Sodom and Gomorrah

[0] Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[1] You can support these podcasts by donating to Dr. Peterson's Patreon, the link to which can be found in the description.

[2] Dr. Peterson's self -development programs, self -authoring, can be found at self -authoring .com.

[3] Three difficult stories tonight, and hopefully my plan is to get through all three of them.

[4] So we'll see how that goes.

[5] So we're going to talk about the story.

[6] of Sodom and Gomorrah, and then the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, which is an extremely complicated, complicated story.

[7] And so we'll try to make some headway with that.

[8] The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is plenty complicated, too.

[9] All right, so what we established last week, at least in part, was this idea that the Abrahamic narratives are set up as punctuated epochs, I suppose, in Abraham's life.

[10] And we were hypothesized.

[11] that, you know, you set out a goal for yourself in your life.

[12] It's like a stage in your life, you might say that.

[13] And then when you run that goal to its end, when that stage comes to an end, then you have to regroup and orient yourself once again.

[14] And I was making the case that that's a good time to make necessary sacrifices.

[15] You know, part of that's because as you move through your life, you have to shed that which is no longer necessary because otherwise it accretes around you and holds you down and you perish sooner than you should.

[16] And I think that's in large part because if you don't dispense with your life as you move through it, then the stress of all that undone business and all those unmade decisions turns into a kind of chaos around you And that chaos puts you in a state of psychophysiological emergency preparedness chronically, and that just ages you.

[17] And so it's necessary in some sense to stay light on your feet.

[18] And also, I think, to renew your commitment to your aim upward.

[19] And I believe that that's what the sacrificial routines in the Abrahamic stories dramatize.

[20] I said already, that these things are often first portrayed very dramatically and concretely before they become psychologized.

[21] And we'll see, because one of the things that happens tonight as well in these stories, is that when God makes his covenant with Abraham, this is the next part of the story, it's also when the idea of circumcision is introduced into ancient Hebrew culture.

[22] Now, there's every bit of evidence that other cultures were utilizing circumcision beforehand.

[23] So it wasn't necessarily a novel invention of the Abrahamic people.

[24] But I see its introduction as a step on the road to the psychologization of the idea of sacrifice, right?

[25] First of all, it's giving up something concrete.

[26] And then, second, it's signified by the sacrifice of a part of the body instead of, for the sake of the whole, it's something like that.

[27] It's dramatizing the idea that you have to give up a part of yourself for the sake of the whole.

[28] And eventually, well, by modern times, that becomes virtually completely psychological in its essence, in that we all understand, perhaps not as well as we should, but at least well enough to explain it, that it's necessary to make sacrifices to move ahead in life.

[29] one of the themes that I'd like to explore tonight in relationship, especially to the sacrifice of Isaac, is that once humanity had established the idea that sacrifice was necessary to move ahead, which is really, it's a discovery of incalculable magnitude, right?

[30] The idea that you can give up something in the present, and that will in some sense ensure a better future is an unbelievable achievement.

[31] It's equivalent to the, the discovery of the future.

[32] It's equivalent to the discovery of the utility of work.

[33] Like, its importance can't be overstated.

[34] Okay, so it took a long time for people to figure this out.

[35] Animals haven't figured it out at all, right?

[36] We've figured it out, and it's hard.

[37] It's hard for people to make sacrifices because, of course, the present has a major grip on you, as it should, because in some way you live in the present.

[38] So, anyways, there's the twin problem of getting the whole idea of sacrifice up and running and then figuring out exactly what it means, but there's a problem that branches, off that, two or a two -fold problem.

[39] So the hypothesis is that sacrifice is necessary to ensure that the future is safe and secure and productive and positive in all of those things.

[40] Okay, so then a question immediate, two questions immediately rise from that, right?

[41] One is, well, what's the proper sacrifice?

[42] Now, we already talked about that a little bit with regards to Cain and Able, and one of the things we saw was that Cain's sacrifice, whatever it was, was wrong, and Abel's was right, Noah's seemed to be right?

[43] Abraham seems to you right.

[44] There is something about a sacrifice that can be correct.

[45] There's something about a sacrifice that can be incorrect.

[46] The question is, what would be the maximally correct sacrifice?

[47] So, because that's an obvious question to arise from the mere observation that sacrifice is necessary.

[48] Okay, if you're going to sacrifice and it's necessary, well, how is it that you would behave if you were going to do it really well, if you're going to do it perfectly?

[49] Okay, so that's question number one.

[50] And then question number two might be, Well, if the future can be better because of a sacrifice and sacrifices can vary in quality, then how much better could the future be if your sacrifice was of the highest quality, right?

[51] There's a limit issue there, and the limit is something like, well, how good could your life be?

[52] If you really got your act together and you gave up all the things that were impeding you in your movement forward, if you did that forthrightly, and with integrity and with seriousness, with dead seriousness, you tried to set your life right, what is the upper limits with regards to how your life might lay itself out?

[53] And I would say, well, we don't know the answer to that, but I think that the idea of something like the city of God or the kingdom of God on earth or the reestablishment of paradise, something like that, is the answer of the imagination to the question, how good could the future be if sacrifice was optimized?

[54] And those are archetypal questions, right?

[55] An archetypal question is a question that everyone asks, whether they know it or not, because sometimes you can act out a question.

[56] An archetypal question is a question that everyone asks, and an archetypal answer is the answer that can't be made any better to that question.

[57] So, I can give you an example of that.

[58] The reason that Christ's passion is an archetypal story is because it's a kind of limit, right?

[59] It's the worst possible set of things that can happen to the best possible person.

[60] So it's a story that constitutes a limit.

[61] It has nothing to do with the factual reality of the story.

[62] That's a completely independent issue.

[63] I'm speaking about this psychologically is that certain stories can exhaust themselves in a perfect form, and that would be the archetypal form.

[64] So that's the territory that we're going to wander around in a little bit today, and we'll use the stories as anchors.

[65] I've been thinking a lot about the Sodom and Gomorrah story, because it's classically associated with a biblical injunction.

