My grandmother is an ethnic Croatian. She cried when Milosevic was arrested. She is one of those people who cannot speak English except for a few words. My mother is a second generation American and can speak Croatian and English fluently, but because of her last name she was called a DP for her entire child life. (A displaced person, which is ironic as she hates immigrants now. Or maybe not ironic but just sad.) She wanted so badly for us to be American that she made sure I took my fathers last name, and never taught me Croatian. It’s surreal to see it mentioned here. I was assimilated into a culture that I never had a choice in. I am an immigrant to China right now, and I have to remember this. Thank you Kyle. 🌹
🌹 The ending where you struggle to "kill the cop inside you" then resolve to just strive for a better world even imperfectly, resonates so much with me. I struggle with that motivation as well, and to see it so vulnerably echoed onscreen is validating and uplifting. I enjoy your work very much and wish you a well deserved break. Life to not fascism.
Someone who's been here since your Serbian Film review: the growth in your work is staggering. Comparing this to your first years of reviews/essays is almost night and day. I say "almost" because I could tell from my first viewing that you had a certain talent for analysis, and that has appeared in every episode. I'm excited for what the future holds, whenever you're ready to come back. 🌹🌻🌼🏵️🌺🌸🥀🌷💐💮
Quick note for around 47:00 (I’ve not had time to watch the video until today): _inyenzi_ means both “moth” and “cockroach”, and is used in Kinyarwanda to refer to destructive pests in general (remember that moths aren’t just fluffy and cute, but have a long history of being reviled by humans for destroying food and fabric). Hence why Tutsi “moths” are juxtaposed with butterflies in the _Kangura_ article. The heavy association of _inyenzi_ with “cockroaches” rather than “moths” in the aftermath of the Genocide is (alongside the fact that moths don’t carry the same connotation in the West that roaches do) likely due to the French word _cafard_ (which does mean “cockroach”, but also “bigot”, “hypocrite” and “snitch”), which was used by Hutu militants in their French-language propaganda.
Yes, seriously I came to the comments to say he should enter this in some festivals or something, it’s an amazing documentary series & could definitely get some recognition. 🌹
I'm a fellow third culture kid, my parents moved us from the American middle class suburbs to rural Australia in 2001. Even though we shared a language it was still pretty major culture shock. This video really resonated with me, especially the part where you asked yourself if you would be a fascist today if you hadn't spent that time living abroad. I've had that exact same conversation with myself, its pretty terrifying. 🌹
I never thought about how the way Star Ship Troopers just "made sense" to me in a way that it didn't for my mostly white peers at college might have something to do with the fact that that's literally how I see my country. I remember coming out of the film and I was like "that was the BEST MOVIE EVER" and my friends were like "IDK it seemed kinda pro war..." they were really confused.
To be honest, I always took that MIB scene at face value: wtf is that girl doing there with books on quantum physics? 🌹 EDIT: I'm saying I missed the context that Kyle referenced
Same! But I was very ignorant about the issue of police violence at the time...I appreciate this channel for broadening my horizons and offering new perspectives to me!
@@gozerthegozarian9500 As a kid I felt he was trying to cover up for his mistake. But I now see the point was more to show to Agent K that Will Smiths character could imagine alien monsters in a sympathetic light, even though he failed the technical requirements of the test.
I think Kyle oversimplified the joke a bit too much. Layer A of the joke is indeed that... but there's also a layer about that the Agents that the MIB needed would have to be able to deal with hideous-looking creatures that are innocently out there and detect the out of place, and also the factor that this is apparently what MIB was looking for. Every other potential recruit went in guns blazing, J's the only one that took a moment to look and think first. Honestly, I'm of the camp that his reaction was mostly "this shit makes no sense, it feels like I'm being led through hoops here", and did an act of rebellion against it all.
that was the exact nature of the test, just because something does or doesn't look scary doesn't define your reaction- when youre an MiB you have to judge things beyond appearances.
I have to say for me the whole point of the test and in general what made J a great candidate was to think outside of the box. Like the written trst. I have to say, as someone not from the USA, the angle of police violance didn't come at all. Because for me that his reasing was beyond the standard "monster=bad, human=good" was the point of the joke.
The brief mention of Tolkien leads me to think that, while it has problematic elements, LotR (especially the books) are in a sense in opposition to Starship Troopers' glorification of eternal service, with a hero who never finds pleasure in war and is scarred by what he must do for the rest of his life. Tolkien's politics are something along the lines of 18th/19th century high toryism, with a sympathy toward monarchy and a concern over industrialization, which is a very different beast to Heinlein's Cold War liberal-conservatism.
Tolkien was absolutely anti-Nazi. The Nazi government came to him because of his interest in Germanic and Anglo-Saxon legends, which they thought was right and Aryan and he told them to get poetically and properly stuffed, praising the Jewish people and Jewish culture while he did. His letter to the German government survives.
