Welcome to another edition of Wisecrack Live! Thanks for joining us this Thursday. Henry here saying “Stand by” and we have a new and improved look for you all today. Don’t forget to like the stream - thank you, thank you, thank you!
What’s up Wisecrack friends, free thinkers, top G’s, alpha males, alpha heroes, beta heroes, cucks, soy boys, oat gals - everything! Well, glad you’re here - it’s Wisecrack Live! It’s April 20th, 2023, it’s me, Michael Burns, I’m here with producer Henry, we’re doing Wisecrack Live - that’s what we do on Thursdays. Last week we did it on Friday, we normally do it on Thursdays, so we’re back - or as everyone’s favorite 90s boy band would say, “Backstreet’s back!”
Real quick question - gun to your head (and I probably shouldn’t say gun to your head with today’s theme) - were you more of an ‘NSYNC or Backstreet fan? If you’re in the chat and you have thoughts on this, I’m very curious to hear if people have hard preferences between ‘NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. I would say I’m also an ‘NSYNC person, but there you go.
I did wear a little tie-dye 420 shirt for the holiday, so I got that here for you guys. Here’s what I’ll say - today’s 4/20. When we get to 420 people watching, I’ve decided I’ll take some Schedule 35 products. And if we get to 666 people watching, I will then ingest a marijuana product - probably not on camera, because I know that’s not good. So, if we’re gonna do super chats today, might as well make them 420 donations.
Can 420 be obnoxious? Yeah, it can be obnoxious - we got to remember all the people who have died because of marijuana. (No, I’m kidding - everyone, no one died from that - people died from alcohol and guns and other stuff). Someone said what Schedule 35 is - well, let me tell you, Schedule 35 is a company we work with who makes products out of psilocybin. You can go to Schedule 35.co to see what’s up with these products.
We’ve got a lot to talk about today, and as you can see from our thumbnail, we’re going to talk about some stuff related to gun violence. Now, is that fun? Do we like talking about gun violence? No, but do we have to keep talking about it because we live in America? Of course we don’t really have a choice anymore, it seems like. We’re not going to sacrifice a child, but there are old men in America who have guns and we need to talk about it. We can’t do a 420 thematic per se, but if anyone is interested in this sort of stuff they can join our Patreon. This week I’ve been very tired and I even asked my wife if I was dying. As for Nietzsche’s pickup line, it might involve Will To Power or a Dionysian sexual ritual. We’re currently halfway to 666 viewers and I’m going to reduce some of the warmth on the lights. As John says, “Lick the Slick Nelson brings up looking into the void, yeah”, Penny says something about “Ubermensch” um Beyond Good and Evil with someone you know, yeah, ooh what would be hmm. I and here’s the thing I don’t really want to just freestyle these I’m on my own behalf because I’m afraid I’ll say something crazy. Logan Reese throws out a “girl I want to go with the Uber Mensch” um Sean Harrison bought a mug from us that’s cool. “Devil’s Advocate is smart but too high to be clever” um you know keep them going in the chat it’s very fun. Oh Cali said “God’s dead so let’s get down Cali” great name Kelly one of my favorite names so there you go uh and Tanya feels the same way when they’re exhausted they also think that they are are dying um 420 story for you last year in 420 I went to a concert in Los Angeles featuring the bands “Taper’s Choice and Grateful Shred” and there was a young man at this concert I was with a group of friends and this man slowly got close to us and then eventually his face was like up against mine he was kind of looking at me very aggressively and I made an executive decision oh my God “Devil’s Advocate said did you fall from Heaven because God just died” I think that might be my favorite so far um this guy is staring at me I make the executive decision that I’m just not engaging eventually one of my friends named Philip who’s a sweeter person than me did engage and this individual quickly told us that they had done too many mushrooms and came to this concert alone and they didn’t know what was happening. “Jello Shots gifted 20 memberships” that’s amazing that’s amazing and someone else now do four memberships so it’s a Four and Twenty membership thing but jello shots is currently “lord of the chat” um and if you’ve never heard the term “lord of the chat” it’s what we call the person who gifts the most memberships. Why does someone give them memberships truly because it’s a fun thing to do and it’s a good vibe and if you are someone who like feels like uh you’re just in need of some good old-fashioned affirmation gift memberships because then people are gonna like you it’s the easiest way to be liked as a part of the wisecrack live community and yeah I call it a community I’ve decided this is not a parasocial relationship it’s a digi-social relationship it’s a social relationship or you know sadly you only get to interact via text and and I just get to talk at you so there you go if anyone has longer thoughts they want to share with us as always you can check out our email “Dead Card gifted five” there we go um you can always email us to at wisecrack live66. We’re getting some interesting emails guys and Henry’s been working on some new graphics for the screen. I always like to tell you what’s coming down the line and we filmed two videos yesterday - one on snob culture and the other on the question “What is philosophy supposed to do?” Adam Age points out that if we improve the relationship, he’ll buy us a beer in real life.
