1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:05,360 True beauty sort of seduces you towards the good. It pulls you deeper into 2 00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:12,279 reality. But then there's this in these more pornografied forms, the seduction of 3 00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:17,199 the art becomes a poll into the abstract. In the scripture, techne art, 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,199 applied science, and not just in the Bible, but also in kind 5 00:00:21,199 --> 00:00:25,280 of Greek mythology and ancient thinking. It's always a dual thing. It's not 6 00:00:25,719 --> 00:00:30,120 clean. There's a healthy suspicion towards it, because if you look at how 7 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:32,960 Plato was like, you know, get rid of those artists, because they 8 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,320 can make you think something's beautiful even if it's not right. They're tricksters, 9 00:00:36,359 --> 00:00:41,719 they can become propagandists. And in scripture you can see that applied arts are 10 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:47,840 from Cain and they bring about the flood. So there's this very dark aspect 11 00:00:47,359 --> 00:00:53,640 of what they can bring. But then God is constantly saving that which has 12 00:00:53,679 --> 00:01:19,519 fallen. This is Jonathan Pejew Welcome to the symbolic world. Hello, and 13 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:23,760 welcome to climbing on Mount Sophia. I'm excited today to be here with Jonathan 14 00:01:23,799 --> 00:01:29,519 Pajo and David Schindler. Again. Jonathan Pajo, of course, is the 15 00:01:29,599 --> 00:01:34,760 leader of the Symbolic World movement, which is a YouTube channel and a website 16 00:01:34,799 --> 00:01:38,439 and I think a printing press now as well. Right, Yeah, we 17 00:01:38,519 --> 00:01:42,719 just started Oppressed like a few months ago with our fairy Tale series. So 18 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,799 yeah, yeah, so a lot of wonderful things going on there. I 19 00:01:45,799 --> 00:01:49,359 mean, so many resources, wonderful people a part of that whole movement. 20 00:01:49,439 --> 00:01:56,840 And then Jonathan also is a orthodox icon carver, an artist, and today 21 00:01:56,879 --> 00:02:00,359 we'll be referencing some things from his video on temporary Art. I'll put a 22 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:05,599 link here. And then David Schindler, of course writes under the pen name 23 00:02:05,719 --> 00:02:09,039 D. C. Schindler, Professor of Anthropology and Metaphysics I think at John 24 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:14,400 Paul two Institute, and then author of many great works. So David and 25 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:19,080 I have been doing a series on David's book Freedom from Reality, and so 26 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:23,000 I'll post a link to that here as well. But I was hoping today 27 00:02:23,039 --> 00:02:29,840 that we could talk about art, art in relation to beauty and how that 28 00:02:30,159 --> 00:02:36,159 looks in the modern world today and how that's part of the diabolical separation from 29 00:02:36,199 --> 00:02:39,599 the world that we're all experiencing. So I'll throw those out there and any 30 00:02:39,639 --> 00:02:43,439 thoughts that come up Initially, well, Ken, maybe we could start with 31 00:02:43,439 --> 00:02:46,719 the question that right before we began that you would raise, and we hadn't 32 00:02:46,719 --> 00:02:51,000 gotten into an I suspect Jonathan would have some really interesting things to say about 33 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:55,240 this. But you mentioned that the distinction between techne in the ancient sense and 34 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,120 modern technology that you know, shares a room, but there's a there's a 35 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:05,159 very different sensibility implied. I mean, maybe that would be a good starting 36 00:03:05,159 --> 00:03:08,759 point. It's you know, it's not immediately art in the sense of painting 37 00:03:08,879 --> 00:03:14,360 and sculpture, but certainly related to that. Would that seemed like a good 38 00:03:14,599 --> 00:03:17,919 fruitful It's a great place to start. It's like my actually my intuitions about 39 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:23,479 art, part of my intuitions about art actually came from reading Heidegger's Questions on 40 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:30,479 Technology and UH and then reading Ananda Kumraswami's work on art as well. Those 41 00:03:30,479 --> 00:03:35,039 are the kind of the two sources that brought me to think differently or to 42 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:39,759 realize just how differently the ancients thought about art and in some ways the sense 43 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:46,159 that they had the idea of idea or APIs tom and then techne was applied. 44 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:50,520 Basically, it was just the idea of applying things to the world, 45 00:03:50,639 --> 00:03:53,159 right, So you have these principles, you have these patterns, and then 46 00:03:53,159 --> 00:04:00,560 you apply them to reality, and that application is techne And so that's actually 47 00:04:00,599 --> 00:04:04,919 my that's been my approach to art in general and to technologies. To me, 48 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:10,280 I don't totally see a difference between the two. It's just that and 49 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:14,759 poisis for example, like even tooisis comes from the word making. It's just 50 00:04:15,039 --> 00:04:18,000 this idea of like, you know, you have these you invoke the muse, 51 00:04:18,199 --> 00:04:21,800 and then you make things with you you actually create things. And that's 52 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:27,000 been my approach to it. And the reason why I take that approach is 53 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:30,879 because I think that that's also what they're in scripture. It's closer to the 54 00:04:30,879 --> 00:04:36,279 way that the arts or applied making is in scripture. And it also makes 55 00:04:36,319 --> 00:04:41,759 it. It removes it from this weird idea of expressing yourself or of like 56 00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:45,639 creating beauty, you know, art for art's sake or beauty for beauty's sake, 57 00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:49,079 and all of these types of terms that came about with the Romantics and 58 00:04:49,199 --> 00:04:55,120 the later artists, and rather brings it back to the idea of you know, 59 00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:58,600 it's just it's just so Another chumer Asnomy, for example, says the 60 00:04:58,759 --> 00:05:01,439 art remains in the artist, right. Art is actually a skill. Art 61 00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:04,720 is not a thing. Art is a skill that the artist has to apply 62 00:05:05,959 --> 00:05:11,319 knowledge and principles to the world and to crew and to make things that are 63 00:05:11,439 --> 00:05:15,600 artifacts that have a purpose in life and in society. And so technology does 64 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:20,600 that as well. And the arts, in the ancient arts that that's what 65 00:05:20,639 --> 00:05:26,120 they did, right, the seven they say the seven Arts are however you 66 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:29,120 want to talk about it, That's how they did it. And it's just 67 00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:32,120 a different way of understanding, which which also breaks that weird duality we have 68 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:40,680 between between the idea of like pure techne in the sense of just gains and 69 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:44,839 efficiency, which is the way that we seem to think about about technology today. 70 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:48,920 It's just increasing of power basically, and the idea of art in the 71 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,600 sense of expression of something. And so to me, they're actually the they're 72 00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:59,120 actually ultimately the same. And when we separate them and we have something like 73 00:05:59,199 --> 00:06:01,839 fine art or music or creative arts, and then we have pure techne, 74 00:06:01,879 --> 00:06:06,319 which is just an increase in means, then we have a monstrosity. We 75 00:06:06,399 --> 00:06:11,680 end up with weird monstrosities on both sides. I want to invite you all 76 00:06:11,720 --> 00:06:15,800 to the very first Symbolic World Summit. Over three days, we will finally 77 00:06:15,879 --> 00:06:18,720 meet in real time, in real space, and everyone from this little corner 78 00:06:18,759 --> 00:06:24,240 of the Internet will be there to explore the theme of reclaiming the cosmic image. 79 00:06:24,439 --> 00:06:27,680 Of course I will be speaking, but there will also be Martin Shaw, 80 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:31,519 who is an amazing mythographer, father Stephen de Young of Lord Spirit fame. 81 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:38,040 There will be Richard Rowland from the Universal History series, Vesper Stamper Nicholas 82 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:41,800 Kotar, and Neil de Gray that you've all seen on my channel here and 83 00:06:41,839 --> 00:06:46,879 there for entertainment, we have everyone's favorite apocalyptic band, the One and Only 84 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,759 Dirt Poor Robbins. This event will be the chance of a lifetime to capture 85 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:56,319 and embrace our current moment. So join us from February twenty ninth to March 86 00:06:56,360 --> 00:07:00,040 second, twenty twenty four in Tarbinspins, Florida. Is it the Symbolic World 87 00:07:00,079 --> 00:07:04,319 dot com slash Summit. For more information, I will see you there. 88 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,160 That's great to pick up on a couple of things there. I'd like to 89 00:07:15,319 --> 00:07:17,079 tease out a little bit more distinction with technology, but I'll come to that 90 00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:23,920 in the moment. This idea of techne being an application. It seems to 91 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:27,439 me there's a there's another dimension that's that I think is in the spirit of 92 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:30,839 what you were saying, but it's formulated a little bit differently, and that 93 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:35,720 is that this again would be Heidegarian sort of sense that techne itself is a 94 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:41,439 kind of knowing. It's it's a distinctive kind of knowing that that it would 95 00:07:41,439 --> 00:07:46,560 be different from conceptual knowing that then gets applied, like in a second moment, 96 00:07:46,639 --> 00:07:48,639 you have an idea and inspiration and you take that idea and then you 97 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:55,360 try to translate it into a thing through you know, paint or or tone 98 00:07:55,439 --> 00:07:59,000 or color. That there's a there's another kind. It's kind of interesting and 99 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:03,000 this I you know, I I'm not an artist like you are. I 100 00:08:03,759 --> 00:08:07,040 do enjoy painting at use. At one point I thought it might become one, 101 00:08:07,079 --> 00:08:11,439 but that never never materialized. But my experience of art, and this 102 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:18,160 seems pretty common, is that you often discover the idea as you as you 103 00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:22,279 work with it. That it's not it's not that you first have an idea 104 00:08:22,839 --> 00:08:26,600 and then you apply it, but that somehow the very idea itself comes to 105 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:33,039 expression a way that can take the artists himself by a certain surprise that it's 106 