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Reconciliation, White Exceptionalism, and Cultural Recovery — Transcript

by Nordic Animism · 2,649 words · 428 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:09not too long ago I was giving a talk
0:11that presented a basic overview of my
0:13work with the Nordic animism project
0:16working to recover traditional European
0:18knowledge and animism making it
0:20available for contemporary people to use
0:23and and that we Euro descended people
0:25should think about our cultural heritage
0:28in the way that some indigenous Scholars
0:30think about theirs I listed some
0:33examples of indigenous Scholars that
0:34have inspired my thinking and also some
0:36examples of research and content that
0:39I've produced and ceremony that I've
0:41proposed and there was a woman who had
0:43worked in some kind of allyship with
0:45indigenous communities and she politely
0:48but insistently voiced her objection
0:51although she may have been a meable to
0:54the idea of traditional knowledge
0:56recovery for Euro descendant people in
0:59theory it is currently not okay the
1:03wounds of colonialism are just too
1:05recent reconciliation efforts have not
1:08gone far enough and further work needs
1:11to be done between indigenous and white
1:13people before it's viable to start
1:16thinking about traditional European
1:18culture her implication was that Nordic
1:21animism or work that place out in a
1:24similar space bypasses decolonial and
1:27reconciliatory work in fact she thought
1:30that we were rather far away from
1:32majority animism being a legitimate
1:35possibility now this is not the first
1:37time that similar concerns have been
1:39voiced and in some ways I think that
1:41these objections are legitimate the
1:44wounds from Colonial brutality are still
1:47open people do continue to suffer in as
1:50asymmetric systems and there is a
1:53history of white people sometimes
1:56well-meaning sometimes not
1:58carnivalization IND culture so I
2:01understand why some might look at a
2:03project targeting your descendants and
2:06think well who cares when indigenous
2:10women are being abducted and murdered in
2:13alarming numbers and health problems and
2:16suicide rates soar in some of these
2:18communities and brown water are coming
2:21out of the tabs for thousands of people
2:23who are desperately clawing to hang on
2:26to their remaining land rights and
2:29protect their language from going
2:31extinct all the while the overwhelming
2:33major majority of white people are
2:35ignorant of the history of colonization
2:38so in this context how important is it
2:41really to teach white people about runes
2:44and Mapes and runic calendars I never
2:47want anyone who looks at traditional
2:49knowledge work whether that be my own or
2:52not to think that it intends to bypass
2:55or does not support reconciliatory
2:58efforts these issues are important
3:00they're urgent and they deserve support
3:02and support can take many forms but I
3:05also want to point out that there are
3:07elements to this objection that I think
3:09are problematic in their assumptions and
3:13in their implications so let's stop for
3:15a moment and think about what
3:18reconciliation actually is and what its
3:20objective is and importantly what its
3:23objectives should not be reconciliation
3:26is current moves towards acknowledging
3:29historic in Justice opening dialogue
3:31reparation and establishing
3:33respect-based relationships the
3:35objective of reconciliation Works should
3:38not be to redeem white people or to
3:41relieve them of the guilt of
3:44colonization because that is not a good
3:46basis to work from it's not valid
3:50because guilt sin
3:53Redemption they are not useful Concepts
3:56to deal with a current real situation
3:59firstly because history is simply too
4:01gruesome for any Redemption to actually
4:03be a possibility and second because it
4:06doesn't lay a ground foundation for this
4:09work to root ourselves in Protestant
4:13Christian Colonial worldview that
4:16requires that we see ourselves as
4:18inherently evil while also being somehow
4:22universally absolved for it in fact I
4:24think that this ethical cognitive
4:26dissonance is a main building block in
4:29white and it should not be reproduced
4:32because it might keep your descendant
4:34people stuck in toxic P patterns we
4:37can't really oppose the effects of
4:39colonialism with Colonial tools and I
