The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast


566. The Moral of the Story With JBP： There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon


Summary

A description of the structure through which we see the world is a story, and the motifs in stories represent cardinal elements of all of the environments that we encounter. In this episode, I discuss the idea of a dragon, and why there's no such thing as a dragon.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So recently, I recorded some analysis of children's stories.
00:00:05.660 Once again, I had done this years ago with Pinocchio and the Lion King.
00:00:10.920 That was part and parcel of the lectures that I did at Harvard and at the University of
00:00:16.240 Toronto.
00:00:17.240 More recently, I recorded an analysis of Snow White, the Grimm's brother version, and also
00:00:23.220 of Hansel and Gretel.
00:00:24.660 So, I'm going to continue that today with a more recent book, a much more recent book
00:00:31.220 called There's No Such Thing as a Dragon, the story in pictures by Jack Kent.
00:00:36.000 I used to read this to my Maps of Meaning class often as the first lecture because it
00:00:42.600 touches on themes that are very relevant to a narrative understanding of the world.
00:00:50.140 A description of the structure through which we see the world is a story, and the motifs
00:00:57.560 in stories represent cardinal elements of all of the environments that we encounter.
00:01:05.120 And I'll try to make that clear today in the discussion of there's no such thing as a dragon.
00:01:10.780 I want to show you a dragon that I have in my office here.
00:01:19.440 This is a sculpture from Mexico, which I got several years ago.
00:01:26.020 It's a circle, basically, and it has the head of a bird, kind of a monstrous bird, and it
00:01:37.600 has wings like a dragon or like a bird, and it has a snake wrapped around the bird's neck,
00:01:43.160 but it's an analog of a dragon.
00:01:46.040 There's a book that I found very useful in my analysis of such things called An Instinct
00:01:54.120 for Dragons by a man named David E. Jones, and David Jones offers essentially an evolutionary
00:02:02.180 explanation for the concept of dragon.
00:02:05.000 He described a dragon as a tree, cat, snake, bird, like an amalgam of the features of tree,
00:02:11.180 cat, snake, bird, and those, and of course, there's the element of fire as well, and so
00:02:19.600 those are all elements of predator, you might say, the kind of predators that have been preying
00:02:27.600 on us or our evolutionary ancestors for millions of years.
00:02:35.020 We had tree-dwelling ancestors 60 million years ago, and so the dragon is a dragon.
00:02:41.180 It's an amalgam of the motifs of predator.
00:02:44.980 That's a good way of thinking about it, or of danger, and the dragon battle is a narrative
00:02:52.980 condensation of the drama of human beings, the fact that we have to encounter the terrible
00:03:03.220 predatory unknown, and to try to gather what's valuable that's hidden in it, and to transform
00:03:12.280 ourselves in that pursuit, and to make our way forward as heroes, and part of that is
00:03:19.920 the ability to pay attention, to careful attention to the things that we might want to put aside
00:03:26.640 and avoid, and that's what this little story is about.
00:03:31.060 Billy Bixby was rather surprised when he woke up one morning and found a dragon in his room.
00:03:37.940 It was a small dragon about the size of a kitten.
00:03:41.440 Well, so let's delve into the idea of dragon again.
00:03:46.460 So, the book's title is There's No Such Thing as a Dragon, and whether or not something is real
00:03:55.140 depends to some degree on your level of analysis.
00:03:59.300 So, obviously, bears are real, and lions are real, and komodo dragons are real, and crocodiles
00:04:06.380 are real, and fire is real.
00:04:08.780 Is an amalgam of all those things real?
00:04:11.980 Well, it's real in the way that an abstraction is real.
00:04:15.240 It's real in the way that the word predator or danger is real, right?
00:04:20.920 Because there's many diverse phenomena that are aggregated together in the notion, the conceptual
00:04:30.540 notion of, say, predator or danger, but that has very little to do with the reality of the
00:04:37.880 concept.
00:04:39.440 Dragon is as real as predator.
00:04:41.700 Let's put it that way.
00:04:42.920 Now, the dragon concept is broader than mere predator, because the dragon really stands
00:04:51.420 for everything that lurks in the unknown as such, and everything would be the danger that's
00:04:58.100 part and parcel of the unknown, which is the place that the predators aggregate, let's say,
00:05:03.200 but also the promise.
00:05:06.260 So, out in the unknown, which is the land of dragons, there are terrible dangers and great
00:05:12.860 benefit, hence the treasure that's associated with the dragon.
00:05:17.060 And the dragon contact story is, the dragon fight story is really among the oldest narratives
00:05:25.700 that we possess.
00:05:27.880 So, it's an ancient motif, and it makes itself manifest in all sorts of stories.
00:05:34.100 Billy Bixby was rather surprised when he woke up one morning and found a dragon in his room.
00:05:39.220 It was a small dragon, about the size of a kitten.
00:05:43.980 So, why is that relevant?
00:05:46.540 Well, Billy wakes up, and there's something that's different about his environment, and
00:05:53.100 the difference makes itself manifest as something that's tiny to begin with, right?
00:05:58.760 And he's attending to it.
00:06:01.300 The dragon wagged its tail happily when Billy patted its head.
00:06:05.800 So, there's a moral already in the story there, which is that this little boy wakes up, and
00:06:12.100 something unexpected occurs, and in principle, he could pretend it wasn't there, or he could
00:06:18.260 be afraid, but he interacts with it voluntarily, and in consequence, this dragon is pleased.
00:06:26.340 Billy went downstairs to tell his mother.
00:06:28.540 There's no such thing as a dragon, said Billy's mother, and she said it like she meant it.
00:06:34.000 Okay, so Billy's awake, and so he's playing the role of hero, and he's detected something
00:06:40.200 anomalous and different, and he, in his juvenile, heroic manner, has decided to interact with
00:06:48.620 it voluntarily, and that's already tamed it to some degree, and now he brings it to the
00:06:53.360 attention of the authorities, and the authorities essentially have already decided how the world
00:06:58.140 is constituted, and their verdict is that there's no such thing as a dragon, and Billy's mother
00:07:08.120 is insistent upon this.
