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The California Weltgeist | PlasticPills | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The California Weltgeist
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Core Theme
The speaker outlines a new direction for their content in 2024, moving beyond traditional philosophical summaries to explore "ideas" as artistic and interpretive products, using California as a case study for the "end of the West" and the collapse of historical narratives.
hey check let's go off to the races all
right I don't want to bore you with a
bunch of uh
personal anecdotes and information um
December is often a a Dar in terms of
content because of holidays family Li
bations and things like that I'm also a
little bit sick but I wanted to present
something to you that I'm very excited
about that is
2024 for the plastic pills Channel or at
least the first couple months of it I am
very excited because I've done a lot of
prep I've read like six books in the
last two months and not just philosophy
books this is a little bit of a shift in
that I've read some history and some
literature and I want to use all this
together you know philosophy History
Literature fatal strategies to do
something a little bit more
productive something a little more
unexpected and a little bit more pushing
the medium I'll say so the F1 video I
Feel which publicly did not do very well
but that's how it goes I'm proud of it
the F1 video is close to the aesthetic
that I'm going for in that instead of
sitting there and explaining a book to
you or explaining my interpretation of a
book to you it paints an image of the
world it's more of a it's more
comparable I think to an artistic
product than a contribution to academic
discourse or something like
that and
unexpectedly Formula 1 is an object
produced sort of a for boing image or an
image that's a little bit darker and
more haunting than might be expected
when you just look at a sporting event like
like
that and
that's a thing I had planned for a long
time but it was a model for an idea that
I have and idea used in a specific sense
here CU I want to focus on the idea of
California as a place of
ends and an end of
realities the place where haggles go to
die so in trying to do something
different this is always risky um it's
never you never get the reception that
you want when you present some thing to
people that they don't expect or when
they expect something different so the
audience capture notion or the audience capture
capture
phenomenon for me has looked like if I
sit there and explain a book from a con or
or whomever
whomever
and and make a a 40-minute video about
it then this seems to do well people
watch it and if I don't do that if I try
to do something that requires
interpretation on the part of the viewer
then it doesn't do so well but that's
speaking publicly or the public
reception not necessarily your reception
as people who have bought in for $5 or
$8 so General thoughts about this is
this is a strategy of Education you
could call it but it's a strategy of
creation at least and a fatal strategy
for history and the biggest opposition
in my mind as I've said none of this is
new but the biggest opposition in my
mind to Theory being productive or even
creative or sometimes even fun is
academics and the
degree of course is paying the
university to fleece you in exchange for
a diploma or a
degree but what is the presupposition to
that setup and what is different here
you have an
instructor you you pay that person or
the university pays them and takes a
whole bunch off the top they have read
some books they make a syllabus of books
then you go somewhere to a classroom or
a seminar and interpret these
particular sources or you get them
interpreted for you and the creative or
the productive part is incidental you
can get through a University degree in
large part without learning anything as
long as you jump through the correct
Hoops the productive part is incidental
to the
process and I'd
think isn't the goal to produce models
or to articulate understandings of the
world around
you in a way that's not ultimately
measured by correctness but measured by
its effect on the way you see things so
this is why I'm thinking that the F1
video is a bit of a prototype for what I
want to say about
California cuz the hope at least for
myself as the Creator the hope is that
you never think about F1 the same way
once you once you watch that and then if
you ever happen to see it
again um and I don't want to say that
University is negative or bad in the
sense that I'm ignorant to it because
I've done as much a university as anyone
has done I still work there and maybe as
a student in a University you come away
from that better
informed um and unless you have a very
good instructor one who inspires you to
uh think independently and all that
there's no test as to
whether the world has
shifted from your perspective you know
you can and a lot of students do this
they want they they take the mandatory
courses they take the electives uh they
get through it
and the goal is not really to learn
anything it's rather to complete
projects now if you consider the
difference between an
academic environment and a another dead
industry like art now Art's dead for
different reasons but if you are like a
an art connoisseur in that you just
really love it you like looking at it
you like interpreting
it in the world of art there's so much
more onus and so much more uh
responsibility put on to you as the
viewer to get something from it and
whether or not you get something from it
that's completely up to you you could
sit there thinking about uh a creation
for 5 seconds and forget about it or you
can spend a long time considering it
thinking it let it let it become part of
your world
picture uh your world view and I would
you know who knows if this works that's
what I want to do with California where
the emphasis is on the idea and I'll get
into what that means a little bit but
where the emphasis is on the idea and
how that shifts your view of everything
else if I can do it right now this space
that we're in whether you want to
whether it's the educational corner
corner of YouTube or the educational
corner of of podcasting it basically
follows the academic model that says I'm
someone who has uh an interpretation
that is worthwhile and you should listen
to me and I've been whining about this
for a while that I that the presenter is
supposed to have knowledge and then
present it in a compelling way and you
watch it and pay me
$5 but with all the educational content
out there including mine
that still the model of a world view is
still incidental it's not really the
goal usually the goal is an argumentative
argumentative
thesis and I want to give you something
different I want to give you a world not an
an
argument and probably not a world but an
image of the world might be more correct
to say and what is it I've been asking
myself over and over again what is it it
that actually creates the image of a
world and to me that's not arguments
that's fictions fictions and myths as
we've been talking about for quite some
time um sometimes
philosophers do create fictions and this
is why I think Theory fiction is among
my favorite genres but a lot of the time
especially when it comes to
Enlightenment or
modernist philosophy uh philosophers
don't believe that they're creating
fictions they believe that they are
delivering a report on the world the
image is like what's in a
mirror but if I give you a world
picture say a hi to garym but he
criticized it I'm just going to use it
as a fatal strategy but you can either say
say
yes in your picture sure I I see that as