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:35,559 still a manifest It's not just self expression. I mean, some people will 107 00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:41,399 interpret that as just being you know, arbitrary creativity. It's it's still truth 108 00:08:41,639 --> 00:08:48,279 centered and truth grounded, but it's a kind of truth that is manifest revealed 109 00:08:48,279 --> 00:08:52,679 and manifest in the real thing that you can then think about afterwards. Would 110 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:56,639 would you accept no? Well, like Heideger, Yeah, Heideger talks about 111 00:08:56,799 --> 00:09:00,879 the notion of gathering, right. So it's like the way in which it's 112 00:09:00,879 --> 00:09:07,799 an unveiling is that it gathers elements together and it reveals. It ends up 113 00:09:07,879 --> 00:09:11,840 revealing a purpose as you're gathering them together. So you could you can understand 114 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:16,320 it as an emergent from an emergent perspective and from a kind of top down 115 00:09:16,360 --> 00:09:20,559 perspective, where from an emergent perspective you have all these things coming together in 116 00:09:20,639 --> 00:09:28,320 love and then then manifesting a hidden reason as they come together. And then 117 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,320 the other way to understand it is from the top down perspective, which is 118 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:35,039 it's like it's like a head finding a body or a husband finding a wife. 119 00:09:35,039 --> 00:09:39,320 It's like an idea coming into the world and joining itself with a with 120 00:09:39,519 --> 00:09:43,480 matter, and so I think both of those are are perfectly good way to 121 00:09:43,519 --> 00:09:48,879 explain it. But if you, if you think about like, they'll always 122 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:52,639 be. So let's say, even the way you talk about it, which 123 00:09:52,679 --> 00:09:56,240 is which is there's this modern it's a more modern way of understanding art, 124 00:09:56,279 --> 00:10:03,039 which is this kind of like a you know, improvisational approach which then reveals 125 00:10:03,039 --> 00:10:07,720 a pattern that you hadn't thought about, haven't thought about right, It's almost 126 00:10:07,759 --> 00:10:11,080 like it's a form. It's almost like a form of divination. It's like 127 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:16,240 you cast the bones and then you watch the bones move and then you see, 128 00:10:16,519 --> 00:10:20,159 oh, oh, it's like there's something there, there's some pattern, 129 00:10:20,159 --> 00:10:22,919 and then you start to draw the lines between the pattern, uh, and 130 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:28,600 then you kind of are surprised to find what is being revealed. So in 131 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:33,600 that sense, that type of art making is is closer to divination in that 132 00:10:33,759 --> 00:10:39,600 sense. But then you even that, you would need to have the art 133 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:43,240 right. So if you if you can't do it, then you're not going 134 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:46,159 to do anything right. You can kind of see it, but if you 135 00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:48,759 can't, if you don't have the skill, if you don't have that art 136 00:10:48,759 --> 00:10:52,440 in you, then even if you have this revelation of some pattern that you 137 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:56,039 hadn't thought about. You need the skill, so it's still even if you're 138 00:10:56,200 --> 00:11:01,000 it's an emergent thing, you also need that top down control in order to 139 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:05,639 make it happen. Yeah, that's I would absolutely agree with with that. 140 00:11:05,759 --> 00:11:11,679 This idea that you're sort of generating order simply from below is incoherent. Ultimately, 141 00:11:11,720 --> 00:11:15,840 it never really works out. There's always going to be a kind of 142 00:11:16,120 --> 00:11:20,000 a from above dimension. I think that's good. The modern artist did everything 143 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:24,039 to attain pure So I don't know if you know the process, it's fun 144 00:11:24,039 --> 00:11:26,519 to do. Like I don't know if you know the process of a cadaveric 145 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:31,159 ski, which was which came about with the with the surrealist, which was 146 00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:33,399 what you would do is you take a piece of paper, you'd fold it, 147 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:37,960 and then we would each start. I would start a drawing, and 148 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,919 then I would leave just a little bit of the drawing left so that you 149 00:11:41,919 --> 00:11:43,480 can see but you can't see what I did. And then you would continue 150 00:11:43,519 --> 00:11:46,240 the lines and make something and then leave a little bit for the other person, 151 00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:50,360 and at the end you unfolded it, and then you have a kind 152 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:54,440 of hybrid monster. But then what you're surprised, is that you realize that 153 00:11:54,559 --> 00:12:01,240 often there's actually a connection between a surprising connection that happens between between the different 154 00:12:01,279 --> 00:12:05,120 elements. And that's why I'm in it. That it's closer to the way 155 00:12:05,159 --> 00:12:07,960 the ancients would have done divination. That's similar. Yeah, I I'd want 156 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,120 to try to steer between that because I that there's no governing idea. There 157 00:12:13,159 --> 00:12:16,559 has to be a governing idea or else or else, you know. I 158 00:12:16,759 --> 00:12:20,120 I think, I don't know if you recall the TV series Uh from a 159 00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:26,480 few years ago, Lost That and I you know, I remember at a 160 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:31,320 certain point really getting into that. Uh, it was it was absolutely compelling, 161 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:35,279 But at a certain point, the compellingness of it just disappeared. I 162 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,440 think that was when, you know, the audience collectively began to realize that 163 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:41,960 they didn't know where they were going. I know where they're going. They're 164 00:12:43,399 --> 00:12:48,720 making it up, you know my episode, And I mean immediately the drama 165 00:12:48,799 --> 00:12:52,360 disappears. It no longer has it's no longer mysterious. There has to be 166 00:12:52,399 --> 00:12:56,360 a governing idea. But what what I what I would want to avoid on 167 00:12:56,399 --> 00:13:00,240 the on the flip side, is somehow that you you've got the concept that 168 00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:05,519 that that they artwork is simply a physical translation of a concept. There's now 169 00:13:05,879 --> 00:13:09,799 it contributes more than that. Somehow, there has to be a there has 170 00:13:09,879 --> 00:13:13,879 to be a play between between the two. I always I think that I've 171 00:13:13,879 --> 00:13:18,679 been thinking a lot about beauty. I think you've been thinking a lot about 172 00:13:18,679 --> 00:13:20,639 it, because on the one hand, you know, I remember seeing, 173 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,679 you know, the kind of platonic idea, right that beauty is the is 174 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:30,600 the is the expression of the infinite, something like that, And I always 175 00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:31,879 thought, well, that's a real interest. That's a good it's a good 176 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:37,519 description of beauty. But then I also I realized that I had a tendency 177 00:13:37,559 --> 00:13:39,279 to describe beauty very much top down. It's like, beauty is when you 178 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:43,320 see harmony. Beauty is when you see order of beauty. But I realized 179 00:13:43,320 --> 00:13:45,960 that, actually, you know what, that's not true. It's not it's 180 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:52,320 not actually what you perceive as beauty. Beauty is something like harmony joined to 181 00:13:52,799 --> 00:13:58,080 a particular mhm and so and so it's like it's it's integrated. Uh, 182 00:13:58,159 --> 00:14:03,559 it's integrated harmony into a into the contingency of a particular place, a particular 183 00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:07,759 thing. And that's when you actually perceive beauty. So something that is actually 184 00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:15,840 too perfect and too balanced is monstrous. But you need this weird this weird 185 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:24,639 like this weird discussion between with the particular material, space, situation, whatever 186 00:14:24,759 --> 00:14:28,799 offers and the pattern which kind of comes down and is married to it. 187 00:14:28,799 --> 00:14:33,600 It's like when the when the absolute shines through the particular that you see beauty, 188 00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:37,080 you could, yeah, but the particular play is a part in it, 189 00:14:37,279 --> 00:14:41,480 right, exactly, Like if there's no particular, the absolute can't manifest 190 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:48,279 itself. And there's also a way in which the infinite also appears mysteriously in 191 00:14:48,799 --> 00:14:54,720 an aspect of idiosyncrasy that is properly there, right, Like the idea of 192 00:14:56,080 --> 00:14:58,519 you know this weird idea like if you read in this in the in the 193 00:14:58,559 --> 00:15:03,440 prop think it's in the Proverbs where it says, you know, the it 194 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:07,320 says something like the gray hair, like the person's white hair is his glory, 195 00:15:07,639 --> 00:15:09,159 and it's it's a beautiful image because on the one hand, it's like 196 00:15:09,399 --> 00:15:13,759 your hair turns white, so it turns into light. But at the same 197 00:15:13,799 --> 00:15:18,039 time it's you dying, and it's like, actually, your dying is your 198 00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:22,120 glory. And so it's like as you settle into a kind of particularity. 199 00:15:22,679 --> 00:15:28,240 That's what kind of shows your particular glory. Yeah, so it's a it's 200 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:33,759 an interesting but but obviously it can be disconnected from from the universal, but 201 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:35,480 it has to be, it has to it has both at the same time. 202 00:15:37,279 --> 00:15:41,919 You know, along these lines there's there's the best most compelling interpretation of 203 00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:48,320 beauty that I have read is from a thinker I think needs more attention on 204 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,039 this matter, and that's Friedrich Schiller. M hm, and you mentioned play. 205 00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:56,440 He has this definition. On the surface, the definition doesn't sound like 206 00:15:56,519 --> 00:15:58,960 much, but when you when he explains it, it really becomes fascinating. 207 00:16:00,039 --> 00:16:04,720 He says, the beauty is the appearance of freedom. And what he means 208 00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:08,120 by that is is Jonathan, in a way, it's a it's another way 209 00:16:08,159 --> 00:16:11,600 of saying the very point that you made. So he said, you know, 210 00:16:11,639 --> 00:16:17,919 imagine just a straight line and a curving line. The curving line, 211 00:16:17,919 --> 00:16:19,919 he says, is more beautiful than the straight line. And why is that? 212 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:25,720 The straight line represents a kind of an order that imposes itself sort of 213 00:16:25,799 --> 00:16:30,559 irrespective of the particularity of the matter there. It just mechanically is there and 214 00:16:30,559 --> 00:16:36,639 and in a way allows allows nothing of the of the matter to appear. 