The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 268. Live Not By Lies

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00:00:53.760 Welcome to episode 268 of the JBP podcast.

00:00:57.760 I'm Michaela Peterson.

00:00:59.720 In this episode, Dad spoke with Rod Dreher, a senior writer and editor for the American Conservative.

00:01:06.160 As a veteran journalist for over 30 years, Rod's writing has also appeared in the National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

00:01:15.180 He's the author of three New York Times bestsellers, Live Not by Lies, The Benedict Option, and The Little Way of Ruthie Lemming, as well as the books Crunchy Cons and How Dante Can Save Your Life.

00:01:28.840 In this episode, Dad and Rod talked about Rod's latest book, Live Not by Lies, the continuous emergence of communism in the West, ideology as a substitute for religion, the importance of courage, and more.

00:01:41.380 Enjoy the episode.

00:01:42.840 Enjoy the episode.

00:01:42.880 Hello, everyone.

00:01:57.220 I'm here today with Rod Dreher, a senior editor at the American Conservative.

00:02:03.000 He's a veteran of three decades of magazine and newspaper journalism.

00:02:07.820 Rod has written two previous New York Times bestsellers, The Benedict Option and The Little Way of Ruthie Lemming, as well as Crunchy Cons and How Dante Can Save Your Life.

00:02:20.140 Today, we are posed to discuss his newest book, Live Not by Lies, inspired not least by the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, the book that helped bring down the evil Soviet empire.

00:02:37.180 Good to meet you, Rod.

00:02:38.060 It's been a long time coming, and I'm looking forward to discussing your book.

00:02:41.360 Yeah, thank you, Jordan.

00:02:43.360 It has been a long time coming, because you, of all people in North America, are an expert on totalitarianism, and so I've been very eager to see what your take on the book is and to have a fruitful discussion with you about it.

00:02:58.060 Yeah, so the title, Live Not by Lies, it's a lovely phrase, a catchy phrase, too, for what that's worth, and I suppose that indicates some poetic genius.

00:03:08.400 Do you want to talk a little bit about why you picked that title, where it came from, and also what motivated you to write the book?

00:03:15.420 Sure.

00:03:15.840 Well, the title comes from an essay that Alexander Solzhenitsyn sent out to his followers just before the Soviets expelled him in 1974.

00:03:24.920 And in the essay, he told the people who followed him that, look, we can't go out on Red Square and say exactly what we think.

00:03:32.480 We don't have that option in totalitarian Russia, but what we can do is refuse to say what we do not think.

00:03:40.220 This is the power we have to refuse to speak lies or to refuse to assent to lies where they are spoken around us.

00:03:48.360 And I think that that is a very valuable lesson for us today, living under very different conditions in the 2020s, but we are living in a time of a different kind of totalitarianism.

00:04:03.060 And that brings us to why I began to write the book, the genesis of the book.

00:04:08.140 Around 2015, I received a phone call from a man, a physician at the Mayo Clinic, who said, listen, I have to tell somebody this.

00:04:18.400 I have to tell some journalist this.

00:04:20.680 He said his elderly mother lives with him and his wife there, and she had immigrated to America after she was released from prison in communist Czechoslovakia.

00:04:30.480 She had spent four years in prison there and was tortured for being a Vatican spy.

00:04:36.780 Why did they call her a Vatican spy?

00:04:38.480 Because she refused their order to stop going to church.

00:04:42.040 Well, the lady came to America.

00:04:43.900 She married.

00:04:44.720 She started a family.

00:04:46.300 But now at the end of her life, she was telling her son, son, the things I see happening in America today remind me of what I left behind.

00:04:56.500 Well, what was she talking about?

00:04:57.800 She's talking about the fact that people are terrified to say what they really think.

00:05:02.220 She was talking about how people could lose their businesses or lose their jobs simply for having the quote unquote wrong opinion.

00:05:09.680 She was talking about how mobs were generated for ideological reasons to drive people to the margins of society.

00:05:17.680 She was talking about the way language is being falsified in service of an ideological agenda.

00:05:23.420 And she was talking about the way that not only the state, but also private institutions are making people think of themselves in terms of group identities, not individual rights.

00:05:35.200 And that all of this seemed to be part of a totalitarian mindset.

00:05:40.400 Well, I thought, Jordan, that what this old lady said was kind of outrageous.

00:05:46.040 You know, my mother is old.

00:05:47.160 She watches a lot of cable news.

00:05:48.560 She's afraid of things, too.

00:05:50.540 But then I began to ask people whenever I would meet them at conferences or when I travel, if I would find out that they're from the Soviet bloc, they came to the West from the Soviet bloc.

00:06:00.880 I would simply ask them, are the things you're seeing happen here in North America consonant with what you left behind?

00:06:08.740 Jordan, every single one of them said yes.

00:06:12.340 And if you talk to them long enough, they would be so angry that Americans wouldn't believe them because we just don't think it could happen here.

00:06:20.680 And the more I began to talk to them, the more I began to realize that the cause of this or the basic cause of this is that our idea of totalitarianism depends on the Cold War.

00:06:32.140 It comes from Stalinism.

00:06:34.060 It comes from George Orwell's 1984 in which the all-powerful state forced totalitarian ideology on people by making them afraid and by inflicting pain and terror on them.

00:06:46.800 But we don't have that now.

00:06:47.800 We don't have gulags.

00:06:48.840 We don't have secret police, yet anyway.

00:06:51.580 We don't have bread lines and all the things that we associate with the Soviet Union.

00:06:56.180 So why is this totalitarianism?

00:06:58.520 Well, I came to understand that this is a softer form and a different form, a form that has more to do with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World than with Orwell's 1984.

00:07:10.000 It is a totalitarianism built on comfort and status and well-being.

00:07:15.680 And we can't really see it because we're looking to the past to tell us what totalitarianism is.

00:07:23.940 But these people, these emigres who lived through it, they sense it.

00:07:28.520 They are our canaries in the coal mine, and we better listen to them.

00:07:32.120 So I wrote the book to not only talk about what they were seeing happening in our time and place that reminded them of totalitarianism,

00:07:40.540 but also I traveled to Central Europe and to Russia to talk to people who didn't emigrate, people who stayed behind, to resist.

00:07:49.240 And I wanted to find out from them what should we in the West do to prepare ourselves for what is to come

00:07:55.680 and to live lives of integrity rooted in the truth and rooted in courage.

00:08:01.840 So I was just in Eastern Europe talking to people in Romania and Hungary and Albania and Estonia, other Eastern European countries.

00:08:12.960 And it's clear that people there who battled the communists for years and younger people who know of the history of communist totalitarianism in Eastern Europe

00:08:28.640 look at the West and think the same way that the emigres that you described are thinking,

00:08:34.480 that the web of ideas that increasingly possesses, let's say, the radical left and is spreading into the culture at large

00:08:43.220 bears an eerie and uncanny resemblance to the system of ideas that swamped the Soviet states and so much of the world during the Cold War.

00:08:53.940 And the Eastern Europeans are very apprehensive about that.

00:08:56.800 And I would say for good reason.

00:09:00.620 I also, so that's an interesting commentary on the opinions of people who have actually moved to the West.

00:09:07.400 The people who've lived through this see the same thing happening again.

00:09:10.440 And then on your comment about the top-down versus bottom-up model of totalitarianism,

00:09:15.800 might have been, I wouldn't say exactly a flaw with Orwell's 1984 because it's hard,

00:09:21.360 you're hard-pressed to describe that book as flawed in any way.

00:09:24.360 But I think also because we knew of the Stanford prison experiments,

00:09:29.580 and also we're looking for an easy explanation for what happened in Nazi Germany,

00:09:33.600 that it's comforting for people to believe that a totalitarian state is basically made up of people yearning to be free,

00:09:40.900 who are oppressed, but basically honest, by a small minority of people willing to use coercion and terror.

00:09:48.600 And there is a small minority of people willing to use coercion and terror.

00:09:53.380 However, in a true totalitarian state, and this is Solzhenitsyn's genius,

00:09:58.780 the totalitarian element of that is actually the willingness of every single person,

00:10:04.660 virtually without exception, in the entire society,

00:10:07.540 to lie about everything all the time to absolutely everyone.

00:10:13.200 Themselves, their wife or husband, their children, their parents, their siblings,

00:10:17.520 the people they work with.

00:10:18.900 And so it is, and this is something that reading Solzhenitsyn really convinced me of,

00:10:22.620 and of course part of the reason I was attracted to your book,

00:10:24.860 it is the idea that the route to totalitarianism at the individual level

00:10:31.860 is the willingness to knowingly falsify your speech and perception and action.

00:10:39.040 To knowingly do it, too.

00:10:40.500 Not just to do it by accident, but to know it's wrong and still do it.

00:10:43.580 That's the pathway to hell.

00:10:46.380 Yeah, you know, John, Czesław Miłosz,

00:10:49.360 who was a former communist who defected from Poland in the 1950s,

00:10:53.780 wrote an excellent book in the early 50s called The Captive Mind.

00:10:58.580 And in it, he tried to describe to the West why people fell for communism.

00:11:03.460 And he said that a lot of people in the West have this false idea

00:11:06.560 that people did it solely because they were coerced.

00:11:10.460 He said, in fact, there is among everybody, it's part of our human nature,

00:11:14.820 this deep internal longing for harmony and happiness.

00:11:18.960 A lot of these people in Eastern Europe, yeah, they were invaded by the Soviets

00:11:23.100 who occupied them after the war, but a lot of them were exhausted by the war.

00:11:27.260 And they thought communism would give them a sense of wholeness.

00:11:31.020 It would give them a sense of meaning and purpose to their lives.

00:11:34.280 And so they submitted to it.

00:11:35.940 Also, Anne Applebaum, who's a historian of the Iron Curtain,

00:11:40.200 said that most people in this part of the world,

00:11:43.120 because I'm coming to you now from Budapest,

00:11:45.280 most people in this part of the world didn't make a deal,

00:11:48.260 a conscious deal with the devil to embrace communism.

00:11:52.340 They were just tired and worn down by constant propaganda

00:11:55.560 and just wanted to have a normal life.

00:11:58.180 And if that meant having to submit to the lies, well, they were willing to do so.

00:12:03.200 Well, so there's another element of that that's interesting as well.

00:12:08.300 So we could go two directions on that.

00:12:09.800 The first is that under many conditions, the human proclivity to go along with the dictates of the group

00:12:17.300 is actually an admirable proclivity.

00:12:19.820 And so, you know, parents of teenagers often say to their teenagers,

00:12:23.840 well, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?

00:12:28.120 And the answer to that is actually generally yes.

00:12:31.420 And to make it even more complicated is that that's exactly what teenagers should be doing,

00:12:35.680 because they should be substituting integration in the peer group for dependence on the parents.

00:12:43.080 And so whether or not they fit in is of cardinal importance to a teenager who's developing properly.

00:12:48.640 And so people should go along with the crowd in some sense,

00:12:51.540 because that's what it means to be civilized into a broad community.

00:12:55.360 The problem with that is that sometimes the crowd is a mob,

00:12:59.400 and sometimes society has gone off the rails.

00:13:02.480 And so then what do you do?

00:13:04.400 And the answer to some degree is, well, you develop past being a teenager into an autonomous individual

00:13:12.180 who's an autonomous contributor to the group.

00:13:14.940 And then hopefully you have enough, what would you say, moral integrity to stand for what you see and think

00:13:22.240 when you're called upon to do that.

00:13:24.120 But that's, we don't know the preconditions that allow people to do that.

00:13:28.100 And then on the communist front, I would say, so you talked about people being worn out.

00:13:32.220 But there is also that, and this is one of the things that distinguished communism from Nazism, let's say,

00:13:38.080 and made it even maybe more pernicious.

00:13:40.500 The Nazis basically said, well, the world, that's for the Aryans,

00:13:45.880 and the rest of you can go to hell and we'll be happy to aid in the flames, let's say.

00:13:51.300 And there's not a universalism associated with that.

00:13:55.900 There's a definite exclusion, and it's pretty bloody obvious.

00:13:59.480 On the communist front, though, and this is maybe what made it such a powerful substitute in some sense for Christianity,

00:14:06.960 there was the notion that what we were working for was the universal brotherhood of man

00:14:11.760 and this intense inclusiveness where everyone could live together peacefully.

00:14:15.960 And so people were also led down the garden path by that presumption

00:14:20.120 and found out that lying in the service of future utopia turns out to be a pathway to hell,

00:14:27.080 just like lying in the service of an exclusionary fascist state.

00:14:31.740 Right.

00:14:32.380 You know, I was sitting in a Russian family's apartment in Moscow when I was in Russia reporting the book,

00:14:39.840 and I'd spent the last three days, prior three days, out visiting the monument for the dead from political violence

00:14:49.260 and hearing just incredible stories of atrocities and suffering.

00:14:53.280 And I was sitting there my last night in Moscow having dinner with the family,

00:14:56.960 and I said at the beginning, I just don't understand how anybody could have believed what the Bolsheviks were preaching.

00:15:03.700 The father at the head of the table, these were all Orthodox Christians who were anti-communists,

00:15:08.920 but he said, you don't want to, you don't know how people did this?

00:15:12.700 Let me tell you.

00:15:13.880 And then he goes on this long discourse, about 300 years of Russian history,

00:15:18.520 about incredible exploitation and cruelty by the czars, by the ruling class, even by the church.

00:15:25.180 And he said, by the time you got to the end of the 19th century,

00:15:28.140 when people began to lose faith in the established order,

00:15:32.940 people were ready to believe anything that gave them a sense of relief.

00:15:36.700 And then the father ended by saying, look, I'm not saying the Bolsheviks were right.

00:15:40.740 They were evil.

