Speaker 1: You can look at this way, is still history is
a mirror. If you read history from a more thern
science perspective, then yes, you can definitely keep this impassionate element.
Let's say, if you read it as the way ancients
read history, which is effectively dedactic, like the point of
starting history was the tactic to teach you something about yourself.
If you're doing it honestly, it's still transformative experience. Again, again,
Plutter doesn't speak about it directly, but he often talks
about this passions desire, which passions run which system effectively
or which character. And what I think is super important
nowadays and in different work you do, in different work
I do, is to kind of bring this optic back.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Ultimate think what I'm trying to do is to show
exactly the movement of passions, desires, struggles and imitations at
the realm of power. I think if more people learn
to see what is happening around us in the same way,
we'll build this true resilience and true subjectivity, which of
course is not political in itself. It's not about rights.
It's about conquering your own passions with the grace obviously,
like as you know, because otherwise, like you will always
fall into the same trap, you will always step on
the same racks, and you will be surprised. How could
have happened, Well, the same way it has happened to Rome,
the same way this has happened late in like Florentine,
the same way it has happened later, let's say, because
people don't change. This is Jonathan Pejew Welcome to this
abalic world.
Speaker 3: Hello everyone, I dig Sarah and Richard Roland. This is
the Symbolic World and I am joined today with Pavel Shalon.
Pavel is a He is an Orthodox Christian. He is
a political philosopher who is working within the realm of
traditional political theology. Did I get that right?
Speaker 2: Pavel? Tradition of political trilogy? Way close enough? Close enough?
All right. So that's a pretty.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty technical title or pretty tech specific field
of study for yourself. So could you just tell us
a little bit. Obviously, you've got a YouTube channel, and
Jonathan's been on your YouTube channel before, I've been on
your YouTube channel before. This is your first time over
here on the Symbolic World. But can you tell us
about what it is that you're interested in and we'll
get into more specifics in a moment, but can you
just kind of tell us what is that you're interested
in and what the overlap with our symbolic world audience is.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for having me, and yeah, to explain
in the natural, I would say that the political philosophy, generally,
it's a part of philosophy which is concerned with the
questions of power broadly, broadly speaking, like policy and power
comes hand into play. And in particular why political theology.
It's because political theology basically tries to understand how political phenomenons.
So the phenomenons of power have a religious or symbolical
i would say, underpinning behind them. So in that sense,
the oral apping seems to be pretty clear. One of
the downsides one can say, or just things we take
for granted in a modern world, is that the questions
of religions and politics has to be separated. In case
of America, you for example, speak of the First Amendment
and people usually understand that it's like secularism means that
the liberation from these universal patterns, universal thoughts, religional religious systems,
or belief systems when it comes to power decision. But
that's not what is happening like according to political theology,
and for example, it showcases how the questions of power
are still these same questions one can find in the scripture,
the same questions one can find in different elements of
holy writing, and basically showing the not just interconnection, but
showcasing how without deep understanding of the universal language, I
would argue, and how without deep understanding of to speak,
the landscape of religious sort, if it makes any sense,
you can truly understand what people of power are doing
or pursuing. And it was actually much more difficult to
talk about these questions like a couple of years ago
nowadays when you have like say, richest man of the
I will give you an example. You have one of
the richest men on the planet Earth, Peter Teel, giving
series of lectures on apocalypses like recently, like it became
pretty famous, and it's not self evident. It's not self evident,
like why would it be like we were supposed to
things that, like it's completely separated. Why would he himself
be pretty much concerned occupied well political theology. In fact,
it's precisely searching for the question why so, like what desires,
what motivation? Underpins a certain type of political decisions, and
showing how you can effectively build the letter of these
decisions back to the principal religious in nature structure, even
if they are described in a secular language. For example,
one can with passion defend the like for example, let's
an environment environment environmentalism. But you can also show that
this defense and this passion in itself cannot be understood
if you don't recognize that it is done as if
this is something holy. So something holy which needs to
be defended, like for example, so it's not defended neutrally.
Let's say it's defended precisely as something sacred, and basically
it's like showing the interplay between sacred and power. That's
another way like explaining what I try to show.
Speaker 3: People just said reminds me of two things. One is
the great, late, great conservative English philosopher Sir Roger Scrutin,
And something that Scrutin says, he has a whole book
about the environment in which he tries to make a
case for a conservative environmentalism. Of what he expresses is ecophilia.
That is the love of home, the love of the household.
You should love the place where you are, well, you know,
first and foremost your village, your neighborhood, and then kind
of growing out of that your state, your province, your country,
your culture, all those things, and that conserving the environment
well would actually be a part of that, part of
that love. The other thing that as I was trying
to think about how to boil down what you're saying,
is that, because you're right, the barriers have sort of
broken down. I think that one way to think about
it would be to say that since the certainly since
the end of the Second World War, probably before that,
but let's say since the end of the Second World War,
there was a long running this that or this wrong,
long running idea that you could just sort of have
religion over here in this bracket and politics over here
in this bracket, and what I don't know, culture, myth
storytelling over here in this bracket, and that those things
don't necessarily have to do anything with each other, anything
to do with each other. So when somebody ends up
bringing their religion into politics, you you feel kind of icky,
you feel kind of gross. It's like, hey, what are
you doing bringing religion into this? Or Hey, what are
you doing bringing politics into this? But in actuality, of course,
if you know anything about the history of the world,
all of those things have always you know, cross you know,
overlapped with each other, crossed over with each other. You know,
like you said, you have one of the wealthiest people
in the world are very interested in this biblical apocalypse imagery.
They're also very interested in advancing certain political parties, right, So, yeah,
it's very weird moment. And so I think that the
insights that you'll have to give to our audience are
going to be very helpful in terms of helping us
understand more about kind of what's going on right at
this moment. And I think there's even some recent things
in the news that I'm hoping you'll help me understand
as this conversation goes on. So part of the reason
that you're here today, actually, I'll tell people the way
that you and I met the first time was standing
over by the book table and at the Symbolic World
Summit two years ago in twenty twenty four, and I
was talking to you and you have I'm sure you
know this kind of a quiet voice.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm loud, which is bad sometimes but good if you're
a deacon you have to sort of got to be
the trumpet, right, But you have kind of a quiet voice.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 3: Bending over, straining to hear you talking at as something
else was going on. You know, we were being very rude.
You know, we weren't listening to the speakers. We were
having a conversation, and it's just like creating to hear
you talk. But I really sensed in that moment. You know,
first of all, I was like, yeah, this is somebody
who has some really interesting, important, intelligent things to say.
But also like, yeah, this is this is my kind
of guy.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I just I felt that way, and then I met Andrew,
who works for you, and then he's like, Okay, Andrew's
really my kind of guy. Like, long after you and
Jonathan have gone to bed, Andrew and I will stay up,
you know, party, but no, in any case.
Speaker 2: In any case.
Speaker 3: So I'm really happy that we're able to work with you.
You've been helping us actually bring some of symbolic World
courses to a Russian language audience, and now we're excited
to have you kind of return the favor. So you
have a course that you've taught to multiple times to
hundreds of students in Russian and the courses on Plutarch's
lives of the noble Greeks and Romans. And this is
the course which we're going to be talking about today.
