You might just hear my roommate's
cat meowing the entire time. Very sorry if that gets distracting When you look at another person's face, What do you see? For the philosopher Levinas, no matter how well you know someone, there is always something unknown
about the other. I mentioned Levinas
in my "self-centeredness is not self care" video, but I wanted to expand on another part of his theory
about the human face. For Levinas, you could be married
to someone for 20 years and they could still surprise you by doing something
you never thought they would do. He doesn't think there is any way to know
someone entirely; in totality. The human face is the way in which this
absence of total knowledge appears to us. When we look at someone else's face,
we are met with both known and unknown. I see you, but I do not know you. But what does it mean
to see yourself as a stranger? To become self-estranged? In Jose Medina's book,
"The Epistemology of Resistance," he describes self estrangement as,
"becoming perplexed about who we are. That is to say, becoming strangers
to ourselves in particular areas of our life and looking at ourselves
with fresh eyes affords us opportunities to interrogate
what we find in the most intimate corners of our perspective and to recognize its limitations and the possibilities of correction and improvement. It is a practice of critical
self-questioning, of unmasking the social construction
of supposedly the natural order of things. This has been at the root
of social progression throughout history. It was once considered natural to ban
women from getting an education. The fact that only men were allowed
to wear pants
was once accepted as an obvious fact. But women's rights movements started to question this 'natural' organization of gendered activity. They prompted broader society
to view themselves as a stranger. If you approached your beliefs
as belonging to someone unknown, what assumptions and limitations
would you accuse that stranger of? How strange is it to be
someone who believes that a piece of clothing, an object
devoid of meaning until it is given meaning, is treated as having
a natural gendered essence? The purpose of self-estrangement is to make us more diligent and just epistemic subjects, epistemic subject, meaning an individual
who can have knowledge about the world. If we want to claim knowledge,
then we should also be constantly reflecting on our own knowledge
to see if it needs improvement. This prevents us from subjecting others to wrong and sometimes
harmful systems of knowledge. I thought this would make a good video
topic because the internet is not so great at promoting self-reflection
and open mindedness. People tell me it's useless to try to convince the Internet that it's
okay to be wrong or to be confused. You don't need to feel like you have the
definitively correct stance on everything. That's what discourse is supposed to exist for. To get a grounded sense
of what self-estrangement is, I think it's worth talking about a particular book. "Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday. I'm not sure." If you've heard that line
before, it famously comes from the opening
of Albert Camus book "The Stranger." The Internet seems to love Camus. He was a bit of a celebrity in addition
to being a philosopher. He even made it to the Tumblr blog.
fuckyeahhistorycrushes: "This tall drink of Mediterranean sun tea
brought us "The Stranger," "The Plague," "The Myth of Sisyphus,"
and many more examining the absurd and the human condition. Though his truths may be dark, his hot
bod and brilliant mind fill my heart with sunshine <33 So very brief summary of the book. The main character, Meursault, is autistic. No, really. Camus based Meursault off
of his autistic friend. But let's brush that aside for a second. Meursault is a man
who seems indifferent to everything most people would normally
be emotionally struck by. As the first line of the book suggests, when his own mother dies,
he doesn't seem fazed at all. He doesn't even remember when it happened. When he's put on trial
for murdering someone, a lawyer is screaming in his face about how he has no soul. And Meursault seems bored. He's just thinking about how hot
the temperature of the courtroom is. Meursault is one of Camus' many literary characters that represent his theory of absurdism and how different individuals respond
to becoming aware of the absurd. We have all these plans to make our lives
meaningful, but ultimately everyone dies. We have concepts
like eating dinner at 6 p.m. or letting a judge - a single person -
dictate the future of thousands of other people's lives. And many people act like these are just
natural, concrete truths about reality. When really, I could call my morning
meals 'dinner' instead of 'breakfast,' and what difference does it make? Meursault especially has this moment
