Ch. 2: Disputes over Defining Culture

OK, great. The second part of that discussion. And I especially want to go back to that Terry Eagleton thing about the differences between “culture” and “civilization” and his idea that civilization is the necessary tools for a society to operate with and culture is the … I was going to say “branding” but I don’t think that’s entirely right. That’s not really the word. But still, it’s the color you paint the mailbox.

And do you remember … a couple of things here that we’re going to talk about again. Hall’s Iceberg Model, the stuff you do - the behaviour - and then the stuff you know, and then the stuff you don’t know you know. I got into a long conversation with somebody in another class this morning, and he kept talking about how cool Quentin Tarantino was. And I said “OK, but why?” And he said “Because he is!” And I said “Yeah, but I need more than that.” And he said “Well, you know, because of his movies!” And I said “Yeah, but that’s not really a reason. I need a reason, but you can’t give me a reason. And I knew you couldn’t give me a reason because it’s an intuitively held value, not an argument. It’s ‘Because!’”

And that’s fine. That's legitimate, too. It just needs to be looked at a little bit. Because it’s not much of a jump from “Quentin Tarantino is cool!” to “Why?” to “Because!” to “Muslims are dangerous!” back to “Why?” to “Because!”

Do you guys remember Hofstede’s Four Categories of Culture? Symbols, Rituals, Values, and Heroes? We talked about this, I think. Jeanne d’Arc? Good, great, because we’re going to talk more about this today.

And then subcultures, ethnic identity, ethnic groups? You remember this? A subculture being the culture that you are born into, at least for the purposes of this class. And it could be because of region, it could be because of economics. It could be education, or religion, or … you know, all of the stuff that shapes the way you look at the world. Those are the subcultures, and they’re all overlapping.

Ethnic Groups, is the sort of self-perpetuating idea of the origins of your people or the origins of your tribe. You know, “we are … whatever. We are Ashkanazi Jews from Poland who moved to Northern New Jersey and…” Whatever. Or “We are Irish American who…”

Subgroups, the voluntary group that you join. You know, skinheads, or the police. Boy Scouts. And then reference groups, the groups that you look to to copy their values or their behavior? The Turkish rap kids in Berlin?

And then Standpoint Theory, was all the filters that you look at life through, the yellow filter and then then green and so you get purple, remember that?

And this was the Subculture stuff, we talked about Northern Ireland. We talked about ethnicity a little bit, the significance of family names. Religion. Physical features, all of that. These guys in Belfast, throwing rocks at each other. Tribal affiliation. We talked about  the clothes they were wearing, at least I hope we did. The tribal colors, the football jerseys? The green Celtic jerseys? The Green and the Orange?

By the way, that reminds me. Any of you guys like basketball? Actually, the sport itself wasn’t what I was thinking of. But there’s a team called the New York Knicks. There’s also a baseball team called the New York Mets, they play baseball. Anyway, the colours for both of those teams are orange and blue. In fact, the colours on the New York City flag are orange and blue. Do you know why? This ties in with Northern Ireland, actually. OK, well I’ll tell you why. Because before New York was New York, it was called New Amsterdam. Right? And the Dutch ran it, it was a Dutch colony. And the royal color of the Dutch royal family is orange. And so the foundational European culture in New York City was Dutch, and then the British took it over, the the royal color of the British monarchy is blue, and so now if you look at New York’s sports teams they wear blue and orange and most people in New York have no idea why but that’s why. And that’s why the protestants up in Northern Ireland are wearing orange, as well, and they REALLY know why that's their color. Around the same time New York was still called New Amsterdam, there was a war in England and Scotland and Ireland between a Catholic king and a Protestant king, and the Protestant King - King William - was Dutch. William of Orange. Same color, same reason. So there you go.

Did we talk about the Eve Theory? Matt Damon on Mars? 270,000 years ago? And the causes of migration, and continuing causes of migration. Which, of course, brings us right back to our buddy Malthus. Malthus and Hofstede’s idea of “Power Distance.”

If you remember, Malthus basically said that the crisis point is when you have more people than you have resources to take care of those people. And, you know, I was rereading him last week and I’m glad I did. Because I think I got some stuff wrong. I had always assumed Malthus was saying “OK, right now we’re OK, but at some point down the line we’re going to have more people than we have resources and then we’re going to have a crisis.” Right? I mean, that’s the way I used to think of it because, you know... Hey, I'm doing fine. And then I reread it and that’s not it. I think Malthus would argue that we’re always in a state of crisis. Somewhere on the globe, we are always in a state of crisis. This is not an eventual state, it's a continuous one.

And keep in mind that when he was writing - this was 1798, when a whole lot of people were inspired by the French Revolution, and who believed in the idea of an eventual utopia, right? They believed that people were evolving towards an eventual point of perfection, that one day people would never die, and they wouldn’t need sex to have new kids - they didn’t really explain how that was going to work, or why that was preferable - but a lot of people in 1798 were very serious about this. They were kind of drunk on enlightenment, and they believed that one day in the not too far off future we were going to be invincible, as we keep evolving into this state of perfection. We'd even conquer death itself.

And Malthus, buzz-kill that he was, was a little sceptical on this, he didn’t think it was going to happen. And he pointed out that, even if it did happen, then there would be even more people, and everybody needs food, and so immortality would be a disaster of inevitable competition and war. You know, a lot of political conservatives like Malthus, because he said “Look, people have to die. There has to be … there have to be famines, and there have to be plagues, and yes of course that’s too bad, but the alternative … look, people can either die by plague or they can die by war.” Tough Love, I think it’s called. Of course, he also said that "the rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor." So he was sober, but he was also empathetic.

OK, we talked about the shift in demographics, I think. And the whole “Race Anxiety” that’s in America, at least. I mean, not just in America, but the whole “Great Displacement” theory that’s encouraging these guys with their Home Depot tiki torches down in Charlottesville. The “You Will Not Replace Us” stuff? And the irony of the anti-immigrant immigrant Polish group in Dublin? The guys who hate all the immigrants except for themselves? And then we got to Globalization, I think, and I think that’s where we finished last class? And did we talk about “Americanization” and Cultural Hegemony? Yeah?

OK, great. Well, then, let’s start.

