Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein – Introduction w/ Jesan Sorrells

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the

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Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number

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160

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in the year of our Lord 2025. We are

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in the midst of a social and cultural dynamic in the United States

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of America where smothering conformity

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to political positions, particularly smothering

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cultural conformity to certain political positions, has

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replaced the smothering conformity

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previous in the mid part of the 20th century

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to religious traditions. There is much

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going back and forth between various political, social

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and cultural factions in the United States about whether

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this transition, which began in the mid-1960s

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and has only increased in stride and see for the last 60 to 80

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years, is an overall net positive or

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if it is an overall net negative.

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If we had a time machine or a hammer,

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whether it was H.G. Welles time machine or Dr.

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Emmett Brown’s time machine, it doesn’t really matter. And we could go

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back to when the writer we are going to be talking about today was

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writing the book we are going to be talking about today and we could tell

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him of all the wondrous social changes, all of the

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wondrous replacements that have occurred and reach their

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apotheosis in the early 21st century.

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Well, I think like many of the writers we talk about on this show,

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particularly the writers of the mid 20th century, he’d

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be shocked and somewhat amazed

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and perhaps may be a little disappointed because

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here’s the problem. Con men,

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hypocrisy and venal appetites that rest

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deep in the hearts and in the behaviors of human beings don’t

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just disappear when we culturally

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exchange one stifling system of conformity and belief

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for another equally stifling system of conformity

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and belief. It turns out that human

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nature is persistent and will have its

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way. Today on

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this episode of the podcast, we will be introducing

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and discussing four of the multiple

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themes from our book

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Stranger in a Strange Land by

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Robert Heinlein. Leaders, we

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are in the midst of yet another transformational social

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and cultural dynamic. But I guarantee you, smothering

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conformity lies at

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the clearing, or lies in the clearing, as it were,

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at the end of this path as

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well. So we are going to have

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an incredibly short, I think, introductory episode today because

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the book that we are covering, Stranger in a Strange Land by

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Robert Heinlein, is still under vicious copyright.

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And so we will be summarizing some of

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the main themes and the main ideas from each one of the chapters and

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talking about Heinlein’s impact as an

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author. And then we’ll go into sort of what I think

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about all of this short introductory

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episode today. So we open up the book Stranger in a Strange Land.

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And the copy that I have was published by Penguin Random House

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back in the day, and the copyright is owned by the

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Robert and Virginia Heinlein Trust.

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When you open up the book, you see that the book is divided into five

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parts, five different chapters. And the book

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is. The book’s title comes from

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the story in the book of Exodus in the

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Torah, or what is called by some the Old Testament. And

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it comes from this line in Exodus 2:21

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22, and I quote, Moses agreed to stay with the man

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who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.

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Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses

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named him Gershom, saying, I have become a

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foreigner in a foreign land.

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Or in some translations, I have become a stranger in a strange

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land. When you open up Stranger in a Strange

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Land, what you see, of course, is the. The various parts. And

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so part one is about the origins of

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the man from Mars, a gentleman named Val Valentine

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Michael Smith. Now,

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this is a curious idea because the man

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from Mars was part of an expedition,

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or was the result not part of. Was the result of an expedition that

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initially went to Mars and failed,

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actually. But in that failure, a child was produced, a

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child was born, has almost biblical

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connotations, particularly New Testament biblical connotations. And that child

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was raised not by human beings, but was.

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Was a human baby raised by the Martian,

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the Martian environment, the Martian old gods.

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There’s very much a tinge in the beginning part of

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Stranger to Strange Land, in what is entitled

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His Immaculate Origin, a play on

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the idea of the immaculate origin of

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Jesus. There’s very much an idea that this is a. This is

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a man come to Earth, a man come from the sky, a savior

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come down to save us. A second expedition

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goes up many years later, following a war

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and some other strife, and the second

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expedition finds the man from Mars and brings him

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what brings him back to Earth. And from there we begin

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to fall into Heinlein’s view

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of history. Now, one of the things that you’re going to want

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to note also about the structure of this book is that each

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part translates or it

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moves. It moves Valentin Michael

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Smith through the process, not of necessarily

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becoming more human, although that is a popular idea,

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particularly when you look at the typical critical

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interpretations of this book and its content. But it actually

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moves Valentin Michael Smith through the process of changing other human

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beings, which is a core idea that we will

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talk about a little bit later on in the

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show. Robert Anson

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Heinlein was born July 7,

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1907, left this world to go

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where all individuals wind up going

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on May 8, 1988.

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He had a long life that spanned almost all of

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the 20th century. He was an

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American science fiction author, an aeronautical engineer, and a

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naval officer in the United States Navy.

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Sometimes called the quote, unquote, dean of science fiction writers.

