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Where are we going today, Thomas. 24 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:05,920 Speaker 2: I was gonna segue into a discussion in Machiavelli if 25 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:12,280 really for the last really, like says, the Eisenhower era, 26 00:02:12,759 --> 00:02:14,520 I don't know what it's like now when I speculated 27 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:18,639 it's the same. But basically in the nineteen fifties, from 28 00:02:18,719 --> 00:02:24,400 the post war era, when the university curriculum was was 29 00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:28,639 was sort of re established and reconfigured. Until the nineteen nineties, 30 00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:35,000 if you studied political theory or Western philosophy that had 31 00:02:35,039 --> 00:02:40,039 an at like at undergraduate level for example, that had 32 00:02:40,039 --> 00:02:47,280 a component of political theory, you'd the preculum would teach 33 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:55,080 them Hobbes, Spinozza, and Machiavelli basically as one subject matter. 34 00:02:56,039 --> 00:03:03,240 Now Hobbs and Spinozza succeeded Machiavelli. Hobb is literally born 35 00:03:03,319 --> 00:03:10,560 right about a generation subsequent. But the reason why that's done, 36 00:03:12,759 --> 00:03:16,680 it's an oversimplification, but I get it the internal logic 37 00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:23,000 of it. Machiavelli and Hobbes are are considered to be 38 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:29,479 the fathers of modern ployable science. And you know, like 39 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:31,800 I said, people like Meerscheimer are considered to be like 40 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:35,280 a complete midwind. I mean, he's preferable to the abject 41 00:03:36,159 --> 00:03:43,199 morons and Cretans who generally populate the Academy and and 42 00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:47,400 Department of State. But he's he's he's gotten a real 43 00:03:47,479 --> 00:03:53,000 grasp of political philosophy. But people like him. They claim 44 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:56,360 that Machiavelli is the father of political realism, which doesn't 45 00:03:56,400 --> 00:04:01,199 really make any sense. But what is true is that 46 00:04:02,919 --> 00:04:08,680 Machiavilli was very much in dialogue with the Nicomachi and others, 47 00:04:09,719 --> 00:04:15,960 and arguably in a punitive way. But that's the whole point, 48 00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:24,399 is that Machiavilli was arguing as an Italian Catholic, and 49 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:30,439 like all Italians and really all Roman Catholics, there's this 50 00:04:31,199 --> 00:04:36,839 there's this tension between Athens and Jerusalem's philosophical pole stars, 51 00:04:37,879 --> 00:04:44,600 you know, uh, Christ and Pericles, if you will. That's 52 00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:48,920 different than the enterprise that Hobbs took on. That's not 53 00:04:48,959 --> 00:04:52,839 what Hobbs was doing. Hobbs literally thought that he was 54 00:04:52,879 --> 00:05:00,759 creating a science of the political, you know, and he wasn't. 55 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:05,959 He wasn't trying to reconcile that which is wholly literally 56 00:05:07,680 --> 00:05:15,439 with you know, that which is pragmatic and necessary according 57 00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:21,360 to the demands of power, you know, and the discrete 58 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:27,759 domain of political activity. It's like a difference between It's 59 00:05:27,759 --> 00:05:31,439 like trying to compare Ernst and no to say, like Clausewitz, 60 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:37,399 because Nolty was a guy who wrote about the epistemological 61 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:42,800 and phenomenological process of war and peace and where it emerges, 62 00:05:43,439 --> 00:05:46,480 whereas that Clausus is writing about, like how war is 63 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:54,560 waged and how you accomplish victory conditions within the domain 64 00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:59,120 of political realities. Or it's like comparing a book on 65 00:05:59,279 --> 00:06:02,560 physics to like a manual on how you build a bridge, 66 00:06:03,399 --> 00:06:05,199 you know. So I think it's misguided that these things 67 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:09,279 are lumped together at the same time. It does big 68 00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:12,480 a question as to whether Hobbs and Spinot, said Red 69 00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:18,519 Machiavelli in my opinion, for reasons every said the scope 70 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:20,319 right now. But I'll get into if people want me 71 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,879 to later. I think Spinoza probably did. I don't think 72 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:28,920 Hobbs did, because it wouldn't have interested in them, you know, 73 00:06:29,639 --> 00:06:32,240 other than maybe it's like, oh, well, that's what these 74 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,079 that's what these latins are doing in this their little 75 00:06:35,120 --> 00:06:41,759 warring states conflict that seems to never end, you know. 76 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:57,519 But there's also two there's also represented by Hobbes and 77 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:01,639 Machiavelli too. You know, when to the modern state emerged? 78 00:07:01,759 --> 00:07:04,879 Was it Cromwell's Was it? Was it with Cromwell's protectorate, 79 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:08,879 you know, the republic he created literally after killing a king? 80 00:07:10,199 --> 00:07:15,920 Or was Ferdinand and Isabella's Spain like the first Westphalian 81 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,079 state as we would think of it. That's an interesting 82 00:07:20,199 --> 00:07:23,959 question and I don't have an answer to that. It 83 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:28,680 depends on what your criteria are, and it depends on 84 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:37,600 what consolation of historical factors and privilege. But that's that's 85 00:07:37,639 --> 00:07:44,240 why it's important to the kind of discuss Mockavillian, Hobbes 86 00:07:44,279 --> 00:07:48,000 and and also Spinoza. But so you know, not I 87 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:50,959 don't place the same emphasis on Spinoza, not that he's 88 00:07:50,959 --> 00:07:56,519 not important. But I'll get into why when we reconvene 89 00:07:56,759 --> 00:08:01,319 for the next episode and explicate my reason. But that's 90 00:08:01,319 --> 00:08:15,079 why I'm treating them kind of as a singular subject episode, 91 00:08:15,079 --> 00:08:19,240 as it were. And that's also why, like I think 92 00:08:19,279 --> 00:08:25,839 I willed to the other week, you know, in a 93 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:28,759 series on coinn of philosophy, you know why am I 94 00:08:28,959 --> 00:08:36,759 talking about English mathematicians turned political theory as well? Because 95 00:08:36,759 --> 00:08:42,320 from that point forward, basically every man who wrote about 96 00:08:42,480 --> 00:08:46,759 the politics was. You know, obviously in Dialogue we Aristotle, 97 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:59,799 but also with Cobbs. Okay, And you know, for clarity, 98 00:09:00,639 --> 00:09:03,200 it's not so much a Macchiavelli wrote in The Prince 99 00:09:03,279 --> 00:09:10,120 that's so important. It's what the impetus was for him 100 00:09:10,159 --> 00:09:18,200 writing it, I think, is what's significant. And there's a 101 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:22,519 certain naivete, I think to a lot of academic types 102 00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:26,360 as well as