WEBVTT - Dividing the World, Pt. 1 feat. Andrew 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.960 All the media. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.960 Hello, and welcome to it could happen here. I'm here 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:09.880 once again. 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.280 With it's James again. 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:13.160 Free to talk to you again, James. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.280 Yeah, likewise glad to be here. 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.080 You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.520 the world and how it works and all that jazz, 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:21.880 and I assume you do as well. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.599 I do, yeah, yeah, increasingly worrying about the word. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.320 Yeah, this place, this home is quite the puzzle. And 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.360 much like a puzzle, it has been carved up and 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.400 divided in so many different ways, sliced, labeled, ranked, and 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.680 measured from all kinds of different angles. And that's really 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.360 what I'm interested in talking about today, the different ways 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.120 that we try to explain the differences we see on 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.480 the global stage. So going from the concept of civilized 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.960 and primitive, to the East and West binary, to the 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:01.600 imagined communities called nations, the clash of quote unquoteizations, to 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.240 the concept of first, second, and third worlds, to the 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.080 development spectrum, to the global North and global cell, then 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.480 finally to the core and the periphery. So we have 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.440 a lot of ground to cover in this episode. 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.959 Yeah, I really like this stuff, like as a historian, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:20.039 like we're always kind of forced into certain divisions, right, 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.319 Like even when you apply to you with your funding, right, 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:27.640 like you're normally in like a geographical area, or like 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.280 you're trying to shoehorn something that's just interesting into one 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.920 of these boxes that gets funding. And I think like 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.520 often that impacts like how we see the world, So 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.560 we have to write with that goal. 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:45.399 Absolutely, absolutely, I find the way that we approach the 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.800 telling of history so fascinating And in another life maybe 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.240 I would have been a historian. 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.120 I never I can recommend it. Yeah, yeah, it's I 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.880 enjoy the doing of history. It's the doing of academia 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.040 that I don't enjoy so much. 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.680 So I suppose as historian, I'm going to ask you 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:07.920 a discomforting question. Great, would you consider yourself civilized or primitive? 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:08.440 Oh? 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.000 That's a fun one. 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.760 I don't know, Like, I don't like that binary because 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.720 I think it's it's a value statement, right, And I think, 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.480 like James Scott talks about this, Actually, this is a 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.760 really interesting I've had this. James Scott right talks about 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.280 the idea of people who exist outside of the state 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.480 being labeled as primitive by the state. It's in the 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.000 art of not being governed, and that that's the sort 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.000 of the narrative there. The inherent message is that the 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.160 state is the final and superior form of human organizing 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.919 and people who have chosen to exist outside it are 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:47.880 not because they chose to, but because they haven't made 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.760 it there yet. And of course Scott problematized that suggests 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.200 it maybe it's a choice, not a failure to accede 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.000 to that civilization. And it's a concept that like young 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.440 Burmese fighters have goed. 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.280 Back to me. I don't think they're aware of James C. 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.119 Scott if I'm being honest, but they they will say 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.280 to me, like when, because when they left the cities 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:13.160 to live with the ethnic revolutionary organizations there, they had 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.240 always been told that the reason those people lived outside 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.800 of the Burmese state was because they were primitive, violent. 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.959 But then they came to live and fight alongside them, 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.800 and they were like, no, these are a family. They 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.320 were brothers and sisters and siblings, and like they want 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.320 the same thing as us, Like they're not primitive, they 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.040 just don't want the state. So I guess in that sense, 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.640 I would want to be labeled as primitive too. I 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.080 think the primitive people are doing cool shit and then 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:40.320 the civilized people are not. 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.560 Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's one of I think one 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.680 of the one during global binaries, one of the oldest. 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.040 You know, you'd hear that sign, that kind of juxtaposition 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.400 or civilized and primitive or civilized and barbarians. Yeah, you know, 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.640 in ancient role you see that distinction between the civilized 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.520 Roman citizens and the barberia and other. 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:01.000 Yeah. 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.920 And in that instance, and in a lot of instances 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:09.240 as used as this ideological tool just a superiority, definitely. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:09.640 Yeah. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.160 Like I think we have to be really careful as 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:17.360 his story about these assumptions that we make. It'says we'll 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:19.719 have to make a lot of assumptions about revolutions too, 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.680 And I would wager that I've attended more revolutions and 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.240 many of my academic colleagues, and I think many of 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.800 those are grounded in the truths that people accept as 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.320 truths without ever testing them. And like, I think this 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.719 sort of civilized barbarian one, it's kind of the same 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:34.159 like that. 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.240 Yeah, it's a classic one. I mean, do you know 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.520 where the word barbaria and even comes from? 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:39.839 Isn't it the language? 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:40.040 Thing? 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.000 Like, because I didn't speak is it Latin? They were 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.680 just going like bar Ba, is that right? 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.520 Yeah, it's because of what you know, Rome did did 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.080 this all the time, where they just borrowed whole sale 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.839 from what the Greeks were doing. Yeah, so in Greek 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.760 Barbaros meant anyone who did not speak Greek. Okay, that's 0:04:57.800 --> 0:04:59.680 the rum, and just kind of took that and expanded 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.280 as he to talk about anybody who wasn't on their 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.800 whole wave of urban planning and you know, coudified legal systems, 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.080 the philosophy, the education they are to all of that stuff. 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:11.520 Yeah. 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.600 Yeah, the Barbarians didn't have those those refinements, right, Yeah, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.679 you know, but of course the relationship between the tours 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:23.000 is not so simple, right because the later on in 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.680 Roman history, as you'd know, Barbarians quote unquote, were incorporated 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.320 slowly into the state and became very useful armies and 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.320 a reserve full of labor and all these different things 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.640 for what Roman was trying to do with the expartnership. 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.000 Yeah, and luckily contemporary American right has been very normal 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.440 about that and it isn't using that for like it's 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.440 sort of eugenic eugenic agenda right. 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.200 Now, yeah, very very much eugenics vibes these days. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.920 Yeah, where my father lives is right on the border 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.760 between England and Scotland and you can visit Hadrian's Wall. 0:05:57.880 --> 0:05:59.440 I rode my bike all along it a couple of 0:05:59.520 --> 0:05:59.960 years ago. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:00.520 Oh ask. 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:01.120 Yeah. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:05.520 It's like a fun edge of empire kind of thought experiment, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.400 like you beyond this line of the barbarians or uncivilized 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.080 people today, it's like unremarkable, you know, like like it's 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:13.880 literally it. 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.280 It keeps some people sheep in their fields at points 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:17.040 along like. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:22.560 A yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, like some stones kind of 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.280 piled on top of each other and it's kind of 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.880 an unremarkable novelty. But it's funny to think that at 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.560 one point there was this binary world, right, and they 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.240 felt that they the outside was so dangerous to them 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.400 that they had to provide a physical barrier, something we're 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:38.120 still doing. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.599 Indeed, and as we're speaking of walls, by the way, 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.400 this reminds me of another major empire where this sort 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.680 of dichotomy was a curtain. You know, it wasn't just 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.560 taking place in the Mediterranean build you had and of 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:57.440 course ancient China, this whole identity constructed around these moral 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.360 and cultural and political ideals. Had the whole Confucianism Taoism 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.039 a legalist thought or shape and what it meant to be, 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.480 you know, conducting yourself properly and in a civilized manner. 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.920 And so those who did not ascribe to those ideals 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.400 would have been people who were labeled barbarians. 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:15.720 Yeah. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.880 Often the people on the other side of the Great Wall. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.200 Yeah we are the United States is literally doing the 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.280 exact same thing, right, Like it's we're building a giant 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.240 wall and labeling other ring the people on the other 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:30.720 side of it. 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.760 Yeah, you definitely see the genealogy there. Yeah, but I 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.800 think there's a closer genealogy we could draw upon for 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.840 that particular reference though, which is how later European empires 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:48.120 would appropriate the Roman civilized barbarian binary to justify their assimilation, 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.240 extermination and colonialism. 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.880 Definitely one of the things I like to do, even 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.040 with you know, the United States and it's in formal empire, right, 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:06.000 Like I love to show my students cartoons, like political cartoons, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.480 like there's one of the White Man's Burden, which like 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.440 distill you know, sometimes the patriots worth a thousand words, 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:16.160 but it distills that whole binary so well in a 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:21.160 way that seems like repugnant to most of my students today. 