215 00:16:36,679 --> 00:16:41,000 The curved line is the triumph of order, but it's a triumph of order 216 00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:48,600 precisely in the particularity and the constraints of the matter, where the very constraints 217 00:16:48,639 --> 00:16:55,960 of the matter become a means of expressing the freedom. So you get this 218 00:16:56,159 --> 00:17:02,320 incredible marriage use that word marriage. I think it's beautiful here of form and 219 00:17:02,399 --> 00:17:07,119 matter, be from above, the from below, the concept and the practice, 220 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:11,880 the I mean all of these things, that universality and the particular somehow 221 00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:15,920 that's beauty is where it all really comes together. So it's interesting, Like 222 00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:21,480 the I think one of the most satisfying images for a human person, and 223 00:17:21,519 --> 00:17:25,000 that's why it's so universal, is a is a straight line with the curby 224 00:17:25,079 --> 00:17:26,960 line around it. I think that that's actually I think we're I think it's 225 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:33,839 like hard coded into us when we see that. Yeah, exactly, like 226 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:38,200 you see that caduceus kind of structure. I don't know, as I remember 227 00:17:38,319 --> 00:17:41,839 being very young and just drawing that over and over just because there was some 228 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:47,119 weird aspect of it that was very, very satisfying. And I think that 229 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:49,759 when you think of those two together, Like so Christ on the Cross is 230 00:17:49,839 --> 00:17:56,839 a good example where where Christ is usually actually drawn as a as a serpentine 231 00:17:56,839 --> 00:18:00,799 figure on the cross. But you have that, you have the straight, 232 00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:06,839 then you have the curve which comes and makes and softens it and makes it, 233 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:08,960 you know, and it's also a kind of dying at the same time, 234 00:18:10,039 --> 00:18:12,920 it's not it's not it's like there's no going, There's no two ways 235 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:18,839 about it. It's like there's a kind of letting go right of that of 236 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:22,359 the of the strait, but also attached to it, it's like it's weird 237 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:26,960 or the cross. Obviously it's hard to describe because there's too many things going 238 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:30,480 on in there, but I that my intuition, Contraposto is a good example, 239 00:18:30,559 --> 00:18:34,920 right, So if you have a basic, simple contraposto that's not too 240 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:40,200 excessive, then you really get that beauty. But if you have someone standing 241 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:44,359 in front of you that is just like a pillar right with their two feet 242 00:18:44,519 --> 00:18:47,759 like together, and just like obviously it's not a natural position, no, 243 00:18:47,839 --> 00:18:49,799 when he stands like that, but you would feel it would be very eerie 244 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:55,920 actually to face someone that way. And so the idea is to find the 245 00:18:55,960 --> 00:19:00,279 contrapostal. And if you look at Christian art, there's almost like a good 246 00:19:00,319 --> 00:19:06,519 there's a visual discussion about reining in Roman contrapasto, but not eliminating it. 247 00:19:06,559 --> 00:19:11,000 So if you look at Byzantine images, the usual the Roman contrapostal for those 248 00:19:11,039 --> 00:19:14,200 who don't know what, yeah, yeah, I don't know. The contrapostal 249 00:19:14,279 --> 00:19:18,559 is when you is when you have a figure that stands and then is unbalanced, 250 00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:23,000 has their leg out in one way so that their body curves. If 251 00:19:23,039 --> 00:19:26,680 you look at a Baroque image, you'll have extreme contraposto, right, like 252 00:19:26,839 --> 00:19:32,519 kind of like that, where whereas in the in the Roman times it was 253 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:33,880 that's how you would always show a figure, right, it would be like 254 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:37,960 one foot out and one foot straight, and it would make the whole body 255 00:19:38,079 --> 00:19:42,799 curve like an s. And if you look at at Renaissance, the Renaissance 256 00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:49,319 would like recaptured the Roman contrapasto. There's something kind of there's something almost erotic 257 00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:52,880 about just the It depends how much you exaggerate it. Yeah, and so 258 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:56,119 like imagine a woman like putting her hip out kind of like sticking it out 259 00:19:56,200 --> 00:20:02,240 right, there's something a bit seductive about it. And then the Byzantines kept 260 00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:04,519 contrapostal. So if you look at a Byzantine image, You'll see the figures 261 00:20:04,559 --> 00:20:07,440 actually are not standing straight. A lot of people would say, oh, 262 00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:11,720 the medieval icon. When you say Byzantine, like a Byzantine icon, the 263 00:20:11,759 --> 00:20:18,519 figures aren't standing straight. In the late modern period, in like after World 264 00:20:18,559 --> 00:20:21,799 War two, some people started discussing medieval art and started saying, oh, 265 00:20:21,839 --> 00:20:25,880 medieval art is heretic, it's straight, it's everything is brought back to like 266 00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:29,400 a kind of But it's not true. If you look at medieval images, 267 00:20:29,839 --> 00:20:33,480 they do have a contrapostal they do. They are standing off. But the 268 00:20:33,559 --> 00:20:37,119 question is how much? How much is enough? How much is too much? 269 00:20:37,519 --> 00:20:41,279 Yeah? And so how do you find that curve in the body which 270 00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:48,559 is not overtly erotic but suggests enough particularity for it to be incarnate and human 271 00:20:48,559 --> 00:20:52,799 and beautiful? Yeah, No, that's I mean again, That's why what 272 00:20:52,839 --> 00:21:00,359 I like about Schiller's notion is that order is not simply eliminated or betrayed breast, 273 00:21:00,079 --> 00:21:04,319 but it's expressed in this precise, this unique way, that that that 274 00:21:04,519 --> 00:21:10,000 in fact makes use of the constraints, so that even the constraints become an 275 00:21:10,039 --> 00:21:15,000 expression of free of the inner, freedom of them and that that that sort 276 00:21:15,039 --> 00:21:18,119 of thing. So so you know, imagine you know, you can think 277 00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,759 of a garden, or you can you can think of a you know, 278 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:26,160 we find certain movements of animals graceful and other you know, think of a 279 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:30,759 frog leaping through the air. It's I mean, there's nothing graceful about it. 280 00:21:30,839 --> 00:21:33,839 You know, if you watch in slow motion, it's there's something ridiculous 281 00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,519 about it. And you see that the weight of the thing is overpowering its 282 00:21:37,559 --> 00:21:42,920 own ability, you know, so it's it's violently reacting to it by launching 283 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:47,559 itself in the air. But you know, it's off center and off balance, 284 00:21:47,599 --> 00:21:51,000 and just you know, as opposed to you know, a gazelle leaping 285 00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:55,240 or something and there or a bird flying there. You see that that there's 286 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,279 a there's a there's the bird has a weight. You know, it's light, 287 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,880 but it's it has a weight. That very weight is what gives it 288 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:06,359 the strength to move itself up and and and there's nothing there's nothing in it 289 00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:11,920 that doesn't contribute to So I get nothing in it, including its constraints, 290 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,720 including the things that that in a way could from another perspective be oppressive. 291 00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:22,400 Those very things become an expression of its own inner life and reality. Yeah, 292 00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:26,599 and we just find that beautiful to see because the thing that worries me 293 00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:30,240 when I see the when I hear like an expression of or how do you 294 00:22:30,319 --> 00:22:33,960 say, an appearance of freedom? Yeah, the freedom in appearance. Freedom 295 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:38,000 and appearance is in manifestation, right, is that I'm hoping. I'm sure 296 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:42,720 you didn't mean that, But it's like because we see artists that made that 297 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:48,440 move, but did it in a a kind of you could say, a 298 00:22:48,519 --> 00:22:52,400 kind of clastic manner, right, right, So you find I mean, 299 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,960 yeah, to qualify, he doesn't mean freedom in the sense of like arbitrary 300 00:22:57,039 --> 00:23:03,440 power to choose, right, meaning freedom in the sense that of freedoms as 301 00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:07,839 a responding to the call of the good, more than freedom as an assertion 302 00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:11,000 of oneself. That's right. In the art world, what you have in 303 00:23:11,039 --> 00:23:17,240 the twentieth century is people who declare, you know, without thinking twice, 304 00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:22,200 that that art for art's sake. And so what we want is to we 305 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:30,559 want to liberate ourselves from arts imprisonment to particular crafts or to particular ideology or 306 00:23:30,599 --> 00:23:33,920 whatever. So I just reread Portrait of the Artists as a young man, 307 00:23:34,039 --> 00:23:38,519 and you see, right, the narrative arc of that is that Joyce has 308 00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:44,319 to free himself from religion, free himself from his family, free himself from 309 00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:48,480 his nation in order to become an artist that can focus now on beauty, 310 00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:56,000 as if beauty expresses itself outside of these constraints and outside of these frames. 