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Thomas, what's happening 23 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:56,079 you do. 24 00:01:56,200 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 2: Man, I'm doing okay, thanks for hosting me. I realized 25 00:02:02,879 --> 00:02:06,519 that literally the subject of this series is condinal philosophy 26 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:10,360 like a capital C. But I'm gonna have to spend 27 00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:19,000 time with Thomas Hobbes. First of all, that Hobbs in 28 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:26,639 dialogue with the condin old tradition, and he's a counterpart 29 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:31,400 to Machiavelli. And if you want to understand modern political philosophy, 30 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:35,280 there's a really good book that Leo Strauss wrote on this, 31 00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:44,120 and Strauss's scholarship that's not of a polemical character, is 32 00:02:44,159 --> 00:02:50,479 actually really good. I maintained he was like an important academic. Okay, 33 00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:54,400 but if you want to understand, one of the reasons 34 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:56,919 why I called Schmidt was so much in dialogue with Hobbes. 35 00:02:57,240 --> 00:03:00,120 I think of Schmidt Schmid's relation with the Hobbes as 36 00:03:00,199 --> 00:03:06,159 being not on lake Mars's relationship to Hegel. It's complicated, 37 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,639 but we're gonna have to talk about Hobbs and Machiavelli. 38 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:15,520 And I'm gonna tackle Hobbs first because in a lot 39 00:03:15,520 --> 00:03:22,639 of respects, I think he's the more significant theorist, especially considering, 40 00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:33,159 you know, the guiding ideology of the political monoculture of globalism, 41 00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:38,719 and Hobbs is ill understood by people, Like some people 42 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,360 view him as this kind of tepid reactionary who's just 43 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:51,280 making concessions to what became enlightenment shibblis, you know. Other 44 00:03:51,319 --> 00:03:57,960 people view him as sort of a theorist of crisis actors. 45 00:04:00,159 --> 00:04:06,680 Neither of those things are really true, you know. And 46 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:12,319 also one of the reasons why the political culture of 47 00:04:12,319 --> 00:04:20,639 the UK tells us things, especially for somebody who's proverbial 48 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,839 stock in trade as regards to the research concentrations, as 49 00:04:23,879 --> 00:04:29,199 comparative politics, there's a microcosm of what happens on the 50 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:36,240 continent in many ways in the British Isles, and the 51 00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:42,720 Thirty Years Wore didn't touch and concern the UK obviously 52 00:04:42,759 --> 00:04:46,079 like it did the continent, but the War Three Kingdoms, 53 00:04:47,399 --> 00:04:50,160 there's a lot of common causes obleak to what was 54 00:04:50,199 --> 00:04:53,920 happening across the English Channel. And the ascendency of Cromwell. 55 00:04:54,319 --> 00:04:56,879 Brahmo was very much a Mohammed or Adolf Hitler, a 56 00:04:56,920 --> 00:04:59,879 Napoleon type figure. I'd say that he was, in fa 57 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:04,519 act sort of the splendid example of that archetype. And 58 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:09,120 Cromwell is a great man, you know, but beyond the 59 00:05:09,199 --> 00:05:15,480 obvious fact of his significance, the paradigms of a historical 60 00:05:15,519 --> 00:05:24,000 and conceptual character that created him are are highly significant 61 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:33,360 to anybody who seeks to identify ultimate causes in a 62 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:42,319 processes of mind and the ongoing phenomena of you know, 63 00:05:42,439 --> 00:05:49,680 conceptual discourse that creates political reality. So we're gonna dive 64 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:52,079 into Hobbes for the next this episode of the next one, 65 00:05:52,079 --> 00:05:57,240 we're gonna dive into Hobbs in Machiavilli for context too. 66 00:05:57,279 --> 00:06:00,839 If you read people like John Meersheimer, these like neo 67 00:06:00,959 --> 00:06:04,519 realist types. They claim, like I said at the outset 68 00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:08,240 of this series, that people like Thucidides, you know, represented 69 00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:14,360 a tendency towards realism. That's nonsense. However, in the case 70 00:06:14,399 --> 00:06:18,399 of Hobbs, who they like to claim as well, it's 71 00:06:18,399 --> 00:06:24,399 somewhat less off base. There's something to that Hobbs was 72 00:06:24,399 --> 00:06:27,480 a mathematician at base, and something I've noticed that people 73 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:31,800 don't fully understand unless they grew up reading the King 74 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,839 James Bible and stuff like that. When Hobbs talks about geometry, 75 00:06:36,079 --> 00:06:39,079 he's talking about all of mathematics. He's also talking about 76 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:46,160 physics and physical sciences. You know, that was kind of 77 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:49,879 the convention of academ at the time. And it's also 78 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:54,680 relevant because one of the things that was happening at 79 00:06:54,680 --> 00:07:01,560 this point is during you know, the scientific Revolution and uh, 80 00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:07,040 you know, the proto Enlightenment and and and beyond, was 81 00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:10,759 that general knowledge what there to for had been considered 82 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:18,000 general knowledge was bifurcating, but it hadn't fully been the 83 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:25,639 the verbal schisms hadn't fully ossified yet. So basically, when 84 00:07:25,759 --> 00:07:31,480 when Hobbs says in geometry, he's talking about mathematics theoretical 85 00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:40,360 and poetical, and he's talking about physics. Okay, Hobbes's impunitive 86 00:07:40,439 --> 00:07:45,439 dialogue with Aristotle, and the key to that is his 87 00:07:45,759 --> 00:07:49,800 ontological description of what it is for man to live 88 00:07:49,839 --> 00:07:51,680 in nature, and we'll get to that in a minute. 89 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:58,959 But Hobbes viewed his mandate as well as uh, his 90 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:04,000 mission was to cultivate a scientific basis of political and 91 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:07,319 ethical philosophy. And this is the first time anybody had 92 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:16,839 really attempted this. Okay, Now that's got certain implications, not 93 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:21,920 the least to which is that it essentially calls for 94 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:29,839 extricating any ambition to perfect a man or to force 95 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:34,279 political ethics to comport with what is otherwise understood to 96 00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:41,279 be a virtuous soul and conduct derived therein. It's brutally pragmatic, 97 00:08:42,039 --> 00:08:46,360 and Hobbs goes even further and suggests that moral evaluations 98 00:08:47,480 --> 00:08:52,799 are basically extrapolated from these kinds of instinctive things of 99 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:58,000 a pragmatic nature, and the kind of progeny of reason 100 00:08:58,159 --> 00:09:02,320 within any man capable of it is that you know, 101 00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:07,360 he's acting in his own self interest. And that doesn't 102 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:12,519 mean he doesn't have any attachments or or or genuine feelings, 103 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:15,639 burn't of passions, not reason, but it means that when 104 00:09:15,639 --> 00:09:23,039 he acts politically and civically in total sociological terms, and 105 00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:27,039 he actually takes is basically self interested and what he 106 00:09:27,159 --> 00:09:35,840 purports to be a reciprocal abiding of duties, it more 107 00:09:35,919 --> 00:09:39,600 derives from, you know, a kind of non aggression pack 108 00:09:39,679 --> 00:09:44,240 to further that self interest with other similarly situated individuals 109 00:09:44,279 --> 00:09:47,960 than it does any sort of high or moral imperative. 