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?
00:13That's a gender non-conforming person who's making me uncomfortable because of my own insecurities.
00:18It's okay, let's call it names so we feel better about our own repressed desires.
00:21Um, look at it!
00:23Even though society encourages individuality, non-binary people like me are punished for daring to divide conventions and be ourselves.
00:32Man, woman, liberal, conservative, crazy, sane. Each one of these is what we call a dichotomy. And they are everywhere.
00:42So, how did we get here?
00:44Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there were white cis dudes messing up again, lol.
00:50So, like, there was this guy named René Descartes.
00:54It's Descartes.
00:56Well, this guy was widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy.
01:00Right now I'm really into the idea of dualisms, which will one day become dichotomies.
01:05My favorite has to be the mind-body divide. It's great.
01:11Descartes.
01:13Descartes.
01:14Who lived in the Netherlands, just happened to come on the scene as the Dutch Empire started to expand its
01:20colonies across the entire world.
01:23Good timing, René.
01:26Convenient that a philosophy of 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.
01:35Because people of color just have bodies and not minds.
01:39What's called? This one's Syria.
01:41I like that. It's got a nice ring to it.
01:43This has got to be Egypt.
01:45Hmm. Algeria.
01:47Um, hey, ACC, that's my girl.
01:49What?! What?
01:50No.
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.
02:12This 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 different
02:22from us as bad.
02:24This 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, otherwise
02:43we're just regarded as disposable and ugly.
02:46We learn from an early age that our survival and happiness is linked to how desirable we are to men.
02:53Women and femmes don't have the privilege to be evaluated by, I don't know, our ideas or personality because people
03:00are too busy commenting on our appearances.
03:03The beautiful, ugly dichotomy is so powerful and insidious, it finds its way into the minds of many people, no
03:09matter how they identify.
03:11Take for example, recently Caitlyn Jenner, a trans advocate, told trans women that they should care about beauty because society
03:18is just so uncomfortable with men in dresses.
03:22To which I say, why should trans people have to look like cisgender people in order to be worthy of
03:27respect?
03:27The only thing we should have to pass as is ourselves, but sometimes you make it seem like we have
03:33to go through a security path down just to pee.
03:35It's no secret that humans used to think some things that are actually very wrong were totally right.
03:42Like...
03:48What is right and what is wrong?
03:51The essential soundtrack to human progress.
03:53Now 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.
04:07Identify the dichotomies in your life and commit to working through them.
04:13Don't be afraid to be confused or to not have all the answers.
04:17Difference is strength.
04:19Soon you'll find that the world is super textured and layered and there's actually enough room to respect how weird
04:26we actually all are.
