Atun-Shei is a Union dick rider. He made a video called "Guns that killed racists" which were guns used by the Union, same platoons using the same guns went to kill Native-Americans after the civil war. Just another Dutch Van Der Linde irl who uses brown people as political canon fodder and war fantasy.
Excellent essay. The ending reminded me a lot of how Jonas Ceika might end a video. I particularly appreciate your clarity and care, taking your time to fully work through your points. As a social anarchist, your description of the economic and social structure of Haudenosaunee society really goes to show just how much early anarchists and socialists took from their understanding of indigenous Americans and from Haudenosaunee society in particular. The indigenous youtuber Twin Rabbit, who I believe tends to lean toward an anarchistic framework, has a great video on that as well. In any case, in solidarity, from a black anarchist to all those fighting for Land Back and Indigenous Autonomy, I hope you and I get free together. Editing to add that the philosophy of hopeful realism has been an important counterbalance for me on the scale of nihilism. In such a philosophy, we have hope not because we believe the arc of history or the universe to bend toward some eventual "good" or justice, but because we understand that conscious action by everyday people is what creates and changes our reality. Hope then exists anywhere that humans seek to abolish capitalist and colonial hegemony.
this philosophy is so, incredibly important if we want to preserve our world. ive come to an almost identical structure on my own from different philisophical roots, as well as the need to spread it memeticly or mythalogicaly. you do the work of all humanity, friend.
Thank you for this essay. I've really struggled to understand why Murray Bookchin and many social anarchists insist on prioritizing local production and giving people direct involvement in as much of their means of life as possible. I think your essay helped me see why this is important.
I think taking a global view of the extinction of megafauna is probably the most damning evidence that humans were primarily responsible just about everywhere. The time-line matches up too perfectly. It's also important to think about how the first people to step on any continent were in effect an invasive species, meaning only that they were outside of their evolutionary context. It's no coincidence that native megafauna survived best in places where our lineage evolved for the longest. You can even see, on a genus level, that megafauna seemed to hang on longer in areas which had a long term presence of Homo erectus before the arrival of our species. We were a new threat. It seems that the more novel we were, the more easily we caused systemic imbalance.
interesting angle. Although one must take caution when comparing the changing of the mammoth steppe in the northern latitudes after the last ice age to the climate and fauna of the tropics.
This is compelling enough, but as the video points out, we still need to establish a mechanism of causation in order for it to be a compelling argument for any given species in any given place.
I haven't read a lot of theory yet, I've mostly been radicalized via youtube, so I really really appreciated you explaining the part about alienated labor versus unalienated labor. It gave me a big realization that I don't actually dislike doing labor, I just find it extremely hard to be invested in very abstracted labor and I've always gravitated towards tasks and roles that serve a direct benefit for me or the people around me. Alongside that, it hit me like a truck that part of why I love and can get addicted at time to the videogame Valheim (survivalcraft game where you gather resources to make better stuff to explore new areas and fight bosses to become worthy of Valhalla), is because it's a simulation of unalienated labor but also in an environment where I am alone so I have full abilty to direct, build, and provide for myself. So I can do 'labor' I find fun and fulfilling while also not having the same stress as real survival, but enough stress I feel engaged and like I'm 'doing well' and accomplishing things I'm proud of. Really makes me wonder what roles neurodivergence (I'm AuADHD) plays in relation to the sense of satisfaction of labor, like I've never been able to understand people who take up careers because a field makes money rather than them actually being interested in the job. I'd keel over from boredom and lack of fulfillment (not to mention stress!) in trying to say be a doctor or laywer long before I'd ever see the money I might make from those professions.
Malcolm you have become one of my favorite speakers on native philosophy and history. No one else does such a good job of combining beautiful native beliefs and life lessons with caloric values lol. It creates a truly honest conversation that is our only way forward. Thank you for all you do!
I was reading the first paragraph and thinking "I wonder whose essay Malcolm is sharing as he is clearly educated." I say that in all senses of the word, as your way of presenting information shows formal education, and your videos document you seeking to self-educate yourself as well as non-white traditional education. My father only graduated 8th grade yet was more educated than many who attended University. But he had a way about him typical of those that had already learned how to learn and could educate himself on any subject. My middle brother is basically the same having only graduated grade school and then motorcycle mechanics school
Babe, wake up. Malcolm dropped another historical video essay! But seriously, you're my favorite youtuber and every time a new video comes out, I learn something and think sbout the world slightly differently.
