1 00:00:38,039 --> 00:00:40,119 Speaker 1: If you want to support the show and get the 2 00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:44,640 episodes early and ad free, head on over to Freemanbeyond 3 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:48,359 the Wall dot com forward slash Support. I want to 4 00:00:48,399 --> 00:00:53,039 explain something right now. If you support me through substack 5 00:00:53,679 --> 00:00:57,719 or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that 6 00:00:57,799 --> 00:01:02,039 you can plug into any podcast catcher, including Apple, and 7 00:01:02,079 --> 00:01:04,480 you'll be able to listen to the episodes through there. 8 00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:08,879 If you support me through subscribe, star gum Road, or 9 00:01:08,920 --> 00:01:12,439 on my website directly, I will send you a link 10 00:01:12,519 --> 00:01:14,959 where you can download the file and you can listen 11 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:19,079 to it any way you wish. I really appreciate the 12 00:01:19,079 --> 00:01:22,359 support everyone gives me. It keeps a show going. It 13 00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:26,000 allows me to basically put out an episode every day now, 14 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,120 and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. 15 00:01:29,640 --> 00:01:31,840 I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two 16 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:38,120 even three a day, and yeah, can't do it without you, 17 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:40,920 So thank you for the support. Head on over to 18 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:45,200 Freeman Beyond the Wall dot com, forward slash Support and 19 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:45,840 do it there. 20 00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:47,319 Speaker 2: Thank you. 21 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,079 Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekananas Show. 22 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:54,879 So Thomas and I are going to start a new 23 00:01:54,920 --> 00:02:00,159 series tonight and coming off some talks that we've and 24 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,120 having over on the Inquisition podcast with Astral and the 25 00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:09,120 Stormy talking about Francis Parker Yaki. You know, Thomas mentioned 26 00:02:09,159 --> 00:02:11,840 after one of the episodes, after we had stopped recording, 27 00:02:12,439 --> 00:02:17,319 you know, we're talking about basically continental philosophy, and you know, 28 00:02:17,919 --> 00:02:21,479 continental philosophy is something that you study your whole life 29 00:02:21,479 --> 00:02:25,759 and you still struggle with. So I asked Thomas if 30 00:02:25,759 --> 00:02:29,280 he'd be willing to, you know, start a series, see 31 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:34,479 how long it goes, and he said yes. So, Thomas, 32 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:36,599 the floor is yours. How are you. 33 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:44,360 Speaker 2: I'm doing well, Thanks for hosting me. I'm going to 34 00:02:44,439 --> 00:02:46,599 have to jump around a bit to make clear what 35 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:56,039 we're talking about. And something that's important to acknowledge is 36 00:02:56,080 --> 00:03:06,520 that philosophy used to be a unitary discipline when it 37 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:13,639 when a discrete political philosophy branched off from that. In 38 00:03:13,719 --> 00:03:17,639 my opinion, that owed to the Peloponnesian War and enthusidities 39 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:22,879 of the first political philosopher. In my opinion, West point 40 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,240 types traditionally as well as in the Cold War, like 41 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:30,000 strategic studies and political science types, they put a premium 42 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:34,479 on thucidities. I think they misunderstand him. They like this. 43 00:03:34,639 --> 00:03:37,960 They like to claim that thucidities of the first political realists. 44 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:42,919 That's not true. I understand why they think that, but 45 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:51,120 it's it's not that the supervisual reading of owing to 46 00:03:51,199 --> 00:03:59,719 his deliberate reticence. It's also a misunderstanding of the context 47 00:03:59,759 --> 00:04:07,039 of what the sources of what we're talking about as 48 00:04:07,039 --> 00:04:14,960 an intellectual tendency. And I should probably press So I'm 49 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:18,079 gonna begin ourselves into discussion by talking about through Siddies, 50 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:22,600 which is gonna dovetail into a discussion at Socrates, because 51 00:04:22,639 --> 00:04:26,040 obviously the Peloponnesian War is the reason why Socrates was executed. 52 00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:30,959 I agree with Sorel Sogrates deserve to be executed. That's 53 00:04:30,959 --> 00:04:34,279 a minority position, but if you're on the right, I 54 00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:38,480 don't see how you cannot abide that. You know, Socrates 55 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:44,839 is not one of the good guys. But I'm gonna 56 00:04:44,879 --> 00:04:47,759 start through Cydides and then dovetail into Socrates on the 57 00:04:47,879 --> 00:04:54,480 next episode. But I think I should start with something 58 00:04:54,519 --> 00:05:00,720 of an explanation as to why political philosophy is important 59 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:04,759 and basically what the political right like, how it is 60 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:11,160 situated with respect to these sorts of intellectual tendencies, and 61 00:05:11,199 --> 00:05:13,360 it gets complicated too, because a lot of the later 62 00:05:13,439 --> 00:05:21,319 right wing philosophers, you know, like Schovenhower, like Nietzsche, like Heidegger. 63 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:27,360 The right wing kind philosopher is a late modernity. These 64 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:35,959 guys are partaking of humanist conceptual orientations. They just had 65 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:45,240 a completely different and radically adversarial perspective contra the Enlightenment. 66 00:05:46,079 --> 00:05:48,199 And I think a lot of people have trouble making 67 00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:53,319 sense of that because in America they think that the 68 00:05:53,399 --> 00:05:58,279 dialectical struggle is between like reactionaries or like religious people 69 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:01,240 as they think of it, and secular humanists. That's that's 70 00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:06,920 not what it is. You know, discourse might be framed 71 00:06:06,959 --> 00:06:10,360 that way by people who don't know any better. But 72 00:06:10,759 --> 00:06:16,519 I I basically agree with Russell Kirk, and as regards 73 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:18,839 the American situation, we'll get him to him too later on. 74 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:23,600 And the conclusion I want to draw us in Kirk 75 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:28,040 is that America is intellectually impoverished in some ways. That's 76 00:06:28,079 --> 00:06:37,000 not a punitive take. My my background is really the 77 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:39,199 only back type of background that could be considered like 78 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:47,160 ethnically American. I'm not trashing my own heritage, but I 79 00:06:47,279 --> 00:06:52,920 think what I just said is indisputable and anybody who 80 00:06:52,959 --> 00:07:02,360 knows the subject matter wouldn't disagree. There's the there's some 81 00:07:02,399 --> 00:07:09,959 basic assumptions, epistemic priors, as I think of them, conceptual biases, 82 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,480 if you will, like the essential characteristics of the conceptual 83 00:07:13,519 --> 00:07:21,759 horizon of the political right loosely defined contra the majoritarian 84 00:07:23,399 --> 00:07:32,120 perspective of the elites from the Enlightenment onward. You know, 85 00:07:33,360 --> 00:07:38,040 the recurrent kind of right wing assumptions and predispositions are 86 00:07:38,079 --> 00:07:44,879 a person forms