4:42recommend my video on white guilt also I
4:45think this criticism seems based on an
4:48intuition that drawing indigenous
4:50inspiration to transform our own culture
4:54is something that is fun and exotic and
4:57thereby it shs of the emotional social
5:00cultural burden of dealing with the
5:03heritage of Oppression rather than
5:05facing up to it as a necessary
5:07emotionally and difficult work that
5:09demands responsibility and
5:11accountability now recovering
5:13traditional knowledge can and should be
5:15life affirming and sometimes fun yeah
5:19traditional culture exactly is not some
5:22Protestant self flating repentance and
5:25self-denials and it shouldn't be could
5:28it be that we are intuitively perceiving
5:32life affirming fun pieces of culture as
5:35sinful not because it necessarily is in
5:38any opposition to reconciliation but
5:41because it compromises a certain kind of
5:44religious penitence that is sort of
5:47baked into this cognitive dissonance
5:50that has defined centuries of
5:53colonialism I'm just asking recovery of
5:55traditional knowledge does have these
5:57life affirming ele elements but that
6:00does not imply absence of grief or anger
6:02for both historical and current
6:04mistreatment of marginalized groups not
6:07at all nor does it seek to bypass
6:10efforts towards bringing the world in a
6:13respect-based direction it has these
6:15elements because these elements are a
6:19vital part of the decolonial nature of
6:21traditional knowledge looking in
6:24positive constructive content focused
6:27ways at Euro tradition material as a
6:31path to decolonizing white people that
6:33is inherently bound to this
6:36intersectional struggle for producing a
6:39position for thinking with decolonial
6:41Integrity I don't think there really is
6:43a distinction between on the one side
6:46the content material of European
6:48traditional knowledge like thinking
6:50about totemic animal kinship and shanic
6:54Vision Quest traditions and sacred fire
6:57and masking traditions and Odin and Loki
7:00and Wheel Of Seasons um and then on the
7:03other side the de Colonial Reflections
7:05opposing racisms other
7:16shismar out self-image for EUR
7:18descendent persons that are in
7:20solidarity with colonized groups I think
7:23these two sides they they they're
7:24connected they're both necessary somehow
7:27so imagine for instance that I would say
7:29the following all right there's no
7:31actual traditional knowledge content to
7:33be had at this historic moment because
7:36that would be somehow not assuming
7:38acknowledging the responsibility of the
7:40colonial Heritage so we drop that I will
7:43only talk about identity politics
7:46allyship deconstructing nationalism
7:49intersectional analysis criticizing
7:51power symmetries all these things here
7:53if we imagine that I communicated like
7:56that exactly what would I then be
7:58producing in what direction would I be
8:01trying to move followers I would claim
8:04that the lack of actual concrete
8:08traditional knowledge content actually
8:10reproduces an important and problematic
8:13aspect of whiteness and that is this
8:16idea that a white person is a bit like a
8:18blank
8:20slate as if we are these kind of
8:23neutral ground Sero of humanity beings
8:27being white is not belonging to
8:29ethnicity white people don't really have
8:32culture other peoples may have culture
8:34but white people are exceptional we are
8:38This Modern Universal standard human
8:42right we don't really you know dance
8:45around with masks on and all that ooga
8:47booga that's them that's the Primitive
8:50Savages I would argue that filling
8:52traditional knowledge content is a vital
8:56condition for producing actual
8:58decolonization ation real
9:01decolonization you cannot just develop
9:04and parade identity politics it's
9:06important to do so because it opposes
9:09oppressive patents but exactly because
9:11it is a deconstruction mainly it isn't
9:14really its own content filling in
9:17content is part and parcel I think of
9:20producing Euro descendant people who are
9:23not just these Blank Slate plastic
9:26allies that parade virtue signaling and
9:28repeat correct statements with
9:30machine-like Precision but real allies
9:33allies that come with their own position
9:37actual activist Warriors healing the
9:40wounds of colonialism entails laying a
9:44positive cultural foundation in people
9:47racialized as white I believe that this
