I want to share a video of a ten-year-old Islamic boy. There is something about this child that stands in stark contrast to the children I tend to see in America. I don’t mean this as a judgement against our own children. But in watching the video, or in knowing something about the many indigenous American cultures, a deficit in the general American culture can be seen.
I think it’s good to notice the beautiful qualities of a people that we are intent on “bombing back to the stone age.” (I know the video is not about people from Iran. But this war is being sold to the US soldiers as a war against Islam).
And I think it’s healthy to recognize deficits in ourselves to balance out all the one-sided stories we hear in our own propaganda machines.
I’m providing a link to a tremendous video essay by Matthew Cooke — in fact, his entire channel is superb. And I’m going to add links to some other excellent channels at the bottom.
This video adds great informational and analytical heft to what I’ve been trying to say about nations and identity, and especially with regard to Israel.
Here is the foreword to the video provided by Mr. Cooke: “Does Israel have a right to exist? Does any nation state? The concept of nations, with standardized language, culture, identity is brand new — less than 250 years old. Einstein called nationalism a disease. The measles of mankind. Instead of providing human rights, protections, nationalism has locked the world into an escalation trap, at a time we need to cooperate more than ever.”
I would also like to recommend the following youtube channels:
Carefree Wandering: “Rambling without Destination. Hans-Georg Moeller is a professor at the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at the University of Macau, and, with Paul D’Ambrosio, author of “You and Your Profile: Identity After Authenticity”.
Barry’s Economics: “I’m Barry. I went bankrupt after 17 years as a comedian, spent five years, squatting, sometimes homeless, paralysed, then built Angel Comedy – one of London’s most popular and sucessful comedy clubs. The breakthrough? Unlearning the lie that my poverty was my fault. Now I use behavioural science and neuroscience to show you the invisible systems that keep people stuck: how poverty traps your psychology & why the current system needs you to blame yourself. This channel, inspired by Gary’s Economics [also excellent], is an ongoing investigation into how power really works. We’re figuring it out together.
Negative Geography 