110 00:09:49,639 --> 00:09:51,559 We'll get into what's wrong with that probably in the 111 00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:54,799 next episode, but just laying foundation, we're getting a little 112 00:09:54,799 --> 00:09:56,840 bit ahead of what I want to cover in Livning 113 00:09:56,840 --> 00:10:06,600 your Terms. But obviously the challenge they're in vis a 114 00:10:06,679 --> 00:10:10,080 vis that first postulate, how to cultivate, how to cultivate 115 00:10:10,120 --> 00:10:16,519 and curate a scientific basis of political philosophy. There's got 116 00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:21,240 to be some sort of basis for civic society that 117 00:10:21,399 --> 00:10:26,919 is permanent, that can coexist with that first partiulate and 118 00:10:27,159 --> 00:10:30,879 mitigate what otherwise would be the proverbial war of all 119 00:10:30,919 --> 00:10:34,039 against dall, and possibly the literal war of all against all. 120 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:41,720 So some kind of ambition within the individuals who constantly 121 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,519 the body politic and make the mistake, and Hobbes's view, 122 00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:50,360 they are animized individuals in their natural state, some sort 123 00:10:50,399 --> 00:10:55,519 of impulse towards fulfillment of civic duty incidental active citizenship 124 00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:07,200 has to be cultivated. And this is a no mean feat. Now, 125 00:11:09,399 --> 00:11:11,960 this is also kind of the birth of analytic philosophy 126 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:17,039 in my opinion, as we think of it. Okay, because 127 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:21,320 the way Hobbs reationalizes what I just said and the 128 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:24,960 way he approaches that paradigm. How to reconcile these apparently 129 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:38,840 conflicting tendencies is by modeling sovereign authority and the essential 130 00:11:38,919 --> 00:11:48,840 characteristics of sovereignty on a kind of systemic discourse. Now 131 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:55,080 to Hobbes, what was always most imperative, whether we're talking 132 00:11:55,120 --> 00:12:03,120 about how to inculcate the body politic with civic responsibility, 133 00:12:04,840 --> 00:12:08,440 or how to you know, define the parameters of sovereign 134 00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:15,480 authority and describing what its essential characteristics are. He was 135 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:20,440 always fundamentally concerned with tethering the practical and theoretical and 136 00:12:20,759 --> 00:12:25,200 any theory of state craft or ethical philosophy. He considered 137 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:30,320 it a vital imperative that it comport essentially splendidly with 138 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:36,279 with practice. Okay, this is very much at odds with 139 00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:41,039 in some ways. This is the opposite of the classical orientation. 140 00:12:41,519 --> 00:12:46,679 And Machiavelli made that same point, although his purposes were 141 00:12:46,679 --> 00:12:49,639 totally different than he was addressing a totally different audience. 142 00:12:50,679 --> 00:13:02,399 You know, which is significant, it's not, it's in essential 143 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:19,440 ways the In other words, I was looking for the 144 00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:26,519 right way to describe this. Machiavelli, he viewed the Aristotilian 145 00:13:28,919 --> 00:13:33,200 model is aiming too high, you know, when in fact, 146 00:13:33,279 --> 00:13:36,639 politics is base and the political realm, which is a 147 00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:40,320 discrete sphere of human activity, the currency of it is 148 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:43,840 violence at the end of the day, and it is 149 00:13:43,919 --> 00:13:51,720 power activity. In ontological terms, Hobbes's view was really that 150 00:13:51,879 --> 00:13:56,960 of the mathematician, you know, and again like Hobbesian geometry 151 00:13:57,159 --> 00:14:01,440 is basically proto analytic philosophy, Hobbs wasn't concerned with whether 152 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:06,559 it was too lofty and ambition to curate virtue within 153 00:14:06,559 --> 00:14:08,840 the political His view is that it's nothing to do 154 00:14:08,919 --> 00:14:11,399 with praxis and it doesn't mitigate the war of all 155 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:15,720 against all, So what use is it? You know, it's 156 00:14:15,759 --> 00:14:17,960 to him it would be like arguing over like the 157 00:14:18,039 --> 00:14:22,639 aesthetic beauty of numbers or something in lieu of actually devising, 158 00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:26,559 you know, formulas that can create a bridge or a 159 00:14:26,679 --> 00:14:32,600 house that you know, can stand up to weathering tensions 160 00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:37,399 and things like that. You know. In some ways, I 161 00:14:37,519 --> 00:14:41,679 go as far as to say Hobbs's paradigm is substantially 162 00:14:41,679 --> 00:14:47,360 more brutal than that amachia Velli. And I think people 163 00:14:47,399 --> 00:14:51,559 don't understand that because in their view, like they don't 164 00:14:51,639 --> 00:14:59,559 understand that the kind of core philosophical curriculum of progressivism 165 00:14:59,639 --> 00:15:02,360 is see a very brutal ideology. I go as far 166 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:06,639 as to say it's anti human. Okay, it's not like 167 00:15:06,639 --> 00:15:08,960 people have this idea They're like, oh, that's like liberal stuff, 168 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:12,960 so which look for pussies or something. Yeah, there's definitely 169 00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:15,440 an aspect of it, especially considering we live in an 170 00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:21,559 age of conceptual i literacy. But the original progressives, the 171 00:15:21,679 --> 00:15:27,279 kind of original Enlightenment utopian types, they have no problem 172 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:29,960 with killing huge numbers of people in order to realize 173 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:33,320 this supposedly sort of like perfect geometry of the political 174 00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:38,639 you know, and that's there's something pretty monstrous about that, 175 00:15:40,799 --> 00:15:46,759 just as an aside, but you know, it's also too, 176 00:15:46,799 --> 00:15:55,440 It's not Hobbs is credited with this egalitarianism and make 177 00:15:55,519 --> 00:16:01,120 a mistake, like contra Aristotle, he completely rejected the ontology 178 00:16:01,159 --> 00:16:03,000 of you know then you know, men who were like 179 00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:06,320 naturally fit to command and the natural sleeve. But he 180 00:16:06,360 --> 00:16:08,240 didn't do that because he thought that like there was 181 00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:11,559 equal dignity to like all people. He said that because 182 00:16:11,559 --> 00:16:16,159 he said, there's a basic equality within within violence, Okay, 183 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:20,440 because any man can kill another man, you know, if 184 00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:22,919 he's cutting enough, and if he's ruthless enough, and if 185 00:16:22,919 --> 00:16:27,240 he in corral enough allies for the immediate task at hand. 186 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:33,559 Like basically, equality within the political realm is you know, 187 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:39,039 it belongs to it. It's an equality of violence, Okay, 188 00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:41,639 it's like an equality of the capacity to commit murder, 189 00:16:42,840 --> 00:16:45,039 and it has nothing to do with like the intrinsic 190 00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:53,679 dignity of the human being or anything like that. Francis 191 00:16:53,799 --> 00:16:58,320 Bacon echoes some of this, or is echoed in in 192 00:16:58,399 --> 00:17:06,920 both bodies of work, like Baking claim that Aristotilian politics 193 00:17:07,279 --> 00:17:13,319 was imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths. You know. So there's 194 00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:16,960 a self conse repudiation of the classical view of the 195 00:17:17,039 --> 00:17:21,240 political you know. But that again, that doesn't mean it 196 00:17:21,319 --> 00:17:24,240 make it liberal in the contemporary sense or anything like that. 197 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:30,240 But this is the basis for this kind of rejection 198 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:37,920 of what theretofore had been, you know, the basic understanding 199 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:43,519 of human nature and his intrinsic sociality and him being 200 00:17:43,599 --> 00:17:49,039 born to an identitarian structure, him being born to a 201 00:17:49,079 --> 00:17:58,000 policy in the terms of you know, the source material. 