Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace w/John Hill & Jesan Sorrells

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells, and

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this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books

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podcast, episode number 193.

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Before I open on the show today,

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do my standard open on the show today, I want to say

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something that’s a little bit of an addendum. So normally on this

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show, I don’t get into the deep details of my personal life

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or things that are sort of happening to me. Unlike most people

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who are on YouTube or doing a podcast or

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are spreading themselves around social media, my life is not

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content. I’m a big believer in what Frank Sinatra

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used to say. The audience gets the performance,

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and that’s all. I really owe you. I owe you the performance,

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but I don’t owe you myself. So

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with that being said, I’m going to sort of break that rule.

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Not sort of. I’m going to break that rule because for the last couple of

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weeks, there’s been no podcast episode.

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Sure. We had our June 6th. Our June 6th D

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Day episode that was a rerun from previous year.

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And we also had an episode that was released earlier,

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the Gulag Archipelago and the Life of

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Ivan Dasinovich by Alexandra Solzhenitsyn. That

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episode dovetails into some ideas that we’re going to cover in this episode

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and in Les Miserables, which is coming up next week.

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The reason that there has not been an episode for the last couple of

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weeks is because I had a death in my family.

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And this individual who passed away

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very suddenly from a. From a stroke

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was. Is my younger sister,

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Cristina Sorrells. Cristina hosted her own

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podcast focused on the Lord of the Rings. She was a huge

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Lord of the Rings fan. And if you have the opportunity to go

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listen to that show, go check that out. I know it’s still floating around somewhere

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on the Internet. She was a creative person.

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She enjoyed dance. She particularly Irish dance. She

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enjoyed getting together and knitting clothes and putting costumes

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together. She was very involved with her local community

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and also involved in politics. Now, she and I may not have

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agreed on certain political positions, but she was definitely as active

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as I am, and she was fundamental in her beliefs.

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Cristina, like I said, was my younger sister. I do have

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another one who’s a little bit younger than. Than. Than Cristina was.

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And. And my older sister Sonia is also

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floating around out there, not floating around out there living her life.

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Now, the reason I’m kind of going into this is

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because people have asked me, are you okay? And how are you dealing with

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this? And Cristina was 44 when she passed away

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a couple of weeks ago. And the answer to that question is

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I don’t know. And no, I’m not okay.

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But I will be okay as we go forward.

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I don’t know if Cristina was a fan of this show or not, but I

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do know that Cristina was a fan of reading and I do know

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that she believed that reading was fundamental and is

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fundamental to understanding our world and understanding how to

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get along in our work. And so she

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would think, this is weird, and she would probably laugh at me

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and she would probably have something to say. But I’m going to dedicate this

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episode, episode number 193, to the memory of my sister, Cristina

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Sorels. And if you are a Christian

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person or religious person, I welcome your prayers and your prayers for my family

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and your prayers for her. If you’re not that person, I welcome your thoughts and

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your condolences as well. And I do ask that

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you donate in her memory, if you would like, to the SPCA

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or the Trevor Project. Those are two charities that

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she would. That we as a family are asking that you.

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That you donate to in her memory.

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And so like to dedicate this episode, like I said, to my sister

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Cristina. And now on with the show.

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Opening up today from our book,

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I’m going to kind of pick up a couple of pieces, a couple of

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passages that I think will set the tone for

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where we are going today. And,

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well, we’re going to pick it up here with

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some, some, some, some men rowing,

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rowing in the ocean. And I quote,

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at noon that day, the galley was skimming the Sea of Pastum.

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The wind was yet from the west, filling the sail to the master’s content.

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The watches had been established on the foredeck. The altar had been set and

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sprinkled with salt and barley. And before the tribune had offered

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solemn prayers to Jove and to Neptune and to all the

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Oceanidais. And with vows poured the wine and burned

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the incense. And now the better to study his men.

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He was seated in the great cabin, a very martial figure.

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The cabin, it should be stated, was the central compartment of the galley, in extent

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quite 65 by 30ft and lighted by

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three broad hatchways. A row of stanchions ran from end to end, supporting

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the roof, and near the center the mass was visible, all bristling with the axes

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and spears and javelins. To each hatchway there were double

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stairs descending right and left with a pivotal arrangement at the top to allow the

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lower ends to be hitched to the ceiling. And as these were now raised, the

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compartment had the appearance of a skylighted hall.

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The reader will understand readily that this was the heart of the ship, the home

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of all aboard. Eating room, sleeping chamber, field of exercise, lounge and place off

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duty, uses made possible by the laws which reduce life there

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to minute details and a routine relentless as

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death. Then they’re going to move on and they’re going to describe the

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cabin and describe where this, the master of the

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watch, is sitting. I’m going to skip through that paragraph and go to this.

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The spectacle was simple enough of itself. Along the sides of the cabin,

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fixed to the ship’s timbers, were what at first appeared to be three rows of

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benches. A closer view, however, showed them to be a succession of rising

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banks, in each of which the second bench was behind and above the first one,

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and the third above and behind the second. To accommodate the six

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rowers on a side. The space devoted to them permitted 19 banks separated by intervals

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of one yard, with the 20th bank divided so that what would have been its

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upper seat or bench was directly above the lower seat of the first bank.

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The arrangement gave each rower, when at work, ample room

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if he timed his movements with those of his associates. The principle being that of

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soldiers marching with cadence step in close order. The arrangement

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also allowed multiplication of banks, limited only by the length of the

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galley. As to the rowers,

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those upon the first and second benches sat, while those upon the third, having longer

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orders to work, were suffered to stand. The oars were loaded

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with lead in the handles and near the point of balance hung to pliable

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thongs, making possible the delicate touch called feathering, but at the same time increasing

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the need of skill, since an eccentric wave might at any moment catch a

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heedless fellow and hurl him from his seat. Each

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oath hole, each ore hole was a vent through which the laborer

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opposite it had his plenty of sweet air. Light

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streamed down upon him from the grating which formed the floor

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of the passage between the deck and the bulwark over his head. In some respects,

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therefore, the condition of the men might have been much worse. Still, it must not

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be imagined that there was any pleasantness in their lives.

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Communication between them was not allowed. Day after

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day they filled their places without speech. In hours of labor they could not see

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each other’s faces. Their short respites were given to sleep and the snatching of food.

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They never laughed. No one ever heard one of them

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sing. What is the use of tongues? When a sigh or a groan

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will tell all will tell all. Men feel, while

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perforce they think in silence.

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Existence with the poor wretches was like a stream underground, sweeping

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slowly, laboriously onto its outlet,

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wherever that might chance to be.

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Then I’m going to skip a paragraph here and go to this one.

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In the labor of the rowers, there was not enough art to give occupation to

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their minds, rude and simple as they were. The reach forward, the pole,

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the feathering, the blade, the dip were all there was of it. Motions most perfect

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when most automatic, even the care forced upon them by the sea

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outside grew in time to be a thing instinctive rather than a thought.

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So, as the result of long service, the poor wretches became

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imbruted, patient, spiritless,

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obedient creatures of vast muscle and exhausted

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intellects who lived upon recollections generally few but

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dear, and at last lowered into the semi conscious

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alchemic state wherein misery turns to habit

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and the soul takes on incredible

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endurance.

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In the last few generations, the people of the west have

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experienced a profound transformation.

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The material and social world that used to be held as a sacred place

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descended in the space of 100 years, inogably or ignobly,

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depending upon your pronunciation of the word, into a place of the merely

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profane. The long story of the long 20th

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century, from the killing fields of World War I to the tragedy of 9 11,

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is a story of the seemingly random occurrence of numerous traumatic social,

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economic, political, and cultural events. The

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other dynamic is that the meaning behind those events was never

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fully explained, not by politicians,

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policymakers, philosophers, religious scholars, or even the materialist

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scientists. Not to the people involved in them, and

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really not to those people observing those traumatic

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events. This lack of a definitive structure of place,

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meaning, and significance, or even an attempt to explain the events themselves,

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has moved Western humans from a location of centered spiritual

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surety out to the edges of spiritual uncertainty and

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psychological chaos. This transition was

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documented in literary fiction of the 20th century, from Ernest Hemingway

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and William Butler Yeats to Joan Didion and Edward Albee.

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This was reflected in the movies and television shows that inundated Western man

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during the 20th century. It even redounded down to the songs we

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danced to and the advertising and marketing we

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consumed. This lack of meaning,

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however, has led to a wandering and here’s a big word that we’re going to

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focus on today. Desacralization.

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Desacralization project in the west during the 20th century led to a direct

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led directly to an increase in the moral conundrums we find ourselves currently

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mired in. I’ve said this on the show before. I believe that history

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future historians will wonder why we fail to arrest such a

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descent into the abyss. They will Wonder that we had

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all of the technology, we had all of the stuff,

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we had all of the artists screaming for meaning and

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significance and yet we couldn’t wrap our arms

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around it. After all,

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we are the most published ordinary people in the history of the

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world. And they will use all of our

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words and images and videos

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to judge us. And I suspect they will find

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us wanting. However,

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however, not is all lost or all is not

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lost. And not all is lost. Right. We in our

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time, I think in the year of, dare I say, our Lord

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2026, we in our time right now have the opportunity,

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the vague outlines of which are buried in this book that we are covering today.

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We have an opportunity to arrest some of this desacralization.

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Of course we’re not going to do it by going backward, we’re only going to

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do it by going forward. Now this book that we’re

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going to cover was once described as quote, the most

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influential Christian book of the 19th century. And in

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our time it stands, and I think my

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guests will agree with this today as an anachronistic

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throwback to an infinitely more romantic and I think an

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infinitely more sacred time.

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However, even though it’s a throwback and even though it’s anachronistic,

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there is a line of a lesson, there’s a thread that we can

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pull from this and use it to weave into what we want to

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build into the future. And it does offer us a map to

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explore a potential path towards how to recycle

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the western world. Today on

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our show we are going to be reading, we’re going to be

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covering Ben Hur by

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the great Lou Wallace

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leaders. It will take time, probably

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a long, long time to re sacralize the western world,

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at least I think the remainder of this century. The current

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one we’re in right now, it’s a hundred year long project.

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So let’s get after it

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and back to discuss our book. By the way, this book has never been out

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of print since it was originally published. Never been out of print, although you

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can find open source versions of it everywhere. And the version that I

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have is in basically an open source version of, of the book.

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The person that we’re going to have discussed this with us today is our

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good friend who usually comes along with us on the science fiction episodes of

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this show. So I was frankly surprised that he decided he wanted to read this

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one with us. John Hill, AKA Small

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Mountain. How you doing John? Man, I’m good.

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I was also surprised at this book once

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I realized what it was because I Just. I was

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just thinking of chariots and cool things.

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I didn’t realize it was gonna have all this depth and.

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Yeah, man. And as an aside, condolences to you and your family.

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Yeah. I mean, that’s a lot. So thanks for sharing and.

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Yeah, we’ll just keep pushing. So thank you.

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Yeah. Now, okay. Because we’re talking about this before. Before we hit the record, and

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I just need to get one thing, one thing out of the thing here. Like,

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I thought I read the wrong book, but the one that you just held up

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is the same one that I have. Okay. Now, what’s interesting about this

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is, like, whenever I started to get into this book, right? It’s. It.

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It’s written in a way

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you have to enjoy reading. You have to

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really just enjoy the words on the page, I would say, in the different

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ways that people can have to tell a story. Right. Because,

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you know, if reading a thing like Shakespeare or the Odyssey gives you tired head,

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this is probably also going to give you tired head, right. Because of how it’s

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written. And so that took a little bit of, like, kind of getting used to

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it. And so I was worried about the time. And so I was like, okay,

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I might. I might hop over to the audio version of this just to make

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sure that I can finish it. And I tried

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to go and find an. And find an audio version of it, and I couldn’t

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find it. So then I’m looking around on Spotify and I’m trying to find the

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chapter that I was in, and it was, like, skipping around a little bit. It

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was such a weird thing. And so then I was like, am I on the

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wrong one? And then I just chalked it up as like, okay, maybe Spotify doesn’t

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have their. Their stuff locked down the way that they should if they’re going to

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do audiobooks. And so then I was like, okay, we’re just going to double down

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and make sure that we finish the thing. But then I was looking over the

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notes and. And the open source one, it’s bucketed

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differently as far as, like, books and chapters and these things. And

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so I was nervous that I’d read like a. Like a shorter version of

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it compared to what you had read, but our covers are

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exactly the same. So now I’m not sure what to think. Yeah.

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So this is a book that. And

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I want to talk about Lou Wallace. I really do. I’m. I’m actually.

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So, a couple of things. One, I’m actually fascinated by Lew

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Wallace, the author, as a person.

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His life Was he was the classic, like, 19th

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century romantic guy, romantic figure.

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And, and one of the things that kind of gets me to this

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idea of desacralization versus. Versus

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a sacred world. And I’ve developed. I’ve developed some ideas by

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another book I was reading at the exact same time, which I’ll talk about a

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little bit here too, that has influenced how I think about

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her. But he was a writer that was

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so. No, no, no, let me

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frame it this way. We are so

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marinated deeply in a post Darwinian

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worldview that we don’t actually. We actually don’t understand those romantic writers

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anymore. And, and so,

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and, and by the way, I’m not just reading Lou Wallace and Ben Hur.

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I’m also in the process of reading Les Miserables, which will be coming in the

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next episode. Victor Hugo, a deeply

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socialist atheist writer, like all the way over there on the

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other end of like Lew Wallace.

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Two totally, completely opposite guys, right?

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But both romantics in the 19th century in a way that

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we don’t. You have to. You have to take their. You have to take their

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product at its word. And it resists

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deconstruction because at a certain point, and

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this is what romanticism is, at a certain point, you have to go past the

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deconstruction to something else that can’t be deconstructed.

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And over the course of the 20th century, this is why I opened up with

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this. We’ve done such a good job,

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at least in our public institutions. And by public institutions, I mean higher education, the

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media, most of Hollywood,

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popular entertainment, even now in business and corporations. We’ve done

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such a good job of saying that brute materialism is the thing that

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matters. And this is a post Darwinian worldview. Brute materialism is the thing

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that matters. Things, even in our language, our common language that we use, we evolve,

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right? We are not sanctified. We. We

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adapt. We don’t grow. Right?

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Even the way the sentences are written in Ben Hur would be. They

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even sound like an anachronism coming out of my mouth. And that’s because they’re coming

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out of a romantic sort of ideal

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that I think is really

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tough for us to wrap our arms around. We think those people were naive or

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stupid, and they weren’t. They just.

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They weren’t Darwinians. Well, there’s a. There’s an

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interesting point there because, like, when I started to read the book, I was. I.

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Because I did a little bit of research first, because just trying to get the

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copy of the book is when I realized, like, oh, okay. This is going to

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have a fair amount of religion inside of it. Okay, Interesting.

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And it’s. It’s interesting because I did have a moment of, like, reading it,

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and it was kind of like I was expecting it to be written in that

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easy, approachable version, and it wasn’t. And

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so I had a moment of. I needed to decouple the. The

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romantic side of writing and making art for these

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things, because I was like, oh, this is going to be hard to read because

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it’s religious. No, that’s not. That’s not the actual thing.

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Right. It was just written at a different time when most people that were

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making it were making art for, I think. I think a

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certain level of people. Right. And so it did take

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me a little bit of time to decouple those

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two things. And then I was like, oh, this is just Gladiator. Okay, cool.

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Right. Like. And. And then it kind of fell into more kind of like a.

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A theme that I’m very familiar with and have seen a thousand times and stuff

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like that. So. But, yeah,

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personally. And that’s where we’re gonna talk about this a little bit

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later. But the film that was a Charlton Houston, the Charlton Heston film

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from, like, the 1930s, the remake of it in 2016,

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are two. It’s. As I said before, we hit record. It is a. It

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is a. It is. I can think of no

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greater example of. Of cultural change

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that you could see where the. Where the core content, as

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00:20:48,840 –> 00:20:52,520
we say now, is the same quote, unquote. Everybody’s reading the

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same words off the book, off the same page,

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but the meaning, the significance behind them has

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shifted because worldviews have shifted. And I’m not saying the worldview

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shift is good or bad. I’m merely saying it is. We can argue about

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whether it’s good or bad, and we do a lot. That’s what we do in

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this country. We argue whether that meaning is good or bad. But

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we don’t. We sometimes fail to acknowledge. I think we fail to

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acknowledge that the shift has actually occurred

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because, again, I don’t think we know what to do with that. We don’t know

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what to do with the meaning of that. And it feels as if we should

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do something with it. And maybe we should. I don’t know.

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But I think it’s important to acknowledge that the shift has actually occurred.

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So I have a. I’m curious about this. Yeah.

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So you said that we’re going to talk about this one word a lot.

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Desacralization. Yes. Okay. And I’M

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I’m working my way to the point because like. Sure. I’m just curious.

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Yeah. What does that mean? Like

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00:21:56,610 –> 00:22:00,330
what? Like, because I’m, I’m

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assuming, right? And this goes back to like the good old days, right? People are

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00:22:03,730 –> 00:22:06,530
always thinking about the good old days, but if they weren’t glorious for you, you’re

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00:22:06,530 –> 00:22:09,970
just, you’re just positive about the change, right?

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So it’s, it’s funny because like, I noticed a big

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difference, right? Just in like this book wouldn’t do very well today if it was

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released today, right. Especially not the way that it was written here and everything.

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And so I’m curious,

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why do you think it’s important that we,

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I guess, remain a sacred society? Is, is that the, is that the

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thing? Is that, is that your. That’s one idea.

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I actually don’t, I actually think, I think

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we are going to always lean towards being a

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sacred society because of the nature of you

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human beings are. That’s one assertion that

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I make. But then I also, and I think

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that we’ve gotten to.

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00:23:03,730 –> 00:23:07,330
We were just talking about elon Musk and SpaceX. Not to go into that,

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00:23:07,410 –> 00:23:10,130
you know, before we hit the record button. Not to go into that again. But

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I think that there are,

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00:23:16,220 –> 00:23:19,380
I think we’ve hit the ceiling of what the brute

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Darwinian materialist, scientific perspective can, can

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get us. I think we’ve sort of hit a ceiling and I’ll use a perfect

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00:23:26,660 –> 00:23:30,460
example of this, or not a perfect example, but a

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00:23:30,460 –> 00:23:31,180
example of this.

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Many, many commentators, not just me,

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have wondered why

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00:23:41,910 –> 00:23:45,670
things, and I don’t mean cultural circumstances, but I mean like

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00:23:45,670 –> 00:23:49,350
technology hasn’t gotten any quote, unquote better.

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00:23:49,350 –> 00:23:52,190
I actually just saw one of these articles flooded to me in my Facebook feed

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00:23:52,190 –> 00:23:55,350
the other day. Hasn’t gotten any better in the last 30 years.

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I see these articles all the time. Technology has not gotten better in

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30 years, right? Why have things not gotten better now? The things

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00:24:05,710 –> 00:24:09,450
usually they, they, they start with technology in those articles and, and then

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they eventually descended to culture because that’s really what they want to talk about.

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00:24:13,290 –> 00:24:16,930
And the reason I think ties into this

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00:24:16,930 –> 00:24:20,530
idea of the sacred verse is the profane. But I

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00:24:20,530 –> 00:24:23,930
also think, or, and I also think that this

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00:24:24,090 –> 00:24:27,890
struggle is the struggle of the 20th century, right?

390
00:24:27,890 –> 00:24:31,410
And it’s been a long 20th century. I, I honestly think the 20th century started

391
00:24:31,410 –> 00:24:34,810
probably in 1860, no, 1865,

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00:24:35,460 –> 00:24:39,220
and has dragged on to now. It’s kind of like the long 19th, the long

393
00:24:39,220 –> 00:24:43,060
19th, the long, the long 19th century, you know, which started in like

394
00:24:43,060 –> 00:24:46,780
1776. Right. With the Declaration of Independence, and

395
00:24:46,780 –> 00:24:50,420
then kept right on going all the way through World War I. Right. Long

396
00:24:50,500 –> 00:24:53,380
period of a lot of change where people

397
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fundamentally didn’t understand what was happening. They just knew

398
00:24:58,540 –> 00:25:01,860
the shift was moving. I think we’re in that same period,

399
00:25:02,570 –> 00:25:06,290
but I think we’re. We’re getting ready to exit it. And I

400
00:25:06,290 –> 00:25:09,890
think the thing that will allow us to exit that is an idea

401
00:25:09,890 –> 00:25:13,690
of the sacred. Now, where I get this idea from.

402
00:25:14,010 –> 00:25:16,570
Let me bring up this book, because I was reading this book at the exact

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00:25:16,570 –> 00:25:20,290
same time, this book called the Sacred and the

404
00:25:20,290 –> 00:25:24,130
Profane by a religious scholar named Mira Shea

405
00:25:24,130 –> 00:25:27,890
Elieida. He was. Oh,

406
00:25:27,890 –> 00:25:30,820
gosh. He was. Well, and I’ll talk a little bit about him in a minute

407
00:25:30,820 –> 00:25:33,500
here, but he was writing in

408
00:25:34,700 –> 00:25:37,580
the 1950s about this phenomenon,

409
00:25:38,220 –> 00:25:40,220
and he asserts that.

410
00:25:42,620 –> 00:25:45,460
And by the way, he’s a. He’s a secular religious scholar. Let me be very

411
00:25:45,460 –> 00:25:47,740
clear about this. The man was not a Christian. Let me be very clear about

412
00:25:47,740 –> 00:25:51,100
this. Nor was he a Muslim, nor was he any of that. He was.

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00:25:51,420 –> 00:25:55,220
He was consumed by trying to figure out why all of

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00:25:55,220 –> 00:25:58,940
these religious traditions, all of them, even the paganistic religions, religious traditions,

415
00:25:59,180 –> 00:26:02,660
all tended to create a human being that was

416
00:26:02,660 –> 00:26:06,380
focused more on things that were sacred and outside of the materialism

417
00:26:06,380 –> 00:26:10,220
that he was seeing in the 1950s. Because he’s writing post World War

418
00:26:10,220 –> 00:26:14,060
II, right? Post the atomic bomb, which at that point was

419
00:26:14,060 –> 00:26:17,820
like, the biggest materialistic example of, like, boom, we can

420
00:26:17,820 –> 00:26:21,540
put science to this problem and stop this human behavior ever that

421
00:26:21,540 –> 00:26:25,190
anybody had ever seen up to that point. And so he’s

422
00:26:25,190 –> 00:26:28,990
writing, and he was. He. He was. He escaped from. Oh,

423
00:26:28,990 –> 00:26:30,870
gosh, I believe he escaped from

424
00:26:32,230 –> 00:26:35,550
Romania during World War II. So he was running away from the

425
00:26:35,550 –> 00:26:39,030
Nazis. He had a whole lot of axes to grind in a whole lot of

426
00:26:39,030 –> 00:26:42,670
different areas. He also wrote in, like, four different languages. It was kind of

427
00:26:42,670 –> 00:26:46,430
amazing. Guy was like. He was. He was a. He

428
00:26:46,430 –> 00:26:49,030
was what we would call a public intellectual. Back before they had the idea of

429
00:26:49,030 –> 00:26:52,140
a public intellectual. He. He was just an intellectual. And so he wrote a lot

430
00:26:52,140 –> 00:26:55,940
of books on the nature of religion, the nature of what myth means,

431
00:26:56,340 –> 00:26:59,780
how myth ties into a sacred worldview.

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00:27:00,020 –> 00:27:02,740
And one of the points that he makes is that.

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And it’s right here in the introduction, and I want to read this, he says

434
00:27:08,580 –> 00:27:12,300
this book basically will show the ways in which religious man attempts

435
00:27:12,300 –> 00:27:16,150
to remain as long as possible in a sacred universe. Hence what

436
00:27:16,150 –> 00:27:19,510
his total experience of life proves to be in comparison with the experience of the

437
00:27:19,510 –> 00:27:23,190
man without religious feeling, of the man who lives or wishes to

438
00:27:23,190 –> 00:27:26,910
live in a desacralized world. It should be said at

439
00:27:26,910 –> 00:27:30,190
once that the completely profane world, the holy

440
00:27:30,270 –> 00:27:34,070
desacralized cosmos, is a recent discovery in the

441
00:27:34,070 –> 00:27:37,350
history of the human spirit. Close

442
00:27:37,350 –> 00:27:40,990
quote. So he’s writing that in

443
00:27:40,990 –> 00:27:44,790
1557. I

444
00:27:44,790 –> 00:27:48,630
think he was exactly right. But I also think

445
00:27:48,630 –> 00:27:52,310
that we always do chase that. And you’re starting to

446
00:27:52,310 –> 00:27:55,950
see signs of re sacralization popping up in

447
00:27:55,950 –> 00:27:59,750
varying places, most notably in

448
00:27:59,750 –> 00:28:03,110
the environmentalist movement. That’s been happening since at least the

449
00:28:03,110 –> 00:28:06,750
mid-90s all the way over

450
00:28:06,990 –> 00:28:10,550
to what we’re getting ready to see with AI. Like you’re already

451
00:28:10,550 –> 00:28:14,310
seeing AI churches popping up. That’s already

452
00:28:14,310 –> 00:28:17,910
starting to happen. Human beings want to live in a

453
00:28:17,910 –> 00:28:21,710
sacred world. We just don’t have the language to go

454
00:28:21,710 –> 00:28:25,310
back to it. And I think Ben Hur to a certain degree

455
00:28:26,510 –> 00:28:30,350
offers us a map for how to do that. And I think a

456
00:28:30,350 –> 00:28:32,270
sacred world is better than a profane one

457
00:28:34,600 –> 00:28:37,840
because I think it grounds us more. It also allows us to deal with things

458
00:28:37,840 –> 00:28:41,400
that like psychology and behavioral science can’t explain.

459
00:28:42,120 –> 00:28:45,840
It also allows us to deal with things that are happening to us that

460
00:28:45,840 –> 00:28:49,640
we can’t explain. And I think we can do

461
00:28:49,640 –> 00:28:53,080
that. No, I think we can do that. I think we will do that with

462
00:28:53,080 –> 00:28:56,920
or without an appeal to Jesus. And I know the subtitle of

463
00:28:56,920 –> 00:29:00,450
Ben Hur is A tale of the Corporation Christ. Hyper aware of that, but without

464
00:29:00,450 –> 00:29:03,290
an appeal to Jesus. I think we’re good. I think we’ve always made that appeal.

465
00:29:03,290 –> 00:29:06,690
And by the way, Elada thought we may always made that appeal as well. He

466
00:29:06,690 –> 00:29:09,730
believed it started way back in pagan societies. He goes all the way back to

467
00:29:09,730 –> 00:29:13,290
Mesopotamia and talks about how we’ve basically been building

468
00:29:13,290 –> 00:29:17,050
up our, our. The. The understanding of what is sacred as

469
00:29:17,050 –> 00:29:20,850
human societies and as human civilizations. And he ties in the

470
00:29:20,850 –> 00:29:24,590
pyramids, he ties in the worship of Greek gods, he ties in

471
00:29:24,590 –> 00:29:25,790
math, all of it.

472
00:29:28,670 –> 00:29:30,270
I think he’s got a compelling argument.

473
00:29:36,990 –> 00:29:39,870
Here’s where I get stuck with this idea. Yeah,

474
00:29:42,990 –> 00:29:46,590
because like I. And this is such a weird thing to kind of be talking

475
00:29:46,590 –> 00:29:49,760
about here. I was not expecting to talk about this idea. I think that, I

476
00:29:49,760 –> 00:29:53,080
think that people exist in one of two states. Right. You were either

477
00:29:55,880 –> 00:29:59,600
younger, me loved very black or white scenarios and realized that

478
00:29:59,600 –> 00:30:02,320
most of the time there was a lot of gray in the middle in this

479
00:30:02,320 –> 00:30:05,160
situation. I don’t think there’s a lot of gray. I think that this is pretty,

480
00:30:05,480 –> 00:30:07,560
pretty, pretty spot on.

481
00:30:09,080 –> 00:30:11,000
You either think it’s important or you don’t.

482
00:30:13,320 –> 00:30:16,370
Right. And so, you know, one of the things that I have to talk about

483
00:30:16,370 –> 00:30:20,090
endlessly with people is like, don’t try to sell PCs to people that

484
00:30:20,090 –> 00:30:23,570
want Macs and vice versa. Right. Because you can spend your time trying to change

485
00:30:23,570 –> 00:30:27,210
someone’s heart and mind about what’s important. Right? Right. But

486
00:30:27,210 –> 00:30:30,850
we’re not ever changing core philosophies about what’s important in other people.

