The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - June 30, 2025


558. The Meaning Of: Snow White


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 22 minutes

Words per Minute

137.01376

Word Count

11,256

Sentence Count

515

Misogynist Sentences

117

Hate Speech Sentences

74


Summary

Fertility suppression is the suppression of female reproductive ability by dominant females in social groups. It's a phenomenon that's been described by primatologists since the 19th century, and is still discussed to this day. In this episode, I discuss the role of the evil queen in the Grimm Brothers' classic, Snow White.


Transcript

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00:00:14.980 I'm going to try something somewhat new today. I'm going to read you the Grimm's Brothers
00:00:22.500 version of Snow White. I picked that because I think I have some interesting insights into its
00:00:31.700 meaning, but I also chose it because it's been the target of ideologically oriented rewriting,
00:00:43.040 most famously recently in the case of Disney, who produced what's essentially a very poor movie
00:00:50.820 that was also a commercial flop by carelessly restructuring a story that either the makers
00:01:03.260 of the film didn't understand or understood all too well and decided to mess with for
00:01:11.120 underground reasons of their own. I suspect a little of column A and a little of column B.
00:01:20.820 I'm going to concentrate a fair bit on the figure of the evil queen, not least because
00:01:26.620 there's no shortage of evil queen manifestation in the current social and political environment.
00:01:34.200 And I'm going to draw on a body of research that has been conducted primarily by primatologists,
00:01:46.200 scientists who study non-human primates, given that human beings are primates as well.
00:01:53.800 The field of inquiry is called fertility suppression, and it is the marked tendency of higher status
00:02:06.080 female primates to suppress the probability that subordinates in their group will successfully mate
00:02:18.320 and bring offspring into the world. I think that the evil queen, in no small part, is a reflection
00:02:28.520 of observations of fertility suppression. People started studying fertility suppression in primates
00:02:37.900 because of the observation that in many primate species, dominant females exhibit higher reproductive
00:02:47.860 success compared to their subordinate counterparts.
00:02:51.380 So, one thing you have to understand about social animals, and this is particularly true of primates
00:02:59.740 because they're hyper-social, social animals live in a tiered society, and there are marked
00:03:09.680 differences in the life and success of those who are uppermost in the social hierarchy compared
00:03:17.220 to those who are barely clinging to the bottom, let's say. And scientists who are interested in the
00:03:25.420 differential reproductive success of high-status females compared to low-status females started to
00:03:32.180 investigate the possibility that the higher status or dominant females were actively engaging in
00:03:39.220 strategies that undermined the ability of the subordinates to find a mate and to reproduce.
00:03:45.720 Why would they do that? Well, perhaps they do that psychologically speaking, you might say,
00:03:52.180 just for the sheer sadistic fun of it, but from a broader evolutionary perspective,
00:03:58.840 the purpose is to maximize the probability of their own reproductive success, their own success
00:04:05.220 of finding a mate and also leaving their genes to propagate into the succeeding generations.
00:04:12.480 How would they do that? The mechanism of fundamental interest for our purposes, given its psychological
00:04:22.400 significance, is that social stress, often imposed by dominant individuals, can elevate stress hormones,
00:04:30.660 cortisol, for example, in subordinates, disrupting their hormonal cycles and leading to delayed
00:04:36.640 ovulation or reduced fertility. Females use reputation-savaging and exclusion, gossip, innuendo,
00:04:47.200 and, well, and as I said, social isolation. And those are all ways of lowering comparative status. That's
00:04:55.440 what gossip will do, for example, in reputation-savaging, whereas exclusion is more directly and intensely
00:05:02.580 stressful. So here's some examples from non-human primates with regard to mechanisms of fertility
00:05:11.160 suppression. For example, in baboons, a particularly aggressive and vicious species, dominant females
00:05:17.740 may physically intimidate subordinates to maintain their reproductive advantage. In species such as
00:05:23.940 marmosets, dominant females actually emit pheromones that directly inhibit ovarian activity,
00:05:31.260 in subordinate females preventing them from cycling or conceiving. By monopolizing food,
00:05:37.920 mates, or safe nesting sites, dominant females limit subordinates' ability to sustain pregnancies
00:05:44.160 or raise offspring, as seen in some tamarind groups. The suppression is often temporary and context-dependent,
00:05:53.560 lifting if the subordinate's status improves or she leaves the group. The goal is clear,
00:05:59.120 to prioritize the dominant females' offspring by reducing competition for resources and care.
00:06:06.120 Okay, here's some potential examples among human beings. In certain human societies,
00:06:12.760 dominant females, often older women or those with higher social status, exert influence over the
00:06:18.480 reproductive choice of subordinates. Examples include control over marriage. In some cultures,
00:06:24.500 older women, e.g. mothers-in-law, dictate when and whom younger women marry, delaying or restricting
00:06:31.320 their reproductive opportunities. Dominant women may enforce norms that discourage subordinate
00:06:38.540 females from reproducing at certain times, such as stigmatizing early pregnancies or pressuring women
00:06:45.640 to prioritize education or work over family. This social exclusion parallels the stress-induced
00:06:53.180 suppression seen in primates, though it's mediated by culture rather than biology. In modern contexts,
00:07:01.460 dominant females in positions of power, such as corporate leaders or senior academics, may create
00:07:08.240 environments that indirectly suppress the fertility of subordinate women. So here's a thought. You know,
00:07:13.760 one of the things I've wondered about for years, how the radical progressive elite feminists can
00:07:22.460 simultaneously criticize capitalism, yet insist that there's no higher priority for young women
00:07:31.680 than to organize their lives around a career. Well, if you want an explanation, fertility suppression
00:07:39.360 by elites with regard to subordinate women foolish enough to listen to such advice certainly constitutes a
00:07:49.180 explanatory hypothesis, and it's a brutal one. Now, with that background firmly in mind, I'm going to read
00:07:56.920 you the original version of Snow White. So, a little background on the Brothers Grimm. Jacob and Wilhelm,
00:08:05.320 they lived, Jacob lived from 1785 to 1863 and Wilhelm from 1786 to 1859. They were German scholars
00:08:14.320 and linguists, renowned for their collection of fairy tales. Their most famous work, Children's and
00:08:20.880 Household Tales, was first published in 1812, and it included stories that everyone knows, such as
00:08:27.180 Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel. The collection was not a one-time effort. The brothers
00:08:34.280 revised and expanded it over the years, cementing its place as a cultural treasure. They aimed to
00:08:41.500 safeguard German folklore amid a growing interest in national identity. At a time when Germany was a
00:08:47.680 collection of disparate states, the brothers believed that traditional stories reflected the spirit of the
00:08:52.860 German people and preserved their ancient wisdom. As scholars, they saw fairy tales as a lens to explore
00:08:59.500 the evolution of language and narrative, contributing to their broader academic interests in
00:09:04.460 philology. They gathered stories from diverse sources, including oral tales told by local storytellers,
00:09:12.400 often women, and existing written folklore. Rather than simply recording the tales verbatim,
00:09:18.660 they edited and adapted them to suit their literary style and to appeal to a wider audience, including
00:09:24.340 children. Okay, so a few comments about the brothers Grimm. It's been a contention of mine for some
00:09:33.160 decades and a cornerstone of my work that our consciousness is structured in the same manner as
00:09:43.000 a story. In fact, I think you can make a very strong case, I believe an incontrovertible case, that
00:09:48.760 what a story is, is a verbal description of the framing of conscious experience. Now, what that implies
00:09:57.720 at a very deep level is that for diverse individuals to organize themselves into a culture, they have to
00:10:08.180 develop a mechanism such that their consciousness is framed in a similar manner so that they pursue
00:10:15.380 similar goals, they have two similar goals, they have similar values, and they experience similar
00:10:19.120 emotions. The only way to do that, as far as I can tell, is to provide a foundation of shared narrative.
00:10:29.660 And so the Grimm brothers were particularly perspicacious in their insistence that shared narratives
00:10:40.840 define a culture. A culture is a group of people who not only know but inhabit the same stories.
00:10:49.400 Now, it turns out that much of the Brothers Grimm work has provided a foundation for some of the unity
