The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:51.000 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

00:00:58.000 To support this podcast, you can make a donation at jordanbpeterson.com slash donate, or by following the link in the description.

00:01:08.000 Dr. Peterson's self-development programs, Self-Authoring and Understand Myself, can be found at selfauthoring.com and understandmyself.com.

00:01:19.000 The Wideiban council 척of, can be found in one of those cases throughout the world, ...

00:01:24.000 Remember by thespray, that a man can slate a few days recently at this time, of amount like therALLford, ...

00:01:28.000 Dr. Peterson and ShadowLO from the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to them.

00:01:34.000 Though the Confizione Line

00:01:36.000 Oscar有人 analyzed that mega-fighting with one of those days, the most popular things were visited.

00:01:39.000 The Second country has springs to the right to the right to the right to the Snoopy darkness.

00:01:43.000 Well, on behalf of

00:02:12.100 Ralston College and the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism, it's an immense

00:02:18.040 honour to introduce two of the foremost intellectuals of our age.

00:02:24.200 These thinkers, one a philosopher, the other a psychologist, are spiritual writers addressing

00:02:31.960 the malaise of the soul in our culture.

00:02:37.060 John Stuart Mill, in his magnificent essay on Coleridge, wrote of Bentham, Jeremy Bentham,

00:02:45.200 who above all others men have been led to ask themselves in regard to any ancient or

00:02:51.740 received opinion, is it true?

00:02:55.500 And by Coleridge, what is the meaning?

00:02:59.800 With Coleridge, in contrast to the utility of Bentham, the very fact that any doctrine

00:03:05.340 had been believed by thoughtful men and received by whole nations and generations of mankind,

00:03:12.160 was part of the problem to be solved, was one of the phenomena to be accounted for.

00:03:18.820 This, I think, is true of both Roger Scruton and Jordan Peterson, and I'd like to mention

00:03:24.640 just a couple of points of convergence.

00:03:28.040 One is an insistence on the importance of imagination as conversion to truth in opposition to a mere fantasy,

00:03:41.380 and an opposition to ideology, as well as idolatry, especially the idolatrous ideology of the post-modern Foucault-derived consensus,

00:03:58.860 and an urgent return to questions about truth, beauty, and goodness.

00:04:05.900 Of course, part of this is linked to what both perceive as the perilous position of the modern university.

00:04:13.480 They both argue that continuity of esteem needs to be regained in the humanities,

00:04:24.040 and that the dominant strands of the humanities are leading to an impoverishment of the souls of students.

00:04:32.740 Narratives, both argue, are not just stories of power, but these narratives persist because of their truth.

00:04:43.200 So the importance for both Ralston College and indeed for the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism,

00:04:51.260 of both of these thinkers, is their insistence upon the relationship between muthos and logos,

00:04:57.720 between story and reason, the insistence upon a hierarchy of values,

00:05:04.020 and their vision of education as conversion to truth.

00:05:10.740 This conversation will be moderated by the President of Ralston College, Stephen Blackwood.

00:05:21.180 Thank you, Jack.

00:05:22.500 Thank you, Douglas, for those inspiring and grounding words starting us off right in relation to the past that we wish to recover.

00:05:40.060 Let me start, I think, with a very straightforward but perhaps difficult question.

00:05:47.140 We're gathered around the theme, apprehending the transcendent, loosely to gather this conversation.

00:05:58.620 And I'd like to begin by asking each of you, what is the transcendent?

00:06:04.320 What does it mean for something to be transcendent?

00:06:09.160 Well, let me start.

00:06:11.340 I take a position, which I attribute also to Kant, that we have a very clear negative understanding of it.

00:06:21.160 We, as it were, advance to the edge of our thinking in so many areas,

00:06:26.780 knowing that although there's nothing further that we can say,

00:06:31.200 that somehow the truth has nevertheless not run out.

00:06:34.660 And that negative view, I think, needs to be combined with a more positive view,

00:06:43.020 which tells us that there are other ways, not just maybe not thinking,

00:06:47.220 but some other way of crossing that boundary and, as it were, landing in the realm of the transcendent

00:06:54.160 and knowing it from inside.

00:06:56.140 I think, you know, this is something that we understand very quickly in personal relations.

00:07:04.360 You know, that when I address you, I know that I'm addressing something which addresses me too,

00:07:13.500 but from a place where I could never be.

00:07:15.900 I couldn't look at myself from those eyes.

00:07:18.720 And I can't capture the thing that is looking at me from those eyes.

00:07:22.740 But nevertheless, there are leaps of the imagination which can put me in your point of view.

00:07:28.640 And from that point of view, I can come to understand exactly what I am,

00:07:33.740 but in a completely different way from simply the ordinary empirical knowledge that I have of myself.

00:07:39.820 And I think that sort of interpersonal understanding, I would say,

00:07:43.880 we can adapt to all the other aspects of our world which are mysterious to us.

00:07:50.900 Music, for instance.

00:07:52.740 Well, that's a beginning.

00:07:55.540 And I want to return to music a bit later.

00:07:58.620 Jordan?

00:07:59.440 Well, I think it's useful as an adjunct to that.

00:08:03.460 So, Sir Roger mentioned that the transcendent is what we bump up against when we realize our ignorance.

00:08:12.800 And so it's that which transcends our ignorance.

00:08:15.680 And that in itself makes it an implacable fact, unless you believe that you have no ignorance,

00:08:22.800 in which case there's no point in furthering a discussion with you.

00:08:26.960 So the transcendent is the fact insofar as it's that which transcends our ignorance.

00:08:32.520 But you can also think about it technically.

00:08:34.660 So, and I think we know enough about how the brain works now, so that, not that we know much,

00:08:41.040 so that useful things can be said about that.

00:08:43.480 You tend to represent the world in the simplest manner that you possibly can, that works for what you're doing.

00:08:52.940 And so you don't actually see the world.

00:08:55.740 You see sufficiently useful, low-resolution representations of the world.

00:09:02.720 And if they work, then that's fine.

00:09:05.320 There's no need to adjust them.

00:09:06.660 And they're relatively easy to remember and to manipulate.

00:09:08.980 But now and then you have a misapprehension about someone, let's say,

00:09:13.480 and you have a conversation with them, and the conversation goes sideways.

00:09:17.240 And what that means is that the thing that you thought you were conversing with

00:09:21.700 is not the thing that you're conversing with.

00:09:23.660 And that manifests itself in error.

00:09:26.260 Right?

00:09:26.500 So error is the place where the transcendent reveals itself.

00:09:30.120 And what is actually revealing itself is the reality that's outside and underneath your perceptions.

00:09:36.200 And so what you see in the world, in some sense, is a set of animated cartoons.

00:09:42.280 And a lot of that is actually a consequence of you seeing nothing but your memory.

00:09:46.700 Because your brain is organized so that instead of going through all of the difficulty

00:09:51.120 of having to look at the thing in itself, you look at what you assume to be there.

00:09:56.360 And if you can get away with that, so much the better.

00:09:59.220 But the thing in itself is always much richer than your apprehension of it,

00:10:05.360 which is partly why you make mistakes, but also partly why you can continue to garner wisdom in the world.

00:10:11.440 There's always more there than meets the eye.

00:10:13.940 And God only knows how much more there's there than meets the eye.

00:10:17.780 And you can show this even in the religious sense to some degree,

00:10:21.960 because you could say that there's an element to the transcendent

00:10:25.300 that instills people with a sense of religious significance.

00:10:28.240 You can do that by immediately, scientifically, by feeding people chemicals, for example,

00:10:34.600 that disrupt the inhibition of perception by memory.

00:10:38.300 And then that puts them in a place where the transcendent tends to reveal itself,

00:10:42.140 sometimes an overwhelming force.

00:10:43.980 So it's not some fiction that this exists.

00:10:47.900 What's transcendent is more real than the reality that you perceive.

00:10:51.680 Well, let's pick up on that, because the ancients and the medievals had a clear sense

00:10:57.080 that it wasn't the world that was changing.

00:10:59.780 It was we ourselves, as we make an ascent towards deeper truths,

00:11:04.980 higher forms of the beautiful, as we ourselves become more self-conscious.

00:11:10.260 So it's not the world that's changing, but us.

00:11:13.980 I wonder if you could say how you understand the nature of that ascent,

00:11:19.600 that movement, and what brings it about.

00:11:24.340 Well, I would be a bit wary of the metaphor of ascent.

00:11:30.620 You know, I think in Plato it's quite clear what he meant,

00:11:34.880 that he wanted us to actually to transcend our earthly perceptions

00:11:39.220 and our earthly way of seeing things

00:11:40.980 and look on the world from a God's eye perspective.

00:11:45.940 And this could be done if we enter the world of the pure forms and so on,

00:11:51.200 leave empirical reality behind.

00:11:53.700 I think, actually, insofar as the experience of the transcendent,

00:11:59.420 as I understand it, is available to us modern people,

00:12:02.660 it's not that way that we get it.

00:12:05.780 Perhaps Jordan might be right,

00:12:07.720 that there are these drug-induced experiences

00:12:10.440 where things open up to us

00:12:12.900 because old barriers are suddenly swept away.

00:12:16.140 But in my own case,

00:12:18.360 it is the concentration on the empirical reality

00:12:22.320 which, at a certain point,

00:12:24.280 flips from mere sensory understanding

00:12:27.640 to a vision in that

00:12:30.360 of its communicating something to me.

00:12:33.400 And I think this is what literature and art and music do at their best.

00:12:39.180 They re-describe reality

00:12:41.880 so that it is actually communicating something to you.

00:12:46.080 It's not just there as an inert object before you.

00:12:50.760 And that sense of the transcendence

00:12:53.300 is like discovering yourself in a mirror,

00:12:56.260 seeing in the world as a whole

00:12:59.160 that thing in you that you could never identify in words,

00:13:03.720 you know, the subject which is looking at it.

00:13:07.620 And it's not a mystery,

00:13:09.460 but it's something that you can't then explain.

00:13:11.900 And it's the difference between a good writer and a bad writer, of course,

00:13:15.340 is that a good writer will describe something

00:13:17.540 in such a way

00:13:18.720 that the thing described has the soul of the reader in it.

00:13:22.500 So that might be a distinction in part

00:13:26.320 between the thing and the meaningful thing.

00:13:28.820 And that's a very mysterious phenomenon.

00:13:32.120 In fact, in some sense,

00:13:33.620 the essence of phenomenon

00:13:35.040 because that means to shine forth.

00:13:37.060 You know, as we're surrounded by empirical facts,

00:13:39.720 they're everywhere.

00:13:41.020 There's more of them than we can possibly count.

00:13:43.200 But some of them do emerge

00:13:45.120 and manifest themselves

00:13:46.200 as that conjunction

00:13:47.920 between the factual and the meaningful.

00:13:50.120 And then that's what's gripping.

00:13:51.180 And if you're fortunate,

00:13:53.420 I mean, to me,

00:13:54.340 that's also partly what leads us onward.

00:13:57.640 Maybe in something approximating

00:13:59.580 the ascent that you described

00:14:00.840 is that the set of facts

00:14:02.640 manifests itself as implicitly meaningful.

00:14:05.600 And that means in some sense

00:14:06.800 that there is a call to you

00:14:08.440 that isn't from within you.

00:14:10.520 I mean, I don't know how else to put it exactly

00:14:12.580 because you walk into a bookstore

00:14:14.180 and a book will reveal itself to you.

00:14:18.420 You know, or you have a conversation

00:14:20.380 and part of the conversation

00:14:21.500 will trigger something in you.

00:14:23.300 Or you're reading a scientific paper

00:14:25.020 and much of it's dull.

00:14:26.340 And then all of a sudden

00:14:26.960 there's something that sparks outward

00:14:28.480 that's like a port...

00:14:29.720 That's a portal into the transcendent.

00:14:31.780 And that is a place

00:14:32.580 where the fact and the meaning converge.

00:14:34.820 And that's a phenomenon

00:14:35.560 we don't understand very well.

00:14:37.240 It has something to do

00:14:38.200 with its convergence

00:14:39.600 with the narrative that drives us,

00:14:41.780 whatever that happens to be.

00:14:43.000 Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it.

00:14:45.120 Actually, it connects with the general problem

00:14:49.420 of what the humanities are in the university.

00:14:54.820 I've always assumed that in some way or another,

00:14:57.880 if you're teaching literature or musicology

00:15:00.840 or history of art or anything,

00:15:03.060 you are opening young people to those moments

00:15:06.460 when the world ceases to be

00:15:09.380 a mere accumulation of facts

00:15:11.200 and, as it were, addresses you.

00:15:14.380 And that requires literary criticism.

00:15:17.840 It requires opening yourself to experience

00:15:20.640 in a way that requires a serious education

00:15:24.400 of a special kind.

00:15:25.940 And I think that if we thought of the humanities

00:15:28.080 as directed towards that,

00:15:29.920 we can see why they might be one way

00:15:33.260 to fill the moral void

00:15:35.860 that grows so easily in people's lives.

00:15:39.040 So Jung had this idea,

00:15:40.660 which I really love.

00:15:41.540 It's a very sophisticated idea.

00:15:44.860 It's his idea of how the self, first of all.

00:15:47.800 So the self, for Jung,

00:15:49.720 Christ was a symbol of the self.

00:15:51.640 So the logos was a symbol of the self.

00:15:53.780 So that's sort of, what would you say?

00:15:55.520 It's the divine essence of humanity.

00:15:57.780 And the image of that is a symbol of the self.

00:15:59.920 And for Jung, the self was the totality

00:16:03.340 of the individual across time and space.

00:16:07.000 So it's whatever you are as a transcendent object.

00:16:11.120 That's a good way of thinking about it.

00:16:12.920 And then you can imagine that

00:16:14.080 that transcendent object also has to interact

00:16:16.620 with you and the world moment by moment.

00:16:20.280 And his belief was that those times

00:16:22.420 when that space of meaning opened up,

00:16:24.980 so there was that convergence between the fact

00:16:27.020 and the gripping of the fact,

00:16:28.840 was the manifestation of the self,

00:16:31.740 which is this transcendent object,

00:16:33.620 in the specific moment of time and space,

00:16:37.140 and therefore a call forward to move towards

00:16:40.660 revealing that totality as much as it can be revealed.

00:16:44.540 And so it would be partly,

00:16:46.720 and that would be partly revealed

00:16:47.960 by then following a meaningful pathway.

00:16:50.100 And it would be the case that

00:16:51.240 if you're engaged in the teaching of humanities

00:16:54.360 and literature,

00:16:55.960 that you are trying to engage exactly that part of the person.

00:16:59.060 It's to pull them into the story

00:17:00.440 and have that open up to them.

00:17:02.460 And then that's a portal.

00:17:04.040 It's not words on paper.

00:17:05.800 It's a portal to their further development

00:17:08.920 towards the manifestation of this higher

00:17:12.580 and more transcendent mode of being.

00:17:15.220 That's like the Hindu idea of the transition

00:17:18.360 from samsara to brahman, isn't it?

00:17:20.520 That you suddenly pass through a barrier

00:17:25.880 that can't actually be described

00:17:27.440 because you can only know it

00:17:30.400 when you're on the other side of it.

00:17:31.620 But when you're on the other side of it,

00:17:33.460 you're looking back at the thing that you've left

00:17:36.120 and seeing it, as it were, for the first time

00:17:38.780 and knowing what it means.

00:17:40.860 I guess that connects a little bit

00:17:42.960 with what Douglas was saying about Coleridge,

00:17:46.680 that Coleridge was an advocate of a form of education,

00:17:52.720 a form of knowledge which shows the meaning of things

00:17:55.580 as opposed to the mere facts accumulated by Bentham

00:17:59.040 and people like that.

00:18:00.500 Both of you have done quite deep dives

00:18:03.320 into 20th century totalitarian ideologies.

00:18:08.840 Both of you have been very trenchant critics

00:18:12.860 of the ideology, the various forms of nihilism

00:18:17.060 in our own culture.

00:18:18.980 But I think all of us tire of a kind of negativity

00:18:25.020 that has come to be very prevalent in our culture.

00:18:30.960 Not simply the nihilism,

00:18:32.220 but then we can criticize the nihilism.

00:18:35.080 We ought to criticize it.

00:18:36.180 Both of you have been brilliant critics of it.

00:18:38.540 But what I take to be at work in the work that both of you do

00:18:45.040 is not fundamentally criticism,

00:18:49.200 but a turn towards something positive,

00:18:51.720 a recovery of a sense of the transcendent.

00:18:54.360 I'd like to have a turn for a moment to what does that recovery look like?

00:19:01.900 Where do we start?

00:19:04.240 Well, if we're thinking intellectually,

00:19:07.520 the world of scholarship and education that we both belong to

00:19:11.940 has turned, as you say, in this negative direction,

00:19:16.100 always preferring debunking explanations of everything,

00:19:20.420 reducing them to the lowest motive,

00:19:24.300 that it's not truth but power that we pursue

00:19:27.080 and all that Foucauldian nonsense.

00:19:29.520 And I think the only response to that

00:19:31.440 is to come up with bunking explanations, so to speak.

00:19:34.660 Try to put back into the subject matter

00:19:38.740 one's own inherent belief in it

00:19:41.440 and to recognize that we're not around on this earth for very long

00:19:47.040 and we do have an obligation to find the things that we love

00:19:51.280 and not the things that we reject.

00:19:54.460 And that those things that we love,

00:19:56.140 the best way towards them

00:19:57.680 is to look at the things that other people have loved.

00:20:00.520 That's what a culture is.

00:20:01.920 It's the residue of all the things

00:20:03.480 that people have thought worthwhile to preserve.

00:20:06.220 And teaching that will, again, reconnect us to what matters.

00:20:11.620 Well, and there's also ways of providing a pathway forward

00:20:16.860 by making the Foucauldian arguments, let's say,

00:20:21.340 about power more high resolution.

00:20:23.980 And one of the things that I do in my lectures,

00:20:26.420 in my public lectures, that I think is rather comical

00:20:29.320 is to take and poke fun, in some sense,

00:20:33.620 about the idea of power as the fundamental foundation

00:20:36.720 for the hierarchical structures of the West.

00:20:39.260 I think, well, you can think of the West

00:20:41.640 as one large-scale, low-resolution, totalitarian tyranny,

00:20:46.060 the tyranny of the patriarchy.

00:20:47.540 Or you can decompose that,

00:20:49.560 which in some sense is to transcend the concept.

00:20:52.680 And I think, well, I ask my audiences

00:20:55.920 what they think about the tyranny of plumbers

00:20:58.740 or the tyranny of massage therapists.

00:21:01.460 Well, because it's dead relevant.