well I see that as a mirror of the world
or you can say [ __ ] off I I think you're
wrong about it but ultimately the
measure is not this strict sense of
correct interpretation which is a
hermeneutic approach to
knowledge and I think that art differs from
from
academics in that art doesn't doesn't
depend on the
hermeneutic it depends on a hermeneutic
but not the hermeneutic understanding of
knowledge the goal is more to
incorporate different
pieces um this is the ideal of art but
to incorporate different pieces which is
why I think I need to do some literature
and history and not just uh summarize
books and usually summarize them too
quickly and uh yeah which inevitably
means leaving things
out so I have to go through this setup in
in
stages depending on how today goes I'll
set up the first stage because the first
stage I think it's a it's a boiled down
reduction of what I've complained about
and also what bodard still
is um even Marx and Freud what they
complain about and that is rationality
broadly speaking oh N I should have I
should have mentioned n as well because
if philosophers in the traditional sense
and largely academic philosophy
continues in this track to this day but
if philosophers have agree agreed on one
thing that's that philosophy is a
creature of the
idea and the anti
philosophers this is an alen Badu's
sense of anti-philosophy and
anti-philosophy again let me reiterate
it's not something negative it's
something that pushes philosophy to
better articulate itself for bad you I
think that's right I think that's
basically right um but to embrace anti
philosophy uh
psychoanalysis mea marks
semiotics these are to say that the idea is
is
suspect um the commitment to the idea is
suspect and that the idea doesn't
contain the presence or Purity that it
supposes it does and I think this is
right just on a basic level but also more
more
importantly um it's not
not
ideas that really shape most of life it
should it certainly shaped Apes
academics and that's a very narrow sense
that in a in a certain way gets split
off from the concerns of reality which
in a very cynical mode is that
philosophy is for
for
self-help um and that's not a cynicism
that I'm yet committed to but I'm kind
of drifting in that way so the first
thing to establish here would be um two
philosophical terms
and those terms are idea and
concept now this came to mind in that um
two books from the early 90s about the
purpose of philosophy in a time when
philosophy has a certain identity crisis
is uh Badu
andz Badu's Manifesto for philosophy and
delz is with qari what is philosophy and
they kind of split
on the the two terms here uh Badu says
the philosophy is about the idea and
Fidelity to the
idea and delz and gari say that it is
about the creation of
Concepts so I recalled that this is a a
distinction I I don't know if it's first
made by dayart or first made by K kant's
the most explicit about it in saying
what an idea versus a concept is but day
is always on about like if we have an
our ideas need to be clear and
distinct um and I don't know we're going
to have to relook at this and revisit it
I think probably on the podcast but I
don't know if D if d uh dayart excuse me
too many D's if dayart says what a
concept is but he says what an idea is
Con the con the one who distinguishes
one from the other so the
concept is
the the the
truth that unifies particulars so you
can have a concept of a tree which is
sort of a a a mental image I don't know
if he would use the term mental image
but we have to separate here concept and
idea from the way that it's used
colloquially which just means you know
something in your head but the concept
is the universal of partic so you can
have a concept of a tree or you can have
a concept of of
democracy and this would include what
every so-called democracy is you know
going for a little bit and they adhere
to the concept which is not to be
confused with the idea of democracy and
idea I was trying to think of how to
explain this I think it's better to Ian
I mean idea is the philosophical term
for it but in our common parant it's
closer to what we mean by ideal ideal is
the thing
that it exists in Utopia it doesn't
exist anywhere specific but our attempts
to articulate and understand it are all
reaching for the idea and never actually
getting there so there's a few examples uh
uh
freedom is an idea
and you know through
time uh as Hegel would put it we are
closer and closer to approximating a
good idea of freedom as opposed to a bad
idea of freedom but the main
ideas um go back to platonic
philosophies the true the good and the
Beautiful now we never see right we
never get an instance of the good the
true and the Beautiful they exist in the
minds of God in the mind of God they
don't exist in
time um but they
guide motion and kind of pull it towards
itself uh they are never instantiated
but only approximated whereas the concept
concept
is the truth that unifies all pars so
they're related but they're not exactly
the same thing the the idea implies
it
and the first thing that I want to
address when it comes to California is
the idea
of the
West and
history as something that is
intelligible because if there is
something that almost all
philosophers have agreed upon up to at
least the the 20 20th century and then
it gets broken down by the masters of
Suspicion uh Freud n
Marx uh to varying degrees but the idea
that history is an intelligible process
that is that it is a knowable process
that follows certain patterns it is
conditioned if you know certain
conditions then you can predict certain
outcomes there's a notion here of cause
and effect and the idea of History has
been and still is
is
a I don't want to call it a a a myth in
the sense that it's negative but it's myth
myth
mythological in the sense that it's been
adhered to by most people who think
about this kind of thing you know political
political theorists
theorists
um and uh people who discuss the purpose
of democracy people who discuss the
purpose of of discourse progress the
entire notion of progress is the idea of
history and just to you know tie this up
into what we are currently experiencing
generally in the
world this it's it seems to me that
despite the fact that it's a latent
understanding that almost everybody has
unless you're doing exactly this kind of
philosophy but no one really wants to
give up on the idea of history that is
that it's an intelligible
intelligible
knowable process that it
has like I said an end to it um even
though that end is utopian the end is never
never
reached so when I'm speaking of the idea
of California it's to be separated
from what whatever California actually
is um and I'm going to get into why I've
why I've chosen this as the idea but it
has specifically to do with the West
because we got two concepts of the end of
of
History um these are going to come up if
not today then soon but the Francis
fukiyama who's usually used as a
punching B this book is not as bad as it
seems and I think this might be our next
podcast episode or or one soon is to
actually relook at Francis fukiyama as
uh the end of history and the last man
because I read it like probably 10 years
ago and I don't remember it being
as glib and as uh naive as most people
say when they name drop the book
including myself I name drop it and go
oh yeah the Soviet Union has collapsed
now all we have to do is clean up all
the pieces and we're going to get happy
liberal democracies everywhere which
seems really naive I think I remember
the book being a little bit better than
that but we're going to get into that
version of the end of history as compared
compared
to what I've been talking about for
