1 00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:04,759 The dark powers want to use symbol in a way that sort of upfew skates 2 00:00:04,799 --> 00:00:09,359 what's really there. Powers are always based when they have a kind of a 3 00:00:09,439 --> 00:00:13,839 bent agenda. They have to have some kind of lie that's inherent to the 4 00:00:13,839 --> 00:00:20,480 way they're working in the symbolic world, because true symbol is integrity between what's 5 00:00:20,519 --> 00:00:23,960 on the inside and what's on the outside. It's kind of the way I 6 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:29,239 think about glory. True glory is like pure integrity of what's on the inside 7 00:00:29,239 --> 00:00:31,960 and the outside. Like a piece of amber, you know, and you 8 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:36,200 put it up to the sun and it's just like this beautiful translucent thing that 9 00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:41,920 you look through and it's solid all the way through. Whereas a distorted symbol. 10 00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:47,759 And now we get into things like idols and advertising and words and stereotypes 11 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:53,320 and things that kind of like have a certain force socially, they're all predicated 12 00:00:53,399 --> 00:00:57,840 on some kind of a lie. They have a duplicitous nature. They function 13 00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:03,640 precisely because they're inside does not have integrity with the outside. The outside has 14 00:01:03,679 --> 00:01:07,799 more of like a grandiosity, which we kind of like almost attribute to things 15 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:12,959 by virtue of association. But they're hollowed out. They really don't have integrity 16 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:30,040 of meaning. Yeah, this is Jonathan Pegel. Welcome to the Symbolic World. 17 00:01:40,719 --> 00:01:44,519 So hello everyone. I am very happy to be here with Ted Lewis. 18 00:01:44,879 --> 00:01:49,359 Ted Lewis is a director of the International Jacqueline Society, Christian who you 19 00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:53,560 made have seen on this channel and is a good friend of mine presented us 20 00:01:53,159 --> 00:01:59,560 I myself, have you know, read some jacquelul I've struggled with Jacqueline, 21 00:01:59,599 --> 00:02:05,040 you know, in some ways I feel like his insight on technology is is 22 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:08,759 very important for us right now to understand the problem civilization, the problem of 23 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:14,280 technology. But also, of course as an Orthodox Christian and as someone who 24 00:02:14,319 --> 00:02:17,719 makes images, I've struggled with some other aspects subject of Jacqueline, which is 25 00:02:19,639 --> 00:02:23,319 what I see as the two negative vision of the city of civilization, of 26 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,800 the image of you know, of spatiality, and the kind of the possibility 27 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,680 of these things to manifest in the world today. And so I'm really excited 28 00:02:30,719 --> 00:02:35,719 to be able to kind of engage this discussion with Ted and so Ted, 29 00:02:35,759 --> 00:02:39,000 thanks for coming along. Yeah, it's great to join in here. So 30 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:45,039 I think a lot of people will know Jacculin, but maybe several will not. 31 00:02:45,159 --> 00:02:47,599 So could you give people a sense of who he was, what what's 32 00:02:47,599 --> 00:02:53,599 his importance for us today? Yeah, I'll be glad to. Jacques Louel 33 00:02:53,800 --> 00:03:00,080 is a mid century thinker and many in many ways as a pioneer in the 34 00:03:00,159 --> 00:03:07,240 area of critiquing technology, and his prominent book, The Technological Society came out 35 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:13,199 first in nineteen fifty four in the French edition, nineteen sixty four in English. 36 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:17,840 So we're coming up on a seventieth year anniversary. But even before that, 37 00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:25,120 during the Nazi era, Jacques Luell and his friend Bernard Charbonneau and others 38 00:03:25,159 --> 00:03:30,240 in the personalist context in France, we're very concerned about how the force of 39 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:37,960 technology and a mechanized world would have an effect on society as well as our 40 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:40,759 very humanity. So one of the threads through all of his writings, I 41 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,280 mean, he wrote a lot forty books, died in nineteen ninety four, 42 00:03:45,919 --> 00:03:51,120 But the thread through all of that is sort of a warning that if Western 43 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:59,240 people do not really come to terms with how the force of progress and technology 44 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:02,759 when it's un tethered from ethics, will end up having a deep effect on 45 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:09,000 even the way we conceive ourselves as human beings. A simple way to think 46 00:04:09,039 --> 00:04:14,400 about it is to think about how environments influence us. So a little kind 47 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,839 of split things into three zones. There's sort of like a time where nature 48 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:29,600 was our environment, and social villages and cultural things are primarily rooted in how 49 00:04:29,759 --> 00:04:34,000 nature forms and patterns human life. And then the next stage it has to 50 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:42,519 do with just what he calls the environment of the social the society we might 51 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:46,680 think of the Greek city state and the Roman world and into the medieval world 52 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:53,800 and Renaissance, and the social world has more influence from how humanity is starting 53 00:04:53,839 --> 00:05:00,480 to lift itself away from nature and to create new ways of thinking and being 54 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:05,319 and science and and and whatnot. And then for a Lieuell, technology it's 55 00:05:05,079 --> 00:05:12,560 itself becomes a third kind of environment, an environment which informs who we are 56 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:17,600 as people. And it almost becomes totalistic for him. And some people think 57 00:05:17,639 --> 00:05:24,879 he's, you know, too too far with that totalistic way about technology as 58 00:05:24,879 --> 00:05:30,519 a force dominates every part of human life. But those are some broad strokes 59 00:05:30,879 --> 00:05:34,600 around his writings. Yeah, what I think the thing that for myself made 60 00:05:34,639 --> 00:05:40,160 me feel close to Alul is that he definitely seems to understand because it's important 61 00:05:40,199 --> 00:05:44,399 people to understand that Elud was also a very serious Christian. You know, 62 00:05:44,639 --> 00:05:47,600 his his insight, much of the way that he thought came from the Bible 63 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:51,480 came from his own. Uh. He was was he reform, Was he 64 00:05:51,519 --> 00:05:57,480 Protestant? I don't know what his tradition was. Yeah, primarily identified with 65 00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:01,959 with the French Reform and it had quite a bit of influence within France and 66 00:06:01,959 --> 00:06:08,600 in those circles. One of the more more significant things is before he was 67 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:14,680 really a Christian, he had read Karl Marx. He fully embraced a Marxist 68 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:18,879 approach, and in many ways that continued to inform his his sociology. And 69 00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:24,079 then he starts to read Kirkerguard. I think he's known for reading just about 70 00:06:24,079 --> 00:06:28,319 everything Kerguard wrote, which is really astounding. And then and then he started 71 00:06:28,399 --> 00:06:34,240 getting introduced to Carl Bart, so Kirkergard and Bart kind of advanced his his 72 00:06:34,399 --> 00:06:41,959 Christianity out of a traditional Calvinist reform zone into what you might call more of 73 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:47,920 a dialectical perspective of faith matters. And so one of the things that impressed 74 00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:53,120 me was that he does seem to really pick up very much on a clear 75 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:58,519 strain in the Bible, which is the you could call it the canite image 76 00:06:58,519 --> 00:07:03,040 of civilization, which is that we find in the first chapters of Genesis that 77 00:07:03,199 --> 00:07:08,920 civilization is an issue of the descendants of Cain and is in some ways a 78 00:07:09,639 --> 00:07:14,399 kind of reaction, you know, reaction to the curse and a compensation for 79 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,040 the curse in some ways. To think about that that he seems to see 80 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:25,959 the city in that that vein and civilization and the technification of society in this 81 00:07:25,959 --> 00:07:30,600 this kind of line that's they cannot line, and you really have to understand 82 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,399 A. Leuill's critique of the city, and he does come on pretty strong. 