00:15:41.920 But you can see where they came from.

00:15:44.100 And I think going forward to our own time, when you live in a situation, as we do today in the West,

00:15:51.560 where people are radically atomized, there's this deep disrespect and casting over of hierarchies and institutions,

00:16:01.180 when you have people who want to transgress for the sake of transgression, and so on and so forth.

00:16:07.060 All of these are points that Hannah Arendt said were precursors to totalitarianism.

00:16:11.960 Well, it's no wonder that people, otherwise intelligent people, are willing to accept insane ideological ideas

00:16:19.600 because they think somehow they're convinced that this is going to bring about a better world.

00:16:24.120 Well, it's also the case, I think, that we all bear the burden of, in some sense, original sin

00:16:31.760 in relationship to the atrocities of the past.

00:16:35.120 And the left has been very good at weaponizing this.

00:16:37.760 And so when we're accused in our Western privilege of unjustly benefiting from the conditions of our birth,

00:16:47.360 there's some truth in that, and there's some truth in the claim that those unjust conditions were purchased

00:16:53.940 to some not small degree at the cost of the blood of others.

00:17:01.240 And so then that produces a moral conundrum in people, which is, well, I know that I've been thrown into this world

00:17:08.640 with arbitrary benefits.

00:17:11.340 Now, arbitrary burdens as well, and that's important to remember.

00:17:14.100 Arbitrary benefits, I'm healthy, I'm reasonably wealthy, I'm of a race that's had some advantages, let's say.

00:17:22.220 I'm born in the United States, et cetera, and it could have been otherwise.

00:17:26.640 And look at all these poor people who are struggling with nothing,

00:17:29.500 and how much of that was purchased at the price of slavery and atrocity.

00:17:34.820 And those are all extremely good questions.

00:17:37.920 And I've been trying to think through that more recently to help people defend themselves

00:17:42.040 against accusations put forward about such things by the radical resentful who will manipulate it.

00:17:48.860 The way that you atone for the unequal distribution of talents is to accept that you have some responsibility

00:17:54.480 to make the best possible use of the advantages that have been granted to you.

00:17:59.540 And so I think the only way that people can defend themselves against the accusations of unfair and atrocious privilege

00:18:07.040 thrown at them by the utopian resentful types is by striving to live a life that's as moral

00:18:13.900 as paying for their privilege demands.

00:18:17.760 And there's an ethical element to that that's deep, right?

00:18:20.500 Deep enough to really be regarded in some sense as religious.

00:18:23.900 Right, right.

00:18:24.800 To whom much is given, much is expected.

00:18:27.180 Exactly that, yes.

00:18:28.420 And, but you know, as I was listening to you talk, I was thinking about my late father,

00:18:32.740 who was born in deep rural poverty in South Louisiana in the Great Depression.

00:18:39.560 And this was a man who didn't have indoor plumbing in his house until he installed it as a senior in high school in the early 1950s.

00:18:47.440 But he was able to benefit from the GI Bill after the war, and he was the first in his family to go to college.

00:18:54.880 And he built a middle-class existence and sent his kids to college and so on and so forth.

00:19:00.760 Well, when I was reading Russian history about the kulaks, the prosperous peasants,

00:19:05.860 and how Stalin and Lenin singled them out for extermination, I think of people like my dad,

00:19:13.320 those who knew what you could do through hard work and self-discipline and using your talents in the right way.

00:19:20.580 That's why Stalin had to get rid of the kulaks, because they stood as living disproofs of the Bolshevik ideology,

00:19:30.700 which is the only way anybody gets ahead is by cheating.

00:19:35.700 Mm-hmm.

00:19:36.360 Yeah, well, the story of the kulaks should send a chill down the heart,

00:19:41.240 chill into the heart of anybody who has any dignity, discipline, and sense.

00:19:47.020 As I really threw myself in imagination into the kulak world, thinking about the little town that I grew up in,

00:19:56.000 my parents were very much of the same sort of people that you describe your father as.

00:20:02.580 So imagine that in a little town, emerging from poverty, there's a smattering of people

00:20:09.320 who are clambering their way towards a reasonably prosperous upper working class or middle class existence, right?

00:20:16.440 And they're doing that because they work bloody hard.

00:20:19.900 They're disciplined and dedicated.

00:20:21.760 And maybe they get enough capital to hire someone to help them house clean,

00:20:27.260 and maybe to hire a couple of hired hands on the, would have been the farm at that time.

00:20:32.000 And let's say they're the first people in town to do that.

00:20:35.660 And everyone else who's striving away mightily to attain the same end admires their efforts.

00:20:41.060 But there's a small coterie of Machiavellian psychopaths on the fringe who are jealous as hell of them

00:20:47.980 and who are primed and ready to regard their attainments as theft.

00:20:54.720 And then a swarm of intellectual Bolshevists ride into town and say,

00:20:59.520 hey, you know, anybody who has more than you is an exploiter and a thief.

00:21:04.460 And the moral thing to do is to take what they have and, if not kill them and rape them,

00:21:12.280 then at least ship them somewhere where they can't do any more harm.

00:21:16.060 And then you ask, well, to whom does that message appeal?

00:21:20.460 And you might say, well, to egalitarian utopians.

00:21:23.660 But how about no?

00:21:24.760 How about to the Machiavellian fringe psychopaths who've been waiting for an excuse to rob and pillage

00:21:30.580 and now have been provided with it by the convenient doctrines of idiot intellectuals?

00:21:36.000 And then imagine yourself in a town like that where those insane, vicious, cruel, resentful bullies

00:21:44.200 now have the weapons, the upper hand, and the moral authority of the government.

00:21:49.920 And that was de-coolickization.

00:21:52.320 Yep.

00:21:52.940 Yep.

00:21:53.400 That's true.

00:21:54.420 And it's just breathtaking to see something similar happening today.

00:21:58.920 Again, thank God we don't have a Siberia.

00:22:01.500 That's why I call this soft totalitarianism as opposed to the hard version of the Soviet Union.

00:22:08.660 But we still have a system now put in place not only by the government, maybe not even mostly

00:22:14.140 by the government, but by every major institution in Western life, the media, the universities,

00:22:20.320 the military, big business, woke capitalism, and so on and so forth, which adopt this same

00:22:26.400 foolish egalitarianism.

00:22:28.460 And they will marginalize those who stand against it, those who stand against it and can prove

00:22:35.820 that they're good because by the quality of their work.

00:22:38.940 You know, I think that there's some, there's a relevant passage that Martin Latsis, he was

00:22:45.060 the head of the Cheka, the precursor to the KGB in Ukraine back in the early years of the

00:22:51.380 revolution.

00:22:52.240 There's a passage from one of his writings that applies to us today.

00:22:55.160 Latsis said, told the agents to go down into Ukraine and judge people not on the basis

00:23:02.300 of whether or not they had actually spoken out against the Soviet order, but rather look

00:23:08.140 at their class file.

00:23:09.760 Look at where they were, who their people were, and then punish them on that.

00:23:14.280 That, he said, is the basis of the Red Terror.

00:23:16.960 And this is what you get when you have a system and an ideology that privileges people or judges

00:23:22.660 people on the basis of group identity, not individual, the quality of individual character

00:23:28.320 or individual work.

00:23:30.160 This is something that is pushed in our own culture today, not from the bottom up, but it's

00:23:35.680 coming from the real revolutionary class, which are the intellectuals who have marched through

00:23:41.380 the institutions.

00:23:42.460 Well, it is the intellectuals, but you pointed to something too, which is really, to me, almost

00:23:48.960 staggeringly incomprehensible.

00:23:50.940 And that's the emergence of woke capitalism.

00:23:53.540 And so I look at these CEOs like the CEO of Disney, and I think, are you actually so daft that

00:24:01.960 you don't notice that you're empowering a fifth column within your own organization?

00:24:06.800 Do you actually not understand that equity means in the final analysis that you get to

00:24:12.780 get shot first?

00:24:14.720 Do you not see that the unequal distribution that characterizes the capitalist enterprise,

00:24:20.680 at least in principle, based on more going to those who work harder, although it's an

00:24:25.840 imperfect system, is exactly the opposite of what the equity agitators are striving for?

00:24:31.400 And why is it that you're enabling that within your HR departments, within your own corporation?

00:24:36.900 And so, I mean, we can point our fingers at the idiot professors, and we should, but then

00:24:41.340 what the hell's up with the evil capitalist overlords?

00:24:44.680 Like, are they so clueless that they can't even, what do they want?

00:24:47.240 They want to not take responsibility for the fruits of their own success, that they want

00:24:51.420 to play both ends against the middle?

00:24:53.200 Or is it just blindness?

00:24:54.660 Like, I don't understand this.

00:24:56.540 No, it's guilt.

00:24:57.260 I remember when I worked in newsroom for most of my career, the people who were pushing

00:25:02.980 equity, so-called equity and diversity at hiring, which often meant hiring people who

00:25:08.620 weren't good enough to do the jobs that they were being given, this was all being pushed

00:25:13.320 by white upper management who were trying, in my view, to atone for their own anxiety

00:25:19.100 or to get rid of, to discharge their own anxiety about their privilege.

00:25:23.020 And the people who were paying the price for it were those people who were truly capable

00:25:27.960 farther down the chain there.

00:25:30.040 Because you would never see these white upper managers resign to make place for a person of

00:25:35.840 color or a gay person or a minority person.

00:25:38.940 No, they were making other people deal with their own, the upper management's anxieties

00:25:45.940 and sense that they were frauds.

00:25:48.500 And I think it was also a form of indulgences in the middle age, the medieval Catholic sense

00:25:54.320 of indulgences.

00:25:55.360 If they would use their power to put the oppressed in places, in positions within the company,

00:26:02.800 then they felt that they had somehow gained holiness or gained...

00:26:07.440 Yeah, well, do you think we should be cynical or sympathetic about that or both?

00:26:12.140 So imagine working on the argument that we were developing earlier is that, as you pointed

00:26:17.980 out, if you've been given much, much will be asked from you.

00:26:21.660 And let's say that if you're a middle class, upper middle class manager of a decent corporation

00:26:27.660 in the United States, a lot has been given to you.

00:26:31.180 And so what that means actually is a lot is being demanded of you, even by your own conscience,

00:26:36.740 right?

00:26:37.100 Because you look around and you see your wealth and you see your opportunity and you contrast

00:26:41.180 that, say, when you walk down the street and see a homeless person, you contrast that with

00:26:45.580 the privation that still exists around you.

00:26:48.340 And if you're a vaguely decent person, that sets up an unease and a disquiet in your conscience.

00:26:54.120 And then you might say, well, in order to expiate that unease, you have to live as morally

00:26:59.200 as you are wealthy.

00:27:01.560 And failing that, then you're going to do, you're going to take maybe the René Girard

00:27:05.940 route and look for scapegoats.

00:27:07.720 You're going to look for someone else to sacrifice so that you act morally instead of bearing that

00:27:12.960 burden on yourself.

00:27:14.840 So, but, but, you know, it's a tricky thing, right?

00:27:16.640 Because on the one hand, you can, you can admire the fact that the pangs of conscience are

00:27:22.620 requiring action on the ethical front.

00:27:24.960 But then you have to be cynical about the fact that while you're trying to take an easy

00:27:29.700 route out by making someone else pay, instead of actually doing the work that would free

00:27:34.100 you from the pangs of your own conscience in the face of your privilege.

00:27:38.100 Yeah.

00:27:38.300 And I think, I'm glad you brought up René Girard because I quote him in the book as saying

00:27:41.840 that the proper and morally justifiable concern for victims was turning rather into a permanent

00:27:50.460 inquisition and a system of totalitarian command.

00:27:54.140 Gerard saw this in 20 years ago and now we're living with it.

00:27:59.680 So this was, as you were saying earlier, why communism was more easier to accept than

00:28:06.440 Nazism because communism really did take the proper concern for victims, but they created

00:28:13.700 hell on earth by taking it too far.

00:28:16.540 And I think, Jordan, that one of the key missing points here is Christianity.

00:28:21.780 Christianity is a religion that concerns, it stands up for the poor and the victimized.

00:28:28.780 It takes the side of the victimized.

00:28:30.620 But Christianity also has buried deep within it the point that Solzhenitsyn made like this,

00:28:36.780 that the line between good and evil does not pass between social classes or identity groups.

00:28:42.720 It passes right down the middle of every human heart.

00:28:45.740 Any oppressed person can easily become the oppressor tomorrow because human failure, human

00:28:53.160 frailty, original sin is common to human nature.

00:28:56.580 And we saw this in the communist world where those who really did suffer a lot under the

00:29:02.120 regimes they overthrew became even worse oppressors themselves.

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00:31:54.620 Well, so here's the moral hazard that goes along with that guilt that you described.

00:32:00.200 So imagine that you're now, because you have privilege, you're concerned about those who

00:32:06.180 have been victimized and who have less.

00:32:09.160 And so then you could take the steps necessary to be properly philanthropic, productive, and

00:32:14.160 generous with your time and your resources.

00:32:16.560 Or you could take an easy route, and this is the scapegoat route.

00:32:21.180 You could identify the oppressors who have oppressed the victims and who are actually responsible

00:32:27.600 for their existence.

00:32:28.920 And those oppressors are not you.

00:32:31.420 They're someone else.

00:32:32.340 And then your morality consists in ferreting out the oppressors and damning them and mobbing

00:32:38.580 them and chasing them away, which is essentially what happened, let's say, with the Kulaks in

00:32:42.820 the Soviet Union.

00:32:44.940 And so the cost of not—it's the problem of placing Satan, as far as I'm concerned, is that

00:32:51.180 you have to have a place where you localize evil.