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He, along with Arthur C. Clark and Isaac

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Asimov, really emphasized getting the science correct

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in his novels and in his short story

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writing. Speaking of the great

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science fiction writers of the 20th, the mid 20th

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century, Heinlein was 30 years. Thirteen, not 30,

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13 years older than both Ray Bradbury and

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Isaac asimov, and was 10 years older than

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the great Arthur C. Clark, the person

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who, who wrote oh

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Gosh, was it 2001 A Space Odyssey and

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consulted on the. The movie that was directed by Stanley

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Kubrick. A truly odd film if you ever have the opportunity to watch it,

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and the sequel books, although not

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necessarily the sequel films. And

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as one of the deans of science fiction who was

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really interested in getting the science right, Heinlein was one of the

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first American science fiction writers to make science

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fiction great again, such as it were. He was

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one of the first ones to break into mainstream magazines in

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the 40s and 50s, such as the Saturday Evening Post,

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Reader’s Digest and others. A lot of people

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were exposed to Heinlein’s view of

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science fiction, his view of science, and his view of

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the world via the Shine. The science fiction genre that before

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that had really been resorted to

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pulpy fanfic. Pulpy, pulpy fan fiction, like what we would call

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fan fiction, like publications these days,

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dime store novels that really appealed to, really were meant to appeal

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to children or that were

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considered to be. Or science fiction was considered to be a genre

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that was a vehicle for other

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kinds of allegory or political

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statements, such as the science fiction written by

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H.G. wells. Heinlein, however,

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used his science fiction as a way to explore provocative social and political

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ideas. And you can especially see that in Stranger in

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a Strange Land, but also in a number of other

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books that he. That he authored, including

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my favorite story from. From Heinlein,

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Starship Troopers. Okay. And he

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wanted to use his science fiction to speculate on how

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progress in science and engineering might shape the future of plan,

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politics, race, religion, and of course,

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the third rail topic, sex.

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By the way, Heinlein came out of a time being born in

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1907. That was the beginning of the

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political progressive movement in the United States, which

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really began its proto development at the end

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of the Civil War and reached its height in

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the 1920s, at least it’s height

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culturally in the 1920s, before

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political progressivism began to, to crash to

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the ground in the, in the 19, in the

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1950s, right with the coming of Dwight Eisenhower.

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So during the time that, that Heinlein

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was a young man and moving into his

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middle age, political progressivism was a

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driving force in American politics, American

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culture, and it was a driving force that was

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counter to the forces of conformity

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that were that that Heinlein and Bradbury and even

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Isaac Asimov were using science

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to battle against. In

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January 1924, speaking of the 1920s,

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a 16 year old Heinlein lied about his age to enlist in company

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C, the 110th Engineer Regiment of the Missouri National Guard

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in Kansas City. His family could not afford to send Heinlein to college, so

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he sought an appointment to a military academy. And this appointment to the

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military academy, of course, led him to service in the United States Navy,

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in particular service during World War II. So there were

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two, there were two rails that Heinlein

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really ran his fiction down. The rail of political

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progressivism and utilizing science and

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technology to get to a technocratic political

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progressive end. And then the rail of

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discipline that comes about from being

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forced to walk a parade ground and PT

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and scrub a toilet too. So there you go.

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By the way, these two rails were

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not seen as being mutually exclusive as they are in our time. In

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the first quarter, at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, because

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of our historical perspective,

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you have to remember most of the people that were running the naval academies

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at the time, in between World War I and World War II

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were men who had served in World War I

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and had seen what World War could actually do and were

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desperately, desperately seeking

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peace. Heinlein was an individual who was

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desperately seeking progressivism through technology

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and through science and used the military to discipline

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himself, himself to order his

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thoughts. So back to the book, back to

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Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

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So we pick up in part two of Stranger in a

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Strange Land. Once again, we’re summarizing each one of the parts of

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the book and seeking to pull main themes from those

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summaries. Because we cannot read the book on the podcast

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today, would encourage you to go pick up a copy of it. If you are

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a leader who is fascinated by science fiction.

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It’ll be a good addition to your library. So we pick up a part

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two of Stranger in a Strange Land. And in that

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second part, which is Called his preposterous heritage.

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We run across a man

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named Jubal Harshaw. And Jubal

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Harshaw is the. Is the central character, not Valentine Michael

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Smith, in the second part of

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A Stranger in a Strange Land. The reason why

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it’s subtitled, the second part is subtitled. His preposterous heritage

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is because this is when Valentine Michael Smith begins

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to interact with the larger power structures,

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the larger governmental structures, the larger civil, social,

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and even religious structures that human beings have constructed

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in this brave new world that he is

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now an alien to. Right?

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But as he begins to interact with people

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all the way from the nurse Jill to the journalist Ben Caxton

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to the lawyer Jubal Harshaw, all the way to Senator

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Douglas and even the. The head of

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the Church of the Foster Right Brotherhood, as he

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begins to interact with these folks and begins to learn more about how human

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beings either commit to each other or don’t

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commit to each other. How they communicate, how they don’t communicate. As

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he begins to learn about ideologies and he begins to learn about

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ideas. What Heinlein does so cleverly

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in this part two is he structures certain

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arguments that he really wanted to have with people

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of his time and of his era. You begin to see

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Heinlein’s progressivism that I referenced in in just

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previously. You begin to see it begin to come out. And

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it’s a subtle thing. It’s not anything that you’re hit over the head with directly.

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But if you know how to. If you know how to look for it and

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you know what to look for and you know what the tells are, you’ll definitely

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see it. However, there is a strain in here

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also of rebellion, right. And of questioning in

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particular. When you think about the character Jubal Harshaw, a lawyer, a

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doctor, but also a raconteur and a

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man about town who, who has three

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buxom secretaries living in his

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palatial estate in the Poconos in Pennsylvania,

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there’s a way to read chapter two that is

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not progressive in our time. There’s a way to read it

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through a feminist lens. But when we talk about the

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character of Valentine Michael Smith and when we talk about his

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heritage, we talk about where he came from and where he is going,

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the ideas in part two begin to lay the foundation for

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frank, further ideas and further developments that are going to occur in parts

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four and five, after Valentin Michael Smith

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goes away from Jubbal Harshaw, in

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essence escapes the the cradle and begins

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to walk around in the world in all kinds of different ways

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and eventually comes to an idea that

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he will have to build a system, he will have to build

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a distance discipline, he’ll have to build an organization

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in order to understand human beings and attract human

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beings of his own.