00:07:10.260 Billy went back to his room and began to dress.
00:07:13.340 The dragon came close to Billy and wagged its tail, but Billy didn't pat it.
00:07:18.080 If there's no such thing as something, it's silly to pat it on the head.
00:07:21.420 Okay, so what's the psychological significance of this?
00:07:24.900 Well, there are things that aren't to be talked about in many families and in many households,
00:07:32.880 and the attitude that reigns in households like that is that if we just pretend that the
00:07:40.100 terrible thing doesn't exist, that it will go away, and that's a form of willful blindness.
00:07:47.320 I can tell you a story about willful blindness.
00:07:50.880 So, in the Egyptian creation myth of Horus, Osiris, Isis, and Seth, there is a characterization
00:08:02.660 of willful blindness as the cardinal danger that presents itself to the state.
00:08:08.100 So, here's how the story goes.
00:08:10.680 Egypt is founded by a god hero named Osiris, and Osiris is a great,
00:08:16.940 awake hero like Billy when he was young, and he is the force or the spirit or the process
00:08:23.060 that establishes the state.
00:08:24.820 He ventures out into the unknown wilderness and renders it habitable like God does in Genesis
00:08:32.400 at the beginning of the biblical story.
00:08:35.760 Now, Osiris establishes the state and becomes the ruler god of Egypt, but he has a brother
00:08:44.380 named Seth, and Seth becomes Satan through the Egyptian Coptic Christians as the centuries
00:08:52.540 progress, and Seth is the dragon-like force, you might say, that always emerges to threaten
00:09:04.500 the state.
00:09:05.200 And Seth wants to overthrow Osiris so that he can become a ruler, and Osiris is willfully
00:09:14.880 blind, and so he turns a blind eye to the machinations of his evil brother, and in consequence
00:09:21.900 is overthrown by Seth.
00:09:24.840 And so, why is that relevant?
00:09:28.340 Well, it's because malevolence can make itself manifest in unexpected forms in your personal
00:09:36.920 life, in your family life, in the community, in the state, in the nation, at every level.
00:09:43.240 But the proclivity to turn a blind eye to the emergence of what's unknown and malevolent
00:09:49.240 is part of the causal pathway to the devastation of the stable and productive state.
00:09:56.520 These are questions that take cultures thousands of years to answer.
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00:11:24.500 So that's all underneath this little story.
00:11:30.000 Billy went back to his room and began to dress.
00:11:32.380 The dragon came close to Billy and wagged its tail.
00:11:35.280 So now, you know, as a small dragon, it's also indicating it's relatively benevolent intent.
00:11:41.920 And so one of the lessons you might derive from this is the notion that if you deal with a problem when it first wags its tail,
00:11:50.960 then there's every reason to assume that it can be dealt with forthrightly and straightforwardly and maybe productively as well.
00:12:01.900 And so that's why the dragon in its small form here is still a benevolent force, right?
00:12:09.180 Something unknown can make itself manifest as a mere matter of interest.
00:12:14.680 And if it's not ignored, it can be dealt with appropriately.
00:12:18.500 But Billy didn't pat it.
00:12:19.680 If there's no such thing as something, it's silly to pat it on the head.
00:12:23.700 Okay, so now Billy has adopted his mother's stance of willful blindness
00:12:27.580 and is applying it to the realities of his own experience.
00:12:32.660 Billy washed his face and hands and went down to breakfast.
00:12:35.640 The dragon went along.
00:12:37.140 It was bigger now, almost the size of a dog.
00:12:41.080 Okay, so now what's happening?
00:12:43.000 Well, apparently, or hypothetically, because the dragon, which is the anomaly, the predator,
00:12:51.580 and also the place of possibility, because it's being ignored, it's growing.
00:12:57.580 And so what's the moral of that story?
00:12:59.900 Well, it's the same moral that you can derive from the Egyptian myth of Osiris and Seth.
00:13:04.360 If you turn a blind eye to something, then it can grow until it becomes an overwhelming and demolishing force.
00:13:14.540 Imagine, here's an example.
00:13:16.640 Imagine that you get a tax notification in the mail from your local municipal authorities,
00:13:23.940 and instead of dealing with it, you ignore it.
00:13:28.140 You throw it in the garbage or you file it in some filing cabinet or in some file folder that you never planned to open.
00:13:35.240 It's not like it just sits there maintaining its form.
00:13:39.700 It mutates and shifts across time and grows into something that can be quite monstrous.
00:13:46.720 And all the anomalies, the unexpected occurrences that could turn themselves into predators with time
00:13:56.340 have the proclivity to grow if they're ignored.
00:14:00.620 And so this little book is a story about the danger of willful blindness.
00:14:04.500 Billy sat down at the table.
00:14:07.660 The dragon sat down on the table.
00:14:09.940 This sort of thing was not usually permitted.
00:14:12.380 So now you can see that the anomalous occurrence, the unexpected occurrence,
00:14:18.560 the emergence of the predator or the unknown is starting to disrupt the stable subroutines of the family
00:14:29.700 that make up tranquil domestic life and peace.
00:14:33.560 The dragon sat down on the table.
00:14:37.000 This sort of thing was not usually permitted, but there wasn't much Billy's mother could do about it.
00:14:41.340 She'd already said there was no such thing as a dragon.
00:14:44.040 And if there's no such thing, you can't tell it to get down off the table.
00:14:49.020 You see that sort of thing happening in families where a child has a behavioral problem that's being ignored by the parents.
00:14:54.360 It's that the assertion is that there's nothing wrong with the child, let's say, or the child's behavior.
00:15:03.140 And so that assertion is perceived as the reality.
00:15:07.420 And then the problem has the proclivity to develop until it gets entirely out of hand.
00:15:15.200 And once the decision has been made that there's no problem there,
00:15:19.220 then no amount of evidence about the problem is sufficient to shift the circumstances.
00:15:24.220 Mother made some pancakes for Billy, but the dragon ate them all.
