This discussion explores the enduring relevance of ancient narratives and philosophical traditions (Athens and Jerusalem) in understanding contemporary challenges, particularly the flaws in Enlightenment rationality, the rise of technology like AI, and the search for meaning in a complex world. It argues that ancient wisdom offers essential frameworks for navigating these issues.
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انقر لاستعراض خريطة الذهن التفاعلية الكاملة
One of the things I figured out recently
the significance of the fact that the
root word of question is quest. You have
a question which is your plea to the
gods. Let's say you await a revelation
and then the critical process is
something like internalized dialogue. I
got interested in the Talmud. It's a lot
like the Platonic dialogues and you have
this fictional colloquy. That's the only
way to describe it. Rabbis who maybe
lived centuries apart are brought into
debate and discussion. If we lose touch
with those ancient stories, we lose our
ability to actually understand what's
going on. Elijah, you mentioned Elijah.
Yes. Elijah's foes are the nature
worshippers. That's kind of relevant in
today's society. Given the rise of
nature worship, something will attain
the pinnacle point. What happens in a
universe where finite beings try to find
some meaning and encounter or are
afflicted by infinity in some way? This
is a terrifying thought. I think you
said you saw a similarity with the
dialogues. So, but what else caught your
attention? There is a question that I
know to be absolutely fundamental
because it shows up both in the Hebrew
Bible and in Plato. Okay. And the question
is, so I had the opportunity today to
speak with Dr. Jacob Howland, and I
wanted to speak with him for a variety
of reasons. Um he's a philosopher,
longtime academic, integrally involved
with the new University of Austin, which
is one of a handful of institutions that
are attempting to
reorient, traditionally reorient modern
higher education. He's also interested
in the interface between modern
technology, AI for example, and
philosophy partly in an attempt to solve
what's started to become known as the
alignment problem. How do we ensure that
these autonomous intelligences because
that's what they're developing into will
have the well-being of human beings, for
example, as one of their priorities u or
maybe their top priority, you might
hope. But what we really ended up
talking about was the relationship
between Athens and Jerusalem
philosophically and the and at a deeper
level less geographically centered the
relationship between rationality as such
the enlightenment project and science
and the underlying metaphysical
substrate. And it turned out that the
conclusions that Dr. Howland had drawn
seem to be very similar to the
conclusions that I've been drawing along
with people like John Vervi and Jonathan
Pacio for example variety of the
lectures that we have on Peterson
Academy. It it does appear
that something really quite
revolutionary on the intellectual side
is beginning to emerge because
the flaws in the enlightenment have
become so structural that it's clear
that a new pathway forward not only has
to be found but is likely already upon
us. and the appearance of new
institutions like the University of
Austin, like Peterson Academy, like
Rston are a are an indication of that.
And so we delve deep into the
philosophical relationship between
enlightenment rationality and the
underlying narrative substructure.
That's a good way of thinking about it.
And we discussed that in terms of the relationship
relationship
between Athens and Plato and the
the
ancient religious texts of the western
world. So join us for
that. So Dr. Holland, I I wanted to talk
to you today primarily there's a bunch
of reasons. I think the main reason was
that we have overlapping interests in
new approaches to higher education and
maybe education in general. and you're
involved with the University of Austin
and um I've been involved in Peterson
Academy and also Rston College and so I
thought we could talk about that more
narrowly but we share philosophical interests
interests
and I'm also curious about your take on
new developments in AI especially with
regards to the large language models.
That'll be an interesting discussion cuz
I've used them quite a bit now and I
have a colleague who's helped me program
a number of them custom LLMs and uh they're
they're
uncanny machines and I have no idea
where they're headed. Well, that doesn't
make me special. No one knows where
they're headed. And so that's the broad
landscape that I hope to traverse with
you today. But I think we should start
with let's start with a little
background about you so that people can
situate you. You're a philosophy
professor. You're an acclaimed educator.
So fill us in on who you are. And first
let me say I appreciate you're having me
on your podcast. Uh this is a great
opportunity. Um so I
uh how far back do you want me to start?
Back away so we can start with
undergraduate if you want. Right. Sure.
So uh well I'll start with my parents.
Uh my father was a biology professor at
Cornell University. My mother was a
writer. Uh first nine 10 years of my
life I live with my mother. I have an
older brother. My parents were divorced
before I have any recollection of them
being together. So I was just maybe a
year old. uh during that period my
mother was a struggling writer and lived
in poverty and we lived in Chicago and I
had uh uh the unfortunate experience of
um being in Chicago public schools in
1968 69 and a lot of tension um uh
things became very difficult because my
mother was quite poor and and couldn't
sort of make ends meet. When were you
born? I was born in 1959. End of 1959. Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so let's see. My mother comes from a
Jewish background. Uh, her whole family
was from Chicago, bluecollar. My
grandfather graduated from the 10th
grade and worked with his hands making
nuts and bolts in a in a big factory.
Um, and uh, my father who's not Jewish
um, actually we're descended from a John
Howland who came over on the
Mayflower. Um, and his side of the
family were all scientists. His father
was an engineer at Purdue University who
designed the sewer system of Lafayette,
Indiana. His older brother uh was a
genius who graduated from Purdue atif at
the age of 17 and was an engineer,
optical engineer um just had 20 patents.
Um and actually both of those guys are
still alive. But in any case, so as a
child I had um strong influences on my
mother's side um let's say literary and
cultural influences. One of my earliest
memories was being in Iowa City when I
was a kid. My mother was reading me a
story by Toltoy called How Much Land
Does a Man Need? And uh my older brother
got me up early in the morning and I
don't know, I was probably four or five.