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So as we read Stranger in a Strange Land and as we read

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Parts One and Part Two, one of the things that jumps out

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to me about this book and its leadership

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applications is that this is a logical conclusion.

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Conclusion to some ideas that were being explored by. Or

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Heinlein presents a logical conclusion to some ideas and some theories that were being

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explored by another famous author of

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his era, Ray Bradbury. By the way,

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one little tidbit about this book. Heinlein actually said later

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on that he wrote Stranger in a Strange

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Land in the early 1950s, late 1950s, 40s until the

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1950s, because he had this idea for it, and then he let it sit for

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00:18:16,550 –> 00:18:20,390
10 years before he published it in the 1960s, because he

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was waiting for society to change significantly so that the

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ideas basically wouldn’t get him tarred and feathered and thrown out of polite

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society. During the time that he was, of

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course, basting on these ideas or maybe letting the

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manuscript sit, Ray Bradbury published the Martian Chronicles. And in

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the Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury postulates a very

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outrageous idea. The idea that he

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postulates is that,

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is that going from Earth to

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Mars changes human beings

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to become more like Martians, rather than the

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dominant idea of the time, which was a dominant idea coming out

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of World War II, where a country was confident and had

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cultural confidence, the United States had cultural confidence. And of course,

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Bradbury was publishing as an American author in an American context.

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He was looking at all this cultural confidence and saying,

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if you go to another, another planet and you are a

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00:19:23,390 –> 00:19:27,070
human being, how does that planet change you? Not how do

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you change the planet? And so Heinlein

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00:19:30,710 –> 00:19:34,520
plays with the inverse of this. A human being born on Mars,

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who, technically speaking, should behave like a human,

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wouldn’t behave like a human, they would behave like a Martian. And

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then bringing that Martian who looks like a human to

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Earth, how does that change things? How does that

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00:19:49,000 –> 00:19:52,200
mold not just the Martian, but also humanity?

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That makes Stranger in a Strange Land the logical

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sequel, or the logical end

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00:20:00,570 –> 00:20:03,770
argument of Ray Bradbury’s the Martian Chronicles.

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The reality is that Mars as a planet fascinates us still. I mean,

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SpaceX and Elon Musk still

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00:20:12,730 –> 00:20:16,130
want to get there. I mean, Elon walks around with a shirt that says Occupy

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Mars for God’s sakes. And because it

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fascinates us and, and has for some time Many hundreds

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of years before Elon or H.G. wells

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00:20:27,100 –> 00:20:30,860
or NASA came along because it fascinates us.

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The reality is, and we don’t really,

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we have no way of confirming this or we will have no way of confirming

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this until we actually go there and actually try to plant a flag there. The

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00:20:40,820 –> 00:20:44,660
reality is that the planet of Mars is probably not supporting anything like

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what we think of as intelligent life. Which

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means that there will be no Martian invasion. There be, will, will be no War

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00:20:51,850 –> 00:20:55,570
of the Worlds, right? There will be no Independence Day

333
00:20:55,890 –> 00:20:59,610
style fireworks. Unless we’re talking

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00:20:59,610 –> 00:21:03,290
about an invasion worked out along the lines of what Heinlein gets

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00:21:03,290 –> 00:21:07,089
to in his novel. And we are itching

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00:21:07,090 –> 00:21:10,810
to get after that planet, aren’t we? I mean, I think by at

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the very minimum the end of this century,

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we will at the very least have established if not an

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00:21:18,730 –> 00:21:22,050
outpost on Mars. We will very least have established

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00:21:22,210 –> 00:21:25,890
regular rocket trips to, to Mars. I

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00:21:25,890 –> 00:21:29,490
think my, I think my youngest child will be part.

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Will be an adult in a generation in a time where it will be

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00:21:33,490 –> 00:21:36,770
going to Mars will be as a semi regular

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an occurrence as, as NASA or the

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00:21:41,130 –> 00:21:44,450
European Space Agency or India or China putting rockets

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00:21:45,090 –> 00:21:48,760
up in the sky to launch, launch satellites. I don’t know

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00:21:48,760 –> 00:21:52,520
that civilizations or, or settlements will be established

348
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in our century. I think that’ll probably happen in the 22nd century.

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But we are going to Mars. It is going to happen.

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00:22:00,760 –> 00:22:04,440
The question of course is how is it going to change

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us? What are we going to turn into? And then the

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00:22:08,320 –> 00:22:11,560
other question is how are we going to change Mars?

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I think something more spiritual or psychological rather than material or

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temporal however is putting a current pause

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00:22:21,340 –> 00:22:24,620
on our appetites and our ambitions.

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And I think it’s because we haven’t quite figured out the answer to the

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00:22:29,260 –> 00:22:32,740
question that both Bradbury brings up in Martian

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Chronicles and that Heinlein so cleverly inverts

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00:22:36,700 –> 00:22:39,540
in Stranger in a Strange Land.