Until you remember the fact that "the burden of what you had to do for the greater good" was exactly how the nazis who ran concentration camps justified their actions to themselves on a daily basis to be able to keep fullfilling their function as mass murderers.
🌹Toward the end, when you were talking about all the people whose names you don't know, whose labor went into the making of this video, I was reminded of the essay "The Hand of the World" by Helen Keller (Yes, *that* Helen Keller), which she wrote in 1912. The opening paragraphs are some of the most humans-as-caring-and-creative anthems I've ever read. Enjoy your rest.
@@casperchristiansen2458 She was. Some of the things she wrote about deafness (influenced by the highly bigoted A.G. Bell) make me deeply uncomfortable. But she was, for all her human flaws, a great thinker, and a fabulously witty writer. And because she was so articulate, they nerfed her in the history books.
I was already hooked from the first two parts, but I simply couldn't stop watching from the moment you started describing your third-culture kid experience. At this point, I've spent two equal parts of my life in two countries: the first half in Korea, the second in the U.S. I'm connected with both, but at same time foreign to both countries. My home is both and neither. I've only recently realized during the pandemic, having had to confront myself as I quit the creative industry, that I don't really know who I am-that I feel fundamentally fragmented, and that I am completely unable to show anyone the fragments of myself I do understand. I keep going through moments of despair as I feel (as a guy) I will only be recognized and valued for the services I provide-and it feels like I have internalized the mindset of service above all else growing up. Seeing you verbalize all these experiences and emotions I recognize, and to end on a message of radical hope... I cannot articulate just how much this has helped me today. Thank you. 🌹
Better, perhaps, to ask what the sabertooth tiger did to us to make us subservient of these little cruel murderers and their conniving ways. 😎 But hey… I’m not complaining.
🌹It's incredibly brave of you to show this much raw vulnerability, so much of you, to an ocean of strangers. I'm sorry shit got to a point where you felt that you had to do that.
I stayed up kinda late over here in the Netherlands to watch this video, but it was definitely worth it (though also a lot to take in at once for my sleepy brain, so I might give it another watch sometime this week) 🌹
🌹I adore your choice of Iron Man to exemplify "cool power armour" (and throw shade at Disney's domination of the market), but may I offer another one? The Daleks on "Doctor Who" - they are literally single-occupant tanks and their "cool power armour" is the only thing that keeps them alive, as they are creatures damaged down to DNA level by centuries of warfare. They were created by Terry Nation on the basis of his childhood nightmares about the Nazis, they are what his child subconscious recognized to fascists to be: Weak, fearful creatures encased in their armour that both keeps them alive AND keeps them from living - they're literally incapable of touching another living creature, they cannot think of another species as anything than an (inferior, or course!) ememy they must "EXTERMINATE!!!" In a way, Tony Stark, the alcoholic orphan whose "friends" at least in the first two movies aren't his equals, but people on his payroll, with his Iron Man suit that is powered by the makeshift reactor that keeps his wounded heart beating while slowly killing him (the metaphor isn't even subtle, is it?) seems like an earlier evolutionary stage of the Dalek, just like Heinlein's Starship Troopers in their "cool power armour", who you so correctly pointed out are excluded from actually partaking in life. My grandfather was a Nazi soldier, airman, to be precise, who died in the Battle of Britain: A Spitfire got the better of his Messerschmidt. Do fighter planes count as "cool power armour"? In a way, I suppose. The psychological fall-out from WWII is still felt in my generation... I have to stop now, lest this comment ends up as long, in-depth and close-to-the-bone as your video. Just know that your work is deeply appreciated and educational to both the heart and the mind. Life to not-fascism! 🌹
I wonder if that makes it even more appropriate that Iron Man dies and saves the universe and all that, with his face fully exposed and his armour being eaten away by the literal responsibility he’s carrying.
@@gozerthegozarian9500 thank you! Much as I loathe Disney’s corporate stranglehold on modern entertainment, there’s still plenty of interesting shit to read into Marvel movies and all that, if you’re willing to look for it. Art isn’t wiped away so easily, I suppose ;)
Funny you should bring up Terry Nation as he would later go on to create Blake's 7, a series that serves as the diametric opposite to Star Trek in which humanity has become a fascist dictatorship, under the guise of a utopian democracy, which has enslaved all non-human races in the galaxy, dominated through overwhelming military power, controls its population through drugs and manipulation of memory and public perception, and has any rebellion swiftly eliminated. The solution to eventually defeating them? A stronger coalition from the Andromeda Galaxy eventually wipes them out in a great offscreen war.
🌹This was beautiful, Kyle. Beautiful not only because it sees the great potential that awaits in imagination in daring to see a better world, but also beautiful because it (and you) had the courage to see and admit the ever-churning darkness in us all and not just give up to melancholy and rage. I’m really grateful for this.