202 00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:08,240 You know. So, in other words, the true roots of 203 00:18:08,319 --> 00:18:15,720 human behavior aren't really historical in nature. They're basically mathematical 204 00:18:16,039 --> 00:18:24,720 or geometric. The Hobbesian view and Leviathan, which is what 205 00:18:24,799 --> 00:18:32,039 we're concerned with, is Leviathan is that it's not a 206 00:18:32,079 --> 00:18:35,839 waste of time or irrelevant to study the historical record 207 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:38,599 and even to identify processes they're in. But this has 208 00:18:38,599 --> 00:18:44,400 nothing to do with identifying the proximate or ultimate causes 209 00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:51,279 a human behavior or identifying what the sources are of 210 00:18:53,039 --> 00:19:00,680 passions that translate to violence of a political nature. You know. 211 00:19:06,039 --> 00:19:13,960 So what Hobbs suggests in lieu of, you know, both 212 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,640 what Plato did in the Republic as well as whatever 213 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:20,880 stotled it in the Nico Mockey and ethics and the 214 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:28,119 politics by saying that you know, philosophy, if we accept 215 00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:33,920 that philosophy as a science, and that politics is within 216 00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,200 that number of and thus is you know, like a 217 00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:46,279 subcategory of that scientific discipline that you know, there's one 218 00:19:46,279 --> 00:19:49,599 of two ways to proceed with identifying what are the 219 00:19:49,640 --> 00:20:02,319 bases of human action, you know, individually or collectively. One 220 00:20:02,319 --> 00:20:08,519 of those ways is what Hobbs called synthetically, which in 221 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:16,640 brass tags turns involves identifying or reasoning out the generating 222 00:20:16,799 --> 00:20:24,559 causes of human action and tracing the process to apparent 223 00:20:24,599 --> 00:20:33,960 effects of those motives and causes. The second aspect or 224 00:20:34,079 --> 00:20:43,079 method of identifying these core impulses is what he called 225 00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:53,880 resolutive or in plain English, analytical, which is basically deductive. Okay, 226 00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:57,319 and this becomes important as for reasons I'll get to 227 00:20:57,359 --> 00:21:04,640 in a minute. The resolute or the analytical, it begins 228 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:11,880 with effects, identifies the facts that constitute the essential aspect 229 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:19,599 of those effects, and then traces possible causes of their generation, 230 00:21:20,279 --> 00:21:24,640 you know, based on the totality of quantifiable variables and 231 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:31,480 the conditions in which they're situated. How is this possible 232 00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:36,319 considering you know, what most people consider to be the 233 00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:39,839 political and you know, the metaphysical aspects that go into it. 234 00:21:40,119 --> 00:21:43,599 Hobbs that say, there are no metaphysical aspects there, you know, 235 00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:46,200 the first principles of all things that define its body 236 00:21:46,319 --> 00:21:51,519 or matter, you know, and how motion, change of place, 237 00:21:51,599 --> 00:21:59,480 and self directed action bears on, you know, that matter. 238 00:22:00,039 --> 00:22:02,319 That doesn't mean a Hobbs was saying that there's not 239 00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,279 such a thing as like a domain of mind. But 240 00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:09,759 he's saying that we're you know, again, the pratice of 241 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:14,720 political science has to line up with the theory of 242 00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:20,079 human action, you know. And basically he's talking about war 243 00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:26,160 and peace, okay, because that's really all that the political 244 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,680 is concerned with as regards the human condition, and the 245 00:22:29,759 --> 00:22:33,519 political is always the business of war and peace. It's 246 00:22:33,559 --> 00:22:38,000 not you know, it's not how to make men better. 247 00:22:38,559 --> 00:22:41,640 It's not how to identify what virtue is, you know, 248 00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:44,480 in the police or in a man, or in a woman, 249 00:22:44,519 --> 00:22:46,519 And how to curate these things is none of that, 250 00:22:47,759 --> 00:22:51,279 you know. It's how to identify the source of human 251 00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:56,880 passions that animates men to violence, how to mitigate those things, 252 00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:00,240 or at least channel those energies constructively, and while doing that, 253 00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:08,920 how to prevent the deterioration into a kind of superficially 254 00:23:11,079 --> 00:23:18,519 dignified brutishness that you know, simply a dresses up nakedly 255 00:23:19,519 --> 00:23:27,240 ambitious violence, as as some sort of noble endeavor, you know, 256 00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:32,119 And how do we accomplish these things well? Inculcating people 257 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:37,200 with a kind of civic responsibility that makes active citizenship 258 00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,079 into something that is beneficial to all the individuals who 259 00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:42,680 collect that we make up the body politic well at 260 00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:51,119 the same time creating a strong enough civic apparatus that 261 00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,880 can fend off enemies from without. Like we haven't even 262 00:23:53,920 --> 00:24:00,359 gotten to how this translates to preparateness and waging war 263 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:04,039 against or deterring external enemies. We're only talking about, bas essentially, 264 00:24:04,079 --> 00:24:09,440 how to how to manage civil society and generate what 265 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,000 we know of as you know, a functioning state where 266 00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:18,440 you know, non aggression is what reigns between the otherwise 267 00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,559 annamized individuals who constantly the body politic. We haven't even 268 00:24:21,599 --> 00:24:31,960 gotten to, you know, questions beyond that. So this is complicated, 269 00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,640 but it's it is internally logical, even if one rejects 270 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:50,559 it outright, you know the uh. And of course there's 271 00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:57,400 a what I think of as if we can think 272 00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:02,519 of to draw an improved analogy. If we're gonna think 273 00:25:02,559 --> 00:25:08,160 of Nietzsche's constant of eternal recurrence, it's kind of his 274 00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:14,480 counterpart to constant categorical imperative, kind of the hob Besian 275 00:25:14,559 --> 00:25:21,079 counterpart to both would be what would be or, rather 276 00:25:21,279 --> 00:25:26,480 more perfectly, Hobbes's version of I think therefore I am. 277 00:25:28,039 --> 00:25:32,480 If it was put to Hobbes, or if this paradigm 278 00:25:32,519 --> 00:25:35,920 was challenged by well, how can you begin to speculate 279 00:25:36,079 --> 00:25:39,680 about the passions of other men? And what concepts of things? 280 00:25:40,319 --> 00:25:45,319 Hobbs would say, Well, any every rational man possess passions 281 00:25:45,319 --> 00:25:51,680 of one sort or another. He can identify, what you know, 282 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,720 within the parameters the bounded parameters of reason, he will 283 00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:59,319 do to satisfy or accomplish things that will save those passions. 