EPISODE 74 — The Horrible 90s Hit Song That Explains The Modern World

[JulyDiaz 2797]

In his new column going up tomorrow, David Wong uses the hilariously outdated Billy Joel song 'We Didn't Start The Fire' to illustrate a confounding problem with dominant white and western culture. The song chronologically lists everything that's gone wrong in the world from 1949 to 1989 in between choruses of "We didn't start the fire," meaning, "Hey, it's not my fault that the world is so fucked up."

 

It's a common and understandable knee-jerk reaction for people in the 21st century to think that just because they were born in the 1980s, or that their grandparents didn't come to America until the 20th century, that they're not responsible for something like slavery. Yes, it's true that you're not individually to blame for slavery, but you still may reap countless invisible benefits from being a white male in the 21st century that you just don't get if you're African-American, or from a poor family, or a woman. There's an endless context to complicated social matters that doesn't just begin or end with, "I didn't start the fire."

 

That was just one example of the ways in which many people are blind to the historical context in which we live–that every moment in the present is either consciously or subconsciously tied to the entire history of our species. This week on the podcast, Jack O'Brien is joined by David Wong (aka Jason Pargin) and Josh Sargent to discuss these historical blindspots and how they're being slowly eroded by the human progress of the last two centuries.

[BenBradshaw 1]

Guys, please please please be careful about the academic literature on these subjects. Since this episode was all about "progress", I think you really need to take the time to wrap your heads around the idea that academic thinking on these issues has barely "progressed" at all in the 15 years I've been paying attention to it.

 

As self-deprecating as you are about the work you do, I honestly think that Cracked.com presents a more accurate and more scientific view of reality than most university professors in the humanities and the social sciences. Don't get too distracted by or put too much faith in their arguments. As a former professional archaeologist and anthropologist, I'd say the development and refinement of scientific epistemology is the factor most directly responsible for the "hockey-stick curve" of global human population.

 

I've written similar comments on here in the past, and the logic still holds. Evolutionary theory is such a slamdunk of scientific achievement that the discovery of the first warm-blooded fish didn't even phase it. Since this is the case and there is so much evidence pointing to the fact that humans are the result of evolutionary processes, I think it's reasonable to be extremely skeptical of academics studying ANY aspect of human behavior who have trouble linking their research to evolution. I STRONGLY recommend that you and anyone who reads this post get in the habit of categorizing academic research as either "scientific" or "unscientific" on these grounds. Scientific knowledge accumulates and "progresses". Unscientific knowledge stagnates and has trouble adjusting to novel situations created by science-driven social changes.

 

We owe a lot to "unscientific" academics for their social work disguised as research for legitimizing these social justice causes, but now we need grownup scientific research from them to help us figure out the next steps.

[Brian_Eno 119]

The fact that you guys are still talking about "We Didn't Start The Fire" from 1989 is probably evidence for it NOT being a terrible song. Being in the zeitgeist some 25 years after release is a pretty sweet accomplishment. Also I think your interpretation of the song is a bit off, since he talks about things that are not necessarily bad, he's not just saying that we didn't do the bad stuff. I think he's trying to say something similar to what you are saying, we are not responsible for anything in the past but we reap the benefits as well as the negatives and we tried to fight against it (imagine a teen rebelling against everything) The "fire" being the very spark of culture.

[wakefresh 689]

Thank you for making this episode. It is amazing to me the level of disconnect that goes on in certain people's heads when discussing these issues.

 

These same people that pride Apple in using human-centered design and ethnographic studies in making the new Iphone will turn around and call those same techniques "unscientific" when they are applied to social justice issues.

 

These same people that use cry "free speech" (a very old concept) to defend rape jokes are quick to say other old concepts (women/minorities are inferior and property) have all died out and that everyone is just "too sensitive." They're the ones to say the past is in the past and has no bearing on how we live today.

 

I think a big problem is that these people so up their own ass that they believe that the arbitrary biases and prejudices that they hold are somehow "logical". You can always tell them by their repeated use of the words "emotion" and "logic", even though the things they are saying don't make any sense at all. Its like they believe by just saying/writing the word "logic" will make their nonsense be true.

 

I also liked what Jason said about people who complain about too many people on the planet. The solution in all of those people's minds is to kill millions of black and brown people. The West uses somewhere between 25-35% of the world's resources but doens't even have 25% of the world's population. When I point out that it would make much more sense to kill all of the people in the West, since we are the biggest consumers of resources, I get blank stares. When I say that the standard of living should go down in the West so that consumption is equal to population percentage, these folks get pissed.