Speaker 1: It's not that we want to advocate for violence, but
it is true that after World War Two, violence was
in some ways eradicated from the public sphere in every way.
And you know, we for most modern people wouldn't understand
that the one hundred years ago police would not be
involved in let's say, home disputes, like would not be
involved in family squabbles, in family fights. You know that
you were allowed to have a duel between two men
and to kill each other, and it would be and
you would not go to jail because you had agreed
to have a duel. All these things. You know, there
is a way in which violence was far more organically
integrated into society. It doesn't mean we're advocating for it,
but like you said, if you suppress it completely in
every single way, and then you come to a point
where you say things like you know, words are violence
and or silence is violence. Can you imagine it's like
not just words but also silence, silence is violence. Then
you are asking for it, like in someonays, you're asking
for what's happened. And so it comes to a point
if you equalize everything into violence and that words are
violence and opinions are violence, then shooting Charlie Kirk is
just it's just like one for one, right, It's like
violence for violence. You know, you want to speak bad words,
then we're gonna shoot you. And that is actually it's
at the same level because it's all violence. You know,
violence should be answered with violence. So yeah, there is.
And so I think we are going to see I mean,
I really do. It seems like the war is coming.
It seems like that's at this point inevitable. I don't.
I wish I could say it isn't, but people seem
to be hungry for it. So this is Jonathan Show.
Welcome to the Symbolic World. Hello everyone, we are finally
announcing our Paradiso class. We have done two already. We
have the Inferno, we have the Purgatory, and now we
are moving to Paradise. That is right.
Speaker 2: Dante himself says Inferno that we prefer Hell to Paradise,
and similarly, most of us prefer to read Inferno. But
when we come to reading Parodiso, we're very confused. So
we're going to be actually taking you through that poem
line by line like we did with Inferno and Purgatorio,
and actually looking at how Dante very carefully reconciles some
of the contradictory traditions about the heavens in the Christian
apocalyptic tradition and does that through the persons of the saints.
Speaker 1: And so this is truly important for us right now
with the re enchantment of the world happening, we have
to be able to look at those that did it,
that did it in the most powerful way that we're
able to reconcile the ancient pagan traditions with Christianity, with
his modern understanding, the most modern understanding of the cosmos
that he had. And so this is the work that
we need to do. So we need to learn from Dante.
So the course it starts November fifth to December third, right,
is that what I've got five weeks, two to five
on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: So the cost is going to be one hundred ninety
dollars US. And if you don't want to watch live,
you'll be able to follow along at your own pace.
Just like with all of our courses. You'll have access
to lecture, recording, slides, additional readings, and you can still
ask questions and interact with your fellow classmates in our
circle forums.
Speaker 1: And so join us. After all of this suffering through
Inferno and Purgatorio, the symbolic world finally goes to heaven. Yeah,
join us.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to Catholic Unscripted on Catherine Bennett Clamp
and we're delighted to be joined by a very familiar
face to all of you, I'm sure, Jonathan Pajau, You're
very welcome.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 3: It's good to have you here. We were just talking
before we started recording about the recent assassination I suppose
you'd say, of Charlie Kirk, and then the things going
on over here in the UK was to unite the
Kingdom rally, and you were expressing a kind of change
of thought around things after those events. Do you want
to tell us a bit more about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I we know, I wasn't a particularly
a fan of Charlie Kirk. I mean, I wasn't against him.
I just didn't. It wasn't. He wasn't that much on
my radar. I knew of him. I was actually planning
my team and then we're planning that I would be
on his podcast in the in the next few months.
But when he was shot. I mean, obviously was shocking,
Like it was really it was shocking because it was
clearly a public execution. It was done on purpose, kind
of like how they tried to kill Trump and you know,
to do make a spectacle of it. But it was
mostly the reaction of people that really shocked us and
shocked me, because people that I know, people, you know,
friends of my daughter's, people around us. Some people celebrated,
some people dismissed it as irrelevant, and you know, and
so I felt like it really revealed something about the
state of the world that although I kind of knew
intuitively that I that I started to see more clearly.
You know, some friends of mine went to the vigil
in New York. It was actually Winston Marshall. He went
to the vigil in New York and he said, you know,
it was just a few days after he died, for
goodness sake, and he said, the vigil was infiltrated by
Antifa people wearing all black and you know, grinning and
laughing in their faces and just putting their cameras up
in people's faces and you know, moving around like little
demons through the crowd, just giggling and laughing, and you
know this is these are very I mean, like I said,
it reveals where we are uh in the world, and
in some ways how I think that the culture war
has become a little more hot. So all of a sudden,
you're asking questions about people in your church except people
in my church. You know, what do I do? How
do I do this? How do I now go back?
And I understand that there are lies that are said
about him, and so that some people believe that he
was something that he Wasn't I agree with that, and
I didn't agree with all his positions obviously, But yeah,
but I don't know how to how to deal with
the fact that that then it's not a big deal
that someone like that was assassinated in public. I don't
know how. I don't know how to deal with that.