284 00:25:59,759 --> 00:26:02,720 So essentially you have like a living example within your 285 00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:07,160 own mind and heart of what the human condition is, 286 00:26:08,079 --> 00:26:12,079 and inductively you can extrapolate things about humans from that, 287 00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:19,039 you know, And this is universal because like cob would 288 00:26:19,079 --> 00:26:22,640 say in rebuttal to the people saying like, well, what 289 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,519 about sectarian motives or what about people are situated in 290 00:26:26,599 --> 00:26:30,799 different task paradigms, That doesn't matter because again we're talking 291 00:26:30,839 --> 00:26:33,519 about the political like, we're not talking about people's view 292 00:26:33,599 --> 00:26:36,519 of what is good. We're not talking about somebody's like 293 00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:42,920 esthetic judgments. And the equality of violence is what renders 294 00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:51,119 this universal, you know. And again I there's serious problems 295 00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:58,119 with this, with this entire paradigm, but there's something to 296 00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,039 a lot of what is being said, and that's why 297 00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:07,799 Schmidt obviously rejected outright the this the Habisian description of 298 00:27:07,839 --> 00:27:14,000 the state of nature. You know, Schmidt viewed the first 299 00:27:14,079 --> 00:27:22,680 community as the folk community, that's the pre rational identitarian criteria. However, 300 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,039 you know, Schmidt also said that Hobbes was the greatest 301 00:27:26,039 --> 00:27:33,160 political scientists who ever lived, you know, and uh, I 302 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:38,039 don't totally disagree, you know, So this is important and 303 00:27:38,079 --> 00:27:42,319 I'll also add, and I realize I'm jumping around a bit, 304 00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,759 one of the things that the kind of current I 305 00:27:49,799 --> 00:27:54,200 sort of midwid political science Academy is right about two. 306 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,119 You know, during the Cold War, a lot of attention 307 00:27:57,319 --> 00:28:00,880 was paid to Hobbs, especially what had to say about 308 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:08,240 political psychology and the economy of violence, you know, And this, 309 00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,720 this is really the basis of game theory is applied 310 00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:15,240 to conflict paradigms. You know, this is very important, you know. 311 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:23,799 And anybody, anybody who's learned in this subject matter, who 312 00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,720 picks up Leviathan, it'll start to jump out at them 313 00:28:26,799 --> 00:28:30,799 where they've seen these where they've seen these claims and postulates, 314 00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:35,400 and these analogies pop up again and again, you know, 315 00:28:35,519 --> 00:28:40,599 and all in all kinds of discrete sources. So it's 316 00:28:40,599 --> 00:28:43,880 not it's it's not just a matter of kind of 317 00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,559 developing a conceptual picture or the history of political theory 318 00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,920 or something. It's important to read Hobbs for all kinds 319 00:28:49,920 --> 00:29:00,920 of reasons, so you know, And I go as far 320 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:04,359 to say too, and I'll move on in a minute. 321 00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,559 Anybody who reads my stuff, I think discerns and I'm 322 00:29:09,599 --> 00:29:14,720 a radically inductive thinker, and that's probably exacerbated by the 323 00:29:14,799 --> 00:29:21,480 fact that you know, I I I was a lawyer, 324 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:28,200 and legal reasoning, uh tends to be highly inductive. But 325 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:33,039 that uh, this has been outside the scope. But if 326 00:29:33,079 --> 00:29:43,200 you accept that the Hobbisian claim that politics is basically 327 00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:52,039 a subcategory of of of geometry, you know, and and 328 00:29:52,039 --> 00:29:56,640 and as a science and to itself, it's essential that 329 00:29:57,079 --> 00:30:03,400 one proceeded inductively in order to reach conclusions about the 330 00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:08,640 human condition, which is its subject matter, the variables being 331 00:30:08,839 --> 00:30:15,279 humans and their capacity for violence and everything that associated 332 00:30:15,319 --> 00:30:18,640 with that. And for the reasons I just enumerated that 333 00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:25,200 that's implicitly inductive. You know, that's the only way relevant 334 00:30:25,319 --> 00:30:31,359 data can be derived that could line up the theory 335 00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:39,200 with practice, which within the Habizian paradigm is the that's 336 00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:45,759 the ultimate objective of of political science. You know, and 337 00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:56,480 arguably have analytic philosophy in the total sense. But you know, 338 00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:06,000 by but also by looking into oneself, you know, there's 339 00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:11,359 predictive that's really your only like moment to moment living 340 00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,920 model of a human mind where one can overcome the 341 00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:20,359 barriers of you know, the idiosynacy of thought, because obviously 342 00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,680 you can't see into another man or woman's mind. You know, 343 00:31:23,759 --> 00:31:28,799 you can speculate about things, you can. There're there's predictable 344 00:31:29,519 --> 00:31:34,680 nuances and observable variables the human behavior, but there's there 345 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:40,799 are no absolute indicators. But somebody who's capable of stepping 346 00:31:40,799 --> 00:31:46,160 outside themselves for the purpose of inductively discerning and identifying 347 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,839 the core variables of political behavior. You know, you do 348 00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,440 have a kind of moment to moment model in your 349 00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:59,839 own mind. And that's not naval gazing. That's not you know, 350 00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:05,920 positing oneself at the center of things. It's nothing like that. Again, 351 00:32:06,559 --> 00:32:09,920 the qualifier is somebody who's cable is stepping outside themselves 352 00:32:10,279 --> 00:32:13,880 as a scientist does you know. And we're speaking about 353 00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:18,000 a discrete domain of human activity, you know, we're not 354 00:32:18,039 --> 00:32:20,400 talking generally about like what food you like, or what 355 00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:22,920 kinds of women you find pretty or why or whether 356 00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,720 you like the Las Vegas readers, you know, And this 357 00:32:26,839 --> 00:32:29,319 is key also, you know, you've got to look at 358 00:32:29,319 --> 00:32:33,759 the political as a discrete domain of human activity, you know. 359 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,599 And this is another thing that separates Hobbs from contemporary 360 00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,400 liberals that they don't understand this, you know, those that 361 00:32:41,599 --> 00:32:46,200 did in the past outright rejected that but I you 362 00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:50,720 know that that distinction has been abolished. So there's that too. 363 00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:56,039 Hobbs is a type of theorist that doesn't really exist 364 00:32:56,119 --> 00:33:04,519 anymore in all kinds of ways. But you know, so 365 00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:09,440 at the end of the day, human behavior to Hobbes, 366 00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,240 it's not this the platonic hierarchy of you know, reason, 367 00:33:13,319 --> 00:33:17,640 will and passion. And obviously Freud, I mean, Freud was 368 00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,400 a con man, but he was also just kind of 369 00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:25,640 like a a simple mighty plagiarist. You