(upbeat rock music plays)
- What's up guys,
Michael here,
and today I'm going to channel the spirits
of my philosophical forefathers
to check out Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside."
Now, while most of us have spent the past year or so
learning how to make bread
or developing adult onset agoraphobia,
Bo Burnham was writing,
filming,
editing,
and performing in a comedy special to mix his standup,
sketches,
and songs.
Show off.
And while we found plenty to overanalyze in
Burnham's past work we were surprised by how explicitly
philosophical he gets in this special.
- There's so many songs in the past
about working class jobs,
but not a lot about the labor exploitation
of the modern world.
So that was the idea here.
- So we figured it warranted another edition
of a Philosopher Reacts.
Now Bo covers a lot of ground in this special,
but I want to focus on two interrelated themes,
self-examination and
a little thing called capitalism.
Oh, and also,
Jeffrey,
you did it.
So let's check it out in this episode
of A Philosopher Reacts to Inside.
Let's start with his educational children's song.
After Bo sings about how the world is a magical place,
where all of nature works together in perfect harmony,
his friend/prisoner,
Socko,
chimes in with a different perspective.
- ♪ The simple narrative taught in every history class ♪
is demonstrably false And pedagogically classist
- Okay so Socko might be a Marxist.
He's calling history curriculums,
pedagogically classist.
With Pedagogy being the theory and
practice of teaching.
And doing so he's pointing out the influence
that class has on the way we
produce and reproduce knowledge.
Now we've all heard the mis-attributed Churchill line.
"History is written by the victors."
But philosopher Walter Benjamin has a more insightful
version,
which translates to
"Empathy with the victors thus comes to
benefit the current rulers every time."
So history is both written and taught by the class with the
most wealth power and textbook factories.
This is what Palo Freire describes in,
"Pedagogy of the Oppressed,"
in which he argues that education is never neutral.
It either perpetuates oppressive systems,
or probably less often leads to radical change through a
"Practice of freedom."
So let's see where Socko then maybe Marxist goes next.
♪ The global network of capital Essentially functions ♪
♪ To separate the worker From the means of production ♪
- So I know this stuff.
That's some good old fashioned Karl Marx for ya.
Now here our commie hand puppet
is referencing Marx's argument that
industrial capitalism separates the worker from the tools
and methods,
i.e. the means to actually make a product.
For example,
In the pre-industrial era,
actually give me your shoe.
Thanks.
In the pre-industrial era,
a cobbler would make shoes,
sell the shoes,
received the money for them.
And presumably hit the pub afterwards
Here the cobbler has access to the labor of
making the shoes,
the customers,
and most importantly,
the profits,
but as we shift into the era of factory produced goods and
especially assembly lines,
all of this changes instead of using craftsmanship to build
shoes from scratch,
you're say poking lace holes in the shoe
one after another all day long.
And once the shoes leave your spot on the line,
you're never seeing them again.
Most importantly,
the shoes you helped make are the property of the factory
owner and they're the ones profiting from their sale.
You are completely separated and alienated from the process
of making and selling the shoes.
Not to mention the whole system puts you at odds with your
fellow workers in a dog eat dog culture of survival.
While most of us don't work in factories,
we're all still separated from our respective means of
production.
So like if you performed beautiful emotive content on
YouTube,
but your boss owned the cameras and the YouTube channel
it was posted on
and then took all the profits
and gave only a little bit back to you.
Oh God.
♪ Get on out of your seat ♪
♪ All eyes on me ♪
- The point is that in Marx's view,
all of this is endemic to how capitalism,
and the world,
works.
♪ And the FBI killed Martin Luther king. ♪
- Okay.
And this one might be a conspiracy theory,
but the FBI absolutely killed Fred Hampton
♪ Private properties inherently theft ♪
♪ and neoliberal fascist are destroying the left. ♪
- So you might've heard the phrase,
"property is theft,"
thrown around before,
or seen it spray painted on one of those new,
like ugly condo buildings with a name like neu space.
But the roots of this go way back to at least philosopher
and political theorist,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
In his book,
"The social contract,"
were so different from his peers
like Thomas Hobbes and
John Locke,
that he imagined a state of nature that was inherently
pretty peaceful.
That is until somebody said that they were the landlord
of the earth.
Here's what he wrote.
"The first person who,
having enclosed a plot of land,
took it into his head to say
this is mine
and found people simple enough
to believe him was the true founder
of civil society."