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00:22:40,580 –> 00:22:44,420
Back to the book back to Stranger in a Strange

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Land by Robert Heinlein. So we pick

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00:22:48,100 –> 00:22:51,860
up in, in part three of Stranger in a

363
00:22:51,860 –> 00:22:55,060
Strange Land and this is really focused on

364
00:22:55,860 –> 00:22:59,380
the education, right? The eccentric or eccentric

365
00:22:59,460 –> 00:23:03,180
such as it were education of Valentine Michael

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00:23:03,180 –> 00:23:06,900
Smith Smith or the man from Mars as he is now known.

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00:23:07,220 –> 00:23:10,900
The chapter of course opens with him being him

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00:23:10,900 –> 00:23:13,620
escaping or, or leaving the.

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00:23:15,140 –> 00:23:18,820
The gentlemen strations of Jubal Harshaw being

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00:23:18,820 –> 00:23:22,100
pushed out into the world to deal with it as he

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00:23:22,260 –> 00:23:25,620
finds it as he goes out into the world. One of the first

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00:23:26,260 –> 00:23:29,860
stops, one of the first places where he begins to sort of

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00:23:29,860 –> 00:23:32,400
understand and, and Begin to put together

374
00:23:33,440 –> 00:23:35,840
some ideas around

375
00:23:37,200 –> 00:23:40,160
belief, around. Around

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00:23:41,600 –> 00:23:45,280
deception, around illusion. One of the first

377
00:23:45,280 –> 00:23:48,720
places where this begins to manifest is in,

378
00:23:48,960 –> 00:23:52,000
ironically enough, a rural carnival.

379
00:23:52,800 –> 00:23:56,320
Yeah, that’s right. The man from Mars becomes a magician

380
00:23:56,650 –> 00:23:59,850
in a rural carnival. His assistant, of course, is.

381
00:24:00,970 –> 00:24:04,490
Is Jill the nurse, who has now become his.

382
00:24:04,650 –> 00:24:08,090
His lover in addition to being his water

383
00:24:08,090 –> 00:24:10,650
brother. And they tour the country

384
00:24:11,850 –> 00:24:15,610
under the guise of this. Of this carnival. And through

385
00:24:16,090 –> 00:24:19,530
becoming a carney, through engaging in.

386
00:24:20,810 –> 00:24:23,930
In the carnival acts of deception and trickery,

387
00:24:24,430 –> 00:24:27,390
figuring out who is a mark and who is not,

388
00:24:27,950 –> 00:24:31,790
who’s real and who’s fake, who even understands what the game

389
00:24:31,790 –> 00:24:35,550
is and who are cynically manipulating people.

390
00:24:37,150 –> 00:24:40,990
The man from Mars, Valentin Michael Smith in

391
00:24:40,990 –> 00:24:44,590
Stranger in a Strange Land, begins to figure out

392
00:24:44,590 –> 00:24:47,150
how he can incorporate, how he can

393
00:24:48,110 –> 00:24:51,090
include I. Ideas from.

394
00:24:52,530 –> 00:24:56,290
From illusion, ideas from magic, ideas

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00:24:56,450 –> 00:24:59,970
from being a carnival barker, ideals, from being a

396
00:24:59,970 –> 00:25:03,330
marketer into what eventually will become

397
00:25:04,050 –> 00:25:06,450
his very own church.

398
00:25:08,690 –> 00:25:11,810
By the time I got to this point in the book, by the way, I

399
00:25:11,810 –> 00:25:15,610
said, well, of course he’s going to go off and form a church. And one

400
00:25:15,610 –> 00:25:19,230
of the things that jumps out to you about this

401
00:25:19,230 –> 00:25:23,030
eventual development and sort of how it goes through in part in

402
00:25:23,030 –> 00:25:25,870
parts three and then part four and part five,

403
00:25:26,510 –> 00:25:30,310
is not who he draws to himself, not even

404
00:25:30,310 –> 00:25:33,950
who he. Who he develops his acolytes

405
00:25:33,950 –> 00:25:37,310
in a school that’s structured along the lines of a church,

406
00:25:37,710 –> 00:25:41,470
not even who he rejects. What

407
00:25:41,800 –> 00:25:45,160
jumped out, to me, at least in this section, most prominently,

408
00:25:45,720 –> 00:25:49,280
was sort of related to the piece that I

409
00:25:49,280 –> 00:25:52,760
opened up with during this podcast today.

410
00:25:54,200 –> 00:25:56,760
I do think that if the man from Mars,

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00:25:57,800 –> 00:26:01,400
AKA Valentin Michael Smith, had come down from

412
00:26:01,400 –> 00:26:04,520
Mars today and lived in our era, if

413
00:26:04,520 –> 00:26:07,720
Heinlein was writing this fantastical novel now,

414
00:26:08,220 –> 00:26:11,260
Valentin Michael Smith would not start a church

415
00:26:12,060 –> 00:26:15,900
valentine. Michael Smith would instead become Warner

416
00:26:15,900 –> 00:26:19,340
Brothers with Elon Musk and maybe Reid

417
00:26:19,340 –> 00:26:23,100
Hoffman and maybe a few others, and he would

418
00:26:23,100 –> 00:26:26,140
start a political party.

419
00:26:27,180 –> 00:26:31,020
Because the fact of the matter is there is a shift in culture, or there.