00:11:01.120 of our culture such as it is. Now, what would you expect folklore passed down
00:11:10.120 from generation to generation, often for periods of time that can exceed 10,000 years? What would
00:11:19.260 you expect such stories to concentrate on? Well, they have to be highly memorable, which means they
00:11:25.640 have to adapt themselves to the structure of human memory. They have to be compelling and interesting.
00:11:31.680 And all of that points to the likelihood that they're describing realities that are unchanging and that
00:11:39.860 are so necessary that their explication automatically grips interest and embeds itself in memory.
00:11:48.660 Okay, so with all that, we can turn to the fairy tale itself. Little Snow White.
00:11:55.500 Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky,
00:12:01.000 a beautiful queen was sitting and sewing at a window with a black ebony frame.
00:12:06.380 So why a beautiful queen? Well, the same evolutionary psychologists, evolutionary biologists have also
00:12:16.680 done intensive work, and I would refer you in particular to the work of David Buss, on outlining the
00:12:25.540 evidence that female beauty in particular, which has a pronounced sexual element, is highly associated
00:12:35.460 with markers of fertility. Youth, waist-to-hip ratio, symmetry, a feature, which is a very good indicator,
00:12:47.060 by the way, of underlying genetic integrity. Butterflies, which are quite stunningly beautiful,
00:12:54.760 can detect deviations from symmetry in a potential mate at less than one part in a million.
00:13:01.720 And much of the beauty of butterflies is actually a consequence of sexual selection.
00:13:06.240 I saw an amazing butterfly. I don't remember the species. With its wings closed, it looks exactly
00:13:12.180 like a leaf, which is a consequence of natural selection. And then with its wings open, it has
00:13:18.080 the beauty, the colorful beauty, and symmetrical patterning and shaping that's characteristic, more
00:13:24.660 characteristic of the typical butterfly.
00:13:26.320 What's the biological significance of beauty? Well, insofar as it's associated with symmetry,
00:13:34.460 for example, it is a marker, as I said, of biological integrity. If there are mishaps during
00:13:43.120 psychophysiological development, one way those mishaps make themselves manifest to perception is in
00:13:50.400 marked deviations from bodily symmetry. Many of the markers that we associate with female beauty and
00:13:58.440 that females compete to make manifest are markers of biological fertility, waist-to-hip ratio, which is
00:14:08.140 a stable marker for female attractiveness with the optimal ratio being 0.68 across cultures. And that's
00:14:15.660 independent, by the way, of body size. So you can have women who carry more body fat and women who
00:14:24.040 carry less body fat being equal in terms of their waist-to-hip ratio attractiveness as long as it
00:14:30.140 makes itself manifest at approximately 0.68. So the fact that the queen is beautiful, you see,
00:14:40.180 is directly associated with the issue of fertility and fertility suppression because the first
00:14:46.600 indication we have of her nature, the nature of her being, is that she's beautiful. And so the
00:14:55.220 simplest explanation for that is young and fertile. A beautiful queen was sitting and sewing at a window
00:15:06.680 with a black ebony frame as she was sewing and looking out the window at the snow. She pricked her finger
00:15:11.680 with the needle and three drops of blood fell on the snow. The red looked so beautiful on the white snow that
00:15:18.120 she thought to herself, if only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the
00:15:25.980 window frame. Soon thereafter, she gave birth to a little daughter who was white as snow, as red as blood, and her hair
00:15:32.600 as black as ebony. That's why the child was called little snow white. Well, what are those, why are those
00:15:38.340 colors relevant? Well, black, white, and red are the three colors most likely to be given color names across
00:15:45.260 cultures. And so there are no more directly perceptible colors than black, white, and red. And then red is
00:15:55.300 associated, let's say, with the apple, as we'll see later in the story. But there are, like, reddening of
00:16:03.360 tissue is also associated with both youth and with sexual excitation. And so women, for example, put
00:16:11.480 lipstick on their lips and rouge their cheeks to mimic both youth and fecundity, but also to mimic
00:16:19.420 sexual excitation. The queen was the most beautiful woman in the entire land, and very proud about her
00:16:28.860 beauty.
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00:17:26.260 Pride, you know, is the cardinal sin, you might say. It's pride that is the fundamental character of
00:17:35.660 characteristic of Lucifer, the usurping spirit. You can think of the Luciferian spirit as the
00:17:45.020 individual or the proclivity of the individual to elevate themselves to the highest possible position.
00:17:53.900 I'll give you an example. When Eve is tempted by the serpent to eat the apple, which, or the fruit,
00:18:05.700 it's not described as an apple in the Genesis story, but it has become that by tradition, which is relevant
00:18:12.520 to this story. The serpent, who's camouflaged, by the way, like female aggression, tells Eve that if she eats
00:18:22.440 this particular fruit, which means if she consumes it and incorporates it and takes it into herself,
00:18:29.940 becomes it, you might say, that she'll become like God, knowing good and evil. What does that mean?
00:18:38.060 Establishing the moral order. And so Eve eats the fruit offered to her by the serpent so that she can
00:18:45.500 take the place of God can take the place of God and define the moral order. And that's partly why the serpent
00:18:52.720 in the Genesis story becomes associated, as the mythology develops, with Lucifer, the usurping intellect, who
00:19:01.580 attempts to take the place of the divine. That's all associated with the idea of pride. Pride is the vice that
00:19:10.620 says, what I want now, I in the most narrow possible way, or what my whims want now, should be superordinate
00:19:22.380 to all other concerns. The pride that the evil queen takes in her beauty is the taking to herself of a
00:19:32.920 talent that was given to her by providence, let's say, by taking that to herself as a virtue that confers
00:19:45.540 special privileges and benefits on her as an isolated individual. What would the alternative be?
00:19:52.160 She could be extraordinarily grateful for her beauty and self-effacing and kind and self-sacrificing.
00:20:03.220 That would make her the good queen rather than the evil queen. She also had a mirror, and every morning
00:20:09.260 she stepped in front of it and asked, mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
00:20:15.040 The mirror would answer, you, my queen, are the fairest of all. Okay, well, what's a mirror? A mirror is a
00:20:20.500 place for self-reflection, but it's also a place of intense self-consciousness, right? When you look in
00:20:26.300 a mirror and you recognize yourself in the mirror, you are self-conscious. In fact, self-recognition in
00:20:33.500 a mirror is a marker used by biologists to determine the presence or absence of self-consciousness
00:20:39.940 in animals. So, to look in a mirror is to become self-conscious. Okay, so what's the problem with that?
00:20:47.440 Well, psychologists have known for decades that the experience of self-consciousness is so tightly
00:20:56.320 associated with negative emotion that they're statistically indistinguishable. So, when the
00:21:04.560 theorists who created the big five personality map, five-dimensional personality map, extroversion,
00:21:12.280 neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness, which is a creativity dimension,
00:21:16.960 when they first laid out that map, they noticed that their statistical inquiries indicated that
00:21:23.920 being self-conscious was so tightly associated with trait neuroticism, which is the proclivity for
00:21:30.840 anxiety, pain, grief, shame, guilt, frustration, disappointment, and anger, among other negative
00:21:39.080 emotions. It was so tightly associated with negative emotion that it was statistically indistinguishable.
00:21:45.320 So, we should note that the queen's pride, in combination with her pronounced proclivity for
00:21:53.200 self-consciousness, is destined to make her miserable, and that the pathway from misery to
00:22:00.980 bitter, to bitterness, and from bitterness to sadistic, what would you say, sadistic revenge and envy,
00:22:09.540 that's a very short journey? So, mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
00:22:17.420 The mirror would answer, you, my queen, are the fairest of all. So, she staked her identity on her
00:22:24.040 beauty. She staked her identity on her youth. She staked her identity on her competitiveness,
00:22:32.620 you might say, in the mating and reproduction market. You know, and that's, I suppose, to some
00:22:40.200 degree, that's developmentally appropriate for a very young woman whose primary, what, whose primary
00:22:49.360 orientation in the world could well be finding a partner and pursuing the reproductive pathway,
00:22:59.620 having children, worshipping that and developing pride in it, and then maintaining it past its due
00:23:08.700 date, and then using it to suppress fertility in others, especially your own children, that starts