487
00:30:31,410 –> 00:30:34,210
And so it’s, it’s in this thing of like. Okay,

488
00:30:35,410 –> 00:30:38,770
so let me ask this question. Is, is a focus on

489
00:30:39,010 –> 00:30:42,780
the environment and it being sacred read a bad thing in your,

490
00:30:42,780 –> 00:30:46,620
in your perspective? No, I think it’s a, I think

491
00:30:46,620 –> 00:30:49,300
it’s a misordered thing, but I

492
00:30:50,180 –> 00:30:53,540
think so I think that we

493
00:30:54,340 –> 00:30:57,380
are doing a repeat in,

494
00:30:58,180 –> 00:31:01,980
in. Well, let’s, let’s start with even just the

495
00:31:01,980 –> 00:31:05,620
thinking of the environment is sacred, right? Because it’s not a thought. Actually,

496
00:31:05,780 –> 00:31:09,620
the thought comes afterward. We know this from behavioral science. This is

497
00:31:09,620 –> 00:31:13,140
where the science actually helps us. We know that the emotion

498
00:31:13,540 –> 00:31:16,980
appears, then the, then the, the rationalization

499
00:31:17,140 –> 00:31:20,420
comes. We know this from sales. I have an emotional

500
00:31:21,300 –> 00:31:24,740
feeling and then less than 10

501
00:31:24,740 –> 00:31:28,540
milliseconds later, I’m rationalizing that emotional feeling. And by the way, I’m doing this all

502
00:31:28,540 –> 00:31:32,260
day about everything. Right? Yeah, we’re doing this in the conversation that we’re

503
00:31:32,260 –> 00:31:35,390
having right now. Right. And

504
00:31:35,950 –> 00:31:39,630
so when you say thinking of the environment is

505
00:31:39,630 –> 00:31:43,230
important, I don’t really think it’s that. I think we’re trying

506
00:31:43,230 –> 00:31:46,830
to just like previous pre,

507
00:31:46,990 –> 00:31:50,509
pre Christian, pre Judeo, pre

508
00:31:50,509 –> 00:31:54,110
Greek cultures did. I think we’re trying to reach back and find something

509
00:31:54,110 –> 00:31:57,470
sacred in there we can connect with at an emotional level in the environment.

510
00:31:58,430 –> 00:32:02,030
We’re also trying to scale it up to a global feeling,

511
00:32:02,690 –> 00:32:06,410
which is really hard, by the way. It’s really hard to

512
00:32:06,410 –> 00:32:09,810
scale that up to a global kind of thing. Right? So

513
00:32:10,050 –> 00:32:13,890
there is some, there are some, there’s some data that kind of supports what I’m

514
00:32:13,890 –> 00:32:17,730
saying here. So we know that. Sorry, I have a

515
00:32:17,730 –> 00:32:19,410
question. Yeah, so, yeah, go ahead.

516
00:32:22,690 –> 00:32:26,330
This might be overshooting the point, but like, where does just simple

517
00:32:26,330 –> 00:32:30,090
self preservation come into play, right? Because like, you know, there is the

518
00:32:30,090 –> 00:32:33,650
thing of, like, okay, let’s keep the planet here, right? And there’s some people that

519
00:32:33,650 –> 00:32:37,050
just want to work on the planet in the environment because they feel bad because

520
00:32:37,050 –> 00:32:39,770
they want to leave something great. Then there are other, some, Then there are some

521
00:32:39,770 –> 00:32:42,690
other people who were like, hey, like, you know, maybe we shouldn’t be having this

522
00:32:42,690 –> 00:32:46,210
impact at all. But there’s just like, a lot of people that

523
00:32:46,370 –> 00:32:49,410
they can also be like, wow, we need a place to live. Right.

524
00:32:52,770 –> 00:32:56,090
Where does. Because I also think that there’s a lot of people that are

525
00:32:56,090 –> 00:32:59,770
uncomfortable with the topic of death. Oh, for sure. Massively

526
00:32:59,770 –> 00:33:03,490
uncomfortable with the topic of death. Right. And it becomes easier to

527
00:33:03,490 –> 00:33:07,250
think about parts of this whole thing because you get

528
00:33:07,250 –> 00:33:10,730
to avoid the discomfort of death. Right.

529
00:33:11,290 –> 00:33:14,570
So self preservation as the

530
00:33:14,570 –> 00:33:17,690
motivating focus for these sacred things.

531
00:33:18,090 –> 00:33:21,610
Right. Whether it’s the environment or whether it’s for the

532
00:33:22,090 –> 00:33:25,640
family. Right. Family’s got to be man, wife,

533
00:33:25,720 –> 00:33:29,320
2.5 kids, three dogs. Right. And all this other, like, sure.

534
00:33:30,760 –> 00:33:34,360
It’s the thing that I hear. And

535
00:33:34,520 –> 00:33:38,360
please correct me if I’m wrong. You’re saying, okay, people are focusing on this bubble,

536
00:33:38,360 –> 00:33:41,960
this bubble, this bubble, this bubble, this bubble. None of that matters because these bubbles

537
00:33:41,960 –> 00:33:44,440
are all connected to the big bubble. So just care about the big bubble.

538
00:33:45,960 –> 00:33:49,760
I’m not saying that none of those smaller bubbles matter. I

539
00:33:49,760 –> 00:33:53,160
think all of those smaller bubbles are in search of the bigger bubble.

540
00:33:54,180 –> 00:33:57,820
That’s what I think. I think they’re chasing the larger bubble, but they don’t have

541
00:33:57,820 –> 00:34:01,540
the. And. And Eliade was

542
00:34:01,540 –> 00:34:05,140
very much consumed with language and. And meaning and forms

543
00:34:06,100 –> 00:34:09,419
and as am I, right? I mean, for God’s sakes, we’re hosting a literature

544
00:34:09,419 –> 00:34:13,220
podcast. So I think correct language then

545
00:34:13,700 –> 00:34:16,860
orders things correctly. So if we’re talking about things

546
00:34:16,860 –> 00:34:20,610
correctly, not even to each other. Let’s forget to forget to each

547
00:34:20,610 –> 00:34:24,330
other for just a minute. Just for talking about things correctly to ourselves. Right?

548
00:34:24,570 –> 00:34:28,210
Yeah. Which gets back to an idea that I’ve often had. I’ve said on this

549
00:34:28,210 –> 00:34:31,450
show, maybe not with you, but I’ve said on this show with other guests.

550
00:34:32,010 –> 00:34:34,250
One of the key questions that I’ve been asking people

551
00:34:35,610 –> 00:34:39,290
for like 15 years now, whenever I get into them with training

552
00:34:39,290 –> 00:34:43,050
and development stuff is. Or topics. Training and development topics is

553
00:34:43,290 –> 00:34:47,000
how clearly do you think. And

554
00:34:47,720 –> 00:34:51,400
you would be stunned. The number of people who raise the hand

555
00:34:52,520 –> 00:34:56,200
to say they think clearly and the number of people in the room who

556
00:34:56,200 –> 00:34:57,560
are confused by the question.

557
00:35:02,440 –> 00:35:06,040
And so from there I go,

558
00:35:06,760 –> 00:35:10,520
okay, maybe my sample size is too small, but let’s

559
00:35:10,520 –> 00:35:12,920
use this. Let’s use this sample size.

560
00:35:15,410 –> 00:35:18,850
If. If I ask 15 people in a room, how clearly do you think.

561
00:35:20,050 –> 00:35:22,290
And two thirds of them don’t understand the question,

562
00:35:26,130 –> 00:35:29,890
John, would you think that there is something going on there? Would you

563
00:35:29,890 –> 00:35:33,570
think there’s a challenge there? Because I would. Because

564
00:35:33,570 –> 00:35:37,370
then now in my brain, I Leapfrog from lily pad to lily

565
00:35:37,370 –> 00:35:41,150
pad. I leapfrog from. Wait a minute. I

566
00:35:41,150 –> 00:35:43,590
asked you in a training at 9 o’ clock in the morning, how clearly do

567
00:35:43,590 –> 00:35:47,390
you think, okay, maybe you didn’t have enough caffeine. I’ll, I’ll grant you grace. Maybe

568
00:35:47,390 –> 00:35:50,110
you didn’t have enough caffeine. You didn’t know you were going to run into the

569
00:35:50,110 –> 00:35:53,590
buzz saw known as Haysan Sorels. Maybe you weren’t prepared for that.

570
00:35:53,750 –> 00:35:57,590
It’s fine. I’ll, I’ll be nice. I’ll back away. I’ll, I’ll

571
00:35:57,590 –> 00:36:01,230
grant grace, right? Maybe I’ll get you better later on in the day. Maybe at

572
00:36:01,230 –> 00:36:04,710
5:30 you’ll be clean, thinking clearer. Okay,

573
00:36:06,000 –> 00:36:09,640
my question becomes, how muddy is your thinking on the

574
00:36:09,640 –> 00:36:12,320
environment or family

575
00:36:13,600 –> 00:36:17,440
or the material world or

576
00:36:18,000 –> 00:36:21,199
the news? How muddy is your thinking on

577
00:36:21,920 –> 00:36:25,200
things that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about

578
00:36:25,760 –> 00:36:28,480
and tried to put in correct order with correct language,

579
00:36:29,440 –> 00:36:31,040
but you don’t understand the question.

580
00:36:33,400 –> 00:36:37,000
And so I look at the little bubbles as being,

581
00:36:38,600 –> 00:36:42,360
for lack of a better term, ceilings that people have to break through. But

582
00:36:42,360 –> 00:36:45,440
I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what the tools are to

583
00:36:45,440 –> 00:36:48,520
break people through. And by the way, I don’t think it’s my responsibility to do

584
00:36:48,520 –> 00:36:52,120
that. I’m not taking all that on. I think that books do that.

585
00:36:52,120 –> 00:36:55,960
That’s why we’re doing a book podcast and I encourage people to read these books

586
00:36:56,120 –> 00:36:59,820
because books, as I said to another guest a couple episodes

587
00:36:59,820 –> 00:37:02,820
ago, books smuggle ideas across time.

588
00:37:03,780 –> 00:37:07,500
Oh, that’s a great line. I couldn’t believe

589
00:37:07,500 –> 00:37:10,140
it just came off the top of my head. I just, literally just like. And

590
00:37:10,140 –> 00:37:13,300
the guy was like, that’s genius. I’m gonna write that down. Like,

591
00:37:13,620 –> 00:37:15,860
yes, write it down. I’m a genius.

592
00:37:17,380 –> 00:37:19,780
That’s the thing you wrote down, I’m a genius.

593
00:37:22,020 –> 00:37:25,460
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s right. And as soon as you’re done, you’re like, man, couldn’t,

594
00:37:26,970 –> 00:37:27,930
didn’t want to forget that.

595
00:37:31,770 –> 00:37:34,090
And I’m gonna mic drop and I’m out. You all have a good day.

596
00:37:36,250 –> 00:37:40,090
So. So I think, I think books are the tool that allow us to break

597
00:37:40,090 –> 00:37:43,370
through those ceilings. I think more people

598
00:37:43,930 –> 00:37:47,370
in the 19th century, which was a book dominated century

599
00:37:48,250 –> 00:37:51,610
because there was no tv, radio was, was nascent,

600
00:37:52,320 –> 00:37:56,080
newspapers were everywhere, but everybody wasn’t literate. We didn’t have the

601
00:37:56,080 –> 00:37:59,400
literacy levels that we have now. They were greater than they had been at any

602
00:37:59,400 –> 00:38:02,360
other time previous to the 19th century, but they still were not at the level

603
00:38:02,360 –> 00:38:05,760
that we have now. The technology

604
00:38:06,080 –> 00:38:09,680
of distraction was not there. Although people

605
00:38:09,680 –> 00:38:12,120
would tell you if you go back to the 19th century and you read what

606
00:38:12,120 –> 00:38:15,800
people actually wrote, they would say that the public readings of Charles, that

607
00:38:15,800 –> 00:38:19,650
Charles Dickens was doing say the exact same things about those public readings that

608
00:38:19,650 –> 00:38:22,810
people say about people doing TikTok videos now.

609
00:38:23,290 –> 00:38:27,130
Literally the exact same language. So there’s always

610
00:38:27,130 –> 00:38:30,970
a technology that’s destroying something somewhere. And to that point, right, Like

611
00:38:31,690 –> 00:38:34,490
God, what, what was it that I was reading they were talking about how.

612
00:38:35,450 –> 00:38:39,050
Because one of my favorite things is like the generation before always

613
00:38:39,050 –> 00:38:42,490
likes to crap on the generation after from a gatekeeping perspective and everything.

614
00:38:42,730 –> 00:38:46,300
Yeah. And, and it’s funny because like they used to.

615
00:38:46,540 –> 00:38:49,820
What, what was it? I think it was books or maybe it was chess.

616
00:38:50,140 –> 00:38:53,540
But they were trying to villainize that. Oh yeah. They were trying to say like,

617
00:38:53,540 –> 00:38:56,700
you don’t want your kids reading because that, because that means they’re not going to

618
00:38:56,700 –> 00:39:00,220
be out in the field or something like this. Like, and like just think about

619
00:39:00,220 –> 00:39:03,820
that person. Like they think that they’re doing the God’s work,

620
00:39:03,900 –> 00:39:07,580
right? Of like keeping kids dumb and in the fields and

621
00:39:07,580 –> 00:39:11,410
unable to do anything else like this. Right. But this is, this is one of

622
00:39:11,410 –> 00:39:14,850
my favorite topics. Cause like, because the thing that I have to help people do

623
00:39:14,850 –> 00:39:18,370
is develop discernment around their own products,

624
00:39:18,530 –> 00:39:22,370
ideas, services and to have that in awareness while they’re

625
00:39:22,370 –> 00:39:26,130
having sales conversations, right? So my favorite thing was whenever I’m

626
00:39:26,130 –> 00:39:29,810
talking to a founder or a salesperson, it’s like, who’s this not for?

627
00:39:31,250 –> 00:39:34,730
Right? Because if you tell me that it’s for everybody, I know you’re not on

628
00:39:34,730 –> 00:39:38,370
the level. Like, and I know you just need time, right?

629
00:39:38,370 –> 00:39:42,210
You’re like the CrossFitter just started CrossFit and you think

630
00:39:42,210 –> 00:39:45,930
that everyone should be doing CrossFit. Like, you know, you’re not thinking about like,

631
00:39:46,090 –> 00:39:49,610
you know, Kip style pull ups have really, really

632
00:39:49,610 –> 00:39:53,290
crazy tensions on like ligaments and tendons and soft tissues. And people can get

633
00:39:53,290 –> 00:39:56,650
really, really hurt flopping around on a bar because they’re not conditioned for it. But

634
00:39:56,650 –> 00:40:00,410
everyone should go to CrossFit. You don’t know enough, right? It’s the Dunning Kruger, right.

635
00:40:00,410 –> 00:40:03,770
Stuff and everything. And so half the time, right,

636
00:40:04,140 –> 00:40:07,780
there’s going to be people, status quo thinkers. I don’t want any change at all,

637
00:40:07,780 –> 00:40:11,260
right? And they’re, and they’re, they’re, they’re spouting consistency because

638
00:40:11,660 –> 00:40:15,180
the fear or status quo. And then there’s,

639
00:40:15,500 –> 00:40:18,140
okay, let’s Go try something new. Let’s go try something different. Like

640
00:40:20,700 –> 00:40:24,380
how do we parse these two things? Like, I don’t

641
00:40:24,380 –> 00:40:26,700
know. That’s the God’s honest answer. Do you?

642
00:40:28,460 –> 00:40:32,200
I don’t know. I know that. What

643
00:40:32,200 –> 00:40:35,920
I do know, though. I do. What I do know is that we tried

644
00:40:35,920 –> 00:40:39,600
to use. We took, we took

645
00:40:39,600 –> 00:40:43,040
the theories of Darwin and we,

646
00:40:43,440 –> 00:40:47,280
we spread them through folks like writers,

647
00:40:47,280 –> 00:40:51,000
right? Like the Huxleys,

648
00:40:51,000 –> 00:40:54,080
that entire family, you know, spread them around, right.

649
00:40:54,880 –> 00:40:58,320
H.G. wells spread them around through his science fiction.

650
00:40:59,300 –> 00:41:02,820
Those are two, two big names that I could just name right there. Then you

651
00:41:02,820 –> 00:41:06,140
had folks that spread them around or, or at least took the conclusions of

652
00:41:06,140 –> 00:41:09,860
Darwin to what they thought was a logical conclusion. So

653
00:41:10,340 –> 00:41:14,180
Kinsey, who did all the sex behavior studies, he was one.

654
00:41:14,419 –> 00:41:18,220
Freud. Well, not Freud, sorry. Carl Jung was another one that took

655
00:41:18,220 –> 00:41:20,980
some of this to its quote, unquote, logical conclusion.

656
00:41:22,180 –> 00:41:25,220
I will also quote from another book.

657
00:41:27,610 –> 00:41:31,170
Ideas have consequences, right? So the

658
00:41:31,170 –> 00:41:34,890
idea that. That evolution has occurred

659
00:41:35,210 –> 00:41:38,570
over a long period of time and that human beings.

660
00:41:39,290 –> 00:41:42,890
Now, let me be very clear here. The idea that human beings are not

661
00:41:42,890 –> 00:41:46,530
created in the image of a divine, transcendent God, but

662
00:41:46,530 –> 00:41:50,290
instead the idea that human beings evolved

663
00:41:50,290 –> 00:41:53,460
over the long course of millions of years from,

664
00:41:54,020 –> 00:41:57,660
depending upon where you want to start, a fish in the

665
00:41:57,660 –> 00:42:01,060
ocean that decided to get out and come to land

666
00:42:01,540 –> 00:42:04,820
or from a, a

667
00:42:05,060 –> 00:42:08,740
simian ape, right, that broke

668
00:42:08,740 –> 00:42:12,420
off and evolved over the course of however many thousands of years. I think up

669
00:42:12,420 –> 00:42:15,060
to 12,000 years now, 14,000 years. Now, whatever it is,

670
00:42:16,180 –> 00:42:20,020
that idea, I’m not talking about the truth or the factual nature of the

671
00:42:20,020 –> 00:42:22,900
idea. I’m not talking, I’m not debating any of that. I don’t care. Well, I

672
00:42:22,900 –> 00:42:26,120
won’t say I don’t care, but that’s beyond the pale of this, this podcast and

673
00:42:26,120 –> 00:42:29,520
beyond the pale of this conversation. I merely talk about the idea

674
00:42:29,520 –> 00:42:33,040
itself having a consequence. Oh,

675
00:42:33,120 –> 00:42:36,800
well, I did have this. And that idea, by the

676
00:42:36,800 –> 00:42:40,600
way, that idea. Just, just let me close up here. That idea

677
00:42:40,600 –> 00:42:44,320
then closes the door to guys like

678
00:42:44,320 –> 00:42:47,800
Lou Wallace to writing Ben Hur. Well, it

679
00:42:47,800 –> 00:42:51,400
closes the door gradually, and I don’t know that that door closing is

680
00:42:51,400 –> 00:42:55,180
a good thing. Now that’s an idea. That’s a debate I would

681
00:42:55,180 –> 00:42:57,980
like to have. That’s a conversation I’d like. Well, who gets to be in charge

682
00:42:57,980 –> 00:43:01,740
of that, though, right? Because, like, because, because you and I, we’re also having

683
00:43:01,740 –> 00:43:05,500
this conversation. There’s an audience for everything. Right? Right. So. Right. You

684
00:43:05,500 –> 00:43:08,940
know, you can be, you can be the Lou Wallace who’s like, oh man, publishers

685
00:43:08,940 –> 00:43:11,740
don’t want to write my book. And. Or you can be the Lou Wallace who

686
00:43:11,740 –> 00:43:15,340
goes out and starts a publishing company because you’re not going to let anybody stand

687
00:43:15,340 –> 00:43:18,510
in your way. Right. There’s always that shout to out shadow banned on social media.

688
00:43:18,590 –> 00:43:22,390
Like, maybe your content just is garbage. Maybe you’re not connected to the right audience

689
00:43:22,390 –> 00:43:26,030
and different things like this. Right. There’s always this, this idea that like,

690
00:43:26,590 –> 00:43:30,190
we’re being constrained, right. Like, well, Dostoyevsky

691
00:43:30,190 –> 00:43:34,030
self published. Let me be very clear. Dostoyevsky self published his

692
00:43:34,030 –> 00:43:37,630
books, I think all but the Brothers Karamazov, if I remember correctly. Oh,

693
00:43:37,630 –> 00:43:41,430
interesting. I didn’t know that. Yeah. So Dostoyevsky couldn’t get

694
00:43:41,430 –> 00:43:45,200
a publisher. I mean, like, and that’s my kind

695
00:43:45,200 –> 00:43:48,680
of big thing is that like, the big stuff isn’t going to be seen in

696
00:43:48,680 –> 00:43:51,880
the main threads and you have to go seek it out. Right? Like, sure, the

697
00:43:52,040 –> 00:43:55,760
old, old, like martial arts thing, Right. The student who won’t spend a

698
00:43:55,760 –> 00:43:59,600
year in a horse dance is not a student. Right, right. You have to

699
00:43:59,600 –> 00:44:03,360
want to go find your thing. Now, I did have this very

700
00:44:03,360 –> 00:44:07,120
surreal moment in the book, Right. Because the thing that I did

701
00:44:07,120 –> 00:44:09,800
appreciate a lot, that I never really had much

702
00:44:10,570 –> 00:44:14,330
perspective on was just how much like Jewish

703
00:44:14,330 –> 00:44:18,050
culture, yes. Was like, looked down

704
00:44:18,050 –> 00:44:21,730
upon, just like, as lesser just for people who want to go do their thing

705
00:44:21,730 –> 00:44:25,170
and have their faith and everything else like this, you know? And it was interesting

706
00:44:25,170 –> 00:44:28,930
because I think he does a really good job of just talking

707
00:44:28,930 –> 00:44:31,770
about how the Romans just don’t get it.

708
00:44:32,650 –> 00:44:36,410
Right. Like, like he does. He, he does a good job of talking about

709
00:44:37,040 –> 00:44:40,720
that, like, lack of faith makes it so hard to

710
00:44:40,720 –> 00:44:44,560
even understand. Right. But there was this part where he was talking about

711
00:44:44,960 –> 00:44:47,960
how the Romans have all these gods and they just have the one. And how

712
00:44:47,960 –> 00:44:51,520
the sheer idea of that causes a lot of like,

713
00:44:51,520 –> 00:44:54,800
friction and pejorative, like instant. Well,

714
00:44:55,840 –> 00:44:59,480
I’m just going to put this here. You’re a snowflake, right? No, you’re a

715
00:44:59,480 –> 00:45:03,330
snowflake and everything else like this, right. This idea. And I was struck

716
00:45:03,330 –> 00:45:06,930
by that at first of just like how, how long this

717
00:45:06,930 –> 00:45:10,490
culture of people have just been like, shoved down.

718
00:45:10,810 –> 00:45:14,570
Right. And also. Because I could then appreciate

719
00:45:14,570 –> 00:45:17,770
that. I could also then appreciate this idea that like, the king of the Jews

720
00:45:17,770 –> 00:45:21,330
is coming and stuff like this and what a rallying idea that had to have

721
00:45:21,330 –> 00:45:25,170
been for all of these people who felt underrepresented, walked

722
00:45:25,170 –> 00:45:28,740
on and different things like this, you know, but just the sheer

723
00:45:28,740 –> 00:45:32,100
idea of like imagine having 15

724
00:45:32,260 –> 00:45:35,980
gods and then going and talking to someone and having to do business and

725
00:45:35,980 –> 00:45:39,380
having to build a relationship with someone who only has one, right? Like,

726
00:45:40,020 –> 00:45:43,659
it’s because the ideas have been planted through books and literature

727
00:45:43,659 –> 00:45:46,900
and everything. It’s so much easier for us to wrap our arms around,

728
00:45:47,380 –> 00:45:51,180
right? Versus, if you’ve only ever seen it the

729
00:45:51,180 –> 00:45:55,030
other way, it goes back to this other thing. It only seems like magic

730
00:45:55,030 –> 00:45:58,710
because you’re not smart enough to get it. So this

731
00:45:58,710 –> 00:46:02,550
is I’m doing. I’m writing, currently writing the script for our shorts episode, which will

732
00:46:02,550 –> 00:46:06,310
come out tomorrow kind of a little bit because of current events. I’m kind of

733
00:46:06,310 –> 00:46:09,469
a little bit blocked up right now in my writing. But

734
00:46:10,190 –> 00:46:13,150
I’ll get it out and it’ll get out there. Folks, I’ve got an idea. It’s

735
00:46:13,150 –> 00:46:16,510
the idea that John actually just said here. I think

736
00:46:16,750 –> 00:46:20,550
that I’m glad you pointed this out about Judaism, because this

737
00:46:20,550 –> 00:46:23,670
was one of the things that I already kind of knew was going to happen

738
00:46:23,670 –> 00:46:27,510
coming into the book because of my understanding of theology and da, da,

739
00:46:27,510 –> 00:46:31,270
da, da. All these kinds of things, right? But it’s really hard

740
00:46:31,590 –> 00:46:35,310
for a person who. And

741
00:46:35,310 –> 00:46:38,070
it’s interesting that this book has never been out of print. It’s even in print

742
00:46:38,070 –> 00:46:38,390
today.

743
00:46:41,910 –> 00:46:45,510
And so we talk about it being hard to read

744
00:46:45,510 –> 00:46:48,390
and talk about it being difficult to sort of wrap your arms around

745
00:46:51,090 –> 00:46:54,690
the. The assumptions that average human

746
00:46:54,690 –> 00:46:58,370
beings, because ideas have consequences. The assumptions

747
00:46:58,370 –> 00:47:02,090
that average human beings in the west and

748
00:47:02,090 –> 00:47:05,930
even globally. But let’s stick to the West. The assumptions people have

749
00:47:05,930 –> 00:47:09,530
about how reality, quote, unquote, should or ought

750
00:47:09,530 –> 00:47:13,090
to work. For instance,

751
00:47:13,730 –> 00:47:17,250
the idea that women should and

752
00:47:17,330 –> 00:47:20,970
ought to have rights. Now, what those rights

753
00:47:20,970 –> 00:47:24,290
mean, how far that goes, we’re still negotiating all that.

754
00:47:25,090 –> 00:47:28,130
The point is no one in the west

755
00:47:29,330 –> 00:47:32,930
is disputing that women should or ought to have rights.

756
00:47:33,570 –> 00:47:37,410
No one. Why is that? Well,

757
00:47:37,410 –> 00:47:41,170
the reason that is is because. Hold your, hold

758
00:47:41,170 –> 00:47:44,900
your phone here. The Christians who

759
00:47:44,900 –> 00:47:48,580
came out of a Judaic understanding of women,

760
00:47:48,580 –> 00:47:51,020
of what a woman’s quote unquote place was,

761
00:47:52,220 –> 00:47:55,340
which, by the way, descended from the root of

762
00:47:55,980 –> 00:47:59,700
one God, rather than 1500 gods

763
00:47:59,700 –> 00:48:03,380
determining what a woman’s place was, which, by the way, weirdly enough, all those

764
00:48:03,380 –> 00:48:07,140
gods determined that a woman’s place was to be, as is often slammed about

765
00:48:07,140 –> 00:48:10,870
Christians these days, barefoot and pregnant. Actually, that was more like the pagans.

766
00:48:10,950 –> 00:48:14,670
They actually thought that. But okay, let’s just leave that

767
00:48:14,670 –> 00:48:18,390
aside. These kinds of

768
00:48:18,390 –> 00:48:21,270
ideas over the course of 2000 years

769
00:48:22,310 –> 00:48:25,430
have marinated to the point now, where

770
00:48:27,110 –> 00:48:30,710
we have legitimate arguments, not about

771
00:48:31,590 –> 00:48:35,200
should women have rights or should they not have rights. We have

772
00:48:35,200 –> 00:48:39,000
legitimate arguments about what kinds of rights women should have. And we don’t even

773
00:48:39,000 –> 00:48:42,480
blink twice about it because ideas have

774
00:48:42,480 –> 00:48:46,200
consequences. I’m not talking about do we believe that Jesus was

775
00:48:46,200 –> 00:48:49,440
the Messiah or not. I’m not talking about any of that.

776
00:48:50,240 –> 00:48:53,600
We don’t even have to go there. We just have to go to the idea

777
00:48:53,600 –> 00:48:56,960
that a guy named Jesus walked around,

778
00:48:57,760 –> 00:49:00,720
said it would be nice to be. Is it would be a really good idea.