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Again, the thing with globalization is that there are winners and losers, right? And I’ve had so many conversations with students about the benefits of globalization and it’s again, Yeah, for us. I mean, we’re doing fine.” But our experience obviously isn’t the only experience. I mean, we talked about the dynamics of post-industrial economies, do you remember that? What do you do when the factory leaves the town? Well, those guys, the guys who were depending on the factory, are not winning from globalization. And they know it. And they resent all of the stuff that we - and I know I’m assuming here when I say "we", but that we benefit from. So if you want to understand why people are saying what they're saying and doing what they're doing, even if you don't agree with it, you’ve got to look at this they way they look at this, as a two-tier binary system of globalization.

I used to have a question on the test that read “People have argued that globalization has undermined American socio-economic stability.” Or something like that. And most of my students have responded to that by saying “No, that’s ridiculous! America has done great out of globalization!” But it really depends on who you’re talking about. Right? I mean, the people in San Francisco and Seattle did OK out of globalization. My friends in Brooklyn and Manhattan did OK out of it. Google and Apple and Facebook and Netflix are doing pretty well out of. The guys that owned the factories did OK out of it. But the people who worked in the factories didn’t do OK out of it. And so on a lot of levels globalization has really kind of accelerated the separation of the, you know… the lucky and the unlucky. And there are a lot more unlucky people out there that lucky ones. So that’s the first thing.

And then if I talk about “Americanisation”, for example, that kid who I was talking to this morning who thought Quentin Tarrantino movies are cool. Well, alright, in order for that kid to be able to attach the value judgement “cool” onto something, you have to first absorb the values of that thing, right? And, you know, however you want to look at it, right now America really is the main factory for popular culture. Right? You turn on the television anywhere, you’re going to see an American show. And you’re going to see American movies. And you’re going to see people dressing like Americans. And you’re going to be listening to American music. I can say "Matt Damon on Mars" and you all get the reference immediately.

And I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, although I’ve met people who do. I don’t think there’s a room with ten guys sitting around a table going “A-ha! If I can get them to wear Carhartt jackets and Levi’s jeans…” but at the same time, you know, it is a way of making money and of introducing a very specific set of cultural values into another culture. Levi’s jeans are never just about the jeans. The McDonald's in Red Square isn't just another McDonald's.

And people resent it, of course they do. But, hey, what’re you going to do? Not watch Quentin Tarantino movies? Not order the Big Mac?

And then the idea of Cultural Hegemony, we talked about that. “Polish Man Kills Local Father.” Now, what is the agenda of that newspaper? “Polish Man Kills Local Father.” Again, what’s important there? Is it the fact that the guy was Polish, is that important? The fact that the other guy was local? OK, that’s an interesting juxtaposition, I agree, and there are probably some stories behind why they were in the bar. But did the guy kill the other guy BECAUSE he was Polish? Did the other guy hit his head in just the right (or wrong) way because he had a couple of kids? The fact that the other guy was a father? Is that relevant? Eh, I don’t know. But what IS relevant is that the newspaper has a very obvious agenda about how they’re going to tell that story and the effect they want that story to have.

OK, and so it’s not an accident that, you know, that politicians make friends with people who run newspapers. I don’t know if you know who Rupert Murdoch is, but he’s the head of this huge international media conglomerate. You know, Sky News and the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal and the Sun and Fox and Fox News and the list goes on. And it operates under a political agenda that designed, essentially, to maintain power. and the people that absorb that stuff follow that narrative and follow that political agenda and that’s hegemony, right there. And I’m sure there’s a French equivalency as well.

OK, this isn’t too important, but this is the guy who came up with the idea of cultural hegemony. Antonio Gramsci. You know, he was just this Italian intellectual who got arrested by Mussolini and died in prison because of this idea of cultural hegemony. So there you go. Back in a time when people got arrested for the way they think. And he came up with this concept … Or I should really say he recognised this kind of pre-existing phenomenon, where…

And culture is essentially the name we give to an agreed reality, right?

I mean, the weird thing that’s going on now, certainly in the United States, but the weird thing that’s going on now is that you can have whatever reality you need to have. You can have whatever reality you want. And I’m not saying you can have whatever opinion, I’m saying you can have whatever fact. Sandy Hook was a hoax. The election was stolen. Covid isn't real. The Holocaust never happened. 9/11 was an inside job. I mean, if you want to find a credible source that tells you that there are - I’m not making these up - that the most powerful people in the world are actually giant lizards that dress as humans? There’re a lot of people that believe that. There’s this QAnon movement in America that believe that there’s this secret elite of pedophile cannibals that… you know, just batshit crazy stuff, but you can find news sources that will substantiate that reality.

Anyway, the point is that once upon a time the source of information was kind of shared. I mean, you’ve got six people sitting around a TV and they’re all looking at one source of information and that one source of information is one out of only a possible five sources of information. I mean, sure, there have always been conspiracy theories and, in fairness, there have always been conspiracies. The Watergate Break-In was a conspiracy. But overall, a shared reality has usually been fairly non-negotiable. Even if it changes, it changes collectively. Now, with these phones we’re all looking at, it is so atomized that as long as you have a phone, you have your own substantiated reality. Right?

And then you get this sort of thing. This is just one more example of hegemony. The Daily Mail saying “Migrants, How Many More Can We Take?” or Fox News “Caravan of Migrants!” They’re coming! They’re coming for your brains! The whole idea of “fake news.” The whole idea that you don’t know what to trust as real. Right? Anyway. You’re probably having the same conversation in France. I don't know how you could escape it.

Heroes and Myths

Right, OK. So, can we move on? Let's talk about heroes and myths for a little while? Do you remember we talked about Hofstede's four cultural categories. Symbols. Values and judgements. Rituals, and one of those categories was Heroes. Heroes and Myths, and those are the stories that reinforce … I mean, why do people tell their children stories in the first place? Aesops’s Fable about the Tortoise and the Hare and the race between them? You know, there’s a race, and there’s a rabbit, and… Right, OK. Why do people tell their kids that story? Well, they tell that story … You tell your kids stories in order to reinforce values and beliefs. “The Moral of the Story Is…” Pinocchio. The Moral? Don’t lie. The boy who cried wolf. Don’t lie. The tortoise and the hare. Hard work is more important than lazy talent. That kind of thing. And so, when you go to movies, when you watch TV or whatever, the heroes and the narratives are there to reinforce the values of the culture. Right?