He was a couple years older and he
finished reading the story to me. So we
always had she always took us to you
know see dance, you know, ballet and
museums and things like this. Um anyway,
fast forward, we moved in with my
father. or I graduated from Myiththica
High School at the age of 16 cuz my dad
said, "Uh, well, I'm going to go on a
sobatic leave and I don't want to take
you with me and so you can graduate
early." Uh, which I did. Went to
Sworthmore College. Uh, took a
philosophy course. I I initially thought
I was going to be a physics major. I
see. So, you really are split between
the aesthetic and the more scientific
engineering. Exactly. Exactly. That's
useful to know. Yeah. And I was and I
was very um I'm not a mathematician but
uh I did very well in mathematics. So
but I I found that um the physics was
frankly too challenging. Uh and and I
took an English course and some other
things and I finally took a philosophy
course with a very brilliant man named
David Lockerman. Um and he's one of
these people that you know anyone who
knew the guy said this is the most
brilliant person they'd ever met. I was
very fortunate to and that was at
Cornell. No, that was at Sworthmore
College when I was undergraduate. Yeah.
Uh and I decid and and so I I so I so I
studied philosophy, history and English.
Uh those were my sort of three big
influences. I got to read a lot of great
literature, Russian lit, Latin American
literature, American literature, studied
history, um in particular African
history, I think, which was quite
interesting. But I fell in love with
Plato, went to graduate school at Penn
State University. Uh, and David Lcherman
came to Penn State then, and that was
great because he was on my dissertation
committee. Um, my main professor there,
I suppose, besides Lochman was a man
named Stanley Rosen, who was a student
of Leo Strauss. Uh, and I studied Greek
and wrote a dissertation on Plato's
political philosophy. Got a job at the
University of Tulsa, which was great for
about three decades. Um I I was the
first chairman or the yeah first
chairman of the of the department of
philosophy and religion. They put these
two departments together and I had
written um a book on plas republic and
and then had published my dissertation
and then decided I really wanted to get
to know my religion colleagues. So I
started studying Kirkagard
um and wrote a book on Kirkagard and
Socrates. Then I also when we got to Tulsa
Tulsa
see I had a had Jewish experiences as a
child. For example, I remember Passover
at my grandfather's house or he'd grab
my hand and take me to a schol when they
he was saying yard site for a relative
which is on on the anniversary of their
death. You say prayers but other than
that I didn't really have any Jewish
identity. Got to Tulsa first thing that
happens and this truly is the buckle of
the Bible
belt. Lady comes from across the street
and says won't you join our church? So
my wife, who's not Jewish, said, 'Well,
and she was unemployed at the time, and
she started going to some classes and
went to listen to a couple of rabbis and
said, 'I think you like this rabbi,
joined the synagogue. I've never been
particularly observant, but started
attending. And I got interested in the
Talmud. And so I started studying Talmud
and there were we were lucky to have
several very high ranking uh Jewish
theologians come through Tulsa. And I
told them, "Wow, you know that Talmud is
really interesting. It's a lot like the
Platonic Dialogues." And I don't know
how much you know about Talmet, but the
thing is, so it so it's it's this
massive corpus. There are two Talmuds.
The main one is the Babylonian Talmud,
two and a half million words. Um the
Jerusalem Talmud is about a million
words, but the Babylonian one's the main
one. And you have this fictional
colloquy. That's the only way to
describe it. Rabbis who maybe lived
centuries apart are brought into debate
and discussion.
Talment privileges questions. Privileges
question. Questions most of the time
there are no answers or at least yeah I
think that's probably fair. Most of the
so so you have debates and you have
discussions and much like the platonic
dialogues the talmud will start with a
practical question. For example you have
two plots of land. One is your vegetable
plot the other is your neighbor's
vegetable plot. his tomato plant leans
over over into your plot. Who gets the
tomato? Then just like Plato starts, you
know, in a dialogue called the Lockis,
Socrates runs into a couple guys.
They're saying, "Should we have our kids
study with this guy with a new fangled
weapon?" And in three pages, they're
talking about what is courage. And the
Talmud, they it can be three pages and
they're talking about why did God create
the universe? So they privilege
questions. They have multiple
intellectual perspectives. the rabbis
are never on the same like they're
they're constantly debating and and
sometimes as in the academy the American
academy you know it gets a little heated
and contentious um so you have these
debates and then except it's not obvious
that the American Academy privileges
questions well that is true now right
right I was really referring to the the
old joke about you know why why are the
why is why is there so much conflict you
know and why is it so heated because the
stakes are so small right but in any
case um and very often at the end of a
sort of section of debate they've got a
little acronym which basically means the
answer will be revealed in the days of
Elijah now the reason I mentioned that
is the belief is of Elijah specifically
right so the idea is that there is an
answer okay we may not be able to
understand it or we haven't achieved it
yet and I say that because in the
Socratic perspective I think there's
also an answer that becomes very clear
in um the apology where Socrates uh you
know has his friend his friend Kyan goes
to the Delphic Oracle says is there
anyone wiser than Socrates and the
oracle says no right and and what's
great here is that Socrates by the way
he makes no argument for this he says it
is not permissible for the god to utter
a falsehood that's his faith right so I
have to take this statement seriously
but I'm not aware that I'm wise dreams
saying, "Yes, dreams don't utter
falsehoods. They're incomprehensible
often, but they never lie." Well, I like
that. That's a lot. But what I want to
say, they're voice of nature, you could
say. Yes, very much so. And of course, I
mean, that that's a whole interesting
subject because also even in Plato, this
question of how do we explain dreams? Is
it a communication from the divine or
something? But in any case, Socrates
says what you mean by the divine as Yes,
indeed. Um Socrates says um that it's
impermissible for a god to utter
falsehood. So he now dedicates his
entire life to answering two questions.
