The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokonomics. Now last week Faraz and I had a very interesting chat about

00:00:26.720 the formation of civilisation and when it comes time to look at the layers that Christianity

00:00:32.380 builds on that or what Christianity builds around that, Carl has some strong opinions

00:00:36.720 because it includes the desert people who of course he identifies with often. So Carl.

00:00:42.040 No I don't. I like pre-Islamic Middle East because it's so alien. It's such a different 1.00

00:00:51.220 civilisation than anything that we have had in our history that is fascinating and it's

00:00:59.180 just completely strange.

00:01:00.960 Well I'll set the argument and we're joined by Faraz of course. So I'll set the argument. 0.99

00:01:08.140 What I'm basically saying is I'm looking at religion as a civilisational technology and

00:01:13.920 what is special about Christianity is it adds something every environment that it moves

00:01:19.020 through. And essentially what I'm saying is, and we've got a mix here, somebody who isn't

00:01:25.140 particularly religious, somebody who is trying to be religious and somebody who actually is

00:01:28.660 religious, I'm not actually going after the religious angle on this.

00:01:31.980 I'm not trying to be religious either.

00:01:33.960 Aren't you going to church?

00:01:35.280 Yeah but that's because I have to. Because I think it's good for the kids and my wife wants

00:01:40.420 to. I'm not religious.

00:01:42.360 There must be some sense of trying to engender a bit of religiosity somewhere.

00:01:45.640 I just don't feel it.

00:01:46.460 Oh okay. Well that's kind of where I am.

00:01:49.240 It's not a feeling. It's an act of will. Slight difference.

00:01:54.180 So what I'm saying is, is that what I think religion really is, aside from the moral stuff

00:02:01.940 which we won't get into on this occasion, it is a civilisational technology for lowering

00:02:06.680 the cost of governance by making enforcement cheaper.

00:02:10.160 Well I mean that's what Christianity is.

00:02:12.680 Yes.

00:02:13.080 But religion has different forms and different areas, right?

00:02:19.620 So Aztec religion was not that.

00:02:22.280 That's fair.

00:02:23.280 That's fair. I am focusing on making Christianity. 1.00

00:02:25.360 Ancient Middle Eastern religion was not that.

00:02:27.080 Yes.

00:02:28.180 Often it was designed to bind a group together in order to enforce dominance over other groups.

00:02:34.600 Right.

00:02:34.820 So.

00:02:35.300 Yes.

00:02:35.540 And the thing about Christianity is it's really peculiar. 0.79

00:02:39.140 I mean there was a statement from Avi Yemeni the other day where it was like, because Epstein 0.98

00:02:43.340 would be using the word goyim. 0.70

00:02:44.400 He's like, dear goyim, we love you unless you hate us.

00:02:47.460 And it's like, there we go.

00:02:48.480 Right.

00:02:48.700 That's.

00:02:49.360 Yeah.

00:02:49.880 I mean literally everyone is the same in that.

00:02:52.800 Right.

00:02:53.080 You know, I like that person unless they hate me.

00:02:54.980 And then why would I like that person?

00:02:56.540 Right.

00:02:56.960 But Christianity is really unique in the love thy enemy because a Christian can't say that. 0.97

00:03:04.060 Right.

00:03:04.180 A non-Christian. 1.00

00:03:05.180 Sorry?

00:03:05.600 A non-Christian can't say that. 0.95

00:03:07.620 Well, no, no.

00:03:08.300 A Christian can't say, we love you unless you hate us.

00:03:10.860 Oh, yes.

00:03:11.460 Yes, yes.

00:03:11.880 So a Christian has to say, no, we love you.

00:03:13.960 Our love is universal.

00:03:15.300 Yes.

00:03:15.600 And we will, you know, forgive you, turn the other cheek, whatever it is that the Christian 1.00

00:03:18.780 wants to do in the face of the insult.

00:03:21.380 So Christianity is actually really unusual in the scheme of West, like the religions of

00:03:28.300 the West, because it has such a different perspective on what it is to be moral.

00:03:35.560 In every way for Christianity, being moral is something transcendent, right?

00:03:42.060 It's something that happens.

00:03:43.800 I mean, all of Christianity's promises are in the afterlife. 0.97

00:03:46.340 They're all in the next life.

00:03:48.960 Whereas pagan religions promise glory and victory now, right? 1.00

00:03:52.600 They're very much in the here and now.

00:03:54.080 Yes, defeat your enemies this afternoon.

00:03:55.500 As does Islam, as does Judaism.