83 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:40,000 Has a follow up to Harvey Cox's book, The Secular City, where 84 00:07:40,079 --> 00:07:44,079 Harvey Cox tends to have more of an open mindedness, like now now that 85 00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:50,120 we've come into you know, the fullness of modern society, all the virtues 86 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:55,240 that that might come with that. What A Lewell saw in that was a 87 00:07:55,360 --> 00:08:01,160 sacrilization of the city. So it's not the city person with all of its 88 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:09,279 architecture and structures and institutions. For Louell that's most problematic. It's the fact 89 00:08:09,279 --> 00:08:16,160 that it gets lifted up like a tower of babbyl as something that becomes autonomous 90 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:22,519 with its separate law autonomous from God. So that's really at the heart of 91 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:26,240 the Loull's critique of the city is it becomes archetypal, just like the Tower 92 00:08:26,279 --> 00:08:35,799 of Babel, of human enterprises that don't know how to be more interactive and 93 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:39,320 participatory with God in a spiritual realm. Yeah, and in this way, 94 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:45,440 this is where in some ways it starts to rub with me in terms of 95 00:08:45,639 --> 00:08:50,600 as especially being an orthodox Christian, is that his interpretation of that leads all 96 00:08:50,679 --> 00:08:54,919 the way into his vision, for example, of image making and also of 97 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:01,200 liturgy, how he saw liturgy as something similar to this, to this process, 98 00:09:01,279 --> 00:09:07,360 you know, where he tends to be suspicious of all of all formalizations. 99 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,720 You know, any type of formalization seems to be suspicious and prone to 100 00:09:11,759 --> 00:09:18,320 becoming idols. And his approach seems to be a kind of desire to desacrileze 101 00:09:18,399 --> 00:09:20,559 or de mythologize, you know, very much like Karl Barth very much in 102 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:26,120 that in that sense where in some ways he sees Christianity as the ultimate desacralizer, 103 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:30,759 you could say that that desacralizes everything. Is that? Do you think 104 00:09:30,799 --> 00:09:35,600 my understanding is is right in that I think it's it's fairly good. And 105 00:09:35,039 --> 00:09:41,200 you have to understand that Alua once went to a Nazi rally some sometime in 106 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:43,919 the in the later thirties. He was he was at one of those rallies, 107 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,960 and he even admitted that he felt the pole, the magnetism, the 108 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:58,600 group energy getting drawn into that. And so his his reaction to ceremony and 109 00:09:58,799 --> 00:10:03,600 ritual and the you use of arts ultimately has to be understood through the lens 110 00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:09,600 of how it can be used to manipulate society. Of course, he then 111 00:10:09,639 --> 00:10:13,080 writes Empire of the Nonsense, where he kind of feels like most modern art 112 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:22,200 is itself sort of you know, dominated by a technological flow within the twentieth 113 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:26,399 century. So he doesn't have a whole lot of positive things to say about 114 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:30,399 modern art. So what is his view of Let's say, because there is 115 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:33,639 an eschatological image of the city right in the Book of Revelation, and so 116 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:39,240 how does it for himself, like, how does he reconcile those images together? 117 00:10:39,679 --> 00:10:43,080 Well, I'm glad you use the word reconcile, because that is a 118 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:46,960 word he likes to use where image and word come together in a fruitful way. 119 00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:54,720 So probably the most important book for this topic of his perspective on images 120 00:10:54,759 --> 00:10:58,679 and liturgy and all of that is the Humiliation of the Word. It happens 121 00:10:58,679 --> 00:11:03,320 to be one of my favorite books, and I was able to bring it 122 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:07,200 back into print recently. And at the end of that book he has a 123 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:13,559 whole chapter called Reconciliation, and by that he's talking about Jesus Word of God 124 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:20,720 ultimate Image of God as reconciling word and image in a way that restores the 125 00:11:20,799 --> 00:11:28,639 balance of both and then that has implications then for other aspects of Christian life. 126 00:11:28,159 --> 00:11:33,759 So even though he's very very hard on image and he prizes word, 127 00:11:33,879 --> 00:11:37,960 I mean the very title, the humiliation of the Word is sort of like 128 00:11:37,039 --> 00:11:43,559 grieving over the fact that we are an image dominated society, image saturated, 129 00:11:45,799 --> 00:11:50,840 and we prize more what we see rather than what we hear. And he 130 00:11:50,879 --> 00:11:56,399 goes into great depth about how the loss of our capacity to hear well affects 131 00:11:56,080 --> 00:12:01,919 our thinking, our way of relating to to the spiritual realm and to God, 132 00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:05,039 and it kind of roots us much more in the here and now. 133 00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:11,200 So bringing back a restoration or reconciliation of word and image, for him is 134 00:12:11,279 --> 00:12:16,200 the pathway modeled by Jesus to you know, to bring us into a better 135 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:22,279 zone. And so one of the things that made me fascinated to talk about 136 00:12:22,279 --> 00:12:24,559 this is that recently, you know, Case now give me this, this 137 00:12:24,639 --> 00:12:31,519 wonderful edition of the ILUL Forum that deals in large part with the question of 138 00:12:31,519 --> 00:12:35,279 how Jacquelin talked about principalities and powers. This is, i think, something 139 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:41,120 which is extremely relevant today as we're noticing. One of the things that social 140 00:12:41,639 --> 00:12:46,639 network like social media has done, and the Internet has done, is that 141 00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:54,000 it has accelerated the question of the relationship between between attention and the way in 142 00:12:54,039 --> 00:12:58,360 which social forces function. And what it has done is that made it possible 143 00:12:58,399 --> 00:13:05,080 for us because it's accelerating it so much, it's helping even secular people see 144 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:09,960 the types of agencies which take over and you know, act through people. 145 00:13:09,879 --> 00:13:13,320 And it's made it easier at least, well, I've noticed, it made 146 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:16,440 it easier for me to talk about this notion that there are types of agencies 147 00:13:16,519 --> 00:13:20,960 or principal these powers. You know, Saint Paul uses different words to talk 148 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,960 about these that that kind of that say, have a type of agency over 149 00:13:26,039 --> 00:13:30,039 human behavior. And this in some ways is one of the subjects that Elul 150 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:33,759 has treated, you know, in a moment where it was in some ways 151 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,600 very unpopular to talk about these types of subjects. So can you give us 152 00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:41,720 a sense of how he perceived these these types of transpersonal agencies. Yeah, 153 00:13:41,759 --> 00:13:45,679 it's a it's a big topic, and I have to be humble to say, 154 00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:50,080 I'm still sort of unpacking his perspective and then what I think about it. 155 00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:56,480 He definitely felt and believed that there were real principalities and powers, simply 156 00:13:56,519 --> 00:14:01,080 because the Bible treats them as real. And marvit Don is someone who did 157 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:05,879 a fair amount of work with this topic. She did her whole dissertation on 158 00:14:05,759 --> 00:14:11,120 Elul's view of the powers and principalities and then wrote some other things about it, 159 00:14:11,759 --> 00:14:18,000 and she highlights that a Lull kind of hedged a little bit on what 160 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:24,240 might be called the ontological being of powers when it comes to agency and personification, 161 00:14:24,879 --> 00:14:31,200 which you know, through Christian tradition, when we think of powers as 162 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:37,799 having volitional dimension. I would say he wasn't like fully there in his descriptions, 163 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:41,720 as you'll find in other Christian writings, and yet for him they are 164 00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:48,440 they do have independent force beyond what you could just study empirically. As a 165 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:56,879 social scientist, just a couple examples for him was like the power of mammon, 166 00:14:56,159 --> 00:15:03,240 which is a biblical word related to uh, money and wealth and material 167 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:11,720 things which have a certain power then over our need to protect are what we 168 00:15:11,799 --> 00:15:16,080 save. It's similar to the way we we kind of think of a power 169 00:15:16,159 --> 00:15:20,799 over someone who is an addictive or a compulsive relation to what enslaves them. 170 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,879 And everyone who's in the recovery world kind of knows that these powers are our 171 00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:31,320 way beyond what they themselves can control. And that's why we use terms like 172 00:15:31,399 --> 00:15:39,120 agency from beyond because it's it's it's it's the metaphoric language that helps us be 173 00:15:39,279 --> 00:15:43,759 honest about the fact that there's something greater that's influencing us. Yeah. In 174 00:15:43,799 --> 00:15:48,639 the text that I was reading, there's a letter in the from Jacculin to 175 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:54,000 Marva Dawn, and he seems, at least in some of the parts of 176 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:58,879 the letter to to to be wary, to be cautious. Like you said, 177 00:15:58,919 --> 00:16:03,279 it's as if he's a little he tends to have a bit of a 178 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,879 reductionist approach to it, where he doesn't want to fully talk about agency. 