We won't even so much be talking about the course,
but this is the course that you're going to be
doing for us. And my question for you would be
something like, why Plutarch? I mean, I love old stuff,
I love Plutarch, It's not hard to sell me. But
why Plutarch? What does Plutarch have to say? What does
he have to say to the situation that we're living
in today? How similar or dissimilar are the times that
we're living in? How has Plutarch helped inform your reading
and understanding of history and politics? Another way to say
this would just be how does Plutarch reveal a sort
of grammar of political symbolism to us?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Great questions and hope to answer in a concise amount
of time. So I will start with an observation, and
I single these observation kind of shows the purpose of
the course. In my work with the Russian audience and
later talking to different people in English, I discovered or
just embraced that maybe one of the most fundamental dogsas
or dogmas which we kind of share everyone without truly
admitting or just without even a need to admit it
to ourselves. Is that sound something like this history began
with us or with me in particular, something of this sort.
So you mentioned it like plutter is something cold, And
if you consider let's say, the stories he tells being
something cold, then obviously they have nothing to do with me,
because the real history only really started with me. That's
why it has some of the positive elements. I will
give the credit in sense that everything seems so new
and exciting, but also it has the major negative, in
my opinion element, it's a certain stupidity. I yes, I
will be straightforward and ignorance to the nature of let's say,
power relations or the nature of state, the nature of war,
the nature of political struggle, all things considered. Basically, for example,
we are not really emotionally capable of dealing with any
hardships like we immediately think that it should only be
basically bigger and better like progress without any bigger, bigger
and better, more prosperity.
Speaker 3: If economy is not growing or doing something wrong, do
you know do you know the show Parks and rec
yes for that show. Yeah, the character runs once and
who's supposed to be like sort of the stereotypical you
know American you know, libertarian, Yeah, libertariat. He gets to
in one of the later seasons, he gets to the
UK and he's standing there looking at Buckingham Palace, I think,
and he says, or Downing Street, and he says, everything
that history began in seventeen seventy six, everything before that
was a mistake. And of course that's a joke because
it's such a stereotypical American view, but there is kind
of I mean, there's something to that. You know, a
lot of us really to kind of think and talk
in that way. I would even stress, Like, as you said,
it works as a joke in a show, but in
my opinions, the truth is even darker because first it's
not American phenomenon, unfortunately. I would specify it as a
modern phenomenon, as you know, the civilization of modernity. And
then it is applicable to every person, no matter whether
he leaves on the planet. To an extent, you are
accepted as is modern thinking. Have a good friend, John.
Here's called that. Basically, the difference between New World and
the Old World. And I would say, to an extent,
you are a New World person, you do share this
feeling one way or they are there. Yes, you can.
Maybe don't do it to such an extreme version as
Ron Swanson did, or to such an extreme version as
Fukuyama did, but like, at least you can you can
do it in a version. Let's say, okay, all these
history books, they are fun reading. Like that's like somebody
collect somebody collects coins, somebody collects stamps, somebody likes to
watch I don't know, different stories. But ultimately it has
nothing to do with the way the life is right here,
right now. And this is the belief most people do
share like one way or there are at least that's
what I found it. Actually, it doesn't matter to an
extent whether you are a rich person a poor person,
like really comes across all structures of wealth. Diges also
kind of akin to the things you do with simplism,
Like it's just as fairy tales who kids like very similar. Yeah, yeah,
that's how growing up as as somebody who's really into history,
you know, that's that's basically how I was kind of
treated as like, oh, you know that's just his thing.
And I always wanted to say, no, these stories are important,
this stuff really matters. You know, this is really beautiful,
this is you know, this could change your life. And
but it's it's just sort of you know, it's like, Okay,
that's a that's a fine.
Speaker 2: Hobby for you to have.
Speaker 3: Or we need to do a very quick survey of
this in high school and then it will never come
up again in your life.
Speaker 1: Yes, and later you discovered And here comes why it matters.
Later you discovered and that's why, like it gives me
so much joy to work together that it's stories do
actually matter because we live in stories, and the stories
you believe in and the story or is you take
for granted are exactly the stories through which you interact
with the outside world. Here comes like one of the
metadological I would say, element of the course and answer
to the question why Pluter, Because in Plutter's life, the
center of the story is a man like the hero,
if you want to put it this way. And we spend,
in my opinion, too much time in the last let's say,
two hundred three hundred years trying to tell history as
something purely not even purely like something objective, something like
of a number, something like which like these decisions were rational,
or these decisions are made because of these this and
this and forces economic pressure and so economic pressure, political
reason like the interest, etc. But in my opinion, not
thing really changed from the time of Plutar with a
certain caveat, but I may talk about it later. And
the people who make decisions are still the same people.
So the human heart, the human passion, the human let's say, desire.
Still we are still plagued by the same desires, by
the same passions, by the same struggles. Then the heroes
of Plutter or and then if you read it from
this perspective, it's not the story about the past. It's
the story. It is just a story like more historical,
like in a sense that it's kind of in between,
so it's not completely mythos like let's say, a Cinderella story,
but still like if you look from a perspective of
modern history, obviously Plutter's lives don't make don't let's say,
meet thet don't meet the mark, like no modern historians
would seriously to read Pluter has his historical source, like
where is his It's one of my favorite jokes like
the modern historian would spend like twenty two hundred pages
out of fifty trying to give all of the sources
for each are geological evidence and which like let's say
a particular letter to justify the minor, miniscule claim he
is trying to make in putro, you don't have it.
He can basically do something like, and that's the exact speech,
is this man give I don't have the source of
the speech. I don't quote it anywhere, like you can
only found it at me. But that's the exact speech
one one has given. And one can say, well, then
it's not true, like it's not what actually happened. Well,
depends how you read it. If you read it from
the perspective I want to know, is the exact facts
that has ever happened? Might it might not be the
most accurate. Though, then we run as the question, well,
do you know any story which is accurate to such
an extent in your life?
Speaker 2: Well, I see that.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of times where people say it's like,
well if i'd been there with a video camera. But
you can point out events, some of them are happening
in the United States right now, where there was a
video camera present. In fact, there were multiple video cameras present,
and something happened, and half the country looks at the
event one way and half of it looks at it
the other way. So this idea that sort of like
if you just had the ability to record everything with
the machine that you're going to get this total objectivity
is obviously false. What would you say about before we
get back to Plutarch? What would you Would you have
a response or would you even care to respond to
somebody who says, oh, that's just the great man view
of history.
Speaker 2: Haven't we moved on from that? You know? Any any
thoughts about that?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot to say about it. I will
just go I will be upfront time. I would answer
from orthodox perspective, and I sing a paradox of Orthodox
perspectives that every man he's a great man potential m hmm,
like potential that like in a way more like we're
all meant to be great man like from this perspective.
So if you look from and if you kind of
reverse the table, then basically story story is told from
the great man perspective. Are still relevant to us, just
on a different level of reality? Yes, maybe you yourself
won't solve the problem of the state. But one of
the things, one of the things that course is trying
to show people you yourself still have to figure out
political questions on the level of reality you're operating in.
It can be the level of yourself, or it can
be the level of your family, It can be the
level or of your company, it can be whatever whatever
you're working with. The politics, it's not about the scale.
It has a certain element of the scale, but the
scale is almost different. In the politics, it's exactly about power,
and the question of power. The first place we truly
face it, sorry for an like upon it's in front
of the mirror, do I have power over myself? Like really,
that's the first real question. And then the heroes of
Plutar are very relevant because they struggling with these elements.