00:03:58.020 Exactly.

00:03:58.760 Islam and Judaism follow the same moral structure as the pagan religions.

00:04:02.620 I mean, like in Judaism, it is a pagan Middle Eastern religion.

00:04:06.800 It's just that the Middle East was usually, I mean, and early Judaism is very much henotheistic, 1.00

00:04:14.180 right?

00:04:14.600 As in, it only worships one God, but it does concede other gods exist.

00:04:18.760 And early Judaism has this in its own DNA.

00:04:21.880 And it's only later on in the development of Judaism, probably like 400 BC or something

00:04:25.720 like that, that actually becomes monotheistic.

00:04:28.140 It denies the existence of other gods.

00:04:30.640 So, from the Christian perspective, Judaism recognizes the presence of other powers, as

00:04:42.660 does Christianity.

00:04:44.480 Other nations call them gods.

00:04:47.700 The way that Judaism operated was to recognize that reality and then slowly purify its monotheism. 1.00

00:04:57.440 Yes.

00:04:57.700 And it was a gradual process because in the Christian worldview, most peoples and most religions

00:05:06.420 have grains of truth in them that should be developed and nourished where they are found.

00:05:13.540 However, it is only Christianity that contains the fullness of truth. 0.99

00:05:18.140 So, that's the view of Christianity on this question.

00:05:22.460 Go on.

00:05:25.940 Well, the point I was going to make is basically, the reason that the Middle Eastern religions

00:05:31.980 that are not, like Christianity is a very European religion, right?

00:05:35.420 I don't think it's a coincidence that it is the product of European occupation for hundreds

00:05:40.260 of years of the area of the Near East that it came from, that gave it the form that it has.

00:05:45.780 Sorry to not imply that it's the divine revelation or anything, but from a philosophical perspective,

00:05:53.500 it's stamped with European ideas all over it, whereas Judaism and Islam are not.

00:06:00.440 They're very parochial, particular.

00:06:04.000 Tribal.

00:06:04.500 Tribal.

00:06:05.120 Exactly.

00:06:05.580 Tribal.

00:06:05.960 And this just follows the ancient tribal pattern of Middle Eastern religiosity, which is, this

00:06:11.240 is our tribe's god.

00:06:12.760 Our tribe had, it took a long time for, like, syncretism to emerge in the Middle East, right?

00:06:19.220 So, it would, you know, back, like, you know, 5000 BC, each tribe had essentially its god,

00:06:26.020 and it was understood that there'd be other powers in the world, and these belonged to other

00:06:31.420 tribes, and eventually you end up with a pantheon of gods, that, like, each city in, you know...

00:06:37.420 Well, as they conquered a city, they might not get rid of the god, but they would subordinate

00:06:40.300 god.

00:06:40.340 It's not even that they conquer them, because it used to just be that the god lived at the

00:06:45.920 top of the temple in the statue of the city, right?

00:06:48.900 And it's not that the god was trapped in the statue, it would just, when you are...

00:06:52.720 The thing is, monotheistic religions don't give the pagan theology a fair shrift, which

00:06:59.520 I'm not pointing fingers, it's understandable why they wouldn't, right?

00:07:02.020 In the same way that, you know, I don't tend to give communists a fair shrift in their ideology.

00:07:06.140 Like, it...

00:07:06.920 But the pagans viewed the statue as being a sort of temporary seat of the god.

00:07:11.180 So, when you perform a ritual, the god will come and sit in the statue and actually be

00:07:14.880 present, manifested in the statue.

00:07:17.560 So, it's not that the idol itself was worshipped, it's the idol was just a part of the religious

00:07:22.480 process.

00:07:23.100 The god existed outside of the idol.

00:07:24.500 But the god resides, when interfaced with, at the top of the temple in the city.

00:07:31.880 So, the capturing of other god's statues, which is what happened all the time, when you

00:07:37.260 conquered a city...

00:07:38.060 I mean, the Assyrians had dozens of statues of other gods in the great templar Asher, right?

00:07:44.080 Because the great god Asher would conquer every city, and they would just loot their statues, 1.00

00:07:50.500 parade them through the streets, and then lay them face down at the feet of Asher.

00:07:53.960 So, depending on how many the king had conquered, you get, you know, how many...

00:07:59.780 So, two points relating to that note.

00:08:02.060 The first point is the way that, essentially, after the exodus and the reign of King David,

00:08:10.680 the Hebrew god got his own house in the temple.

00:08:14.820 Yes.