Did I talk about cowboys and super heroes? No? OK, so back in America, in the 1950s, after the Second World War, you know… Europe was rebuilding itself, and Japan was rebuilding itself, and everything was a mess. And the one country that was doing really well because A.) we weren’t invaded and B.) we had a lot of money was the United States. Right? And beyond doing well, America was essentially the dominant power, at least in the West. We talked about cultural hegemony, but there's political hegemony as well. We were in a position to reorder the world - or at least our half of it - more or less in our image. And in the 1950s, in popular culture, everything was about cowboys. And the story about the cowboy isn't really about killing Indians, although that happens a lot. Really, if you spend any time watching westerns, it's about establishing a town, about establishing order, on the frontier. It's all about the sheriff. And that’s the way America saw itself. You know, “We are good people building a community of good people in the wilderness. It’s our obligation and it’s our opportunity.”

Right? We must be good people, or why would we have been given this opportunity? But the main thing is this idea of society as a positive thing worth investing in, and that we were going to shepherd it along.

Well, fifty years later, and nobody cares about cowboys anymore. Right? Cowboys are boring. Cowboys are … they don’t answer to the cultural needs, to the spirit of the time. If in the 1950s, the spirit of the time was cowboys, setting out rules and building up society, by 2000, the spirit of the time was no longer cowboys. Now we have Batman, right? And Batman doesn’t build a society, what Batman does is he protects people from society. From a decaying, dark, unpredictable, irrational, decaying hostile society. And that’s a very different relationship to our place with each other, do you understand what I mean? Society was something to endorse, now it’s something to escape.

And here’s something interesting about Batman, I think. I mean, what is Batman’s superpower? It’s a very American superpower. What is Batman’s superpower? He’s rich. His superpower is that he is … I mean, not even like Tony Stark, because Tony Stark’s got the glowing heart thing or whatever. Batman’s just rich. And think about this for a second, OK? Society’s decaying, the cities are dangerous and overrun, and Batman is so rich that he can work outside the limits of the law to protect individuals from a decaying society. Which, I don’t know, sounds like a very familiar story to me. I think - and I could be wrong here, but - I think at least a couple of people voted for Trump because they thought they were voting for Batman. Right? Eccentric billionaire who doesn’t work within the limits of the law.

Anyway, the idea of heroes. And I just wanted to show you a few more. OK, so these are just three examples of local heroes. King Arthur, Jeanne D’Arc, and Ned Kelly. You probably know King Arthur, right? He’s the exemplar of English values, right? And was King Arthur real? I mean, I don’t think he was real, but I don’t know. Was Robin Hood real? And it almost doesn’t really matter. I mean, it’s kind of insignificant if he was real or not, because the myth is more important than the reality.

And then Jeanne D’Arc, was she real? Yeah, I think she was. But what’s interesting about her is that she was real, but again at this point the myth of her is more important than the reality of her. Her story isn’t necessarily real. It turns into a myth, where fact and fiction are kind of fading into each other. They’re kind of indistinguishable. In fact, the more you think of her as real, the more problematic the story is. I mean, are angels real? Was she delusional? The reality of her isn’t the important thing anymore.

And then over here we have Ned Kelly. I don’t know if any of you guys know who Ned Kelly was. He was kind of like the Jesse James or Robin Hood of Australia’s Irish peasants, in the 1870s I guess. His family was this sort of poor Irish peasant farm family and they were sent to Australia when it was still a penal colony and the English overseers of the colony treated the Irish like shit. So Ned Kelly started stealing horses and killing cops and writing letters decrying colonial abuse and…

Well, I’m glad you asked. In this picture he’s wearing armour that he made. He had no money, and even if he had money it’s not like you could go to the armour store, so he found metal and he went to a blacksmith and he built.

But here’s what's interesting. So King Arthur, a myth. Jean D’Arc, sort of semi-mythological. Ned Kelly, this guy died in 1880. Not mythical. Or not yet. Or not entirely. There are photographs of him. You can go visit his armour in a museum. You can see his death mask. But all three of them have a couple of things in common. One, they’re all wearing armour and the armour is important. Because they’re defending their tribe, or their faith, or their values. And two, they all have weapons. Because that’s what a hero does. A hero goes on a journey to fight against the people who are trying to attack the culture and the values of their people. Right? 

 

Oh, and by the way, how did they get Ned Kelly in the end? They shot him in the legs, because he didn’t have an armour on his legs. Like Achilles. So after they shot him they were able to arrest him, and eventually they hanged him. 

So, John Wayne or Batman or King Arthur or Joan of Arc or Jesse James. Or Ned Kelly. And then I was wondering if we have any now. I mean, beyond football players. I mean, yeah, football players are cool, but I’m not sure they’re heroes exactly. At least not as players. You can be cool without being heroic. I don’t know if they necessarily embody the tribal value system of that many people. But I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about that. I mean, you’ve got LeBron James, you’ve got Zinedine Zidane. And I suppose they're heroic, but not because of their skill, exactly. Or not just because of their skill.

Anyway, I was thinking of Greta Thunberg, sailing across the Atlantic. The story itself is framed as a heroic journey, right? And I don’t know if you remember this or not, but she wanted to go to the United Nations to give a speech, and so she took a boat across the ocean which, right there, is a heroic journey. It’s practically Greek. And yes, zero carbon emissions and all of that, but it goes beyond that. I assume she sailed back, too, but that wasn't the heroic journey. And I knew this moment was going to happen. When she sailed into New York Harbour, and she’s smart, she knows what she’s doing, so there was going to be a moment where she passed the Statue of Liberty and she had to come out and stand at the front of the boat so they could take the picture. Because the torch is being passed, right? I mean, she embodies the values of a generation with a very clear message. And she’s going to the U.N. to fight the giant on behalf of that generation. I know a lot of people don’t like her. I don’t really understand that, I don’t really have a problem with her, but the fact that she can make so many people so angry probably means she’s good at her job.

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OK, can I keep going? Just one more thing about popular culture and stories. So one more thing about hegemony and heroes and stories.

Popular culture is popular for a reason, right? I mean, something comes along at the right time and it resonates with an audience for whatever reason. If it didn’t, nobody would watch the show or nobody would read the book or listen to the song. Whatever it was about Harry Potter, Harry Potter certainly addressed a lot of issues that millennials needed addressed at the time. For example. And so I was thinking about zombies. About five or ten years ago, you turned on the TV and everything was about zombies. Right? There zombie dramas and zombie comedies and zombie TV shows and zombie books. Zombie flash mobs. Now what was it in our collective unconscious that needed zombies? Why did zombies make sense to so many people?