What is wisdom? And who is Socrates? So
his entire philosophical quest comes out
of this uh moment, the shortest
revelation in history, which is no,
right? No, there's no one wiser than
Socrates. Um yeah. And isn't that not
because he knows what he doesn't know?
Well, he knows what he doesn't know, but
he I think I thought he made a statement
to that end like that. Absolutely. Okay.
So, the reason I asked that very
specific well because you said that the
Telmud like Plato's or the Telmud
specifically which are like Plato's
dialogues privilege questions. Now, the
thing about questions is that questions
require they require the recognition of
ignorance and that's a form of humility.
Exactly. Of course, humility is the
opposite of pride. And one of the things
I figured out recently, we we could talk
about maybe this is what we'll talk
about. In fact, mostly um it had never struck
struck
me before this year, weirdly enough, that
that
the the significance of the fact that
the root word of question is quest
because quest is adventure. M and so
I've been trying to figure out what I do
in my lectures because they are popular
and it's strange because I discuss the
sorts of things we're discussing right
now and yet many people come and watch
and so I've been very curious about why
that happens and so I've taken the
process that I use apart and what I do
essentially is
figure out what the question is and it's
an actual question like before I go on
stage to talk for 90 minutes. I have a
question which is part of a set of
questions that I'm pursuing. So, and so
it's a real question. I actually want
the answer. Yes. I use the time on stage
to well to further the quest and the
quest is the answer and that's the
treasure at the end of the pathway. And
then the lecture itself which isn't
exactly a lecture because it's a quest
is an attempt to answer. Now, the reason
I think it's so relevant to privilege
the question is because your thoughts
are structured the same way your
perceptual systems are structured. And
what that means is that when you set the
quest, you set the question, you set the
aim and the here's a here's a thought.
You tell me what you think about this
because this this is a terrifying
thought. I think the spirit of your
aim answers your prayers.
So if you have a
question, you'll
you'll the answer to the question will
make itself manifest in your
consciousness. That's people usually
say, I thought up the answer, which I
think is a terrible answer. That isn't
what happens. What happens is that when
you set the aim, which is the question,
I would like to know this. This is the
direction I'm seeking. Then the thoughts
that make themselves manifest to you
will be in keeping with that aim. And
then you search for the words and you're
are you a vehicle for them? Likely
you're a vehicle for the spirit of your
aim. Well, and that's what's happening
when I'm talking to talking on stage.
It's like I have a question. It's a real
question. Thinking okay. And I there's a
little more to it because I use stories
that I know as investigative tools,
right? So they're like they're tools of
inquiry, but the fundamental thing is
the inquiry, the question. And it's very
interesting to me
that so like one of the things I've
thought about too is that well thought
essentially it's got an it's got a
question element. You set the aim then
it has a revelation element. The ideas
come to you. Then it has a critical
thought element which is like a dialogue
essentially. It's like okay well here's
the question. Here's an answer. But
here's another answer. Okay, so how do
we or and maybe here's another answer.
So how do we sort that out? Well, we
have an internal dialogue which is an
analogy analog of an actual dialogue
you'd have socially. And the consequence
of the dialogue is the that's the
separation of the wheat from the chaff,
you might say, or the Yeah. Yeah. So, so
I've often now I've started to think
about thought itself as secularized prayer.
prayer.
And that makes sense historically if you
think about how thought might have
developed. You you have a question which
is your plea to the gods. Let's say you
await a revelation. Well, then you have
to determine whence comes the revelation
and is it reliable? Especially if
there's many of them or if you're
unclear about your aim. And then the
critical process is something like
internalized dialogue. And so it seems
to me that like I've thought and I I'd
like your opinion on this. Well, was is
it Socrates who taught the Greeks to
think at least to think critically? Like
literally is is he the first man who
determined how to internalize dialogue?
So okay, so that's a bunch of questions.
very possibly the talent. Well, that's
that's right because we don't know when
thought itself emerged, especially
critical thought. Critical thought's hard.
hard.
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[Applause]
you've said a lot. So, yeah, let me
reply to a couple of things here. Um, it
seems to me that you're on a very
fruitful path in talking about this.
While you were speaking, I was thinking
how this shows up in a lot of fields.
So, even for example in great literature
and the example that came to my mind is
Jorge Luis Bourhees. Have you read any
of Jorge Luis Borhees's short stories?
Okay. So it seems to me that this man's
writing is itself
um guided by a fundamental question and
maybe this is true of other great
authors. In fact, I would be willing to
give you some other examples. Borches
question is this. What are the effects
of infinity on human beings? Right?
Because we have stories like finesse the
memorialius the guy falls hits his head
and not only cannot forget anything
and not just from that point I mean he
actually remembers everything but his
experience is as vivid his memories are
as vivid as the moment of experience
itself and so he's completely
overwhelmed and he just lies in the bed
he can't even he lies in the dark um and
then we have for example um uh the
immortal and it's about a guy who is in
North Africa in fighting this is his
earliest memory anyway and fighting in
North Africa in a Roman legion and
accidentally drinks the water of life
the water of immortality and then after
centuries and centuries he he seeks
death and he reasons that there must be
an antidote right there's if there's a
place where you can drink water it makes
you immortal there's got to be some
other spring or something that you can
drink and allow you to die but The
problem is that his life just blends
together. He can't he can't separate
anything out because So is he looking is
burgers looking for the advantages to
finitude? Let's say yes. Exact. Well,
let me put it a different way. He is
what he is suggesting is that we are
creatures of finitude. We are creatures
of finitude in terms of our lifespan. We
are creatures of finitude in terms of
our in of our intelligence, our memory.