Someone in the chat asked how we can be objective when we “trash Christian faith” and I don’t think I’ve ever done that. My issue isn’t with the theology or religious practice, it’s the politicization of these things and the symbiosis of right-wing nationalism and militarism with Evangelical Christianity. Our wide-ranging political program includes empathy and wanting everyone to live comfortably and have a good life.
Ryan asked what the rate of onset is with the schedule 35 stuff and it depends on the capsules. Hey Nelson, I think you might have meant to type Bill Gates’ username instead of “Kaiser Nelson”. Jesus Christ, I hope you didn’t do that by accident! I would feel really bad if you did. That’s really cool that we can just send it back if you did make a mistake. We’ll work it out, no worries - it had to happen with the schedule 35. Yeah, Matt Larson, you can order Schedule 35 in Arizona, by the way. That’s crazy. I feel like I should do something because of that, but I don’t know what it would be. Anyway, we work for Nelson now, guys, because we work for Nelson, welcome to Wisecrack owned by Nelson, which is the username of Bill Gates because Bill Gates is secretly based and can only activate that here. That’s an incredible thing to do, guys. I can’t even. Nelson threw me off my game by how generous and kind that is.
I’ll get back to this comment and talk more about Nelson. So, this guy said, “Start the video in the news ever so smug burst out wokeism is in real word as if it’s a genius retort, no hope.” So, I did reply to that person in the comments and I said, “What does wokism mean?” And they said, “Why should I tell you? I don’t know. I would just say that I don’t think it’s real. I think wokeism is a term that means whatever people want it to mean because if wokism, historically of being woke, means waking up to historical injustices that you might have been otherwise unaware of, then that’s like a good thing and I don’t know why that’s bad but most people, I think, define woke is like anything that doesn’t affirm my direct beliefs.”
Nelson said they’re a man of their word. Read S in the chat said, “I couldn’t get into Garden College too much of it seems to be about God as a presupposed entity which until God has proven felt like standing on feet of clay.” Read that’s a great point. Read I say this, I do not want you to buy anything. Read I wrote a book about how that’s not the case, so the PDF is pretty easy to find. I would love to send it to you or someone else can send it to you. My whole thing, read my whole PhD dissertation was about how I loved Kierkegaard but struggled with the presupposition of a theological conception of God, so it was me trying to make sense of that. So all I’ll say is, I totally get that.
Someone said, “Is Michael on psychedelics?” Michael has consumed a Schedule 35 product on the stream. So, and this is also a good thing if you’re like, “Oh, maybe Schedule 35 isn’t safe and I’ll die,” you’ll know, because I’ll either be living or dead by the end of this stream.
By the way, that comment was fun. Then I think the same person, yeah, this is the same person left this comment, someone said, “Can we all read it?” If you’re talking about my book, everyone can read it. It’s for the people. It’s not really for the people because I did, it’s like overly academic in the pros, but it’s just what you got to do in that world.
Nelson is just going crazy here. Nelson is just you know, I don’t presuppose the theological conception of God, I presuppose Nelson. So this comment says, “You yourself went half woke in the past several years and I stopped watching.” My favorite thing is when people say, “Oh, I stopped watching. I don’t watch this channel.” You’re leaving a comment on it, dude. You’re leaving a comment on the channel. Like, what are you doing? I don’t know. How am I half? I don’t know. The content was terrible. I still hope you’ll come to your senses quietly like some channels do. I don’t know what any of these words mean, but I love it.
Someone said, “What is your book called?” It’s called, “Kierkegaard in the Matter of Philosophy: A Fracture Dialectic” by Michael O’Neil Burns. There are PDFs floating around. The publisher never gives me money. Whoa, right around the Rosie’s bud got their book published by Amazon. That rules.
So yeah, I’m half woke, guys. Next comment, someone said, “The three EPs by The Beta Band is some of the best music ever produced.” I just wanted to shout that out because we’re talking about High Fidelity last time and someone brought up that scene in the chat, and it’s true. It’s really good music.
