The Curious Case of White Guilt.
06 February 2017 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
for those of you who watched my channel
regularly I think nothing I'm about to say will really surprise you um a regard so called white guilt as problematic not because it's a form of guilt I actually think guilt can be quite a positive motivating force in people's lives I always make fun hours on this I always say my values are very bronze age they're very unfashionable I know that these days people think you should never feel guilty she never feel bad at myself I think it's great I'm Pro guilt did something terrible in your life feel guilty about it great learn from your sense of guilt learn fear sense of shame change take on a new direction I've had I think guilt give me something wonderful as part of the human experience my views are decidedly unfashionable in 2017 but look you know with the white guilt phenomenon I've encountered it when I was working on First Nations peoples and languages so Kree ship way you know languages and politics that in America that would call Native American and Canada we call First Nations I encountered it in many different forms in Southeast Asia people dealing with the history the long shadow of America's involvement in Vietnam Cambodia in Wars there and what have you and I mean you know it's not meaningless I'm not gonna come out here and say you know white guilt is meal look many things in this world you can recognize that something is deeply flawed and problematic and at the same time recognize that the people involved with it are actually motivated to make the world a better place that's definitely the case with white guilt both of the people who experience it and with the people who kind of weaponize it who kind of turned it into something that used to humiliate others and carry on left-wing political discourse these are people however misguided trying to make the world a better place and it's a lot of that goes on a course in religion you get a lot of people joining religious groups trying to make the world we get a better place and they end up making it worse this kind of very ethically in misconception look so what is the problem with white guilt I've already said the problem the problem is the guilt has such oh no I'm not opposed not opposed to that I think it's really profoundly philosophically misleading to look at this world and build your ethics on what you would have done thirty years ago 300 years ago 500 years ago why is it so misleading first and foremost because on an emotional level the people who indulge in this way of thinking people who look back even at American the American war in Vietnam or the slave trade you know the involvement of let's say the French Empire in slave trade people look back at that and say oh no no I'm superior to those people because if I were in their position I would have never made that decision at the same time that people perceive white guilt as self-abnegation or you know self-criticism from white people laying themselves low in reality in a more subtle sense what they're doing is declaring themselves in a totally meaningless sense morally superior it's really based on an attachment a sanctimonious it's the word I was looking for it is a truly sanctimonious sentiment and I've never met someone who responded to white guilt by getting motivated to look at what were the factors what were the reasons why their ancestors theoretically their ancestors but a why people in centuries past or even in decades past made these decisions and so it it seems to lend itself to this kind of two dimensional reduction of history did you on the one hand just serving as a self congratulatory award that you know you're you're supposedly so much better than these people live these other circumstances and I mean you know so there's the element of self-righteousness which is a very ugly pairing with ignorance now if you're gonna study history if you're gonna study politics really this is about politics but we're talking about politics in the past tense here you've really got to practice having sympathy for the devil because sympathy will lead you to productive new research and analysis and this kind of sanctimonious self-congratulation it's involved with white guilt well not on a two-dimensional level dealing with it in this ultra simplified way it seems like the most ridiculous thing in the world that in the 20th century the American intelligence service including the the CIA became deeply involved in international drug trafficking American spies became international dope dealers heroin and cocaine this is not an against conspiracy theory this is an incredibly well documented fact including by the way extensive hearings in the u.s. house of Congress what have you it's so easy to look back I mean especially what maybe you're a tourist who goes to Vietnam Cambodia Laos so if I can say this is a terrible stain on American democracy how could anyone ever do this I would never do this this is unthinkable to me etc it is unthinkable because you're looking at it with absolutely zero historical context I I don't think anyone at the CIA ever sat down and said hey I got a great idea let's turn this intelligence organization into a dope-dealing of it here's what did happen France was defeated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and that was a disaster and a calamity for France because contrary to popular belief the leadership of France including Charles de Gaulle wanted the French Empire to go on forever they handed over control of