months and that's Bard's idea of ends
because Bard's idea of ends is that metaphysics
metaphysics
is an
illusion but it can be a true illusion
you can have
a you can be correct about reality when
speaking of beginnings and
ends um as a
strategy even if we don't believe in the
hegelian idea of History it's still one
of the most useful and pervasive ideas
out there and if you want to understand
just what people mean when or what I
mean when I say that PE everyone
believes in it um you just turn on any
any lib news broadcast uh this is not
specific to any political spectrum
because I think almost everyone believes
that history is an intelligible
process uh it's not arbitrary it's not
random if you had
which you can't have but if you had
total knowledge of it you could predict
pretty accurately what will
happen now the
Contra position or the counterposition
to that I I've mentioned it and a lot of
you guys are really excited about it I
could tell from the from the comments
is uh
batai because batai doesn't specifically
talk about the idea of history as being non-
intelligible but for batai
batai
the the the social Human Action cannot
be explained by rationality it needs to
be explained by irrationality and ritual
and destruction and not simply
production so this this almost feels
overwhelming to me already
but if you've read um or heard of he's
referenced quite often U Marcel Mouse
who studied um
indigenous cultures of and their
cultures of exchange their rituals of
exchange uh he and batai I think batai
red mouse but they're close on this uh
notion that the human exchanges and
especially value human values are not
are not merely productive they're also
destructive and they're not merely
rational because if we took the
enlightenment philosophy of History the
biggest thing that they they
articulate that they never give up on
and never even question it seems is the
rationality of human Affairs and human
business and then the irrational is this
oppositional force not a productive
force all the way back to Plato where
he's saying we have these different
forms of government um tyranny yikes
democracy yikes we want this benevolent
uh philosophy dictatorship so I I'm I
feel like I'm going a little bit too
fast here
but mous uh batai
n when they
are trying to bring the irrationality of
human value Human Society politics and
history to the
four it is this uh
anti anti- idea of history or to say
that you can look you can look
underneath for the ideal that is guiding
all this process but then you have to
ignore most of what actually happens and
you can see why
bodard picks up on these these people
and why delz picks up on these people so
there's a a camaraderie at least on that
point perhaps the bottleneck or the most important
important
articulation of the non rationality or the
too profoundly into the
actual empirical interactions of things
shows a lot more irrationality than it
does rationality the rationality aspect
of it is added after the fact
because I'm not exactly sure why I don't
know it's more comfortable to live in a
in a very rational universe and a
universe with a prog progression or at
least a direction of progress that we
can measure
when we are backsliding or measure when
we are advancing this is a lot more
comfortable but if you would mix up not
just uh Mouse batai n who bring in this
irrationality into it also
psychoanalysis uh Freud Freud is not
concerned with history but at least the the
the
subject and the humans
that supposedly make up Society if
there's this well
of of irrationality the ID and this
chaotic nonrational impetus that guides
most of what humans do despite the fact
that after in the last instance they
look back and say no I had reasons for
all of what I did in the same way we
look back at society and say no there
were reasons why everything happened the
way it did um if irrationality is more
productive than rationality and if it's
more the rule of the day then saying
something like well the Soviet Union was
destined to collapse
because because it was competing with
liberal democracy liberal democracy is
now the only game in
town um and all we're going to see for
the rest of history is not true events
not true deviations but just you know
cleaning up the pieces we have to get
liberal democracy everywhere and the
political project will then be done
again I think that's a little bit of a
too simplified version of the
fukiyama Allan Bloom Strauss version of
Hegel but we're going to we're going to
come and revisit that and and see what's
up and the reason why n is particularly
important and the notion of the death of
God and the transvaluation of values and
Beyond Good and Evil the reason that
this is important to the idea of history
or rather fatal to the idea of
history is that
the in the west which is a notion that
I'm going to bring up soon again but the
West in so far as it has been Guided by
an a god a god that is the source of
intelligibility in history um once that
God dies then your your
foundation your belief or your ability
to believe in these this direction this
progress this Grand project of what
history is and what where it's going
that also disappears and I this is one
of again the most prolific myths I can
think of it's not particular to to
Christianity but also many modern
philosophies um Marxism you could you
could lump in there too or at least
early Marxism human humanist Marxism as
opposed to you know uh
Capital so that is one version of the
end um the end is that we're done the
project is done let's go clean up all
the little dirty spots and then we'll
have uh Happy liberal democracy
everywhere but Bard's concept of the
end is we're expecting these these Cuts final
final
ends and this is not this is not how
things happen you can only see them in
hindsight you can only see after they've
disappeared that at some point they
disappeared cuz I have an idea of
California as also an end an end that's
already ended so with bodard as I've
explained before um Trump might
be a signal not the Cause right but the
signal of an end of politics War Hall
might be a signal of the end of Art um
crypto this this Crypt boom might be a
signal of the end of value the sexual
Revolution might be a signal of the end
of sexual difference and all of these
things I've explained
before and then I yeah so I'm getting to
what is what is California signal as an
end the idea of California not not not real
real
California because I got questions about
ends and this is metaphysics and where I
think metaphysics actually becomes
interesting because I don't have all
that much use for the other philosophy
terms like epistemology or onology or
whatever philosophy word you want to
dump in there I don't know what those
things mean these days but I do think
metaphysics has a
game and that is the science of
causality which is how Aristotle defined
it and he invented the term so I'm I'm
partial to believing
it so the question of the end now
this I would hope it is a little bit of
self-help admittedly because it's
supposed to explain why Everything feels
confusing um because the end has already
happened and where mid of physics
actually becomes interesting and Theory
becomes worthwhile for me is actually
just solving The Vibes crisis cuz to say
that the end has already happened means
that your questions of strategy whatever
those strategies are like for academics
for example the strategy
is correct opinion as opposed to wrong opinion
opinion
DOA we we want correct opinions we want
to confirm our correct
opinions um and whatever consuming the
correct cont content whatever else that
means uh writing writing papers but the
change doesn't come from rooting out
hypocrisy it comes