00:21:04.280 It's like, let's say you need a plumber,

00:21:06.960 and you do need a plumber.

00:21:08.840 Everyone agrees that you need a plumber

00:21:10.620 because there's hell to pay otherwise.

00:21:13.440 And so, and then the question is,

00:21:15.540 well, how is it that you go about selecting a plumber?

00:21:17.660 And the answer isn't that there are roving bands

00:21:21.160 of tyrannical plumbers that go door-to-door

00:21:23.700 telling housewives that if they don't use their services,

00:21:29.600 the service of the most tyrannical plumber,

00:21:31.920 that there'll be mafia-like consequences.

00:21:34.960 What happens instead is that you look for the plumber

00:21:38.360 who is most able, in your estimation

00:21:41.120 and in his reputation as distributed through the community,

00:21:46.280 for being able to fix pipes and run a business

00:21:49.700 and engage in an honest transaction with you.

00:21:53.200 And that's competence.

00:21:54.760 That's not power.

00:21:56.280 You see, and what I see as most corrosive

00:21:58.600 about the postmodern types,

00:21:59.900 especially those who've derived themselves from Foucault,

00:22:02.560 let's say, is that the idea that every hierarchy

00:22:05.820 or the hierarchy as such is predicated on power

00:22:08.840 is actually an assault on the idea of competence itself.

00:22:12.740 And that, in turn, is an assault on the idea

00:22:14.800 that there are real problems that can actually be solved.

00:22:18.140 Well, then if you dispense with all that

00:22:19.980 and it's only power,

00:22:21.880 there's no real problems to be solved

00:22:23.880 and there's no noble ways of solving them,

00:22:27.260 even in as concrete a manner

00:22:30.140 as a good plumber would solve them,

00:22:31.720 which is not a trivial thing.

00:22:33.200 And so then you deprive people of that sense of purpose

00:22:39.380 in their life,

00:22:40.020 even at the high resolution levels.

00:22:42.780 You know, and I've insisted in my lectures

00:22:45.560 that, you know, if you're the sort of person

00:22:47.960 who runs a small diner,

00:22:49.600 that it's incumbent on you

00:22:51.420 to run the highest quality small diner

00:22:54.600 that you possibly can

00:22:55.840 because what you're doing there

00:22:57.400 is not merely providing people with basic nutrition.

00:23:00.480 There's way more to the space than meets the eye.

00:23:04.940 And your noble, what would you say,

00:23:08.340 acceptance of your limited responsibility

00:23:10.640 is also simultaneously a way to transcend that.

00:23:14.120 And that can be a place where the neighborhood meets.

00:23:16.360 That can be a place where tired people

00:23:18.220 revivify themselves before they go off

00:23:20.140 to do their difficult work.

00:23:21.400 That can be a place where you can mentor your employees

00:23:24.060 and help them develop their life.

00:23:25.480 Like it's a rich,

00:23:26.740 it's an unbelievably rich microcosm.

00:23:29.680 And to take on the care

00:23:32.900 and tending of that microcosm

00:23:35.660 as a responsibility

00:23:36.540 is also a great pathway to meaning

00:23:39.080 and a necessary,

00:23:40.600 and meaning is something that's,

00:23:42.060 well, not epiphenomenal

00:23:43.900 and not dispensable,

00:23:45.900 but absolutely central to human thriving

00:23:48.680 in the psychological and practical sense.

00:23:50.880 Going online without ExpressVPN

00:23:54.160 is like not paying attention

00:23:55.580 to the safety demonstration on a flight.

00:23:57.860 Most of the time, you'll probably be fine,

00:23:59.840 but what if one day

00:24:00.980 that weird yellow mask drops down from overhead

00:24:03.240 and you have no idea what to do?

00:24:05.520 In our hyper-connected world,

00:24:07.000 your digital privacy isn't just a luxury.

00:24:09.320 It's a fundamental right.

00:24:10.660 Every time you connect to an unsecured network

00:24:12.600 in a cafe, hotel, or airport,

00:24:14.900 you're essentially broadcasting

00:24:16.080 your personal information

00:24:17.180 to anyone with a technical know-how

00:24:19.060 to intercept it.

00:24:19.860 And let's be clear,

00:24:20.840 it doesn't take a genius hacker to do this.

00:24:23.180 With some off-the-shelf hardware,

00:24:24.740 even a tech-savvy teenager

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00:26:36.600 Yeah, but we do have to try

00:26:40.920 and understand

00:26:41.460 why it is

00:26:42.340 that there is such a charm

00:26:44.260 in the Foucauldian position.

00:26:46.540 Why is it that people

00:26:47.520 want to believe

00:26:48.580 that all the best things,

00:26:50.480 what we think of

00:26:51.120 as the best things

00:26:51.780 in human relations,

00:26:52.960 are simply disguised forms

00:26:54.940 of manipulation?

00:26:56.440 You know,

00:26:56.740 that the whole feminist view

00:26:58.940 of the relation

00:26:59.600 between men and women,

00:27:00.740 for instance,

00:27:01.200 which is founded

00:27:03.080 on this deep myth

00:27:04.280 that men are exercising,

00:27:06.940 exercise power

00:27:08.000 as a gender,

00:27:10.440 to use the fashionable word,

00:27:12.720 over women,

00:27:14.040 and that all study

00:27:15.800 of this

00:27:16.780 is just a way

00:27:18.640 of revealing

00:27:19.460 that power

00:27:20.740 and the capillaries

00:27:22.580 through which it flows.

00:27:24.560 You know,

00:27:25.120 I think there's a will

00:27:26.960 to believe this

00:27:28.060 and why

00:27:29.320 is one of the big questions

00:27:31.020 that I think

00:27:31.460 we have to try

00:27:33.060 to understand.

00:27:34.180 Is it that when people

00:27:35.360 lose some kind

00:27:37.480 of transcendental

00:27:38.560 religious faith

00:27:39.460 that they will

00:27:40.480 automatically fall

00:27:41.620 into this great pit

00:27:42.760 of resentment

00:27:44.280 of the Nietzschean kind

00:27:46.520 to try and find

00:27:47.820 the oppressor

00:27:50.440 in every relationship?

00:27:52.240 Or are there truths

00:27:54.280 that they are exploring

00:27:55.420 as well?

00:27:56.660 Are there forms

00:27:58.280 of power

00:27:58.840 or forms of human relation

00:28:00.640 that look like power

00:28:02.080 from one aspect

00:28:03.200 but are perhaps

00:28:04.140 also look like tenderness

00:28:05.460 and dependence

00:28:06.640 from another aspect

00:28:07.700 and that they just

00:28:08.680 are emphasizing

00:28:09.900 one half of it

00:28:11.040 or something like that?

00:28:11.880 I think there are

00:28:12.380 real questions

00:28:13.720 as to how it is

00:28:14.940 that our culture

00:28:15.560 has got into this position.

00:28:17.880 Yeah, well,

00:28:18.360 that's the question

00:28:19.020 below the claim of power

00:28:20.720 and so, I mean,

00:28:21.940 I've thought about that

00:28:22.980 to some degree

00:28:23.600 and here's three possibilities.

00:28:26.360 I mean, one is

00:28:27.060 the accusation

00:28:28.580 that all there is

00:28:29.500 is power

00:28:29.940 is the justification

00:28:30.820 for use of power.

00:28:32.380 Of course.

00:28:32.900 So that's handy

00:28:34.060 if that's what

00:28:35.000 you want to use.

00:28:36.160 So then there's

00:28:38.340 another problem

00:28:39.100 and that goes along

00:28:40.040 with the failure,

00:28:41.820 the willful failure

00:28:42.640 to distinguish competence

00:28:44.040 from tyranny

00:28:45.000 and power, let's say,

00:28:46.160 because we might think

00:28:47.200 of power as unearned authority,

00:28:49.120 something like that,

00:28:49.920 because we need

00:28:50.500 a definition of power

00:28:51.540 and I think that

00:28:53.000 there's a resentment

00:28:54.380 at work there

00:28:55.220 that's very, very deep.

00:28:56.700 I think it's deep

00:28:57.780 in the biblical sense

00:28:58.920 which is that

00:28:59.580 there is a proclivity

00:29:01.260 for those who do not

00:29:04.440 manifest what they could

00:29:05.980 manifest in the world

00:29:07.140 and thereby fail

00:29:08.500 to watch the success

00:29:10.580 of those who do manifest

00:29:11.960 what they could manifest

00:29:13.120 in the world

00:29:13.680 and succeed

00:29:14.440 and become embittered

00:29:16.020 by that,

00:29:16.600 tremendously embittered

00:29:17.680 and then to label

00:29:18.580 that as power

00:29:19.440 and then to attempt

00:29:20.560 to destroy it

00:29:21.360 because it's simpler

00:29:22.620 to do that

00:29:23.380 than to do the radical

00:29:24.840 internal retooling

00:29:26.440 that would be required

00:29:27.380 to set things straight

00:29:28.500 internally.

00:29:29.580 I'm sure that's right.

00:29:30.980 That's one explanation

00:29:32.120 of why people

00:29:32.780 are always tempted

00:29:33.920 by the zero-sum vision

00:29:35.560 of relations.

00:29:37.120 His benefit is my cost

00:29:38.540 sort of thing.

00:29:39.220 Right.

00:29:40.240 Oh, I wanted to pick up

00:29:41.380 on the very widespread view

00:29:45.460 that things are zero-sum

00:29:47.400 which is of course

00:29:48.920 the language of power.

00:29:51.300 What's the antidote to that?

00:29:52.660 How does one overturn

00:29:54.180 the ideology of power?

00:29:58.000 How does one transcend that

00:29:59.140 with a non-zero-sum truth

00:30:03.700 or approach to life?

00:30:05.420 Well, I personally would say

00:30:07.820 that the first thing

00:30:08.540 to recognize

00:30:09.580 is that there are

00:30:10.600 positive-sum games.

00:30:12.860 You know,

00:30:13.080 that's what the real theory

00:30:14.800 of the market tells us.

00:30:16.500 That there are

00:30:17.120 whole realms

00:30:18.020 of human transactions

00:30:19.040 where both parties gain

00:30:21.160 from their shared engagement.

00:30:26.540 And that won't drive away

00:30:29.480 the real source

00:30:31.160 of this difficulty.

00:30:33.520 It has something to do

00:30:34.340 with what Jordan

00:30:35.380 was referring to.

00:30:37.240 You know,

00:30:37.500 that people's resentment

00:30:40.120 at the success of others

00:30:42.000 when they cannot match it

00:30:43.340 or cannot easily match it.

00:30:45.360 Or will not match it.

00:30:46.160 Or will not match it.

00:30:47.220 Which is even worse.

00:30:48.280 Yes, exactly.

00:30:49.580 And because of the labor

00:30:51.260 of reconceiving

00:30:54.160 your own position

00:30:55.120 in such that you actually

00:30:56.780 have to do something

00:30:57.680 about it.

00:30:58.700 You know,

00:30:59.020 there is something lazy

00:31:01.220 about the zero-sum vision,

00:31:02.540 a vision.

00:31:04.260 But it's not a vision

00:31:07.220 that successful people have.

00:31:10.340 It's not a vision

00:31:11.380 that they have

00:31:11.940 at any level of reality.

00:31:13.560 You can actually combat that

00:31:14.980 to some degree

00:31:15.700 by making it high resolution again

00:31:17.380 by making examples.

00:31:19.320 It's like,

00:31:19.940 because very few people

00:31:21.780 actually believe

00:31:24.000 once they observe

00:31:25.420 that all the relationships

00:31:27.280 they've had with other people

00:31:28.760 have been zero-sum.

00:31:30.040 Now, you might get

00:31:31.260 some very disadvantaged people

00:31:32.920 and these people do exist

00:31:34.940 who've been taken advantage

00:31:37.260 by virtually everyone

00:31:38.520 they've ever encountered

00:31:39.440 in their whole life.

00:31:40.500 Like, that does happen.

00:31:41.920 But most of the time

00:31:42.880 all you have to do

00:31:43.600 is remind people.

00:31:44.540 It's like,

00:31:44.820 well, think of someone

00:31:45.460 that you loved.

00:31:46.820 Even briefly,

00:31:47.920 think of a friend

00:31:48.720 that you've had.

00:31:49.820 It's like,

00:31:50.140 well,

00:31:50.800 you successfully negotiated

00:31:53.020 with that friend

00:31:53.880 to do things together.

00:31:55.820 Because otherwise

00:31:57.260 it's not a friendship.

00:31:58.200 And it has to be

00:31:59.340 successful negotiation

00:32:00.820 which means your friend

00:32:02.040 has to be happy

00:32:02.780 with what you were doing

00:32:03.540 and you have to be happy.

00:32:05.340 And so,

00:32:05.900 and then wasn't it the case

00:32:07.180 that you were both happier

00:32:08.320 doing that

00:32:09.000 than either of you

00:32:09.940 would have been doing

00:32:10.640 something else alone?

00:32:12.100 And isn't that evidence

00:32:13.380 in your own action

00:32:14.740 and your life

00:32:15.360 for the existence

00:32:16.100 of non-zero-sum games?

00:32:17.880 And they're dependent

00:32:18.520 on successful negotiation.

00:32:20.500 Is we can both have

00:32:21.780 more than we would

00:32:22.560 otherwise have

00:32:23.300 if we can come to a consensus

00:32:24.620 about what we'll both pursue.

00:32:26.040 And it's very few people

00:32:28.140 when you make it personal

00:32:29.720 like that

00:32:30.280 and high resolution

00:32:31.180 again,

00:32:31.780 it's very few people

00:32:32.700 who are willing

00:32:33.200 to pursue their ideology

00:32:34.640 of zero-sum,

00:32:36.180 of a zero-sum reality

00:32:37.280 so far down

00:32:38.780 that they'll actually

00:32:39.880 use that to characterize

00:32:41.080 their most intimate relationships.

00:32:42.740 Now,

00:32:43.360 I would say that someone

00:32:44.340 who does that

00:32:45.200 by temperament

00:32:46.600 is literally psychopathic.

00:32:49.060 Because the psychopathic

00:32:50.320 view of the world

00:32:50.960 is absolutely

00:32:52.020 that it's a zero-sum game.

00:32:53.320 Yes,

00:32:54.360 I think that's right.

00:32:55.660 But of course,

00:32:56.480 we have a whole body

00:32:58.120 of literature

00:32:58.740 about sexuality

00:33:01.420 which is trying

00:33:02.400 to establish that,

00:33:03.580 that sexuality

00:33:04.260 is the exercise

00:33:05.160 of power

00:33:05.900 of one person

00:33:07.060 over another.

00:33:08.040 You get it already

00:33:09.180 in Sartre's being

00:33:10.360 and nothingness

00:33:11.140 where he almost,

00:33:14.920 it's almost by logic

00:33:16.080 that serious sexual desire

00:33:18.900 for him

00:33:19.300 ends up as sadomasochism.

00:33:21.280 because you cannot

00:33:23.480 extract from the other

00:33:24.920 that gift of his freedom

00:33:26.220 which is what

00:33:28.000 you're looking for

00:33:28.800 because his freedom

00:33:30.020 is his

00:33:30.580 and not to be obtained

00:33:31.600 by you.

00:33:33.140 And therefore,

00:33:33.540 you can only do this

00:33:34.340 by sort of tearing

00:33:35.320 at his flesh

00:33:36.060 of getting him

00:33:37.300 to confess

00:33:37.920 in the extremes

00:33:38.860 of agony

00:33:39.400 that he can't do it.

00:33:41.120 You know,

00:33:41.480 this kind of thing,

00:33:42.420 that's a very perverted vision

00:33:44.020 of what sexual relations are.

00:33:46.160 But you get

00:33:46.680 that image

00:33:48.180 used by

00:33:49.220 Simone de Beauvoir

00:33:50.040 and all kinds

00:33:51.080 of feminists

00:33:52.140 to essentially

00:33:53.380 to delegitimize

00:33:54.780 the idea

00:33:55.860 that there is

00:33:56.560 such a thing

00:33:57.020 as love

00:33:58.040 for the other sex.

00:33:59.780 Well,

00:33:59.960 I think it also

00:34:01.260 masks a more

00:34:02.020 fundamental problem

00:34:03.000 that's really

00:34:03.440 a biological problem.

00:34:05.040 Like,

00:34:05.240 it's a misapprehension

00:34:06.380 of a genuine problem.

00:34:08.120 But part of what sex does

00:34:09.920 is temporarily

00:34:10.840 subordinate

00:34:11.520 the individual

00:34:12.320 to nature

00:34:13.060 and the species.

00:34:14.700 And so there is

00:34:15.180 a domination there.

00:34:16.420 And if a woman

00:34:18.700 decides to have

00:34:19.460 a child,

00:34:20.440 then she is going

00:34:21.520 to undergo

00:34:22.020 a series of

00:34:22.740 extraordinarily radical

00:34:23.800 transformations

00:34:24.380 and she's also

00:34:25.280 going to end up

00:34:25.940 in a situation

00:34:26.620 where in all likelihood

00:34:27.920 something else

00:34:29.140 becomes fundamentally

00:34:30.140 more important

00:34:30.840 than her.

00:34:31.880 And so there is

00:34:32.480 a,

00:34:32.880 it might be

00:34:34.260 voluntary subjugation,

00:34:35.720 but there's

00:34:36.000 a subjugation

00:34:36.880 to nature

00:34:37.520 and that's built

00:34:39.260 into the fabric

00:34:39.940 of existence.

00:34:40.780 And I think

00:34:41.140 it's very easy

00:34:42.040 not to want

00:34:43.160 to grapple

00:34:43.760 with that

00:34:44.300 because it's

00:34:44.820 such a profound

00:34:45.500 problem

00:34:45.940 and then to

00:34:46.780 make that

00:34:47.660 a secondary

00:34:48.240 consequence

00:34:48.840 of something

00:34:49.360 like unbalanced

00:34:50.080 power relationships

00:34:51.000 between the genders.

00:34:52.500 But of course

00:34:52.980 our traditional

00:34:54.780 religion offers

00:34:56.160 you salves

00:34:57.180 for this,

00:34:58.040 the rite of passage

00:34:59.240 which joins

00:35:00.700 man to woman,

00:35:01.860 the rite of passage

00:35:02.620 which makes birth

00:35:03.920 an experience

00:35:05.020 of the whole community

00:35:06.080 and death likewise.

00:35:07.380 and the sense

00:35:11.160 also in these

00:35:13.100 great events

00:35:13.960 one is occupying

00:35:16.660 a position

00:35:17.280 in a moral space

00:35:20.040 that has been

00:35:20.540 occupied by

00:35:21.300 generations before

00:35:22.840 one and so on.