And it does make sense. In a zombie story, who are the heroes? It’s the people. And it’s not just the people, it’s the group. It’s the survivors. And everybody’s got a fairly clear role. You know, this is the leader, and this is the carer, and this is … you know, this is the person you can’t trust. It’s a microcosm of society. It’s society as played out by about twenty people. And they’ll do whatever they have to do to keep their civilization going and their culture alive. If they have to kill zombies, they kill zombies. If they sometimes have to kill each other, they’ll do that, too.

Now, the thing about a zombie is that they’re fairly undifferentiated bad guys. I mean, they can be anything you want them to be. Because they don’t really have much of an identity. Vampires have personalities, which is what makes them romantic characters. There's nothing romantic about a zombie. Nobody wants to sleep with a zombie. Zombies, their job is to NOT have personalities. They just stumble around in various stages of decomposition, wanting to eat your brains, right? Which I guess means they don’t have brains of their own.

Well, if you’re worried that your country is being invaded. Or if you’re worried that your culture is being taken away from you - we talked about “You Will Not Replace Us” and that kind of thing - those anxieties are met really well met by the whole zombie phenomenon. I think I showed you this picture before, but the people leaving Syria and marching into Europe, do you remember this? It's the picture the Brexit campaign used to... Right. Well, it's being framed as the same basic threat, the same basic idea.

And this goes back to the hegemony thing, you know, when you look back at a speech that Trump gave back in 2015 - - and he’s saying, well “When Mexico sends it people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people with a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Essentially he’s saying “We are under attack.” Right? “We are under attack! Vote for me because I can save you because we are under attack!” And if you believe that, and why wouldn't you believe that if everything you see is telling you it's true, of course you're going to vote for him.

Now, this was kind of funny. After the rolling out of the whole Covid thing, which first happened in America anyway I guess in March, in America they started shutting down all of the shops. Right? Because they didn’t want people to mingle and spread the virus. And while a lot of people said “OK, that’s fair enough” a lot of other people really freaked out. I mean, you know this, this was in the news all the time. But a lot of people said “You cannot stop us!” Right? And so, and so there was a protest in Michigan at the local shopping malls, which were locked, and they were banging on the doors screaming to be let in. And I’m looking at this picture, which was in the New York Times, you know … angry horrified faces banging against the glass, mouths open like some kind of great wind is pushing them into the windows of the place. And I thought, you know, I’ve seen that picture before. I’ve seen that picture somewhere. Where the hell have I seen that picture?” And then I thought, “Oh, right! It was from this zombie movie!” This one right here. So it turns out there really ARE zombies, but they’re not the just the Mexicans and they’re not just the Syrians. They're us as well. We're the zombies. They’re the people pounding on the doors of Macy’s because they want to go buy shoes.

And one of the other things I thought was funny about this one, the people pounding on the doors of the mall in Michigan, is that this was Trump again after he became the president saying “Well, you know, it’s relative. I mean, they’re fine. They’re good people, they’re just angry. They want their lives back. Make a deal.”

Irony. Remember we talked about irony? OK, well here you go.

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Defining Cultures

OK, now. Who gets to define the culture?

This is clearly a very politically charged and very politically important issue, right? Because for a long time, essentially forever, the people who got to define the culture were the people with the boats and the horses and the guns, really. I mean, it was the … culture was defined by colonial power, or just the dominant power. Or the dominant groups with the cultures themselves. You can't really separate culture from power in any meaningful way, I don't think. Anyway, historically, the guy in London or the guy in Paris got to define the cultures in Lebanon or in Algeria. Indonesia. Ireland.

Post-colonial, the people in what were the colonies now have a chance to define their cultures themselves, which is a big thing and which usually leads to its own complications and local power struggles.

I guess every group has their own definition of who they are. Right? But for a long time, anthropology - as a thing, as a science - for the most part anthropology was located in London and in Paris. If you really wanted to learn about anthropology, that’s where you went to learn it. It’s not a coincidence that those were also the capitals of large colonial powers. Because … I don’t know if you ever saw a movie called “Master and Commander,” but basically it follows this British sea captain, and played by Russell Crowe, and he’s off fighting the French. But one of the people on his boat - his counterpart and his best friend - is a scientist. You have a man of action and a man of science. And so as these guys are going off and blowing the shit out of the French and protecting their colonial interests, there were people on the same boat whose job was to study nature. They’d study and catalogue plants and animals and they’d, um … they’d study and analyse the world that they were taking over.

It was the scientific aspect of the colonial project, which fed directly back into that idea of “civilisation” that we talked about before. A civilised country is a country that can scientifically contextualise a new world that’s a lot more about nature than it is about civilisation.

And so for a long time who got to determine what “Algeria” even meant? Who determined what Algerian culture was? Well, the guys in France with the rifles and the maps, and as far as they were concerned, and without any apology at all, they were the people best suited for the job. As far as they were concerned, they were doing Algerians a service. Who got to determine the Native American culture? Well, the guys with the rifles and the wheels and the boats. The guys who could read and write and turn nature into science. And it’s only now, in really relatively recent times, that people got to say “Well, no, this is who we are. We’re not who you say we are, we’re who we say we are."

And that's obviously a very politically powerful thing to do.

The other thing I want you to pay attention to is the difference between cultural studies and ethnography. Basically its two different ways of learning about a culture. Cultural studies is basically an academic approach to learning about culture. And sometimes that's just how you have to do it. Look, if you want to learn about Ancient Greece, you can’t go there. So you go into a classroom and you listen to the teacher and you read some books and you get a general sort of idea of what Ancient Greece was. I mean, you can't know what it smelled like, but you have a pretty good idea of how the government worked. You can read their plays and look at their art and come up with some idea of how they got along.

With ethnography, though, you live in the culture and you observe and you try not to make conclusions beforehand. You watch everything. And then, at the end of the period of observation - you’re there for a year or you’re there for six months or whatever - you go back to your office on some college campus somewhere and you go “A-HA! So that's what I was seeing! OK, now I think I’m beginning to understand that culture from the observation of it.” Right? You get the difference there?

One thing about cultural studies, though, is that - and I’m sure you guys already know this, but the books aren’t neutral. I mean, history is never neutral, cultural studies is never neutral, even if it tries to be. And professors, including myself - I mean, we have opinions, right? And we either deliberately or not deliberately teach to reflect the opinions that we have.

And this goes back to the hegemony thing.

