World History Open Class. Zoom Discussion at 8 pm EST.

We will be embarking on a monthly study of the history of civilization from a unique perspective beginning from the first evidence of humanity.
Join me tonight for a Zoom discussion where I will answer questions and comments. Link:
Michael Sugrue is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Dr. Michael Sugrue earned his BA at the University of Chicago and PhD at Columbia University.

[@WilllyB]

Wake up babe we have to review another intellectual tradition

[@MB-ue2rf]

Thank you for rekindling the joy of learning as you do with such clarity and generosity

[@robharrell-xd2pi]

I appreciate your tone and the interesting thoughts. Of course we are assuming Darwinian theory had a naturalistic outlook on the universe and man. One could argue that it is impossible to fit the genius of Shakespeare into such a schematic. Or the birth of a child into such a frame of mind. Such a pragmatic view of the origin of religion simply cannot hold water. There is an undeniable drive within humanity to worship.

[@MB-ue2rf]

@@robharrell-xd2pi Hard not to agree. In a sense we’re left with Darwin creating man, at least in the way we tend to see him now. I just got poked in the rib by my wife. She wants me to guess who created woman.

[@fortunatomartino8549]

This man explicates philosophy in an authentic, passionate way I learned so much from him

[@Charles-qt2dy]

God bless you Michael.... I love you and I have never stopped praying for ya.

[@GnosticInformant]

the Great Sage Michael Sugure, bestowing his wisdom...

[@jonpicojones4032]

Thank you so much for continuing to put these videos out for free, it’s truly a blessing.

[@The.Nasty.]

Always a pleasure, thank you for posting Dr Sugrue.

[@jasoncherry3404]

I’d like to thank Professor Sugrue for his insights into philosophy and history. His intellect and insight really motivate an individual to learn subjects that are difficult to understand. He makes these subjects understandable and relatable making him one of a kind in the world of academia. Thank you for everything you have left us professor, you will be missed. I have a copy of your book and I will be sure to read it, page by page.

[@XenoMantys]

Amazing. I just love your work, blesses from Romania!

[@mikeycondry1493]

you are a civic hero professor. good health to you and God bless

[@jbauman1111]

Michael Sugrue for the win!

[@SpongeBob-yk9oo]

Thank you sir. So happy I found your teachings...

[@BC-ph9vh]

Wow, I would just love to read that book, but who wouldn't?. Rest In Peace Mr Surgrue, you were a great man with a love for knowledge and someone who made it fun. A rare gem

[@JaMeshuggah]

Fantastic as usual

[@kosimpson2010]

I've got a problem with the Professor, every time I sit down to just to sample some of a new video so I can watch later, I end up watching the whole thing because he is so interesting.

[@cheri238]

I thank you again, Dr. Sugrue . It was a great lecture again. I'm looking forward to a book from you. Many blessings to you and your family, sir.

[@Collinmasteller44]

Thank you for providing a true education and vast perspective for a generation full of those who don’t have a source to depend on. A diamond in the digital rough. Your wisdom is seen.

[@sidyadav8410]

Your best lecture yet Dr. Sugrue. Part 2 can’t come soon enough.

[@faridachishti35]

As interesting as informative. Thank u sooo much for this fresh move for enlightenment.

[@jimmybuko2065]

This was an amazing video, I hope this book gets written

[@adamdippel7982]

Thank you for all you share with us!

[@user-of8gd2ix5i]

Thanks for the wisdom Prof - appreciate the weekend upload 🤍

[@cameronsmith8775]

What an inspiration!

[@dgreenspino]

I am soooooooooo looking forward to the publication of your book and reading it closely with a pen and highlighter. I come away as a better person from multiple listenings of your videos. I know a book would do something profound.

[@OlivesTwistedBranch]

Thank you so much for your time. Always informative and challenging.

[@Don-James]

"We are a Janus-faced species".... perfectly said my good sir.

[@upcontacts7344]

Phenomenal lecture. Wish I stumbled upon this channel sooner.