Um we are creatures of finitude in terms
of our capacity to understand. So, for
example, there's another um wonderful
story. Um it's about a Mayan priest
during the time of the concistadors and
he's they destroy the civilization. They
throw him in a underground prison and
there are some bars and on the other
side is a jaguar. And he begins to reme
he begins to recall that there's an
ancient myth that um the gods have
inscribed in the world somehow a phrase
that gives you complete omnipotence if
you could utter the phrase. Anyway, and
one day he's watching the jaguar and he
realizes that its spots spell out
somehow this phrase which he then utters
and then his and he's looking for a way
to destroy the concungistadors and
restore Mayan civilization. But now he
sees everything. This great wheel, the
entire universe, he understands
everything and he has no longer any interest
interest
in doing anything because that knowledge
simply like it's complete. It's complete
and it's totally irrelevant what's
happening here on earth or anything like
that. My favorite is the library of
babel which is about this the universe
is a library and the library has you
know hexagonal cells and every cell has
x number of shelves and every shelf has
x number of books of exactly the same
length written in 23 characters or 24
whatever it is certain number of letters
period uh space and it's inhabited by by
librarians and they and they're looking
through these books and they're trying
to find some meaningm Mhm. But there's
it's an infinite library. It's an
infinite library. And by the way, the
mathematicians have done the
calculations on this. Yeah. Right. So,
but so anyway, um and like the most um
uh coherent phrase in any book that any
librarian that this librarian who's
narrating it knows, and he's gone all as
far as he can, is something like, "Oh,
time thy pyramids." Right? So everyone
starts looking for books because they
realize like there's you know I want to
find something that will explain the
meaning of my life or my purpose or
something and then the fundamental um
proposition of the library is formulated
which is that any book that is possible
is actual in the library. In other words
any and you know they can you it's like
a million characters or something. So
any combination of characters exists.
That means that there is a book in this
library that describes exactly this
event. We're sitting here having this
podcast. This is a possible book. it
must exist in this library now. But
there are also weird mathematical
problems because if you think about it,
it can't be the case that any possible
book is actual because you can have
cataloges of cataloges of cataloges so
that it like mathematically it explodes.
But anyway, so my point is what happens
in a universe where finite beings,
finite rational
intellects try
to find some meaning and encounter or
are afflicted by infinity in some way.
Mhm. Um that so just to go back here
that's Bores's idea that is well it's a
fundamental problem right because
obviously we have some relationship with
the infinite yes right it might be a
relationship of negation I mean but
there's no escape from the conundrum
that we're finite in in and faced with
right well and faced with the infinite
indeed but the the point I really wanted
to emphasize in what you were saying is
this become this question becomes a
fertile soil for these literary growths.
You know, in other words, this is the
question that animates his being as a
writer and it's highly highly
productive. So, we all know that
questions are highly productive and
limitations. You see that in the
creativity literature. Exactly. So,
there's there's a great extremely
comical example of that online. So,
haiku is a poetic form that has
ridiculous limitations. Yes. Right. And
you might say, well, why bother with it?
And the answer is, well,
you can't play a game without rules.
That's the answer. Yes. Okay. Now, but
there's a spam haiku archive online. So,
it's only haiku that's only devoted to
the lunch and meat. There's like the
last time I looked at Yeah. It's very
funny. They're very funny. And it's it's
ridic the MIT engineers MIT engineers
made the archive, of course. And so
there's 50,000 haikus there about spam
and but then and it's ridiculous and
it's supposed to be and it's comical.
But the point is that without that
absolutely preposterous set of
limitations that whole universe of
poetic beauty you might say. Yes. And
comic endeavor wouldn't have come into
being. And so it's it's a very strange
thing that there is a genuine
relationship between finitude and
abundance. Yes. Like right. So there's
there's a right balance between
constraint and possibility that produces
abundance. Too much possibility, there's
nothing. That's B's point. And then
too much limitation, there's nothing.
But there's some optimal balance. And
maybe I mean you could, it seems
reasonable to propose that the issue
fundamental issue in human life is how
to get that balance exactly right.
That's really what the Jews, the ancient
Jews were wrestling with when they were
trying to figure out how you have a
relationship with God. You know, modern
people say, "Well, there's no such thing
as God." Well, do you have a
relationship with the infinite or not?
Mhm. You have some relationship. Maybe
it could be a productive one if you
could what? Formulate it properly. Yes.
Well, look, so as you know in the Hebrew
scriptures, God creates human beings.
He's almost immediately disappointed
with Adam and Eve. Um, now they're on
their own. You know, they get their
wish, right? I mean, the serpent says to
them, "Oh no, God knows you will become
as gods." The best interpretation here,
I think, is my monodities, who cites
another rabbi, and he says, "Well, the
word for gods is Elohim, but it can also
mean rulers." So, they actually get what
they wish for because there's no need
for rule in the sense that we understand
it. that is limitation law and so forth
to order chaos in the garden because
you're sort of you're in the presence of
God. Now once you're kicked out now
you've got a problem and the problem of
chaos that's internal to the human soul
immediately asserts itself because Cain
kills Abel. And of course they screw up
so badly. Problem of misaligned aim like
Adam and Eve turn away from the proper
aim like the builders at the Tower of
Babel. And so because they no longer,
this is exactly what happens with the
Israelites when they demand a king, God
basically says to them, well, if you
conducted yourselves properly and
maintained the covenant with the divine,
you wouldn't need a king. We want a
king. And and and see, so after all
these failures and yes, you know, the
flood and the tower of Babylon and
everything. So finally we speed up in
this part of Exodus where the ten
commandments and then the so-called book
of the covenant and you know the rest of
the laws are laid out. This seems to me
to fit exactly what you're saying. God
is limiting these human beings, right?
Like here you are these freed slaves.