00:32:58.700 And it's convenient to localize it in others, and it's ethically justifiable to identify

00:33:04.620 oppressors who produce victims, and convenient if they're not you.

00:33:08.400 But the proper locale for Satan—and I think this is part of the whole Judeo-Christian enterprise

00:33:14.500 to specify this properly—is that that is, in fact, inside your own heart.

00:33:18.920 And that what you should do to constrain evil—and that's really what we're talking about in

00:33:22.740 this podcast, period—is to take on the moral burden that produces atrocity in the world

00:33:28.400 onto yourself.

00:33:29.520 And Solzhenitsyn's advice was, while you start by not lying, that's the first thing you do.

00:33:35.560 Let me read out some of his rules for responsible conduct.

00:33:39.120 It's like a bill of responsibilities.

00:33:40.980 We can think of it that way, instead of bill of rights.

00:33:43.400 I will not say, write, affirm, or distribute anything that distorts the truth.

00:33:52.620 I will not go to a demonstration or participate in a collective action unless I truly believe

00:33:59.120 in the cause.

00:34:00.180 I will not take part in a meeting in which the discussion is forced and no one can speak

00:34:06.940 the truth.

00:34:07.500 I will not vote for a candidate or proposal I consider to be dubious or unworthy.

00:34:12.860 I will walk out of an event as soon as I hear the speaker utter a lie, ideological drivel,

00:34:19.540 or shameless propaganda.

00:34:21.220 Well, that would produce a lot of abandonment to a lot of meetings right now, it would.

00:34:25.360 And I will not support journalism that distorts or hides the underlying facts.

00:34:29.680 And so Solzhenitsyn, this is one of the things I so greatly admired about his work and also

00:34:35.300 about your book.

00:34:38.660 His diagnosis was that it was the willingness to knowingly deceive yourself and other people

00:34:46.220 that generated and supported the totalitarian catastrophe.

00:34:51.040 And that your primary obligation was to cease participating in that.

00:34:56.060 And so, and that does place the tempter, the deceiver.

00:35:00.540 And so the prince of all lies, let's say, Lucifer himself, in your own heart and puts on you

00:35:06.680 the moral weight of engaging in that battle in the psychological or spiritual space.

00:35:15.380 And that also, see, this is one of the reasons I dislike modern universities so much is because

00:35:19.720 what they do instead of helping students develop their moral character, or even talking about

00:35:24.680 such a thing as a moral character, is that they teach the students to identify the perpetrators

00:35:30.360 and then to protest against them.

00:35:34.100 And then that can easily, so easily transform itself into this scapegoating and mob woke culture

00:35:39.480 that we have now, all operating under the flag of a moral banner.

00:35:44.160 Right, because they don't see the capacity for evil within their own hearts.

00:35:49.040 And reason is, it's sadly, it seems to be impotent against this sort of thing.

00:35:55.240 I think, Jordan, that one of the most important events, cultural events of our time happened

00:36:01.960 on Yale University's campus in October 2015.

00:36:05.400 You'll remember this.

00:36:06.980 When the students got so angry, undergraduates, at Nicholas Christakis and his wife, Erica, simply

00:36:15.840 for saying they thought that the students should be able to make up their own minds about the

00:36:21.780 kind of Halloween costumes to wear, you'll remember this became a huge blow up on campus

00:36:27.180 and on YouTube, people filmed this confrontation on the quad there at Princeton between Nicholas

00:36:34.480 Christakis, this liberal, distinguished professor with white hair, baby boomer, and these kids.

00:36:40.380 There was Nicholas Christakis trying to use reason to engage these young people in dialogue.

00:36:47.480 They didn't want anything to do with it.

00:36:48.900 They were screaming and crying and cursing and demanding that he apologize for his lack of care.

00:36:56.320 And it went nowhere.

00:36:57.940 And as you recall, Yale University, the administration, sided with the students.

00:37:03.780 That was a collapse of authority right there.

00:37:06.340 But it also signaled the collapse of rationality.

00:37:09.840 And this was repeated many more times in other universities over the subsequent years.

00:37:15.140 But when it happens to the elites like that in the universities where the elites are formed

00:37:22.000 and elite networks are formed, that is when the revolution really takes off.

00:37:28.200 Yeah, well, it was appalling on the part of Yale to side with the students and not with the professor.

00:37:33.220 And that was a sign of a catastrophic collapse.

00:37:37.220 And also of the inability of those who hold the reins of tradition, let's say,

00:37:43.720 to defend themselves against even the most unsophisticated accusations of group guilt.

00:37:50.960 Because people are guilty, especially if they're conscientious.

00:37:54.180 You know, the other thing that bothers me about the universities a lot, there's many things,

00:37:58.720 but one of the things that Jean Piaget noted, the developmental psychologist,

00:38:03.620 you know, he was interested in bridging the gap between religion and science, eh?

00:38:07.320 That was the fundamental motivation for his entire life's work, by the way.

00:38:11.560 Very few people know that.

00:38:13.660 Because that's one of the odd things about geniuses, you know,

00:38:16.480 is that we tend not to take the true motivations that seriously because it's too disturbing.

00:38:20.860 But Piaget pointed out that the last stage of cognitive moral development in adolescence,

00:38:27.800 in late adolescence, was something that he described as the emergence of the messianic impulse.

00:38:32.780 And so imagine that when you're a mid-age teenager, 15, 16, something like that,

00:38:39.860 your primary concern is get away from your family of origin, start to establish independence,

00:38:45.000 but do that by becoming a stalwart member of your in-group, right?

00:38:51.240 So you move your allegiance from the family to the broader community,

00:38:54.860 and you do that with your friends.

00:38:56.700 But then there's a step past that where you're trying to sort out what your ethical obligation is

00:39:02.900 to yourself and the broader community at large,

00:39:06.520 which is something like specifying the grand purpose of your life.

00:39:10.080 And that produces, especially among ambitious and perhaps better young people,

00:39:17.060 is the desire to do something important with their lives.

00:39:20.500 And then they go to university, and instead of being chastised, I would say, in some real sense,

00:39:26.540 which is to be taught, look, you've got lots of potential, but you don't really know anything.

00:39:31.260 You've got 15 years of apprenticeship in front of you

00:39:34.600 before you're the kind of tool that won't cause trouble when it's applied.

00:39:38.200 And so just sit back and subject yourself to the long apprenticeship that's going to discipline you,

00:39:46.860 get your life together, mature, learn how to work, learn how to be productive,

00:39:51.660 and then go out and do what you can to improve the world for the better.

00:39:55.540 They're taught instead that the mere existence of their youthful outrage,

00:40:01.160 which is compromised in its integrity by their resentful sense that they're at the bottom of the hierarchy,

00:40:06.300 which in some sense is true, that's all harnessed to the ideological demands of the resentful faculty,

00:40:13.980 who I think are mostly irritated because they're not making as much money as bankers.

00:40:18.260 You know, it's a really pathological system of interplay.

00:40:23.840 And so the faculty members can absolve themselves of moral blame

00:40:29.300 by pointing at the evil capitalists who are despoiling the world.

00:40:32.840 That's convenient for them because, of course, those evil capitalists have more money than they do,

00:40:37.380 and they should be more rewarded given their genius.

00:40:39.960 And they can sick the students on them.

00:40:42.100 That's the scapegoating that Gerard described.

00:40:46.340 And then it wraps up the whole problem in a neat little bow,

00:40:49.760 except that it's the students who...

00:40:51.300 Like, it's a catastrophe for those students at Yale to have got away with being a demented, neurotic mob

00:40:58.660 and undermining the authority of a distinguished professor.

00:41:02.240 It's like, what the hell were they paying for at Yale

00:41:03.960 if it wasn't the opportunity to subjugate themselves in an apprenticeship sense to distinguished professors?

00:41:09.720 Is that all just a lie?

00:41:11.280 Well, that's what Yale said.

00:41:12.640 It's status.

00:41:13.480 You know, Jordan, a few years ago, a friend of mine from Europe, a journalist,

00:41:17.660 was at Harvard on a Neiman Fellowship, you know, a very prestigious journalism fellowship

00:41:22.480 where they bring about 25 journalists from around the world

00:41:25.740 and 25 from the United States to Harvard to spend a year taking graduate classes.

00:41:31.700 Well, I happened to be in Boston when this guy's fellowship was ending,

00:41:36.160 and I took him out to lunch to ask him,

00:41:38.480 what have you learned, the biggest lessons you've learned

00:41:40.920 at the most prestigious institution of higher learning in the United States?

00:41:45.240 He thought about it for a second and said,

00:41:47.660 how fragile the American elites are.

00:41:50.560 I said, that's interesting.

00:41:52.000 Can you help me understand that?

00:41:54.560 He said that when they started classes in the fall semester,

00:41:59.440 professors would say things to the students like,

00:42:02.040 these are graduate students, right?

00:42:03.720 Like, class, we're not going to talk about this issue or that issue today

00:42:07.860 because a couple of you came to me ahead of class

00:42:10.700 and said it would be too triggering, so we're just not going to talk about it.

00:42:14.140 My friend said all of us Europeans looked at each other like,

00:42:17.220 wait, is this guy serious?

00:42:19.040 But he was serious, and this happened in class after class after class.

00:42:23.140 The Europeans said by the end of the semester,

00:42:25.280 he realized how fragile the next generation of leaders of America would be

00:42:31.100 because they're so weak that they can't deal with the anxiety caused by issues

00:42:36.600 and questions and ideas raised that they would be required to grapple with.

00:42:40.580 On the other hand, he said, every single one of them believed

00:42:44.320 that they had a natural right to move into positions of leadership.

00:42:49.100 The guy ended by telling me, look, I get to go back to Europe.

00:42:52.220 I don't have to live with this,

00:42:53.760 but the safety and security of my country depends on a strong America.

00:42:58.700 We're not going to have a strong America

00:43:00.280 because your ruling class is so corrupt and so weak,

00:43:03.680 and they will use whatever power they are given

00:43:05.620 to suppress anything that causes them anxiety.

00:43:09.240 Yeah, well, and they're also possessed of the idiot progressive postmodern notion

00:43:14.200 that all reality is just ideas anyways,

00:43:17.900 and so you can avoid difficult discussions,

00:43:20.140 and then you avoid the difficulty

00:43:21.640 because, after all, the real world where the actual difficulties are

00:43:25.440 doesn't even exist.

00:43:27.180 And when you're in a university bubble

00:43:28.900 and you're a protected faculty member,

00:43:30.540 you can actually get away with that idea for quite a long time

00:43:33.160 because, in some sense,

00:43:34.740 there are so many walls surrounding you from the real world

00:43:37.920 that you can dance blithely, you know,

00:43:41.500 on the way to your own grave

00:43:42.900 without even noticing that you're doing something pathological.

00:43:45.960 Yeah, but look, Jordan, it's happened.

00:43:47.460 It's gone beyond the universities now, as we know.

00:43:50.280 Just before we came on to record this,

00:43:52.540 I sent you a tweet from the Toronto Police Department

00:43:55.280 saying, this woman has gone missing,

00:43:58.420 and it's a 27-year-old man with a beard,

00:44:03.420 and, I mean, he's clearly a man.

00:44:05.120 He calls himself Isabel.

00:44:07.180 Oh, now you're in trouble.

00:44:08.560 Now you're in trouble.

00:44:10.880 Well, you know, what is a woman,

00:44:14.220 as I've heard asked by the Daily Wire folks.

00:44:17.340 But, you know, what's crazy about this

00:44:18.940 is it made me think of Orwell's line in 1984.

00:44:24.740 He said the party's final and most essential command

00:44:28.280 was that you deny the evidence of your eyes and your ears.

00:44:32.280 This is happening on a widespread basis.

00:44:34.740 That's the true test of loyalty.

00:44:36.780 Yep, yep, loyalty to the system.

00:44:39.440 Yeah, and then reliability and, yeah,

00:44:41.820 reliability and hypothetically moral integrity,

00:44:44.180 all of that.

00:44:44.660 If you'll sacrifice your own eyes to,

00:44:47.320 if you'll sacrifice your own eyes to the cause,

00:44:49.840 then how could there be any evidence

00:44:51.360 that you're anything but morally superior?

00:44:53.280 Right, well, a man named Patrick Benda

00:44:55.220 in the Czech Republic,

00:44:56.740 his father and mother were legendary dissidents.

00:44:59.900 Dad went to prison under communism

00:45:01.960 for his dissident activities.

00:45:04.080 He told me that you have to remember

00:45:05.800 that even before communism came into power,

00:45:09.220 20 years at least before,

00:45:11.300 all the intelligentsia had gone over

00:45:13.340 to socialism or communism,

00:45:14.740 and if you wanted to have any part

00:45:17.020 in the intelligentsia,

00:45:19.300 you had to make that conversion too.

00:45:21.140 Well, clearly the same thing has been happening

00:45:23.540 in our societies with regard to gender ideology,

00:45:26.460 to critical race theory,

00:45:27.600 and all these other elements of woke ideology.

00:45:30.360 If you want to get into the intelligentsia,

00:45:32.600 you have to believe that,

00:45:33.740 but not only the intelligentsia,

00:45:35.460 if you want to get into law school,

00:45:37.260 into medicine,

00:45:38.480 into the U.S. military, for God's sake,

00:45:41.180 and into big business,

00:45:43.200 you have to affirm these lies.

00:45:45.300 So one of the big lessons of Live Not By Lies

00:45:49.180 came from Vaclav Havel,

00:45:51.740 the first president of a free Czechoslovakia

00:45:54.700 and a playwright who led the opposition

00:45:56.920 in communist Czechoslovakia.

00:45:59.400 He wrote this famous parable

00:46:01.440 called The Myth of the Green Grocer.