of unmasking the fake certainty of our practices when he is
sentenced to death by the court. "Despite my willingness
to understand, I just couldn't accept such arrogant certainty because, after all, there really was something ridiculously
out of proportion between the verdict such certainty was based on and the imperturbable march of events
from the moment the verdict was announced. The fact that the sentence had been read
at 8:00 at night and not at 5:00. The fact that it could have been
an entirely different one, the fact that it had been decided by men
who change their underwear, the fact that it had been handed down
in the name of some vague notion called the French (or German
or Chinese) people - all of it seemed to detract
from the seriousness of the decision. I was forced to admit, however, that from the moment it had been passed,
its consequences became as real and as serious as the wall against
which I pressed the length of my body." Now, Jose Medina
doesn't talk about absurdism, and Albert Camus
doesn't use the word self estrangement. But I see a connection
between these two concepts. As Aidan Curzon-Hobson describes
in this article, the absurd is, "The great educator, the catalyst for fundamental doubt
and in turn, lucid reflection." When we are caught in an unfamiliar
or unsettling experience, it sweeps what
we thought we knew under the rug. We are forced to doubt our beliefs,
which yes, can be a challenging anxiety, but it also is the key to liberation. Camus himself said that doubt is both
"the bane and the enlightenment of man." In the book,
Meursault is like this great educator by constantly
bringing other characters to doubt. He constantly subverts
people's expectations. He challenges the tradition of marriage when he tells his lover
that marriage is nothing serious. "Do you want to marry me?" "It doesn't really matter." When he can't give his lawyer
an answer to any of his questions, the lawyer goes from kind to frustrated. In fact, throughout the book,
what other characters seem to hate most about Meursault
is his acceptance of doubt. "Do you believe in the almighty God?" "No." "Do you want my life to be senseless?" It feels like the lawyers and the judge
would be so much happier if Meursault just admitted that he was a psychopath
or that he hated his mom. Sure, he would be disagreeing with them
and he would hold an awful stance. But at least he has a stance. At least he has some sort of opinion. "Perhaps then Meursault is demonstrating
to us that it is the power of doubt that holds the greatest, yet
most disruptive potential." Meursault also has moments
of becoming a stranger to himself. He doesn't think of himself
as a dangerous criminal. He's just a regular French guy. Yet as he's sitting on trial,
he realizes all these faces staring at him are searching for the criminal in him. He feels a dissonance between his reality
and how others perceive him. "[french ehhh] But isn't
that the purpose of being in prison?" "I forgot that I'm being punished." People like Meursault, who present
a reality different from the one we expect are objects of strangeness
that challenge our mainstream norms. It reminds me of this book
written by the professor, Ciara Cremin. I'll be honest,
I'm not even halfway through the book, but the beginning that I've read
is already very interesting. When the professor began cross-dressing, she describes her experience
of being an object of strangeness. Her appearance causes dissonance between what people intend
or expect to see on her body. mikey's going feral (greedy baby) She causes dissonance
between what people expect or intend to see on her body
and what they actually do see. These moments of dissonance
are really powerful. They call upon people to question a once unquestionable
order of gender and clothing. Now I know what you're thinking, Olivia,
but what if I'm addicted to rotting in bed on my phone? Can I still reflect on my beliefs
and become a more critical thinker? Well, lucky for you,
this video is sponsored by Ground News, a website, but also an app that gathers
all the world's media in one place so you can get the most holistic coverage
breakdown of any story. For example, if I click on this story
about Trump's political fundraising group, I can find important information
like the total number of sources reporting on a story,
the political affiliation of each article, which then gives you a general idea of how
the whole issue has been politicized. You can then click directly
on a new source and read that article. They have a whole methodology page dedicated to explaining
how they calculate political affiliation. I can also follow specific topics based
on location, topic, person or source. For example, there's feminism, psychology,
even Tucker Carlson. I particularly like the Blindspot feed,
which shows you stories that are over or underreported by the left and right. Part of self-estrangement