Appreciate the context, in-depth analysis, and personal touches as always. Also looking forward to the next one, but of course, after a well deserved break. 🌹
🥀 "The oldest surnames in America are of Dutch origin." 😬 Chile. It is that omnipresent callous disregard that makes me assert so commonly that "I. Do not. Exist."... And that plus the last 5 years is what leads me to refuse to be an Other American any longer. *I.* Am. American. A _REAL_ American. Reservation carded and everything. I will spend the rest of my life reclaiming my ethnicity from the maws of kenraken. Because our genocide is not some long past event. It is ongoing. ... Excuse my vitriol. Nonexistence is a state of being I am incapable of conveying, and one that I do not wish on anyone else.
This trilogy of videos has been one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and heart-wrenching things I’ve come across online. Excellent work, Kyle, and thank you for everything you make. *rose emoji*
Oh my... Way to hang a huge chunk of your being out there for the world to see. I think you have done well with these videos. Be Well Kyle and enjoy your break. 🌹
25:23 - This whole section reminded me of studying abroad in Australia in 2002. My friends would introduce me to new people as "This is Emily. She's American. But don't worry - she didn't vote for Bush!" Honestly, I was just glad I didn't have to say it, because politics WOULD come up...
As a conservative who voted for Republicans most of my early adult life, before I got disenfranchised with politics in general, and am a curmudgeon Libertarian, I was always the "Good Republican" among my liberal friends, and that always confused me. Having met people from across the world nowadays, I still don't get it, as many of my international friends are very conservative, despite me never once revealing my voting, or even my thoughts or dreams or anything about myself to them. I just sort of, it seems, find myself running in those circles, not by choice, but happenstance. How was studying abroad? I have often thought of wishing to have done that before my 30's to give a new view to how Americans are viewed abroad. "An Idiot Abroad" was a great show for that very reason, as it often gave us an ear to how we are perceived across the known world. Otherwise, I often have to look through our history in relation to other countries, and find out how very, very much they have good reason to dislike us, even hate us, even though that is absolutely unfair to say.🌹
@@Mathadarthe unconscionable thing about libertarians to continental Europeans is that libertarians are opposed to the “duty to rescue”. That libertarians believe it is better to let a drowning man die than to force someone to throw him a floatation device. This is the fundamental disconnect.
This video was a piece of work and I'm glad you made it. I've watched you since your CA days and I'm really happy about how much you've been learning and coming to terms with since then. And I wouldn't worry about being grouped in with "Breadtube," the label is meaningless and only represents a consumer brand at this point and you're honestly better off doing things at your own pace than following their trends. Rest easy and godspeed 🌹
This is such a powerful series. Thank you. My main issue with the John Adams quote, is that there will be people in each generation who fancy themselves the 'war and politics' generation, and as such, we never actually get to the music and poetry generation.
My main issue is that it probably spawned the Joe Rogan(ish?) quote - “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
🌹my first encounter with Starship Troopers was watching the Rifftrax spoof they performed for fans last year, and my biggest thought while watching it was “so… when does he figure out he’s in a fascist society and start to fight against it?” It seemed the natural progression of the plot to me. Maybe it was just me, imagining a better word for Johnny. Thank you for your exploration, your research, sharing your family and your life. Thank you for your hope, and your imagination. Yes, I would like to know more.
As a trans woman who used to be a very angry person before transition, I can relate to the horror of realizing how much anger you have inside of yourself. And I can also relate to the urge to hide yourself as a result of threats. But the way to fight threats of hate and violence is not to capitulate to it. You don't want them to cheer "it's afraid!" while you're in the net. You keep doing what you were doing before the threat. Living is resistance. And you can take solace in knowing that your existence enrages an awful person for no extra effort, or as the kids say, "living rent free in their head".
@@TrishCanyon8. A:"does gender transition include the chromosome? B:"May I recommend watching Rick Woorley's video on j.k. rowling, because I say it's pretty stupid to attack her for that, given that type of surgery isn't thorough enough!