from contradictions themselves I think
you could
say um so the question of the end
implies a notion of
causation which
is bunch of stuff happened and then that
process ended
so California if there was an
end if we are after the end which end
was it and when did it happen and this
is specifically the end of the idea of
History the idea of California as the
end of the idea of unintelligible
unintelligible
history this is nothing geographically
known as California cuz that's far too
complex an object to theorize about
um but the idea of California especially
consider
intellectuals uh reactionaries but not
just reactionaries how preoccupied they
are and how married they are to the
concept of the West the Western World Western
Western
culture it's been in danger it's been
collapsing for a hundred years
supposedly it's always under threat um
but the West is a a great example of the
idea in this philosophical sense the
ideal um because it's supposed to be
something that's you know the best the
West is the best conservatives say this
outright and pretty much everyone else
uh at some level I think assumes
it so the West just like California is
not at looks like a geographical entity
but the idea of the West first of all to
believe in the west you have to believe
in the intelligibility of History um
that history is propelled
forward mainly by ideas so in a certain
sense there's an always idealist layer
to believing in the west but it's kind
of a
peacee Nostalgia that uh you know people
people like Ben Shapiro will just drop
but you
know not just Ben Shapiro um there's
like heyes of of of conservatives and
specifically Catholic conservatives
might be the best example but you know
we're entering a new dark age
because there are kids on iPads who
don't read the great books anymore and
there's just too many
genders and
and something that's
true about the West is that the West is
that which always believed in itself as
civilization civilization qua
civilization that has a world project
now we don't have to go into all the
negative aspects of that like um or the
you know colonialism for example we can
we can Massacre these people cuz they
don't of civilization that's like the
dark side of the western
idea um but the other version is you
know Jerusalem and Athens is Leo
strauss's ra re
rationalization his rationalization of
why the West is the best because
Jerusalem and Athens Jerusalem meaning
meaning
judeo-christianity uh gives us sense of
transcendence and Athens gives this
sense of Greek
produces uh the articulation from Plato
to Nato that's one of the other common
versions of the West is Plato started it
um and then we get NATO which is the
liberal version of the idea of history
that defeated the Soviet Union
on and this is a nice picture right um
you learn about it
in philosophy 101 or political Theory
101 it's a nice picture you got
Jerusalem as this source of Revelation
and Transcendence and
then um Athens as a source of reason and
these things are like Christianity
continues to try to syncretize
them but the tension or the antagonism
between reason on one hand and
Revelation on the other like Revelation
is not beholden to reason it comes from
outside our ability to reason and you
can see this through Enlightenment
philosophy especially it's like if you
have the if you have the idea of God
there's no way you could have produced
that by yourself so God must have given
you the idea of God or Infinity or
eternity or whatever um but the non-west
this is where this
gets politically carried out the
non-west so the Orient or Africa or
indigenous North Americans they just run
on sources of Revelation presumably they
don't have a correction from reason
because they believe
in uh pantheistic religion or mythology
or something like that they don't have
reason as the antagonism which is why
the West has a right has the historical
justification for Conquering the world
now if you have any sense of of material
history that's just not how it happened
it wasn't ideas are not in the gas in
the tank of the West
it's quite a bit more complicated than
that and I think personally the better
explanation of that is uh
material but for straussians at least
the tension is expressed in the
character of Socrates because Socrates
is accused of corrupting the Youth of
being an
atheist and so his reason comes into
conflict with the city and they have to
kill him so this is the the basis for
philosophical history the West
as the freedom to question tradition and
the freedom to question received opinion
Plato calls it
doca and question authority and thus
progress now for the rest of the world
they weren't free to question tradition
they weren't free to question authority
and that's why the West is the best and
the West has the or the West is the most productive
from where I'm sitting if you're going
to have a a Ser a theory of society then
the material conditions are not ex
accidental to the ideas but that's just
me and the reason that this is worth
discussing is um I'm going to have to
bring this up later but if I'm right
everyone still believes in this
idealism and it's not like materialism
is the simple answer to idealism because
materialism is then just non ideal but
this if the standard of measuring these
two things has disappeared that means we
need a different understanding of
causality and I think this is what you
see in the 20th century with thinkers
like Del and gari they're not going for
this we have ideal or systems theory we
have ideal processes and we have material
material
processes and they are measured
differently one's correct one's
incorrect but rather to say that all
processes including those of ideas are
systematic that there is a General
application that doesn't require you to
bifurcate the world into two separate
parts the ideas of the world and then
you know the Practical material effects
of the world but rather to say that
ideas rather than just being material
effects um follow a similar pattern or
similar process of growth of development
of trickle down you could say as as
other processes even physical not to say
just material but even physical
romes so I'm not I'm not denying
idealism in this case although I am
being ironic about it by speaking of the
idea of California because the idea of
California is in my view productive and
it's the most
West the most west of the West which is
supposed to include you know Western
Europe and everywhere that reason has
touched um it finds its completion and
then annihilation in California so
ironically I'm still an idealist though
not actually an idealist so the
dialectic if it
results I'm just going to say it instead
of if no
conditional the idea of California is
the result of the
dialectic and California is then the
mirror of the West and specifically the
mirror of the West's disappearance so
last time I brought up the mirror of
disappearance here we are finally
reaching the beginning of what I'm super
excited about I hope it's apparent
because in a mirror what you see is the
the reflection of what's behind you and
you can't see anything that's ahead of
you um in the metaphysical sense too the
mirror is the end they're opaque they're
not transparent you can see backwards
and mirrors show
show
appearances appearances as the long time
enemy of philosophy since
Plato uh the mirror is a simulation it
it has the image of things without any
of the other qualia of
things so California in my estimation
shows this disappearance of the West it
shows that the tension between Jerusalem and
and
Athens were things that you lost but you
place so this is all delightfully
abstract isn't it um I read several
books about
California like it covering its its
history but what I found as the most interesting