Speaker 4: The thing I found about it was that there were
people who are new friends who were kind of making
out like he deserved it. Yeah, but I would do
it in a way that were they seem to be
unconscious of what they were actually saying. You know, they
were putting it across as a completely rational position, And
it wasn't until you pointed out that you know what
you're doing here is saying that it's justified that this
guy was shot dead on a campus in front of
thousands of people in his family. And then they were like, oh, no,
I didn't really mean that, but that's like literally he said,
I found that extraordinary. That that has crept into people's thinking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, people tend to think like, well, because of
his political positions, he had it coming kind of thing,
which is that you know, okay, that is that is
obviously we've now tipped into another level here of political discussion,
and it means that, you know, and it's weird because no,
violence has always been part of politics. It's not like
it's not like this is new that there actually in
the modern age, let's say, since World War Two, the
idea that violence should not be a part of politics
has actually been a part of the peace, the great
peace that we've enjoyed. And so if we're going to
return to the idea that that violence is a part
of internal politics, obviously we still kind of believe that
violence is a part of external politics, right, that is,
dealing with people that are you know, enemy armies or
people that are breaking the laws. But if it's going
to be part of internal politics. I mean, we are
obviously heading towards very dark times. So now we have
I mean, you know, let's say, hundreds of years ago,
you know, people in the Parliament getting into a fistfight.
You know, these things happened not all the time, but
they haven't happened quite often. But now the means of
violence have increased so much that to move down that
road is to invoke far greater consequences.
Speaker 3: Do you think So it's interesting, isn't it. I agree
with that ththing you've said, and in fact I was.
I faced criticism when I wrote an article for our
website saying that there were people trying to make a
saint of a young woman in Dundee in Scotland who
she was fourteen, and she was out and about in
the middle of town. We don't really know the full story,
but someone was filming her and she pulled an axe
out of one pocket and a twelve inch blade out
of the other. And they've made memes about her saying
she's like Joan of Arc, She's brilliant. She's getting rid
of the pedophile immigrants single handedly, just like Joan of Arc.
And I thought, I said to you, did that Mark,
I said, what, what's going on? A fourteen year old
girl is wielding an axe and that's somehow we've lost
sight of what's actually happened there. Why are we said
I understand people saying, no, we're not celebrating the acts,
we're celebrating the fact that she's a young Yeah, but
I just thought, now we have to be able to
say this is awful, this is awful, that her doing
that is an awful thing. She shouldn't have done that.
Irrespective of what other problems there are in the world.
Can we not say wielding an axe is not a
great thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's obviously it's it's complicated. Everything has
become so complicated there. I think there is room to
defend yourself if you're being attacked by people, you know,
I think that that's completely that's complete, legitimate. It's hard
to know exactly what was going on in that particular situation.
I think it's okay to defend yourself. But like you said,
I think that it's general in general, the jubilation at
the return of violence. I think that's a good way
of understanding what's happening and it's not. And I think
the reason why that Charlie Kirk event was so marked
because it's you know, it's very symbolic in the rights
in the sense that it was in public, it was
done like as a kind of public execution. But I
think in general, we're seeing, with what I call the
breakdown of the World War two consensus, I guess you
could call it, we're seeing a return of violence and
they kind of return of jubilation towards violence. You know,
we basically now all all so many people accepted that, yeah,
we're gonna have World War three. Each the question of time,
when is World War three gonna happen? Yeah, they'll probably
be nuclear nuclear war. But you know, it's just how
it is in the eighties. And remember the eighties and nineties.
I mean, we did everything to stop a nuclear war.
We did like anything we could do to avoid nuclear exchange,
we would. But now it's like, you know, it might happen,
like you know, dirty bomb in France, like that might happen.
You know, you just have to be kind of ready
for it.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of times you've linked this to the
post World War two consensus. Is there an element in
which I don't really know how to explain this. But
the establishment of the un, the the to the Holocaust
does the most evil thing that could ever happen, that
can never happen again. That there was there was a
sort of enforce tyrannical and artificial suppression of any violence.
That now it's it's erupting organically because the suppression was
almost It's not that I'm advocating for violence, but that
that was like, right, we are now this is who
is it that wrote the end of history? And this
is yeah, year zero, let's begin. But that's not the reality.
That's not true.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's right, And this is tricky things
to talk about because obviously, like you said, it's not
that we want to advocate for violence, but it is
true that after World War Two, violence was in some
ways eradicated from the public sphere in every way. And
you know, we for most modern people wouldn't understand that
one hundred years ago, police would not be involved in
let's say, home disputes, like would not be involved in
family squabbles, in family fights. You know that you were
allowed to have a duel between two men and to
kill each other, and it would be and you would
not go to jail because you had agreed to have
a duel all these things. You know, there is a
way in which violence was far more organically integrated into society.
It doesn't mean we're advocating for it, but like you said,
if you suppress it completely in every single way, and
then you come to a point where you say things like,
you know, words are violence and or silence is violence.
Can you imagine it's like not just words but also silence,
silence is violence. Then you are asking for it, like
in someoneys, you're asking for what's happened. And so it
comes to a point if you equalized everything into violence
and that words are violence and opinions are violence, then
shooting Charlie Kirk is just it's just like one for one, right,
it's like violence for Violet. You know, you want to
speak bad words, then we're going to shoot you. And
that is actually it's at the same level because it's
all violence. You know, violence should be answered with violence.
So yeah, there is. And so I think we are
going to see I mean, I really do. It seems
like the war is coming. It seems like that's at
this point inevitable. I don't I wish I could say
it isn't, but people seem to be hungry for it, so,
you know, and it's the same, you know, and it's interesting.
I mean, it's definitely related to World War two consensus,
you know, because some things that were completely unacceptable. I mean,
it's related to the Israel Gaza situation. Like I don't
want to get too political, but you know, in some ways,
the state of Israel is the World War two consensus state, right,
it is this these group of people that have been
without a state for thousands of years, that have been
in the margins of society, that are finally given a chance,
you know, to have their own state. But then what
happens when that state now starts to act in the
ways that are forbidden in the World War two consensus?