00:35:23.880 This normalizing

00:35:24.880 of these huge

00:35:26.680 transitions

00:35:27.280 I think is something

00:35:28.180 that we've all

00:35:29.900 just depended

00:35:30.540 upon religion

00:35:31.260 to provide.

00:35:32.260 It's just sacralizing

00:35:33.280 of it.

00:35:33.420 Yes,

00:35:33.920 and having taken

00:35:34.840 that away

00:35:35.540 or ignored it

00:35:36.800 or tried to live

00:35:37.980 without

00:35:38.400 exactly without

00:35:40.000 the idea

00:35:40.740 of a sacrament

00:35:41.460 we're actually

00:35:43.640 at a loss

00:35:44.280 when these

00:35:44.820 great transitions

00:35:45.780 occur.

00:35:46.460 Well it is

00:35:47.540 because it is

00:35:48.160 the case in fact

00:35:49.060 that to engage

00:35:50.940 in the integration

00:35:52.500 of sexuality

00:35:53.220 with your individual

00:35:54.360 life is a series

00:35:55.760 of sacrifices.

00:35:57.220 So for example

00:35:57.840 if you get married

00:35:58.620 that's a sacrifice

00:35:59.520 because it's a

00:36:00.280 sacrifice of all

00:36:01.080 other people

00:36:01.640 and so it's a

00:36:02.880 sacrifice of that

00:36:03.700 possibility

00:36:04.260 and then to have

00:36:05.660 a child is the

00:36:06.480 sacrifice of all

00:36:07.420 the things

00:36:07.840 that you could

00:36:08.300 have done

00:36:08.640 otherwise

00:36:09.140 than having

00:36:10.160 that child

00:36:10.820 and to

00:36:11.640 but to

00:36:12.740 as you pointed

00:36:14.600 out

00:36:14.840 to make that

00:36:15.620 part of a

00:36:16.060 broader tradition

00:36:16.800 to say that

00:36:17.460 well that is

00:36:18.920 a sacrifice

00:36:19.500 and there is

00:36:20.100 a loss

00:36:20.600 that goes

00:36:21.000 along with that

00:36:21.600 but what you

00:36:22.180 gain as a

00:36:23.000 consequences

00:36:23.620 of immeasurable

00:36:25.740 significance

00:36:26.420 in contrast

00:36:27.240 to the loss

00:36:28.100 and one of the

00:36:28.940 things that's

00:36:29.400 really struck me

00:36:30.100 in this lecture tour

00:36:30.920 that I've been

00:36:31.460 doing

00:36:31.700 so I've been

00:36:32.540 in about 100

00:36:33.160 cities

00:36:33.600 and one of the

00:36:34.820 things that I've

00:36:35.380 been talking to

00:36:35.960 people about

00:36:36.460 is meaning

00:36:37.660 and I suppose

00:36:38.440 it's meaning

00:36:38.880 in relationship

00:36:39.480 to the transcendent

00:36:40.500 and the necessity

00:36:41.780 of meaning

00:36:42.380 as an antidote

00:36:43.700 to suffering

00:36:44.280 and to malevolence

00:36:45.180 and the hypothesis

00:36:46.320 is something like

00:36:47.260 well meaning

00:36:48.560 is to be found

00:36:49.200 in responsibility

00:36:49.920 and this is a

00:36:51.740 it's a revelation

00:36:52.860 to people

00:36:53.320 because they haven't

00:36:54.020 conceptualized it

00:36:55.040 that way before

00:36:55.820 it's like

00:36:56.420 meaning isn't

00:36:58.360 it isn't happiness

00:37:00.180 and it isn't

00:37:00.740 self-esteem

00:37:01.400 and it isn't

00:37:01.880 momentary pleasure

00:37:02.800 it isn't any of that

00:37:03.960 it's the bearing

00:37:05.940 of a sacrificial burden

00:37:07.460 and that that actually

00:37:08.680 works to enrich

00:37:09.760 and ennoble your life

00:37:10.940 in ways that make

00:37:11.820 the tragic element

00:37:12.780 of it tolerable

00:37:13.520 and to keep you

00:37:14.780 from bitterness

00:37:15.380 and so these things

00:37:16.840 that are put forward

00:37:18.240 as subjugation

00:37:20.000 like the subjugation

00:37:21.120 of woman

00:37:21.560 to the catastrophe

00:37:22.980 of birth

00:37:23.600 let's say

00:37:24.040 or even the

00:37:24.680 indignity

00:37:25.680 of patriarchal union

00:37:27.360 is all of a sudden

00:37:28.380 something that you can

00:37:29.180 take on

00:37:29.620 as an aspirational goal

00:37:31.200 rather than something

00:37:32.160 that's a mere imposition

00:37:33.280 on your moment

00:37:34.560 to moment freedom

00:37:35.400 and so relief

00:37:36.420 to people

00:37:36.880 to hear that

00:37:37.540 and to know it

00:37:38.320 of course

00:37:39.180 I agree with that

00:37:40.320 but there is also

00:37:42.060 the sense that

00:37:43.500 in the world

00:37:45.280 in which we live

00:37:46.100 where obviously

00:37:47.880 people have been

00:37:48.420 detached

00:37:49.020 to a great extent

00:37:50.100 from the

00:37:50.640 any continuous

00:37:52.380 religious tradition

00:37:53.480 there still is

00:37:54.540 a sense of loss

00:37:55.560 isn't there

00:37:56.020 people

00:37:56.480 they don't

00:37:58.000 they know that

00:37:58.880 they're missing something

00:38:00.100 but don't know quite

00:38:01.120 how to identify it

00:38:02.540 and that's one reason

00:38:03.780 for them thinking

00:38:05.220 that it's been taken away

00:38:06.820 something's been stolen

00:38:07.820 from them

00:38:08.440 and they look around

00:38:09.420 at the people

00:38:09.980 who are at ease

00:38:10.680 in the world

00:38:11.280 and successful

00:38:12.300 and seem to be

00:38:13.160 on good terms

00:38:15.880 with themselves

00:38:16.460 and think of them

00:38:17.540 as the ones

00:38:18.260 who've done the stealing

00:38:19.220 and that is a dangerous attitude

00:38:22.400 and I think it's

00:38:23.020 surely that is part

00:38:24.820 of what erupts

00:38:25.580 in all these

00:38:26.380 strange academic disciplines

00:38:29.720 like gender studies

00:38:31.040 which simply have

00:38:32.000 as their goal

00:38:32.680 the undermining

00:38:33.860 of the existing order

00:38:35.400 without anything positive

00:38:36.980 to put in its place

00:38:38.020 and I don't know

00:38:39.580 those academic studies

00:38:41.600 recruit people

00:38:42.560 all the time

00:38:43.360 from this fund

00:38:45.160 of isolation

00:38:48.160 this fund

00:38:48.720 of the sense

00:38:49.820 of loss

00:38:51.620 without an ability

00:38:52.640 to identify

00:38:53.420 the thing

00:38:53.940 that's been lost

00:38:54.800 that's the cult-like

00:38:56.160 element of them

00:38:56.840 because they do

00:38:57.520 I would say

00:38:58.280 to some degree

00:38:59.280 prey on people

00:39:00.240 whose interpersonal

00:39:01.280 relationships

00:39:01.940 have been irreparably

00:39:03.000 damaged

00:39:03.480 so I have a hypothesis

00:39:05.200 about the feminist

00:39:07.240 end of the post-modern

00:39:08.520 radical leftist

00:39:09.860 movement

00:39:10.440 and this isn't

00:39:11.940 something I've talked

00:39:12.660 about much in public

00:39:13.540 but here goes

00:39:15.500 this should get me

00:39:16.720 in lots of trouble

00:39:17.420 so

00:39:18.200 and there's a variety

00:39:20.400 of things

00:39:20.700 that are tangled

00:39:21.200 together here

00:39:21.840 so we don't know

00:39:23.440 how female biology

00:39:25.520 would manifest itself

00:39:26.820 politically

00:39:27.560 male biology does

00:39:29.040 female biology

00:39:30.260 is going to

00:39:30.920 and that's because

00:39:31.880 female political activity

00:39:33.840 on the largest

00:39:34.580 possible scale

00:39:35.500 is a relatively

00:39:36.360 new phenomenon

00:39:37.520 so

00:39:38.180 and it isn't

00:39:39.660 obviously the case

00:39:41.080 that men and

00:39:41.740 women's views

00:39:43.120 of the world

00:39:43.600 are going to

00:39:44.040 dovetail precisely

00:39:44.980 so here's a hypothesis

00:39:46.340 you tell me

00:39:47.260 what you think

00:39:47.640 about this

00:39:48.080 so

00:39:48.920 one thing

00:39:50.680 that a woman

00:39:51.620 really wants to know

00:39:52.800 about a man

00:39:53.660 or

00:39:54.480 perhaps you might say

00:39:56.420 one thing that

00:39:57.220 femininity wants to know

00:39:58.820 about masculinity

00:39:59.580 is that it's not

00:40:01.220 a predatory tyrant

00:40:02.620 okay so

00:40:04.300 and here's why

00:40:05.180 I mean first of all

00:40:06.260 there's

00:40:07.180 fragility in feminine

00:40:08.920 sexuality

00:40:09.560 to a greater degree

00:40:10.960 than there is

00:40:11.520 in male sexuality

00:40:12.680 because women

00:40:13.280 bear a higher price

00:40:15.480 for sexual misadventure

00:40:17.200 let's say

00:40:17.660 and are perhaps

00:40:19.180 more prone to

00:40:20.000 exploitation by force

00:40:21.560 but more than that

00:40:23.140 part of being a woman

00:40:25.400 is having the possibility

00:40:26.980 of bringing something

00:40:27.940 extraordinarily fragile

00:40:29.080 and vulnerable

00:40:30.280 and valuable

00:40:31.220 into the world

00:40:32.000 and the first concern

00:40:33.620 might be

00:40:34.200 are you a predator

00:40:36.200 fundamentally

00:40:38.480 are you a predator

00:40:39.460 and so

00:40:40.140 what I see happening

00:40:41.220 in the

00:40:41.640 in the feminist disciplines

00:40:43.120 like gender studies

00:40:44.060 is the politicization

00:40:45.260 of that accusation

00:40:46.340 and the accusation

00:40:47.640 is

00:40:47.840 prove to me

00:40:49.520 that you're not a predator

00:40:50.960 like in your fund

00:40:52.640 in the fundamental element

00:40:54.000 of your masculinity

00:40:54.980 not only historically

00:40:56.300 but now

00:40:57.060 because the cost

00:40:58.200 of you being a predator

00:40:59.100 is too high

00:41:00.320 now

00:41:01.120 I feel that

00:41:02.360 that's an inappropriate

00:41:03.640 I think that's

00:41:04.780 what's driving

00:41:05.340 the demolition

00:41:06.060 of the idea

00:41:06.600 of presumption

00:41:07.160 of innocence

00:41:07.580 for example

00:41:08.280 we'll start

00:41:09.220 with presumption

00:41:09.860 of guilt

00:41:10.380 and prove

00:41:11.540 you'll be proved

00:41:12.500 to me

00:41:12.780 that you're innocent

00:41:13.440 and I think

00:41:14.940 the problem

00:41:15.620 with that

00:41:16.220 isn't that

00:41:17.080 there are no

00:41:17.700 predatory men

00:41:18.600 because there are

00:41:19.500 plenty of predatory men

00:41:20.720 the problem is

00:41:21.940 is that

00:41:22.320 the courageous way

00:41:24.060 to deal with

00:41:24.740 the problem

00:41:25.340 of the predator

00:41:26.420 is to offer

00:41:27.780 a hand

00:41:28.300 in courageous trust

00:41:29.500 and to invite

00:41:30.560 forward a partner

00:41:31.600 from the monster

00:41:32.520 that's the

00:41:33.680 that's the mythological

00:41:35.160 manner in which

00:41:35.900 this is supposed

00:41:36.520 to be undertaken

00:41:37.260 the courageous

00:41:38.400 a courageous part

00:41:40.680 of the woman's journey

00:41:41.840 let's say

00:41:42.420 is to face

00:41:43.480 the monstrosity

00:41:44.460 of a man

00:41:45.100 and to invite

00:41:46.360 out of that

00:41:47.120 something more noble

00:41:48.220 to emerge

00:41:49.200 and there's courage

00:41:50.320 in that

00:41:50.640 and genuine risk

00:41:51.700 and I think

00:41:52.740 that that's foregone

00:41:53.900 in the accusation process

00:41:55.560 and then

00:41:56.000 the

00:41:56.640 the other element

00:41:58.000 of that

00:41:58.460 seems to me

00:41:59.240 to be

00:41:59.560 that

00:42:00.380 well if you are

00:42:01.320 a predator

00:42:01.780 and you're irredeemable

00:42:03.640 in your predatory nature

00:42:05.300 then the best thing

00:42:06.380 to do is to

00:42:07.200 render you harmless

00:42:09.040 and if we're going

00:42:10.280 to obscure

00:42:11.320 the relationship

00:42:12.000 between competence

00:42:12.820 and power

00:42:13.440 and assume that

00:42:14.380 all of your striving

00:42:15.480 upward is merely

00:42:16.280 a manifestation

00:42:16.860 of power

00:42:17.440 then what we'll do

00:42:18.240 is weaken you

00:42:18.800 as much as possible

00:42:19.580 so that

00:42:20.060 harmlessness

00:42:20.800 can replace virtue

00:42:22.120 and I see all of that

00:42:23.880 driving these

00:42:24.740 resentful

00:42:25.580 disciplines

00:42:26.300 and their ideology

00:42:27.440 so the aim

00:42:28.060 is the emasculation

00:42:29.240 of the man

00:42:29.880 yeah that's the evil queen

00:42:31.440 yeah

00:42:31.920 because we have

00:42:32.860 the evil king

00:42:33.500 right

00:42:33.740 that's the tyrannical

00:42:34.620 patriarchy

00:42:35.300 well the evil queen

00:42:36.640 is lurking somewhere

00:42:37.760 yes

00:42:38.600 so

00:42:39.060 the problem is

00:42:41.620 a lot of this is true

00:42:43.780 but

00:42:44.540 our society

00:42:46.440 does not seem

00:42:47.040 to have

00:42:47.380 the capacity

00:42:48.460 to put that

00:42:49.480 to one side

00:42:50.140 and celebrate

00:42:50.740 the normal

00:42:51.560 the fact that

00:42:53.380 most men

00:42:54.040 and most women

00:42:54.740 are not like that

00:42:55.820 and that

00:42:56.720 there is

00:42:57.340 there is

00:42:58.060 a natural

00:42:59.660 desire

00:43:00.620 and need

00:43:01.140 of the sexes

00:43:01.820 to love each other

00:43:02.680 to be united

00:43:03.580 and to create

00:43:04.640 children

00:43:05.060 and so on

00:43:05.720 and that the old

00:43:07.700 stability

00:43:08.660 that was built

00:43:10.720 upon this

00:43:11.300 has gone

00:43:12.000 so I mean

00:43:13.000 that

00:43:13.260 nobody wants

00:43:15.120 nobody in the

00:43:15.760 intellectual world

00:43:16.640 wants to celebrate

00:43:17.880 that

00:43:18.220 so

00:43:18.480 I just

00:43:19.920 I had this interview

00:43:21.020 a few

00:43:22.080 a month ago

00:43:22.920 or so

00:43:23.240 with a woman

00:43:24.060 from GQ

00:43:24.780 and she was

00:43:25.880 fully on board

00:43:27.980 the predatory

00:43:30.080 male train

00:43:30.700 let's say

00:43:31.180 and you know

00:43:32.180 when people like that

00:43:33.420 interview me

00:43:33.960 they start talking

00:43:34.660 about the patriarchy

00:43:35.500 and I say

00:43:35.960 well I don't

00:43:36.760 believe in the patriarchy

00:43:37.860 I don't buy that

00:43:39.360 conceptual structure

00:43:40.360 what's so interesting

00:43:41.440 and this has happened

00:43:42.060 more and more

00:43:42.580 over the years

00:43:44.180 as they've developed

00:43:44.900 is first of all

00:43:46.240 the person

00:43:47.360 that I would be

00:43:48.140 talking to

00:43:48.620 had some idea

00:43:49.960 that it was

00:43:50.840 hypothetically possible

00:43:52.040 to reject the idea

00:43:53.240 of the patriarchy

00:43:53.980 but now

00:43:54.920 when I say

00:43:55.720 I don't believe in it

00:43:56.540 it's

00:43:57.140 that idea is meant

00:43:58.660 with stunned disbelief

00:44:00.340 it's like

00:44:00.700 what do you mean

00:44:01.500 you don't believe

00:44:02.320 in the tyrannical patriarchy

00:44:03.840 everyone knows

00:44:05.460 that's true

00:44:06.160 and I think

00:44:07.220 well so here's

00:44:07.980 your hypothesis

00:44:08.700 so this is the hypothesis

00:44:10.220 is that

00:44:10.720 throughout history

00:44:12.160 the fundamental

00:44:13.500 relationship

00:44:14.140 between man and woman

00:44:15.500 is one of parasitism

00:44:16.860 and exploitation

00:44:17.700 that's it

00:44:18.660 and so

00:44:19.060 and that's the case

00:44:20.060 I guess until 1960

00:44:21.460 and the publication

00:44:22.720 of the feminine mystique

00:44:24.060 or something like that

00:44:24.860 but that's the entire

00:44:25.700 course of human history

00:44:26.840 when it seems to me

00:44:28.800 that the appropriate story

00:44:30.000 is that men and women

00:44:31.760 labored mightily

00:44:32.980 under their terrible

00:44:34.220 constraints

00:44:34.940 for uncounted centuries

00:44:37.120 cooperating together

00:44:38.960 by and large

00:44:40.160 to build some modicum

00:44:42.380 of security

00:44:43.020 and freedom

00:44:44.160 and stability

00:44:44.800 so that they could

00:44:45.480 raise children

00:44:46.180 and have a somewhat

00:44:47.320 harmonious and productive life

00:44:49.020 and all of a sudden

00:44:50.080 it's become

00:44:50.600 not only questionable

00:44:52.080 to put forth that

00:44:53.260 as a proposition

00:44:54.220 but somehow tyrannical

00:44:56.420 in essence

00:44:57.980 just for positing it

00:44:59.300 as a reality

00:45:00.120 but that's partly

00:45:01.300 because

00:45:01.700 isn't it because

00:45:02.380 of this peculiar view

