The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

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 0.60

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 1.00

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.

00:10:02.120 During Answer the Call, I take questions from people just like you about their problems,

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00:10:10.080 How do I balance all of this grief, responsibility?

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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. 1.00

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. 0.97

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, 1.00

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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, 0.85

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. 0.93

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 0.97

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, 0.99

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 0.57

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 0.73

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 0.59

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, 0.81

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. 0.98

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, 0.96

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 0.80

00:35:52.520 him because 1.00

00:35:52.860 he's a

00:35:53.200 god.

00:35:53.620 He chops 0.80

00:35:54.080 him into 0.90

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 0.99

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 0.98

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' 0.84

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.

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

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