00:15:31.640 Mother made some more, but the dragon ate those too.
00:15:34.560 That's another indication, let's say, that the dragon is associated symbolically with potential behavior problem on the part of Billy.
00:15:43.140 This anomalous occurrence, whatever it might be, is not only breaking the domestic rules with regards to its purchase on the table,
00:15:54.040 but is also interfering with Billy's ability to eat.
00:15:58.500 But Mother has to ignore that.
00:16:00.800 Mother kept making pancakes until she ran out of batter.
00:16:04.120 Billy only got one of them.
00:16:06.080 But he said that's all he really wanted.
00:16:08.720 Anyway, so now Billy is lying about the problem that's interfering with him even being able to eat
00:16:17.980 to maintain his mother's fiction that there's no problem in the house.
00:16:24.880 Billy went upstairs to brush his teeth.
00:16:27.740 Mother started clearing the table.
00:16:29.700 The dragon, who was quite as big as Mother by this time,
00:16:32.820 made himself comfortable on the hall rug and went to sleep.
00:16:35.820 So now the dragon has grown to the point, because it's being ignored,
00:16:39.520 where it's more than a match for Mother herself.
00:16:42.800 Had she admitted to the existence of the problem to begin with and dealt with it
00:16:46.800 when it first made itself manifest, it could have stayed small and friendly.
00:16:50.400 But now it's large enough to be a match for her.
00:16:55.560 By the time Billy came back downstairs, the dragon had grown so much he filled the hall.
00:17:01.120 Billy had to go around by way of living room to get to where his mother was.
00:17:04.940 I didn't know dragons grew so fast, said Billy.
00:17:08.800 There's no such thing as a dragon, said Mother firmly.
00:17:12.860 So now we have the situation where something unexpected and forbidden
00:17:18.940 has made itself manifest in the house,
00:17:21.040 but everyone has decided to act as if it doesn't exist.
00:17:25.020 And the consequence of that is it's growing to the point where it dominates the house
00:17:31.360 and is making all normal activity exceedingly difficult.
00:17:39.640 I'm sure you've been in households like that.
00:17:42.020 Hopefully yours isn't one of them.
00:17:43.820 Cleaning the downstairs took Mother all morning, what with the dragon in the way,
00:17:49.840 and having to climb in and out of windows to get from room to room.
00:17:53.460 Okay, so this is a humorous way of dealing with the fact that
00:17:56.440 if a problem emerges in a household and it's not dealt with,
00:18:01.820 it can become so all-consuming that it makes all activity
00:18:09.720 that should otherwise be simple and straightforward virtually impossible.
00:18:13.460 So a behavioral problem that's emerged in the course of a child's development
00:18:20.040 can have exactly that aspect where there's denial,
00:18:26.800 which is more like willful blindness.
00:18:29.120 Willful blindness is a better way of thinking about denial.
00:18:31.480 It's just refusal to attend and modify perception and conception in face of new evidence.
00:18:39.960 The problem can get so large that nothing simple is simple anymore.
00:18:45.040 If there's unresolved conflict between a husband and a wife, for example,
00:18:49.360 it can get to the point where it's impossible for them to have
00:18:52.580 a simple conversation about day-to-day things because of the catastrophe,
00:18:58.280 the dragon, that no one will speak about.
00:19:01.600 Maybe the suspicion of an affair, for example,
00:19:05.240 or some other fundamental manifestation of mistrust that's polluting and paralyzing
00:19:12.540 the relationship to the point where nothing can be done in a simple manner.
00:19:17.320 Cleaning the downstairs took mother all morning, what with the dragon in the way,
00:19:20.940 and having to climb in and out of windows to get from room to room.
00:19:24.140 Okay, so now Mother, who's a somewhat tyrannical and rigid sort,
00:19:30.100 has decided so emphatically that the dragon doesn't exist,
00:19:36.560 that she's willing to put up with a tremendous amount of unnecessary trouble
00:19:41.800 to maintain her delusion.
00:19:45.560 She won't attend to the anomaly, let's say, to the trouble,
00:19:51.820 even though it's beginning to interfere with everything that she does.
00:19:56.440 By noon, the dragon filled the house.
00:19:59.120 Its head hung out the front door, its tail hung out the back door,
00:20:02.480 and there wasn't a room in the house that didn't have some part of the dragon in it.
00:20:06.320 If you've lived in a street with a household that has a substantial amount of trouble,
00:20:13.420 you've seen exactly this phenomena where the house is dilapidated and unkempt,
00:20:20.380 and the lawn is abandoned.
00:20:24.700 And there's a miasma of negativity that surrounds the household,
00:20:28.620 and you know that there's something monstrous going on inside it
00:20:32.660 that's pathologizing not only the inhabitants of the house,
00:20:37.440 but beginning to spread out into the neighborhood itself,
00:20:41.600 then you've experienced exactly the situation that's being described in this book.
00:20:47.520 By noon, the dragon filled the house.
00:20:49.200 Its head hung out the front door, its tail hung out the back door,
00:20:52.380 and there wasn't a room in the house that didn't have some part of the dragon in it.
00:20:55.620 That's exactly the kind of household that people will walk across the street to avoid
00:21:00.580 if they're going somewhere.
00:21:02.660 When the dragon awoke from his nap, he was hungry.
00:21:06.780 A bakery truck went by.
00:21:08.720 The smell of fresh bread was more than the dragon could resist.
00:21:12.400 The dragon ran down the street after the bakery truck.
00:21:15.200 The house went along, of course, like the shell on a snail.
00:21:18.320 Okay, so now, because the dragon's been ignored,
00:21:21.480 because the problem has been ignored,
00:21:23.880 because the household is rigid and tyrannical in its presuppositions,
00:21:29.720 the dragon has gone so large that chaos rules the house instead of order,
00:21:35.920 and the trajectory of the family is being determined by the emergent property
00:21:43.440 that no one has the courage to deal with.
00:21:46.580 The mailman was just coming up the path with some mail for the Bixbys
00:21:51.020 when their house rushed past him and headed down the street.