And you can always ask yourself, like you can recognize
your own desires, you can recognize your own vulnerabilities, you
can recognize your own passions in them. And then why
it is a good story. It truly shows you the fruits,
let's say, of certain desires. It shows that if being
put into the city, into this particular let's say structure
of reality. Let's say republic, which and then you actually
look what republic is. For example, if you look into
what democracy is some stuff like this or which is
let's say power distribute it in a different way, or
power like belonging to armed men, or power belonging to
popular men. Like you can really quickly move it to
pretty universal let's say, if first move it universal level
and then bring it down to the level of this,
to the level of universal and universality, which is applicable
to you, and then you can learn from it. That's
I think the most stories. So as with any good story,
you can learn in my opinion, as much from a
good history if it's written in a proper way. And
here I would I do give a lot of credit
to Plutarch because he writes it as a good stories.
It's a good story of a man. You can see
a person, and that's what we ultimately care about. That's
why these patterns, it's patrons of men, it's patterns of
their archetypes, not of some objective forces. And in that case,
his stories, if you learn to read them, I do
genuinely believe for people, if we learn to read history
again and to understand history. Again, it will help us
better understand ourselves. And that's a pretty good I would say,
t'sk generous so and saying it has one downside as
a modern realitist, freatest of beings, that's surprising to you,
that's one downside of Yes, yes, I definitely have to
give a credit for it, like it kind of becomes boring.
So I would say for those who are expecting constantly
to be excited about some urgent news, yes, as a
history really makes you a little bit dissensitive to decentivised forces.
Speaker 3: So for people who don't know already, Plutarch's Lives or
the Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, is
a collection of biographies. They're all relatively short. Obviously Plutarch's
Lives altogether is a kind of a hefty tone, but
they are, by modern standards, each a relatively short biography.
And it's it's in Paris. So what Plutarch does is
he takes one person from Greek history and one person
from Roman history, and they tells their lives and parallels,
and then very often, I think eighteen out of the
twenty three pairings he follows it up with a short
comparison of their qualities together. Yeah, the short little commentaries
sort of say, hey, here's some interesting why ways we're
gonna talk in a moment about Cicero. Here's some interesting
ways that the life of Cicero and the life I
think Setonius is the is that is that the Greek
he he parallels with him. I want to say, no,
it's not Setonius. It's some it's because himself. Yes, yeah, yeah,
hold on, hold on, I'm just gonna to look at
my notes here. I's trying to remember this. Oh, Demosthenes, Demosthenes, Demosthenes,
of course, of course, yes.
Speaker 2: Toonius is like, that's not right, all right.
Speaker 3: So anyway, so he pairs Cicero with Demosthenes, and so
he does the life of Demosthenes, then the life of Cicero.
Then he compares their life and says, hey, here's some
interesting points about the way that they both really desired
glory and that kind of became problematic for them. Here's
what Here's how they handled you know, at each at
some point they each went into exile. So here's how
they handled exile. Cicero maybe did not handle exiles so well,
whereas Simosthenes that's when he actually becomes the best friend
of his country and so on. So that's that's what
it is, and it's it's great reading. I mean, it's
really fascinating. I find obviously this will not be a
surprise to anybody at this point in time, but I
find the lives of you know, the lives of Plutarch
to be just so fascinating. Of course, I love Roman
history really really deeply a because it's awesome and interesting,
and all the characters, especially from the late Republican period,
are so they're so archetypical, you know, they're so extroverted.
You have, you know, to have somebody like Caesar and
Cicero and Cato and Mark Antony like all running around
in proximity to each other and Crassis at the same
time in history, that's bonkers. And of course it's also
bears a lot of interesting similarities to the situation we
find ourselves in today, which I think is something we're
going to talk about. So and I will just say
Plutarch went on to be hugely influential. For instance, Shakespeare's plays,
especially Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra drew heavily on Plutarch
as a source. So Plutarch is directly responsible for a
lot of these sort of the popular ways that we
think about, you know, some of these larger than life
figures from that late Republican period.
Speaker 1: Again, and I think I will stressed the reason why,
and that's where like and it's kind of hidden to me,
like in the text, because Plutarch never writes about it directly,
so like if you read the text, he constantly like
spreads like the snippets of this in the between his lines.
He always tries to answer the question, what is the
driving force? What is the main desire of our character,
of our hero, or if you speak, let's say more symbolic,
what ze lost? What inciple does this hero serves? And
that's why I think it's so important and relevant and
later for literature for ourselves nowadays, because once we learn
to see like this connection between desire or you can
say service, then we can understand the action. So once
we can understand the connection between desire and action, we
can see the same connection no matter in which context
it appears, and then we can separate between the context
and this pattern in itself and that's in that case,
it's very akin to the fairy tale, like to the
to the way it is done in the most classical
stores just highlighted.
Speaker 3: So let's take this grammar of symbolism that you've just
given us, which is the question whom does the hero serve,
what's their telos, what's their principle? And then we from
that from whom they serve, we understand actions. From what
their actions are, we can predict that this visions that
they will make. Let's see how this plays out if
we can do an example real quick in the life
of Cicero. So for people who are man, I just
I sure hope everybody out there who knows who Cicero is,
but you just think so yeah. But just to give
a quick snippet, Cicero was born in one hundred and
six PC. He dies in forty three. He is one
of the nobles omo, one of the new men, that is,
he's from a new family, new blood, new money, no
noble ancestry, but basically rises in the what are sometimes
called the knights k and I g hts, but really
the equestrian class, which is like the sort of it's
not right to call them a middle class, but like
they're not the they're not the old families of Rome.
Speaker 1: But there is in the upper classes, but the upper
middle class, but not an old.
Speaker 3: Ulper middle class. And these are land owning families. These
are land owning families and a questrian class because like
the knights of the later Middle Ages, they supply the
cavalry when Rome goes to war. Okay, so he's from
the question class. And he basically rises entirely. I mean
he he is a man of what at the time
would have been considered to be very modest means for
someone of his class, which of course means he only
owns a few estates and and just some slaves, you know.
Not not not, He's not He's not like Crassus or
Julius Caesar, right, although Caesar was quite poor for most
of his most of his early life, but that's a different,
different life. So and he but he rises through oratorical brilliance.
He is a brilliant speaker. He is a brilliant jurist.
He gets most of his early cred as a lot
of Roman politicians did, by basically being a lawyer. Again
kind of setting the path the precedent for the way
that our society works, and his identity is very much
bound up with the Republic's constitutional machinery, which is not
there's not a written constitution like we have today, but
rather there's a series of kind of binding legal legal
presidents that have built on each other for generations and
generations to generations. All these things that the Romans constructed
after they drove out the Tarquins, the last of their kings,
all these various apparatus, some of which were legal, some
of which were religious, but actually all religious things are legal,
and all legal things are religious if you're a Roman.
And just so they have all these apparatus that this
apparatus that they built to basically kind of control and
constrain power and make sure that one person doesn't gather
too much power to themselves. And so he knows that
machinery inside and out. And this is a world in
which being able to debate well in the Senate, being
able to get your point across in a convincing and
powerful way, is kind of the most important skill there is.
And so in sixty three BC he is elected consul,
which is sort of like being elected presidents slash commander
in chief, and this is as high as you can get.
This is, as you know, top of the pile. And
during this time, during his consulship, there is something called
the Cataline Conspiracy, which is both his finest hour and
also this very fatal precedent. So I don't know if
you do you want me to say more about the
Cataline conspiracy or do you want to just kind of
go from there.