420
00:26:31,180 –> 00:26:34,870
Yeah, there is a shift in culture that Heinlein couldn’t have

421
00:26:34,870 –> 00:26:38,390
predicted and had no barometer for.

422
00:26:39,030 –> 00:26:42,310
We’ve shifted away from, as I said in my opening,

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00:26:42,710 –> 00:26:46,350
we’ve shifted away from the stifling conformity of religion to the

424
00:26:46,350 –> 00:26:49,270
stifling conformity of political opinion.

425
00:26:50,470 –> 00:26:54,270
In a search for meaning in the west, we have replaced

426
00:26:54,270 –> 00:26:57,230
the search for transcendence with the

427
00:26:57,230 –> 00:27:00,800
discovery that men, men

428
00:27:00,800 –> 00:27:04,600
running political parties and men promoting

429
00:27:04,600 –> 00:27:07,600
ideas have feet of clay.

430
00:27:08,560 –> 00:27:12,320
We have removed religion from its appropriate

431
00:27:12,320 –> 00:27:15,920
place, and we have replaced it. Well. We’ve

432
00:27:15,920 –> 00:27:19,720
replaced it with something else. And now, interestingly

433
00:27:19,720 –> 00:27:23,280
enough, in the year 2025, the

434
00:27:23,280 –> 00:27:26,940
old strong gods of religion are attempting to

435
00:27:26,940 –> 00:27:29,900
reinsert themselves or reassert themselves

436
00:27:30,540 –> 00:27:33,580
over and above the objections of the new

437
00:27:34,060 –> 00:27:37,100
weak gods in politics

438
00:27:37,740 –> 00:27:41,340
in the West. So what are we to take from

439
00:27:41,740 –> 00:27:45,420
Heinlein? What are we to take from these first

440
00:27:45,420 –> 00:27:49,100
three parts of Stranger in a Strange Land? What is the,

441
00:27:49,420 –> 00:27:53,270
what is the larger message for leaders here? Well, I

442
00:27:53,270 –> 00:27:57,070
think that one of the big ideas or one

443
00:27:57,070 –> 00:28:00,630
of the big beats, right, that’s in

444
00:28:00,710 –> 00:28:04,430
Stranger in a Strange Land, at least the one that strikes me the most

445
00:28:04,430 –> 00:28:07,830
prominently is inverting the eschaton

446
00:28:08,710 –> 00:28:12,510
or how one can resist bringing heaven to

447
00:28:12,510 –> 00:28:16,350
earth. The entire history of the

448
00:28:16,350 –> 00:28:19,360
20th century was about man’s search for

449
00:28:19,520 –> 00:28:23,240
utopia. Either a scientifically generated one, a

450
00:28:23,240 –> 00:28:26,880
technologically generated one, a socially generated one, or

451
00:28:26,960 –> 00:28:30,720
at the end of our century or the end of the last century, a culturally

452
00:28:30,800 –> 00:28:34,560
generated utopia. And all those

453
00:28:34,800 –> 00:28:38,400
utopian visions, from the ones

454
00:28:38,400 –> 00:28:42,160
tinged by Marx to the ones tinged by Milton Friedman,

455
00:28:43,540 –> 00:28:47,220
all those utopian visions failed miserably and

456
00:28:47,220 –> 00:28:50,660
continue to fail because you can’t bring heaven to earth.

457
00:28:51,300 –> 00:28:54,940
You may be able to bring the man from Mars back to earth, but you

458
00:28:54,940 –> 00:28:58,380
can’t bring heaven to earth. And

459
00:28:58,380 –> 00:29:01,660
Heinlein, Robert Heinlein, in all his cynical, liberal,

460
00:29:01,660 –> 00:29:05,220
humanistic glory, actually understood something about human nature

461
00:29:05,700 –> 00:29:09,490
that we have all forgotten as well. We arc

462
00:29:09,490 –> 00:29:13,090
past the first quarter of the 21st century and it’s something that bears

463
00:29:13,090 –> 00:29:16,770
repeating. No one and nothing can

464
00:29:16,770 –> 00:29:20,090
bring heaven to earth today. Not alien, not technology,

465
00:29:20,490 –> 00:29:24,290
not human, not system. But the entire corpus

466
00:29:24,290 –> 00:29:27,850
of the 20th century, as I said, was about the

467
00:29:28,170 –> 00:29:31,130
vain attempts to do so. And

468
00:29:31,770 –> 00:29:35,380
the first quarter of the the 21st

469
00:29:35,380 –> 00:29:38,980
century has been about the hangover as

470
00:29:38,980 –> 00:29:42,740
the consequences of such pursuits are visited

471
00:29:42,740 –> 00:29:46,260
upon us. The challenge of our time,

472
00:29:46,420 –> 00:29:50,179
right, that Stranger in a Strange Land also blew right past is

473
00:29:50,179 –> 00:29:53,660
one that I’ve already mentioned. Again, for leaders, it bears

474
00:29:53,660 –> 00:29:57,300
repeating. Religion is no longer the primary driver

475
00:29:57,300 –> 00:30:01,080
of meaning in a post Christian America. And whether you believe

476
00:30:01,080 –> 00:30:04,560
it or not, from your own personal perspective,

477
00:30:04,800 –> 00:30:08,640
your own personal thoughts on religion, your own personal geography

478
00:30:08,640 –> 00:30:12,440
on religion, whether that’s the American south, the American west, the American Midwest,

479
00:30:12,440 –> 00:30:16,000
the American Northeast, or the American South

480
00:30:16,560 –> 00:30:19,720
East. No matter what your

481
00:30:19,720 –> 00:30:23,560
geographic perspective, no matter if you live in a major metropolitan

482
00:30:23,560 –> 00:30:26,490
area or you live in a rural area, no matter if you live, you live

483
00:30:26,490 –> 00:30:29,290
in a place where there’s a lot of broken down churches that still attract a

484
00:30:29,290 –> 00:30:32,730
few old people, or you live in an area where there are vibrant churches

485
00:30:33,050 –> 00:30:36,610
or buildings that call themselves churches, attracting 800

486
00:30:36,610 –> 00:30:40,010
people to 3,000 people a weekend.