people you shouldn't know better, people who 103 00:09:26,399 --> 00:09:33,279 are insinuated into parapolitical roles. You know, this idea that 104 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:41,000 in classical antiquity, you know, a prince or a king 105 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:45,320 or a warlord. He had, you know, he was exclusively 106 00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:48,480 committed to these kinds of high falutin ideas of like 107 00:09:48,519 --> 00:09:55,159 an elevated morality and discerning what you know, magnanimous virtue is. 108 00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:59,480 And and he would recoil at the idea of you know, 109 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:03,559 a kind of cold hearted realism and how to apply 110 00:10:03,759 --> 00:10:12,960 power like that's preposterous, it's ridiculous, you know. And Athens especially, 111 00:10:13,159 --> 00:10:23,519 but all the Peloponnesian cultures within that milleu, they were 112 00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:26,840 very aesthetically oriented. There was things you didn't talk about, 113 00:10:27,039 --> 00:10:33,159 like appearances mattered, you know the fact that the fact 114 00:10:33,159 --> 00:10:41,879 that generals and and and princes and nobles, they didn't 115 00:10:41,919 --> 00:10:45,840 air out the kind of nasty aspects of war and 116 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,879 peace and the kind of dirty business of palace intrigues, 117 00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,600 even among their peers. That doesn't mean anything other than 118 00:10:53,639 --> 00:10:56,919 the fact that, you know, they were highly dignified people 119 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,720 who were kind of upset by the uglier aspect of life. 120 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:07,159 You know. I mean, I that's there's a literalism too, agady, 121 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:11,480 and particularly in social sciences, that's quite literally retarded. I 122 00:11:11,519 --> 00:11:14,799 don't mean that like colloquially. I mean it's like a 123 00:11:14,879 --> 00:11:21,600 stunted way of approaching the human condition, and especially in 124 00:11:23,519 --> 00:11:28,600 when dealing with the matters that are impacted by discrete 125 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:40,320 cultural conventions. But the uh, the key distinction, you know, 126 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:45,039 like I said, Machiavelli's in direct dialogue with the Nicomachy 127 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:52,759 and ethics, or as you'll run across, especially a lot 128 00:11:52,799 --> 00:11:55,639 of stuff from the first half of the twentieth century 129 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:02,039 that that refers to Aristotle's at as distinguished from the politics. 130 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:07,360 They're talking about the Nikamachian ethics. Okay, the subject matter 131 00:12:07,320 --> 00:12:17,559 of the Nicomachi and Ethics was virtue and everything in 132 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:22,799 the Aristotilian paradigm. And this isn't unique to Aristotle. This 133 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:30,639 was this was what you know, the classical mind. There 134 00:12:30,679 --> 00:12:39,559 there wasn't there's an integral quality to knowledge, you know. Uh, 135 00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:45,200 it wasn't. It wasn't bifurcated by subject area, and there 136 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:50,480 wasn't an understanding of well discrete domains of human activity. 137 00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:58,639 It called for, you know, any any equivalent discrete moral 138 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:08,000 convention that government action within these spheres. You know, it's Aristotle. 139 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:12,799 Virtue is is the kind of governing pole star of 140 00:13:12,840 --> 00:13:17,320 any human activity. You know, it's also the tillos of 141 00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:24,000 political life and action. And you know, it's critical to 142 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:30,320 define what virtue is and what can you understood to 143 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:38,440 be its zenith or its most complete manifestation, you know. 144 00:13:40,759 --> 00:13:44,399 And one of the one of the big criticisms of 145 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:56,519 Socrates by his enemies and by Aristotilians, you know, axiomatically, 146 00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:02,519 is it Sogriti spent events. Socrate spent a tremendous amount 147 00:14:02,519 --> 00:14:12,159 of time you know, in his in his discursive dialogues, 148 00:14:12,639 --> 00:14:20,000 attempting to define and like unpack and identify the the 149 00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:26,240 constituent elements of what is virtue. And uh, in some 150 00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:36,559 basic way, the entire Socratic enterprise was, you know, defining 151 00:14:36,679 --> 00:14:39,799 what exactly virtue is and to and to hold forth 152 00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:44,960 on the concept of it and to clarify it. And 153 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:54,559 there's a subtext that any truth, truly satisfactory resolution in 154 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:59,799 this regard will never be arrived at you know what 155 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:07,960 his high sophistry. And that's that's incredibly subversive within the 156 00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:15,000 cultural paradigm I'm talking about. Like, in contrast, Aristotle very 157 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:22,559 much clarified these things in absolute terms, which had been 158 00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:30,360 the sort of cultural core of Athens that had seen it. 159 00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:33,879 That's despite the fact that you know, Aristotle was a 160 00:15:33,879 --> 00:15:37,519 contemporary of Alexander, you know, like he taught him. Okay, 161 00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:46,600 at the Athens was still enjoyed tremendous cultural cachet, but 162 00:15:47,399 --> 00:15:52,759 there were a civilization profound decline by the time. But 163 00:15:53,759 --> 00:15:57,279 that's often the case that kind of in the twilight 164 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:03,440 of or at least that you know, post zenith, a 165 00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:07,240 cultural form will produce some of its strongest thinkers because 166 00:16:07,279 --> 00:16:10,240 they have at least on matters of things like ethics 167 00:16:10,759 --> 00:16:20,159 and aesthetical subjects, because they're far enough removed from the 168 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:27,200 zenith of of cultural production as it were, that you know, 169 00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:31,000 they have a kind of detached perspective. We'll still being 170 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:35,559 very much insinuated into a culture that, although in precipitous decline, 171 00:16:35,639 --> 00:16:43,360 is very much like a living form of life. The 172 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:52,639 Nica Mokian ethics, it's totally unambiguous in its definition of virtue. 173 00:16:52,879 --> 00:17:01,679 Arisol defined what he called the crowning virtue as magnanimity. 174 00:17:02,559 --> 00:17:09,279 Mananimity is the quality of being great in mind and heart, 175 00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:13,759 which in turn makes possible the elevation of all other 176 00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:23,400 like subjugated virtues. You know, it's a code of honor. 