How do you deal with that? And so it's like
it's making everything break, like it's making everything crack because
we have no frame to deal with this. And you know,
that's why it's especially the right. It's making the Conservative
Party in the US, the Republican Party in the US,
it's just splitting it and it's like cutting it up
because it's it's making its creating incoherence, and how we
how do we deal with this now.
Speaker 4: It's so complicated, frightens made. To be honest, Yes, that
there's some incredible symbolism about the fact that this tension
exists in that particular part of the world. Of course,
you know, I find that fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's the center of the world. It's been since it's
been since thirty three, you know, it's been since the
the the death of Christ, and it still is no
matter what you say, it's it's still the center of
the world. So and it's going to be. It's going
to be the center of the world until the escaton,
and you can't help that. So it's it's obviously that
in some ways the most symbolic image of what's happening
everywhere is being crunched into the Holy Land and is
manifesting itself in the Holy Land. A lot of people
say they always wonder, like, how is this this Jerusalem?
How is it the city of peace? If it's a
place of constant, constant conflict, And you have to really
understand it as in some ways the heart of the world.
And you know Christ talks about how you know, violence
also comes out of the heart, right, and so if
it becomes an image of the world, Like if the
idea that Jerusalem is constantly in this state of uneasiness
is also an image of how the world is in
the state of uneasiness, you know. It's so it's like
a microcosm of the state of things things.
Speaker 3: I want to I want to move on a little
and talk about the idea of enchantment. For a long
time now, we've heard about re enchantment. I think I
think I've had you know, you speak about re enchantment.
We've spoken about it. Rod Drea's written Living in Wonder,
and there's lots of talk about re enchantment. And as Catholics,
we've quite liked this because we see, especially over here,
the Protestant Reformation as kind of stripping away the supernatural,
and so when we hear enchantment, we think bringing back
all the kind of the supernatural and our lady. And
but we've just had a conversation with a professor over here,
Jacob Phillips, and he's brilliant in what he says, and
he says we should have a little less enchantment and
a bit more disenchantment.
Speaker 1: I would say a few things that I would say.
The idea that that Christianity is in itself kind of disenchairming.
I think that's that's kind of hardwash. I don't think
that's true at all. The idea that the principalities are
submitted to Christ, you know, the idea that the angels,
that all of the spiritual beings are submitted to Christ.
That it's true, and in some ways you could say
there is a reality which is that they become less
salient to some extent because they they're submitted to Christ,
and so they don't scream out in their own name
the way that the ancient gods did, where you know,
they are the gods would fight amongst themselves. That is
something that definitely goes away, you know. But the idea
that the world is not full of God's life and
that the world is not full of divine presence, that's hagawash.
And I hope no one ever believes that the animistic
part right, the idea that there are that there are
like you know, to titular spirits and and this continues
in Christianity. But the difference is that we we participate
in that process. You know, when when Christ says that
will reign with him, it means that now the Saints
are become in some ways the version of titular spirits
that the ancients had, you know, the saints become the
patrons of places, they become the patrons of families, the
patrons of people, and in some ways they act as
these these titular characters. But the difference, like you said,
is that the Saints are all submitted to Christ absolutely
and that they refract Christ in the world. But the
Middle Ages was this is really a Protestant thinking. Like
the idea that Judeo Christianity strips the world of its
of its of its magic, or strips the world of
it's like of its of of these these titular spirits
or these these intelligences, I think is very Protestant and
it I think it's also false. And I think that
that's what's happening now, is that at some point now
people are seeing that it's false. But we've had we've
had hundreds of years of removing the language and wisdom
that we had to deal with this reality, and now
it's coming back. And you're right, it is coming back
mostly pagan because we don't It's like it's as if
we're discovering these things for the new time, for the
first time. We're like that, We're like that teenage sorcerer
that finds a grimoire and doesn't know what he's doing
and opens it up and it's like, oh, look at this,
and they're like pointed to all these things. Uh, and
now they become completely taken over, broken down. You know,
people are doing psychedelics, they're encountering these beings, people are
doing meditation, they're encountering these beings. Uh, and they just
see it all as all equal because they're all they're
all democrats, right, they all believe in democracy. So you know,
the demons are as the same as the angels and
the saints, and it's all the same. So I think
that it is actually in recovering a Christian, a true
Christian ontology, like a recovering Dante, and recovering that vision
of the world that we can enter into this kind
of re enchanted reality without the pitfalls of it being
just a just a pagan resurgence. But it's going to
be a pagan resurgence because, like I said, it's kind
of too late because you have a bunch of neophyts
that are encountering spirits and they have no idea what
they're doing. And so.
Speaker 4: There is an element to the fact that, you know,
the conflict between Christianity and Paganism, where Christianity saved us
from the need to believe that we were cursed or
that these spirits had power over power over us. So
like that, it gets confused with the the de mysticism
sort of language. But there was definitely a confrontation between
the pagan world and the Christian world, and it was
Christianity that saved us, wasn't it from that sort of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it really is. The difference is that one
of the things that the way that the pagan principalities
were dealt with is that in some ways the people
would see that they had authority, but they would in
some ways try to trap or propitiate or do whatever
they could to to basically be on the good side
of these principalities or maybe even use them to their
own purposes. And so and and people were afraid, Like
you said, people were afraid of these principality, but they
would still propitiate them in order to get something from them.