And the effects of this one dude,
who wanted to like own some dirt,
just a whole host of wars,
murders,
genocides,
and other atrocities that have shaped civilization
for thousands of years.
It's like the worst possible episode of house hunters and
RESO wonder is why we've all accepted this as normal.
When we know that no human has special property rights over
the earth,
except Dolly Parton and Dollywood,
that's all hers.
Also,
She invented the COVID-19 vaccine, right?
A century later Marx and Engels would pick up the same
argument in there, edgy Xen,
"The Communist Manifesto" for the Simon and Garfunkel of
political philosophy.
It's important to remember that private property is already
done away with four at nine tenths of the population,
because if you rich dudes own all of it,
and then they rent it to the rest of us.
So it's a system that doesn't even benefit people unless
your parents bought you a house.
In which case,
I guess,
you did it.
And can I stay there for free?
Let's get back to the song.
♪ And every politician ♪
♪ Every cop on the street ♪
♪ Protects the interests Of the pedophilic corporate elite ♪
- Well Socko clearly read those Q posts
that his Aunt Shelly has been
sending him on Facebook. Okay.
There's a lot more in the segment,
but I want to jump ahead and see what Bo has to say about
self-examination and how it can help us.
Well, shut the up,
check it out.
- Is it necessary that every single person on this planet
expresses every single opinion that they have
on every single thing
that occurs all at the same time?
Is that,
is that necessary?
or to ask it a slightly different way?
Can,
can anyone
shut the up?
Okay.
- No, this actually makes me think of one of Plato's little
stories called "Crito."
In it Socrates friend cried out,
tries to break Socrates out of prison for he gets executed
instead of going all Shawshank Redemption though.
Socrates like, nah, bro,
let's talk about the meaning of truth.
Crito is worried that if Socrates doesn't bust out,
everyone in Athens will think crito and his buddies
were punks for letting Socrates die
and their opinions have him stressed.
Socrates' response is basically that
if you care about all the opinions everyone is expressing
out in the streets,
you're going to lose sight of truth and wisdom.
Now jump to 19th century Denmark
and philosophies favorite sad voice,
Soren Kierkegaard,
who now that I think of it as major Burnham vibes used a
similar perspective to criticize the media of his day.
He thought that the advent of publishing made it possible
for people to eat up all the bull
that angry journalist and slick
advertisers published.
We'll never having to really think for themselves.
Now while a good Lutheran boy like Soren
would never use such crass language,
he was also basically begging people to shut up.
And it's telling the Bo says this.
And one of the few segments of inside where he seems to be
performing stand-up,
as it's clear that he is aware of the irony of a standup
comedian,
using their ability to express whatever opinions they want
telling others to stop expressing all of their opinions on
the internet.
It's like he's telling others to shut the up
while also telling himself to, well, yeah.
Also maybe shut the up.
Well, let's jump ahead to another segment
where Bo is lying on the floor.
- [Bo] You know maybe
allowing giant digital media corporations to
exploit the neurochemical drama of our children
for profit.
You know, maybe that was
a bad call by us.
- Okay.
So.
His floor ramblings here,
bring us back to the theme of alienation under capitalism.
Now, here he's pushing things past
what 19th century thinkers like
Marx could have considered and,
and talking about how media and tech companies have figured
out how to use our literal brain chemistry to turn us into a
bunch of little addicts who hunch over our devices all day
while they use our attention to extract data and profit.
And apparently we're fine with letting children's brains get
mined for clicks and content,
even if it makes them depressed,
anxious,
and pretty obnoxious.
In other words,
less talented Bo Burnham.
- [Bo] Maybe the,
the flattening of the entire subjective human experience
into a lifeless exchange of value that benefits nobody
except for, you know,
a handful of bug eyed salamanders in Silicon Valley.
Maybe that as a, as a way of life forever,
maybe that's
not good.
- Okay. Well here Bo is starting to touch on
what Marx called commodity fetishism,
which is when we treat objects and goods,
like they have some type of magical value disconnected from
the labor that creates them.
Now we begin to see things valued,
not for their practical use,
but for their market value.
So a Pokemon card becomes detached from how much joy it can
bring or how strategic it is.
And instead becomes an investment asset that can be cashed
in to pay for college, or, you know,
like buy one astronomy textbook.
But it doesn't just stop at Pokemon cards
because it never just stops at Pokemon cards.