177 00:17:25,039 --> 00:17:31,240 It's an intellectual orientation, and it's an aesthetical commitment. It's 178 00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:38,759 it's kind of like, uh, it's kind of like bushido 179 00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:48,119 with the added layer of you know, uh, a rigid 180 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:55,200 intellectual discipline overlaying it. That's an impart analogy. But I'm 181 00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:57,119 trying to convey this in a way that people will 182 00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:13,799 find intelligible. But it's also it is literally pagan. You know, 183 00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:20,759 it does not call for men to be humble or 184 00:18:20,759 --> 00:18:27,680 to embrace humility. Now, make the mistake. The magnanimous man 185 00:18:28,279 --> 00:18:31,519 he's never self deprecating, he's never humble, but he's also 186 00:18:31,559 --> 00:18:35,200 not arrogant because he has a correct understanding of his 187 00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:38,359 own abilities. He never tries to inflate those abilities for 188 00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:42,480 clout or to capture power he doesn't deserve. But he 189 00:18:42,519 --> 00:18:45,319 never tries to diminish himself in the eyes of others. 190 00:18:45,319 --> 00:18:49,720 To make people, you know, find no more approachable or 191 00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:57,240 anything or abide is some sort of you know, egalitarian 192 00:18:57,279 --> 00:19:06,799 convention exists, didn't exist in in classical antiquity as a concept. 193 00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:14,200 Magnanimity men who possess it, they're gonna be singularly oriented 194 00:19:14,279 --> 00:19:20,240 towards seeking greatness and great things. The way to understand 195 00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:24,000 that is what we're considered to be like living historically, okay, 196 00:19:26,599 --> 00:19:33,039 you know, it's a psychological orientation that adorns all other 197 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:40,440 virtues and trades a character. It's not so much a 198 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,559 discrete virtue into itself as it is, you know, a 199 00:19:43,599 --> 00:19:51,920 way of being. And you know, a magnanimous man again, 200 00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:54,559 he's not gonna forego, for example, he's not gonna forego 201 00:19:54,759 --> 00:20:01,400 material wealth or an interest in women, or you know, 202 00:20:02,839 --> 00:20:05,920 he's not gonna live with some kind of hair shirt 203 00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:10,000 or live like John the Baptist or something. But he's 204 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:13,559 not gonna play some new value on these things, you know, 205 00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:18,920 And aristotles are very clear, like men who try and 206 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:23,759 capture wealth because they want the trampings of magnanimity, they 207 00:20:23,759 --> 00:20:29,799 don't possess it because a man so constituted doesn't care 208 00:20:29,839 --> 00:20:37,000 about that kind of thing. You know. I'd say Pericles 209 00:20:37,079 --> 00:20:42,039 is probably the best example from within the cultural milieu 210 00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:53,400 from which Aristotle was speaking, you know. And it's uh. Again, 211 00:20:55,240 --> 00:21:00,960 the Aristotilian model of human psychology and kind of human 212 00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:08,359 essence is a highly integral So the understanding is that, 213 00:21:10,039 --> 00:21:14,799 you know, there's not discreet geniuses in different fields. You know, 214 00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:20,240 there's men who are oriented towards greatness. I have the 215 00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:25,640 capability to achieve it, and they've got the psychological foresight, 216 00:21:26,559 --> 00:21:30,720 and they're comfortable enough with their own mortality to pursue 217 00:21:30,759 --> 00:21:38,680 these things in a complete capacity. You know, I'd think 218 00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:50,319 of Napoleon, Muhammad, promwell, Adolf Hitler, Okay, but I don't 219 00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:55,319 think like an ancient person. You know. If I would 220 00:21:55,359 --> 00:22:02,960 transported back to conversation there was style, he would probably 221 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:05,279 say that a man like me is is far too 222 00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:10,960 mired in the business of like high politics, you know, 223 00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:16,000 at at the expense of other things, which is probably true. 224 00:22:16,319 --> 00:22:22,359 But one of one of the objections I have the 225 00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:25,200 people who trying to adopt the kind of pagan mindset, 226 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,880 Like I don't mean, I don't mean goofballs who you know, 227 00:22:29,319 --> 00:22:32,119 take trips to Stonehenge and like a run around naked 228 00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:34,920 on the solstice or something. I mean, I mean people 229 00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,079 are geting to been a wat. They seem to think 230 00:22:38,119 --> 00:22:42,400 you can take on some sort of mindset of class antiquity. 231 00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:45,880 You can't do that. That's not other things work, you know, 232 00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:53,200 and I you can kind of create an intellectual prestiche 233 00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:58,440 of the way people thought within that cultural framework, but 234 00:22:58,519 --> 00:23:01,880 you can't really immerself in it. It's not possible. 235 00:23:02,799 --> 00:23:06,480 Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about that is is that a 236 00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:08,519 lot of the people who are doing that consider their 237 00:23:08,519 --> 00:23:11,920 ops to be Zionists. And that's exactly what Zionists do. 238 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:16,440 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, and there it's it's like this make 239 00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:23,559 believe identity of deracinated people who are like race idolators, 240 00:23:23,559 --> 00:23:28,240 among other things. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. And 241 00:23:29,519 --> 00:23:31,599 well it's also I mean we're getting a lot of topic, 242 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:33,319 but it's like what I don't understand, like why they 243 00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,640 care about Zionism. It's like, well, if you if you 244 00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:37,640 were jec logos and you want to pretend to be 245 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:39,599 some pagan, like why do you care about why do 246 00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:43,079 you care about zionis? You know, like you shouldn't like 247 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:47,200 you you like your your view is that there's this 248 00:23:47,279 --> 00:23:54,880 kind of binary and primitive tribalism that if dressed up 249 00:23:54,920 --> 00:24:02,079 with adequate aesthetical and intellectual foundations is you know, represents truth. 