00:23:15.440 to deviate into the pathological. Look, part of the reason that human beings have the lifespan they
00:23:22.520 have, which basically allows us to be grandparents, is that it's useful for young people who are raising
00:23:32.500 children to have their parents around to pass on some wisdom about how to manage this. But it's also
00:23:41.020 the case that it's inappropriate for grandmothers to compete with their daughters on the sexual
00:23:47.840 attractiveness front, if that's done in a manner that undermines and supplants the younger
00:23:56.740 woman. So that's all background for this story. You, my queen, are the fairest of all. And then she
00:24:05.600 knew for certain that there was nobody more beautiful in the entire world. However, little Snow White grew
00:24:10.800 up, and when she was seven years old, she was so beautiful that her beauty surpassed even that of the
00:24:16.020 queen. And when the queen asked her mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all,
00:24:22.080 the mirror answered, you, my queen, may have a beauty quite rare, but little Snow White is a thousand
00:24:28.800 times more fair. When the queen heard the mirror speak this way, she became pale with envy. And from
00:24:35.820 that hour onward, she hated Snow White. And when she looked at her and thought that little Snow White
00:24:40.880 was to blame, that she, the queen, was no longer the most beautiful woman in the world, her heart turned
00:24:45.780 against little Snow White. Okay, so what's the problem with that? Well, one of the things that
00:24:51.860 you see in pathological families is that the parents who've made a hash of their own life
00:24:59.520 become jealous of the unblemished possibilities and opportunities that lay themselves out in front of
00:25:08.640 their children. And instead of encouraging their development in the world, start to regard the fact that
00:25:15.360 they haven't been corrupted yet by laziness and spite, they start to regard that as a, they start to
00:25:23.280 regard the contrast between that childhood potentiality and their own wasted and pathological
00:25:30.540 lives as unbearable. And to reduce the contrast, instead of straightening the hell up so that they're
00:25:36.620 not embarrassed in front of their children, they discourage their children from moving forward
00:25:42.060 and encourage pathologies in them so that the competitive stress is lessened. And so that's
00:25:50.400 exactly what the evil queen is doing here. She's now jealous of her child instead of stepping back and
00:25:59.000 really taking second place, which is, you know, which is what a wise mother should do and would do if
00:26:08.920 she had her true interest in mind, but also the interests of her children. You know, one of the
00:26:16.260 tropes in teenage movies is the mom who tries too hard to be cool, let's say, to pretend that she's still
00:26:25.460 young, to even to partake in the social hierarchy structuring of her teenage daughters, let's say,
00:26:33.560 instead of stepping back and letting the young women have their moment, just as she had the
00:26:40.640 opportunity, just as the mother had the opportunity to have her moment. That's part of the sacrificial
00:26:47.380 nature of motherhood when it's undertaken appropriately, right? Because the child becomes the
00:26:55.780 star of the show, let's say, rather than the mother. And the mother isn't trying to become
00:27:01.720 the star through the child either. Her heart turned against little Snow White, right? What did Nietzsche
00:27:08.740 say? We're best punished for our virtues. If you really want to hurt your child, then you find out
00:27:15.260 what's good about them that's embarrassing you, by contrast, and then you hurt them for the existence
00:27:21.100 of that good. That'll make you an evil queen. And so what is she like? Well, this is a very harsh part
00:27:27.920 of the story, you see. And this is the sort of thing that modern people find upsetting and perhaps
00:27:34.340 presume shouldn't be shared with children. But the vicious turn this story takes now is an indication
00:27:42.280 of just how absolutely devouring and pathological this evil queen jealousy in relationship to younger
00:27:51.360 women truly is. So this is what the mother of Snow White does to pursue her envy and pride, her usurping
00:28:03.260 capability. Her jealousy kept upsetting her. And so she summoned her huntsman and said,
00:28:13.240 take this child out into the forest. So out into the dark unknown to a spot far from her, then stab her to
00:28:23.340 death. That's bad enough, I would say already, the mother who's going to kill her own child, have her
00:28:31.720 henchmen kill her own child. But that's not as bad as it gets. And it's not sufficiently symbolically
00:28:41.360 terrible. Because the, it's like a vampire, right? A vampire is a force of death that feeds on life to keep
00:28:53.600 itself going when really it's already dead. The mother, the queen in this story doesn't only kill her
00:29:01.020 daughter, she devours her. She attempts to incorporate her own vitality into herself. She's truly the devouring
00:29:08.900 mother, truly the devouring mother. And that's a symbolic representation of maternality gone most
00:29:18.700 pathologically wrong in the opposite direction. I mean, women, mothers literally nourish their children
00:29:26.960 with their own bodies. Breastfeeding mothers can, their bodies can detect if their children lack calcium,
00:29:37.460 if their infants lack calcium when they're breastfeeding, through receptors in the nipple.
00:29:43.020 And if the child is lacking calcium, the mother will decalcify her own bones, take calcium out of
00:29:50.060 her own bones to increase the proportion of calcium in the milk to feed to her child. And so the proper
00:29:59.280 maternal orientation towards infants in particular, but also children, is voluntary self-sacrifice,
00:30:06.400 right? To give, the mother gives herself up, gives herself over to the child. This is a complete
00:30:14.540 inversion of that, where the mother becomes the devouring agent and the child is nourishment for
00:30:20.180 the pathologies of the mother. You see plenty of that, by the way, in the modern world with
00:30:25.180 mothers, for example, who utilize their demented identity politics with regards to their children.
00:30:35.100 My boy is really a girl. My girl is really a boy. There's some fertility suppression. And use the
00:30:41.800 notoriety generated by that pathologization of the child to elevate their social status among their
00:30:49.000 idiot friends at the cost of the child's happiness, physiology, and future reproductive success.
00:30:56.560 So no matter how brutal this story becomes, and that's what happens next, it pales in comparison
00:31:03.120 to the truth of the pathology of the devouring mother. Take the child out into the forest to a
00:31:10.480 spot far from here. Then stab her to death and bring me back her lungs and liver as proof of your deed.
00:31:17.720 Lungs, that's inspiration. That's respiration. That's the resting place of the spirit. Liver? Well,
00:31:24.120 think of the word live. The liver is the part of the body, the vital organ that can regenerate itself
00:31:30.360 and is regarded symbolically as the seat of vitality. So it's spirit and vitality that the
00:31:37.480 evil queen devours in consequence of her jealousy, her inappropriate jealousy of the benefits of Snow
00:31:45.400 White's youth. After that, I'll cook them with salt and eat them. Now you think, do you tell your
00:31:51.460 children that story? And that's a hard question because one thing you want to do if you have
00:31:59.060 children is protect them from the evil queen. The huntsman took little Snow White and led her out
00:32:05.780 into the forest, but when he drew his hunting knife and was about to stab her, she began to weep
00:32:10.640 and pleaded so much to let her live and promised never to return but to run deeper into the forest.
00:32:17.340 The huntsman was moved to pity also because she was so beautiful. Anyway, he thought the wild beasts
00:32:23.660 in the forest would soon devour her. I'm glad that I won't have to kill her, he thought. Just then a
00:32:30.120 young boar came dashing by and the huntsman stabbed it to death. He took out the lungs and liver and
00:32:36.520 brought them to the queen as proof that the child was dead. Then she boiled them in salt, ate them,
00:32:41.780 and thought she had eaten little Snow White's lungs and liver. So that's pretty damn rough.
00:32:48.720 But now you understand its significance. Oh, this reminds me, you know, of the Disney version
00:32:57.780 of Sleeping Beauty. Remember the evil queen in Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, entraps the prince
00:33:06.200 in a castle. And her goal is to keep him locked up until he's so old that he can't find a mate and
00:33:16.540 reproduce, right? And when he dares to challenge her, she turns into the dragon that devours everything,
00:33:24.480 right? Into the full bloody fury of nature itself in all its predatory catastrophe. And he defeats her
00:33:34.480 with a cross on his shield and the sword of truth and advances through her, through the thorns that
00:33:43.680 she's placed around Sleeping Beauty so that he can find the princess. And that's the story of the
00:33:50.360 young man's heroic rejection of the destruction of his life possibility and youth by the evil queen.
00:34:04.480 Meanwhile, little Snow White was so all alone in the huge forest that she became afraid and began to
00:34:11.200 run and run over sharp stones and through thorn bushes. That's a typical fairy tale motif. And the