779
00:49:01,950 –> 00:49:05,110
And I hate to do this, but to reduce everything down, to be reductionist for

780
00:49:05,110 –> 00:49:08,630
a minute, said it would be really nice idea to be really good to the

781
00:49:08,630 –> 00:49:11,150
widow, the foreigner and the weak.

782
00:49:12,670 –> 00:49:16,230
And people took him seriously for 2000 years, people took him

783
00:49:16,230 –> 00:49:19,870
seriously. What was said in pagan,

784
00:49:20,910 –> 00:49:24,670
in the pagan reality. And by the way, the early Christians in the

785
00:49:24,670 –> 00:49:28,510
first like 500 years of the church, this is what Augustine was yelling about in

786
00:49:28,750 –> 00:49:32,270
City of God, which we’ve read on the podcast before. This is his whole argument

787
00:49:32,270 –> 00:49:35,870
against the pagans in like 300 or whatever. When he wrote that

788
00:49:35,870 –> 00:49:39,390
book, the pagans believed

789
00:49:40,350 –> 00:49:44,189
that women didn’t have rights. Not,

790
00:49:44,190 –> 00:49:46,950
not that they, not that they like should. What kind of right should women. No,

791
00:49:46,950 –> 00:49:50,350
no, no, there’s none of that. You’re just. And you see this by the way,

792
00:49:50,350 –> 00:49:53,950
in Ben Hur, the way that, the way that Ben Hur’s

793
00:49:54,430 –> 00:49:56,510
sister and mother are treated.

794
00:49:58,350 –> 00:50:02,070
We, we’re shocked by that. Why? We don’t ever ask why are

795
00:50:02,070 –> 00:50:05,910
we shocked? Well, we’re shocked because of 2000 years of Christianity. That’s why

796
00:50:05,910 –> 00:50:09,710
we’re shocked. And for us to. An interesting idea. Yeah.

797
00:50:09,710 –> 00:50:13,470
For us to not acknowledge that. And again, you don’t have to believe in divinity.

798
00:50:13,470 –> 00:50:15,710
You don’t have to believe in resurrection. I’m not asking you to buy any of

799
00:50:15,710 –> 00:50:18,270
that. There are certain

800
00:50:19,870 –> 00:50:22,280
fruits that ideas produce.

801
00:50:24,040 –> 00:50:27,760
And those fruits come from a tree which has

802
00:50:27,760 –> 00:50:31,080
a seed and a root in the ground. A root coming from a seed in

803
00:50:31,080 –> 00:50:34,880
the ground. The seeds matter. Ideas have consequences.

804
00:50:34,880 –> 00:50:38,280
So if we want to re sacralize the world,

805
00:50:39,320 –> 00:50:43,040
we have to look at the seeds of where people’s not

806
00:50:43,040 –> 00:50:46,640
only individual beliefs are, but where society’s individual beliefs are. And by the way, we

807
00:50:46,640 –> 00:50:50,120
have to question those. And I think the Internet to stand up for modern technology

808
00:50:50,200 –> 00:50:54,040
for just a minute here. I think the area does an excellent job and I

809
00:50:54,040 –> 00:50:56,000
talked about it in terms of a cul de sac. I’m going to go back

810
00:50:56,000 –> 00:50:59,800
to this idea. It does an excellent job of Bringing people who have had these

811
00:50:59,800 –> 00:51:03,440
thoughts before, coming from different roads into the same cul de

812
00:51:03,440 –> 00:51:07,240
sac and then meeting in that spot which increasingly is happening

813
00:51:07,240 –> 00:51:11,080
online and going, oh, wait, you thought that too?

814
00:51:11,560 –> 00:51:14,610
Oh, I thought. I just thought that by myself. Yeah.

815
00:51:15,330 –> 00:51:18,450
Oh, now we can make common cause.

816
00:51:19,810 –> 00:51:23,490
And as I keep going back to, I think, re sacralize the world, this is

817
00:51:23,490 –> 00:51:27,130
where the postmodern environmentalist movement, this is why

818
00:51:27,130 –> 00:51:30,570
it’s doing well, because all these people are getting together in the same cul de

819
00:51:30,570 –> 00:51:34,210
sac. Yeah,

820
00:51:34,210 –> 00:51:38,050
Like, I don’t inherently see that as a bad thing, though. No, and, and I’m

821
00:51:38,050 –> 00:51:41,620
not arguing that it’s a bad thing either. I’m merely saying the, the.

822
00:51:41,620 –> 00:51:45,060
The seating of it doesn’t. You’re not. We’re not going in deep enough. We gotta

823
00:51:45,060 –> 00:51:48,700
go in deeper. We got to go in deeper. And I don’t know that people

824
00:51:48,700 –> 00:51:52,420
have the horsepower sometimes

825
00:51:53,860 –> 00:51:57,460
to go deeper. And I think that’s fine, by the way. Like,

826
00:51:59,620 –> 00:52:02,500
let me, Let me be religious here for just a moment. I think God gave

827
00:52:02,500 –> 00:52:06,020
different gifts to different people, and I think that

828
00:52:06,530 –> 00:52:10,050
gave different strengths and abilities to different people, because we need all

829
00:52:10,050 –> 00:52:13,690
kinds, you know, every. I’m not, I’m not demanding that everybody have the intellectual

830
00:52:13,690 –> 00:52:16,930
horsepower of Hasan. No, I’m not making that demand.

831
00:52:17,410 –> 00:52:21,250
I’m merely saying we’ve got

832
00:52:21,330 –> 00:52:24,690
to figure, we’ve got to acknowledge what the seeds are

833
00:52:25,010 –> 00:52:28,850
so that we can have a common conversation moving forward rather than a fractural

834
00:52:28,850 –> 00:52:32,140
one, a fractured one around things that don’t matter.

835
00:52:33,820 –> 00:52:37,660
Like, things that don’t matter at all. Like politics. This is why I don’t

836
00:52:37,660 –> 00:52:41,460
have political conversations on this show, because politics are misordered. It’s all

837
00:52:41,460 –> 00:52:44,700
misordered in the hierarchy. Like, we want to talk about

838
00:52:44,700 –> 00:52:48,340
politics. Politics is downstream from culture, which is

839
00:52:48,340 –> 00:52:52,100
downstream from religion, smaller religion, which is

840
00:52:52,100 –> 00:52:55,100
the sacred of the profane idea, which is downstream from

841
00:52:56,860 –> 00:52:59,820
how you actually, actually think about being and meaning and significance.

842
00:53:00,540 –> 00:53:04,300
We got to go all the way up to the headwaters. How do you think

843
00:53:04,300 –> 00:53:07,980
about who you are? How do you think about your level of significance? How do

844
00:53:07,980 –> 00:53:11,740
you think about your being? And if you’ve never thought about this before

845
00:53:13,260 –> 00:53:16,300
because you didn’t want to take a philosophy class in college because it seemed like

846
00:53:16,300 –> 00:53:19,060
it was really boring, or maybe you didn’t have a history of like, talking about

847
00:53:19,060 –> 00:53:22,780
these ideas in your parents house, or maybe you just never. You just didn’t think

848
00:53:22,780 –> 00:53:25,590
you had horsepower because no one told you, or you looked at that book and

849
00:53:25,590 –> 00:53:29,270
you were like, I don’t want to deal with that, because Kierkegaard seems really complicated.

850
00:53:30,150 –> 00:53:33,550
Why can’t I read this as fast as my graphic novels? Oh, because you need

851
00:53:33,550 –> 00:53:36,510
space to sit and think on these ideas like that. That’s what I did for

852
00:53:36,510 –> 00:53:40,070
a while. Right? Yeah, I would, I would, I would look over this

853
00:53:40,070 –> 00:53:43,190
fence as I was training martial arts, right. And I’m like, oh,

854
00:53:43,270 –> 00:53:46,990
watts and stuff. And. And then like, occasionally I’d pick

855
00:53:46,990 –> 00:53:49,340
up a book and I would try to like, speed read through it. Like, I

856
00:53:49,340 –> 00:53:52,820
read, like, for entertainment. And then I’m like, who’s getting depth out of this thing?

857
00:53:54,420 –> 00:53:58,020
Right. Wasn’t even walking into the deep end, you know, kind of

858
00:53:58,020 –> 00:54:01,700
situation, so. Right. That’s an interesting thing. Right.

859
00:54:01,700 –> 00:54:05,460
Like, I, I believe that people have different strengths.

860
00:54:05,700 –> 00:54:09,260
And then one inch past the strength is a, is a challenge. Right. It becomes

861
00:54:09,260 –> 00:54:13,060
limiting and a constraint. And, you know,

862
00:54:13,060 –> 00:54:16,150
as long as you’re really aware of what, what you’re great at and whatnot and,

863
00:54:16,150 –> 00:54:19,790
and not great at and also knowledgeable about and experienced about and not

864
00:54:19,790 –> 00:54:23,590
knowledgeable about and not experienced about, I think life gets a lot easier. But

865
00:54:23,590 –> 00:54:27,430
if you’re just running around thinking that because you did it, it was

866
00:54:27,430 –> 00:54:30,830
perfect, you know, and all this other stuff that people get, I think, trapped into.

867
00:54:31,550 –> 00:54:35,190
Right. None of this is a topic worth

868
00:54:35,190 –> 00:54:38,950
getting into, right? No, no. Well, and

869
00:54:38,950 –> 00:54:42,440
you talk about. And I want to, I really want to focus on. I didn’t

870
00:54:42,440 –> 00:54:46,240
really want to focus on the Christian. Christian. The, the Jesus sort of aspects

871
00:54:46,240 –> 00:54:49,920
have been her. I didn’t really want to focus on that in this conversation. Not

872
00:54:49,920 –> 00:54:53,600
because that’s limiting, but because now this is my own

873
00:54:53,600 –> 00:54:57,040
weakness. I go with the assumption that people have heard about Jesus and either to

874
00:54:57,040 –> 00:55:00,600
your point, they either believe or they don’t. I, I go with that assumption. Right.

875
00:55:00,840 –> 00:55:04,520
Okay. And again, that’s a limiting factor on me,

876
00:55:04,520 –> 00:55:08,340
Right? Because maybe not everybody. Everybody has or maybe everybody hasn’t or they’ve heard the

877
00:55:08,340 –> 00:55:10,500
wrong thing. I don’t know. Hey, I don’t know.

878
00:55:12,980 –> 00:55:16,740
I think what’s far more interesting is, to your point, the,

879
00:55:16,980 –> 00:55:20,700
the. The. And it’s really the ethnic. This is what Paul the apostle

880
00:55:20,700 –> 00:55:24,500
talks about in, in all the post Pentecost New Testament books in

881
00:55:24,500 –> 00:55:28,060
the Bible, when he’s using the word ethnos, which we substitute in modern

882
00:55:28,060 –> 00:55:31,300
translations, we substitute race for that. But that’s not what he meant. He didn’t mean

883
00:55:31,300 –> 00:55:35,010
the modern conception of, like, how we think about race. Not at

884
00:55:35,010 –> 00:55:38,010
all. He was much more consumed. And people back in the day,

885
00:55:38,810 –> 00:55:41,850
2,000 years ago, were Much more consumed with

886
00:55:42,330 –> 00:55:46,130
the ethnic groups that people came from and how the

887
00:55:46,130 –> 00:55:49,850
ethnos of those groups, which is different than race by the

888
00:55:49,850 –> 00:55:53,210
way, influenced how people thought about

889
00:55:54,170 –> 00:55:57,880
the sacred, how they thought about the world, how they thought, thought about

890
00:55:57,880 –> 00:56:01,520
reality. The idea of

891
00:56:01,520 –> 00:56:04,920
ethnos continued up until the beginning of the

892
00:56:04,920 –> 00:56:08,560
Enlightenment, probably in the 16th or 17th

893
00:56:08,560 –> 00:56:12,080
century. That’s when that started to break down a little bit. And then as the

894
00:56:12,080 –> 00:56:15,800
age of discovery opened up in the 17th, 18th and then into

895
00:56:15,800 –> 00:56:19,640
the 19th century, that really started to break down. Voltaire

896
00:56:19,640 –> 00:56:22,760
was one of the first ones. Actually, we just read Candide on this show.

897
00:56:23,730 –> 00:56:27,570
Voltaire was one of the first sort of skeptical, they called him back in the

898
00:56:27,570 –> 00:56:31,090
day, skeptical writers who sort of breaking down ethnos

899
00:56:31,410 –> 00:56:34,810
and really trying to do the, the conversion to racial

900
00:56:34,810 –> 00:56:38,450
groups. Right. Because now you’re, you’re taking Europeans

901
00:56:38,530 –> 00:56:42,130
and that’s a gigantic monolith word and it doesn’t mean anything,

902
00:56:42,450 –> 00:56:46,170
but you’re taking Europeans from one place, putting them in the quote,

903
00:56:46,170 –> 00:56:49,820
unquote, new world, interacting with all these people they’ve never met before.

904
00:56:50,460 –> 00:56:53,900
And now. And they’re also importing

905
00:56:55,020 –> 00:56:58,860
Africans, again, a monolith term that doesn’t mean anything

906
00:57:00,300 –> 00:57:04,100
model, importing those folks to the New world in an

907
00:57:04,100 –> 00:57:07,700
effort to find a passage to go meet again, a

908
00:57:07,700 –> 00:57:11,420
monolith term, Asians, which included, by the way, China,

909
00:57:11,420 –> 00:57:14,790
India, Japan, Korea, all of that. Right? Yeah. So

910
00:57:15,590 –> 00:57:19,430
Voltaire and the thinkers of the Enlightenment were trying

911
00:57:19,750 –> 00:57:23,430
to break these, the visible differences

912
00:57:23,430 –> 00:57:27,110
that they could see because they weren’t blind, nor were they dumb.

913
00:57:27,670 –> 00:57:31,390
They were trying to make that term ethnos fit

914
00:57:31,390 –> 00:57:35,230
with what they were seeing here and make those two things click

915
00:57:35,230 –> 00:57:39,030
together because they were confused. This has been a long project, by the way. Well,

916
00:57:39,030 –> 00:57:42,750
and like, to me, and this is a really cool thing because, like,

917
00:57:42,750 –> 00:57:44,870
we get to go back to another book that we, we did together. Right. A

918
00:57:44,870 –> 00:57:48,670
Stranger in a Strange Land has that one chapter about like Islam. Right.

919
00:57:48,670 –> 00:57:51,990
And how, yes, the language around Islam colors

920
00:57:53,830 –> 00:57:57,390
how you perceive Islam, if that is your mother tongue. And

921
00:57:57,390 –> 00:58:00,830
that’s like. And I think about that, like a lot. And I was thinking about

922
00:58:00,830 –> 00:58:03,950
that as I was reading through this like, book because, like, in that moment of

923
00:58:03,950 –> 00:58:07,710
like, you know. Well, well, well, yeah, like, you know, some people have

924
00:58:07,710 –> 00:58:10,880
many gods, some people only have one. And like, I us appreciate that that’s going

925
00:58:10,880 –> 00:58:14,240
to be a little bit weird. Well, I can only appreciate that because of the

926
00:58:14,240 –> 00:58:18,080
environment that I live in, you know, and so I,

927
00:58:18,080 –> 00:58:20,960
like, I was, I was just kind of struck by that, like the Language has

928
00:58:20,960 –> 00:58:24,320
a lot of impact on our perception of

929
00:58:24,560 –> 00:58:28,320
whatever it is. Right, so exactly. The other thing they’re talking

930
00:58:28,320 –> 00:58:31,960
about was just like. And I had no idea, just, like, during this time,

931
00:58:31,960 –> 00:58:35,720
like, how far, you know, Judaism had,

932
00:58:35,720 –> 00:58:39,090
like, spread, you know, because they’re talking about these different kinds of Jews and everything

933
00:58:39,090 –> 00:58:42,290
else like this, you know, and, like, I. I just think that.

934
00:58:43,090 –> 00:58:46,450
So that idea was. Was cutting through for me. Right. That it was more about,

935
00:58:47,010 –> 00:58:50,370
like, what do you believe? And not, like,

936
00:58:51,090 –> 00:58:54,610
where are you from? Kind of thing. Right? Yes,

937
00:58:54,610 –> 00:58:58,330
yes, yes. Because in a time where the

938
00:58:58,330 –> 00:59:02,090
Greeks were philosophic and Greek

939
00:59:02,090 –> 00:59:05,910
philosophy was thought of as. Even

940
00:59:05,910 –> 00:59:09,670
Paul kind of degrades this a little bit. And Paul, you know, Paul

941
00:59:09,670 –> 00:59:13,430
was a highly educated Jew. Highly educated. He was actually trained

942
00:59:13,430 –> 00:59:17,230
in the synagogues by Gamaliel, I believe is the

943
00:59:18,030 –> 00:59:21,710
rabbi’s name. And so the synagogue system that Paul

944
00:59:21,710 –> 00:59:25,310
was educated under before he had his Road to Damascus moment

945
00:59:25,310 –> 00:59:28,830
and, you know, became a huge evangelical person for

946
00:59:29,150 –> 00:59:32,940
Jesus. The system that Paul came out of, a lot of people don’t

947
00:59:32,940 –> 00:59:36,620
know, this had been built out by the

948
00:59:36,620 –> 00:59:40,380
Sanhedrin and by the Pharisees in

949
00:59:40,380 –> 00:59:43,700
order to. This is interesting, preserve

950
00:59:43,700 –> 00:59:45,660
literacy among the Jewish people.

951
00:59:47,660 –> 00:59:51,260
And that was being built in tension against this

952
00:59:51,260 –> 00:59:55,020
idea of the Temple, which the Sadducees were

953
00:59:55,020 –> 00:59:58,700
building as a physical representation of God on earth. And they

954
00:59:58,700 –> 01:00:02,440
wrapped Herod and the Herodians into that. And so that

955
01:00:02,440 –> 01:00:05,320
tension was existing in Jewish. He doesn’t get into any of this, but that tension

956
01:00:05,320 –> 01:00:09,160
was existing in Jewish society at the time. And so Ben Hur

957
01:00:09,480 –> 01:00:13,320
is clearly in this book. He is clearly a

958
01:00:13,320 –> 01:00:16,520
product of the Temple system, or not. Temple system, sorry, of the synagogue system.

959
01:00:17,000 –> 01:00:20,360
So the synagogue was the folks who were trying to go out and

960
01:00:20,440 –> 01:00:23,840
basically give scrolls to people and explain to them, like, these are the first five

961
01:00:23,840 –> 01:00:26,080
books of the Bible. This is what. Well, what we think of as the Bible,

962
01:00:26,080 –> 01:00:29,760
the Pentateuch, this is what Moses is. And they were

963
01:00:29,760 –> 01:00:33,510
writing this down. So I heard this from a Jewish theologian, a

964
01:00:33,510 –> 01:00:37,230
podcast I listened to from a Jewish theologian, like, a couple of years

965
01:00:37,230 –> 01:00:40,110
ago, did a whole year on that podcast, and he explained a whole bunch of

966
01:00:40,110 –> 01:00:43,030
this stuff and a whole bunch of different things that I didn’t know. But in

967
01:00:43,030 –> 01:00:46,829
Judaism, that synagogue system is

968
01:00:46,829 –> 01:00:50,310
what has maintained Judaism over the course of the last now

969
01:00:50,310 –> 01:00:54,150
2000 years. Because the temple’s gone. The temple disappeared in

970
01:00:54,150 –> 01:00:57,310
67 A.D. because the Romans, like Masala,

971
01:00:58,040 –> 01:01:01,800
finally decided they were just going to be done with these people and just. They

972
01:01:01,800 –> 01:01:05,640
burned the Temple to the ground and scattered the Jews. And that’s

973
01:01:05,640 –> 01:01:08,680
where the Jewish Diaspora began. That was then.

974
01:01:09,560 –> 01:01:13,400
The door was then closed on that in the 1940s, with the creation

975
01:01:13,400 –> 01:01:15,640
of 1948, with the creation of the state of Israel.

976
01:01:18,280 –> 01:01:22,040
This is what people don’t understand about Judaism. The

977
01:01:22,040 –> 01:01:25,800
tension between the synagogue system and the temple system was

978
01:01:25,800 –> 01:01:29,400
a main tension when Jesus showed up. And so Jesus

979
01:01:29,400 –> 01:01:33,160
was a product of. He was a product of the synagogue system,

980
01:01:33,480 –> 01:01:37,240
not the temple system. That’s why in

981
01:01:37,560 –> 01:01:41,360
all four of the book. Well, except for John, but in four. All

982
01:01:41,360 –> 01:01:45,160
four of the books of the. All three of the four books of New Testament,

983
01:01:45,400 –> 01:01:49,120
when. When Jesus says, I will tear down the temple and I will rebuild it

984
01:01:49,120 –> 01:01:52,520
in three days, the Sadducees got all

985
01:01:52,520 –> 01:01:56,250
upset. This is why. And they were like, who are you?

986
01:01:56,250 –> 01:01:59,210
You’re gonna. The temple, it’s been. Take. It took us like 40 years to build

987
01:01:59,210 –> 01:02:01,290
this temple. How are you going to tear it down in three days and rebuild

988
01:02:01,290 –> 01:02:05,050
it? Now, the disciples tied that to the

989
01:02:05,050 –> 01:02:08,650
crucifixion in their eschatology and in

990
01:02:08,650 –> 01:02:12,370
their theology much later on. We just accept that idea

991
01:02:12,370 –> 01:02:16,050
as de rigueur now from 2,000 years later. But back in the day,

992
01:02:16,530 –> 01:02:20,020
that was a revolutionary idea. That was hugely

993
01:02:20,020 –> 01:02:23,860
revolutionary because that goes beyond just the widow and the

994
01:02:23,860 –> 01:02:27,700
childless and the poor. That’s saying that. Think

995
01:02:27,700 –> 01:02:30,700
about what that’s radically saying. It’s not just that.

996
01:02:32,140 –> 01:02:34,620
And there were a lot of people who were claiming they were the Messiah running

997
01:02:34,620 –> 01:02:38,220
around during Jesus’s time. There were a lot of folks claiming that, to your

998
01:02:38,220 –> 01:02:41,780
point, messianic worldview was very hot among the

999
01:02:41,780 –> 01:02:45,570
Jews. Very hot. But.

1000
01:02:46,370 –> 01:02:49,770
But Jesus said something radical or made it. Made an

1001
01:02:49,770 –> 01:02:53,570
illusion that people at that time definitely understood. And the illusion

1002
01:02:53,570 –> 01:02:57,250
was, and you get this in Ben Hur too, the illusion was

1003
01:02:57,250 –> 01:03:00,970
that the temple system of man that’s

1004
01:03:00,970 –> 01:03:04,690
being built to be this glamorous thing. And by the way, this is reflected also

1005
01:03:04,690 –> 01:03:07,410
in the Book of

1006
01:03:10,220 –> 01:03:13,780
Kings. Yes, the first part of the Book of Kings, when David dies and

1007
01:03:13,780 –> 01:03:16,620
David wants to build a temple. And if you go through that first part of

1008
01:03:16,620 –> 01:03:20,340
that book, God is sort of silent on whether or not David

1009
01:03:20,340 –> 01:03:23,220
could build the temple. And it’s one of those, like, shocking things that like most

1010
01:03:23,220 –> 01:03:26,820
people don’t see in the text. And then his son Solomon goes off and builds

1011
01:03:26,820 –> 01:03:30,660
the temple after he’s gone. But David, David is the

1012
01:03:30,660 –> 01:03:34,140
one that initiates the building project, not God.

1013
01:03:35,740 –> 01:03:39,480
So the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees were arguing about this during

1014
01:03:39,480 –> 01:03:43,120
Jesus’s time. And Jesus was a

1015
01:03:43,120 –> 01:03:46,760
product of the Pharisee system. And by the way,

1016
01:03:47,160 –> 01:03:50,840
he was with the Pharisees for three years, and he told them, you have

1017
01:03:50,840 –> 01:03:54,280
everything except for mercy

1018
01:03:54,520 –> 01:03:58,320
and grace. You have everything else you need except for

1019
01:03:58,320 –> 01:04:02,040
mercy and grace. And that’s. And by the mercy and grace extended

1020
01:04:02,040 –> 01:04:05,760
to people that we now think extending

1021
01:04:05,760 –> 01:04:09,520
their mercy and grace is a natural thing. The widow, the poor, the childless,

1022
01:04:09,600 –> 01:04:12,960
or the children. Right. The weak. Right. Well,

1023
01:04:13,680 –> 01:04:17,480
that was radical for his time. That was hugely radical. Now,

1024
01:04:17,480 –> 01:04:21,040
the Romans didn’t think that was radical. The Romans were

1025
01:04:21,040 –> 01:04:24,800
like, you’re just another weirdo in a backwater

1026
01:04:25,600 –> 01:04:29,040
running around with no job. Like, aren’t you a Carpenter?

1027
01:04:29,400 –> 01:04:33,160
We have 1500 gods. We’re Rome, for Pete’s sake.

1028
01:04:33,240 –> 01:04:37,080
Which is why I opened up with the galley. The galley rowing

1029
01:04:37,080 –> 01:04:40,760
scene. Because that’s Rome. We will press your body into

1030
01:04:40,760 –> 01:04:44,520
slavery because we can. Force of will.

1031
01:04:44,520 –> 01:04:48,280
To the previous conversation we were having before we hit record, ultimate force of will.

1032
01:04:49,000 –> 01:04:52,360
I don’t. I mean, with the exception of the benefits of technology

1033
01:04:52,600 –> 01:04:56,050
over the last 2,000 years, we don’t really see

1034
01:04:56,770 –> 01:05:00,050
states behaving like that. Or. Or we do, but it’s less and less and less

1035
01:05:00,050 –> 01:05:03,650
tolerated over the course of time. I also think that’s a Christian assumption.

1036
01:05:03,970 –> 01:05:07,490
Like the fact that we question whether or not America should be

1037
01:05:08,210 –> 01:05:11,530
bombing Iran for 40 days. We think that all comes out of

1038
01:05:11,530 –> 01:05:15,010
Vietnam. No, Our skepticism around

1039
01:05:15,010 –> 01:05:18,770
Vietnam. No. I mean, there was skepticism around World War II. There was skepticism around

1040
01:05:18,770 –> 01:05:22,590
World War I. There was skepticism around the Civil War. There was skepticism around

1041
01:05:22,590 –> 01:05:25,590
the Revolutionary War. Need I go back any further?

1042
01:05:26,310 –> 01:05:30,150
There’s been skepticism. And that skepticism comes from

1043
01:05:32,070 –> 01:05:35,190
ideas having consequences that go all the way back 2,000 years.

1044
01:05:36,630 –> 01:05:39,470
And so when I. When I talk about making it sacred, I’m just saying just

1045
01:05:39,470 –> 01:05:43,270
acknowledge that it goes back 2000 years. Let’s start with that. Let’s just start with

1046
01:05:43,270 –> 01:05:46,950
that basic acknowledgment, and then we can move forward. Dude, it’s so

1047
01:05:46,950 –> 01:05:50,720
funny because, like, I

1048
01:05:50,720 –> 01:05:54,120
was. I was in training during, like, 9 11, right? And so, you know that

1049
01:05:54,120 –> 01:05:56,520
that was my birthday. I think you and I have talked about this. And so,

1050
01:05:56,520 –> 01:05:59,840
yeah, I joined as a reservist, and I joined the military for all the wrong

1051
01:05:59,840 –> 01:06:03,080
reasons. Right? It’s funny now because, like, I’ll have parents and they’ll come talk to

1052
01:06:03,080 –> 01:06:05,560
me, and they’re like, hey, will you talk to my kid about joining the military?