This is the last comment, and this is apropos. Someone said, “Okay, I’ll say this. Having not eaten a lot today and taken some psilocybin products, I feel a…” We’re juxtaposing the absurdity and frivolity of 420 with the seriousness and Insanity of American cultural and political life, so what I thought could be interesting to talk about now to abstract a bit from the intensity of the gun violence stuff is to think about Freedom. So I found a clip, I’ve not seen this channel before, I found it today. This is an older video, but in three minutes it looks at Hannah Arendt’s conception of freedom and I thought that would be a cool thing to maybe talk about. And again, I want to acknowledge Nelson, the lord of the chat, for really just pulling out all the stops today. So you know, thank Nelson, thanks for all he does for the chat in the community, thanks for everyone who’s donating today, it means a lot, we love you and appreciate you. Um, oh yeah, and I’ll say that so maybe 666 something will happen and if we get to 420 likes while we’re doing it, I’ll do something else then. So let’s check this out, this is a video that talks about Hannah Arendt on freedom and I think this ties into the stuff we’re talking about. What is freedom is an essay by Hannah Arendt which appeared in her 1961 book called Between Past and Future. In this essay, Arendt explores the historical development of the concept of freedom. She begins the essay by claiming that there’s a contradiction between people’s conscious understanding of freedom and their everyday experience of freedom. That is to say, even if we act freely within the set political confines, it will never be clear if our motivations are absolutely free from ideological confines. So just to pause there, the question we impose here by Arendt is: when we are free and we act freely, are we questioning the ideological confines that make that freedom possible? Are we over 666? I mean, I’m not seeing it, but I trust you. Okay, I’m gonna be right back. Okay, okay guys, Henry interact with the chat for a second, be right back guys, Michael will be alright back with us. I’m just going to go ahead and go back up. I saw that Chris Maverick mentioned The Fear of Youth Coming to Kill Us and uh yeah, that’s a really interesting dissertation. I find it something that’s also present in a lot of Japanese pop culture, the Yakuza papers for instance are all about the uh new generation of Yakuza coming in to take over the old ones. There’s Battle Royale which everybody cites is the thing The Hunger Games ripped off, but they don’t really pay attention to the thematics of it, but uh yeah. Okay, we’re we’re back. I’ll do whatever I say I’m gonna do. Okay guys, you never say that I won’t do what I say that I’m gonna do. Okay, it’s 420. We’re here talking about Freedom again. Our friend Aaron points out the idea that we think we are free when we act freely within a system. For example, if we’re Americans and we commit an act, we say we are free. But are we free within the constraints of the system, or are we just acting as pawns? This makes us think of The Lego Movie, which poses a similar question. In The Lego Movie, the characters think they are free, but soon realize they are only acting within a system that puts constraints on what Freedom really is in a particular context.
Aaron distinguishes the philosophical idea of free will or inner freedom and the political idea of free action. For ancient Greeks, Freedom was always associated with action. Greek polis was the political Arena where free actions could appear. Freedom was closely linked to the idea of politics, as only a person that was free could participate in the organization of the political field. In a Greek context, Freedom was an inherently political concept, and the right to be political was attached to Freedom. Great Balls was the realm where Freedom was a worldly reality, tangible in words, seen in events, and talked about and remembered in stories. In a word, political Freedom was freedom of action. Nelson contributed a literal 420. with political sovereignty with the idea that one person’s will should be valued more than the collective will of the people and that’s a dangerous thing because then you have to worry about like dictatorships and stuff like that so democracy is key to ensuring that everyone’s will is respected and everyone’s voice is heard.
Welcome back to the Henry hour! We’re just gonna go ahead and chat for a moment while Michael takes a break. T.S Alvin says “Stop being self-conscious Burns, I’m pretty sure most of the live chat respects your brain”. That’s good to know!
Soren says the idea of inner Freedom mainly did the Insight that the freedom of one man or a group or a body politics can be purchased only at the price of freedom of all others. In other words, if people focus solely on inner Freedom, they may forget what it means to organize freely too. Moreover, aren’t Associates inner Freedom with political sovereignty, that is with the idea that one person’s will should be valued more than the collective will of the people. That’s a dangerous thing because then you have to worry about like dictatorships and stuff like that, so democracy is key to ensuring that everyone’s will is respected and everyone’s voice is heard. ite City and that’s how we know it’s powerful it’s because it’s got the tanks and the guns and the military and the police and all of that like that’s how we know it’s powerful and that’s what I think the rent is getting at here is that we have to disassociate the two and and that’s a really interesting point
We’re doing the impossible today, trying to think about a very pressing hot button social issue involving guns and violence and death in America, while theorizing from philosophers about Freedom and doing games to take drugs. My brain was like “all of these things make sense, let’s do them all right now”. Adam Bayer brought up a great point - this professor from St Thomas University has a great books Channel and talks about Hannah Arendt’s work on violence and power, and how she differentiates the two and disassociates violence from power.
This is a very conventional idea in public discourse and even in political Theory - to conflate power and violence and assume that a nation’s power is determined by its capacity for violence. However, Arendt makes the startling claim that power and violence are opposites. This is an interesting analysis that is relevant to this discussion, and we must disassociate the two in order to understand power.