00:46:04.380 He said, imagine there's a little green grocer

00:46:06.440 in your communist country,

00:46:08.340 and like every other business owner in town,

00:46:11.240 he puts up the sign in his window

00:46:13.380 that says, workers of the world unite.

00:46:15.940 Nobody believes it,

00:46:17.120 but they put that communist slogan there

00:46:19.320 because they don't want trouble.

00:46:21.700 Well, what happens one day

00:46:22.640 when the green grocer decides

00:46:23.940 to take that sign down from his window?

00:46:26.700 Well, the secret police come.

00:46:28.000 They arrest him that he loses his business.

00:46:30.440 When he gets out of jail,

00:46:31.420 he's got to work as a street sweeper.

00:46:33.180 He's humiliated.

00:46:34.460 His family loses privileges and on and on.

00:46:37.540 He really pays a price for his dissent.

00:46:40.180 But what has he gained by that?

00:46:41.720 Now, Havel says he has shown the world

00:46:44.140 that it is possible to live in truth,

00:46:46.340 to live in integrity,

00:46:47.320 if you are willing to suffer for it.

00:46:50.540 And if enough people do that, said Havel,

00:46:53.100 then everyone will start to question

00:46:55.540 all the lies the system has built on,

00:46:57.900 that it has to start with people

00:46:59.400 who are willing to suffer for their condition.

00:47:01.540 Okay, so let's interject there just for a second.

00:47:04.760 One of the things I used to tell my clients

00:47:07.040 when they were facing a conundrum was

00:47:09.120 you're trapped in an illusion

00:47:12.960 because you want to keep your job

00:47:16.200 although you hate it

00:47:17.100 because you're afraid of the alternative.

00:47:19.380 But you're discounting the risk

00:47:21.160 of maintaining your current course.

00:47:23.420 You're used to that

00:47:24.340 and the risk has been discounted.

00:47:26.260 And you're suffering under the delusion

00:47:28.200 that there's a pathway forward

00:47:29.600 that does not involve suffering.

00:47:31.340 And that's simply not true.

00:47:34.480 What you have is the option

00:47:36.220 of picking your suffering.

00:47:38.160 And so the problem with the green grocer

00:47:40.560 who puts the slogan up in his window

00:47:42.840 is he thinks that he's avoiding suffering,

00:47:46.300 but he's not.

00:47:47.480 He's delaying it and amplifying it

00:47:50.740 for his future self.

00:47:53.640 Once you understand that,

00:47:55.380 because people have commented,

00:47:56.540 they tell me,

00:47:57.560 well, you're so courageous.

00:47:58.900 And I think,

00:48:00.080 well, no, you don't understand.

00:48:03.260 I'm just afraid of the right thing.

00:48:06.320 I know that there's catastrophe to the right

00:48:09.040 and catastrophe to the left

00:48:10.520 and catastrophe straight ahead, let's say.

00:48:13.020 But I also know that

00:48:14.320 conflict delayed is conflict multiplied.

00:48:17.580 And if I have to pick suffering right now

00:48:19.620 because I'm going to say

00:48:20.460 what I bloody well think

00:48:21.520 and suffering later way more intensely

00:48:23.600 with way more other people

00:48:24.880 because I refuse to say what I think,

00:48:26.860 I'm going to pick the former.

00:48:28.040 And I'm not going to delude myself

00:48:29.900 that there's some safe path

00:48:31.280 that involves lying

00:48:32.300 because there isn't.

00:48:34.420 And that's another thing.

00:48:35.680 Well, another reason I liked your book is,

00:48:37.520 and this is Solzhenitsyn's,

00:48:39.600 what would you call it?

00:48:41.280 His key insight in some sense

00:48:42.740 is that you think that lying protects you.

00:48:47.600 That's wrong.

00:48:49.100 And you think,

00:48:49.660 well, how could it possibly protect you?

00:48:51.480 What you're trying to do

00:48:52.480 is to adapt to the world.

00:48:53.800 And if you lie

00:48:56.200 so that you're no longer adapted to the world,

00:48:58.480 then you're going to run into sharp objects

00:49:00.600 and fall into holes nonstop.

00:49:04.060 And the blinder you are,

00:49:05.160 the sharper the objects

00:49:06.080 and the deeper the holes.

00:49:07.660 And when you really understand that,

00:49:09.880 like once I understood

00:49:10.960 Solzhenitsyn's connection

00:49:12.220 between lying and the totalitarian state,

00:49:14.940 I mean, I had come at that

00:49:16.300 for other reasons as well,

00:49:17.440 but he was a big contributor

00:49:19.180 to that realization.

00:49:20.040 I thought,

00:49:21.180 well, there's no way

00:49:22.340 I'm going to say things that are false

00:49:24.120 because that's clearly,

00:49:25.820 that's the road to hell.

00:49:27.680 Not metaphysically,

00:49:29.400 not philosophically,

00:49:31.920 actually, really, for sure,

00:49:35.160 this will happen.

00:49:36.000 And as a clinician,

00:49:37.220 this is one of the things

00:49:38.020 that also terrified me.

00:49:39.800 I never saw anyone

00:49:40.840 ever get away with anything.

00:49:43.320 The chickens always came home to roost.

00:49:45.580 People paid for every sin.

00:49:47.800 Sometimes it took them years

00:49:49.100 to draw the causal connections.

00:49:51.980 But a lot of what therapy was,

00:49:53.760 was, well,

00:49:55.220 let's see if we can figure out

00:49:56.600 something went wrong.

00:49:59.160 Let's see if we can figure out when.

00:50:01.920 Let's see if we can figure out why.

00:50:04.460 Let's see if we can figure out

00:50:05.900 how to undo it.

00:50:07.020 You remember in Solzhenitsyn,

00:50:08.280 in the second part of the Gulag Archipelago,

00:50:09.860 second volume of the Gulag Archipelago,

00:50:11.580 I think,

00:50:12.440 he said that when he was in prison

00:50:14.080 and decided that

00:50:15.800 part of the reason he was there

00:50:17.680 was because he was a sinner,

00:50:19.460 because he'd made mistakes,

00:50:21.120 he decided,

00:50:22.280 because he had so much time

00:50:23.360 on his hands,

00:50:23.980 that he would go through

00:50:24.900 his entire life

00:50:26.040 with a fine-tooth comb,

00:50:28.480 try to recollect

00:50:29.780 every single time

00:50:31.120 he violated his conscience,

00:50:33.280 and then see if he could figure out

00:50:35.260 how to atone for that

00:50:36.320 in the present.

00:50:37.880 And that's basically

00:50:38.940 the psychotherapeutic process.

00:50:40.520 It's like,

00:50:41.220 where did you go wrong?

00:50:42.680 How did you lie?

00:50:44.000 How can you set yourself back

00:50:45.340 on the appropriate path?

00:50:47.100 And I think that's the fear of God

00:50:48.680 that's the beginning of wisdom,

00:50:50.160 in some sense.

00:50:50.980 It's like,

00:50:51.520 what's the old idea?

00:50:53.280 There's a book

00:50:53.820 where everything you've ever done

00:50:55.540 is written down.

00:50:57.020 Yeah, that book,

00:50:57.700 that's reality itself.

00:50:59.720 And you do not have the power

00:51:01.360 to twist or distort reality

00:51:03.840 without it snapping back at you

00:51:05.700 in ways that you can hardly

00:51:06.900 possibly imagine.

00:51:08.540 And remember what Solzhenitsyn said,

00:51:11.980 bless you, prison.

00:51:13.660 I mean,

00:51:14.040 can you imagine?

00:51:15.040 He suffered horribly in prison,

00:51:16.960 but he said,

00:51:17.740 bless you, prison,

00:51:18.680 because it brought him

00:51:19.920 to that salvation.

00:51:21.580 It brought him out of himself.

00:51:23.880 Yeah, well,

00:51:24.200 then he was also honest enough,

00:51:25.800 by the way,

00:51:26.280 when he did say that,

00:51:27.380 to say,

00:51:28.500 I do say that knowing

00:51:29.700 that so many innocent

00:51:30.960 and good people

00:51:31.760 died in those prisons

00:51:33.980 and were tortured

00:51:34.900 beyond recovery

00:51:36.580 and did not have the benefit

00:51:38.960 of that eventual redemption.

00:51:40.800 Right?

00:51:41.040 Because that's suffering,

00:51:42.100 that's suffering,

00:51:42.820 that's a real,

00:51:43.480 that's real trouble.

00:51:44.900 It's not,

00:51:45.800 and there's no necessary proof

00:51:49.260 that if you undertake

00:51:51.060 to suffer for the truth

00:51:52.700 that you won't pay

00:51:55.640 the final price.

00:51:57.240 The problem is,

00:51:58.540 you're going to pay a price

00:51:59.800 for the alternative too,

00:52:01.220 and so will everybody else.

00:52:02.820 And, you know,

00:52:03.200 that's another metaphysical issue

00:52:04.620 in some sense,

00:52:05.380 you know,

00:52:05.820 what's worth death

00:52:06.860 or what's worse,

00:52:08.840 death or hell.

00:52:11.120 And I would say,

00:52:12.500 if you think it's death,

00:52:14.360 all that means is

00:52:15.940 you haven't been to hell yet.

00:52:18.180 Hmm,

00:52:18.800 that's powerful.

00:52:20.220 You know,

00:52:20.680 and I think that one aspect

00:52:22.580 of this new totalitarianism

00:52:24.340 we're dealing with

00:52:25.160 is the fear,

00:52:26.640 not only,

00:52:27.300 no fear of hell,

00:52:28.400 but fear of being inconvenienced,

00:52:33.040 fear of anxiety.

00:52:34.040 Here in Budapest,

00:52:35.560 when I was in this city

00:52:36.900 researching the book,

00:52:38.820 my translator was with me

00:52:40.120 on the tram,

00:52:41.080 and she was a young woman,

00:52:42.080 a young Catholic woman,

00:52:43.500 married with one little boy

00:52:45.360 at home and another on the way.

00:52:47.240 And as we rode to the city

00:52:49.340 on the tram

00:52:49.860 to do an interview,

00:52:50.840 she said,

00:52:51.300 you know, Rod,

00:52:51.800 I really struggle

00:52:52.820 with my Catholic friends here.

00:52:55.240 She herself is Catholic.

00:52:57.160 When I try to tell them

00:52:58.640 that my husband and I

00:53:00.360 have been fighting lately

00:53:01.640 or my little boy

00:53:03.400 is really causing me

00:53:05.080 a lot of sleepless nights

00:53:06.240 because he's not sleeping well,

00:53:08.000 they say,

00:53:08.520 oh,

00:53:08.900 you've got to get a divorce.

00:53:10.580 You've got to

00:53:11.400 put your child in daycare.

00:53:13.360 Go back to work.

00:53:14.140 You've got to be happy.

00:53:15.580 She said,

00:53:16.020 I tell them,

00:53:17.040 wait a minute,

00:53:17.540 you don't understand.

00:53:18.420 I am happy.

00:53:19.840 But,

00:53:20.420 you know,

00:53:20.820 a happy life

00:53:21.580 also entails some struggle.

00:53:23.480 She said,

00:53:23.900 they don't understand it at all.

00:53:25.800 I looked at her and said,

00:53:26.720 Anna,

00:53:26.980 it sounds like you're fighting

00:53:28.100 for your right to be unhappy.

00:53:30.220 She said,

00:53:30.760 that's exactly it.

00:53:31.860 Where did you get that?

00:53:33.120 And I brought my phone out

00:53:34.920 and went to chapter 17

00:53:36.080 of Huxley's A Brave New World

00:53:37.620 where John the Savage

00:53:38.700 who confronts Mustafa Amon,

00:53:40.620 the world controller

00:53:41.520 of this perfect state

00:53:42.680 where everybody,

00:53:43.700 all their needs

00:53:44.220 are taken care of.

00:53:45.320 They're entertained

00:53:45.960 at all times.

00:53:46.980 They get lots of drugs,

00:53:48.100 lots of feel-good drugs,

00:53:49.700 lots of porn,

00:53:50.860 et cetera,

00:53:51.340 et cetera.

00:53:51.960 He brings in the dissident,

00:53:53.540 John the Savage,

00:53:54.360 to say,

00:53:55.300 why wouldn't you join this?

00:53:57.040 We give you Christianity

00:53:58.000 without tears.

00:53:59.780 And in the end,

00:54:01.620 John doesn't want this.

00:54:03.360 He wants real life.

00:54:04.740 He wants reality

00:54:05.580 even with suffering.

00:54:06.960 So let's think that through

00:54:09.020 for a minute.

00:54:09.980 That's actually pretty straightforward

00:54:11.920 in some sense.

00:54:12.980 So one of the things

00:54:13.680 Solzhenitsyn said

00:54:15.340 about hedonism,

00:54:16.480 he said,

00:54:17.220 the doctrine that

00:54:18.380 life is for happiness

00:54:20.100 is invalidated

00:54:21.580 by the first sound

00:54:23.240 of the jackboots

00:54:24.200 kicking in your door.

00:54:25.380 And so then the question is,

00:54:28.180 well,

00:54:28.400 what do you do

00:54:29.220 in the face of suffering

00:54:30.620 when your philosophy

00:54:31.740 is hedonic,

00:54:32.980 is hedonistic?

00:54:34.600 And the answer is

00:54:35.760 collapse.

00:54:37.880 And that means that

00:54:39.160 happiness as an aim

00:54:41.080 is shallow

00:54:43.100 and weak.

00:54:44.780 It cannot withstand suffering.

00:54:46.960 Obviously,

00:54:47.640 because when you're suffering,

00:54:48.760 you're not happy.

00:54:49.520 And if the purpose of life

00:54:50.460 is to be happy,

00:54:51.260 then suffering,

00:54:52.660 when you're suffering,

00:54:53.860 your life has no meaning.