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.760 I guess, I don't know, maybe maybe folks are moving 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.200 back that way, but like the imagery and the distinction 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.240 between the way or even like Lewis and Clark when 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.080 they're addressing the indigenous people they meet and calling them children, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.680 right like like this this binary distinction is so it's 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:43.480 so apparent, and like, I don't know, it seems so outlandish, 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.880 I think to most folks today maybe, But then we 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.040 do similar things, I guess in uh, you know it 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.000 just in a slightly more subtle way sometimes. 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:53.640 Yeah, exactly. I mean when you look at what was 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:58.520 taking place with the Enlightenment and that whole developments of 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.599 this particular order, it steeped in these particular values with 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.320 the European culture was the ideal standard, and everything that 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.520 did not measure up to that standard was barbarical, primative. 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.520 It's just that has never really gone away, you know, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.280 and it continues to be used to justify the domination 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.360 of Western powers, particularly in the way that they've instilled 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:27.360 these European norms and practices across the world. When it 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.080 comes to things like relation to the land when it 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:35.400 comes to things like the divisions between people, between genders, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:41.040 all these things, all these attitudes that are now so widespread, 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:46.960 originated from in part, this elevation of one above the other. 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.400 And speaking of I mentioned the word western there, and 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:56.320 that's really another way that we've sort of maintained this 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:00.840 binary in a different court of paint. It's not quite 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:06.560 the same. So there's this sort of lingering framework of 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.000 the notion of the East and the West. Right in 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.120 the ancient times, it was China versus Rome. These days 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:18.439 it's probably China versus America. Yeah, China really is that old? 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:19.240 Yeah? 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.560 Yeah, yeah, And okay, this is probably a very probably 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.199 very gen z reference for me to make. But I 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.240 don't know if you've seen these edits circulated on social 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:35.920 media of the Chinese president Chi chen Ping going like 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.240 buzzer Beijing, and there's like a whole bunch of like 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:46.040 skyscrapers and like like hardcore like electronic music edited to 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.360 show like all these advanced ones, and people in the 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.600 comments are saying things like be China do nothing win. 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:56.480 I I have not seen those. 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:02.000 Yeah, yeah, that's definitely dating me a little bit in 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.240 terms of my social media diet. But yeah, just seeing 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.000 the dynamic between China, or between the East and the West, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.160 the Orient and the occident, to use an older term, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.360 it's just another way that we've created this sort of 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.240 boundary between people that either on one side or the other, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.600 there's a necessary tension between the two. You know. This 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.040 concept of the orient and Orientalism is something that it 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.760 would side identified famously as something that was constructed by 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:39.600 the West as an exotic, irrational, decadent, and dangerous place. 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.120 And so that whole dualistic narrative was then put into 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:48.000 the imperial project to Legitimizeie domination and to position the 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.800 East as a passive subject without a voice of their 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:55.360 own and constant need of Western intervention and guidance. So 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.480 this West becomes this sort of stage for modernity and 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.480 science and region and progress, this whole idea of the 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:08.160 protagonist of history and the orients the East. They're the primitive, 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.800 I guess side of that binary. Although unlike the civilized 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.360 primitive binary or civilized barbarian binary of old I think 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.480 while there could have been racial components to it in 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.079 the past, this one is more explicitly racial and geographic 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.960 in its division, because I mean in ancient room, anybody 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.400 could essentially become a Roman citizen. You know, it wasn't 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:36.160 necessarily racially, you know, pure area and sense that a 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.440 lot of new Nazis and stuff today like to look 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.280 back at that period as you had a quieter diversity 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:47.400 of phenotypes in the Roman Empire. Yeah, but you know, 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.840 when you come to this orient and occident dichotomy, it's 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.040 very much racialized. You know, a lot of times when 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.880 people talk about the Western world, it really tends to 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.839 be I guess a more politically correct way of saying 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.280 the white wood. Yes, at least in my observation. 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.240 Yeah, yeah, definitely, that's often the subtext. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.640 Because I mean that's something I've always struggled with pinning 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.080 down right, because why isn't Brazil considered part of the West? 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.960 You know, why isn't Mexico considered part of the West? 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.240 Right? What are we west of? Like? 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.079 Like what it's not even it's not the western hemisphere 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:22.480 like as you say. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.480 Yeah, I mean Western say is more straightforward, but is 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.720 it because there are too many colored people? Yeah, in 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:30.559 Mexico and in Brazil. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.160 It seems to be right, Like it's not even countries 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.120 strongly either from Western Europe was strongly impacted by settler 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.360 colonialism from Western Europe, because the entirety of Latin America 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:43.679 is impact. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:44.920 And they should be included, but they're not. 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:45.440 That they're not. 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.160 Yeah, yeah, and it yeah, it's I've always struggled with 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.720 that one, other than get neoliberal capitalists white countries, it's 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:55.320 it's what people don't want to say. 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.440 And Japan sometimes yeah, yeah, Japan, strangely enough, yeah, yeah, 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:02.840 an member of the club. 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.760 Yeah, or like sometimes also not Spain. This is a 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.040 particular like bug Bury guess of Spanish history. 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:10.439 Really, I don't think I've seen that one. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.360 Yeah, for years, like literally you would be excluded from 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.800 European history, like like Africa starts at the Pyrenees. 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.240 It's a sort of phrase that that's hilarious. 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.600 Yeah, Like I guess it compounded because Spain was so 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.320 isolated under Franco. Right, but like yeah, this they called 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.680 it the black legend that like Spain does not belong 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.200 to Europe and and it's not again it's racialized, right, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:39.920 it's because Spain had this exchange with the Muslim world, right, 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.560 and like that that culture deeply impacted Spanish culture, and 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.000 even after the Conquista, it's like it's like, you know, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.280 the French historians were just like, nah, you guys are tainted, 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.360 like you you don't get to come back. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.280 It's kind of a similar sitribution with the territories the 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.760 former Artsman Empire as well, technically part to Europe and 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.720 yet you know, maligned in some way. Yeah, yeah, a 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.280 little less than Still, it's like y'all have too much, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.120 too much Turkish to watch Muslim influence. 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.800 You'all got a Yeah, you need like a thousand years 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:16.640 to decompress before we let you back in. 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:21.680 Yeah. I mean, honestly, if the Pope wasn't based in Italy, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.840 I'm sure Italy would have a similar dynamic. I mean, 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.280 Italy is a recent construction right in terms of as 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.320 a country. Ye, but only look at the two Sicilies, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.200 for example, that was under North African rule for a 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:49.200 significant period of its history. But let me not get 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.400 too far off track. One day. One more tangent, and 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:58.000 that is I'm far from being a dentist by any means, 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.240 or a maurist or anything of that show. But there 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:08.800 is something to be said for the way that the 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.840 East of the Orient has been sidelined, marginalized to treat 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.120 it us lesser than for so long, and now they're 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:21.560 at a point where their geopolitical sway has to be respected. Yeah, 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.160 I'm not a rooting for them by any means. I'm 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:27.720 not one of those people is like, yeah, multipolar world. 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.000 I would rather we have no poles, you know, as 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:31.600 an anarchist. 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:33.600 Yeah, yeah, I do know what you mean. 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.400 But it's like it's a bit of shodding for it, 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:36.800 I guess. 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.240 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, you know, ironic in a 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.200 but yeah, not necessarily in a good way. Like I've 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.640 just seen Jijienping meeting with Minan Plang, the dictator of 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.280 me and mar today, and I'm like, I'm not excited 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:52.560 for that pole of the world. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.560 Not at all, not at all. Yeah. I feel the 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:03.360 same way about the way that the Sahel Federation has 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.399 kind of kicked out France. I'm like, yeah, stickets of France, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.040 but also military hunters, you. 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:14.240 Know, yeah, yeah, like the rebranded Wagner Core now. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.920 Like yeah, and the collaboration close collaborations Russia. But you know, 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:19.879 a lot of this thing is really a lot of 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:25.719 these relationships, these geopidical relationships are so opportunistic. It's all 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:27.800 opportunists on yeah, end of the day, they don't really 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.440 they're not really necessarily guided by principles. 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.960 Yeah, Like the difference I guess between like, for instance, 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:36.960 I you know, I've been thinking a lot about anarchist 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:38.760 at war, right, and people go and fight in other 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.440 people's to depend other people, right, like like the people 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.320 who went to Rajava to fight, people who went to 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.600 Miama to fight. Like there's a difference between doing something 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.679 out of a sense of solidarity and doing something out 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.600 of root opportunism, and like that always shows itself in 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:54.000 the end. 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.200 Yeah, I mean the work groups of involvement in Africa 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.720 is the most blatant capitalist tra vun opportunism. 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.119 These people are not there for the anti colonials that 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:09.920 are like standing with the oppressed peoples of the world. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.280 like watching the Battle of Algiers and setting off to 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:14.199 immediately liberate the people of. 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:19.879 Africa literal mercenaries, right yeah. Yeah, But getting back onto 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.320 the main topic, talking about all these ways we divvy 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.359 up the world. Out of the linguistic and cultural and 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:33.240 geographical differences that we observe around us, came this concept 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.920 of nations, right, nation as an idea also came out 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.639 of the European imagine nation. It's commonly defined and it's 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.800 USA worldwide today, But it's commonly defined as a large 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.320 community of people who share common identity, often through language, culture, history, 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.280 and sometimes ethnicity, then who usually inhabit a specific geographic 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:58.399 territory with its own political organization. The comminations without states 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.840 as simply a culturalmmunity force. People feel a collective long 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.080 and then share that snee. But nations are as we know, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.640 mostly tied up with states today, hence nation being used 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:09.880 as a synonym for country. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.520 Yeah, this is one of my bug bears. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.879 I guess is an academic like I tried to develop 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.840 this concept of Catalan nationalism that like at the time 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.480 was inherently anti fascist. I think I was trying to 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.560 be like, it ain't now like this it's a very 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.480 Catalan right now. And yeah, I do still find it 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.760 hard when people say nation is the the state, especially Americans, Like, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:35.960 it's very hard, right because state is like a subset 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.560 of the state here, like the sort of military division 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.080 of the federal state. So it can be hard to 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:43.760 explain those differences. 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.720 And as you mentioned, this sort of way that that 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.280 Catalan nationalism has shifted. Really, I think gets to the 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:57.920 whole weakness of the nation idea. So Benick Anderson famously 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:03.560 called nations imaginedmmunities because the community exists as a collective fantasy. 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.520 You know, they imagine a deep comradeship with people who 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.200 they've never met. Yeah, and this fantasy has boundaries not 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.200 just about who is included, but also famously who is excluded. 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.000 And this fantasy is not necessarily something that is automatic 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.840 or natural as we tend to see it today. But 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.760 it's really the rise of things like print capitalism, with 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.320 the mass production of books and newspapers, and that's what 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:36.040 really shaped the standardization and formalization of these imagined communities, 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.119 through the creation of like common cultural reference and a 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.920 shared sense of history. Yeah. And then of course you 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.440 had the nation idea of further being developed by liberal 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.680 revolutions and through the shared experience of colonial rule. You know, 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:55.280 we're subject populations with mobilized nationalism to claim self determination. 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:57.639 Yeah, definitely like it. 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.920 I'm sure I'm trying to remember borrowed this from someone, 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.960 but the idea of like identity entrepreneurs is what I like. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.480 Like it's when religion loses its claim on universal truth, 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.760 specifically in Europe. That's like a market for identity that 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:18.720 is open. And the creation of nations is like, to 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.119 my mind, like a bourgeois project, right Like, it's an 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:26.479 entrepreneurial endeavor that they seek to create something, a benefit 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:28.480 from it and like it. Yet to a degree that 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.680 turned against them, it's still an entrepreneurial endeavor, right Like. Still, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.040 you could be creating a nation which wants to kick 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.600 France out of Morocco, right that that nation may not 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.760 have space for everyone who inhabits that territory of Morocco. 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:46.720 Like, it's still it's a sort of for some people. 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:52.760 Construct absolutely absolutely, I think the elite intellectual current of 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:57.320 a nationalist movements can go under stated. You know, oftentimes 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:02.359 what stirs up the masses toward that specific direction, because 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:06.040 I mean, the masses will revolt against their conditions, but 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.800 what sort of directs it in that national independence direction? 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.520 And this concept of nation is tends to be that 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:14.479 sort of you lead into actual current. I often look 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.040 at the history of and Tobago as a reference point. 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.680 See that's where I come from. The whole process of 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.639 nation building is always ongoing, and we are in a 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:27.440 position where there's an effort, there's a very strong efforts 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:32.320 to both push for a nation building but also recognize 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:36.040 our divergent pasts, you know, because we have this sort 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:41.840 of almost equal in population Indo Trinadian and Afro Trianadian populations, 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.080 and then a mixed population as well, and then you 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:48.159 have some Chinese and Syria and Lebanese and Venezuela and 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:51.480 and Filipino and all these different groups come into Trinidad, 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:56.000 and because of that colonial past, their tensions is between 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:58.520