Speaker 1: No, I think it's again. I hope people will just
read like honestly after it. But basically it is.
Speaker 5: A very Wikipedia you guys go to at least Wikipedia whatever, Yeah,
because yeah, the context is important.
Speaker 1: He does the conspiracy. I just I guess we can
walk it along the same line. We can just move
it forward. I think a couple of interesting things about
what you said before and how it is all again
relevant to more than days. I would say Cicero is
a new man in a way more meaning than one
can say, like what one can one can think, so
because he's thinking is actually pretty modern. You mentioned before
his talent of return right or basically in rhetoric like
so he's famous for giving speeches if anything, like he
is a legacy is mostly in like textbooks effectively nowadays,
how to speak well, how to build an argument well,
and then for hundreds of years, even like way after
the Republic has sponen, cicero speeches actually stayed as a
part of the core curriculum for like Middle Ages and
like actually both like in the West and in the East, like,
so his legacy of very eloquate person has stayed, has
stayed with us.
Speaker 3: I will say as as a Latinist, Cicero's Latin is
the Golden Age of Latin. Like he's the He's the bar.
And of course he writes a lot of poetry, which
much of much of which is technically brilliant but thematically
is kind of not my favorite and poetry, but then
there's also he also writes some beautiful treatises, including one
on friendship, which I think is the goes on to
be one of the most beloved texts of the Middle Ages. Yes, however,
there are.
Speaker 1: Very very close to hard points in his early ages.
So the first thing is pretty good in contrast to
many people. He is talented from a very young age,
and he's pretty clear what he's going to do with
his life from a very young age. So like even
when he was a kid, basically he interests thinking about
the spirit in Roman life. Him being very basically clever
in school made him popular to an extent. It actually
cost some at first anger from the sides of the
more richer families because their kids were hanging with sister
and looking up to him, which is like a little
bit you know, status clash, but says a lot about
the time. However, later in his life it was very
interesting episode and one of his travels or exiles when
he visits the philosophical school in essence and actually criticizes
how Plutar writes the changes in the teaching whatever, like
he doesn't really distinguishes what it is, but you can
look more and basically what the conflict was. The classic
conflict of the law is like what is the truth?
And basically back then there were two schools. One is
like effectively narrowing down that the truth is something objective,
so and like that would be that suing the truth
as a search of something real is how you in
the case. And then there was a second school when
effectively truth is something you can prove in court, so
argue how beautiful your line of arguments is the sort
of classic.
Speaker 3: You know, scummy lawyer kind of yeah, the truth is
whatever I make you believe.
Speaker 2: It is kind of yes.
Speaker 1: And Cicero definitely was of the second opinion in his
professional career from the very beginning, and that and for
him it was actually why I do stress it out,
because for him it was almost a rational choice. So
he clearly was a very smart man. He was exposed
to both traditions, and he being a lawyer in the
late Republic, you can clearly see why he was like
this second opinion was way more closer to his heart,
especially later we talk about the passion which he truly
had in his heart. But why I already mentioned earlier
he is very modern man, because let's be honest, that
is a very modern statement. Truth is whatever I make
out of it. It's one of the core statements most politicians,
and unfortunately we ourselves kind of tend to have nowadays,
like it's not something old like that belief is pretty close.
And in that sense, the life of Cicery is becoming
very close to our age because what it shows, in
my opinion, what happens to a man who is undoubtedly,
undoubtedly super talented, but has truly no spiritual core in
a game of power, that what is the story of Cicery,
in my opinion, is about, And then you can come
basically to the whole Catalinic conspiracy, because that's where I
think it started to shine very brightly in the moment
of his triumph. Basically, yeah, I won't go into detail
what it was, but basically as there was a conspiracy
and other in Rome back then, way not the first
Like so back then Rome was a pretty vulnerable state,
and it's very interesting, like why some parallels about upper
class behavior which Pull describes also ring very close, including
that the kind of end up spending most of the
money on entertainment like some of the nobility. And basically
as the state became very how pular like shaky like shaky,
and any arrogant man could have pushed it with the
littlest of effort. It's almost a direct quote which also
you know, it seems to be quite a long time ago,
but not saying but again pretty close. But long story short,
Sisera manages to prevent the conspiracy, and it's important how
like he prevents it not from decisive military action, but
effectively from talking from speaking, And that's why kind of
this whole story looks to be exactly the pinnacle of
Republican politics. We didn't even have to, let's say, resolve
to force like we saw it effectively through speech. But
then comes a very big problem. After the conspiracy, Cicero
found himself in a position he wasn't ready to. He
needed ultimately decide what to do with the people he arrested,
right and logically reasonably, he needed to execute them obviously
state conspiracy. However, emotionally he could not do it because
then it would lead to other negative consequences, let's say potentially.
And here we comes seeing to the essence of power
in this story, because what power is like when it
comes to politics, it's not making the most rational decisions.
It's about making ultimate decisions, ultimate decisions about life and tests.
It's ultimate decision and ultimate responsibility for these decisions. When
one cannot get a guarantee, one cannot get you know,
like I cannot make a rational calculation which proves that
like this decision will end up to my benefit. No
ultimate decisions and power is always about ultimate decision, whether
it's power over your family, power over yourself, power over
your company, requires spiritual foundation. Without a spiritual foundation, you
cannot make this you won't call it leap of face,
but basically you cannot make a decision which doesn't have
a clear cut answer that it will be good in
the moment, like it might be like the constanquences might
be hard, but it is transcendent. Sister or cannot make
the decisions. And in his whole life and his whole story,
this parenthetic starts to repeat itself later in his life.
He leaves great quote which I think is basically basically
something more than man can always subscribe completely, like from
whom to flee is clear, but not to whom mm hmm.
Like it's when there was later conflict between Caesar and
Pompey and he didn't know whom to support. But again,
because he could build as a lawyer, he can build
a very persuasive case that how why one should defend
Pompey and the other story, I can build very persuasive
case why to support Caesar? Why to execute? Why not
to execute? Why to marry? Why not to marry? Why
to sell my company? Why not to sell my company?
Life and that of a company. Let's say why do
this on this? So actually we as more than people,
and nowadays, especially with the help of I can ask
to build you against the cliffs of four and against.
Problem is about how to choose between them, and exactly
to choose, you need to have a very different quality
in yourself than the competence you need to have. Face well,
face was exactly what Cesar didn't have.
Speaker 3: So Cicero, of course does execute the conspirators, and if
I'm remembering correctly, he has this sort of long there's
this long deliberation in the senate. Ciso should be making
a decision about this kind of fails to do so.
As the real result, things are getting worse and worse.
So the conspiracors are starting to like militarize the gangs
of Rome and militarize their supporters, and so now we're
in danger of losing the city all over again. And
so what Cicero does. Finally, Plutarch says, he's long in
deliberation with himself and with his friends, hesitating whether he
should put them to death, and then finally he decides to.
But the way that he does it is very important,
right because he has them executed without a trial, which
is that at that moment is then expedient and necessary
thing to do. Probably saved Rome. Certainly that's what people
thought at the moment. He's hailed as father of his country.
I think the first person.
Speaker 1: Ever, it's very ironic so that he is the first
personal person who received the the title which later was
became a part of imperial title.
Speaker 3: That's right, it is very held as father of his country.