00:54:54.880 And then if you're suffering

00:54:56.240 and there's no meaning

00:54:57.220 in the suffering,

00:54:58.000 then you're really suffering.

00:54:59.220 That's really hell.

00:55:00.900 But then you think,

00:55:01.840 and this is something

00:55:02.520 that's really heartened me.

00:55:03.500 I talk to my audiences,

00:55:04.860 especially to the young men.

00:55:06.900 I say,

00:55:07.180 look,

00:55:07.600 first of all,

00:55:08.520 don't aim at being happy

00:55:09.560 because that's

00:55:11.520 just not going to work,

00:55:13.560 especially when

00:55:14.240 the storms come

00:55:15.280 and barbarians

00:55:16.540 are beating at the gate.

00:55:17.460 You can just forget about that.

00:55:18.900 And there's going to be

00:55:19.560 times in your life

00:55:20.340 where you're suffering

00:55:21.100 so much you can't believe it.

00:55:22.440 And so you're going to need

00:55:23.320 something a hell of a lot

00:55:24.120 more robust than happiness

00:55:25.300 to get you through that.

00:55:27.000 And then you might say,

00:55:27.960 well,

00:55:28.100 what's more robust than happiness?

00:55:30.220 Or maybe even

00:55:31.140 what's more robust than pain?

00:55:33.900 And then you could say,

00:55:34.940 well,

00:55:35.060 how about adventure?

00:55:37.500 How about adventure?

00:55:38.580 How about we go out

00:55:39.300 and sail the uncharted seas?

00:55:41.000 You know,

00:55:41.400 how about we go and,

00:55:42.680 Jesus,

00:55:43.040 I talked to a guy the other day.

00:55:44.160 He's a driver for me

00:55:45.040 down in Nashville

00:55:47.160 where I am,

00:55:47.900 ex-military guy,

00:55:48.940 special forces guy,

00:55:50.520 tough as a bloody boot,

00:55:51.620 now works as a cowboy

00:55:52.660 out in Montana.

00:55:53.660 You know,

00:55:53.860 a real character.

00:55:55.660 Perfect bloody

00:55:56.360 American archetype.

00:55:57.380 He knew he wanted to be

00:55:58.220 in the special forces

00:55:59.040 when he was five.

00:56:00.560 So I talked to him

00:56:01.420 for like half an hour

00:56:02.300 trying to figure out

00:56:03.380 what motivated him,

00:56:04.560 you know?

00:56:05.100 And he told me

00:56:06.160 probably 10 stories

00:56:07.280 about his life,

00:56:08.040 all very colorful

00:56:10.600 and deep anecdotes,

00:56:13.700 battle and rescue

00:56:15.980 and physical privation

00:56:18.120 and discipline.

00:56:18.820 and every 10 minutes

00:56:20.960 he said,

00:56:21.620 I was looking

00:56:22.300 for a new challenge

00:56:23.260 and then I was looking

00:56:24.860 for a new challenge

00:56:25.720 and then I'd already done that

00:56:26.840 so I was looking

00:56:27.460 for a new challenge

00:56:28.240 and for him,

00:56:29.360 life was nothing

00:56:30.140 but a sequence

00:56:30.840 of impossible mountains

00:56:32.440 to climb

00:56:33.060 and that's exactly

00:56:34.300 what he wanted

00:56:34.960 and that's what I think

00:56:36.240 we all want.

00:56:37.060 You know,

00:56:37.260 in the story of Abraham,

00:56:39.160 when Abraham is perfectly happy

00:56:41.000 in his father's tent

00:56:41.880 eating peeled grapes

00:56:42.860 and, you know,

00:56:43.720 having his diapers changed

00:56:44.940 even though he's 80 years old

00:56:46.340 and God calls him out

00:56:47.800 to adventure

00:56:48.900 and it's very catastrophic,

00:56:51.820 right?

00:56:52.000 Because Abraham encounters

00:56:53.220 tyranny

00:56:54.400 and starvation

00:56:55.620 and war

00:56:56.380 and conspiracy

00:56:58.120 to steal his wife

00:56:59.380 and his own proclivity

00:57:00.400 to lie cowardly

00:57:01.480 and this is all like

00:57:02.420 in the,

00:57:02.960 that's his first sequence

00:57:04.000 of adventures

00:57:04.680 and you think,

00:57:06.240 well,

00:57:06.320 what the hell's going on here?

00:57:07.480 It's certainly not the case

00:57:08.380 that God called him out

00:57:09.360 to be happy

00:57:09.980 and I think

00:57:11.220 the right moral

00:57:12.760 to draw from that story

00:57:13.920 is that God,

00:57:15.520 so to speak,

00:57:16.340 has called us out

00:57:17.400 for something

00:57:17.940 far greater

00:57:18.580 than mere happiness.

00:57:20.740 Far,

00:57:21.040 so much greater

00:57:21.700 than happiness

00:57:22.260 that happiness

00:57:22.880 pales in comparison.

00:57:24.400 He's called us out

00:57:25.200 for the adventure

00:57:25.920 of our life

00:57:26.780 that's of sufficient

00:57:28.020 moral integrity

00:57:29.220 to justify the suffering

00:57:31.040 and that's something

00:57:33.000 and if you tell people that,

00:57:34.380 if you let them know that,

00:57:36.180 you know,

00:57:36.820 well,

00:57:36.980 that makes them stand up

00:57:38.020 and cheer,

00:57:38.580 eh?

00:57:38.720 Because deep in their heart

00:57:39.640 they know that's true

00:57:40.620 and especially

00:57:41.500 demoralized young men.

00:57:43.420 They're not being it

00:57:44.020 from churches today,

00:57:44.960 from church leaders.

00:57:45.740 God,

00:57:46.640 quite the contrary.

00:57:48.240 They're hearing

00:57:49.380 that spirit of adventure

00:57:51.460 calls you to be

00:57:52.480 a patriarchal

00:57:53.340 despoiler of the planet

00:57:54.680 and that demoralizes

00:57:56.280 young men

00:57:56.900 and that's,

00:57:57.700 of course,

00:57:57.940 exactly the point

00:57:58.800 because demoralized

00:57:59.820 young men

00:58:00.280 aren't oppressors,

00:58:01.420 although,

00:58:01.840 yes,

00:58:02.140 they are

00:58:02.680 and they're not

00:58:04.140 despoilers of the planet,

00:58:05.620 although,

00:58:06.120 yes,

00:58:06.440 they are

00:58:06.980 and so,

00:58:08.040 so happiness,

00:58:10.440 it's like,

00:58:11.220 you know,

00:58:11.580 that's just,

00:58:12.560 that's just,

00:58:13.800 happiness is a side effect

00:58:15.260 of moral venture,

00:58:16.520 you know,

00:58:16.780 and if it comes along,

00:58:17.820 you should be bloody thrilled,

00:58:19.040 but as an aim,

00:58:20.400 it's for,

00:58:20.880 it's for narcissistic

00:58:22.340 three-year-olds

00:58:23.040 as an aim.

00:58:23.860 In today's chaotic world,

00:58:26.880 many of us are searching

00:58:27.780 for a way to aim higher

00:58:29.000 and find spiritual peace,

00:58:30.960 but here's the thing,

00:58:32.140 prayer,

00:58:32.580 the most common tool we have,

00:58:34.080 isn't just about saying

00:58:34.980 whatever comes to mind,

00:58:36.300 it's a skill

00:58:36.960 that needs to be developed.

00:58:38.660 That's where

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00:59:39.560 Elevate your prayer life today.

00:59:43.560 You know,

00:59:44.300 Jordan,

00:59:44.540 the last chapter of the book

00:59:46.080 is a pretty hopeful chapter

00:59:47.340 and interesting about

00:59:48.320 the point you just made.

00:59:49.560 I met when I was in Bratislava

00:59:52.120 in Slovakia,

00:59:53.980 a young photographer

00:59:55.240 named Timo Krishka.

00:59:57.520 And Timo was a toddler

00:59:59.240 when communism ended,

01:00:00.440 so he was brought up

01:00:01.320 with much more freedom

01:00:02.540 and material,

01:00:04.080 many more material benefits

01:00:05.460 than his parents

01:00:06.480 and his grandparents.

01:00:07.940 But he said that

01:00:09.020 the higher he rose

01:00:10.360 in his profession

01:00:11.240 and the more money he made,

01:00:13.020 the more anxious he was

01:00:15.560 and the less happy he was.

01:00:16.800 Well, he set out at one point

01:00:18.580 to go do a photography project

01:00:20.800 by interviewing

01:00:21.920 the elderly people

01:00:23.100 in his country,

01:00:24.160 Christians who had been sent

01:00:25.820 to the gulag in Slovakia

01:00:28.000 for their faith.

01:00:29.820 And a lot of them

01:00:30.560 still lived in real poverty today

01:00:32.400 and they had suffered terribly

01:00:33.860 for their faith.

01:00:34.940 But he said as he went

01:00:36.200 to take their picture

01:00:37.080 and hear their stories,

01:00:38.720 he saw people

01:00:39.600 who were deeply at peace

01:00:41.900 and deeply happy.

01:00:43.620 One man even told him

01:00:44.840 that solitary confinement

01:00:46.540 was one of the happiest times

01:00:48.000 of his life in retrospect

01:00:49.220 because there he communed

01:00:51.180 with God

01:00:51.780 and he knew he had union

01:00:53.040 with God.

01:00:54.200 Timo Tomi in the end,

01:00:55.480 this really changed him

01:00:56.860 because he realized

01:00:58.040 that he himself

01:00:59.540 was the tyrant in his life

01:01:02.440 because he had been seeking

01:01:04.080 happiness and riches

01:01:05.400 and all that,

01:01:06.560 whereas he should have been

01:01:07.460 seeking God

01:01:08.400 like these old people

01:01:10.020 who had suffered had.

01:01:11.560 I think this is the kind

01:01:12.520 of Christianity

01:01:13.180 that young people

01:01:14.960 can respect,

01:01:15.860 but nobody respects

01:01:16.820 this moralistic,

01:01:17.920 therapeutic deism

01:01:18.960 or the social gospel

01:01:20.500 kind of woke Christianity.

01:01:22.080 It's going into the dustbin.

01:01:23.440 It's just another form

01:01:25.380 of woke,

01:01:26.780 idiot utopianism,

01:01:28.400 the kind that finds

01:01:29.400 devils everywhere

01:01:30.320 except in the soul

01:01:31.400 and that's concerned

01:01:32.340 with group redemption

01:01:33.860 and not with

01:01:34.640 the travails

01:01:35.600 of individual progress

01:01:37.860 towards the divine,

01:01:39.040 let's say.

01:01:39.860 And that is what

01:01:40.600 the churches can offer.

01:01:41.540 Let's talk about that a minute.

01:01:42.880 So you talk in the book too

01:01:44.320 as ideology

01:01:46.000 as substitute for religion

01:01:47.860 and I had smart students

01:01:49.580 at Harvard in particular

01:01:51.600 but also at the University

01:01:52.580 of Toronto

01:01:52.980 when I was lecturing

01:01:53.780 on my book

01:01:54.360 Maps of Meaning.

01:01:55.480 I was trying to put forward

01:01:57.240 an antidote to ideology

01:01:58.580 and the students would say,

01:02:00.900 well,

01:02:01.000 why is your conceptual system

01:02:02.660 not just another ideology?

01:02:04.920 And that's a very,

01:02:05.880 that's a very complicated question

01:02:07.920 and it's a postmodern question

01:02:09.300 in some sense,

01:02:10.020 right?

01:02:10.160 Because all systems

01:02:11.440 of knowledge

01:02:12.000 are nothing but structures

01:02:13.160 for the imposition of power

01:02:14.600 and there's no way

01:02:15.600 out of that

01:02:16.160 and so there's no such thing

01:02:17.600 as an anti-ideology wisdom.

01:02:19.820 There's just another ideology.

01:02:21.240 Now,

01:02:21.440 I don't believe that's true

01:02:22.820 but you've talked about ideology

01:02:25.600 as a substitute for religion

01:02:27.380 and so why are you convinced

01:02:29.160 that the religious claims

01:02:31.060 that you abide by

01:02:32.040 and put forth

01:02:32.720 are not merely

01:02:33.660 another form of ideology

01:02:35.060 and another,

01:02:35.920 another,

01:02:36.460 what would you say,

01:02:37.260 mask for the manifestation

01:02:38.520 of power?

01:02:39.800 Right.

01:02:40.160 Right.

01:02:40.820 Because I believe

01:02:41.940 that they are rooted

01:02:42.700 in transcendent truth

01:02:44.200 and truths that have

01:02:45.480 withstood the test of time.

01:02:47.560 I'm an Orthodox Christian,

01:02:48.960 Eastern Orthodox Christian.

01:02:50.660 The roots of my confession

01:02:52.760 go back to the very beginnings

01:02:54.280 of Christianity

01:02:55.120 and it is a form of the faith

01:02:57.740 that I believe

01:02:58.600 is true to human nature

01:03:00.280 and true to the way

01:03:02.720 the world is constructed.

01:03:04.740 You know,

01:03:04.880 I was recently interviewing

01:03:07.160 Ian McGilchrist,

01:03:08.840 who I know you've interviewed him

01:03:10.380 or he's interviewed you

01:03:11.360 in England.