00:45:04.060 that underlying all this

00:45:07.180 there's a kind of

00:45:08.080 social structure

00:45:09.100 that this is being created

00:45:10.660 the distinction

00:45:11.340 between men and women

00:45:12.260 doesn't have its basis

00:45:14.080 in nature

00:45:14.760 its basis

00:45:16.000 is in the institutions

00:45:17.340 that we have created

00:45:18.500 and since we created them

00:45:20.000 we can change them

00:45:21.080 that there is

00:45:21.960 there's been

00:45:22.820 this sort of

00:45:23.540 a kind of

00:45:24.720 almost hysterical

00:45:26.680 invasion of everything

00:45:27.960 by the idea of human choice

00:45:29.460 that if there is

00:45:30.840 if there is a

00:45:31.900 a structure

00:45:32.880 to the relation

00:45:33.900 between men and women

00:45:34.720 then we ought to be able

00:45:35.980 to change it

00:45:36.760 and of course

00:45:38.300 it might mean

00:45:39.320 that I have to change my sex

00:45:40.640 in order to

00:45:41.260 to conform

00:45:42.260 to the way things are

00:45:43.560 but that also

00:45:44.640 has become a choice

00:45:45.840 well and is

00:45:46.640 is not the very

00:45:48.060 very

00:45:50.680 constant focus

00:45:52.600 on division

00:45:53.340 whether between man and woman

00:45:54.780 or between left and right

00:45:56.120 or between this race

00:45:57.980 and that race

00:45:58.600 or any other way

00:45:59.680 in which we might

00:46:00.300 we might divide

00:46:01.720 people according to groups

00:46:03.260 isn't that very polarized

00:46:05.180 fracture

00:46:05.860 that fractured polarization

00:46:08.060 a sign

00:46:10.380 of a loss

00:46:11.700 of a common human culture

00:46:13.400 of a

00:46:14.460 of a

00:46:14.960 of a

00:46:15.340 of a universal plane

00:46:16.700 in which we all

00:46:17.480 we all are

00:46:18.680 as human beings

00:46:19.960 and

00:46:20.500 and

00:46:20.700 so if

00:46:21.980 if

00:46:22.160 if

00:46:22.400 that that's

00:46:23.640 if that's

00:46:24.240 if that is so

00:46:25.160 I suppose

00:46:26.800 what I take to be

00:46:27.620 so very urgent

00:46:28.960 in our time

00:46:29.960 and

00:46:31.260 and I wonder

00:46:32.180 it might be difficult

00:46:34.060 to find anyone

00:46:34.840 who at least

00:46:36.180 when you go down

00:46:36.920 to a high enough level

00:46:38.100 of resolution

00:46:38.660 as you say Jordan

00:46:39.460 would not think

00:46:40.560 this is true

00:46:41.220 that we must

00:46:42.300 recover

00:46:42.960 that sense

00:46:44.080 of

00:46:44.760 ourselves

00:46:46.020 as

00:46:47.300 entities

00:46:49.620 that participate

00:46:51.320 in a universal

00:46:52.720 and transcendent plane

00:46:53.920 that we have a common

00:46:54.960 culture

00:46:55.720 that I see myself

00:46:57.100 in the other

00:46:57.660 as you

00:46:58.120 were saying earlier

00:46:59.420 Roger

00:46:59.820 and I'd like to have

00:47:00.960 both of your thoughts

00:47:01.940 on what

00:47:02.680 strategies

00:47:04.680 or means

00:47:05.580 for that

00:47:07.080 recovery

00:47:07.960 and perhaps

00:47:09.200 we can focus

00:47:09.960 particularly on

00:47:10.840 the

00:47:11.560 the questions

00:47:14.340 that we started with

00:47:15.800 with

00:47:16.080 art

00:47:17.040 music

00:47:18.080 you've written

00:47:19.300 extensively in architecture

00:47:20.320 of course

00:47:20.840 Roger

00:47:23.400 and you've thought

00:47:24.360 long and hard

00:47:24.840 about the humanities

00:47:25.640 Jordan

00:47:26.300 what is

00:47:27.100 what is the character

00:47:28.340 of recovery

00:47:29.260 how do we bring that about

00:47:30.760 well

00:47:32.140 if I may begin

00:47:34.560 I think that

00:47:35.320 there are

00:47:37.080 well first of all

00:47:38.100 you have to identify

00:47:39.100 those aspects

00:47:40.700 of the human condition

00:47:41.840 that move

00:47:43.600 of their own accord

00:47:44.820 towards reconciliation

00:47:45.820 you know

00:47:47.100 rather than conflict

00:47:48.400 and division

00:47:50.120 of the sort

00:47:50.640 that you were referring to

00:47:51.620 and we are very familiar

00:47:54.040 with them

00:47:54.680 it's not just

00:47:55.480 love

00:47:57.420 which of course

00:47:57.980 is something

00:47:58.500 which is a very complex

00:47:59.820 sin

00:48:00.060 and can't be

00:48:00.620 just conjured

00:48:01.800 from the skies

00:48:02.500 but there are

00:48:03.160 other aspects

00:48:04.860 of our condition

00:48:05.880 that we can

00:48:06.660 educate

00:48:07.980 through

00:48:08.840 first of all

00:48:11.120 through studying examples

00:48:12.200 and then through

00:48:12.880 imitation

00:48:13.460 and then through

00:48:14.560 self-discipline

00:48:16.400 obviously forgiveness

00:48:17.640 is one of these things

00:48:19.240 and the habit

00:48:21.580 of putting yourself

00:48:22.960 in another person's

00:48:24.380 perspective

00:48:24.960 looking at yourself

00:48:26.320 from outside

00:48:27.100 and wondering

00:48:28.760 whether

00:48:29.280 you know

00:48:30.100 you are

00:48:30.980 as so seen

00:48:32.860 acceptable to yourself

00:48:34.360 all those

00:48:35.260 you know

00:48:35.860 of course

00:48:36.420 again

00:48:36.800 religion

00:48:37.940 the Christian religion

00:48:39.200 at least

00:48:39.680 was built upon

00:48:42.440 that kind of

00:48:43.200 intellectual discipline

00:48:44.300 the discipline

00:48:45.460 of seeing

00:48:46.440 your neighbor

00:48:47.440 as yourself

00:48:48.120 and seeing yourself

00:48:50.020 therefore

00:48:50.380 as a mere neighbor

00:48:51.440 and

00:48:52.880 I

00:48:54.140 I suspect

00:48:56.740 that you have

00:48:57.500 we have to

00:48:58.200 revive those

00:49:00.000 basic moral

00:49:01.140 disciplines

00:49:03.000 not

00:49:03.960 for the use

00:49:05.440 of people

00:49:05.800 who don't have

00:49:06.680 the overarching faith

00:49:08.440 the belief

00:49:09.600 in the

00:49:10.460 transcendental judgment

00:49:11.660 to which we will

00:49:12.760 be all called

00:49:13.760 but who nevertheless

00:49:14.960 have to be shown

00:49:16.340 that we do

00:49:17.340 live our lives

00:49:18.360 as an object

00:49:18.960 of judgment

00:49:19.500 nevertheless

00:49:19.980 and

00:49:21.200 here are some guides

00:49:22.880 just read

00:49:24.380 Anna Karenina

00:49:25.040 for example

00:49:26.100 I know

00:49:27.960 it takes a long time

00:49:28.940 for Facebook

00:49:29.760 addicted youth

00:49:30.760 to read

00:49:31.200 Anna Karenina

00:49:32.140 but there's still

00:49:33.100 hope

00:49:33.500 you know

00:49:34.740 and they're likely

00:49:36.080 to listen to it

00:49:36.920 if it becomes

00:49:37.460 an audio book

00:49:38.220 so

00:49:38.960 so

00:49:39.680 well because

00:49:41.380 maybe more people

00:49:42.140 can listen

00:49:42.660 than can read

00:49:43.400 I mean

00:49:44.260 so

00:49:46.300 so let's

00:49:47.140 let's think about

00:49:47.920 literature

00:49:48.320 for a bit

00:49:49.560 and so

00:49:50.160 now

00:49:51.340 if you read

00:49:53.000 something like

00:49:53.540 a Dostoevsky novel

00:49:54.600 or Anna Karenina

00:49:56.060 you're not

00:49:57.780 really reading

00:49:58.840 the account

00:49:59.660 of a single

00:50:00.160 person's life

00:50:00.880 what you're reading

00:50:02.360 is

00:50:02.680 it's like

00:50:03.800 the author

00:50:04.640 has

00:50:05.040 taken a variety

00:50:06.580 of lives

00:50:07.180 and amalgamated

00:50:08.780 them and unified

00:50:09.520 them into something

00:50:10.860 that's like a

00:50:11.540 it's like a compilation

00:50:12.740 of lives

00:50:13.620 so it's like

00:50:14.540 it's like life

00:50:15.460 writ large

00:50:16.180 so that's what

00:50:16.800 fiction is

00:50:17.540 it's more true

00:50:18.720 than

00:50:19.020 than reality

00:50:20.020 because

00:50:20.860 just like a

00:50:21.800 mathematical abstraction

00:50:22.860 can be more real

00:50:23.780 than the thing

00:50:24.320 that it represents

00:50:24.980 in some sense

00:50:26.140 the fiction

00:50:27.400 is

00:50:27.820 it's like

00:50:28.900 it's like a portrait

00:50:29.760 if you sit

00:50:30.540 for a portrait

00:50:31.140 you'll sit

00:50:32.100 and the artist

00:50:32.840 will paint you

00:50:33.420 and then you'll sit

00:50:33.960 again

00:50:34.240 and then you'll sit

00:50:34.800 again

00:50:35.060 and then you'll sit

00:50:35.620 again

00:50:35.940 and so

00:50:36.320 the portrait

00:50:37.120 is actually

00:50:37.640 a composite

00:50:38.380 of you

00:50:39.100 and so

00:50:39.800 it's got a richness

00:50:40.520 sometimes

00:50:41.000 that a photograph

00:50:41.580 can't match

00:50:42.300 and a fictional

00:50:43.260 character

00:50:43.680 is actually

00:50:44.140 a composite

00:50:44.880 of many people

00:50:45.940 and so

00:50:46.700 the opportunity

00:50:47.740 to read a great

00:50:48.660 work of fiction

00:50:49.680 is the opportunity

00:50:50.960 to place yourself

00:50:52.260 in the perspective

00:50:53.860 not of merely

00:50:55.080 another person

00:50:55.880 like you do

00:50:56.580 in normal discourse

00:50:57.420 in a mundane setting

00:50:58.540 but to place yourself

00:50:59.980 in the perspective

00:51:01.260 of a compiled character

00:51:03.320 so you

00:51:03.940 I've experienced

00:51:05.100 that extraordinarily

00:51:05.860 powerfully

00:51:06.420 with Dostoevsky's

00:51:07.640 Crime and Punishment

00:51:08.380 to put myself

00:51:09.440 in the position

00:51:10.060 of this student

00:51:11.300 who was nihilistic

00:51:12.940 and who had

00:51:13.820 every reason

00:51:14.760 to commit murder

00:51:15.760 and it's an

00:51:16.560 unbelievably intense

00:51:17.860 novel

00:51:18.580 because everybody

00:51:19.260 in the novel

00:51:20.380 is hyper real

00:51:21.660 and we think

00:51:22.880 of fiction

00:51:23.340 as falsity

00:51:24.240 or as untruth

00:51:27.500 and it's not

00:51:28.260 it's abstraction

00:51:29.940 and abstraction

00:51:30.720 isn't untruth

00:51:31.860 it's more than

00:51:33.240 truth often

00:51:34.040 and so

00:51:34.920 the humanities

00:51:36.140 can help us

00:51:36.880 walk through

00:51:37.540 the souls of others

00:51:38.900 and because

00:51:39.820 we can imitate

00:51:40.520 and it's one of our

00:51:41.600 primary remarkable

00:51:43.400 miraculous abilities

00:51:44.540 we can imitate

00:51:46.060 the compiled characters

00:51:48.500 that we encounter

00:51:49.300 in literature

00:51:50.160 and mythology

00:51:50.800 and religion

00:51:51.460 and that does help

00:51:52.600 flesh us out

00:51:53.400 and ennoble us

00:51:54.720 and we can

00:51:55.540 we can

00:51:55.980 I just wrote the

00:51:58.820 forward to

00:51:59.460 Solzhenitsyn's

00:52:00.380 50th anniversary

00:52:02.580 version of the

00:52:03.840 Gulag Archipelago

00:52:04.620 the abridged version

00:52:05.420 and I ran across

00:52:06.280 his fervent wish

00:52:08.280 that

00:52:08.680 people could learn

00:52:11.620 from what he

00:52:12.320 communicated

00:52:13.180 all the horror

00:52:14.220 and suffering

00:52:14.860 to put themselves

00:52:16.080 in the position

00:52:16.720 of both the

00:52:17.580 perpetrator

00:52:18.140 and the accused

00:52:19.760 simultaneously

00:52:20.640 and to decide

00:52:21.960 that that's not

00:52:23.160 the road to walk

00:52:24.200 down

00:52:24.600 and so

00:52:25.660 the advantage

00:52:26.600 of placing yourself

00:52:27.600 in the position

00:52:28.220 of other people

00:52:28.880 is that if they're

00:52:29.520 good people

00:52:29.980 then you can be

00:52:30.600 like them

00:52:31.020 and if they're

00:52:31.440 not good people

00:52:32.140 then you can

00:52:32.620 avoid that pathway

00:52:33.540 and then you

00:52:34.200 don't have to

00:52:34.780 learn that

00:52:35.380 through the agony

00:52:37.160 of direct

00:52:37.880 personal experience

00:52:38.940 in the short

00:52:39.600 span of your life

00:52:40.680 there's nothing

00:52:41.640 more

00:52:41.980 there's nothing

00:52:42.840 greater than

00:52:43.560 you can do

00:52:44.180 for people

00:52:45.020 than to introduce

00:52:45.700 them into those

00:52:46.500 patterned stories

00:52:47.380 so that they

00:52:48.340 can gain

00:52:48.960 from the catastrophes

00:52:50.120 of the past

00:52:50.880 no I agree

00:52:52.840 with that

00:52:53.220 but of course

00:52:53.880 in fiction

00:52:56.740 one's also

00:52:57.500 concerned

00:52:58.960 to identify

00:53:00.140 if you're

00:53:00.840 writing fiction

00:53:01.440 identify

00:53:02.080 with a character

00:53:03.040 in order

00:53:04.300 to understand

00:53:05.100 that character

00:53:05.860 because

00:53:06.400 it's not

00:53:07.440 as though

00:53:07.960 you can't

00:53:10.420 actually grasp

00:53:12.540 a character

00:53:13.360 from the outside

00:53:14.380 you have to

00:53:15.300 be able

00:53:15.740 to see

00:53:16.340 through his eyes

00:53:17.900 what the world

00:53:19.360 is in which

00:53:20.020 he is

00:53:20.480 and that is

00:53:20.940 I think

00:53:21.340 an exercise

00:53:22.300 of the imagination

00:53:23.120 which I value

00:53:23.940 greatly

00:53:24.520 and

00:53:25.780 you don't

00:53:27.660 necessarily come

00:53:28.420 to a conclusion

00:53:29.300 that therefore

00:53:29.980 I don't want

00:53:30.520 to be like that

00:53:31.520 it might be

00:53:32.680 just enough

00:53:33.100 to say

00:53:33.540 now I see

00:53:34.740 that that's

00:53:35.860 a possible

00:53:36.320 human being

00:53:37.300 and your

00:53:38.720 knowledge

00:53:39.320 of the possibilities

00:53:40.120 is amplified

00:53:41.440 and your

00:53:42.900 sense

00:53:43.280 your ability

00:53:44.600 to position

00:53:45.560 yourself

00:53:46.160 in those

00:53:46.960 possibilities

00:53:47.540 also I think

00:53:48.560 right so that's

00:53:49.440 a matter of

00:53:49.920 differentiation

00:53:50.440 as well as

00:53:51.240 direction

00:53:51.680 yes

00:53:52.200 and I think

00:53:53.040 sometimes in my

00:53:53.880 more dire moments

00:53:54.820 that this

00:53:55.780 opposition to

00:53:56.840 cultural appropriation

00:53:58.180 right so the idea

00:53:59.720 that I'm not allowed

00:54:00.780 anymore to imagine

00:54:01.740 myself say

00:54:02.540 fictionally as a woman

00:54:03.580 or as a character

00:54:04.980 from another ethnicity

00:54:06.020 or even to play

00:54:06.840 the role

00:54:07.520 that role

00:54:08.520 as an actor

00:54:09.540 I think that

00:54:10.560 it's part of

00:54:12.600 the assault

00:54:13.180 on the idea

00:54:13.900 of the individual

00:54:15.120 and the non-zero

00:54:16.800 sum game

00:54:17.480 because it

00:54:18.560 precludes

00:54:19.560 the possibility

00:54:20.400 that I can take

00:54:21.380 on the role

00:54:22.380 of another

00:54:22.720 in an understanding

00:54:23.540 manner

00:54:23.960 and actually

00:54:24.660 facilitate a dialogue

00:54:25.860 and that undermines

00:54:27.300 the claim

00:54:27.820 I would say

00:54:28.500 that everything

00:54:29.040 is only

00:54:29.680 a secondary

00:54:30.460 consequence of power

00:54:31.620 because if I can

00:54:32.400 actually bridge

00:54:33.080 that gap

00:54:33.820 well then

00:54:34.580 I'm not isolated

00:54:35.640 in my group

00:54:36.260 or my ethnicity

00:54:37.020 or whatever it is

00:54:37.920 I can become

00:54:38.880 partly you

00:54:39.660 and we can communicate

00:54:40.560 and I would say

00:54:41.680 because of that

00:54:42.320 literature and art

00:54:43.200 is a great threat

00:54:44.100 to ideology

00:54:45.080 especially of the

00:54:46.000 group identity kind

00:54:46.920 and of course

00:54:47.400 they're perfectly

00:54:48.000 aware of that

00:54:48.700 which is why

00:54:49.500 the radicals

00:54:50.200 on that side

00:54:50.760 of the equation

00:54:51.280 are doing everything

00:54:51.980 they can to

00:54:52.740 I had a reporter

00:54:54.960 from the New York Times

00:54:56.080 who wrote a rather

00:54:56.740 scurrilous piece

00:54:57.480 about me

00:54:57.960 she had done

00:54:58.820 a literature degree

00:54:59.660 at Columbia

00:55:01.560 a bright woman

00:55:03.140 and she told me

00:55:04.160 in all honesty

00:55:04.840 and in apparent

00:55:05.560 transparency

00:55:06.140 that she had