I know I'm awfully late to this, but I just caught up on your channel after the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen video premiered and I just finished this 3 part series. I think I first saw your videos about 10 years ago, and I don't think I've ever seen anything so personal, raw and rough (maggots and all) from you before. I can't explain coherently how hard this trilogy (the 3rd one in particular) hit and how many things it's making me re-examine and think about again. We briefly crossed paths in 2014 for a work-related thing but unfortunately it never came to fruition... and now I learn about the awful things that happened, and I'm so sorry. So many things make sense now. I'm glad I have found your channel again, and that you're still creating video essays and finding new things to investigate, explain and share with your audience. Your work is an inspiration, and I'm happy to join your Patreon and support however I can, I can't wait to see what you're working on next. Death to Fascism. 🌹
🌹 Kyle, your videos are one of a kind, and are videos that really does inspire great conversations, with information I otherwise would never have known. I want you to know that your work is amazing and very strong, and I can tell with this series in particular how compassionate you are as well as your family. Keep up the fantastic work, and keep those Brows Held High! :)
This is lowkey the best channel on RU-vid. The way you blend language, literature, politics, and the personal without sacrificing any depth is extraordinary. Death to fascism, including the potential for fascism within me. Thank you for sharing this. 🥀
🌹 A truly emotional and cinematic experience. I think this video is going to be a keystone in this whole series. It took me a while to get round to watching it because I wanted to give it more attention than I do most movies. This video made me become a Patreon too, don't know why it took me so long. Enjoy your break, I look forward to enlighten me more in the future, and you don't know how much you inspired me :) 🌹
It's hard for me to describe how terrified I was by the anti-immigrant eliminationist rhetoric that I kept seeing over the last five years, over the election, the cancellations of visas for people from Muslim countries, over the cages at the border. Because - I'm a white Anglophone Canadian in the US, which makes me just about the most privileged kind of immigrant, and I knew it wasn't aimed at me, but also, it was aimed at me. It could be aimed at me at any convenient moment. Anyway, that's what I was thinking about as I watched this. Thank you for this video. 🌹
I first read 'Starship Troopers' when I was about 15. First Heinlein book, thought it was the smartest thing I ever read. I gave it to a philosophy professor when I was in college, felt I was so clever. As the years went on, I became uncomfortably aware of the problematic elements of not only that story, but many of the other stories by Heinlein. He himself did seem to become aware of it as well in his later years. Kyle mentioned 'The Number of the Beast,' but there is a sequel to that story that deals even further with the literary multiverse Heinlein was spinning up; 'The Cat Who Walked Through Walls.' My point is that in this story a character is presented, the Sky Marshall, who clearly came from the 'Starship Troopers' universe (although it isn't said in as many words). The character is brash, boisterous, full of the glory of combat, and the need to control the 'lower classes.' He is shot by several of the other characters when he attempts to hijack the plot mission. Could this have been a symbolic disownment of the fascist ideology from 'Starship Troopers' by Heinlein? 🌹
🌹💐 CS Lewis said that to love at all is to be vulnerable. You really opened your heart and we are all here with you. We have to hold onto that hope that things might turn out right someday.
I'm not eloquent enough to give you half the praise you deserve for this incredibly moving and thought-provoking series of videos, but please know how deeply grateful I am that you made it. 🌹
🌹Thank you for sharing this Kyle. Took me a minute to see where this might be going, but I love the end result. Showing how we construct a concept of “alien” through a personal experience of living as an American abroad is right on theme in this series. Even tho you walked away from the idea, I think you ended up with a really compassionate piece of “Cinema Antifa” here. Enjoy your break 🌹
Thank you so much for this beautiful series. The hardest and best thing we can do is to live, and believe that the world and our lives can be better. 🌹
🦄🧡 🌹Forgive me for not commenting each in the requested place, but it seemed at the end you were implying that we should all struggle to step outside the box as dictated by those 'in command', as it were. An amazing work, connecting so many seemingly disparate parts to show the gestalt they imply and create. The worlds built by the words written and spoken and shared to people, framing their existence, framing nations. I've had part one of this series open in my browser since August, unable to watch it under a sea of anxiety and depression. I want you to know that I am happy that one of the first things I was able to do when I got out was see this. Some of its ideas, some of your anger, I feel I truly grok, as you break it down. As you spoke to your need for approval from the very people you wished to destroy, returning their implicit violence and hate back at them, I felt that in a snarling tension within my chest that I get as I pound uselessly against someone's willful ignorance of what I see as The Truth. That proto-fascist homunculus of hatred that has been built in us (that we have HELPED build in us) felt recognized, reproduced, and similarly regretted. To gush over every idea that I spoke to me for some similar struggle I face (The number of times I have spoken of American's missing/shaped lexicon in political fields!) or that I feel I had some insight to potentially add to your studies here, would encompass too much time and text for a single comment, but I'd like to make one offering in that spirit: a mental tool that may help address the issue of/your feelings about the unknown people that make your labor possible, from a separate culture than the two you've spent so much time unpacking: Japan, and Japanese 'grace': Itadakimasu. If you've not encountered (or more likely, spent much time unpacking/thinking about) it, it's a phrase rooted in Buddhism that many Japanese people say before eating, and it's most readily translated in English as "I humbly receive/take this". The phrase is meant to acknowledge the farmers, fishermen, fish, plants, and all beings that have contributed to the meal, and accept the 'gift' of nourishment they have provided you. To acknowledge that this meal is is not yours alone, but a gift given by so many others. And while so much of the labor that makes our lives in the first world easy is not given particularly willingly, or under appropriate conditions, we can still take the time to thank them, and remind ourselves of them, so that we may do more for them when and where we can. Enjoy your break, Kyle, may your family be well, and thank you for this series, and your other work.