01:03:12.100 He's a psychiatrist

01:03:13.000 who is not a religious believer

01:03:14.900 as far as I know

01:03:15.860 but he talks about

01:03:17.340 the mind

01:03:18.600 and the brain hemispheres

01:03:20.100 and the making

01:03:20.920 of the Western world

01:03:22.480 and he has talked about,

01:03:24.940 he told me that

01:03:25.820 if he were to convert

01:03:26.880 to Christianity,

01:03:27.800 he would become Orthodox

01:03:29.040 because he believes

01:03:30.060 that Orthodox Christianity

01:03:31.240 gives the best account

01:03:33.720 for reality,

01:03:36.060 for the way humans move

01:03:37.700 in the world

01:03:39.040 and take in the world.

01:03:41.520 I think also that...

01:03:43.960 So why did he say that

01:03:45.360 specifically of Orthodoxy?

01:03:46.880 Was it its emphasis

01:03:47.800 on ritual?

01:03:49.200 It was the emphasis

01:03:49.900 on the idea

01:03:51.600 that you have to have

01:03:52.700 a balance

01:03:53.540 between the left

01:03:55.500 and the right.

01:03:56.160 The right hemisphere

01:03:57.000 is the noetic,

01:03:58.320 where noetic information

01:03:59.680 comes in

01:04:00.420 and in Ian's construct,

01:04:04.140 Western religion

01:04:04.840 has become too left-brained.

01:04:06.540 It's become too logical,

01:04:07.960 too caught up

01:04:08.600 in creating a lot of...

01:04:09.760 Yeah, that's the idea.

01:04:10.640 Well, Sam Harris

01:04:11.580 has come to the same conclusion

01:04:12.980 in some sense

01:04:13.820 despite himself

01:04:14.660 because Harris

01:04:15.680 is the ultimate rationalist

01:04:17.260 and I would say

01:04:18.160 for very positive reasons

01:04:20.040 in some regard

01:04:20.780 because Harris

01:04:21.300 is deeply concerned

01:04:22.220 with atrocity

01:04:23.000 but that was so unbalanced

01:04:25.340 that he turned

01:04:26.200 to a meditative Buddhism

01:04:27.560 that has a completely

01:04:29.400 amorphous deity

01:04:30.520 in some sense

01:04:31.360 at its base.

01:04:32.680 Amorphous enough

01:04:33.400 so that Sam's

01:04:34.300 corrosive rationality

01:04:35.540 cannot take issue with it

01:04:36.900 and he finds solace

01:04:38.400 and respite

01:04:39.140 in the meditative practice

01:04:40.680 and now he spends

01:04:41.680 most of his time

01:04:42.540 developing his meditation app

01:04:44.040 and teaching meditation courses.

01:04:45.780 That's a good example

01:04:46.900 of the sort of thing

01:04:47.660 that Ian is pointing to.

01:04:49.200 Yeah.

01:04:49.640 I think, too,

01:04:50.520 that ideology

01:04:51.180 tends to be

01:04:51.960 very, very brittle

01:04:53.160 and tends to be

01:04:54.880 a left-brain construct

01:04:56.280 that tries to impose

01:04:58.200 a purely human

01:05:00.240 rationalistic framework

01:05:01.820 onto messy reality.

01:05:04.620 Yeah, well,

01:05:04.860 that's a Tower of Babel, eh?

01:05:06.600 Right, right.

01:05:07.020 That's the warning

01:05:07.620 of the Tower of Babel.

01:05:08.780 Yeah.

01:05:08.820 Ideology can't deal

01:05:10.260 with contradiction,

01:05:11.880 with the ultimate mystery

01:05:13.080 and paradox

01:05:13.700 of human life

01:05:15.340 and I think

01:05:17.140 Steven Pinker

01:05:18.020 had a quote

01:05:18.640 that was in

01:05:19.120 the New York Times

01:05:19.800 today as we're talking

01:05:20.880 where he was talking

01:05:22.220 about wokeness

01:05:23.120 and why wokeness

01:05:24.220 is ultimately

01:05:24.780 going to fail.

01:05:25.700 He said it is

01:05:26.520 an algorithm

01:05:28.240 for constant,

01:05:29.620 for permanent inquisition

01:05:31.240 because none of these

01:05:33.020 artificial constructs

01:05:34.300 can deal with

01:05:35.540 messy humanity

01:05:36.660 and with human freedom.

01:05:38.240 I think that Christianity

01:05:39.560 can deal with

01:05:41.820 human freedom.

01:05:42.620 It has ultimate right

01:05:43.840 and ultimate wrong

01:05:44.840 but it also recognizes

01:05:46.500 that humans are frail

01:05:47.680 and it calls for mercy.

01:05:49.600 It calls for us

01:05:50.220 to be humble

01:05:50.980 and to recognize

01:05:51.760 that every one of us

01:05:52.660 is a sinner.

01:05:53.620 Every one of us

01:05:54.320 is capable of being

01:05:55.280 the grand inquisitor

01:05:56.340 if given

01:05:56.860 the right opportunities.

