00:00Hi, my name is Alok and I'm non-binary, which means I don't identify as a man or a woman.
00:10What is that? That's a gender non-conforming person who's making me uncomfortable because
00:16of my own insecurities. It's okay, let's call it names so we feel better about our own repressed
00:21desires. Look at it! Even though society encourages individuality, non-binary people like me are
00:28punished for daring to divide conventions and be ourselves. Man, woman, liberal, conservative,
00:35crazy, sane. Each one of these is what we call a dichotomy and they are everywhere. So how did we
00:43get here? Once upon a time in a land far far away there were white cis dudes messing up again
00:50lol.
00:51So like there was this guy named René Descartes. It's Descartes. Well this guy was widely regarded as
00:58the father of modern philosophy. Right now I'm really into the idea of dualisms which will one
01:03day become dichotomies. My favorite has to be the mind-body divide. It's great. Descartes,
01:13Descartes, who lived in the Netherlands, just happened to come on the scene as the Dutch Empire
01:19started to expand its colonies across the entire world. Good timing, René. Convenient that a philosophy
01:27of the mind-body divide emerged at a time when Descartes' enlightenment developed on the backs
01:32of exploited black and brown people in the global south. Because people of color just have bodies
01:37and not mines. What's called? This one's Syria. I like that. It's got a nice ring to it. This is
01:43gotta be Egypt. Hmm, Algeria. Um, hey HCC, that's my girl. What? What? No.
01:53Listen, the world is far too complicated and nuanced to fit into two oppositional categories only.
02:03We live in a culture that leasures people's worth not by who they are but rather who they are not.
02:09It's always bad until proven good. This is because our individualistic society is really egocentric.
02:17The problem is we tend to associate things that are similar to us as good and things that are
02:22different from us as bad. This teaches us that difference is something that's morally wrong.
02:28Not just another expression of the infinite diversity of the world.
02:36In our patriarchal society women and femmes are taught from a young age that we have to be beautiful
02:42otherwise we're just regarded as disposable and ugly. We learn from an early age that our survival and
02:49happiness is linked to how desirable we are to men. Women and femmes don't have the privilege to be
02:55evaluated by I don't know our ideas or personality because people are too busy commenting on our
03:02appearances. The beautiful ugly dichotomy is so powerful and so insidious it finds its way into
03:08the minds of many people no matter how they identify. Take for example recently Caitlyn Jenner a trans
03:14advocate told trans women that they should care about beauty because society is just so uncomfortable
03:20with men in dresses. To which I say why should trans people have to look like cisgender people in
03:26order to be worthy of respect? The only thing we should have to pass as is ourselves but sometimes
03:31we make it seem like we have to go through a security path down just to pee. It's no secret
03:37that humans used
03:37to think some things that are actually very wrong were totally right like
03:48What is right and what is wrong? The essential soundtrack to human progress. Now on one compact disc.
03:57The thing is as time goes on we learn more about science and about ourselves and that gives us a
04:02greater respect for the wild complexity of everything. Identify the dichotomies in your life
04:10and commit to working through them. Don't be afraid to be confused or to not have all the answers.
04:17Difference is strength. Soon you'll find that the world is super textured and layered and there's
04:23actually enough room to respect how weird we actually all are.
04:45That's all right.
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