Did I tell you about the High School history books in America? A couple of years ago there was a big scandal - a big enough scandal, anyway - because basically there were these high school history books that were coming out from some publishing company in Texas that were going to be distributed to public high schools in America. And the book said that before the Civil War, “workers” came over from Africa to help settle the farms in the South. And … well, they did “work” but I’m not sure you can really call slaves “workers.” And I’m not sure you can really say “The workers came over from Africa.” I mean, slaves were brought over from Africa, and they certainly worked, but it’s a very different thing. It’s kind of like calling a woman you once raped an “ex-girlfriend.”

But if you’re fifteen or fourteen or whatever... I mean, I know when I was fifteen, if I was reading the history book my school gave me and it said “OK, so the workers came over…” I was just going to go “OK, so the workers came over.”

So whoever gets to tell the history gets to shape not only the past but also the present. Right? You always have to be really careful when you’re looking at any kind of cultural/educational thing. I mean, what is the agenda behind it? Why do they teach what they teach? Why don't they teach what they don't? Again, who gets to define the culture? And that doesn’t mean it’s evil, but there is an agenda behind it.

I don’t know if it was George Orwell who said, you know, “If you control the past, you control the present, and if you control the present, then you can control the future.”

And it’s amazing what people don’t even know they don't know. And it’s not because they’re dumb, they're not dumb. That's too easy. They just haven’t been taught. And if you haven't been taught, then all of a sudden the “Black Lives Matter” movement, for example, doesn't make any sense. All of a sudden it just seems like “What the hell are these people so upset about? Slavery's over and everything should be fine now!” And, again, I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy. Necessarily. I’m not saying there are five guys in a room going “Aha! This’ll fix ‘em!” But decisions are made on what gets taught and what gets left out, and who's in the positions of power to make those decisions? And what motivates those decisions?

My mother grew up in this small town in Florida in the 1950s. And when she was a kid, there was a plaque in the middle of the town square and it said that this was where the slave market was before the civil war. And everybody knew the area as the slave market. Fair enough, that's what it was. That’s where they used to buy and sell slaves. The last time I was in that town, I was there with one of my kids and my mom was showing us around and the plaque had been taken down. And as my mother was explaining the historical significance of this place, another woman walked by, a local woman about my Mom's age, and she said "We don't talk about that anymore." So that never happened, then? Did I just imagine that? Did we all just sort of collectively imagine that?

But now we are no longer guilty of, or beholden to, the past. Or not even guilty, but a part of. We don’t have to carry around that historical baggage anymore. What plaque?

And in France in the early 1960s. There were some famous … I don’t really know that much about it, but I know that there were a bunch of Algerian guys protesting the Algerian war in Paris and they were shot by the police and thrown in the river. It was a big deal. It was a big thing. But people don’t really talk about it. Right? A whole generation of French kids were taught nothing about it. Just one of those things. “Nah, didn’t happen. Or if it did, let’s just keep moving.” But what’s interesting to me is, is that taught? And how is it taught? I mean, it certainly wasn’t taught … I mean, when I was learning about France in America, they certainly skipped that part. That chapter. Right? So you never know.

“The workers came from Africa…”

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OK, a couple of more things. These other three terms, I want you to know them. Cultural Relativism, do you know what that means? Maybe you already know what that means. So Cultural Relativism is essentially the idea that you cannot apply…

Well, yeah. You're right, it is uncomfortable. But I don’t think that’s a good enough reason not to have it in the history books. Do you? I mean, I don’t know. OK, right, yeah. See, that’s … this is the thing, this is an issue - and please don’t take this personally, OK? Because look, I come from America - which is so deeply fucked up, that I could not possibly pass judgement on any other culture and I’m not. OK? But I think France’s relationship to … not only its own history but its own present as well is really interesting. I think there’s a certain double-standard going on where, you know…

The first article in the 1951 French Constitution reads “We will not take into consideration racial differences or religious differences or origin differences or…” because we’re all just French, right? And that’s great. That’s a great aspiration. 

The problem is, that isn’t the reality on the ground. I mean, we're back to the woman in Florida saying "We don't talk about that anymore." That’s not the way the country actually operates. That’s the way that the country says it operates, that’s the way the country would like to see itself as operating, but the fact is there's discrimination in France, just like there is in America and just like there is in England, and it’s discrimination based on race and religion and origin. And that's just true. And that’s just obvious. Look, I’ve been to the poor parts of Paris and I’ve been to the rich parts of Paris and the rich parts tend to be a lot whiter than the poor parts. That’s just a fact.

And so you saying “that’s not true because we don’t recognise differences,” well, that doesn’t actually make it true. That just means that you don’t have to deal with it. And I think that’s - if anything, I think that’s worse in a way than some unapologetic racist saying “We don’t want them living next door to us.” I mean, I don’t agree with them, but at least they’re being honest about it.

I think I’ve said this before, but any time I go back home to New York City, it’s got this very self-congratulatory attitude of “We don’t care if you’re black or white or yellow or gay or straight or bi. Because we’re New York, and we’re a tolerant society.” Yeah, and that's great. But the average rents in New York are insane. And so, yeah, as long as you can make the rent. As long as you can afford the co-op. How diverse is Soho, or Tribeca, or the Upper West Side? So the final prejudice here is against the poor.  Do you understand what I mean here?

About “race” for example, and we talk about race in this class a lot. And students have said to me “Well, in France we don’t talk about race because that itself is racist.” And it’s like, yeah, but I think that’s the worst hypocrisy. Because you’re still benefiting from a racist system, but you also get to say “Oh, but I’m not a racist. Because I don’t recognise the distinction.”

It’s like when Trump doesn’t want to do the Covid testing, because if you don’t do the Covid testing nobody has Covid. And you think “Well, that’s not really the way it works. That’s not science, that’s just wishful thinking.” If you don't say you have cancer, you don't have cancer. And if the doctor tells you you do have cancer, it's the doctor's fault.

And it’s funny. I was reading this interview with this guy who’s a black activist in Clichy and where he lives (meaning France) it is against the law to look at things like unemployment figures among, you know, North African Parisians. Or Congolese Parisians, or whatever. And I understand why it's against the law, because it violates the first amendment of the 1951 constitution. Because to do that is to say “Ah, we are looking at origin and race.” However, in this guy’s experience, and overwhelmingly in his neighborhood, people don’t have jobs. And overwhelmingly, those same people are either black or North African. So again it’s that “if we don’t do the test, there isn’t a problem” school of magical thinking. Do you understand what I mean? And I hope I’m not being … I’m not trying to piss anybody off here.

