in, breaking down complex thought and making it more accessible is a really important task to be engaging in. Since you mention governmentality, a term Foucault coined quite a number of years after feeling he had come to an impasse concerning how individuals could exercise any type of freedom in a panoptical system, I was wondering how you would put the modernity he contours in 'Discipline and Punish' into relation to his later works. Especially his reflections on critique and on the modernity project of Enlightenment as he discusses it in 'Qu'est-ce que les lumières' from the early 80s - where he seems to slip into an unusual optimism about the ability to create change that baffles me in light of his earlier publications.

[@GhostSinatra]

What are your thoughts on Jordan Petersons critique of post-modern philosophers like Derrida and Foucault? Do you think everything is as simple as a power game?

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

Harry Acuna does anyone really take this jordan person seriously?

[@GhostSinatra]

@@cathyrinepsycoor7056 Yes, I do. He has a pretty solid counter-philosophy against Marxism and Post-Modernism. I don't see what's wrong with recognizing that.

[@damianbylightning6823]

@@GhostSinatra It's wrong to recognise it because Foucault's marrying of comedy Hobbes and fake Nietzsche is the only show in town. To not follow faux Hobbes-Nietzsche is wrong and unbelievers are to be punished. Scruton is a better judge of the sins of modern pseudo-academic. He lays out its history, reach and influence. The fakirs of postmodern shit are now all over the public policy process, like a male feminist on rape victims. We need people, especially the young, inoculated against the paranoid, faddish view. I suppose we should thank Peterson for that - but we must remember that psychology is mostly a pseudo-subject and it will always run amok. It's a turbulent teenager that ran away from the philosophical parent and has been destructive ever since. It needs to go back to mom's basement and continue to read, think and grow before it can be allowed out unsupervised.

[@christianmcateer8392]

Really like your videos. I'm studying history at university and they're more engaging and varied than my lectures. Can I ask what you do? Is it associated with history? understand if you don't feel comfortable sharing :) keep up the good stuff !

[@lovepiecozitsawesome]

Discussion episodes sound great!

[@jedimeso]

Just a correction, you keep saying Charles Beard, instead of George Beard. I think it also happened in the video on the shock of modernity. Other than that great content. Really helped me a lot!

[@GhostSinatra]

I've learned a lot from your videos! Please keep em coming! 😁🔥

[@CompoundInterest-SG]

When I watched the debate between Foucault and Chomsky, I was struck by how Chomsky seemed more convincing than Foucault when it came to philosophy, while Foucault was more convincing when it came to politics. Although it might just be a product of my own views. In any event, it would be interesting if you could do a video on Chomsky too. I find it quite interesting how he extended his discoveries in linguistics into epistemology and the philosophy of science.

[@gorequillnachovidal]

Foucault was a Marxist and then when the horror stories started coming out of Russia he became a Maoist....the two most murderous regimes ever

[@CompoundInterest-SG]

GoreQuill NachoVidal He didn’t sound like a Communist in that debate. Chomsky was much more radical than him.

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

Chomsky is some kind of creationist

[@Ting3624]

the watch tower metaphor, damn so real

[@ironjose54]

Yes, please keep discussing modernity :) maybe some bruno latour next time?

[@oaxacachaka]

I like the informal videos, a little late to respond here but for what it’s worth. Lots of interesting points. Is the panopticon a lot different in function that an all knowing and vengeful God? Is the “cancel mob” part of the will of a new God?

[@saloniaurora]

Your teachings are very informative and replete with wisdom. You might be interested in Cultural and Digital Imperialism. I'm sure your audience will find it very useful 😊

[@Nicolaspereyra7]

0:56 That's a great idea!

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

nicolas pereyra agree

[@eupraxis1]

Room echo and low volume. Otherwise, nice video, although your definition of what is Modernism was a tad blurry.

[@ThenNow]

Thanks! Apologies, need a new microphone. Where do you think the definition of modernity could be improved?

[@Sumanth10]

Modernity: the present is discontinuous with the past since the past is unscientific and irrational.

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

Your definition of modernity gets me deeply suspicious of you It's simplistic, it's what some church lady would say...

[@Sumanth10]

Whose definition are you referring to? If it makes sense, is it wrong to accept the church lady's definition?

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

Sumanth s I mean the video's definition Do you think 14 words is a definition? "If it makes sense" lol

[@myram2641]

really good video with interesting stuff, would prefer if the audio was a bit less echoey

[@ThenNow]

Apologies, need a new microphone!

[@julesdudes853]

i'm sure somebody has at some point connected the lacanian big other and the panopticon, does anyone know any specific texts where this happens?

[@SSNewberry]

It depends on which Modernity you mean.