[66] against homosexuality, and that's often how it's read, I would say, in particular, by the more fundamentalist end of the Christian spectrum.

[67] And I've thought about that a lot, because it's pretty damn clear that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has something to do with sexual impropriety, but I've really come to the conclusion that has very little to do with homosexuality.

[68] So, we'll see how that interpretation prevails as we walk through this tonight.

[69] Okay, so we'll start with a bit of a recap from last week.

[70] So Abraham's had his last adventure, and he's 90 years old.

[71] 99 years old, actually.

[72] The Lord appeared to Abram and said, unto him, I am the almighty God.

[73] Walk before me and be thou perfect.

[74] Well, that's quite the command.

[75] Now, Alexander McLaren, who we talked about before, elaborated upon this slightly, and this is what he had to say.

[76] This is not precisely walking with God, the idea of walking before God.

[77] It is rather that of an act of life spent in continual consciousness of being naked and open before the eyes of him to whom we have to give an account.

[78] Okay, so that's an idea that's in keeping with the notion that what we're seeing in the Abrahamic story is the call to adventure of man, of the typical person, right?

[79] Because your life, in some sense, is an adventure, and I suppose the reason for that is that you're confronted by things that you cannot understand, that you have not yet mastered.

[80] There's a heavy price to be paid if you fail to conduct yourself appropriately, and there's a large reward to be gained if you conduct yourself properly.

[81] And so that pretty much defines an adventure story, and God calls to Abraham and tells him to move out into the world, to leave what he's familiar with, to go into the strange lands of famine and tyranny, and to find his place.

[82] And that works out quite nicely for Abraham.

[83] And so what that also means is that because Abraham is doing that consciously, at least according to this interpretation, that he's not naive in his determination to move forward.

[84] I mean, I've dealt with lots of people who have anxiety disorders, you know.

[85] And one thing about people who have anxiety disorders is they are not mysterious to me. I understand, it's no problem for me to understand why people have anxiety disorders or why they're depressed or why they have substance use problems.

[86] The mystery to me is always why people don't have all of those things at once.

[87] because everybody has a reason to be anxious.

[88] In fact, we have the ultimate reason to be anxious because we know that we're vulnerable and we know that we're going to die.

[89] And how you cannot be anxious under those circumstances is a great mystery.

[90] It's a massive mystery.

[91] And the same thing applies with regards to depression.

[92] And then the same thing applies to some degree with regards to drug and alcohol abuse, as I said last week.

[93] There's plenty of reasons to drown your consciousness in alcohol.

[94] That's for sure.

[95] We could refer to the aforementioned anxiety and depression, not least.

[96] And the sorts of drugs that people are prone to take are chemicals that take the affective edge off the tragedy of life.

[97] So back to the issue of fear.

[98] I mean, Abraham is self -conscious, that's what this commentary says, but the thing is, is he moves forward despite that.

[99] He's self -conscious, and he knows the danger, but he moves forward despite that.

[100] And that's actually the appropriate response in the face of actual non -naive understanding of what constitutes life.

[101] Like if you're naive and you move forward, it's like, well, what the hell do you know?

[102] There's no courage and naivety because you don't know what there is to stop you.

[103] You don't know what dangers you might apprehend.

[104] But to be aware of what it is that your problem is.

[105] So to be alert existentially, let's say, or to be fully self -conscious, means that you're perfectly aware of your limitations and how you might be hurt.

[106] And then to make the decision to move forward into the unknown and the land.

[107] of the stranger anyways, that's the, I would say, that's one of the secrets to a good life.

[108] And I can say that really without fear of contradiction, I would say, because the clinical literature on this is very, very, very clear.

[109] What you do with people who are afraid, and to some degree depressed, but certainly anxious, is you lay out what they're anxious about, first of all, in detail, what is it that you're afraid of what might happen, and then you decompose it into small problems, hypothetically manageable problems.

[110] And then you have the person exposed themselves to the thing that they're afraid of.

[111] And what happens isn't that they get less afraid.

[112] That isn't what the clinical literature indicates exactly.

[113] What happens instead is they get braver.

[114] And that's not the same thing, right?

[115] Because if you get less afraid, it's like, well, the world isn't as dangerous as I thought it was.

[116] You know, silly me. If you get braver, that's not what happens.

[117] What happens is, yeah, the damn world's just as dangerous as I thought.

[118] or maybe it's even more dangerous than I thought, but it turns out that there's something in me that responds to taking that on as a voluntary challenge and grows and thrives as a consequence.

[119] And there's no doubt about this.

[120] Even the psychophysiological findings are quite clear.

[121] If you impose a stressor on two groups of people, and on one group, the stressor is imposed involuntarily, and on the other group, the stressor is picked up voluntarily.

[122] The people who pick up the stress or voluntarily use a whole different psychophysiological system to deal with it.

[123] They use the system that's associated with approach and challenge and not the system that's associated with defensive aggression and withdrawal.

[124] And the system that is associated with challenges much more associated with positive emotion and much less associated with negative emotion.

[125] It's also much less hard on you because the defensive posturing system, the prey animal system, man, when that thing kicks in, All systems are go for you, you know?

[126] The gas is pushed down to the, or the pedals push down to the metal, and the brakes are on.

[127] You're using future resources that you could be storing for future time right now in the present to ready yourself for emergency.

[128] So, there's nothing simple or trivial at all about the idea of being called to move forthrightly forward into the strange and the unknown.

[129] And there's a real adventure that's associated with that, right?

[130] So that's an exciting thing, which is part of the reason why people travel.

[131] And then also to see yourself as the sort of creature that can do that, is willing to do that on a habitual basis, is also the right kind of tonic for, I hate this word, for your self -esteem, you know, because the self -esteem has nothing to do with feeling good about yourself.

[132] As I already mentioned, there isn't necessarily a reason why a priori you should just feel good about yourself.

[133] But if you can view yourself acting in a courageous and forthright manner and encountering the world and trying to improve your lot.