00:55:07.780 no idea

00:55:08.640 this is how deep

00:55:09.760 this has become

00:55:11.460 saturated into

00:55:12.800 our culture

00:55:13.180 she had no idea

00:55:14.360 until she

00:55:14.900 until she had

00:55:16.040 graduated from

00:55:17.180 Columbia

00:55:17.600 that there was

00:55:18.860 any other way

00:55:19.960 of reading a work

00:55:20.840 of literature

00:55:21.320 except through

00:55:22.040 the postmodern lens

00:55:23.180 and the postmodern lens

00:55:24.640 is

00:55:24.920 well

00:55:25.680 who are the groups

00:55:27.000 that are being

00:55:27.480 represented

00:55:28.060 and what power

00:55:29.700 games are at play

00:55:30.860 and who benefits

00:55:31.940 and I mean

00:55:33.360 I don't know

00:55:33.900 because she

00:55:34.740 turned out

00:55:35.280 to be quite

00:55:35.660 a strange person

00:55:36.460 but

00:55:37.720 so I have no idea

00:55:38.660 if that

00:55:39.040 if that was

00:55:39.720 a ploy

00:55:40.220 on her part

00:55:40.920 or whether

00:55:41.320 that was

00:55:41.780 like a

00:55:42.400 like a

00:55:43.200 naive

00:55:43.820 what would you

00:55:45.440 call

00:55:45.640 confession

00:55:46.360 but

00:55:47.180 it's increasingly

00:55:48.140 the case

00:55:48.660 that that is

00:55:49.240 how literature

00:55:49.760 is taught

00:55:50.300 in my home

00:55:51.420 province

00:55:51.820 of Ontario

00:55:52.420 the elementary

00:55:53.220 teachers

00:55:53.660 federation

00:55:54.120 of Ontario

00:55:54.660 wants to

00:55:55.200 start teaching

00:55:55.800 literature

00:55:56.200 from a

00:55:56.760 postmodern

00:55:57.240 critical perspective

00:55:58.120 in elementary

00:55:58.660 school

00:55:59.020 to demolish

00:56:00.460 it

00:56:00.700 well

00:56:01.760 there we are

00:56:03.100 I mean

00:56:03.360 I'm in favor

00:56:03.980 of cultural

00:56:04.580 cultural appropriation

00:56:06.380 I mean

00:56:06.800 I'm a product

00:56:07.600 of it

00:56:08.040 I appropriated

00:56:09.360 the idea

00:56:09.940 of the

00:56:10.360 English gentleman

00:56:11.340 and you know

00:56:12.500 and I've

00:56:12.940 tried and made

00:56:13.720 myself be it

00:56:14.660 and I know

00:56:16.980 it's a failure

00:56:17.680 because I've

00:56:19.520 that's part of

00:56:20.340 doing it well

00:56:21.060 yeah yeah

00:56:21.600 but I've

00:56:23.060 understood the world

00:56:24.180 from the inside

00:56:24.920 in another way

00:56:25.760 but in

00:56:26.240 I just wrote

00:56:27.420 a book of stories

00:56:28.600 which was just

00:56:29.120 reviewed by

00:56:29.920 somebody who

00:56:31.200 says you know

00:56:31.880 these stories

00:56:33.580 make cultural

00:56:34.440 appropriation

00:56:35.220 into a virtue

00:56:36.280 so I felt

00:56:38.020 good about that

00:56:38.860 they begin

00:56:40.440 with an inside

00:56:42.160 view of the

00:56:42.900 psyche of

00:56:43.560 a terrorist

00:56:45.540 of an Arab

00:56:47.160 terrorist

00:56:47.680 who has a

00:56:49.420 legacy of

00:56:50.080 vengeance

00:56:50.540 and who

00:56:52.880 is a

00:56:53.720 failure

00:56:54.080 and

00:56:55.380 whose loss

00:56:57.800 I try to

00:56:58.340 make real

00:56:58.940 in the

00:57:00.340 feelings of

00:57:01.300 the reader

00:57:01.680 as he

00:57:02.040 reads it

00:57:03.000 and

00:57:04.020 then the

00:57:05.660 subsequent

00:57:06.120 stories show

00:57:06.880 the same

00:57:07.480 kind of loss

00:57:08.280 in completely

00:57:08.840 different people

00:57:09.640 I wanted to

00:57:11.000 bring up that

00:57:12.060 book of stories

00:57:13.140 actually

00:57:13.860 Souls in

00:57:15.340 Twilight

00:57:15.860 by Sir

00:57:17.040 Roger Scruton

00:57:17.760 it's a series

00:57:19.480 of five

00:57:20.260 short stories

00:57:21.400 five I think

00:57:22.100 is it

00:57:22.360 five short stories

00:57:23.100 each which are

00:57:23.800 portraits of a

00:57:24.740 character at a

00:57:25.440 certain moment in

00:57:26.160 time

00:57:26.560 I think it's safe

00:57:27.600 to say Roger

00:57:28.200 that they're all

00:57:28.920 tragic stories

00:57:30.360 in a sense

00:57:31.020 what I found

00:57:33.360 so moving

00:57:34.000 about those

00:57:35.420 stories

00:57:35.900 is that

00:57:36.820 these are

00:57:38.020 individuals in

00:57:38.840 states of

00:57:39.400 dislocation

00:57:40.260 anchorless

00:57:41.300 seeking

00:57:42.960 depth

00:57:43.760 meaning

00:57:44.720 truth

00:57:45.340 stability

00:57:46.000 and yet

00:57:47.540 in their

00:57:48.820 confusion

00:57:49.420 in their

00:57:49.960 darkness

00:57:50.440 willing against

00:57:51.400 that very

00:57:52.080 thing that

00:57:52.520 they seek

00:57:53.300 or you might

00:57:53.980 say violating

00:57:54.660 or transgressing

00:57:55.600 that sacred

00:57:56.960 thing that

00:57:57.420 they're

00:57:57.820 longing for

00:57:59.180 that's not

00:58:01.160 what's beautiful

00:58:01.680 about the

00:58:02.180 book

00:58:02.420 what's beautiful

00:58:04.900 is that in

00:58:05.400 the reading

00:58:05.900 the reader

00:58:07.380 her or

00:58:08.460 himself

00:58:08.820 comes to

00:58:09.500 a sense

00:58:10.040 of what

00:58:11.820 that longing

00:58:12.420 is for

00:58:12.920 positively

00:58:13.600 a sense

00:58:15.120 of the

00:58:15.560 stability

00:58:18.340 of love

00:58:19.180 or of

00:58:20.560 home

00:58:22.020 or of

00:58:22.760 relationship

00:58:23.480 and

00:58:24.440 I suppose

00:58:25.600 what I want

00:58:26.980 to ask

00:58:27.460 following up

00:58:28.060 on this

00:58:28.500 is that

00:58:28.940 that seems

00:58:29.560 to me

00:58:29.780 a profoundly

00:58:30.400 redemptive

00:58:31.100 vision

00:58:31.440 that you

00:58:31.840 have

00:58:32.140 in those

00:58:33.740 beautiful stories

00:58:34.520 Roger

00:58:34.940 that it's

00:58:36.540 showing the

00:58:37.020 persistence

00:58:37.620 of the

00:58:38.640 beautiful

00:58:39.080 and of

00:58:40.000 the good

00:58:40.520 even in

00:58:41.660 its absence

00:58:42.360 that I can

00:58:43.100 read that

00:58:43.520 story and

00:58:43.960 have a

00:58:44.240 perception

00:58:44.620 of what

00:58:44.940 positively

00:58:45.580 I am

00:58:46.500 looking for

00:58:47.240 and to

00:58:47.540 refer to

00:58:48.560 something that

00:58:48.960 you say

00:58:49.240 in one of

00:58:50.160 your books

00:58:50.400 Jordan

00:58:50.700 that even

00:58:52.620 through an

00:58:52.980 experience of

00:58:53.940 evil

00:58:54.620 one can

00:58:55.700 develop an

00:58:57.340 apprehension of

00:58:58.060 what the

00:58:58.360 good is

00:58:59.520 and I'm

00:59:00.040 wondering if

00:59:00.340 you could

00:59:00.560 each say

00:59:01.000 something

00:59:01.360 about

00:59:01.760 either

00:59:04.860 there is

00:59:06.200 a reality

00:59:07.620 to these

00:59:08.020 transcendent

00:59:08.560 things

00:59:08.760 or there

00:59:09.020 is not

00:59:09.400 it's either

00:59:10.320 just a

00:59:10.660 construct

00:59:11.260 goodness

00:59:11.600 or beauty

00:59:12.180 and truth

00:59:12.700 or they

00:59:13.400 have a

00:59:14.120 transcendent

00:59:14.860 and sovereign

00:59:16.380 persistent

00:59:17.500 reality

00:59:18.540 and I'm

00:59:19.280 wondering if

00:59:19.600 you can

00:59:19.900 each say

00:59:20.620 something

00:59:21.180 about

00:59:21.560 the

00:59:22.160 persistence

00:59:24.480 or sovereignty

00:59:25.480 of these

00:59:27.160 things

00:59:27.420 even amidst

00:59:28.220 our

00:59:28.620 darkness

00:59:29.040 and

00:59:30.140 suffering

00:59:31.140 well I

00:59:32.580 would say

00:59:33.260 that

00:59:33.580 in

00:59:34.820 tragedy

00:59:36.240 when tragedy

00:59:36.920 is really

00:59:37.400 effective

00:59:37.900 there is

00:59:39.820 a redemption

00:59:40.700 offered

00:59:41.380 in this

00:59:42.600 through

00:59:42.880 suffering

00:59:43.480 that

00:59:44.120 we

00:59:46.740 encounter

00:59:48.460 the possibility

00:59:49.800 in tragedy

00:59:50.680 that a human

00:59:51.220 being

00:59:51.680 can through

00:59:53.060 the most

00:59:53.660 noble

00:59:54.080 motives

00:59:54.820 also

00:59:56.260 bring

00:59:58.460 down

00:59:59.580 upon

00:59:59.860 himself

01:00:00.320 destruction

01:00:01.180 and

01:00:02.560 this

01:00:03.640 destruction

01:00:04.060 is no

01:00:04.380 different

01:00:04.680 from the

01:00:05.020 destruction

01:00:05.500 it's going

01:00:05.920 to afflict

01:00:06.360 all of us

01:00:06.900 in the end

01:00:07.340 anyway

01:00:07.760 but here

01:00:08.640 is somebody

01:00:09.200 who has

01:00:10.320 faced it

01:00:10.940 down

01:00:11.400 in some

01:00:12.100 way

01:00:12.400 that his

01:00:13.060 nobility

01:00:14.060 of nature

01:00:14.840 and his

01:00:15.480 ability

01:00:15.920 to go out

01:00:16.960 towards others

01:00:17.780 in a condition

01:00:18.700 of love

01:00:19.680 and reconciliation

01:00:20.660 has not been

01:00:22.000 taken away

01:00:22.620 from him

01:00:23.160 and the

01:00:24.260 spectacle

01:00:24.740 of that

01:00:25.400 is all

01:00:27.740 the more

01:00:28.100 intense

01:00:28.600 because

01:00:29.060 nevertheless

01:00:29.900 death

01:00:32.300 intervenes

01:00:33.220 and takes

01:00:33.680 him away

01:00:34.220 as it will

01:00:34.920 take you

01:00:35.700 and me

01:00:36.000 away

01:00:36.320 but without

01:00:37.280 having had

01:00:37.880 the chance

01:00:38.380 to reveal

01:00:39.040 our nobility

01:00:39.920 or even

01:00:40.320 to acquire

01:00:40.840 it

01:00:41.120 so I think

01:00:42.480 that for that

01:00:43.720 reason

01:00:44.100 it's very

01:00:45.040 important

01:00:45.600 that in

01:00:46.880 literature

01:00:47.340 noble

01:00:49.200 characters

01:00:49.740 are seen

01:00:51.040 in a condition

01:00:51.700 of loss

01:00:52.260 sometimes

01:00:53.220 and their

01:00:55.200 redemption

01:00:56.520 comes because

01:00:57.820 even though

01:00:58.980 they've lost

01:00:59.760 what we all

01:01:01.480 must in the end

01:01:02.620 lose

01:01:03.440 there is that

01:01:04.560 in them

01:01:05.040 which is struggling

01:01:05.960 towards reconciliation

01:01:07.120 with their own

01:01:07.960 condition

01:01:08.380 and with others

01:01:09.440 it's the sense

01:01:10.860 that they are

01:01:11.540 living as another

01:01:13.540 and not as a self

01:01:15.020 you know

01:01:15.340 that's I think

01:01:16.160 it's a crucial

01:01:17.100 thing

01:01:17.460 that we see

01:01:18.600 the Gulag

01:01:19.540 archipelago

01:01:20.140 is often viewed

01:01:21.600 as an endless

01:01:22.780 documentation

01:01:23.460 of the horrors

01:01:24.540 of the Soviet

01:01:25.160 enterprise

01:01:25.660 but it was an

01:01:26.860 investigation

01:01:27.420 it was an

01:01:28.400 experiment in

01:01:29.140 literary investigation

01:01:30.300 and that isn't

01:01:32.480 what the book

01:01:33.020 is about

01:01:33.460 the book is about

01:01:34.820 Solzhenitsyn's

01:01:36.220 observations

01:01:36.440 of people

01:01:37.960 in those

01:01:38.740 terrible situations

01:01:39.820 who did not

01:01:41.820 contribute to

01:01:42.680 the terror

01:01:43.220 and who

01:01:43.820 transcended it

01:01:44.880 and the

01:01:45.740 unbelievably

01:01:46.580 powerful impact

01:01:48.400 observing that

01:01:49.800 had on him

01:01:50.680 and the personal

01:01:51.780 transformation

01:01:52.420 he underwent

01:01:53.280 as a consequence

01:01:53.980 of observing

01:01:54.660 those people

01:01:55.260 and the decision

01:01:56.580 he made

01:01:57.200 because of seeing

01:01:58.400 them in their

01:01:59.120 ultimately tragic

01:02:00.340 circumstances

01:02:01.180 transcend that

01:02:02.500 to transform

01:02:04.660 his life

01:02:05.280 from the bottom

01:02:05.940 up

01:02:06.300 and to write

01:02:07.140 this great book

01:02:07.920 and to reveal

01:02:08.660 the utter catastrophe

01:02:09.900 of that entire

01:02:11.080 ideological movement

01:02:12.200 and so

01:02:13.020 you do see the light

01:02:14.960 most clearly

01:02:15.940 when it's superimposed

01:02:17.200 against the darkest

01:02:18.060 possible background

01:02:19.180 and so

01:02:20.240 and great literature

01:02:21.480 which pulls people

01:02:22.660 way down into the

01:02:23.600 depths

01:02:23.900 in this compiled

01:02:26.420 fictional manner

01:02:27.460 and it also does

01:02:28.900 at the same time

01:02:29.620 highlight what's

01:02:30.340 what's the opposite

01:02:31.900 of that

01:02:32.540 so

01:02:33.600 in my reading

01:02:35.860 of your

01:02:36.820 work

01:02:39.240 both of you

01:02:40.500 there's an

01:02:42.540 implicitly theological

01:02:43.720 character here

01:02:45.100 and we can't speak

01:02:46.020 about the transcendent

01:02:46.860 in a certain sense

01:02:47.660 without being theological

01:02:49.620 why is it that

01:02:52.120 we can't just

01:02:52.900 the lights just can't

01:02:53.820 be completely shut out

01:02:54.960 I mean

01:02:55.480 if

01:02:55.860 if

01:02:56.380 if

01:02:56.740 if

01:02:57.600 evil

01:02:58.580 and darkness

01:02:59.400 were the sovereign

01:03:00.680 principles

01:03:01.340 as you might

01:03:02.660 as it might

01:03:03.060 we say

01:03:03.480 metaphysically

01:03:04.280 well they could

01:03:05.040 it could just be all

01:03:06.040 the lights could just

01:03:07.100 be completely blackened

01:03:08.220 and yet that's not

01:03:09.740 what we see

01:03:10.680 and I'm wondering

01:03:11.480 if you

01:03:11.940 would each comment

01:03:13.040 on the

01:03:13.660 what you take

01:03:16.480 to be the

01:03:17.240 what might be

01:03:18.980 what might be

01:03:19.900 a theological

01:03:20.580 articulation

01:03:21.580 of

01:03:22.660 the facts

01:03:23.720 on the ground

01:03:24.320 if the facts are

01:03:25.260 that you can't

01:03:25.740 shut the lights

01:03:26.260 right out

01:03:26.660 that they're still there

01:03:27.600 what

01:03:28.180 what's going on there

01:03:30.660 I totally agree

01:03:32.360 with what Jordan

01:03:33.420 said about

01:03:34.140 the Gulag

01:03:35.040 archipelago

01:03:35.800 and that

01:03:37.960 goes back

01:03:38.680 to

01:03:39.160 Dostoevsky's

01:03:40.960 from the

01:03:41.920 House of the Dead

01:03:42.760 you know

01:03:43.120 his account

01:03:43.880 of being

01:03:44.780 in a tsarist

01:03:45.540 much milder

01:03:47.260 kind of imprisonment

01:03:48.340 but nevertheless

01:03:48.860 it was full of

01:03:49.940 almost a vacation home

01:03:51.000 in comparison

01:03:52.360 I agree

01:03:52.980 but nevertheless

01:03:53.740 he described

01:03:54.620 these characters

01:03:55.400 for whom

01:03:56.760 everything had

01:03:57.700 been taken away

01:03:58.600 but he also

01:04:00.480 notes that

01:04:01.500 in each of them

01:04:02.660 I can find

01:04:04.440 the spark of God

01:04:05.480 something which

01:04:07.360 Janáček

01:04:08.040 repeated

01:04:09.100 when he made

01:04:10.280 this into

01:04:10.900 that wonderful

01:04:12.360 libretto

01:04:12.880 for his opera

01:04:13.660 and Janáček

01:04:17.040 tried to show

01:04:17.760 in music

01:04:18.380 how these

01:04:19.500 derelict characters

01:04:20.600 will suddenly shine

01:04:22.160 with that

01:04:22.700 light from

01:04:23.740 another source

01:04:24.620 that doesn't come

01:04:26.360 just from what

01:04:27.740 they are

01:04:28.220 in those circumstances

01:04:29.640 but from something

01:04:30.440 higher

01:04:30.860 and I think

01:04:31.800 I would say

01:04:34.280 one is always

01:04:35.260 obliged to use

01:04:36.680 metaphors

01:04:37.300 when we get

01:04:37.780 to this point

01:04:38.640 but it is true

01:04:40.420 that you can

01:04:42.340 find in someone

01:04:43.900 even in the most

01:04:44.700 deprived and

01:04:45.540 desolate

01:04:46.000 circumstances

01:04:47.440 that on which

01:04:48.560 you can blow

01:04:49.360 to cause the

01:04:51.360 spark once again

01:04:52.300 to light up

01:04:54.260 inside him

01:04:54.900 and that is

01:04:55.900 as far as we

01:04:56.980 get to meeting

01:04:58.300 God

01:04:58.780 but there is

01:05:01.260 no reason to

01:05:01.920 think that we

01:05:02.580 need to get

01:05:03.120 any further

01:05:03.740 in my view

01:05:05.020 that's what

01:05:06.720 everybody saw

01:05:07.920 in Maximilian