00:08:15.080 And he says to King David, no, I don't need that, I don't want that, and I will bestow that

00:08:22.220 honor of building me a temple on your son Solomon.

00:08:25.160 With Islam, the Kaaba, where the Muslims go for their pilgrimage, used to be the home of

00:08:32.340 a bunch of Arab tribal gods.

00:08:34.280 And Muhammad goes in and destroys the other idols, saying that he did what Abraham did, 0.86

00:08:42.060 which I think is in some version of the Jewish Mishnah or something like that,

00:08:47.720 where there's a story about Abraham destroying the other gods.

00:08:51.240 So, there is this evolution of religious thought.

00:08:55.100 But going to your point on religion as a social technology, yes, to a certain extent.

00:09:03.800 The other side of it is that you will never find a people anywhere, even at the most primitive 0.97

00:09:11.480 state, without some sense of the metaphysical.

00:09:15.720 So, it's not just a technology, it's a naturally emergent property of human beings.

00:09:20.640 And it distinguishes human beings from other species. 0.82

00:09:24.760 Just on that point, though, you could still frame it as a technology.

00:09:28.620 You could.

00:09:29.820 You are absolutely correct, obviously.

00:09:32.340 As far back as we have any records for, I mean like cave drawings on a wall, there's

00:09:39.520 a metaphysical element that is attached to everything in the world, right?

00:09:43.900 So, we have animistic beliefs where the river is the spirit, and the trees have spirits.

00:09:50.080 But what these do, in a technological way, is give the people a kind of respect and awe

00:09:56.160 for the world around them.

00:09:57.460 As in, in that sort of primitive condition, the world's a very dangerous place, right?

00:10:02.040 You can't just mess around in the river, there might be a crocodile in there, or the current

00:10:05.420 might drag you off or something.

00:10:06.560 You have to treat the thing with respect.

00:10:08.120 And to show respect for the natural world is the first way to not get killed or eaten by

00:10:12.760 it, right?

00:10:13.580 And so, it still has a technological aspect, even though it, of course, is entirely moralized.

00:10:19.700 Well, shall I run through very quickly what the argument is with the diagram I'm going

00:10:22.640 through, and then you can sort of...

00:10:23.700 Sorry, just one more point about that.

00:10:26.560 This is where we get to a fundamental disagreement, which is fine to have, obviously, which is whether

00:10:36.080 or not this is a purely material question.

00:10:38.980 So, I'm not saying it's a purely material question.

00:10:41.540 Okay.

00:10:44.320 But to elaborate very briefly, the disagreement is that, is this merely necessary for survival,

00:10:52.320 or does this reflect something that is within us, namely, to give it a religious name, a soul?

00:10:59.600 I mean, I would say it's both things, right?

00:11:01.340 Fair enough.

00:11:01.840 So, whether...

00:11:03.980 So, you believe that human beings have souls?

00:11:06.220 Well, whether...

00:11:08.180 It doesn't matter what the actual reality of the thing is, right?

00:11:13.340 What kind of matters in this regard is what we believe is the case and how we act.

00:11:18.020 And even the most ardent materialist acts as if every human being has a soul, right?

00:11:24.220 Notice how, you know, they're like, oh, you know, we're just a floating ball of dust in

00:11:29.260 the middle of space, but don't you dare say something racist?

00:11:31.320 Yes.

00:11:32.040 Like, they all act as if, you know...

00:11:35.180 I mean, if you were a genuine materialist, what's stopping you from acting like an Assyrian 0.99

00:11:39.200 warlord?

00:11:40.260 Like, what's...

00:11:40.680 Seriously, if there's no moral consequence in the afterlife, why do you care?

00:11:44.000 Exactly.

00:11:44.360 No, I'm just going to enslave the neighbouring tribe. 1.00

00:11:45.460 If you can give me the crime and get away with it, kill somebody, why not? 0.99

00:11:47.580 Exactly.

00:11:48.080 But they don't act like this, because they don't really believe it.

00:11:50.220 Well, they do think that there is a moral telos to the universe, and it is about respecting

00:11:54.940 the soul of the individual, even if they wouldn't use that word.

00:11:57.980 So, I'm not questioning the soul aspect.

00:11:59.720 Mm-hmm.

00:12:01.720 I'm just not considering it at this time.

00:12:02.720 Fair enough.

00:12:03.720 I'm just looking at it as a civilizational technology.

00:12:04.720 Yes, yes, yes.

00:12:05.720 Fair enough.

00:12:06.720 What does it add to civilization?

00:12:07.720 My argument is basically, without any religion, your method of conflict resolution is going

00:12:12.200 to be two guys who have a disagreement, go at it.