Mhm. We got to give you, you know, uh um
uh some sorts of channels in which to
move your desires and stop signs and
restrictions and so forth. And only
within those 613 laws can can you have a
flourishing life. Well, and it's even
it's it's even stranger than that in
some sense because you have first of
all, you have the idea in the Garden of
Eden that if your aim is proper, then
you don't need well to set your own
course, right? Which Eve decides she's
going to do regardless. Once you set
your own course and you're steeped in
sin because your aim is misaligned, you
need rules. Now remember in the Exodus
story, God provides the rules first of
all directly from God and then the
Israelites go astray instantly and then
they get kind of a second rate and you
could argue in a way inferior and more
tyrannical set of rules and that's
because you you could imagine tears of
proper aim and God's hoping that the
Israelites will aim at the
at the highest conceivable and they fail
at that. and he says, "Well, here's
something that's still high and they
fail at that." And he says, "Well, it
looks like you guys are going to have to
settle for this with me hanging around
the fringes around and because that's
all you seem to be able to manage." So,
yes. And I'm very interested in this
idea of misaligned aim. Yes. Because
well, because I think the spirit of your
aim answers your prayers. And so, okay.
So, now you talked about Borges and you
talked about the question and that was
part of a conversation we're having
about questions in general. Yeah. So,
let's go back to the Yeah. So like the
fruitfulness of the question. Yeah.
Exactly. I mean I you know I think this
is absolutely crucial and let me say
that um there is a question that I know
to be absolutely fundamental and I know
it to be fundamental because it shows up
both in the Hebrew Bible and in Plato.
Okay. Uh in Plato it shows up in the
very first sentence of Plato's Fedrris.
And in the Hebrew Bible it shows up when
Hagar runs away from Sarah for the first
time and the angel comes to her in the
wilderness. And the question is where
have you been and where are you going?
Yeah. Right. There's a question. Now for
me this is absolutely fundamental for
individuals, for families, for tribes,
for nations, for societies
and I view it
as an urgent question today. Well, it's
probably the question, it's at least one
variant of the question of identity.
Yes. Right. We're in an identity crisis.
Obviously, we've cascaded into identity
politics. And given your frame here, you
could say, well, the reason for that is
because we don't know where we've been.
Yes. And certainly there's no unified
sense of that, which is a big problem,
and we don't know where we're going. You
could add maybe one other
foundation stone to that, which would be
where have you been, where are you now,
and where you're going. That's a full
narrative really. Right. So, okay. So,
okay. So, let's just focus on these. Why
did that capture your interest
specifically? Well, I mean, first of
all, it seems to me that each part of
that and let's say where are you now?
Okay. This is crucial. No part of it can
be answered without the answers to the
other two. Okay. Right. Yeah. Because um
look, the future is trackless. Where are
we going? Well, our only resource really
is where are we now and where have we
been more fully I would say that and I
this is just my hypothesis but I think
there's a lot to it that there are no
really fruitful growths in the future
that don't come out of the soil of the
past that is to say a a a rich
understanding of the past and we could
do this spoken like a true conservative
well I mean yeah listen but that's the
sort of thing that makes you think in a
conservative direction once you realize
that well this is well and that's a
whole another interesting thing because
the fact is
that and I' I've shared this with a lot
of colleagues and friends I actually
think that part of the hostility to
studying the western tradition
um on the part of those who are you know
antagonistic to the west um comes from
the fact that studying the great books
actually makes you not only
intellectually conservative but in some
ways politically conservative
conservative enough for example to say
that we need to study the western
tradition right well they're all related
well the other the other issue tell me
what you think about this I also think
that you if you think about the Mauists
for example and the fact that for
example the red guards destroyed all the
Chinese statues as far up as you could
reach with a hammer we're going to
obliterate the past and we're going to
build the new man in keeping with our
well there's the question right in
keeping with our what? Revolutionary
presuppositions. Okay. But then you
might you have to say, well, where did
those revolutionary presuppositions come
from? What? They just spring like Athena
out of the head of Zeus? There's no they
have a history, too. Or worse, they have
a spirit. They have a personality. And
this resistance to studying the Western
cannon, let's say, which which is not
even exactly Western when you get down
to it, right? It's much broader than
that. Yes, I think it's a it's a it's
it's not only terror, let's say, that
you'll become more conservative, but
also it's a rebuke to your intellectual
hubris because yes, you can no longer
presume that your
your
selfish power mad whims say are of
sufficient significance to be the
determinants of the future. You have to
subordinate yourself to the tradition.
Yes. And I think Luciferian intellects
dislike that. And you could be even more
cynical than that. You could say that
people who are underpaid in relationship
to their IQ, that would be professors,
are angry enough with their lack of
status to elevate their Luciferian
presumption to the highest point. And
that means they're very interested in
dissociating themselves from the cannon
and making themselves well they do the
same thing Adam and Eve do. It's like
we're going to make our own values.
Yeah. Look, I mean here's another thing
that I mean you mentioned Mao. Now as
you know under Mao uh the little Shinto
shrines and things that people had in
their homes were replaced by pictures of
Mao. They worshiped Mao. Yeah.
Um, and at the same time, Miles Stalin, whoever,
whoever,
uh, you know, these guys had this notion
of a new man. We're going to have a new
man. Yeah. Um, but yeah, new, new, but
but but here's the thing. Actually, it's
all very, very old. Uh, so we were
talking about Exodus, and so let me just
throw this out. I I happen to have just
taught a couple of classes on Exodus. I
filled in for one of our
professors. The way I look at that
book, one main thing that's happening
there is that book of the Bible is
presenting you with the following alternative.
alternative.
Either you enslave yourself to Pharaoh.
Mhm. Or you enslave yourself to God.