01:05:09.020 Colbert

01:05:09.640 when he

01:05:10.140 offered himself

01:05:12.120 in Auschwitz

01:05:14.040 as a sacrifice

01:05:16.680 and why he

01:05:18.060 was canonized

01:05:20.380 you know

01:05:20.960 that suddenly

01:05:21.900 you see

01:05:22.440 that there is

01:05:23.000 something else

01:05:23.600 in all of us

01:05:24.280 which in

01:05:25.640 circumstances

01:05:28.120 however severe

01:05:29.520 and deprived

01:05:30.440 will shine

01:05:32.160 with a different

01:05:33.300 light

01:05:33.680 and make those

01:05:35.200 circumstances

01:05:35.880 worthwhile

01:05:36.980 because they

01:05:37.680 produced that

01:05:38.400 light

01:05:38.560 it could be

01:05:39.400 in some sense

01:05:40.140 the mercy

01:05:40.700 of God

01:05:41.220 that keeps

01:05:41.700 him hidden

01:05:42.060 from us

01:05:42.620 because if you

01:05:43.640 imagine that

01:05:44.440 your sacred

01:05:46.080 duty is to

01:05:47.060 blow on those

01:05:48.300 embers that you

01:05:49.000 described even

01:05:49.940 among people

01:05:50.940 who are in

01:05:51.840 desolate straits

01:05:52.940 then every time

01:05:54.560 you fail to

01:05:55.460 take that

01:05:56.120 opportunity

01:05:56.640 then you tilt

01:05:57.660 things badly

01:05:58.440 towards what

01:05:59.460 they shouldn't

01:05:59.960 be tilted towards

01:06:00.880 and it could be

01:06:01.820 that the revelation

01:06:02.900 of your inadequacy

01:06:04.500 in the face

01:06:05.120 of that moral

01:06:06.300 duty

01:06:06.720 which would be

01:06:07.660 in some sense

01:06:08.460 equivalent to

01:06:09.240 an encounter

01:06:10.000 with God

01:06:10.560 would be enough

01:06:11.360 to tear you

01:06:12.000 into pieces

01:06:12.600 and so maybe

01:06:13.600 you get glimpses

01:06:14.600 of that now

01:06:15.260 and then

01:06:15.580 because that's

01:06:16.160 all you

01:06:17.540 in your current

01:06:18.380 depraved moral

01:06:19.320 state could stand

01:06:20.400 of seeing

01:06:20.860 of the face

01:06:21.440 of God

01:06:21.900 and I think

01:06:22.840 there's something

01:06:23.340 to that

01:06:23.920 that's what

01:06:24.640 Simone Weil

01:06:26.100 says things

01:06:27.240 to that effect

01:06:28.000 I think

01:06:28.460 yeah

01:06:28.840 and yes

01:06:30.640 I often heard

01:06:32.240 in the old

01:06:33.060 communist days

01:06:33.920 when I used to

01:06:34.380 travel around

01:06:34.940 eastern Europe

01:06:35.540 and meet people

01:06:37.080 who were in

01:06:37.660 really dire straits

01:06:38.940 they said similar

01:06:39.880 things

01:06:40.520 you know

01:06:40.840 that God

01:06:44.520 would reveal

01:06:45.160 himself

01:06:45.680 but in these

01:06:47.640 circumstances

01:06:48.320 the revelation

01:06:49.100 would be something

01:06:49.780 too strong

01:06:50.600 for what I could

01:06:51.540 bear

01:06:51.920 that's a beautiful

01:06:56.180 image you've given

01:06:56.900 us Roger

01:06:57.800 of blowing

01:06:58.460 on the embers

01:06:59.160 within

01:07:00.900 blowing on the

01:07:01.880 embers of

01:07:02.480 transcendence

01:07:03.320 I'd like to ask

01:07:05.040 you both about

01:07:05.820 the forms of

01:07:07.000 culture

01:07:07.680 and institutional

01:07:09.060 life

01:07:09.680 that produce

01:07:11.580 that blowing

01:07:12.480 on the embers

01:07:13.360 in the individual

01:07:14.220 it seems to me

01:07:14.760 both of you

01:07:15.200 have a very

01:07:15.980 deep sense

01:07:17.380 of the dignity

01:07:18.580 of the human

01:07:19.440 individual

01:07:19.980 of the individual's

01:07:21.320 connection

01:07:22.420 to the transcendent

01:07:24.360 the grounding

01:07:25.180 fact

01:07:26.540 of our existence

01:07:27.600 what would be

01:07:29.420 the forms

01:07:30.420 of culture

01:07:31.100 that we would

01:07:32.400 say to be

01:07:33.000 necessary

01:07:33.620 or most

01:07:34.420 most inclined

01:07:35.840 to foster

01:07:36.540 in the individual

01:07:38.700 that

01:07:39.700 blowing

01:07:40.800 of the flame

01:07:42.000 I think the

01:07:44.100 most accessible

01:07:44.920 form for

01:07:46.740 most people

01:07:47.640 is music

01:07:48.240 and music

01:07:49.820 to me is the

01:07:50.760 most representational

01:07:51.920 form of art

01:07:52.800 because I think

01:07:53.980 that the world

01:07:54.540 is made out of

01:07:55.180 patterns

01:07:55.640 and we perceive

01:07:57.580 some patterns

01:07:58.280 as objects

01:07:58.900 but fundamentally

01:07:59.680 it's patterns

01:08:00.420 and what you want

01:08:02.040 is all the patterns

01:08:03.500 of the world

01:08:04.000 to interact

01:08:04.660 harmoniously

01:08:05.440 in something

01:08:06.720 where every element

01:08:08.020 is related

01:08:08.740 intelligibly

01:08:09.480 to every other element

01:08:10.520 and I think

01:08:11.380 that when your

01:08:11.780 life is in harmony

01:08:12.760 that you can feel that

01:08:14.340 and when you're dancing

01:08:15.600 to beautiful music

01:08:16.620 you're acting that out

01:08:17.740 it's the music

01:08:18.880 is the music

01:08:20.720 of the spheres

01:08:21.420 and you're participating

01:08:22.880 in the patterning

01:08:23.820 of your being

01:08:24.480 in accordance

01:08:24.980 with that structure

01:08:25.860 and that gives you

01:08:26.820 an intimation

01:08:27.520 of transcendence

01:08:29.240 and it's not

01:08:31.060 criticizable

01:08:32.020 that's the thing

01:08:32.680 that's so lovely

01:08:33.280 about it

01:08:33.760 is even as our society

01:08:35.380 has become more cynical

01:08:36.580 and more self-destructive

01:08:38.360 and more deconstructionist

01:08:39.720 the power of music

01:08:40.880 has in fact grown

01:08:41.860 because it speaks

01:08:43.080 to that eternal harmony

01:08:44.960 and the reality

01:08:46.080 of that eternal harmony

01:08:47.120 in a way

01:08:47.520 that mere intellect

01:08:49.500 cannot deny

01:08:50.560 and I mean

01:08:51.380 I was always amused

01:08:52.340 I went to this show

01:08:53.480 The Ramones

01:08:54.620 a punk band

01:08:55.640 from New York

01:08:56.240 it was the loudest

01:08:57.220 concert I'd ever heard

01:08:58.380 by a good factor

01:08:59.840 of ten

01:09:00.420 my ears rang

01:09:01.560 for like three days

01:09:02.420 afterwards

01:09:02.820 and there were all these

01:09:04.320 like nihilistic

01:09:05.740 punk rockers

01:09:06.660 crammed into this theater

01:09:08.000 and below me

01:09:09.000 there was a mosh pit

01:09:10.320 and it was like

01:09:11.100 ants on a frying pan

01:09:12.240 they were just

01:09:12.640 smashing into each other

01:09:13.840 and throwing people

01:09:15.200 around up

01:09:15.820 above them

01:09:16.900 and it was quite rough

01:09:17.840 and they were all

01:09:18.620 having this beautifully

01:09:19.840 transcendent musical experience

01:09:22.480 which belied

01:09:23.600 all of their nihilism

01:09:24.720 and it was

01:09:25.540 and they absolutely

01:09:26.700 thrived on it

01:09:28.140 it was like

01:09:28.600 and even the lyrics

01:09:29.400 were harsh

01:09:30.080 and nihilistic

01:09:31.060 but it didn't matter

01:09:31.860 because the music

01:09:33.260 even if it's rough

01:09:34.120 even if in its rough form

01:09:35.980 was something

01:09:36.780 that united them

01:09:37.800 in the sense of this

01:09:38.760 like patterned beauty

01:09:40.160 and brought them together

01:09:41.420 and so

01:09:42.300 exposure to music

01:09:43.600 that's

01:09:44.120 people die without music

01:09:45.640 it's like

01:09:46.260 music is everything

01:09:47.480 I mean it's not everything

01:09:49.160 but

01:09:49.460 I beg to disagree

01:09:50.800 about the beauty

01:09:52.240 of this

01:09:52.800 particular experience

01:09:54.160 I think actually

01:09:58.080 dancing is an extremely

01:09:59.240 important phenomenon

01:10:00.880 partly because

01:10:02.940 traditionally

01:10:04.060 dancing

01:10:05.100 was dancing with

01:10:06.740 someone

01:10:07.880 the width

01:10:09.480 has been taken out

01:10:10.420 of dancing

01:10:11.040 and the head bashing

01:10:13.400 and so on

01:10:14.180 that goes on

01:10:14.700 with heavy metal

01:10:15.500 and the right

01:10:16.120 is dancing against

01:10:17.660 someone

01:10:18.720 you know

01:10:19.420 the withness

01:10:20.400 of the dance

01:10:21.240 is I think

01:10:21.640 something really

01:10:22.280 we see it in

01:10:23.300 Scottish reels

01:10:24.440 and things like that

01:10:25.160 where the whole community

01:10:26.320 is dancing

01:10:27.340 in an orderly way

01:10:28.420 recognizing that

01:10:29.960 their need

01:10:30.840 for law and order

01:10:31.820 and taking pleasure

01:10:33.320 in it

01:10:33.740 and I find that

01:10:34.740 very near to a

01:10:36.280 transcendent experience

01:10:37.860 I feel a kind of

01:10:40.360 narcissism has crept

01:10:41.580 into the dance

01:10:43.180 through recent forms

01:10:44.560 of dance music

01:10:46.080 but I mean

01:10:46.600 that's my old

01:10:47.860 geezer attitude

01:10:49.120 or is it simply to say

01:10:55.420 that the principle itself

01:10:58.680 is sovereign

01:10:59.320 if one thinks about

01:11:00.800 the logic for example

01:11:01.720 of Dante's Inferno

01:11:03.780 which has ever more

01:11:07.280 degraded forms of

01:11:08.640 knowing and loving

01:11:09.440 that the mechanism

01:11:16.300 of the nature

01:11:18.080 you might say

01:11:18.500 the nature of the soul

01:11:19.600 is the same

01:11:20.780 at the top of paradise

01:11:22.540 as it is

01:11:23.240 at the bottom

01:11:24.120 of Inferno

01:11:24.940 but it has

01:11:26.360 these infinite

01:11:28.040 gradations

01:11:28.840 of wholeness

01:11:29.820 and so I don't think

01:11:31.160 we have to say

01:11:31.720 that the mosh pit

01:11:33.800 is equivalent

01:11:37.040 as a work of art

01:11:38.180 to Beethoven

01:11:39.900 or Palestrina

01:11:41.080 or Janacek

01:11:42.520 but rather that

01:11:44.420 perhaps what's going on

01:11:46.020 in that

01:11:47.420 is nonetheless

01:11:48.080 a longing

01:11:48.780 for the pattern

01:11:50.120 and the recognition

01:11:51.520 of the other

01:11:52.280 that you say

01:11:53.640 but yes

01:11:54.680 but your original question

01:11:56.280 was how do we

01:11:58.220 coax people back

01:12:00.280 into that

01:12:00.880 into a life

01:12:02.080 which is based

01:12:03.820 on the recognition

01:12:04.580 of the other

01:12:05.200 rather than the gratification

01:12:06.600 of the self

01:12:07.180 because that's essentially

01:12:08.100 what we're talking about

01:12:08.940 I think

01:12:09.400 today at least

01:12:12.440 and I would say

01:12:14.100 teaching people

01:12:15.980 how to help others

01:12:18.240 the role of the teacher

01:12:21.000 is a very dignified one

01:12:23.500 but it is only so

01:12:26.600 if the teacher

01:12:27.500 actually thinks

01:12:28.520 that he is helping

01:12:29.420 the pupil

01:12:31.080 to a body of knowledge

01:12:32.200 that he has access to

01:12:34.480 and that sense

01:12:35.480 of helping other people

01:12:36.760 is a very rare thing

01:12:39.020 and it's made more rare

01:12:40.600 by the welfare state

01:12:42.740 and the ready availability

01:12:44.200 of subsidies

01:12:46.260 for subsidized life

01:12:49.100 without leaning

01:12:51.220 on any particular person

01:12:52.680 and I think

01:12:54.200 relations of dependence

01:12:56.480 are actually

01:12:57.420 very positive

01:12:58.340 if they're accepted

01:12:59.460 on both sides

01:13:00.780 and I think

01:13:01.680 it's something

01:13:02.900 that we don't teach

01:13:03.880 the Boy Scouts movement

01:13:05.660 and all that

01:13:06.240 they used to teach

01:13:07.200 young people

01:13:08.560 these things

01:13:09.240 teach people

01:13:09.780 how to go out

01:13:10.480 and help

01:13:10.920 those who needed them

01:13:13.060 and how to make

01:13:14.560 those little

01:13:15.160 day-to-day sacrifices

01:13:16.780 and eventually

01:13:18.880 through the process

01:13:20.620 of imitation

01:13:21.600 and imagination

01:13:22.720 a character grows

01:13:24.860 based on that

01:13:25.740 and I feel that

01:13:27.520 there isn't any

01:13:28.380 obstacle to this

01:13:29.520 it's a very simple

01:13:30.660 form of education

01:13:32.080 all of us can do it

01:13:33.200 and all of us

01:13:33.800 who have children

01:13:34.460 do do it

01:13:35.420 I'm sure Jordan

01:13:36.860 does it with his children

01:13:38.720 the same as I

01:13:39.420 with mine

01:13:40.160 of course

01:13:40.520 you know

01:13:41.820 you're always disappointed

01:13:42.900 they always go away

01:13:44.600 into their corner

01:13:45.640 with their

01:13:46.180 with their wretched

01:13:47.340 little iPhones

01:13:48.540 and so on

01:13:49.260 but nevertheless

01:13:49.780 some of it

01:13:52.560 rubs off

01:13:53.220 and you know

01:13:54.300 that in the long run

01:13:55.420 they will be capable

01:13:56.920 not just of

01:13:58.060 finding love

01:13:59.140 but also of

01:13:59.980 offering forgiveness

01:14:00.860 and working

01:14:02.560 for reconciliation

01:14:03.640 I don't think

01:14:05.360 in the sort of

01:14:06.460 narcissistic

01:14:07.340 culture

01:14:08.860 which is

01:14:09.480 propagated

01:14:10.360 by the media

01:14:11.160 and by

01:14:12.360 the universities

01:14:13.620 that

01:14:14.740 they're being

01:14:15.880 pointed in that

01:14:16.860 direction

01:14:17.340 that is true

01:14:18.080 but then

01:14:19.120 it's up to us

01:14:20.440 to point them

01:14:21.020 in another direction

01:14:21.900 I think

01:14:23.220 as an academic

01:14:24.120 we talked already

01:14:25.160 about

01:14:25.520 that place

01:14:26.480 where the meaning

01:14:27.180 and the fact

01:14:27.880 are conjoined

01:14:28.760 and that's the

01:14:29.940 proper place

01:14:30.480 to lecture from

01:14:31.460 because people

01:14:32.880 who lecture

01:14:33.580 constantly

01:14:34.660 make the presumption

01:14:37.220 that they're there

01:14:37.980 to deliver

01:14:38.700 a set of facts

01:14:39.780 but

01:14:40.040 there's an infinite

01:14:41.060 set of facts

01:14:41.880 and so

01:14:42.240 at the very least

01:14:43.180 you have to

01:14:43.660 select the facts

01:14:44.840 and there's a

01:14:45.380 mechanism that

01:14:46.160 selects the facts

01:14:47.020 and what

01:14:47.920 you want to do

01:14:48.800 as an academic

01:14:49.740 is tell your

01:14:51.640 students

01:14:52.140 through

01:14:52.800 direct discourse

01:14:54.720 and also

01:14:55.340 through action

01:14:56.120 about something

01:14:57.480 that you've

01:14:57.980 encountered

01:14:58.440 that you've

01:14:59.500 fallen in love

01:15:00.200 with

01:15:00.540 and to

01:15:01.520 communicate

01:15:02.520 the love

01:15:03.080 that you have

01:15:03.620 for that

01:15:03.980 the love

01:15:04.360 for literature

01:15:04.940 and not to

01:15:05.900 say well

01:15:06.240 you should read

01:15:07.080 this book

01:15:07.560 but to say

01:15:08.120 well here's this

01:15:09.000 book

01:15:09.300 and here's

01:15:10.120 what it can

01:15:10.520 open up

01:15:11.000 for you

01:15:11.400 and this

01:15:11.920 is how

01:15:12.180 it does

01:15:12.600 it

01:15:12.760 and this

01:15:13.920 is what

01:15:14.260 you'll gain

01:15:14.880 from it

01:15:15.300 it's an

01:15:15.640 inestimable

01:15:16.400 gain

01:15:16.760 and there's

01:15:17.100 some struggle

01:15:17.720 in it

01:15:18.060 but there's

01:15:19.160 something in it

01:15:20.240 that's of

01:15:20.940 unbelievable utility

01:15:22.820 and you have to

01:15:23.540 believe that

01:15:24.160 in order to

01:15:24.620 communicate it

01:15:25.360 and then that

01:15:26.340 opens one of

01:15:27.400 those doors

01:15:27.940 and maybe some

01:15:28.840 students will

01:15:29.340 step through that

01:15:29.980 and think

01:15:30.200 well maybe

01:15:30.620 that sounds

01:15:31.440 like something

01:15:31.900 I need

01:15:32.340 I'm in this

01:15:32.880 dire situation

01:15:33.940 and I need

01:15:34.480 something

01:15:34.800 I need

01:15:35.540 a life raft

01:15:36.640 I need

01:15:37.060 I need something

01:15:37.960 to buoy me upward

01:15:38.960 and it's going to