00:21:54.580 He chased the Bixbys' house for a few blocks, but he couldn't catch it.
00:21:58.580 Yeah, well, there's plenty in that too.
00:22:01.520 So, the mailman is a representation of the order of the state, let's say,
00:22:06.740 and the household has become so chaotic at this point
00:22:09.580 that the state itself can't deliver its message to the inhabitants.
00:22:15.080 And so, you can imagine what happens if your household becomes so chaotic
00:22:18.380 that it runs away, so to speak,
00:22:21.120 and so you don't get your mail and you don't get your notifications,
00:22:23.880 and all that does is aggregate a lot more chaos around you
00:22:27.160 and cause all sorts of long-term trouble
00:22:29.400 and turn into this vicious, self-devouring spiral
00:22:34.420 that's like a dragon that eats its own tail,
00:22:36.840 which is a symbol of exactly that,
00:22:38.740 and all hell breaks loose.
00:22:41.420 When Mr. Bixby came home for lunch,
00:22:44.380 the first thing he noticed was that the house was gone.
00:22:48.640 Luckily, one of the neighbors was able to tell him which way it went.
00:22:52.540 So, there's a real tragedy brewing in this story
00:22:55.340 because, well, this happens to people, doesn't it?
00:22:59.520 When a father, let's say, comes home from work
00:23:03.040 and finds that the locks have been changed
00:23:06.940 and his wife has gone with the kids,
00:23:08.820 and the question is exactly what happened,
00:23:12.820 and the answer is invariably there was a terrible dragon in the house
00:23:18.120 that could have hypothetically been attended to
00:23:20.960 when it was still small,
00:23:22.260 but that was ignored studiously by all who were involved
00:23:26.260 and grew to the point where it dominated the entire house
00:23:30.320 so that everything became cataclysmically difficult,
00:23:32.720 and then it ran off with the house itself,
00:23:35.320 and the man comes home and the house is gone,
00:23:39.540 so to speak, because the dragon ran away with it,
00:23:42.100 and his response is,
00:23:43.540 I never saw it coming.
00:23:45.600 And the first question that you might ask about
00:23:48.620 that kind of response is,
00:23:50.080 maybe that's because you didn't look, right?
00:23:54.200 There were warning signs of a thousand different kinds
00:23:58.860 making themselves manifest in a thousand different directions,
00:24:02.580 parts of the dragon scattered all over hell
00:24:04.940 and all over hell's half acre,
00:24:06.960 but never underestimate the insistence
00:24:14.380 that someone who does not want to see
00:24:18.360 brings to bear on the maintenance of their blind delusion.
00:24:23.940 And so Mr. Bixby's house ran away
00:24:26.340 because he wasn't paying enough attention
00:24:29.000 to what was going on inside it.
00:24:32.740 Mr. Bixby got in his car and went looking for the house.
00:24:36.140 He studied all the houses as he drove along.
00:24:38.940 Finally, he saw one that looked familiar.
00:24:42.140 Billy and Mrs. Bixby were waving from an upstairs window.
00:24:47.680 Mr. Bixby climbed over the dragon's head
00:24:49.880 onto the porch roof and through the upstairs window.
00:24:55.400 How did this happen, Mr. Bixby asked.
00:24:58.620 It was the dragon, said Billy.
00:25:01.800 There is no such thing, Mother started to say.
00:25:05.160 There is a dragon, Billy insisted, a very big dragon.
00:25:08.960 And Billy patted the dragon on the head.
00:25:11.980 Okay, so now I want to tell another story
00:25:14.620 that's associated with this.
00:25:16.700 So this is from the Exodus narrative.
00:25:22.440 Near the end of it, the Exodus narrative.
00:25:25.900 This is the story of Moses leading the Israelites
00:25:28.220 away from tyranny through the desert to the promised land.
00:25:32.100 And it extends over a number of Old Testament books,
00:25:35.720 Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus, if I remember correctly.
00:25:40.220 This story takes place when the Israelites are just on the cusp
00:25:48.540 of their movement from the desert to the promised land.
00:25:54.860 And so they go from tyranny, which is the rigidity,
00:26:00.180 let's say, that Mrs. Bixby makes manifest in this story,
00:26:05.680 to the desert, which is a descent into chaos,
00:26:09.920 before moving towards the promised land,
00:26:12.520 which is the better future.
00:26:14.400 Now, it's the fact of the intermediary desert
00:26:17.600 that makes the tyrant who won't awaken
00:26:24.260 that motivates the stubbornness of the tyrant
00:26:28.240 who won't awaken.
00:26:30.720 Mrs. Bixby doesn't want to contend with the dragon
00:26:33.520 because she would have to abandon
00:26:35.300 some of her presuppositions about the state
00:26:38.540 of the household and the world.
00:26:40.840 And that would throw her into a state of
00:26:44.860 at least temporary confusion
00:26:47.540 and perhaps serious confusion.
00:26:49.380 So you don't go from conviction
00:26:52.820 to new learning like this.
00:26:55.380 You go from conviction to chaos and confusion
00:26:58.600 to new learning.
00:26:59.940 And the fact of the intermediary chaos and confusion
00:27:02.960 is enough to dissuade people from attending,
00:27:06.720 let's say, to the dragons
00:27:07.940 when they make themselves manifest.
00:27:10.840 Okay, so the Israelites are on the cusp
00:27:14.540 of moving to the promised land.
00:27:16.800 They're close to getting where they,
00:27:19.100 they're close to finishing the voyage
00:27:21.400 in the manner that's been promised.
00:27:23.320 But they lose faith and they get whiny
00:27:26.920 and complain and they get bitter and resentful.
00:27:31.960 And they lose faith in the voyage forward
00:27:36.940 to the promised land.
00:27:39.300 And they carp and complain and they criticize Moses
00:27:44.360 and they turn away from the divine intuition
00:27:49.100 that's leading them forward.
00:27:50.500 And because of that,
00:27:52.640 God sends poisonous snakes to bite them.