But this is this action is also the one that
will come back to get Cicero later because it is
of course an unconstitutional act. So as soon as as
soon as he's not in power, as soon as he's
got enemies, then it becomes possible to to prosecute him
for that action because he had Roman citizens executed without
a trial.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's in the long run, yes, this decision really
beat him, but more than that, it b I think
one one needs to understand that not from constitutional perspective,
but from a personal perspective. For the beat Cicero more
which again coming back the way it might be in
pludrugshines very brightly is the character so because there is
another element in Cicero which feels very close to home.
If you remember most part of his life, he actually
is playing games with himself and with the public because
he kind of imitates being a statesman. That's what is
very important. He constantly does this game. Well, it's such
a burden to be a statesman. I would rather be
a philosopher. I would rather go far away. And in
his life he does it several times. He runs away,
then comes back, then runs away, then comes back, And
it is very important that like when he comes back,
he constantly looking do you still remember me? Do you
still basically do you still like me? He despite being
the pinnacle of Rome, despite being like saying that he's
a philosopher who is above this measly word body let's
say desires Pulter actually writes. But above all else, his
heart was plagued by the passion or human glory for glory,
specifically in the form of praise, because that's what lives
of plugar are so beautiful that you can the difference,
you could you can definitely see different shades of glory.
Let's say both Pompeius, both Caesar, both Cicero, they all
kind of plutar rites wanted glory. But it's very different
glories all of them wanted. Isn't that so interesting? Because
you're surely right.
Speaker 3: For Cato, there's also a kind of glory, you know,
and and he he gets that that that he gets
that glory, you know, that place in Roman history where
even even his enemies respect him.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the quote I've got it right here, he said
it says he was always excessively pleased with his own
praise and continue to be very greedy of that glory
to the end.
Speaker 1: And it went to an extent. Remember, so it's katal
in conspiracy. Like it also sounds very close to home.
Like basically he became with this story like a man
who won a football championship championship in a high school
started telling the story when he is like fifty, he
managed to literally bore everyone.
Speaker 3: Said, I remember that he started. I don't remember if
he finished, but he started writing an epic poem about
himself and the way that he saved the country and
that for a while there like you couldn't be you
can be like in the elevator with Cicero, because he'd
be like, oh, as long as I have you for
two minutes, let me read you. So you heard that
poem I wrote about myself, you know, just like really
really kind of difficult to live with.
Speaker 1: But exactly you can see why it is almost inevitable,
so no man can truly live without the foundation. And
basically what history inadvertently has done. He made himself himself
a hostage of the public praise, the public opinion, the
public desire, while claiming to be a philosopher who is
above this and who serves the beauty, who serves the
racierc serves the truth to an extent, he understands the like. Again,
he had a very complicated relationship with this concept concept.
But again, looking close to Homan, isn't it what we're
seeing right now? We see so many let's say politicians,
if anything that's Cicero's, We are full of them. We
have people with this beautiful degree. Okay, maybe less talented
in rastoric actually is than him, but the pattern is
more or less the same. They all got pretty good
equivalent of a great degree. They're capable of doing a
certain level of speeches among the crowds, like they're really
loving the sound of their own voices. But when it
comes to ultimate decision, which requires a sacrifice, the best
they can do is hesitate. Maybe they can will do it,
but they will do it either too late or wrongly.
They will imitate and ultimately they will postpone and ultimate
decision to an extent, like any decision they make is
like is a bad decision. And while being constantly kind
of while constantly buffooning about their past achievements, real or imaginary.
So and in that case where completely let's say, surrounded
by exactly Cicero's like he's a very modern concept. He's
kind of postmodernist to an extent, like because his lack
of face makes him trapped in the house of public opinion,
it makes him trapped in the house of his own voice,
and later it leads to his demise. I will highlight
that the two reasons he actually ends up dying, Like
it's a little bit skipping, but just to give a call.
So first he became completely how to say, unhinged like
quote with one particular man, marc Antony, like who is
not the smartest man. I will give it to this,
but he is a really strong and powerful man in
Rome after Caissar's death. So a little bit skipping around
the time. But again read the Wikipedia article, like it's important,
like for a story part, it's just important that basically
at the end of his life, Cesoro manages to really
make Mark Anthony obsessed with the desire to kill kill
him and heal him for no real good reason. And
Plutarch actually writes about it that it was kind of
a no good reason. So rastoric is a weapon which
you can use something like diligently. But in case of
market Andy, Cinicero was doing it just because he can,
because he kind of enjoyed it. Making again with the rhetorical, Basically,
it's like sharp tweets, like giving the bad nicknames and
writing very sharp tweets about Mark Antony for like several years,
and one needs to understand Mark Anthony was a man
capable of prettier rush he more against himself, right, Bluter
writes about it in the Life of Mark Antony. So
if anything in his personal life when people were around him,
mocking him in a good environment could actually give you
some points speaking about so you can't imagine how hard
one must to try to make the such YOURMND it's
so determined to kill you, like because a good reasons.
Speaker 2: Because even though between between Pompey.
Speaker 3: And Caesar, uh Cicero sides with Pompey, which you know
it doesn't go well. But then what happens is that
Caesar likes Cicero personally, which has always been interesting to
me because they're so different. But Caesar likes Cicero personally,
and he sees having sister around kind of gives him
the cachet. Like like, Caesar is very much we're going
to talk about words and commands in a moment. Caesar
is very much a commands guy. But he also has
enough kind of like aristocratic sensibilities that he realized says, hey,
keeping somebody like Cicero around as ornamentation, that's going to
be good for me. That's going to legitimize. What I'm
trying to do is I take all of these disparate
pieces of power that you used to belong to, the kings,
that were split up between the tribunes and the consoles
and the Senate and so on, and actually try to
bring them back together into one person. The problem is
that they kill Caesar for doing that, and the next
guy who comes along, who's marc Antony, obviously you've got
the second Trium for it. But the next guy who
comes along doesn't care about any of that stuff, and
he does not care about looking legitimate. He doesn't care
about playing the games. Like, you know, Cicero is very
good at playing the game. But what happens when somebody
comes along who doesn't care about playing the game. They
just want to do what they want to do, and
they have the power to do.
Speaker 1: It, and you still kind of insulting them just because
you personally dislike them, like and that's effectively what Cicero did, like,
which is so ironic for such a smart man who
was kind of digging his own grave with it. Like,
and it is also interesting the small detail here again
about the ultimate decisions, because when there was a conspiracy
against the Caesar, it is a pilter also has a
very interesting play that Cicero was not involved involved involved
in it because he kind of didn't got invited because
nobody trusted him actually to be capable of doing kennising,
which is also very ironic. I would put it this way,
that's right. So yes, he was very flowery embellishment kind
of of the of this political theater who definitely thought
very much about himself. That's a very important part. Like
I don't know, like not saying names, but definitely Cicero
really like sought himself being actually the smartest guy in
the room all of the time, and not in the
nice way, especially the all that he got Like that's
is very also a very interesting part about the lives
of Pulter. You can see how certain seats which were
planted in a very young age later bloomed, like in
two different consequences, because youngest sister looks much more uppeeling.