179 00:16:07,039 --> 00:16:12,399 But you know, let me just read a little text from it here, 180 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,679 and so he says, he talks about these powers, and he says, 181 00:16:18,799 --> 00:16:22,240 that is to say, they certainly exist, but not as entities comparable to 182 00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:26,080 human and materializable persons. They exist in as much as they are manifestations and 183 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:30,519 not as beings. Thus one finds the evil phenomena, the fact of money, 184 00:16:30,559 --> 00:16:33,799 of the city, of the state, and of technique, and these 185 00:16:33,799 --> 00:16:40,039 phenomena reveal the existence of an evil spiritual power, but not as a sort 186 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:45,200 of powerful angel reigning over the world and using money or the state. And 187 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,879 so Satan is the accusation. Therefore, everywhere there is an accusation, there 188 00:16:49,919 --> 00:16:56,200 is Satan. But it is not a personage who provokes and produces the accusations. 189 00:16:56,559 --> 00:17:03,000 The accusation exists by itself, in that I can see that he's really 190 00:17:03,039 --> 00:17:08,680 struggling. He is really struggling to talk about this, And in some ways 191 00:17:08,839 --> 00:17:14,240 I'm I feel like I kind of understand, especially in the moment where in 192 00:17:14,319 --> 00:17:15,839 the time when he was writing this, you know how he was dealing with 193 00:17:15,839 --> 00:17:19,160 this. But there's a way in which, in some ways what he's saying 194 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:25,240 about these agencies and powers is something that a reductionist would say about us, 195 00:17:26,039 --> 00:17:30,000 about humans. He would say there is no agency. There's only the fact 196 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:36,279 there's only the actions, there's only the cells, there's only the electric impulses 197 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:41,440 you know, in your brain. Because you cannot detect through agency through material 198 00:17:41,799 --> 00:17:48,759 calculation, like you can't, agency always appears above let's say the material facts. 199 00:17:48,759 --> 00:17:52,920 And so I was a little surprised because I really do think that someone 200 00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:56,920 would take his argument and apply it to a person and it would be as 201 00:17:56,039 --> 00:18:03,400 valid as the way that he tries to skirt the problem of transpersonal agency by 202 00:18:03,759 --> 00:18:10,680 attributing only the factors. Now, I understand that it's difficult because because we 203 00:18:10,759 --> 00:18:15,480 are we are materialists, and therefore we're not used to thinking analogically. And 204 00:18:15,559 --> 00:18:18,680 so when we think, when we think of these angels and we see these 205 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:22,279 beings with wings, we we kind of freak out because because it bothers us 206 00:18:22,319 --> 00:18:26,759 to think to think that way, we we can't think that even those representations 207 00:18:26,799 --> 00:18:30,799 are always analogical to some to some other form of yeah, to an invisible 208 00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:36,920 agency. Let's say, yeah, this is a deep topic. I might 209 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:40,359 kind of come at this topic from a different angle, And I'd like to 210 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:48,160 throw out the word symbol symbol, you know, sim Greek for with ball, 211 00:18:48,799 --> 00:18:53,880 Greek for throwing something. You know, we get our word ball from 212 00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:59,279 that part of the Greek words that have the bawl in it, so symbol 213 00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:07,400 to throw with, parable to throw, beyond, diable, or diabolic, 214 00:19:07,079 --> 00:19:11,920 to throw apart. So the reason I kind of want to start with symbol 215 00:19:12,599 --> 00:19:19,240 is that in a way, God's effort to reach humanity and see us Lewis 216 00:19:19,279 --> 00:19:23,480 is kind of big on. This has to go through symbol to reach us, 217 00:19:23,519 --> 00:19:30,160 and that doesn't mean that we can deconstruct it and then there's nothing there. 218 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:37,559 We come to realize it's the necessary means for one realm that's so incomprehensible 219 00:19:37,559 --> 00:19:41,519 and beyond to reach us has to go through metaphor and symbol for us to 220 00:19:41,559 --> 00:19:45,079 make sense of it. And so I think even when it comes to the 221 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:52,039 darker powers, all we have is language and symbol in a way to apprehend 222 00:19:52,079 --> 00:20:00,559 it. But like wind, like gravity, like frequencies now that that you 223 00:20:00,599 --> 00:20:06,880 know, make our garage door go up and down, we know that this 224 00:20:07,039 --> 00:20:14,319 stuff is like really happening because we see the effects. And so I think 225 00:20:14,319 --> 00:20:19,079 that's part of being just limited human beings is that we have to learn to 226 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:23,079 know that we're really not going to get that much more than symbol, and 227 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:29,400 yet that's still a rich area for us to traffic in. And what I 228 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:34,319 kind of find interesting is that the dark powers want to use symbol in a 229 00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:40,759 way that's sort of up few skates what's really there. So powers are always 230 00:20:40,799 --> 00:20:45,160 based, and I mean, when they have a kind of a bent agenda, 231 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:48,920 they have to have some kind of lie that's inherent to the way they're 232 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:56,319 working in the symbolic world. Because true symbol is integrity between what's on the 233 00:20:56,359 --> 00:21:00,000 inside and what's on the outside. It's kind of the way I think about 234 00:21:00,039 --> 00:21:06,400 glory. True glory is like pure integrity of what's on the inside and the 235 00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:11,160 outside, like kind of like when you get like like a piece of amber, 236 00:21:11,519 --> 00:21:14,000 you know, and you put it up to the sun and it's just 237 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:18,079 like this beautiful translucent thing that you look through and it's solid all the way 238 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:25,920 through, Whereas a distorted symbol. And now we get into things like idols 239 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:30,759 and advertising and words and stereotypes and things that kind of like have a certain 240 00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:37,799 force socially, they're they're all predicated on some kind of a lie. They 241 00:21:37,839 --> 00:21:45,759 have a duplicitous nature yea, and they function precisely because the inside does not 242 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:51,599 have integrity with the outside. The outside has more of like a grandiosity which 243 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:59,480 we kind of like almost attribute to things by virtue of association, but they're 244 00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,799 hollowed out. They really don't have integrity of meaning. Yeah, would you 245 00:22:03,839 --> 00:22:07,920 say that the very because this I think would fit well with But it says, 246 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:11,279 which is that the lie in some ways is the autonomous existence of the 247 00:22:11,319 --> 00:22:15,359 thing itself. That is, you know, the state presenting itself as the 248 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:21,920 summit of authority, for example, that itself is the lie which forces the 249 00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:27,720 disjunction between the outward appearance or the outward symbol and the interiority of the of 250 00:22:27,759 --> 00:22:32,200 what is symbolized. And so it forces, you know, when a state 251 00:22:32,799 --> 00:22:36,440 believes that it is all powerful, like