know, reason, will 370 00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:32,960 and passion is super ego ego id Okay, But Aristotle 371 00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:41,319 essentially abided that despite you know, his political ontology basically 372 00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:46,319 deviating from the platon this model, and this was the 373 00:33:46,359 --> 00:33:51,799 classical understanding, you know. And Hobbs is no, no, no, no, no. 374 00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:56,880 Human behavior is primarily a mechanistic psychology of the passions, okay, 375 00:33:58,359 --> 00:34:03,240 as applied to the political those the forces that pre 376 00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:08,719 rationally animate him. You know. Now, of course, man being 377 00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:14,760 capable of reason, he'll devise rational ways and calculated ways 378 00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:22,920 to again, like say, the hunger's figuredtive in literal born 379 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:29,480 of these passions, but the core animating principles and phenomenon 380 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:34,280 or what so to speak, pushes him from behind, you know, 381 00:34:34,639 --> 00:34:38,840 he's not the product of like rational contemplation, you know. 382 00:34:39,519 --> 00:34:46,920 And how when ranks the objects of this passionate convetousness, 383 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,280 that's going to vary from man to man, you know. 384 00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,199 And again, like any given man's constitution, education, social standing, 385 00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:02,519 this tends to obscure things to some degree, but not 386 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:07,519 really because anything that is realizable in the political realm, 387 00:35:08,039 --> 00:35:12,800 you know, again, our currency is violence. There's not infinite 388 00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:18,559 ways to configure violence to derive some sort of reward 389 00:35:18,679 --> 00:35:24,199 capable of sating any thing, any on anything on the 390 00:35:24,199 --> 00:35:29,119 spectrum of the litany of passions, you know, and obviously 391 00:35:29,159 --> 00:35:34,000 the constant ones of this too in political terms, you know, 392 00:35:34,199 --> 00:35:40,079 Hobbs posits that is positive rather that good and evil 393 00:35:40,159 --> 00:35:44,559 and nothing. These are just words for what characterizes desires 394 00:35:44,559 --> 00:35:49,960 and aversions and how these things can be realized or 395 00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:55,360 avoided by way of political activity, which is again violence 396 00:35:55,599 --> 00:36:02,199 and the economy of violence. You know. So it's meaningless 397 00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:06,239 to talk about, you know, what constitutes of virtuous activity 398 00:36:06,599 --> 00:36:08,920 in the political realm. Now that's not to say there's 399 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,760 not normative convention. That's not to say it's good to 400 00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:17,440 be needlessly violent, but Hobbs would again say, you know, 401 00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:22,400 and returning to the harmony between theory and praxis, it 402 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:27,039 doesn't matter anyway, because what we're worried about is outcomes. 403 00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:31,960 And even if the only reason why, you know, a 404 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,519 political actor shows restraint is because he doesn't want to 405 00:36:35,559 --> 00:36:41,840 be availed to reciprocal violence of a boundlessly, you know, 406 00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:46,880 uninhibited character, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what his 407 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,639 motives are, so long as there's basic compliance with these 408 00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:57,199 normative strictures Taylor to maintain, you know, a permanent peace 409 00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:02,559 within the body politic WISC, constant civic society, you know, 410 00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:09,880 or at least permanent as much as is feasible, you know, 411 00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:25,360 so subtly. Also, to be clear, Hobbes is structuring his arguments, 412 00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,719 at least in Leviathan. I'm not a hobb scholar, but 413 00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:36,360 I've read Leviathan many times, and the structure of his 414 00:37:36,519 --> 00:37:45,519 argument he's qualified. He's qualifiably agreeing with the Soprantic and 415 00:37:45,599 --> 00:37:53,199 the Thomist view absolute view that the character of political 416 00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,960 life it needs to be defined by human nature, or 417 00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:02,599 at least by categorical reference to human nature. But he's 418 00:38:02,599 --> 00:38:06,159 got a completely different concept of what human nature entails. 419 00:38:06,639 --> 00:38:12,519 And furthermore, the subject matters abrogated by the fact that 420 00:38:12,599 --> 00:38:15,599 we're talking about the political as a discrete sphere of 421 00:38:15,639 --> 00:38:26,960 human activity. You know, so you're essentially managing passions by 422 00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:32,880 appeal to reason born of self interest and an understanding 423 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:42,280 that you know, abiding these strictures that facilitate peaceable living 424 00:38:43,639 --> 00:38:48,480 and the non aggression pact between individuals and the body politic. 425 00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:56,679 Any given man capable of reason can divinate that this 426 00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:00,920 is the best way to satisfy the demands and the 427 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:05,119 passions which are pre rational in nature and which have 428 00:39:05,159 --> 00:39:12,039 a greater part of animate the human organism than any 429 00:39:12,039 --> 00:39:21,880 other factors. And as a consequence of that, we can 430 00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:33,119 also extrapolate what what the essence is of sovereign authority. 431 00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:41,320 You know, if the if the political is the economy 432 00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:47,119 of violence, and that's all it is. And if civic 433 00:39:47,159 --> 00:39:56,800 responsibility and the moral consensus within civil society is essentially 434 00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:07,000 an agreement of the on aggression, and you know what 435 00:40:07,159 --> 00:40:13,039 facilitates the realization of the passions, which again are what 436 00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:19,480 animates man in pre rational terms towards any political activity. 437 00:40:20,079 --> 00:40:26,039 The only thing facilitating that is his understanding that you know, 438 00:40:26,119 --> 00:40:30,000 he'll be reasonably free of the fear of him and 439 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:34,559 in death. So the sovereign at the end of the 440 00:40:34,679 --> 00:40:37,440 day is he who decides who lives and dies. And 441 00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:41,880 if you transgress against his sovereign will you will die. 442 00:40:42,199 --> 00:40:46,280 And we're gonna get more into the concept of Leviathan 443 00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:52,880 itself or himself, because the hobbes understanding the state apparatus 444 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,480 and sovereignty has contraryed like literally in a man or 445 00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:01,920 in a person. He believes this is fundamental, but we're 446 00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:07,199 not there yet, but you know, and he'll he'll he 447 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:12,079 gets into the the psycho the symbolic psychological aspect of 448 00:41:12,119 --> 00:41:16,599 how man structures his concept of authority and why this 449 00:41:16,679 --> 00:41:19,880 poll is like a certain fascination over the human psychology. 450 00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:24,559 But at the same time, you know, this isn't really 451 00:41:24,599 --> 00:41:30,079 that important because the fact of the sovereign's ability to 452 00:41:31,079 --> 00:41:36,559 deliver death to the individual at any time in a 453 00:41:36,679 --> 00:41:40,880 universal capacity, that's another thing too, Like before Leviathan, like 454 00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:45,119 all are equal because nobody can fight Leviathan. Leviathan can 455 00:41:45,199 --> 00:41:47,639 kill any man. So whether you're a king or whether 456 00:41:47,639 --> 00:41:50,880 you're a beggar, it doesn't matter. You're like equally vulnerable. 