Hey!!! Nick, Jared Benson and team🍀. I am writing this from India. I am currently writing my thesis as part of my master's. In the overall process of shaping my dissertation, you guys helped me a lot to understand the theory and draw the framework for my arguments. You guys are really amazing. I'm sorry; currently, I am not contradicting anything, but when I start working, I will. Please keep doing the amazing work your team is doing. I am very grateful to you all. Let's spread the Knowledge to all. I really admire you guys 🌿
I subscribed your channel just after watched this video. So clear that I can understand the important theory invention of tradition. I'll keep on studying!
Firstly, thank you guys so much for this informative and entertaining podcast. I listen to your show in podcast form on headphones at work so I have one small request; Jared, please quit hitting the desk to emphasize a point. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder to see what the noise is lol Seriously though, you guys are awesome and I really appreciate all you do!
This video brings up issues pointed out in lectures posted by Thersites the Historian. He informs viewers of how authors like Plutarch, Livy, and Dionysus of Halicarnassus would invent narratives to suit their politics. Another example of this warping of tradition to suit one's ends is the Mos Maiorum. Sulla the dictator codified it in such a way as to conserve the power of the Patricians.
The Meiji Restoration and the whole story leading up the Boshin War and following the Satsuma Rebellion is another excellent example of invented traditions
23:09 the nation-state is a 19th century phenomenon; the transatlantic slave trade isn’t at all related. That is totally anarchistic. Neither Hobsbawm’s introduction or the chapter would support that view; the monarchy and Scottish tartan chapters would entirely in opposition to that.
He did identify as a Communist. He supported the Soviet Union until the time it collapsed, when other Marxists within his milieu distanced themselves from it following the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Reminds me of Al Muqaddimah. Ibn Khaldun also talks about invented tradition, or at least the appropriation of traditions by one monarch to the next when colonization/regime change takes place to keep social cohesion in tact.
If you are discussing tradition and history but never heard of Muqaddimah or Ibn Khaldun then it's unforgivable ( this line is inspired by your opening remark on Eric Hobsbowm! ). For the sake of decolonization of knowledge, you guys can also discuss non-white thinkers like Ibn Khaldun and others once in a while ( it will add some extra more 'diversity' in the podcast). Even capitalists like Zuckerberg reads Ibn Khaldun ( who hardly bothers and revolution or ideology). Perhaps your next episode can be on epistemicide !
In short...for the most part. There may be some obscure tradition that has some ancient material purpose that someone may cite, but given the nation-state itself is and of itself 'invented'...
So invented traditions relied on mass media (Anderson), and so would it be difficult to invent new traditions because media consumption is so fragmented (internet) nowadays?
Doesnt this (amongst many other things of course) point towards how the left has to seriously consider a project of a new humanity/human identity - which has to be a highly collective one with a holistic approach that goes beyond our current focus on rather destructive egocentric individualism that just has to begrudgingly come together in socities for basic needs and functions of survival? And isn't it so, that such a project would also need a true end of history (which would bring about an end to our need for attachment and continuity that is at the core of traditions, tribalism and nationalism, as well as the absence of true intergenerational justice)? A true end in the sense that it is not one that just declares a arbitrary system the "winner" of societal and civil evolution , but one that breaks with the made up continuities of reactionary politics and tradition based/tribalistic identities (which have befallen the left as much as the right in recent decades) whilst trying to further progress towards ever new horizons perpetually? I get the strong feeling that all to often we correctly identify systems and frameworks that are a hindrance to human evolution and prosperity without acknowledging that they do not exist as a natural state or in a vacuum but are invented, propagated and defended by actual human beings. They and their obvious flaws don't exist independant of the human condition, but solely because of it. So I strongly believe that questioning these institutions and systems cannot be separated from questioning the human condition as such and how the systemic flaws seem to often be mere reflections of flaws in human character, which we dare not touch with a ten feet pole in politics these days. I think more than a discussion about yet another system installed in the world by humans, that actively harms us in the long run, we on the left could profit from a honest discussion about the very fabric of the human condition that begets these systems in the first place. Though I have found that amongst the contemporary left its hard to have a honest discussion about the human condition, since many (in accordance with their very own brand of anthropocentrism - a concept which we (rightfully so) criticize in other contexts) seem to equal our contemporary human form (moral and biological) with some law of nature, a almost divine object of unquestionable refinement to create their own continuities in a world where they are otherwise completely uprooted and bereft of agency. It seems to me like the human condition often times cannot be fundamentally questioned and made into a real political project. Many discussions I had about this topic (of a new human condition and identity), which included the post-/transhuman, seemed to be akin to the end of existence for most. Calling into question the continuity of said identity seemed to be equivalent to dissolution of the self and ones purpose in life where a clear line between the own self and an abstract distant future could not be drawn anymore and any actions towards a new humanity therefore became almost suicidal to them. For many people I talked to a new humanity that breaks with our contemporary mold seemed to be tantamount to an attack on their own live as such. The whole concept seems revolting to them. I think this basic drive towards a sense of order and continuity (much more so in a neoliberal capitalistic world where most people have almost no agency over substantial decisions concerning their own lives), that link between self-worth and lifelong actions that have to amount to a continuity of things are at the heart of the problem. And whilst many would argue that with a better world comes a better man, I firmly believe that this better world will not come if we cannot have a honest and comprehensive political project that aims at fundamentally changing the human condition first and is allowed to break with all known categories and our derivation of the self and its perceived worth from historical continuity. People have to evolve past the idea that something of them has to survive them, be part of a lasting continuity they can somehow control and trace back to themselves (be it a child, a nation they served, a political project they fought for et cetera) for their lives to be meaningful. This is part of a new human identity - one of true selflessness, true altruism and one of the collective species rather the individual - part of a human condition that has evolved past its primitive dread of individual non-existence which is at the core of so many of our self-destructive drives (like nationalism). Independant from my own early morning ramblings about a new human condition, I do believe that tradition and nationalism are heavily influenced by existential dread and motivated by our fear of death. Motivated by the idea that a meaningful life has to take part in projects that outlast oneself and propagate an abstract fraction of the self into eternity.