I saw this video popping up at around half past 1 am (in germany) and just wanted to take a peek. Now its half past 3 and I am in awe at the incredibly deep and personal, frightening and warm, smart and funny and touching work you have done in these three videos. I have been watching your videos for more than ten years now and I am so thankful for the beauty and the insights they brought to me. Danke dir so sehr, lieber Kyle! 🌹
@@TheDarkSatirist not necessarily. Sometimes a person can go years between relationships, then a new one develops quickly. For example, 2.5 years went by after a breakup before I met my most recent ex, but we went from meeting to "official" over a few months.
🌹 As a person with German parents, living in Germany but born in the US, most jokes in Germany about the Dutch tend to be about football (the European version) or about how the Dutch language sounds, to Germans, like a slightly drunk mix of German and English. But the stereotypes about the US are definitely the same in Germany as in the Netherlands. And I have certainly done the "yes I was born in the US, but I'm not THAT kind of American".
🌹 Thank you, Kyle. I needed something like this, especially the effect of the trilogy of these videos. You’ve always been a huge inspiration for me and to hear that you’ve also had issues with anger, with masculinity- I want you to know that’s familiar- truly bone deep- to others too. And that holding on the best we can do. Thank you, have a safe and healing break.
I never comment on RU-vid videos, but HOLY SHIT! You've been my favorite RU-vidr since the Omkara video, and this is my favorite video of yours. It hit me in so many ways, being the default of my society, being an outsider in another, watching my country slowly descend into fascism, the patriarchal expectations on me, pondering how I have upheld that system, and whether I would be a fascist and not just a proto-fascist if I had not moved out. I wish I had something more eloquent to say to match the video, but I'll just say enjoy the break. You deserve it after this magnum opus. 🌹
The first night I traveled internationally, to London, I put on the news. They announced international news and proceeded to talk about things that had nothing to do with England and I had a eureka moment of understanding why Americans are so self involved. FYI if you aren't American, international news means American news abroad in the USA.
I have now seen this whole series. I have listened to the audiobook a couple of times. I love the Verhoeven film. I even sought out bootleg copies of the anime adaptation from the 80s (I think). I still have a thought about a remake... What many fans want is essentially a Michael Bay adaptation. Essentially the sort of film that Verhoeven was lampooning. Only with the jingoistic bombast and gore and nationalistic symbolism turned to 11 to make sure that people understood that he was making a joke. But... Like with Team America, half the audience took it as sincere. What I am proposing comes instead from an intent to not so much make fun of the source material, we had that already. But. I would instead propose a much darker tone. I remember listening to a passage of the book where Rico busts through a wall terrifying skinner children as he and his distant squad-mates essentially flatten a city of civilians because of some even more distant military objective. Rico pays no heed to his atrocity. Moments later they nuke the remainder and take off into orbit for debriefing. Ok. I fully admit, I am planning on revisiting the book and I am fully prepared to have to accept that that section never actually existed in Heinleins text. But. Like when Alex Garland adapted Annihilation by opting not to reread the book by Vandermeer (hey dutch sounding names!) And going only on the memories of it. I think there may be a way to make a story out of Troopers and not make it... Fun... I am thinking of depicting the objective reality of that world outside Ricos brainwashed head. The Starship Troopers I am thinking if should be... simply terrifying to watch. Where someone basically has to ask themselves "Hanz, are we the baddies?" As the war machine churns through victims on all sides. Where the awe inspiring is less modern day awesome and more the dry description of "shock and awe". Like in I am Legend. The bugs and the Skinnies should be telling each other horror stories of the Troopers. So, thinking of nationalities I have kind of ruled out the patriotic American director. And we don't really need another outrageous Dutch spin. The Japanese could probably do something interesting considering how much of their Mecha sci fi owes to these stories. But the nationality I would like to see take on Troopers. Is a German. Someone like Wolfgang Petersen. I think they could probably navigate the treacherous waters of fascism and show the realities of that kind if wartime society. A film that's less "F**K-YEAH!"... And more like "oh... f**k..." But.. heck. I know. Try to sell that to Hollywood investors. And inevitably people will refuse to understand. Because all depictions of war tends to end up glorifying it. No matter the intention.
Hi Kyle, just wanted to say I watched this Great Epic of Yours once again, in hope of getting more out of it. And I think I'll make a habit out of watching it from time to time. One of the most collosal essays I've ever seen with enormous scope. I really love it.
