This was the first guest I've heard on the Glenn Show who never really got around to explaining his broad, sweeping generalizations about racial and ethnic groups. It's bizarre, he sounds exactly like the Know Nothings from the 19th century concerned about Papism and the uncouth habits of the Irish. It's like he's never seen the prints of "beer street" and "gin lane" depicting the 18th Century British, who so thoroughly integrated their moral reasoning and internal locus of control that they could engage in some advanced degeneracy.
I'm also struggling to understand what he's proposing, or if he's just generally saying "non-Europeans can't govern themselves and need authoritarian regimes to hold them accountable." And that can't really be what he's saying, right?
If I take his central thesis to be that individualism has been a much bigger part of European culture for centuries than in any other places on Earth, and that that makes freedom a problem for groups steeped in non-individualistic cultural traditions in that their sense of morality is more reliant on external social pressures rather than their own internal ethos, I think that he's generally right.
He sort of falls down in the details though, especially as it relates to African-Americans. He responds to Glenn's recitation of how black culture fell apart in the post-Jim Crow era by pointing to the impact of the migration north. Well, historians peg "the Great Migration" of blacks to the north as 1916 to 1970, and in fact for the past 40 years, there's been a slow but significant reverse migration of blacks back to the South. And is there any evidence whatsoever that the cultural breakdown was more of a northern than southern phenomenon? And brushing off the trends in the exact same direction with lower-class white people as "still not as bad" as what's happened with blacks in absurd, it's way worse (as it relates to non-college-educated whites) than was considered a full-blown crisis for blacks in the Moynihan Report.
Mead could also look around his immediate surroundings at NYU and discover plenty of externally-imposed morals and ethics in the form of the "woke" movement that has taken over his and nearly every other college campus. Is there a better example of a group of people voluntarily allowing themselves to be told what to do, what to think than white people forcing each other to attend antiracism trainings where they learn that they are infected with the "original sin" of whiteness, and must adopt an entirely new set of language, symbols, and mores in order to absolve themselves of this sin?
I think Glenn hit the nail on the head with his argument that Mead is essentializing culture in ways that go beyond what's warranted by the facts. Yes, the kind of individualism to which he refers is a European contribution to the world, and has a much longer, deeper, and broader history in Europe and European-derived countries than it does anywhere else in the world. But ultimately, it's a cultural artifact that individuals and groups can adopt and have adopted to varying degrees all over the world, throughout our society, throughout history.
I'm afraid the mistake that is made is to not see a significant "contributing factor" of Genes/heredity natural selection to the expression of personality. "Culture" is the expression of the collective personality genes of related groups in the real world. obviously over more than a hundred thousand years those that had more genes that expressed acceptable, preferred and advantageous behaviors (culture) for their particular environment and particular group were able to pass on their genes more successfully than those that didn't . in other words, a particular culture is created and reinforced through the heredity of genes and natural selection.
Having said that, we also have the ability to be influenced by immediate exposure to ideas, peer pressure and emotions as well. Operating on a higher cognitive level (not core personality/genes ) people can be "programmed" . you can see brain washing happening today in the anti west/ anti individual Marxist movement and manipulation of the west's core culture of individuality, morality and belief in equality through sophistry, to make the west act in ways counter to its well being.
Besides a view interesting point a highly debatable point of view; I personally see African Americans as highly individualized( 'European-style' ) I can see no other explanation for their contribution to music, the arts, comedy, literature and poetry
Listening to Larry's opening salvo I almost threw my phone against the wall. At 5 minutes in I was shaking my head and wondering if anyone else heard him say that minorities couldn't control themselves without overseers enforcing morality from outside. That minorities couldn't handle freedom,...Good God man are we back in the 1860s? I will continue to listen to this and hopefully destroy my phone...
I think there is a key difference between European and American Individualism, and I’d be curious to hear professor Mead’s take on this. In European Individualism the age of individuation is, on average, far later than in the US. For example, I lived with two different French families in high school, as part of a foreign exchange. Both times, I went with a sizable group of kids from my high school. One thing that stood out to me as different between American and French high school students, was the absolute lengths we American kids would go to in order to get away from adults and just be with our peer group. Us Americans could not tolerate spending our free time with adults, whereas the French kids were happy to hang out with peers, but also happy to hang out with their parents and other adults. In short, the American kids were obsessed with individuating themselves from the uncool adults.
If I had to put my finger on one single touchstone of American Individualism that is the most universally damaging--regardless of demographic group--it would be institutionally reinforced early-onset individuation. This leads to an adolescence (and young adulthood) that is not only potentially unsupervised, unstructured, and/or unorganized, but is actively rejecting of those things. For all demographic groups, this premature individuation creates a vulnerability for “arrested development,” i.e. an inability to function in a world where you are not special. Many individual families, groups, and communities in the US compensate with alternate institutions that do provide supervision, structure, and organization, so this vulnerability is more pronounced wherever that compensation has not occurred. To exemplify this failure, the compensating forces often get a contemptible or uncool rep: helicopter parenting, overbearing Tiger or Jewish moms, boy scouts, Sunday school, overscheduling, not letting kids be kids, meat grinder, stunting creativity, tracking, etc. Conversely, the hallmarks of this failure are super cool: basically every American movie or music track about risky and/or nuisance behavior in the absence of responsible adults. I think the immigrant students professor Mead describes aren’t struggling in a detrimental way, they are just more self-aware of their own limitations, need for structure and obligations, and lack of specialness. There is a great episode of Ronnie Chieng International Student, where an American Frat guy visits the International House, that exemplifies this hilariously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZH3PvZ3WNc
Successful navigation of adolescent Identity (vs. unsuccessful Role Confusion, per Erikson’s developmental stages) ought to be defined as gaining a sense of reward from DOING things that are productive and prosocial. However, American institutions have defined Identity development as some sort of internalized sense-of-self in relation to the world and others. That is not necessarily bad, but the problem is that healthy internal identity development is secondary, and can only occur in the presence of well-established external structures-of-doing. Furthermore, structures-of-doing require adult supervision, structure, and organization. If instead institutions erroneously prioritize building structures-of-being, or narrow the options for structure of doing, we fail our youth at the most formative time in their transition to adulthood and this premature individuation becomes protracted adolescence...not to mention the downstream impact on building intimate and loving relationships (Erikson’s Intimacy vs. Isolation).
This is hard for educators and academics to see, because they are part-and-parcel of this institutional failure. In the US, over the past 50 years, college and other COGNITIVE structures-of-doing have become the primary institutional corrective path to mastering Identity over Role Confusion. Even worse, these institutions are now transitioning to structures-of-being that reinforce an adolescent mindset. I’ve worked off-and-on in addiction treatment, and one common factor in addiction I’ve observed (across demographics), is this adolescent view of the world. Howard S. Schwartz (1990, p.131) writes of addiction, “On the mental level the disease is characterized by grandiosity, self-centeredness, the need for control, the feeling of being someone special (i.e. “terminally unique”), the feeling that one should be judged by one’s intentions rather than one’s actions, and so on. What this adds up to is the belief that the world should revolve around oneself, taking one in the best possible light. Those who do not do this [for the addict] are experienced as violating some kind of law of nature, as being “bad” people against whom [the addict] is justified in holding grievances and resentments.” Sounds just like many American 15 year-olds, right?
The tricky part is the fix. For starters, we have to stop thinking that complicated emotional and cognitive structures, like school counselors and race conscious math, are the primary solution. I think we must first enhance behavioral structures-of-doing. There is already exceptional research about creating behavioral structures-of-doing for adolescents with high-functioning Autism, and this is an ideal model. These students need explicit behavioral structuring that all adolescents (and adults) would and could benefit from. Part-time work programs, hands-on vocational training, outdoorsmanship, specific social skills, actual music and art training, etc. Temple Grandin is a great thinker regarding these behavior-focused solutions.
Word. Yes, individualism is unique to the European heritage of the West. Ayaan Hirsi Ali also looks into this phenomenon of non-Western immigrants finding it hard to assimilate in Europe and negative consequences like terrorism and criminal activities. Assimilation is commonly viewed through a lens of culture and politics: people in a minority adapt to the dominant culture of a majority. But elsewhere Dr. Thomas Sowell described assimilation as economic: minority immigrant groups which own their means of production and are self-sufficient do not need to assimilate themselves to the dominant culture. The best example is Jews in the West over the past millenia, also Germans in Russia and Latin America in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Japanese in USA and Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Chinese in South-East Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries, Indians in East and Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, etc. So I agree with Prof Mead that it is a sort of 'clash of culture and civilizations' but I think there is more to it as Dr. Sowell pointed out.
This is the only place I’ve ever heard anyone try to explain why certain countries in Africa have not become stronger (economically, militarily, etc.) on the world stage. Wherever corruption abounds, the rule of law cannot flourish and that explains why a lot of countries continue to struggle. Mexico is another example.
Mead’s western vs. non-Western sub-groups (sometimes he replaces “western” with “European”) within the USA - is an inaccurate framing. Latin America is part of the west. I don’t know the numbers, but African Americans outside the south before the Civil war were part of the American experience (non-slave). If I can consider myself fully American with one parent who is an immigrant, then any African American who has 2 American-born parents outranks me in this regard. The US has had a history that is very American, rather than European. I reject the label “European” in reference to American development.
I'm a hip-hop fan, one of the white teenagers...who isn't a teenager anymore. I hear the criticism about the negative influence of culture. Joyce describes licking, sucking, and shitting in his novel Ulysses. He describes the cultural problems of the Irish, and shows more concern for them than most. I feel this argument applies to hip-hop. It's not a coincidence that Ulysses was banned in the United States for obscenity. Now it is considered the heighth of this Western Culture you are debating. Might rappers be using a Joycean device in their more obscene and violent lyrics to connect with outsider cultures, and show them the nuances and moral imperfections of their own cultures? Wouldn't framing the conversation in this way elevate the hip-hop genre to new heights that can promote new ideas such as individualism and responsibility. I would argue there are countless examples of the genre already doing this, they are not celebrated as they should be, and that is the real cultural crime. I'm white, I grew up in a relatively stable family environment. Molly's affair, and Leopold Bloom's repressed sexuality reflects the reality of that stable family environment. Even there, you had divorce, you had affairs. I respect the concern for the family, and I share it. Expecting perfection is of course, a mistake, but there should always be room for small things like poetry. Hip-hop is after all, a small thing.
Glenn: 33:08 Is it not the infusion of Marxism, socialism, and communism (wholesale European philosophy) into the greater black culture of the mid-twentieth century that gave rise to Black Power, Black Liberation, and Black Nationalism? These ideas are what suppressed the individual, and many individuals from Latin American countries. The very premise that because Americans of Western African descent originated from non-European societies, they therefore cannot handle the burden of freedom belittles the very real humanity of the African, who as an individual, realized slavery to be an unnatural state and risked his life be released from it.
Glenn: The best 2:20 segment starts at 27:03 and goes to 29:22, where you lay out the timeline for the development of the Black community in the 75 years after the Civil War and Prof. Mead responds that that is the elite, not representative of the whole.
Meanwhile, on the disintegration of the Black family (where you mention The Pill, feminism, the decline of religiosity, and other events of the 1960s) Prof. Mead talks about dysfunction tied to individualism and freedom that would only make sense if it took place during the Great Migration. His timeline doesn't ring true.
This was the first guest I've heard on the Glenn Show who never really got around to explaining his broad, sweeping generalizations about racial and ethnic groups. It's bizarre, he sounds exactly like the Know Nothings from the 19th century concerned about Papism and the uncouth habits of the Irish. It's like he's never seen the prints of "beer street" and "gin lane" depicting the 18th Century British, who so thoroughly integrated their moral reasoning and internal locus of control that they could engage in some advanced degeneracy.
I'm also struggling to understand what he's proposing, or if he's just generally saying "non-Europeans can't govern themselves and need authoritarian regimes to hold them accountable." And that can't really be what he's saying, right?
If you wanna solve some problems -- here's how to start: https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2021/07/10/two-sides-of-the-same-counterfeit-coin-part-12-b/
If I take his central thesis to be that individualism has been a much bigger part of European culture for centuries than in any other places on Earth, and that that makes freedom a problem for groups steeped in non-individualistic cultural traditions in that their sense of morality is more reliant on external social pressures rather than their own internal ethos, I think that he's generally right.
He sort of falls down in the details though, especially as it relates to African-Americans. He responds to Glenn's recitation of how black culture fell apart in the post-Jim Crow era by pointing to the impact of the migration north. Well, historians peg "the Great Migration" of blacks to the north as 1916 to 1970, and in fact for the past 40 years, there's been a slow but significant reverse migration of blacks back to the South. And is there any evidence whatsoever that the cultural breakdown was more of a northern than southern phenomenon? And brushing off the trends in the exact same direction with lower-class white people as "still not as bad" as what's happened with blacks in absurd, it's way worse (as it relates to non-college-educated whites) than was considered a full-blown crisis for blacks in the Moynihan Report.
Mead could also look around his immediate surroundings at NYU and discover plenty of externally-imposed morals and ethics in the form of the "woke" movement that has taken over his and nearly every other college campus. Is there a better example of a group of people voluntarily allowing themselves to be told what to do, what to think than white people forcing each other to attend antiracism trainings where they learn that they are infected with the "original sin" of whiteness, and must adopt an entirely new set of language, symbols, and mores in order to absolve themselves of this sin?
I think Glenn hit the nail on the head with his argument that Mead is essentializing culture in ways that go beyond what's warranted by the facts. Yes, the kind of individualism to which he refers is a European contribution to the world, and has a much longer, deeper, and broader history in Europe and European-derived countries than it does anywhere else in the world. But ultimately, it's a cultural artifact that individuals and groups can adopt and have adopted to varying degrees all over the world, throughout our society, throughout history.
I'm afraid the mistake that is made is to not see a significant "contributing factor" of Genes/heredity natural selection to the expression of personality. "Culture" is the expression of the collective personality genes of related groups in the real world. obviously over more than a hundred thousand years those that had more genes that expressed acceptable, preferred and advantageous behaviors (culture) for their particular environment and particular group were able to pass on their genes more successfully than those that didn't . in other words, a particular culture is created and reinforced through the heredity of genes and natural selection.
Having said that, we also have the ability to be influenced by immediate exposure to ideas, peer pressure and emotions as well. Operating on a higher cognitive level (not core personality/genes ) people can be "programmed" . you can see brain washing happening today in the anti west/ anti individual Marxist movement and manipulation of the west's core culture of individuality, morality and belief in equality through sophistry, to make the west act in ways counter to its well being.
Besides a view interesting point a highly debatable point of view; I personally see African Americans as highly individualized( 'European-style' ) I can see no other explanation for their contribution to music, the arts, comedy, literature and poetry
Listening to Larry's opening salvo I almost threw my phone against the wall. At 5 minutes in I was shaking my head and wondering if anyone else heard him say that minorities couldn't control themselves without overseers enforcing morality from outside. That minorities couldn't handle freedom,...Good God man are we back in the 1860s? I will continue to listen to this and hopefully destroy my phone...
I think there is a key difference between European and American Individualism, and I’d be curious to hear professor Mead’s take on this. In European Individualism the age of individuation is, on average, far later than in the US. For example, I lived with two different French families in high school, as part of a foreign exchange. Both times, I went with a sizable group of kids from my high school. One thing that stood out to me as different between American and French high school students, was the absolute lengths we American kids would go to in order to get away from adults and just be with our peer group. Us Americans could not tolerate spending our free time with adults, whereas the French kids were happy to hang out with peers, but also happy to hang out with their parents and other adults. In short, the American kids were obsessed with individuating themselves from the uncool adults.
If I had to put my finger on one single touchstone of American Individualism that is the most universally damaging--regardless of demographic group--it would be institutionally reinforced early-onset individuation. This leads to an adolescence (and young adulthood) that is not only potentially unsupervised, unstructured, and/or unorganized, but is actively rejecting of those things. For all demographic groups, this premature individuation creates a vulnerability for “arrested development,” i.e. an inability to function in a world where you are not special. Many individual families, groups, and communities in the US compensate with alternate institutions that do provide supervision, structure, and organization, so this vulnerability is more pronounced wherever that compensation has not occurred. To exemplify this failure, the compensating forces often get a contemptible or uncool rep: helicopter parenting, overbearing Tiger or Jewish moms, boy scouts, Sunday school, overscheduling, not letting kids be kids, meat grinder, stunting creativity, tracking, etc. Conversely, the hallmarks of this failure are super cool: basically every American movie or music track about risky and/or nuisance behavior in the absence of responsible adults. I think the immigrant students professor Mead describes aren’t struggling in a detrimental way, they are just more self-aware of their own limitations, need for structure and obligations, and lack of specialness. There is a great episode of Ronnie Chieng International Student, where an American Frat guy visits the International House, that exemplifies this hilariously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZH3PvZ3WNc
Successful navigation of adolescent Identity (vs. unsuccessful Role Confusion, per Erikson’s developmental stages) ought to be defined as gaining a sense of reward from DOING things that are productive and prosocial. However, American institutions have defined Identity development as some sort of internalized sense-of-self in relation to the world and others. That is not necessarily bad, but the problem is that healthy internal identity development is secondary, and can only occur in the presence of well-established external structures-of-doing. Furthermore, structures-of-doing require adult supervision, structure, and organization. If instead institutions erroneously prioritize building structures-of-being, or narrow the options for structure of doing, we fail our youth at the most formative time in their transition to adulthood and this premature individuation becomes protracted adolescence...not to mention the downstream impact on building intimate and loving relationships (Erikson’s Intimacy vs. Isolation).
This is hard for educators and academics to see, because they are part-and-parcel of this institutional failure. In the US, over the past 50 years, college and other COGNITIVE structures-of-doing have become the primary institutional corrective path to mastering Identity over Role Confusion. Even worse, these institutions are now transitioning to structures-of-being that reinforce an adolescent mindset. I’ve worked off-and-on in addiction treatment, and one common factor in addiction I’ve observed (across demographics), is this adolescent view of the world. Howard S. Schwartz (1990, p.131) writes of addiction, “On the mental level the disease is characterized by grandiosity, self-centeredness, the need for control, the feeling of being someone special (i.e. “terminally unique”), the feeling that one should be judged by one’s intentions rather than one’s actions, and so on. What this adds up to is the belief that the world should revolve around oneself, taking one in the best possible light. Those who do not do this [for the addict] are experienced as violating some kind of law of nature, as being “bad” people against whom [the addict] is justified in holding grievances and resentments.” Sounds just like many American 15 year-olds, right?
The tricky part is the fix. For starters, we have to stop thinking that complicated emotional and cognitive structures, like school counselors and race conscious math, are the primary solution. I think we must first enhance behavioral structures-of-doing. There is already exceptional research about creating behavioral structures-of-doing for adolescents with high-functioning Autism, and this is an ideal model. These students need explicit behavioral structuring that all adolescents (and adults) would and could benefit from. Part-time work programs, hands-on vocational training, outdoorsmanship, specific social skills, actual music and art training, etc. Temple Grandin is a great thinker regarding these behavior-focused solutions.
Word. Yes, individualism is unique to the European heritage of the West. Ayaan Hirsi Ali also looks into this phenomenon of non-Western immigrants finding it hard to assimilate in Europe and negative consequences like terrorism and criminal activities. Assimilation is commonly viewed through a lens of culture and politics: people in a minority adapt to the dominant culture of a majority. But elsewhere Dr. Thomas Sowell described assimilation as economic: minority immigrant groups which own their means of production and are self-sufficient do not need to assimilate themselves to the dominant culture. The best example is Jews in the West over the past millenia, also Germans in Russia and Latin America in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Japanese in USA and Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Chinese in South-East Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries, Indians in East and Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, etc. So I agree with Prof Mead that it is a sort of 'clash of culture and civilizations' but I think there is more to it as Dr. Sowell pointed out.
This is the only place I’ve ever heard anyone try to explain why certain countries in Africa have not become stronger (economically, militarily, etc.) on the world stage. Wherever corruption abounds, the rule of law cannot flourish and that explains why a lot of countries continue to struggle. Mexico is another example.
Mead’s western vs. non-Western sub-groups (sometimes he replaces “western” with “European”) within the USA - is an inaccurate framing. Latin America is part of the west. I don’t know the numbers, but African Americans outside the south before the Civil war were part of the American experience (non-slave). If I can consider myself fully American with one parent who is an immigrant, then any African American who has 2 American-born parents outranks me in this regard. The US has had a history that is very American, rather than European. I reject the label “European” in reference to American development.
Call Sign "Maverick"
https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2021/07/05/call-sign-maverick/
I'm a hip-hop fan, one of the white teenagers...who isn't a teenager anymore. I hear the criticism about the negative influence of culture. Joyce describes licking, sucking, and shitting in his novel Ulysses. He describes the cultural problems of the Irish, and shows more concern for them than most. I feel this argument applies to hip-hop. It's not a coincidence that Ulysses was banned in the United States for obscenity. Now it is considered the heighth of this Western Culture you are debating. Might rappers be using a Joycean device in their more obscene and violent lyrics to connect with outsider cultures, and show them the nuances and moral imperfections of their own cultures? Wouldn't framing the conversation in this way elevate the hip-hop genre to new heights that can promote new ideas such as individualism and responsibility. I would argue there are countless examples of the genre already doing this, they are not celebrated as they should be, and that is the real cultural crime. I'm white, I grew up in a relatively stable family environment. Molly's affair, and Leopold Bloom's repressed sexuality reflects the reality of that stable family environment. Even there, you had divorce, you had affairs. I respect the concern for the family, and I share it. Expecting perfection is of course, a mistake, but there should always be room for small things like poetry. Hip-hop is after all, a small thing.
Glenn: 33:08 Is it not the infusion of Marxism, socialism, and communism (wholesale European philosophy) into the greater black culture of the mid-twentieth century that gave rise to Black Power, Black Liberation, and Black Nationalism? These ideas are what suppressed the individual, and many individuals from Latin American countries. The very premise that because Americans of Western African descent originated from non-European societies, they therefore cannot handle the burden of freedom belittles the very real humanity of the African, who as an individual, realized slavery to be an unnatural state and risked his life be released from it.
Glenn: The best 2:20 segment starts at 27:03 and goes to 29:22, where you lay out the timeline for the development of the Black community in the 75 years after the Civil War and Prof. Mead responds that that is the elite, not representative of the whole.
Meanwhile, on the disintegration of the Black family (where you mention The Pill, feminism, the decline of religiosity, and other events of the 1960s) Prof. Mead talks about dysfunction tied to individualism and freedom that would only make sense if it took place during the Great Migration. His timeline doesn't ring true.