Let me put it this way than the oldest Cicero,
like the oldest Csoro, the way Plutar describes him, it's
way more and more. I'm sorry, pathetic man who just
yes reminiscence about the glory of his highest moment, who
is not careful with his words, who kind of lies
to himself. I think that's again very important point, because
even his friends were tired of him constantly like I
just wanted to be a philosopher, or I'm so tired
of this political struggle. But he can't because if he
truly becomes a philosopher, you need to sacrifice a lot
for this truth. Let's say, sorry for my proscation, like Diogenius,
like there were many, especially in Greek environments, there were
many philosophers who kind of dropped everything, effectively became a
version of a monk, some of them or some of
them legitimate started a school and occupied themselves just with
basically teaching young kids rhetoric. But Cicero, it was not
good enough for Cicera. In his life, he got like
three times an opportunity to completely go away from it,
to just stay as a one would say, the rector
of a very prestigious university, but it was never enough
for him, Like it was never enough for him. He
always wanted to come back, but also in a way
that it didn't look like he wants power. That's a
very interesting story. He wanted the glory of power, one
can say, is the glory of being on top without
carrying the duty of being on top, which something we
do all the time. And well, eventually it has beaten
him pretty badly. Like I think it's exactly the final
part of his life. When this, as you said, effectively,
it already starts right after Caesar, so effectively, after this
whole Catalinic conspiracy, cicero life goes down the hill already
mentioned struggle of Pompios and Caesar. But then what basically
the first Caesar wins, Pompios and Caesar getting killed, and
then there was the time of the second thre Umbro,
it was two key characters like Mark Antony and Octavian
August and Surprise, and the time has changed. By the times,
the time has changed rhetically, and.
Speaker 3: The power has also just passed into the hands of
younger men quite frankly, you know, Sister Row's because Cicero
was from the the generation like he was a young
man in the army under Sola, you know, so he's
he saw the first really big civil war and the
first dictator, and he saw the first like what what
power and glory could look like and how you know,
you could do this extreme thing to save the the
to save the city, to save the republic. And then
he always has that in mind, like that's the guy
he's going to be. But of course he's no Sola.
And in fact, somebody like Market and Anthony were. Octavia
is much closer to Sola in terms of well at
least in terms of spine, if not morals.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, some of them. Yes again, and we
need to know that Sula was not really a noble man.
If you look into his story with his whole system
of prescriptions just saying yeah, yeah, Sula was capable of
making really harsh decisions, often for bad reasons. But he
definitely didn't like the opportunity to make the decisions. Cicero
would not be able to do it. That's important. But yes,
as you said about younger men, it's also interesting that
this younger man believed in something again, Octavia, Yeah, but
they definitely were not this post modernists, modernist bureaucright in
at the Ancient Rome, because there is a very precise
quote about cicera life which I think we all need
to remember. That Cicera ended up dying and we will
talk about it later, as he lived believing words matter
enough to be dangerous. And here is the problem. Words
alone are not dangerous. It's about the will to cross
the rubicon. If the in the let's say, in the
Ancient Drone time, it's when a word is connected to
your will. And this is a very theological statement if
you think about it. It's not just the word. I
think that's the main difference. People don't understand because you
can fall into two degrees like words don't matter at all.
Let's say radical materialism. Well you know, it's like just
a flattering mumbo jumbos. Stories don't matter.
Speaker 2: At all.
Speaker 1: And the second is like stories matter on their own alone. Well,
I think this your life also shows what happens when
you fall into the second danger, when effectively you separate
words from will to leave your own word and we.
Speaker 3: It's so easy for academics, especially like in post post
miner academics, to get hung up about this idea, like
and you know, we can fall a little bit in
love with words and our own words and our own
rhetorical brilliance and our own ability to say things, and
you suddenly sort of forget that.
Speaker 2: No lives are actually.
Speaker 3: Being changed by you know, you go to the conferences,
and you give the talks, and you hear other people
give the talks, and you get your journal articles published
in all these different things, and for the most part,
very little of it actually matters. What matters is that
people who have the will to implement the things. And
sometimes when you see the things that you're talking about
implemented by the people who have the will, it's real ugly.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is very ugly because it's exactly about this. Yes,
we are a Scutians talk about God's ward, but in
that case, this ward is perfectly united with will is
perfectly united with sacrifice, it's perfectly united with action, and
it's about the combination of all things. Cicero effectively a
man of empty words, the best possible language of empty words.
That's why his restoric argument, as his rhetoric textbook, stayed,
But in terms of political struggle, most of his words
ended up being empty. Yes, he could destroy reputation all
over time, but ultimately, if you look deep into his life,
he's the man who thinks he will use everyone around
him and ends up being used by every true political
power around him. As you mentioned Caesar before, before he
was let's say, even in Catilina conspiracy, effectively, he was
not effectively a political actor. He was effectively used by
oligarchical senate to suppress the populist kind of uprising just
again a little bit of like a little bit simplifying it,
but kind effectively would have happened. And at the end
of his life that's the most paradoxical part. He ends
up being being out played in his own game, in
his own let's say, usage game, by Octavian. Because the
story is like this young guy Oatavian who is the
air of Caesar, but he is in a moment political
state is not that stable because actually people are afraid
that he will become too dangerous and too powerful. And
then he uses the caesar saying, I will just basically
rule together with you and like you will actually carry
the most duty. Basically he plays his arrogance part, and
then Cesero uses all of the rhetorical power he is
left with, all of the talent he is left with
to persuade that Octavian is basically our new salvation, like everybody,
like everyone was Octavian something of this sort. He used
all of it. Like the crisis for Octavian passes away
and Cicero loses kind.
Speaker 3: Of everything, like hesly, Cicero sort of makes this gamble
on his word, right, this is from Plutarch, He says, Cicero,
who perceived his object, that is Octavian, did all he
could by the speeches he made in the Senate and
among the people to bring the things to the issue
that Octavian desired. Because Cicero thinks that he's using Octavian
to get what he wants. And he said, again this
is from Plutarch. Is supposed to have made a quip
about Octavian and said this young man is to be praised,
honored and got rid of. And of course Octavian overhears
this and does not forget about it.
Speaker 1: No, and more importantly, Octavian is absolute opposite like like Davian,
just as a spoiler like Octavian is in my opinion
later like Unfortunately Plutarch never left us a life of Octavian,
so you have to read it in Sptonius. But basically
Octavian is absolute power, like it was there reason an
image of a man of power. It is definitely Octavian.
And it's just very ironic to see how basically Cicero
gets completely crushed sacrificed later by Octavian as a pawn
with like traded well Actavian like, it's interesting. It's not
like Actavian really wanted to do it, but if left
with no other choice, he had no problems doing it.
But to me, like sorry, just coming back to the story,
it's even more interesting if you remember Pluter writes why
Cesoro has fallen into the strap and it's again so
like so close basically because he had a dream. This
man who is so proud of his reason, one can say,
it's so proud of his rhetoric, who is above all
of this. Let's say, village people believe system because it's
it's a fun fact that Cicero was had priest or
from and he could not even say that whether gods
exist or not. I literally heard Archibishop Canterbury last year
say something like this, like in englandh that I'm truly
not sure whether God exists, but i think it's still good.
But cicer or something of this sort. So and this
man who is should be so much elevated, so much above,
basically falls into the trap which costs him his life
because he saw a dream basically something along the line
that his duties to raise the young giggle and rule
over them.
Speaker 2: So there is this dream.
Speaker 1: About Sunder and Nigel the sacrifice he consults like a
mystic effectively, which like as you can see all overlay,
and he ends up falling with this plan no matter
what other maybe even rational calculations would have told him.