Now, no, you can also be lost in the
desert. Well, okay. That's an
alternative. Okay. Right. But that's the
important Those are the three. No, no. I
mean, you're absolutely right. Let's
just imagine that Moses had never
returned and you know they got the calf
whatever. Now that that's not going to
be a very long lasting uh uh
alternative. But but but yes um but what
I want to say here is then the question
is well what well what is Pharaoh? What
does Pharaoh mean? What's Pharaoh?
Pharaoh is a man god by the way aside
from the from the Jews who are trying to
start a Hebrew republic and the Greeks
which are these little islands of
liberty in a sea of desperatism.
Everyone else is man gods. I mean the
Persian, the emperor, the you know
Egyptians etc. Right. Um so that means
that those societies apprehended a p
principle of sovereignty abstracted
beyond the the most powerful man. Yeah.
Right. Right. That's a very
sophisticated view of and and and you
know I mean in for example Escalas's
Persians um which is about the defeat of
Xerxes army in the second Persian war.
Uh, Xerxes can't be held to account
because he's divine. Yeah. Right. Right.
Okay. So, the buck stops there. But
what's interesting about Pharaoh is that
first of all, it is the mo and I not
only the most technically advanced, I
would even call it a technological
civilization. Uh, if you've been to
Egypt as I have, you you you know, you
you see the pyramids, right? And nobody
even knows how these things were made.
There are blocks that are much larger
than this fairly large room we're
sitting in. Uh, you know, they made the
most amazing jewelry ever produced and
we have a bunch of it just because a
bunch of it was shoved in a tiny little
room. The sar, you know, the the burial
site of King Tuton who who knows what
the tomb of Ramsy's had in it. Um, they
these massive granite obelisks and all
this stuff. the entire society was
dedicated to the elevation and the
monumentalization and the memoriz you
know memorialization of the of the
pharaoh. Okay. Um so it's the exaltation
of the man god. Well and and and and so
what pharaoh means today
is the elevation of man to a god. Now we
do this by the way I mean Freud has this
phrase in civilization and it's
discontent about how modern man is a
prosthetic god right like we we equip
ourselves with all these tools and
things like this um so that's a huge
temptation but the suggestion of the
Bible is if you go in that direction
you're going to have um a kind of
totalitarian society and and and to be a
slave this dynamic between potentate and
slave yes exactly But there can be lots
of slaves, right? So for example in in
Persia um the emperor whether it was
Xerxes or Das or Cyrus, everyone else
was known as the king's slave including
the members of his family. So you have
that you can do that but the alternative
then is bowing down to God and being a
slave or if you want to put it a softer
way a servant to God. And the Moses
tells the Pharaoh, right? He says, "Let
my people go." Yes. So they may worship
me in the wilderness. Right? It's not
anarch anarchy. It's not exactly it's
not hedenist. It's not hedonistic
freedom of the sort that the golden calf
worshippers turn to. Right. Right. It is
it's it's what would we call it? Ordered
freedom, I think, is the general phrase.
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So, so if we fast forward again to
middle of the 20th century ideological
tyrannies and this includes fascism obviously
obviously
um you
this is like there's nothing new under
the sun it's a retelling of the feronic
tyranny essentially but right but so the
notion that like that might also be part
of this resistance like you know it is
well I think that's you want to sustain
the illusion that well I think that's
part of the loose the spirit of lucifer
It's like the the radical types who were
trying to produce the new man. They
assume that if they had been Stellin or
Mao the promised utopia would have come
and that is an elevation of the
intellect because one of the so I
interviewed a guy recently unfortunately
I can't remember his name who uh wrote a
book about Marx and Satanism and he
looked at Marx's early writings before
he became political and uh Marx was a
seriously warped individual in virtually
every way you could possibly imagine and
he was definitely a luciferian
intellect. And see, one of the things I
think we've done wrong in our analysis
of, let's say, communism and perhaps
also Nazism, but we'll stick with
communism, is that we assume that the
best way to understand it, to understand
what happened is to do an analysis of
communism. But we don't think what
you're proposing, which is well,
communism that emerged in like 1850,
let's say, something like that.
Was it actually something new? Well,
your point is no, it's not something new
at all as at all. It's really old. It's
the tyrant slave dichotomy. And I do
believe that communism is the most
recent garb that something very ancient
cloaks itself. Oh yes. Yeah. And and in
fact, as you were speaking, it occurred
to me. I mean, so here are a couple of
examples of communism. First of all, we
have book five of Plato's Republic where
the women are and men, you know, are
shared in common, etc. It turns out to
be a highly stratified society where
everyone is miserable essentially unless
you're sort of the top dog. But more
important is Aristophanes play Assembly
Women in which the women take over and
establish a communist society. Now this
is very interesting for reasons that you
may already have gleaned. That is the
evidence shows that women far more than
men in the United States and in Europe
are left especially if they're young.
Far left. Right. Yeah. And it's true in
South Korea. It's true in Japan. It's
true in Australia. So I would suggest
that anyone listening to our discussion
who's interested in this might go back
and look at Aristoph assembly women
where the men are essentially
infantilized. Okay? The women run
everything. The men are infantilized and
it's a communist society. So you you
have all these you know these earlier
things. But one thing I wanted to say
here and I want to mention before I
forget it is that so why why oh sorry go
ahead please well I'm curious because
you said you know you said some
some you made some statements that
illicit questions. So for example you
studied Plato and then you said sort of
casually you joined the synagogue and
you got interested in the Talmud. Oh,
well that's not necessarily expected.
And then you you showed your deepening
understanding of the relationship
between today's political scene and
these very very old stories and are
making a case that the political
situation is better understood in terms
of those old stories what arguably than
any other way. I mean that's kind of
what it looks like to me. It is there is
nothing new under the sun. And if we
lose touch with those ancient stories,
we lose our ability to actually
understand what's going on. Elijah, you
mentioned Elijah. Elijah's foes are the
nature worshippers, right? Well, that's
kind of relevant in today's society
given the rise of nature worship is
something will attain the pinnacle
point. We talked about the man god.