[134] and taking risks, you know, in a non -naive way, well, then you have something that you can comfort yourself with at night when you're wondering what the whole damn point of is of your futile and miserable life.

[135] And so, and that's necessary because it's often the case that you wake up at 4 in the morning, or at least sometimes the case that you wake up at 4 in the morning when things haven't been going that well and wonder just what the hell the point is of your futile and miserable life.

[136] You have to have something real to set against that.

[137] be just rationalizations about how, you know, you're a valuable person among others, even though that's true.

[138] That's not good enough.

[139] You need something that's more realistic to set against that.

[140] And observing courage in yourself is definitely one of the things that can help you sleep soundly at night when things are destabilized a little bit around you.

[141] So, back to the covenant.

[142] God tells Abraham, you make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly.

[143] And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant, my contract is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.

[144] Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham.

[145] For a father of many nations have I made thee.

[146] And Abram means high father, and Abraham father of a multitude.

[147] And I'll make thee exceedingly fruitful.

[148] And I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

[149] And I will establish my covenant between me and this.

[150] and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a god unto thee and to thy seed after thee and i will give unto thee and thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger all the land of canaan for an everlasting possession and i will be their god i love that line really the line about the land where you are a stranger you know and everything that happens in the bible almost everything that happens in these more archaic stories in particular is laid out geographically the metaphor is just geographic, so you move to a land that you haven't yet occupied, maybe that's full of strangers, and then the land is what's granted to you.

[151] But it's perfectly reasonable to think about this from the perspective, from a more abstract perspective that's much more relevant to modern people with our incredibly complex societies.

[152] You know, it's definitely the case that if you go into the land of the stranger, which is exactly what you do when you try out any new endeavor, right?

[153] When you start a new job, or when you start a new educational enterprise, or when you start a new relationship, doesn't matter.

[154] You're out there in unexplored territory.

[155] Like the physical geography is the same, but we don't live in the spatial world only.

[156] We live in the temporal spatial world.

[157] And what that means is that the same place can be different at a different time.

[158] And I mean, it can be completely different.

[159] And so if you're in your house, but you have a new person in your house, while your house is new for all intents and purpose, because the territory surrounding that new person is the territory of the foreigner.

[160] essentially.

[161] And the same thing happens to you when you start a new job.

[162] And you'll find that when you start a new job, especially if you stretched yourself a little bit beyond your zone of comfort, that you very much feel like an imposter, right, when you're first there.

[163] And then the question is, well, how do you master that?

[164] And the answer to that seems to be, well, it seems fairly straightforward.

[165] If the place that you're in has any degree of possibility, if it isn't inhabited by demons, so to speak, the best way to act is to lift your aim upward and attempt to get your act together and to tell the truth and to live a meaningful, life and to do difficult things, all of that.

[166] And that is the best way of mastering a new territory.

[167] And in all probability, the degree to which you're able to act that out is precisely proportionate to the degree to which you're going to become a master in that territory.

[168] And that sort of thing can happen a lot faster than people think.

[169] You know, it's really quite remarkable how fast you can move forward.

[170] If you can establish yourself somewhere and prove yourself useful, assuming that you're around people to whom proving yourself useful actually matters.

[171] Like I know perfectly well that you can end up in an employment situation where you're punished for your virtues, right?

[172] In which case you should just get the hell out of there.

[173] And really, really, you get out of there and you go find somewhere where if you work hard and do what you're supposed to do, you're actually going to be rewarded, right?

[174] Because that's not a workplace, that's hell, and you should just leave there.

[175] So, and God said unto Abraham, thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed after thee, in their generations.

[176] This is my covenant, which he shall keep, between me and you and thy seat after thee.

[177] Every man -child among you shall be circumstized.

[178] That's a mystery there.

[179] Like, why that particular right?

[180] Well, it's dramatic.

[181] I mean, it certainly affects a man where he's most concerned to be affected.

[182] There's something like that.

[183] And so it's a sacrifice that has a certain, I would say, a certain degree of unforgetability.

[184] That would be the first thing.

[185] And a certain degree of pain and threat that goes along with it.

[186] So it's not nothing.

[187] That's the thing.

[188] Now, you can argue, and I think there is an argument, a case to be made about whether or not in the modern world circumcision is a reasonable, is something reasonable to inflict on infants.

[189] I don't want to have that conversation at all.

[190] But I don't think that's relevant to this particular issue, because we're talking about something different.

[191] We're talking about humanity's attempt to reconcile.

[192] themselves to the fact that something has to be given up in order for something else to happen and to try to really work through that idea and to make it into a psychological reality.

[193] And so far what we've seen in the biblical stories is that when you make a sacrifice, it's not really something personal or psychological, right?

[194] It's something external and dramatic.

[195] You give up something that you own.

[196] You don't give up something that you are or that's part of you.

[197] And it's actually more of a sacrifice to give up something that's a part of you or something that you are.

[198] than to give up something that you own.

[199] I mean, it's a subtle distinction because in some sense, the distinction between what you own and what you are is subtle, right?

[200] I mean, it's not overwhelmingly subtle, but people identify with their possessions, and they need to, because otherwise they wouldn't care for them, and they need their possessions in order to live, so their possessions are, in some sense, integral to them.

[201] But this transformation here of an act that was external and associated essentially with possessions to something that was actually, actually, at least part of the body, brings it much closer to, it brings it much closer to the, to the individual as a psychological reality.

[202] It's something like that.

[203] And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

[204] It's also a permanent marker, you know, and I've read a fair bit about practices like tattooing and body scarification, you know, which is, those are very, very common practices, right?

[205] They're human universals, actually.

[206] No matter where you go around the world, I mean, you see a couple of things.

[207] First of all, almost without exception, people wear clothing.

[208] And sometimes it's relatively minimal clothing, and often it's more decorative than protective, but it's almost inevitably clothing.

[209] And the other thing that you see is that people do scarify and tattoo themselves.

[210] And they do that in some manner to catalyze their identity, right?

[211] They're trying to transform themselves from a generic person in some sense to.