00:12:14.440 Mm-hmm.

00:12:15.440 One loses and I, one dies.

00:12:17.440 And you can resolve that with religion.

00:12:18.440 With religion, you have that.

00:12:19.440 You know?

00:12:20.440 Well, yes.

00:12:21.440 But my point is, that is an extremely expensive form of order, because you lose people as you

00:12:26.440 go.

00:12:27.440 Mm-hmm.

00:12:28.440 When you get to the desert layer, where I'm kind of starting my analysis of Christianity,

00:12:31.440 at that layer, you're bringing in presumably a king or something like that, a tribal chief,

00:12:36.440 who's saying, I have the approval of the gods.

00:12:40.440 This is the law.

00:12:41.440 Here it is on the tablets.

00:12:43.440 Don't do anything to your neighbor's goat or kill their son or whatever it is. 0.97

00:12:48.440 And if you do, there is going to be a messy, painful, public execution at this level. 0.97

00:12:54.440 Mm-hmm.

00:12:55.440 And what this is, is trying to minimize the conflict by saying, these are the rules, and

00:13:00.440 if you break them, you will die, which is not actually trying to get to sacrifice

00:13:04.440 people.

00:13:05.440 What it's trying to do is stop them from doing the crime in the first place.

00:13:07.440 Mm-hmm.

00:13:08.440 One man.

00:13:09.440 That's the desert layer.

00:13:10.440 When you move up to the Mediterranean, this is basically where Christianity meets the Greeks

00:13:15.440 and the Romans, and the legalistic system, and their more oligarch-type system.

00:13:20.440 And it ceases being so much about the one individual who's laying down the law.

00:13:25.440 Now God is guiding us to discover the laws.

00:13:30.440 We're going to lay them out.

00:13:31.440 It's going to become much more procedural.

00:13:33.440 It's going to become much more ritualistic.

00:13:35.440 We're basically adding legitimacy of this layer.

00:13:38.440 Mm-hmm.

00:13:39.440 But we're spreading it across.

00:13:40.440 Because we're adding that legitimacy layer, we're adding the systematic layer to it.

00:13:44.440 We are then adding process to this, which again makes conflict resolution less expensive.

00:13:49.440 And then the great revolution was the Northern European layer. 0.60

00:13:54.440 Because at this point, what you're saying is, you're getting everybody to internalize it.

00:14:00.440 And you're saying that everybody has to be moral within themselves, which is the least

00:14:06.440 expensive enforcement, because people don't want to commit the crimes in the first place.

00:14:10.440 So can I give my view of this?

00:14:13.440 Yes.

00:14:14.440 So I think that you are right to identify three different layers.

00:14:19.440 And I think the difference is the philosophical groundwork of them.

00:14:24.440 So the desert layer is entirely based on an argument from authority, right?

00:14:28.440 Yes.

00:14:29.440 So when you say a king, every Middle Eastern lawgiver is essentially a prophet. 0.80

00:14:34.440 Like Hammurabi or Ur-Nammu, like going back to literally the very oldest codes of law,

00:14:39.440 something like 2400 BC, the code of Ur-Nammu, begins with the great god Utu empowered me

00:14:45.440 to provide his divine providence across the land, and therefore here are 10 laws.

00:14:50.440 Or no, it's not even 10 laws, it's actually really short.

00:14:52.440 But then you get Hammurabi, he's like, right, well, I've got 33 laws for you.

00:14:57.440 Now, you know, the great god Shamash has informed me that these are the laws, and I have to impose 0.99

00:15:01.440 these on a benighted and blighted land full of criminals, evildoers, lawbreakers, scum 0.99

00:15:06.440 of the earth. 0.99

00:15:07.440 And then you get Moses.

00:15:08.440 Well, here are the Ten Commandments straight from God.

00:15:10.440 You've got to do it, because otherwise we're not.

00:15:12.440 And then you get essentially the Koran, which is the product of this, which is just a really, 1.00

00:15:18.440 really developed version of this code of rules.

00:15:21.440 There's a lot of massive codecs.

00:15:22.440 Don't do this, don't do that.

00:15:23.440 Exactly right.

00:15:24.440 Do do this.

00:15:25.440 But this is just in the process of standard Middle Eastern religious development, because

00:15:30.440 it begins with only a handful of laws, and it ends, I mean, there's the Assyrian, Middle 0.99

00:15:35.440 Assyrian code of laws, which is hundreds of pages of divine commandments from Asher,

00:15:40.440 which are just, don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other, and this is the punishment

00:15:43.440 of this.