487
00:30:40,730 –> 00:30:44,250
It doesn’t matter what you’re seeing. The

488
00:30:44,250 –> 00:30:47,690
statistics show that religion is on the decline in America

489
00:30:48,170 –> 00:30:51,810
and it’s been on the decline for at least the last 25

490
00:30:51,810 –> 00:30:55,640
years. We are in a world that no longer

491
00:30:55,640 –> 00:30:59,400
we are in a West, we are in America. By world I just mean Western

492
00:30:59,400 –> 00:31:03,000
world. We are specifically in the United States of America

493
00:31:03,080 –> 00:31:06,680
in a place now where culturally the cohesion and

494
00:31:06,680 –> 00:31:10,480
conformity that was enforced by religion is now

495
00:31:10,480 –> 00:31:13,880
enforced by politics. And politics does not operate

496
00:31:14,120 –> 00:31:17,880
in the church building. It may visit the church

497
00:31:17,880 –> 00:31:21,050
building occasionally in a sermon, and you may see it show up in the people

498
00:31:21,290 –> 00:31:24,090
who come into the church building. But for the most part,

499
00:31:24,570 –> 00:31:27,770
politics exists in the secular

500
00:31:27,770 –> 00:31:31,370
humanistic world and secular humanism is now the new religion.

501
00:31:32,730 –> 00:31:36,489
And because we live in a post Christian America, because we live in

502
00:31:36,489 –> 00:31:39,690
an America that is now increasingly hostile

503
00:31:40,090 –> 00:31:43,770
to even Christian acts, much, much less

504
00:31:43,770 –> 00:31:47,410
religious ones, pagan drivers and hedonistic fulfillment of base

505
00:31:47,410 –> 00:31:50,940
appetites have ascended the stairs of meaning for many of us.

506
00:31:51,420 –> 00:31:55,060
Heinlein couldn’t have predicted that. And by the way, that

507
00:31:55,060 –> 00:31:58,820
includes those who claim the mantle of Christianity. Still, if

508
00:31:58,820 –> 00:32:02,300
you look at statistics, the divorce rate of people who go to church every Sunday

509
00:32:02,460 –> 00:32:06,300
and the divorce rate of people who watch football every Sunday is almost

510
00:32:06,460 –> 00:32:09,980
exactly the same. If the man from

511
00:32:09,980 –> 00:32:13,700
Mars wanted to get after it in 2025America, he

512
00:32:13,700 –> 00:32:17,480
would start a third party, or maybe a fourth

513
00:32:17,480 –> 00:32:21,200
one. What does this say about

514
00:32:21,440 –> 00:32:25,160
how to resist bringing heaven to earth? What does it say to

515
00:32:25,160 –> 00:32:28,600
leaders? Well, it says this. Your utopian visions are for

516
00:32:28,600 –> 00:32:31,280
naught because human nature

517
00:32:32,480 –> 00:32:36,160
at the end of it will win out.

518
00:32:37,840 –> 00:32:40,950
So remember I said this was going to be a short episode.

519
00:32:42,790 –> 00:32:46,190
I would encourage you, if you have the opportunity, as I said before, go to

520
00:32:46,190 –> 00:32:49,750
pick up Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land because you’re going to want to

521
00:32:49,750 –> 00:32:53,550
check out parts four and five of that book. The setup is in

522
00:32:53,550 –> 00:32:57,310
the first three parts and then the last two parts are, are

523
00:32:57,310 –> 00:33:00,990
quite spectacular. By the way, Heinlein did

524
00:33:00,990 –> 00:33:04,310
almost a complete rewrite of the first couple of parts of the book

525
00:33:05,510 –> 00:33:09,220
in an effort to meet meet

526
00:33:09,220 –> 00:33:12,940
publishers demands. And so one version, the version

527
00:33:12,940 –> 00:33:16,060
that’s the common, I think mass market paperback version

528
00:33:16,940 –> 00:33:20,660
is, is basically one version of Stranger in a Strange Land. But

529
00:33:20,660 –> 00:33:24,380
then there’s an extended version that his wife Virginia released

530
00:33:25,020 –> 00:33:28,660
after his death that had additional material

531
00:33:28,660 –> 00:33:32,110
in it. So if you can grab that additional material, you can

532
00:33:32,500 –> 00:33:36,340
probably get the entire vision that Heinlein was pursuing

533
00:33:37,380 –> 00:33:40,900
today on the show. We’ve read from the mass. Well, read from. We’ve

534
00:33:40,900 –> 00:33:44,340
analyzed the, the big ideas and the big themes

535
00:33:44,500 –> 00:33:48,180
from the mass market paperback. I doubt that they

536
00:33:48,260 –> 00:33:51,620
really differ that much from the extended

537
00:33:51,940 –> 00:33:55,740
versions, but I would still encourage you to go out and pick it up. It

538
00:33:55,740 –> 00:33:59,390
could sit right on your, on your, on your shelf next to

539
00:33:59,470 –> 00:34:02,990
Emotional Intelligence or whatever it is that Adam

540
00:34:02,990 –> 00:34:04,990
Grant is putting out. Now.