of believe in human imperfection, Okay, like 87 00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:48,600 even true kind of secular right wingers, you know, like 88 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:56,000 out and out fascists who uh, if not out and 89 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,839 out atheists, where at least kind of you know, at 90 00:07:59,839 --> 00:08:06,560 the most like loose deus, you know, even they acknowledge 91 00:08:06,639 --> 00:08:10,360 a basic human imperfection and like man's fallen nature, even 92 00:08:10,399 --> 00:08:16,040 if they define it in kind of worldly and polaric terms, 93 00:08:16,079 --> 00:08:20,600 you know. And that's arguably one of the reasons why 94 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:31,160 tendencies like national socialism and fascism, you know, sought to 95 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:38,759 intervene selectively with respect to both the biological stock of 96 00:08:38,799 --> 00:08:45,039 the racial organism as well as elevate the cultural competence 97 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:50,360 the body politic that wasn't for lack of ability to 98 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:54,480 identify other political projects to dedicate their energies too. It's 99 00:08:55,600 --> 00:09:01,200 because the fallen nature of man again, even defined in 100 00:09:04,360 --> 00:09:09,960 a secularist paradigm, with something first and foremost that you know, 101 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:21,399 they they accepted from inception, you know, uh, owing to 102 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:24,960 that man is a social organism, even more so than 103 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,759 any other species. You know, even to a biological reductionist, 104 00:09:28,799 --> 00:09:35,720 that this is this is clear, okay, just in pragmatic terms. 105 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:43,200 Empirically it's obvious. This can be grounded in a religious 106 00:09:43,279 --> 00:09:48,440 doctrine of original sin as an explanatory mechanism, or it 107 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:53,519 could be arguing entirely in secular grounds as I just enumerated, 108 00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:56,960 you know, including but not limited to the biological the 109 00:09:56,960 --> 00:10:06,799 biological facts of the kind of limited preparattleness and you know, 110 00:10:10,799 --> 00:10:17,440 lack of complete instinctual mechanisms for survival at scale. You know, 111 00:10:20,399 --> 00:10:25,720 So the right accepts that this kind of moral imperfection 112 00:10:26,879 --> 00:10:31,639 or this kind of maladaptive tendency intrinsic to man qua 113 00:10:31,799 --> 00:10:40,720 man requires both certain restraints imposed by both convention and institutions, 114 00:10:42,559 --> 00:10:51,440 but also it requires a curated sociology, you know, to 115 00:10:51,559 --> 00:11:01,200 insinuate not just public morals and pragmatic behavioral modalities, you know, 116 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:06,960 and what sorts of impulses, identifying what sort of impulses 117 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:11,360 should be encouraged and that which should be discouraged by 118 00:11:14,200 --> 00:11:19,559 you know, a system of punitive disincentives and material rewards. 119 00:11:20,519 --> 00:11:24,120 But also you know, this an understanding that man must 120 00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:28,440 be availed to a kind of moral education as well 121 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:31,039 as like a racial education or an education in the 122 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:35,039 ways of the police. If you want to invoke the 123 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:42,120 classical conception in lieu of the kind of twentieth century 124 00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:55,639 biological conception. This entails a certain epistemological modesty, Mann's hubris, 125 00:11:55,799 --> 00:12:01,639 both in grand terms that the culture stratum is prone 126 00:12:01,679 --> 00:12:05,960 to as well as in debates terms. You know that 127 00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:09,440 one of the what are the sources of the ongoing 128 00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:16,080 tragedy the commons is, you know, the common man's impulse 129 00:12:16,159 --> 00:12:19,080 to gratify his ego, you know, whether it's through you know, 130 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:26,320 coveting the wives of his fellows or subjugating principle to profit, 131 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:32,799 you know, and enrichment at the expense of of the 132 00:12:32,879 --> 00:12:38,120 social organism. You know, there's an understanding among the right, 133 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:45,039 whether you're talking about you know, conservatives, revolutionaries, radicals, fascists, 134 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:54,519 national socialists, you know, uh, sectarian artisans who have you know, 135 00:12:55,240 --> 00:13:03,960 a rigidly theological view, this understanding that epistemological modesty as 136 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:09,519 a restraining mechanism of hubris, but also as a correct 137 00:13:10,559 --> 00:13:17,799 esthetical posture. You know, a man who believes nothing precedes 138 00:13:17,879 --> 00:13:26,320 him and who doesn't understand no respect, no esteem, historical 139 00:13:26,399 --> 00:13:33,799 processes and the role of the social organism in those processes, 140 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:39,559 as far as edifying man as an individual and in 141 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:45,080 his individual capacity, as well as a component of a 142 00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:48,759 historically contingent social organism or a nation or a race. 143 00:13:48,799 --> 00:13:51,080 Like a man who doesn't accept that that is somebody 144 00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:55,080 who's worthy of contempt. Okay, And basically everybody understands they 145 00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:58,679 accept liberals, you know. And I think this point that 146 00:13:58,759 --> 00:14:08,639 people a lot, especially when they try and morally condemn 147 00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:12,600 their critics by saying, you know, who are you to 148 00:14:12,679 --> 00:14:15,440 judge somebody for say, being gay. It's like, it's not 149 00:14:16,639 --> 00:14:20,399 the issue isn't what people are interested in doing in 150 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:25,279 terms of sexuality. The issue is that, for example, to 151 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:29,159 be gay is to take on a social identity rooted 152 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:32,799 around what you do with your penis, and that basically 153 00:14:32,879 --> 00:14:35,480 means you've abandoned logos and decided to live like some 154 00:14:35,559 --> 00:14:41,440 kind of animal. You know, it's incidental that the kind 155 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:45,519 of subject of that depravity is is sex. It could 156 00:14:45,519 --> 00:14:49,120 be anything of other things, you know, And when you 157 00:14:49,159 --> 00:14:52,279 confront people with this, they'll give you like a dumb look, 158 00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:55,600 either because they know you're right and they have no rebuttal, 159 00:14:56,600 --> 00:14:59,240 or because you might as well be speaking Chinese, because 160 00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:04,440 to them, you know, they basically view the highest good 161 00:15:04,559 --> 00:15:10,919 as stating these kinds of glandular impulses and finding ways 162 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:18,399 to gratify egoistic desires, often but not exclusively biological, and 163 00:15:18,519 --> 00:15:26,279 mitigating the pain that axiomatically attend as human existence. Being 164 00:15:26,279 --> 00:15:29,799 alive is painful emotionally and physically. That's not all that 165 00:15:29,879 --> 00:15:36,519 it is, but it does have an outsized impact on 166 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:40,519 the way we experience consciousness. And we're talking about human life, 167 00:15:40,519 --> 00:15:48,559 we're really talking about consciousness, okay. As a consequence of 168 00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:55,039 these things. In terms of praxis the kind of right 169 00:15:55,080 --> 00:16:04,279 wing ontology, there's a basic assumption they're in that