[212] a person that's been designed by their own hand.

[213] It's something like that.

[214] It's a marker of developing identity and some of it seems to be catalyzed with pain.

[215] You know, modern people who tattoo, and I'm not saying that I'm in favor of tattooing because actually I'm not.

[216] But that's my own particular bias, and if you have a tattoo, that's fine with me. I'm also not saying that there's anything wrong with it.

[217] But one of the things you do see that people who have a tattoo two -do report is a couple of things, is that the pain is actually necessary, and that the pain is actually something that seems to establish something like a memory.

[218] So, well, it's a memory because of the pain, because you bloody well remember things that hurt.

[219] But it's also a memory because it's actually etched on you, right?

[220] It's not something that you can just abandon and forget.

[221] And so a circumcision is exactly the same thing.

[222] It's like you don't forget it, because it's part of you.

[223] And so it makes a good token for a covenant.

[224] And so that seems to be the rationale here from from speaking from a psychological perspective.

[225] It's to indicate as well that the damn thing that's happening is serious And I think also that was the case with the earlier sacrifices of animals.

[226] It's like Modern people don't do this like you don't know how serious you would take a vow if you sacrificed a goat in your backyard You know, it's actually a very dramatic thing to do You know, you think about it as primitive and perhaps it is archaic and and no doubt it is But it's also to take the life of something and to spill its blood that's no joke.

[227] That's something you remember, especially if you haven't done it before.

[228] And we actually don't know what we would need to do in order to take some things seriously.

[229] You know, because we all do things like make New Year's resolutions about how we're going to be better people, and we don't do it.

[230] And the reason for that, at least in part, is because we don't know how to make the sacrifice sufficiently bloody, let's say, so that we remember that it's necessary, right?

[231] We don't take it with seriousness.

[232] We don't think, I should quit smoking.

[233] Because I'm going to die.

[234] And we don't think through what that means, like, coughing your lungs out for three months in a hotel bed, well, your entire family is like half repulsed and horrified and sorrow -stricken at the fact that this has happened far too early.

[235] You know, we won't make that real enough to make it serious and serious.

[236] And without that seriousness, we won't do it.

[237] So there's something to be said for rituals of seriousness.

[238] And I think this is one of them.

[239] And he that is eight days shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations.

[240] He that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed.

[241] This is from Charles John Ellicott who is Bishop of Gloucester.

[242] The fitness of circumcision to be a sign of entering into a covenant and especially into one to which children were to be admitted consisted in its being a representation of a new birth by putting off the old man and the dedication of the new man unto holiness.

[243] It's like a baptism.

[244] That's Right?

[245] That's what's echoed there.

[246] And of course, baptism is returned to the pre -cosmogonic chaos, because that's what the water indicates, a return to the source of life, and then the renewal that comes along with it.

[247] So it's a sacrificial idea in some sense that if there's to be a new you, that the old you has to dissolve, has to return to the solution from which it emerged initially, and to reconstitute itself.

[248] And so there's an echo of that idea here.

[249] The flesh was cast away.

[250] way that the spirit might grow strong.

[251] And the change of name in Abram and Sarai was typical of this change of condition.

[252] They had been born again and so must again be named.

[253] And though women could indeed be admitted directly into the covenant, could not indeed be admitted directly into the covenant, yet they shared in its privileges by virtue of their consanguinity to the men who were as sponsors for them.

[254] And thus Sarai changes her name equally with her husband.

[255] Well, you could make a case and anthropological observers have made this case too that women uh, undergo a sufficiently, a set of sufficiently radical psychophysiological transformations merely as a consequence of being part, being feminine in nature, such that the additional rituals of transformation that might be necessary for men aren't necessary.

[256] And one of those might be menstruation, because that's a pretty dramatic transformation.

[257] And there has been some indication that circumcision is like a male, it's like the male equivalent of menstruation, something like that, because of the, of the blood that's involved and because of the locale.

[258] And then, of course, the same thing is the case with women when they give birth, because that's a particularly dramatic thing, as I just witnessed, because my daughter just had a baby this week, so thank God for that.

[259] Recent investigation, this is from the Cambridge Bible for school and colleges, which, if you want to read it, is only 58 volumes.

[260] Recent investigation has not tended to support the theory that circumcision has any connection with primitive child sacrifice, nor again that it took, origin from hygienic motives.

[261] Apparently, it represents the dedication of the manhood of the people to God.

[262] In the history of Israel, it has survived as the symbol of the people belonging to Jehovah through his special election.

[263] This corporeal sacrament remained to the Israelite when every other tie of religion or race had been severed.

[264] The other thing that I read about in relationship to this idea of the multi -generational covenant had something to do, because God told Abraham to include all of the people of his high.

[265] into this covenant.

[266] And that really meant that he was establishing a territory of ethics around them, like the Ark, except the psychological equivalent of the Ark, right?

[267] So it was a spiritual or psychological or ethical territory that everyone who was of that household was required to occupy, or obliged, or perhaps privileged to occupy.

[268] And there was also an injunction to Abraham with regards to his children, which was that, as he had established established a covenant with God, which we could say is something like his decision to to aim as high as possible and to live properly as a consequence.

[269] It's more than that, but it's something like that, that he also was under the supreme moral obligation to share that with his, with the other men in his family, especially his children.

[270] And so, and so I think there's also a call here to adopting a sacred, the sacred responsibility in relationship to children that has to do with ensuring that they understand how to take their place in the world.

[271] And I think that that's definitely something very much worth considering, especially given the emphasis in the Noah's story, in the story of Noah, that Noah had his, that his generations were perfect, right?

[272] As I said before, it wasn't merely that he had walked with God, that he had perfected his own relationship with the divine, let's say, with the transcendent.

[273] And I want to make that concrete, which is a strange thing to do with the transcendent.

[274] I mean, people ask me all the time about what I believe, and of course, that's what I'm trying to explain while I'm talking.

[275] But, but, and many people, of course, are skeptical about the idea of anything transcendent and, and, say, transcendent and eternal.