This entire series has been amazing, Kyle. It's such a good trilogy of videos that I will watch again and again because it really spoke to me, and there are only a few other videos on this platform that I revisit. Thank you for this. I don't know if this will work because I literally had to google how to make a rose emoji and I never write those strange brackets, so I just copy and pasted it, but I hope it works. >--
Thinking back to the kid that watched your BHH work on TGWTG and comparing him to the much much older kid I am today, watching this trilogy of yours, is strange to say the least. Watching your content change, watching you change and changing myself through it, through your words and thoughts and me, discussing with myself if I agree or disagree and why, has been a most important and enjoyable experience though~ Thank you for the music 🌹
🌹 Wow… That was sobering. I will say this. Thank you Kyle, for sharing your perspective, experience, and life with us. I don’t agree with everything you said, but I did learn a lot. Go ahead and rest, but I do hope I get to hear more from you in the future. 🌹
I don't know if you even read the comments section anymore, but I just want to tell you that this is by far the best video (and the best series of videos) I've ever seen on youtube, and it's definitely the kind of content I would like to make if I myself were a content creator. The seamless blend of autobiographical content, research and critique is truly something special. Congratulations and greetings from Spain. Keep it up.🌹
Today I learned "third culture" and so many pieces of my experience falls into DiFfErEnT pLaCeS. It is always interesting, watching these videos, and how emotionally experiential they can be. 🌹
I recently rediscovered this channel and man. I am so glad I did. I forgot how wonderful it is to be challenged into thinking much more critically about things... this three parter is something special, ever persistent and important to know. Thanks for making it and for sharing for it. I now need to lay down and think about.... everything, now, lol. 🌹
🌹 Holy shit, dude. That was... unsustainable long-term, man. I hope this gave you a great deal of satisfaction, peace and catharsis, and that the next one doesn't need you to carve off such a large piece of yourself. I am in awe.
I'm glad you talked so thoughtfully with your family. Seeing you draw connections and ideas together really brought things to light. There can be a shared house culture amidst family, with subcultures created by the different people participating together, as parts of the whole. Everyone seemed familiar to me, probably from watching your videos. I see them in you, and vice-versa. 🌹
🌹 CS Lewis once said "What is myth in one world, may be reality in another." Maybe one day we can make the myth of a better world -- a world of true equality for everyone -- a reality this one; but I don't expect it to happen within my lifetime.
Thank you Kyle for going above and beyond with each of your videos. It was great of you to admit of a past controversial moment you did. I wish more creators/people weren’t afraid to do that and apologize for wrongdoings. Perhaps the world would be a much better place if we learned to say sorry and LEARN from our past mistakes. 🌹
🌹 Thanks so much for all the work you put into this series! Also, as an immigrant who is not "detectable" as an immigrant, I really relate to your sense of displacement. I often feel like I belong to both countries and neither at once.
Holy shit, this was amazing. Parts one and two as well. I was actually very surprised you hadn't read Marx, didn't think you were a card carrying communist by any means but you've coincidentally made Marxist points to the extent that I at least thought you'd read the guy. You have a pretty good grasp of Marxism already without having done any reading.
As an anarcho-communist who has a complicated relationship with Heinlein, this whole series felt made for me. I still love a few of his books, especially Have Spacesuit Will Travel, but I can never defend Starship Troopers. 🌹
Kyle, it would take an autobiography for me to express my reactions to this series. In short, 1) you might've felt similarly had you been in the US the while time and 2) the mindset of fascism seems similar to the mindset of emotional abuse. 🌹🌹🌹
This may be the dumbest comment under this video, but as a mother of two boys that look nothing like me, I can't get over the fact that you and your brother look soooo much like your mom
To answer your question in the epilogue, I guess in a way, you have to be the kind of person that you want to be. I highly respect both my parents. As far as I'm concerned as long as I can look at my face in the mirror, and say definitively that I am the person that I am comfortable being and that the people I respect would approve, then I don't care about the rest of the world it can burn. This was a powerful series. And I could tell it took a lot out of you. The only thing I could suggest my man, if you aren't in therapy you might want to consider obtaining a therapist. I think you have a lot of things to work out and to some extent, sadly because I've been there too, much like the scene at the climax of the wall, it's a trial within the Mind's Eye
There was a lot of passion in clear in this whole project. You did a good job, Kyle, and massive respect for being able to put this together and growing this last decade. 🌹
🌹 Truly something great you've made here. It feels almost perverse, that you've torn yourself open to feed us through this video series, but I do feel enriched in kind for the effort. Insightful, damning, hopeful, beautiful. Thank you Kyle, we hardly deserve you. Rest well!