01:05:59.420 So,

01:06:00.000 one of the things

01:06:01.040 that struck me

01:06:03.020 mostly from reading

01:06:04.480 Jung and his school

01:06:05.640 and their inquiry

01:06:07.200 into the archetype

01:06:08.340 of the hero

01:06:08.920 was that there was

01:06:10.080 something in the

01:06:11.440 hero narratives

01:06:12.480 that was

01:06:13.120 counter-ideological

01:06:14.500 in the deepest sense

01:06:16.380 and so

01:06:17.140 an ideology

01:06:18.100 is a Luciferian

01:06:19.320 enterprise

01:06:19.780 and it attempts

01:06:20.980 to bring

01:06:21.340 the entire purview

01:06:22.280 of reality

01:06:22.980 under an axiomatic system

01:06:24.640 under the dogmatic

01:06:26.300 dictates of an axiomatic system

01:06:28.020 and woe to you

01:06:29.600 if you challenge

01:06:30.320 the axioms

01:06:31.120 let's say

01:06:31.680 that makes you a heretic

01:06:32.920 and worthy

01:06:33.720 of being mobbed

01:06:35.180 and so you might ask

01:06:37.380 well

01:06:37.620 what truth

01:06:39.720 might we find

01:06:40.740 that can be regarded

01:06:42.200 as transcendently

01:06:44.020 axiomatic

01:06:44.800 that's also

01:06:45.780 not Luciferian

01:06:47.560 and I think

01:06:48.840 that

01:06:49.140 Christianity

01:06:50.760 you see this

01:06:51.660 in the prophetic

01:06:52.180 tradition

01:06:52.640 in Judaism

01:06:53.160 as well

01:06:53.720 but

01:06:53.940 Christianity

01:06:55.020 insists

01:06:55.740 that there are

01:06:56.360 two

01:06:56.880 there insists

01:06:58.900 on the existence

01:06:59.640 of at least

01:07:00.280 two elements

01:07:00.980 that have

01:07:02.020 that nature

01:07:02.660 and one is

01:07:03.280 that

01:07:03.560 the highest

01:07:05.060 should most

01:07:06.420 properly serve

01:07:07.560 the lowest

01:07:08.280 and so

01:07:09.320 that the

01:07:09.780 the hallmark

01:07:10.980 of true

01:07:11.640 sovereignty

01:07:12.260 is the

01:07:13.560 willingness

01:07:14.000 of the

01:07:14.920 elite

01:07:16.060 let's say

01:07:16.580 the talented

01:07:17.200 the productive

01:07:18.540 the blessed

01:07:19.800 the gifted

01:07:20.480 to

01:07:21.680 to justify

01:07:24.140 the unequal

01:07:25.180 division of talent

01:07:26.400 by serving

01:07:27.640 to ameliorate

01:07:28.620 the catastrophic

01:07:29.340 suffering

01:07:29.920 of the dispossessed

01:07:31.240 now Nietzsche

01:07:32.580 warned about that

01:07:33.400 right

01:07:33.600 he thought

01:07:34.080 that

01:07:34.340 Christianity

01:07:35.520 would devolve

01:07:36.400 in some sense

01:07:37.080 into the woke

01:07:37.700 nightmare

01:07:38.040 that it has

01:07:38.640 devolved into

01:07:39.400 but I think

01:07:40.420 he failed

01:07:41.080 to give the devil

01:07:41.780 his entire due

01:07:42.680 the notion

01:07:43.540 that the highest

01:07:44.560 is the highest

01:07:46.200 because it

01:07:46.740 voluntarily

01:07:47.340 serves the

01:07:48.020 lowest

01:07:48.360 that's a

01:07:48.960 deadly

01:07:49.420 idea

01:07:50.040 and I don't

01:07:50.680 think it's an

01:07:51.140 ideological idea

01:07:52.140 at all

01:07:52.500 I think it's an

01:07:53.200 idea that

01:07:53.800 removes the

01:07:55.240 paradox of

01:07:55.920 human existence

01:07:56.680 and so

01:07:57.980 and that

01:07:58.320 so there's that

01:07:59.020 but then there's

01:07:59.560 another

01:07:59.900 insistence in

01:08:01.080 both Judaism

01:08:02.100 and Christianity

01:08:03.020 and I'm not

01:08:04.060 saying it's

01:08:04.520 limited to those

01:08:05.320 doctrines by the

01:08:06.100 way

01:08:06.320 that

01:08:07.040 the way to

01:08:08.900 deal with

01:08:09.300 suffering

01:08:09.780 is not

01:08:11.140 to avoid

01:08:11.720 it

01:08:11.900 or to

01:08:12.660 circumvent

01:08:13.460 it

01:08:13.720 with a

01:08:14.560 shallow

01:08:14.840 hedonism

01:08:15.460 but to

01:08:16.400 face it

01:08:17.260 intensely

01:08:18.580 head-on

01:08:20.000 and voluntarily

01:08:21.140 in its

01:08:22.220 full

01:08:22.640 manifestation

01:08:23.260 and so

01:08:24.220 one of the

01:08:24.580 things I've

01:08:25.000 realized about

01:08:25.540 the passion

01:08:26.080 story

01:08:26.600 which

01:08:27.160 Jung

01:08:28.180 regarded as

01:08:28.900 an archetypal

01:08:29.580 tragedy

01:08:30.020 and in

01:08:30.980 some sense

01:08:31.440 a limit

01:08:31.800 case

01:08:32.200 right

01:08:32.420 a story

01:08:32.780 so tragic

01:08:33.460 that you

01:08:33.860 cannot write

01:08:34.580 a more

01:08:35.020 tragic

01:08:35.440 story

01:08:36.000 right

01:08:36.620 is that

01:08:37.400 it drags

01:08:38.280 the

01:08:38.640 observer

01:08:39.580 and so

01:08:40.280 that's

01:08:40.540 all of

01:08:40.840 us

01:08:41.100 in

01:08:41.300 Christendom

01:08:42.340 through

01:08:43.240 the entire

01:08:43.820 catastrophe

01:08:44.500 of human

01:08:45.080 existence

01:08:45.760 right

01:08:46.700 so

01:08:47.060 it confronts

01:08:48.080 you

01:08:48.340 with the

01:08:49.460 mob

01:08:49.900 the mob

01:08:51.360 that's

01:08:51.620 after you

01:08:52.180 that you

01:08:53.080 are also

01:08:53.480 part of

01:08:53.920 it confronts

01:08:54.840 you with

01:08:55.160 moral relativism

01:08:56.220 in the

01:08:56.620 face

01:08:56.980 in the

01:08:57.380 shape

01:08:57.580 of Pontius

01:08:58.160 Pilate

01:08:58.580 it confronts

01:08:59.240 you with

01:08:59.620 the oppression

01:09:00.660 of the

01:09:01.260 totalitarian

01:09:01.880 state

01:09:02.460 of foreigners

01:09:03.380 let's say

01:09:03.940 in the

01:09:04.160 guise of

01:09:06.120 Rome

01:09:06.500 it confronts

01:09:07.600 you with

01:09:07.860 the betrayal

01:09:08.480 of your

01:09:08.920 best friend

01:09:09.680 it confronts

01:09:10.900 you with

01:09:11.200 the willingness

01:09:11.740 of the

01:09:12.260 crowd

01:09:12.640 to punish

01:09:14.420 the

01:09:14.780 virtuous

01:09:15.540 and free

01:09:17.000 the criminal

01:09:17.620 and that's

01:09:18.080 the story

01:09:18.480 of Barabbas

01:09:19.140 and Christ

01:09:19.580 and Paggio

01:09:20.200 told me

01:09:20.680 the other day

01:09:21.080 Jonathan Paggio

01:09:21.800 that an

01:09:22.220 alternative

01:09:22.620 name for

01:09:23.220 Barabbas

01:09:23.700 was Jesus

01:09:24.680 and that

01:09:26.000 what the

01:09:26.340 crowd did

01:09:26.920 was pick

01:09:27.420 the political

01:09:28.060 revolutionary

01:09:28.840 over the

01:09:30.660 spiritual

01:09:31.280 leader

01:09:32.580 and that's

01:09:33.920 perfect

01:09:34.300 and then it

01:09:34.860 confronts you

01:09:35.380 with the

01:09:35.640 reality

01:09:36.020 that we

01:09:36.460 all face

01:09:36.920 our own

01:09:37.240 mortality

01:09:37.700 and too

01:09:38.200 early

01:09:38.540 and the

01:09:39.420 fact that

01:09:39.860 sometimes

01:09:40.260 the innocent

01:09:40.840 and virtuous

01:09:41.380 are punished

01:09:42.140 and so

01:09:42.980 it

01:09:43.720 and then of

01:09:44.780 course there's

01:09:45.280 the horrible

01:09:45.820 tragic

01:09:46.360 torturous

01:09:46.980 death

01:09:47.440 all of that

01:09:48.560 and that's

01:09:50.120 all signified

01:09:51.020 by the image

01:09:51.620 of the crucifix

01:09:52.420 and what

01:09:52.840 what we're

01:09:53.880 doing to

01:09:54.360 ourselves

01:09:54.720 even though

01:09:55.120 we don't

01:09:55.480 know it

01:09:55.760 I'm speaking

01:09:56.220 mostly

01:09:56.720 psychologically

01:09:57.440 although

01:09:57.800 somewhat

01:09:58.240 theologically

01:09:58.900 is that

01:09:59.420 we're exposing

01:10:00.920 ourselves to the

01:10:02.120 ultimate catastrophe

01:10:03.120 of human

01:10:04.020 existence

01:10:04.580 while

01:10:05.480 simultaneously

01:10:06.120 manifesting

01:10:07.020 the faith

01:10:07.500 that if we

01:10:10.340 face that

01:10:11.020 unflinchingly

01:10:12.140 that will

01:10:14.340 resurrect us

01:10:15.120 instead of

01:10:15.600 killing us

01:10:16.240 that's quite

01:10:18.320 powerful

01:10:18.840 it's something

01:10:19.680 man

01:10:20.060 it's something

01:10:20.700 it's something

01:10:21.440 I've been puzzling

01:10:22.200 out for a long

01:10:23.240 time but particularly

01:10:24.240 for the last six

01:10:25.200 months

01:10:25.560 I'm going to

01:10:26.580 write about that

01:10:27.180 in my new book

01:10:27.940 but and when I

01:10:29.020 talk to my

01:10:29.540 audiences about

01:10:30.340 that you know

01:10:30.980 and I would

01:10:31.380 especially say

01:10:32.060 this has an

01:10:32.840 impact again

01:10:33.520 on demoralized

01:10:34.340 young men

01:10:34.820 and say look

01:10:35.420 we don't know

01:10:37.320 the limits to

01:10:38.180 the expansion

01:10:38.860 of your

01:10:39.240 personality

01:10:39.820 if you're

01:10:40.300 willing to

01:10:40.760 face things

01:10:41.360 without deception

01:10:42.360 that's that

01:10:44.500 that's a

01:10:45.060 variant of that

01:10:45.680 radical honesty

01:10:46.460 we're already

01:10:46.940 talking about

01:10:47.440 don't live by

01:10:48.080 lies

01:10:48.440 well life

01:10:49.180 is rife

01:10:49.660 with injustice

01:10:50.540 atrocity and

01:10:51.420 suffering

01:10:51.840 and so what

01:10:53.120 do you do

01:10:53.580 with that

01:10:54.040 do you avoid

01:10:54.580 it

01:10:54.820 there's good

01:10:56.400 physiological

01:10:56.840 evidence by the

01:10:57.880 way that

01:10:58.260 if you take

01:10:59.480 two groups of

01:11:00.100 people and

01:11:01.180 you subject

01:11:01.660 one group

01:11:02.320 to a

01:11:02.720 stressor

01:11:03.680 involuntarily

01:11:04.840 and you get

01:11:06.640 the other group

01:11:07.180 to take on

01:11:07.740 the stressor

01:11:08.280 voluntarily

01:11:08.900 that the

01:11:09.780 pattern of

01:11:10.380 psychophysiological

01:11:11.340 response is

01:11:12.920 entirely different

01:11:13.820 it's entirely

01:11:15.260 different emotionally

01:11:16.140 motivationally

01:11:17.600 and in terms

01:11:18.520 of the damage

01:11:19.340 it does

01:11:19.920 and so the

01:11:20.900 involuntary

01:11:22.000 imposition of a

01:11:22.900 threat is

01:11:23.560 stressful and

01:11:24.300 damaging

01:11:24.700 but the

01:11:25.700 voluntary

01:11:26.160 acceptance of

01:11:27.500 a threat is

01:11:28.240 invigorating and

01:11:29.280 revivifying

01:11:29.900 two different

01:11:31.140 spirits

01:11:31.600 that's a good

01:11:32.120 way of thinking

01:11:32.600 about it

01:11:33.120 you know

01:11:33.460 I and I

01:11:34.280 this might be a

01:11:35.540 little bit off

01:11:36.040 topic but you

01:11:36.900 were talking

01:11:37.320 about young

01:11:37.920 men and

01:11:38.820 suffering

01:11:39.480 we have seen

01:11:40.780 in the

01:11:41.040 orthodox church

01:11:42.000 and are seeing

01:11:42.960 an increasing

01:11:43.660 influx of

01:11:44.660 young men

01:11:45.220 into orthodoxy

01:11:46.580 and what we

01:11:47.760 find that they

01:11:48.600 say is that

01:11:49.620 this is a form

01:11:50.460 of christianity

01:11:51.320 that challenges

01:11:52.100 them as men

01:11:53.320 because it

01:11:54.260 gives them

01:11:54.940 a fight

01:11:55.720 that orthodoxy

01:11:57.120 is about

01:11:57.600 asceticism

01:11:58.500 it's about

01:11:58.980 fasting in

01:11:59.880 season

01:12:00.240 it's about

01:12:00.720 overcoming

01:12:01.340 the self

01:12:02.100 the great

01:12:02.960 saints are

01:12:03.580 those who

01:12:04.000 have overcome

01:12:04.580 themselves

01:12:05.280 and maybe

01:12:05.940 even given

01:12:06.460 their lives

01:12:07.180 for the truth

01:12:07.920 but I find

01:12:09.620 that to be

01:12:10.100 so much more

01:12:10.820 exciting and

01:12:11.580 challenging for

01:12:12.300 me rather

01:12:13.200 than the

01:12:13.640 insipid social

01:12:14.600 justice warrior

01:12:15.640 forms of

01:12:16.420 christianity

01:12:17.140 yeah well it's

01:12:18.060 clearly the case

01:12:19.020 that the

01:12:19.680 churches the

01:12:20.280 modern churches

01:12:20.940 and this is

01:12:21.500 probably most

01:12:22.240 true of

01:12:22.820 protestantism

01:12:23.680 but and

01:12:25.200 perhaps least

01:12:25.900 true of the

01:12:26.380 orthodox at

01:12:27.500 the present

01:12:27.900 time is the

01:12:29.100 churches are

01:12:29.660 asking far too

01:12:30.600 little not in

01:12:31.660 not far too

01:12:32.380 much the

01:12:32.760 church should

01:12:33.260 ask of you

01:12:34.140 everything and

01:12:35.420 to make it

01:12:35.880 easy to be a

01:12:36.580 believer is

01:12:37.080 completely

01:12:37.480 counterproductive

01:12:38.360 it's it's the

01:12:39.760 most difficult

01:12:40.460 thing to

01:12:41.000 manifest and

01:12:41.900 to be a

01:12:42.360 believer I

01:12:42.820 mean to

01:12:43.140 manifest the

01:12:43.800 faith necessary

01:12:44.620 to confront

01:12:45.200 the iniquities

01:12:45.860 of existence

01:12:46.500 because faith

01:12:47.520 doesn't mean

01:12:48.080 the willingness

01:12:48.560 to abide by

01:12:49.340 doctrines that

01:12:50.000 you regard as

01:12:50.620 untrue as

01:12:51.480 we've described

01:12:52.140 today it

01:12:53.240 means instead

01:12:54.040 to risk

01:12:55.320 yourself on

01:12:56.260 the off chance

01:12:57.000 that if you

01:12:57.480 confronted life

01:12:58.220 honestly you

01:12:58.940 could thereby

01:12:59.440 transcend the

01:13:00.300 suffering that's

01:13:00.980 intrinsic in

01:13:01.640 life and that's

01:13:03.400 faith right because

01:13:04.120 you you can't do

01:13:04.940 this Kierkegaard

01:13:05.840 pointed this out

01:13:06.560 quite clearly which

01:13:07.320 is why he

01:13:07.820 believed redemption

01:13:08.500 was an individual

01:13:09.300 enterprise is that

01:13:10.680 you cannot be

01:13:12.440 supplied with enough

01:13:13.420 evidence to

01:13:14.140 convince you that

01:13:15.860 forthright contact

01:13:17.460 with reality is the

01:13:18.580 best path you

01:13:19.740 have to stake your

01:13:20.880 life on finding out

01:13:22.080 whether or not

01:13:22.580 that's true

01:13:23.180 there's no way

01:13:24.400 out of that

01:13:24.840 now people can

01:13:25.500 guide by

01:13:26.280 imitation right

01:13:27.140 and by by by

01:13:28.160 example that's

01:13:30.160 what the saints

01:13:30.680 do let's say

01:13:31.520 well that's what

01:13:32.560 Christ did let's

01:13:34.180 say that's what

01:13:35.420 the martyrs and

01:13:36.060 the confessors of

01:13:36.940 the communist

01:13:37.440 bloc did and

01:13:38.440 some of these

01:13:39.420 people are still

01:13:40.180 alive and it's

01:13:41.260 just such a

01:13:41.780 scandal to me

01:13:42.600 that in the

01:13:43.400 west we've

01:13:44.040 completely swept

01:13:45.020 it under the

01:13:46.100 rug I was telling

01:13:46.760 some of the crew

01:13:47.440 here before we

01:13:48.100 started tonight

01:13:48.800 that when I was

01:13:49.940 in Hungary I

01:13:50.620 interviewed a woman

01:13:51.300 named Maria

01:13:51.880 Wittner

01:13:52.420 Maria Wittner

01:13:53.480 was she's very

01:13:55.020 old now but she

01:13:55.800 was a hero of the

01:13:56.680 1956 resistance to

01:13:58.640 the Soviet

01:13:59.240 invasion this young

01:14:01.780 woman took a gun

01:14:03.420 and went into the

01:14:04.260 street to fight the

01:14:05.380 Soviets and she

01:14:06.400 suffered for it in

01:14:07.980 prison horribly but

01:14:09.580 she's tough as nails

01:14:10.860 and would do it

01:14:11.500 again these people are

01:14:12.660 still among us today

01:14:14.060 Jordan I met a bunch

01:14:15.340 of people in eastern

01:14:16.180 Europe people in

01:14:17.440 Estonia for example

01:14:18.580 who were heroes of

01:14:19.580 the anti-Soviet

01:14:20.660 movement some of

01:14:21.380 them from the time

01:14:22.000 they were very

01:14:22.480 little kids as you

01:14:24.000 pointed out people

01:14:25.200 who are both

01:14:25.760 unbelievably tough in

01:14:27.060 ways that people in

01:14:27.900 the west can hardly

01:14:28.680 imagine and also

01:14:30.760 characterized by that

01:14:32.720 peace that you

01:14:33.520 described earlier you

01:14:34.840 know this sort of

01:14:35.560 because they've been

01:14:36.700 through things so