institutions 170 00:16:04,399 --> 00:16:16,440 and patterned social formations and concrete sociologies are self justifying, 171 00:16:18,279 --> 00:16:23,840 and the enduring quality of these things oh to their 172 00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:32,879 essential role in perpetuating this survival of of the social organism, 173 00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:35,799 you know, whether that's the race, or the nation, or 174 00:16:35,799 --> 00:16:42,279 the or the ecclesiastical community, you know, whatever the whatever 175 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:50,320 the primary subject is of of the of the of 176 00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:57,919 the particular disposition, ontological disposition. You know. So this idea 177 00:16:58,720 --> 00:17:02,200 that's kind of like Enlightenment idea, this Enlightenment prejudice, that 178 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:09,400 institutions that are perennial in nature need to be subjected 179 00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:14,000 to this kind of rigorous cross examination to determine if 180 00:17:15,079 --> 00:17:21,359 you know, they're fulfilling the impulses, which is really what 181 00:17:22,599 --> 00:17:25,200 capitaliled liberals mean when they talk about happiness, they're talking 182 00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:33,519 about impulse fulfillment. That that's not a legitimate regime, that 183 00:17:33,519 --> 00:17:37,079 that's not how we judge institutions according to practical reason, 184 00:17:37,759 --> 00:17:41,039 is whether they're making people happy or not. I mean, yes, 185 00:17:41,079 --> 00:17:45,240 obviously these institutions that are destructive, but generally those cease 186 00:17:45,279 --> 00:17:49,880 to exist because there's an anthropic reason, because if these 187 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:55,440 institutions were truly destructive, they wouldn't endure for millennia because 188 00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:59,119 they'd be doing the opposite of what they're supposed to do. 189 00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:03,559 You know, Like this is uptose. But as a counterfactual, 190 00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:06,119 like I suppose it was an institution had encouraged men 191 00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:08,920 to get drunk and beat their children, Like how long 192 00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:11,720 do you think that would last? You know what I mean? Like, 193 00:18:11,759 --> 00:18:18,440 it's that's why kind of the of the intellectual laziness 194 00:18:20,799 --> 00:18:27,400 among people who kind of abide this capital a liberal paradigm, 195 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:30,119 as they say, quote organized or religion is bad. It's like, well, 196 00:18:30,119 --> 00:18:32,720 what does they mean, you know, like what what is 197 00:18:32,799 --> 00:18:36,599 quote organized religion? You know, I supposed like disorganized religion 198 00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:40,839 as opposed to some sort of sociological anarchy where each 199 00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:45,240 man decides privately, like what is the good that that's 200 00:18:45,279 --> 00:18:48,240 not sustainable? And it's not really what they're talking about anyway, 201 00:18:49,079 --> 00:18:56,240 because you know, they're they're abiding as much of a 202 00:18:56,279 --> 00:19:02,680 theological paradigm as there. You know, they just characterize it 203 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:05,920 as grounded in in this kind of foe like Layman's 204 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:13,640 understanding of science or of pragmatic cultivation again, of of 205 00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:20,799 impulse fulfillment. And it's tautological too, because like they'll claim that, well, 206 00:19:20,799 --> 00:19:23,200 if you if you deprive people of the capacity to 207 00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:28,759 fulfill these impulses, they'll become antisocial and they'll seek to 208 00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:32,079 sublimate in ways that you know, harm others in their 209 00:19:32,079 --> 00:19:39,519 respective pursuit of these fulfilling endeavors, which doesn't really make sense, 210 00:19:39,599 --> 00:19:44,240 you know, and obviously you can't code that or analyze 211 00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:49,279 that in any sort of scientific way, Not that I 212 00:19:49,319 --> 00:19:51,240 think that there's any great merit in that, but the 213 00:19:51,319 --> 00:19:55,799 proponents that perspective claim, you know, that a reportedly scientific 214 00:19:55,799 --> 00:20:03,640 methodology is like the zenith of of identify truth, you know, 215 00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:10,640 without resort to conceptual prejudice. Yet you know, they present 216 00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:15,400 these postulates is absolutely binding that you know, cannot be 217 00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:22,039 availed to such methods, So there's kind of like a 218 00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:26,960 built in. They kind of built in an excuse for 219 00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:35,640 rationalizing their own assertions, even including even you know, by 220 00:20:35,759 --> 00:20:45,680 resort to the methods that they privilege. A belief that 221 00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:55,359 there's nothing inherently immoral or value loaded about prejudice is 222 00:20:55,440 --> 00:21:05,640 another consistent aspect of the RIGHTUS conceptual paradigm, prejudice becoming 223 00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:12,119 this floating signifier for something bad that's very much owes 224 00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:18,920 to Enlightenment conceptual biases. You know, Edmund Burke when he 225 00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:22,799 invoked the term prejudice, what he was talking about was 226 00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:28,319 rules of action that are inculcated by habit that basically 227 00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:39,759 become instinctual. Okay, and Hume on somewhat different contextual bases, 228 00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:44,039 made essentially the same argument. Okay, we're talking about custinary 229 00:21:44,079 --> 00:21:50,519 moral rules that derive from practical reason that again needn't 230 00:21:50,559 --> 00:21:55,279 be available to some punitive cross examination, you know, or 231 00:21:55,319 --> 00:22:01,960 some or forced to force to be defended in some 232 00:22:03,759 --> 00:22:11,759 conceptual court, whereby the standard of review is the degree 233 00:22:11,799 --> 00:22:17,640 to which you know they produce human happiness by their 234 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:24,720 ability to avail or preclude, you know, impulse fulfillment. And 235 00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:27,839 the problem with that is that if you start breaking 236 00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:35,480 down these instinctive prejudices, you know, you're basically you're doing 237 00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:40,240 you're doing violence to the the subjective acceptance of the 238 00:22:40,279 --> 00:22:47,720 concept of duty with individually and a scale. Okay, So 239 00:22:47,799 --> 00:22:52,920 if you're gonna break everything down according to the aforementioned criteria, 240 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:56,400 yet at the same time declare that you know there's 241 00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:03,319 some absolute moral imperative of non interference with one's fellow man. Again, 242 00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:09,480 we've already established that man is unusually social social for 243 00:23:09,599 --> 00:23:18,400 a biological organism, and even you know, if you're a 244 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:21,559 pious believer, you acknowledge that man's at least in a 245 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:28,359 large part, you know, possessed of an animalistic nature of 246 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,359 pure biology. That's not all he is, but that's substantially 247 00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:37,000 what he is. And owing to that intrinsic socio, owing 248 00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:41,920 owing to that intrinsic sociality, man individual men are not 249 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:46,079 going to live their lives in isolation. Okay, So how 250 00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:50,319 they treat others and how they partake of community benefits, 251 00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:55,119 and how they seek to engage with that communitarian structure 252 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:01,359 that's going to very much be defined by their ethics 253 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:05,640 and the prejudices that inform their ethics. And if the 254 00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:10,839 only guiding imperative is one of non interference with impulse fulfillment, 255 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:16,720 well that's essentially a non aggression pact that's largely unenforceable, 256 00:24:16,759 --> 00:24:18,920 and that people are going to find ways to subvert 257 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,240 and exploit in order to enrich themselves at the expense 258 00:24:22,279 --> 00:24:26,720 of the communitarian enterprise. Like so axiomatically, that's self defeating. 