is to read about topics or experiences that you are unfamiliar with so as to
expand the limits of your understanding. And I think the Blindspot Feed
does a great job of helping you do that. It's true that a lot of the stories
in this section are sensationalized because they're reported on by mostly
one side. But it's still important to be aware that these are the types of stories
that impact other people's worldviews. Go to ground.news/olisunvia You can subscribe for as little as $1 a month or get 30% off unlimited access through my link. Please ditch Twitter
as your main source of news. I beg you. Ground News is also right there in the App Store. It's free if you just use the link. Meursault seem to be a master
at self-estrangement. That's why he is so utterly aware
of the absurdity of the world. But he actually seems to be
too good at questioning. It leads him to a nihilistic skepticism
where because he unmasks the constructed nature of everything,
he doesn't believe anything has meaning. He ends up saying there's nothing
about life that makes it worth living. "Deep down, I knew perfectly well that it doesn't much matter whether you die at 30 or at 70 since in either case, other
men and women will naturally go on living, and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or 20 years from now,
I would still be the one dying. But despite these words,
he still feels his heart excitedly leap at the thought of living longer. "The trouble was that
I would somehow have to cool the hot blood that would suddenly surge through my body
and sting my eyes with a delirious joy. It would take all my strength
to quiet my heart to be rational." This shows how you can practice
self-estrangement wrong. When the only tool you use for questioning
is crude logic. it fails to capture crucial features
of the human experience. 1. Meursault measures meaning via certainty. 2. The only meaning to life is its end, because death is the only certain feature about life. 3. Therefore, nothing in life matters. When dissecting whether an argument like
this is logically valid. Yes, certainty is crucial. The definition of logical validity
is that if the premises are true, the conclusion must necessarily
also be true. But if we expand our toolbox
outside of logical rules, why should certainty be synonymous
with meaning? At the end of the book,
Meursault becomes extremely angry at a chaplain for acting as if religion
offered certainty in his life. "You are so certain about everything,
but I am sure of what I am. My mother doesn't matter. Nobody matters really,
but especially not your God!" However, I think Meursault is mistaken here. Believing in religion
is not the same as believing in certainty. It is a "leap of faith", as Kierkegaard
famously described. When you realize the world's cold
indifference to the meaning of your choices, it's easy to become
paralyzed in a sea of possibility. If nothing you do matters,
then there is no way to judge how one possible course of action
is better than another. But people choose to commit
to religious beliefs anyway, regardless of whether that choice can be rationally proven. In an ambiguous, absurd world, the only answer is to embrace ambiguity. "When freedom is misused,
anxiety takes on a pathological character, but the cure is not the total elimination
of anxiety. Rather, what is crucial
is to learn to be anxious properly. Whoever has learned to be anxious in
the right way has learned the ultimate." It's not only religious people
that take leaps of faith. We choose to commit to relationships
all the time without any certainty of whether they'll end
horribly in ten years or whether the person will be alive
tomorrow. We decide to bring children in the world without guarantee that they'll grow up happy. There are absolutely better ways
of practicing self-estrangement than Meursault, so that self-estrangement
serves social progress and compassion instead of melting,
you into a nihilistic puddle. If you watched my video,
"the desire to be sad" or have read Nietzsche's "Genealogy
of Morality," you'll know Nietzsche's historical account of how good used to be
associated with the noble, strong people. But then the meaning of good got reversed when priests started
conspiring with the masses. But what I failed to mention in that video
is how this historical story
is almost certainly fictional. If you read the book, Nietzsche uses
very fantastical language. It lowkey sounds like a fairy tale,-- not lowkey, HIGHKEY. But Nietzsche's goal isn't to give you the most complete,
accurate account of history. Instead, he is using genealogy,
which is a retelling of how our present came to be as a political tool. By crafting an alternative history. He shows us how our current morals
are not necessarily objective truths. Genealogy asks us to stop thinking
about our present society, beliefs, structures, etc., as if they were