00:34:17.700 emphasis of the story here actually shifts to Snow White because it starts to become a developmental
00:34:23.100 story rather than a story about the evil queen. So Snow White has been moved from pathological order
00:34:34.280 and that's the domain ruled by the evil queen. Out into the unknown. Those two things are conflated,
00:34:41.160 you might say, because whenever you are in a situation where you are encountering the unknown,
00:34:49.980 for example, when you're lost in a forest, when you're away from everything that brings you security
00:34:56.280 and familiarity, you are in the unknown in unexplored territory. But that unexplored territory is going
00:35:03.440 to be populated by the monsters of your imagination. And so any journey into the unknown is simultaneously
00:35:11.600 a journey into the unconscious. And so what's happening here is that Snow White has left security
00:35:19.220 and is now encountering the unknown. And that's part of the developmental trajectory. Everything we learn is
00:35:30.780 on the border of order and chaos. Everything we learn is a step into the unknown. And so this is a radical
00:35:37.920 initiation for Snow White. She ran the entire day. Finally, as the sun was about to set, she came upon a little
00:35:44.940 cottage that belonged to seven dwarfs. Now, this is very interesting. So Snow White has gone, you could
00:35:52.220 say, into the unknown or into the unconscious and quite deeply because it takes her a whole day to get
00:35:56.520 there. And what does she discover? So this is in her own mind, you might say. This is in the, this is part
00:36:02.840 of the landscape of possibility that presents itself to any young woman who is being persecuted by the
00:36:12.100 forces of the evil queen, down deep into the unknown, down deep into the unconscious. Go far enough, you find
00:36:19.300 the home of the dwarfs. Okay, so, so what are the dwarfs here? The dwarfs are ordinary, faceless, hardworking
00:36:28.840 men. Now, in the modern Snow White story, this last travesty that Disney so catastrophically produced,
00:36:35.780 the dwarfs are basically a mess. And that's part of the pathology of the modern world,
00:36:42.660 which assumes that typical, faceless, ordinary, hardworking men are part of the pathological
00:36:51.620 patriarchy and incapable of taking care of themselves. That's not the case in the Grimm Brothers
00:36:58.360 story. The dwarfs have a perfectly functional house deep in the woods, and they're capable of taking care of
00:37:08.620 themselves. In fact, you might think about the dwarfs as exactly that. The dwarfs are seven ordinary, hardworking
00:37:17.060 men who've made a place in the forest of the unknown that's safe and secure and functional. And so you could think
00:37:24.800 about the dwarfs as indicators, as representatives of the ordinary, functional patriarchy. Now, what's
00:37:34.060 particularly interesting about that, you see, is that Snow White finds respite from the evil queen in the
00:37:42.120 dwelling place of the ordinary man. So what does that mean? Well, it means that one of the things that
00:37:49.620 ordinary men offer young women is protection from the pathology of fertility suppression by toxic
00:37:59.180 older women. And given the absolute widespread pervasiveness of elite-induced fertility suppression
00:38:08.220 in our culture, the notion that an alliance between young women and ordinary men is the protection against
00:38:17.040 that fertility and youth-destroying pathology is a lesson well worth learning, and certainly not the
00:38:23.860 lesson that was put forward in the most recent version of the Snow White narrative. So she ran the
00:38:32.000 entire day. Finally, as the sun was about to set, she came upon a little cottage that belonged to seven
00:38:36.860 dwarfs. Okay, so that happens at night too, so that's deeper into the unconscious. However, they were not at
00:38:42.040 home, but had gone to the mines. See, as miners, you see, they descend into the depths themselves,
00:38:49.580 and they find through their labor, treasure. And so the dwarves, you see this in mythological
00:38:57.840 representations of dwarves, like in the Lord of the Rings, the dwarves are often heroes. They're tough.
00:39:02.540 They're tough little guys, and they go into the darkest recesses of the bowels of the earth to find
00:39:09.280 the glittering treasure. And so it's very appropriate to notice that these dwarves are
00:39:15.260 good men. They're still dwarves, however. They were not at home, but had gone to the mines. Okay,
00:39:20.580 so they're also diligent, conscientious, and hardworking. And that's reinforced by the next
00:39:25.780 line. When little Snow White entered, she found everything tiny, but dainty and neat. Okay, so this is a
00:39:33.260 well-tended place, right? So these are lone men who are capable of taking care of themselves and
00:39:40.760 establishing habitable order, habitable patriarchal order, cooperative, conscientious, oriented towards
00:39:48.740 the treasure, brave and resolute. There was a little table with a white tablecloth and seven
00:39:54.240 little plates with seven tiny spoons, seven tiny knives and tiny forks, and seven tiny cups. In a row
00:39:59.800 against the wall stood seven little beds, recently covered with sheets. So there, beds are made too.
00:40:06.740 Take note, all of you who have unmade beds and still are struggling even to be dwarves.
00:40:13.460 Since she was so hungry and thirsty, so now she gets to eat in this place of masculine provision.
00:40:20.120 Snow White ate some vegetables and bread from each of the little plates and had a drop of wine to drink
00:40:24.540 out of each of the tiny cups. And since she was so tired, she wanted to lay down and sleep.
00:40:28.780 So she began trying out the beds, but none of them suited her until she found that the seventh one
00:40:34.020 was just right. So she lay down in it and fell asleep. When it turned night, the seven dwarves
00:40:40.620 returned home from their work and lit their seven little candles. Then they saw that someone had been
00:40:45.700 in their house. The first dwarf said, who's been sitting in my chair? Who's eaten off my plate?
00:40:52.160 said the second. Who's eaten some of my bread? said the third. My vegetables? said the fourth.
00:40:58.740 Who's been using my little fork? said the fifth. Who's been cutting with my little knife? said the
00:41:04.660 sixth. Who's had something to drink from my little cup? said the seventh. Then the first dwarf looked
00:41:11.540 around and said, who's been sleeping in my bed? The second cried out, someone's been sleeping in my bed.
00:41:16.680 And he was followed by each of them. Until the seventh dwarf looked at his bed and saw little
00:41:21.940 snow white lying there asleep. The others came running over to him and they were so astounded
00:41:26.660 that they screamed and fetched their seven little candles to observe little snow white. Oh my lord,
00:41:33.600 they explained, how beautiful she is. They took great delight in her. Okay, well, you know, that's
00:41:39.560 actually an indication that these are pretty decent little dwarves too. Because if they were as
00:41:44.660 pathological as the little queen, they came across an attractive juvenile female, God only knows what
00:41:52.580 hell could break loose, as we've seen repeatedly in places like the UK, for example. So the dwarves are
00:42:01.920 protective of snow white and her beauty and serve a proper paternal and partnership function.
00:42:14.460 They took great delight in her, but didn't wake her up. They let her sleep in the bed. That's very
00:42:19.860 generous of them. They're very hospitable, which also indicates their essential morality. Well, the
00:42:24.720 seventh dwarf spent an hour in each one of his companions' bed until the night had passed. When she
00:42:29.180 awoke, they asked her who she was and how she had managed to come to their cottage. Then she told them
00:42:34.740 how her mother had wanted to have her killed, how the huntsman had spared her life, and how she had run
00:42:39.560 all day until she had eventually arrived at the cottage. Then the dwarves took pity on her and
00:42:45.080 said, if you'll keep house for us, cook, sew, make the beds, wash and knit, and if you'll keep everything
00:42:51.040 neat and orderly, you can stay with us and we'll provide you with everything you need. When we come
00:42:56.420 home in the evening, dinner must be ready. During the day, we're in the mines and dig for gold. You'll be
00:43:01.820 alone. We'll have to watch out for the queen and not let anyone enter the cottage. Okay, so what's
00:43:07.540 the deal here? Well, Snow White has run from the destructive force of her evil mother and the most
00:43:18.420 pathological element of nature and plunged deep into the unknown where she found the dwarves who are
00:43:25.960 emblematic of the stable patriarchy, the stable, ordinary, productive patriarchy. Now, the deal for
00:43:33.400 her is that she has to serve the dwarves and they'll protect her from the evil queen. So that's a pretty
00:43:41.800 good deal given that the evil queen wants to eat her lungs and her liver, so is posing a mortal threat.
00:43:48.120 And it's indicative of the notion that prior to finding a prince, you might say, and finding
00:43:57.700 permanent protection from the evil queen in the form of a stable, long-term, desirable partnership,
00:44:05.760 a marriage, the young woman threatened by the evil queen, which is the eternal archetypal situation of
00:44:14.400 isolated young women, has to make a pact to serve ordinary masculinity, right? To partner with ordinary
