Politics: Israel, Ignorance and Activism.

learning for the most part involves
suffering and it's really strange for me to hear particularly within the vegan intellectual ghetto so much talk about expertise about research and about activism that seems to come from an overly abstract and fetishized idea of what any of those words would mean in practice I'm gonna keep the real with you I am not now an expert in the israel-palestine conflict and I never plan to become an expert in the israel-palestine conflict I think I have read four books on that topic in my life there is only one that I really remember clearly that's sort of memorable and stuck with me in that way I read numerous articles about it in my university education and newspapers and what have you and yet I would claim absolutely zero expertise on the topic if I shift my camera over here right now I've probably got about 40 books in the room with me this year what am i learning about what am i gaining expertise in the politics of Fiji the politics of Tonga those are two small islands in the South Pacific that I never imagined I'd be studying northern Japan the Japanese border with Russia three-way conflicts between China Russia and Japan historically quite a few different episodes of Chinese communism Russian communism Japanese politics Japanese economics and at the end of this year I would still not claim expertise in any of those things hmm I could have when I was a young man become passionate about the Israeli Palestine conflict I could have decided to devote my life to research or activism on the Palestine Israel conflict and I say or because research is not the same things activism but let's take it down a few notches instead of devoting your life to a cause just think about what it would mean to devote 5 years to a cause to devote 5 years to studying the israel-palestine conflict or any of the strange subjects I've just mentioned what would it be like to devote just one year of your life to activism in an area I don't think that's that hard to imagine like I don't think it's a huge leap of intuition even for someone who has no particular background no particular life experience to think what that's like if you know what it's like to work at Starbucks for one year it's not that hard to imagine what it would really be like how it would transform you and how much kind of suffering you would go through if you devoted one year of your life to any of these things recent video from a privileged vegan as she calls herself where she's standing there with a friend or colleague lecturing us on what vegans ought to think and do about the israel-palestine conflict um again among the things that seem so strange to me are the way she speaks of activism that you ought to know about this issue and then become an activist about it like herself the the word activist seems to have become completely meaningless in this context do you really think that making statements on Twitter is activism like do you think making angry YouTube comments to people whom you disagree with is activism and again reciprocal that what is expertise what is research as I say I had every opportunity to to become an expert on Middle Eastern politics in general on politics of the Muslim world I mentioned I should another YouTube video recently I had one really excellent professor in that field way back during my first university Plomin political science it would have been much easier for me to develop that area of expertise than for me to try to develop expertise related to Cambodia Laos Southeast Asia and so on human knowledge is something like a glass of water being poured out on a table top the only sense of its shape comes from an awareness of its edges of its limits we cannot know all the things we don't know and we can't even really keep track of all the things we do know but we can be aware of our limits we can be aware of the edges of our own knowledge and accomplishments and I don't even mean that we should be humble I really don't in terms of cultures I kind of dig the American ego trip I dig the blustering self-confidence that's so stereotypical of people born and raised the United States I much prefer to be around Americans with that attitude than to be around British people who seem to be simultaneously so fragile and so demanding if your approval and to have all these different layers of phony evasions and false humility about things I dig it it's cool you know um but as I've said before here on YouTube honesty is the only currency we've got and when you're talking about a subject that's marginal to your life's interest in your life work it's even more important to be honest about what you know what you don't know the limits of your knowledge what motivated you why and how you know what you know so like for me I lost like 10 years of my life studying tera vaada Buddhism so in many of my videos I just throw it away that quickly I just say look for about 10 years I was a scholar of this stuff and if you want to know more you can watch other videos on this channel you can read articles have published there's all kinds of informal writing them underneath it there's a lot of evidence about that so I don't need to go into it people are interested they can find it more but if I were to make a youtube video about the history of Haiti island of Haiti in the Caribbean I would have to begin that video by saying really at some length why I read a bunch of books about the history of Haiti now it's strange I mean I don't know the research I did on Haiti it's not even 1% of the research I did in my life but it really did affect me deeply it stayed with me for the rest of my life it's shaped and reshaped the way I viewed other other areas of politics other areas of history other areas of knowledge to be blunt and simple it influenced me in case you don't know the history of Haiti does involve slavery racism revolution counter-revolution there's a lot to it there's a lot to be learned from it Napoleon Bonaparte who still celebrated as a hero in France in fact devised the first gas chambers in history of the world where he gassed slaves to death as he was trying to reimpose slavery in the name of a revolution that had ended slavery and preached liberty and equality for all if you know anything about me from the other videos on this channel and so on you'll know these types of terrible ironies and saddening contradictions of the political history of the world um there are a lot of reasons why this would resonate with me but still I am not now an expert on Haiti and I never will be and I'm also not an activist on Haiti and I never will be and even if I made a hundred declarations on YouTube Twitter email or Facebook about the politics of Haiti reflecting my interests are concerned it would neither make me an expert nor an activist so I mean I think it's cool to be honest about what you know to be honest about your ignorance to be honest about what you care about I think it's totally cool to come here on YouTube and say whether it's in reference to the israel-palestine conflict or Haiti or anything else look this is something I only got interested in recently this is why I care about it I don't really know that much about it I read this one book about it maybe you've read two books maybe you haven't read any books maybe you just watched some YouTube videos about it you're just at that stage where you you're just starting to get interested and and wonder what you can do more maybe if you're gonna talk about activism you should just say you know I'm interested in doing something I'm interested in making difference I'm trying to learn how I can make a difference but please do not talk about yourself in the present tense or the past tense or as if it's some Universal character trait as being an activist who's involved in the israel-palestine conflict if there is nothing on your CV that relates to that