1053
01:06:05,560 –> 01:06:08,280
I’m like, what do you think I’m going to tell them? First of all, I’m

1054
01:06:08,280 –> 01:06:12,080
not gonna talk him into it or out of it personally. But I remember

1055
01:06:12,080 –> 01:06:15,720
going in like the next day, right. And tensions are running

1056
01:06:15,720 –> 01:06:19,290
hot. Right. I mean, I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re in job training for the

1057
01:06:19,290 –> 01:06:22,970
military. Right, Right. And everyone is so excited to go turn it into a

1058
01:06:22,970 –> 01:06:26,770
parking lot. Like that. That was the exact wordage

1059
01:06:26,850 –> 01:06:30,690
that was being used. Let’s just nuke them all. Turn it

1060
01:06:30,690 –> 01:06:34,490
into a parking lot. And me, like, me being

1061
01:06:34,490 –> 01:06:37,330
me, like, I’m like, that doesn’t make us any better

1062
01:06:38,130 –> 01:06:41,490
than them, you know, of course, which wasn’t heard. And now I’m

1063
01:06:41,890 –> 01:06:45,200
the bad guy, you know, in the platoon and everything else like this, you know,

1064
01:06:45,520 –> 01:06:48,640
because, like, we’re not even allowed to have this conversation or talk about it or

1065
01:06:48,640 –> 01:06:52,200
anything else like this. It was such like a weird moment, you know, and so

1066
01:06:52,200 –> 01:06:55,600
it’s, it’s weird because like, you know, the thing that is

1067
01:06:56,160 –> 01:06:59,440
like there is, you know,

1068
01:06:59,680 –> 01:07:03,440
like human life in and of itself is something like

1069
01:07:03,440 –> 01:07:07,200
worth protecting. Right? Not just right for our side or for

1070
01:07:07,200 –> 01:07:10,980
our beliefs. Like, like in general, like, I kind

1071
01:07:10,980 –> 01:07:14,140
of don’t care what you believe. If you’re not doing harm to another human being,

1072
01:07:15,100 –> 01:07:17,660
you’re allowed to believe whatever you want. Right?

1073
01:07:18,620 –> 01:07:21,980
Yeah. And so, yeah. And this is,

1074
01:07:24,060 –> 01:07:27,100
this didn’t come from nowhere. And it, and by the way, it would be an

1075
01:07:27,100 –> 01:07:30,860
absolute shame. And this is where this is the thing that,

1076
01:07:30,860 –> 01:07:33,340
like I said this before on the show, and then we’ll go back to the

1077
01:07:33,340 –> 01:07:36,050
book because we’ve wandered way far afield, but it’s. Okay, good. This is a good

1078
01:07:36,050 –> 01:07:39,450
conversation. The challenge that I had with the

1079
01:07:39,450 –> 01:07:41,730
Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II.

1080
01:07:43,570 –> 01:07:46,770
So the challenge of Nuremberg was not.

1081
01:07:47,170 –> 01:07:50,450
No, was how do you create. In

1082
01:07:50,450 –> 01:07:54,210
1946, 47, 48. How do you create

1083
01:07:54,210 –> 01:07:55,650
a post war order?

1084
01:07:59,250 –> 01:08:02,310
And M would, would, would, Would

1085
01:08:02,630 –> 01:08:06,190
appreciate this. How do you create a post war

1086
01:08:06,190 –> 01:08:09,830
order based on a. A desacralized

1087
01:08:09,910 –> 01:08:13,470
world? Because how can there be the sacred in the firebombing of

1088
01:08:13,470 –> 01:08:16,950
Dresden and the, the two nukes dropped at Hiroshima and

1089
01:08:16,950 –> 01:08:20,670
Nagasaki, we’ve now desacralized the whole

1090
01:08:20,670 –> 01:08:24,470
thing. We are now deeply in a profane world. How does

1091
01:08:24,470 –> 01:08:28,310
a profane world or people with a profane worldview, even though

1092
01:08:28,310 –> 01:08:29,990
they may mouth the words of the Bible,

1093
01:08:32,100 –> 01:08:34,420
how does, how do those people judge.

1094
01:08:37,060 –> 01:08:39,300
Judge German atrocities?

1095
01:08:42,660 –> 01:08:44,980
Nuremberg. Yeah. So

1096
01:08:46,580 –> 01:08:49,140
Hannah Arendt talked about this in her great book

1097
01:08:50,180 –> 01:08:53,900
Eichmann in Jerusalem about the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, a

1098
01:08:53,900 –> 01:08:56,510
book we’ve covered on this show. And

1099
01:08:57,630 –> 01:09:01,230
I mean, Eichmann was The person who signed off on all the orders

1100
01:09:01,230 –> 01:09:04,830
that transported the Jews to the concentration camps.

1101
01:09:05,310 –> 01:09:08,830
And he just made it more efficient. And

1102
01:09:08,910 –> 01:09:12,390
Hannah Arendt, who barely got out of Germany ahead of the

1103
01:09:12,390 –> 01:09:16,030
Nazis, was hired by the

1104
01:09:16,030 –> 01:09:19,750
New York Times, I believe it was, to go and cover

1105
01:09:19,750 –> 01:09:23,600
the trial, because the Mossad did what the Mossad is

1106
01:09:23,600 –> 01:09:27,040
going to do, and they went and snatched that guy up in Argentina in, like,

1107
01:09:27,040 –> 01:09:30,880
the 60s and put him on trial. And Hannah Aaron made

1108
01:09:30,880 –> 01:09:34,040
a point that the same problem that

1109
01:09:34,600 –> 01:09:38,360
the. The Jewish people who were only barely like half

1110
01:09:38,360 –> 01:09:42,160
a generation away from the Holocaust, so there were people around

1111
01:09:42,160 –> 01:09:45,720
who still had that in their historical memory. I mean, they’d lived through it. Yeah,

1112
01:09:47,889 –> 01:09:51,489
those people had trouble not

1113
01:09:51,489 –> 01:09:54,969
convicting Eichmann, but figuring out on what

1114
01:09:54,969 –> 01:09:58,809
basis to convict Eichmann. And so

1115
01:09:58,809 –> 01:10:02,489
the basis to convict him, Hannah Arendt pointed this

1116
01:10:02,489 –> 01:10:05,969
out, she thought would have had more power

1117
01:10:06,289 –> 01:10:09,929
if it appealed to something sacred rather

1118
01:10:09,929 –> 01:10:13,740
than something profane. And

1119
01:10:13,740 –> 01:10:17,460
she thought that the basis of convicting Eichmann on

1120
01:10:17,460 –> 01:10:21,220
the basis of a profane materialistic. And by profane,

1121
01:10:21,220 –> 01:10:24,140
I don’t mean ugly. I just mean materialistic or

1122
01:10:25,100 –> 01:10:28,940
brutally. Yeah, not godly. Rudely focused in the world. Right. Rudely rooted in the world

1123
01:10:29,100 –> 01:10:32,460
was a reflection of what had happened, of the failures at

1124
01:10:32,460 –> 01:10:36,140
Nuremberg. Because. So let me. Yeah,

1125
01:10:36,140 –> 01:10:39,840
yeah, yeah, go ahead. I think. I think that what I’m hearing. Right.

1126
01:10:39,840 –> 01:10:43,640
And this is. This is interesting. Right. So let me work through this. Yeah, yeah.

1127
01:10:43,640 –> 01:10:46,960
Like, so they. People that had gone through that

1128
01:10:47,280 –> 01:10:51,080
had. Had had the question of, like, okay, do

1129
01:10:51,080 –> 01:10:54,520
we really have the right. Right. Or what gives us the right? You know, because

1130
01:10:54,520 –> 01:10:57,120
of all these other people that have been hurt and everything. And so the. Think.

1131
01:11:05,610 –> 01:11:09,450
So. Oh, did it become like a. Like a vanity metric? Right,

1132
01:11:09,610 –> 01:11:13,450
Because. Because just killing one person, we’ve. We’ve all done this thing. So look

1133
01:11:13,450 –> 01:11:17,130
at the sheer number of people that this person has killed. So. So we’re not

1134
01:11:17,130 –> 01:11:20,050
gonna be outraged by the death anymore. We’re just gonna be outraged by the amount

1135
01:11:20,050 –> 01:11:23,370
of death that this person has caused. That was

1136
01:11:23,370 –> 01:11:26,810
Stalin’s critique of Nuremberg. Oh,

1137
01:11:26,890 –> 01:11:29,690
interesting. Stalin went there.

1138
01:11:31,780 –> 01:11:34,500
That’s a. Interesting.

1139
01:11:35,940 –> 01:11:39,380
It’s a hell of a critique. That’s what it is.

1140
01:11:39,940 –> 01:11:43,460
Well, I mean, like, you kill one man, you’re a murderer. You kill 30 million.

1141
01:11:44,900 –> 01:11:48,580
It’s a rounding error. It’s fine. That was Stalin’s critique

1142
01:11:49,220 –> 01:11:52,940
of everything that he saw. Because if Stalin had gotten

1143
01:11:52,940 –> 01:11:56,740
to Hitler’s bunker, which is a great what if to kind of run in

1144
01:11:56,740 –> 01:12:00,440
your head, what if Stalin had gotten to Hitler’s bunker before the Americans did.

1145
01:12:03,400 –> 01:12:07,000
Well, I know what would have happened thinking about it.

1146
01:12:07,160 –> 01:12:10,760
Oh, Stalin would have pulled Salah, would have pulled Hitler right out of that

1147
01:12:10,760 –> 01:12:13,880
bunker. He would have, number one, put him in a cage,

1148
01:12:14,280 –> 01:12:17,800
taken him back directly to Moscow, dried him out from the

1149
01:12:17,880 –> 01:12:20,600
amphetamines, and then put him on trial

1150
01:12:21,480 –> 01:12:24,820
because Stalin wanted to yell at Hitler in the dock. Dock.

1151
01:12:25,140 –> 01:12:28,740
And he wanted to see Hitler in the dock. And then he wanted to hang

1152
01:12:28,740 –> 01:12:32,540
Hitler in Moscow. That’s what the Russians would have done because there

1153
01:12:32,540 –> 01:12:36,220
were 60 million dead Russians to get

1154
01:12:36,220 –> 01:12:40,020
that guy. And Stalin, though, he didn’t

1155
01:12:40,020 –> 01:12:43,380
care about the 60 million dead Russians. What Stalin cared about was

1156
01:12:43,380 –> 01:12:47,060
Stalin’s ego. And he wanted to match his

1157
01:12:47,060 –> 01:12:50,710
ego because going back to the. The.

1158
01:12:50,710 –> 01:12:54,030
What was it? The. The ribbentrop, the tree that was signed with

1159
01:12:54,030 –> 01:12:57,710
ribbentrop that split Poland. He looked at Hitler’s

1160
01:12:57,710 –> 01:13:01,510
actions as a political violation because he

1161
01:13:01,510 –> 01:13:05,350
was an atheist. He wasn’t appealing to a God. There

1162
01:13:05,350 –> 01:13:09,150
was no God then, no God in Russia other than Stalin. So go

1163
01:13:09,150 –> 01:13:12,910
get that guy, dry him out, put him in the dock, and

1164
01:13:12,910 –> 01:13:16,070
let’s have a fight. And that’s what would have happened

1165
01:13:16,620 –> 01:13:20,460
if the Russians had gotten to the bunker and Hitler had been alive.

1166
01:13:22,780 –> 01:13:26,580
Now, that’s interesting. Counterfactual to run. That’s counterfactual history, because it didn’t

1167
01:13:26,580 –> 01:13:30,300
happen that way. And that’s not what. That’s not what occurred. But, but, but if

1168
01:13:30,300 –> 01:13:33,900
that had happened, Nuremberg would have looked totally

1169
01:13:33,900 –> 01:13:37,700
different. So would Eichmann’s trial later on. Gosh,

1170
01:13:37,700 –> 01:13:41,420
almost 20 years. Well, not even 20, 17, 15, 16 years

1171
01:13:41,420 –> 01:13:43,720
later in Jerusalem would have looked different.

1172
01:13:45,240 –> 01:13:48,840
Totally different. As it was, the Western

1173
01:13:48,840 –> 01:13:52,640
leaders tried to. To. To split the. Not split the baby, but they tried to

1174
01:13:52,640 –> 01:13:55,960
walk a line talking about numbers and

1175
01:13:56,600 –> 01:14:00,200
morality. Well, guess what? Eichmann’s

1176
01:14:00,200 –> 01:14:03,640
defense was that he was doing a moral thing. And

1177
01:14:03,800 –> 01:14:07,280
this is where the idea of just following orders now comes in. I was just

1178
01:14:07,280 –> 01:14:10,420
following orders. I was trying to advance in the Nazi higher work. And this is

1179
01:14:10,420 –> 01:14:13,060
how you advance. There is no morality attached to this.

1180
01:14:15,060 –> 01:14:18,900
Yep. Which I say that

1181
01:14:18,900 –> 01:14:22,660
out loud, and it even. It irks me to say it out loud.

1182
01:14:23,620 –> 01:14:26,580
Like, I’m getting like. Like there’s little things in my body right now. Like, I’m

1183
01:14:26,580 –> 01:14:30,100
having a physiological response to this because my spirit,

1184
01:14:30,340 –> 01:14:33,140
the. The thing that’s inside of me that knows this is wrong is like, this

1185
01:14:33,140 –> 01:14:36,930
is terrible. This is a terrible thing. Like, I’m having

1186
01:14:36,930 –> 01:14:40,730
trouble even just saying this out loud, but it is the. It’s the Truth of

1187
01:14:40,730 –> 01:14:42,730
the thing. Well,

1188
01:14:44,970 –> 01:14:48,330
and I don’t. We,

1189
01:14:48,810 –> 01:14:52,530
I don’t, I am, I don’t say normally I’m deathly

1190
01:14:52,530 –> 01:14:56,210
afraid because I don’t like to live in fear. I don’t

1191
01:14:56,210 –> 01:14:59,930
trust. I’ll frame it this way. I don’t trust the human beings can’t wind

1192
01:14:59,930 –> 01:15:03,000
up back at that cul de sac with better technology

1193
01:15:04,040 –> 01:15:07,680
and more ability to kill more people. I don’t trust that

1194
01:15:07,680 –> 01:15:11,200
we’re better. I don’t, I don’t trust that we’re not evil from the beginning in

1195
01:15:11,200 –> 01:15:14,600
our hearts. I don’t trust that we.

1196
01:15:14,920 –> 01:15:18,160
I don’t trust that we. Yeah. I don’t trust that we have to learn how

1197
01:15:18,160 –> 01:15:21,760
to be good because it’s just so much easier to be bad. Oh

1198
01:15:21,760 –> 01:15:25,080
yeah, I like I’m with you on these things but we’re

1199
01:15:26,680 –> 01:15:30,170
every person I know who, who, who, who lives in the south, right? And

1200
01:15:30,570 –> 01:15:33,610
if you’re not, if you’re not a church going person down here in the south,

1201
01:15:33,610 –> 01:15:37,370
right? Yeah, every person, right? Because, because we’re, we have

1202
01:15:37,370 –> 01:15:40,290
this little book club. We don’t tell all you guys, but all of the, all

1203
01:15:40,290 –> 01:15:43,570
the, all the atheists and the agnostics, right? When you guys, when you guys are

1204
01:15:43,570 –> 01:15:46,850
church. We don’t go to church, but we do hang out and we, and we

1205
01:15:46,850 –> 01:15:50,370
share the cancellations. Right, but we just don’t hang signs, right, with,

1206
01:15:50,370 –> 01:15:54,100
with, with, with recruitment totals on them and stuff that like, like. Yeah, no, it’s

1207
01:15:54,100 –> 01:15:57,220
cool, whatever. Go have the meetings. Everybody should have a meeting.

1208
01:15:58,020 –> 01:16:01,460
Go ahead, go ahead, get together, sign. Oh, go ahead. Sorry,

1209
01:16:02,420 –> 01:16:06,220
but every person I know and myself included runs into the thing of

1210
01:16:06,220 –> 01:16:09,940
like, okay, okay, so like you’re not religious, so

1211
01:16:10,660 –> 01:16:14,420
how could you have morals, right? The presumption that morals

1212
01:16:14,420 –> 01:16:18,100
are an alien

1213
01:16:18,260 –> 01:16:21,950
thing because you don’t, you

1214
01:16:21,950 –> 01:16:25,790
know, go to church and have the belief that until you accept

1215
01:16:25,790 –> 01:16:29,390
Jesus into your heart, you don’t, you’re going to be damned. Right. And go to

1216
01:16:29,390 –> 01:16:33,230
hell. Right, like sure that you know, I don’t think it

1217
01:16:33,230 –> 01:16:36,950
has to go that far. But, but, but that’s a very

1218
01:16:36,950 –> 01:16:40,630
interesting thing of the idea of like, so like was that guilt? Like,

1219
01:16:40,630 –> 01:16:43,510
like they felt so bad that they had to make it about just like the

1220
01:16:43,510 –> 01:16:47,280
sheer. Because even from a volume driven perspective, like I would wager

1221
01:16:47,280 –> 01:16:50,720
those two bombs, I mean you gotta be somewhat,

1222
01:16:50,880 –> 01:16:54,480
you know, just from a body count perspective, right?

1223
01:16:54,960 –> 01:16:58,640
So I think that they couldn’t,

1224
01:17:00,240 –> 01:17:03,760
I think they couldn’t square the circle in the light. In light of what? Himmler.

1225
01:17:04,240 –> 01:17:06,160
Himmler’s defense from the doc.

1226
01:17:08,240 –> 01:17:11,990
I think that in the case of Eichmann, they couldn’t square the

1227
01:17:11,990 –> 01:17:15,830
circle with Eichmann’s defense from the doc. Because while it’s

1228
01:17:15,830 –> 01:17:19,350
not a robust defense, if

1229
01:17:19,350 –> 01:17:23,110
you’re, if you’re, if you are disconnected from the sacred

1230
01:17:23,110 –> 01:17:26,750
in a way where you can’t explain why a human being

1231
01:17:27,390 –> 01:17:30,990
has value and then how 5 to how that

1232
01:17:30,990 –> 01:17:34,230
scales up. If you can’t explain the why and how to

1233
01:17:34,230 –> 01:17:37,920
enemies, that means you can’t

1234
01:17:37,920 –> 01:17:41,480
explain it to yourself. I agree with that. And

1235
01:17:41,560 –> 01:17:44,880
so Eliada in the Sacred of The profane in

1236
01:17:44,880 –> 01:17:48,680
1957 is noting that the

1237
01:17:48,680 –> 01:17:52,400
lack of ability to explain is the reason to write

1238
01:17:52,400 –> 01:17:56,000
the book. Because he’s, he’s thinking. It’s just an issue of give you the

1239
01:17:56,000 –> 01:17:59,200
ability to explain. I’ll give you the language. I live in

1240
01:17:59,200 –> 01:18:02,970
2026, as we’ve already talked about, with clear

1241
01:18:02,970 –> 01:18:05,650
thinking. I think the language is long gone.

1242
01:18:06,690 –> 01:18:09,970
I think the language is long gone. I think it’s been forgotten. Like the opening

1243
01:18:09,970 –> 01:18:13,770
of Lord of the Rings. You know those got a great movie which

1244
01:18:13,770 –> 01:18:17,529
I just, just watched Fellowship of the Ring with my son. Right. You

1245
01:18:17,529 –> 01:18:21,250
know, things have been long forgotten because there are none now alive who remember them.

1246
01:18:21,650 –> 01:18:25,490
I don’t think we have people around who remember that. I think we’ve, we’ve gotten

1247
01:18:25,890 –> 01:18:29,180
carbon copies of carbon carpet copies of carbon copies of carbon copies of that

1248
01:18:29,180 –> 01:18:32,900
language now. And to re. And this is why I said

1249
01:18:32,900 –> 01:18:35,900
to re. Sacralize. The west is going to be a hundred year long project

1250
01:18:36,540 –> 01:18:40,300
because we have to rediscover the language. And again,

1251
01:18:40,700 –> 01:18:42,940
language away from

1252
01:18:44,220 –> 01:18:47,500
religion, capital R. Religion. Right.

1253
01:18:47,820 –> 01:18:51,460
That’s why I picked on the environmentalist movement or use the environmentalist

1254
01:18:51,460 –> 01:18:54,640
movement as an example because it’s the easiest sort of one to use.

1255
01:18:55,040 –> 01:18:58,000
Right. But

1256
01:18:58,880 –> 01:19:01,960
I also see where we are beginning to

1257
01:19:01,960 –> 01:19:04,800
sacralize our technology

1258
01:19:07,600 –> 01:19:10,800
and we don’t like to use those terms, but we do.

1259
01:19:11,680 –> 01:19:12,560
So for instance,

1260
01:19:16,160 –> 01:19:19,360
how many folks, when they wake up in the morning, the first thing they do

1261
01:19:19,360 –> 01:19:20,240
is turn on their phone.

1262
01:19:23,670 –> 01:19:26,950
Like the very first thing. Like even before you say good morning to your kids

1263
01:19:26,950 –> 01:19:30,230
or to your, your husband or your wife or whatever your situation is, your dog,

1264
01:19:30,710 –> 01:19:33,750
the phone goes on, or maybe the phone didn’t even go off at night.

1265
01:19:35,510 –> 01:19:38,950
So the term worship is of course loaded with Christian assumptions.

1266
01:19:39,110 –> 01:19:42,630
But when you strip away all those, worship just means what you pay attention to

1267
01:19:44,870 –> 01:19:48,490
at the bottom of it. So even

1268
01:19:49,690 –> 01:19:53,530
folks like Elon Musk and others, Jonathan Haidt pointed this out in

1269
01:19:53,530 –> 01:19:57,370
his book on the Righteous Mind. And then later on in his social media

1270
01:19:57,690 –> 01:20:01,530
research on, like, what that’s doing to teenage girls and sort of how that’s how.

1271
01:20:01,530 –> 01:20:05,250
Well, all that’s going. Both of

1272
01:20:05,250 –> 01:20:09,050
them make the point that we’re already cyborgs.

1273
01:20:09,210 –> 01:20:13,020
We just don’t have the thing embedded into ourselves, though. That is

1274
01:20:13,020 –> 01:20:16,700
the next step. The transhumanists would like to take that next step and go

1275
01:20:16,700 –> 01:20:20,300
directly to the embedding because we’re already

1276
01:20:20,300 –> 01:20:23,780
doing the worship part. Well, I hear that as a person who.

1277
01:20:24,100 –> 01:20:27,859
Yes, okay. Pointing my full cards on the table, yes, his capital are

1278
01:20:27,859 –> 01:20:31,380
religious, and no, I’m not trying to convert John. I could be friends with people

1279
01:20:31,380 –> 01:20:33,620
of all different kinds. Okay, it’s fine.

1280
01:20:36,740 –> 01:20:40,550
But as a person whose capital are religious, that scares

1281
01:20:40,550 –> 01:20:43,910
the heck out of me. That actually checks me. I’m not looking to check John.

1282
01:20:44,150 –> 01:20:47,110
John can check himself. I’m not looking to check. Check my lip. Y’ all do

1283
01:20:47,110 –> 01:20:49,790
whatever it is you’re going to do, but it checks me. It’s like, oh, yeah,

1284
01:20:49,790 –> 01:20:53,350
how often am I looking at that thing? Rather than doing these other

1285
01:20:53,350 –> 01:20:56,710
things? How much of this do I need to shift? Where do I need to

1286
01:20:56,710 –> 01:21:00,550
shift My. My. My worship to my attention

1287
01:21:00,630 –> 01:21:04,470
to. So instead of. People ask me, how. How do you read all the

1288
01:21:04,470 –> 01:21:08,150
books you read? Well, I just don’t watch Netflix or

1289
01:21:08,150 –> 01:21:11,990
I watch less. Yep. Like,

1290
01:21:11,990 –> 01:21:15,310
I’m in Kung Fu, Right. Because. Yeah, because. Because people will be like, dude, where

1291
01:21:15,310 –> 01:21:18,590
do you find the time? Well, okay, after work.

1292
01:21:18,910 –> 01:21:22,270
This is what I do. What do you do after work? Well, I sit on

1293
01:21:22,270 –> 01:21:26,030
the couch and I watch and I drink beer. Okay. I make. I make

1294
01:21:26,030 –> 01:21:29,750
other choices. Right, right, right. Not finding a

1295
01:21:29,750 –> 01:21:33,350
well of time that you don’t have access to. I’m just using the. The

1296
01:21:33,350 –> 01:21:37,070
absolute well of time that we all have a little bit more intentionally than

1297
01:21:37,070 –> 01:21:40,670
you are. I often say this, and this is the

1298
01:21:40,670 –> 01:21:44,070
crack up line. Kim Kardashian and myself,

1299
01:21:44,790 –> 01:21:47,750
and I’ll throw Lewis Hamilton in there. Lewis Hamilton

1300
01:21:48,310 –> 01:21:51,670
and the guy from Game of Thrones and

1301
01:21:51,910 –> 01:21:55,750
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, we all have the same 24 hours. I

1302
01:21:55,750 –> 01:21:59,150
don’t care how you think about any of those people. Not one of them is

1303
01:21:59,150 –> 01:22:02,210
getting an extra hour in the day. Not one.

1304
01:22:03,090 –> 01:22:06,650
Nobody that you know, not from the Pope of Rome to the

1305
01:22:06,650 –> 01:22:09,650
homeless guy on the street is getting one more extra hour in the day. It’s

1306
01:22:09,650 –> 01:22:12,290
24 hours the same way for every single one of us. Now,

1307
01:22:13,410 –> 01:22:16,970
what Kim Kardashian does with her. Her 24 hours and what the homeless guy does

1308
01:22:16,970 –> 01:22:20,690
with his 24 hours are fundamentally different. I love the framing of that. Right.

1309
01:22:20,690 –> 01:22:24,530
Because, like, at this. At this stage, right, when you become someone

1310
01:22:24,530 –> 01:22:27,420
who just does things, right, and you put things out in the world and everything,

1311
01:22:27,420 –> 01:22:30,580
and they don’t always see the time and the effort and all this stuff. Right.

1312
01:22:30,580 –> 01:22:34,220
Especially if you do things like books and things like that. Yeah, it’s. You know,

1313
01:22:34,540 –> 01:22:37,580
but I love that framing that, like, let’s look at all these people.

1314
01:22:38,140 –> 01:22:41,940
Not a single one of them is going to find another hour in

1315
01:22:41,940 –> 01:22:45,500
the day itself. What they spend, like,

1316
01:22:45,980 –> 01:22:48,860
such a beautiful way of talking about it, right? Because. Because this is like one

1317
01:22:48,860 –> 01:22:52,560
of the things that I talk about with everyone is there, like. And it’s.

1318
01:22:52,560 –> 01:22:56,120
It’s so wild because, like, I was this person, right? They’re just stuck in.

1319
01:22:56,280 –> 01:22:59,920
I call it being stuck in the land of should. Right. Should I have to

1320
01:22:59,920 –> 01:23:03,400
work this hard? No, no. But don’t want

1321
01:23:03,880 –> 01:23:07,680
more than you’re willing to work, right? Like, if

1322
01:23:07,680 –> 01:23:10,600
you want. If you want an easy job and you want no stress, don’t expect

1323
01:23:11,320 –> 01:23:15,120
great pay. Just not how it works. Well, and

1324
01:23:15,120 –> 01:23:18,080
I’m also worried about. Because I’ll throw this in as well, because we’re way off

1325
01:23:18,080 –> 01:23:21,280
our script. It’s fine. Oh, yeah, we’re way off.

1326
01:23:22,320 –> 01:23:24,600
But this is. This is why I love doing the show, because I get to

1327
01:23:24,600 –> 01:23:26,880
have organic conversations and it just goes.

1328
01:23:28,400 –> 01:23:31,600
I worry that the promises of our material

1329
01:23:31,600 –> 01:23:35,279
technologists of. We will deliver

1330
01:23:35,279 –> 01:23:38,520
you universal basic income because of all the robots and the AI, and we’re going

1331
01:23:38,520 –> 01:23:42,360
to do that at some unidentified utopia in the future. And you will

1332
01:23:42,360 –> 01:23:46,080
never have to work. You will merely. As Dostoevsky wrote

1333
01:23:46,080 –> 01:23:49,130
about in Notes of the Underground, you will merely hang around

1334
01:23:49,610 –> 01:23:53,410
and have grapes falling into your mouth and only have to concern

1335
01:23:53,410 –> 01:23:56,730
yourself with the propagation of the species. Or as Nancy

1336
01:23:56,730 –> 01:24:00,330
Pelosi’s. Because we’ve been able to. Income.

1337
01:24:00,890 –> 01:24:04,050
Yeah, because that’s gonna work. Or as Nancy Pelosi said, with the passing of the.

1338
01:24:04,050 –> 01:24:07,850
Of the. The Affordable Health Care act back all those years ago

1339
01:24:07,850 –> 01:24:11,490
now, she was like, oh, well, people will have extra time to make art and,

1340
01:24:11,490 –> 01:24:12,250
like, do things.

1341
01:24:17,620 –> 01:24:21,220
And now they’re saying you don’t need. Who was it? There was some

1342
01:24:21,220 –> 01:24:24,980
there. Oh, the guy who makes the music. The music AI engine

1343
01:24:24,980 –> 01:24:27,420
thing. He was like, well, it takes a lot of time to learn how to

1344
01:24:27,420 –> 01:24:30,260
make music. So now you don’t have to spend that time. You can go do

1345
01:24:30,260 –> 01:24:32,340
something else with it. Like, you idiots.