interesting
articulation is in writers uh F
fictional fiction writers like Joan
didan for example um Thomas pinin bards
bards
California and the first time I started
thinking about this was with Barbie and
Malibu Barbie cuz California is marked
as a
territory but mythologically and it's
wrapped up with fantasy you don't have
to look very far to confirm this but
fantasy in terms of it's the it's
Hollywood it's
where um all of our dreams
images at least if you speak English
where virtually all of your dreams are
produced and Hollywood is very
reflective about this process as well as
the land of
dreams I talked about this once in terms
of uh the film A Star is Born which I
think is like came out in 1932 so very very
very
quickly it was realized that California
is this land of dreams if you're working
as a server and some Midwestern town you
can go to California become a movie
star um and not just that California is
so fascinating in terms of like there
there's an oil rush in California
featured in the film There Will Be Blood
there's a gold rush in California it's
sort of the first
getrich quick
scheme um the first
suburb maybe not the first sub the first
cookie cutter suburb where all the
buildings look the same something that
America has exported to the rest of the world
world
including the non-west Chinese suburbs
look the same as American but the first
suburb was built in 1950s
1950s
1950s in uh California and the list just
goes on forever you know um
McDonald's was created in California the
the great symbol
consumerism and the West as this Frontier
Frontier
project in that America completes Europe
this is this is something I'm going to
go into in more depth
so uh it's just something that what
bodard says in uh the book America that
America completes the idea of Europe
and that California completes the idea
of America and Disneyland completes the
idea of
California but it's reflective in the
sense that it is a
mirror of the West and all the West's
ideas just for an example Freedom would
be the most specific one we have we have
someone like
um French revolutionaries or or Hegel
speaking of the idea of freedom and the
idea of freedom as opposed to uh like a
good infinity and a bad infinity and the
idea of freedom as it's realized and it
unites the
individual with the collective and you
get a more complete version of Freedom
California is all about Freedom that's
like directly tied to its idea you can
go here you can seek your fortune you
can become who you want you can become a movie
movie
anymore uh I I think it's I think it
shows that the idea of the West to
collapses with this idea but freedom is
example another example might be to
speak of the simulation of politics that
is signaled by Trump that is politics
without politics politics with pure
image is the fact that the movie star
politicians you know
Reagan and uh
Schwarzenegger this starts in in
California too and it's not just that uh
the simulation of identity
identity [Music]
[Music]
is this is I mean don't hold me to this
but it's a mind map of what I'm talking
about um and based on you know a lot of
the readings I've done
so can you see my yes you can see my
cursor here so California simulates all
of these aspects of the West like we can
start up here the
counterculture one of the like since the
since the Bourgeois Revolution against the
the
aristocracy signified most by the uh
French revolution revolution is an
idea in
California Revolution occurs on only
aesthetic grounds which is to say as a
simulation in counter culture so it's
Revolution without
Revolution um Cults Cults are like
religion without history you can just
you know basically make up whatever you
want but um there's B there's hardly a
cult that you can name that didn't start
it in California at least since the the 20th
20th century
century
um The Cult of the self The Cult of
self-improvement you can look at uh
evangelicalism which started in in in
California which is like Christianity without
without
history um not to mention the the Manson
Cults and all
this I put it somewhere else where's oh
Coachella and burningman these these H
like not even to criticize but they have
this sort of I put them in between Cults
and the desert because the desert is
important to California as this virginal
pure space the desert of the real as
bodard says so it's virginal unmarked
non-sign signified you drive through it
you put the top down on your convertible
and you're
free um or in the film Easy Rider you
get on your motorcycle you drive through
the desert you're
free but there's hardly a
cult that didn't start in California um
Scientology you know uh Gwyneth PT's
weird stuff the goop
crystals uh portals new agism this is
all like inextricably tied to California
and there's good reason for that right
because California as the limit of the
frontier is the place where you can go
to achieve ideas on their own grounds
the idea of Freedom which is reduced
from anything like what Hegel thought
now it's just reduced to um a very
limited sense of individual liberty you
know I can do what I want uh I can go
get rich I can be free to be myself and the
the
identity cult that
is I I think epitomized by the Oprah
network the self-help Oprah network
which might be I'm not sure but it might
be the death of philosophy with cuz she
she started like Dr Phil she started
uh I'm going to have to pull up my
sources but you know everything that we
believe in terms of selft talk this is
all California language
language
um Los Angeles is huge there's a very
very good book I read called uh
sorry my mind's a little bit slow uh
city of
quartz and this this aesthetic of Noir
and sunshine you know the Hollywood noir
films that show California at night
versus the sunshine happy California at
the day we got Hollywood over here which
is considered the Dream Factory and the
source of celebrity where all the
celebrities go reality
TV um
is is 90210 reality TV whatever you know
you know the shows I'm talking about uh
selling Sunset that's a an example
example um
um
porn the San Fernando Valley where I'm I
I don't know if it's still true but I
think like almost all the porn was was
made there at a time um for people who
failed to become one sort of
they can they can opt for another kind
of celebrity and here's where I'm kind
of looking in terms of metaphysics which
is the California is the sign of the end
because lately the images that come out
of California as a not just the
Hollywood images but the news images
are are natural disasters which are you
know human caused ultimately massive
wildfires um there's not enough water in
California this is a huge part of the
history of California is that they had
to get water from from up North and have these
these massive
massive
um massive infrastructure projects just
to make like the Los Angeles area
inhabitable um but the frontier this
this has a a double symbol of the end
first of all it's like the furthest west
you can go before you're you know back
in the
East or the the Orient as opposed to the
ocient but as the end of the
frontier there's also this notion that
the natural disasters are going to
destroy California because it's built on
uh the fault the San San Andreas fault I
think where we don't know when it's
going to happen but it's just going to
destroy everything apparently so that's
the fate of California and even despite
the fact that it is the fade of
California I think it's a beautiful
picture of California as the
end um what else do we got here
here
Disneyland the Revenge of
images crypto Rush gold rush and then
got to get rid of my face here Silicon
Valley which um the history of Silicon
Valley is also fascinating because it's