259 00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:33,279 Beyond that too, you know, there's obviously a moral and 260 00:24:36,519 --> 00:24:40,160 in the secular and against the secular right and esthetical objection, 261 00:24:40,759 --> 00:24:45,440 you know, to the carrying on that way or irrationalizing 262 00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:51,160 those kinds of behavior patterns. But that's a little bit 263 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,440 outside the scope of what I want to emphasize in 264 00:24:54,519 --> 00:25:08,960 this introductory description. I think, and this is key to 265 00:25:09,039 --> 00:25:18,160 the broader discussion topic of this series. Historicism in the 266 00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:22,319 Spangalerian sense, Like Spangler obviously was not the first historicist, 267 00:25:22,759 --> 00:25:26,480 nor is he the most influential. You know, Hegel was, obviously, 268 00:25:27,079 --> 00:25:29,759 and Hegel is a standard bearer. But people are probably 269 00:25:29,839 --> 00:25:33,880 more familiar with historicism in the Spangalarian sense because it's 270 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:41,000 somewhat more accessible, at least in superficial terms. Historicism is 271 00:25:42,079 --> 00:25:48,319 both fundamentally right wing and it's also an essential aspect 272 00:25:49,440 --> 00:26:00,559 of a rightist epistemology. You know, the under standing that 273 00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:05,480 human groups differ. There's you know, they're there's profound uh 274 00:26:06,559 --> 00:26:13,000 distinctions between and within populations. You know, yeah, there are 275 00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:19,599 there's certain universals that oh and derive from the human condition, 276 00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:28,079 you know, but the understanding that the developmental cycles of 277 00:26:28,559 --> 00:26:35,279 discrete races and cultural groupings and populations, you know, the 278 00:26:35,279 --> 00:26:43,759 prime symbols that constitute you know, the uh, the symbolic psychology, 279 00:26:43,799 --> 00:26:52,160 psychological aspects of these human groupings. You know, the the 280 00:26:52,240 --> 00:27:01,759 customary prejudices, the conception these people have of them selves, 281 00:27:01,799 --> 00:27:06,559 you know, the sorts of activities that they consider to 282 00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:17,400 constitute the highest uh manifestation of virtue in both individual 283 00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,759 and communitarian capacities. These things are going to differ profoundly, 284 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:27,240 you know, like across these racial, ethnic, sectarian and population divides. 285 00:27:28,079 --> 00:27:30,839 You know, this idea that there's a there's a there's 286 00:27:30,839 --> 00:27:36,000 a single ambition that all human populations are striving to 287 00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:43,960 and that you know, human differences and identitarian criteria are 288 00:27:44,519 --> 00:27:50,039 some kind of obstacle to progress. That's essentially a communistic viewpoint. 289 00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:53,680 Now I do want to sound like some basic bitch 290 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,359 like mister Higgs said, I think was around calling like 291 00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,440 saying communists or hiding under his bed like some nineteen 292 00:27:59,519 --> 00:28:03,440 fifties John Bircher or something, because that's fucking returned. But 293 00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:07,799 I do think we can speak of a communistic mode 294 00:28:07,839 --> 00:28:10,880 of thought or Jacobin if you prefer, or you know, 295 00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:22,920 there's a concrete, conceptual bias that I'm describing, and you know, 296 00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,839 I think invoking terms familiar rather than esoteric or more 297 00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:35,480 constructive in describing it. But you know that's an insidio 298 00:28:35,599 --> 00:28:38,480 that's beyond an insidious tendency, and that you know, it 299 00:28:38,799 --> 00:28:43,880 kind of does violence to the ability to produce culture 300 00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:49,440 and a higher kind of human life. You know, it 301 00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:53,400 also it rips people out of their ability to live historically. 302 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:59,640 And when you do that to people by design, your 303 00:28:59,759 --> 00:29:03,000 sense imprisoning them in their own life. You know, and 304 00:29:05,319 --> 00:29:17,359 even if you're not somebody who values, you know, things 305 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,759 of a historical nature for their own sake, you know, 306 00:29:22,079 --> 00:29:28,640 it basically precludes human happiness that we're talking about, fulfillment 307 00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:33,400 and freedom from anxiety and an unreasonable fear of mortality 308 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,319 and all these other things. You know, you're essentially guaranteeing 309 00:29:37,359 --> 00:29:41,880 that people are not going to be able to navigate 310 00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:54,359 their living existence in a fulfilling or psychologically stable way 311 00:29:55,839 --> 00:30:03,079 when you suggest that there is some some grand moral 312 00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:12,400 ambition that the political authority should seek to realize, and 313 00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:17,400 that's the real that's that that that's the that's the 314 00:30:17,559 --> 00:30:23,519 essence of the of the political divide today. You know, 315 00:30:23,519 --> 00:30:27,640 there's only globalism and the resistance. There's not like dozens 316 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:40,359 of permutations of ideological commitment or conceptual models. You know, 317 00:30:41,119 --> 00:30:46,240 there are the globalists who prevailed in the Cold War, 318 00:30:47,839 --> 00:30:53,279 you know, their particular ideological paradigm of globalism prevailed. And 319 00:30:53,319 --> 00:30:56,720 there are people who wish to live historically and not 320 00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:03,519 be torn out of history and have the identitarian characteristics 321 00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:12,039 that constitute their human identity ripped out of them. You know. 322 00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,559 That's I'm always saying. Anybody who doesn't understand that isn't 323 00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:20,599 really in the game, because they don't understand the last 324 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,200 five hundred years, and they don't understand most critically, the 325 00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,839 twentieth century, and thus they don't understand the present because 326 00:31:27,839 --> 00:31:31,200 you live in the aftermath of both those things, you know, 327 00:31:31,519 --> 00:31:39,880 And that's that's that's what the divide is. It's somewhat imperfect. 