457 00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:57,039 Before Levia then, so you know, even somebody who even 458 00:41:57,039 --> 00:42:01,480 somebody who hated the government, or who who had contempt 459 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,880 for the concept of the divine right of kings, or 460 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:09,800 who rejected out right the concept of authority over him 461 00:42:10,079 --> 00:42:11,920 his body and mind because he was some sort of 462 00:42:12,039 --> 00:42:16,320 anarchist or something, it doesn't matter, because he understands that 463 00:42:17,039 --> 00:42:19,639 he will die if he doesn't abide the sovereign will 464 00:42:19,639 --> 00:42:30,760 of Leviathan. So, you know, again, practises and it's harmonious 465 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:36,559 compliment to theory is what matters. And hobbes go further 466 00:42:36,599 --> 00:42:38,199 and positive to you, Like, how do we even know 467 00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:43,000 like why people are abiding what Leviathan represents? Like even 468 00:42:43,039 --> 00:42:46,559 if they say that they believe in you know, the king, 469 00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:48,880 or they believe in king and country, or they believe 470 00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,800 the emperor is like a divine instantation of of some 471 00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,480 marvelous idea, how would you know if they really think that, 472 00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:59,519 you know, And who's to say this not just some 473 00:42:59,639 --> 00:43:04,440 artific act of you know, the pre rational mind, you know, 474 00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,519 and and the way it develops. It's kind of like 475 00:43:08,559 --> 00:43:12,960 conceptual syntax, so to speak. You know, So that's important 476 00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,320 too when people you know, again, I obviously anybody who 477 00:43:18,199 --> 00:43:21,599 follows what I write and say. You should realize I 478 00:43:22,039 --> 00:43:29,960 basically reject the hot easy and paradigm outright, you know. 479 00:43:31,199 --> 00:43:36,320 But it's but there's an internal logic to it that's 480 00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:43,719 very developed. It's not just nonsense. And uh it's also 481 00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,360 not as debased as something like Bentham, who I think 482 00:43:47,559 --> 00:43:50,000 and this is a sod of discussion kind of reduced demand, 483 00:43:51,199 --> 00:43:58,159 almost like a bovine, you know, roduce me almost like 484 00:43:58,199 --> 00:44:03,840 a talking animal or something. But you know, where we're 485 00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,639 talking about a very we're talking about a very narrow 486 00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:14,199 although fundamentally important I mean, dude to which it's the 487 00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:20,079 sub subject matters life and death, you know, but it's 488 00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:22,480 we're talking about like one kind of narrow domain of 489 00:44:22,559 --> 00:44:27,320 human activity, you know, like Hobbs's business isn't there wasn't 490 00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:30,199 a you know, describe like the human condition and absolute 491 00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:37,039 terms or you know, describe what cos it it's like 492 00:44:37,079 --> 00:44:42,320 a good life or something like that. So that's something 493 00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:45,000 that that's it stay people. It's kind of more punitive 494 00:44:46,639 --> 00:44:55,800 attacks on it. Now there were a buddle obviously even 495 00:44:56,519 --> 00:45:03,000 from people who again uh abide uh the kind of 496 00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:06,800 France's Bacon view, which in a lot of ways is 497 00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:14,320 sympathetic to what I just posited. You know, they there 498 00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:16,639 were there were a buttle that Hobbs from kind of 499 00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:21,760 all quarters, or the attempt to rebuttal is you know, well, okay, fine, 500 00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:28,119 you know if there was no even if you except 501 00:45:28,159 --> 00:45:31,000 that there was no kind of like first society, and 502 00:45:31,159 --> 00:45:33,480 you know, like man is born to the state of nature, 503 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:35,920 like what he's saying, he's being positive here that there 504 00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:39,800 was some just like global state of savagery. Hobbs actually 505 00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:44,719 wrote specifically on this in anticipation of those attempts to rebuttal, 506 00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,639 and what he said was really interesting. Hobbs didn't hobby 507 00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:50,920 it clear, he never he was not saying that there 508 00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:53,239 was ever a state of nature all over the world. 509 00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:57,800 You know, he's saying that at different times, in different places, 510 00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,159 you know, and in any even obviously you know, there's 511 00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:07,840 ordered societies, and there's what we could that or there's 512 00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:13,039 arrangements that says for all the criteria of of political order. 513 00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:17,440 But you know, there's there's just as many other places 514 00:46:17,559 --> 00:46:20,480 you know that exist, you know, in conditions of splendid 515 00:46:20,599 --> 00:46:23,000 anarchy and the war of all against all. And the 516 00:46:23,079 --> 00:46:26,239 example he invoked was the America of the day, you know, 517 00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:32,519 sixteenth century, sixteenth and seventeenth century America was like was this, 518 00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:39,679 you know? And Hobbs said that the America is in 519 00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:46,480 his era, you know, was react by civil wars, independent sovereigns, 520 00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:52,760 all like declaring dominion over you know, various swaths of 521 00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,880 territory and and trade routes. And you know, some of 522 00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,519 these were some of these people were white men, you know, 523 00:46:59,599 --> 00:47:03,559 some of them were some of them were American Indians 524 00:47:04,519 --> 00:47:08,559 who presided in a lot of cases over surprisingly large 525 00:47:08,639 --> 00:47:13,079 amount of what we consider capital and territory. You know. 526 00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,599 So his so Hobbs' example is basically like, well, look 527 00:47:16,599 --> 00:47:19,000 at the Americas, you know, like do you want to 528 00:47:19,199 --> 00:47:21,440 you want an example of the state of nature and 529 00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:26,239 the war of all against all juxtaposed against you know, 530 00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:35,760 sovereign political societies. Like there you go, and this is 531 00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:41,519 what we used to be. And you know that's uh, 532 00:47:42,199 --> 00:47:45,760 that's fairly persuasive. You know. The problem, as I said, 533 00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:51,079 is what the problems that it becomes tautological. I mean, 534 00:47:51,119 --> 00:47:53,880 that's that's a problem with the Enlightenment perspective across the 535 00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,559 board is that you know, if it's like okay, so 536 00:47:56,719 --> 00:48:00,119 if you're gonna if you're gonna reduce human behavior to 537 00:48:01,159 --> 00:48:11,440 individual anomized integers, rendering discreete decisions based on some kind 538 00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:20,599 of biologically in most cases quantifiable impulse, you know, then 539 00:48:20,639 --> 00:48:22,880 it's like, oh, well then then the first society you 540 00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:27,360 must have have just you know, have been this kind 541 00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:30,800 