250 00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:06,119 So you know, you shouldn't care that you shouldn't care 251 00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,759 that you know people who are ja logos and you know, 252 00:24:10,759 --> 00:24:14,720 to think that they're above God, like you shouldn't care 253 00:24:14,759 --> 00:24:17,000 about what they think, or you shouldn't care that they 254 00:24:17,039 --> 00:24:21,400 oppress you for other people, you know. But yeah, no, 255 00:24:21,519 --> 00:24:33,720 that's a subject worthy of the dedicated discussion. But the 256 00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,799 there's a now, make no mistake, I mean there are 257 00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:42,640 this isn't people misunderstand this Origilian paradigm and kind of 258 00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:48,680 the same way they misunderstand in the Chian's post Christian 259 00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,480 ethical orientation. Like Ariosolam makes the point again and again 260 00:24:54,519 --> 00:24:58,680 and the nicomachia that's that you know, for example, look 261 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:05,279 about what what's morally upright in conventional terms? You know, 262 00:25:05,799 --> 00:25:09,119 young young people should develop a sense of shame because 263 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,200 or in their immaturity, for example, like they can't help 264 00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,000 making mistakes. So you know, like a like a very 265 00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:19,839 young man, or the potential for to be magnanimous if 266 00:25:19,839 --> 00:25:22,279 he if he went around declaring that he was never 267 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:24,480 wrong and he simply knew better. I mean, that did 268 00:25:24,559 --> 00:25:29,359 make him a fool, you know, and that would preclude 269 00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:36,839 the achievement of greatness in his moral life. Okay, but 270 00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:44,119 this is distinguishable from you know, uh, a belief that 271 00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:51,960 that which is holy must always supersede worldly ambitions and greatness. 272 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:58,119 You know, the the Leo Strauss and Joseph Crops the 273 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:04,160 book and political philosophy, and Leo Strauss is a problematic theorist, 274 00:26:04,279 --> 00:26:07,400 but he did produce some great scholarship that the value 275 00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:23,960 neutral sort. And you know, the first prophet that presage fear, 276 00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:28,960 you know, arrival at Christ was Isaiah. I mean, if 277 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,519 you're like a Bible prade, that's the way you look 278 00:26:31,559 --> 00:26:34,000 at it. Catholics might look at it differently. I honestly 279 00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,880 don't know. I know something about Roman Catholic theology because 280 00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:40,799 I had to take it at Leola as an undergrad, 281 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:46,000 but I I'm very much a layman in it. But 282 00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:53,200 if you're a if you're a Bible Protestant. The view 283 00:26:53,279 --> 00:26:56,079 is that, you know, there's a lineage from like Isaiah 284 00:26:56,319 --> 00:27:01,279 to John the Baptist, you know, to Christ. And when 285 00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:07,279 Isaiah received his location, like when God spoke to Isaiah 286 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,519 and you know, inform him he was to be a messenger, 287 00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,000 you know, Whi's what a prophet is. You know, he 288 00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:19,000 was overwhelmed by this idea of his unworthiness. You know, 289 00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:26,759 he said, I I can't really exact quote, he said, 290 00:27:26,799 --> 00:27:30,839 I'm a man of unclean thought and speech, indeed, okay, 291 00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:35,400 and I live amidst of people who are equally unclean 292 00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,640 and their thoughts. Indeed, I'm not worry to serve God. 293 00:27:39,279 --> 00:27:42,559 You know, you must find a better man. You know, 294 00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:47,400 this kind of like implicit condemnation of the idea that 295 00:27:48,079 --> 00:27:53,000 you are destined for greatness. That's completely at odds with 296 00:27:53,079 --> 00:27:58,559 the pagan idea and the classical I mean ideal of magnanimity, 297 00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:07,400 you know, like if uh, and that's that concept of 298 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:14,920 the holy and that bifurcated understanding of the transcendent from 299 00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:19,400 the world league. That's totally alien to the classical perspective, 300 00:28:20,519 --> 00:28:26,599 you know, and that's why Leo Strauss, Russell Kirk Commercia Eliotti. 301 00:28:27,759 --> 00:28:31,240 They're always talking about, you know, at Then's Contra Jerusalem, 302 00:28:32,759 --> 00:28:43,119 and that's what they were talking about. Okay, and this, uh, 303 00:28:43,599 --> 00:28:48,400 Machiavelli is shot through with this. You can go as 304 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:53,599 far as to say that that's the entire catalyst for 305 00:28:53,759 --> 00:29:02,559 his discourse. Okay. You could even go as far as 306 00:29:02,599 --> 00:29:08,359 to say, and Hobbs did, reading between the lines, it's 307 00:29:08,359 --> 00:29:16,160 clear that he did, you know, a philosophy that's based 308 00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,400 on faith or premised on a theological paradigm, even as 309 00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,519 just a framing device as to what sets the tenor 310 00:29:23,599 --> 00:29:28,519 of an absolute morality, which which must frame discussion of 311 00:29:28,599 --> 00:29:37,319 political activity is they can't. That's not really properly a philosophy. 312 00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:47,680 You know. Philosophy is an integrated science. Okay, and obviously 313 00:29:49,319 --> 00:29:54,079 in the early modern period there wasn't this integral view 314 00:29:55,279 --> 00:30:00,640 of knowledge. But it's not an accident. I mean, Hobbs 315 00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:06,240 literally said he's establishing a geometry, a science of the 316 00:30:06,279 --> 00:30:11,920 political that has nothing to do with faith based ethics, 317 00:30:12,359 --> 00:30:21,079 you know, anymore than there's a moral content to studying physics. 318 00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:28,599 You know. So Machiavelli kind of agonizing over this stuff, 319 00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,160 which he did. People don't understand Machiavelli, or they they 320 00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:37,720 heard some like rap album or something that invoked the name, 321 00:30:38,799 --> 00:30:44,319 or they think the colloquialism has some actual definitive weight, 322 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,559 so they think, oh, Machiavelli, this like unscrupulous guy rubbing 323 00:30:47,599 --> 00:30:51,240 his hands together and talking about plotting against people in institute. 324 00:30:51,279 --> 00:30:56,160 That's not. Machiavelli was actually like an arch moralist, and 325 00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,279 he was a pious Roman Catholic, and that was exactly 326 00:30:59,359 --> 00:31:03,680 why he was he agonized over this stuff like the 327 00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:10,440 guy who was a moratlist. Okay, Hobbes was not, and 328 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:29,480 that's essential, you know. Nevertheless, I would say that serious 329 00:31:29,519 --> 00:31:36,640 people who study political philosophy and political theory, there's people 330 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:42,599 who aim to understand political ontology and sort of the 331 00:31:42,599 --> 00:31:48,480 anthropological causes of political behavior, the kind of symbolic psychology 332 00:31:48,519 --> 00:31:52,240 that underlies it, the kind of data that can be 333 00:31:52,319 --> 00:32:00,480 drawn from conditions tending towards war or peace, and the 334 00:32:00,559 --> 00:32:08,640 cyclical paradigms, if they do, if they exist, that can 335 00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,759 be identified, as you know, for the purpose of predictive 336 00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:19,279 modeling and analysis. You know, those are the kinds of 337 00:32:19,599 --> 00:32:24,920 this kind of that tendency that like split off with Hobbes. 