541
00:34:06,990 –> 00:34:10,790
How do we solve problems with Stranger in a Strange Land? How do we solve

542
00:34:10,790 –> 00:34:14,510
problems with, with these ideas, some of which we’ve, we’ve talked about?

543
00:34:14,670 –> 00:34:18,030
Well, here’s, here’s maybe, here’s maybe a broad

544
00:34:18,350 –> 00:34:21,870
solution or maybe a broad idea. And I don’t know, I don’t know if this

545
00:34:21,870 –> 00:34:25,670
is going to work for you, but hear me out. What if

546
00:34:25,670 –> 00:34:29,470
the aliens that we are looking for don’t

547
00:34:29,470 –> 00:34:33,190
have our best interests in mind? What

548
00:34:33,190 –> 00:34:37,030
if their intents are so far from

549
00:34:37,030 –> 00:34:40,830
being able to be comprehended by human beings that they appear to us

550
00:34:41,070 –> 00:34:44,430
as well, demonic or even

551
00:34:44,430 –> 00:34:48,230
evil in nature? I am

552
00:34:48,230 –> 00:34:51,910
a little bit of a conspiracy theory theorist. Actually I’m a massive conspiracy

553
00:34:51,910 –> 00:34:55,430
theorist, but I sort of low bar it or low ball it because

554
00:34:55,830 –> 00:34:59,470
to say more makes people think you’re crazy. Much like Fox

555
00:34:59,470 –> 00:35:03,030
Mulder in that great show in the 1990s, the X Files.

556
00:35:03,430 –> 00:35:07,230
I want to believe, I want to believe that

557
00:35:07,230 –> 00:35:10,950
there’s a vast cabal of evil demonic driven

558
00:35:11,030 –> 00:35:14,310
individuals who are seeking to assert elite control

559
00:35:15,280 –> 00:35:18,640
over the populace in order to institute neo feudalism

560
00:35:18,880 –> 00:35:22,400
and Luciferian and Satanic control

561
00:35:23,200 –> 00:35:26,960
in the material here and now. For

562
00:35:26,960 –> 00:35:30,360
me, that whole spectrum of conspiracy

563
00:35:30,360 –> 00:35:34,160
theories is usually

564
00:35:34,480 –> 00:35:38,240
or is the best Occam’s Razor explanation for

565
00:35:38,240 –> 00:35:41,650
things and behaviors that I see from people in power that make

566
00:35:41,650 –> 00:35:45,450
absolutely no damn sense. And when I say people in power,

567
00:35:45,450 –> 00:35:49,130
I mean people in power. I mean like the Rothschilds

568
00:35:49,130 –> 00:35:52,530
and the Bilderbergers and the,

569
00:35:53,490 –> 00:35:57,330
and the Royal Family and why they believe things

570
00:35:57,330 –> 00:36:01,130
that they believe and why they pursue the decisions

571
00:36:01,130 –> 00:36:04,690
that they pursue that seem to benefit almost nobody.

572
00:36:05,250 –> 00:36:08,630
Even though like the first, the folks at the World Economic Forum, like the folks

573
00:36:08,630 –> 00:36:12,430
at blackrock, they proclaim very loudly from daycs

574
00:36:12,750 –> 00:36:16,430
and from and from

575
00:36:16,750 –> 00:36:20,350
and from, from, from platforms giving

576
00:36:20,350 –> 00:36:23,150
speeches that they are just out here for all of us.

577
00:36:24,110 –> 00:36:27,670
I don’t believe it. I do believe they are

578
00:36:27,670 –> 00:36:31,230
controlled by something else. And I do believe that’s,

579
00:36:31,230 –> 00:36:34,500
that’s something else may not necessarily have our

580
00:36:34,820 –> 00:36:38,540
best interests at heart. So do I believe in

581
00:36:38,540 –> 00:36:42,340
aliens? Do I believe that there’s life on other planets? I for sure

582
00:36:42,340 –> 00:36:46,020
hope There is, because the universe would be lonely without it,

583
00:36:46,740 –> 00:36:49,300
but wouldn’t have already

584
00:36:50,260 –> 00:36:53,980
bothered to bother with us. Or maybe it has bothered

585
00:36:53,980 –> 00:36:57,540
to bother with us. And maybe just like whatever happened with Roswell back in the

586
00:36:57,540 –> 00:37:01,190
1940s. Forties, maybe, maybe

587
00:37:01,190 –> 00:37:04,870
someone, somewhere or someone’s somewheres have been

588
00:37:04,870 –> 00:37:08,590
hiding it from all of us because they’re scared of what

589
00:37:08,590 –> 00:37:12,270
we might do. They’re scared of how the system might fail

590
00:37:12,270 –> 00:37:15,590
or might fall apart. And they’re scared of how they will be

591
00:37:15,590 –> 00:37:19,430
disintermediated from power. But what

592
00:37:19,430 –> 00:37:23,150
if those beings, what if those aliens that I want to exist