311 00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,440 Yeah, right, fly past those nets, he says. Yeah. No, 312 00:23:59,599 --> 00:24:03,640 that's that's that's it's a very different I mean, that's why you realize 313 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:10,640 these these questions about what beauty is involved. I mean, a fundamental interpretation 314 00:24:10,799 --> 00:24:12,680 of the of the meaning of the world, the meaning of being, you 315 00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:18,920 know, it's not just a question of taste, that the meaning of order, 316 00:24:18,279 --> 00:24:21,440 and and and speaking of the meaning of order. I don't know if 317 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:26,640 you're familiar with Christopher Alexander. If you, yeah, he expresses some of 318 00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,319 these things. Really I find in really compelling way that you know, the 319 00:24:30,799 --> 00:24:37,359 the contrast to art for art's sake would be this notion of the integration of 320 00:24:37,599 --> 00:24:41,400 life and art. This is a principle you talk about in that that one 321 00:24:41,519 --> 00:24:45,400 video. But but a healthy integration where there's you know, there's nothing that 322 00:24:45,599 --> 00:24:49,960 beautiful that's not useful, and nothing useful that's not beautiful, and you know, 323 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,759 you know, you don't have like mechanistic use on the one hand, 324 00:24:53,880 --> 00:25:02,680 and then try to add superficially onto it completely meaningless ornamentation to sort of heal 325 00:25:02,839 --> 00:25:07,640 the the violence of the of the you know, of the mechanical world exactly 326 00:25:07,759 --> 00:25:11,480 that they heal them, heal the That's a beautiful way of saying it. 327 00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:17,279 I think that that's exactly the That's the good diagnostic of what happened in in 328 00:25:17,319 --> 00:25:22,200 the twentieth century is that art and what it did is it also made everybody 329 00:25:22,279 --> 00:25:26,319 ultimately alienated because the the art that was born, the high art that was 330 00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:34,559 born out of the modern period became so abstract and so difficult that it left 331 00:25:34,599 --> 00:25:37,880 everybody behind, and so nobody really ended up caring. So I mean, 332 00:25:38,079 --> 00:25:42,039 let's let's say it like James joyce Portrait of the Artist as a young Man 333 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:47,359 is actually really fun to read. It's beautifully written and it's amazing. But 334 00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:51,079 read Finnegan's Wake and you just want to pull your hair out at every page 335 00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:56,079 because it's just it's just inaccessible that for people. It's just a complete I 336 00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:59,759 mean, it's it's dense, and it's it and it's full of patterns and 337 00:26:00,079 --> 00:26:03,079 raical symbolism and it's all that, but it's like it's impossible to read, 338 00:26:03,839 --> 00:26:07,599 you know. And there's a connection between This is something I've been thinking about, 339 00:26:07,839 --> 00:26:15,480 uh recently, the marginalization of art and and even philosophy from the public 340 00:26:15,559 --> 00:26:18,920 square. You know. I mean, it used to be the case that 341 00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:25,599 the thinkers and the artists were figures of authority of a certain sword, and 342 00:26:25,839 --> 00:26:29,720 they spoke right at the in the center of the of the public square, 343 00:26:29,799 --> 00:26:34,680 and they what they said and what they made then gave ordering to life. 344 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:41,480 There was there was something that that communicated itself in terms of the public horizon. 345 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,480 But now you know, we have this completely abstract sense of what politics 346 00:26:45,039 --> 00:26:49,440 is on the one hand, and the and the public sphere is again sort 347 00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,880 of a mechanical order that has nothing to do with human life. And then 348 00:26:55,039 --> 00:27:02,319 then we have to in a way champion these extreme rssions of life and subjectivity 349 00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:07,359 on the side. And then you get this strange dialectic between the two where 350 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,480 nobody is and the and then the the arts that are available to the public 351 00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:18,319 public square are basically just like you know, like a hit of cocaine. 352 00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,920 Like it's just it's basically like it's just the pornography. Yeah, it's basically 353 00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,759 phronocod It's like it's just a beat, you know, a beat that you 354 00:27:25,839 --> 00:27:29,200 dance to, or like, you know, a lit up advertisement that you 355 00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:33,680 look at. It's like it's like everything has been reduced to to immediate pleasure 356 00:27:33,759 --> 00:27:38,400 and to mechanistic, to mechanistic, uh, to mechanize, kind of mechanize 357 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,359 cold reality. So we don't have the you know. And that's why I 358 00:27:42,519 --> 00:27:45,160 like, that's why I tell people go to church. And one of the 359 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:51,079 reasons obviously I want people to go to church for their own spiritual salvation life, 360 00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,200 but for their own salvation. But there's also the idea that the church 361 00:27:53,279 --> 00:27:59,039 is one of the only places left in the world where you sing for a 362 00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:03,920 reason, right, where you move for a reason, where you could have 363 00:28:03,039 --> 00:28:08,240 beauty for a reason, and that you can be inside and participate, and 364 00:28:08,279 --> 00:28:12,079 that we all are in this dance. And it used to be that all 365 00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:17,160 of society had some aspect of that dance to it, but it's broken down 366 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,680 so much that there are a few places except for maybe your home, your 367 00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:26,319 family, and the church, where that is still accessible to us. Yeah, 368 00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:27,799 you know, it makes me think about you brought up the notion of 369 00:28:27,839 --> 00:28:33,480 seduction before, when you're talking about the Contrapasso, and it seems like true 370 00:28:33,519 --> 00:28:38,759 beauty sort of seduces you, like in the Socratic sense of seduction, like 371 00:28:38,799 --> 00:28:45,519 it seduces you toward the good, it pulls you deeper into reality. But 372 00:28:45,559 --> 00:28:52,400 then there's this like in these more pornografied forms, the seduction of the art 373 00:28:52,599 --> 00:28:57,640 becomes a pole into the abstract. It becomes a pole away from that healing 374 00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:03,400 of the mechanistic wound. Like, yeah, but it's always art is always 375 00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:08,319 a dual. It's in the scripture, techne art, applied science, and 376 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,799 not just in the Bible, but also in kind of Greek, Greek mythology 377 00:29:11,799 --> 00:29:15,880 and ancient thinking. It's always a dual. It's a dual thing. It's 378 00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:21,920 not it's not it's not clean. It's not just simply there's a there's a 379 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:26,839 there's a healthy suspicion towards it, because if you look at how Plato was 380 00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,079 like, you know, get rid of those artists because they because they can 381 00:29:30,119 --> 00:29:33,920 make you think something's beautiful even if it's not right. They they're they're they're 382 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:38,960 tricksters, they're they're they're propaganda. They can become propagant propaganda propagandists. And 383 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:45,720 in scripture you can see that the applied arts are are from Cain and they 384 00:29:45,759 --> 00:29:51,039 bring about the flood, and so there's this very dark aspect of what of 385 00:29:51,079 --> 00:29:56,480 what they can bring. But then God is constantly saving that which has fallen. 386 00:29:56,559 --> 00:30:00,279 He's constantly kind of covering the elements. So man develops technology, developed 387 00:30:00,279 --> 00:30:03,839 cities, and God's like all right, you know, and then he's like, 388 00:30:03,839 --> 00:30:07,559 okay, we'll give you a pattern for the tabernacle, you know, 389 00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,559 and then I'll give you then we'll found Jerusalem and we'll have So it's like 390 00:30:11,599 --> 00:30:15,759 there's this covering of the of the but it's always dual, even though even 391 00:30:15,799 --> 00:30:19,480 if and the the bronze Serpent is a great example because the bron serpent in 392 00:30:19,519 --> 00:30:22,160 the story of the bron Serpent, you get the two right, It's like 393 00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:27,000 God tells Moses put up the bronze serpent, and this will this will become 394 00:30:27,079 --> 00:30:30,039 like an image that everybody can look at and that it will heal the it 395 00:30:30,039 --> 00:30:36,160 will heal the nation. And then later in the Bible it's like cut it 396 00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,200 down, burn it because it's become an idol. Yeah, the very same 397 00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:45,200 object. Yeah, I'd like how you said Plato's concern that that that these 398 00:30:45,319 --> 00:30:49,519 artists can make something that look beautiful that isn't. I think that that that 399 00:30:49,599 --> 00:30:55,759 formulation is really crucial because I would want to hold onto the idea that it's 400 00:30:55,799 --> 00:31:02,400 not that beauty is morally ambiguous, and there's good art that's more of the 401 00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,200 ambiguous, but not Yeah, right, right, no, But that's a 402 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,319 really crucial point because I think people miss that. I mean that that, 403 00:31:07,519 --> 00:31:11,000 in fact beauty itself, and I think one of the reasons that it's as 404 00:31:11,039 --> 00:31:15,319 you say, it's not clean, it's not sort of obvious. Is I 405 00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,480 like to say that that beauty has something of an invitational character. It's sort 406 00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,920 of it's it welcomes and opens up and invites, but that you know, 407 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:27,920 that appeals to freedom on the on the on the recipient side, one has 408 00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:33,480 to respond properly to it. And because one has to respond properly to it, 409 00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:37,160 there's built into that the possibility of betrayal, of taking it, interpreting 410 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:42,279 it falsely, taking it as kind of immediate gratification. So I think, 411 00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:47,240 you know, there's no such thing as impure beauty. In fact, I 412 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:52,119 mean beauty always even in impure cases, is there's a glimmer of something that's 413 00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,559 true that can in fact lead one out of the impurity. Yeah, that's 414 00:31:56,599 --> 00:32:00,960 a crazy story from the Desert Fathers of the these monks that are walking down 415 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:05,839 the road and then all of a sudden, this this woman, young woman, 416 00:32:06,079 --> 00:32:07,519 you know, like naked on a on a I think shoh on a 417 00:32:07,559 --> 00:32:12,359 donkey or something like walking towards them, and all the monks are like just 418 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:14,599 diverting their eyes like, don't look at it. And the one, this 419 00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,119 one old monk is just looking at her like kind of and then when they 420 00:32:17,119 --> 00:32:19,920 go by, all the other monks like why were you looking at her? 421 00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,720 And really she was so beautiful, and it was just like for him he 422 00:32:22,759 --> 00:32:28,240 had It's like he was beyond the desire. He was just seeing a beautiful 423 00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,839 creature of God. Because it's always just it's well for most of us that's 424 00:32:31,839 --> 00:32:37,119 probably best not that way, but it's just like which side of it you're 425 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,680 on, almost like can can the arrows that that? Because I think of 426 00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:45,680 that and like the problem of the erotic, right, this problem of the 427 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:49,519 erotic in a downward sense, right, like I'm trying to consume I'm trying 428 00:32:49,559 --> 00:32:53,599 to have I'm trying to take versus arrows in a higher sense. That this 429 00:32:53,799 --> 00:32:59,599 is becoming away for me. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's I 430 00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:04,240 mean, and it's not it's not that Arros is two faced or something, 431 00:33:04,319 --> 00:33:08,599 but that that that arrows in principle is a call to what's higher. But 432 00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:15,079 it's a call that that can be falsely interpreted or betrayed. I mean, 433 00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,759 I think that's but I mean, the the the interesting thing and this is 434 00:33:17,799 --> 00:33:22,119 you know, Plato is so fascinating on this. You know that the good 435 00:33:22,559 --> 00:33:27,440 Jonathay and you were talking about how modern art doesn't speak to people, it 436 00:33:27,519 --> 00:33:30,599 speaks only to experts, you know. And then and then the masses, 437 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,839 Chris Alexander is really good on this. There's a kind of the masses then 438 00:33:35,119 --> 00:33:37,200 sort of go along with it because the experts tell them that this stuff is 439 00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:42,319 beautiful, even though it makes them feel sick or anxious. You know, 440 00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:47,160 when they that that, you know, goodness, there's the idea of the 441 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:52,400 good has a certain kind of inaccessibility, and you know the kind of a 442 00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:57,480 perfection that might make it seem a transcendence, might make it seem out of 443 00:33:57,519 --> 00:34:01,960 reach, but there's there's not there's no human being on earth that doesn't respond 444 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:06,440 to beauty. You know, truth, we can, we can, we 445 00:34:06,519 --> 00:34:12,760 can ignore goodness, we can, but everybody responds. There's a there's a 446 00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:15,599 uh. You know, if you think of to use a kind of Christological 447 00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:22,519 image that you know, beauty in a way is goodness leaving its transcendence, 448 00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:28,880 uh, in order to enter into the very depth of the of the material 449 00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:34,360 of the flesh, you know, the incarnation, to the very ends and 450 00:34:34,559 --> 00:34:38,320 uh. And in that place able to sort of speak and call one back 451 00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:44,599 up. There's there's something really profound about the Christian understanding of that, I 452 00:34:44,599 --> 00:34:47,480 think. I think so. In the Book of Revelation, the image of 453 00:34:47,519 --> 00:34:53,679 the Heavenly Jerusalem is one of my favorite ones to kind of understand the relationship 454 00:34:53,679 --> 00:35:02,119 between between techne and and let's say, human civilization and its relationship to God. 455 00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,840 And so one of the descriptions of the Heavenly Jerusalem, it says that 456 00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:09,880 all the nations bring their glories into the city, and it says that all 457 00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:14,679 the kings offer their glory to into into the city. And so the idea 458 00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:22,000 is that all these externals, right, they they have to be offered up 459 00:35:22,679 --> 00:35:27,280 and that's the way for them not to become dangerous. Right, It's like, 460 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,480 like you said, it's like the aros. If the aros is transparent 461 00:35:30,559 --> 00:35:36,000 and aros pulls you through things into the presence of God, then it's then 462 00:35:36,119 --> 00:35:39,800 that's the right that's the right way to to to deal with it. But 463 00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:45,840 the problem, of course is that because it offers certain pleasure, then it 464 00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,599 can seduce you to stay at the level of the appearance, so to stay 465 00:35:49,639 --> 00:35:52,920 at the level of the first you know. And so I like the way 466 00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:59,000 that the church fathers that well, the the hermit, the the not the 467 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,320 desert father, but like the monks in the Philocalia, how they talk about 468 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:09,239 say spirit heasychastic fathers like this the spiritual tradition in terms of because it's because 469 00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:15,559 philocalia means the love of a beauty. But then in the text they're saying 470 00:36:15,599 --> 00:36:21,800 they say weird things like they'll say, ignore all spiritual experiences. Right, 471 00:36:22,039 --> 00:36:23,599 it's like if you have a vision, ignore it, if you see a 472 00:36:23,639 --> 00:36:28,119 miracle, ignore it, ignore everything. And you think, like what a 473 00:36:28,159 --> 00:36:30,440 weird thing to say, Like why are they doing that? And you think, 474 00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:36,559 are they against the beatific vision? Are they against and you're like, 475 00:36:36,599 --> 00:36:38,679 well, obviously not, because the tradition is full of them. They're not 476 00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:43,760 against it, they're saying it's almost like if you ignore it, if you 477 00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,079 don't attach yourself to it, you'll actually have more of it, right, 478 00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:51,559 right, and then you'll actually be you'll be gathered up higher. So it's 479 00:36:51,559 --> 00:36:52,639 not so it's like, yeah, you'll see miracles, you'll see all that 480 00:36:52,639 --> 00:36:58,199 stuff, just don't attend to them too much because then you lose the purpose 481 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,760 of them being just a kind of a pull into the higher states. Yeah, 482 00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,719 it's the same as the monk walking down the road, right, Like, 483 00:37:07,519 --> 00:37:12,280 if it's more obvious to everyone that there's some sort of shame associated with 484 00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,360 you know, you stopping at the level of the naked woman, But if 485 00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,199 you stop at the level of, hey, I had a great vision, 486 00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,119 I had this great transcendent experience, it's similar. You're still doing the same 487 00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:27,800 thing, it's just it's more acceptable. Yeah. So it's always I like 488 00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,599 this principle though, that that doesn't mean than losing the pleasure of it. 489 00:37:31,639 --> 00:37:39,039 I mean, paradoxically and ironically it's deepened. Like the example that you gave 490 00:37:39,079 --> 00:37:42,519 from the Church Fathers, but in Plato, too. You know, the 491 00:37:42,519 --> 00:37:46,440 philosopher, I wish I had the exact number. He says that the philosopher, 492 00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:52,840 in a way compared to the one who's seeking pleasure, ends up actually 493 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:58,039 having something like five hundred and twenty nine times the pleasure. The pleasure he 494 00:37:58,119 --> 00:38:02,559 does the calculation, Yeah, precisely, precisely because he's he sees it in 495 00:38:02,599 --> 00:38:07,159 relation to its ultimate source in origin. It's it's first principle. Yeah. 496 00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:13,760 I'm always asking people in some in my talks, whether who has most of 497 00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:19,760 the most pleasure a millionaire at a at a banquet or a monk that's eating 498 00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,360 bread and as fasted for three days. It's like, it's pretty sure that 499 00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:27,280 the monk is having more pleasure than the millionaire. But he's not looking for 500 00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,119 it, right, He's doing he's kind of trying to avoid it, but 501 00:38:30,159 --> 00:38:31,800 then it's it's coming to him, like there's no way to avoid it. 502 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:37,440 This reminds me a little bit of Jesus's parable of the talents, right, 503 00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,360 because those guys like it's the ones that give it away to to get more 504 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:44,400 of it. It's like, great, I got it. I got a 505 00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:45,760 talent, or you know, now I've got two talents. Or whatever. 506 00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:50,320 But every time you get it, you give it back away. Yeah, 507 00:38:51,119 --> 00:38:53,920 losing your life is finding it. It's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 508 00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:57,440 Well that's why the question of beauty in Christianity, it's like it's a 509 00:38:57,519 --> 00:39:01,440 it's a weird and sometimes how can I say this, Like I think the 510 00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:07,840 the Orthodox I think sometimes get it a little off because there's something about Christianity 511 00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:13,480 and beauty which is paradoxical, because there's a sense in which we're meant to 512 00:39:13,519 --> 00:39:17,119 see beauty in the extreme of its ugliness, like we're kind of asked. 513 00:39:17,119 --> 00:39:22,199 It's almost like we're asked to be willing to go to the end of what 514 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:27,480 we consider to be pain and suffering and ugliness and all these things, and 515 00:39:27,679 --> 00:39:31,519 to and to have, and that there's some glory, there's some hidden beauty 516 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:36,440 in that. And obviously it's dangerous because I don't want people to think this 517 00:39:36,519 --> 00:39:39,840 is a kind of masochistic thing. I don't think it is. But you 518 00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:45,039 know, there is something about about the Cross which is weird, like it's 519 00:39:45,079 --> 00:39:50,679 a terrible thing. But then it's also we say, you know, the 520 00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:55,800 life giving Cross. We say that that it's the that Christ on the cross 521 00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,440 is creating the world, that he's the garden of Eden. That he is 522 00:39:59,559 --> 00:40:02,239 the you know that he's a flower like all these images that were used even 523 00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:07,519 in the Middle Ages of the roads on the cross or different types of of 524 00:40:07,599 --> 00:40:12,719 images, and the same thing with martyrdom and relics and all of these these 525 00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:16,960 things that happen in Christianity, which is this strength paradox of of beauty in 526 00:40:17,039 --> 00:40:22,119 the in the least expected place, or beauty in the in the So that's 527 00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:28,079 that's a that's you know, for when to integrate the uh uh. There's 528 00:40:28,119 --> 00:40:32,519 a Benedict the sixteenth has an address to the Ministers of Culture. It's it's 529 00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,880 available online. It's just a short address that he he gave, but he 530 00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:43,599 he speaks about that paradox and the Christian appropriation of the ancient sense of beauty 531 00:40:43,639 --> 00:40:47,800 and eras and how it it acquires this paradoxical character precisely in the Cross. 