If you talk about Vine Deloria Jr in one video essay, you bet I'm subscribing, brother. Very well put together so far. I'm chewing through it a bit a time.
These essays have helped to crystallize a lot of recent thought that I've struggled to put into words. Thank you. I hope that they reach a much larger audience, but in the meantime, know that your work is making a meaningful impact.
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate the actionable hope that you have and the things that can be done x I hope you know that you are not only planting your own trees, but inspiring others to do so as well. I have only planted one so far, and it's been growing well the past 2 years. I hope to carry on and leave a forest in my wake by the time I'm gone
I know the term "The Blond Beast " has come a far way from Nietzsche and was used with varius meaning so this is not a critique of its use in ths essay but a sidenote. Nietsche originally did definitely not mean "white supremacy". Sadly his reputation is tarnished by the actions of his sister who was married to an antisemitic right wing nut, had a crush on A.H and tried to get attention by falsifying his Philosophy while he was already mentally gone. Nietzsche called himself a "Anti-Antisemite" and despised German nationalistic "Deutschtümelei", one of the reasons he broke with Richard Wagner
It's from Nietzsche? Interesting, I got it from Roland Chrisjohn who got it from Chris Simpson who used it to personify a predatory system of order, not specifically white supremacy.
@@MalcolmPL Thats's how i understood it in this video but in the context of colonialism and the history of somehow equating it with the "nordic Übermenschen" of the 3. Reich propaganda i wanted to point that out. The first sentence in "The Splendid Blond Beast" actually mentions him: "Friedrich Nietzsche called the aristocratic predators who write society's laws "the splendid blond beast" precisely because they so often behave as though they are beyond the reach of elementary morality."
@@alexanderleuchte5132Also on this note: I heard it said that the blondness of the beast is a reference to lions, not to north eurasian ancestry. I did a quick check on Wikipedia and this explanation fits with the given quotations. In Nietzschean philisophy the lion is a metaphor for the second stage in a process in which the individual emancipates itself from its surrounding moral code and becomes an Übermensch. The blonde beast appears when an empire (can be Japanese as well as European) shows raw aggression and lust towards outsiders despite its high moral code for those on the inside.
@@Luziferrum The way I read that segment from thus spoke Zarathustra (the soul transitioning from the camel to the lion to the child) is that the lion represents the rejection of all conventional moral values. The camel is burdened by values that are not theirs, carrying things for the sake of others. The lion is an agressive animal tearing these values apart. However this leaves a nihilistic void that can not sustain someone for long, so they become the child, which is a new beginning and ability to create your own values
@@Luziferrum Yeah he often used the lion as a symbol like in "The Three Metamorphoses". Blond also has that connotation of innocent and naive, in ithe mean version of "blond jokes" even stupid. And finding a way to regain some "naive" life that is not corroded by christian platonic morals and the consequential resulting Nihilism was his goal
I havent read a book that wasnt strictly related to my field of study in a long time. I missed the heart and stimulation that came with reading a good piece. Thanks. I believe there will be people who refer to you as one of the great thinkers you mentioned in your essay.
these essays are excellently composed and should be required listening. As a subscriber of both yourself and Atun-Shei, I feel like there is much overlap and I hope he signal boosts these essays. I hope that you do consider collaborating with him, if only as so much as to create an introduction from which people can come and encounter these essays
regarding the narrative of "we got better after we drove the megafauna to extinction", this is actually a sentiment recorded in maori oral history. the peopling of aotearoa was recent enough that the extinction of the moa (a group of birds that filled all the large herbivore niches) is still remembered, and the memory is detailed enough that there are accounts of some 19th century maori without colonial education who were able to correctly identify captive emus as a related species
I really appreciated your telling ans illumination of The Great Law of Peace, is there further reading you'd recommend from Iroquois authors about the subject? Either from a more mythological standpoint or a more philosophical perspective (I say this knowing there's probably only so much I can glean and understand as a non-indigenous American only through writing, but your video really inspires me and I'm extremely greatful for your multiple contextualizations throughout this video)
Brilliant essay, and although i know these long form video essays are a pain to record and edit for an individual, this and the beaver war essay are incredible work. I hope you keep it up as long as is feasible for your life. Thank you.
