Me too. My local community college had its first self-study tele-course on this series. His vision of the West has decayed so badly at this point. Great series great man.
Cut out of this clip was his discussion preceding. He was very down upon the intellectual decadence that was emergent from late 60s/early 70s counterculture movements and felt they amounted to a huge step backwards in the quest for knowledge and understanding, both in arts and science.
A scientist and an authority on the poetry of William Blake. This man is the reason I went to university to study both science and the humanities...B.A. and B.S.
Just watched the amazing interview of this intellectual giant by Michael Parkinson in 1973 just 18 months before his untimely death. Still relevant and on point to this day!
@@macjuk not really, think of all the series Attenborough has made over a very long period of time... But only recently has he aimed the bar at global warming and issues of pollution. It hasn't happened over night has it... So very kind of you to comment, I have been a bronoski fan since the early seventies and watched his programme with keen interest.
Another rare great science communicator in the same league was Carl Sagan. I remember watching his landmark tv series when I was at secondary school. It has rarely been repeated on British tv. I also got his book of the same name as a Xmas present. I still have it actually in my attic. Even tho' it was written > 40 years ago in the pre-internet age I don't think any general(ist) book on science since then has come close in terms of: clarity. eloquence & readability for all ages from secondary schoolchildren to old folk; for scientists & lay(wo)men alike. I read a few of his other books, Comet & a 'kinda' sequel Pale Blue Dot, which was well written, if a little bit pc in some parts. His novel Contact was superb & turned into a film starring Jodie Foster, a year after his death I think. Dr (Prof) Carl Sagan died too young also, but left behind a great legacy, which has been hard to follow & emulate.
Carl Sagan & Jacob Bronowski have always been within my core value. The big picture of life. A vision of C.Sagan that Dr. Aroway (Judie Foster) resumed so well in her last speech of Contact the movie and J.Bronoski himself 2 feet in human victim soup of houswich camp last words of his series Ascent of Man ~
God, I can't believe it was back in the 70's when I first came across "The Accent of Man". What a legacy..and as relevant as it was back then. You can't know where you are going...if you have no idea where you came from. What can I say...other than thanks.
I am just reading the paperback (no illustrations) right now and it's beyond 'invigorating' (did I just use that word!). I recommend this book for anyone who is looking to start a new civilisation who wants to get a head start.
His series, along with the original Cosmos and one called connections, were so influential at the time. I wish I could find this series whole somewhere.
Well said, it seems to be getting worse, nonsense is everywhere. Flat earthers, non-scientific rubbish being talked about Aliens etc. etc. It's depressing.
What does it say about the internet, et al, when the "Condom and dry ice experiment" (which was presented by RU-vid in the same cue as your post) has received over 2,000,000 views, and I am the 227th person to view this thoughtful offering?
@Skytroop I'm glad you stated that. For all people say about the history of the internet, in 1973 - the year "Ascent" was broadcast - there existed the stirrings of what BECAME the internet. In 1969, the first ARPANET message was sent; the message - if you could call it that - was the word "login." Two letters, l and o, got through. Then the system crashed (Oh, how much as changed!). ARPANET wasn't declared operational until 1975. And so it goes . . .
@ad2181 -If you actually watch the rest of these documentaries you realise that we owe a heck of a lot of our culture to the Islamic nations anyway. Particularly worrying is your comment about losing our 'Western Genes'. Bronowski knew first-hand the danger of xenophobia and aspirations to ethnic purity. I fervently hope that most people have learned from history the cost of such ideals, although comments like this make me suspect not...
It's hard to say. Remember the Internet can bring the whole world to you, but you select what you see (or others will select it for you) and thus the unintended effect might be to make the whole world as small as you are.
@@mattclaus7690yup. It’s glaringly obvious. Playing both sides off against each other….and they see themselves as the influencers. It’s just massive intellectual dishonesty
They dislike this clip as they are the section of our society who seek to destroy everything we have built !!!! For reasons best known to themselves. But sadly as a civilisation becomes comfortable and established then such factions arise. People join these elements either due to stupidity or self hatred, or by influencers who fit into the 2 former groups. Or more simply put the rightwing are the powerhouse of civilizations and the leftwing are the ultimate end of a civilization who seek to destroy it, as they become more detached from reality. So if we members of the White race who built the current civilization that we live in what to continue in our way of life, then we must face the attack on it by the leftists and find a way to defeat them without destroying everything our forefathers built !!! But fear not as history shows our race always rises to the top again no matter what
@GabberNYC Actually the internet was developed in 1969 and Bronowski was well aware of its existence. At that time it was a relatively closed network of governement and academic computers, not what we know today as the World Wide Web.