[276] But that can also be addressed from a psychological perspective.

[277] because I would say, well, if you have an ideal of any sort, how is that not transcendent?

[278] It transcends you, that's the first thing, and it doesn't exist in reality, it exists in a place of possibility.

[279] And believe me, man, we treat places of possibility as if they're real, because people will call on you, you know, about your possibility and your potential.

[280] They'll say to you, you're not manifesting your full potential.

[281] And you might say, well, what do you mean by that?

[282] potential.

[283] It doesn't exist.

[284] It isn't here now.

[285] You can't measure it or weigh it.

[286] You can't get a grip on it.

[287] And they'll say, don't rationalize.

[288] You know perfectly well what I mean when I'm talking about your potential.

[289] And so we could, and you do.

[290] And everyone does.

[291] And everyone knows exactly what that means.

[292] And so that's a metaphysical reality that we'll immediately accept as real and also castigate ourselves for not fulfilling.

[293] And others too.

[294] Like, because you're just not happy when the people around you, especially if you love them, don't.

[295] fulfill their potential.

[296] You really feel that something has gone wrong.

[297] And so there's a transcendent reality and potential.

[298] And then when you hypothesize an ideal that you might pursue, which you always do if you pursue anything, right?

[299] Because to pursue something means you don't already have it.

[300] You're pursuing something that doesn't exist.

[301] You're probably not pursuing something that's worse than what you already have, because why the hell would you pursue it?

[302] Right?

[303] That's completely counterproductive.

[304] So in the mere fact of your pursuit, you posit a transcendent reality that you can, that you can, that you can, that you can journey towards, that's more valuable than the reality that you have now, that's predicated in some sense on something like an eternal verity or an eternal truth.

[305] It partakes in the ideal.

[306] And so, we have a relationship with the transcendent.

[307] And you might say, well, that doesn't mean you have to personify the transcendent, say as Jehovah, you know, the God the Father.

[308] But there's also some damn good reasons for doing that because one of the things that I've realized, thinking through this covenant idea and also the sacrifice idea is that the idea that the future is a judgmental father is a really, really good idea.

[309] You know, because you think about what the future is in part.

[310] I mean, the future is, however, the natural world is going to lay itself out over the next endless amount of time.

[311] That isn't what I mean.

[312] I think more about your future.

[313] Now, mostly your future is the future that you're going to negotiate with other people.

[314] But there are going to be other people in the future.

[315] And some of those people are going to be you in the future, and family members in the future.

[316] And so what's happening right now is that if you make the sacrifices properly, then you're actually pleasing that future set of people.

[317] And that future set of people is definitely going to serve as a judge.

[318] It's exactly what it does.

[319] That's precisely what it does.

[320] And so you might say, well, it was the brilliant imagination of mankind that hypothesized that the best way to think about the social group, including the family, but also including you as your future self, was to consider that you live in relationship with a future father who's a judge.

[321] It's like, yes, that's exactly right.

[322] Now, is it right, right, or is it psychologically right?

[323] Well, it's at least psychologically right.

[324] And, you know, one of the things I've learned about the biblical stories is that To say that they're psychologically right doesn't exhaust the ways in which they're right But it at least gives rational, modern people who are skeptical and properly so a better way of getting a grip on them So, and the uncircumcised man -child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumstised That soul shall be cut off from his people.

[325] He hath broken my covenant.

[326] So it's a serious contraction relationship.

[327] Now, I was thinking about how to understand this, and I remembered this old story, which I'm going to read to you about a monkey.

[328] So, there's an old and possibly apocryphal story about how to catch a monkey that illustrates this set of ideas very well.

[329] First, so goes the story.

[330] You have to find a large, narrow -necked jar, just barely wide enough in diameter, for a monkey to put its hand inside.

[331] And then you have to fill the jar up with rocks so that it's too heavy for the monkey to carry away and then you scatter some treats around the jar that are attractive to monkeys and close to the jar and then you put a few of those treats inside the jar and so that's the first part of the trick and then the second part of the trick is the monkey comes along and gathers up the treats and then puts his hand in the jar and grabs the treats that are in there but it's narrow neck and so once the monkey puts his hand in there and grabs the goodies then he can't get his hand out of the damn jar and so then you can just come along and pick up The monkey, and like, too bad for the monkey, right?

[332] It's like, he should have let go of what he had so that something terrible didn't happen to him.

[333] But that isn't what the monkey will do, because he can't sacrifice the part for the whole.

[334] And there's something about the circumcision story that's about that.

[335] It's about sacrificing the part to save the whole.

[336] And, I mean, there's an echo of that in the New Testament, if I remember correctly, I believe this is correct, although it might not be, where Christ tells his, disciples to pluck out their eye if it offends them.

[337] Seems like a very dramatic, you know, piece of advice, but it's partaking of the same idea, which is that, now, if there's something holding you back, and we'll see this when we get to the story of law, too, if there's something holding you back, even if it's dear to you, you have to let it go.

[338] You seriously have to let it go, because there isn't anything more important than progressing forward.

[339] And cheap sympathy, cheap empathy, cheap nostalgia.

[340] None of that is sufficient.

[341] None of that will work because the consequences of not putting things together immediately are dire, and there's no time to wait.

[342] And God said unto Abraham, as for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

[343] My princess, that was Sarai.

[344] Sarah is mother of nations.

[345] And I will bless her and give thee a son also of her.

[346] yea I will bless her She will be a mother of nations Kings of people shall be of her Then Abraham fell on his face And laughed and said in his heart Shall a child be born unto him That is a hundred years old?

[347] He's got a lot of gall I would say I mean here's God talking to him And he laughs, you know But that's okay He's a courageous guy And that's what people are like And shall Sarah That is 90 years old bear And Abraham said unto God Oh that Ishmael might live before thee And God said Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him.

[348] And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee.

[349] Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly.

[350] Twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

[351] Now, what does this mean?

[352] This is a miraculous story in some sense, right?