00:44:22.140 masculinity, to have respect for it, to understand its productive function, and to know that it's
00:44:28.660 ordinary masculinity, you might say, that stops female pathology from making itself manifest as the
00:44:37.980 ultimately destructive force it can all too easily become, right? So what's the moral of the story as
00:44:45.100 we proceed? If you want to find a prince and escape from the evil queen, you have to serve the dwarves
00:44:51.340 with some degree of gratitude and conscientious dedication, right? With some real emphasis on
00:45:02.120 gratitude. And why? Well, better the dwarves than the evil queen, right? Which is exactly the opposite
00:45:09.160 of the feminist narrative, which is that there are only power mad, pathological men, and all that's
00:45:18.740 feminine is benevolent. It's like, yeah, right, God. In the meantime, the queen believed that she was once
00:45:26.980 again, the most beautiful woman in the land, and stepped before her mirror and asked, mirror, mirror
00:45:32.340 on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all? The mirror answered, you, my queen, have a beauty
00:45:38.060 quite rare, but beyond the seven mountains, this I must tell. Little Snow White is living quite well.
00:45:44.300 Indeed, she's still a thousand times more fair. Hmm. So what does this mean for the poor queen? Well,
00:45:51.020 you know, at one level of analysis, the queen is battling against her own daughter, but at a
00:45:57.060 different level of analysis, the aging woman is battling against youth itself. And even if she does
00:46:05.180 manage to destroy her own child so happily, sadistically, and delightfully, with envy and spite,
00:46:15.900 making themselves manifest as primary motivations aligned with pride, let's say, even if she manages
00:46:24.240 that, she's not going to win the ultimate battle because age is always supplanted by youth. No, it's
00:46:36.080 reproduction is a young woman's game. And so it's less intense for men, although men are more fertile when
00:46:43.160 they're younger. But for women, youth and reproduction are intensely associated. And the battle of the
00:46:51.580 aging woman against her own daughter is a microcosm of the battle of age against youth. And on the
00:46:58.980 fertility front, let's say the sexual attractiveness front, as well, to a large degree, at least the
00:47:06.260 natural sexual attractiveness front, the evil queen is not going to be able to stamp out youth itself.
00:47:16.080 Although, you know, in cultures where the old women cover all the young women up so that you can't even
00:47:23.720 see their eyes, the vicious battle of envious age in women against the beauty and attractiveness of
00:47:34.260 young women has been taken to a staggering extreme, I suppose most thoroughly made manifest in the
00:47:41.980 absolutely brutal practice of female genital mutilation, which is also, by the way, often
00:47:48.500 undertaken by grandmothers. When the queen heard this, her mirror's objection, she was horrified, for she saw
00:47:56.160 that she had been deceived and that the huntsman had not killed little Snow White. Since nobody but the
00:48:01.820 seven dwarfs lived in the Seven Mountains region, the queen immediately knew that little Snow White
00:48:06.980 was dwelling with them and began once again plotting ways to kill her. As long as the mirror refused to
00:48:14.660 say that she was the most beautiful woman in the land, she would remain upset. Since she couldn't be
00:48:20.760 absolutely certain and didn't trust anyone, she disguised herself as an old peddler woman, painted her face
00:48:27.400 so that nobody could recognize her and went to the cottage of the seven dwarfs, where she knocked at
00:48:32.120 the door and cried out, open up, open up, I'm the old peddler woman, I've got pretty wares for sale.
00:48:38.000 Little Snow White looked out the window, what do you have for sale? Stay laces, dear child, that's a
00:48:45.440 corset, it's a corset. The old woman replied and took out a lace woven from yellow, red and blue silk,
00:48:53.920 do you want it? Well, yes, said little Snow White. If I remember correctly, women spend 80% of the
00:49:01.440 consumer dollar. It's a very interesting statistic. So men might have an advantage on the earning side,
00:49:08.580 slight, it's about 8%, something like that. And that has virtually nothing to do with prejudice against
00:49:16.820 women, by the way, if the statistics are calculated properly. But women have a marked advantage on the
00:49:23.600 spending side, and it's a real toss-up, who has more power, the people who make the money or the
00:49:29.720 people who spend it? In any case, Snow White is interested in shopping, and so the old peddler woman
00:49:36.680 has some wares for her. Now, she lets her inside. Well, yes, do you want it? Well, yes, said little
00:49:45.980 Snow White thought, I can certainly let her. This good old woman inside, she's honest enough.
00:49:51.600 What does she think? She just wants to make me beautiful. She just wants to do something for me.
00:49:56.960 Okay, so little Snow White unbolted the door and bought the lace. My goodness, you're so sloppily
00:50:03.080 laced up, said the old woman. Come on, I'll lace you up properly for once. Little Snow White stood in
00:50:08.480 front of the old woman, who took the lace and tied it around little Snow White so tightly that she lost
00:50:13.740 her breath and fell down as if dead. Then the queen was satisfied and left. Well, let's think about a
00:50:19.680 corset for a minute. And so, you know, the feminist scuttlebutt is that the Victorian proclivity to
00:50:29.000 use corsets was a imposition of the masculine superstructure. But women compete with one another
00:50:38.360 to make manifest their signs of beauty and fertility and don't need men to intercede to make that
00:50:48.960 happen. Now, it was the case that in Victorian England, corset use could become so extreme that
00:50:57.100 it interfered with breathing and sometimes even caused death. So what does that point to at a deeper
00:51:02.540 level? The evil queen, it's so awful, the evil queen entices Snow White to maximize her attractiveness
00:51:16.720 in a manner that compromises not only her health but her life. And that's, if you can't see that
00:51:25.380 playing out in our society at the moment, then you're not paying attention. Some of you might be
00:51:32.860 familiar with Bonnie Blue, the prostitute in the UK who's slept with, had sex with 100 men in one night
00:51:47.820 and is now attempting a thousand, apparently. Her mother is her business manager. And if you think
00:51:57.540 that's all right, and you're female, well, then you're definitely the evil queen. And if you think
00:52:03.120 that's all right and you're male, you're not even a dwarf. And so you can give that some consideration.
00:52:10.820 Little Snow White stood in front of the old woman who took the lace and tied it around. Little Snow White
00:52:15.820 so tightly that she lost her breath and fell down as if dead. Then the queen was satisfied and left.
00:52:23.040 So that's a very sophisticated method of fertility suppression. Entice young women into advertising
00:52:31.140 themselves sexually so brutally and in such an all-consuming manner that it interferes with spirit,
00:52:39.680 that's breath, that's breath, and life itself. Jesus. Brutal. Not long after nightfall, the dwarves
00:52:46.840 came home. And when they saw their dear Snow White lying on the ground, they were horrified for she seemed
00:52:52.120 to be dead. They lifted her up. And when they saw that she was laced too tightly, they cut the stay
00:52:59.460 lace in two. So it's the men, it's the dwarves that rescued Snow White from the pathologization
00:53:07.120 of her own sexuality. Right? It's not the bloody dwarves who put her in the corset and make it
00:53:14.400 impossible for her to breathe. It's her own mother, her own evil mother. Right? At once, she began to
00:53:21.660 breathe a little and after a while she had fully revived. So the dwarves, with their essential,
00:53:28.620 ordinary, conscientious, masculine sensibility, are able to protect Snow White against the
00:53:37.400 pathologization of her own sexual attractiveness at the hands of the evil queen. Right? So the dwarves
00:53:43.880 can manage that. That was nobody else but the queen, they said. Pay attention to the dwarves. It's not us.
00:53:50.720 It's your evil mother. She wanted to take your life. Be careful. And don't let anyone else enter
00:53:58.680 the cottage. Now the queen asked her mirror. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who in this land is
00:54:04.440 fairest of all? The mirror answered. You, my queen, may have a beauty. Quite rare, but little Snow White's
00:54:11.180 alive. This I must tell. She's with the dwarves and doing quite well. Indeed, she's still a thousand times
00:54:18.460 more fair. The queen was so horrified that all her blood rushed to her heart when she realized that
00:54:24.920 little Snow White was alive once again. So she began thinking day and night how she could put an end
00:54:30.780 to little Snow White. Finally, she made a poisoned comb, disguised herself in a completely different
00:54:37.600 shape, and went off to the dwarves' cottage once again. When she knocked on the door, however,
00:54:42.360 little Snow White called out, I'm not allowed to let anyone enter. The queen then took out the comb.
00:54:49.200 So now Snow White, you see, Snow White gets enticed in some ways by her own vanity. Right? Now the