I took a mandatory class at CSM (Colorado School of Mines) as a sophomore. The textbook and the videos were shown in their entirety and it was sponsored by the Coors Foundation (so was ROTC). Joe Coors was very concerned about the decline of western civilization with the debasing of our currency and the petroleum wars with OPEC. To think a fascist found value in this work. Maybe he had a change of conscience? People and peoples can grow.
You studied philosophy at the Colorado School of Mines? This is very interesting. Who is this Bronowski? He looks like some pretentious English academic to me.
I would not count on China, it has had 4000 years and not managed much! Today China is using technology and scientific ideas developed in Western countries! So it has been brought to China from the outside.
@@tombrunila2695 I would not count out China. As of 2010 or so, China has been producing more top 1% intellectual achievers than the US is producing students. The scientific method may have been originated and popularized in the West but that is not to say that it cannot be perfected elsewhere.
@@InformationIsTheEdge , there are lies, bloody lies, statistics and Chinese statistics! In China a refrigerator repairman is classified as an engineer! In a university students only learn what previous generations have developed. By copying what others have done you do not learn much that is useful for developing your own knowledge. You do not learn the reasons why a particular solution was used. And what ideas were discarded because they are for the time being too difficult to realize and would demand lots of time and money to develop! If you take a computerchip that is in mass production you can be sure that there is at least two later generations of chips under development! And lots of ideas beyond these. And copying the chip in production will give you no hints of what the new generations will look like.
@@tombrunila2695 I don't know that the information is false. But I do know that it is much easier to overcome opposition that weighs my strength and ability at a level far below its actual level. How difficult would it be for China to pull off such a deception? To to forward a negative opinion you already have? Which is wiser? To think and act as if there is no threat? Or to act like there might be?
I think you may be right in an aspect of that: the Internet does carry with it an element of cultural dominance with it. However, the Internet is slightly more democratic than you seem to be suggesting. As it spreads into the less-developed world, I think we will see a spreading of Western thought, but also a mixing in of non-western elements. The result, I think, will be a heterogeneous blend, with Western ideals forming the "cement" of it all.
I think that's a possibility. Personally, I'm beginning to wish there were two versions of YT. The existing version and another version featuring perhaps a comment grading system, at least that might make people think more before commenting. I myself have a tendency to make a distasteful reply to a stupid comment, a grading system would change me I'm sure. (I await an angry reply...)
Bronowski, in 1973, knew that Western Civilisation was going down, and other regions of the world and other civilizations would take over the development of humanity.
J. Bronowski Scent of a Man ... Descent of the woman p19 all over these caves the print of a hannd says: This is my mark. Outline of a hand, El Castillo The Philosophy of contemporary Science 1969... A célébrer quelque chose.
On this I have to disagree. Western thinking was developed in Europe, it started in the archipelago of Ancient Greece and Asia Minor, where men like Anaximander and Anaxagoras and other pre-Socratian philosophers started to ask questions that had never before been asked. They did not stop at asking questions they started to look for answers.
True, but everything has a starting place, you can go back millions of years if you'd like but Europeans have made well over 90% of all scientific discoveries and modern inventions. Now we are seeing Western civilization slow down. It will be interesting to see what the effects of demographic replacement will be. If it was simply 'brain drain' immigration that took place, the civilization would likely survive at the top. Even if open borders don't become a reality, if the current rate of immigration and difference in birth rates continues, Europeans will become a minority in Western Europe in under a century. I guess the question is, is Western civilization unique to Western Europeans or can it be maintained by foreigners? Maintained, probably. Created, unlikely. Collapsed, possibly, although at everyone's peril. There is way more to Western civilization than just science and inventions. It's a culture predicated on free-speech which is fundamental not only to science but to the rights and freedoms that are eroding before our eyes. We're slowly slipping into a global totalitarian way of governing and we're seeing that with the way governments are responding to covid for example. Science is becoming dogmatic, you can't question it in certain cases when the conclusions are obviously dubious. An example would be natural immunity to viruses not being exempt from vaccines or the definition of 'herd immunity' being altered by the WHO as reachable only through mass vaccination and not through natural immunity. These may seem like trivial concerns at large but they're potentially the most important concerns of our time that could change the course of Western civilization for the worse for a very long time.