328 00:31:40,559 --> 00:31:43,319 That's talk about right versus left, But again for the 329 00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:47,960 sake of intelligibility, you know, I continue to invoke those signifiers, 330 00:31:48,039 --> 00:31:54,319 but I think increasingly it it's meaningless to describe it 331 00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,680 in those terms. But you know, when you're talking about 332 00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,920 the perspective of the Cidities and adjacent as we'll get 333 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,200 into though not though Thucinities wasn't the standard bearer of 334 00:32:08,759 --> 00:32:12,119 the position that Socrates deserved to be executed again he was. 335 00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,799 He was taciturn on those sorts of questions. You kind 336 00:32:14,799 --> 00:32:18,640 of but you can kind of tease out what he 337 00:32:18,759 --> 00:32:21,000 thought of these things, just kind of like you can 338 00:32:21,119 --> 00:32:30,960 with you know, reading Machiavelli as well. But intrinsic to right, 339 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:35,079 as to epistemology, is a belief that religion is essential, 340 00:32:35,359 --> 00:32:38,519 if only for utilitarian reasons. You know, make the point 341 00:32:38,519 --> 00:32:41,279 again and again. I hold out Charles Morass as an example. 342 00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,920 Maross was an atheist, and I think he was more 343 00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,000 of a fascist than a reactionary, even though like he 344 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,640 he he held out you know, the Demeistra was obviously 345 00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:58,279 his primary influence, so he held out the monarchy and 346 00:32:58,279 --> 00:33:03,119 in particular the Roman Church is essential aspects of the 347 00:33:03,519 --> 00:33:07,960 French as a people, and you know, the and and 348 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:13,480 as a as a racial organism. You know, that could 349 00:33:13,559 --> 00:33:22,440 coherently be said to exist historically. You know, so even 350 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:32,480 people aren't devout Christians or Moslems, they I believe it's 351 00:33:32,519 --> 00:33:36,079 basically impossible to be uh, to be right wing and 352 00:33:36,119 --> 00:33:40,960 be anti religions. Like when people talk that way, they're 353 00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,599 either they're rather professional liars and shills that were trying 354 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:50,880 to kind of corrupt the conversation at scale or by 355 00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:55,440 poisoning discourse, or other people who don't really have a 356 00:33:55,519 --> 00:34:03,279 developed view of of politic it's and you know, political 357 00:34:03,319 --> 00:34:09,079 matter is either concrete or or theoretical. You know, they 358 00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:14,079 just feel threatened in some instinctive way by the excesses 359 00:34:14,199 --> 00:34:20,239 of regime ideology, which is normal. Like I'm not saying 360 00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,679 that I'm not like throwing shade on that or something, obviously, 361 00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:33,000 but a lot of people are inculcated with this kind 362 00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,639 of deracinated view of like a religion tries to impose 363 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,440 duties on me that I don't like, or you know, 364 00:34:40,599 --> 00:34:49,119 people are alienated from any sort of sectarian belief structure 365 00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:54,480 of a historical nature. You know, they're their only experience 366 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:57,920 of religion is going to some megachurch their mom dragged 367 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,920 them to or something, you know, uh. Or when they 368 00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,920 think of religion, they think of like Joel Ostein. You know, 369 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,239 I don't know exactly because that way of life is 370 00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:16,559 kind of alien to me conceptually, but you know, the 371 00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:24,280 uh if for no other reason, even uh, even right 372 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,239 wingers are critical of this kind of zealous religious enthusiasm 373 00:35:29,639 --> 00:35:34,119 that that can be characteristic of the body politic when 374 00:35:34,599 --> 00:35:39,280 you know they're they're agitated by some crisis or or 375 00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:45,920 some kind of historical shock. You know, even people who 376 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:51,400 make a priority of criticizing that kind of be an 377 00:35:51,440 --> 00:36:02,159 impulse towards you know, sweeping moral zealousness as applied to 378 00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:11,119 public life and sociology and scale are pretty unconditionally committed 379 00:36:11,159 --> 00:36:15,480 to the understanding that, you know, without some sort of 380 00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:22,519 metaphysics there's not going to be any sustainability to the 381 00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:28,840 to the political organism, you know, and really the only 382 00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:34,840 way that can be intelligible, and you know, the after 383 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:39,639 the seventeenth century or so, you know, what's what's failure 384 00:36:39,639 --> 00:36:44,159 obviously is my poll star here is through the lens 385 00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:54,079 of whatever the dominant religious theological strain has historically been 386 00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:59,000 within the culture, you know, and this partakes a symbolic 387 00:36:59,079 --> 00:37:03,360 psychology as well. And the kind of stuff that Carl 388 00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,360 Jung and jazz version people like that gotn't do. That's 389 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,960 a bit outside the scope. But you know, one of 390 00:37:12,039 --> 00:37:19,199 the reasons why I come down very strongly on people 391 00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:24,039 who try and fall back on this kind of Darwinist 392 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:31,960 perspective while claiming to be right wing there, because that's 393 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:36,440 not that doesn't track, you know. And the only reason 394 00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:42,639 people think that that that perspective is something like a 395 00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:51,199 right is perspective is because there's such an absolute bully 396 00:37:51,360 --> 00:38:00,880 pulpit until recently, for a lad to pay onion, which 397 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:06,320 is monolithic in the managerial state. And even if there 398 00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:11,280 are divisions therein in a system like ours or in 399 00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:13,800 a system like the Soviet system was when you know, 400 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,719 the world was divided between competing globalisms, even if there 401 00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:24,880 are even if the how the perial house of the 402 00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,960 elite or the nomenclature is a house divided that will 403 00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:35,400 never be broadcast publicly and you know, hashed out through 404 00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:39,800 some sort of discursive process that the body politics is 405 00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:47,960 available to as some you know, key participant. So I 406 00:38:48,039 --> 00:38:50,920 realized that probably went a little longer than I expected, 407 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,119 but that that's what we're talking about when we're talking 408 00:38:54,159 --> 00:39:02,000 about the kind of philosophical basis, basis of you know, 409 00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:06,519 a partisan political commitment, you know, And this is why 410 00:39:06,559 --> 00:39:13,199 it's important not just in terms of cultivating intellectual rigor, 411 00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:20,039 but also in terms of in terms of praxis, you know. 412 00:39:26,599 --> 00:39:29,679 But that also invites the question like what what is 413 00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:37,719 what is political philosophy? Political philosophy? And again, the origins 414 00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:44,199 of continental philosophy and the origins of all things that 415 00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:56,639 characterized the European cultural mind were derived from ancient Greece, 416 00:39:59,199 --> 00:40:02,239 you know, clas Greece you know, the zenith of which 417 00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:07,760 was the reign of Pericles just before the Peloponnesian War. 418 00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:16,880 You know, in the then the air to that the 419 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,719 air to that culture was Rome and Europe was the 420 00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:25,440 air to both. You know, is the way to understand it. 421 00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:32,440 And like I said at the outset, Thucinities was the 422 00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:38,599 first political philosopher. Now this is somewhat to be clear. 