01:14:37.540 bad that the normal

01:14:38.880 vicissitudes of life

01:14:40.240 seem like outright

01:14:42.280 pleasures by

01:14:43.180 comparison you know I

01:14:44.820 dedicated my book to

01:14:46.840 the memory of a

01:14:47.880 Catholic priest named

01:14:48.720 Father Tomaslav

01:14:49.620 Kolakovich and he's

01:14:51.180 an important figure

01:14:52.260 not only of his own

01:14:53.540 time but a prophet

01:14:54.800 for our time and I'll

01:14:55.840 tell you why in 1943

01:14:57.720 Father Kolakovich was

01:14:59.100 living in Zagreb in

01:15:00.620 Croatia his home

01:15:01.600 country doing work

01:15:03.180 against the Nazis in

01:15:04.320 the underground he got

01:15:05.640 a tip that the

01:15:06.260 Gestapo was coming for

01:15:07.540 him so he escaped the

01:15:08.680 country went to his

01:15:09.680 mother's home country

01:15:10.700 Slovakia and began

01:15:12.140 teaching at the

01:15:12.840 Catholic University in

01:15:13.980 Bratislava he told

01:15:15.700 his students I have good

01:15:16.960 news and bad news

01:15:17.880 for you the good news

01:15:19.180 is the Germans are

01:15:20.020 going to lose this

01:15:20.720 war the bad news is

01:15:22.580 the Soviets are going

01:15:23.580 to be ruling this

01:15:24.460 country when it's over

01:15:25.440 and the first thing

01:15:26.280 they're going to do is

01:15:27.640 come after the church

01:15:28.660 we have to be ready

01:15:29.900 so what he did was put

01:15:31.620 together these small

01:15:33.020 groups of Catholic

01:15:34.440 students to pray but

01:15:36.180 not just to pray but

01:15:37.100 to talk about very

01:15:38.240 seriously what was

01:15:39.140 happening in the world

01:15:40.040 around them and to

01:15:41.460 make concrete plans for

01:15:42.900 how to act to get

01:15:44.140 ready for what was

01:15:45.180 coming within two years

01:15:46.820 of that man coming to

01:15:47.700 that country these

01:15:48.880 small groups existed

01:15:50.140 all over the country

01:15:51.520 in a network to

01:15:52.940 prepare for living in

01:15:54.680 the underground and

01:15:55.340 prepare for persecution

01:15:56.440 now here's an

01:15:57.440 interesting thing

01:15:58.260 so he confronted that

01:15:59.940 straight on

01:16:00.720 yeah yeah he did and

01:16:02.040 he knew what was

01:16:03.580 coming because he had

01:16:04.840 studied in seminary the

01:16:06.560 Soviet mindset because

01:16:07.840 he wanted to be a

01:16:08.820 missionary to the

01:16:09.940 Soviet Union here's the

01:16:11.320 interesting thing the

01:16:13.060 Catholic bishops of

01:16:14.300 Slovakia hated him

01:16:16.060 doing this he was

01:16:17.400 scaring people they

01:16:18.540 said yeah yeah it's

01:16:20.000 never gonna happen

01:16:21.140 here you know calm

01:16:22.280 down father but he

01:16:23.680 didn't calm down he

01:16:24.540 kept working sure

01:16:25.940 enough everything

01:16:26.920 happened just like he

01:16:27.940 said when the iron

01:16:28.800 curtain fell over that

01:16:29.780 country they came after

01:16:31.200 the church the reason

01:16:32.920 that the underground

01:16:34.160 church was so strong in

01:16:35.680 Slovakia is because

01:16:36.980 this visionary priest

01:16:38.620 father Kolakovich saw

01:16:40.060 what was coming and he

01:16:41.460 gathered people around

01:16:42.680 him to form groups to

01:16:44.000 prepare I believe

01:16:45.420 Jordan very firmly that

01:16:46.760 we are living in a

01:16:47.800 Kolakovich moment in

01:16:49.040 the West today and

01:16:50.560 that visionary

01:16:51.120 Christians and not even

01:16:52.420 Christians people who

01:16:53.640 want can understand who

01:16:54.800 can read the signs of

01:16:55.800 the times and who have

01:16:57.080 courage whether they're

01:16:58.100 Jewish Muslim or of no

01:16:59.560 faith at all need to

01:17:01.160 understand what's

01:17:01.980 happening and start

01:17:02.680 coming together now to

01:17:04.340 prepare this is part of

01:17:06.060 the message that these

01:17:07.200 people yeah well Ron

01:17:08.460 one of the things that

01:17:09.860 I'm planning to do is to

01:17:11.220 make a video sometime in

01:17:12.660 the near future it's

01:17:14.220 preposterous and

01:17:15.260 presumptuous of me to

01:17:16.440 do it but I'll probably

01:17:17.360 do it anyways and that's

01:17:18.920 a message to the

01:17:19.800 Christian church and that

01:17:21.580 is and it's very much in

01:17:23.260 keeping with what you

01:17:23.980 just described the

01:17:25.740 church should be reaching

01:17:26.600 out to young men it

01:17:29.160 should be saying very

01:17:30.020 straightforwardly and I

01:17:31.800 mean in the most

01:17:32.280 straightforward sense your

01:17:34.440 noble ambitions are

01:17:37.320 welcome and necessary here

01:17:39.560 you can come in and help

01:17:41.800 us clean up our mess we

01:17:44.120 can help you clean up

01:17:45.040 your mess and we can move

01:17:46.260 forward stalwartly and

01:17:47.720 confidently into the

01:17:48.860 future and I think the

01:17:50.620 time for that is right

01:17:51.640 because there is no

01:17:53.300 institution there is no

01:17:56.480 institution at the moment

01:17:57.780 that overtly welcomes

01:17:59.580 young men it's quite the

01:18:01.940 contrary it says while

01:18:02.980 you're part of the

01:18:03.800 patriarchal oppression

01:18:05.080 you're a despoiler of the

01:18:06.560 planet your ambition

01:18:07.660 should be squelched

01:18:08.780 maybe your sexuality

01:18:10.400 itself is counterproductive

01:18:12.660 and so the churches have

01:18:14.580 this great opportunity to

01:18:15.800 say hey they don't want

01:18:18.200 you we'll take you and

01:18:21.200 maybe we can muddle through

01:18:22.380 this together or you can

01:18:23.640 help revivify the

01:18:24.660 institution more abundant

01:18:25.900 as it always has been and

01:18:27.260 always will be and we can

01:18:28.900 give your youthful vision

01:18:30.660 and enthusiasm some

01:18:32.040 traditional guidance there's

01:18:33.820 a there's a moment here that

01:18:35.400 could be gripped by well I

01:18:37.060 hope the Orthodox manage it

01:18:38.360 I'd like to see the

01:18:39.080 Catholics and the

01:18:39.780 Protestants do it too I

01:18:41.240 would too because we're

01:18:42.300 all in this together this

01:18:43.480 is one interesting thing I

01:18:44.680 learned from this research

01:18:45.900 is that the people who

01:18:49.000 went to prison the

01:18:49.840 Christians who went to

01:18:50.640 prison realized when they

01:18:52.300 were there that they

01:18:53.000 weren't there because they

01:18:53.840 were Catholics they

01:18:54.660 weren't there because they

01:18:55.500 were Orthodox or

01:18:56.380 Protestant they were there

01:18:57.560 because they were

01:18:58.200 Christians and they formed

01:18:59.720 bonds of fellowship that

01:19:01.460 reached across lines of

01:19:03.840 confessional lines in a

01:19:05.860 similar way I learned in

01:19:07.520 Prague from Camilla

01:19:08.700 Bendova who is the wife

01:19:10.260 of Václav Benda one of

01:19:11.820 the the inner circle around

01:19:13.200 Václav Havel she told me

01:19:15.900 that even though she and

01:19:17.260 her husband were very

01:19:18.280 conservative Catholics they

01:19:19.940 had no trouble at all

01:19:21.020 working with the hippies

01:19:22.440 Havel and the other hippies

01:19:23.920 who had no religious faith

01:19:25.160 and led really complicated

01:19:26.760 sex lives they had no

01:19:28.560 trouble working with them

01:19:29.560 because these people had

01:19:30.900 courage and that was the

01:19:32.660 rarest quality you ever

01:19:34.100 found under totalitarianism

01:19:35.720 courage and the most

01:19:38.400 Christians she said to me

01:19:40.060 kept their heads down and

01:19:41.880 conformed because they

01:19:42.900 didn't want trouble but

01:19:44.220 she knew that she and her

01:19:45.180 husband were better off

01:19:46.380 aligning with those who

01:19:47.760 did not share their

01:19:48.580 politics necessarily and

01:19:50.020 did not share their

01:19:50.800 religion but who did have

01:19:52.360 courage I feel the same

01:19:54.040 way about what's

01:19:54.660 happening in our country

01:19:55.560 this is why I would

01:19:56.400 rather stand in the in the

01:19:58.080 foxhole with Barry Weiss

01:20:00.200 say secular liberal Jewish

01:20:03.300 lesbian are Brett and

01:20:04.740 Heather Brett Weinstein

01:20:06.160 Heather Hine who are

01:20:07.120 atheist and on the left

01:20:08.380 and others who don't share

01:20:10.020 my religious or political

01:20:11.140 convictions but who have

01:20:12.600 shown courage I feel the

01:20:14.780 same way about Dawkins

01:20:16.040 yeah and Harris for that

01:20:18.680 matter yeah because the

01:20:21.340 thing that we all face now

01:20:23.180 is greater than what divides

01:20:25.160 us we have got to stop this

01:20:27.160 before it triumphs and I

01:20:29.580 yeah well two two things

01:20:31.060 on that front I think that

01:20:32.440 the same might be said on

01:20:34.560 the Abrahamic front is that

01:20:36.120 the traditionalist Jews

01:20:38.460 Christians and Muslims

01:20:39.960 should recognize very

01:20:41.720 rapidly that they have a

01:20:43.240 lot more in common than

01:20:44.440 than they have at the

01:20:46.160 moment dividing them and

01:20:48.940 that the system of ideas

01:20:50.220 that we're talking about and

01:20:51.340 not necessarily those who

01:20:52.740 carry the ideas but the

01:20:54.020 system of ideas that we're

01:20:55.320 talking about is an enemy

01:20:57.640 that's of such greater

01:20:59.160 magnitude than these

01:21:00.300 internecine conflicts that

01:21:01.680 they're not even in the

01:21:02.520 same conceptual camp and

01:21:04.160 so there's an opportunity

01:21:05.060 on that front as well

01:21:07.140 yeah well we can get our

01:21:09.220 act together notice that

01:21:10.400 we worship the same God

01:21:11.880 and are all flawed enough

01:21:13.700 not to be able to

01:21:14.700 interpret that with a

01:21:15.760 hundred percent accuracy

01:21:17.120 yeah and you know who

01:21:19.280 some of the bravest people

01:21:20.840 in the UK standing up to

01:21:22.440 wokeness are Muslim

01:21:23.980 parents who don't want

01:21:25.400 this right right kids in

01:21:26.880 the schools I'll tell you

01:21:28.080 another story a few years

01:21:29.780 ago in California after a

01:21:32.420 burger fell legalized gay

01:21:34.140 marriage there was a bill

01:21:36.520 filed in the California

01:21:37.640 legislature by the head of

01:21:38.980 the LGBT caucus that would

01:21:40.860 take away Cal grants from

01:21:42.900 so-called bigot schools

01:21:44.380 these are direct grants to

01:21:46.020 under privileged impoverished

01:21:48.200 students who could use them

01:21:49.580 at any school in California

01:21:50.980 public or private that was

01:21:52.860 accredited well this bill

01:21:54.760 would have taken away the

01:21:56.060 possibility of using them

01:21:57.360 at religious schools it

01:21:58.760 would have affected

01:21:59.380 disproportionately poor black

01:22:01.260 and Hispanic kids well a

01:22:04.560 friend of mine who's part of

01:22:05.720 the Christian university

01:22:06.980 system there tried to get a

01:22:09.220 group of administrators to

01:22:11.280 go around to the big

01:22:12.300 churches in Orange County

01:22:13.840 the white evangelical mega

01:22:15.420 churches to say this is

01:22:17.000 going to destroy a lot of

01:22:18.080 Christian colleges in this in

01:22:19.660 the state force them to

01:22:20.840 violate their conscience or

01:22:22.280 shut down we've got to

01:22:23.560 fight this he told me that

01:22:25.220 not one of those megachurches

01:22:26.980 those white rich Republican

01:22:28.760 megachurches would take this

01:22:30.660 stand because they were

01:22:31.520 afraid of being called

01:22:32.460 bigots the reason that bill

01:22:34.800 got defeated in the

01:22:36.000 legislature was black

01:22:37.560 Pentecostal pastors of

01:22:39.260 South Central LA and the

01:22:41.220 Latino Catholic Archbishop of

01:22:43.320 Los Angeles so we are seeing

01:22:45.260 immigrant communities who are

01:22:47.120 not buffaloed and bullied by

01:22:49.340 the woke who are willing to

01:22:51.380 stand up if we will just

01:22:53.060 listen to them yeah yeah

01:22:55.820 well so I've been talking

01:22:57.520 today for all of those who

01:22:59.220 are listening with Rod Dreher

01:23:01.120 about his newest book live

01:23:03.080 not by lies I would say

01:23:06.040 inspired by the writings of

01:23:08.320 the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn

01:23:09.960 we've been talking about the

01:23:12.120 battle of ideas that is

01:23:13.580 currently dividing and

01:23:14.720 threatening not only the West

01:23:15.940 but the entire world and what

01:23:17.980 we might all do as

01:23:19.520 individuals and really as

01:23:21.260 individuals to

01:23:22.200 to wander away from the path

01:23:26.400 that leads to hell and the

01:23:28.720 proposition before us is

01:23:30.160 something like at minimum

01:23:32.440 cease to say things that you

01:23:35.600 believe to be untrue cease to

01:23:37.740 act in ways that you know to be

01:23:39.340 wrong start with that and

01:23:42.320 perhaps pick up your damn cross

01:23:44.640 and carry it uphill something

01:23:46.640 like that right forthrightly and

01:23:48.780 nobly and that's really the

01:23:50.520 pathway out of this if

01:23:51.640 totalitarianism is the some

01:23:53.220 consequence of individuals

01:23:54.560 willingness to abdicate their

01:23:55.960 responsibility and lie and I

01:23:57.940 think we've learned that in the

01:23:59.000 aftermath of the communist

01:24:00.120 catastrophe and the Nazi

01:24:01.440 experiments I think we've

01:24:03.400 learned that now if we

01:24:04.880 applied it maybe we could avoid

01:24:06.160 doing the same thing again I

01:24:08.400 guess we're going to find out

01:24:09.500 yeah you know Jordan I you'll

01:24:12.060 remember that Solzhenitsyn said

01:24:13.980 in Gulag Archipelago that if

01:24:16.260 you had gone to all the nice

01:24:17.700 liberal intellectuals of 1890s

01:24:19.880 Russia and said to them that

01:24:21.500 within 30 years medieval

01:24:23.560 tortures would be reintroduced

01:24:25.300 into Russia they wouldn't have

01:24:27.100 believed it they would have

01:24:28.520 thought it was absolutely

01:24:29.620 impossible well in a similar way

01:24:32.320 if you had gone 40 years ago to

01:24:35.000 liberals in North America and

01:24:37.400 said that within 30 40 years we

01:24:40.080 were going to see the sort of

01:24:42.440 things that are being done to

01:24:43.500 children in the name of

01:24:44.840 transgenderism and we would see

01:24:47.380 people who are are clearly men

01:24:50.300 being described by police

01:24:51.660 departments as women and so on

01:24:53.840 and so forth or else but here we

01:24:57.100 are yeah yeah so okay so for

01:25:00.780 everyone who's listening I have

01:25:02.220 recently inked a new deal with the

01:25:05.120 daily wire dailywireplus.com and

01:25:08.360 part of that is to continue these

01:25:10.540 discussions with my guests for an

01:25:13.840 additional period of time behind the

01:25:15.560 daily wire paywall and that might be

01:25:17.900 annoying to some of you

01:25:19.140 c'est la vie part of it is an attempt

01:25:21.400 to foster the daily wire wires growth

01:25:24.140 and part of it is also to provide me

01:25:27.180 with the opportunity to have a hosting

01:25:30.660 system let's say for my content that

01:25:32.520 isn't as prone to the vagaries of the

01:25:35.700 new woke doctrines and so I would

01:25:38.580 encourage you to continue listening to

01:25:40.580 my conversation with Rod Dreher on

01:25:43.160 dailywireplus.com

01:25:45.100 who don't----

01:25:45.640 you

01:25:50.480 you

01:25:54.660 and

01:25:56.040 you

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - July 07, 2022

268. Live Not By Lies ｜ Rod Dreher

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