That all that is absolutely gone. I mean, nobody is
afraid of Saint Peter and propitiates to him because they
hope to have a little bit of the keys for
themselves and to be able to unlock some things, you know,
I mean except for occultist nobody does that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the whole idea was wrapped up in that
Chesterton quote. You know, once we've stopped believing in God,
it's not that we're believing nothing, it's that we're believing anything.
And we seem to be going in that way exactly
as you've just articulated that. You know, we've got like
crystals and angels and all this kind of stuff coming
out because people have lost that hierarchical understanding of that
God is above us and that there is something more
important than us and that we've got a place in that,
you know creation in that pathem, yeah.
Speaker 1: And that Christ, as Sempaul says, you know, Christ is
subjugating all the thrones are the principalities to himself, that
he is the one who sits on the throne in heaven,
and that all the angels and are all submitted to him,
and the demons too. They just don't know it, but
ultimately the entire thing is because has become submitted to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And one of the other things that we spoke
about in that conversation was about how we've just come
out of the lot. Well, it seems not that long ago.
This trust the science narrative, And that's a perfect idea
of the perfect example of saying it's the science we
trust and not saying, actually, the science isn't what we trust.
We can trust the good that undergirds any science. So
in medicine, you could use your medicine to heal burns victims,
or to give women big breasts, or you can use
the theory of relativity to destroy a city or to
what is some other good thing. She says, not knowing
what the theory of relativity does.
Speaker 1: Is that scientist does not have the good in itself.
It's only the means to the to power over phenomena.
That's what science is.
Speaker 3: So if if if if Christ isn't what animates like,
if I think that the argument there was, if there
isn't that Christian understanding and we say we put all
of this under Christ, then it can go awry. And
this this brings me to your recent guest. I think
you said his name is Michael Levin. I was I
was watching your conversation with him, and you'll have to
tell me.
Speaker 1: His name, the other guy, and I was about.
Speaker 3: Forty five minut and I was just thinking, this is insane,
this is madness and also frightening, and he was he's
I think you described him as a bit of a magician.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean a magician in the sense that he
is in some ways rediscovering vertical vertical connections to in
the world of science. He's he's understanding that it's not
just a bunch of stuff that you analyze, but that
there are living patterns that embody themselves in in biological form,
and that these living patterns are in some ways best
understood as intelligence. Is that want something and that are
that are manifesting themselves in bodies. And so what he
now called himself a platonist, he says that he's a
he's kind of I mean, he's he's a scientist, right,
so in some ways he's grasping for words about what
it is that he's encountering. You know, he's not like
a trained philosopher or theologian, and so he's seeing that
these are real and that the h and that if
you treat the world this way, like, if you act
as if the world is like this and that there
are these wills and patterns that embody themselves in the world,
then you could yields much more than what the kind
of geneticist type of biologists can do and can understand.
But like you said, in some ways, there in a
way it's frightening because it does feel like magic is
coming back in the world because he can manipulate forms
if he's able to tap into the right purpose. So
you could think of it. I mean, I don't want
to say that that's what he's doing, but you know,
it is a little bit akin to saying, well, if
I know the right formulation, like if I know the
right spell and I speak it on a phenomena, then
I can reorder the phenomena to my will, right, I
can kind of reorder the phenomena to my will. And
there's a little bit of that going on with him
because especially because he seems to think or believe in
what he calls freedom of embodiment, which is that he
would like humans to reach the capacity to have in
some ways the body that they that they would want.
And that's why it's closer the magic because magicians use
angels or trapped spirits or you know, kind of download
these these wills into the world, but always to serve
their own will, always to increase the power to or
to And that's different from the Christian vision and the
Christian ontology, which is that we believe in all that stuff, right,
we believe that all of that stuff is real and
all that stuff works. But we think that we have
to say that I will be done right, that we
have to trust that we participate in God's will in
a way that is for our good, and that our
will and our desire to have wings or to have
you know, three arms could lead us down paths that
would be against our own our own good. But that's
something that I don't think that he's still figuring out,
you know. And so I mean, I hope to have
more conversations with him. But it's that you can see
that it's it's stuff that he's still he's still kind
of struggling with. They're dealing with you.
Speaker 3: It's interesting you say, it's not it's not he's not
doing it or he's not saying this, But that's not
the point. It's like people who say, well, in my hands,
this is perfectly safe. But who's to say it's always
in your hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's always the problem of technology is that technology
is power. That's what the technology is power, and that
you know if it is, whatever you whatever you develop,
will be used by your enemy. Like you just always
have to understand that, Like when Elon must says, we're
putting chips in your brain, but don't worry, you know,
it's like it's me. Hey, come on, you trust Elon, right,
it's me. And also it'll be voluntary. It's like, well,
you know, I'm not sure that that's how it's going
to end. I'm not sure that how this story is
going to end. Yeah, h.
Speaker 4: Okay, I've got a question then, Yeah, can you tell
one symbol, story or myth that that's most profoundly transformed
your own life and outlook?
Speaker 1: And why, Well, it's going to be boring because I'm
to say two. There's really two in some ways. There's
the Genesis one. I mean, from let's say, from the
Creation to Babel to the Tower of Babel. I mean,
to me, that is the most powerful story, one of
the most the most powerful story ever told. And it's
only eclipsed, like you said, by the story of Christ himself,
because in some ways Christ reveals some aspects of that
creation story that we're hidden maybe in the story, and
that he kind of opens up and you see it
now through the through the lens of his story. So
there definitely are the are the stories that I go
back to all the time, you know.
Speaker 4: The archetypes. Would you say that like embedded in those stories?