338 00:32:26,599 --> 00:32:30,559 The people quite literally talking about political ethics and how 339 00:32:30,599 --> 00:32:41,759 to manage the demands of moral behavior with the brutal 340 00:32:41,799 --> 00:32:46,200 realities of state craft, and how these things can be reconciled, 341 00:32:46,720 --> 00:33:01,279 and what the relationship is between temporal authority and you know, uh, 342 00:33:01,759 --> 00:33:08,440 moral authority. You know, that's that's the Machiavellian enterprise, so 343 00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,599 I mean capital liberalism. It was a lot more to 344 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:17,000 Machiavelli than as the Hobbes. Okay, even though people like 345 00:33:17,079 --> 00:33:20,000 John Locke they tried to invoke the language of Hobbes 346 00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:27,240 while hanging all this sort of moral content on uh 347 00:33:27,279 --> 00:33:30,480 the thought experiment or the rather the conceptual model of 348 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:34,880 the state of nature, you know, but it was very superficial. 349 00:33:35,119 --> 00:33:38,200 I think. I think people like Locke are incredibly overrated. 350 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:44,279 But this is important because you know, it's not this 351 00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:48,400 is kind of like linear progression from oh, Machiavilly to Hubbs, 352 00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:54,559 the Spinoza to you know, Hunt or whatever it's. And 353 00:33:54,599 --> 00:33:58,720 it's also again like Machiavelli, he actually represented the opposite 354 00:33:58,759 --> 00:34:02,440 tendency of what people is associated him with, you know 355 00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:17,719 it uh, you know, and it's something too. There is 356 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:25,239 a parallel that's interesting because both Haus and Machiavelli came 357 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:29,039 out of what could be considered, you know, how's the 358 00:34:29,039 --> 00:34:38,480 actual progeny of of the thirty years of War? I 359 00:34:38,519 --> 00:34:41,719 think the conditions that created it. And obviously in the 360 00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:45,920 UK they were hit especially hard, even though the even 361 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:55,679 though Great Britain, the British Isles weren't the battlespace, you know, 362 00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:03,880 a microcosm of what was happening on the continent emerged 363 00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:08,639 with the War three Kingdoms, you know, and h Cromwell 364 00:35:08,679 --> 00:35:13,079 was a great man. He was a hero in the 365 00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:20,599 Carlisle sense, in the collopial sense. But that was a 366 00:35:20,639 --> 00:35:28,079 tremendously traumatic thing, you know that he did. You know, 367 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,599 it was an act the creative destruction, and unlike any 368 00:35:33,679 --> 00:35:40,159 other within the political domain. But you know, this was 369 00:35:42,599 --> 00:35:49,960 this constellation of factors was well underway when Hobbs reached 370 00:35:50,239 --> 00:36:00,239 agent majority, and Machiavelli was a you know Italy, I mean, 371 00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,639 Italy is still like a mess in terms of its 372 00:36:03,679 --> 00:36:08,039 political culture, but it quite literally was mired in a 373 00:36:08,079 --> 00:36:17,960 perennial civil war that rages Zenith around the time of 374 00:36:18,599 --> 00:36:25,599 Caesar Borgia's stewardship, and Maggioli served at court a Caesar 375 00:36:25,639 --> 00:36:29,840 Borgia for about a year, which had to be something 376 00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:35,559 of a terrifying experience. I mean, even if borgill like you, 377 00:36:35,559 --> 00:36:42,119 you know, and so there's a bias in favor of 378 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:55,039 identifying remedial measures when conditions tending towards civil war are 379 00:36:55,119 --> 00:37:04,280 emerged in both men's conceptual models. But arguably, I mean, 380 00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:12,559 that's the ultimate challenge of uh staate craft as a 381 00:37:12,599 --> 00:37:19,079 executive crisis actor, you know, and I think people don't 382 00:37:19,639 --> 00:37:27,440 necessarily realize that. And aside in the fortunes of the 383 00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,239 of the police or the state or the nation, you know, 384 00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:41,199 that stands to tear yourself apart if conditions of depending 385 00:37:41,199 --> 00:37:45,840 towards civil war are mismanaged. You know, your own neck 386 00:37:46,039 --> 00:37:50,800 is literally on the line. You know, you're gonna you're 387 00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:54,800 you're gonna you're gonna die with the failed state you 388 00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:57,599 preside over. I mean not you've got to be prepared 389 00:37:57,639 --> 00:38:02,000 for that if you're a magnanimous man, or if you know, 390 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:06,400 if you're any kind of man worthy of of the 391 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,360 office or the station. But that that does tend to 392 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:17,440 insinuate a sort of mortal seriousness into the into the 393 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:23,239 subject matter. I think that goes out saying, but that's 394 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:31,840 it's important and textualize that. And like I said, I think, 395 00:38:34,119 --> 00:38:42,119 I think arguably that renders both men's kind of conceptual 396 00:38:42,199 --> 00:38:50,280 modeling more relevant than something that's you know, only held 397 00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:55,920 discrete significance in the peculiar epoch in which you know, 398 00:38:56,039 --> 00:39:02,239 their body of work, respectively, was emergent. But the uh, 399 00:39:05,599 --> 00:39:10,920 you know, and the last thing, I'll say, the kind 400 00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:23,880 of comparative direct comparative analysis between the two men, you know, 401 00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:31,360 again give his whole enterprise was this discursive engagement with 402 00:39:31,519 --> 00:39:36,920 Aristotle Hobbs to the Baby out of the bathwater. Hobbs 403 00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:43,199 quite literally said that there was no science of politics 404 00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:49,639 before he wrote Leviathan. You know, he regarded himself as 405 00:39:49,679 --> 00:39:54,360 the true founder of political philosophy, you know, writing treatises 406 00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:59,320 on ethics or on the aesthetical aspects of the magnanimous man, 407 00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:05,800 or you know, agonizing over you know, what constitutes a 408 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:12,000 moral life in the core of the prince. There's nothing 409 00:40:12,079 --> 00:40:16,960 to do with science, you know, and thus it has 410 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:22,760 nothing to do with the study of politics, which, like 411 00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:28,840 physics or like biology, is reducible to a science. You know. 412 00:40:31,519 --> 00:40:36,519 In Hobbes's words, these things are the stuff of dreams, 413 00:40:36,599 --> 00:40:48,000 not science. You know, and this is important because if 414 00:40:48,039 --> 00:40:52,519 you're going to literally craft a science of politics, and 415 00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:59,719 the central subject matter of the science of politics is 416 00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:05,199 to to mitigate or ideally eradicate the state of war 417 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:11,440 within the polity, what are you going to be What 418 00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:13,960 criteria are you going to base that on? Like, what 419 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:20,079 are your variables? What are your inputs? Magnanimity isier input. 