00:15:44.440 It's all exactly this way, and you've got hundreds of pages, and then you've got essentially

00:15:48.440 the fact that however long the Koran is.

00:15:51.440 Whereas it's just, when you sit there and say, these are the rules and you have to follow

00:15:55.440 them, well, you have to account for every eventuality.

00:15:58.440 Yes.

00:15:59.440 And so the book of rules just keeps getting longer and longer and longer and longer until

00:16:02.440 you've literally encompassed everything a human being can do.

00:16:05.440 But that lets you scale up, because that pushes down the amount of violence and the amount

00:16:10.440 of waste in the society.

00:16:11.440 No, that increases the amount of violence, right?

00:16:13.440 Because this is entirely predicated on an argument from authority.

00:16:16.440 At some point in history, someone with sufficient political power imposed this on the civilization.

00:16:22.440 It's not necessarily the way they'd normally live.

00:16:24.440 In fact, many of the times, it's directly contradictory to how they are actually living.

00:16:28.440 And Mohammed is a great example of this. 1.00

00:16:30.440 Right?

00:16:31.440 And Moses is a great example of this as well.

00:16:32.440 Right?

00:16:33.440 The Israelites are not doing as they're supposed to be doing, according to God's own divine 0.98

00:16:37.440 plan.

00:16:38.440 Mohammed sees the same with the Arabs. 0.99

00:16:39.440 He's like, right, no, and I'm going to impose this fight through war.

00:16:43.440 Right?

00:16:44.440 War on Canaan.

00:16:45.440 War on the Arabs. 0.98

00:16:46.440 War on whatever tribe, you know, the Babylonians are fighting with or the Assyrians are fighting 0.82

00:16:50.440 with.

00:16:51.440 Right?

00:16:52.440 It's directly imposed hierarchically, top down, because the only legitimacy from it is pure authority.

00:16:57.440 The authority of the God and the force the God has imbued in me.

00:17:00.440 Yes.

00:17:01.440 And this is the argument.

00:17:02.440 They always preface their laws by saying the great God, X, has empowered me to beat 0.96

00:17:06.440 the crap out of everyone. 0.96

00:17:07.440 Yes. 0.98

00:17:08.440 So this is, sorry, this is a fundamental difference with Christianity.

00:17:11.440 Yes.

00:17:12.440 Because-

00:17:13.440 Can I get to that in a minute?

00:17:14.440 Let me, let me lay out the tree list, because I'll show you why I think Christianity

00:17:18.440 is different.

00:17:19.440 So what this means, it, what, there are advantages to the desert land, right?

00:17:25.440 It centralizes power.

00:17:27.440 And that means that power can be wielded very effectively and quickly.

00:17:30.440 It is, there's just one guy.

00:17:32.440 And because it is the God that is empowering him, there's literally no one to appeal to

00:17:37.440 other than the sky.

00:17:38.440 The scale is difficult under that model.

00:17:39.440 The scale is very difficult.

00:17:40.440 And this is what the Assyrians found, right?

00:17:42.440 So the Assyrians created what is probably the largest empire you can create under this

00:17:46.440 model.

00:17:47.440 Right?

00:17:48.440 It's like the King of Kings, like with the Persian Empire, right? 0.95

00:17:51.440 But he doesn't actually, I mean, it is, it is the case that they did actually incorporate

00:17:55.440 provinces and put governors in.

00:17:57.440 But most of the time, for most of Assyria's history, the King of Assyria would just have

00:18:01.440 the biggest and best army.

00:18:03.440 And therefore that meant his God was the most strong. 0.80

00:18:06.440 And so he'd go to this kingdom or the city or whatever, kick the living daylights out 0.98

00:18:11.440 of them. 0.93

00:18:12.440 And their King would supplicate himself.

00:18:14.440 I mean, there's the, one of the earliest references of the Israelites is them supplicating

00:18:18.440 themselves to the King of Assyria, where the, is the, the Israelite King is literally banged 0.96

00:18:23.440 down and kissing the feet of the Assyrian King because he's got the most powerful God.

00:18:27.440 And so what that means is yearly tribute.

00:18:30.440 And this is one of the reasons that you've got like Sennacherib's assault on Judea because 0.99

00:18:34.440 Hezekiah decides, you know, I just don't feel like paying my tribute.

00:18:36.440 It's like, okay, that's mental because you are a tiny backwater kingdom and the King of

00:18:42.440 Syria can field 250,000 men and they're professionals.