[@michaelwu7678]

Great video as usual! Maybe it would have been useful to delineate the Early Modern Period from the Late Modern Period and both from Modernism as an art movement. Just a thought! Thank you

[@Bisquick]

I thought for sure the "fist of modernity" would be formed from the market's supposed "invisible hand" (figuratively...obviously lol), though I guess that isn't too far off considering the origins of state power/enforcement emerging from such foundational enlightenment justifications surrounding the protection of private property and thus broadly extending its theoretical jurisdiction to be applicable to...the entirety of the physical world itself, so long as certain ideological dominance is maintained. In other words, it seems like our current episteme allows for massive unconscious manufactured consent by simply control over markets. Ok, perhaps easier said than done but maybe not _much_ more difficult considering its all a function of telling _others_ to iron out the details using that coercive illusion granted by accumulated capital and the power that comes with that. US foreign policy makes a lot more sense through this assumption in that it actually has a coherent logic beyond deified platitudes so long as US hegemony (ie neoliberal capitalism) is the goal. Capitalism with American characteristics (tm). I only know general concepts from Foucault so I'm excited to hear you dive into his ideas further, especially since, to me at least, even the overarching generalized ideas from him that I happened to have come across are ridiculously insightful.

[@damianbylightning6823]

You typify all that's wrong with modern universities, public discussion and higher ed. There are ways of treating paranoia - be your own best clinician and avoid all that mock Nietzsche shit.

[@imrul66]

"Surveillance is permanent in its effect even if its discontinuous in action" - isn't it opposite in today's world? We act as if we are not being watched but in reality we are being monitored continuously?

[@damianbylightning6823]

1) 'Modernity is a project'. This has to be clarified by familiar explanations such as the two methods of evolution and realism and antirealism. How conscious a project was it/is it? Is it enforced? Is use of this term an attempt to control the dialogue and our understanding of things? The charge becomes, at the very least, paradoxical. I'd say it's worse - just an absurd fad. 2) Blank slate is not necessary - just present - during and after early modernity. This needs to be clarified. Things could have been otherwise - that's the test. 3) When talking about the fraud that is Foucault - we must always use the term: 'that raving Hobbesian and mock Nietzsche French philosopher'. The words 'French' and 'philosopher' tells the reader all he need know. 4) You said Hungary is authoritarian. Seriously? The hivemind is strong in this one. A Sheeple's History of the World. 5) The concatenation of modernity, if it exists, has to be primarily traced back to events such as Luther taking on board Muslim ideas - such as seeking to control or kill off philosophy and also the grossly disproportionate influence Europe's Atlantic seaboard countries have had on the world. The centralisation of powers - into what would become proto nation-states, in that area - was already more than a century old when Luther strutted his stuff.This kind of stuff is crucial. Modernity makes no sense without it. 6) Ideas make most of this world and ideas make modernity. Ideas can be both good and bad, according to time, place and circumstance. All that mouldy pseudo-Nietzsche stuff from the awful Foucault can be cleared up with just a little dose of Aristotle. 7) I don't think it's possible to understand the fashionable and pseudo-academic take on modernity without reminding people of the basics of the infinite wells of bad ideas - Rousseau, existentialism and the general misuse of German philosophy. There are, generally, two types of ideas attached to this area - British ones and German ones. More tea and crumpet/ fish and chips and less sour krauts, badly served in some trendy French salon. Inane 'French' ideas are usually copies of German ideas and they copy the Germans, not the British, because they're bitter. The English are irritating, but that doesn't mean you have to declare war on reality because they remind the French about Agincourt or that France isn't really a country or that French cars are only driven by British lefties who work as speech therapists or social workers.

[@hellucination9905]

Very vulgar, very midwit take.

[@aaron2709]

Too many commercials.

[@nelsonphillips]

Wondering out loud in the YT comments section whether the decline in violence in society is a product of the ability to construct better homes. There is suggestions that humans are inherently violent. I believe the case is that they are not and the violence is amplified by technology. However technology has increased but violence has decrease points towards me being wrong. Most of the technological increase has come about through the amplifying social interactions, which would be contrary to violent interactions. So therefore I must be right, maybe.

[@alexanderbuchanan3552]

Great video-and you certain mass surveillance is only something that happens in those countries out there, and not in the so called Western democracies?

[@mikeock2087]

Does modernity include transhumanism?

[@avicennam7708]

czech Republic smart quorinten is quite bad for human rights. As it alllow the government get your bank info and health records.

[@definitely79]

Dude, I like your channel but the commercial breaks are awful. This is something that will make me unsubscribe. Can't you monetise less annoyingly?

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

I disagree with your way of defining modernity

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

An example of modern thought Thomas Aquinas (/əˈkwaɪnəs/; Italian: Tommaso d'Aquino, lit. 'Thomas of Aquino'; 1225 - 7 March 1274) was an Italian[10][11] Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. An immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, he is also known within the latter as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis.[12] The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism; of which he argued that reason is found in God. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

[@cathyrinepsycoor7056]

Another example of modern thought Augustine of Hippo (/ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/; 13 November 354 - 28 August 430 AD),[22] also known as Saint Augustine, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis and Augustinus, was a Roman African, Manichaean, early Christian theologian, doctor of the Church, and Neoplatonic philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of the Western Church and Western philosophy, and indirectly all of Western Christianity. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of God, De doctrina Christiana, and Confessions.

[@iosefka7774]

You're really abusing the word 'modern' if even the ancient Greeks would be included simply by their use of logic and reason

[@hellucination9905]

Aquinas and Augustinus as moderns - what a bunch of nonsense.