And again it's very like for you as a deacon,
you can definitely see it playing all of the time
that people who claim to be thatware as a man
of reason often end up being quite manipulated by the
most pagan forces and pagan desires and their hearts and
falling into the traps which end up cost them everything.
I want precisely to highlight that in case of Rome,
it's not that uncommon many a Roman man like basically
treated face something something called this sort like basically it's
something which we don't treat too like too seriously, but
it's an important part of social fabric, social social structure,
so that's why we uphold it. But in personal life,
in many stories, you can see how the men are
often guided and manipulated by the most absurd dreams, stories, priestesses,
some kind of very I would say, for more than Americans,
the closest they've seen some very la vibe. I don't
know if you have a grom now.
Speaker 3: That's right, because there's like the established imperial another time,
the established cults of the city, like the Vesta and
so on, and Capital and Jupiter. But then the what
the aristocracy go for are like mystery cults and you know,
things that are kind of sensational, things that are kind
of mystical thing, you know, like.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 3: It's people are people everywhere, man's That's that's always my takeaway.
Speaker 2: As people are people everywhere, and that's.
Speaker 1: The main story. That's why the history is so important.
Because people are people everywhere, you find yourself surprisingly not alone.
You can always, for example, if you know the stories
and histories very well, you can always see when what
happens when an empty world meets command. Suddenly, when let's say,
a desire of somebody to take some piece of land
cannot be stopped by just the phrase like we have
let's basically have these principles and the capacity to stay
by these principles. If it's just a Mingo word and
quotes increase in speeches given and dabs effectively, I don't
kind of want to. As I told you, basically, yeah,
is something which it's this patron of man. As I said,
it's a very postmodern man. And I don't know if
you had the experience like I had, like I have
an eduction. One of my educations is from Europe, like
can impt. An elite American university is something of similar
has been happening so effectively more than a university is
designed to breed ciceros of different caliber or caliber of talent,
like one can be like a Barack Obama, very talented,
like very eloquent. One can be less talented or like
it doesn't matter. But essentially, if we look at from
it on all of them, from the lenses we discussed
in the life of Cicero, we see this principle paralys
no lack of true belief in anything like, any higher properties,
any highly reality, any true God above them, exceptional extraordinarily
love to the sound of their own voices, and effectively
this belief in being the chosen like because what Cicero
effectively did He believe that I'm the chosen one, and
everybody should applaud me, everybody should love me like I deserve,
like I deserve all of the praise, et cetera. Appeals
that you can achieve it effectively by rhetoric alone. You
can see it, for example, in a context of war,
like many people for over the course of the last
decades effectively think it's enough just to say the right phrases.
We just need to keep making chance about reality, and
this will happen, and this will happen. I'm not even
saying what decision is right. I'm saying that the belief
that chanting the decision, chanting the right words will result
into the right outcome. It's a very more than governmental apparatus,
wife of thinking. Like in America it was more internally
I was saying, but in Europe it was both internally
and externally. Like in terms of administration, all we just
need to say that economy is going better, better, better,
or we just need to say that this is this
and this is happening, and that's this happened, empty words.
And then every time these people are faced with the
need to make a sacrifice, with the need to make
an ultimate decision, they pause, they pause, they are not
capable of it, or the best they can do, make
a half decision, kick the can down the road, say
something right without truly committing to it, which results in
situation going worse, was and worse. Basically, I would say
they are lacking super rational motivation to truly exercise political power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's agree.
Speaker 1: Exam put that, I mean, yeah, and then what is
happening and that's why it's happening, like as well as
in the life of Cicero, when they are faced with
pretty brutal, pretty arrogant, pretty even maybe not correct in
it's own right. I'm not saying, like for example, Anthony
was correct Caesar was corrected. Takes a whole different conversation.
But simply with the ability to exercise this decisions to
exercise commands and to follow up your decision, no matter
how barbarics they are, they have to step back, and
all of the flourish of their language starts looking very pathetic.
They start saying one think and private, and then another
sink in public, they start being so strong and powerful
and talking about the glory of Europe, and then in
private let's say, basically, please don't do this, et cetera, etcetera, etcetera,
Like what is happening all over Greenland right now. Basically
that is a story like the conflict between Trump and
Europeans con clearly like can clearly be seen as a
certain parallel between let's say, general pattern of Cicero and
any desire to make us and any power, just an
ability to exercise a command. We've seen it before recently,
for example, when powerful in the Syria like pretty barbaric people,
and I'm not saying it as a compliment, but like
pretty ruseless as we've seen later on the churchy, which
happened even to many Christian communities. But you can you
cannot stop the force by me of words. You need
this passion, You need this, and you need something strong.
You need the sacrifice to stop something better which is
coming your way. If all you have to offer is
just words, you will lose. You will lose in your
personal life when your fighting, since you will lose in
your family, you will lose in your corporation. You can
be one hundred percent right. You can speak one hundred
words one hundred percent, one hundred times. If you're not
ready to follow up on it, your opponent, your competition,
will win over you, even if they ruse but all
to words than you like in many ways, but they
will win because power is not about words alone. And
that's I think is the lesson which sister or teaches
us with his life literally and in terms of literally
and symbolically, in terms of the Potter's description. That's wonderful. Yeah,
So can you tell us about the course itself? Just
this the kind of what we're going to be covering,
how many weeks it is, who we'll be looking at,
and you know what.
Speaker 2: What people can expect.
Speaker 3: This will be a it's honestly, it's a bigger course
than we've ever done before. So just to help keep
people's sense.
Speaker 2: Of what to expect.
Speaker 1: Well, it's the shorter versions of what I do in Russian.
But yeah, so basically what we're going to do. We
will have total eight meetings and they are divided it
into two parts effectively, so there are there are first
three meetings, three meetings. When we read three Greek lives,
it's the courages, it's okay about this, and it's Lissander
like from Plutter, so like three interesting stories. So the
first is the story I would say of you can
read the description what ultimately the first is about how
to build what drives in the heart of a political community.
The second is about what is like the tragedy I
would say, the deserved tragedy of democratic system. And we
can actually see how Plutarch writes about the pinnacle of
the story of democracy in ancient lives, and we will
talk about how democracy is different from the republic, like
all of these elements and what lessions are driven by
people in this system. Then in Lissander, we will talk
about how victory can be turned into a defeat, which
is very modern story. Surprisingly, it's much harder to deal
with your own victory than even for yourself, but also
for a community, for company, for your family. Success skills
often way more quicker than the tactical defeat. And kind
of the story of Lissander is about it. And then
we're having and this is kind of the stories which
I teach. So there is a presentation and I give
a talk once a week on these three topics, and
then we're having a colog film so on each of
the topics, and that's very important.
Speaker 2: Party.
Speaker 1: Now, maybe the sales go down, but I have to
say we expect our participants to write an essay because
the true purpose of the course is not to listen
to a big head talking in your screen. The ideal
purpose is that and as you know, like all stories,
all lives of clutter hagh grade. So what the classes
for is to give a taste of it, to learn
a little bit, for some people to learn to read again,
because yes, I know you said there pretty short, but
for many people, over the cost of the previous years,
reading anything longer than two pages became a challenge in itself.
So that's a good exercise to start doing this deep
reading and to trying to understand what you have read.
Basically at the end of for each lecture, a participant
rights a small essay. It doesn't have to be big.