01:15:39.840 take some effort

01:15:40.580 obviously

01:15:41.080 because nothing

01:15:42.180 worthwhile comes

01:15:43.120 without effort

01:15:43.780 to communicate

01:15:45.420 that commitment

01:15:46.220 you have

01:15:46.780 to these

01:15:47.260 to these

01:15:48.000 to these

01:15:48.960 phenomena

01:15:49.400 that we already

01:15:50.440 talked about

01:15:50.960 to beauty

01:15:51.460 and to truth

01:15:52.100 and to literature

01:15:52.800 and to the classics

01:15:54.400 in the humanities

01:15:55.220 it isn't enough

01:15:56.440 to say what they are

01:15:58.060 and to transmit them

01:15:59.120 it's to

01:15:59.620 it's to manifest

01:16:01.180 yourself as a living

01:16:02.380 part of that tradition

01:16:03.480 and to show yourself

01:16:06.160 thereby as a model

01:16:07.500 for living out

01:16:08.800 as much as you can

01:16:10.200 what that tradition

01:16:11.520 represents

01:16:12.040 and to show

01:16:12.760 that that's

01:16:13.580 so much better

01:16:14.640 than like a short-term

01:16:16.200 pleasure-seeking nihilism

01:16:17.900 that they're not even

01:16:18.940 in the same

01:16:19.500 conceptual universe

01:16:20.660 and people are

01:16:21.660 far more open to that

01:16:23.200 they know already

01:16:24.100 people know

01:16:24.800 especially when they're hurt

01:16:25.860 they know

01:16:26.960 that happiness

01:16:28.620 is fleeting

01:16:29.340 and that suffering

01:16:30.860 requires a sustaining

01:16:32.200 meaning

01:16:32.580 everyone who's lived

01:16:34.380 knows that

01:16:35.040 and so to say

01:16:36.020 well here's

01:16:36.680 some balm

01:16:37.640 for the suffering

01:16:38.580 and it's profound

01:16:39.580 and deep

01:16:40.200 and here's what

01:16:41.380 it's meant to me

01:16:42.200 and here's how

01:16:42.740 you can incorporate

01:16:43.500 it into your life

01:16:44.420 it's like

01:16:44.820 people are absolutely

01:16:46.000 starving for that

01:16:47.420 or dying of thirst

01:16:48.760 for that

01:16:49.260 I mean this connects

01:16:50.380 with what you earlier

01:16:51.380 said about the curriculum

01:16:53.720 that the old way

01:16:56.440 of teaching the humanities

01:16:57.560 was in that manner

01:16:59.840 as objects of love

01:17:01.680 this is what I have loved

01:17:03.220 what previous generations

01:17:04.720 have loved too

01:17:05.520 and handed on to me

01:17:06.480 here try it out

01:17:08.420 and you will love it too

01:17:09.800 whereas the postmodern

01:17:11.880 curriculum

01:17:13.120 is a curriculum

01:17:14.460 of hatred

01:17:15.100 it's directed

01:17:17.260 against our cultural

01:17:18.940 inheritance

01:17:19.480 one after another

01:17:20.700 the works are paraded

01:17:21.800 before us

01:17:22.480 stripped naked

01:17:23.500 and thrashed

01:17:24.420 you know

01:17:25.200 by revealing

01:17:28.280 whatever ideology

01:17:29.840 or power structure

01:17:30.940 is being concealed

01:17:31.900 within them

01:17:32.500 and that of course

01:17:33.580 is not why

01:17:34.360 they were written

01:17:34.940 and it's not how

01:17:35.560 they should be understood

01:17:36.420 it's not why

01:17:37.240 they survived

01:17:37.980 and were remembered

01:17:38.800 either

01:17:39.180 it's like

01:17:39.900 this is the best

01:17:40.960 that the best of us

01:17:41.880 could produce

01:17:42.740 and it's nothing

01:17:43.840 but why should you

01:17:45.060 bother doing anything

01:17:46.080 then

01:17:46.520 well exactly

01:17:46.600 and it means that

01:17:47.660 students who go

01:17:49.020 through that curriculum

01:17:50.180 come out with a sense

01:17:51.740 of the hopelessness

01:17:52.700 of everything

01:17:53.260 and

01:17:54.340 and thus are successfully

01:17:56.300 educated by

01:17:57.160 postmodernist standards

01:17:58.300 yes

01:17:58.680 yeah yeah

01:17:59.160 I suppose that's right

01:18:00.080 but you know

01:18:01.980 there's no reason

01:18:02.620 why one should

01:18:03.260 one should accept

01:18:04.680 this one

01:18:05.080 all

01:18:06.040 all good things

01:18:08.020 begin

01:18:08.780 in the

01:18:10.920 in small areas

01:18:12.400 because

01:18:12.900 because two or three people

01:18:14.660 you know

01:18:15.880 well as Christ said

01:18:16.940 two or three are gathered

01:18:17.860 in my name

01:18:18.640 you know

01:18:19.400 there am I with you

01:18:20.600 but the same is

01:18:21.940 in all cultural activities

01:18:25.000 it's a

01:18:25.380 perhaps a friendship

01:18:26.960 will

01:18:28.080 will

01:18:28.560 will begin

01:18:29.820 will

01:18:30.220 start up a reading group

01:18:32.220 and out of that reading group

01:18:33.420 there'll be others come in

01:18:34.740 gradually

01:18:35.500 if it's founded on love

01:18:37.440 of the thing that's being

01:18:38.500 studied and offered

01:18:39.700 it will always triumph

01:18:40.980 in the long run

01:18:41.760 over this negativity

01:18:43.100 the problem is

01:18:44.060 the negativity is subsidized

01:18:46.140 it's subsidized by universities

01:18:48.160 who are paid for by governments

01:18:49.720 who are paid for by taxpayers

01:18:51.480 and so on

01:18:52.300 and the answer is to take away those subsidies

01:18:56.280 and deprive education completely of money

01:19:00.200 and it will be back with us again

01:19:02.360 that's my view

01:19:03.500 I suggested something like that

01:19:06.160 in public in Canada

01:19:08.120 not so long ago

01:19:09.020 to cut the budgets of the universities

01:19:10.600 across the board by 25%

01:19:12.280 and let them sort themselves out

01:19:13.820 but the no subsidy idea

01:19:16.760 at least forces

01:19:18.120 those who provide education

01:19:19.840 to do it purely on its merits

01:19:22.460 and the fact that these

01:19:23.780 counterproductive disciplines

01:19:26.440 let's say

01:19:27.020 have been subsidized for so long

01:19:28.560 has given them a power

01:19:29.500 that far

01:19:30.480 far outstrips

01:19:31.560 their credibility

01:19:32.700 and their attractiveness

01:19:34.180 Now I wanted to

01:19:37.760 point out

01:19:40.400 this chat may be

01:19:42.380 seen by a few people online

01:19:44.240 at some point

01:19:44.960 and draw attention to the fact

01:19:47.020 that we're all wearing poppies

01:19:49.060 which of course is a

01:19:50.220 symbol of respect

01:19:53.320 and memory

01:19:54.240 for an inheritance

01:19:55.980 of our own past

01:19:57.840 for the suffering

01:20:01.000 that has given us

01:20:04.720 or at least protected

01:20:06.400 and given us

01:20:07.180 so much that we hold dear

01:20:08.880 I'd like to ask you

01:20:10.600 both about

01:20:11.500 memory

01:20:13.460 and

01:20:14.320 the inheritance

01:20:16.320 of the past

01:20:17.320 and

01:20:18.340 and what it means

01:20:21.040 to have a pedagogy

01:20:22.380 what it means

01:20:23.660 to have a pedagogy

01:20:24.700 of the transcendent

01:20:25.840 in relation to our past

01:20:28.380 how do you open

01:20:30.320 open those

01:20:31.320 doorways

01:20:33.000 and perhaps

01:20:33.900 if the spirit moves you

01:20:36.160 to speak about works

01:20:37.840 that you love

01:20:38.820 that you've

01:20:39.840 been able to open up

01:20:41.160 to others

01:20:41.760 One of the reasons

01:20:43.860 for remembering

01:20:44.780 in the way that we

01:20:46.980 remember the armistice

01:20:48.760 in the First World War

01:20:49.840 one of the reasons

01:20:50.960 is gratitude

01:20:52.060 and gratitude

01:20:54.200 is in short supply

01:20:55.440 in our societies today

01:20:57.440 and

01:20:57.980 it's the

01:20:58.860 greatest gift

01:21:00.860 that we can offer

01:21:01.900 in fact

01:21:02.460 to people who are dead

01:21:04.000 because

01:21:04.300 what else can we do

01:21:06.220 except to acknowledge

01:21:07.640 their sacrifice

01:21:08.720 so

01:21:09.540 I think that gratitude

01:21:11.340 is a fundamental part

01:21:12.700 of memory

01:21:13.300 there are of course

01:21:15.960 accumulations

01:21:16.920 of guilt

01:21:17.760 and so on

01:21:19.220 and those are being

01:21:20.880 emphasized all the time

01:21:22.300 in the postmodern curriculum

01:21:23.940 all the ways in which

01:21:25.720 we are not entitled

01:21:26.720 to our inheritance

01:21:27.720 but I would think

01:21:29.260 in the face of that

01:21:30.000 we have to insist

01:21:31.080 on the ways

01:21:31.620 that we are entitled

01:21:32.680 to that inheritance

01:21:33.820 if people have died

01:21:35.360 for it

01:21:36.040 and for our sake

01:21:37.760 that is a fantastic title

01:21:40.860 that we enjoy

01:21:41.700 and we should feel grateful

01:21:43.180 to them

01:21:43.640 for that

01:21:45.260 when it comes to

01:21:48.140 actual works

01:21:49.680 of art

01:21:51.560 or whatever

01:21:52.140 which have

01:21:52.620 opened the sense

01:21:54.520 of the depth

01:21:55.300 of one's own inheritance

01:21:56.820 that I think

01:21:58.540 is

01:21:58.840 a very interesting question

01:22:01.240 there are so many of them

01:22:02.420 but just

01:22:03.580 to mention

01:22:04.680 only one

01:22:05.720 the Bach

01:22:07.580 B minor mass

01:22:08.740 to me

01:22:09.900 that's a door

01:22:10.880 into the

01:22:11.460 into the

01:22:12.400 the whole

01:22:13.700 the whole European

01:22:16.560 inheritance

01:22:17.060 going back

01:22:17.900 to the crucifixion

01:22:19.600 there it all is

01:22:21.100 encapsulated in music

01:22:22.580 music

01:22:23.340 you know

01:22:24.480 celebrating

01:22:25.200 the universal

01:22:26.160 claims

01:22:27.080 of the Roman Catholic Church

01:22:28.480 but written by a Protestant

01:22:29.780 you know

01:22:30.780 it's

01:22:31.480 and offered

01:22:33.000 as a gift

01:22:33.940 you know

01:22:34.580 to mankind

01:22:35.300 and there it is

01:22:36.300 and

01:22:36.620 such things

01:22:38.040 so transcend

01:22:39.940 any

01:22:40.460 any minor

01:22:41.800 historical

01:22:42.500 details

01:22:43.440 that one recognizes

01:22:45.360 that that is what the past

01:22:46.700 really is for one

01:22:47.980 that great depth

01:22:48.940 of

01:22:49.820 of inheritance

01:22:50.920 that can't be enumerated

01:22:52.880 but just enjoyed

01:22:53.880 just to follow up

01:22:55.460 before we turn to Jordan

01:22:56.440 Roger

01:22:57.420 at the beginning

01:22:57.840 you talked about

01:22:58.620 how a great literature

01:23:00.780 a great writing

01:23:02.120 is writing

01:23:02.560 in which the reader

01:23:03.560 finds

01:23:05.120 himself

01:23:06.080 finds herself

01:23:06.980 taking Box Mass

01:23:09.860 and B Minor

01:23:10.920 you've spoken about

01:23:14.160 this unfolding

01:23:15.280 of the self

01:23:16.060 that is found

01:23:17.640 in these great works

01:23:19.000 or the reflection

01:23:19.660 of the self

01:23:20.420 I know

01:23:22.780 or at least

01:23:23.260 I think you've written

01:23:23.980 about the unfolding

01:23:25.680 of the theme

01:23:26.580 in

01:23:27.480 of that mass

01:23:29.740 in particular

01:23:30.260 but certainly

01:23:30.920 in other

01:23:31.320 of your writings

01:23:32.200 the unfolding

01:23:33.040 of the theme

01:23:33.680 in music

01:23:34.220 could you say something

01:23:35.740 about the

01:23:36.900 I know that's a huge question

01:23:39.260 but the way in which

01:23:40.780 the unfolding

01:23:41.980 of the theme

01:23:43.600 in music

01:23:44.600 is an unfolding

01:23:46.360 of the self

01:23:47.360 it's a really

01:23:49.360 provocative

01:23:51.100 way of putting it

01:23:52.340 it is true that

01:23:53.500 when you listen

01:23:54.700 to a theme

01:23:55.460 in music

01:23:57.800 you're not

01:23:58.980 listening to a

01:23:59.800 sequence of notes

01:24:00.840 something begins

01:24:02.920 in that first note

01:24:04.120 and endures

01:24:05.520 to the final note

01:24:07.000 and it goes on

01:24:08.680 all the way through

01:24:09.520 even though

01:24:10.100 there are spells

01:24:10.900 of silence

01:24:11.660 it's still going on

01:24:12.720 in the silence

01:24:13.540 so that our ability

01:24:15.380 to hear

01:24:16.060 something as a theme

01:24:18.200 is already

01:24:19.200 a contribution

01:24:20.700 that we make

01:24:21.640 it comes out of us

01:24:23.080 so we've identified

01:24:24.580 with that movement

01:24:25.500 that movement

01:24:26.080 is there in the world

01:24:27.660 because it's there in us

01:24:28.840 but in so many ways

01:24:31.540 all our inner life

01:24:33.420 is interrupted

01:24:36.480 and unfulfilled

01:24:37.460 and it's full of things

01:24:39.120 that start up

01:24:39.840 and then

01:24:40.220 peter out

01:24:41.580 and I think

01:24:42.940 that is one of the

01:24:44.100 fundamental experiences

01:24:45.640 of human beings

01:24:46.540 that there's an inner disorder

01:24:47.880 that things never actually

01:24:49.200 come to a conclusion

01:24:50.340 but here

01:24:51.260 uniquely

01:24:51.980 movements

01:24:53.000 begin

01:24:53.520 and come to a conclusion

01:24:55.300 and that conclusion

01:24:57.640 is complete

01:24:58.740 it's a satisfaction

01:25:00.300 of the

01:25:02.100 unsaturated nature

01:25:04.680 of the first movement

01:25:05.720 the first beginning theme

01:25:08.180 and

01:25:09.200 it's an experience

01:25:11.060 why do we value that

01:25:12.740 I think we value it

01:25:14.520 in the same way

01:25:15.120 as we value tragedy

01:25:16.160 because it gives completion

01:25:18.260 and closure

01:25:19.320 to things

01:25:20.500 that otherwise

01:25:21.180 wouldn't ever have them

01:25:22.340 and things that are

01:25:23.740 transient as well

01:25:24.720 because it does have

01:25:25.780 a beginning and an end

01:25:26.780 and the end doesn't

01:25:28.080 invalidate the utility

01:25:29.180 of the entity

01:25:30.740 that's right

01:25:31.580 so in gratitude

01:25:34.080 I mean that was

01:25:34.740 that was exactly

01:25:35.800 the theme

01:25:36.260 that sprung to mind

01:25:37.300 for me

01:25:37.700 as soon as you asked

01:25:38.560 that question

01:25:39.100 I mean

01:25:39.440 one of the things

01:25:40.360 that I find

01:25:40.940 profoundly disquieting

01:25:42.900 about

01:25:43.180 the modern

01:25:44.280 radical

01:25:45.420 what would you call it

01:25:47.460 ideology

01:25:47.960 that is so

01:25:49.320 unfortunately

01:25:51.840 dominant

01:25:52.360 on campuses

01:25:53.180 among young people

01:25:54.060 is that it's

01:25:54.600 unbelievably

01:25:55.420 ungrateful

01:25:56.120 and when I

01:25:57.820 when I walk outside

01:25:59.660 and there's not a riot

01:26:00.720 and death

01:26:01.740 in the streets

01:26:02.700 I'm having a good day

01:26:04.340 that's my sense of history

01:26:06.280 it's like

01:26:06.940 I'm constantly

01:26:08.280 staggered

01:26:09.700 by the fact

01:26:10.480 that so much

01:26:11.640 works

01:26:12.120 all the time

01:26:13.140 it's absolutely

01:26:14.580 I met this guy

01:26:15.980 a while back

01:26:16.840 and he'd been

01:26:18.080 in a motorcycle accident

01:26:19.220 he really got hurt

01:26:20.500 man

01:26:20.800 he was

01:26:21.220 he was pretty much

01:26:22.080 half destroyed

01:26:22.900 and he worked

01:26:23.980 as a telephone lineman

01:26:25.160 he worked with

01:26:26.120 this guy

01:26:26.480 who had Parkinson's disease

01:26:27.740 who had

01:26:28.700 was equally destroyed

01:26:30.180 in a slightly

01:26:30.740 different way

01:26:31.320 and the two of them

01:26:32.260 together

01:26:32.640 could climb up

01:26:33.340 a telephone pole

01:26:34.140 and continue their job

01:26:35.420 and I thought

01:26:36.300 this unbelievable

01:26:37.140 infrastructure we have

01:26:38.360 that is just

01:26:38.960 an absolute

01:26:39.700 bloody

01:26:40.160 ongoing

01:26:40.800 miracle

01:26:41.940 is sustained

01:26:43.320 by people

01:26:43.860 exactly like that

01:26:45.180 you know

01:26:45.500 they're having

01:26:46.100 very difficult lives

01:26:47.440 in a country

01:26:48.240 like Canada

01:26:48.840 they go out

01:26:49.440 in the middle

01:26:50.120 of the bloody winter

01:26:51.060 where you die

01:26:52.040 it's frigid

01:26:53.220 and something

01:26:54.600 breaks

01:26:55.020 and they fix it

01:26:55.720 and the lights

01:26:56.220 are on