532 00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,239 It really is moving, you know, I don't I don't want to be 533 00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:55,960 sort of uh seemed obsessed with Plato here, but even expect you to be. 534 00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,119 It has a has anticipation of this. I mean, it's it's it's 535 00:41:01,159 --> 00:41:07,880 amazing that he you know, he presents Socrates himself sort of notoriously ugly. 536 00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:13,920 This is those Socrates, you know, as when he opens up you know, 537 00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:16,760 in the symposium, uh, and you see that the he's like the 538 00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:22,519 statues that have the statues of gods inside the statues of gods, and and 539 00:41:22,559 --> 00:41:28,079 when when Socrates you open them up, you see these glories that are are 540 00:41:28,199 --> 00:41:31,960 are you know, it's spellbinding. So that there's there's something about that, 541 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:40,800 the paradox of a more radically transcendent and and glorious beauty in the most extreme, 542 00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,400 I think, I think precisely because of that. You know, Augustine 543 00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:49,360 says that that one of the things that constitutes beauty is is contrast. And 544 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:53,360 I think I think we all find things like paradox striking for that reason that 545 00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:58,400 that I'm going to actually use that as what way to tie into an earlier 546 00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,159 point that we made right in the beginning of the conversation, you know, 547 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:07,400 unity and difference. That we might think that that collecting different things under a 548 00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:13,800 unifying idea is the essence of beauty, and that that's and there's something really 549 00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:19,239 true about that, But there's also something about the differentiating of unity that's also 550 00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:24,199 beautiful. And I think in something like paradox and contrast, and then you 551 00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:30,000 know the the the ultimate example is the the the Glory of the Lord, 552 00:42:30,199 --> 00:42:34,880 as hunters from Balbazar would say, in the Cross. Here you have what 553 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:40,800 would seem to be an uh an absolute difference, an absolute difference, you 554 00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:46,440 know, moving all the way to nothing, suddenly itself reveals itself to to 555 00:42:46,559 --> 00:42:52,519 be the deepest unity. There's something about that that becomes unspeakably and it's you 556 00:42:52,559 --> 00:42:54,960 have to avoid. You have to avoid the sado massive, I mean, 557 00:42:55,039 --> 00:43:00,440 right, one can. It's also because because like if as an artist, 558 00:43:00,519 --> 00:43:05,360 I think as an artist and someone who's interested in art, it's the kind 559 00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:09,400 of question you have to ask yourself. Because so let's say, if you 560 00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:15,079 look at Francis Bacon as a painter, Let's say he's a good example where 561 00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:19,480 you know, his most one of his most known works is called Cruci Fixion, 562 00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,760 and it's like a it's like these broken monsters. Really is what's going 563 00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:29,159 on in that image? And the question is what is so what's the difference? 564 00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,199 Right? So it's the same like for example, I'll give another example. 565 00:43:32,039 --> 00:43:37,000 I thought that Mel Gibson's passion was over the top. I like Mel 566 00:43:37,039 --> 00:43:42,079 Gibson, and I like his movies. But that movie, I just I 567 00:43:42,159 --> 00:43:46,920 watched it and I thought that it was indulging in he was indulging there. 568 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:52,880 He goes indulging in violence in a way that I thought was was not useful. 569 00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:57,159 But not for example, A lot of people had a different reaction to 570 00:43:57,199 --> 00:43:59,880 it. But and so if I look for example, I look for example 571 00:44:00,119 --> 00:44:05,239 like late like kind of Spanish or like Mexican crucifixes. You see Christ. 572 00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:09,000 You know, his knees are flayed, and you know it's like he's got 573 00:44:09,079 --> 00:44:13,599 he's just like his his whole body is just ripped apart, and it's like 574 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,039 this is the crucifix in the church, right, It's it's so I'm like, 575 00:44:17,079 --> 00:44:21,400 what's the balance. How do we find the balance where we're showing the 576 00:44:21,559 --> 00:44:27,280 scandal of the crucifixion, but which we're also trying not to indulge our fascination 577 00:44:27,559 --> 00:44:31,159 for for something that is, you know, our dark fascinations that say for 578 00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:35,079 death. And it's the same with music too, right, you know these 579 00:44:35,079 --> 00:44:40,559 are these are delicate matters and require real prudence and spiritual discernment. I mean, 580 00:44:42,119 --> 00:44:45,159 because there's a drama in this, you know, it's problematic you simply 581 00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:50,639 rule certain things out. It's problematic if you kind of automatically affirm them. 582 00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:55,159 There's there's a there's a real uh discernment is the best word that that is 583 00:44:55,280 --> 00:45:00,480 essential at every moment. Yeah. Yeah. And there's also like a like 584 00:45:00,519 --> 00:45:04,960 there's a there's a sense of shock that is dangerous in the realm of beauty 585 00:45:05,039 --> 00:45:10,440 because it's it's it's like the popcorn version of a beauty because it creates intense 586 00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:17,440 experiences, but it usually fades very quickly, and so you can create you 587 00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:21,559 know, it's like watching a horror movie, right, you can create intense 588 00:45:21,559 --> 00:45:27,400 emotion esthetic. It's intense emotions in people, but those are not you know, 589 00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,840 they're not very deep. They don't they don't transformform you. Yeah, 590 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:35,199 that's the word. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like it's important, 591 00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:39,079 especially if we're in a world now that we're kind of struggling. I think 592 00:45:39,079 --> 00:45:45,039 a lot of the churches are struggling to figure out how to deal with the 593 00:45:45,119 --> 00:45:49,840 question of beauty and the question of music, the question of participation. You 594 00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,679 know, I have, weirdly enough, like I have Protestant pastors who want 595 00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:58,960 to meet with me and talk to me about how do we find this this 596 00:45:59,159 --> 00:46:02,679 balance. It's I mean the entertainment kind of flashy light show, rock and 597 00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:08,519 roll culture that so many churches have fallen into. Uh and then yeah, 598 00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,840 sorry, I don't want to entrust. Go go ahead, go ahead. 599 00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:15,360 Well just just I mean there there, you see, that's that's beauty that's 600 00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:22,840 being used as a kind of strategy for for recruitment or proselytyte or we're going 601 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:27,960 to we're going to use this to communicate a message. And that's you know, 602 00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,000 from technology in a way. Yeah, right there you go. We 603 00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:35,559 need to come back to that technology question. It's a point. Yeah, 604 00:46:35,679 --> 00:46:38,639 it's it's sort of a technological use as opposed to I would say, as 605 00:46:38,639 --> 00:46:44,039 opposed to something that that would be like a genuine technique. That would be 606 00:46:44,039 --> 00:46:47,559 an interesting way into that. Like, so what you mean by by technological 607 00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:53,480 youth is something like pure pure utility, Like yeah, I would for me, 608 00:46:53,559 --> 00:46:58,840 it's where you separate means from ends and you you kind of perfect means 609 00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:02,840 as a kind of uh uh power and it's increase in power that yeah, 610 00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:08,719 that can be then used indifferently. So it's it's defined intral as neutral in 611 00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:13,199 itself, and then it can be used in differently for good or for evil, 612 00:47:13,199 --> 00:47:16,800 as opposed to Techne was always understood as as doing something useful. I 613 00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:22,760 mean, so it was always it was always a means that it's appropriate to 614 00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,239 the ends that it seeks to. Yeah, and I would I would push 615 00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,559 i'd push back a little bit on the idea that it that it used to 616 00:47:29,599 --> 00:47:35,000 be understood as completely useful. There's this weird tradition about for example, uh, 617 00:47:35,679 --> 00:47:40,239 the Esclepias, Right, So Esclepias is the it creates these this medicine, 618 00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:44,679 and the way he does it is that he takes blood from the right 619 00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:49,159 side of the gorgon. So he takes this dead gorgan and he takes blood 620 00:47:49,159 --> 00:47:52,559 from the right side, and then out of that he creates the medicine. 