It hasn't. It's not professional, it's not great terror. It's
in this the purpose. It's to build in yourself this
capacity to connect the story with some universal political power
pattern which you have witnessed in culture, in your life,
in your family, in your company, in different parts of history,
different histories, or in more than say political environment. So
then the after three classes, we have a you can
call it a round table. Basically I read some of
the questions, I read some of the like, I answer
some of the questions from the say people can ask
me questions. So basically there is interact development in weld.
So that's the force. And then kind of this repeats
itself but on the Roman material. So we have another
three lives, but now the Roman lives, and it's effectively
it's exactly all lives are from the age of collapse
in republic, like so the age of the same age
we're talking about with zero, and it's about I think pompous,
it's Caesar and it's Octavian, and basically it's about trying
to understand which desires lead to which outcome when ultimate
price of power is at stake, which is pretty close
to what American political.
Speaker 2: Life is right now pretty much.
Speaker 1: And then another round table effectually, so great, that's the
course in the natural and so hopefully by the end
of it at least just saying that that's speaking from
the experience, and that's why I think this collaboration might
might bring good fruits. People start saying like and I
can definitely see people start at least by then stop
treating history something elient. They start seeing it as something
they live in, not something that will begins with them,
but something that they live in. And yeah, start start
seeing these patterns and then go on reading further stories.
So tlutter have different other historians from the perspective not
to learn something about the past, but to learn something
about to ourselves, and that I think is a main goal,
and yeah, I hope we will be able to work
towards it.
Speaker 3: So one of the questions I'm often asked is when
I talk about history, I get to the end. I'm like,
I'm connecting you know, Saint Brendan and the Mermaid and
you know CHERYLA Made or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm talking about history.
Speaker 3: I get to the end and people say, okay, great,
but has this you know, usually they ask it like, okay,
but what how's that apply to America? You know, that's
where we're all concerned about, like how does this apply
to us? And right now I'm doing some stuff on
American symbolism, the symbolism of American history, in particular religious history,
and it's probably the most upset I've ever made anybody
with that series of videos, you know, just in terms
of the comments section, because you know, now it gets
personal when you The nice thing about studying some of
this stuff that happened a long time ago is that
it's you have an enough distance, you're removed far enough
away from it that you can apply it in a
way that's going to be you know, less painful.
Speaker 1: I think so well for some people, yes, but I
have to tell you it can be also pretty Like
you can say that you can look at this way
is still history is a mirror, Like if you if
you read history from a modern science perspective, then yes,
you can definitely keep this impassionate element. Let's say, if
you read it as the way ancients read history, which
is effectively didactic, like the point of startling history was
the tactic to teach you something about yourself. If you're
doing it to honestly, it's still pretty transformative experience, I
would put it. I would put it along this line
as any good piece of as any good story. But
I agree it's less painful than let's say, just facing it,
not even facing it directly, but reading the news. And
I would add, still there is one difference between more
than an ancient time. It's still much nice to read
histories because in a certain way they were bigger people,
Like we are way too similar to them in terms
of our vices, but we definitely like a lot in
terms of their virtues, and that it's much nicer stories.
Speaker 3: Let's talk a little bit about contemporary parallels.
Speaker 1: There was a story in Russia in like when I
all these things we talked about kind of just funked
me onto the head. It was the story of this
Pregaussian uprisings. Basically there was this mercenary company which kind
of rebelled and tried to achieve some let's remember that. Yeah, okay, yeah,
and yeah, so the story went. And then I was
exactly reading Plutter Has the Life of Guy Marius, and
it really hit me how the motivation that desires, the passion,
even the words in which Plutter describes the story corresponse,
which was what's happening on the screen, And it was
just fascinating.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember the Tea Party in America,
and I remembers it to politics a few about a
decade ago. So I was I was reading a ton
of Roman history right around that time, and I looked at,
you know, at this this one moment we had the
Tea Party was at twenty twelve, where the Tea Party
and the Occupy movement both happening at the same time,
and it was like the kickoff of eventually the Tea
Party morphs into my Maga and everything, and the Occupied
Movement morphs into BLM. But you had, you had this
moment of the just populist uprising on the left and
on the right, and I felt, I was like, we're
in our Gragpye Brothers moment. Yeah, We're We're in the
Titus Graco's moment. Like that is what is happening right now,
And so set your watches. Caesar is gonna be. Caesars
is gonna come along. And that is the most fascinating
because we like again again, Pluther doesn't speak about it directly.
That's why I still think you I there's a reason
there that t well, you're kind of translating and showing
and booting a spotlight. But he often talks about this
passions desire like the system, like which passions run, which
system effectively of which character And what I think is
super important nowadays and in different work you do, in
different work I do, is to kind of bring this
optic back because there is one tradition of like it
didn't go deep into it, but there is different traditions
of political theology and hy true bital using this term
just to be able to find any label to what
I'm doing. But what I am trying, I think, ultimately think,
what I'm trying to do is to show exactly the
movement of passions, desire, struggles and imitations in the realm
of power. And if we learn, if I think, if
more people learn to see what is happening around us
in the same way way, we actually will build this
true resilience and true subjectivity, which of course is not
political in itself. It's not about rights. It's about this
right over the passion, not right conquering your own passions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the grace obviously, like as you know, because otherwise,
like you will always fall into the same trap. You
will always step on the same rakes and you will
be surprised. How could it happen, Well, the same way
it has happened to Rome, the same way this has
happened late in like Florentine, the same way it has
happened later. Let's because people don't change. The same passions.
Put into the same context with the same desires will
give more or less the same result. Yes, it will
look slightly differently, but in essence it will be the same.
Like and it's like I was told the joke, like
being a confessor. In one way, it's the most boring
job because people are confessing the same thing.
Speaker 2: Again. That's right.
Speaker 3: This is going to be the longest course we've ever done, folks.
Of course, it's one hundred and eighty dollars. I'm really
excited about it. I am the guy who spends every
day thinking about the Roman Empire. Hi, it's me, So
if that describes you as well, please come and join
me learning from Pavel and learning about how to view
history as a mirror. I think this is going to
be a wonderful supplement to the things that we've been
covering in terms of universal history on the Symbolic world.
So I'm very excited about it. I hope that you
are as well. Pavel, thank you so much for being
here today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: I said I would never do it again, but here
we are. We are announcing the Symbolic World Summit in
May twenty twenty six. I have so many great people
around me that I'm just excited to do it, even
though I thought it would be crazy to do it again.
Speaker 3: Our summit's going to be from May fourteenth through sixteenth
in Broadview Heights, Ohio. You can buy tickets at Symbolic
World Summit dot com. We have early bird pricing going
right now, fifty dollars off of general admission and VIP tickets.
Kenot speakers this year our father Josiah Trenham and doctor
Mary Harrington, which is a combination nobody knew that they wanted.
But I think it's going to be absolutely incredible. And
of course Jonathan and I will be speaking, as well
as several people from around the symbol community.
Speaker 4: A lot of people that you like that you've seen
are going to be there, are going to come, We're
gonna have book signings.
Speaker 2: It will be a lot of time for.
Speaker 4: People to meet and to greet. We're also doing Supra
as well, and so come and join us. We can't
wait for this and we're excited to meet you in person.
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.
Speaker 2: There are apparel and books to purchase.
Speaker 4: So go to the Symbolic world dot com and thank
you for your support.