Are they archetypal story or is there some different way
of looking at it in terms of truth?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, I think I think the use of
the word archetype is a fine word. It's been kind
of you could say, twisted by Yung. But Saint Gregor
Nisa used the word archetype when he talks about the
when he talks about the pattern of the tabernacle as being,
in some way is the pattern of the church. You know,
that's the idea that it's the the archetype is the pattern,
and then there's the embodiment of that pattern. So I
think that for sure, especially Genesis one, that's clearly what
that story is. It's it's the pattern of everything. It
describes the cosmos in the best way possible, and then
that that pattern the thing. The problem with the pattern
is that sometimes you don't understand all its implications because
it's so simple. You know. It's like you look at
a seat and you're like, well, I don't know what
this is. It's the dot, right, It's just it's just
a little dot. And then you have to it has
to embody itself in order for you to see the implications.
And I think the entirety of scripture is that embody
where you are now seeing the different iterations of the
union of heaven and Earth happen in different ways all
through the Bible, and that culminates, of course in Christ
and then finally it actually culminates in the Book of Revelation.
And so the final image of the heavenly Jerusalem and
the great wedding you know of of of Christ and
the all of creation, that is the final image of
the the final image of the spirit of God hovering
above the waters. The last one is that the sea
has become crystal, the creation has become a city, you know,
and it's and she's prepared like a bride for her groom,
and and God has married his creation. You know. That's
that's the end of that story. So it's like, you know,
the the Genesis one, And like I said, it's it's
the it's it's the greatest story. But it doesn't mean
that it's that it's like imaginary thing. Like that's the
problem with the word archetypes that sometimes people think that
archetype means it's imaginary. It's not imaginary, it's the realist
story it's ever been told.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's what I meant, really, like, are those
are those? Because we see those patterns repeated throughout scripture,
don't we? So like the garden, the image of the garden,
and obviously after Jesus rises from the dead, we see him.
He's mistaken by Mary Magdalen for the gardener, isn't he?
And you know they meet in the garden, but he
can't be held on there's all that dimension and the
Tree of Good and you know, the knowledge of good
and evil, the Tree of life and the Cross and
all of those things. But like that, so they're repeated
throughout scripture, aren't they. That's right, That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And not only are they're repeated throughout scripture, but they're
repeated throughout all the stories. So you know, the all
of the stories that we tell, you know, all are
in some ways little iterations of the Genesis one story.
They're playing out the implication of the Genesis one story,
you know, and sometimes it's harder to see because we
don't if we don't have the you could say, the
capacity to identify the elements. Right, if you don't understand
what heaven is, then you don't understand what Earth is.
Then it is sometimes harder to see it in other
stories and to realize that no, this is talking about
the same thing. It's just using stand ins for each other.
But once you start to see what it is that's
implied with these categories, then you realize that it's everywhere.
Speaker 3: Well, this brings me to a question. Something that preoccupies
me is the idea of femininity and masculinity. And I'm
very aware. I do a lot of talks with young women.
And I was watching your conversation with Michael Knowles. It
was about three years ago in fact, but I watched
it again recently, and in it, one of the things
he says is you were talking about symbols and pointing
symbolism and symbols, and he said, if gender expression is
the symbol, that which is being symbolized is biological sex.
And I've been thinking, I think that's wrong. So I
said male. No, I thought, if male and female are
the symbols, this is what I prompted me to think
from what he said, which I agree was wrong. I said,
if male and female are the symbols, that which is
symbolized is femininity and masculinity, which are cosmic principles of
all creation. So it is, in fact, just give me
your thoughts on this, it is in fact biological sex
that is the symbol. And so we can't get to
a point of saying. So then I started thinking about
the mess we're in, and I thought, we can't get
to a point of saying the symbols have no meaning,
which is where we've got to unless we destroy the
thing that they symbolize. And so then I know this
might seem like a shift, but it makes sense to me,
and you spoke about it. We get into eucharistic theology.
So the thing that marriage them aizes has been destroyed.
So is there any wonder that marriage has been destroyed?
So I took Michael Knowles's point and thought, no, I'm
not sure he's right there. I think it's you know,
I think he's he's hung up.
Speaker 1: On the way around, the way around. Yeah, but it's
to be generous to Michael. I think that sometimes we
get tripped up with language, you know, of course recording.
And one of the things that one of the ways
of understanding is that there there's the the symbol is
the ground in some ways, right, because you don't encounter
the pattern without its embodiment. The pattern is useless, like
now it's useless. But it's like we always think, you know,
it's like, oh, you just want to go to heaven. Actually, no,
you want you don't want to go to heaven, like
I mean, it's not that great to go to heaven.
What you want is the resurrection in the kingdom of heaven.
You want the kingdom of Heaven. It's not the same
as heaven. It's when heaven and bodies itself in phenomena.
And so the embodiment is the ground. And that's why
I understand what he's saying is like biological sex is
the thing that is the most immediate to us to experience,
the difference between heaven and earth, between the masculine and
the feminine, between these higher like more universal categories. And
therefore one of the things you can try to do
is you can do it both ways. Like you said,
one is you can try to destroy the myth. You
can try to destroy the pattern of the relationship between
heaven and Earth and try to break that, invert it,
twist it or whatever. But the other thing you can
also do is to It's like kind of decapitating something.
You cut off the genitals, right, you you try to
remove the embodiment so that the pattern floats off into
the air. Right, you try to destroy the So like,
I mean, this sounds very weird. So you have a city, right,
you have Rome, and like Rome changes, right, so we
have the idea of Rome. Right. The idea of Rome
is what holds Rome together, but it has to be
embodied in the city. So one of the things you
can do is try to pervert the idea of Rome,
so you can destroy the city. But then the other
thing you can do is just bomb the hell out
of Rome until there's nothing left. And then let's see
if they can like it. Let's see if the idea
of Rome is gonna is going to take seed again?