[353] Because, well, Sarah, it's what Isaac want, or what Abraham wants most, is to have a son, but it looks like it's pretty much impossible.

[354] And I think what the story is attempting to indicate is something like, God only knows what will happen to you if you put your house in order.

[355] Certainly things that you do not currently regard as possible will happen.

[356] And the more you put your house in order, the more things that you regard as impossible will happen.

[357] And it might be the case that if you put your house together sufficiently, things that were of miraculous impossibility would happen to you.

[358] Well, and there's no way of knowing until you try it, but there's no way of being sure that it's not the case unless you do.

[359] And my experience has been that, I don't mean just personally, I mean that the world is a remarkable and mysterious place, and the relationship between the nature and structure of the world and your actions is indeterminate.

[360] maybe more tightly related than you think.

[361] And I don't know how to square that with the fact that, well, you're obviously in a mortal body and constrained by all sorts of serious constraints.

[362] And none of that can be trivially overcome.

[363] And I don't really understand how there can be that seriousness of mortal constraint and the infinite potential that also seems to characterize human beings.

[364] all at the same time, but then I don't really understand anything about the nature of reality, so that's just one more mystery to add to the pile.

[365] So, but my covenant I will establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at the set time next year, and he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.

[366] And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the self -same day as God had said, unto him.

[367] That must have been an interesting conversation.

[368] I mean, really, this is what God told you to do, eh?

[369] It's like, okay.

[370] And Abraham was 90 years old and nine when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

[371] And Ishmael was 13 years old when he was circumcised.

[372] In the self -same day was Abraham circumcised and his son and all the men of his house, born in the house and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.

[373] All right, so that's the renewal of the covenant.

[374] That's the next part of the story.

[375] That's the circumcision story.

[376] And as I said, it seems to indicate to me something about seriousness of intent, something about the responsibility that Abraham determines to take for everyone that's part of his household, the psychological, increasing psychological transformation of the idea of sacrifice, the necessity of doing something memorable, and the, what would you call it, the utility of rekindling the aims of your highest values when you come to the end of an epoch in your life, when you have to take stock again, right?

[377] You take stock of yourself.

[378] That's really what that phrase means to take stock, is to take stock of yourself and to decide, okay, well, what should move forward in time with me and what should be let go as if it's dead wood?

[379] And the more dead wood that you let go of, burn off when you have the opportunity, the less it accretes around you.

[380] Here's something interesting about forest fires, you know.

[381] People have been trying to prevent forest fires for a long time, especially that damn bear, smoky, right?

[382] He's trying to prevent forest fires.

[383] And so, because forest fires burn up the forest, and that can't be good.

[384] But here's what happens.

[385] If you don't let forest fires burn, is that, well, forests collect a lot of dry branches, right?

[386] Because tree branches die.

[387] and wood falls on the forest floor and collects.

[388] And so the amount of flammable material keeps increasing with time.

[389] And that's not so bad if it's wet, but if the amount of flammable material is increasing and it gets really dry, and then it burns, then you have a real problem.

[390] The forest fire can burn so hot that it burns the topsoil right off, in which case you don't have a forest at all anymore.

[391] You just have a desert.

[392] And lots of trees are evolved to withstand forest fires of a certain intensity, and some won't even release their seeds unless there's been a fire.

[393] And so a little bit of fire at the right time can stop everything from burning to the ground.

[394] And that's also a really useful insight, a metaphorical insight into the nature of sacrifice, right?

[395] It's also a lot easier to let go of something when you're deciding to let go of it, because you've decided yourself that you're done with that.

[396] It's a weak part of you.

[397] It needs to disappear.

[398] You do that yourself.

[399] It's much better and much easier than it is if it's taken away from you forcibly, in which case you're very much likely to fight it.

[400] There's another interesting thing here, a motif that runs through the entire Bible.

[401] It's a very, very powerful motif.

[402] And it's partly associated with this idea of walking with or walking before God.

[403] And, you know, in the New Testament, Christ says something like, thy father's will be done and he means that that will should be done through him and so I can't I won't build a state this exactly right but it's something like this you know a lot of what people regard as their own personalities and are proud of about their own personalities aren't their own personalities at all their useless idiosyncrasies that differ them differentiate them trivially from other people but they have no value in and of them themselves.

[404] They're more like quirks.

[405] I remember once I was trying to teach a particularly stubborn student about how to write.

[406] And she had written a number of essays in university and got universally walloped for them.

[407] And the reason for that was she couldn't write really at all.

[408] She was really, really bad at writing.

[409] And so I was sitting down with her trying to explain to her what she was doing wrong.

[410] And she was being very annoying about it, very recalcitrant, very, very unwilling to listen.

[411] That was a pearls before swine thing, you know.

[412] And at one point she said, I can write perfectly well.

[413] The university professors just don't like my style.

[414] And I could feel my hands creep towards her neck.

[415] Yeah, well, that'd be funny if it wasn't true, but it was also true.

[416] You know, and I thought, what the hell's with you?

[417] You can't even write, and you think you have a style.

[418] And not only do you think, Yeah.

[419] Not knowing how to write is not a style.

[420] That's the other point, right?

[421] And so, you know, she, instead of humbling herself, which was necessary, and okay, right, because she was a new university student.

[422] It's like, of course, you don't know how to write.

[423] When were you going to learn?

[424] In school?

[425] I don't think so.

[426] So she had this, you know, this style issue, and it just didn't go anywhere.

[427] at all.

[428] And so, now, let's see, I lost my train of thought, I'm telling you, telling you all those jokes.

[429] Oh yes, in terms of letting things burn off, yeah, well, so she was proud of her insufficiency.

[430] That's arrogance, right?

[431] That's not humility.

[432] It's self -deception and arrogance.

[433] To be proud of your insufficiency, that's a very foolish thing.

[434] And that means to cling to the parts of you that are dead.

[435] Okay, now, there's this idea that runs through the Bible, I think, as a whole, that, Okay, I'll tell you another little side story here.

[436] I was reading about Socrates today, and I was reading about Socrates' trial.