Hi Kyle! 🌹 I've never been to the Netherlands, but as an American of Dutch descent I've always wanted to go! I have to say this video isn't what I was expecting it to be, but I was quite pleasantly surprised! It felt to me like you were expressing the feeling of going through a painful period of transition, and as someone who has had some experience with a number of those I thought I might share what wisdom I've gained. I grew up as a liberal, in a liberal society (in the sense of a ruling ideology, not necessarily left-leaning), but the more I tried to live my life according to liberal values the more frustrated and alienated I felt; and the more I tried to understand the world according to liberal explanations the more complicated and confusing everything seemed. The more I sought truth the more I was confronted with falsehoods, not only in the world around me but in myself. I found myself re-exploring the notions of "boy," "man," "girl," and "woman." The society I wanted to do right by told me I was one, somehow I knew I was another. So, in a way, I've always felt like I had that outsider perspective. I knew that if something so near to my own consciousness could be questioned (and had to be, in order for me to find any peace) then I would have to find my own truth in everything. I still held many of the same values yet in trying to oppose fascism, as any good liberal should, I thought it necessary to ask why fascism exists, where it comes from, and why does it keep reappearing when we think it's gone? It's maddening to always be vigilant against such a thing, yet it obviously wasn't always with us: it emerged from a particular period in history and has continued to re-emerge ever since. Maybe the United States is proto-fascist. If that's true, then so is the Netherlands, so is all of Europe, so is the entire liberal society that defines virtually every country in the world today. If we want to imagine a world better than this one, then why not one that is not perpetually haunted by the threat of racism, fascism, and reaction? Why not a world where people can truly live, free from fighting the same struggles fought by generations of their forebears? In recent years I have found myself going through another transition, not as visible but just as painful and near to my core as any previous. Through it I have found an even deeper truth, and most exhilarating of all I have found myself-possibly for the first time in my life-able to imagine a different, better world. It's still mostly obscured but I can truly feel its closeness. My imagination was invigorated by struggles and by love, through intense study and admittedly the occasional administration of exotic substances. The grief and anxiety you expressed in the final part of this video reminded me a great deal of the early and bewildering stages of such a transition, but I hope in reading all this (if you do read this) you will find encouragement to keep going and that deeper truths than you can presently imagine await you on the other side. You said you haven't read much Marx; now might be a good time to start :) If you or anyone else read through all of this and found it helpful, feel free to seek me out on twitter @redryder1 and I would love to chat!
Dear Kyle, thank yew. This series moved me, shook me, rocked me down in my pip. The depth and breadth of its insight, the scope of its remit, its unflinching honesty and above al its raw humanity staggers me, and i am far from easily impressed. As a rule i do not comment. On anything, anywhere. I absorb, digest, interpret and report to my own work. I am a creative, much like yourself. I have watched this series before. Perhaps 2 or three times and it always resonated deeply, as a fan of Verhoeven, as someone who has enjoyed much of the work you cite and reference. I find myself upon the afternoon after a sleeples night of reaserch and head banging, bathed i the glow of my laptop, digging through all manner of resources for a project i am working one. One detailing the confluence of history, colonialism, fascism, language and art. I had hit a wall and as i hit 4am i decided, what the hell, ill rewatch your League video again (at least the fifth watch). That alone gave me a wealth to consider. But i ticked over into this series again and.... i can articulate a great many things but at this pressent momoent words escape me. Thank yew for yaw humanity, yaw sweat and yaw tears. I just wanted yew to know, you beautiful son of a bitch, I READ YOUR BOOK! It is unlikely this message will be a blip on yaw radar, but thank yew. I strongly believe this should become part of the curriculum in ever english speaking nation, every white european natioin and indeed, all former colonial nations. Obviously, in our education on colonialism wy should deffer to the people who where most affected as a cornerstone of our education. But this seems essential, to every supposed freedom loving yt, that they go on this journey and attempt to grok the fathomless depths of the crimes our forefathers have raught upon this earth. Thank yew Kyle, may yaw god be wyth yew, and praise Glycon 🐍🌹
Watching this has given me a lot to think about, but I can't stop going back to my anthropology courses and the idea of a holistic approach and the importance of looking to others to see reflections of ourselves. I've never read Heinlein, but a lot of what was brought up just reminds me of toxic masculine stuff that I was fed when I was in high school before I realized I'm trans. The whole part on anti-fascism and the essay you read really gave me a reminder of a running critique I have with heroism. To me heroism is based on a selfish perspective that centers one's morality and ethics over the autonomy and desires of the victims. It sounds good and happy to save people, but then again there's that looming phrase 'save the person, kill the savage,' that justified the murder of countless indigenous peoples all over the world. Also the whole part about vulnerability may have been hard to watch, but I think that such kind of discomfort is important and necessary. Emotional honesty isn't easy. Processing especially when you don't know how is even harder. And we live in a world that discourages that. I think one of the most striking things for me though is the whole perspective that there's glory in death, and the focus on practicality. Meanwhile my entire personal worldview is founded on accepting the world has no true purpose and that value is something people create, making us the ones who can divine beauty and wonder. Then again, I'd like to live forever just so I can bask in that beauty forever. 🌹
I just recently started making RU-vid videos, about a year ago. And to be honest, the part of this video where you allowed yourself to be angry and shout at the screen hit me hard. I’m legitimately worried that I will get trolls and comments that will drive me to a similar state. Though I didn’t really think about that when I started. I got my first “soy boy” comment the other day and then got another one the day after. And it’s something that I’ve started thinking about. Thank you for making these videos. I know I was just focusing on one specific part of it, but I promise I appreciated and loved all of it. If this ends up being your last video, I will always say that you’re one of the greats. And if you do continue to make videos, I will look forward to each and every one. Thank you, Kyle. 🌹
Your work is an inspiration. I’ve started brainstorming video essays of my own, and all of your videos (both great and mediocre) have been prime sources I’ve looked to. This trilogy is by far your best work! Thank you for all the hard work you’ve put in through the past decade! I hope you enjoy your well deserved break! 🌹
Counter point: Star Trek. Stark Trek is the most hopeful scifi there is, it shows is a world, no a universe, where humans and aliens can live together, in peace, can work together a common goal, to go out and explore, so they CAN know more. "Risk is our business, Gentleman!" is what Kirk said about exploring space. Man must explore and if he finds others out there, he should reach out with his hand, to shake the hand or other appendages of those he meet, saying that we come in peace, to explore and learn, not to conquer and destroy. Space is not to be conquered, its to be explored. Carl Sagan put it best when he summed up humanity with this: ""Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them, there's a succession of incidence, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet, at this moment, here we face a critical branch-point in the history. What we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization, and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition, or greed, or stupidity we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But, we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the Universe, and to carry us to the stars."