I mean, I think that’s the interesting thing about, you know … No, of course it’s difficult. Of course it's uncomfortable. It probably should be, don't you think? But that doesn’t … Yeah, you're right. It is difficult. I mean, look, I don’t think you have to come up with an answer right now. I just think you should be willing to look at the question.

 

OK, all right.

“Are there different races for the American people?” You mean ... well, what do you mean by “race”?

Actually, we're going to be talking about this specifically in a couple of minutes. Are you asking if there are there different genetic species of human beings? Like, there’s this type of human being over here and that type of human being over there? Because if that’s what you’re asking, I would say overwhelmingly and emphatically no. I think you could probably scratch around and find people who would say there are, but I don’t think that’s a uniquely American phenomenon. I think you could also find those people in France. Or in … Look, I think mostly when you’re talking about race in America you’re overwhelmingly talking about socio-economic discrimination based on skin color. Essentially. And culture, and subcultures, that are a result, at least in part, of that history and discrimination.

In America they teach students about the concept of White Privilege. And they should, it exists. If you're lucky enough to be born white in America, you're more likely to have better housing, better jobs, a better education. You're more likely to have better healthcare, and so you're more likely to live longer. I mean, those are just statistically provable facts. The problem with it, at least I think the problem with it, is in the way they teach it. Essentially, and not always, but they shift it from a situation of systemic inequality to a more personal "You guys got it lucky" kind of thing, which does two things. One, it basically lets the system off the hook (and this goes back to the "one bad cop" thing) and Two, it just fosters resentment among a bunch of white kids who got lucky, and who as a result are going to shut down. And those are the kids who, if they DON'T shut down, are going to be in eventual positions of power to redress the inequality. But they're not going to do that out of shame. You know, more carrot and less stick.

Look, I hope we’re all in agreement here. When I talk about race, I’m not talking about it as “Oh, well, there’s this type of person over here and there’s that type of person over there.” That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is there’s a continuing political/economic system in place that discriminates against poor people generally - and let’s go back to Malthus as to reasons why - based on pigmentation and whatever else. You don’t think that’s true in France as well?

That's a long silence. Do you guys hear what I’m asking you?

Whatever about the word you want to use, does the system of racial discrimination exist in France as well? OK, right. I thought as much. I mean, you can call it … and I’m trying to think of a place where it doesn’t. A place in Europe, anyway. Or North America. Or South America, for that matter. And I can't.

I think what I said was that when people talk about “race” they’re talking about A.) ethnicity and B.) socio-economic situations. And, you know … fundamentally we’re talking about class. It’s not a coincidence that, overwhelmingly, if you are black in America you’re going to have a much harder time getting a decent education or a good job or clean drinking water or whatever. Look as statistics on lead poisoning. Look as statistics on unemployment. Look at statistics on life expectancy or incarceration. And you can use the term “race” or you can use the term “ethnicity” but it doesn’t really matter. In America they would say “race” and in France they would say “ethnicity” but either way, you’ve still got people living in shit housing with no access to a decent education or employment based on, essentially, “what you look like.” And semantics might make you feel better, they might make me feel better, but so what?

"Am I saying because of their race, they’re poor?"

Well, er … how do you mean that? That it’s some inherent genetic pre-disposition towards poverty? Is that what you mean? No. I mean, a lot of people subscribe to that theory, but those people are called “racists”. Again, what I’m saying is that people are being discriminated against because of their race. Their race, or whatever term you want to use, is a fundamental reason that they are kept from the resources that other people have. Does that make sense? I mean, you just have to go down the statistics. But to follow your line of argument, “There is a genetic predisposition towards yadda yadda ya...”

Here's a question I ask with my American students. It’s sort of a sociologist’s Pythagorean Theory. You know? If A equals B, and B equals C, then A equals C, right? So I ask my American students, “Is there more crime in poor neighbourhoods than in wealthy neighbourhoods? Is there more street crime in poor neighbourhoods than in rich neighbourhoods?” And, you know, inevitably the students say “Well, yeah, there is. Of course.” And so then I say “OK, so then the next question is, do black neighbourhoods in cities tend to be poorer than white neighbourhoods in cities?” And again, the answer is “Well, yeah. Unfortunately that’s true.” So then my final question is “Is there more street-level crime in poor black neighbourhoods than in rich white neighbourhoods?” And there’s usually an uncomfortable pause but the answer is generally “Yeah, that’s true. That is statistically true.”

And then if you accept that that's true, you have to make a choice. And the way you make this choice is really kind of revealing. The choice is this. If there's more crime in poor black neighbourhoods than in rich white neighbourhoods, it's either A.) because systematically black people have been and continue to be kept from economic opportunities or B.) because black people just love crime so damn much.

Now, if you go with A.), I’m in total agreement with you and that points to systemic racism. The proof is in the math. If you say B.), you’re basically a racist. Do you understand what I mean? And it’s astounding how many people - and not just in America, my French friends - will either say B.) or at least quietly think it.

Here's a follow-up question. In Dublin, which is overwhelmingly white, there's also more crime in poor neighbourhoods than in rich ones. Why? You want to go with "genetic pre-disposition" again?

So what are you going to do? All I can do is argue my side of it, but that is the argument, and I have it every semester.

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OK, let’s keep moving, because we’re running out of time, I’m afraid.

OK, did we talk about cultural relativism? I can’t remember. So, cultural relativism is essentially the idea that you can’t apply the values of your culture to another culture. At least not fairly. I mean, in some cultures, first cousins marry each other. In other cultures, that’s considered “wrong.” Well, that can be considered wrong in this culture, that doesn’t make it wrong across the board, right? Or, uh … what people eat, or whatever. That you can’t apply the values and judgements of your culture onto other cultures any more than they can apply their values and judgements on yours because cultures develop differently and address different needs. Basically. And we’ll come back to this, because I don’t always automatically agree with it myself. And I don't always want to.

And then “reference culture.” Which is basically the idea that your culture has … that your culture has figured it out. Your culture produces this art, and so that is art. For example. And the further it moves FROM that art, the less art it is. If I say the “Mona Lisa” - BOOM, you’ve got a picture of the Mona Lisa in your head. And the Mona Lisa is interesting, because it kind of is … it kind of has become THE reference painting. Of, of the West, anyway. Right? That’s it. That’s art. And the further you go from the Mona Lisa out into something else, the less immediately recognisable it is as art. You understand what I mean?

Because that is the reference art.

And then finally, ethnocentrism, which I suppose is essentially the opposite of cultural relativism, I guess, and let me give you an example of how this works.