in the authoritarian states that we saw 252 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:41,319 in the twentieth century, it is forced to use a religious language which is 253 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:47,279 not appropriate for itself, in order to apply it to itself because it is 254 00:22:47,319 --> 00:22:52,039 in some ways like the tower babble taking up the place of God. We 255 00:22:52,039 --> 00:22:56,559 could say, yeah, and I think what fits with what you're saying is 256 00:22:56,559 --> 00:23:02,000 is the phrase pretentious powers. One of Rul's favorite verses right out of Second 257 00:23:02,039 --> 00:23:06,400 Corinthians ten has this phrase of pretentious powers, you know, that we can 258 00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:11,799 deconstruct and bring captive to the lordship of Christ. And by pretentious it means 259 00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:17,599 it has the appearance of being very powerful. This is this is what I 260 00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:23,480 call the outside manifestation of a power that presents well like a state, like 261 00:23:23,519 --> 00:23:29,839 a nation, you know, like like a new car or whatever, but 262 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:34,319 on the inside has some contradictions, what you're calling a lie. Uh. 263 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:40,720 There's always an achilles heel, you know, on the inside of these duplicitous 264 00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:48,160 symbols, because they're there, they have to continually be propped up with with 265 00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:55,160 falsehoods and narratives and and things which you know, again lack the integrity of 266 00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:59,559 meaning of the way things truly are in the world. And so one of 267 00:23:59,599 --> 00:24:03,640 the ways that I so this is I think in terms of Ilul, maybe 268 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,279 I can phrase it this way because I think it relates to what we're saying 269 00:24:06,319 --> 00:24:12,680 now, which is that Ilul seems to want to portray the negative, the 270 00:24:12,759 --> 00:24:17,079 negative in the sense that in some ways, right, the crucifixion of Christ, 271 00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:22,559 the humiliation of Christ, the you know, the capacity to embody weakness 272 00:24:22,759 --> 00:24:27,759 subverts the whole structure right, and so in some ways it it it exposes 273 00:24:27,839 --> 00:24:30,839 the powers, right, and that in the similar to the way that the 274 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:37,920 Canisierra talks about. And I think that in that sense he is completely right. 275 00:24:37,039 --> 00:24:41,839 And there's something about what he's saying which pierces very truly. Where I 276 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:47,920 wonder is that in scripture there's also a whole other strain, which is the 277 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:52,799 tabernacle, the temple, uh, you know, and even Ezekiel's third Temple, 278 00:24:52,839 --> 00:24:56,720 which is a kind of vision of an eschatological temple. Yeah, and 279 00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:02,279 and and the same and this image of the son of Man. And so 280 00:25:02,319 --> 00:25:04,839 for example, in Revelation you have this final image where you have two. 281 00:25:06,559 --> 00:25:08,079 So even in the text I was reading, you know, he was alluding 282 00:25:08,079 --> 00:25:12,319 to the lamb and to the to the idea of the lamb as this this 283 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,799 insane image, right, It's like why the lamb at the summit of the 284 00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,799 of the hierarchy? Right, this that's the subvertive image. But in the 285 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:23,720 in the vision, it's actually two images, right, It's it's the son 286 00:25:23,759 --> 00:25:29,160 of Man and the lamb. So it's the the king, judge, ruler 287 00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,079 and the lamb joined together. So there are these two strange in scripture it's 288 00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:37,519 it can seem contradictory, but they're there, right. The vision of the 289 00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:42,599 tabernacle, or the God asking Moses to build a tabernacle is is very much 290 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:48,200 using tropes related to Caine, you know, the Bezeel, the way that 291 00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,279 he's described as an artificer. You know, the only other person called an 292 00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:56,880 artificer in scripture I think is is Tublcane. And so it's like there's this 293 00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:03,440 whole other strain and that's the one that that that I see a little let's 294 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,799 say, ignore which which what I think would leads him to say to be 295 00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:11,559 something like a Christian anarchist. Like it's as if all structure is is dangerous 296 00:26:11,599 --> 00:26:12,960 in itself. I don't know if when you think of that, I'm kind 297 00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:15,279 of poking here, but I want to know what you Well, I'll kind 298 00:26:15,279 --> 00:26:19,759 of talk out loud, speaking more more of my thinking than trying to represent 299 00:26:19,799 --> 00:26:22,279 a little here. Okay, okay, but then I will come back to 300 00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:32,039 him. But if you think about Renesierrard's concept of sacrifice as having cultural rootage 301 00:26:32,559 --> 00:26:36,640 in the Hebrew tradition as well as the ancient Near East, and from his 302 00:26:36,799 --> 00:26:45,880 perspective, it slowly is being or it's evolving into a new perspective which upends 303 00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:52,279 the whole sacrificial system itself. It's it's like a a counter narrative that involves 304 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:59,880 non violence and forgiveness and relationality and upending. So it's it's possible. I 305 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:04,960 think that when you look at liturgical and artistic and you know, those physical 306 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:12,079 traditions that come out of the Old Testament, that those themselves have a type 307 00:27:12,079 --> 00:27:18,960 of evolving understanding. So by the time Jesus is talking to the woman at 308 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:23,559 the well in Samaria, he says, you know, it's neither that temple 309 00:27:25,279 --> 00:27:29,519 or this temple. People are going to worship in spirit and truth. I 310 00:27:29,559 --> 00:27:33,759 think Alull kind of shares a little bit of that kind of sympathy where the 311 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:42,960 temple itself has like aspects of legitimate tradition, but ultimately it becomes not just 312 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:48,240 replaced by something spiritual, but it actually becomes sort of there's a tension with 313 00:27:48,319 --> 00:27:56,279 it, there's a subverted element. And Jesus himself is using language to confront 314 00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:03,759 the temple institution itself by by kind of broadening people's minds into into these paradoxical 315 00:28:03,759 --> 00:28:07,759 ways of thinking that are trans cultural. So I don't know if that's a 316 00:28:07,799 --> 00:28:11,160 window in talking about that, but I think Alull kind of shares some of 317 00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:18,160 that sense of there's a trajectory, just like a trajectory for Gerard about sacrifice, 318 00:28:18,279 --> 00:28:22,799 maybe there is for visual culture too, And I think yeah, and 319 00:28:22,839 --> 00:28:26,880 so I think that that's maybe I have a yes and way of thinking, 320 00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:30,039 you know, not a not a not a this, but this or like 321 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,960 I tend to have a yes and we have of thinking and so and so 322 00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:37,279 even in the story of Christ, you have those images, and then you 323 00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,720 also have the fact that he cleansed the temple. He wanted to purify the 324 00:28:41,039 --> 00:28:45,680 space that that that God had established. Then I also think of the eschatological 325 00:28:45,759 --> 00:28:52,000 vision. The image of the heavenly Jerusalem is very powerful because it seems to 326 00:28:52,079 --> 00:28:56,599 solve the problem because the way that it's presented is is that the kings, 327 00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:00,839 the kings of all nations, you know, offer their crown up into the 328 00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,799 heavenly city, and all the glory of all the nations are elevated into the 329 00:29:04,839 --> 00:29:08,720 heavenly Jerusalem. And so it's not that the nations are destroyed, it's not 330 00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:12,640 that the kings don't exist, is that there exists in the proper order. 