Eventually this shapes our brains so that things like wisdom
and self-examination get subsumed by cultural and commercial
values sold to us by corporations.
Many of whom happened to be run by bug eyed salamanders.
What feels like meaningful cultural experience is largely
just us playing along with the game that creates value for
others, where you're probably thinking, sure, Michael,
this all makes sense,
but what does it have to do with what really matters to me?
Namely sending and receiving nudes?
Well you're in luck because Bo has a song about this
and we're going to talk about it next.
♪ Sexting ♪
♪ It isn't sex its the next best thing ♪
♪ Sexting ♪
- It's actually a good song though.
It's like a joke,
but it's like a good song.
Kind of confusing.
So.
- In this song we're seeing how sex and romance get packaged
up and become a digital product.
That's tied into the tangled web of clicks and content.
Burnham's already focused on the way in which both content,
attention,
and even the loss of a loved one
become commodities in the age of digital capitalism
here by pointing the way in which
sexting is the next best thing to actual physical contact.
He's showing out even our sex lives can be used to keep us
glued to our devices,
creating more data and ad revenue for Jeffrey and the boys.
And we all know it's only a matter of time before there was
a new cryptocurrency called coin.
That's mined by having tons of digital sex, which I mean,
it's like, it's like kind of hot, I guess,
but this is how French philosopher Alain Badiou
describes the digital version of love.
We get on dating apps like Tinder and Bumble.
Now he calls it love comprehensively insured against all
risks.
You will have love,
but we'll have assessed the perspective relationships.
So thoroughly we'll have selected your partners so carefully
by searching online.
By obtaining of course,
a photo,
details of his or her tastes,
date of birth,
horoscope sign,
et cetera,
and putting it all in the mix.
You can tell yourself this is a risk-free option.
Now basically rather than love being a passionate adventure
that could end up with my homecoming date Christine
ditching she meet a hangout with older guys,
which is a thing that happened.
It's just another product being sold to us by the bug eyed
salamanders in Silicon Valley.
Okay. Let's jump ahead a bit.
And we're going to see what Bo has to say about you
becoming one with the internet.
- That the outside world,
the non-digital world is merely a theatrical space in which
one's stages and records content for the much more, real,
much more vital digital space.
- I also just realized he doesn't have his shirt on
at that part, but that's cool.
Now this goes with the sexting stuff we just talked about
because when digital space is where data can be mined,
like a natural resource and attention can create profit,
then the digital world becomes the real world because
what's more real than profit.
And consequently non-digital space starts to only exist to
serve this digital space. It's like the museum of ice cream.
It sounds awesome.
I mean the museum of ice cream,
but it ends up just being this massive excuse for Instagram
moments.
It's not there to celebrate the delicious wonder of frozen
milk, eggs, and sugar.
It's just another place that facilitates content that will
exist in a digital space and ideally create engagement and
help sell advertising.
I note the irony of this.
So let's close with one of the last songs in the special
where Bo does his best Yeezus era Kanye impression.
♪ You say the oceans rising like I give a ♪
♪ You say the whole worlds ending ♪
♪ Honey, it already did ♪
♪ You're not gonna slow it ♪
- Okay. So to end on a pretty ominous note,
it seems like Burnham is clarifying one of the themes
of the show,
namely that the world isn't ending,
it's already over.
He's not looking for signs of hope within the current
system,
as it's this very system that's created the problems he's
been exploring throughout the special.
He's basically saying that our best case scenario is moving
around the deck chairs on the Titanic before the iceberg
finishes us off, which yeah, it's pretty dark,
but because it's better for our advertisers.
If you walk away feeling happy,
I'll give the last word to German philosopher,
Walter Benjamin,
someone whose spirit seems to be haunting Burnham's
guesthouse.
He wrote,
"It is only for the sake of those without hope.
That hope is given to us.
So who knows,
maybe we're not totally screwed,
but what do you guys think?
Has a year stuck inside added a new layer of
philosophical depth to Burnham's comedy?
Or am I just too easily swayed by the musings of Marxists
sock puppets?
Let us know you think in the comments
and definitely let us know
what else you'd like to see me wax philosophical about
Big thanks to our awesome patrons for all your support,
destroy that subscribe button like your Bo Burnham,
crushing the hopes of a generation.
And don't forget to ring that bell even though like what's
the point and as always, thanks for watching later.
(upbeat techno music plays)
- I'm not going to look,
but I know I smell him.
Smells like smells like money.
Cool.
Wow.