00:54:55.840 dwarves have told her, be careful who you let in. Right? Remember in the story of Cain and Abel,
00:55:02.480 that when Cain becomes possessed by envy, in consequence of the failure of his own second-rate
00:55:10.400 sacrifices, he invites the spirit of murderous sin in to possess him as a voluntary response to his own
00:55:22.000 pathological inadequacy. Pathological and voluntary inadequacy. He has to invite the pathological agent in,
00:55:31.200 and that's what Snow White does, right? She does that because she wants first the lace stay and then
00:55:38.040 the comb. And so she's enticed by the opportunity to make the most of her own beauty, which is an
00:55:47.820 understandable motivation. She's enticed by that motivation to hearken to the voice of the evil and
00:55:54.800 destructive queen. So that's a morality tale about the danger of vanity. Right? When little Snow White
00:56:04.040 saw it shine, the comb, so it's a shiny comb, right? It's glittery, it's numinous in Rudolf Otto's
00:56:10.540 phrase. It attracts her attention. And so I suppose that's why the queen brought the comb. When little Snow
00:56:17.480 White saw it shine, Snow White saw it shine, so it's a phenomenon. Phenomenon, that's a word from the Greek
00:56:25.420 root, phenisthai. Phenisthai means to shine forth. Something that shines attracts your attention, right? It's, and
00:56:34.240 things attract your attention because they, they what? They speak to a conscious or unconscious
00:56:41.860 motivational force. So Snow White would like to make use of her beauty. And fair enough, but there's
00:56:49.460 great danger in making use of your beauty. Come, said the peddler woman. When she, when little Snow
00:56:57.320 White saw it shine and that the woman was someone entirely different from the one she had previously
00:57:01.760 met, yeah, she was entirely different on the surface. So there's different manifestations of the evil
00:57:07.720 queen pathology, all selling something hypothetically different, but they're all
00:57:12.920 avatars of the same underlying pathological fertility suppressing, devouring dragon force.
00:57:25.060 When she saw that the woman was someone entirely different from the one she had previously met,
00:57:29.280 she opened the door and bought the comb. Come, said the peddler woman. I'll also comb your hair.
00:57:34.060 How she's so thoughtful and helpful, right? So you see, that's part of that camouflaged pathology.
00:57:41.400 The little peddler, the, the, the peddler woman to begin with, who has the lace stays offers to
00:57:47.560 lace Snow White up properly and then to comb her hair. And so she's disguising her murderously destructive,
00:57:58.280 reproductive, reproductive, savaging pathology in a show of maternal compassion. Brutal, brutal.
00:58:08.040 But no sooner did the old woman stick the comb in little Snow White's hair than the maiden fell down
00:58:13.440 and was dead. Now you'll remain lying there, the queen said, and her heart had become lighter
00:58:19.400 as she returned home. However, the dwarves came just in the nick of time. When they saw what had happened,
00:58:26.060 they pulled the poison comb out of little Snow White's hair and she opened her eyes and was alive again.
00:58:31.840 Okay, so that's the second time this is insisted upon in this fairy tale, right? The dwarves are not
00:58:39.040 the masculine patriarchal force of the ordinary, of the ordinary society of men who entice young women
00:58:49.820 to become pathologized in pursuit of beauty. In fact, they're the force that protects themselves against the intense
00:58:57.960 female competition that tilts that struggling for supremacy in beauty and attractiveness in a spirit-destroying
00:59:09.760 and murderous direction. So that's why it's so important for Snow White to learn to serve the dwarves,
00:59:16.260 to be grateful for them, and to be able to establish a relationship of mutuality with ordinary masculinity,
00:59:27.360 right? And this is as a precursor to meeting the prince, right? And so you might say, well,
00:59:33.640 a woman who's indefinitely proud, particularly of her own attractiveness, might have nothing but
00:59:40.000 contempt for the dwarves. But what this story indicates is that she'll be vulnerable beyond belief
00:59:50.120 to the machinations of the evil queen in consequence, and without that ability to
00:59:55.660 be grateful to ordinary masculinity, the prince will never make himself, the prince will never make
01:00:05.060 his appearance. And so why would the best of men make an appearance if, in a woman's life, if the woman
01:00:15.580 was pathologically incapable of having any respect whatsoever or offering any service in return for
01:00:24.460 protection to masculinity as such? That's something worth thinking about in a time when gratitude for
01:00:33.100 the benevolent element of the patriarchy is slowly, sorely lacking. The dwarves came just in the nick of
01:00:41.080 time. When they saw what had happened, they pulled the poison comb out of little Snow White's hair,
01:00:45.160 and she was alive again. She promised the dwarves that she would certainly not let anyone inside again.
01:00:52.140 Okay, so, you know, they tell Snow White a number of times, but she's really too immature and too easily
01:00:59.580 tempted, both of those, to protect herself against a force as pathological as the evil queen. And so
01:01:07.600 that's worth thinking about too. It's too much to ask a truly young woman to make the wisdom manifest
01:01:18.140 that would be necessary for her to see through the disguises of the evil queen and her proclivity to
01:01:27.640 use temptation in service of murderous pathology. It's too much to ask that a young woman will be wise
01:01:35.220 enough on her own to protect herself from the poison gifts of the evil queen. Right, she needs the
01:01:44.300 intermediary of the dwarves. And so, well, that would be, for the typical young woman, that would be
01:01:51.320 the protective phalanx of her brothers and her father. Now the queen stepped in front of her mirror once more and
01:01:59.500 asked, Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all? The mirror answered, You, my queen, may have a
01:02:07.520 beauty quite rare, but little Snow White's alive. This I must tell. She's with the dwarves and doing quite well.
01:02:13.560 Indeed, she's still a thousand times more fair. When the queen heard this once again, she trembled and shook with
01:02:21.120 rage. Little Snow White shall die, she exclaimed, even if it costs me my own life. Yeah, well, that's an enemy
01:02:29.460 that's pretty hard to stand up against, you know, someone who will light themselves on fire just to
01:02:36.240 singe you. And if you don't think people are capable of that kind of hatred at all cost, then you don't
01:02:43.200 know much about human psychopathology. You know, those people who shoot up schools and that commit
01:02:50.240 suicide when they could just as easily do things in the reverse order and save everyone a lot of trouble.
01:02:57.160 It's like they're capping off of their murderous rage with their own self-destruction is actually part of
01:03:04.060 the art. They know perfectly well that even if their motivation is suicidal, that the biggest
01:03:11.060 manifestation of resentment and spite with regards to the structure of reality and their fellow man and
01:03:19.080 their own spirit and God himself is to create the maximum amount of mayhem possible in the most
01:03:24.960 viciously sadistic way and to cap that off with a demonstration that even their own life is worth
01:03:30.820 nothing, especially in relationship to their desire for revenge and their capacity for spite.
01:03:41.520 Then she went into a secret chamber where no one was allowed to enter. So this is like the heart of her
01:03:47.600 poison, right? So the bodice was one thing, the stays, the corset, the poison comb was another.
01:03:55.620 This gets to the heart of the matter. She goes to where the most genuine evil is made manifest.
01:04:03.100 Once inside, she made a deadly poisonous apple. Well, why an apple? Well, an apple is the fruit of the tree
01:04:10.500 of the knowledge of good and evil, right? The apple is the thing that you incorporate that changes you.
01:04:16.460 The apple is information. The apple is education. The apple is ideology. The apple is an idea rather
01:04:24.360 than an artifact, right? That's what it's symbolic of. That's what it represents. And so the first
01:04:31.960 kinds of poison or death that the pathological evil queen attempts to administer to Snow White are
01:04:40.140 pretty straightforward and basic, right? Their appeals to her own vanity in the form of pathologization of
01:04:48.280 her attractiveness. But this is a deeper form of poison, right? It's a poison that strikes right to
01:04:55.020 the soul. Remember, it's the consuming of the apple that is the original sin that knocks Adam and Eve
01:05:01.440 out of paradise. The poisoned apple is, what is it? It's pathological knowledge, right? I think it's
01:05:08.940 exactly the same as the symbolic representation of the kind of evil doctrine that young women are fed
01:05:16.320 by jealous, miserable, single, bitter, envious, resentful old women to knock them out of the
01:05:24.800 mating game, partly to reduce competition and partly just out of self-destructive spite.
01:05:32.360 A deadly poisonous apple. On the outside, it looked beautiful with red cheeks, right? Red cheeks. So
01:05:40.400 the apple is red cheeks. It's emblematic of health itself, of flourishing health, right? If you wanted