Maybe maybe not. You know, some cities, I mean, look
at what happened to look at what happened to to Baghdad.
You know, it's like you know, after the Mongols got
through Baghdad, well, bagh Dad. You know it never it's
sprung up, but very little. It didn't spring up like
it did, you know, before the before the twelfth century.
Speaker 3: I think we've destroyed the idea of the city. I
think I think it's because we've destroyed the idea of
I think it My view tends towards the idea that
which is why I mentioned eucharistics theology, that we've destroyed
the idea of the real presence. I know that's the
term that's been distorted as well, so that so then
everything crumbles because of that. So it doesn't surprise me
at all that we have such chaos and incoherence, and
that the answer then is sacramental.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see what you mean that. I think that
for sure, the attack on the on the Eucharists, and
the reduction of the Eucharists first of all to something
that was merely symbolic like that, that attempt in some
ways was, like you said, wrenching out the heart of Christianity,
the place where the unity of Heaven and Earth was
was made manifest to us in a perfect way. And yeah,
and then downstream from that, like you said, downstream from
that are the suburbs. You know, downstream from that are
well the church. If there's no Eucharist, then the church
is you know, it's fine, we go there to worship God,
but we don't need the church. Like building, the building
is just you know, it's just the symbol. You don't
really need it. And it doesn't have to be in
the middle of the town. It can be wherever. It
could be in a strip mall, it could be wherever.
And so you keep like evolving until basically nothing means
anything anymore, and you just, you know, it's just flat.
Everything comes flat.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting that I've got some Baptist friends and
I kind of get invited up to the church occasionally
need to do Yeah, well yeah, that's come to an end.
But basically, sorry.
Speaker 3: Isn't it terrifying?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So, but basically there there there's tension within that
community between there are people who want a sacred space
to worship that they think should be separate, dedicated, yeah, yeah.
And then and then there are other people who think, oh,
there is no thing as a holy place, and so
they want to you know, they let the kids play
football in the church and you know whatever, it doesn't
make any difference. And you can see how that's that
they're building that. I mean, it's architecturally a beautiful building,
but it could be someone's house, it could be literally anything.
You know, all the Christian symbolism has been removed, and
you can see the tension between those people who are like, well,
shouldn't we have a bit of Christian something that marks
it out as something set for it for God. It's
just craziness and that is the craziness of Protestantism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important. I think the important thing to understand
for people who will be watching wh will have that
tendency is to think that you you have to have
a building, right, and so the question is what is
that building pointing to what is being manifested in that building,
and people kind of know it intitally, like they'll still
reach reach a limit into in the sense that they
wouldn't have like if they could avoid it, they wouldn't
have their church meeting in like a five foot basement, right,
Like they wouldn't be like, oh, like it's not conducive
to the thing we're doing, Like they wouldn't have their
meeting in a hallway, right, And so because it's not
conducive to what you're doing, it was like, well, yeah,
well keep scaling that up, Like there are certain spaces
that are conducive to certain purposes, that are dedicated to
certain purposes, just like the bathroom is dedicated for the
things you do there, just like the bedroom is dedicated
for things to do there, but they are also possible.
There's also the idea that you dedicate spaces for worshiping God.
And it doesn't mean that you still can't pray God
in your bathroom or in your bedroom, but it is
important to dedicate spaces to these purposes because it lays
out the hierarchy of what's important. Because at first, what
you say, and this is obviously normal, is you say,
why would you just worship on Sundays, Like, you know,
can't you worship any day? Like why do you? Why
do you? Why can't you? Why do you worship in church?
Can't you worship anywhere? And it starts that way, and
it ends with, actually, you don't worship at all, you know,
and you don't know that, and there's no difference for
you between going to the mall and and going to church.
It's all the same. And so it's like, so I
think that it's it's I mean, it's weird to me.
It's interesting because I think people could have argued that
a few hundred years ago. But now that the world
is so flat and that the world is so devout,
like it is so empty of meaning and a purpose
and of direction and of centers and all of that,
I'm surprised people can still think that way because it's like,
look around, folks. You know, the world's turning to mush.
You know, we need we need dedication, like we need
holy holy things, means dedicated to a purpose. You know. Yeah,
it's so true that architecture is just so depressing.
Speaker 4: You know, the suburbs are just replicated blocks of houses
on you know, and when you go into the town
centers in the UK anyway, it's I mean, you've just
recently been to London, so you've recognized that. You know,
we've still got quite a lot of beautiful architecture, but
we just have stopped building buildings like that, haven't We
just put last towers when you.
Speaker 1: Go to the town centers, Like my town does not
have a center there's no town center in my town.
It's just a suburb and there's another suburb next to it,
and there's another one next to it, and you between
when you're in one suburb or another and there's no center.
So there you go. It's just like it's basically like
turning to mush. It's just a bunch of things laid
out on a on a on an horizontal plane, but
of independent points that aren't connected with each other. You
don't know your neighbors.
Speaker 4: We've seen that in America, I think, yeah, when we've visited,
you know, you've got like it's sort of interjoined by
strip malls and then like a residential area, whereas it's
still very much like towns in England, isn't it, with
you know, church and town squares and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we do still have I think that those
kind of villages. But America was really I found it soulless.
Like I love, I love, I love visiting America, and
I'm not talking about everywhere, but there you want to
go for a cup of tea and you.