420 00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:30,199 There's got to be some sort of common engagement mechanism 421 00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:35,679 that is universally relevant to every constituent member of the 422 00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:41,320 body politic And I think you're going to this last time. 423 00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:48,519 Hobbs says, well, human beings are idiosyncratic in the configuration 424 00:41:48,599 --> 00:41:53,920 of their desires and motives and other things, but what 425 00:41:54,159 --> 00:41:59,599 is universal to them is their susceptibility to the economy 426 00:41:59,599 --> 00:42:09,039 of vice. And the economy of violence is what governs 427 00:42:09,079 --> 00:42:15,840 the state of nature and is the core essence of 428 00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:21,920 the political And there's no idiosyncrasy between how men view 429 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:28,000 self preservation and how they view being availed to a 430 00:42:28,079 --> 00:42:32,320 violent death at the hands of the sovereign, who wields 431 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:37,920 absolute authority over life and death. You know, that might 432 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:45,440 seem like a base criteria for a variable engagement, but 433 00:42:46,199 --> 00:42:52,920 it's a very concrete one. And more importantly, it's a 434 00:42:53,400 --> 00:43:03,800 realizable criteria that can be utilized within the geometric paradigm 435 00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:13,920 that Hobbs was devising, something like magnanimity and higher virtue. 436 00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:20,480 It's not a variable that can so constitute such a science, 437 00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:29,400 you know. So it doesn't matter that this is debasing 438 00:43:29,519 --> 00:43:34,159 the kind of soul of politics or something, or that 439 00:43:34,199 --> 00:43:40,920 it's precluding the emergence of men suited to greatness and 440 00:43:41,599 --> 00:43:50,559 situated towards those potentialities, you know, because again it's like 441 00:43:52,039 --> 00:43:56,639 it'd be like arguing over you know, it'd be like saying, 442 00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:02,920 I can build the strongest bridge over this ravine or 443 00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:09,559 over this chasm based on this structural configuration. But then 444 00:44:09,599 --> 00:44:12,199 there's a counter argument emergent that but that bridge isn't 445 00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:16,360 beautiful enough, you know. Okay, well you're gonna have a 446 00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:18,519 bridge isn't gonna collapse and people traverse it, or you 447 00:44:18,559 --> 00:44:21,639 canna have a beautiful bridge that doesn't work as a bridge, 448 00:44:22,199 --> 00:44:31,320 you know. Is that reductionist? Yeah, but there is there 449 00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:36,199 is an internal logic to that paradigm that is pretty admirable. 450 00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:39,519 And again it helps to the Hobbes if you approach 451 00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:46,599 how beasy in theory like Schmidt did, and you know, 452 00:44:48,039 --> 00:44:49,960 you don't even need to go as far as the 453 00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:54,039 posit Well, this is this is a domain in human 454 00:44:54,079 --> 00:44:56,639 activity that just takes place beyond good and evil. No, 455 00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:02,840 we're we're talking about quite literally the anthropological, the symbolic, psychological, 456 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:12,960 and lack of a better descriptor, the mechanistic aspects that 457 00:45:15,599 --> 00:45:22,079 constitute the essence of Warren P's and the economy of violence, 458 00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:28,519 which ultimately is you know, the essence of the political 459 00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:50,000 the Now moving on a bid to some misconceptions about Machiavelli, 460 00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:58,159 I believe, and I reread The Prince the other day 461 00:45:58,559 --> 00:46:01,119 in preparation for this. I read it a bunch of 462 00:46:01,119 --> 00:46:06,719 times in college and subsequent but I believe the chapter 463 00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:11,880 on Caesar Borgia and his machinations. You know, Borgia was 464 00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:17,639 you with the illegitimate son of the pope. This uh 465 00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:23,639 was a very decadent family, and they were incredibly ruthless people, 466 00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:30,440 you know, even for that culture and era. I got 467 00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,440 a lot of love for like Latin people. I think 468 00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:37,880 they I think they're they're sanguinary aspects and their passion 469 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:42,159 is really beautiful. I'm not saying bad things about them. 470 00:46:42,159 --> 00:46:51,320 But they're capable of incredible violence of a very hot 471 00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:56,800 blooded sort. It's and my people are ruthless as fuck. 472 00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:02,519 But it's uh, there's something that there's something, there's something, 473 00:47:02,559 --> 00:47:05,280 there's something frightening about like a Spaniard or an Italian 474 00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:13,239 crisis actor on the warpath. And there's a kind of 475 00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,880 genius for the economy of violence some of the Italians, 476 00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:26,599 I think, and it's stimmed. But but the uh, in 477 00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:34,480 talking about the case of Caesar Borgia Machaelia, makes clear, well, 478 00:47:34,559 --> 00:47:37,199 you know, a prince at all times he should appear manly, 479 00:47:37,679 --> 00:47:42,719 you know, morally, upright, brave, pious, you know, a religious 480 00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:47,159 believer in control its faculties all time. Incidentally, when a 481 00:47:47,199 --> 00:47:50,320 Machiavelli's Big Macy was a big critic of Alexander, which 482 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:52,519 is interesting, and he said one of the things that 483 00:47:52,559 --> 00:47:57,039 brought Alexander down was that the perception was that he 484 00:47:57,199 --> 00:47:59,920 was ruled by his mother. And Alexander may have commit 485 00:48:00,079 --> 00:48:04,800 to patricide. I find it persuasive that he killed his father. 