[@micahtewersofficial]

Love this, Dr. Sugrue! Always impressive stuff. Recommendation for whoever wants more: Gilbert Simondon's "History of the Notion of the Individual" is the best summary of Western theories of physics and metaphysics I've seen. It's in volume two of his "Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information".

[@lenorefoxmoor9985]

❤😊

[@nancygottwald1940]

"Nature Needs Heros" I just read this somewhere recently! I'm so happy to see this latest lecture...So wonderful Professor, Thank you so much!!

[@johnnypingsmusic]

Thank you for sharing, this video has been my favorite of all you have shared here, absolutely brilliant

[@goofyahhh254]

The best

[@lashropa]

I will be catching up on these. Keep it up! I'll go live with you all the first chance I get. So exciting! 💛

[@ryans3001]

Thank you!

[@adamnoble1689]

Really enjoyable approach

[@rileylaforge7640]

Can't wait to read your book Dr.! I've been trying to amalgamate a lot of the same idea you brought up in this video and I'm just some fool in Canada so I'm glad that one of the brightest intellects I've ever encountered is tackling it in my stead.

[@MRDdotRAR]

As a world history teacher at the high school level, I can't wait to see what major themes and lenses you use to frame these lectures. Your old lectures explored so many ways historians have chosen to view history. Overall excited Dr. Sugrue.

[@ebannaw]

Middle school world history here, 7th grade. Been binging the good Dr. to learn more myself. I always tell my students that I am as much a student still as a teacher. Getting inner city 7th graders to give a damn about history is...uh, challenging to say the least. There is some modicum of comfort knowing there are others out there who appreciate learning.

[@jimjones9491]

To hear you describe conquering as predator parasitism made me smile because I've been hearing the term Predator Class a lot these last few years but thought to myself it's not just predation from these people, they're also parasites. I was thinking a noun to encapsulate the two characteristics would be useful, I call them Predasites 😊

[@concipere1]

Thanks!

[@martinbowman1993]

Awesome lecture

[@pault3434]

Incredible, Thank you Dr. Sugrue.

[@orthostice]

I owe so much to you Dr Sugrue. I think your lecture on Gadamer has been the most formative for me so far, but this is challenged every time you upload or write something new. Thank you for sharing your mind and the minds of others

[@hifriend494]

Jacob?

[@orthostice]

@@hifriend494 not Jacob :-(

[@juliunofaquitaine]

Thank you!!

[@gjergskender8536]

As someone who cant afford school - i very much appreciate, beyond words really; the environment youve granted to so many others like me to explore these concepts, and connect with peers. You are a gift to all of us that are/will be here; and i truly wish the best for your health and battle going forward. Thank you Dr. Truly.

[@michaelbuckner9846]

I’ve learn a lot from your videos. Predator parasitism, religion/ethics and justice: the tripod of functional civilization. It makes sense. I appreciate the origin of civil war explanation. Seems like the elitist class is growing to bobble head proportions in the United States but with global commerce it may be sustainable. I wonder how this analysis overlays on today’s dynamics. Thought provoking as always . Thank you! 😊

[@dr.michaelsugrue]

My generation of American shot callers, the top 10% with graduate degrees, electric vehicles in Whole Foods parking lots, McMansions in tony suburban neighborhoods, 401ks, jobs that involve manipulating symbols rather than things, and, with the exception of a few outlier groups like cross dressers or released felons for whom advocacy is cheap, an utter contempt for the rest of America. Michael Lind calls this group "managerial elite". We were awarded the unipolar moment and we blew it. We got rich while the world drifted and America decayed. Instead we vacuumed up all the financial gains from the advent of the internet and the info economy. We now keep 40+% of the GDP while in 1990, it was 30%. Everybody else's real incomes have stagnated or decreased. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, an unexpected $1000 bill to fix the car used to go to work is catastrophic. We have bled most go our fellow citizens white, talking like shepherds and acting like wolves. My generation is the most audacious, tenacious, voracious, rapacious, vexatious, mendacious collection of human locusts ever to make decisions for America. Our stewardship of America at one of the critical junctures in world history was a piñata party and oligarchy love fest. As Dr. Staloff says, "Biden/Trump 2024, Better than We Deserve"

[@SamT0611]

@@dr.michaelsugrue "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

[@evo1ov3]

Sugrue is the best thing to happen to KZbin since the Guttenberg Revolution.