423 00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:41,559 There wasn't that. There wasn't that, there wasn't a division 424 00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:49,239 formal conceptual in Athens between you know, oh, this is 425 00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:53,800 this is religious philosophy, this is political theory, this is metaphysics, 426 00:40:53,840 --> 00:41:02,159 this is mathematics. There was that's a singular philosophy, okay. 427 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,280 And essential to understand too is that there wasn't a 428 00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,719 concept of the state. One of the weirder things than me. 429 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,639 And as we get into the Peloponnesian War, which is 430 00:41:13,679 --> 00:41:18,880 the only book that Fcidities wrote, it also the Peloponnesian War. 431 00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:29,880 In my opinion, from a Hegelian perspective, the Peloponnesian War 432 00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:36,920 was within the cultural form of classical Greece and its 433 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:42,280 civilizational cycle. That was the equivalent of what Noldy called 434 00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,920 the Iropisian berger Krieg, the European Civil War, you know, 435 00:41:47,039 --> 00:41:52,519 nineteen fourteen to nineteen forty five. It destroyed both Athens 436 00:41:52,519 --> 00:41:56,920 and Sparta. It destroyed classical Greece as we know it 437 00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:01,719 as a historical phenomenon, the Athenian Assault and Sicily was 438 00:42:02,159 --> 00:42:06,559 Ethyns Stalingrad. And we'll get into all what I mean 439 00:42:06,599 --> 00:42:11,480 by all this in the next episode. But you know, 440 00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:25,440 Athens basically became this hyper capitalistic dictatorship that became exceedingly 441 00:42:25,559 --> 00:42:34,320 brutal towards people within the Greek race or Greek ethnos 442 00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:44,119 it its standard bearers came to rationalize this sort of 443 00:42:45,039 --> 00:42:51,519 extreme violence at scale by resort to a paradigm of 444 00:42:51,679 --> 00:42:57,079 might makes right and this kind of tautological sensibility of well, 445 00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:01,519 now we're at war, it doesn't and the podium the 446 00:43:01,559 --> 00:43:03,960 war went on for it was thirty years. But the 447 00:43:04,039 --> 00:43:07,480 kind of rationalizing patology was it doesn't matter that this 448 00:43:07,599 --> 00:43:10,400 war was unjust, because now we're at war and we've 449 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:15,519 got to prosecute it to the fullest extent possible and 450 00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,360 enrich ourselves as much as we can in the process, 451 00:43:19,159 --> 00:43:22,280 and we've got to annihilate our enemies to survive. Even 452 00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:30,480 if they're fellow Greeks. That's an incredibly depraved perspective. I mean, 453 00:43:30,519 --> 00:43:33,960 it's goofy for Americans in twenty twenty five to pretend 454 00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:39,159 they're the Athenians. Anyway, Athens was a society based on slavery, 455 00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,239 as you know, for forty thousand years, basically every society was. 456 00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:54,639 It was hyper patriarchal. You know, it was decidedly anti egalitarian. 457 00:43:56,639 --> 00:44:04,400 And you know, the root of the term democracy is demos. 458 00:44:06,199 --> 00:44:11,840 Demos refers to an ethnos. It refers to a people. 459 00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:19,239 It's not human beings, voting or persons. So there's something 460 00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:28,320 there's something weirdly conceptually illiterate about, you know, regime loyal 461 00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:34,639 people like invoking Athens as the model and pretending that 462 00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:38,719 America is a democracy. I mean, you can't talk about those. 463 00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:42,800 I mean, first and foremost to bring it back, and 464 00:44:43,039 --> 00:44:44,679 I said, I wasn't gonna go on tangents, and there 465 00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:51,760 I went. But there was no state in Athens or Sparta, 466 00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:58,360 you know. And you'll find some translations, particularly stuff kind 467 00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:00,320 of from the zenith of what I mean was like 468 00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:03,920 junk academia from like the fifties to the eighties when 469 00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:06,320 it became really cheap to print books. You know, this 470 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:10,239 kind of explosion of like academic texts, you know, kind 471 00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:14,159 of feed the these educational curriculums. All in Sundry. You'll 472 00:45:14,159 --> 00:45:18,519 find translations where they say, oh, the police means the states. 473 00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:25,239 It doesn't a loose translation. It'd be like the nation 474 00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:32,760 or the country, or like the race. I think that's 475 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,480 a more appropriate term. But there was no concept of Okay, 476 00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,039 this is the police. But there's this permanent bureaucracy that 477 00:45:41,119 --> 00:45:47,440 kind of manages you know, tensions between you know, different 478 00:45:47,519 --> 00:45:52,360 blocks in the body politic and you know, these guys 479 00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,760 are responsible for levying taxes, and you know this this 480 00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,239 guy is responsible for the military. There was none of that. 481 00:46:00,639 --> 00:46:04,000 Like the social organism and the political apparatus were the 482 00:46:04,039 --> 00:46:11,239 same thing, you know, And every adult male when he 483 00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:17,119 was of military age, you know, served in the military 484 00:46:17,159 --> 00:46:21,679 at war. I was expected to die on orders when necessary, 485 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:27,760 and if he lived to advanced age, you know that 486 00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,440 commitment would end. But you know he continued to serve 487 00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:37,199 in the assembly. You know, really the modern state as 488 00:46:37,199 --> 00:46:39,119 we know. He can't talk about the state as we 489 00:46:39,159 --> 00:46:49,039 conceptualize it until after Westphalia, in my opinion, So you know, 490 00:46:49,079 --> 00:46:53,119 you might as well be talking about you might as 491 00:46:53,119 --> 00:46:56,280 well be talking about a different planet. Comparing the managerial state 492 00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:03,360 to Athens, you know, classical Athens or Sparta, you know