Speaker 1: Can go down the highway, Yeah, like you can.
Speaker 3: Go down a road that's so wide and you're in
a car so big that it's just and you just
why why do people seek to flatten everything? Is it
just a power tyranny and creating power?
Speaker 1: It's really power is below. So a way of understanding
it really with Genesis one. You know, you have you
have identity right and name and purposes, and then down
here you have power right. And so the more you
the lower you go, you know, the the less the
identity is visible, like the identity starts to kind of disappear,
and but then the more power you have. And so
the the idea of if you think of specialization right
as a tool, So what you do in specialization is
that you break things. Right, So you say, oh, you
used to be a seamstress, you could make dresses, you
could do all that. It's like, well what if I
had someone who could just sew, and then one other
person that can just cut, And then I move and
I break down the unity, I break down the idea
into multiple parts, and then I have so much power,
like it just increases my power. And that's what it
is you do.
Speaker 3: But but what what about the person who's just in
a factory stitching a button.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're alienating you know, so.
Speaker 3: I can understand it's it's seeking power, but for most
people it's it's really just living in a high rise
in a solar city.
Speaker 1: So that's why people why people are alienated, that's true.
Speaker 3: So there is a hierarchy even in that, because here's
a hierarchy of though powerful and the and they're not powerful,
and even it's communism, I suppose is that.
Speaker 1: That it's communism and capitalism both have the same disease. Yeah,
and so the the capitalist with what happens, like you said,
is that in some ways, the the factories and the
workers become the bodies of very very influential, powerful people.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: They have kingdoms that no king in the ancient world
could have dreamed of. And so you know, so you
have these these massive hierarchies where the like you said,
the people at the bottom are basically just interchangeable dots
that you could just move around. They don't have personalities.
They're just numbers on a spreadsheet. They're not And it's
so funny because we're so used to thinking that's how
the world works, that it's like it's actually not how
the world works. Actually, h you know, there is there
a family is how the world works in terms of
relationality and humanity or even I hate to say this,
people are gonna hate this, but like an ancient lordship
is more like the world how the world works, because
it's true that the serfs would have been the body
of the lord, but the surf, the lord knows their
name for goodness sake, and he knows that they just
had a new little baby, and that, you know, maybe
they're a little bit in trouble, they need some medical help.
He has to take care of them because they're part
of his world. But it's not true. For Google, my goodness,
they just look at how many people they need to
fire on a spreadsheet and they just basically pull the trigger.
So it's like it is. It's obviously our world is
very alienated, and communism is the same. Obvious communism is
much worse, but it has this kind of completely alienated
structure where we're basically we're just robots, you know. But
a lot of people are rejecting that now. You know,
this is what's interesting is, you know, economists are complaining
about the great what do they call it, like the
idea that people are just checking out, like all these
young people they're like, you know what I'm just not
gonna play the game. And they're annoyed with that. But
it's like this is a completely and these people what
they want is they also they want more connection, they
want more meaning, they want to stay close to their families.
They're not going to move for a job like this idea.
In the United States, in America, it's so normal, like, oh,
I'm just going to move for a job. I'm just
gonna leave my family and I'm going to go somewhere
else just because I have this career opportunity. This is
completely normal. I've done it becau It's totally normal to
do that. But this is not this is not normal,
Like this is not normal, Uh society, No, I agree.
Speaker 3: I think it's weird. I think it's it's like an
over focus on solidarity without the folk, without the right
balance of subsidiarity.
Speaker 1: That's right. So there's a lack of subsidiarity, and that's
that's exactly what is needed right now is to be
able to start participating in subsidiarity again, right, to be
deliberate about our choices, to be deliberate about There's some
great I mean, there's some great initiatives I've see people
doing some wonderful things trying to reintegrate subsidiarity in people's lives. Obviously,
church communities are a great way to do that in
a very easy way. Involving your parents in your kid's life.
You know, like these these are things that you never
you never in the past, you never would have said
out loud because it was so normal. But now it
actually become like not obvious that you should involve your
parents and your children's life, that you have to say it.
And it's like maybe uncles and you know, the neighbors
actually also like all of that, you know you should
do that.
Speaker 3: I really do. Do you think I've said for a
little while, I'm trying to step back a little bit
from some of the madness in social media and stuff.
But I do think the answer first of all is
our ladies feat for sure, Like it's that's it's it's
that God's will be done. And then it's it's in ourselves,
Like if we're not striving for sanctity, if we're not
trying to be holy in our own lives and raise
our children and return them to God, it's no good
talking about the problems of the world, because you know,
because what are we doing so I can totally see that.
Speaker 1: I just I just.
Speaker 3: Because I know your time is short, and of course
there's always much to talk about. I can't let you
go without without getting your thoughts, given that we've just
been talking about capitalism and communism and this, you know,
kind of disordered ideas. I'm just trying to find a
way to crow bar this story and to be honest, Johnathan,
which I thought of you when I read it, because
it's a story in the news a couple of days
ago of this woman saying she's challenging Nike and Adidas
and Puma over single shoes and she points to the
fact she's a paralympian, that operations have been adopting kind
of disability into marketing to try and increase their revenue,
let's say.
Speaker 1: And when I read.
Speaker 3: It, I thought, well, fair enough, so why not say, then,
why don't you make shoes? Just one shoe? And I'm
trying to get this off. There we are, and I've
thought of you because I know you've spoken a lot
about the margins and the gargoyles on the outside of church.
