The discussion critiques the Enlightenment's overestimation of pure reason, arguing that a healthy human existence and Western greatness stem from the tension and interplay between reason (Athens) and religious/biblical tradition (Jerusalem), emphasizing the foundational role of narrative and properly aligned aims in perception and understanding.
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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.
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
>> 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,
>> okay,
>> the idea is that, okay, we're going to
have a heaven on earth. We're going to
have a paradiseical 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 men in a
particular time and in a particular place
place
>> by particular men,
>> right? By particular men. And 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
>> 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
but we're universal right and finally
you have this kind of divization 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 presumptions you just described
that's going to have the computational
power necessary to pull off the task
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,
well,
>> right. And um where I want to go with
this is that that kind of hubris about reason
reason
>> uh is I think well first of all it's a
characteristic of the modern era because
you know you have deart saying we're
going to be masters and possessors of nature
nature
>> and if you read the discourse on method
>> teach you we're going to do form our own values
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 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 assets 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.
>> 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,