Indochina French control of Vietnam Laos Cambodia to the United States that was as I recall at the time when the CIA was still just being organized out of the post-world War two black ops division the OSS the various intelligence services so I think it is not quite accurate to refer to them as the CIA at that moments I may be off by a couple of years so American military intelligence under one heading or another has handed over to them a fully functional self-funding dope-dealing system the French very intentionally designed their colonies to have a self-funding secret service and they were hoping to eventually have us self-funding military and a self-funding occupation built on a very poorly understood imitation of the British Empire in India maybe a century earlier [Music] so is this an excuse no if you were the director of the CIA and someone told you hey we've just inherited this functioning ongoing opium smuggling ring that's you know created devised and operated by French intelligence in Indochina what would you do well it's a mysterious thing about history we should all learn from what would motivate the Americans to take over that drug-dealing operation I can tell you right now the belief that they would do it better profoundly appealing human beings at every stage in the history of slavery whether you're looking at you know the earliest days when the transatlantic slave trade is a new idea or later when it's become entrenched and culturally accepted the easiest thing in the world was for a French colony to look across the the fence at a Spanish colony and say those people are the barbarians those are the guys doing a bad job and if you read primary source documents from almost any period in the history of slavery this may be true you could even say any period of any colonial empire you'll always find them looking across the fence at their rivals and fascinate two very specific ethical differences so I can remember reading the French in Haiti that an incredibly brutal system of slavery by the way as you know even by the standards of the Caribbean looking across the fret the the the fence so to speak at Cuba and saying Oh in Cuba the slave masters use dogs they have hunting dogs to smell the slaves and chase them and also to torture them to have the dogs biting sight and we don't do that this is civilization versus savagery and on the other side you know there were spanish-speaking colonies there I'm sorry I don't remember offhand the names that looked at Haiti and looked down their noses at how brutal the system of slavery was in in Haiti than French colony because among other things the slaves in the French colony were quite eager to escape to become slaves in the more humane conditions of the nearby spanish-speaking colonies there's quite a lot of that going on there were slaves who had to choose between more than one system of slavery or more than let's say say it's always so easy to look down your nose at your competitors and it's always so easy to convince yourself that no matter how bad or evil a thing is you will do it better than them you will do it better than they would or they did the people who are there before you the people on the other side of the fence absolutely certain that the Americans took over control of Indochina of the French Empire and Vietnam Laos Cambodia with one simple certainty however bad a job they might do at least they would do better than the French yes taking over an opium smuggling operation might be a bad and evil thing but we can't be any worse than those guys at least at least we'll do a better job and it did have profound long-term consequence I think in a really meaningful sense the later scandals like iran-contra the contr fair the various scandals that exposed American military Americans CIA involvement in either cocaine's trafficking opium trafficking or both you know specific deals of trading drugs for guns and supporting you know covert ops and paramilitary groups these kinds of arrangements in South America in Central Asia and Southeast Asia I think in a very meaningful sense they're all connected to the precedent that was said at the end of World War two after Gen Bien Phu when the French handed over control of their operation to the Americans so the French imitated the British specifically the dope-dealing British Empire in India the Americans imitated the French and you know I do have sympathy for the devil when I look at the decisions made by people like Nixon and Mao Zedong you know I do enough research so that I can understand what their reasons were because simply the point of sympathy it's a very interesting contrast sympathy versus guilt I think both can play a positive role in your life I'm not here to say guilt is all bad I think that the real value of sympathy is as an analytical tool it's to draw you into a more meaningful understanding of what the problem is I don't sympathize with Richard Nixon so I can so I can weep on my pillow thinking about what he what a hard time he had when he pushed the button to drop all those bombs on Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam no of course in an obvious sense Richard Nixon was a really despicable person in his duel for sure I sympathize with him so that I can understand what his reasons were for the decisions that he made and once you understand those reasons you don't feel guilt you don't feel white guilt you don't feel Chinese guilt you don't feel Japanese to kill you don't feel guilt instead you have a level understanding and it becomes apparent to you that if you were in that person's position maybe just maybe you would have made the same decision