Well, that doesn't look like it works
out very well unless you want to be a
slave and maybe you do. And it's also
we're we're also facing the consequences
of the rise of Gaia worship. Let's say
the rise of nature to the highest place.
And that's you know Elijah's
fundamental realization which makes him
a a star of the Old Testament. He's one
of the two prophets that appear when
Christ is transfigured on the mount.
Right? It's Moses and Elijah. Well, why?
Because Elijah realizes that God is not
to be found in nature. But we have no
idea how cataclysmic a discovery that
was huge. Right. So God isn't a man god
and God isn't in nature. Yes. Okay.
Well, now one response to that is
there's no God. But we kind of end up
with nature or man gods when we take
that route or some nihilistic
catastrophe. Yes. And so then the
question now you talked about Greece and
the ancient Israelites
as constructing up a principle of
divinity or sovereignty that was
separate from a specific embodiment like
a pharaoh or an emperor but also not to
be found in nature. Right. Yes indeed.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So let me make another
suggestion here. Um, so you mentioned
Markx and what we see in Markx is a um
an an overestimation a serious
overestimation of the power of reason.
Yeah. Yeah. And now reason understood as
a productive and political principle.
Um, and I mean obviously there's a
religious background because it's a
secularization of the Christian story. But
But
I think there there are several elements
here. And and by the way, this goes back
to Plato's Republic as well. We can talk
about that. But okay, the idea is that,
okay, we're going to have a heaven on
earth. We're going to have a paradisical
society where all men are brothers and
so on. And everyone's needs are met,
right? Whatever the hell that means. But
here's the problem. It is going to be
realized by human political productive
action. And the difficulty there is so
so so first of all it's not emerging
organically. Okay. It's a it's a
political constructivism. So the the
best society will not emerge
organically. Uh but it's to be brought
into being by man. Now it's to be
brought into being by man in a
particular time and in a particular
place by particular men, right? By
particular men. When you put those
constraints on it, you drastically limit
the possibilities within that society
because it's got to be producible, it's
got to be sustainable, it's got to fit
the particular parameters, all these
kinds of things. Add on to that the delusion
delusion
that um human beings are not in fact,
let's say, radically local beings who
form the most meaningful bonds in
particular ways, marriage, family, etc.,
But we're universal, right? And finally,
you have this kind of divonization of
man because after all, you know, um
well, if we I mean, we're going to
realize heaven on earth. So, well, and
as you said, we can produce a
centralized authority which falls out of
the presumption just described that's
going to have the computational power
necessary to pull off the task. Exactly.
Which is well, that just just that claim
is preposterous, right? But but I like I
like the way you formulate that because
what what you're pointing out is that
for the system that's proposed to make
itself manifest, it has to meet a series
of increasingly likely constraints. Yes.
Exactly. Increasingly, sorry,
increasingly unlikely constraints.
Right. It has to do this. That's already
hard. Well, you add four more
impossibilities to that. It's like,
well, right. And um where I want to go
with this is that that kind of hubris
about reason
uh is I think well first of all it's a
characteristic of the modern era because
you know you have de cart saying we're
going to be masters and possessors of
nature and if you read the discourse on
method teach you we're going to do form
our own values right right but that's
sort of the end of the whole kind of
decay but if but if we go back to the
early moderns Um he even suggests in the
discourse on method that maybe medicine
will will make all the infirmities of
old age sort of disappear which means
we're not going to die in which case by
the way the religious question uh is
gone like from the I mean Deart's
writing he doesn't want his books to be
placed on the index which they were
nonetheless you know um and so they're
read and they have to be you know the
Roman Catholic Church has to has to has
to look at them um but the fact is that
Roman Catholicism is irrelevant if
you've got if we're not going to die,
right? I mean, in some fundamental
sense, but okay. Well, and whatever a
human being is is something completely
different than whatever it is now. But
now I want to go back to Leo Strauss who
talks about the permanent questions. And
what I've come to understand is the
following that the permanence of the
questions arises from the necessity that
Athens so to speak. And now let's just
take that to mean reason like unaded reason.
reason.
Okay, can't be separated from the
biblical alternative which is the fear
of God is the beginning of wisdom. The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom. How did you figure that out?
Well, Strauss writes about this stuff.
He writes about this is not my idea. He
writes about acids in Jerusalem. But
what I'm claiming is this. In order for
reason to function in a healthy way, it
must conduct itself in the light of
Yeah. the alternative of religion, which
is okay. So, so you know, like you can't
understand everything on your own. There
are massive mysteries, right? Um, and
there's this entire alternative way of
thinking about things. So if you if you
simply separate reason from that, you're
going to get totalitarianism and kind of
you know the lunacy that we see
luciferian hubris. If you separate
religion from the alternative that well
man has reason and man is able to figure
things out and there are things that we
can understand about nature and the
world and science that aren't in the
religious tradition, then you're going
to end up with say Islamic extremism or
something. You see what I'm saying? In
other words, a healthy human existence
is to dwell in the space of the
permanent questions which must be
informed by these alternatives. And
Strauss is very good on this. He says
there's no philosophical proof that the
Bible is wrong, right? Like there's
like, you know, you could like you're
always making assumptions
that that are simply going to sort of,
you know, prejudice the conclusions that
you're going to. Yeah. So, so we have to
live in this space. And Strauss's claim
which I really think is great is that
the tension between Athens and Jerusalem
is the coiled spring of the greatness of
the west. That we have to understand
that. But now what I've come to
understand this is a kind of moderation,
right? Like don't because if you say no
reason reasons that anything that's not
rational, you got some kind of
positivism or whatever, you're you're
going to go straight to that man god
thing, right? You're going to go
straight to that totalitarian. Yeah. You
know, the train's going to stop at at
the, you know, at the desk camp.