9:50is the only way of bringing them out
9:53from what indigenous American authors
9:55like Robin kimra and wona luk diagnoses
9:59the
10:00wendyo that all consuming cannibal
10:04dynamism where an endless emptiness
10:07inside drives the consumerist hunger of
10:11this omnicidal system that emptiness
10:14there I think that is remarkably
10:17reminiscent of this Blank Slate modern
10:21Universalist standard Humanity of
10:23whiteness and I suspect that this is
10:26what you perpetuate when you insist that
10:29re-engaging European cultural content is
10:32not for now but for some potential
10:35future that may never really come
10:37actually so some might say cool go and
10:40look at your European culture but keep
10:43your hands off Robin kimmer's thinking
10:46and I've come across this argument and
10:50just beside the facts that it udes and
10:53makes invisible kimmer's actual voice it
10:56overrules her encouraging white people
10:59to think with her and thereby it
11:02actually Peres perpetuates white
11:04exceptionalism by secluding us from her
11:07it also has the problem that it's just
11:09too easy humans work in exchange and
11:14dialogue and Kima is actively
11:16encouraging people to learn from her it
11:19is the most insane
11:21misapplication of cultural ownership to
11:24project it on the voices of Scholars and
11:27thinkers in this way they want to be
11:30heard she wants to be heard she wants to
11:33inspire she wants to be in dialogue and
11:37that is the ownership ship structure of
11:40doing what kimra does respecting her
11:43ownership is not ignoring her it is
11:46dialoguing with her and of course
11:48crediting her entering this dialogue in
11:50order to develop with Integrity
11:52traditional your descendant knowledge is
11:55one evident pointer in opening
11:57decolonial paths for your descended
11:59people and I'm not saying that this is
12:02going to happen with the stroke of a
12:03wand but there is a building and
12:08substantial content goes together with
12:12decolonial criticism and that's why I
12:15try to do both both the content the
12:17sacred fire the wheels of seasons and
12:21the intersectional criticism and the
12:22decolonial thinking so what to do about
12:24the fact that there is indeed Brown
12:26water coming out of the tabs and high
12:29child mortality rates in indigenous
12:31communities in in Turtle Island well
12:35some of us are aren't actually there and
12:38then I think the best we can do is to
12:40support the people who might actually be
12:42there and be working in respect based
12:44ways in the way we can for instance
12:46trying to produce culture and self-image
12:49that would support this and we are all
12:51in different life situations and we have
12:53different possibilities and I think that
12:56real allyship grows from realizing roles
12:59that are available for us where we use
13:02ourselves to the utmost to work towards
13:05a livable future for a children like I
13:09have a history of religions and
13:10anthropology education it's actually a
13:12fairly useless thing but I'm trying to
13:14use it as best I can and there are so
13:17many projects out there today where
13:19people are giving it their fullest in
13:22activism against H normativity racism
13:24fossil fuel industry building indigenous
13:26Frameworks working with th investment
13:28teaching veloping different brands of
13:30economy donut co-ops common thinking
13:33Democratic ownership regenerative
13:35farming you know relational branches of
13:38many different disciplines still I think
13:40the decolonial position that I build
13:42here is actually a bit too radical for
13:46many institutions of white knowledge
13:48hierarchies exactly for this reason I do
13:51try to pose an actual challenge to
13:53whiteness and this is why I become super
13:56accustomed to getting rather serious
13:59push back from uh the structures
14:01associated with whiteness and this is
14:03also something to remember by the way if
14:05you were talking about the situation of
14:08privilege that I'm speaking from
14:10European traditional knowledge is often
14:12extremely marginalized and taking this
14:15position makes me structurally marginal
14:18as you know and this is just to say
14:22that yeah I might be privileged as a
14:24white man in many so of the social
14:26interactions that I have but doing this
14:30I have invested this privilege in
14:32opposing power structures so it's
14:34totally not fair to cast this work as