regularly I think nothing I'm about to say will really surprise you um a regard so called white guilt as problematic not because it's a form of guilt I actually think guilt can be quite a positive motivating force in people's lives I always make fun hours on this I always say my values are very bronze age they're very unfashionable I know that these days people think you should never feel guilty she never feel bad at myself I think it's great I'm Pro guilt did something terrible in your life feel guilty about it great learn from your sense of guilt learn fear sense of shame change take on a new direction I've had I think guilt give me something wonderful as part of the human experience my views are decidedly unfashionable in 2017 but look you know with the white guilt phenomenon I've encountered it when I was working on First Nations peoples and languages so Kree ship way you know languages and politics that in America that would call Native American and Canada we call First Nations I encountered it in many different forms in Southeast Asia people dealing with the history the long shadow of America's involvement in Vietnam Cambodia in Wars there and what have you and I mean you know it's not meaningless I'm not gonna come out here and say you know white guilt is meal look many things in this world you can recognize that something is deeply flawed and problematic and at the same time recognize that the people involved with it are actually motivated to make the world a better place that's definitely the case with white guilt both of the people who experience it and with the people who kind of weaponize it who kind of turned it into something that used to humiliate others and carry on left-wing political discourse these are people however misguided trying to make the world a better place and it's a lot of that goes on a course in religion you get a lot of people joining religious groups trying to make the world we get a better place and they end up making it worse this kind of very ethically in misconception look so what is the problem with white guilt I've already said the problem the problem is the guilt has such oh no I'm not opposed not opposed to that I think it's really profoundly philosophically misleading to look at this world and build your ethics on what you would have done thirty years ago 300 years ago 500 years ago why is it so misleading first and foremost because on an emotional level the people who indulge in this way of thinking people who look back even at American the American war in Vietnam or the slave trade you know the involvement of let's say the French Empire in slave trade people look back at that and say oh no no I'm superior to those people because if I were in their position I would have never made that decision at the same time that people perceive white guilt as self-abnegation or you know self-criticism from white people laying themselves low in reality in a more subtle sense what they're doing is declaring themselves in a totally meaningless sense morally superior it's really based on an attachment a sanctimonious it's the word I was looking for it is a truly sanctimonious sentiment and I've never met someone who responded to white guilt by getting motivated to look at what were the factors what were the reasons why their ancestors theoretically their ancestors but a why people in centuries past or even in decades past made these decisions and so it it seems to lend itself to this kind of two dimensional reduction of history did you on the one hand just serving as a self congratulatory award that you know you're you're supposedly so much better than these people live these other circumstances and I mean you know so there's the element of self-righteousness which is a very ugly pairing with ignorance now if you're gonna study history if you're gonna study politics really this is about politics but we're talking about politics in the past tense here you've really got to practice having sympathy for the devil because sympathy will lead you to productive new research and analysis and this kind of sanctimonious self-congratulation it's involved with white guilt well not on a two-dimensional level dealing with it in this ultra simplified way it seems like the most ridiculous thing in the world that in the 20th century the American intelligence service including the the CIA became deeply involved in international drug trafficking American spies became international dope dealers heroin and cocaine this is not an against conspiracy theory this is an incredibly well documented fact including by the way extensive hearings in the u.s. house of Congress what have you it's so easy to look back I mean especially what maybe you're a tourist who goes to Vietnam Cambodia Laos so if I can say this is a terrible stain on American democracy how could anyone ever do this I would never do this this is unthinkable to me etc it is unthinkable because you're looking at it with absolutely zero historical context I I don't think anyone at the CIA ever sat down and said hey I got a great idea let's turn this intelligence organization into a dope-dealing of it here's what did happen France was defeated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and that was a disaster and a calamity for France because contrary to popular belief the leadership of France including Charles de Gaulle wanted the French Empire to go on forever they handed over control of Indochina French control of Vietnam Laos Cambodia to the United States that