01:05:47.160 to be a healthy young woman, this is obviously the apple that you would eat. And that's exactly what
01:05:52.900 young women are taught in today's universities, right? To pursue that path of career that
01:05:59.480 now has left the prioritization of self-interest. It's not precisely career. The prioritization of
01:06:07.580 narrow self-interest that compromises their youth and leaves 50% of women in the West childless at the
01:06:16.040 age of 30, with the probability that 90% of them will regret that as the years pass by.
01:06:23.320 Apple, beautiful with red cheeks. Anyone who saw it would be enticed to take a bite. Well,
01:06:28.760 so this is propaganda in its most attractive form. It's like, well, if this is what you were offered,
01:06:34.900 of course you'd take it. It sounds like you could have it all. Young women, you can have it all.
01:06:41.180 Yeah, well, the question is, who's offering that particular apple? And what exactly is their
01:06:46.900 motivation? We're just looking out for our younger sisters. It's like, yeah, maybe you're looking out
01:06:52.080 for them. And maybe you're a manifestation of the evil queen whose fundamental motivation is to devour
01:06:59.300 their liver and lungs. Yeah, well, thereafter she disguised herself as a peasant woman, a lowly woman,
01:07:09.440 not a haughty beauty. Went to the dwarf's cottage and knocked on the door. Little Snow White looked and
01:07:14.900 said, I'm not allowed to have anyone inside. The seven dwarfs have strictly forbidden me. Well,
01:07:20.220 if you don't want to let me in, I can't force you, answered the delightful peasant woman. Right,
01:07:26.260 emblematic of the oppressed working class. I'll surely get rid of my apples in time. I have something
01:07:32.220 that everyone wants, obviously, but let me give you one to test another manifestation of her evil
01:07:40.000 making itself camouflaged in the guise of care and compassion. No, said little Snow White, I'm not
01:07:47.600 allowed to take anything. The dwarfs won't let me. Yeah, well, you see, that's the sensible manifestation
01:07:52.980 of the ordinary productive patriarchal impulse inside her protecting herself from the depredations of
01:08:00.700 predatory competitive females. You're probably afraid. Yeah, said the old woman. Look, I'll cut the apple in
01:08:09.460 two. You eat the beautiful red half. However, the apple had been made with such cunning that only the red
01:08:15.960 part was poisoned. When little Snow White saw the peasant woman eating her half, and when her desire
01:08:21.680 to taste the apple grew stronger, she finally let the peasant woman give her the other half through
01:08:26.840 the window. As soon as she took a bite of the apple, she fell to the ground and was dead. The queen
01:08:32.660 rejoiced, went home and asked the mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this land is the fairest of
01:08:39.040 them all? And the mirror answered, you, my queen, are now the fairest of all. So the evil queen produced
01:08:47.780 the pathological fruit of knowledge that dooms Snow White to death, administering it under the guise of
01:08:58.000 compassion and caring in the form of a fruit so attractive that anyone with eyes would be tempted
01:09:06.260 to take it. Brutal. Now I can rest in peace, she said. Once again, I'm the most beautiful in the land,
01:09:13.100 and Snow White will remain dead this time. So couldn't kill her with the bodice or the corset,
01:09:20.400 couldn't kill her with the poisonous comb, but could certainly kill her with the consumption of the fatal
01:09:26.520 apple. When the dwarfs came home from the mines that evening, they found little Snow White lying on the
01:09:32.420 ground and she was dead. They unlazed her and tried to find something poisonous in her hair, but nothing
01:09:37.020 helped. They couldn't revive her. Okay, so what does that mean? The core element of the evil queen is so
01:09:46.680 unbelievably pathological, so destructive, that ordinary, conscientious, diligent, protective
01:09:56.740 masculinity is revealed as insufficient to redress the poison, right? So that's why the queen,
01:10:08.340 the prince has to come along, right? It's only the higher order form of masculinity that's associated
01:10:15.700 with true nobility and true courage that has the
01:10:21.240 archetypal force, you might say, to provide true protection from the depredations of the evil
01:10:33.340 queen. Well, Snow White is the helpmeet of the dwarfs, right? But there's no individualized
01:10:43.520 relationship there. She hasn't moved beyond
01:10:46.460 cooperation with the
01:10:50.160 social patriarchy as such to the establishment of a
01:10:55.660 personalized relationship with an individual
01:10:59.660 and identifiable man, right? So
01:11:03.240 she's still in the land of generic masculinity, and that's a hell of a lot
01:11:08.420 better than the land of pathological, evil queen, destructive femininity, but it's not a relationship
01:11:17.180 that's of sufficient depth and intensity to provide protection against the most fatal of
01:11:28.560 feminine poisons. They couldn't revive her, so they laid her on a beer, and all seven of them sat down
01:11:38.220 beside it and wept for three whole days. Then they intended to bury her, but she still looked more
01:11:43.420 alive than dead, and she still had such pretty red cheeks. So instead they made a glass coffin and
01:11:48.800 placed her inside so that she could easily be seen. So they're worshiping her in a sense, even in her
01:11:56.020 poisoned and near-dead state. They still value her, right? So what does that mean?
01:12:02.020 It means that the ordinary
01:12:05.820 men
01:12:07.780 apprehending
01:12:09.580 an attractive young woman who has been poisoned
01:12:13.840 by the teachings of the evil queen
01:12:17.040 still hope
01:12:19.360 in their soul
01:12:21.020 for the revivification
01:12:23.520 of her spirit, but are unable to
01:12:26.700 match the machinations
01:12:29.400 of the
01:12:30.160 evil queen
01:12:31.460 themselves. Right, so they stand back and observe
01:12:34.540 and that's all they can do.
01:12:37.640 They wrote her name on the coffin in gold letters
01:12:40.300 showing how much they value her
01:12:41.940 and added the family name. One of the dwarfs remained at home every day to keep watch over her.
01:12:47.100 So Snow White
01:12:47.820 lay in the coffin
01:12:48.840 for a long, long time.
01:12:51.140 Right, so now she's
01:12:52.520 that's failure to launch. Now she's in a state
01:12:55.480 of suspended animation
01:12:56.840 because of her
01:12:58.160 poison
01:12:58.920 knowledge
01:13:00.460 because of her receipt of the
01:13:02.060 poisoned apple
01:13:02.800 she
01:13:03.740 is mimicking life
01:13:05.780 but is unconscious
01:13:08.260 and unable to fully
01:13:09.780 participate.
01:13:11.400 She was still white as snow
01:13:12.500 and red as blood
01:13:13.280 and if her eyes could have opened
01:13:14.380 they would have been black as ebony
01:13:15.740 for she lay there
01:13:16.740 as if she were sleeping.
01:13:18.080 Now it happened
01:13:19.140 that a prince
01:13:20.200 came to the dwarfs cottage
01:13:21.840 one day
01:13:22.400 and wanted to spend the night there.
01:13:24.320 So what's a prince?
01:13:25.440 Well, a prince actually wants to have a relationship with the individual woman.
01:13:30.840 He wants to take on that responsibility.
01:13:33.680 He has the power and the capability
01:13:36.300 to bring her to a place
01:13:39.020 in consequence of that individualized relationship
01:13:42.720 that offers her both protection and opportunity
01:13:46.200 that's of such high quality
01:13:49.260 that the
01:13:50.540 depredations of the evil queen
01:13:53.100 and her temptations
01:13:54.520 are
01:13:55.280 defeated.
01:13:56.980 That's what a prince is.
01:13:59.400 And it's the individualized relationship
01:14:01.500 that's of crucial importance.
01:14:03.260 when he entered the room
01:14:06.580 and saw little Snow White
01:14:07.620 lying in the coffin
01:14:08.440 and the seven little candles
01:14:09.620 casting their light
01:14:10.580 right on her
01:14:11.180 he couldn't get enough
01:14:11.940 of her beauty.
01:14:13.020 Then he read the golden inscription
01:14:14.520 and saw that she was
01:14:15.740 a princess.
01:14:17.960 So he asked the dwarfs
01:14:19.140 to sell him the coffin
01:14:20.160 with the dead little Snow White
01:14:21.840 inside
01:14:22.260 but they wouldn't accept
01:14:23.440 all the gold
01:14:24.080 in the world for it.
01:14:25.260 Then he pleaded with them
01:14:26.380 to give little Snow White
01:14:27.680 to him as a gift
01:14:28.580 because he couldn't live
01:14:30.140 without gazing upon her
01:14:31.320 and that he would honor her
01:14:32.500 and hold her in high regard
01:14:34.060 as his most beloved
01:14:35.100 in the world.
01:14:36.420 Well so that's so interesting
01:14:37.780 because the dwarfs
01:14:38.780 are protecting Snow White
01:14:40.040 and they have a relationship
01:14:41.360 with her
01:14:41.860 although it's more
01:14:42.760 fraternal
01:14:44.120 or paternal
01:14:45.140 and
01:14:46.080 they aren't interested
01:14:47.720 in capitalizing
01:14:49.420 on her attractiveness
01:14:50.640 and they are willing
01:14:52.920 however they are willing
01:14:54.180 to turn her over
01:14:55.300 to the prince
01:14:56.800 if he promises
01:14:59.060 so this is what good men do
01:15:00.940 when they're protecting
01:15:02.200 an attractive
01:15:03.440 and
01:15:04.520 worthy
01:15:06.400 young woman
01:15:07.520 they're willing
01:15:08.560 to
01:15:09.000 deliver her
01:15:10.640 to the proper prince