1346
01:24:34,180 –> 01:24:37,900
But again, if you have a sacred

1347
01:24:37,900 –> 01:24:41,740
understanding of the world, though, this then translates into a sacred understanding

1348
01:24:41,740 –> 01:24:44,340
of work. So work no longer is just

1349
01:24:45,780 –> 01:24:48,420
a thing I do, a rude thing that I do to make money so I

1350
01:24:48,420 –> 01:24:50,220
can sit on my couch and drink beer and I don’t have to go do

1351
01:24:50,220 –> 01:24:54,020
kung fu because I just made enough money to sit on my.

1352
01:24:54,100 –> 01:24:57,460
My couch. Now work becomes elevated to something

1353
01:24:57,700 –> 01:25:01,460
else. So, like, entrepreneurs call that a calling, or we

1354
01:25:01,540 –> 01:25:04,900
talk about the drive or all that purpose, passion, drive meaning. Right.

1355
01:25:05,710 –> 01:25:09,310
Those words are great. And I think they only get you

1356
01:25:09,310 –> 01:25:12,910
halfway there, because for the 5,000

1357
01:25:12,910 –> 01:25:16,350
years, for the vast majority of the 5,000 years of human history, until about two

1358
01:25:16,350 –> 01:25:19,550
minutes ago, human beings actually

1359
01:25:20,190 –> 01:25:23,390
worked the land, which is where nature. Nature

1360
01:25:23,630 –> 01:25:27,470
worship, frankly. Intrinsically motivated. It was easy to be intrinsically

1361
01:25:27,470 –> 01:25:30,950
motivated. Plus, it was also easy to see that there were things bigger than you

1362
01:25:30,950 –> 01:25:34,290
that were in control that you were in control of. Oh,

1363
01:25:34,450 –> 01:25:37,810
dude. Yeah. So I don’t. Right. So I don’t.

1364
01:25:38,370 –> 01:25:41,810
Right, Right. Seasons. And like, I

1365
01:25:41,810 –> 01:25:45,450
raise chickens. I raise chickens and turkeys. Small

1366
01:25:45,450 –> 01:25:49,289
anecdote. The other day, I was feeding my chickens.

1367
01:25:49,289 –> 01:25:52,650
I was throwing out some scraps and whatever. I went and checked on them, and

1368
01:25:52,650 –> 01:25:54,730
it’s a whole thing I got to do because of what we got set up

1369
01:25:54,730 –> 01:25:58,290
to protect it from predators, okay? So. But I go out

1370
01:25:58,780 –> 01:26:02,340
and I had three turkey pullets, three young turkeys. Now, turkeys and

1371
01:26:02,340 –> 01:26:06,020
turkey chickens are fundamentally different. Turkeys are actually dumber than

1372
01:26:06,020 –> 01:26:09,780
chickens. Most people don’t know this. They’re stupid. And it’s hard

1373
01:26:09,780 –> 01:26:12,860
to keep them alive in general. But once they get to a certain level of

1374
01:26:12,860 –> 01:26:15,420
maturity, then they just take off like a rocket, and they go. And then they

1375
01:26:15,420 –> 01:26:19,180
don’t care about you, so the dumbness stays. But then they have,

1376
01:26:19,180 –> 01:26:22,860
like, huge survival instincts. They’re too big for hawks to take. They

1377
01:26:22,860 –> 01:26:26,300
fight other animals. It’s kind of ridiculous. And then they go perch high up in

1378
01:26:26,300 –> 01:26:29,060
a tree, and they can get away from things. It’s kind of amazing. But you

1379
01:26:29,060 –> 01:26:32,740
have to get them there first, right? So we had. We had five

1380
01:26:32,740 –> 01:26:36,580
turkey babies. Two died at

1381
01:26:36,740 –> 01:26:39,140
young. Just two died. Matter of fact, my son,

1382
01:26:40,660 –> 01:26:43,700
one died in his hands. He was like, well, and he’s nine. He goes, well,

1383
01:26:43,700 –> 01:26:45,300
it had to decide whether to live or die.

1384
01:26:48,420 –> 01:26:51,300
Only your kid, right? Like this bumping.

1385
01:26:52,340 –> 01:26:55,700
No. I went, whoa, whoa, dude.

1386
01:26:56,180 –> 01:26:59,900
Whoa. Your wife is just mad. No, she was out of town. She was

1387
01:26:59,900 –> 01:27:02,740
out of town. She didn’t. She didn’t hear any of that. And I was like,

1388
01:27:02,740 –> 01:27:06,340
oh, dude. Oh. Game over. Go, go. And then he went and watched a

1389
01:27:06,340 –> 01:27:10,099
cartoon on Netflix. He’s Like, I’m just gonna watch. There’s

1390
01:27:10,099 –> 01:27:13,300
that moment of like, okay, did this ruin you? Did this ruin you? No, I

1391
01:27:13,300 –> 01:27:17,100
want to watch cartoons. Okay. Thank God. Okay, like. Like, go. Go do

1392
01:27:17,100 –> 01:27:20,930
the thing. He’s gonna go watch Scooby Doo. It’ll be fine. Yeah. Oh, my

1393
01:27:20,930 –> 01:27:24,090
gosh. He’s 16 and he hates you when it. What I need you to remember

1394
01:27:24,090 –> 01:27:27,050
is that it’s probably due to this and you didn’t give him the right output.

1395
01:27:27,370 –> 01:27:30,170
I’ve already told this. I’ve already told my children, when you get to be 30,

1396
01:27:30,170 –> 01:27:33,490
I’ll pay for your therapy. But it’s at 30. I’m not gonna pay for it

1397
01:27:33,490 –> 01:27:37,050
right now. That’s the real measure of. Are you

1398
01:27:37,050 –> 01:27:40,650
successful as a parent is like, how much therapy does your child need

1399
01:27:40,650 –> 01:27:44,370
in an adult state to function? Like, I don’t want to have a

1400
01:27:44,370 –> 01:27:48,000
conversation with you about report cards or AB on a roll. No, like,

1401
01:27:48,160 –> 01:27:51,640
let’s talk at 30, and let’s talk at 30. You bring your kids

1402
01:27:51,640 –> 01:27:55,440
therapy bill. I’ll bring my kids therapy bill. That’s right. See, we’ll see

1403
01:27:55,440 –> 01:27:59,200
how. We’ll share the receipts. We’ll see how this all goes.

1404
01:28:00,640 –> 01:28:04,200
Yes, but I went into a kid willing to go to

1405
01:28:04,200 –> 01:28:07,440
therapy. Means you’re winning. Like, I’m just gonna go out there too, right? No, it’s

1406
01:28:07,440 –> 01:28:10,800
fine. It’s like, just holding it away from them and telling them that only. Only

1407
01:28:11,120 –> 01:28:14,520
sissies, like, talk about, oh, God, no. They never go, no.

1408
01:28:15,000 –> 01:28:18,840
Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go ahead.

1409
01:28:18,840 –> 01:28:21,440
But you just gotta wait till you’re 30. You gotta save it all up. Otherwise

1410
01:28:21,440 –> 01:28:25,160
you’ll have nothing to talk about. You gotta justify the expense.

1411
01:28:27,560 –> 01:28:30,320
Like, you don’t have enough at 16. You really don’t. Like, you think you do,

1412
01:28:30,320 –> 01:28:33,600
but you really don’t parent. You sound like. You sound like my mom whenever I

1413
01:28:33,600 –> 01:28:36,440
was a kid. Because, like, sometimes, like, Like, I’d be upset about something and she

1414
01:28:36,440 –> 01:28:39,250
like, you want something to cry about. Like, that’s what you sound like. Right. Know,

1415
01:28:39,250 –> 01:28:41,010
Right? That’s what my mother told me, actually.

1416
01:28:43,010 –> 01:28:45,530
Oh, yeah. I’ll give you something to cry about. And you’re like, oh, wait, no,

1417
01:28:45,530 –> 01:28:48,930
you up the ante. Oh, I don’t want any of that. Yes, yes,

1418
01:28:49,090 –> 01:28:52,850
yes. So you want someone to talk to. Let me give you enough so you

1419
01:28:52,850 –> 01:28:53,970
need someone to talk to.

1420
01:28:57,650 –> 01:29:01,370
Oh, my gosh. So I went into the. I went

1421
01:29:01,370 –> 01:29:05,180
into the chicken bin, right? And one of the turkeys. For some reason, I’d

1422
01:29:05,180 –> 01:29:08,060
been in the chicken pen all night. The night before, my son was like, oh

1423
01:29:08,060 –> 01:29:11,900
yeah, it’s fine. We checked on him. It was fine. Well, I walked into the

1424
01:29:11,900 –> 01:29:15,420
turkey pan or walked through the chicken pen and the turkey was, was dead.

1425
01:29:17,660 –> 01:29:21,460
No visible signs of an attack inside the pen. The

1426
01:29:21,460 –> 01:29:24,380
pen is predator proof. No predators getting in.

1427
01:29:25,180 –> 01:29:28,340
And clearly. And it was, you know, it hadn’t. Rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in,

1428
01:29:28,340 –> 01:29:30,660
so it had been dead only for a little while, but it was dead long

1429
01:29:30,660 –> 01:29:33,720
enough to where flies were starting to like, you know, begin to make homes.

1430
01:29:34,120 –> 01:29:37,080
And so I of course, picked it up and took it out and did the

1431
01:29:37,080 –> 01:29:40,880
whole thing, disposed of the body and all that. I’m saying all

1432
01:29:40,880 –> 01:29:44,520
that to say this. I have no idea why

1433
01:29:44,520 –> 01:29:47,400
that turkey died. And that was three days ago.

1434
01:29:50,200 –> 01:29:53,920
That’s a small, tiny sliver of

1435
01:29:53,920 –> 01:29:57,640
what people experienced for the last. For 4,500 years

1436
01:30:00,760 –> 01:30:04,120
with the land and nature and crops and animals,

1437
01:30:05,080 –> 01:30:08,280
just animals randomly dying. And you have no. You don’t know why.

1438
01:30:09,720 –> 01:30:13,080
A storm comes out of the sky, hail takes away a third of your crop,

1439
01:30:13,080 –> 01:30:16,160
and that’s it. You ain’t eating for the rest of the year. Or if you

1440
01:30:16,160 –> 01:30:19,840
are, you’re eating at subsistence level. Human beings. And

1441
01:30:19,840 –> 01:30:23,320
Eliada makes this point in the Sacred and the Profane. And Lou

1442
01:30:23,320 –> 01:30:26,000
Wallace gets to this in Ben Hur. Because in the middle of the 19th century,

1443
01:30:26,000 –> 01:30:29,520
they’re just beginning to get out of this. This. They’re just

1444
01:30:29,520 –> 01:30:33,280
beginning to start having the kinds of things we consider to be just normal

1445
01:30:33,280 –> 01:30:36,040
things like the way we live now,

1446
01:30:37,000 –> 01:30:40,480
light years away from the way people lived over the course of the last

1447
01:30:40,480 –> 01:30:44,120
5,000 years. So it’s easier for a human

1448
01:30:44,200 –> 01:30:47,800
to be close to the sacred because they have to be.

1449
01:30:48,520 –> 01:30:52,200
And as we’ve gotten further away from that, and I’m not the first person to

1450
01:30:52,200 –> 01:30:56,040
say this either, we’ve become less consumed with that. This is what

1451
01:30:56,040 –> 01:30:59,550
Eliota was talking about in that one paragraph that I read. We’ve

1452
01:30:59,700 –> 01:31:03,540
become more. That’s why he says. That’s why he says the desacralization process

1453
01:31:04,180 –> 01:31:07,460
is something that’s relatively new in human history. And he’s right.

1454
01:31:08,340 –> 01:31:12,060
So we have all these terms that we use for meaning and significance, but

1455
01:31:12,060 –> 01:31:15,420
we don’t. They’re grounded in different things. They’re grounded in

1456
01:31:15,420 –> 01:31:19,060
industrialization, or they’re grounded in Darwinian

1457
01:31:19,060 –> 01:31:22,580
evolutionary theory, or there are grounded in socialism, or they’re grounded in

1458
01:31:22,580 –> 01:31:26,390
capitalism, or they’re grounded in communism, or they’re grounded in fascism, or they’re

1459
01:31:26,390 –> 01:31:29,950
grounded in geography. Geography, or they’re grounded in race, not

1460
01:31:29,950 –> 01:31:33,710
ethnos, race. Or they’re grounded in economic condition

1461
01:31:33,710 –> 01:31:37,110
or class structure or Marxist theory or

1462
01:31:37,350 –> 01:31:40,870
critical theory or whatever they’re grounded in. And those

1463
01:31:40,950 –> 01:31:44,750
things, I look at all those groundings and I go, you push on

1464
01:31:44,750 –> 01:31:48,350
those just a little bit. All of them, right, left, center,

1465
01:31:48,350 –> 01:31:51,390
whatever. You push on them just a little bit and they crack. And we can’t

1466
01:31:51,390 –> 01:31:54,960
figure out why. We can’t figure out why those things crack. And I

1467
01:31:54,960 –> 01:31:58,320
assert they crack because the thing

1468
01:31:58,720 –> 01:32:01,920
that, that grounds them is not grounded to

1469
01:32:02,320 –> 01:32:05,960
even at a very bare minimum, the land. Just a

1470
01:32:05,960 –> 01:32:09,800
bare minimum, the land. Right. So I have a. I have a thing that. I

1471
01:32:09,800 –> 01:32:13,520
do not think that I do, but we, we have a homestead. Right. And so

1472
01:32:13,520 –> 01:32:16,280
I’ve been able to meet a whole bunch of people who are doing homesteading all

1473
01:32:16,280 –> 01:32:19,380
across this country. And homesteading people,

1474
01:32:20,740 –> 01:32:23,420
I don’t know what their politics are. It doesn’t matter. Most of them, I think,

1475
01:32:23,420 –> 01:32:27,220
are libertarians, probably anarcho libertarians, probably way

1476
01:32:27,220 –> 01:32:30,580
over there. But we don’t even get to that point because we’re too busy talking

1477
01:32:30,580 –> 01:32:34,420
about, hey, how do you make sure your turkeys don’t die? How do you make

1478
01:32:34,420 –> 01:32:38,140
sure you don’t lose three of your five turkeys because you like to eat at

1479
01:32:38,140 –> 01:32:41,740
the end of the year? That’s a

1480
01:32:41,740 –> 01:32:45,090
real, like, that’s a real, in real life, grounding,

1481
01:32:45,090 –> 01:32:48,850
consideration. And

1482
01:32:48,850 –> 01:32:52,610
so, yeah, I’m not ashamed to admit, Yeah, I pray over my animals. Absolutely. Are

1483
01:32:52,610 –> 01:32:56,410
you kidding me? Because I can’t. There’s so many things around

1484
01:32:56,410 –> 01:33:00,010
my control. Yeah. I can feed them, I can optimize their conditions. I can do

1485
01:33:00,010 –> 01:33:03,850
all the sciency stuff and we do all the sciency stuff, but at a certain

1486
01:33:03,850 –> 01:33:06,570
point, the turkey’s just going to die in a chicken coop. And I have no

1487
01:33:06,570 –> 01:33:07,730
idea how it happened.

1488
01:33:11,340 –> 01:33:14,660
And I have no way to solve that or predict for that. And this is,

1489
01:33:14,660 –> 01:33:18,260
again, this is something that people dealt with for 5,000 years. And how did they

1490
01:33:18,260 –> 01:33:21,180
deal with that uncertainty? Well, they dealt with that uncertainty by,

1491
01:33:22,140 –> 01:33:25,820
by working inside of the concept of a sacred

1492
01:33:25,820 –> 01:33:29,660
world. Starting with pagan worship. Right. Starting with worship

1493
01:33:29,660 –> 01:33:33,020
of the elements, starting with worship of weather, starting with worship of,

1494
01:33:34,780 –> 01:33:38,110
of nature and of circumstances, and then

1495
01:33:38,110 –> 01:33:41,830
gradually moving up the hierarchy to worship of divine beings

1496
01:33:41,830 –> 01:33:45,150
and all these other kinds of things. Now we’re in a space where

1497
01:33:46,750 –> 01:33:50,390
we sort of said, to the higher that hierarchy. That’s

1498
01:33:50,390 –> 01:33:53,870
interesting. But we could control for all these things now.

1499
01:33:55,470 –> 01:33:59,030
And to me, that feels a little arrogant. Well,

1500
01:33:59,030 –> 01:34:02,670
okay, man. Such a cool topic. Oh, my

1501
01:34:02,670 –> 01:34:06,460
gosh. Because I’ve shifted on this a lot. I used to

1502
01:34:06,460 –> 01:34:10,220
be the guy. I mean, after the

1503
01:34:10,220 –> 01:34:13,900
military, I was, it was so weird because

1504
01:34:13,900 –> 01:34:16,220
like, before the military, like I, I thought I was too good to weigh tables.

1505
01:34:16,220 –> 01:34:19,580
After the military, I’m not too good to do anything, right? But then I start

1506
01:34:19,580 –> 01:34:22,260
to figure some things out and I’m like, you know what? I really hate mowing

1507
01:34:22,260 –> 01:34:25,300
the yard. God, I really hate mowing the yard. Like, how much does it cost

1508
01:34:25,300 –> 01:34:27,500
for me to hire someone to like, mow the yard? I could find some kid

1509
01:34:27,500 –> 01:34:30,550
in the neighborhood, pay them 20 bucks, and then lo and behold, I have an

1510
01:34:30,550 –> 01:34:34,310
extra two hours, right, that I, that I get to use for whatever I want,

1511
01:34:34,310 –> 01:34:38,150
right? And so the thing I go back to is that turkey dies,

1512
01:34:39,110 –> 01:34:42,830
okay? Which is crazy, right? And a couple of years ago, you

1513
01:34:42,830 –> 01:34:46,470
and I did an episode where I was in the, in the mysterious Southwest, right?

1514
01:34:46,710 –> 01:34:49,910
I was, I was in a situation to where like, I mean, I’m driving around

1515
01:34:49,910 –> 01:34:52,710
through New Mexico and it’s so big and open and you see this cloud and

1516
01:34:52,710 –> 01:34:55,920
like it’s the only cloud in the sky. It’s creating this like, shadow and everything

1517
01:34:55,920 –> 01:34:59,240
is so big and it’s, it’s, it’s easy to be in awe of the

1518
01:34:59,240 –> 01:35:02,360
majestic of the land and every. I mean it’s called the land of enchantment for,

1519
01:35:02,360 –> 01:35:06,040
for God’s sakes, right? But here’s,

1520
01:35:06,040 –> 01:35:09,560
here’s where like it hits the road for me because I do think that there’s

1521
01:35:09,560 –> 01:35:13,240
something around being busy and being productive. Now don’t,

1522
01:35:13,240 –> 01:35:16,160
don’t ask me to go toil and don’t expect other people to go toil and

1523
01:35:16,160 –> 01:35:19,640
think that you’re doing something good because just because it’s your idea of a passion

1524
01:35:19,640 –> 01:35:23,050
and purpose, if you’re doing it badly and looping people into it,

1525
01:35:24,170 –> 01:35:27,370
I think you’re still on the wrong plane, okay?

1526
01:35:27,850 –> 01:35:31,610
But by that same token, if

1527
01:35:31,610 –> 01:35:35,090
every moment is spent under duress of like, are we going to have

1528
01:35:35,090 –> 01:35:38,770
turkeys? Is the crop going to come in the right way? Like, does my kid

1529
01:35:38,770 –> 01:35:42,570
have measles and everything? Like, if all of our bandwidth, right, I go back to

1530
01:35:42,570 –> 01:35:46,420
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s really hard to think about, huh?

1531
01:35:46,420 –> 01:35:50,140
Am I really self actualized if all my effort has to be extended to keep

1532
01:35:50,140 –> 01:35:53,380
the lights on, right? And food on the table, right? So

1533
01:35:55,780 –> 01:35:59,580
I’m a believer in work. Like, like, I think, I think I’m a big

1534
01:35:59,580 –> 01:36:03,140
believer that work worth doing is worth sweating about. Like

1535
01:36:03,140 –> 01:36:06,500
thinking about toiling under. I think that that’s meaningful, you know,

1536
01:36:06,980 –> 01:36:10,540
but if every

1537
01:36:10,540 –> 01:36:14,380
moment is allocated towards struggle, community, just trying to make it through, to try,

1538
01:36:14,540 –> 01:36:18,180
trying to make it through. Maybe a doctor

1539
01:36:18,180 –> 01:36:21,220
comes, right? Or a vet comes by and says, like, oh, what happened to your

1540
01:36:21,220 –> 01:36:23,300
turkey? Oh, I have no idea. Well, do you want me to take a look

1541
01:36:23,300 –> 01:36:25,660
at it? We might be able to keep it from happening. Don’t have time, man.

1542
01:36:25,900 –> 01:36:29,499
Don’t have time. It’s God’s will. It’s just gonna happen again, right?

1543
01:36:29,740 –> 01:36:33,460
And maybe, maybe the doctor can cut up in this turkey and realize like,

1544
01:36:33,460 –> 01:36:37,100
oh, maybe they, maybe there’s this element in your chicken

1545
01:36:37,100 –> 01:36:39,800
feed that is just really, really bad for turkey. I’m not saying that this is

1546
01:36:39,800 –> 01:36:43,600
a thing here, but if we don’t ever have the, even the space to ask

1547
01:36:43,600 –> 01:36:46,080
the question because it’s sacred,

1548
01:36:47,600 –> 01:36:51,280
then everybody has a lot more turkeys dying because

1549
01:36:51,280 –> 01:36:55,040
no one is, no one is doing the research on these turkeys because you

1550
01:36:55,040 –> 01:36:58,320
know what, like, why would you waste your time doing these things? It’s in God’s

1551
01:36:58,320 –> 01:37:01,280
hands. Like, just let God handle it. And then we’re not asking these questions. We’re

1552
01:37:01,280 –> 01:37:05,090
not seeing that germs have a, a much

1553
01:37:05,090 –> 01:37:08,530
bigger impact on morbidity rates than like the

1554
01:37:08,530 –> 01:37:12,170
reputation of the doctor and stuff like that. Because we have decided

1555
01:37:12,330 –> 01:37:16,130
to stay at such a low level of manual effort, there

1556
01:37:16,130 –> 01:37:19,850
is no room to ask any higher questions, right? So there is

1557
01:37:19,850 –> 01:37:22,410
no room for innovation. There is no room for

1558
01:37:23,210 –> 01:37:26,170
anything, right? How do you, how do you balance

1559
01:37:26,970 –> 01:37:30,010
these two ideas? Or do you so

1560
01:37:33,360 –> 01:37:36,880
these two ideas. I think the

1561
01:37:37,040 –> 01:37:40,280
I. Well, so I think that we have become

1562
01:37:40,280 –> 01:37:44,040
overbalanced in one direction over another. So you’re right. I could call the

1563
01:37:44,040 –> 01:37:47,200
vet, which. Why would I do that? It’s a

1564
01:37:47,440 –> 01:37:50,480
25 cent turkey. Like it’s not worth it for me to go get a 500

1565
01:37:50,480 –> 01:37:54,280
an hour vet. But to your point, I could, I could absolutely go call

1566
01:37:54,280 –> 01:37:57,690
a vet. That’ll cut up the turkey. That’ll do a whole bunch of different things

1567
01:37:57,690 –> 01:38:01,490
on it, figure something out. Although that turkey is probably half eaten by now. Some

1568
01:38:01,490 –> 01:38:05,330
scavenger got it. So it fed somebody. There fit something already, so it’s

1569
01:38:05,330 –> 01:38:09,170
fine. But like it. You’re right. The vet would figure that out. And

1570
01:38:09,170 –> 01:38:12,970
you’re correct. We’ve created systems and this is the prom. This was

1571
01:38:12,970 –> 01:38:16,570
the promise of industrialization that actually worked out. So the

1572
01:38:16,570 –> 01:38:20,010
promise of industrialization was you will have more

1573
01:38:22,100 –> 01:38:25,740
psychic time. This is the Henry Ford, Frederick Winslow Taylor

1574
01:38:25,740 –> 01:38:29,420
promise, right? We will optimize your productivity and your work inside of a

1575
01:38:29,420 –> 01:38:33,140
Factory box and you will have more time to be.

1576
01:38:35,460 –> 01:38:39,060
And actually, the way they framed it was in very materialistic terms. So

1577
01:38:39,140 –> 01:38:42,500
you’ll have, you’ll have, you know,

1578
01:38:42,980 –> 01:38:46,780
a white picket fence and a little yellow house. And to your point earlier,

1579
01:38:46,780 –> 01:38:49,890
2.5 children. That was the promise of industrialization.

1580
01:38:50,530 –> 01:38:54,370
And the promise really started in the 1920s in America and

1581
01:38:54,370 –> 01:38:58,170
really started in like right after World war. World War I. Well, just

1582
01:38:58,170 –> 01:39:00,450
before World War I. And then World War I kind of ground a little bit

1583
01:39:00,450 –> 01:39:04,250
that out of Europe. But they got, they got right back on board, particularly

1584
01:39:04,250 –> 01:39:07,730
in England. Got back on board. And by the 1950s, when

1585
01:39:08,530 –> 01:39:12,210
Eliada is writing the Sacred of the Profane, we were

1586
01:39:12,210 –> 01:39:15,940
so far away from the Ben Hurlou Wallace

1587
01:39:15,940 –> 01:39:19,660
sort of concept of what good could be, because good

1588
01:39:19,660 –> 01:39:23,420
had exploded in comparison to what it had been. So the people

1589
01:39:23,420 –> 01:39:25,780
that lived in the mid 20th century

1590
01:39:26,180 –> 01:39:29,899
remembered not just one turkey dying and it being kind of,

1591
01:39:29,899 –> 01:39:33,460
okay, it’s 25 cents, it’s not going to cost me anything. They remembered

1592
01:39:33,460 –> 01:39:37,260
whole swaths of turkey dying. Yeah. And having to deal with that, that was in

1593
01:39:37,260 –> 01:39:40,020
their historical memory in 2020, 26.

1594
01:39:40,900 –> 01:39:44,740
I talk about a turkey dying or the 16 some odd

1595
01:39:44,740 –> 01:39:48,300
chickens that I’ve got, and everybody goes, oh, well, you’re clearly rich because you’re

1596
01:39:48,300 –> 01:39:49,220
raising chickens.

1597
01:39:52,820 –> 01:39:56,660
Weird, right? Like, this is, this is the weird. That is kind of a unique

1598
01:39:56,660 –> 01:40:00,420
perspective, right? Yeah, right. That’s interesting. And so, like, I

1599
01:40:00,420 –> 01:40:03,700
don’t have to go to the store for eggs because, like,

1600
01:40:04,180 –> 01:40:08,020
I’m making them at my house. Oh, well, that means you’re wealthy.

1601
01:40:10,340 –> 01:40:14,060
Okay, sure. Yeah, right. I, I sigh and I just gotta go.

1602
01:40:14,060 –> 01:40:17,820
Okay, sure, sure. Because you know what? The Industrial

1603
01:40:17,820 –> 01:40:20,740
revolution promises that you won’t have to raise eggs.

1604
01:40:21,780 –> 01:40:25,060
Instead, eggs will be raised in some farm factory somewhere

1605
01:40:25,460 –> 01:40:28,420
with a bunch of chickens that never get to whose feet, never get to touch

1606
01:40:28,420 –> 01:40:31,140
the ground. And all they do is make eggs all day. Then we’ll bleach them,

1607
01:40:31,470 –> 01:40:35,110
will ship them, they’ll sit in a warehouse for however many days, and then they’ll

1608
01:40:35,110 –> 01:40:38,470
sit on the, on the shelf underneath lighting for however many more days. And then

1609
01:40:38,470 –> 01:40:41,670
you’ll get an egg and it’ll be, and I use this in air quotes. Good

1610
01:40:41,670 –> 01:40:44,510
enough. And by the way, we’ll put a thing on the box that says this

1611
01:40:44,510 –> 01:40:46,510
is nutritious or organic.

1612
01:40:48,110 –> 01:40:51,270
Right, right, right, right. And it’s not just the eggs. It’s everything in our food

1613
01:40:51,270 –> 01:40:55,070
system. Right. Which is where you get folks that then

1614
01:40:55,070 –> 01:40:58,880
turn to homesteading because they’re like, what the Hell, but

1615
01:40:58,880 –> 01:41:02,360
the fact that they’re able to turn to homesteading is seen as a sign of

1616
01:41:02,360 –> 01:41:06,200
a slough off, an after effect of this great wealth that

1617
01:41:06,200 –> 01:41:09,680
was produced through industrial revolution. And the technologists who are

1618
01:41:09,680 –> 01:41:13,159
promising us all kinds of wild promises with AI are looking at

1619
01:41:13,159 –> 01:41:16,840
industrial revolution and saying, oh well, the same thing will work out with the technology

1620
01:41:16,920 –> 01:41:18,440
from AI and robotics.