it. 493 00:47:08,079 --> 00:47:12,960 Like even even anti status tendencies in the modern age, 494 00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,719 you know, like for example, the Confederacy here in America, 495 00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:19,360 they were reacting first of all, the actual they did 496 00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,679 have a state bureaucracy, like whether they wanted to or not, 497 00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:26,800 just because that was reality. But even people who were 498 00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:31,760 hostile to it on ethical or aesthetical grounds, they were 499 00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:36,000 reacting to something that was the norm. You know. So 500 00:47:36,079 --> 00:47:41,599 you can't you can't, you can't, you can't compare the 501 00:47:41,599 --> 00:47:54,320 two things. But excuse me, the uh in the traditional view, 502 00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:58,719 of course, I know that people in the comments are 503 00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:04,519 gonna say, Socrates was the first, uh was the first 504 00:48:04,559 --> 00:48:10,199 political philosopher, you know he was, and the first the 505 00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:13,920 first you know, work of political theory was Plato's The Republic. 506 00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:22,480 Bear with me on this, I'm I'm going somewhere with 507 00:48:22,519 --> 00:48:27,519 this when identified through cidities, Okay, because again what I 508 00:48:27,639 --> 00:48:33,159 mentioned a moment ago, the city was the first discreetly 509 00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,079 political philosopher. That's why, like I said, these military science 510 00:48:37,119 --> 00:48:40,400 types that they go during the Cold War, identified him 511 00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:44,679 as like the progenitor of strategic studies and of political realism, 512 00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:47,639 like the Meersheimer sort, which I think is about the 513 00:48:47,639 --> 00:48:52,920 Midway take. And subfintively, they don't really understand the kind 514 00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,960 of core of Lucidity's ontological claims. But what they are 515 00:48:57,079 --> 00:49:04,159 right about is that, you know, the first purely, the 516 00:49:04,199 --> 00:49:09,679 first pure political philosophy is these cities to the Peloponnesian War. Plato, 517 00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:15,679 like his teacher Socrates, and like Aristotle, he succeeded both. 518 00:49:17,039 --> 00:49:21,280 They didn't have a discrete political philosophy. Aristotle's the politics. 519 00:49:22,199 --> 00:49:25,920 He's speaking about politics as an aspect of like all 520 00:49:26,039 --> 00:49:32,079 things related to philosophy, you know. And then Nikobacky and 521 00:49:32,159 --> 00:49:35,760 ethics is as much a political work as the politics. 522 00:49:39,159 --> 00:49:51,760 But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, you know. 523 00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:58,960 And whether the other objection I'm sure would be that, well, 524 00:49:59,199 --> 00:50:02,920 neither this Cities nor Socrates. Surely there was philosophers who 525 00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:09,440 preceded them, like, yes, obviously, but you know, the Pristocratics 526 00:50:09,599 --> 00:50:17,920 didn't didn't then't form them discourse for two thousand years subsequent, 527 00:50:19,679 --> 00:50:28,800 you know. And uh by that token, you know, I 528 00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:35,480 mean how what we're getting in a pretty esoteric territory. 529 00:50:35,519 --> 00:50:40,400 But there there may have been. There may have been 530 00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:44,280 civilizations in this Panglarian since you know, thirty thousand years ago, 531 00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:49,199 that the record of which has been totally wiped away. Okay, 532 00:50:49,519 --> 00:50:51,199 but that's not where we're not where I speaking in 533 00:50:51,199 --> 00:50:57,800 absolute terms. We're talking about we're talking about the origins 534 00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:04,760 of the europe and cultural mind and the historical and 535 00:51:05,559 --> 00:51:12,280 intellectual tendencies that it is derived from. And that begins 536 00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:20,519 with Socrates and Thucydities, the Peloponnesian War, the book, I mean, 537 00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:26,800 the City's book. We'll run a little way to get 538 00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:28,559 into the meat of it, we'll do that in the 539 00:51:28,559 --> 00:51:34,360 next episode. But the core of it is again the 540 00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:39,159 Cidities was very reticent. He didn't issue forth at value 541 00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:49,000 judgment on the preceding thirty years. But the core kind 542 00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:57,519 of crux of it is that you can't understand man 543 00:51:57,599 --> 00:52:05,960 unless you understand human societies. Okay. And for clarity, the 544 00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:12,599 Greek word physic, which obviously we derived physics from, it 545 00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:16,239 wasn't the science of motion. It literally meant things that 546 00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:24,599 grow or by nature, so it basically included everything. Okay, 547 00:52:24,639 --> 00:52:32,960 It was remarkably holistic, you know, everything from everything from 548 00:52:33,039 --> 00:52:38,519 atoms to you know, the world itself or the ocean 549 00:52:38,639 --> 00:52:44,920 or whatever. Okay, there wasn't even accounting for like discrete 550 00:52:45,079 --> 00:52:50,880 dialogues about the political or the Polish until the Peloponnesean 551 00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:55,639 War by ducinities. There wasn't a book that presented itself 552 00:52:55,679 --> 00:52:59,000 as this is a book about human societies. This is 553 00:52:59,039 --> 00:53:01,719 a book about the nature of warfare. This is a 554 00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:06,079 book about human societies at war and like data we 555 00:53:06,119 --> 00:53:10,360 can derive therein like for future generations. You know about 556 00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:14,039 literally the science of waging war, which is the essence 557 00:53:14,039 --> 00:53:17,519 of politics. And thus you have, you know, the science 558 00:53:17,519 --> 00:53:27,280 of the political, you know. And it was considered something 559 00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:31,360 of a faux pap I mean the faintly even right 560 00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:33,960 word for it. It was something that wouldn't have occurred 561 00:53:34,079 --> 00:53:38,400 to people, even people even learned men of high breeding 562 00:53:38,679 --> 00:53:43,000 in Athens or Sparta, who have something of a punitive 563 00:53:43,079 --> 00:53:47,239 view of the military command structure and the weighted wage 564 00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:53,679 the war, or of the senior men in the political apparatus, 565 00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:56,000 like even if they even if they had, you know, 566 00:53:56,039 --> 00:53:58,559 like a critical view of these things, it wouldn't really 567 00:53:58,559 --> 00:54:01,519 have occurred to them, you know, to kind of write 568 00:54:01,599 --> 00:54:09,599 about the sort of baser impulses they animate individual men 569 00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:14,599 within these structures. It wouldn't really have occurred to anybody 570 00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:23,800 to draw like a kind of punitive portrait of the 571 00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:30,679 police which nurtured them and decline. Okay, Now, through Cinities, obviously, 572 00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:37,280 the punishment generally for a commander who lost a war 573 00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:42,079 was death. Okay. The Cynities was such a great man. 574 00:54:42,119 --> 00:54:46,519 He was spared and he was banished. Okay, So there's 575 00:54:46,519 --> 00:54:49,679 some scholars will say that, like, well, Vicnities was an 576 00:54:49,679 --> 00:54:56,599 embittered man, so he's, you know, got he's kind of 577 00:54:56,599 --> 00:55:01,559 presenting the war in a light least favorable to his 578 00:55:01,559 --> 00:55:18,480 own country. I don't think that's true because specifically, in specifically, 579 00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:22,360 in some of the dialogues, he's clearly resorting to a 580 00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:30,519 kind of apologia in favor of Athens. The Spartans interestingly, 581 00:55:30,599 --> 00:55:33,519 had come to blame themselves when the war was going 582 00:55:33,559 --> 00:55:36,880 badly for them, and Sparta want a pyrrhic victory. Okay, 583 00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,679 And I'll get into the I'll get into the specifics 584 00:55:42,679 --> 00:55:48,519 of this, but the Spartan suit for war after the 585 00:55:48,559 --> 00:55:52,400 Athenian contingent, many of whom were actually living in Sparta 586 00:55:53,079 --> 00:55:56,199 because they were doing business there. They approached the Spartan 587 00:55:56,239 --> 00:56:05,880 Assembly and they kind of like laid bare that they 588 00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:10,719 intended to continue on their course of conquest, no matter 589 00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:19,119 what the human costs owing to fact that the Stroma 590 00:56:19,159 --> 00:56:25,679 always dominate the week, and you know, war arrives like 591 00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:30,519 the seasons, and when war and rumors of war abound, 592 00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:35,079 I'm paraphrasing here. You know, we are going to preempt that, 593 00:56:35,559 --> 00:56:39,360 and you know we're going to abide the will of 594 00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:44,280 the gods the fullest, because what is the highest good, 595 00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,360 you know, the highest good is you know, to be 596 00:56:47,440 --> 00:57:00,159 remembered historically, you know. And there was some and some 597 00:57:00,199 --> 00:57:04,800 of the learned men and Sparreda subsequently viewed this as 598 00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:11,119 a safe facing measure, face saving measure by the Athenian delegation. 599 00:57:11,639 --> 00:57:14,679 That was an invitation to arbitration in lieu of warfare, 600 00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:17,760 while letting the Spartan safe face because they were being 601 00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:23,320 in de facto insulted. Vicinity says that's not true. He 602 00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,840 says these people were as obtuse as they appeared to be, 603 00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:31,880 you know. At the same time, he basically presents the 604 00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:38,760 Spartan system as inflexible to the point that it couldn't 605 00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:44,719 really respond to existential crises with any other paradigm other 606 00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:51,320 than like a directly military response, which is true. I 607 00:57:51,360 --> 00:57:53,400 think it's weird that people hold out Sparta as this 608 00:57:53,559 --> 00:57:57,760 like base society. Sparta was all fucked up, you know, 609 00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:00,639 like it wasn't like you know, you know all the 610 00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:03,920 you know how you don't read books by Spartan philosophers. 611 00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,519 You want to know why because there weren't any you know, 612 00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:16,480 the reason why people like Hobsbaugh. I'm like Sparta is 613 00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:21,599 because there was something in primitive terms. The Peloponnese was 614 00:58:21,639 --> 00:58:24,239 not primitive and cultural terms at all, but I mean 615 00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:28,480 it's in technological terms. They did practice a kind of 616 00:58:28,559 --> 00:58:33,880 radical socialism. I trust me people would not like, like 617 00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:36,360 twenty first century guys. I think the right wing would 618 00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:42,559 not would not have liked living in Sparta. Okay, but yeah, 619 00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:45,400 we're coming up about on an hour. I don't want 620 00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,360 to dive into the Peloponnese in war. We'll do that 621 00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:51,760 next episode. But I didn't cover as we as they 622 00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:53,079 want to do here. I'll try and pick up the 623 00:58:53,119 --> 00:58:58,360 pace next time. But yeah, that's I hope that people 624 00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:01,840 found this to be worthwhile awesome. 625 00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:06,000 Speaker 1: You can't wait till the next episode. Well, considering that 626 00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:10,639 Twitter is doing what Twitter does to you, where can 627 00:59:10,639 --> 00:59:11,320 people find you? 628 00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:17,239 Speaker 2: Well, I got a discord server now, and I've got 629 00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:19,920 a bunch of other cool things going on. I mean, 630 00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:24,280 my home is always substack, and I'll always be on 631 00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:26,920 social media because you have to have a presence there. 632 00:59:27,639 --> 00:59:34,559 But I think social media is kind of especially especially AX, 633 00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:38,320 is kind of bullshit. I mean, there's some stories regime aside, 634 00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:42,559 it's just kind of a bullshit platform. But people could 635 00:59:42,599 --> 00:59:46,440 come to my substack. It's real Thomas seven seven seven 636 00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:50,000 dot substack dot com. We got a pretty active Telegram 637 00:59:50,079 --> 00:59:53,719 channel too, now you can find that there. I'm on Instagram. 638 00:59:53,960 --> 00:59:56,440 The discord server is hopping like a whole bunch of 639 00:59:56,599 --> 00:59:59,719 a whole bunch of the guys. We got a bunch 640 00:59:59,719 --> 01:00:01,599 of an We've got a text channel, we got a 641 01:00:01,679 --> 01:00:05,920 voice channel, we got like a multimedia channel. This week, 642 01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:11,199 I'm is very harried and a dear friend of mine 643 01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:13,280 and ours is coming to town tomorrow. I got to 644 01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:15,760 meet him at the airport and chaperon him around the city, 645 01:00:16,079 --> 01:00:21,440 and then we got symphony tickets on Saturday a bunch 646 01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:24,679 of the Homeland faction guys and night. And plus I've 647 01:00:24,719 --> 01:00:27,880 also got like, I got some long form stuff I 648 01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:30,639 gotta I really do need to complete because I owe 649 01:00:30,679 --> 01:00:33,800 it to other people. But so now mu's gonna be 650 01:00:34,079 --> 01:00:37,079 the Discord channels topping. Go visit it and use it. 651 01:00:37,159 --> 01:00:40,760 But I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be real 652 01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:44,960 active with new stuff until next week. But yeah, that's 653 01:00:45,119 --> 01:00:47,840 go to substick. You'll find a link to the Discord. 654 01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:50,719 You'll find a link to my telegram at Long Last 655 01:00:50,800 --> 01:00:57,920 that released the documentary from Utah. It's anybody who's a subscriber, 656 01:00:58,199 --> 01:01:01,280 a paid subscriber can access it it. I think you'll 657 01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:05,400 enjoy it. My my dear friend Rake and I were 658 01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:12,039 gonna film another movie this summer and uh as I 659 01:01:12,079 --> 01:01:15,320 transition to more video content, and I hope people will 660 01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:18,360 will find it worth well. But that's what I got, 661 01:01:18,559 --> 01:01:20,800 all right, and so part two I look forward to it. 662 01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:42,639 Thank you. Thomas H.