01:15:12.700 who can protect her
01:15:14.440 from the evil queen
01:15:15.560 if
01:15:16.540 he
01:15:17.420 swears
01:15:18.400 to
01:15:18.860 honor her
01:15:19.840 and hold her
01:15:20.420 in high regard
01:15:21.080 as his most beloved
01:15:22.140 in the world.
01:15:23.880 Well the dwarfs
01:15:24.680 took pity on him
01:15:25.680 and gave him the coffin
01:15:26.680 where the poisoned
01:15:29.120 girl
01:15:30.260 lies
01:15:31.160 languishing
01:15:31.840 God
01:15:33.620 that's the story
01:15:35.140 of many a modern romance
01:15:36.620 and the prince
01:15:39.880 had it carried
01:15:40.360 to his castle
01:15:41.060 it was then placed
01:15:42.000 in his room
01:15:42.500 where he himself
01:15:43.200 sat the entire day
01:15:44.240 and couldn't take
01:15:45.180 his eyes off her
01:15:46.200 so he can see
01:15:47.520 her
01:15:47.920 potential life
01:15:49.700 even
01:15:51.060 under the
01:15:52.440 poisoned
01:15:53.740 breathless
01:15:54.560 death
01:15:55.020 that
01:15:55.460 the incorporation
01:15:56.800 of the
01:15:57.380 toxic fruit
01:15:58.720 has
01:15:59.180 has what
01:16:00.880 has
01:16:01.540 has doomed
01:16:03.200 her to
01:16:03.680 and when he had to
01:16:05.840 leave the room
01:16:06.320 and couldn't see
01:16:06.860 little Snow White
01:16:07.540 he became sad
01:16:08.420 indeed
01:16:08.840 he couldn't eat a thing
01:16:09.880 unless he was standing
01:16:10.740 near the coffin
01:16:11.500 however the servants
01:16:13.200 who had to carry the coffin
01:16:14.260 from place to place
01:16:15.120 in the castle
01:16:15.660 all the time
01:16:16.240 became angry
01:16:17.240 about this
01:16:17.860 and at one time
01:16:18.840 a servant
01:16:19.280 opened the coffin
01:16:20.720 lifted Snow White
01:16:22.040 into the air
01:16:22.640 and said
01:16:23.360 why must we be
01:16:24.420 plagued with so much work
01:16:25.680 all because of a dead maiden
01:16:27.220 yeah well there's no doubt
01:16:29.220 that it's a tremendous
01:16:30.680 amount of work
01:16:31.840 to revivify the spirit
01:16:34.040 of a young woman
01:16:36.340 who's been severely poisoned
01:16:38.660 by the worst work
01:16:39.880 of the evil queen
01:16:41.120 on saying this
01:16:42.920 he shoved little Snow White's
01:16:44.260 back with his hand
01:16:45.140 and out popped
01:16:45.800 the nasty piece of apple
01:16:47.020 that had been stuck
01:16:48.120 in little Snow White's throat
01:16:49.640 and she was once again alive
01:16:51.040 so once the
01:16:52.100 the languishing young girl
01:16:55.940 is brought to the castle
01:16:57.300 and attended to
01:16:59.000 even with some degree
01:17:00.660 of harshness
01:17:01.380 in this story
01:17:02.100 loved and attended to
01:17:04.100 then
01:17:05.140 she has the possibility
01:17:07.040 of recovering
01:17:08.600 from her
01:17:09.420 state of suspended animation
01:17:11.880 and lifelessness
01:17:13.540 and rejoining
01:17:15.400 the world
01:17:16.360 as soon as this happened
01:17:19.740 she went to the prince
01:17:20.780 and when he saw
01:17:22.640 his dear Snow White
01:17:23.560 alive
01:17:24.060 he rejoiced so much
01:17:25.380 that he didn't know
01:17:26.020 what to do
01:17:26.500 then they sat down
01:17:27.500 at the dinner table
01:17:28.280 and ate with delight
01:17:29.200 the wedding
01:17:30.380 was planned for the next day
01:17:31.980 by the way
01:17:32.900 just so everyone knows
01:17:34.800 there was no wedding
01:17:36.820 in the most recent version
01:17:38.120 of Snow White
01:17:38.800 and that bloody well figures
01:17:40.620 there was a
01:17:41.700 you know
01:17:42.420 hedonistic
01:17:43.540 celebration
01:17:44.660 that
01:17:45.260 in principle
01:17:46.260 stood in for the wedding
01:17:47.780 but
01:17:48.080 but the filmmakers
01:17:49.640 seem pathologically
01:17:50.820 unable to understand
01:17:51.900 that the
01:17:52.560 wedding
01:17:53.600 is the culmination
01:17:55.000 of the story
01:17:55.740 right
01:17:56.060 because that's the
01:17:57.200 establishment of that
01:17:58.240 particularized relationship
01:17:59.640 between the
01:18:00.980 poisoned
01:18:02.680 sleeping princess
01:18:04.020 and the true prince
01:18:05.900 who
01:18:06.620 serves and honors her
01:18:08.880 and who delights
01:18:10.140 in her presence
01:18:11.040 that
01:18:12.020 establishment
01:18:13.360 of that permanent
01:18:14.200 relationship
01:18:14.800 is the magic
01:18:17.180 defense
01:18:18.760 against the
01:18:20.320 poisonous
01:18:21.740 fruit
01:18:22.940 delivered by the
01:18:24.580 most
01:18:25.320 malevolent
01:18:29.160 of the
01:18:30.080 evil queen's
01:18:31.760 motivations
01:18:33.000 the wedding was planned
01:18:34.620 for the next day
01:18:35.320 and Snow White's
01:18:36.100 godless mother
01:18:36.960 it's the first time
01:18:38.140 we hear that she was
01:18:38.860 godless
01:18:39.340 but she has a god
01:18:40.700 right
01:18:40.940 that's her own
01:18:41.600 reflection
01:18:42.140 she's Narcissus
01:18:43.780 who falls in love
01:18:45.220 with his own
01:18:45.680 reflection
01:18:46.160 and drowns
01:18:46.980 in consequence
01:18:47.580 right
01:18:47.960 he leans too
01:18:49.080 close to the
01:18:50.000 river
01:18:50.400 where he can see
01:18:51.100 his reflection
01:18:51.760 and drowns
01:18:52.960 right
01:18:53.240 she only worships
01:18:54.240 her own
01:18:54.740 beauty
01:18:55.680 which she had
01:18:56.700 nothing to do
01:18:57.420 with bringing
01:18:58.480 into the world
01:18:59.240 so to speak
01:18:59.900 and has no right
01:19:00.820 to be proud of
01:19:02.740 much less to be
01:19:04.020 murderous in defense
01:19:05.180 of
01:19:05.440 when she now
01:19:07.020 stepped before the
01:19:07.760 mirror she said
01:19:08.500 mirror mirror
01:19:09.200 on the wall
01:19:10.460 who in this land
01:19:11.480 is the fairest of all
01:19:12.480 and the mirror
01:19:13.140 replied
01:19:14.220 you my queen
01:19:15.480 may have a beauty
01:19:16.240 quite rare
01:19:16.860 but little Snow White
01:19:18.220 is a thousand times
01:19:19.900 more fair
01:19:20.520 when she heard this
01:19:21.960 she was horrified
01:19:23.000 and became so afraid
01:19:25.620 so very afraid
01:19:26.700 that she didn't know
01:19:27.440 what to do
01:19:28.120 yeah well
01:19:29.160 the
01:19:29.580 marriage
01:19:31.300 of
01:19:31.880 Snow White
01:19:33.680 the awake
01:19:34.760 Snow White
01:19:35.440 to the prince
01:19:36.700 is
01:19:37.920 the defeat
01:19:38.980 of the evil queen
01:19:40.040 however
01:19:40.820 her jealousy
01:19:41.640 right
01:19:42.900 a crucial insight
01:19:44.520 however
01:19:45.180 her jealousy
01:19:46.160 what's she jealous of
01:19:48.120 she's just jealous
01:19:49.220 of the fact
01:19:49.880 that Snow White
01:19:50.620 has established
01:19:51.420 a genuine relationship
01:19:52.560 with an actual prince
01:19:53.860 her jealousy
01:19:54.880 drove her so much
01:19:55.960 that she wanted
01:19:56.560 to be seen
01:19:57.640 at the wedding
01:19:58.700 when she arrived
01:20:00.080 she saw that
01:20:01.440 little Snow White
01:20:02.180 was the bride
01:20:03.000 ha
01:20:03.900 iron slippers
01:20:05.600 were then heated
01:20:06.480 over a fire
01:20:07.340 the queen
01:20:08.240 had to put them on
01:20:09.780 and dance in them
01:20:11.000 and her feet
01:20:11.940 were miserably burned
01:20:13.880 but she had to keep
01:20:15.540 dancing in them
01:20:16.360 until she danced
01:20:17.540 herself
01:20:18.120 to death
01:20:19.620 right
01:20:21.160 well what's that ending
01:20:22.500 well how about
01:20:23.660 the queen
01:20:24.240 ends up in hell
01:20:25.660 and what's the hell
01:20:27.260 what is she doing
01:20:30.320 well she was driven
01:20:33.160 to the wedding
01:20:33.680 by her own pride
01:20:34.660 and jealousy
01:20:35.260 and
01:20:36.540 she's consumed
01:20:38.580 by
01:20:39.080 fire
01:20:41.080 in consequence
01:20:42.080 of her
01:20:42.900 pathology
01:20:45.540 and its
01:20:46.260 ultimate failure
01:20:47.820 so
01:20:49.180 that's Snow White
01:20:52.580 and it's no bloody wonder
01:20:53.920 Disney rewrote it
01:20:55.000 thanks very much
01:20:57.040 everybody
01:20:57.360 for listening
01:20:58.240 I may do more
01:21:00.160 of these
01:21:00.560 you know
01:21:00.880 they're
01:21:01.300 they're quite something
01:21:03.660 it's amazing
01:21:05.200 how much information
01:21:06.200 a story
01:21:07.620 can
01:21:08.040 contain
01:21:09.220 you know
01:21:09.980 and you might ask
01:21:10.680 well did the authors
01:21:11.700 know
01:21:12.340 what they were
01:21:13.760 representing
01:21:14.360 and the answer is
01:21:15.140 you know
01:21:15.420 we never know
01:21:16.040 the full extent
01:21:16.740 of anything
01:21:17.200 we communicate
01:21:17.860 or imagine
01:21:18.620 everything has
01:21:20.080 implications
01:21:21.040 beyond
01:21:21.620 what we
01:21:22.780 can apprehend
01:21:23.860 I would say
01:21:25.560 that
01:21:25.880 the story
01:21:27.800 shaped itself
01:21:28.600 to be maximally
01:21:29.500 memorable
01:21:29.940 and striking
01:21:30.560 across time
01:21:32.160 and
01:21:32.760 what's maximally
01:21:35.080 memorable
01:21:35.520 and striking
01:21:36.320 has
01:21:37.980 inevitably
01:21:39.100 has the ring
01:21:39.940 of deep truth
01:21:41.160 about it
01:21:41.660 and so
01:21:42.880 that's how
01:21:44.160 such things
01:21:44.760 come to be
01:21:45.460 thanks for your
01:21:47.020 time and attention
01:21:47.800 bye bye
01:21:49.040 one
01:21:50.620 to be
01:21:53.380 bye
01:21:53.420 even
01:21:53.780 I
01:21:54.380 you
01:21:54.640 I
01:21:55.300 want to be
01:21:55.580 be
01:22:08.820 busy
01:22:08.840 in