14:37some privileged indulging in some
14:39interesting in exotic self-image of this
14:42sort of thing is exactly the opposite
14:45it's giving up privilege in order to
14:47face piles and piles of structural power
14:51and culturally ingrained but I also
14:53want to mention another concern that I
14:56have about this objection and that that
14:59is the timing that we need to wait until
15:03some potential future where the wounds
15:05of colonialism have been sufficiently
15:08healed before we can start teaching
15:11kinship with the other than human to
15:13white people like let's imagine it for a
15:17moment and try to get concrete how long
15:20exactly might it take to produce this
15:23reconciliation I'm just asking imagine
15:26that we really went for it with cons
15:28considerable resources let's think about
15:31that for a moment how long would that
15:33take as I'm making this video we have
15:36less than 5 years to cut CO2 emissions
15:38in half and keep global warming under
15:41one and a half degree possibly to avoid
15:44the total apocalypse and we have barely
15:46started more carbon dioxide have been
15:49emitted since Al Gore released his
15:51famous movie An Inconvenient Truth than
15:53in the entire history of humanity before
15:55this movie 3/4s of macro forer and half
15:58of all vertebrate species have
16:00disappeared from this world in the time
16:02between I was born and this moment we
16:05are in exponential acceleration into the
16:07apocalypse a climate denialist buffoon
16:10was just elected in the US and all this
16:13is not just a white concern is it in
16:15fact the problem is more urgent in the
16:17global South than in the global North so
16:19in this situation of global emergency
16:22exactly how long is it that we need to
16:25hold off building white people's land
16:28connection
16:29which is one lever that can be pulled
16:33and I have a good position and a good
16:35background knowledge to talk about this
16:37stuff postponing that to some potential
16:40future I'm not saying that
16:41reconciliatory work is not important I'm
16:44just saying hey you know it seems rather
16:46evident that we all have different roles
16:47and different projects suggesting
16:50traditional e ecological knowledge for
16:53white people is one proposition that
16:56proposes to do something so this this is
16:59why I want you to take a look at the
17:01roots of this objection because it
17:03appears to me irrational a bit in this
17:06way that I often feel from these
17:09structural responses that I often meet
17:11from the cultural social dynamisms that
17:14that uphold whiteness so this is my
17:16counter question to this question or my
17:19objection to this objection that working
17:22with your descendant traditional
17:24knowledge is something that should be
17:26pushed to after
17:29a more complete level of reconciliation
17:32consider the context of producing your
17:35descendant traditional knowledge one the
17:38context of our escalating apocalypse and
17:41two the context of all our various
17:45activist Endeavors is it really not
17:47valid to try to decolonize white people
17:51by listening to those many indigenous
17:53voices that are actively encouraging
17:55this work by heeding that there isn't
17:58much time left in the world before the
18:00apocalypse spins into overdrive by
18:03acknowledging that cultural content can
18:07evidently not be segmented away from
18:10cultural politics teaching it and
18:12developing it is substantial it's part
18:16of cultural decolonization so when
18:18you're objecting to this project I
18:20suggest lifting this perspective a bit I
18:23even want to mention my suspicion that
18:25in some cases you know this objection
18:27might be driven
18:29by this deeper structural response of
18:33where there's a cultural motivation
18:34basically to uphold whiteness because it
18:37might actually serve to reiterate white
18:40people as white as entrenched in this
18:43cultural vacuum that feeds I think the
18:46wendyo so please reflect on this and in
18:49the end we're totally in this together
18:52so thank you uh for making me reflect on
18:56it and it is an important question and
18:58I'm not sure that I'm completely right
19:01all the way through here um these are
19:03just my thoughts on it but thanks a lot
19:07for listening and see you around
19:14[Music]
19:55oh
19:58oh
20:01[Music]

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