00:18:46.440 So what are you doing?

00:18:48.440 You know, anyway.

00:18:49.440 And if the King of Syria says he wants Greenland, you have to give it to him. 0.92

00:18:51.440 Yeah.

00:18:52.440 Oh, absolutely.

00:18:53.440 Yeah.

00:18:54.440 Yeah. 0.74

00:18:55.440 He will put up Steli saying, oh yeah, I climb these mountains, destroy these people.

00:18:58.440 I climb this.

00:18:59.440 I traverse these deserts, destroy the, that's all he does.

00:19:02.440 And that's all his ancestors have ever done.

00:19:04.440 Right.

00:19:05.440 And so that, that is, it gives you a very strong core of power and it legitimizes basically

00:19:11.440 anything the King does.

00:19:12.440 So it's a very useful thing.

00:19:13.440 If you're in a very competitive, disparate environment where you've got lots of different

00:19:18.440 tribes, lots of different people and you need security, right?

00:19:20.440 Yeah. 0.99

00:19:21.440 No, we're just going to build the biggest goddamn army and smash the crap out of everyone around us. 0.99

00:19:25.440 Now in the Bible, there's some honestly justly earned references to Assyria. 0.99

00:19:30.440 Mm-hmm.

00:19:31.440 Oh, Assyria, no one will lament when you fall. 0.96

00:19:33.440 And nobody did lament when they fell.

00:19:35.440 Because eventually you make so many enemies that they all just realized, do we all hate

00:19:39.440 the Assyrians?

00:19:40.440 Do we?

00:19:41.440 Okay, let's crack on, right?

00:19:42.440 And this is how the Assyrians end up. 0.69

00:19:44.440 Falling is a massive coalition of people, sack their cities, essentially erase them.

00:19:48.440 There are still Assyrians in existence.

00:19:49.440 There's something like 4 million of them in the entire world after 2,500, 3,000 years

00:19:55.440 after the original extermination of the Assyrians.

00:19:58.440 So it makes them strong but brittle by relying on just this one innovation.

00:20:01.440 It makes them powerful but brittle.

00:20:02.440 Yeah.

00:20:03.440 And it doesn't scale, like you said.

00:20:04.440 Mm-hmm.

00:20:05.440 Because one of the problems that the Assyrians had is that essentially they've been campaigning

00:20:08.440 all across their own world.

00:20:09.440 And they're 1,000 miles away from where their cities are.

00:20:12.440 Mm-hmm.

00:20:13.440 And it's just like, guys, I think now's the time.

00:20:15.440 Mm-hmm.

00:20:16.440 You know, I don't think they can get back.

00:20:17.440 And it's a longer story than that, but that's the summary of it.

00:20:20.440 Mm-hmm.

00:20:21.440 And then you get the Mediterranean layer.

00:20:23.440 So that's built on a different moral justification.

00:20:26.440 Because, okay, the great god Asher is only great while his army is present and beating 0.88

00:20:30.440 the crap out of people.

00:20:31.440 If it ever loses, then the great god Asher falls and topples and he's gone forever.

00:20:37.440 But with the Mediterranean layer, that's not how they organized themselves.

00:20:42.440 So what they had was rationalism.

00:20:45.440 So it was incredibly common, especially for the Greeks, but also elsewhere in like Italy

00:20:51.440 and the Etruscans and things like that, for them to send a philosopher to another city

00:20:56.440 who would literally say, these are the laws.

00:20:59.440 And they would choose this guy from some other city because, and it's the same thing

00:21:03.440 in the same way that the sort of Europeans would choose a new king from overseas

00:21:08.440 because he doesn't have personal investments here.

00:21:10.440 There's a particular story of like the Russian principality in the Middle Ages

00:21:15.440 who literally couldn't decide on who their prince was going to be.

00:21:17.440 So they just import some random foreign prince.

00:21:19.440 Because you can't choose one from among you because you're like, oh, right,

00:21:22.440 we're going to lose out if they-

00:21:23.440 William of Orange.

00:21:24.440 William of Orange is a great example of this, right?

00:21:26.440 If we choose a guy from that tribe or that team over there in the city we're living in, 0.92

00:21:30.440 well, he's just going to privilege his friends and family.

00:21:32.440 We're going to lose out.

00:21:33.440 We can't have that.

00:21:34.440 And they're like, well, the same for the other way.

00:21:36.440 So you have to choose someone else.

00:21:38.440 Now, there are loads of examples of this, of people like Solon, Draco.

00:21:43.440 Plato went over to Syracuse to try and give, was it Hyrule?