621 00:47:52,679 --> 00:47:55,039 And what it suggested obviously by that myth is that the blood from the left 622 00:47:55,039 --> 00:47:59,800 side of the gorgon is the poison. Right, so you have the venom 623 00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:05,000 of the snake, and then you have the pharmicon, the pharmicon. Yeah, 624 00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,079 and so the question of the pharmacon, I think was already quite and 625 00:48:07,119 --> 00:48:13,199 if you read in the in the my mind in Plato's when he talked about 626 00:48:13,199 --> 00:48:15,920 writing, what's the name of the dialogue. Yeah, the Phaedria. Uh, 627 00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:19,639 he has he seems to have a he seems to understand that, which 628 00:48:19,639 --> 00:48:22,239 is what did kind of jumps on in his text. But seems to understand 629 00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:27,639 the duality of externality, the duality of application, the problem of that. 630 00:48:28,039 --> 00:48:31,079 Yeah, yeah, I mean, I the duality, but it seems to 631 00:48:31,079 --> 00:48:35,599 me that there's a difference between. So there's always you know, one of 632 00:48:35,159 --> 00:48:40,519 the best examples too, is is is uh Sophocles. I think it's the 633 00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:47,000 second chorus, I believe from the Antigona. I want to say, Heidegger 634 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:52,000 made a lot of this, but this this celebration of men's ability, but 635 00:48:52,079 --> 00:48:57,199 it's a celebration that very subtly ironically, you know, with that kind of 636 00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:02,840 Sophoclean tragic irony, you realize there's something also awful about it, and destructive 637 00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:07,119 and terrible. But it's it's that those things are mixed together. I mean, 638 00:49:07,119 --> 00:49:09,159 I think that that is always there. I mean, from the beginning 639 00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:15,079 with the with the Prometheus. You know in a way that the arts are 640 00:49:15,559 --> 00:49:20,559 divine, but they're they're stolen rather than divine gifts. In fact, I 641 00:49:20,559 --> 00:49:23,559 mean, so there's there's always a kind of ambiguity. So I think that 642 00:49:23,559 --> 00:49:28,039 that's always there. But I for me, technology it's not just that it's 643 00:49:28,159 --> 00:49:31,679 more ambiguous or something. I think it's it's of a very modern technology is 644 00:49:31,679 --> 00:49:36,880 of a very different nature. It's a it's it's actually a different kind of 645 00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,239 thing. Well, it's it's an extreme it's an extreme version of what technique 646 00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:45,000 used to be, even though it used to be you know, in more 647 00:49:45,039 --> 00:49:47,800 incient times it would have been more integrated, just but people could proceed through 648 00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:52,280 even their integration the possibility of the of the dangers. But now we have 649 00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:59,000 something like you know, a microchip that will increase your processing power by so 650 00:49:59,159 --> 00:50:02,079 much, you know, all for a medical machine or for a missile. 651 00:50:02,119 --> 00:50:07,280 It doesn't matter like it it's just this. It's just increase in power and 652 00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:12,840 it can be used to whatever pointed in any direction possible. Yeah, people 653 00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:16,000 see that as good though. People see just increasing power or they think that 654 00:50:16,039 --> 00:50:19,480 it can be good. Right, So, well that's the problem. They 655 00:50:20,039 --> 00:50:22,280 once we get the power, then we'll figure out how to use it. 656 00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,719 That's and there there's a there's a disorder that's built in. But can you 657 00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:29,519 you keep wanting to jump in here, I don't know if if we're kind 658 00:50:29,519 --> 00:50:32,000 of oh no, well, I kind of got distracted there, because that 659 00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:36,480 just that brings us back to this whole notion of freedom. I mean, 660 00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:40,440 as soon as like, as soon as freedom becomes takes the place of goodness 661 00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:45,559 as the ultimate te los, right, as soon as that becomes our goal 662 00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:51,119 and becomes defined as power to make choices, right, yeah, then as 663 00:50:51,159 --> 00:50:53,760 soon as that's I feel like it has to do with like why you're doing 664 00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:59,119 the thing. If you're doing the thing because it's actually ordered to a real 665 00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,960 end, that's real good, right, Like if you're if you're trying to 666 00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:07,360 build a house, like it's actually ordered to something, and so you're gonna 667 00:51:07,519 --> 00:51:10,840 you're gonna build a hammer that has a use in relation to something beyond it 668 00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,800 versus you know, just building a bigger hammer just so you can have it 669 00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,119 because you never know when you might need it. But there's even a trickery, 670 00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,239 like in terms of increase in power, especially now because we still live 671 00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:25,639 in a kind of post Christian world, there's like a weird trickery that's that's 672 00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:30,880 put up to us, which is that things, the technologies that are the 673 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:37,480 most destructive will be the most destructive they're often presented to us at first as 674 00:51:37,519 --> 00:51:42,360 beneficial. So it's like Elon Musk, let's put chips in your brain and 675 00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:44,719 that all people can walk. I mean, think about it, like, 676 00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:46,320 I mean, are you gonna say no to that's that? Right? Can 677 00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:51,880 you say no to help me? It's a total modern Bailey. And it's 678 00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,440 like it's the same with with so many of these these especially these crazy new 679 00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:58,760 technology, especially the biotechts. It's like it's like, oh, you know 680 00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:02,119 all this stemstell research, which is great because you know, all these diseases 681 00:52:02,159 --> 00:52:06,360 we can cure, and it's like, you don't see that there's also some 682 00:52:06,559 --> 00:52:12,840 very dark things coming down the line in terms of transhumanism and transformations of humans 683 00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:16,079 into who knows what. H Well, that's yeah, no, And I 684 00:52:16,119 --> 00:52:24,000 think that that problem is a profound and subtle one that requires real reflection because 685 00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:30,800 you know, I think we come to such quick judgments. But the supposed 686 00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:35,960 neutrality you get the you get the neutral technology, and then you know, 687 00:52:36,039 --> 00:52:38,760 then you get afterwards the exhortation to use it for good ends. But you 688 00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:42,480 know, we can't help that. There's gonna be some people, I mean, 689 00:52:42,519 --> 00:52:47,800 but the very neutrality of it is already a departure from reality. It's 690 00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:52,239 it ends up substituting, it creates I mean, this is why I you 691 00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,599 know, I use the language of the diabolical there. It creates a kind 692 00:52:55,599 --> 00:53:02,480 of a substitute for an engagement with reality that then can try to justify itself 693 00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:07,159 by pointing to all of these discrete good uses. But that but in a 694 00:53:07,159 --> 00:53:12,119 way, that's it that there's there's something really deceptive about them the whole thing. 695 00:53:12,559 --> 00:53:15,400 Then you look at the if you look at the at the Men and 696 00:53:15,519 --> 00:53:17,559 I communities or the Amish, and you you look at how they do it. 697 00:53:17,599 --> 00:53:22,599 And it's interesting because people always think that the Amish are these communities that 698 00:53:22,599 --> 00:53:25,280 they're against achnology, but they're not. Actually they have the All they do 699 00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:29,760 is they take every time they someone they're presented with the technology, they ask 700 00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:32,599 themselves is what the effect will it have on our community? And then they 701 00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:36,480 integrate it or they don't, depending on what effect it will have in their 702 00:53:36,519 --> 00:53:39,960 community. Yeah, that's an interesting approach. You know. Obviously, on 703 00:53:40,039 --> 00:53:45,119 the one hand, it makes them constantly in danger of vanishing, but on 704 00:53:45,159 --> 00:53:47,079 the other hand, it might make them more resilient than us in the long 705 00:53:47,159 --> 00:53:52,079 term. When we're all when we're all gone, the Amish will still be 706 00:53:52,119 --> 00:53:53,000 there. No, it is, it is. You know. In fact, 707 00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,880 my wife and I just took our kids to a Menonite community a couple 708 00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,079 of weeks ago to a hymn sing that they did, yeah these four four 709 00:54:01,159 --> 00:54:06,000 voice. Uh yeah, I grew up there. That was my upbringing. 710 00:54:06,199 --> 00:54:08,280 Oh is that right? Beautiful? It was? But but yeah, I 711 00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:10,760 mean that's that was the Light Heights too. I mean, they get sort 712 00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:15,840 of a bad rap, and people misunderstand they weren't. They weren't against technology 713 00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:20,800 either. They just said that technology is good insofar as it helps humanity, 714 00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:24,440 and it's bad when it stops doing that. It seems to me ineminently reasonable. 715 00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:29,119 No one can debate about where that line is, but it's a reasonable 716 00:54:29,199 --> 00:54:32,840 judgment. And it seems to me, Yeah, there's there's there's uh we 717 00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:37,400 need to recall it. I mean, yeah, but it's too late now 718 00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:44,599 because the the AI question is the one that is exposing all of this radically, 719 00:54:44,679 --> 00:54:50,079 which is that they you know, this famous uh poll that they put 720 00:54:50,159 --> 00:54:53,400 across the people that are developing AI, and a large chunk of them believe 721 00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:58,280 that there's a chance that it will destroy humanity and it's like, well, 722 00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,800 what that will destroy all just destroy humanity completely. And the question is how 723 00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:05,280 is it that they're still doing it? Like what's how do you go to 724 00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:08,199 work in the morning there? Because they think that it's inevitable. Yeah, 725 00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:12,079 and so if we don't, if they don't, if I don't know what 726 00:55:12,159 --> 00:55:15,320 somebody else is going to write? Well, and this like this brings up 727 00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:20,599 the question to me always. It's like it's probably once a month that I 728 00:55:20,639 --> 00:55:24,519 sit and really think honestly about ditching a smartphone and going back to a flip 729 00:55:24,519 --> 00:55:31,079 phone. And ultimately I haven't done that because there's it would basically would disrupt 730 00:55:31,079 --> 00:55:36,159 my life enough that I won't do it. But I mean when it comes 731 00:55:36,199 --> 00:55:40,239 to personal application, like I don't know what to make of this sort of 732 00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:43,880 question, like where do we stop? Like if I don't, if I 733 00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:46,679 don't participate with AI, am I just jumping off the boat? First of 734 00:55:46,679 --> 00:55:52,000 all, have you tried CHADGBT? I've done minimally, it's amazing, Like, 735 00:55:52,119 --> 00:55:54,960 well, I like you, like you have your own research assistant, 736 00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,760 like a full time research assistant. That's what it is. I had it. 737 00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,960 I had to analyze all all the videos on my YouTube channel and I 738 00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,719 asked it, you know, what would you talk about? You know, 739 00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:08,679 what would you say Ken Ken Lowry's doing with climbing Mount Sovia And what it 740 00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:15,360 gave me back was significantly more thorough and profound, I think than what I 741 00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,480 could have put together in you know, half an hour of typing. I 742 00:56:17,519 --> 00:56:22,320 have to say, somebody sent me a chat GPT little essay on one of 743 00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:24,559 my books just to see what I would think of it, you know, 744 00:56:25,079 --> 00:56:30,719 and I was astonished first of all that that it was a sophisticated but I 745 00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:35,199 but I have to say, I quite honestly had the experience that I often 746 00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:39,239 have reading some of my grad school grad student papers, where you see that 747 00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:45,079 they're saying things that they that they heard you say in class. They can 748 00:56:45,119 --> 00:56:49,280 put them together in interesting ways, but that they never really got the point. 