Do you remember when we talked about the difference between culture and civilisation? Terry Eagleton’s definitions of … OK, great. So, for hundreds of years to be civilised, you had to be from the center of London. That was it, that was Ground Zero of civilisation.

And, you know, if you went thirty miles outside of London, you know, you were still in England, but … it wasn’t London, you know? It was civilised, but it wasn’t quite as civilised as the center of London.

And then you cross the English Channel, and you go into France. And, you know, I mean it’s recognizably European, but the language is a little different and the food is a little different, but … OK, it’s civilized. It’s not as civilized as England, and it’s certainly not as civilized as London, but it’s civilized. Right? Annoying, but civilized.

And then you cross the Pyrenees and you go to Spain. And now it’s starting to … OK, and now it’s getting a little different, right? I mean, the people are a little darker and the religion is a little more complicated and their rituals are a little more baroque, the food is a little exotic. everybody’s staying up really late and they do funny things with cows.

Look, it’s still Europe, OK? It’s still Europe, and so it’s still civilised. But it’s not as civilised as France, and France isn’t as civilised as England, and England isn’t as civilised as London.

And then, you go across the Mediterranean and into North Africa. And now it’s really different. Right? They’re not Christian anymore, and the language is completely removed from your own, and people look different. The food is different, and the architecture’s different. You can kind of see Europe there, because once upon a time the Greeks and the Romans were there, but it’s a stretch. And so you can kind of see civilisation, or at least the remnants of civilisation, but … and you can certainly see culture, but … But it’s not as civilised as Spain, which wasn’t as civilised as France, which wasn’t as civilised as England, which wasn’t as civilised as London.

And then you go to sub-Saharan Africa, and now all bets are off. You go to the Congo, and now it’s very different. Everybody looks very different, and the architecture’s very different, and the clothes and the food and all of that sort of stuff are very different and make no sense to you. It's not in any way clearly recognisable as “civilisation” anymore. At least not to you.

It’s certainly got culture, which is why when you go to the British Museum you see artefacts from all over the place, that’s the culture. Masks and statues and pottery and knives. But it’s not “civilised”, if you know what I mean. There's no mailbox. There's plenty of green paint, but there's no mailbox. And I want to make it very clear, that’s not my opinion, but that was certainly the opinion - the unapologetic opinion - of the time. And right now we’re talking about London, but you could apply that same thing to Paris. Right? You could - you can still - apply that same pattern of thinking to New York. Or Texas.

And if you accept that way of thinking ... I mean, in that case it’s almost really your responsibility as the civilised culture to bring civilisation to uncivilised places. And hey, if the places also have nice resources? You know, that’s pretty good, too. Right? That's the reward for being civilised. And, hey, it's not like they were using it anyways, which is just further indication that they aren't civilised. And so the resources rightfully belong to the tribe advanced enough to recognise their value and use them. That's the logic of empires.

So, there was the “Scramble for Africa” in the 1870, which was a couple of things at the same time. At least for Europe. For one thing, they had just finished the war between Germany and France, and one of the ways to make peace was to focus your energies - instead of inward towards other European countries (and cousins) - was to focus outwards towards the colonies. You guys remember the Belfast taxi driver and the "fucking Chinese"? And so they carved it up. Belgium, France, Italy, all that.

Also, it was a way of distinguishing your power in Europe, because a powerful country has more colonies. Or bigger colonies. Or more profitable ones. I mean, Belgium isn’t that big, but when you add the Congo…

This is a map of the French colonial empire as late as 1931. A lot of North and West Africa, Vietnam, Madagascar, that sort of stuff. And one of the interesting things about this picture alongside the map, with these two Colonial Agents sitting in their chairs in their white suits, is the idea of bringing French civility to the Congo, in this case. Or, in the picture below, to Dakar. Right? I mean, now I’d say “Civility” with big quotations marks, but these guys didn’t see any need for the quotation marks.

And here’s a map of the British Empire, and I don’t really have too much time to talk about this guy but this is Cecil Rhodes, the guy who built the railroads from Egypt to South Africa. And you might have heard of "Rhodesia" - after carving it up, the British went so far as to name a country after him - which is now Zimbabwe. And there’s a statue of him at Oxford, I think, and there’s a very prestigious thing called the Rhodes Scholarship. And for a long time, certainly in British colonial history, he was seen as a hero. Again, unapologetically. And I think the unapologetic aspect of colonial racism is an important thing to keep in mind. I mean, you have to look at these things from the perspective of the people doing them at the time. That’s not to excuse it, but it helps to understand it.

Very few people were running around London or Paris saying “We are doing terrible things.” And the people that were doing that were considered either traitors or insane. For the most part, they considered themselves as kind of heroic. Rhodes's fortunes have turned, by the way. That statue of him in Oxford is covered in protective netting and there's a constant threat to tear it down. Just recently there was a move by both professors and students to either have it removed or for the classes to be moved so that they don't have to walk past it. We'll see how it turns out. Anyway...

And, you know, the same dynamic applied in the United States. I mean, they didn’t call it an “Empire” but that’s what it essentially was. The idea of “Well, OK. America has expanded from the Atlantic to the Pacific, where else can we go?” Well, there’s South America, there’s Cuba, there’s Puerto Rico, there’s the Philippines. The annexing of Hawaii was a HUGE step towards expanding the American empire. And one interesting thing about this 1894 Teddy Roosevelt quote - “The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquest of alien lands” - is the idea that there is a genetic difference between northern Europeans and everybody else. And specifically Germanic and Saxon and Scandinavian Northern Europeans. Around this time, there was this concept called the “Germ Theory” that argued that these guys, these Northern European guys, were at the forefront of the human evolutionary process.

Do you remember when we talked about Malthus and I said that when he was writing there were people who thought that people would eventually become perfected? Well, the "Germ Theory" basically subscribed to that, the concept that perfection was attainable, especially for Northern European Germanic tribes. And because of that more perfect genetic evolutionary stage, there was almost an obligation for those tribes to rule over lesser tribes, or shape the civilisations of lesser tribes who were weren't capable of doing that for themselves.

Which, I suppose, brings us back to "Is Group X genetically pre-disposed to..."

And what’s interesting about that is the way that Darwin was and sometimes still is used as the scientific justification for this line of thinking. Darwin came along, a naturalist on a ship, and he had this theory of an evolutionary competition for survival, kind of influenced by Malthus. And he wasn’t even really talking about people. Darwin was mostly interested in plants and caterpillars and turtles. But, you know, it didn't take long for Darwin’s theories to be applied to humans as well.