331 00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:19,759 So whatever whatever particular glory in nation has is given up to something higher and 332 00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:22,359 that's its glory actually, right, It's like that is what is glory is 333 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:27,119 whatever it can offer up and whatever it doesn't hold on to itself and tries 334 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:32,440 to to you know, like like the kind of the kind of dangerous nationalism 335 00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:36,160 that we can see that that is actually a kind of way in which all 336 00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,640 this participates on this. So there isn't a there isn't just the negative parts. 337 00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:45,079 There's also this kind of positive way that we can the civilization that art, 338 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,119 that culture, that that that that authority, that all these things can 339 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:53,759 participate ultimately in the kingdom. Yeah, I think I would affirm that. 340 00:29:53,880 --> 00:30:03,319 And there's there's an affirming incarnational blessing of of things that that are with integrity 341 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:08,359 reflect the nature of God and the intended you know, creation that was set 342 00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:14,359 out for us. And at the same time, Jesus is the great disturber 343 00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,960 of everything in every culture that does not align with with with all of that. 344 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:22,319 Yeah, that's kind of the way that I tend to I tend to 345 00:30:22,359 --> 00:30:26,279 see it myself. Yeah, it's so so in terms of in terms of 346 00:30:26,359 --> 00:30:30,720 how do you feel that illule speaks now because you know, we're seeing in 347 00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:37,440 some ways the the radical acceleration of technification. You know, everybody's talking about 348 00:30:37,559 --> 00:30:41,880 AI right now. It's it's wild because it it's as if now these principalities 349 00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,720 and powers are almost like appearing in front of us, and so and so 350 00:30:45,759 --> 00:30:48,400 what do you what do you think? Yeah, Well, just as an 351 00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,759 aside, I'm I'm a real fan of C. S. Lewis's Ransom trilogy 352 00:30:52,799 --> 00:30:56,319 and the third one, that hideous strength is you know, you can get 353 00:30:56,359 --> 00:31:02,039 away with saying things in fiction that you can I know is convey and nonfiction. 354 00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:04,519 And so I just think that that's a great example for us to think 355 00:31:04,599 --> 00:31:11,599 into some of the trends that we're wrestling with now when you think about how 356 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:18,200 powers are related to institutions and whatnot. For Aluel, I personally think that 357 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:25,480 one of his most important books for our current time is The Technological Bluff. 358 00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,319 In many ways is the third of a trilogy. If you start with The 359 00:31:30,359 --> 00:31:33,160 Technological Society, you know that he wrote in the fifties, and then in 360 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:40,640 the seventies he wrote The Technological System, which adds some new perspective on his 361 00:31:40,759 --> 00:31:45,519 original thesis and then thirdly, he wrote the technological bluff, and by bluff, 362 00:31:45,559 --> 00:31:53,240 he's talking about how technique driven methods in our society present well to provide 363 00:31:53,319 --> 00:32:00,920 solutions. He even uses the word salvation at times, you know, because 364 00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:05,920 of this problem, this technology is going to save us from whatnot? And 365 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:12,480 yet the bluff is we really don't know exactly how the the rollouts are going 366 00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:15,480 to look. We don't know what all the effects are. He uses terms 367 00:32:15,559 --> 00:32:24,079 like consequences are unforseeable, they're unpredictable, sometimes even unmanaged, unmanageable. And 368 00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:30,000 because we have such a high general faith in technology, we think that's the 369 00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:34,799 only way to really solve something. You know, we we have a pandemic 370 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:39,920 which arguably comes out of a technological malule, but now we have to find 371 00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:45,680 a technological solution to deal with it. Well, now that presents some additional 372 00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:51,480 fallout challenges. And this this is the bluff that he says we need to 373 00:32:51,559 --> 00:32:57,880 call if we're really going to not let ourselves be in these cycles of technological 374 00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:01,799 uh soteriology. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that it seems 375 00:33:01,839 --> 00:33:06,960 to present, which is very powerful, is that in some ways, what 376 00:33:07,119 --> 00:33:13,440 happens in a technological state what happens when the technological takes over the narrative is 377 00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,319 that it's only means that matter. That in some ways we don't even know 378 00:33:17,599 --> 00:33:22,839 what the goal is. It's only the implementation of means, which seems to 379 00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:27,799 be the very purpose of society itself. And it's almost like you said, 380 00:33:27,799 --> 00:33:35,200 it's as if and then the side effects of the implementation create new needs and 381 00:33:35,279 --> 00:33:38,640 new problems that have to be sorted out by the implementation of more and more 382 00:33:39,359 --> 00:33:43,799 efficient and technical means. And so it's like it makes you feel like you're 383 00:33:43,839 --> 00:33:46,880 moving, and you're moving towards something, but there is no there is no 384 00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:54,599 endpoint besides what more technical efficient things like you know, what is the purpose 385 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:59,119 of all this? Where we going? Well, when we get away from 386 00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:04,920 yeah, healthy sustainable systems that have give and take and balance and and whatnot. 387 00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,639 Yeah, there's a sense in which we you know, for example, 388 00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:15,280 like the the idea that this the technic, the technique technicity you know, 389 00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:20,159 uh is supposed to make us happy. I guess, I guess maybe that's 390 00:34:20,199 --> 00:34:23,480 like the best thing that you can or like the most positive idea you can 391 00:34:23,639 --> 00:34:28,840 makes it easier. Maybe in order for us, I'm trying to be generous 392 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,400 to the to this kind of run towards technicity, to make us, to 393 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:36,519 make life easier, to make to make things for us to do the things 394 00:34:36,559 --> 00:34:40,400 that we care about which are not related to life or something like that, 395 00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:45,639 like dileisure and and and and and pleasure like that. But but we can 396 00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:50,360 see through like the increase in depression and the increase and kind of a kind 397 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:53,119 of madness that people are falling into, you know, especially as as identity 398 00:34:53,159 --> 00:34:55,840 starts to fragment. You know, they they they don't know where to look 399 00:34:55,880 --> 00:35:00,960 for meaning. Yeah, and I think this lines very well with C. 400 00:35:01,159 --> 00:35:06,079 S. Lewis's Abolition of Man, another one of my favorites, because he 401 00:35:06,599 --> 00:35:10,719 in the same way you're talking about means separated from ends. That fits well 402 00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:17,679 with what Lewis calls, you know, agendas of progress being untethered from traditional 403 00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:28,360 ethics, because ethics are ultimately about understanding our best ends and then balancing ourselves 404 00:35:28,519 --> 00:35:34,000 in relation to those they have a claim on society to create good ends. 405 00:35:34,519 --> 00:35:39,400 But once, once you remove traditional ethics from the realm of applied science, 406 00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:45,760 then you can see how the means becomes more dominant. It's the same way 407 00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:51,840 in the artistic and image culture where the form begins to dominate over content and 408 00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:57,760 meaning similar application there. Yeah, you see that. I mean advertising is 409 00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,920 the ultimate example of that, you know, and I mean it's it's it's 410 00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:06,679 fascinating that I don't know if ilul I mean for sure. C. S. 411 00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,599 Lewis had that intuition very much so, which is that, in some 412 00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:16,679 ways, the the increase in man wanting to free himself from transcendent you know, 413 00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,360 attachment, the desire for man to kind of fulfill his own destiny, 414 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,239 to fulfill his own will, and to to kind of fulfill his own desire 415 00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:30,480 for power ultimately leads very surprising. It's not that surprising, but it can 416 00:36:30,519 --> 00:36:36,800 seem surprising to some to an anti human narrative ultimately, where in some ways, 417 00:36:37,159 --> 00:36:39,079 you know, we're seeing it now in the more extreme version of the 418 00:36:39,159 --> 00:36:44,400 environmental narrative, where it's almost as if humans are just parasites in the world 419 00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:46,800 and that they you know, that all they do is consume and and we 420 00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,559 better if there were fewer of them in the world. And you see it 421 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,719 now with AI as well, this kind of idea that we that you know, 422 00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,559 we need to be transcended ourselves like we were going to give birth to 423 00:36:58,639 --> 00:37:02,519 something that will ultimately he destroys or consumers that there's almost like a suicidal ecstasy. 