00:27:57.580 Now, poisonous snakes are dragons
00:28:00.300 for all intents and purposes.
00:28:02.180 Their bite is the bite of fire,
00:28:04.240 although fire is also a predator.
00:28:06.080 And so, the emergence of the poisonous snakes
00:28:10.740 is a narrative representation of the manifestation
00:28:15.700 of dragons in consequence of the Israelites' faithlessness.
00:28:22.860 And so, their refusal to walk the proper path
00:28:27.540 dooms them to encounter with the poisonous serpents.
00:28:32.600 Okay, so now there's poisonous serpents.
00:28:35.360 Let's call them small dragons everywhere.
00:28:38.240 And they're getting bit and that's not good.
00:28:40.680 And so, they go to Moses
00:28:42.220 because they know he has a pipeline to the divine
00:28:46.780 and they say,
00:28:48.200 we know you can talk to God
00:28:51.020 and we're sick and tired of being bit
00:28:55.280 by these poisonous snakes
00:28:56.500 and we're willing to do what's necessary
00:28:59.480 to deal with them.
00:29:01.120 Maybe you're willing to do what's necessary
00:29:04.640 to put us back in God's good graces.
00:29:07.260 Maybe you could ask him to call off the snakes.
00:29:09.920 And so, Moses has a chat with God
00:29:14.040 and God, who sent the snakes,
00:29:18.480 decides that he's not going to get rid of them.
00:29:20.840 Instead, he does something very unexpected.
00:29:24.640 He asks the Israelites to gather
00:29:27.180 all their bronze together,
00:29:28.620 like they gathered gold together
00:29:31.740 in an earlier episode
00:29:32.800 to make the golden calf,
00:29:35.300 which they drunkenly and orgiastically worship.
00:29:38.580 They gather all their bronze together
00:29:40.280 and they're to cast a stake
00:29:45.440 like Moses' staff,
00:29:47.520 a tree, a flagpole,
00:29:50.460 a center of the world,
00:29:52.900 a foundation pole,
00:29:54.640 and to put a serpent on it,
00:29:57.020 cast in bronze.
00:29:58.620 That's large enough
00:30:00.000 so that the Israelites
00:30:00.900 can see it at some distance.
00:30:02.640 And then,
00:30:03.540 so they're to cast that
00:30:05.080 and then they're all to go look at it.
00:30:09.180 And if they look at it,
00:30:11.420 then they won't be affected
00:30:15.080 by the poison.
00:30:17.700 And so,
00:30:19.660 the Israelites all go,
00:30:22.520 they gather up their bronze
00:30:24.040 and they cast this
00:30:25.400 staff,
00:30:27.800 tree,
00:30:29.520 flagpole,
00:30:31.000 and they put a serpent on it
00:30:32.720 and they all look at it voluntarily
00:30:35.300 and in consequence,
00:30:37.760 they're no longer affected by the poison.
00:30:40.740 So, the snakes don't disappear,
00:30:42.480 but now the Israelites are fortified enough
00:30:44.820 so that they're immune from the poison.
00:30:48.280 And then,
00:30:48.780 that's a symbol,
00:30:49.940 that stake with a serpent
00:30:51.200 wrapped around it.
00:30:52.040 It's a symbol of healing.
00:30:53.700 It's the staff of Asclepius.
00:30:55.980 It's the symbol that pharmacists
00:30:57.740 and physicians use.
00:30:59.280 And the upshot of the story
00:31:01.700 is that voluntary confrontation
00:31:04.700 in measured doses
00:31:06.740 with what might otherwise poison you,
00:31:09.800 what might otherwise poison you,
00:31:12.460 strengthens and redeems you.
00:31:15.120 And so,
00:31:15.420 that's the principle,
00:31:16.580 let's say,
00:31:17.020 of a vaccine
00:31:17.700 where you take a small amount
00:31:19.060 of what would otherwise kill you
00:31:21.360 and that fortifies you,
00:31:22.540 but it's also the principle
00:31:23.640 of learning itself
00:31:25.620 because when you learn,
00:31:28.140 you encounter something
00:31:29.240 that is challenging
00:31:30.640 and difficult
00:31:31.400 and that might reshape you dramatically
00:31:33.460 and that might even
00:31:34.340 knock you into the desert
00:31:35.880 before it takes you
00:31:36.800 to the promised land
00:31:37.720 and you stand on that edge
00:31:40.700 of discovery voluntarily
00:31:42.520 and in consequence,
00:31:44.920 you become much stronger,
00:31:46.680 which is what Billy
00:31:47.700 was trying to do
00:31:48.640 at the beginning of this story
00:31:50.160 and what his mother
00:31:51.080 dissuaded him from
00:31:52.940 in her willfully blind
00:31:54.800 and tyrannical manner
00:31:56.580 that led to the dissolution
00:31:58.600 of the entire house.
00:32:00.800 Now, later,
00:32:01.860 it turns out that,
00:32:03.840 and this is very complicated,
00:32:05.060 that Christ tells his followers
00:32:07.920 in the Gospels
00:32:08.960 that unless he's lifted up
00:32:10.720 like the brazen serpent
00:32:12.660 was lifted up in the desert,
00:32:14.380 that there'll be no hope
00:32:15.900 of redemption for mankind
00:32:17.580 and that's a very strange
00:32:20.340 narrative segue
00:32:22.760 and what does it mean?
00:32:25.420 Well,
00:32:26.600 the crucifix,
00:32:28.240 this is a very profound thing
00:32:29.500 to understand,
00:32:30.280 it's almost unutterably profound
00:32:32.120 and it's surprising
00:32:33.480 that it might emerge
00:32:34.320 in the midst of a discussion
00:32:35.560 about this little kid's book.
00:32:37.720 So,
00:32:38.480 the motif of the brazen serpent
00:32:42.140 is,
00:32:43.440 it's the presentation
00:32:45.660 of the fact that
00:32:47.100 voluntary encounter
00:32:48.920 with what is
00:32:49.860 frightening
00:32:50.920 or even poisonous,
00:32:53.300 paralyzing,
00:32:53.980 can be redemptive
00:32:56.900 and so then
00:32:58.060 you might ask yourself
00:32:59.140 what's the ultimate
00:33:01.080 exemplar of that?