01:26:56.640 the lights

01:26:57.240 are on

01:26:57.580 all the time

01:26:58.260 and I come to

01:26:59.380 somewhere like

01:27:00.500 Europe

01:27:01.020 and to me

01:27:01.860 it's an

01:27:02.260 absolutely

01:27:03.320 overwhelming

01:27:05.060 experience

01:27:05.740 to see

01:27:06.280 King's Chapel

01:27:07.140 today

01:27:07.460 to wander

01:27:07.920 around this city

01:27:08.660 I'm just

01:27:09.200 staggered

01:27:10.540 that people

01:27:10.960 produced this

01:27:11.720 and so

01:27:12.700 amazed

01:27:13.880 that we could

01:27:14.920 do it

01:27:15.440 and so grateful

01:27:16.560 that it exists

01:27:17.340 we were talking

01:27:18.080 about King's Chapel

01:27:19.440 the people who

01:27:20.040 started it

01:27:20.600 didn't live

01:27:21.260 to see its

01:27:21.920 completion

01:27:22.420 they were

01:27:22.820 they were driven

01:27:23.940 by this nobility

01:27:25.160 of transcendent vision

01:27:26.440 and they produced

01:27:27.160 these enduring forms

01:27:28.820 and out of the bloody

01:27:30.160 misery of history

01:27:31.660 we've erected

01:27:32.720 all this

01:27:33.280 spectacular

01:27:34.560 infrastructure

01:27:35.760 that we're so

01:27:36.660 fortunate to be part of

01:27:38.080 and none of that

01:27:39.560 gratitude is taught

01:27:40.740 and it's partly

01:27:41.780 not taught

01:27:42.480 because people

01:27:43.360 have no sense

01:27:44.140 of the absolute

01:27:45.280 catastrophe of history

01:27:47.200 I mean for me

01:27:48.420 the Hobbes

01:27:49.480 it's like nasty

01:27:50.760 brutish and short

01:27:51.900 the simplest

01:27:53.200 and most likely

01:27:54.800 social circumstances

01:27:56.220 catastrophe

01:27:57.700 punctuated by hell

01:27:59.280 and to see that

01:28:00.480 not happening

01:28:01.480 in a sustained

01:28:02.760 manner

01:28:03.260 constantly

01:28:04.020 and to see things

01:28:04.900 improving

01:28:05.580 around us

01:28:06.600 and to be reliable

01:28:08.140 in that manner

01:28:08.900 and then not to be

01:28:10.060 grateful for that

01:28:10.880 it's like

01:28:11.240 it's an unbelievable

01:28:12.200 combination of

01:28:13.200 ignorance and will

01:28:14.000 ignorance and gratitude

01:28:15.520 and willful blindness

01:28:16.500 and it does no one's

01:28:17.860 soul any good

01:28:18.800 it's so good

01:28:19.960 to walk down

01:28:20.740 the streets

01:28:21.480 of a beautiful town

01:28:22.480 like this

01:28:22.940 and to be

01:28:23.360 open mouthed

01:28:24.720 in non-ironic

01:28:25.800 amazement

01:28:26.680 at what's here

01:28:27.600 and so

01:28:28.560 and to not

01:28:29.600 instill that sense

01:28:31.680 in young people

01:28:32.400 for them to understand

01:28:33.520 that they are

01:28:34.100 standing on the bones

01:28:35.860 of generations

01:28:37.100 of people

01:28:37.680 who suffered

01:28:38.280 to make this possible

01:28:39.260 despite all their errors

01:28:40.820 and have brought

01:28:41.420 this forward

01:28:42.160 it's like

01:28:42.720 yeah well

01:28:44.440 Hobbes is a very

01:28:45.920 salutary lesson

01:28:48.120 actually

01:28:48.480 because he did

01:28:49.360 look into the abyss

01:28:50.600 and stepped back

01:28:52.240 from it

01:28:52.600 and reported on it

01:28:54.040 and that

01:28:55.220 and we

01:28:56.200 and as did

01:28:57.160 Solzhenitsyn

01:28:57.840 and we

01:29:00.360 post-war

01:29:02.380 baby boomers

01:29:03.720 haven't had that

01:29:04.880 experience

01:29:05.500 I had a little

01:29:06.760 glimpse of it

01:29:07.440 in the old

01:29:08.200 communist days

01:29:08.960 but we only saw

01:29:09.660 the edge of it

01:29:10.440 then

01:29:10.760 you know

01:29:11.540 but

01:29:12.480 still

01:29:14.400 the sense

01:29:14.900 the sense

01:29:15.360 that it is there

01:29:16.280 always beneath

01:29:17.320 your feet

01:29:18.000 and

01:29:18.740 and that

01:29:19.500 the crust

01:29:20.020 is as thin

01:29:21.400 as it

01:29:21.800 it can be

01:29:22.820 in certain places

01:29:23.780 that I think

01:29:24.540 is something

01:29:24.900 that young people

01:29:26.140 do need to be taught

01:29:27.080 without making them

01:29:27.920 get gloomy about it

01:29:29.180 but to recognize

01:29:31.060 that they're lucky

01:29:32.220 a last question

01:29:34.400 before we open up

01:29:35.360 for a few

01:29:36.020 questions here

01:29:36.980 it seems to me

01:29:39.100 that the

01:29:39.540 the backward

01:29:40.260 looking

01:29:40.900 that we've talked

01:29:41.900 about

01:29:42.100 you had a wonderful

01:29:42.800 phrase

01:29:43.220 wide-eyed

01:29:44.540 open-mouthed

01:29:45.640 non-ironic

01:29:46.540 amazement

01:29:48.020 I think

01:29:48.420 you said

01:29:48.660 walking around

01:29:49.240 this

01:29:49.560 transcendently

01:29:51.400 beautiful town

01:29:52.340 of Cambridge

01:29:53.260 which houses

01:29:53.900 this august

01:29:55.340 and ancient

01:29:56.060 and beautiful

01:29:56.720 institution

01:29:57.400 you mentioned

01:30:01.020 Jordan

01:30:01.300 was we seeing

01:30:02.140 the King's Chapel

01:30:02.860 earlier today

01:30:03.540 that

01:30:04.480 those who

01:30:06.360 started the work

01:30:07.400 knew they wouldn't

01:30:08.580 be those who

01:30:09.220 would finish

01:30:09.900 and those who

01:30:10.500 finished knew

01:30:11.000 they had inherited

01:30:11.660 the work

01:30:12.060 that they

01:30:12.460 had not

01:30:13.280 themselves begun

01:30:14.500 and so I suppose

01:30:15.940 I want to ask

01:30:16.800 we've talked about

01:30:18.340 the necessity

01:30:19.740 to turn back

01:30:20.600 with gratitude

01:30:21.160 to the past

01:30:22.140 to our inherited

01:30:22.940 past

01:30:24.500 but I want to talk

01:30:25.680 also about the

01:30:26.280 possibility of

01:30:27.040 of building

01:30:27.700 and of creation

01:30:28.600 these chapels

01:30:30.920 and buildings

01:30:31.420 were built

01:30:31.900 at some time

01:30:32.600 you yourself

01:30:33.100 are a composer

01:30:34.240 both of you

01:30:35.360 authors of books

01:30:37.320 that many many

01:30:38.140 people have

01:30:39.020 found depth

01:30:40.620 and truth in

01:30:41.520 so I want to

01:30:42.640 to ask about

01:30:44.220 the possibilities

01:30:45.880 for

01:30:46.540 for

01:30:47.220 for renaissance

01:30:48.540 for rebuilding

01:30:49.700 or building anew

01:30:51.220 new buildings

01:30:52.540 new

01:30:53.200 forms of

01:30:54.760 community

01:30:55.420 new forms

01:30:56.220 of art

01:30:56.500 perhaps

01:30:56.980 new buildings

01:30:58.060 of old

01:30:58.460 forms of

01:30:58.920 architecture

01:30:59.460 new colleges

01:31:00.540 and universities

01:31:01.400 new

01:31:02.620 more healthy

01:31:04.840 and beautiful

01:31:05.540 forms of

01:31:06.360 courtship

01:31:07.620 new forms

01:31:08.380 of

01:31:08.860 flourishing arts

01:31:10.620 and music

01:31:11.400 it seems to me

01:31:13.700 so important

01:31:14.440 that

01:31:14.760 we not lose

01:31:16.040 sight of the fact

01:31:16.680 that precisely

01:31:17.860 the abiding

01:31:20.120 truth

01:31:20.820 of the transcendent

01:31:21.980 of the transcendent

01:31:22.000 in us

01:31:22.460 gives us hope

01:31:23.600 to

01:31:24.460 to answer

01:31:26.880 that call

01:31:27.660 yeah it must be

01:31:29.560 the case

01:31:30.200 that when

01:31:30.960 when describing

01:31:32.600 our cultural

01:31:33.980 inheritance

01:31:34.500 we're not

01:31:35.720 we're not just

01:31:36.280 describing something

01:31:37.380 that's gone

01:31:38.000 we must be

01:31:39.740 describing something

01:31:40.560 of which we are

01:31:41.140 still a part

01:31:41.960 and which

01:31:43.260 has to change

01:31:44.680 as we are changing

01:31:46.040 to accommodate us

01:31:47.340 all this

01:31:48.340 and all this was said

01:31:48.740 by Elliot

01:31:49.620 in tradition

01:31:50.500 and the individual

01:31:51.200 talent

01:31:51.640 you know

01:31:52.020 that the artist

01:31:53.300 must be constantly

01:31:55.800 trying to say

01:31:56.680 that new thing

01:31:57.760 that he came into

01:31:59.280 the world to say

01:32:00.240 but he can only say it

01:32:01.820 if he adapts

01:32:02.700 his style

01:32:03.900 to the

01:32:04.760 inheritance

01:32:06.140 of the tradition

01:32:07.060 thereby transforming

01:32:09.100 the tradition

01:32:09.700 and transforming

01:32:10.520 himself

01:32:10.920 and we all

01:32:12.360 there is no formula

01:32:14.340 for doing this

01:32:15.080 because a formula

01:32:15.820 is precisely what

01:32:16.740 destroys the creative act

01:32:18.760 but

01:32:19.880 we have to

01:32:21.660 assume that

01:32:22.960 new things will come

01:32:24.540 and they will come

01:32:25.900 through

01:32:26.400 as they always

01:32:28.240 did in the past

01:32:29.340 through fasting

01:32:30.320 and prayer

01:32:31.100 you know

01:32:32.300 and occasional

01:32:34.260 glass of wine

01:32:35.340 in my case

01:32:36.100 Jordan

01:32:39.560 well

01:32:41.460 we could

01:32:42.180 concentrate

01:32:42.760 I suppose

01:32:43.740 on building

01:32:44.520 the future

01:32:45.080 instead of

01:32:45.680 criticizing the past

01:32:46.880 I mean

01:32:48.020 it's necessary

01:32:48.880 to decompose

01:32:50.680 to reconstruct

01:32:51.420 you know

01:32:52.160 those acts

01:32:53.240 can't be separated

01:32:54.260 but the decomposition

01:32:55.300 is the prerequisite

01:32:56.960 for the reconstruction

01:32:58.000 and you know

01:32:59.200 what I've been

01:32:59.840 recommending to people

01:33:01.120 is that they

01:33:01.780 they start on

01:33:02.980 whatever scale

01:33:03.640 they can start on

01:33:04.580 with whatever's

01:33:05.240 in front of them

01:33:05.860 because they have

01:33:06.540 more in front of them

01:33:07.260 than they think

01:33:07.940 these

01:33:08.740 these circumscribed areas

01:33:11.360 that these small places

01:33:12.580 that people

01:33:13.100 can call their own

01:33:14.160 even if it's only

01:33:14.960 their room

01:33:15.640 you can start to do

01:33:17.300 something creative

01:33:18.060 and beautiful there

01:33:18.880 I mean

01:33:19.240 I've suggested to people

01:33:20.860 that they start by

01:33:21.640 putting their room

01:33:22.260 in order

01:33:22.700 and that implies

01:33:23.900 a purpose

01:33:24.480 it's like

01:33:24.920 well

01:33:25.140 your room is somewhere

01:33:26.200 that you exist

01:33:27.100 it's a place

01:33:28.420 that surrounds you

01:33:29.100 that tells you

01:33:29.780 how to be

01:33:30.340 put it in order

01:33:31.520 so at least

01:33:32.160 it isn't

01:33:33.020 screaming chaos

01:33:34.800 at you

01:33:35.400 in a soul

01:33:36.360 destroying manner

01:33:37.560 make it pristine

01:33:39.040 and orderly

01:33:40.980 in a fashion

01:33:41.880 that suits

01:33:42.540 what you're aiming at

01:33:43.540 so have an aim

01:33:44.300 and then

01:33:45.180 this is perhaps

01:33:46.420 a chapter in my next book

01:33:47.680 well maybe you start

01:33:48.840 by putting your room

01:33:49.620 in order

01:33:50.000 and then you make it beautiful

01:33:51.200 and then you learn

01:33:52.440 how to make something beautiful

01:33:53.720 and to make something beautiful

01:33:55.100 is to make it worthwhile

01:33:56.220 and to participate

01:33:57.540 in that transcendent

01:33:58.600 maybe you need one

01:34:01.020 certainly

01:34:03.200 and for your future self

01:34:04.640 which is also others

01:34:05.840 you know

01:34:06.400 this idea

01:34:07.320 that people are fed

01:34:08.420 even of

01:34:09.000 of self gratification

01:34:11.100 let's say

01:34:11.620 as an antidote

01:34:12.480 to nihilism

01:34:13.240 I'll take your pleasure

01:34:14.340 in the moment

01:34:14.920 it doesn't even work

01:34:15.860 for you

01:34:16.520 because you're stuck

01:34:17.580 with you tomorrow

01:34:18.580 and you next week

01:34:19.800 and so

01:34:20.500 even to treat yourself

01:34:21.720 properly

01:34:22.220 is to treat yourself

01:34:23.160 as part of an ongoing community

01:34:24.660 but I would say

01:34:25.840 start by

01:34:27.600 you start

01:34:28.480 in the world

01:34:29.360 if you have

01:34:30.380 some wisdom

01:34:31.740 and some humility

01:34:32.720 by

01:34:33.720 taking the potential

01:34:35.820 that lies

01:34:36.660 dormant in front of you

01:34:38.080 and interacting with it

01:34:40.360 in the logos-like manner

01:34:42.220 with truth

01:34:43.100 and with love

01:34:44.080 and by transforming

01:34:45.660 that potential

01:34:46.340 into whatever

01:34:47.020 you can create

01:34:48.040 out of it

01:34:48.440 that's good

01:34:49.020 and even if it's

01:34:50.500 it won't be small

01:34:51.920 if you do that

01:34:52.740 you can transform

01:34:53.600 your whole household

01:34:54.340 by transforming your room

01:34:55.700 you can transform

01:34:56.580 your whole neighborhood

01:34:57.360 by transforming

01:34:58.180 your house

01:34:58.760 like these things

01:34:59.580 spread very very rapidly

01:35:00.940 and that is right

01:35:02.420 there in front of you

01:35:03.540 you know

01:35:04.180 and people think

01:35:05.220 they're impoverished

01:35:06.180 now

01:35:06.860 that they don't have

01:35:07.640 any opportunity

01:35:08.360 and the opportunity

01:35:09.900 is hidden from them

01:35:11.100 by their

01:35:11.520 by their

01:35:11.960 by their unwillingness

01:35:13.460 to take the steps

01:35:14.720 that are necessary

01:35:15.440 to put

01:35:16.000 what they could put

01:35:17.280 in front of them

01:35:18.180 in order

01:35:18.720 and

01:35:19.260 and

01:35:19.600 and to

01:35:20.360 and to produce

01:35:21.160 the beauty

01:35:21.660 instead of the ugliness

01:35:22.640 where they could do that

01:35:23.740 and I don't think

01:35:24.700 there is anything

01:35:25.320 more powerful than that

01:35:26.460 that works

01:35:27.380 I've had thousands

01:35:28.660 of people tell me

01:35:29.580 that it works

01:35:30.180 you know personally

01:35:31.000 come and talk to me

01:35:32.320 every day now

01:35:33.000 on the street

01:35:33.560 and say

01:35:34.060 my life was in

01:35:35.140 terrible disorder

01:35:35.820 I had no vision

01:35:36.780 I wasn't abiding

01:35:37.920 by the truth

01:35:38.540 my relationships

01:35:39.300 were fragmented

01:35:40.140 I've decided to

01:35:41.300 I've decided to

01:35:41.320 make something

01:35:42.280 of myself

01:35:42.940 whatever that might be

01:35:44.040 I've decided to

01:35:45.000 adopt more responsibility

01:35:46.140 and to tell the truth

01:35:47.140 and things are

01:35:47.740 incomparably better

01:35:49.880 and so that's

01:35:51.440 that's there for everyone

01:35:52.700 to take

01:35:53.260 and regardless

01:35:54.100 of your circumstances

01:35:55.180 and I know

01:35:55.800 that some people

01:35:56.560 have

01:35:56.820 what appear to be

01:35:58.020 larger opportunities

01:35:59.760 and more privilege

01:36:00.680 in front of them

01:36:01.340 but that also makes

01:36:02.400 their commensurate

01:36:03.480 moral responsibility

01:36:04.420 larger

01:36:05.140 so there's a certain

01:36:06.420 balancing

01:36:07.180 that's a natural

01:36:08.240 consequence of that

01:36:09.440 so

01:36:10.280 now recognizing

01:36:11.880 the nature

01:36:12.460 of the finite

01:36:13.000 there's a train

01:36:14.420 one of us

01:36:14.900 needs to catch

01:36:15.580 we're going to

01:36:16.260 have to draw

01:36:16.640 this conversation

01:36:17.340 to a close

01:36:17.760 but not before

01:36:18.420 we've all had a chance

01:36:19.420 to thank both of you

01:36:21.060 for everything

01:36:21.740 you do

01:36:23.380 to fan the flames

01:36:25.000 of the transcendent

01:36:26.040 for your readers

01:36:26.820 for your listeners

01:36:27.680 for all of us

01:36:28.860 thank you very much

01:36:29.840 both of you

01:36:30.420 applause

01:36:32.420 applause

01:36:33.420 applause

01:36:34.420 applause

01:36:36.420 applause

01:36:38.380 applause

01:36:46.260 music

01:36:51.880 music

01:37:00.440 music

01:37:02.940 music

01:37:03.980 music

01:37:04.800 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - March 12, 2019

Sir Roger Scruton

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