[437] You know, he was tried by the Athenians for corrupting, for failing to worship the correct gods and corrupting the youth of Athens by, like, teaching them stuff and asking them questions, you know, which is a great way to corrupt people.

[438] So he knew the trial was coming, and Athens wasn't a very big place.

[439] only had about 25 ,000 people.

[440] Everybody knew everybody, everybody knew who the powerful guys were.

[441] And everybody, including Socrates, knew that the trial was a warning to, like, get out of town, right?

[442] So we're going to put you on trial in six months, and the potential penalty is death.

[443] Got that?

[444] It's like...

[445] So Socrates had a chat with his compatriots, and they were contemplating fair means and foul to set up a defense for him so that he could...

[446] or to leave so that he could not be tried and put to death.

[447] And he decided that he wasn't going to do that.

[448] And he also decided that he wasn't going to even think about his defense.

[449] And he said why, and this is quite an interesting thing, he said why, he told one of his friends that he had this voice in his head, a demon, a spirit, something like that, that he always listened to in the, that that was one of the reasons he was different from other people.

[450] Because he always listened to this thing.

[451] It didn't tell him what to do, but it told him what not to do.

[452] It always told him what not to do.

[453] And if it told him not to do something, then he didn't do it.

[454] If he was speaking, and the little voice came up and said, no, then he shut up, and he tried to say something else.

[455] And he was very emphatic about this.

[456] And he said that when he tried to plan to evade the trial, or even to mount his own defense, the voice came up and said, no, don't bother with it.

[457] And he thought, well, what the hell do you mean by that?

[458] Like, there's a trial coming and I'm going to be put to death.

[459] And, well, he eventually concluded that he was an old guy.

[460] You know, the next 10 years, he was in his 70s, perhaps.

[461] The next 10 years weren't going to be that great for him.

[462] He got a chance, maybe the gods were giving him a chance just to bow out, you know, to put his affairs in order, to say goodbye to everyone, to avoid that last descent into catastrophe, which might have been particularly painful for a philosopher, and to walk off the world on his own terms, something like that.

[463] The point I'm making with that is that Socrates attended to this internal voice that at least told him what not to do, and then he didn't do it.

[464] And of course, Socrates was a very remarkable man, and we still hear about him today, and we know that he existed and all of those things.

[465] And so back to the walking with...

[466] God idea, you know, as you elevate your aim, you create a judge at the same time, right?

[467] Because the new ideal, which is an ideal you, even if it's just an ideal position that you might occupy, even if it's still conceptualized in that concrete way, that becomes a judge because it's above you, right?

[468] And then you're terrified of it, maybe.

[469] That's why you might be afraid when you go start a new job, right?

[470] Because this thing is above you and you're terrified of it.

[471] judges you.

[472] And that's useful because the judge that you're creating by formulating the ideal tells you what's useless about yourself, and then you can dispense with it.

[473] And you want to keep doing that, and then every time you make a judge that's more elevated, then there's more useless you that has to be dispensed with.

[474] And then if you create an ultimate judge, which is what the archetypal imagination of humankind has done, say, with the figure of Christ, because if Christ is nothing else, he is at least the archetypal perfect man, and therefore the judge.

[475] You have a judge that says, get rid of everything about yourself that isn't perfect.

[476] And of course, that's also what Abraham, that's also what God tells Abraham, right?

[477] He says, to be perfect, to pick an ideal that's high enough, and you can do this.

[478] The thing that's interesting about this, I think, is you can do it more or less on your own terms.

[479] You have to have some collaboration from other people, but you don't have to pick an external ideal.

[480] You can pick an ideal that fulfills the role of ideal for you.

[481] You can say, okay, well, if things could be set up for me the way I need them to be, and if I could be who I needed to be, what would that look like?

[482] And you can figure that out for yourself, and then instantly you have a judge.

[483] And I also think that's part of the reason people don't do it, right?

[484] Why don't people look up and move ahead?

[485] And the answer is, well, you know, you start formulating an ideal, you formulate a judge, it's pretty easy to feel intimidated in the face of your own ideal.

[486] That's what happens to Kane versus Abel, for example.

[487] Then It's really easy to destroy the ideal instead of to try to pursue it because then you get rid of the judge But it's way better lower the damn judge if it's too much like if your current ambition is crushing you You know, then maybe you're playing the tyrant to yourself and you should Tap down your ambitions not get rid of them by any stretch of the imagination but at least put them more Reasonably within your grasp.

[488] You don't have to leap from point one to point 50 in one leap right You can do it incrementally, but I really like this idea.

[489] I think it's a profound idea that the process of recapitulating yourself continually is also the process of it's a phoenix like process right you're shedding all those elements of you that are no longer worthy of the pursuits that you're that you're valuing and then I would say the idea here is that as you do that you shape yourself ever more precisely into something that can withstand the tragedy of life and that can act as a as a beacon to the world.

[490] That's the right way of thinking about it.

[491] Maybe first to your friends and then to your family.

[492] It's like it's a hell of a fine ambition, and there's no reason that it can't happen.

[493] You know, every one of you knows people who are really bloody useful in a crisis and people that you admire, right?

[494] Those are all, you can think of all those people that you admire as partial incarnations of the archetypal Messiah.

[495] That's exactly right.

[496] And the more that that manifests itself in any given person, then the more generally useful and admirable that person is in a multitude of situations.

[497] And we don't know the limit to that.

[498] But people can be unbelievably good for things, you know.

[499] It's really something to behold.

[500] So that's what God tells Abraham.

[501] Okay, so the next story is about Abraham and these angels.

[502] Angels show up on his doorstep.

[503] And this is part of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

[504] But I don't think, as I said, this story is generally read as if it's about homosexuality, but I don't think it is.

[505] Here, I think it's about two things, primarily.

[506] One is, how do you treat the strange?

[507] So the strange is strange things and strange ideas and strange people and strangers, right?

[508] It's all that.

[509] It's that which is not you.