Hi Malcolm, I've watched your channel for a while and I think you do really interesting and valuable work here on yt and in the speculative archeology space. I haven't gone through all the essays yet but having finished the first one I think there's a big assumption you make that I don't think holds up. You are probably correct that killing one mammoth would be a large expenditure of energy if done by spearpoint one at a time, but what is to say that this is the only way that they were hunted? It seems like it would make sense to use other means like gravity, a real world example of which would be "the buffalo jump". I could Imagine a group of early humans driving herds off of cliffs drastically impacting the numbers in one fell swoop. Obvious speculation but who knows. Anyway I'm mostly commenting for the engagement. Thanks for all the work you put in, I'd love to see an atun-shei collab :)
The main point of that essay is to inject uncertainty into a topic that is often frustratingly black and white. I freely admit that I don't know squat but I don't think anybody else does either. we don't have the evidence to make good arguments about broad sweeping events. As to the specifics. we don't have evidence for other hunting methods beyond spears. For instance, There is only one cliff formation in South western Ontario and we haven't found a deposit of bones at the base a la headsmashedinbuffalojump.
A long dry essay presented without music or vision, more please. Thanks for the content. Atun Shei is cool btw, I hope you find a means to collaborate.
I'm very happy for the effort you've put in for this project. I very much love the conciseness with which you described Indigeniety and slavery as mutable political categories... Been a viewer of yours about a year, I hope my thinking can keep growing in part due to your work !
Would love to hear the words determinate abstraction. I also liked how you described Incidental communism. Similarly to how I would, by comparing it to civil relations (law state etc).
Thanks for more great content. I still believe you somewhat downplay the influence of individual action. I agree that people are a product of their environmental conditions, and that the Haudenosaunee are not unique in their response to an evolving geopolitical situation. I do also think that the actions of Kondiaronk, Captain Civility, and Joseph Brant/Thayendanegea clearly shaped modernity through the ideals of their personal diplomatic persuasions. Perhaps they could be replaced by others who would perform the same function out of geopolitical necessity, but I think that their contributions were more than the product of environmental determinism.
You misunderstand, it is not that individuals have no agency, it is that human agency is conditioned by our environment. For instance, Napoleon conquered. Someone else in Napoleon's shoes would probably not have done the same, or if they had tried, might not have succeeded, his agency had an effect. But Napoleon was only able to act as he did because France at the time was ready to support him in those actions due to structural factors beyond individuals and dating back centuries. Napoleon was only allowed to exist because his context allowed him to exist. Our context conditions the actions available to us, our agency allows us to select one course from present possibilities. More broadly. In analyzing history, one has a choice of which lens to use. Some choose a micro lens to focus on individuals, I do not have that luxury. Microhistory in my field is the study of Europeans and defectors, it is Eurocentric. That is, history through a colonial mindset. I find the broader lens afforded by materialism offers a useful set of tools for constructing a decolonial view of the past.
Could mammoth extinction have caused extinctions of other megafauna in a domino effect? Mammoths as a keystone species, their absence causing environmental change other megafauna can't adapt quickly enough to? Also, if one agrees with 11:14, would one also have to object to Indians' authority to dictate the excavation and burial of Paleo-Indian remains?
Can you (continue to) be Mohawk in Germany? You are very welcome. In the east we have forests full of game and the mines are already abandoned. Jokes aside, I want to bring an "Old World perspective" to this question. Nobody is native or indigenous per se, but only in relation to the country or area they currently live in. In almost every country in the world, outside the Americas, Australia and small island nations, the native population is the overwhelming majority. If you can migrate from the Old World to the New and keep up e.g. your native German culture in Ontario, why not the other way around? Are the Boers still the same Dutch as in 1600? No, but neither are today's Dutch folks in Holland. Cultures change anyway, in the diaspora and the homeland. You can't keep every tradition and neither should you.
I think, it is presumptive to assume that any population sustains it’s caloric intakes from hunting X… I don’t believe that the Iroquois sustained their communities by hunting deer… they ate everything that was edible and available…including at times decaying flesh, but if you consider catching clams, to catching crayfish, to catching fish, to catching Geese ( they moult in summer and cannot fly ) to catching a deer… Deer were not the major source of protein…Deer likely had a much higher status, due to their difficulty in catching…