part and parcel tied
to the military industrial
complex because uh Silicon Valley
was basically an outgrowth of uh
Stanford University and just a ton of of military
military
funding um hulet Packard I think
halberton was one of the early companies
to start in Silicon Valley and they
start like it got it's called Silicon
Valley because they're building
uh transistors and and and microchips
there but I don't need to I don't even
need to mention this to say
that every so much of what everyone in
the world experiences and so far as they
use anything Google or or Facebook or or
whichever the internet so much of our
experience is produced there no matter
where you live so in a sense if I have
this right this picture of California
especially via Hollywood and Via Silicon
Valley and media
companies that is in large part the
world now there is a little bit of push
back there in terms of uh there's two
cities in America New York and and Los
Angeles but what I find interesting is
that the the New York as simulation New
York as a speculative simulation of the
entire American economy
through uh Wall Street or through the
major news networks and major newspapers
it does simulate all of America but it does
does
so behind the scenes it does so with
math in a way that's what a little bit
too complicated to understand or people
don't find it very interesting so all of
the interesting images of America and
thus the world come out
of come out of the other city in America
which is
Hollywood um and bodard on this
point says that the end of history is
not enough we also or once we reach the
end which I still have to do in a future
explanation um once I reread Francis
fukiyama but the end is not enough it
also has to rewrite or
annihilate history that produced it the
history that produced it it has to
annihilate um causation itself and you
can see this through all the movies that
Hollywood makes not just about it self
but there are are
thousands um one of one of Hollywood's
favorite topics is itself like uh La La
Land once upon a time in
Babylon uh the Barbie movie malland
drive so Hollywood is forever making
movies about itself um and and Los
Angeles uh one of the one of the great
ones is Chinatown uh that's besides the point I
Chinatown uh that's besides the point I want to look at I want to be able to
want to look at I want to be able to look at all that stuff but also
look at all that stuff but also rewriting history like the history of
rewriting history like the history of the Vietnam war is made in Hollywood
the Vietnam war is made in Hollywood which is you know we didn't really lose
which is you know we didn't really lose that one um and not just the Vietnam War
that one um and not just the Vietnam War but uh World War II is created in
but uh World War II is created in Hollywood the the epics of Hollywood's
Hollywood the the epics of Hollywood's golden age uh like
golden age uh like Cleopatra and recently
Cleopatra and recently Napoleon and uh whatever Kingdom of
Napoleon and uh whatever Kingdom of Heaven the history of the of Rome is
Heaven the history of the of Rome is made in California and this got me to
made in California and this got me to think because Philip K dick wrote in uh
think because Philip K dick wrote in uh he lived in California I think most of
he lived in California I think most of his
his life but he writes of uh late Philip K
life but he writes of uh late Philip K dick once he's going a little bit insane
dick once he's going a little bit insane this is why I got to rely on fiction a
this is why I got to rely on fiction a little bit says this this pink light
little bit says this this pink light which is in his
which is in his Gnostic World Vision the pink light is
Gnostic World Vision the pink light is the truth of Sophia I'm not sure if he
the truth of Sophia I'm not sure if he calls it Sophia but that's the Gnostic
calls it Sophia but that's the Gnostic you know goddess of wisdom um behind the
you know goddess of wisdom um behind the iron cage of reality but he the pink
iron cage of reality but he the pink light reveals to him that the Roman
light reveals to him that the Roman Empire is imposed upon the California
Empire is imposed upon the California that he sees around
that he sees around him um and the this is where we get the
him um and the this is where we get the quotation popular quotation that the the
quotation popular quotation that the the Roman Empire never
Roman Empire never ended um Thomas
ended um Thomas Pinchin wrote three books about
Pinchin wrote three books about California Vinland is the one I was
California Vinland is the one I was looking at and talks about California is
looking at and talks about California is this like shallow ground that's covered
this like shallow ground that's covered in hieroglyphs and who knows if we
in hieroglyphs and who knows if we understand so I want to bring these
understand so I want to bring these histories and these
histories and these interpretations of
interpretations of the way that California interprets
the way that California interprets itself through the TV and and uh film
itself through the TV and and uh film Industries and then the most most recent
Industries and then the most most recent development of combining the cult aspect
development of combining the cult aspect of California which is religion without
of California which is religion without history with the Silicon Valley is all
history with the Silicon Valley is all this
this futurism the futurism of these guys who
futurism the futurism of these guys who want to live forever and I think it's
want to live forever and I think it's called a effective accelerationism or or
called a effective accelerationism or or whatever it's called
whatever it's called now this
now this totality it seems like you know there's
totality it seems like you know there's what else where else in the world is
what else where else in the world is producing anything when almost
producing anything when almost everything that I experience I guess I'm
everything that I experience I guess I'm a particularly online person but even if
a particularly online person but even if you live in a suburb in in in Canada the
you live in a suburb in in in Canada the model of this is the Lakewood suburb
model of this is the Lakewood suburb which was built first in in California
which was built first in in California so the IDE idea
so the IDE idea of the West as it's come to be is not
of the West as it's come to be is not this result
this result of um
of um intentional planning you could say or
intentional planning you could say or the development of an idea
the development of an idea it's produced in this
it's produced in this fertile uh
fertile uh virginal desert of
virginal desert of California where the city one of the
California where the city one of the biggest cities of the world Los Angeles
biggest cities of the world Los Angeles is in conflict with the desert it rises
is in conflict with the desert it rises almost from the desert as a fantasy of
almost from the desert as a fantasy of itself and of course we got bodard says
itself and of course we got bodard says uh Disneyland is America America is
uh Disneyland is America America is Disneyland because it's fantastic it's a
Disneyland because it's fantastic it's a fantastic representation of itself to
fantastic representation of itself to make it seem like the rest of America
make it seem like the rest of America and by extension the rest of the West
and by extension the rest of the West that's a real place
that's a real place it's only Disney that is the illusion
it's only Disney that is the illusion and the rest of the world is true but if