Without perhaps offering the same depth dedicated to this response as the original post (thank you), it seems there are allusions here to complete paradigm shifts (see Thomas Kuhn of course). Needless to say, the scientific and the social don't always present seamless corollaries as we've noted in other episodes. And in this case, the difficulty lies in creating the "unforeseeable" new paradigm consciously while seeking to suspend the consciousness that formed from socialized notions of identity, ideology, et al. This is where your points on notions of self remind us of the annihilation of the ego present in subjectivist revolutionary movements of the past (and we're caught in history again I suppose). Considering these movements to include certain Sufi and Buddhist practices (of which we have episodes) it seems we can learn a great deal; we wonder, however, can at least similar practices, performed individually, lead to collective novelty (in human identity and thus, social organization)?
I'll add, we have an episode on Max Stirner's philosophy coming up which will touch on a lot of these topics (humanism, individualism, etc.). Stay tuned for that.
@@RevolutionandIdeology I firmly believe that that which individualism in its current form can achieve lies before us. This is the world individual acts can create and I think we have to realize that rather quickly. So to the question if from said ocean of individuality new forms and significant impulses that amount to new categories can emerge: I personally believe not. I think that well meaning and even extraordinary individuals must almost certainly fail in this day and age if they cling to their individuality as a separate category and distinct value worthy of protection (rather than a malleable and ever changing representation of the self which must be allowed to undergo rapid evolution when confronted with historic realities and challenges).This world and its systems and categories are not geared towards individualism that is productive or healthy. And where groups of individuals of great character come together to maybe try to create emergent categories they are usually confined to small spaces and the cracks of rigid societal structures isolated to a degree that prevents them from generating significant enough impulses and networks to create real progress. I see individuality as a useful tool that has its time and place - and but I believe that now more concentrated and collectivistic efforts are needed to overcome the very real existential threats we are facing. If only for the reason to prefiguratively experience that a greater whole beyond the rugged individuality of today (where everyone is adamant that they don't have any other option but to realize their own individual lives at any and all cost, for they do not have anything else) can still exist; is still part of the realm of reality and possibility-space and not just a distant myth. I believe our current brand of individualism to be atomistic in nature unable to represent the whole correctly, unable to express certain emergent qualities inherent in more collective approaches that place values on the abstract other. While I believe that almost every aspect of individuality can be represented within and by the holistic collective (I believe collectivism does not have to exclude individuality), I believe certain categories and thought-patterns are completely outside the realm of individualism even in its most sophisticated forms. A collective that has individuality wholly within it is very different from individuals that form collectives and hence can produce different emergent forms. For example true altruism (which most of the psychology community thinks to be nonexistent) and true selflessness are categories that are most likely mutually exclusive to even the most liberal interpretations of individuality, because both would need a moment of dissolution of ego and self to be experienced which individuality as such couldnt survive fully intact.
@@PartisanGamer Have you read Max Stiner? Every thought contained in your comment he theorizes about and dissects in his book ("The Unique and Its Property"). I highly suggest it if you haven't already read it. (it's what we'll be covering soon)
@@RevolutionandIdeology I have read "about" him but nothing of him, for I find the core of his philosophy at odds with my two most fundamental believes, which are: 1) the collective whole of the species is the most important thing. For only the species has the potential to propagate into that far future where nothing of me or any of us will be left. Where it - or its descendants and successors - have the faint hope to find (through science, philosophy, deep introspection and ego-development) more fundamental truths than we - in our rather infantile state as a species - could even begin to fathom. For this every individual has to make sacrificies aimed towards a distant and abstract "other" far removed from us (even ultimate ones). 2) I am deeply optimistic about our capacity (as a species) to generate meaningful change and make meaningful discoveries. And I believe these to be deeply interconnected with the surrounding universe. What I read about Max Stirner tells me a story of a man that had a rather nihilistic and egocentric outlook on life. Both tendencies I find counterproductive, even harmful. They might work for individuals that already had phases of significant ego-development (for some they might even be the correct endpoint for their development) but are usually just a pretense for most others to justify reckless egotism and apathy in the face of existential threats and needed change. Though I clearly advocate for the fundamental need to focus inwards (same way Stirner did) my motivation here is that I see as a necessary prerequisite for more substantial change in society and our surrounding world. Stirner (if I understood that correctly) however build his focus around what was almost a negation of the outside world (as some absurd impossibility ripe with contradictions and hypocrisy). I got the feeling that his focus inwards was somewhat of a move to create a meaningful world on the inside in place of the outer world and then project that outwards again to supplant the outer world, whereas I would argue for that inner change BECAUSE (or in hope of betterment) of the outer world. I admit that methodologically there are clear intersection between his approach and what I would argue for, but we come from radically different starting points and have equally radically different goals I would argue (and hope) but maybe I am blind to my own convictions and biases here. P.S. sorry that my replies are always so wordy, but I am german and I am trying to give meaningful answers to rather complex topics, in a language I am not fluent in. Its hard sometimes. They are so wordy because I try to cover my bases and be as specific as I can be, not because I like the sound of my voice so much, I promise :D
Please,don't speak so fast. A lot of your listeners don't have english as L1. Otherwise, this Hobsbawm point is pretty interesting but perhaps you should compare with the "Banal nationalism" from Michael Billig.