749 00:56:49,639 --> 00:56:53,559 No, that's why they're your research assistant, right right is not don't 750 00:56:53,559 --> 00:56:57,639 want it to write for you, but you can use it as a research 751 00:56:57,679 --> 00:57:00,840 assistant. It's a it's quite astounding. I was like, I can see 752 00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:05,800 it, like I'm not, you know, my it's weird because the first 753 00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:07,920 time I use chagipt, it lied to me the first time oh really, 754 00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:10,880 yeah, and you don't know that, right, I mean totally lied to 755 00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,639 me. And then about what like what happened? It was, oh wait, 756 00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:17,679 so I would my son had been using it, and he said he's 757 00:57:17,719 --> 00:57:21,400 got to try this. I'm like eh, and I was being just like 758 00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:23,840 a grumpile mantar, like fine, whatever, I'll try it. And so 759 00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:30,440 I just one evening I logged into the Chaguput and I and I asked him 760 00:57:30,599 --> 00:57:35,360 if he knew about about Saint Christopher, because that's obviously what I was going 761 00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,039 to ask him about, and if if he knew that Saint Christopher was a 762 00:57:37,079 --> 00:57:39,000 dog headed man. And first he was like, no, he's a giant 763 00:57:39,079 --> 00:57:44,119 and kind of argued with Chadjuput for a while. Finally he admitted that, 764 00:57:44,199 --> 00:57:46,559 saying that Saint Christopher is sometimes a dog headed man. But then I asked 765 00:57:46,639 --> 00:57:51,440 him, oh, I said, has anybody ever written a graphic novel about 766 00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:53,599 Saint Christopher? And he said yes, and I like, really interesting, 767 00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:58,039 And then he gave me the name of two authors and the name of a 768 00:57:58,079 --> 00:58:01,440 book that doesn't exist. Wow. And so then I said that book doesn't 769 00:58:01,440 --> 00:58:04,280 exist and he says, yes, it does, And I said, what's 770 00:58:04,320 --> 00:58:06,239 the I s b nd he gives me an yes, b end that doesn't 771 00:58:06,280 --> 00:58:08,239 exist. I said, I said, where can I find these? City? 772 00:58:08,719 --> 00:58:10,760 Amazon? To find it? On this or that. I'm like, 773 00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:14,079 can you give me a link? You give you a link that doesn't exist. 774 00:58:14,559 --> 00:58:19,039 It's very weird. Wow, it's very strange. Anyways, Yeah, 775 00:58:19,599 --> 00:58:23,000 well, I mean the thing is, yeah, the the the I don't 776 00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:27,000 think we can give up on these questions. I and I and I think 777 00:58:27,039 --> 00:58:30,360 that the the the challenge that this poses. I mean, you know that 778 00:58:31,039 --> 00:58:37,440 Jonathan, you mentioned the sanity of going to church and having a genuine experience 779 00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:44,519 of some of these human realities that that we don't have elsewhere, some that 780 00:58:44,519 --> 00:58:47,719 that Yeah, I mean this this this sounds like just sort of uh, 781 00:58:49,119 --> 00:58:53,119 superficial exhortation, but you know, somehow that has to penetrate into the shape 782 00:58:53,159 --> 00:58:58,039 of the world too. And I and uh, I mean you know that's 783 00:58:58,079 --> 00:59:00,760 I guess the big task that Yeah. Yeah, so the only things we 784 00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:06,440 I think the thing we can do is really just because there's also a certain 785 00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:10,280 faith that true beauty will survive, you know, And it's it's not a 786 00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:14,920 just a I'm gonna say this. Obviously, there are accidents but it's not 787 00:59:15,119 --> 00:59:19,400 just a kind of blank statement of faith. It's also that people care about 788 00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:22,960 beautiful things, and they when they decide to destroy a building, usually they'll 789 00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:27,679 destroy the nice building last, They'll destroy the ugly buildings first, and then 790 00:59:28,039 --> 00:59:34,519 so there's a sense which beauty has a evolutionary advantage right in terms of preservation. 791 00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:42,079 And so I think that making beautiful things and beautiful art and beautiful music 792 00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:50,679 is a good it's a good strategy in terms of our current situation because ultimately 793 00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:58,320 I think that will survive the popcorn like the superficial advertisement culture, at least 794 00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:00,320 as an artist. That's been my So like for me, it was aim 795 01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:04,119 high. It was like, okay, well, where's the place where this 796 01:00:04,239 --> 01:00:07,920 is still true? And the answer was it's still church art. That's the 797 01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:10,039 place where it's actually true. It's where all that comes together, where you 798 01:00:10,039 --> 01:00:15,000 can make beautiful things that are integrated into people's lives, integrated into and also 799 01:00:15,239 --> 01:00:21,519 directed towards God and directed towards the highest things. And so it's it was 800 01:00:21,559 --> 01:00:24,239 still it seems still possible. You know. Even I had a good friend 801 01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:29,800 of mine who was he was more he's an atheist and modern person and and 802 01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:31,679 he said, he said, he said, he said, you know what 803 01:00:31,679 --> 01:00:35,880 you're doing is also kind of just nostalgic. It's just nostalgia. It's just 804 01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:40,119 pastiche and nostalgia. And my answer was, well, it's not nostalgia for 805 01:00:40,199 --> 01:00:45,920 the person that buys an icon for their their nephew that's getting baptized. I 806 01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:49,559 know what to tell you. It just isn't like if I if it gets 807 01:00:49,599 --> 01:00:52,639 if I make a chalice for a church and there's wine in it, it's 808 01:00:52,679 --> 01:00:55,840 like, there's no, it's not nostalgia. You can say what you want. 809 01:00:55,920 --> 01:01:00,719 It's a real it's a real thing. It's really happening. It might 810 01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:04,440 seem retrograde to you, but it's a it's not nostalgia. It's a real 811 01:01:04,519 --> 01:01:09,800 thing. And if it's genuinely beautiful, we always experience genuine beauty as still 812 01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:14,760 alive. If it's simply a repetition of an old form, I mean, 813 01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:17,239 people send that too, it's not yeah, when it's too when it's too 814 01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:21,719 much of a I always say, I actually say that, I think tradition 815 01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:27,239 without nostalgia, which is that interesting. Learn the language from the inside and 816 01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:30,280 then create things you can copy it at the beginning. Obviously, you have 817 01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:36,320 to start by copying, but once you've mastered the language, you have to 818 01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:39,599 be careful not to just make pastichious images. Yeah, Kirker Art's idea of 819 01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:45,199 tradition is recollection forward. That's a great Yeah, that's a great way of 820 01:01:45,199 --> 01:01:49,840 saying it, recollection forward. Yeah. Yeah, Well this may be a 821 01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:52,320 good a good place to bring it, bring it to a close. But 822 01:01:53,199 --> 01:01:57,960 any final thoughts or anything you wanted to say before we close here for either 823 01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,519 of you, No, I'd say thanks, I think yeah, And it'd 824 01:02:00,559 --> 01:02:06,760 be great to have another conversation. Yeah, so hopefully John John wanted to 825 01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:08,800 come to this one, but he wasn't available, So hopefully we can get 826 01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:13,599 another one on the books. That would be wonderful. Yeah, I'm gonna 827 01:02:13,639 --> 01:02:16,519 I mean, I still need to have my conversation with John Rivik about AI 828 01:02:16,559 --> 01:02:23,119 because he made he made a half prophetic, half scary half who knows like 829 01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:29,960 that video he made on AI was was profoundly surprising and disturbing, and so 830 01:02:30,079 --> 01:02:34,199 I haven't I've been gathering up my just my thoughts to talk to him about 831 01:02:34,239 --> 01:02:37,360 it. I would love to be you know, I'm just that conversation if 832 01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:42,559 you do it, So maybe so yeah, it's it's definitely, it's definitely 833 01:02:42,599 --> 01:02:45,320 something that he's thought a lot about and that is worth engaging with him about 834 01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:49,800 it because he's definitely he's not a he's coming at it with you know, 835 01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:52,800 years and years of thinking about these questions, but he doesn't definitely doesn't come 836 01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:57,079 to the same conclusion as I do. But it's worth, like I think 837 01:02:57,079 --> 01:03:00,519 it'd be worth exploring it. If you enjoy these video and podcasts, please 838 01:03:00,559 --> 01:03:05,199 go to the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you can support what 839 01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:08,360 we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers with perks. There are apparel and 840 01:03:08,400 --> 01:03:12,880 books to purchase, So go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you 841 01:03:13,199 --> 01:03:13,960 for your support.