1621
01:41:20,360 –> 01:41:24,060
Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong, wrong. But right

1622
01:41:24,060 –> 01:41:26,940
now the only working out they have

1623
01:41:27,820 –> 01:41:31,660
is not. You’re going to have a, you’re going to have a

1624
01:41:31,660 –> 01:41:35,260
house and 2.5 kids, for God’s sakes. Fertility rates are down everywhere.

1625
01:41:35,420 –> 01:41:39,260
People aren’t having kids. We have more

1626
01:41:39,260 –> 01:41:42,460
prosperity than ever before in the west and people are not having kids.

1627
01:41:43,260 –> 01:41:47,060
You would think that’s another inverted sort of logic thing. You would think

1628
01:41:47,060 –> 01:41:50,300
that you have more free time, you have more available income, you have more wealth

1629
01:41:50,760 –> 01:41:54,120
because of the promises of the industrial revolution. You would have more children because you

1630
01:41:54,120 –> 01:41:57,200
don’t have to worry about your turkeys and your chickens and your eggs. Somebody else

1631
01:41:57,200 –> 01:42:00,760
is worrying about that. But that’s not what’s happening. What’s happening is

1632
01:42:01,160 –> 01:42:05,000
people are having fewer kids and things are inverting. Now, whether or not that’s

1633
01:42:05,000 –> 01:42:08,720
a temporary thing we have yet to see, but things are inverting where

1634
01:42:08,720 –> 01:42:12,520
people are having fewer kids, fertility rates are down, and what are people doing with

1635
01:42:12,520 –> 01:42:16,280
their extra money and their extra time? And this is where I

1636
01:42:16,280 –> 01:42:20,120
get back to, is man’s heart evil

1637
01:42:20,120 –> 01:42:22,800
or good? Which one is it?

1638
01:42:23,680 –> 01:42:27,040
Are we. And by the way, as entrepreneurs, we always say this in business,

1639
01:42:27,360 –> 01:42:30,200
we always say, oh, well, people are. We say this in sales. People are inherently

1640
01:42:30,200 –> 01:42:33,960
selfish. They only do what’s. And we just sort of saw that off. Right? Yeah,

1641
01:42:33,960 –> 01:42:37,320
well, people aren’t just inherently selfish when you’re trying to sell them a widget. They’re

1642
01:42:37,320 –> 01:42:40,720
inherently selfish about a whole lot of things. Oh

1643
01:42:40,720 –> 01:42:43,920
yeah, for sure. Like a whole lot of things.

1644
01:42:44,790 –> 01:42:48,510
And so I don’t know, this is a long way

1645
01:42:48,510 –> 01:42:51,830
around to saying the answer to your question. I don’t know what the mechanism is

1646
01:42:53,670 –> 01:42:56,870
to move people back to less

1647
01:42:56,950 –> 01:43:00,750
selfishness, but I know the mechanism isn’t having a

1648
01:43:00,750 –> 01:43:04,070
love in with everybody. Like the boomers tried that.

1649
01:43:05,830 –> 01:43:09,110
That didn’t work because the boomers all went off and became capitalists.

1650
01:43:09,760 –> 01:43:13,560
I also know that the answer isn’t, yeah, I also know that the answer

1651
01:43:13,560 –> 01:43:16,760
isn’t let’s just bomb them all and have God sort them out. We tried that

1652
01:43:16,760 –> 01:43:20,480
for 20 years, that didn’t work. I also know that

1653
01:43:20,480 –> 01:43:24,160
the answer isn’t, let’s just allow

1654
01:43:24,480 –> 01:43:28,000
people to come in in an unfettered manner or an unvetted manner,

1655
01:43:28,000 –> 01:43:31,800
and maybe, hopefully they’ll all become Americans. I know that’s not an answer

1656
01:43:31,800 –> 01:43:35,480
either. That hasn’t worked either. Maybe if we just leave them to their

1657
01:43:35,480 –> 01:43:38,800
own devices and we let them, quote, unquote, rule themselves,

1658
01:43:39,120 –> 01:43:42,760
they’ll magically discover how to be good to each other. But murder rates in

1659
01:43:42,760 –> 01:43:46,480
Chicago, Miami, New York City, Louisiana, San Francisco,

1660
01:43:46,560 –> 01:43:50,280
well, New Orleans. Need I go on prove that that’s not

1661
01:43:50,280 –> 01:43:53,720
true either? The facts, the data, if we’re going to be scientific and

1662
01:43:53,720 –> 01:43:57,520
materialistic on the ground, prove that, that those outcomes don’t come

1663
01:43:58,400 –> 01:44:02,240
from just giving people the utopia that we think

1664
01:44:02,510 –> 01:44:05,950
they want. By the way, this was hopefully, I hope that people would have learned

1665
01:44:05,950 –> 01:44:09,750
this lesson from the French Revolution because it didn’t work out there either. They

1666
01:44:09,750 –> 01:44:13,150
were going to create a utopia on Earth. They wind up with

1667
01:44:13,150 –> 01:44:13,790
Napoleon.

1668
01:44:17,870 –> 01:44:20,750
So these, all these things all come together

1669
01:44:21,630 –> 01:44:25,270
and if we want to, if we want to, if we want to

1670
01:44:25,270 –> 01:44:28,830
move away from Christ and God, okay, cool, let’s move away from Christ and God.

1671
01:44:29,310 –> 01:44:33,110
The core question becomes can, how can we be materialistic?

1672
01:44:33,110 –> 01:44:36,510
Can we have more of our material needs provided for while being

1673
01:44:36,510 –> 01:44:40,270
disconnected from the source of those material needs being provided for and

1674
01:44:40,270 –> 01:44:41,710
yet still stay sacred?

1675
01:44:44,510 –> 01:44:47,550
That’s the core question of the 21st century.

1676
01:44:48,030 –> 01:44:51,750
And I don’t know what the answer to that is, but if

1677
01:44:51,750 –> 01:44:55,460
I look at history over the last 200 years, I don’t think the answer is

1678
01:44:55,460 –> 01:44:59,260
a good one. Well, I mean, so I cut this a

1679
01:44:59,260 –> 01:45:02,340
little bit differently. Like, I’m with you for the mo or for the majority of

1680
01:45:02,340 –> 01:45:04,460
this. But like,

1681
01:45:06,300 –> 01:45:09,740
my big question is, because

1682
01:45:09,820 –> 01:45:12,220
in, in the, in the way that you’re talking about, if we go back in

1683
01:45:12,220 –> 01:45:15,900
this direction, things get better. Is your, is your kind of a. Is. Is the

1684
01:45:15,900 –> 01:45:19,540
thing that I’m hearing from you? Okay, but sure, we can. Okay,

1685
01:45:19,540 –> 01:45:22,540
yeah, yeah, right. I think if we look at, I think if we look at

1686
01:45:25,500 –> 01:45:27,740
attempts where religious rhetoric

1687
01:45:29,660 –> 01:45:33,460
was used positively or negatively, there’s just as much

1688
01:45:33,460 –> 01:45:36,900
negative output of, well, hey, our

1689
01:45:36,900 –> 01:45:40,540
religion is the right religion and everyone else is bad and wrong

1690
01:45:40,780 –> 01:45:43,660
stuff like this, right? So like, for me,

1691
01:45:45,590 –> 01:45:49,150
now we’re past the tipping point, right? Like, like, you know, because, like, I think,

1692
01:45:49,150 –> 01:45:52,790
I think moderation is probably like the answer. Like, we’re too far

1693
01:45:52,790 –> 01:45:56,630
connect. We’re too far removed from like, core work. Most people don’t have a job

1694
01:45:56,630 –> 01:45:59,630
that they have any passion or purpose about. They just Took a job because they

1695
01:45:59,630 –> 01:46:03,150
just went to school and just did this thing because that was the thing that

1696
01:46:03,150 –> 01:46:06,430
they were sold on. And so if you don’t have any work that you care

1697
01:46:06,430 –> 01:46:10,070
about at all. Okay, great. I can, I understand

1698
01:46:10,070 –> 01:46:13,800
why clock punchers just want more money. I

1699
01:46:13,800 –> 01:46:15,280
get it, I do. Right?

1700
01:46:17,760 –> 01:46:20,480
But man, I just think about how many, how many,

1701
01:46:21,440 –> 01:46:25,280
I mean, how many other religions are we not

1702
01:46:25,280 –> 01:46:29,000
talking about because of the big R religion that’s just like

1703
01:46:29,000 –> 01:46:32,000
steamrolled and said, we’re right, you’re wrong, therefore.

1704
01:46:33,600 –> 01:46:37,120
So I’m fine with having all of the other big R religions

1705
01:46:37,120 –> 01:46:40,830
battling in the public square. I’m fine with all of that. Matter of

1706
01:46:40,830 –> 01:46:44,550
fact, I believe that America fundamentally, this is why I don’t

1707
01:46:44,550 –> 01:46:47,510
worry about things like, well,

1708
01:46:48,150 –> 01:46:51,870
I don’t worry about Mayor mom dummy in

1709
01:46:51,870 –> 01:46:55,710
New York City, you know, having the Muslim call to prayer go out from the

1710
01:46:55,710 –> 01:46:59,470
top of the Empire State Building,

1711
01:46:59,470 –> 01:47:03,110
although the World Trade center would be too rich for words, but going out from

1712
01:47:03,110 –> 01:47:06,850
the World Trade center in the next, you

1713
01:47:06,850 –> 01:47:10,410
know, however many years of his administration. I’m not actually

1714
01:47:10,410 –> 01:47:13,970
worried about that. Although a lot of my fellow Christians are. I’m not worried about

1715
01:47:13,970 –> 01:47:17,810
that. I’m actually not worried about the

1716
01:47:17,810 –> 01:47:21,570
Hindus building ma, building temples and,

1717
01:47:21,570 –> 01:47:24,890
and, and building temple communities and, and doing things with other

1718
01:47:24,890 –> 01:47:28,130
Hindus in Dallas. I’m not worried about that.

1719
01:47:28,690 –> 01:47:32,240
I’m not worried about the potential for a Hindu

1720
01:47:32,240 –> 01:47:36,080
mayor being elected in Los Angeles, which

1721
01:47:36,400 –> 01:47:40,240
may indeed happen. I’m not worried about that.

1722
01:47:40,720 –> 01:47:44,360
I’m not worried about a Hindu governor of California. Not California,

1723
01:47:44,360 –> 01:47:48,040
sorry, Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy. I’m not worried about him being a

1724
01:47:48,040 –> 01:47:51,680
Hindu. I, I, that doesn’t, that doesn’t bother me because,

1725
01:47:51,760 –> 01:47:55,280
and the reason it doesn’t bother me is not because of the

1726
01:47:55,280 –> 01:47:58,990
idea of the state shall make no church. That’s embedded into

1727
01:47:58,990 –> 01:48:02,550
our Constitution, which, by the way, that’s what it says, the state shall make no

1728
01:48:02,550 –> 01:48:06,070
church. I’m not worried about that.

1729
01:48:06,870 –> 01:48:09,750
I’m not worried about all these other temples and churches and synagogue. I’m not worried

1730
01:48:09,750 –> 01:48:13,150
about any of that. Have the Muslim called prayer go out in Dallas. Sure, go

1731
01:48:13,150 –> 01:48:16,950
ahead, go ahead. Because what I know

1732
01:48:16,950 –> 01:48:20,710
is I know something that the

1733
01:48:20,710 –> 01:48:24,320
Muslims don’t know, and I also know something that the

1734
01:48:24,320 –> 01:48:28,000
Hindus don’t know. And it’s something very

1735
01:48:28,000 –> 01:48:31,840
specific about America. I wouldn’t say this if I was in the uk. I wouldn’t

1736
01:48:31,840 –> 01:48:35,120
say this if I were in Germany, and I wouldn’t be confident saying it if

1737
01:48:35,120 –> 01:48:38,920
I were in Spain, because those countries have A different historical background with a

1738
01:48:38,920 –> 01:48:42,680
different historicity, historiosity attached to each one

1739
01:48:42,680 –> 01:48:45,280
of those. Those religions that I named.

1740
01:48:46,480 –> 01:48:47,600
But America,

1741
01:48:53,700 –> 01:48:57,540
I don’t worry about it. And I don’t worry about it because

1742
01:48:57,620 –> 01:49:01,460
of people, quite frankly, like you, John. People like you

1743
01:49:01,460 –> 01:49:03,540
are going to give the Muslims fits.

1744
01:49:06,580 –> 01:49:09,620
And the reason why you’re going to give them fits is because of.

1745
01:49:10,180 –> 01:49:13,220
Is because of people. I think of the people who were in the new atheist

1746
01:49:13,220 –> 01:49:16,900
movement in the early 2000s, the Christopher Hitchens of the world and the Richard Dawkins

1747
01:49:16,900 –> 01:49:20,730
and those kinds of things. Folks. Folks who very loudly, because of our

1748
01:49:20,730 –> 01:49:24,370
freedom of speech, basically proclaimed all religions to be

1749
01:49:24,370 –> 01:49:25,410
dead and useless.

1750
01:49:28,050 –> 01:49:31,890
They specifically went off on a dragon against Christianity. But

1751
01:49:31,890 –> 01:49:35,650
now Dawkins, even, because Hitchens is passed

1752
01:49:35,970 –> 01:49:39,170
and Sam Harris is even on this thing about Islam now,

1753
01:49:39,570 –> 01:49:41,570
they’re now turning their sights to Islam.

1754
01:49:43,420 –> 01:49:47,180
And Islam has no answer for that level of atheistic

1755
01:49:47,180 –> 01:49:50,620
skepticism. The only answer Islam has is

1756
01:49:50,940 –> 01:49:54,300
shut up or we kill you. By the way, they do that in Europe

1757
01:49:54,540 –> 01:49:58,260
a lot. If you make fun, if you do this, if you do that, you’re

1758
01:49:58,260 –> 01:50:01,820
gone, you’re done. This is something that does actually happen.

1759
01:50:02,540 –> 01:50:06,220
Salman Rushdie can actually testify to this. Someone tried to kill him

1760
01:50:06,220 –> 01:50:10,060
two years ago because he wrote some new books that basically

1761
01:50:10,060 –> 01:50:11,100
slams Islam.

1762
01:50:13,660 –> 01:50:17,300
Didn’t work, and he lost an eye. But, I

1763
01:50:17,300 –> 01:50:20,660
mean, why is he doing this? Well, he’s doing it because he is in

1764
01:50:20,660 –> 01:50:24,300
America. This is the thing. America is the

1765
01:50:24,300 –> 01:50:28,020
last, I think, pardon my use of

1766
01:50:28,020 –> 01:50:31,740
language here, the last, best hope for freedom of speech that

1767
01:50:31,740 –> 01:50:34,780
actually exposes the big R religions

1768
01:50:35,770 –> 01:50:39,210
to skepticism, to analysis,

1769
01:50:39,690 –> 01:50:43,370
to having their. Having their.

1770
01:50:44,090 –> 01:50:47,450
What do you call it? Their. Their superstructure pulled apart.

1771
01:50:47,850 –> 01:50:51,650
And the reason that I know America works this way

1772
01:50:51,650 –> 01:50:54,810
is because in America, we did this with Christianity.

1773
01:50:55,210 –> 01:50:58,010
We are way less of a Christian culture than we were

1774
01:50:59,050 –> 01:51:02,010
even in my mother’s lifetime. And my mother’s going to be 80 pretty soon here.

1775
01:51:02,640 –> 01:51:06,400
We are way less Christian than we were 80 years ago. Way less. And I’m

1776
01:51:06,400 –> 01:51:09,280
not just talking about. In our public pronouncements. I mean, privately,

1777
01:51:10,160 –> 01:51:12,800
you give us 80 years against. Is against Islam,

1778
01:51:14,480 –> 01:51:18,320
Hinduism. It’ll take us two generations to pull that stuff

1779
01:51:18,320 –> 01:51:21,680
apart. So does that. Because of our skepticism and our agnosticism,

1780
01:51:21,920 –> 01:51:23,440
does that mean that,

1781
01:51:25,520 –> 01:51:29,320
like the thing, the thing that I’m thinking about as you’re talking about

1782
01:51:29,320 –> 01:51:32,650
this, it’s a fascinating concept. Like, I think about, like, bloatware, right?

1783
01:51:33,050 –> 01:51:36,770
Like, I think about, like. Like back in the day

1784
01:51:36,770 –> 01:51:40,330
when I sold phones, right? And Android was just coming Out. And

1785
01:51:40,330 –> 01:51:43,970
Samsung would always put their stupid version of Touch Whiz, right, Which is

1786
01:51:43,970 –> 01:51:47,570
their, their, their bettering version of, of

1787
01:51:47,570 –> 01:51:51,050
Android on their phones. And everybody hated it, right? And computers now come with

1788
01:51:51,050 –> 01:51:54,250
bloatware. All this stuff that like you don’t even know that’s on there, it’s running

1789
01:51:54,250 –> 01:51:57,790
up, it’s taking up systems space and everything else like that. So in your

1790
01:51:57,790 –> 01:52:01,510
opinion, if, if, if a thing like,

1791
01:52:01,510 –> 01:52:05,270
like Islam is going to get picked apart by our culture, does that

1792
01:52:05,270 –> 01:52:08,990
mean that the, that the faiths have too much bloat or

1793
01:52:09,070 –> 01:52:11,630
that our, that our culture is too,

1794
01:52:12,830 –> 01:52:15,870
too cynical? It could be both.

1795
01:52:16,510 –> 01:52:20,270
Could be both and it could be both.

1796
01:52:20,270 –> 01:52:23,720
And, and honestly, I think it probably is both and. But

1797
01:52:24,040 –> 01:52:27,760
the, the Pepsi challenge. Islam’s never

1798
01:52:27,760 –> 01:52:31,440
really faced the Pepsi challenge from, from America. I mean, now,

1799
01:52:31,440 –> 01:52:34,000
now, now there will be people who will listen. Let me be very clear about

1800
01:52:34,000 –> 01:52:37,280
this. There are people who will listen and they will say, well, we’ve been bombing

1801
01:52:37,280 –> 01:52:40,520
them for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay?

1802
01:52:41,000 –> 01:52:44,600
Military engagement against people of a particular

1803
01:52:44,920 –> 01:52:48,650
religious belief or ideology is not the same

1804
01:52:48,650 –> 01:52:51,530
as cultural engagement with no bombs.

1805
01:52:52,250 –> 01:52:55,930
And it is fallacious for us to believe that those two things can even

1806
01:52:55,930 –> 01:52:59,530
be, can even be compared or be

1807
01:52:59,530 –> 01:53:03,330
analyzed. So does that, the, the thing

1808
01:53:03,330 –> 01:53:06,490
that you said there, I’m trying to parse and make sure that I understand. So

1809
01:53:06,490 –> 01:53:09,570
does that mean that we shouldn’t have just been making every bad guy in an

1810
01:53:09,570 –> 01:53:13,020
Arab and a red and a red like bandana for the past, like

1811
01:53:13,250 –> 01:53:16,970
25 years of, you know, action movies? Is that, is that the core kind of

1812
01:53:16,970 –> 01:53:20,650
thing that you’re trying to talk about here? Yeah, yeah, sure. That, that’s, yes,

1813
01:53:20,650 –> 01:53:24,210
that’s a, that’s a very, it’s reductious, but yes, it works. Yeah,

1814
01:53:24,210 –> 01:53:28,050
exactly. But the fact that we did that is not a bomb.

1815
01:53:29,410 –> 01:53:33,170
A movie’s not a bomb. A movies can bomb. Don’t get me wrong. Like

1816
01:53:33,170 –> 01:53:37,010
Ben Hur 2016 bombed. Yeah, movies can bomb. But

1817
01:53:37,010 –> 01:53:40,610
a movie in and of itself is not a bomb.

1818
01:53:41,010 –> 01:53:44,050
Not a bomb that destroys physical things.

1819
01:53:44,770 –> 01:53:48,370
It is. And this is where the ideas have consequences idea comes

1820
01:53:48,370 –> 01:53:51,410
back. Yeah, the ideas underneath that

1821
01:53:51,650 –> 01:53:55,489
movie are the bomb. So we argue about those

1822
01:53:55,489 –> 01:53:59,010
ideas in an American context from, again,

1823
01:53:59,410 –> 01:54:02,690
Christian assumptions about the sacredness of human beings.

1824
01:54:03,650 –> 01:54:07,140
We don’t reference those because we’ve, we’ve dechristianized

1825
01:54:07,140 –> 01:54:10,940
America or actually, I hate to even use dechristanized,

1826
01:54:11,020 –> 01:54:14,380
desacralized America. So now we can have these

1827
01:54:14,380 –> 01:54:17,980
conversations in a space that’s, that’s more Profane.

1828
01:54:18,140 –> 01:54:21,500
Right. More materialistic, but in

1829
01:54:21,500 –> 01:54:25,340
Islam. And we saw this with the Charlie Hebdo killing. So I don’t know if

1830
01:54:25,340 –> 01:54:29,060
you remember this, but this was, gosh, back in the mid-2000s, there was a cartoonist

1831
01:54:29,060 –> 01:54:32,670
named Charlie Hebdo who basically drew a bunch of cartoons that were

1832
01:54:32,670 –> 01:54:36,270
published, I believe it was in England or might have been

1833
01:54:36,270 –> 01:54:40,070
France, and that were anti Islamic. And this was during the height of

1834
01:54:40,070 –> 01:54:43,830
the Iraq war. And it was some satirical thing and

1835
01:54:43,830 –> 01:54:47,510
basically the guy got his head cut off in the street.

1836
01:54:50,310 –> 01:54:52,230
I think that, not. I think

1837
01:54:53,990 –> 01:54:57,710
the, the ways in which America

1838
01:54:57,710 –> 01:55:01,330
works. I’m not going to say they don’t allow for that sort of

1839
01:55:01,330 –> 01:55:05,090
response from the fundamental radicals in Islam, which,

1840
01:55:05,090 –> 01:55:08,010
by the way, it is the fundamental radicals in Islam that engage in that behavior.

1841
01:55:08,410 –> 01:55:11,650
I’m not going to say that it doesn’t allow for that. What I’m going to

1842
01:55:11,650 –> 01:55:15,290
say is the American sense of

1843
01:55:15,290 –> 01:55:19,130
that’s not how you respond to this is going to kick in

1844
01:55:19,690 –> 01:55:22,810
and those people aren’t ready for that response.

1845
01:55:23,620 –> 01:55:26,940
And this is where you’re going to see, I think you’re going to see the

1846
01:55:26,940 –> 01:55:30,740
good old boy Christians that meet on Sunday and the good old

1847
01:55:30,740 –> 01:55:34,020
boy atheists and agnostics that, that meet on Sunday but don’t put out any signs.

1848
01:55:34,580 –> 01:55:38,260
Somehow they’re going to find each other and go, no, no, that, that

1849
01:55:38,260 –> 01:55:42,060
can’t happen. The culdesac again, that culdesac thing. That can’t happen here.

1850
01:55:42,060 –> 01:55:45,620
One bad guy. One bad guy. That can’t happen here.

1851
01:55:45,780 –> 01:55:48,900
You got to calm down. And by the way, you got to calm down.

1852
01:55:49,780 –> 01:55:53,500
We’re gonna get your kids. Well, yeah, right, because like, because like, the crazy

1853
01:55:53,500 –> 01:55:57,220
is, the crazy thing is, is like, it’s like, oh, yeah, you hate them too.

1854
01:55:57,220 –> 01:56:00,100
Yeah, yeah. We’re not fans of this either. Okay, great. You know,

1855
01:56:00,660 –> 01:56:04,100
let’s, let’s, let’s all come together. Come to the meeting at the church,

1856
01:56:05,460 –> 01:56:09,140
right? Yeah. And bring your kids. We’re

1857
01:56:09,140 –> 01:56:11,740
gonna have a, we’re gonna have a special little thing over here for the kids

1858
01:56:11,740 –> 01:56:14,740
at the church. So, so make sure that you bring them because we’re all united

1859
01:56:14,740 –> 01:56:18,100
in this faith in, in this one drive against these, like, heathens, right.

1860
01:56:18,740 –> 01:56:20,820
You know that, you know that’s how it’s going to go because they’ve already got

1861
01:56:20,820 –> 01:56:21,860
the gathering places,

1862
01:56:24,740 –> 01:56:28,540
right. And, and, and, and those people are going to be like, inviting

1863
01:56:28,540 –> 01:56:32,180
people like me, right? While. While at the same time, like loathing

1864
01:56:32,340 –> 01:56:36,020
trans people, gay people, right? Like, like anyone who,

1865
01:56:36,100 –> 01:56:39,220
anyone who’s too far from Their version of what is right.

1866
01:56:39,540 –> 01:56:43,230
They’re. They’re probably, like, demonizing and hating and probably

1867
01:56:43,230 –> 01:56:47,070
even trying to fund politicians that will push legislation that aligns with

1868
01:56:47,070 –> 01:56:50,870
these ideas, right? But since we’re all united in this one fight,

1869
01:56:54,070 –> 01:56:57,430
and this is the thing that. So that uniting piece.

1870
01:56:58,870 –> 01:57:02,710
Once I figured out doing this podcast, I figured out a

1871
01:57:02,710 –> 01:57:05,190
lot of things, and I read. I read a lot of books, talk to a

1872
01:57:05,190 –> 01:57:08,960
lot of people on the show, have a lot of insights from it. And

1873
01:57:10,720 –> 01:57:12,800
this is. This is the secret.

1874
01:57:14,240 –> 01:57:17,480
And I don’t mind saying it out loud, because people listen to the show all

1875
01:57:17,480 –> 01:57:20,800
over the world. They’re not going to figure it out. This is the secret.

1876
01:57:21,360 –> 01:57:24,960
This is the secret for America. Now, what they have figured out is, okay,

1877
01:57:24,960 –> 01:57:28,480
if we just fragment these people through cyber

1878
01:57:28,800 –> 01:57:32,640
nonsense and the very online people, we could create fake bot accounts and do

1879
01:57:32,640 –> 01:57:35,200
spamming and trolling and all this other kind of stuff. We could separate these people

1880
01:57:36,230 –> 01:57:39,790
because the 20% of people who are online, they think represents all

1881
01:57:39,790 –> 01:57:42,790
330 million people in the country. Oh, yeah,

1882
01:57:43,430 –> 01:57:47,150
that’s a. That’s a mistake. And I don’t care if your

1883
01:57:47,150 –> 01:57:50,710
bot farm is in the Philippines or your bot farm is in

1884
01:57:50,710 –> 01:57:54,470
India, or your bot farm is in Tehran, or your

1885
01:57:54,470 –> 01:57:57,790
bot farm is in Hamburg, Germany, or your bot farm is in

1886
01:57:57,790 –> 01:58:01,360
Nairobi, Kenya. By the way, I’ve named places where there are bot farms, farms

1887
01:58:01,440 –> 01:58:05,160
where people are. Various organizations are funneling money in

1888
01:58:05,160 –> 01:58:08,960
to create bots to gin up crap in the United States because they think

1889
01:58:08,960 –> 01:58:12,760
the fragmentation is the way. What they don’t get

1890
01:58:12,760 –> 01:58:16,200
is the minority of people who are very. Online are the ones who are

1891
01:58:16,200 –> 01:58:19,840
fragmented. And all those people have to do is just

1892
01:58:20,080 –> 01:58:23,120
turn off the social media, just turn off the machine.

1893
01:58:24,000 –> 01:58:27,640
Then there’s all of the people who are not on

1894
01:58:27,640 –> 01:58:31,000
those platforms and have no idea what’s happening there.

1895
01:58:31,320 –> 01:58:35,160
And by the way, when their Muslim neighbor moves in,

1896
01:58:35,960 –> 01:58:38,520
go get the dolly and help their Muslim neighbor move in

1897
01:58:40,600 –> 01:58:44,320
and go help their Hindu neighbor move in and go help their atheist neighbor move

1898
01:58:44,320 –> 01:58:47,880
in and go help their Christian neighbor move in. Like the good.

1899
01:58:47,960 –> 01:58:51,400
The good people. Yeah, the people driven by fear.

1900
01:58:51,640 –> 01:58:55,450
No, right, like in the. In.