of state of individuals waging war on each other and 542 00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:32,440 it's all you know, And that's not that's not the 543 00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,800 way humans work. You know, You're you're not born as 544 00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:39,679 this individual like doesn't have parentage and and doesn't live 545 00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,280 in a community, and doesn't speak a certain language and 546 00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:49,760 doesn't isn't surrounded by symbols that are resonant in discrete 547 00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:55,519 cultural psychology, that are probably heritable, you know. And beyond 548 00:48:55,599 --> 00:49:01,679 that the whole kind of equality of violence. It there 549 00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:03,840 are some men who are fit for command and some 550 00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:08,960 who are not, Like, like, my example is democratic Campachia. Like, 551 00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,119 you know what the community rouge did. They killed a 552 00:49:11,159 --> 00:49:15,519 third of the population, They killed everybody who was master 553 00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:18,840 cast as they viewed it, Well, okay, where did it? 554 00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:19,559 What happened? 555 00:49:19,559 --> 00:49:19,719 Speaker 1: Then? 556 00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,679 Speaker 2: Did does that mean that the commune rouge is now 557 00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,039 like the permanent government in Camot? You like, No, apparently 558 00:49:27,079 --> 00:49:33,199 four years later they they were dust, you know, And 559 00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:36,559 it's not that that's kind of the logic of the 560 00:49:36,599 --> 00:49:39,599 prison yard or something like. But even there, it's like, 561 00:49:39,639 --> 00:49:43,199 it's not. People don't just like follow around the guy 562 00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:45,719 who's like the most violent man or who has the 563 00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,320 most weapons or something like. That's not how things work. 564 00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:53,119 You know. You follow more often than not, you know, 565 00:49:53,199 --> 00:50:03,639 and people follow, you know, people are hardwired to follow 566 00:50:05,679 --> 00:50:09,599 men who constitute this kind of archetype in their mind 567 00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:17,639 that you know, is comports with some sort of idealized model. 568 00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:23,280 But beyond that, there's just natural human tendencies towards obedience. 569 00:50:24,039 --> 00:50:29,559 You know. Most people aren't capable of discrete action onto itself, 570 00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:36,639 not related to command, from originating from a source to 571 00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:42,559 views authoritative. And anybody who doesn't recognize that doesn't really 572 00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:50,719 it doesn't really know about man, you know. And I 573 00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,519 suppose the counter rebuttal to that is that, well, people 574 00:50:54,519 --> 00:50:57,719 are just educated from birth and condition towards these things. 575 00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:02,519 I mean, okay, but that doesn't explain the perennial existence 576 00:51:02,599 --> 00:51:06,599 of cast paradigms. It's a dozen't, you know. And like 577 00:51:06,679 --> 00:51:11,440 I said, there's not that the twentieth century is a 578 00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:19,199 living laboratory of slaver Boles where people rose up and slaughtered, uh, 579 00:51:20,079 --> 00:51:26,679 the ruling cast, and these experiments were disastrous. You know, 580 00:51:27,159 --> 00:51:31,480 it's got it. It's got a failure. Y. So apparently 581 00:51:32,519 --> 00:51:39,199 that's not the way things are ontologically. I realized going 582 00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,320 going like fifty minutes, but I don't want to. I 583 00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:45,239 was gonna I want to dive into Leviathan, like the 584 00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:49,159 concept of Leviathan, and then it'll have to I don't 585 00:51:49,159 --> 00:51:50,679 want to go for just like ten minutes on that. 586 00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:52,519 So we got we gotta wait until next time. I'm 587 00:51:52,559 --> 00:51:58,039 sorry for that. Let me ask the question then, Yeah, 588 00:51:58,079 --> 00:52:03,039 of course, if we saw in the twentieth century a 589 00:52:03,159 --> 00:52:06,519 slaughtering of the master class a cast, especially in the 590 00:52:06,519 --> 00:52:09,480 beginning of the century, is that why they had to 591 00:52:09,519 --> 00:52:14,039 switch over to the intense social engineering so that they 592 00:52:14,079 --> 00:52:20,360 at least had you know this this quote unquote upper cast, 593 00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:23,400 but really a slave cast that could actually keep the 594 00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:28,480 keep the engines running and keep the machines moving. It's both. 595 00:52:31,199 --> 00:52:34,159 They had to. It's complicated in the case of revolutionary 596 00:52:34,199 --> 00:52:40,559 communism for a couple of reasons, because you've got to 597 00:52:40,599 --> 00:52:49,519 eradicate competing modalities psychological modalities and the only way you 598 00:52:49,559 --> 00:52:52,480 can do that, you've got to you've got to kill 599 00:52:52,599 --> 00:52:57,639 the host literally of those concepts. You know. One of 600 00:52:57,679 --> 00:52:59,840 the reasons why I invoke the Kremure rouge a lot, 601 00:53:00,159 --> 00:53:03,320 not just because I don't think I'm am a cob person, 602 00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:05,599 at least I hope not, and I don't just have 603 00:53:05,679 --> 00:53:10,960 a discrete fascination with the extreme violence of their of 604 00:53:11,039 --> 00:53:16,320 their system. But Paul Pott, you know aka cells Are, 605 00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,800 he was actually a very learned guy, unlike somebody like Mao, 606 00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:25,480 who is an idiot. They took to its logical extreme. 607 00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:33,159 You know, the understanding of revolutionary praxis as the only 608 00:53:33,199 --> 00:53:36,400 way to realize true communism is you've got to eradicate 609 00:53:36,599 --> 00:53:41,719 all potential competitor modalities, because that's the only way it 610 00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,719 can flourish, because you've got to you've got to eradicate 611 00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:47,719 the understanding of value as money, or you've got to 612 00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:51,280 under you've got to eradicate the concept itself a private property. 613 00:53:51,599 --> 00:53:55,079 You can't just recondition people, you know, by by re 614 00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:59,039 education or something, or by forcing them to, you know, 615 00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:03,639 repeat bad ideological strictures, you know, the kind that would 616 00:54:03,679 --> 00:54:06,559 pop up in a propaganda pamphlet you've got to render 617 00:54:06,559 --> 00:54:12,079 it literally impossible to devise psychologically a competing system or 618 00:54:12,119 --> 00:54:15,800 a preceding system, you know. So that's part of the 619 00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:19,559 social engineering. But part of it also was the idea 620 00:54:19,599 --> 00:54:23,920 was even among people who weren't you know, like true 621 00:54:24,079 --> 00:54:28,880 believing communists, like, the idea was that the machine age 622 00:54:29,039 --> 00:54:32,800 and the scientific age, you know, and especially you know, 623 00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:37,280 into the atomic age, it's like, well, you know, the 624 00:54:39,079 --> 00:54:42,480 master elements sous that it exists is technicians, and it's 625 00:54:42,519 --> 00:54:45,920 men who can wield and understand technology. And in order 626 00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:50,800 to prevent the kind of previous cast paradigm from snapping 627 00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,760 back into some kind of reactionary form, is we've got 628 00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:58,159 to disseminate knowledge of these technological processes and the science 629 00:54:58,159 --> 00:55:00,440 that underlies them. Is like why it is pos possible 630 00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:06,440 