00:21:48.440 I can't remember which one it was.

00:21:50.440 Whatever the Syracuse and Thailand is a set of laws.

00:21:52.440 But the thing is, Syracuse is a bit of a strange entity.

00:21:55.440 So Plato came back going, no, that was a mistake. 1.00

00:21:57.440 These people are idiots. 0.99

00:21:59.440 But the point is, it was really common for you to get some distinguished gentleman philosopher 1.00

00:22:04.440 to come over and give you a rational settlement.

00:22:07.440 Right?

00:22:08.440 Here are your laws.

00:22:09.440 And so the laws the Greeks always used had this kind of universal tinge to them.

00:22:16.440 Right?

00:22:17.440 Because it was egoistic.

00:22:18.440 It was like an individual, like the rational European philosophy is,

00:22:22.440 and you can see in Aristotle to this day, what does the individual man do?

00:22:26.440 Well, if the individual man does X, then that's every man who can do X.

00:22:31.440 And this is why Christianity takes on a very different tone to other Middle Eastern religions.

00:22:36.440 Because they're universal, right?

00:22:38.440 The instructions Moses gives to the Israelites are not for the Gentiles. 0.99

00:22:45.440 They're not for the foreign. 1.00

00:22:46.440 They're for the Israelites to maintain this. 0.96

00:22:48.440 This is the covenant that God has with the Israelites.

00:22:50.440 It's particulars.

00:22:51.440 Only for these people.

00:22:52.440 Who cares about the rest?

00:22:54.440 It's the same as Harambi's 33 laws or whatever.

00:22:57.440 Uh, Hammurabi's.

00:22:58.440 Hammurabi.

00:22:59.440 Hammurabi, yeah.

00:23:00.440 Yeah.

00:23:01.440 Yeah.

00:23:02.440 Hammurabi is different.

00:23:03.440 But Hammurabi, for him, it's whoever he controls as the king.

00:23:06.440 But isn't that the same for Moses?

00:23:08.440 He's...

00:23:09.440 No, Moses specifically stipulates the Israelites.

00:23:11.440 But for Hammurabi...

00:23:12.440 The laws for the Gentiles under the Jews are different from the laws for the Jews themselves.

00:23:18.440 And it's the same in Islam. 0.90

00:23:19.440 Which is why you have to pay the Jews here. 1.00

00:23:21.440 And it's the same for Islam because it's understood that this is a law for a particular nation.

00:23:27.440 So in the same way that Jews view themselves as a nation, Islam views itself as an Ummah. 0.93

00:23:31.440 So you're saying that...

00:23:32.440 About a single nation of nations, in a sense.

00:23:34.440 Yes.

00:23:35.440 So you're saying that Christianity was universal even at the desert layer?

00:23:39.440 Um, no.

00:23:40.440 Because the desert layer of Christianity is Judaism. 1.00

00:23:42.440 Okay.

00:23:43.440 So the Mediterranean layer, the Greek layer, begins in a rational animal, as in the Aristotelian

00:23:52.440 conception.

00:23:53.440 Aristotle didn't impose this on the Greeks.

00:23:55.440 This is just the way the Greeks thought.

00:23:56.440 Right?

00:23:57.440 What does a rational animal do?

00:23:58.440 A rational man makes decisions.

00:24:00.440 Right?

00:24:01.440 And so you get this very rationalistic, individualistic perspective on morality that comes from the Greeks.

00:24:07.440 And so what you need are justifications.

00:24:09.440 You need moral, rational justifications.

00:24:11.440 And this is what essentially Greek philosophy is.

00:24:14.440 To explain why we should be good people.

00:24:17.440 And you end up in a kind of Kantian categorical imperative when you go down that line.

00:24:23.440 Right?

00:24:24.440 Any rational person should be able to understand the argument made for the moral position that you're in.

00:24:30.440 And therefore there's no particularity that's baked in to the moral philosophy itself.

00:24:36.440 Anyone can pick up Stoicism.

00:24:38.440 Anyone can pick up Epicureanism.

00:24:40.440 Right?

00:24:41.440 Any of these things.

00:24:42.440 And just live by these precepts.

00:24:43.440 You know, Aristotelianism.

00:24:44.440 I'm not Greek, but I think Aristotle's one.

00:24:45.440 But at the Mediterranean level, they're still dealing with Mediterranean people. 0.93

00:24:49.440 Sure.

00:24:50.440 And so there's still going to be lots of sin.

00:24:52.440 So you're going to need a mechanism for dealing with sin.