00:33:03.020 What's the worst
00:33:04.400 of all
00:33:04.960 poisonous serpents
00:33:07.040 on a
00:33:07.840 staff
00:33:09.020 or a flagpole?
00:33:10.820 And the answer to that
00:33:12.080 biblically
00:33:13.100 is
00:33:13.580 the crucifixion
00:33:15.320 because
00:33:16.240 death by
00:33:18.180 poison
00:33:19.000 can be amplified,
00:33:20.980 you might say,
00:33:21.560 into the worst
00:33:23.020 form of death
00:33:24.060 brought about
00:33:25.020 by the most
00:33:25.620 toxic form
00:33:26.660 of poison
00:33:27.300 and the worst
00:33:28.420 form of death
00:33:29.260 is
00:33:29.780 the suffering
00:33:30.840 of
00:33:31.220 someone
00:33:32.460 who's
00:33:33.040 not only innocent
00:33:34.260 but
00:33:34.740 positively good
00:33:36.180 or even
00:33:36.800 sinless
00:33:37.500 that
00:33:39.820 the most
00:33:40.580 painful
00:33:41.080 and humiliating
00:33:42.020 possible death
00:33:43.080 of the best
00:33:44.180 possible person.
00:33:45.560 That's the most
00:33:46.840 poisonous
00:33:47.520 serpent.
00:33:50.660 And so,
00:33:51.100 Christ is
00:33:52.620 making the
00:33:53.140 point
00:33:53.440 in this
00:33:54.920 symbolic
00:33:55.340 manner that
00:33:56.140 the crucifix
00:33:57.480 is
00:33:58.040 the ultimate
00:33:59.440 exemplar
00:34:00.180 of the
00:34:00.660 brazen serpent
00:34:01.540 and that
00:34:02.700 gazing upon
00:34:05.200 that,
00:34:05.760 which is the
00:34:06.300 full voluntary
00:34:07.140 confrontation
00:34:08.000 not only with
00:34:08.800 death but
00:34:09.440 with hell,
00:34:10.220 with malevolence,
00:34:11.480 which is part
00:34:12.240 of the
00:34:12.700 crucifixion
00:34:14.220 and resurrection
00:34:14.700 story,
00:34:15.620 is the pathway
00:34:16.880 to
00:34:17.480 redemption.
00:34:19.160 Right?
00:34:19.760 That in
00:34:20.600 order to
00:34:21.200 make peace
00:34:22.180 with life,
00:34:23.240 that all
00:34:24.240 of its
00:34:24.520 aspects,
00:34:25.260 no matter
00:34:25.580 how terrible
00:34:26.920 and dark,
00:34:27.860 have to be
00:34:28.740 confronted
00:34:29.340 voluntarily and
00:34:30.580 the consequence
00:34:31.200 of that is
00:34:32.180 universal
00:34:33.480 redemption.
00:34:34.840 And the
00:34:35.280 alternative
00:34:35.680 theory is
00:34:36.480 that one
00:34:37.360 that Mrs.
00:34:38.280 Bixby seems
00:34:39.040 to be
00:34:39.520 clinging to
00:34:40.500 and her
00:34:40.920 husband as
00:34:41.440 well,
00:34:41.760 which is
00:34:42.100 that the
00:34:42.940 best way
00:34:43.420 to establish
00:34:44.120 the order
00:34:44.640 that's good
00:34:45.140 in your
00:34:45.400 household is
00:34:46.020 to ignore
00:34:46.480 problems
00:34:47.000 when they
00:34:47.360 make
00:34:47.560 themselves
00:34:47.960 manifest.
00:34:49.240 And that's
00:34:49.700 definitely
00:34:50.620 not how
00:34:51.660 you learn
00:34:52.160 and it's
00:34:52.660 certainly
00:34:53.020 how your
00:34:54.140 household
00:34:54.620 ends up
00:34:55.200 disappearing
00:34:55.760 down the
00:34:56.840 street when
00:34:57.380 you're at
00:34:57.740 work and
00:34:58.480 you don't
00:34:59.660 expect it.
00:35:01.060 How did
00:35:01.760 this happen?
00:35:02.400 Mr.
00:35:02.700 Bixby asked.
00:35:03.720 It was the
00:35:04.280 dragon,
00:35:05.220 said Billy.
00:35:06.060 There's no
00:35:06.700 such thing,
00:35:07.600 mother started
00:35:08.180 to say.
00:35:08.820 There is a
00:35:09.400 dragon,
00:35:10.280 Billy insisted.
00:35:11.580 Two thumbs
00:35:12.040 up for Billy.
00:35:12.940 A very big
00:35:13.600 dragon.
00:35:14.380 That makes
00:35:14.860 him a hero.
00:35:15.360 And Billy
00:35:16.020 patted the
00:35:16.660 dragon on
00:35:17.220 the head.
00:35:17.960 So finally
00:35:18.520 someone has
00:35:20.360 called attention
00:35:21.420 to the
00:35:21.920 problem and
00:35:22.780 that's Billy.
00:35:23.740 And so that
00:35:24.820 makes him the
00:35:25.320 hero of the
00:35:25.720 story.
00:35:26.480 And see in
00:35:27.960 the Egyptian
00:35:28.860 creation myth
00:35:29.760 that I
00:35:30.100 described earlier,
00:35:31.820 so Billy is
00:35:33.000 the son of
00:35:33.740 the man who's
00:35:34.440 blind to the
00:35:35.120 dragon in
00:35:35.720 this story.
00:35:36.240 In the
00:35:36.960 Egyptian
00:35:37.300 creation myth
00:35:38.120 that I
00:35:38.420 described
00:35:38.840 earlier,
00:35:40.600 Osiris is
00:35:41.500 willfully
00:35:42.000 blind about
00:35:43.120 Seth who's
00:35:44.220 his evil
00:35:44.640 brother,
00:35:45.020 the spirit
00:35:45.680 of malevolence
00:35:46.420 itself.