and take like people from diverse actually diverse not diverses 631 00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:11,320 like a regime buzzword, from diverse places and situations, you know, 632 00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:15,000 and and make them comminant in these processes and sciences, 633 00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:17,880 you know, and then install them like in these key 634 00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,920 like powerful roles, you know, and that'll that'll prevent you know, 635 00:55:22,039 --> 00:55:26,320 some sort of like new aristocracy from ossifying. Of course, 636 00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:29,880 all that happened was like the nomenclature. It became like 637 00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:33,880 the dictatorship of like the military bureaucrat. You know, that's 638 00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:36,880 like what sovietism is. It's just like the dictatorship of 639 00:55:37,199 --> 00:55:40,440 instead of like the dictatorship of the Tizar and and 640 00:55:40,639 --> 00:55:43,920 uh and these like landed aristocrats, you have like the 641 00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:46,639 dictatorship of the guy who runs like you know, the 642 00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:50,360 mccoim brutish design bureau or like the guy who's you know, 643 00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:55,360 the some senior man in supreme Soviet to you know, 644 00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:59,559 you've got to like report to with with your numbers 645 00:55:59,559 --> 00:56:02,519 for like the rain production according to like the yearly 646 00:56:02,599 --> 00:56:06,000 plan or whatever, you know, and like, you know, people 647 00:56:06,199 --> 00:56:09,719 realize very quickly as not somehow like superior, and the 648 00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:14,119 realism among them realized like this, this is just reality. 649 00:56:14,159 --> 00:56:16,840 There's there's no other thing as uh, there's those things 650 00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:20,679 a headless leviathan. And that's part of why hobbes account 651 00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:25,159 of what sovereignty is is important, despite his blind spots 652 00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,559 that we just kind of like explicated here, if that 653 00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:30,119 makes any sense. 654 00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:36,880 Speaker 1: Well, in the Soviet case, you know, Marx argued that 655 00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:40,079 you needed capitalism to keep going because not only was 656 00:56:40,119 --> 00:56:42,280 it going to give you the means of production that 657 00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:44,280 they were going to see so that they could keep, 658 00:56:44,679 --> 00:56:48,679 so that they could eventually take it over. But also 659 00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:54,559 it would deracinate people from their capitalism, would derastate people 660 00:56:54,559 --> 00:56:58,360 from their heritage, from their history. And it seems like 661 00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:01,519 in the in the case of and Stalin even knew 662 00:57:01,519 --> 00:57:03,320 that he wrote that. But in the case of the 663 00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:06,519 Soviet Union, it was it seems like it turned more 664 00:57:06,599 --> 00:57:17,159 into partly a revenge upon the orthodox or revenge upon 665 00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:23,000 the bizarre. And they didn't take it to that logical 666 00:57:23,039 --> 00:57:25,559 conclusion because, I mean, let's face it, at that point, 667 00:57:25,639 --> 00:57:30,239 Russia was not as industrialized as say, the United States was. 668 00:57:31,039 --> 00:57:34,119 Speaker 2: Well, no, there was no in nineteen eighteen, in nineteen seventeen, 669 00:57:34,199 --> 00:57:37,559 nineteen eighteen, there was no industrial proletariat in Russia. I 670 00:57:37,559 --> 00:57:39,360 mean such that there was in Moscow. It was like 671 00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:43,639 a tiny percentage of the body politic No, Soviet Communism 672 00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:47,280 is weird, and the way it developed is weird, you know, 673 00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:50,320 and the fact that it happened there is weird, you know. 674 00:57:51,519 --> 00:57:55,480 I mean, the Soviet Union was an incredibly strange society, 675 00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:01,920 you know, but at the same time made sense, you know, 676 00:58:02,119 --> 00:58:06,760 And it it's a subject for another podcast. But as 677 00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:12,400 I'm always coming back to the only realized the power 678 00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:15,880 and the power potential of the Soviet Union as it existed. 679 00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:18,639 They also forget that the Soviet Union at its z 680 00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:21,039 are you will zenith, you know, like the bresident of 681 00:58:21,079 --> 00:58:24,119 era when they accomplished with AGD parody, the Soviet Union 682 00:58:24,239 --> 00:58:27,960 was like a crippled beast because the Third Reich had 683 00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:31,559 devastated it and they never really recovered, you know, without 684 00:58:32,039 --> 00:58:35,440 without the Third Reich, the Soviet Union dominates this planet, 685 00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:39,440 and America is this kind of garrison state that uh, 686 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:44,519 you know still has like the bounty of a continent 687 00:58:44,639 --> 00:58:49,280 full of you know, probably like probably like half the 688 00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:53,199 planet's remaining natural resources, but it's basically besieged by this 689 00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:57,119 kind of like world Communist Leviathan of you know that 690 00:58:57,119 --> 00:59:00,760 that's overrun Europe and you know, devas state at any 691 00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:03,760 any resistance, be it in like Japan or the Islamic 692 00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:08,400 World or or Africa or anywhere else. So Mary's basically 693 00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:11,519 this island a missed like a hostile like colored world 694 00:59:11,599 --> 00:59:17,000 of the Communist Leviathan. I mean that's people like born 695 00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:22,199 after you know, the nineteen eighties or the nineteen seventies. 696 00:59:22,199 --> 00:59:25,639 Really they don't. They don't understand that, or they might intellectually, 697 00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:30,880 but they don't like really understand it. You know. Yeah, 698 00:59:31,559 --> 00:59:32,920 that's a fascinating subject matter. 699 00:59:35,119 --> 00:59:38,440 Speaker 1: All right, plugs and we'll get out of here. 700 00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:43,400 Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I was shouting out the last few days, 701 00:59:45,119 --> 00:59:48,320 I'm kind of in the process of restructuring my online 702 00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:52,519 presence and my content and I'll begin that in earnest 703 00:59:53,039 --> 00:59:57,840 when I get back from OGC the week of the eighteenth, 704 00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:03,679 I guess, but my online home is substack. We recently 705 01:00:03,719 --> 01:00:06,159 got kicked off at Discord, which I that did not 706 01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:09,360 surprise me. But I'm seeking out a new like online 707 01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:13,280 home for our chat server, and when I get home 708 01:00:13,639 --> 01:00:16,760 from the ODC conclave, I will do that. I will 709 01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:21,840 do all this stuff I haven't forgotten. But my online 710 01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:24,400 home or all kinds of good stuff is is substack. 711 01:00:25,159 --> 01:00:28,480 It's real Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com. 712 01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:31,119 I mean, I'm active a lot of places, but go 713 01:00:31,199 --> 01:00:35,840 there and you know you can find where I'm at 714 01:00:36,280 --> 01:00:40,400 on other platforms. And as I kind of restructure my 715 01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:44,519 online presence so you know, I'll have more to tell 716 01:00:44,599 --> 01:00:48,360 people in this regard. But for now go substick awesome. 717 01:00:48,599 --> 01:01:17,280 Speaker 1: Thank you till the next episode.