was as I recall at the time when the CIA was still just being organized out of the post-world War two black ops division the OSS the various intelligence services so I think it is not quite accurate to refer to them as the CIA at that moments I may be off by a couple of years so American military intelligence under one heading or another has handed over to them a fully functional self-funding dope-dealing system the French very intentionally designed their colonies to have a self-funding secret service and they were hoping to eventually have us self-funding military and a self-funding occupation built on a very poorly understood imitation of the British Empire in India maybe a century earlier [Music] so is this an excuse no if you were the director of the CIA and someone told you hey we've just inherited this functioning ongoing opium smuggling ring that's you know created devised and operated by French intelligence in Indochina what would you do well it's a mysterious thing about history we should all learn from what would motivate the Americans to take over that drug-dealing operation I can tell you right now the belief that they would do it better profoundly appealing human beings at every stage in the history of slavery whether you're looking at you know the earliest days when the transatlantic slave trade is a new idea or later when it's become entrenched and culturally accepted the easiest thing in the world was for a French colony to look across the the fence at a Spanish colony and say those people are the barbarians those are the guys doing a bad job and if you read primary source documents from almost any period in the history of slavery this may be true you could even say any period of any colonial empire you'll always find them looking across the fence at their rivals and fascinate two very specific ethical differences so I can remember reading the French in Haiti that an incredibly brutal system of slavery by the way as you know even by the standards of the Caribbean looking across the fret the the the fence so to speak at Cuba and saying Oh in Cuba the slave masters use dogs they have hunting dogs to smell the slaves and chase them and also to torture them to have the dogs biting sight and we don't do that this is civilization versus savagery and on the other side you know there were spanish-speaking colonies there I'm sorry I don't remember offhand the names that looked at Haiti and looked down their noses at how brutal the system of slavery was in in Haiti than French colony because among other things the slaves in the French colony were quite eager to escape to become slaves in the more humane conditions of the nearby spanish-speaking colonies there's quite a lot of that going on there were slaves who had to choose between more than one system of slavery or more than let's say say it's always so easy to look down your nose at your competitors and it's always so easy to convince yourself that no matter how bad or evil a thing is you will do it better than them you will do it better than they would or they did the people who are there before you the people on the other side of the fence absolutely certain that the Americans took over control of Indochina of the French Empire and Vietnam Laos Cambodia with one simple certainty however bad a job they might do at least they would do better than the French yes taking over an opium smuggling operation might be a bad and evil thing but we can't be any worse than those guys at least at least we'll do a better job and it did have profound long-term consequence I think in a really meaningful sense the later scandals like iran-contra the contr fair the various scandals that exposed American military Americans CIA involvement in either cocaine's trafficking opium trafficking or both you know specific deals of trading drugs for guns and supporting you know covert ops and paramilitary groups these kinds of arrangements in South America in Central Asia and Southeast Asia I think in a very meaningful sense they're all connected to the precedent that was said at the end of World War two after Gen Bien Phu when the French handed over control of their operation to the Americans so the French imitated the British specifically the dope-dealing British Empire in India the Americans imitated the French and you know I do have sympathy for the devil when I look at the decisions made by people like Nixon and Mao Zedong you know I do enough research so that I can understand what their reasons were because simply the point of sympathy it's a very interesting contrast sympathy versus guilt I think both can play a positive role in your life I'm not here to say guilt is all bad I think that the real value of sympathy is as an analytical tool it's to draw you into a more meaningful understanding of what the problem is I don't sympathize with Richard Nixon so I can so I can weep on my pillow thinking about what he what a hard time he had when he pushed the button to drop all those bombs on Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam no of course in an obvious sense Richard Nixon was a really despicable person in his duel for sure I sympathize with him so that I can understand what his reasons were for the decisions that he made and once you understand those reasons you don't feel guilt you don't feel white guilt you don't feel Chinese guilt you don't feel Japanese to kill you don't feel guilt instead you have a level understanding and it becomes apparent to you that if you were in that person's position maybe just maybe you would have made the same decision