424 00:37:04,159 --> 00:37:07,039 It's very it's very disturbing to see that that's at the end of this, 425 00:37:07,039 --> 00:37:10,159 this kind of desire for technical power. But I don't know if you 426 00:37:10,199 --> 00:37:14,119 look at insight on that, if if you know that he had kind of 427 00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:19,840 foreseen something like that, well, I see what you're saying as requiring social 428 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,519 compliancy. In other words, you can only go in that direction if you 429 00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:29,719 if you don't allow for dissent and that everyone has what might be called a 430 00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:36,119 shared reality. And uh, since you're in Canada, I'll reference an interesting 431 00:37:36,199 --> 00:37:43,320 video that comes out by Horizons Canada which has a Tower of Babel motif in 432 00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:49,280 it. And what's really interesting about this the narrative because it's all about where 433 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:54,639 technology and and humanity find a way to work together for a better future. 434 00:37:57,079 --> 00:38:00,960 But it has a Tower of Babel image in it. You know, that's 435 00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,079 that's all about, you know, people all coming together for one big project. 436 00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:12,239 And it reverses the narrative because God is now the the antagonist in a 437 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,440 scenario where it's good for people to come together think alike, share one language, 438 00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:22,559 and create a better shared future. It's unfortunate that that project was thwarted 439 00:38:22,599 --> 00:38:28,719 and God scattered people laterally back, you know, back into their creaturehood. 440 00:38:29,079 --> 00:38:30,400 Yeah, and this is something that has been going on for a while. 441 00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:34,360 The you know, the building, one of the main buildings for the European 442 00:38:34,599 --> 00:38:39,320 Union, I think it's one of these globalist association is literally designed based on 443 00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:45,679 Brugal's Tower Babbel. And when the European Unions started to kind of meet, 444 00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:50,079 one of the posters they put out was a huge poster of Brugals Tower Babbel, 445 00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:52,519 and it was like, you know, we're gonna basically we're going to 446 00:38:52,519 --> 00:38:55,039 finish the project. You know, we're going to finally do this right. 447 00:38:55,199 --> 00:39:00,679 And you know, those sixteenth century artists, there's so many Babbel painters. 448 00:39:00,639 --> 00:39:08,679 Many of them show the tower incomplete as a both social and theological statement because 449 00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:16,360 because the fact that it was not completed is itself a commentary on the you 450 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:23,679 know, the false efforts to try to build something independent of God. Yeah, 451 00:39:23,679 --> 00:39:25,920 and that's the right that's the right way to see it, is that 452 00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:31,480 to imagine that anything is complete is the sin in itself. Right to imagine 453 00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:37,760 that anything can be self contained and complete is the is the air of idolatry. 454 00:39:37,119 --> 00:39:40,840 So here's a nice way to bring our topic back to powers. And 455 00:39:42,039 --> 00:39:45,159 speaking of sixteenth century, did you know where the phrase hideous strength comes from? 456 00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:49,239 No, no, I don't know. It's a Tower of Babbel phrase. 457 00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:55,639 David Lindsay, a poet from fifteen fifty five, wrote about that hideous 458 00:39:55,679 --> 00:40:02,119 strength and the shadow that it cast. It's six miles in length. And 459 00:40:02,199 --> 00:40:09,079 so this is Lewis, as a medieval and Renaissance scholar of literature comes across 460 00:40:09,119 --> 00:40:17,440 this poem, recognizes this phrase hideous strength as about the archetypal force from the 461 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:22,840 Babbel project, and then uses that all through that hideous strength and of course 462 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:29,960 the nice which is such a playful gesture like acronym, you know, for 463 00:40:30,039 --> 00:40:37,039 the Institute of the Technocrats, because they're aspiring upward, you know, to 464 00:40:37,119 --> 00:40:43,639 have, you know, to build a utopian society. They poke through the 465 00:40:43,679 --> 00:40:46,280 heavens, so to speak, just like my hands sort of poking above the 466 00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:52,679 box here and without them knowing it, that opens up a portal for other 467 00:40:53,280 --> 00:41:00,320 benign celestial powers to come down to Earth and to support the know, the 468 00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:05,400 team that's fighting against the bad side, so they brought down on their heads 469 00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:10,360 their own demise. This is a beautiful image to say that powers have a 470 00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:17,639 duplicitous nature because on the outside, again they present well with with great force 471 00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:23,119 and and and everything, but on the inside there's an insecurity and a lie 472 00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:30,920 and a contradiction, which which means that they ultimately bear the seeds of their 473 00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:35,159 own destruction. H yeah, And I mean I'm interested in knowing about this 474 00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:38,519 as well, if because one of the things I haven't seen in Ilul also 475 00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:43,679 is a mention of angels. That is, there is a whole vision in 476 00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:45,920 scripture of the divine council. You know, this is something that is becoming, 477 00:41:46,039 --> 00:41:51,079 i think, with good reason, more more popular and talked about today, 478 00:41:51,159 --> 00:41:54,519 the idea that that and the way that it was recuperated in Christian mysticism. 479 00:41:54,599 --> 00:42:00,679 Right for example, in Dionysis's Divine hierarchy, he literally he uses the 480 00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:05,480 words that Saint Paul uses to describe what he's talking about in terms of negative 481 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,079 influences, that that that that oppress us. He uses them to talk to 482 00:42:09,119 --> 00:42:14,039 them about them in terms of their positive you know, as like a as 483 00:42:14,159 --> 00:42:17,800 levels of manifestations from the divine down into humans. So throne, powers, 484 00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:22,039 all these things are used by Dionysus to to describe the way that God kind 485 00:42:22,079 --> 00:42:25,480 of descends into the world. And so has he did has he talked about 486 00:42:25,599 --> 00:42:30,719 that like the reality of angels that say in the New Testament as well? 487 00:42:30,519 --> 00:42:34,840 I I think he kind of hedged on that. You know, you got 488 00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:39,079 to understand that he's he's starts out as a Marxist, and so his his 489 00:42:39,199 --> 00:42:45,079 notion of power and force is like akin to the fetishism of commodities. Yeah, 490 00:42:45,159 --> 00:42:51,079 yeah, and and uh and so ultimately, when when Alul has interest 491 00:42:51,199 --> 00:42:58,400 in powers and principalities biblically, he's interested in their function, not their ontological 492 00:42:58,519 --> 00:43:02,119 being. Yeah, so he's not denying their existence. But I think this 493 00:43:02,199 --> 00:43:08,360 goes back to the symbol thing. He recognizes that everything is symbolic, whether 494 00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:15,480 it's the New Jerusalem or or winged beings or whatever, as a way to 495 00:43:15,559 --> 00:43:22,719 help us grasp that there's something there that's additional to our you know, our 496 00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:25,840 