🌹 Just wanted to say thanks again for the awesome series in the comments. Been a long time fan of your work and this hit me hard in ways I don't think I can articulate yet. Thanks again for all your hard work.
I struggle for a while to say exactly what your series on Starship Troopers had meant to me but, speacially this last video. So I guess I will just tell a little story. The first time I ever watched any of your videos, was the one about a Serbian Film. At the time, there was quite the fuss about the release of the film here in Brasil. Your video was a fantastic analysis about the film and, as a bonus, introduced me to the poem Howl, which I hold in a very special place in my heart to this very day. I end up writting a monograph about the case against A Serbian Film to graduate from law school and now I study fascism in Brasil for my thesis. It has been... haunting... specially as I grew to umderstand how much of what make the fascism of Bolsonaro possible is to deeply seeded on the culture of my country, in myself in ways that I have not yet fully comprehended. So the final part of your video, the more openly angry one, honestly, spoke to me in ways that made me truly unconfortable, because it reminds me of the ways that I struggle with my own "masculinity" or whatever the hell I would called. And I thank you for that. I most sincerely thank you for that. I know is weird to read some stranger from the internet thanking you for making them deeply and personally unconfortable, and I do apologize if *you* feel in any way unconfortable while reading this. But the raw anger and the image of someone doing push ups alone, struggling to satisfy some idea of manliness that I hate, but in some part of my head I feel that I have to satisfy. Is weird, but this is the first time I saw that capture by the work, the art, of someone else. It felt awful, but also, in a weird way, liberating. I thank you for your content, and your amazing vídeos. And I wish the best for you, and your beautiful family. 🌹
Kyle, your Cinema Antifa videos were some of your very best and I loved them. I had to work hard to find them so I could download and preserve them, but thanks to a friend, find them I did. Now I show your Triumph of the Will essay to anyone who fails to grasp fascism when they see it, because it's the best and most usefel description I've ever come across. I was relieved to hear a linguist say the American R is a weird sound that doesn't really exist in any other language, because it always irked me (as an Australian). Regarding the European polyglot stereotype, I always think of the girl who worked at the Brussels airport car rental desk when I went on holiday there in 2014. Besides being the very image of the chic young Frenchwoman (well, Walloon...), she was clearly EXASPERATED BEYOND WORDS to be dealing with an ignorant rosbif like me. And fair enough too. But she did deal with everyone who came up to the desk in their native language - waiting in line, I heard her speak French, Dutch, German, English (to me) and either Spanish or Italian, I'm not sure which. I've since had Dutch students tell me being forced to learn so many languages does their head in, which I can only imagine it does, but your seriously come out looking superhuman to the rest of us. She was the first thing I thought of when I heard that airport had been bombed. I really hope she's okay. As for Marxism... I really used to stress about the obvious failures of Communism in the 20th Century until I read a blog by Doug Muder, the Weekly Sift, which pointed out Communism was only supposed to be a means to an end. So, a Leftist need not be a Communist (thank Christ, because the utter horrors of that system should NOT be tried again). In the 21st Century, Marx is not a source of solutions, but he did identify the problem for us: Access To The Means Of Production. So, how else can we get that? I know a growing number of people today use "socialism" as an insult - itself a Shibboleth, really - but it need not be. Socialism might be a better solution to problems that are not profitable, and need to be solved all the same. That's where I'm at right now, anyway, subject to change as I learn. As it should be, Inhume All Fascism. 🌹
Amazing work as always, Kyle. I swear, that reading from an example of fascist ideology from Starship Troopers over a montage of clips from both real life and fiction gives me the chills. And as always, you have a lovely singing voice. 🌹