just destined to be this way. I just high school
history classes in my last video. I'm sorry to do it again, but in my high school history class
we learned about World War Two like this: Well, if you look at history. World War Two was bound to happen
because Germany was super poor, people were desperate, desperate people are bound to fall
for a strong, charismatic authority boom! There was no stopping Nazi Germany. It was just a product of its causes. But genealogy, as Nietzsche used
it, would not agree with this understanding of history. Genealogy challenges
teleological notions of history where there is one fixed past,
and if you just trace back the steps, you can find the single
or at most few possible outcomes. In reality,
history is a jumbled mess of stories and struggles,
many of them that go untold. The reason why people think
history progresses in a fixed straight line is just because for a long time
history was a tool to justify the natural right of those in power
in feudal societies and monarchies. History books, said Kings and aristocrats
had a natural right to rule, and others
just had a natural duty to obey. When eugenics gained popularity,
a racist history of evolution argued that certain people came
from historically inferior ancestors. Until recently, school curriculums
did not acknowledge the history of indigenous communities, or,
if they did, they portrayed our colonial past
as a friendly diplomatic endeavor by only speaking about
some people in history and not others. It puts certain experiences
at the forefront of historical memory. In "Society Must Be Defended," Michel Foucault writes, "History shows that
what sovereigns and kings do is never pointless, futile or petty
and never unworthy of being narrated. Everything they do can be
and deserves to be spoken of and must be remembered in perpetuity, which means that the slightest deed
or action of a king can and must be turned into a dazzling action
and an exploit. Like, you know, one white influencers
start a "new" trend that really people of color
have been doing for centuries. That's what happens when history glorifies
any small action of some people and ignores
literally histories of other groups. History only seems simple, unified and natural when we forget about all the voices
that go unheard. Foucault speaks from the perspective
of these subjected voices: "We do not have any continuity behind us. We do not have behind us
the great and glorious genealogy in which the law and power flaunt
themselves in their power and their glory. We came out of the shadows. We had no glory and we had no rights. And that is why we are beginning to speak
and to tell of our history." I love talking about how Foucault and Nietzsche
were in many ways on the same team because it really riles
up the Jordan Peterson fanboys. Foucault and Nietzsche both believe that there is more
than one way of understanding the past. As G.H. Mead suggested in his book,
"The Philosophy of the Present," "The past is as open as a future." Thus, genealogy is a powerful form
of self-estrangement because it makes us question "natural" histories and instead
imagine alternative relations to the past. I don't think it's any surprise
that practicing self-estrangement makes you more compassionate. Many marginalized communities
suffer from hate or plain misunderstanding because there are people who refuse to
question the limits of their own beliefs. Let's pick on Terfs for a second. I think part of why Terfs believe
so strongly in the gender binary is because if there is no clean cut
between women and men, they feel like their oppression
as women will be downplayed. But I want to let you terfs know that
that's not the case. Two things can be true at once. You can absolutely be oppressed as a woman. You also can receive social privilege
from fitting neatly into one side of the gender binary. If you really are radical feminists,
maybe do some self-estrangement and reflect
on why you believe in the gender binary. Where does it come from? Who does it serve? And who does it ultimately hurt? Well then, how do we expose ourselves
to these experiences of doubt, as Meursault did to other characters? Um....Humility, dialogue, and other stuff... Yeah. I didn't end up finishing the rest of the script
because I've been so busy with law applications
and grad school applications. I'm actually going to end the video there. I know it's really abrupt. Sorry for the messier
and perhaps shorter video than usual, but let me know how you feel
about self estrangement. Please share how you think we can practice
self estrangement. Thank you so much for watching. Let's keep talking
and I hope to hear from you soon. Mikey, you're so annoying Whatever this part's okay. Thank you to my patrons
for supporting this channel. Please flame me if I pronounce your name wrong. and let me know what the
right way to say it is