our human cultural realm. Yeah. But even in like even in terms of 497 00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:30,400 functionality, and if you think about Saint John in the in the Book of 498 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:35,519 Revelation, when he addresses the angels of the cities, right, And so 499 00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,599 there's a sense in which in that case, the angel of the city, 500 00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:43,960 right, or the principality of the city, is not seen in a negative 501 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,840 way. It's just seen as you know, that it's a a kind of 502 00:43:49,039 --> 00:43:52,320 a place where the identity of the city comes together in its agency. And 503 00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:54,760 so I address this this angel in a in a positive way, not in 504 00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:59,920 a negative way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, as 505 00:44:00,079 --> 00:44:04,039 I think that that image that you just gave us of the tower babbyl poking 506 00:44:04,119 --> 00:44:07,079 through, you know, and then the surprise that it lets in, you 507 00:44:07,119 --> 00:44:13,199 know, benign principalities or good principalities, I think that that's something that we're 508 00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:20,679 already seeing and it's very interesting. So a good example is that during during 509 00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:27,519 during COVID, especially in places where the the power of the state was felt 510 00:44:27,679 --> 00:44:30,199 very strongly, all of a sudden, it's like it kind of exposed certain 511 00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:35,760 things which were already there, hidden, certain capacities that the state had that 512 00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,760 people didn't realize that we're there. And then all of a sudden, this 513 00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:45,039 crisis, you know, exposes and makes real the capacity for the state to 514 00:44:45,119 --> 00:44:47,760 really control us, you know, in ways that we didn't think were possible, 515 00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:52,679 both through narrative, through kind of inner propaganda, like using tools of 516 00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:58,280 propaganda inside are the country, but then also real power of like you know, 517 00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:00,519 when I was in quarantine to p these men showed up in my at 518 00:45:00,599 --> 00:45:07,000 my door, right, It's like these are real these are real power steps. 519 00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:12,199 But another thing that happened is that it in seeing that agency and in 520 00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:17,320 seeing the state act with such force and feeling I was like, nobody's controlling 521 00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:20,639 it, right, exactly like an agency. It's like, why is it 522 00:45:20,639 --> 00:45:23,480 happening all over the world and there's nobody in charge of this? And it's 523 00:45:23,519 --> 00:45:28,400 nobody with like that is like, is there's no like evil genius sitting there 524 00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,039 rubbing his hands and making it happen. It's just it's just like it's it's 525 00:45:31,039 --> 00:45:35,960 a form of it is a pattern which is laying itself in the world. 526 00:45:36,119 --> 00:45:39,800 The reaction to that for a lot of people was conversion. You know, 527 00:45:40,079 --> 00:45:45,280 like in the Orthodox Church we have seen a massive wave of converts at the 528 00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:51,320 end of COVID, and I'm talking parishes doubling, tripling, all young people 529 00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:58,079 that through this desire of the state to gain absolute power, they were able 530 00:45:58,119 --> 00:46:02,960 to perceive something about how world works that made them want to to to attach 531 00:46:04,039 --> 00:46:07,519 themselves to something higher, you know, mm hm, And that probably did 532 00:46:07,559 --> 00:46:13,559 not happen as much in the mainline denominations. I don't know, I don't 533 00:46:13,559 --> 00:46:15,960 know. I just know about of course, my own, my own, 534 00:46:15,199 --> 00:46:19,360 my own church. And so why would you I don't know, why would 535 00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,039 you think that wouldn't have happened in the mainline domination in denominations, for example, 536 00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:28,519 because most mainline didn't denominations lean a little more progressive and liberal, at 537 00:46:28,599 --> 00:46:32,280 least in the United States, and so they were more compliant to not gather, 538 00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:38,920 and in many cases they were whittled down more and many of them are 539 00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:46,639 struggling more so with not just attendance, but leadership transitions, vision of what 540 00:46:47,199 --> 00:46:54,400 their church, you know, direction is. Where whereas in churches which might 541 00:46:54,440 --> 00:47:01,320 not have struggled as much with with that sense of clancy to official narratives, 542 00:47:01,679 --> 00:47:09,199 there was probably more of a sense of resistance and alternative community and perhaps that 543 00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:15,280 becoming an attractive magnet for other people seeking community. Yeah, and even the 544 00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:21,519 even like the I think because one of the things that happens in these totalizing 545 00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,079 patterns is that they there's a sense in which we need to be reduced to 546 00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:30,360 individuals, like we need to be reduced to just dots, you know, 547 00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:36,199 without without competing allegiances, you could say, to the to the massive power 548 00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,400 of the state and that and then reducing people to lonely, you know, 549 00:47:39,519 --> 00:47:44,400 to like just a lonely Especially though that didn't have families, lonely guys, 550 00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:45,760 lonely women, you know, sitting there in front of Netflix for a whole 551 00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:52,119 year. I think it also made the problem very acute where people realize, 552 00:47:52,159 --> 00:47:59,599 no, actually I need intermediary communities. I need real connected places where I 553 00:47:59,639 --> 00:48:05,639 physically go and talk to people and have and and do that with something that 554 00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:10,800 is meaningful and not just not just yeah, not just arbitrary. Lowell talks 555 00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:15,519 about that as a key priority in his book Presence in the Modern World really 556 00:48:15,559 --> 00:48:21,519 his first major book, written in the mid forties, and in contrast to 557 00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:28,639 institutional systems that want to have a one way communication to kind of control things, 558 00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:34,360 he talks about needing to be with neighbors, needing to have real conversations, 559 00:48:35,199 --> 00:48:39,679 prizing localism, you know, and later, of course, his famous 560 00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:45,679 phrases you know where dialogue ends propaganda begins. So he had a pretty strong 561 00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:54,280 advocacy for those local, real life relationship dynamics as a way to kind of 562 00:48:54,320 --> 00:49:00,760 maintain a type of resistance in the world. Yeah, maybe that's a good 563 00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:05,360 place to transition, and and let's move into the last question that I have 564 00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,519 for you is maybe you can tell people about your work and how you see 565 00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:15,559 what kind of solutions you see for modern people in this increasingly technified world and 566 00:49:15,599 --> 00:49:21,760 also increasing centralized authorities. How do you see people finding real life solutions for 567 00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,519 their for their lives, and for their families, for the people around them. 568 00:49:24,599 --> 00:49:29,559 Yeah, it's a compelling question. And my primary work is in the 569 00:49:29,559 --> 00:49:35,320 field of restorative justice and conflict resolution for about twenty five years, and it's 570 00:49:35,639 --> 00:49:40,559 a great calling. And you know, one of the things I've observed as 571 00:49:40,599 --> 00:49:47,320 a facilitator is that there's almost a paralysis of dialogue in our Western cultures. 