486 00:48:05,599 --> 00:48:09,440 But whether you accept that or not, he was Alexander 487 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,079 has view as a mama's boy, as good as a 488 00:48:12,119 --> 00:48:14,639 guy who was dominated by women. And that's not an 489 00:48:14,679 --> 00:48:20,920 admirable characteristic, and that's a frailty that is literally fatal 490 00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:27,880 in power politics, you know. Magavelli emphasized again and again, 491 00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,280 these things can't just be superficial appearances, like you've got 492 00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:36,199 to actually aspire to these things, you know, but you've 493 00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:40,039 got to be capable of You've also got to be 494 00:48:40,199 --> 00:48:43,760 a capable of being a monster. You know that That 495 00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:48,920 doesn't mean that you put on airs and act like 496 00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:52,400 a degenerate because that makes you hard or something like, 497 00:48:52,639 --> 00:48:55,599 not at all. Quite the contrary. Machiavelli was very much 498 00:48:55,599 --> 00:49:01,360 a believing Catholic, you know. But a man who thinks 499 00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:05,000 he's above doing monstrous things can't be a prince because 500 00:49:05,039 --> 00:49:07,760 you're gonna be called upon to do monstrous things that 501 00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,360 are totally offensive to your person and that are totally 502 00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:18,119 offensive to God, you know. But that's that's that's how 503 00:49:18,559 --> 00:49:21,599 every prince. But that's the trade off for the great 504 00:49:21,639 --> 00:49:26,840 wealth and power and esteem a prince enjoys on earth. 505 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,400 But that that also, I mean, everybody has their cross 506 00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,239 to bear, like every man, no matter how you know, 507 00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:39,320 like lowly in his worldly station or how elevated the cross. 508 00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:41,719 The prince bears is that he's gonna have to do 509 00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:49,559 horrible things, okay, to protect his people, to protect the poulas, 510 00:49:50,679 --> 00:49:55,360 to defeat his enemies, to guarantee that posterity of his dynasty, 511 00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:04,039 all these kinds of things. Now, the case of Borgia 512 00:50:04,119 --> 00:50:09,920 is interesting because of how Frank Herbert is a big 513 00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:17,320 Machiavelli guy, and uh Vladimir Harkonen he's kind of a pastiche, 514 00:50:18,519 --> 00:50:26,039 and both Lynch Dune and uh villainu Dune. I don't 515 00:50:26,079 --> 00:50:32,519 think either one really nails his character adequately, but he's 516 00:50:32,519 --> 00:50:34,920 suppose he's He's in a large part of Caesar Borgia. 517 00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,119 He's kind of like a cross between like Caesar Borgia 518 00:50:37,159 --> 00:50:45,400 and Stalin. But Borgia was made is made commander of 519 00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:48,000 the papal armies by his father, who was the Pope, 520 00:50:48,199 --> 00:50:58,039 Pope Alexander the sixth. The the papacy at that time 521 00:50:58,159 --> 00:51:02,719 wasn't at Alexander. They were highly reliant on mercenaries, and 522 00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,599 Malachia was coming out to this point that mercenaries are ship. 523 00:51:06,519 --> 00:51:10,360 You know, you've got to have men who are will 524 00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:14,679 will die for the police or die for the state. Interesting. 525 00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:18,280 Machae is one of the first political theorists to invoke 526 00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:24,079 the term state, but you know you can't. And all 527 00:51:24,119 --> 00:51:27,039 in all these like mafia movies, like this batridization of 528 00:51:27,119 --> 00:51:29,840 the query likes it better to be like feared or looved, 529 00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,440 you know, that's not a query in it's it's obvious. 530 00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,119 It's better to be like revered. Like if people fear 531 00:51:36,159 --> 00:51:38,719 you and the men under under arms bite for you 532 00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:42,199 because you pay them, like it's you're you're gonna be despised, 533 00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,559 like people hate what they fear. You know. People need 534 00:51:45,559 --> 00:51:49,159 to fear your temper, they need to fear transgressing you. 535 00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:51,920 But you know, if you're if you're just just like 536 00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:53,800 an object, if you're just like an ogre, who's this 537 00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:59,039 object of fear, like men obey under pain of mortal 538 00:51:59,079 --> 00:52:02,719 jeopardy here because you're paying them, you're gonna be murdered 539 00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:07,719 at first opportunity, you know. But uh, bringing it back 540 00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:19,480 the uh, the Orsini brothers, who uh were very much 541 00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:28,519 insinuated into the French court. They were these uh they're 542 00:52:28,519 --> 00:52:35,480 they're these kind of like mercenary aristocrats, you know, and 543 00:52:35,639 --> 00:52:42,320 uh the pope had a real problem, okay because he 544 00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:48,000 depended on these guys. But their battlefield aptitude, you know, 545 00:52:48,039 --> 00:52:57,519 and their ability to kind of finesse uh interstate power, 546 00:52:57,559 --> 00:53:03,599 political concerns and intrigues like as the you know kind 547 00:53:03,599 --> 00:53:08,760 of Italian states were warring with themselves. But obviously they've 548 00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:14,599 very much had the Vatican kind of by the short hairs. 549 00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:32,239 You know what what Caesar Borgia did to consolidate his 550 00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:44,880 own power and cultivate and curate a view of himself 551 00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:57,480 as a liberator the kingdom that was key to papal authority, 552 00:53:59,679 --> 00:54:11,440 oh to the military paradigm then underway Rismomanya. So what 553 00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:18,079 Caesar Borgia did was he basically promised they were Seni 554 00:54:18,199 --> 00:54:25,320 brothers that if they'd break with the French court when 555 00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:31,400 he conquered Romagna, you know, he both pay them better 556 00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:35,800 and he'd give him official government posts. But the essentially 557 00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:41,119 had to stand down from military command. And they were 558 00:54:41,199 --> 00:54:44,360 Seni brothers said yeah, that's great, but you're not going 559 00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:49,320 to pacify Romanya. That's laughable. Well, what Caesar Borgia did 560 00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:54,719 was he hired this guy who was a notorious ghoul 561 00:54:55,000 --> 00:55:02,239 really named Ramiro, the otracle Ramiro to order go Machiavili 562 00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:06,679 refrod him literally is a beast, okay, and in Dune, 563 00:55:06,679 --> 00:55:09,800 you know, the beast Rabon. This is exactly what Baron 564 00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:14,400 Harconen does, ramierdo de Orico. He goes through Romanya and 565 00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:20,239 he starts utterly brutalizing people. You know, he slaughters people wholesale. 