1901
01:58:55,450 –> 01:58:58,850
This is wild, man. Because, like, this is. This is a. I mean, I’m a

1902
01:58:58,850 –> 01:59:01,650
white guy living in Texas, you’re a black guy living in Texas, right? So, like,

1903
01:59:02,770 –> 01:59:06,450
you know, there. There is that situation to where, right,

1904
01:59:07,010 –> 01:59:10,810
the community comes together. But, man, there’s always going to be those people that don’t

1905
01:59:10,810 –> 01:59:14,610
come together, right? Like, oh, yeah, there’s always going to Be your Patrick Henry.

1906
01:59:14,930 –> 01:59:17,970
Go away and leave me alone. I’m going to go in the Appalachians. I don’t

1907
01:59:17,970 –> 01:59:21,730
want to be bothered. People. People, yeah, absolutely. There’s always going to be those people.

1908
01:59:21,730 –> 01:59:25,570
And by the way, I am guilty. I thought during COVID that all those

1909
01:59:25,570 –> 01:59:28,490
people. Up until Covid, I thought all those people had wiped out. I did. I

1910
01:59:28,490 –> 01:59:32,090
really thought that all of that had been oppressed and repressed and that we were

1911
01:59:32,090 –> 01:59:35,890
all sort of monoculture going along. And

1912
01:59:35,890 –> 01:59:39,650
what Covid really made me realize, I, you know, I made a

1913
01:59:39,650 –> 01:59:43,410
couple of bad assumptions in my life. Right. Was the range apparently

1914
01:59:43,410 –> 01:59:46,980
is still there. And on the one hand, the range is a

1915
01:59:46,980 –> 01:59:50,700
weakness. On the other hand, the range is a strength. And

1916
01:59:50,700 –> 01:59:54,220
which side of the knife, which angle of the blade you get hit by.

1917
01:59:54,620 –> 01:59:58,220
To your point earlier about gathering at the church, because they have all the buildings,

1918
01:59:58,780 –> 02:00:01,980
depending upon which angle of the blade you get hit on, it can either cut

1919
02:00:01,980 –> 02:00:05,740
you or it can cut somebody else. We’re the best country in the world

1920
02:00:05,740 –> 02:00:09,580
to date because no other country is replicating this model. They don’t want to

1921
02:00:09,580 –> 02:00:13,380
run. Nobody else wants to run this test. Not even the Canadians

1922
02:00:13,380 –> 02:00:16,500
want to run this test. And they could, but they don’t want to run it.

1923
02:00:18,340 –> 02:00:21,820
And the. The Chinese and the Russians don’t want to run this test. Oh, hell

1924
02:00:21,820 –> 02:00:25,540
no. We’re running

1925
02:00:25,540 –> 02:00:28,660
this test here. We’re running this. We’re running this simulation

1926
02:00:29,780 –> 02:00:33,420
like. Like Multiple faiths, under 1. Can. Multiple faiths,

1927
02:00:33,420 –> 02:00:36,820
multiple ethnicities, multiple classes.

1928
02:00:37,550 –> 02:00:39,390
Can they.

1929
02:00:40,990 –> 02:00:44,590
Meaning all those folks I just named, can they actually

1930
02:00:45,710 –> 02:00:49,310
live together in a republic

1931
02:00:50,350 –> 02:00:53,630
smaller or larger, depending upon where you believe we are,

1932
02:00:54,270 –> 02:00:57,590
can they live in a Republic Relatively. Not

1933
02:00:57,590 –> 02:01:00,990
100%, because there’s no absolute, but relatively peacefully.

1934
02:01:01,150 –> 02:01:05,000
Can that happen? Can it? Yes or no? Well,

1935
02:01:05,000 –> 02:01:08,680
that’s been. That’s been one of the grand sort of questions of running this

1936
02:01:08,680 –> 02:01:11,640
thing for the last 250 years. And so far.

1937
02:01:12,360 –> 02:01:14,800
Look, I said this the other day to a different group of people and they

1938
02:01:14,800 –> 02:01:18,040
all laughed at me, but I was like, no, I’m serious. Only one civil war.

1939
02:01:18,040 –> 02:01:21,800
And I said, only, Only one. We should have had multiple

1940
02:01:21,800 –> 02:01:25,440
civil wars. Are you kidding me? We should have had

1941
02:01:25,440 –> 02:01:29,290
multiple fragmentations and civil wars, and we should have. Have that. And the question

1942
02:01:29,290 –> 02:01:32,890
no one asks is why? Why is it that we have not

1943
02:01:32,890 –> 02:01:36,530
had that? Why have we had enough people who bought into the idea

1944
02:01:37,090 –> 02:01:40,770
that this could work? Why? I’m fascinated by the why of that.

1945
02:01:41,090 –> 02:01:44,409
Why did we decide that this is the thing? Why do people get up every

1946
02:01:44,409 –> 02:01:46,770
Day and do work. And to your point,

1947
02:01:48,290 –> 02:01:52,010
I go to work with people who are all over the map politically and ideologically.

1948
02:01:52,010 –> 02:01:55,460
Forget the other classes, just politically ideologies, allegic, all over the map.

1949
02:01:55,540 –> 02:01:58,420
I’m not. I don’t. I have zero interest

1950
02:01:59,460 –> 02:02:02,420
in yelling at any of those people. Oh, same.

1951
02:02:02,900 –> 02:02:06,620
Yeah, not any of it, but because why. You made it

1952
02:02:06,620 –> 02:02:10,100
your mission, though, right? And so, so, so, you know,

1953
02:02:10,180 –> 02:02:13,380
a. A good client of mine, I’ve known them for a very. I mean, I’ve

1954
02:02:13,380 –> 02:02:17,020
known this. I’ve known this woman for 12 years, right? And she’s. She’s.

1955
02:02:17,020 –> 02:02:19,460
She’s capital R, right? And

1956
02:02:20,850 –> 02:02:24,610
for the, Like, I. I have much respect for anyone who’s capital R, but

1957
02:02:24,610 –> 02:02:27,890
that capital R is for them. They’ll talk about it, right?

1958
02:02:28,210 –> 02:02:32,050
There’s. There’s an open invitation. But. And this is weird because it’s

1959
02:02:32,050 –> 02:02:34,850
coming from the sales guy. Don’t try to sell me on your capital R.

1960
02:02:35,570 –> 02:02:39,290
Right? Just don’t. Yeah, like. Like, let it be known, right? But

1961
02:02:39,290 –> 02:02:41,970
this idea of your.

1962
02:02:43,090 –> 02:02:46,900
Your. Your goal. Goal is to go off and

1963
02:02:46,900 –> 02:02:49,900
convert other people. Like, Like, I always have this, like, this,

1964
02:02:50,380 –> 02:02:54,180
this concern, right? Because I work in sales and I think about belief and where

1965
02:02:54,180 –> 02:02:57,500
do people get motivation from and everything else like this. Like,

1966
02:02:58,460 –> 02:03:02,140
do you need to convert me so you feel better about your decisions?

1967
02:03:02,460 –> 02:03:05,500
Because that’s not a me thing, right? And so

1968
02:03:06,220 –> 02:03:09,980
my. My whole big thing is, is like, I am in sales, right? I have

1969
02:03:09,980 –> 02:03:13,020
a job to do, right? And I do believe in planting the first flag and

1970
02:03:13,020 –> 02:03:16,340
raising. Raising your hand and saying what needs to be said, expressing yourself.

1971
02:03:16,660 –> 02:03:20,500
But when it’s a no, it’s a no. I also firmly believe

1972
02:03:20,500 –> 02:03:24,340
that, right? So, you know, just the other day, she’s like, hey,

1973
02:03:24,340 –> 02:03:27,660
just got to put it out there again. Do you know that Christ is the

1974
02:03:27,660 –> 02:03:30,860
way and all things go through? I’m like. I’m like, I. I know you believe

1975
02:03:30,860 –> 02:03:33,900
that. Like, and I. And I respect that for you. I really do, but I

1976
02:03:33,900 –> 02:03:37,540
just don’t think it’s for me, you know? And she’s like, well, I just. I

1977
02:03:37,540 –> 02:03:39,240
just really want to see you there. There. And I’m like,

1978
02:03:41,080 –> 02:03:43,640
okay, okay. Like, that’s not. Yeah,

1979
02:03:44,760 –> 02:03:47,160
right. And so it’s. It’s that,

1980
02:03:48,280 –> 02:03:52,080
like, that push, you know? And this is. This is really, really

1981
02:03:52,080 –> 02:03:54,960
interesting. My. My daughter goes to a charter school, right? Not one of the big

1982
02:03:54,960 –> 02:03:58,720
isds. Sure. And so they’re always underfunded. They’re always in kind of like,

1983
02:03:58,720 –> 02:04:01,640
makeshift buildings and stuff like this. And so

1984
02:04:02,440 –> 02:04:06,080
for a choir Concert, right? Her choir director goes to a church,

1985
02:04:06,080 –> 02:04:08,520
and so he reaches out to the church like, hey, could we do this thing

1986
02:04:08,520 –> 02:04:12,160
at. At your space? Because it’s really great big acoustics, blah, blah, blah. And the

1987
02:04:12,160 –> 02:04:15,920
church is like, yeah, of course. So we go in and it was

1988
02:04:15,920 –> 02:04:19,680
so funny because, like, I’m there for this performance of a high school

1989
02:04:19,680 –> 02:04:23,400
choir. And in the background, they’ve got these, you know, like, when you go to

1990
02:04:23,400 –> 02:04:26,800
like. Like a. Like an event or a trade show, and everyone’s got their little

1991
02:04:26,800 –> 02:04:30,600
flags right now. And now they make it really easy, right? You can stand

1992
02:04:30,600 –> 02:04:32,990
on one side it and it. And it puts up and you just like, kick

1993
02:04:32,990 –> 02:04:36,070
the leg in. It’s like. It’s like the easiest version of a really bad tent,

1994
02:04:36,070 –> 02:04:39,350
you know? Yes. They have these things up there, and it’s their

1995
02:04:39,350 –> 02:04:41,750
recruitment goals, right?

1996
02:04:43,030 –> 02:04:46,870
Talking about. Our goal is to. Is to guide X. And I

1997
02:04:46,870 –> 02:04:49,270
don’t remember the numbers. I took a picture of it because I was so, like,

1998
02:04:49,270 –> 02:04:53,070
astounded of like. Of like. Our goal is to bring X number

1999
02:04:53,070 –> 02:04:56,830
of godless families to God, right? And there was

2000
02:04:56,830 –> 02:05:00,410
a number on it, like. And you and I both know the

2001
02:05:00,410 –> 02:05:04,170
power of goals and the power of a quality goal and everything else like this.

2002
02:05:04,170 –> 02:05:07,570
And so, like, of all the things you could be thinking about, this is the

2003
02:05:07,570 –> 02:05:10,610
thing you want to put top of mind in the back of your. Of your

2004
02:05:10,610 –> 02:05:14,170
sanctuary that everybody comes forward into. Not go help, not

2005
02:05:14,330 –> 02:05:18,170
give back. Not. Not even like, hey, fund this program so we can send

2006
02:05:18,170 –> 02:05:21,730
more people out and abroad, bring people here so we can work our

2007
02:05:21,730 –> 02:05:24,580
magic on them, dude. I was like. Like,

2008
02:05:25,860 –> 02:05:28,900
I had to take the picture and send it to everybody else in this club

2009
02:05:28,900 –> 02:05:32,660
that I’m in because I was like, oh, my God, can you believe this? And

2010
02:05:32,740 –> 02:05:36,260
now every one of my friends is just like, oh,

2011
02:05:36,260 –> 02:05:39,940
man, that’s a little rough. That’s a little rough now because I’m me and I’ve

2012
02:05:39,940 –> 02:05:42,940
got a broad network. I also sent it to some people who were capital R.

2013
02:05:42,940 –> 02:05:46,260
Like, what are your thoughts on this? Right? They were all just fine.

2014
02:05:46,900 –> 02:05:49,460
They were all just like, well, that’s what they should be doing. That’s what they

2015
02:05:49,460 –> 02:05:53,170
should. Like, I don’t think that that’s what you should be doing.

2016
02:05:53,650 –> 02:05:57,370
I think you should be going out and, like, doing your works in line

2017
02:05:57,370 –> 02:06:00,930
with your morals, values, philosophies, and thinking. But the minute your

2018
02:06:01,570 –> 02:06:05,410
agenda becomes about, you need to, like, sway other people to the

2019
02:06:05,410 –> 02:06:09,010
like. Like, I had a guy come knock on my door,

2020
02:06:09,570 –> 02:06:12,490
right? And I was like, hey, did you not see the sign? There’s a no

2021
02:06:12,490 –> 02:06:15,370
soliciting sign. And he was like, he’s like, it’s like, I’m not selling anything. And

2022
02:06:15,370 –> 02:06:18,730
I was like, I didn’t ask for this man. Right.

2023
02:06:18,890 –> 02:06:21,050
Didn’t ask for you to come knock on my door. Didn’t ask for any of

2024
02:06:21,050 –> 02:06:24,250
this thing at all. You were taking positive action to come knock on the door

2025
02:06:24,250 –> 02:06:28,090
of a stranger because you feel like this is important. Where

2026
02:06:28,090 –> 02:06:31,809
does that come from? Right, right. And that’s where I think it

2027
02:06:31,809 –> 02:06:33,610
goes too far when you have a recruitment goal.

2028
02:06:35,610 –> 02:06:38,970
So I will say that. Well, I will say that

2029
02:06:39,610 –> 02:06:42,820
the, the other big Rs

2030
02:06:44,820 –> 02:06:47,540
haven’t faced that kind of dynamic yet that you’re talking about

2031
02:06:48,980 –> 02:06:52,180
what was like so that me, who doesn’t have a problem asking hard questions.

2032
02:06:52,660 –> 02:06:56,300
No, no, no, no. Well, yes, that’s part of it. Absolutely. That’s the

2033
02:06:56,300 –> 02:06:59,620
American part. No, no, absolutely that. But the dynamic of

2034
02:06:59,940 –> 02:07:03,780
we will chase this number. So Islam

2035
02:07:03,780 –> 02:07:07,380
doesn’t say we will chase a number. They say we will get

2036
02:07:07,380 –> 02:07:11,120
everybody eventually. Oh, yeah,

2037
02:07:11,120 –> 02:07:14,440
that’s. That’s bad as well. Like, I’m not. That’s bad as well. Right, right, right,

2038
02:07:14,440 –> 02:07:17,160
right. What I’m saying. But what I’m saying is when you go from when you

2039
02:07:17,160 –> 02:07:20,720
hit when, when, when, when true Islam hits America,

2040
02:07:22,000 –> 02:07:25,640
the, the, the barrier they’re going to run up against. Again, this is why I

2041
02:07:25,640 –> 02:07:28,480
don’t worry about it. The barrier they’re going to run up against is

2042
02:07:29,280 –> 02:07:33,120
folks like you that will be skeptical of the goal. No. Yeah.

2043
02:07:34,730 –> 02:07:38,370
Huh, huh. But then also they will run

2044
02:07:38,370 –> 02:07:41,810
into the consumerist culture where that

2045
02:07:41,810 –> 02:07:45,290
goal comes out of. And I don’t know anything about this, this, this, this church

2046
02:07:45,290 –> 02:07:48,890
that you’re talking about. I don’t want to presume anything on them. Sure. However,

2047
02:07:49,210 –> 02:07:52,010
a banner like that is a signal to me

2048
02:07:52,810 –> 02:07:55,290
of consumerism as a position

2049
02:07:56,650 –> 02:08:00,170
versus something else is a position. Yeah.

2050
02:08:00,410 –> 02:08:04,210
And this is a war, an interesting war that’s been going on in the, in

2051
02:08:04,210 –> 02:08:07,790
the American capital Sea Church for at least the last

2052
02:08:07,790 –> 02:08:10,790
30 years. This is an interesting war that’s been going on for the last 30

2053
02:08:10,790 –> 02:08:12,630
years. And so

2054
02:08:14,390 –> 02:08:18,030
you have dynamics and, and

2055
02:08:18,030 –> 02:08:21,830
it’s. I saw it most ball baldly when I moved to

2056
02:08:21,830 –> 02:08:25,470
the south because it’s also, you have to divide it up by region. So in

2057
02:08:25,470 –> 02:08:28,870
the north, you wouldn’t see that at all.

2058
02:08:29,030 –> 02:08:32,800
Oh yeah, I agree. Like, at all. But in the north,

2059
02:08:33,760 –> 02:08:36,800
Islam makes easier inroads because

2060
02:08:37,920 –> 02:08:41,440
weirdly enough, this is the dichotomy. You don’t see things like that.

2061
02:08:42,640 –> 02:08:45,600
So it looks at it as an open field. Islam looks at

2062
02:08:46,240 –> 02:08:48,960
folks like you as an open field.

2063
02:08:50,480 –> 02:08:54,200
I’m gonna go to your house, gonna knock on your door, I’m gonna start. You

2064
02:08:54,200 –> 02:08:57,360
haven’t really been solicited until you’ve been solicited by an imam. Like that’s,

2065
02:08:58,350 –> 02:09:01,790
I’ve actually had that happen to me before. That’s, it’s kind of interesting

2066
02:09:01,790 –> 02:09:05,390
anyway, so, yeah, so you get, you get that, you get that experience,

2067
02:09:05,630 –> 02:09:09,430
right? Yeah. The Hindus haven’t

2068
02:09:09,430 –> 02:09:13,230
really faced that either because there’s cultural, and by the

2069
02:09:13,230 –> 02:09:16,910
way, this is in Hinduism and in Islam, there’s cultural presuppositions that go along

2070
02:09:16,910 –> 02:09:20,550
with those religions that Christianity has long since abandoned

2071
02:09:20,550 –> 02:09:24,350
because Christianity, to your point, is a global evangelizing

2072
02:09:24,350 –> 02:09:28,130
religion to everybody. But it’s been that way

2073
02:09:28,130 –> 02:09:31,970
from the root. Whereas Hinduism and Islam have

2074
02:09:31,970 –> 02:09:35,770
had to sort of, for lack of a better term, weld those pieces

2075
02:09:35,770 –> 02:09:39,490
onto the, onto the machine. And the welds

2076
02:09:39,490 –> 02:09:43,250
aren’t that strong to begin with. So, so

2077
02:09:43,410 –> 02:09:46,930
there are those dynamics. And at the root of them, also

2078
02:09:47,410 –> 02:09:50,730
to your point earlier, is at the root of the, the thing that will dilute

2079
02:09:50,730 –> 02:09:53,530
those is the cynicism and the skepticism

2080
02:09:54,730 –> 02:09:58,010
that exists in people who just don’t want any part of that.

2081
02:09:58,730 –> 02:10:02,210
Now, when people don’t want any part of that. Well, one other point. When people

2082
02:10:02,210 –> 02:10:05,730
don’t want any part of that, my concern is like the GK

2083
02:10:05,730 –> 02:10:09,530
Chesterton concern. Do people go and just believe in, we know people don’t go

2084
02:10:09,530 –> 02:10:12,970
and believe in nothing. They, they put their attention, their

2085
02:10:12,970 –> 02:10:16,730
worship to something else. And are all those things going to be

2086
02:10:16,970 –> 02:10:19,050
strong enough to resist

2087
02:10:20,700 –> 02:10:24,220
other blandishments from other areas, other pitches from other areas.

2088
02:10:24,380 –> 02:10:28,020
And if we look at the young folks, the gen zers, the 18 to

2089
02:10:28,020 –> 02:10:31,820
34 year olds, there’s a growing, you know,

2090
02:10:31,820 –> 02:10:35,580
growing atheism among all of them in that, in that particular

2091
02:10:35,740 –> 02:10:39,500
space. But among those who are, who do identify

2092
02:10:39,500 –> 02:10:43,260
as religious, interestingly enough, they’re moving more and more towards,

2093
02:10:44,060 –> 02:10:45,960
and I say this to my, to my very,

2094
02:10:48,200 –> 02:10:51,480
my very well meaning Baptist brothers and sisters,

2095
02:10:52,600 –> 02:10:56,280
they are moving more and more towards more orthodox forms of Christianity,

2096
02:10:56,920 –> 02:10:59,880
which by the way, you tell that to a Baptist and they get all itchy

2097
02:11:00,040 –> 02:11:03,800
because it’s got to be hard. It’s got to be like ascetic. Correct?

2098
02:11:04,280 –> 02:11:07,880
Am I saying that right? AE yeah, yeah, you’re right. Ascetic or.

2099
02:11:08,120 –> 02:11:11,950
It’s the difference between, I’ll put it in martial arts terms, it’s the

2100
02:11:11,950 –> 02:11:15,790
difference between the karate dojo that’s handing out black belts to

2101
02:11:15,790 –> 02:11:19,190
nine year olds and the karate dojo that’s handing out black belts to 35 year

2102
02:11:19,190 –> 02:11:22,790
olds. Well, I mean,

2103
02:11:24,470 –> 02:11:26,670
and this is where we’re at, by the way. This is part of that interseed

2104
02:11:26,670 –> 02:11:30,270
warfare piece. That’s where we’re at 100. So. Okay, I have a question for

2105
02:11:30,270 –> 02:11:33,870
you, right? And this might be a weird way to think about it because you

2106
02:11:33,870 –> 02:11:37,520
said something about like how Islam is more about like would when we take over

2107
02:11:37,520 –> 02:11:41,360
the world, when everyone believes as we believe. Right. Do you think,

2108
02:11:41,600 –> 02:11:45,360
because you also said this line that that’s mostly about the fundamentalists,

2109
02:11:46,320 –> 02:11:49,280
the over the top people. Okay. Do you think

2110
02:11:50,160 –> 02:11:53,600
when we look at the bucket of Christianity versus the bucket of Islam,

2111
02:11:53,760 –> 02:11:57,200
do you think that there are more fanatics that hold

2112
02:11:57,280 –> 02:12:00,800
that idea in Islam than in Christianity?

2113
02:12:00,880 –> 02:12:04,370
Do you think that the percentage of fanatical. No,

2114
02:12:04,530 –> 02:12:08,330
you must believe whether they’re aware of it or not because there

2115
02:12:08,330 –> 02:12:11,690
are some people out here who are just so awash with the idea that this

2116
02:12:11,690 –> 02:12:15,330
is godly and good. And so therefore, like, like it’s

2117
02:12:15,330 –> 02:12:18,210
absurd to think that you wouldn’t want to do these things. Like, like that’s a.

2118
02:12:18,210 –> 02:12:22,050
Sure, that’s, you know, another level of this. Right. Do you think that that

2119
02:12:22,050 –> 02:12:25,850
percentage not count because obviously Islam is, you

2120
02:12:25,850 –> 02:12:29,510
know, significantly huge. Do you think that that percentage is

2121
02:12:29,510 –> 02:12:30,790
more or less the same?

2122
02:12:35,910 –> 02:12:39,150
I think 20 years ago I would have said yes, it’s more or less the

2123
02:12:39,150 –> 02:12:42,950
same. Now I don’t think

2124
02:12:42,950 –> 02:12:46,470
so. And I don’t think so because of things I see inside of the capital

2125
02:12:46,470 –> 02:12:50,190
C church. So what are you. So, so

2126
02:12:50,190 –> 02:12:52,470
you’re not saying that they’re the same, but you’re not really saying what you are

2127
02:12:52,470 –> 02:12:56,150
saying. What are you saying? Right, so what I’m saying is without

2128
02:12:58,950 –> 02:13:02,390
knowing the deep interior of Islam,

2129
02:13:02,790 –> 02:13:05,750
right? I know some of the interior, but not the deep interior.

2130
02:13:06,470 –> 02:13:10,110
I can’t say how many fanatics, percentage wise there might

2131
02:13:10,110 –> 02:13:13,830
be as a sample size. However, I can say that

2132
02:13:14,310 –> 02:13:18,070
the ones who get the most coverage are the fanatics.

2133
02:13:18,390 –> 02:13:22,010
Well, that goes for everybody, right? And that goes for everybody. TV time, right?

2134
02:13:22,010 –> 02:13:25,770
TV time, media time, whatever. Now I can compare media time

2135
02:13:25,770 –> 02:13:29,130
there versus media time for capital C, Christians.

2136
02:13:29,690 –> 02:13:31,530
And those two things don’t even match up.

2137
02:13:35,130 –> 02:13:37,530
Okay, hold on a second, hold on a second. Okay,

2138
02:13:39,450 –> 02:13:43,170
so you’re saying that. Okay, okay, hold on a

2139
02:13:43,170 –> 02:13:46,930
second. Because what I want you to pay attention to for just one

2140
02:13:46,930 –> 02:13:50,770
second. Guys like Kenneth Copeland have their

2141
02:13:50,770 –> 02:13:54,450
own broadcast networks. Yes, I was waiting for you to bring him up I was

2142
02:13:54,450 –> 02:13:57,570
waiting for you to bring up Kenneth Copeland. Go ahead. Are we, Are we really

2143
02:13:57,570 –> 02:14:01,290
holding that in a like, for, like, situation? Or are we saying, well, we see

2144
02:14:01,290 –> 02:14:04,650
a lot more about bad things on the news from. Is like, like,

2145
02:14:04,890 –> 02:14:08,090
is it. Are we holding that with some, some

2146
02:14:08,730 –> 02:14:12,170
discerning thoughts and opinions? So I will say this.

2147
02:14:12,810 –> 02:14:16,190
There is a show on HBO I was just told about

2148
02:14:16,990 –> 02:14:19,070
that satirizes Kenneth Copeland.

2149
02:14:21,950 –> 02:14:25,310
And I was told about it from a person who goes to church every Sunday

2150
02:14:25,310 –> 02:14:28,830
and is a Christian. Oh, interesting. And he thought it was hilarious.

2151
02:14:29,870 –> 02:14:33,590
Okay, there’s no such show that satirizes an

2152
02:14:33,590 –> 02:14:37,350
imam in London because just like Salman

2153
02:14:37,350 –> 02:14:39,820
Rushdie, you would have a problem one.

2154
02:14:45,020 –> 02:14:48,700
But does absent or, or

2155
02:14:48,700 –> 02:14:52,540
does. Does proof of absence mean, like, like absence of proof. Right. Because, like,

2156
02:14:52,540 –> 02:14:56,060
just. Because we can’t, like, I mean, because, like, look at Borat,

2157
02:14:56,060 –> 02:14:59,900
dude. I know. And right. And look

2158
02:14:59,900 –> 02:15:02,460
at Sasha and Sasha Bar Cohen can’t even go back to that country. They’ve already

2159
02:15:02,460 –> 02:15:05,870
said they’re going to, like, whack him if we find him. Okay. I mean, I

2160
02:15:05,870 –> 02:15:09,030
mean, fair, but, like, he also doesn’t have to go back to that country.

2161
02:15:09,350 –> 02:15:13,110
Right? Sure. Yeah. You know, so it’s like. Well, so. So I

2162
02:15:13,110 –> 02:15:16,910
will say this. I will say this. Hollywood. If we’re going to use Hollywood,

2163
02:15:16,910 –> 02:15:20,710
as are not even Hollywood, the media, let’s use the media broadly, not Hollywood

2164
02:15:20,710 –> 02:15:22,950
in particular. The media will always,

2165
02:15:27,510 –> 02:15:31,360
For lack of a better idea, they’ll always hit low. They’ll. They’ll. They’ll

2166
02:15:31,360 –> 02:15:35,160
hit below the belt. They always will. Yeah, here’s a. They’ll hit all pile

2167
02:15:35,160 –> 02:15:38,960
on. Yeah, right. And they’ll hit below the belt. Where

2168
02:15:38,960 –> 02:15:42,400
there’s, where there’s the least pushback of

2169
02:15:42,400 –> 02:15:46,080
resistance. Oh, yeah. 100. The smaller.

2170
02:15:46,160 –> 02:15:49,480
The smaller the sample, the more of a demon we can make them because. Because

2171
02:15:49,480 –> 02:15:52,480
they’re not going to stand up to it. Correct. So

2172
02:15:55,360 –> 02:15:58,730
you’re not. So let me tie this to fanaticism, then.

2173
02:15:59,210 –> 02:16:02,570
The fanaticism that you see that gains the media

2174
02:16:02,570 –> 02:16:05,970
attention, particularly in a

2175
02:16:05,970 –> 02:16:09,530
European context, not an American context. Because again, I want to separate these two

2176
02:16:09,530 –> 02:16:13,290
contexts. Right. So earlier I was talking about the west broadly. Now I

2177
02:16:13,290 –> 02:16:17,090
want to talk about specifically America and specifically Europe. Okay. Okay. So

2178
02:16:17,090 –> 02:16:20,610
in Europe, you see a lot of media reports about the

2179
02:16:20,610 –> 02:16:24,020
results of fundamentalism, because right now

2180
02:16:24,500 –> 02:16:27,780
the European continent

2181
02:16:28,180 –> 02:16:31,540
is struggling with Islamic

2182
02:16:31,620 –> 02:16:34,740
integration, for integration, immigration from Islamic states.

