Civilisation EP01 ⟩ “By the Skin of Our Teeth” [500 BCE – 1500 CE]
Details
Are you tired of stuffy Meetup events where people delve into deep topics while striving to be clear, distinct, insightful, rigorous, and make sound arguments? Then it’s time to slip into your jammies, grab a mug of kratom-infused cocoa, and join us at the Comfy Cocoa Cuddle Corner and Pajama Party Pillow Palace! Leave your philosophical hats at home and bring your fuzzy slippers, because this is a night of unapologetic fun. No judgments, no deep discussions, just pure silliness and pleasure.
Just kidding! We know you’re not here for just fluff and fun, but you might be thinking, “Spinning this event as ‘philosophy’ is just an attempt to intellectualize the non-work of mere enjoyment. Taste is subjective. And anyway, what in the world do mode of production, religion, technology, propaganda, economics, and the artistic political unconscious have to do with philosophy?”
The answer comes this Thursday as we start our 2500-year journey through European history in 13 delicious high-def multimedia trance-inducing episodes featuring the most beautiful objects ever made, served with large dollops of their own period music, along with penetrating insights into the human life-worlds that made them … and told by Britain’s greatest art historian and museum curator, Kenneth Clark!
We’ll be revisiting beloved historical periods, exploring the Zeitgeisten and philosophical systems that arose within them, and then tying the whole thing down to its concrete (art-)historical substrate. Through the lens of art and music, we’ll review the entire sweep of Western history from inside its Völker, organizing great figures and movements into a neat timeline, and periodizing it for easier memorization and retrieval.
Understanding European history is essential for academic work. It serves as a comprehensive framework that contextualizes all other forms of knowledge, and so is always useful, and so is worthy of frequent review.
So join us as we review the whole track of European civilization—from the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and beyond. We’ll find that each moment is an amalgam of cosmology, religion, scientific understanding, techne, social production, governmentality, economic form, metaphors of selfhood, styles of super-egoic policing—everything that has shaped the world we live in today. Best of all, and most helpfully, we’ll do it all through the lens of the artifactual-expressive objects that give each epoch its subtle unity, bringing history to life in a way that’s both super accessible and profound.
The First Modern Documentary
Once in a blue moon, the Culture Industry accidentally injects content of real psychedelic, revolutionary, liberating, dignitarian, edifying value into the conformity-encoding swill it pumps out in order to manufacture obedient replicants. Extraordinary quality is exactly what you’ll find in this epoch-making BBC2 series—a treasure trove of insights into human ways of world-making that will give you something like a synoptic overview of the whole Western cultural shebang, and will leave you feeling inspired and cognitively mapped.
In David Attenborough’s own words:
“It was my job to devise programs that were going to be seen in color, and which would, as it were, sell color. And one of the ideas I had was that we should put together all the loveliest things that Western civilization had created since the last 2000 years. A ravishing cavalcade of beautiful things was my idea, a very obvious idea. And putting it in chronological order was an obvious idea, too.
“Well, it was a huge success. Beyond anybody’s imagination, certainly beyond mine.”
… i.e., it was so great that the UK shut down and people had “Civilisation parties” where the lucky few with 625-line color TVs opened their homes so others could experience this new incredible thing.
METHOD
I finally procured a high-def version of the series, increased the sharpness, remastered the audio, and then added subtitles that also name the music. Subtitles are essential for this series since only with their help can can you grok the buffet of gorgeous art and period-music and still understand the narrative. Here’s the first episode:
Since it’s the most important documentary in history, I’ve also included this endearing interview with its co-creator:
So come on down to the Pajama-Perfect Poppy Paradise and Cocoa-Comfort Café and let’s explore the depths of human history and culture together, and emerge richer, wiser, and more connected to our collective mother and each other.