basically but if you also say oh there's
no re which is one more thing I just
want to say about the my book on plato
on the town but I've already suggested
that socratic philosophizing begins with
this revelation of delelfi which talk
Socrates takes seriously who is Socrates
what is wisdom but he's convinced that
there must be an answer because the god
can't speak falsely the rabbis there's a
great book called rational rabbis by a
guy named manam fish and believe it or
not he talks about the rabbis of the tal
the first 40 pages is about Carl
popper's theory of falsification in
science which is a great humble theory
right it's that we can't prove laws like
the law of gravity we can only falsify
them we can conduct experiments that if
they turn out a certain way will falsify
the you know formulation of the law of
gravity look for new forms of our
ignorance right so then this guy argues
that the the rabbis are rational and
they are in a sense they're playing the
Socratic game of rationality within the
horizon of re of revelation so they
start Well, that's okay. I believe I
think we know enough about both
psychology and neuroscience now to move
that from the domain of philosophical
theory to the domain of established fact
because one of the things that people
who've studied perception and emotion
have come to conclude is that well I
asked Carl Fristen who's the world's
most cited neuroscientist by the way. I
asked him is every object perception a
micro narrative? Oh that's very
interesting. They said, "Yes, for sure."
He said,
"Necessarily." Right? Necessarily.
That's quite the claim because what
we've come to understand is that there's
no object perception independent of
motivational frame. And the description
of a motivational frame is a narrative.
Mhm. Okay. Now, you you made a comment
earlier that well, you need to know
where you've come from and where you're
going. Okay. So, let's What is a
narrative? Well, yeah. There's an aim.
There's a starting place. There's a
voyage. And then you might say, well,
the world's made out of objects. And you
overlay a value laden narrative on top
of it. But then you might say, well,
where's the interface? And so you might
say, well, let's look at how perception
works. What do we see as objects? Well,
we do not see
we do not see what the enlightenment
mind conceptualized as the object when
we see an object. That's not right. what
we see. So what it seems to be the case,
it's very cool. So once you establish an
aim and it and this is in the most
trivial of circumstances, the world
reveals itself to your perception as a
pathway to the aim. Okay? As a set of
obstacles, that's produces negative
emotion. A set of facilitators or tools
that produces positive emotion. And so
and that's with every glance you take
because every glance specifies an aim
for action right because otherwise why
look okay so aim pathway right so that
might be the straight and narrow pathway
uphill for example tools and obstacles
okay positive emotion negative on the
social front friends and foes same thing
almost everything
is defaults to the realm of the
irrelevant right because if I specified
aim, most things are now irrelevant. So
your aim makes most of the world
irrelevant. Some things stand out as
phenomena. That the phenomena that stand
out are tools and obstacles or friends
and foes. There's also, and I just
figured this out this year, there's also
agents of magical transformation in
narratives. They change your aim. So
imagine every aim brings a set of
constraints and rules. So that's like
the metaphysics of the aim, the rules.
But if you switch the aim, the
metaphysics change and that's a magical
shift. And if someone comes along whose
aim is
four stages higher than yours, we'll
say, then they appear truly magical. But
the reason I'm making this case is like
and and and there is I think we are
we're at the end of the enlightenment
and I think it died like Nietze claimed
Christianity died at its own hand
because it turns out that
there is no level at which what we see
are dead objects. Yes. Not at any level
of perception whatsoever. Every object
is actually you cannot dissociate value
from object in perception. It's not
possible. Yeah. In fact, if anything,
it's tilted towards value and not
object. And there's another terrible
plague for the enlightenment types as
well who think the world is a place of
objects. Is that well, there's an
infinite number of objects because Yes.
Well, so then which objects, right?
Right. Which objects? That's a terrible
question because as soon as you say
that, you have to prioritize. Well,
there's no difference between priority
and value. Yes. So another way of
thinking about a narrative when you go
to a movie, you watch the protagonist.
What you are
embodying is your observation of the
protagonist structure of value. You're
incorporating that that you you match
his emotions because you match his aims.
And so when we're storytelling, what
we're doing is we're exchanging
information about the substrata within r
within which rationality has no choice
but to operate. See, cuz so the
metaphysics of the enlightenment were wrong.
wrong.
Rationality is at the base because the
world's made out of objects and you can
calculate your way forward with
valuefree objective knowledge. Like none
of that's right. Yeah. So, so the story
is the thing. Now, you said, well, we
need a story. We need to know where
we've been. Now, that has to have
something to do with why you got
interested in the Telmmet, I would
presume. So you said you saw a
similarity with the dialogues. So but
what else caught your attention? You've
obviously developed extreme familiarity for example with the story of Exodus.
for example with the story of Exodus. Why do you think as a philosopher you
Why do you think as a philosopher you started to presume or understand that
started to presume or understand that these ancient stories
these ancient stories shed light on the world in a way
shed light on the world in a way that philosophical theories abstracted
that philosophical theories abstracted away from narrative don't. What does the
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you're essentially peering into the future with actionable data. When you're
future with actionable data. When you're closing your books in days instead of
closing your books in days instead of weeks, you're spending less time looking
weeks, you're spending less time looking backward and more time focused on what's
backward and more time focused on what's next. For any business owner looking to
next. For any business owner looking to streamline their operations, Netswuite
streamline their operations, Netswuite is the solution I'd recommend. Whether
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your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, Netswuite helps
hundreds of millions, Netswuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and
you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.
seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the
Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning
