New Transcendentalist Youtube Resource List
These are some (mostly) short things which have blown my mind that I reference frequently. I’ll put them in roughly chronological order for me.
Damon Garcia, Christian Socialist on his story related to growing out of evangelicalism. Includes insight on the Bible and Liberation Theology, 16 mins.
Noam Chomsky, a non-marxist leftist, on religion, especially US policy, liberation theology and El Salvador. 6 mins.
Cornel West, Revolutionary Christian, public philosopher, being asked what about people who have been hurt by religion and choose atheism? Some deep insight into interreligious dialogue here, 3 minutes:
Another Cornel on Colin Kaepernick. Watching this gave me every emotion and made me proud to be a US American/human being. 12 mins cornel 4 mins Kaepernick.
The next two: Jeffrey Sachs and Rutger Bregman, an economist and a economic historian, are two people who speak in a way that doesn’t reference too many things that would normally trigger white businessmen, (other than their conclusions). Sachs first, and it is 7 minutes.
Rutger Bregman, economic historian, this is a 3 minute moment that made him famous, pointing out the problem of wealthy people avoiding taxes to wealthy people. Start here and go anywhere with him:
Two more economists, this Michael Hudson (economist at Univ. of Missouri) conversation (a little bit more dense than the rest of these) helped me see what neoliberalism is and that every president ever since Reagan has had hyper-individualist, trickle-down, neoliberal policies, there is essentially no substantive difference in economic thinking between Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush jr and Obama. (Wendy Brown calls Trump the Frankenstein of these presidents). 25 mins.
Richard Wolff, (UMass Amherst, New School NY) here explains the history of how and why socialist ideas developed. Spoiler alert: there is no single socialism, and the US education system is pretty bad at explaining it. 49 mins.
Johann Hari, an investigative journalists discusses an elephant in the room regarding the addiction/depression epidemic, what about the social environment we have created? 15 mins.
Although, this article is actually what launched me into his work: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connections
Joan Williams, Sociologist discussing why class cluelessness is driving Trump support and how liberals are often unconsciously making it worse. There are shorter pieces from her but I think it was the Q and A of this talk that gave me a big ‘aha’ moment. If you have conservative inclinations, don’t pay attention/ get annoyed by the way she is introduced. 1.5 hours.
Moreover, this article from French literary sensation Didier Eribon, gives the same ideas, condensed and perhaps better than the Williams’ talk: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/27/didier-eribon-interview-returning-to-reims-working-class-coming-out--memoir
If this topic is helpful to you, I think Arlie Hochschild’s book is the best, but, I also haven’t read Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash.
The next two, one from Kathy Baldock (homeschooling evangelical church lady) and one inspired by her, on her story and subsequent E X T E N S I V E research into the western history of sexuality. You will understand why the modern church became anti-sexuality and anti-lgbtq. It makes sense, in very disappointing, but fixable ways. This is part 1 of a 2 part conference she did, the whole thing is just shy of 5 hours. The shorter version I didn’t think was as good, but, maybe not too long from now she will condense this, still, just about every portion is so helpful, this also exists in book form. part 1, 2.5 hrs. part 2, 2.5 hrs.
This is a trailer of a movie being made that is based on one story she uncovered of how the church became anti-LGBTQ. Two words in 1 corinthians 6:9, one translated weak minded and another child molester, were combined into one word, “homosexual” in 1946, the first time it appeared in the Bible. You can go to the website to get on the mailing list, I think they could use help in funding the completion of the documentary. 3 mins.
Wade Davis, a cultural anthropologist, just showing off with incredible insights that we can hardly quantify from around the world, he doesn’t say decolonial or postcolonial in the talk (it was from before those were buzzwords), but, he’s demonstrating it. 22 mins.
Derek Black is the son of a KKK grandmaster, his mom’s first marriage was to David Duke the most known KKK person. He started a website called the Stormfront which radicalized people like Dylan Roof. Black tells his story of changing his mind, Eli Saslow is a biographer who found Black and wrote a book about him “Rising Out of Hatred”. Lots of parallels with people changing their mind from a fundamentalist faith. 14 mins.
One of the most wide ranging, fun, intelligent conversations I’ve ever come across between two intellectual giants in Cornel West and Slavoj Zizek, given in honor of Michael Brooks who passed away in 2020, a thoughtful, intelligent leftist commentator, 1 hour 30 mins:
Cornel West and bell hooks (a brilliant public scholar of race, class and gender) discussing spirituality and how they view the world. it was the first half that I thought was really good, but 1 hour and 30 minutes in its entirety.
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