566 00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:26,960 He doesn't give a fuck, you know. And Caesar Borgia'll 567 00:55:27,039 --> 00:55:33,400 let this continue for months on end, you know. And 568 00:55:33,519 --> 00:55:37,199 when the people appealed to Alexander, like, you know, we're 569 00:55:37,199 --> 00:55:40,199 being slaughtered and brutalized. Their wives are being raped, their 570 00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:46,000 children are being murdered, we're living in terror. Well, Caesar 571 00:55:46,079 --> 00:55:50,880 Borgia says, I'm gonna liberate Ramanya and I'm gonna cut 572 00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:54,159 this brute Orco in two. And that's exactly what he did, 573 00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,719 you know, just like Baron Harconen. His big plan was 574 00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:03,519 to deployed beast Rabond to Oracus. And Rabond was such 575 00:56:03,519 --> 00:56:07,679 a psychopath and such a brute and such a ghoul that, uh, 576 00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:12,360 when fade are out, the you know, overthrew him and 577 00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:16,599 like cut him into to liberate Oracus. You know, he 578 00:56:16,599 --> 00:56:20,159 he'd be viewed like Pericles or like Caesar, you know, 579 00:56:20,679 --> 00:56:24,199 this like great man who who not only not only 580 00:56:24,199 --> 00:56:26,840 he was like a great warlord and a real man, 581 00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:30,800 but you know, a liberator who killed the monster, who 582 00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:34,440 killed the beast who was enslaving us and brutalizing us, 583 00:56:35,119 --> 00:56:40,000 you know, and Machiavelli he says, like Caesar Borgia doing that, 584 00:56:40,199 --> 00:56:44,199 He's like, that was an incredibly brilliant thing to do. 585 00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:48,599 And it was like ma didn't say, like Caesar Borgia 586 00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:50,440 was a nice guy, and I want him to fuck 587 00:56:50,519 --> 00:56:53,079 my sister, or like I I think he's the kind 588 00:56:53,079 --> 00:56:55,280 of person I want to go bowling with, and you know, 589 00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:59,880 like tell sea stories too, Like he was saying that, 590 00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:08,199 you know that that that required a genius for intriguing 591 00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:15,880 and ruthlessness. Most men simply don't possess and Caesar borge. 592 00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,719 Caesar Borges ultimately came to a bad end, but he 593 00:57:20,199 --> 00:57:23,719 guarded his father's dynasty and posterity. And this was a 594 00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:28,000 tenuous position too. I mean he was he was, here's 595 00:57:28,039 --> 00:57:32,440 the illegitimate son of the pope. This was delicate, you know. 596 00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:36,760 So he basically he bought off and neutralized his enemy, 597 00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:42,440 his main enemies. He pacified Romagna, he conquered it, and 598 00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:46,039 then so doing everybody viewed him as a hero, you know, 599 00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:48,960 despite the fact that he caused all of this, like 600 00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:53,280 that's that's utterly incredible, you know, like I don't know 601 00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:56,559 what else to say about that. But not once that, 602 00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:01,000 not once in magia Eli said that this was a 603 00:58:01,039 --> 00:58:05,519 good thing, you know, and in fact, if anything, the 604 00:58:05,519 --> 00:58:07,519 there is no other boards that are kind of synonymous 605 00:58:07,519 --> 00:58:16,400 with this, literally like incestuous kind of palace intriguing and 606 00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:21,199 this kind of gross brutality. It is because of Macchiavelli, 607 00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:24,639 because I mean, he described how awful this stuff was, 608 00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:33,800 but you know, it also represented an aptitude for power 609 00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:38,400 that basically almost nobody possesses, and that that's why the 610 00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:41,280 Italians are a great people. It's not it's not just 611 00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:43,400 because they make like the best food and really cool 612 00:58:43,519 --> 00:58:46,079 sports cars and produce pretty women. I mean, I like 613 00:58:46,119 --> 00:58:48,639 all those things too, but you know, they really do 614 00:58:48,719 --> 00:58:55,440 have like a genius for for for politics of us, 615 00:58:55,599 --> 00:58:58,960 really sanguinary sort. But we're coming up on an hour 616 00:58:59,039 --> 00:59:05,039 on a well, we'll wrap up uh Machiavelli and get 617 00:59:05,039 --> 00:59:07,480 into Spinoza next time, if that's. 618 00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:11,360 Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good to me. Tell everybody where they can 619 00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:12,119 find you right now. 620 00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:17,800 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm uh uh uh jay Byrne and I just 621 00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:20,280 dropped a new episode of Radio Free Chicago. It seems 622 00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:25,480 to be popping really good. My home right now is substack. 623 00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:30,519 It's real Thomas seven seven seven at subseck dot com. 624 00:59:31,039 --> 00:59:34,159 And uh, I can't remember if I shouted this out 625 00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:41,360 last week or not. I Uh, since we got nuked 626 00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:44,440 off at Discord, I've been looking for a new home 627 00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:48,760 platform to do our like Saturday night streams and uh 628 00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:50,960 and I started doing them on a rumble that seems 629 00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:55,119 like a natural fit for us. I've been playing around 630 00:59:55,119 --> 00:59:59,239 with the with the platform like since we got back 631 00:59:59,239 --> 01:00:02,679 from Nashville, and I'm comfortable with it. So this Saturday, 632 01:00:03,679 --> 01:00:08,159 we're gonna go back to our weekly live stream schedule 633 01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:11,440 like nine pm Central Standard on Saturdays. It's not my 634 01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:14,159 there's an announcement of my substack and my t gram 635 01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,239 then they'll be like a link to it. But yeah, 636 01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:20,920 that's I'm in the proces of reconfiguring my content. But 637 01:00:22,199 --> 01:00:24,559 the substack's popping very good. And there's a lot of 638 01:00:24,599 --> 01:00:27,320 stuff there. There's this stuff I do with Jay Burden. 639 01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:31,760 There's a bunch of my own like videos. There's my podcast. 640 01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:35,320 There's a bunch of like long form stuff. There's my 641 01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,679 science fiction novel that is serialized on there and in 642 01:00:38,719 --> 01:00:43,840 its complete form. So yeah, if you want to get 643 01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,760 engaged with what I do, that's the way to do it. 644 01:00:49,159 --> 01:00:51,519 Speaker 1: All right, Thomas, thank you so the next episode. 645 01:00:51,719 --> 01:00:52,440 Speaker 2: Appreciate you, yea.