[@evo1ov3]

Not even kidding.

[@windmill-ze8rj]

Wish I could have been there!

[@goofyahhh254]

​@dr.michaelsugrue I understand why you say it is each one's responsibility to uphold their burden, however initially unjust. That unifies everyone, and there is no pointing fingers or blaming. We must all simply do our best with the cards we are dealt I think lectures of history are perfect for giving us that much needed perspective.

[@sahandhemmat5447]

Love from Kurdistan. You are a truly great man.

[@AIPhilosophyBattles]

This one was courageous.

[@banzand]

Dear Dr. Sugrue, Would you please be so kind as to consider doing a session on Montesquieu's Persian Letters? Thank you.

[@zaikneesh2992]

I'm very curious about the lectures on plato. When are they supposed to be uploaded.? Thank you

[@kosimpson2010]

My home town is actually 5000 ppl.! That's crazy Doc!

[@MsCocoa1978]

What I observe from the many self-flagellating, self-destructive, reality-denying, history-bashing movements on both sides of the pond in the last ten years is : "Dumbness can be seen, no matter who has it, and no matter what you call it."

[@christinemartin63]

Agreed ... and if we ARE better off than our ancestors (we are!), we have the free enterprise system to thank (whether the farmer, or craftsman, or small business owner, or corporation, etc.)--not socialism, communism, welfare state.

[@patrickrattigan4980]

Love listening to you. The depth and breath of your knowledge is pretty incredible. While I was watching this a question kept nagging me. Why do you think it is we are species with "amnesia "? The human brain in its current form has been around for what 100 thousand years and why the hell did it only occur to us that recording our history in a lasting form is incredibly beneficial until very recently. IDK.....it puzzling. Would love to hear your thoughts

[@primitivematerial9078]

I think it has to do with the very beginning modes of life humans lived way back then, moving around so much being nomadic. It never occurred to them to record anything except onto stone, with tools that would take time to make and etch a record of....something. I believe only after our civilization became more agricultural and sedentary, did it become necessary to record stuff, most likely the first tablet of info recorded was some business transaction or table of goods from a farm, I'm sure . Just a thought.

[@TheMusicalStylingsofBrentBunn]

Before written language, many cultures relied on oral tradition to pass down knowledge and history from generation to generation. While it would have served communities at the time, it's not a durable means of preserving historical information, and so much of our past is hidden to us. Maybe humans have always been interested in recording history but simply didn't have the tools.

[@nathandrake-qz9yh]

the legend

[@johnanello4908]

Interested in your thoughts on Spengler.

[@marioscaramuzzino3649]

Michael, I’ve been listening to your audiobooks for awhile. Never a Student formally of this subject, but I’m a Christian more so lately and I’d love to hear it discussion about the parallels of Socrates the fetus and Jesus I guess your opinion on whether Jesus may have just been influencedby that, or is it just a natural gravitation towards that thinking when you’re speaking of moral benevolent

[@geshvadnasiri7626]

You will be missed Mr Surgrue.