 

And there was a lot of pushback. Because, A.) this whole idea was seen as against religious teaching, right? I mean, we’re not from monkeys, we’re from God! And B.) there was no real story here with the Darwin thing. No real narrative. Remember, we talked about our need for stories. It wasn’t like “Oh, and then we became perfect! Doesn’t this mean we became perfect?”

And according to Darwin, no. It just means that we got lucky. We’re just a lucky accident of what happened. The weather changed and because our jaws were the right shape, we were able to eat. Because we could touch our fingers with our thumbs, we could make tools when we needed to make tools. Fish can't make tools, but what good's an opposable thumb to a fish? Those fish would have died. If the weather hadn’t changed …

Because we happened to be able to climb trees at a time it was important to climb trees …

And people said - and remember, they were trying to embrace the science here, at least partially, because science is what makes us civilized - “OK, but consider this. If evolution’s real that means it’s an ongoing process and that just means we became perfect. Or closer to perfect.”

And again, they use Darwin and science to justify this thing, and this is from the “Origin of the Species” in 1859 - a hundred years before Elvis joined the Army - and Darwin wrote “From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed into groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars into constellations.”

Now Darwin was talking about plants and lizards, but people took that same theory and - just like Huxley - applied it to humans, too. “Ah, so there are descending degrees of humans, too. Right?”

 

And so here’s where it starts to get really messed up. This is where the scientific justification for racism came in. Or where it at least became solidified. Because the thinking was, at least among the colonial powers, among these guys who were talking about “Teutonic conquest” the thinking was “OK, tell you what. We will buy your theory, Darwin, but only on the condition that there are different stages of human evolution on the planet at the same time. And if you need proof, we have the wheel and they don't. He have the trains. We have the mailboxes. And that the end result, that this guy over here way on the right hand side of the evolutionary chart, this is us. Right? We are the perfected evolutionary species. And then down here you got the French guy. And then further down here you’ve got the Spanish guy. And this guy over here, he’s the North African guy. And down here, you’ve got the sub-Saharan African guy.” And that sort of thing.

And so this is the origin of the modern thought that “Ah, there are genetically different versions of human beings right now.” And by the way, I know this sounds like some kind of bad science fiction, but this was only about a hundred years before I was born, people were saying this. In fact, some people are still saying this.

Because, look. These guys over here, they don’t have a mailbox. You know? I mean, if you have a mailbox, you are civilised. If you don’t have a mailbox, you’re not civilised, and if you’re not civilised, you’re not entirely human in the same way the people with the mailboxes are. Not in the same way. Lesser.

And again, they use Darwin and science to justify this thing, and this is from the “Origin of the Species” in 1859 - and this is only a hundred years before Elvis joined the Army - and Darwin wrote “From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed into groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars into constellations.”

Now Darwin was talking about plants and lizards, but people took that same theory and - just like Huxley - applied it to humans, too. “Ah, so there are descending degrees of humans, too. Right?”

If you ever go to Philadelphia,  there’s a huge collection of human skulls. And the reason that collection is there, is because this doctor - Dr. Samuel Morton - conducted a series of studies about racial intelligence. And this was science, OK? I mean, it wasn’t very good science, but this was science. And what Dr. Morton would do was take a human skull from a white guy from Sweden. And he would take another human skull from a Vietnamese guy. And he would take another human skull from the Congo, or whatever. So what he would do, Samuel Morton, is he would take a human skull and he would - say, he would take the skull from the black guy from the Congo - and he would take the skull and he would take the bird seed, and he would shake the bird seed into the skull to see how much bird seed he could get into it. And he’d take, like half a bag and fill it up until he was satisfied and then he’d say “Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

And then he took the white guy’s skull from Sweden, or wherever, and he poured some of the bird seed in, and then he’d kind of like shove some down with his thumb, and then he’d pour some more in, and then he’d shove THAT down, and then he’d … it was amazing how much bird seed you could fit into a white guy’s skull. Right? Cranial capacity.

And so what he scientifically proved, at least to his satisfaction, was that we were genetically different. And he believed it, it wasn’t like he was acting in any kind of bad faith, he believed it. A lot of people believed it - that we were genetically and intellectually different because of cranial capacity based on how much bird seed he could get into some very specifically selected skulls. And that was the kind of science that justified the evolutionary "ranking" of various ethnic groups. Because remember, one of the hallmarks of a civilised society is that it’s a rational society, and what’s more rational than science?

Here's a chart, along with Morton's findings. This is the classic European skull, and this is the black guy’s skull from Africa, and just to be helpful, this is a chimp’s skull.

If you ever read a book called “The Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, and he writes about … the narrator’s this European guy who has to leave Europe and he has to to the Congo and he has to go up the river to … if you ever saw the movie “Apocalypse Now” that’s basically the same story.

But there’s a moment in the book where the narrator, this white European guy, is on a boat going up the river in the Congo. And he’s watching as these local Congolese guys are working on the riverbank. And this is just a passage from the book. And he’s saying, you know; “We are accustomed to looking at the shackled form of a conquered monster..." Meaning slaves, essentially, or servants. Or for that matter animals in a zoo. "But there - there you could look at the thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly. And the men were…” And this is the important part “And the men were - No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it, the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces…” You know, essentially like wild animals, right? “But what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity. The thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.”

Right, so what the passage is basically saying is, er … well, yeah, they’re humans. I mean, they’re not as human as we are, but they’re related to humans and isn’t it weird and frightening that we are related to that. Right? And so, because that was the operating rationalisation, you could do terrible things and you could still sleep at night knowing you were good. Because those guys were not quite entirely human. Right? That was the thinking. The most horrible shit imaginable, because it didn't matter. And we'll get into that later. But here's the thing. The punishment - and I don't really want to use that word but that's the word they used - makes at least some kind of gesture towards ... I mean, they recognized at least enough humanity it the guys in the Congo to realise that chopping off their hands or their kids hands would be effective, but it's still OK because they weren't quite human enough. Right? You don't chop off a horse's foot to teach the other horses a lesson, but what would be the point of that? They don't read signs, they wouldn't get it. And a French soldier or a German soldier might kill each other, but they wouldn't maim each other and then let them live.

Of course, as history proves, you might just rape their wives and sisters and mothers and daughters...

And look, this is why history matters, right? Because how do you figure out where we are now if you don’t understand where we were a hundred and fifty years ago? If you don’t understand the context of where we were before?