and the rest of the world is true but if we look at this as the mirror of
we look at this as the mirror of disappearance it shows the
disappearance it shows the illusory nature of all of this stuff the
illusory nature of all of this stuff the cult The Cult of the future and every
cult The Cult of the future and every other cult that you can imagine
other cult that you can imagine self-improvement all of these
self-improvement all of these mythologies The Cult of the automobile
mythologies The Cult of the automobile is another one that we mentioned on the
is another one that we mentioned on the podcast um so it seems to me that it's
podcast um so it seems to me that it's not uh if if we want to accept Jerusalem
not uh if if we want to accept Jerusalem and Athens as the cause then the product
and Athens as the cause then the product is
is California
California and also to be able to
and also to be able to identify an
ideological structure like this the idea has has to be
has has to be ended right which means that we no
ended right which means that we no longer really believe in the idea of
longer really believe in the idea of California anymore and I think that's a
California anymore and I think that's a source of confusion it's a source of
source of confusion it's a source of Despair because like I said not
Despair because like I said not believing in California means you don't
believing in California means you don't believe in America anymore you don't
believe in America anymore you don't believe in the progress the American
believe in the progress the American dream the necessity of americanism to
dream the necessity of americanism to spread everywhere on the Earth which it
spread everywhere on the Earth which it has but if it's if if the center is dead
has but if it's if if the center is dead then it explains at least
then it explains at least partially in my in my image
partially in my in my image constellation it explains a global
constellation it explains a global malaise if it's true that the idea of
malaise if it's true that the idea of California has
collapsed so I'm excited to get your feedback or your thoughts on this
feedback or your thoughts on this because this is really open-ended it is
because this is really open-ended it is a picture
a picture but what I what I think is perhaps
but what I what I think is perhaps counterintuitive is that like this
counterintuitive is that like this history is in a
history is in a sense over this is kind of It kind of
sense over this is kind of It kind of describes 20th century
describes 20th century history um and that is to say that it
history um and that is to say that it has been successful in annihilating
has been successful in annihilating history if this
history if this is I I was going to say thesis if this
is I I was going to say thesis if this thesis is correct it's not a thesis it's
thesis is correct it's not a thesis it's a composition it's putting pieces next
a composition it's putting pieces next to each other and then seeing what
to each other and then seeing what happens however I think the California
happens however I think the California Dream the American dream it didn't
Dream the American dream it didn't collapse recently it collapsed a while
collapse recently it collapsed a while ago um which doesn't mean that nothing
ago um which doesn't mean that nothing happens in California anymore obviously
happens in California anymore obviously it does still still pumping out the same
it does still still pumping out the same movies
movies um pumping out the same California
um pumping out the same California ideology still where Silicon Valley
ideology still where Silicon Valley is but I think there's
is but I think there's a there's a
a there's a decentering that's taking
decentering that's taking place in the sense that because of the
place in the sense that because of the media that is produced in California um
media that is produced in California um the mediation of reality and because
the mediation of reality and because it's internet based the
it's internet based the center that California used to figure as
center that California used to figure as like a place that you go to you don't
like a place that you go to you don't need to go anywhere anymore because the
need to go anywhere anymore because the center has collapsed California is not
center has collapsed California is not the center of this kind of capitalism
the center of this kind of capitalism anymore because that kind of capitalism
anymore because that kind of capitalism is global so in that sense I'm looking
is global so in that sense I'm looking at a dead object and trying to do an
at a dead object and trying to do an autopsy on a dead object uh the idea of
autopsy on a dead object uh the idea of California and I
think what has replaced it is something like this F1 circuit
like this F1 circuit capitalism where there is no censor to
capitalism where there is no censor to capitalism it's just there are centers
capitalism it's just there are centers it's kind of uh broken up and it's in to
it's kind of uh broken up and it's in to be found in tax Havens you know like uh
be found in tax Havens you know like uh Facebook moved their headquarters to to
Facebook moved their headquarters to to Ireland for example
Ireland for example and you can talk about the tax Havens
and you can talk about the tax Havens like Monaco and and Singapore and the
like Monaco and and Singapore and the Emirates the emirat states that there's
Emirates the emirat states that there's something else that is replacing this I
something else that is replacing this I know Yannis verus has said something
know Yannis verus has said something like uh it's a new techn feudalism and
like uh it's a new techn feudalism and that might be
that might be true um I don't want to take a Hardline
true um I don't want to take a Hardline stance on that because I haven't really
stance on that because I haven't really thought about it but at least with when
thought about it but at least with when it comes to California California is the
it comes to California California is the end of
end of Enlightenment
liberalism um and it's not over but real events have stopped happening
events have stopped happening there and everyone in a sense is just
there and everyone in a sense is just waiting for the giant earthquake to come
waiting for the giant earthquake to come and knock down knock down the whole
and knock down knock down the whole thing or a forest fire to come and burn
thing or a forest fire to come and burn up the whole thing or the water water to
up the whole thing or the water water to dry up it's like they were waiting for
dry up it's like they were waiting for the end but in a bardian plastic Pilan
the end but in a bardian plastic Pilan uh sense of
uh sense of simulation real
simulation real events won't happen there anymore it'll
events won't happen there anymore it'll just be the reproduction of historical
just be the reproduction of historical events in order to annihilate the causal
events in order to annihilate the causal history that led
history that led to California being the final frontier
to California being the final frontier which it kind of was literally um the
which it kind of was literally um the the West the westest
the West the westest of the West and not just in a physical
of the West and not just in a physical or a GE geographical sense but it's the
or a GE geographical sense but it's the most West in that everything else that
most West in that everything else that was believed
was believed about um ideas and freedom and the good