00:35:47.460 And Seth
00:35:48.000 chops Osiris
00:35:49.200 up and
00:35:49.740 into bits.
00:35:51.600 He can't
00:35:52.100 really kill
00:35:52.520 him because
00:35:52.860 he's a
00:35:53.200 god.
00:35:53.620 He chops
00:35:54.080 him into
00:35:54.360 bits and
00:35:54.760 distributes
00:35:55.260 him all
00:35:55.520 around Egypt.
00:35:56.320 And the
00:35:57.140 queen of
00:35:57.420 the underworld,
00:35:58.120 Isis,
00:35:59.000 makes herself
00:35:59.800 manifest and
00:36:01.880 makes herself
00:36:02.740 pregnant with
00:36:03.580 the relevant
00:36:05.140 part of
00:36:05.840 Osiris.
00:36:06.600 And she
00:36:06.880 gives birth
00:36:07.480 to Horus.
00:36:09.260 And Horus
00:36:10.080 is the
00:36:10.560 redeeming
00:36:11.180 Egyptian
00:36:11.620 god.
00:36:12.180 And Horus
00:36:12.640 is the
00:36:12.980 famous
00:36:13.380 Egyptian
00:36:14.220 eye and
00:36:15.440 the open
00:36:16.020 eye that
00:36:16.460 can see.
00:36:18.280 And Horus
00:36:19.420 differs from
00:36:20.120 Osiris in
00:36:21.060 that he's
00:36:21.660 willing to
00:36:22.280 look upon
00:36:22.960 the dragon
00:36:24.300 of malevolence,
00:36:25.460 that would be
00:36:26.100 Seth,
00:36:26.580 and admit to
00:36:27.820 its existence.
00:36:28.900 And so Horus
00:36:29.600 goes back to
00:36:30.620 Egypt and
00:36:31.820 he has a
00:36:32.260 terrible
00:36:32.600 Horus.
00:36:34.340 Isis makes
00:36:35.420 herself pregnant.
00:36:37.000 Horus develops
00:36:37.920 outside of
00:36:39.140 Egypt,
00:36:40.040 alienated from
00:36:40.920 the kingdom
00:36:41.440 that's now
00:36:41.980 ruled by
00:36:42.540 his evil
00:36:43.160 uncle.
00:36:44.300 When he
00:36:44.860 matures,
00:36:45.580 he goes
00:36:46.000 back to
00:36:46.420 Egypt
00:36:46.760 voluntarily
00:36:47.460 and he
00:36:48.340 takes on
00:36:50.000 Seth.
00:36:50.600 And he
00:36:51.200 has a
00:36:51.500 terrible
00:36:51.780 battle with
00:36:52.380 Seth because
00:36:52.940 Seth is a
00:36:53.540 terrifying
00:36:53.880 force,
00:36:54.820 the force
00:36:55.280 of malevolence
00:36:55.940 itself.
00:36:57.020 And Seth
00:36:57.620 tears out
00:36:58.220 one of
00:36:58.680 Horus'
00:36:59.500 eyes,
00:37:00.120 which is
00:37:00.680 an indication
00:37:01.400 of just
00:37:02.120 how
00:37:02.620 catastrophic
00:37:03.740 the full
00:37:04.540 encounter
00:37:04.940 with malevolence
00:37:05.760 can be.
00:37:07.220 But Horus
00:37:08.500 defeats
00:37:10.180 Seth,
00:37:10.700 banishes
00:37:11.120 him to
00:37:11.760 the nether
00:37:12.160 regions of
00:37:12.760 the kingdom
00:37:13.160 and gets
00:37:14.040 his eye
00:37:14.440 back.
00:37:15.020 Now he
00:37:15.460 could rule
00:37:17.120 Egypt in
00:37:19.760 consequence of
00:37:20.480 his victory,
00:37:21.100 but that
00:37:21.380 isn't what he
00:37:21.820 does.
00:37:22.180 He goes
00:37:23.420 down to
00:37:23.780 the underworld
00:37:24.520 where Osiris
00:37:25.720 is languishing
00:37:26.640 in his
00:37:27.540 half-dead
00:37:28.160 state and
00:37:29.300 he gives
00:37:29.980 Osiris
00:37:30.920 his eye.
00:37:32.920 And now
00:37:33.380 his father
00:37:34.260 can see and
00:37:35.460 he joins
00:37:36.020 forces with
00:37:36.780 his father
00:37:37.280 who can
00:37:37.640 now see
00:37:38.220 and the
00:37:39.300 conjoined
00:37:40.320 union of
00:37:41.060 Horus,
00:37:42.480 the vision
00:37:43.680 that's willing
00:37:44.220 to admit to
00:37:44.900 the existence
00:37:45.440 of malevolence
00:37:46.340 and the
00:37:47.140 tradition that
00:37:47.980 can now
00:37:48.480 see,
00:37:49.300 that's Osiris,
00:37:50.320 that becomes
00:37:51.100 the ruling
00:37:51.700 spirit of
00:37:52.420 Egypt and
00:37:53.120 is the
00:37:53.860 model for
00:37:55.660 the Egyptian
00:37:56.760 pharaohs when
00:37:57.720 they're ruling
00:37:58.320 properly.
00:38:00.280 And so
00:38:00.740 Billy is a
00:38:02.240 avatar of
00:38:03.880 Horus and
00:38:04.980 he's willing
00:38:05.480 to cast
00:38:06.960 a brave
00:38:07.420 eye on
00:38:08.020 the existence
00:38:08.640 of the
00:38:10.620 dragon and
00:38:12.240 to interact
00:38:13.720 with it.
00:38:15.360 And Billy
00:38:16.060 patted the
00:38:16.560 dragon on
00:38:17.060 the head.
00:38:18.900 The dragon
00:38:19.800 wagged its
00:38:20.540 tail happily.