[@restashore7146]

How do I sign up

[@robertkaplan2505]

Age of Understanding - by Robert Kaplan Sometimes I just sit here, wondering What’s to come? How will it unfold? Leaning not on my own understanding! God forbid that I may have learned something during my brief existence Haven’t we all? I stop to wonder Connection between us is close We breath the same air Feel the same feelings Living separate lives, but it is as though I know you Let us not distance ourselves any longer Let us not strive to be separate in every way Let us enter into the Age of Understanding This Age of Understanding I offer it to you as the world does I will go to sleep tonight and upon awakening I will see the signs From my first waking breath and drink of water Then to Silver Lake I will saunter Emblazing the image in my mind, not to forget The simple yet complex beauty given to all of us We’ve shared since the beginning Let’s enter into the Age of Understanding with caring & Like the beginning of time we again will be sharing

[@cncpackaginginc1503]

Are you going to cover Spengler? Decline of the West starts to address this in a cyclical way like seasons of nature across history

[@Ermanariks_til_Aujm]

It's an interesting point the evolutionary necessity of religion from the bronze age PPP, where winners bred out the losers thus spreading their winning genes, then leading to an artificial class ultimately revolting, and as a solution to tame the elite so this doesn't happen as hard. Where/who can I read about this?

[@dr.michaelsugrue]

In the book I'm writing.

[@suleymancetinkaya2755]

Anyone got the zoom records?

[@_PanchoVilla]

Why on zoom and not youtube live?

[@robertkaplan2505]

I agree. We were brought here by strong stock, and I choose to remain grateful to those who came before me. All walks. Thanks professor for your consistent inspiration.

[@jaymorris9526]

How can I join the next discussion? Is it open? Is there a schedule? I’m currently in a graduate program and we’re reading the Iliad, the oresteia, and the republic, amongst others.

[@hugo5918]

30:38 That's the funniest shit I've heard in a while

[@farthertogether8523]

Question at 36 minutes "we are a ----- species" sounds like "janisthes ". Thanks, Dr. Sugrue. No, you didn't go on too long!

[@clayton7463]

“Janus-faced”

[@farthertogether8523]

Thanks, Clayton. I'll relisten to get the meaning.

[@zqa12swx]

Janus, the god depicted with 2 faces

[@aliozsoy6482]

About your view that 99% of the world population owes their life to Western civilization or medicine or whatever... :-) That sentence reminded me of a hilarious comment an Islamist politician made once in my country Türkiye, 30 years ago. Erbakan (his name) claimed that Muslims could charge the whole Western world for the patent rights of the number 0. That way we could get trillions of dollars and even their underpants. Even as a child, I found that claim so funny and illogical. The picture of getting pants of blondish people in exchange for the usage of the number zero was stuck in my mind like a Tiny Toon scene. :-) Mr. Sugrue, I respect you very much and have learned a lot from your channel. But I have to say that your polemical logic on this topic, reminded me of that funny guy's claim about "Islamic" patent rights. Still, I want to thank a lot to you, that I and the whole 99% of us are all alive! :-)

[@williammixson2541]

I know you had said you felt your mind was like a sieve, but Professor, your exposition clearly shows otherwise.

[@MyRealName148]

This is Mr Travolta at his best.

[@ruilacerda7469]

note to self... PPP -> Pure Predator Parasitism

[@svalbard01]

22:22 "Think of it this way. Much of human history has been the externalizing of somatic processes." Our super power revealed so eloquently.

[@anthenehbeze.]

RIP😢😢😢

[@psychopathmedia]

13:22 "Tell me Ted K without saying Ted K"

[@marcustan7236]

This would be a great conversation for the Joe Rogan podcast

[@tbeau5380]

More on the age of Aquarius propaganda please.

[@briandzwoniarek8952]

Who keeps walking back and forth, making all that racket?

[@goofyahhh254]

Michael jackson

[@fortunatomartino8549]

Cancel culture replaces the Bronze spearhead

[@pearz420]

Am I better off than my grandparents? No, actually I am not. I am better educated, but I am not wealthier or more socially fulfilled. My maternal grandfather had a mistress; not many millennials can afford those - not that I want one! My paternal grandfather was able to come from another country with next to nothing and feed a family as a ditch-digger; there is no equivalent of any of that in my generation. My maternal grandmother never had a driver's license; good luck getting by without one of those today. You're virtually unemployable without a smartphone, and when you are employed, you are taxed to an absurd degree (a lot more than two drachma!) to support a bloated overclass of circus clown aristocrats. And in most places that I have lived, the water tastes disgusting unless filtered through carbon. The ledger is far from totalled. All due respect to Pinker and yourself, doctor. I am just answering your rhetorical question honestly like a good malcontent. There's an awful big difference between being grateful for one's life and being grateful for one's globalized mass production economy.