00:24:54.440 Well, no.

00:24:55.440 Sin and crime are different.

00:24:56.440 Yeah.

00:24:57.440 Sin kind of is not really something they thought about.

00:25:01.440 They...

00:25:02.440 Yes.

00:25:03.440 I suppose that is a layer.

00:25:04.440 I think I guess...

00:25:05.440 Plato had some conception of it, but a very undeveloped one.

00:25:08.440 Possibly.

00:25:09.440 And how widespread would that have actually been?

00:25:11.440 Yes.

00:25:12.440 I guess what I'm getting at is the contrast with the layer above it, the European level, where

00:25:15.440 everybody sort of internalizes it.

00:25:16.440 Well, I'll get to this in a minute.

00:25:18.440 Okay.

00:25:19.440 Right.

00:25:20.440 So the point is, the Mediterranean layer is expressly rationalistic.

00:25:22.440 Right?

00:25:23.440 You get codes of laws that are imposed, but they're imposed because of a person who is

00:25:30.440 not necessarily appealing to a god, but is appealing to what would be good for a particular consequence.

00:25:35.440 They are making a logical argument.

00:25:37.440 And a great example of this is Lycurgus, right?

00:25:39.440 Lycurgus wants to essentially impose a socialist republic on Sparta because he realizes that they

00:25:45.440 will always need 10,000 professional trained soldiers to be able to defend the Peloponnese.

00:25:52.440 And this means that he needs to impose a particular order on it.

00:25:55.440 And so it is literally, it looks like an American city.

00:25:58.440 You know, American city is very rationally constructed.

00:26:00.440 He grids.

00:26:01.440 Well, he literally grids up Sparta and parcels out the land to a soldier.

00:26:06.440 And that soldier has an assigned number of helots, which are Greek slaves that are from a neighboring 1.00

00:26:10.440 city they've conquered, to work the land.

00:26:12.440 And the soldier is forbidden from working the land, but he has to contribute to a shared mess.

00:26:17.440 And therefore, it essentially turns into a kind of militaristic socialist experiment.

00:26:23.440 And then Lycurgus, after instituting this, goes to the Oracle of Delphi.

00:26:27.440 And he asks the Oracle, is this a good order and will it preserve Sparta?

00:26:31.440 And the Oracle says, yes, on the condition that basically, as long as they hold your laws,

00:26:37.440 Sparta will be fine.

00:26:38.440 And so Lycurgus is like, right, okay, well, I told them, hold the laws until I come back

00:26:43.440 and see how they work.

00:26:44.440 And so he realized that he can't go back if he wants them to do this thing in perpetuity.

00:26:48.440 So he has to wander off into the desert and starve himself to death, right?

00:26:52.440 And that's the end.

00:26:53.440 But Lycurgus went the other way.

00:26:55.440 He had the idea.

00:26:56.440 He was like, right, okay, if we just do this, then Sparta's great.

00:26:58.440 I'm going to get the sanction of the god afterwards.

00:27:01.440 God didn't tell me to do this.

00:27:02.440 I just made sure that God thinks this is a good idea.

00:27:05.440 And so you've inverted this now, right?

00:27:08.440 So the source of it is the human mind and it's sanctioned by the god.

00:27:12.440 So it's not just an appeal to authority.

00:27:14.440 It's an appeal to reason that is the layer the Greeks operated on, right? 0.97

00:27:19.440 And so that's the layer in which Christianity comes out of this, right?

00:27:24.440 Because Christianity does have the shape of Greek thought in it, which is fine 0.99

00:27:29.440 and which is probably why it spreads so wildly because it's intuitive, right?

00:27:34.440 Like everyone agrees.

00:27:35.440 Yeah, no, actually, you know, I am a decision making person.

00:27:39.440 And therefore, as a rational human being, I can reason into the position that I'm in.

00:27:46.440 If you enjoyed that content, and of course you did because you are a smart person,

00:27:51.440 then why don't you go over to lotuseaters.com where you can watch the whole episode for as little as £5 a month,

00:27:58.440 which really is not much money at all and you get loads of really good content.

00:28:04.440 Which African American kids are paired with you once,

00:28:07.440 when you get you's going back?

00:28:09.440 Yeah, look at the BC and I'm unlike the country.

00:28:11.440 And with the UK that I think is something like this.

00:28:13.440 And you all have to create a conjunction with you in the world that is making these same candidates.

00:28:16.440 As a virtuous side, the evolution of the CSはいPellt and that is doing what you can take on task.

PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ The Evolution of Christianity

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