I wrote this as a response to this video. I can't be bothered to edit it so maybe watch the video first if you care? I don't care. Do what you want, it's a free country. LOL but anyway I commented that the video was "sophomoric, solipsistic, and self-indulgent" and the video maker answered: Why? so here's why.
I proceed with the assumption that your errors are in good
faith, because you are a smart person and when you talk about topics you really
know in your other videos you do so with nuance and well.
This video is sophomoric, because it is poorly informed and
poorly researched. The extent of the research done seems to have been that you watched
mainstream and right-of-mainstream coverage of the migrant caravan and simply
regurgitated their talking points along with some minor opinion around the
margins allowed in this self-imposed Overton Window. You did not delve into the
origins of the poverty, violence, and lack of institutional infrastructure and governance
necessary to control violent crime that is plaguing certain Central American
countries. You merely took it as a given that they cannot govern themselves.
The fact that powerful outside actors have been actively interfering in these
countries and propping up murderers and dictators literally for decades went
completely unmentioned and perhaps un-thought. And yet, you also managed to
contradict yourself here with your normative prescription that the migrants
stay home and improve their country rather than emigrate. If they cannot govern
themselves by nature, what difference would it make if they stay home? Moreover,
while you did dwell at length on the fact that the majority of the migrants are
men, you again failed to enquire as to the possible reasons this is so. Could
it be that the criminal gangs active in Honduras and El Salvador prefer to
recruit men of military age, and that therefore young men are the most at risk?
Could it be an intentional tactic so that the men can establish themselves in asylum
and in gainful employment once they arrive at their destination before they
send for their families, who would then be able to immigrate legally or at
least in a less dangerous fashion? Again, you seem to not have given this any
thought.
This video is solipsistic because it relies on an extremely
limited set of political priors. This becomes evident with your inclusion of the
Horowitz clip, which is peppered with far-right conspiracy theory in its
commentary, but becomes absolutely clear when you present the HuffPo clip as
representative of “left” thought. HuffPo is not “left-wing media.” Some HuffPo
pieces may be left-wing, some are not, and this clip is not. We can disagree
about whether HuffPo’s framing of the altercations at the border is “appropriate,”
but that is ultimately irrelevant because the clip does not offer a leftist
critique of the migration crisis at all. A more appropriate term for the HuffPo
clip is “clickbait,” and the fact that you took a piece of clickbait as representative
of a leftist point of view of the crisis is quite telling. Specifically, it
tells me that you don’t know what leftism is or what it stands for. In this,
you seem to be taking your own biases for granted; you did not look outside
yourself for any true opposing view to your own, such as this: watch?v=tkWng_oWBr8
(go to minute 3.)
And finally, this video is self-indulgent because you ultimately
did not challenge yourself in any way. Granted, this is Youtube. But you seem
capable of better work. So, it’s still disappointing. I’d be interested to know
what your actual response to an actual leftist critique would be on matters of
actual state policy, not the impulsive actions of a few desperate individuals
who understand that, to quote Warsan Shire, “no one puts their children in a
boat unless the water is safer than the land.”