572 00:49:49,199 --> 00:49:55,559 People just having more caution and reservation about having hard conversations with each other because 573 00:49:55,559 --> 00:50:00,440 they're not maybe they're not sure how the other person is thinking or how they'll 574 00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:05,239 react, or maybe they do know how the other person is thinking, and 575 00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:09,280 they're afraid that it'll cause a rift in the friendship. So whether it's red 576 00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:15,880 blue issues, or pandemic issues, or race issues or cultural correctness issues, 577 00:50:16,199 --> 00:50:24,519 whatever it is, we're experiencing a type of paralysis that's deadening healthy dialogue on 578 00:50:24,599 --> 00:50:31,199 so many levels, whether it's family and interpersonal or friends or coworkers. I 579 00:50:31,199 --> 00:50:39,320 mean, I know university teachers that feel more afraid to just freely say things 580 00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:45,000 or choose things within their curriculum because they feel like there's eyes watching them, 581 00:50:45,079 --> 00:50:49,800 not not just from above, but students who will who will say, you 582 00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:55,000 know, I didn't feel safe when that content was presented without warning. I 583 00:50:55,039 --> 00:51:00,719 have a friend who lost her job because of that very thing, without any 584 00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:08,280 dignifying learning conversation from both sides. So practically and positively, the way I 585 00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:15,559 see dialogue opening is in the word story. Usually when we think of civil 586 00:51:15,679 --> 00:51:17,559 discourse, we think of people, you know, having healthy debate, and 587 00:51:17,599 --> 00:51:22,639 there's a good place for that, but it's not necessarily a starting point. 588 00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:28,039 So when I talk about story, I'm talking about people getting into the experiential 589 00:51:28,079 --> 00:51:34,239 realm of what they're really observing and noticing and living through and maybe some hardships 590 00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:38,119 that they've gone through, and just narrating that across the divides to people that 591 00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:44,280 might have oppositional perspective. And what that does is it gets people out of 592 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,320 what I call their head zone, where they tend to be defensive, they 593 00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:52,320 want to win arguments and persuade people, and into the heart zone, where 594 00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:57,320 we tend to think more about our common humanity with others. The heart zone 595 00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:00,800 is where we listen better, where we apology, where we have some humility, 596 00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:07,159 curiosity, and it brings us into these story realms. So that's a 597 00:52:07,199 --> 00:52:12,039 big part of what I do in my workshops now with different groups is I'll 598 00:52:12,039 --> 00:52:17,239 talk about what are skills and structures that help conversations shift away from head zones 599 00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:22,760 into the heart zones where there's kind of a bonding potential. And that doesn't 600 00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:30,119 mean everything just stays in kind of this feeling story zone. It actually creates 601 00:52:30,119 --> 00:52:35,320 a foundation for people with differing views to then come back into the head zones 602 00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:40,920 and have more capacity and more trust to really have iron sharp and iron at 603 00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:45,760 that point, because I think we still need those hard, logic based conversations, 604 00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:50,199 but we're just not able to start there. So we have to have 605 00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:57,079 foundations of shared understanding, shared bonding, shared appreciation for what other people have 606 00:52:57,199 --> 00:53:00,800 gone through and then find ways to come back to the more debatable issues. 607 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:05,239 Yeah, and I think I think that what you just said is key because 608 00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,559 in some ways what we see it seems like what we see is an excess 609 00:53:08,639 --> 00:53:13,760 of both and a new capacity to bridge. Because what you often see the 610 00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,119 clash and I see it, you see it in even in the the said 611 00:53:16,159 --> 00:53:23,840 online world, is is someone coming with a story perspective and then someone answering 612 00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:29,199 with a facts logic perspective. And that can go wrong in many ways in 613 00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:31,800 the sense that maybe the person who's just telling the story just wants to tell 614 00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:36,719 their stories that you understand where they're coming from. Sometimes a person telling their 615 00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:42,840 story confuses the spaces, so they think that their story is an argument for 616 00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:47,400 the head head place, and then and then there's a misalignment. But the 617 00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:52,239 idea of of both exploring both and understanding the difference between the two and saying 618 00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:55,159 like you know, of course we should like we we know each other. 619 00:53:55,760 --> 00:54:01,440 Then that that bound, that that basic uh place for trust is set, 620 00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:05,159 and then we can, like you said, then we can talk about the 621 00:54:05,199 --> 00:54:08,760 difficult issues in terms of more in terms of of of how reasonable things are 622 00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:14,960 and what makes sense in terms of what we're doing. So so that no, 623 00:54:15,079 --> 00:54:19,039 I think that's that seems like a great approach. Well, Ted, 624 00:54:19,119 --> 00:54:24,159 thank you so much for this this conversation. You know that I appreciated you 625 00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:28,800 that you went there with me, because as you saw, like my my, 626 00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,840 my relationship with it is like a fifty to fifty relationship. And that's 627 00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:37,159 maybe why in some ways I haven't talked about him so much on my channel, 628 00:54:37,159 --> 00:54:40,079 but I think for people watching it's a good it's a good place to 629 00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:46,960 leap into a little especially as someone who had very deep insight into something into 630 00:54:47,039 --> 00:54:52,280 all the problems we're dealing with now in terms of technification and also in terms 631 00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:57,400 of of of state powers becoming all powerful, uh, and how as Christians 632 00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:00,239 we can deal with that. So thanks a lot for your time. Yeah, 633 00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:02,599 I'm really really thankful to be here. And I just want to tack 634 00:55:02,639 --> 00:55:07,360 on one short piece that kind of brings powers and story together as a theme. 635 00:55:08,039 --> 00:55:15,440 The counter narrative for Alul with respect to the Tower of Babel is Philippians 636 00:55:15,519 --> 00:55:21,920 too, where Jesus empties himself not wanting to take on the importance of being 637 00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:25,480 like a Greek Roman god with lots of status, but becomes a servant and 638 00:55:25,639 --> 00:55:32,079 ends up dying. That's the reversal of the Tower of Babel impulse to be 639 00:55:32,199 --> 00:55:38,719 autonomous. And I think that that incarnational story, and Eluis talks about this 640 00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:45,840 as a juxtaposition numerous times in his writings, validates the whole notion that we 641 00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:51,280 live in a real world, we live in a messy world, we live 642 00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:55,039 in a visual world, and so to be able to engage without the same 643 00:55:55,119 --> 00:56:02,360 power dynamics, it really does have validation in that story because it's it's it's 644 00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:08,360 the ultimate symbol of God reaching us. Yeah, and it's the surprising image 645 00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:13,280 of the one who does that, you know, with the with the headboard, 646 00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:17,320 which says that he's the king simultaneously, that kind of simultaneous clash of 647 00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:22,320 imagery where he both empties himself and is raised up to the highest, you 648 00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:25,079 know, he goes into death but then enters into the holy place like it's 649 00:56:25,079 --> 00:56:28,800 a Yeah, this start of the Cross just kills you every time you think 650 00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:31,800 about it. It's so it's it just smashes everything together. So seeing the 651 00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:37,079 world through the Cross is definitely the way to solve the problem of principalities. 652 00:56:37,119 --> 00:56:42,320 And powers and how you know the highest gives itself to the lowest. That's 653 00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:46,119 the best way to understand true Christian hierarchy and true Christian power. So Ted, 654 00:56:46,199 --> 00:56:50,719 thanks, this has been great. Well, it's a delight to kind 655 00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,719 of converse with you and and kind of see where our conversation leads us. 656 00:56:54,199 --> 00:57:02,719 All right, A