00:38:21.720 Then, even
00:38:22.420 faster than
00:38:23.600 it had
00:38:24.040 grown, the
00:38:25.240 dragon started
00:38:25.860 getting smaller.
00:38:27.420 Soon, it
00:38:28.840 was kitten-sized
00:38:29.660 again.
00:38:30.040 Well, you
00:38:33.100 know, in
00:38:33.460 the Garden
00:38:34.300 of Eden,
00:38:34.780 there's a
00:38:35.160 serpent.
00:38:36.220 And you
00:38:37.900 might ask,
00:38:38.540 well, why
00:38:40.040 would there be
00:38:41.120 a serpent in
00:38:42.660 a garden that
00:38:43.240 God had
00:38:43.620 created?
00:38:44.140 And the
00:38:44.380 answer is,
00:38:45.520 well, when
00:38:46.760 you bind a
00:38:47.440 space, you
00:38:49.720 can't completely
00:38:50.880 separate it from
00:38:52.700 what's outside
00:38:53.580 of it.
00:38:53.860 the fact
00:38:56.380 of what
00:38:57.160 isn't in
00:38:57.820 the space
00:38:58.440 is going to
00:38:59.320 make itself
00:38:59.940 manifest inside
00:39:01.020 the space.
00:39:01.640 So, for
00:39:01.940 example, you
00:39:02.440 can't keep
00:39:02.980 your children
00:39:03.520 completely
00:39:04.180 protected from
00:39:06.160 outside influences.
00:39:07.520 They're going
00:39:08.140 to come into
00:39:08.620 your house
00:39:08.980 one way or
00:39:09.480 another.
00:39:10.220 And if
00:39:10.740 you're so
00:39:11.540 protective that
00:39:12.540 you don't let
00:39:13.900 your children
00:39:14.280 have any
00:39:14.800 contact with
00:39:15.540 the outside
00:39:15.900 world, then
00:39:16.580 you become
00:39:17.240 the malevolence
00:39:18.000 that you're
00:39:18.440 trying to
00:39:18.880 protect them
00:39:19.420 from.
00:39:20.360 And so,
00:39:20.860 there's no
00:39:21.420 way of binding
00:39:22.180 a space
00:39:22.740 without having
00:39:23.420 some anomaly
00:39:25.900 or some
00:39:26.660 inconsistency
00:39:27.720 or some
00:39:28.380 of what's
00:39:29.660 unexpected
00:39:30.320 inside that
00:39:31.180 space.
00:39:32.120 And so,
00:39:32.980 then the
00:39:33.400 question is,
00:39:34.040 how do you
00:39:34.420 deal with
00:39:34.940 the fact of
00:39:35.620 the eternal
00:39:36.140 serpent in
00:39:36.820 the garden,
00:39:37.340 let's say?
00:39:38.080 And the
00:39:38.480 answer is
00:39:39.100 laid out in
00:39:40.300 the Exodus
00:39:40.880 story and
00:39:41.660 in the
00:39:42.160 crucifixion
00:39:42.800 narrative,
00:39:43.320 which is
00:39:43.720 that you
00:39:44.860 don't
00:39:45.820 attempt to
00:39:46.440 make the
00:39:46.800 space secure.
00:39:47.700 You attempt
00:39:48.280 to make
00:39:48.680 yourself brave
00:39:50.000 and forthright
00:39:50.820 enough to
00:39:51.680 admit to
00:39:53.220 and attend
00:39:53.820 to the
00:39:54.840 trouble in
00:39:55.440 your household
00:39:56.200 and in
00:39:56.680 your psyche
00:39:57.280 and in
00:39:57.700 your state
00:39:58.280 and to
00:39:59.140 contend
00:39:59.700 with it
00:40:00.080 and in
00:40:00.540 consequence
00:40:01.020 you get
00:40:01.680 braver and
00:40:02.680 more well
00:40:03.180 constituted
00:40:03.940 and then
00:40:04.860 chaos and
00:40:08.080 order can
00:40:08.600 exist,
00:40:09.820 can coexist
00:40:10.480 happily and
00:40:11.580 productive
00:40:12.660 peace and
00:40:13.440 interesting
00:40:14.000 adventure,
00:40:15.220 interesting
00:40:15.740 playful
00:40:16.200 adventure can
00:40:17.020 make themselves
00:40:18.520 manifest.
00:40:19.180 the dragon
00:40:20.100 wagged its
00:40:20.620 tail happily
00:40:21.220 then even
00:40:22.100 faster than
00:40:23.300 it had
00:40:23.720 grown,
00:40:24.840 the dragon
00:40:25.320 started getting
00:40:25.920 smaller.
00:40:27.200 Soon,
00:40:28.120 it was kitten
00:40:29.220 sized again.
00:40:30.860 I don't mind
00:40:31.640 dragons this
00:40:32.320 size,
00:40:32.820 said mother.
00:40:33.780 Why did it
00:40:34.600 have to grow
00:40:35.180 so big?
00:40:36.920 I'm not sure,
00:40:37.720 said Billy.
00:40:39.980 But I think
00:40:40.860 it just wanted
00:40:41.460 to be noticed.
00:40:43.800 So,
00:40:44.760 what's the
00:40:46.020 moral of the
00:40:46.640 story?
00:40:46.980 don't be
00:40:49.200 thinking that
00:40:49.640 dragons aren't
00:40:50.280 real.
00:40:51.420 That's the
00:40:51.880 first moral.
00:40:53.560 And what's
00:40:54.100 the second
00:40:54.500 moral?
00:40:57.500 If you
00:40:58.060 attend to
00:40:58.580 them when
00:40:58.860 they first
00:40:59.240 make themselves
00:40:59.860 manifest,
00:41:00.540 then they
00:41:00.820 won't run
00:41:01.200 away with
00:41:01.620 your house.
00:41:03.700 And that's
00:41:04.600 Story Hour
00:41:05.820 with JBP
00:41:06.700 today.
00:41:08.120 Thanks very
00:41:08.600 much for your
00:41:09.140 time and
00:41:09.520 attention.
00:41:10.760 Bye-bye.