593
00:37:23,960 –> 00:37:27,760
don’t have my best interests at heart? What if they aren’t on our quote

594
00:37:27,760 –> 00:37:30,920
unquote side and not in a

595
00:37:30,920 –> 00:37:34,640
militaristic Independence Day or War of the World’s kind

596
00:37:34,640 –> 00:37:37,880
of not being on my side? What if they’re not on my side in a

597
00:37:37,880 –> 00:37:41,600
way where they want to come down and in that great Twilight

598
00:37:41,600 –> 00:37:45,400
Zone episode, get us all to go on ships and go back

599
00:37:45,560 –> 00:37:48,040
to their home planet in order to

600
00:37:50,140 –> 00:37:53,940
serve man? So that’s one idea that

601
00:37:53,940 –> 00:37:56,740
I got there, and that’s a humdigger of a doozy that you may want to

602
00:37:56,740 –> 00:38:00,140
think about. Here’s another idea. Perhaps it is

603
00:38:00,620 –> 00:38:04,140
better not to search for a superman or for a God from the

604
00:38:04,140 –> 00:38:07,980
stars, or for a superman or a God, small G,

605
00:38:07,980 –> 00:38:11,700
to be brought here from Mars via the machinations of the delicate

606
00:38:11,700 –> 00:38:15,190
geniuses at NASA or SpaceX or. And

607
00:38:15,350 –> 00:38:19,070
maybe instead we should be considering what destruction in

608
00:38:19,070 –> 00:38:22,630
alien terms might actually be. What are they actually

609
00:38:22,870 –> 00:38:26,230
offering us? Or what are we actually offering them?

610
00:38:26,630 –> 00:38:29,590
And is there going to be an even exchange of value?

611
00:38:31,670 –> 00:38:35,270
Look, at a practical level, I do not share ground with the fictional

612
00:38:35,270 –> 00:38:38,950
Dana Scully of X Files fame, Sam Altman,

613
00:38:39,030 –> 00:38:42,830
or even the skeptics that currently dominate the public square

614
00:38:43,150 –> 00:38:46,990
known as the Internet. I do want to

615
00:38:46,990 –> 00:38:50,470
believe in that intelligent life, and I do want to believe that that intelligent life

616
00:38:50,470 –> 00:38:53,950
is somewhere in the universe searching to engage with other intelligent life

617
00:38:54,510 –> 00:38:58,310
and of course, finding the universe to be as empty and cold as we have

618
00:38:58,310 –> 00:39:01,590
found it would be excited to engage with us, would be

619
00:39:01,590 –> 00:39:03,790
eager. But

620
00:39:05,630 –> 00:39:09,400
I also know, logically, putting the emotions

621
00:39:09,400 –> 00:39:13,240
of that aside, that the admonitions of caution for our most

622
00:39:13,240 –> 00:39:17,000
ancient human traditions, like the religious ones,

623
00:39:17,720 –> 00:39:21,080
are never really heeded in any kind of way,

624
00:39:21,720 –> 00:39:25,080
ever since the first bulwark or the first

625
00:39:25,080 –> 00:39:28,920
groundwork or the first tile was laid in them. Those admonitions

626
00:39:28,920 –> 00:39:32,200
of those ancient human traditions are never heeded by those human

627
00:39:32,280 –> 00:39:35,780
beings who seek and who desire to

628
00:39:36,740 –> 00:39:40,500
enforce utopia from the anywhere,

629
00:39:41,700 –> 00:39:45,420
whether that be from the stars or from

630
00:39:45,420 –> 00:39:48,260
some half baked political ideology.

631
00:39:50,020 –> 00:39:53,100
I know that we as leaders have to watch out for that. And I know

632
00:39:53,100 –> 00:39:56,820
that skepticism and the desire for belief are

633
00:39:56,820 –> 00:40:00,330
intention. They are not opposing. Well, they are

634
00:40:00,330 –> 00:40:04,170
opposing forces, but they’re opposing forces in tension. And

635
00:40:04,170 –> 00:40:07,930
while they are opposing, they are not oppositional. You could be a skeptic and

636
00:40:07,930 –> 00:40:11,650
still want to believe. And you could want to believe. You can have belief

637
00:40:11,650 –> 00:40:15,169
and still be skeptical. Maybe this goes

638
00:40:15,170 –> 00:40:18,970
to what faith actually means, which might be the whole point of

639
00:40:18,970 –> 00:40:22,730
Stranger in a Strange Land, which of course begins

640
00:40:22,730 –> 00:40:25,180
its grounding in Exodus

641
00:40:25,180 –> 00:40:26,940
2:22.

642
00:40:30,940 –> 00:40:34,300
Maybe Robert Heinlein was onto something after all.

643
00:40:36,140 –> 00:40:39,100
I don’t think we resolved anything here today. I just think that I’ve brought up

644
00:40:39,100 –> 00:40:42,780
questions for you that maybe have no answers. And I think that’s

645
00:40:42,780 –> 00:40:46,260
kind of the best thing that you can get from a book that seems

646
00:40:46,260 –> 00:40:50,110
simple but upon a closer look is really very complicated.

647
00:40:50,260 –> 00:40:54,060
Complicated. I would encourage you to pick it up as a leader. Read

648
00:40:54,060 –> 00:40:56,020
it and let me know what you think.

649
00:40:58,500 –> 00:41:02,100
And well, that’s it for me.