Not to call disabled people margins and garb oyls, but
there's an element in which it's not the norm. I
always remember exception.
Speaker 1: I mean that that you become an exception to normality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but wouldn't wouldn't this be the end result of that?
You know, once you start saying I'm going to adopt
something to leverage it for my own material gain a
Nike or Puma, well of course, well I would say
good on you. Good on you saying well, then start
making one shoe.
Speaker 1: Then I mean, it's obviously this is ridiculous, which is
why I imagine the reason why the article has been
written is just to rage. It's just rage bait. It's
just for people to read it and think, how like
ridiculous this is, or or agree. I guess some people
might agree. You know, the problem with exceptions is that
their exceptions, and there's an indefinite amount of exceptions. This
is the issue, and so that's why there's normality. And
then especially in Christianity, we have something like compassion and mercy,
and compassion and mercy are there to be able to
include exceptions, both you know, very small ones and people
people sitting around you, people kind of breaking normality. But
obviously also as a society and so Now the funny
thing about this, I mean it's funny because you think, well,
let's keep going down the slide this this line. Because
if you're going to make shoes for people with one foot,
then you should make shoes for people with club feet.
And then you should maybe make shoes for people that
don't have a foot, maybe just have like a like
a nub at the end of their leg, and then
you should make shoes. You know, like I can keep
going forever, right, I can continue. You could make shoes
for people that have lost three toes because it's really
uncomfortable in the shoe because they've lost three toes.
Speaker 3: So before you even get onto gloves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so like there's just like an indefinite amount
of exceptions obviously to the rule. And so the the
what I call it the weaponizing of compassion in some ways,
this you know, and it's an upside down version of
what Christian mercy is, which is Christian mercy would be
something like you meet someone who's lost their foot, and
you know it could even be this good is something
that could actually happen. You could have someone who comes
into the store with one leg and one foot and
the guy the counter has mercy on the person's like, Hey,
you know what, I'm going to charge you fifty percent
off because you know, you know you've had a rough
you know, I really appreciate you. And that's a normal
Christian reaction to the situation.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: But the person demanding that now the normality adapts to
them completely and creates official versions of their exception. That
is going into absolute madness. It's not sustainable, like I said,
because the idea that that having only one foot is
the only form of handicap that you could have. There's
like there are millions of them, Like every single possible
exception that you could that you could could have, and
you could you should make shoes for people that have
no feed Why aren't you makings for people that have
no feet at all?
Speaker 4: I mean it's relativism, though, isn't it. It's the natural
trajectory that we're on, is this sort of complete meltdown
into utter relativism, where our own reality is the only
reality we we understand, and therefore there has to be
a billion different versions of the reality.
Speaker 1: It's except it's the idea that the exception is always
being stifled or pressed by the rule. That's the vision
that we have and that in fact, the existence of
the rule is a form of oppression because of exceptions.
And so you know, but that's an untendable position, like
you said, because what happens is you see it with
the with the LGBT stuff, is that you just keep
adding letters to the LGBT and it's like the LGBT
Q I A, and then you just keep going because
there is no different to exception. There's no limit to
the exception because it's it's it's intercategorical in itself, and
like between categories, there's a bunch of chaos. Yeah, I
think about it like you can think about it in
terms of someone think about it this way. It's like
you have a you have I don't know, an English
person and a Somali and then they get married and
then you create a category which is, oh, he's half
English a Somali, and then that person, to say, gets
married with someone who have this and have that. And
so imagine if you had categories for every single mixture
that existed, and you started to create like, well, I
need I need rights. What are the rights for the
one quarter Somali, one quarter British, in one quarter you
know Samoan, and it's like, what what rights talking about?
This is man, it's right to we have ways to
deal with exceptions, but making the rule making rules for
exceptions is not the right way to go. Making official
things for exceptions doesn't work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is which is why all one in Christ
is the answer is the only to hold intention that
that diversity in unity. We were talking about remarking the
schools people are at pains, even in Catholic schools to
have LGBT bullying policies, and you think, why not just
have an anti bullying policy and that includes gingers and
four I just to pick out.
Speaker 1: You know, like, yeah, what, I can't believe you're picking
on gingers.
Speaker 4: It's the only safe category in England.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, and can imagine.
Speaker 3: Ginger lives matter. I'm all for it. We Jonathan, we've
encroached on your time, long enough for today because I
know you're very busy man, but I thank you so
much for covering such ground. It's always so interesting and
I do hope you'll join us again in conversation court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the best, Thank you, it was great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks God blessed right and visit Jonathan's website Symbolic
World dot com. Is that right, Yeah, yeah, and check
out his videos and content there, and also order your
books because you've got some great books as well that
you've been working on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're working. We've been publishing children's books, you know.
In some ways this is the solution to I mean,
a lot of things we're doing now is in someone's
complaining about the state of the world, which is fine
we need to do, but I think that if we
want things to get better, we have to capture we
have to we have to capture culture. And so we're
telling beautiful, celebratory versions of the fairy tales, you know,
in the hope to to actually start with children, like
to help children see beauty and to learn about how
we have all these powerful stories and our traditions. Once again.
Speaker 3: So yeah, they're brilliant. I ordered them myself for my
own children here last Christmas, so and I think you've
produced more since. So do take a look at that
and visit our own webs That was good, wasn't it,
And visit our own website, Catholic Unscripted dot com and
you can check out all our articles and videos there.
But for now, thanks for watching God bless Goobye.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to
the Symbolic world dot com website and see how you
can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers
with perks. There are apparel and books to purchase, So
go to the symbolic world dot com and thank you
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