[@kevinrung4178]

Dr. S. , Thanks for having the presence of mind to come back and give back. You're an intellectual blessing to this community. BTW, I loved the interchange with your student who "asked about 10 different questions." Then he came out of the blue with a question about the Prophet Isaiah, asking if you knew his work. You're chortled response, "Yes, I've read the Bible." was classic. Ya know, very few people can get away with being snippy, wry, and serious at the same time. But, you, sir, can pull it off.

[@grubernitsch]

Boomers living in the best of all possible worlds and constructing their story around it.

[@dr.michaelsugrue]

Yeah, the life of my my grandparents generation who lived through the the global Spanish Flu epidemic, the Great Depression and the World Wars, compared to self pitying existence of the generation that invented the selfie and the sensitivity industry was truly a giant theme park.

[@WhostosayWhostoknow]

@@dr.michaelsugrue With all due respect, I'd rather die at the paws of a saber-toothed tiger than under a tank's treads. I think that society itself is the problem. Even between two people, each is half as engaged, unless one is exploiting the other. At a global scale, we have obesity and holocausts. I would have thought that the professor who lectured so poignantly on Goethe and Kierkegaard, to name two, wouldn't be so dismissive of the losses in passion and clarity since the Agricultural Revolution--postprandial ennui, postindustrial horror, postmodern neurosis--which denigrate our quality of life, although mathematically, we live longer. Your positivity strikes me as an editorial foregone conclusion.

[@grubernitsch]

@michaelsugrue Yes, sir, let's compare whose grandparents had it worse. Austrians my age have an entire generation (here it is not seen as the Greatest Generation as you can imagine) that was lured into a suicidal project (Nazism) and ended up being killed in the East, coming back impaired, some physically, all of them emotionally and the ones who stayed (women) talked even less (after 1945 it was a mix of salty and benevolent liberators, depending on your region and your luck). And that was 20 years after the catastrophe of WW1. What a wonderful history of modernity. This sounds far more bellicose than I mean it. Appreciate everything your doing Prof. Sugrue.

[@TLMS654]

While I agree Prof with the effects of scientific revolutions on culture I think there is a conceptual revolution that is important, to do with Christianity, specifically. For an Ancient Greek the world was eternal and events cyclical. I don’t believe, subject to correction, that they had a notion of the physical world created by their Gods. The impact of a Christian notion of world creation (God created the world and hence linear time) as well as scientific arguments to demonstrate the existence of God from observation of natural forces revolutionized western scientific thinking.

[@Soulseeologia]

Mike your philosophy is good and I’m glad your career was successful and you’re well paid, but how can you speak with authority on any human event 75,000 years ago when you know history is controlled by the priest caste?

[@orthostice]

What?

[@evanshirley6089]

It’s not history. It’s prehistory, far before the development of writing. Evidence for the volcanic eruption is found scientifically. This is the realm of science and archaeology and has nothing to do with the priestly caste.

[@DevouringFamine]

Yes this converges with my knowledge of archeology, wherein the archeologists make sure to speak with the priest caste to verify the age of the bones.

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

Are you actually suggesting that we can't confidently make any assertions about historical events before the rise of, say, secularism or the Enlightenment?

[@WilllyB]

Yes of course this backs up my findings on how the priest caste always makes the meteors land in craters…

[@ttacking_you]

What about the ancient figures, mostly men, who came up with the original mythic explanations of science and nature? Well, it goes without saying that they were stupid liars and egoist control freaks. And they're still out there lying to us . That's why this kind of lecture is important.

[@pearz420]

You are still lost in symbols, but you'll get there. I hope.

[@ttacking_you]

@@pearz420 so I'll get to be a condescending prick, too?! Cool!