Philosophy Chemtrails

Last week Nietzsche went to Vietnam, this week he is going to Mexico for “Twilight of the Western’s Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Machine-Gun”. Here are the pre-video notes:

Things to notice when watching the film:
• When does Pike Bishop use his 1911 vs his Single-Action Army revolver?
• Does Angel ever use anything except his 1911?
• What differentiates Angel’s motivations from the rest of the bunch?
• What characters give grand speeches to rationalize their violence vs just doing it?

Historical Context of 1913:
• 65 years after the US-Mexican War in 1848
• 48 years after Civil War in 1865
• 23 years after the closing of the frontier in 1890
• 10 years after the Wright Brothers first flight in 1903
• 1 year before WWI started in 1914
• 3 years before the US Punitive Expeditions in 1916
• 16 years before the Great Depression in 1929
• 26 years before WWII started in 1939

Philosophical ideas:
• Nietzsche’s “sounding out idols”
• Nietzsche’s “philosophizing with a hammer”

Here are some of the concepts that will be discussed in the upcoming video on Platoon, comparing SSG Barnes to the officers. There are also links to the relevant Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is far from a perfect source. But it is great for general background information.

ChatGPT is also fantastic for background information. But the specifics are often off and sometimes wildly so. So use it with caution.

You do not “need” to be familiar with them to understand the video (or at least that is the intention), but it will help.

As I said in the previous video, we are trying for a German “Wissenschaft” approach which sees philosophy as a comprehensive system including history, psychology, sociology, culture, and other factors; not as something walled off into abstractions for academics to squabble about.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
• The Vietnam War in late 1967: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_in_the_Vietnam_War

• Search & Destroy Tactics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_destroy

• Body Counts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_body_count_controversy (also check out this clip from Full Metal Jacket that will add some context https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wKNjL7lrn60)

• Project 100,000 (aka “McNamara’s Morons”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000

PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS:
• McNamara Fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

• Friedreich Nietzsche’s “The Last Man”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man

• Hanna Arndt’s “The Banality of Evil” (from her book “Eichman in Jerusalem”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem

• Michele Foucault’s Discipline & Punish (focus on how torture and punishment went from being done in public, to becoming “humane”. Yes, Foucault is a weirdo French intellectual who I would not leave alone with children. But his sexual proclivities do not invalidate his ideas): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

• The guillotine as a brutal symbol of the paradoxical nature of the Enlightenment. By this I mean that it is a thoroughly modern invention used for pre-modern ends (best to plug into ChatGPT).

• Modern vs Pre-Modern Societies (also best to plug into ChatGPT)

OTHER RELEVANT WORKS:
• Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068

• Homer’s Iliad, specifically Achillies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles

Us shooting Houston Jones with 37mm & 40mm less-lethal in a collaboration with ballistichighspeed.

I Got Shot By A Gr***de Launcher For Science! (Ft. Ballistic High Speed & Ordnance Lab) In this episode of Bro Labs, I Put Myself To The Test By Shooting Myself with a Gr***de Launcher, I was in so much Pain after This Video! Sadly YouTube doesn...