I have seen the series many times, dating from the original broadcast. I am somewhat surprised that someone has not accused him of being a racist. Probably because those so inclined are not predisposed to reflect on the series. But give it time….
Watching this in 2020, what an insightful man. This clip was from the early 1970s, he foresaw the collapse of Western civilization by our political masters own greed for cheap immigrant workers.
I think you completely missed the point - Bronowski was himself an immigrant, and in this clip he describes tolerance and the pursuit of science as the main things worth preserving and leading on in the West. I don't think he had much time for nativist bs.
@@asc.445 Yeah you posted a generic inflammatory anti-immigrant comment, I pointed out that it was kind of ironic that you're twisting Bronowski's words since he himself was an immigrant, and then you threw your toys out of the pram and became insulting. Nice logic, you really are a good poster boy for your cause
But what does 'The Ascent of Man' mean? I liked his series but we are wrong in thinking we are ascending and also that it is 'man' who is ascending. Ascending to where and what? We are just complex animals, if Darwin et al are right we are flukes. So we have no special place and the idea of 'progress' or 'ascent' is an old, almost tired idea. We can be. Simply be. We can exist with of without Newton or Shakespeare. And every one in the world has a different view of what is 'Progress', however concept that can be defined. In fact there is much pessimism in Shakespeare. 'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'
you completely kiss the point. by 'man' he means man the species not man the male of the species. and if you read the intro to the series it says in the title that it's an opinion not necessarily the only way to see things. your entitled to have an opposing view. as to Shakespeare? i won't even waste the energy and try to explain why he is the greatest writer of the english language. no one's even close.
@@spactick I 'kiss' the point. I think you mean 'miss'. But I don't. I have been reading things by Bronowski for years and also have watched his TV series. I know that 'man' was always meant as Homo Sapiens. That humans are "Progressing" or ascending is a common fallacy. Progress is an abstraction and thus cannot be shown to be (provable, any more than the existence or non-existence of God be proven. That is we cannot show that we have "Progressed" from any point to any other. (But we can try to measure "progresses" if we take various parameters. However even these are subject to limitations of test. He rightly warns against absolutism in his series and that chapter is one of the best, in fact his book is a classic of its kind. And I like Bronowski and his passion for art, science, poetry (he wrote a book on Blake which I read). But if you also watch the video on RU-vid by his daughter you will find other things. Also the very last thing he did in his 'Ascent of Man'' documentary shows a man very much in doubt as to "progress". Nevertheless I would recommend Bronowski as someone who is fascinating to watch and listen to. But we kid ourselves that our music, art, anything we have done is necessarily significant. Shakespeare was a great writer indeed but once he read Montaigne or around then a certain darkness entered his work. It was always there. There are very few positive messages. Even in 'As You Like It' he has the pessimistic 'Seven ages speech' and so on. Hamlet seems in many ways a clumsy play. The to be or not to be speech is full of repetitions. Lear is a great play. But just about every one dies. What about Bach, Bach celebrates, de facto, death. Not life. We, as human animals, are simply too clever. That is what is destroying us, or it will do if we do. But of course I cant see the future. One thing I am fairly sure of is that neither Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Bronowski were very convinced we were making Progress, or "Ascending". There is a dark pessimism in them all. Waht is my conclusion? I like being alive and as I am where I am I take an interest in science, the arts etc etc, admire the amusing ingenuity of humans and all we have done. But....well remember Ozymandias and much else.
i think he's talking about rap music, and i couldn't agree with him more. we've got to do something about that crap or the chinese will take over the world with take-out food restaurants and cheap cars
What does it say about the internet, et al, when the "Condom and dry ice experiment" (which was presented by RU-vid in the same cue as your post) has received over 2,000,000 views, and I am the 227th person to view this thoughtful offering?