2183
02:16:35,460 –> 02:16:38,820
And how do we turn these people, for lack of a better term,

2184
02:16:39,060 –> 02:16:42,620
into, you know, Englishmen,

2185
02:16:42,620 –> 02:16:46,340
Frenchmen, Germans, Spanish, how do we do that?

2186
02:16:46,820 –> 02:16:50,520
And if there’s no history of how to do that, how to. How to integrate

2187
02:16:50,520 –> 02:16:54,320
the immigrant. Well, the less of a history there is, the more of a struggle

2188
02:16:54,320 –> 02:16:58,040
you’re going to have. Agree. Yeah, that makes sense. Which is why

2189
02:16:58,040 –> 02:17:01,880
you’ll see, like a buddy of mine, he. He traveled to London, he used to

2190
02:17:01,880 –> 02:17:05,200
work in Dubai, worked in Dubai for years, went to London all the time.

2191
02:17:05,520 –> 02:17:09,320
He no longer does that live in America, whatever. Went to. Went to London

2192
02:17:09,320 –> 02:17:12,120
a few years ago. And he was talking with me about it, this is probably

2193
02:17:12,120 –> 02:17:15,900
about late last year. And he said, dude, the number of

2194
02:17:16,540 –> 02:17:20,260
like, it’s like exploded. It’s like London is like little. It’s like little Dubai

2195
02:17:20,260 –> 02:17:23,620
now. Like, he’s like the number of like Alfred Romeos and

2196
02:17:23,620 –> 02:17:27,460
Mercedes and like the number of Muslims you see running around. He’s like,

2197
02:17:27,460 –> 02:17:31,260
it’s ridiculous. And he didn’t mean ridiculous in like a bad way.

2198
02:17:31,339 –> 02:17:34,860
He made it in like, this is a good thing. That significant, because London’s significant

2199
02:17:34,940 –> 02:17:38,500
shift. Right? And that’s been. It’s been like 15 years since he went back. So

2200
02:17:38,500 –> 02:17:41,950
in the course of 15 years, less than a generation, there’s been a shift in

2201
02:17:41,950 –> 02:17:43,110
London. Okay.

2202
02:17:45,830 –> 02:17:49,350
The English are going to have a real problem with this because England has not

2203
02:17:49,510 –> 02:17:53,030
fully gotten its arms around what it means to be English since World War II.

2204
02:17:53,990 –> 02:17:57,830
This is one of those long trailing sort of results from that last

2205
02:17:57,830 –> 02:18:01,510
apocalyptic world war. And

2206
02:18:01,670 –> 02:18:05,190
the reason why they haven’t gotten their arms around what it means to be

2207
02:18:05,190 –> 02:18:07,210
English is because of colonial,

2208
02:18:08,960 –> 02:18:12,560
because of the war, because of

2209
02:18:13,280 –> 02:18:16,760
Margaret Thatcher, because of all these kinds of things that have

2210
02:18:16,760 –> 02:18:20,320
happened. And they’ve had to integrate all this. And they don’t. They don’t know how

2211
02:18:20,320 –> 02:18:24,040
to then take that story and give that to new

2212
02:18:24,040 –> 02:18:27,160
immigrants coming in in a way that’s effective and makes them feel as though they

2213
02:18:27,160 –> 02:18:29,640
are. And they’ve even said this out loud. They don’t know how to do this.

2214
02:18:29,640 –> 02:18:33,239
What the challenge for England, and I’m just using them as an example, the

2215
02:18:33,239 –> 02:18:36,959
challenge for England is what makes England English,

2216
02:18:36,959 –> 02:18:40,439
what makes you English. They can’t even figure that out. I mean, they’ve been struggling

2217
02:18:40,439 –> 02:18:43,119
to figure that out on their own continent for years, but even more sharply after

2218
02:18:43,119 –> 02:18:44,399
World War II. Okay.

2219
02:18:47,039 –> 02:18:50,439
In America, it’s fundamentally different. Why is it fundamentally different in

2220
02:18:50,439 –> 02:18:54,119
America? We never asked that question. Well, the reason it’s fundamentally different

2221
02:18:54,119 –> 02:18:57,519
from in America is because everyone here is from someplace else

2222
02:18:59,050 –> 02:19:02,530
with the exception of the native peoples who were here for 10,000 years before

2223
02:19:02,530 –> 02:19:06,170
anybody showed up. Yeah, most people don’t Admit their home coordinates.

2224
02:19:06,970 –> 02:19:10,570
Right. Exactly. Like my.

2225
02:19:12,090 –> 02:19:15,290
If you trace back my genealogy, there’s a slave ship somewhere in it.

2226
02:19:16,650 –> 02:19:20,490
Yeah. If you say. If you chase back your genealogy,

2227
02:19:20,490 –> 02:19:23,930
I’m sure there’s somebody getting on a boat somewhere coming. Yep.

2228
02:19:24,820 –> 02:19:28,420
This is the dynamic of America that America has always

2229
02:19:28,500 –> 02:19:32,340
struggled with. What does it mean to be American? Who gets

2230
02:19:32,340 –> 02:19:36,180
to be an American? How do we define what an American is? We’ve

2231
02:19:36,180 –> 02:19:38,580
been struggling with this all the time. So

2232
02:19:40,180 –> 02:19:43,700
is the recipe, let’s just go in and smush down indigenous peoples to the point

2233
02:19:43,700 –> 02:19:47,460
to where like, like when, when they’re like a minor footnote

2234
02:19:47,460 –> 02:19:51,270
and everyone is here on bar borrowed things like, like then no

2235
02:19:51,270 –> 02:19:54,550
one has a home term or like, like a home team advantage because we just

2236
02:19:54,550 –> 02:19:57,870
removed all those people. Is that the, Is that the recipe? No,

2237
02:19:59,950 –> 02:20:03,550
I have no idea. This is what we’re running.

2238
02:20:03,710 –> 02:20:07,390
I don’t know. But these are the, these are the

2239
02:20:07,390 –> 02:20:10,430
dynamics on the ground. And so the reason

2240
02:20:10,910 –> 02:20:14,670
we struggle, not struggle with immigration

2241
02:20:14,750 –> 02:20:18,470
from south of the border is not because the immigration is

2242
02:20:18,470 –> 02:20:22,310
coming from south of the border. It’s who gets

2243
02:20:22,310 –> 02:20:25,910
to be an American. It’s who

2244
02:20:25,910 –> 02:20:28,710
gets to be an American. And so if you go and you look at the

2245
02:20:28,710 –> 02:20:31,790
ethnicity of a lot of the ICE agents currently working to

2246
02:20:32,190 –> 02:20:35,830
deport people, and we’re not going to get into the policies, all that, but they’re

2247
02:20:35,830 –> 02:20:38,910
just the act of actually happening. Most of those guys

2248
02:20:39,790 –> 02:20:43,170
have Hispanic and Latin American and, and Mexican last

2249
02:20:43,170 –> 02:20:43,690
names.

2250
02:20:46,970 –> 02:20:50,730
Now you could talk about the social injustice of all of that and internalized

2251
02:20:50,730 –> 02:20:53,610
racism and all these kinds of terms that we use to kind of color all

2252
02:20:53,610 –> 02:20:57,330
this at the bottom. The seed that I was talking about

2253
02:20:57,330 –> 02:21:00,370
like an hour ago now, or maybe an hour and a half, the seed of

2254
02:21:00,370 –> 02:21:04,210
that is at the end of the day, there

2255
02:21:04,210 –> 02:21:07,770
is no one way because we’re all. Yeah, that’s right.

2256
02:21:08,580 –> 02:21:12,420
That’s interesting. And then you import, import. Then

2257
02:21:12,420 –> 02:21:15,060
people come over from countries where

2258
02:21:16,020 –> 02:21:18,260
the theocracy is the thing.

2259
02:21:20,020 –> 02:21:23,859
And it’s been theocratic, not

2260
02:21:23,859 –> 02:21:27,020
to put the two fine a point on this, but it’s been theocratic since Moses

2261
02:21:27,020 –> 02:21:30,820
was in short pants. And they come

2262
02:21:30,820 –> 02:21:34,490
here and they run up into all of this.

2263
02:21:36,570 –> 02:21:40,290
And so on the one hand, this can be looked at as weakness, which is

2264
02:21:40,290 –> 02:21:44,050
how a lot of it is looked at from other places, because it’s just

2265
02:21:44,050 –> 02:21:47,610
seen as division, division, division, division, division. But

2266
02:21:47,610 –> 02:21:51,330
again, on side of every, on the other side of every weakness is a

2267
02:21:51,330 –> 02:21:54,810
strength. Y. This is where the idea that diversity is our greatest

2268
02:21:54,810 –> 02:21:58,530
strength, while mocked by people on the political right and

2269
02:21:58,530 –> 02:22:02,270
while embraced by people on the political left is actually a

2270
02:22:02,270 –> 02:22:06,110
truth of reality of this thing we’re running

2271
02:22:07,390 –> 02:22:11,150
I think now to get

2272
02:22:11,150 –> 02:22:14,470
bring halls way back because we’ve wandered away so far from Ben Hur. Let me

2273
02:22:14,470 –> 02:22:17,750
say this for the book. Read the book Ben Hur. You will get into all

2274
02:22:17,750 –> 02:22:21,550
of this. This will, if you’re a thinking person, this will, this will, this will

2275
02:22:22,350 –> 02:22:26,000
activate you. Yes, there’s a great chariot race in there. There’s.

2276
02:22:26,000 –> 02:22:29,280
There’s a great galley slave ship crash, which is kind of amazing.

2277
02:22:30,320 –> 02:22:33,840
There’s also the dynamic of the relationship between, which we didn’t talk about all today

2278
02:22:33,920 –> 02:22:36,960
between Ben Hur and Masala, which is

2279
02:22:37,920 –> 02:22:41,240
huge. I mean, that’s the whole driver of the book is the relationship between these

2280
02:22:41,240 –> 02:22:44,920
two guys and the manipulations that other

2281
02:22:44,920 –> 02:22:48,560
people want to do on them to serve

2282
02:22:48,560 –> 02:22:52,410
their own ends and also. Yeah, to serve. To serve. To

2283
02:22:52,410 –> 02:22:56,250
serve them, to serve themselves. And so everybody’s manipulating everybody. It’s

2284
02:22:56,250 –> 02:22:59,970
actually really quite postmodern book. Everybody’s manipulating everybody else for their

2285
02:22:59,970 –> 02:23:03,690
own internal reasons. And then through all of

2286
02:23:03,690 –> 02:23:07,050
this and it only happens what, like four times, Jesus shows up four times.

2287
02:23:08,089 –> 02:23:11,570
Yeah. And it’s, it’s one of, it’s what’s called a. Oh, a

2288
02:23:11,570 –> 02:23:15,170
theophany. That’s the, that’s the religious term where, where God or a

2289
02:23:15,170 –> 02:23:18,870
divine being basically peeks through reality and puts his

2290
02:23:18,870 –> 02:23:21,630
thumb out and says, hey, I’m here, and then pulls back that the term is

2291
02:23:21,630 –> 02:23:25,230
called theophany. I believe that Carl Jung didn’t

2292
02:23:25,230 –> 02:23:28,830
coin it. He actually picked that up from. I believe it

2293
02:23:28,830 –> 02:23:32,550
was Augustine or Aquinas, some of you

2294
02:23:32,550 –> 02:23:36,110
will correct me, it was one of those Catholic writers back in the early

2295
02:23:36,110 –> 02:23:39,750
church that coined that term. But it’s this idea of a theophany where

2296
02:23:39,750 –> 02:23:43,270
like God appears, goes hey, I’m God, how about that? And then just

2297
02:23:43,270 –> 02:23:47,120
disappears from history again. So there’s also that in Ben Hur.

2298
02:23:47,200 –> 02:23:50,760
That’s just my quick pitch for Ben Hur. Go read the book. Even if you

2299
02:23:50,760 –> 02:23:54,120
don’t believe anything, it’s a great book. And you’re hearing this sort of person who

2300
02:23:54,120 –> 02:23:57,400
just admitted to being atheistic and kind of having non meeting meetings on

2301
02:23:57,400 –> 02:24:01,080
Sundays. So like even he said it’s a great book. So I mean, there you

2302
02:24:01,080 –> 02:24:04,120
go. The, the thing that I think is important for everyone to kind of think

2303
02:24:04,120 –> 02:24:06,800
about is like one of the things that I do try to put a lot

2304
02:24:06,800 –> 02:24:10,430
of thought and effort into is just our ability to change. Right? Because I think,

2305
02:24:10,670 –> 02:24:14,190
I think it’s super easy to like

2306
02:24:14,670 –> 02:24:18,270
be against change because of fear more

2307
02:24:18,270 –> 02:24:21,870
than rhetoric or religion or anything else like this, right? And

2308
02:24:21,870 –> 02:24:24,870
so what I think that, what, what I think is very interesting is in that,

2309
02:24:24,870 –> 02:24:28,350
is in that first back and forth between Ben Hur and

2310
02:24:28,350 –> 02:24:32,190
Masala is like just the appreciation that he’s a

2311
02:24:32,190 –> 02:24:35,410
different human, right? Because like as a human that has gone through things that is

2312
02:24:36,280 –> 02:24:38,520
fundamentally changed me, right? Like,

2313
02:24:39,880 –> 02:24:43,640
you know, big or small, like if you go to college even for

2314
02:24:43,640 –> 02:24:46,760
a semester and people around you don’t, you’re going to come back different. If you

2315
02:24:46,760 –> 02:24:50,000
go join the military, you’re going to come back different. If you decide to spend

2316
02:24:50,000 –> 02:24:52,640
15 years training in a martial art, you’re going to be different if you decide

2317
02:24:52,640 –> 02:24:56,320
to read. And so what I, what I really enjoyed

2318
02:24:56,320 –> 02:25:00,000
about that book before he starts making terrible decisions around his status and his

2319
02:25:00,000 –> 02:25:03,690
agendas and the limitations of other people was just like, ah, they spent

2320
02:25:03,690 –> 02:25:06,810
time away and doing their own paths. And that time away is going to kind

2321
02:25:06,810 –> 02:25:10,610
of forge you a little bit. It’s going to make certain things.

2322
02:25:12,050 –> 02:25:15,170
You know, the concept of trade offs is like one of my least favorite,

2323
02:25:15,890 –> 02:25:19,170
one of my favorite philosophies to talk about with people, but it’s the one that

2324
02:25:19,170 –> 02:25:22,970
gets misunderstood, misconstrued the most, right? But if

2325
02:25:22,970 –> 02:25:26,470
you can’t see that there’s another, another way for the market

2326
02:25:26,620 –> 02:25:30,420
marble to roll, you’re probably a little too idealistic,

2327
02:25:30,420 –> 02:25:34,140
right? You’re probably a little too excited about your own thing. And

2328
02:25:34,140 –> 02:25:37,020
whether that’s religion or whether that’s your business idea,

2329
02:25:38,700 –> 02:25:42,499
like you got to be discerning, right? Because if you’re not discerning, we’re

2330
02:25:42,499 –> 02:25:45,620
not going to be able to change anybody who is discerning, right? And this goes

2331
02:25:45,620 –> 02:25:49,100
for religion or business or anything else like that. And so you

2332
02:25:49,100 –> 02:25:52,250
gotta, you gotta know enough so that way you don’t. And I think a of

2333
02:25:52,250 –> 02:25:54,250
lot like this, one of the things that I used to call this is like,

2334
02:25:54,250 –> 02:25:58,050
you can’t come across as the feverish Alcoholite. You can’t,

2335
02:25:58,050 –> 02:26:01,650
right? Because you’re just going to get written off as, as just another one of

2336
02:26:01,650 –> 02:26:05,130
these dudes trying to, trying to be the Messiah, right? Like, you know, and everything

2337
02:26:05,130 –> 02:26:08,450
else like that. You got to be able to speak with distinction, you know. And

2338
02:26:08,450 –> 02:26:11,290
so that part of it I was like, I was like, oh, what a cool

2339
02:26:11,290 –> 02:26:14,650
way to just kind of talk about how people grow apart and their experiences have

2340
02:26:14,650 –> 02:26:17,810
a profound impact on them and everything. And then it starts doing like really

2341
02:26:18,600 –> 02:26:22,120
bad, stupid, questionable stuff for his status and his, and his wealth and everything.

2342
02:26:22,200 –> 02:26:26,040
And, and I mean, that’s where I can’t go with anybody, right?

2343
02:26:26,120 –> 02:26:29,960
But you know, I was with my daughter

2344
02:26:30,760 –> 02:26:34,600
a couple of this might have been last summer. We were walking around downtown

2345
02:26:34,600 –> 02:26:37,920
Fort Worth, right. And there was an event going on which always has

2346
02:26:37,920 –> 02:26:41,720
protesters of various types. And there were some people there with some

2347
02:26:41,960 –> 02:26:45,730
very, very, very vivid messages messaging around like abortion and stuff

2348
02:26:45,730 –> 02:26:49,450
like this. Right. And they were religious, right? And, and so my, my daughter

2349
02:26:49,450 –> 02:26:52,210
read it and it was, it was pure,

2350
02:26:53,330 –> 02:26:56,690
very hateful speech, right? And she, and she says this thing

2351
02:26:56,930 –> 02:27:00,210
and she’s like, she’s like, I can’t believe that they’re saying that. Right. And

2352
02:27:00,770 –> 02:27:04,050
it was super weird because like, I have to come out of my thing of

2353
02:27:04,050 –> 02:27:07,850
like, yeah, you know, I can’t believe it either. But it’s like, hey, I don’t

2354
02:27:07,850 –> 02:27:11,288
believe that. But like, I think it’s important that they have the space to be

2355
02:27:11,288 –> 02:27:13,610
to. Able, able to say that because I want the space to be able to

2356
02:27:13,610 –> 02:27:17,090
say the things that are important to me, you know. Yeah. And trying to impress

2357
02:27:17,090 –> 02:27:20,490
that upon, you know, a 13 year old that,

2358
02:27:21,130 –> 02:27:24,930
you know, we need to give people space for their beliefs

2359
02:27:24,930 –> 02:27:28,690
and their thoughts, even if they’re not like ours, because you don’t want

2360
02:27:28,690 –> 02:27:30,890
anyone coming around trying to like limit your space.

2361
02:27:32,810 –> 02:27:36,490
And that also that idea right there is, is

2362
02:27:36,490 –> 02:27:40,200
key to this whole experiment in America that we’re running.

2363
02:27:41,240 –> 02:27:44,120
But we’ve gotten there over 250 years

2364
02:27:45,560 –> 02:27:49,120
of hard arguments. We didn’t

2365
02:27:49,120 –> 02:27:52,960
wind up here because it was easy. We wound up here because

2366
02:27:52,960 –> 02:27:53,640
it was hard.

2367
02:27:57,080 –> 02:28:00,440
And we wound up here because the passionate people

2368
02:28:01,320 –> 02:28:05,010
pro ancon and the people in the middle

2369
02:28:06,050 –> 02:28:09,770
and the people who don’t understand the question and the people who

2370
02:28:09,770 –> 02:28:13,250
aren’t paying attention and the people for whom

2371
02:28:15,330 –> 02:28:19,050
the whole entire issue, whatever the, the issue capital I issue might be

2372
02:28:19,050 –> 02:28:22,210
of the moment, is just not interesting to them

2373
02:28:22,690 –> 02:28:26,490
because these other things over here are interesting. I think

2374
02:28:26,490 –> 02:28:29,570
of the term this. We live in this wildly

2375
02:28:29,570 –> 02:28:31,680
shambolic country.

2376
02:28:33,120 –> 02:28:36,000
Wildly shambolic. What does shambolic mean?

2377
02:28:37,920 –> 02:28:41,720
Sort of rambling and put together and cobbled together. Think the

2378
02:28:41,720 –> 02:28:45,120
image you should have is like Frankenstein controlled by like Pinocchio

2379
02:28:45,120 –> 02:28:48,960
screen. Pinocchio string. Correct A

2380
02:28:48,960 –> 02:28:52,480
diy. We’re the BASF of company of countries.

2381
02:28:52,960 –> 02:28:56,640
We didn’t make it. We didn’t make getting together a country. We just made

2382
02:28:56,640 –> 02:28:58,080
getting it together as a country better.

2383
02:29:03,710 –> 02:29:04,270
This is.

2384
02:29:10,590 –> 02:29:11,950
To John’s point.

2385
02:29:14,910 –> 02:29:17,950
I am so glad I can live in this country

2386
02:29:20,030 –> 02:29:23,790
not because of the Eagles or The flag or

2387
02:29:24,580 –> 02:29:28,340
any of that trash. Not because of.

2388
02:29:29,140 –> 02:29:32,620
Exclusively because of the Constitution or even the Declaration of

2389
02:29:32,620 –> 02:29:35,140
Independence. I’m glad, because

2390
02:29:36,980 –> 02:29:40,820
we. We. I’m living in a country where. And John’s living in a country where

2391
02:29:41,380 –> 02:29:45,180
we’re free to run the experiment. We’re free to run

2392
02:29:45,180 –> 02:29:48,420
the experiment. And we’ve sort of put all of our.

2393
02:29:51,070 –> 02:29:54,470
You’ll appreciate this as a poker player. We put all of our chips on that

2394
02:29:54,470 –> 02:29:57,470
thing. We’re gonna run it all on that thing.

2395
02:29:58,030 –> 02:30:01,750
And the thing is going to be. There’s wildly

2396
02:30:01,750 –> 02:30:04,990
inappropriate signs at a.

2397
02:30:05,630 –> 02:30:09,310
At a. At a rally around an

2398
02:30:09,310 –> 02:30:12,710
issue that creates a lot of

2399
02:30:12,710 –> 02:30:15,310
emotional upheaval.

2400
02:30:16,420 –> 02:30:18,820
And a man and his daughter are going to be able to walk past those

2401
02:30:18,820 –> 02:30:22,020
signs. And instead of the man and his daughter

2402
02:30:22,500 –> 02:30:26,180
being assaulted or being sucked in, they could

2403
02:30:26,180 –> 02:30:29,980
walk past that thing and go, okay, let’s have a meaningful

2404
02:30:29,980 –> 02:30:33,820
conversation about this and figure this out. I’m not saying you can’t

2405
02:30:33,820 –> 02:30:37,220
do that other places. I’m saying that for right now, for my money,

2406
02:30:37,620 –> 02:30:41,140
this is the best place to do that, period. Full stop.

2407
02:30:42,200 –> 02:30:45,560
And I’ll take the Pepsi Challenge. I will. I will absolutely take the Pepsi Challenge

2408
02:30:45,560 –> 02:30:48,520
against any other place. I think this is the best.

2409
02:30:49,160 –> 02:30:53,000
That’s why I’m. That’s why I’m. That’s why I’m not

2410
02:30:53,000 –> 02:30:56,280
proud. Glad to have been born in this country.

2411
02:30:56,600 –> 02:31:00,360
Because pride goes before a fall. Careful. Glad to have

2412
02:31:00,360 –> 02:31:04,200
been born in this country. And. Yeah, look, hey, people with. With my

2413
02:31:04,200 –> 02:31:07,920
skin tone did a lot of work for

2414
02:31:07,920 –> 02:31:11,560
free to be able to get us to here, but so, quite

2415
02:31:11,560 –> 02:31:15,160
frankly, did a lot of people with John’s skin tone, they did a lot of

2416
02:31:15,160 –> 02:31:18,760
work to get us here. They did. Whether that work was easy or hard,

2417
02:31:18,920 –> 02:31:22,760
that’s a different thing altogether. Whether that work was paid for or unpaid, that’s a

2418
02:31:22,760 –> 02:31:26,600
different thing altogether. We did the work. And the work is not just in the

2419
02:31:26,600 –> 02:31:30,400
fields. The work is in the conversations, and the work is in the relationships,

2420
02:31:30,400 –> 02:31:33,190
and the work is in the communities and the work is in the neighborhoods. And.

2421
02:31:33,420 –> 02:31:36,700
And that is the kind of work that’s going to take us

2422
02:31:37,580 –> 02:31:40,620
if we are so blessed, for the next 25 years

2423
02:31:41,180 –> 02:31:45,020
or maybe even for the next 50 years. And

2424
02:31:45,020 –> 02:31:48,860
I’m 47 this year. It’d be really interesting to

2425
02:31:48,860 –> 02:31:51,340
be alive in the year 2076.

2426
02:31:52,940 –> 02:31:54,540
I don’t even want to contemplate that

2427
02:31:57,100 –> 02:32:00,830
for the 300th anniversary. What? You’d be 98.

2428
02:32:01,870 –> 02:32:05,590
I’ll be 97. 96. Going

2429
02:32:05,590 –> 02:32:09,390
on 97. Maybe I’ll still be

2430
02:32:09,390 –> 02:32:12,910
doing the podcast at that point. Because, like, why not episode

2431
02:32:13,310 –> 02:32:17,150
1763? We’re with John Hill

2432
02:32:17,310 –> 02:32:19,390
yet again. Yet again.

2433
02:32:23,950 –> 02:32:27,790
I hope, I hope, I hope in that thing we’re like in like the Futurama

2434
02:32:27,790 –> 02:32:31,400
and we’re just like. Like our heads in the. On the shelf. Right.

2435
02:32:31,400 –> 02:32:34,920
Like that. Just want to get Tank. If, if,

2436
02:32:35,000 –> 02:32:38,800
if Future can be like Futurama in any one way. I

2437
02:32:38,800 –> 02:32:41,720
want, I want. I want disembodied heads that can still talk.

2438
02:32:42,440 –> 02:32:45,400
I’m gonna get Nixon on the show because I gotta talk to that guy.

2439
02:32:48,120 –> 02:32:51,480
Think of the guest you could get. Oh, my gosh. It’ll be insane.

2440
02:32:52,680 –> 02:32:56,520
All right, well, we’re. We gotta wrap up. We gotta close. This is a wildly

2441
02:32:56,520 –> 02:32:59,280
shambolic episode. We. We kind of went all around,

2442
02:33:00,160 –> 02:33:03,760
but pick up a copy of Ben Hur by Lou Wallace, by the way. Didn’t

2443
02:33:03,760 –> 02:33:07,120
even get to talk about Lou Wallace. He was born

2444
02:33:07,120 –> 02:33:10,880
1827 and died in 1905. And he was a

2445
02:33:10,880 –> 02:33:14,600
lot of things. He was. He was a governor of New Mexico. Of New

2446
02:33:14,600 –> 02:33:18,080
Mexico, yeah. He was. He was involved in the American

2447
02:33:18,160 –> 02:33:21,800
Civil War. He was an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire

2448
02:33:21,800 –> 02:33:25,440
under Chester A. Arthur. The man lived a romantic

2449
02:33:25,440 –> 02:33:29,280
life. And all of that shows up. He did writing as a

2450
02:33:29,280 –> 02:33:31,120
way to relieve his stress and his anxiety.

2451
02:33:33,120 –> 02:33:36,960
Yep. By the way, that’s a. That’s a. That’s a pitch for writers, too.

2452
02:33:37,040 –> 02:33:40,880
Writing can help you when you’re just wildly all over the place.

2453
02:33:40,880 –> 02:33:44,520
And he was. I mean, but going all the way

2454
02:33:44,520 –> 02:33:48,280
back because you said that one of your first episodes was. Was

2455
02:33:48,280 –> 02:33:52,050
Marcus Aurelius. He wasn’t ever intended to publish any of that

2456
02:33:52,050 –> 02:33:55,330
stuff. They were his journals. Yep. That he

2457
02:33:56,690 –> 02:34:00,130
wrote in for his own own solace for

2458
02:34:00,210 –> 02:34:03,970
writers, in my opinion. If you’re going through anything, grab a journal and start getting

2459
02:34:03,970 –> 02:34:07,690
the ideas out of your head. Amen. Absolutely. I recommend

2460
02:34:07,690 –> 02:34:11,290
writing for Every leader as a pleasure house for your

2461
02:34:11,290 –> 02:34:14,690
soul. It’s a gem. All right.

2462
02:34:15,420 –> 02:34:19,060
With that, well, once again, thank you, John. And with that,

2463
02:34:19,060 –> 02:34:22,380
well, we’re out.