X Men: is Magneto Right? | Philosophy Tube ft NerdSync

Marvel Comics & philosophy! Professor X might be a liberal but what if Magneto’s revolutionary politics is the path to peace? How do we challenge structural violence and systemic oppression?

Twitter: @PhilosophyTube

Recommended Reading:
Falguni Sheth, Toward a Political Philosophy of Race
Johan Galtung, Violence, Peace, & Peace Research
Johan Galtung, Violence, War, and their Impact
Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (Has some cool stuff about survivor psychology that might be very relevant to Magneto!)
Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics
bell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman Chapter 4, “Racism & Feminism” and Feminism is for Everybody
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery
X-Men, X2, X-Men the Cartoon Series, X-Men First Class,
X-Men Days of Future Past, X-Men Apocalypse, X-Men comics

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[mrnice]

Violence is always shown as bad when it comes from the bottom up but is normalize when it is from the top down.
Protester that sabotage a bulldozer to protected a forest are evil but cops that evict an old lady from there house because she can't pay the bank are just enforcing the law.

[scinnyc]

Magneto and Xavier are actually both right. But Xavier's philosophy is admirable but far fetched and Magneto's philosophy is harsh but completely realistic

[SebastianSeanCrow]

On Magneto and intersectionality: Magneto is both a mutant and Jewish so I'm sure he's thought about that a lot

[cephalopad]

The most interesting thing about this comment section is that many people interpret the observation that 'sometimes direct (violent) resistance to structural (violent) oppression has resulted in an overthrowing of systems that incorporate structural violence' as being an endorsement for ALL direct violence regardless of context or outcome. Clearly this is not Olly's stance. Rather, I understand that he is pointing out how, in retrospect, we can determine that direct violence has sometimes resulted in a reduction of structural violence.

It seems that the most interesting questions raised by this video are: 'Do the ends justify the means?' and, 'Assuming the ends do justify the means, how can we accurately predict what means will best produce the ends we desire?'

[orenashkenazi]

So I get that discrimination against mutants is an allegory, but something about it always bothered me. Mutants are powerful. The differences that make people discriminate against them are the same differences that give them far greater power than any human.

Historically, it's very difficult to create systemic oppression against people with power. Racial history in the US would look very different if black people could shoot lasers out of their eyes or read minds.

[quincyconnors]

4:44 Dr. King once famously said that was the definition of a negative peace rather than true peace.

[nephtys]

People in power don’t give up power by choice. It has to be taken.

[JLeavittPearl]

This is an absolutely excellent video.

[jamiemitchel]

Remember you told me to read Bell Hooks, well I read "Feminism is for Everybody"! Thanks for the reco! Could you do a video on the difference between formal and substantive equalittu!

[zionleach]

Aside from the movie version. I feel Xavier and Magneto are both right. Or at least they should protect BOTH species. Look at what humans do to those percieve as different for any reason.

[scottc]

Another issue with mutants is how do governments reaction to the formation of both teams. Mutants are feared because mutantphobes believe they will rise up and take over. Magneto's advocacy of direct violence inflames these fears and contributes to further mutant oppression. However, his ideas of mutant separatism do seem like a positive solution to the issue of existing under structural violence in homo sapiens society. Even Xavier's boarding functions a mutant safe space outside the bounds of human culture and sometimes law.

[peperlover]

As an anarchist and a geek, I am ashamed I never thought about how Charles Xavier actively supports not only the hierarchy of humans on top of mutants, but potentially is protecting the state and capitalism itself. With mutants such as Magneto, Charles Xavier, and Scarlet Witch working together, we could have a post scarcity anarchist economy easily. Hell Scarlet Witch could make it so we've ALWAYS had it that way. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Olly for making this video and fundamentally changing the way I see the X-Men. I already had sympathy for Magneto as a fellow Jew but now I can see that he is very much a fellow Anarchist in some ways. Well when he's written as a revolutionary for equality, not a Fascist mutant supremacist.

[aukgcxmh]

It would be interesting for you to go on the net sync podcast. A 1 hour conversation of my 2 favourite you tubers, yes please.

[ladybookworms]

Hearing you talk about direct and systematic violence makes me want to hear what you'd have to say on Ursula Le Guin's 'The word for world is forest'.

[lizjanet]

This video targeted a view that I had seen so much in X-Men comics, and I loved how you handled it. Plus NerdSync is awesome, and this video was hilarious.

[Wulfshade]

This was a pretty transparent attempt to feed people intersectional feminism. I liked the analysis on Magneto's persona, though.

[Hudson]

The Genosha-like move to relocate all mutants to their own homeland occurs multiple more times in the comics, after the Decimation where most of the world's mutants are cut down from millions to hundreds, Magneto's old asteroid base Asteroid M was placed off the coast of San Francisco as an independent nation, then that fell too, and last I heard the mutants had relocated to Krakoa setting up another mutant-only nation. Though while Utopia was pretty reasonable, the entire setup of the Krakoa settlement is far more... problematic, involving cloning, resurrections and psychic mind-backups alongside more extreme measures that regularly results in members of the team dying and being brought back, all while threatening world governments.

[sgtjohnson]

This video was awesome! Good job, new fan.

[alenbacco]

I know a dozen people have already made this point but I feel like it may be the most important. Wolverine is Canadian. The government that experimented on him was also Canadian.

[jayvbspdx]

fI love how nearly five years later I can come here from a Jessie Gender video and suddenly see NerdSync and suddenly feel like YouTube really _is_ a community of creators! <3