about um ideas and freedom and the good and the Beautiful I can't believe I
and the Beautiful I can't believe I didn't mention that but you know the the
didn't mention that but you know the the idea of beauty as being reproduced
idea of beauty as being reproduced through especially film
through especially film Media or in the idea of of the Sublime
Media or in the idea of of the Sublime Beauty
Beauty of national parks and Yos and all this
of national parks and Yos and all this stuff it all kind of takes place it
stuff it all kind of takes place it coalesces
coalesces there and I think it's fascinating that
there and I think it's fascinating that there's so much uh you know new age
there's so much uh you know new age ritualism that arrives there because it
ritualism that arrives there because it kind of shows that
kind of shows that this this destiny the destiny of
this this destiny the destiny of rationality the Destiny of history or
rationality the Destiny of history or the Fatal the fatality of history as
the Fatal the fatality of history as this rational uh human centered
this rational uh human centered productive process of society
productive process of society produces this which is just irrational
produces this which is just irrational Insanity ultimately right um it's like
Insanity ultimately right um it's like the the accursed
the the accursed share where all the ideas are are
share where all the ideas are are liquidated and you kind of see what's
liquidated and you kind of see what's really under the surface and what you
really under the surface and what you see under the surface is that all of
see under the surface is that all of that stuff was a kind of a sham it
that stuff was a kind of a sham it didn't really exist the West didn't
didn't really exist the West didn't really exist despite the fact that it
really exist despite the fact that it always thought it did so in that sense
always thought it did so in that sense we come back to my idea not my idea
we come back to my idea not my idea sorry I need to be specific my
sorry I need to be specific my compositional term of the mirror of
compositional term of the mirror of disappearance California
disappearance California I'm calling then the the mirror of The
I'm calling then the the mirror of The Disappearance of the idea of history and
Disappearance of the idea of history and what's the utility other than being you
what's the utility other than being you know a
know a fun picture to look at the utility is
fun picture to look at the utility is that um with the collapse of California
that um with the collapse of California as the center of this version of global
as the center of this version of global capitalism and its dispersion to a
capitalism and its dispersion to a decentered uh a
decentered uh a decentered network like the F1
decentered network like the F1 circuit this is supposed to in some
circuit this is supposed to in some sense describe the
sense describe the Mala the political
Mala the political Mala that feels like nothing can happen
Mala that feels like nothing can happen the malays that there's not too much to
the malays that there's not too much to look forward to the malays that
look forward to the malays that everything is stuck on uh a loop it's
everything is stuck on uh a loop it's because the the idea behind it has
because the the idea behind it has disappeared we don't believe in
disappeared we don't believe in California
California anymore and we don't believe in the west
anymore and we don't believe in the west anymore despite the protestations of
anymore despite the protestations of reactionary conservatives who are this
reactionary conservatives who are this who are the ones that are still uh
who are the ones that are still uh bringing this up
bringing this up anyway
anyway um that was a
um that was a lot I want to if I had my
lot I want to if I had my options
options I would just make videos about each of
I would just make videos about each of these things um I'm going to start I
these things um I'm going to start I have already
have already started uh and I'd really of course as
started uh and I'd really of course as always like to get your responses to
always like to get your responses to this because this
this because this is if I can do it properly and I'm not
is if I can do it properly and I'm not confident that I can but if I can do it
confident that I can but if I can do it properly this seems to be a productive
properly this seems to be a productive Humanities project despite the fact that
Humanities project despite the fact that if an act if you look at my
if an act if you look at my historiography
historiography academically then it's really rough Shaw
academically then it's really rough Shaw it's not careful it's not focused on
it's not careful it's not focused on specific
specific um um realities or specific empirical
um um realities or specific empirical objects it's focused on just a giant a
objects it's focused on just a giant a giant object which is an idea and it's
giant object which is an idea and it's idealist in that
idealist in that sense but um to my mind it links up a
sense but um to my mind it links up a lot so uh hope that's at least partially
lot so uh hope that's at least partially exciting for you I'm going to get going
exciting for you I'm going to get going on trying to unite all these sources you
on trying to unite all these sources you know like Philip KCK uh Joan didan
know like Philip KCK uh Joan didan Pinchin these intellectuals also they
Pinchin these intellectuals also they European intellectuals
European intellectuals especially they always show up in
especially they always show up in California and they're they're rather
California and they're they're rather horrified by it there's a long history
horrified by it there's a long history of of
of of uh European intellectuals not just B
uh European intellectuals not just B bodard wasn't horrified by it he thought
bodard wasn't horrified by it he thought it was pretty wicked but you know the
it was pretty wicked but you know the even the Frankfurt School were in
even the Frankfurt School were in California and there's a tradition of
California and there's a tradition of Europeans being so horrified by this
Europeans being so horrified by this specifically because there's no history
specifically because there's no history the
the entire land of California is superficial
entire land of California is superficial glitzy uh Skin Deep which is not an
glitzy uh Skin Deep which is not an experience that you have in Europe where
experience that you have in Europe where you can't help but avoid the images of
you can't help but avoid the images of History you know the cathedrals and the
History you know the cathedrals and the Cobble streets and the buildings that
Cobble streets and the buildings that are you know 600 years old in California
are you know 600 years old in California you don't have any of that baggage and
you don't have any of that baggage and without that baggage you kind of get to
without that baggage you kind of get to see under the surface you don't have to
see under the surface you don't have to peel very far you just lift up the the
peel very far you just lift up the the skin layer and you can see what the West
skin layer and you can see what the West has really amounted
has really amounted too um so that's it for me for
too um so that's it for me for today um you won't have to wait too long
today um you won't have to wait too long for the next bit because I'm I'm ready
for the next bit because I'm I'm ready to go on this all right
to go on this all right later
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