[510] It's like the strange lands that God asked Abraham to move out into.

[511] How do you interact with the strange?

[512] And here's one possible rule, because you could say to yourself, well, what do I want to make friends with more?

[513] Where do I want to be more comfortable?

[514] Do I want to be more comfortable with that which I already know?

[515] And so that would be the circumscribed territory that you've already mastered.

[516] Or do I want to be comfortable with all those things I don't know?

[517] And then the right answer is that you should want to be comfortable with all those things that you don't know because there's a bloody lot of things that you don't know.

[518] And if you can be a sojourner among what you don't know, well, then you're so protected because, well, you're going to go lots of places where you don't know, and you're going to be able to manage it.

[519] So you want to be that person that can act where they don't know.

[520] And so, well, so what happens with Abraham?

[521] Well, he's at home.

[522] And these angels show up.

[523] Now, we don't know whether they're angels or men precisely because, well, as this part of the story reads, as the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamra, and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day.

[524] So he's another visionary state by all appearances, and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him.

[525] There's real ambivalence in the story about the men.

[526] Are there three men?

[527] Are there three angels?

[528] Are there two angels in God?

[529] It's all mixed up in the story.

[530] So we won't clarify that.

[531] We'll leave it ambiguous.

[532] And I think the ambiguity is important because you don't know who the story, stranger is when you encounter them.

[533] And it depends on whether you're thinking about it in the normative manner or if you're thinking about it in the transcendent manner.

[534] Because with each person that you meet, well, they're just a person.

[535] That's one way of thinking about it.

[536] And then they're the person that you know, or they're the person as they choose to reveal themselves to you and people keep themselves shielded.

[537] But then they're also something of great metaphysical potential.

[538] Right?

[539] And you might say, well, do you believe And I would say, well, yes, you believe it because you expect a lot from people, generally speaking, and are not happy if they betray you.

[540] But more importantly, our entire culture is predicated on the idea that each person has an indefinite intrinsic worth.

[541] And I'm not talking about self -esteem.

[542] I'm talking about something like the, what would you say it?

[543] The implicit presupposition in our legal structure that no matter who you are, even if you're a murderer, even if you're a condemned murderer, that there's something about you that's of transcendent value that has to be respected by the law, by the law and by other people, right?

[544] And so that's a remark, and you might say, well, do I believe that?

[545] And the answer to that is, well, you act it out because you follow the law.

[546] And it's not an easy thing to pull out of the law.

[547] It's kind of the idea that you have intrinsic natural rights.

[548] And you don't pull that out of our law, man, without having the whole thing fall down.

[549] And I think the whole idea that you have intrinsic natural rights is predicated on something like the biblical hypothesis that human beings have a logos nature and that we are involved in the speaking forth of being.

[550] And as beings who are involved in the speaking forth of being, there's something about us that has to be respected by ourselves in relationship to ourselves, by ourselves in relationship to other people.

[551] But even more strangely, by ourselves in relationship to even to criminals, even to vicious criminals.

[552] You can't remove that transcendent element.

[553] And that, to me, that's also a miracle of conceptualization, because who the hell's going to think that up, right?

[554] Even the most vicious of murderers has a touch of the transcendent that needs to be respected.

[555] Of all the ideas that are unlikely, that's got to top the list.

[556] And, of course, without that, you have a very barbaric legal system, right?

[557] Because no one is protected.

[558] As soon as you make a mistake, then you're in the damned and you have no rights whatsoever.

[559] And that isn't what happens in the West, which is an absolutely amazing thing.

[560] So anyways, Abraham is a master of the stranger.

[561] That's one way of thinking about it.

[562] He knows what to do when strangers come along, and he opens his, he opens himself up to them.

[563] And I would say he does that.

[564] We know he's not a naive guy, Abraham, right?

[565] He's no weakling.

[566] A couple of stories ago, he took a big army and, you know, went and harassed a bunch of Kings and took his nephew back.

[567] He's a tough guy.

[568] And so if strangers show up and he welcomes them, it's not because he couldn't do otherwise.

[569] He could certainly do otherwise.

[570] And it's not because he isn't aware of what people can be like.

[571] He's perfectly aware of what people can be like.

[572] But he determines to take a particular attitude towards them, and that is to welcome them.

[573] And so, and why would you do that?

[574] And I think the answer to that is, you hold out your hand in trust to someone and you evoke the best from them if that's there to be given.

[575] So it's an act of courage.

[576] It's like it's, it isn't me meeting you exactly, not exactly.

[577] It's more like the transcendent part of me making a gesture that allows the transcendent part of you to step forward.

[578] And that happens all the time.

[579] It happens all the time in normative discourse.

[580] You know this perfectly well because sometimes you can have a real casual conversation with someone that just goes nowhere, right?

[581] It's just shallow as can be.

[582] Or now and then you can actually make contact with someone, right?

[583] And you're both, I would say, enlightened and ennobled by the conversation.

[584] And that's a, we would call that a deep conversation for some reason, because we made a deep connection.

[585] Whatever that means.

[586] It means, well, it certainly means that it's not shallow.

[587] We're not sure about what these metaphor means, but it means that it reaches deep inside of you.

[588] It's something like that.

[589] You make direct person -to -person contact.

[590] And those sorts of conversations are replenishing.

[591] That's the right way to think about it.

[592] They genuinely are.

[593] And I think that's because they provide you with that bread that's not material bread.

[594] And that's the information that you need to thrive and to put yourself together.

[595] And so it does matter how you meet someone and it does matter how you treat them when you first meet them.

[596] And it's amazing.

[597] I've learned to do this, at least in part, partly because I'm a clinical psychologist.

[598] I've learned how to talk to people very rapidly.

[599] And I have the most amazing adventures with people in cabs and when I travel because I'll talk to them directly right away.

[600] And they'll tell me the wildest stories and show me the craziest things because I'm actually interested in what they have to say.

[601] And I'm not afraid, well, I'm somewhat afraid, but I'm not, I'm not sufficiently afraid to have that stop me. And I'm acting on the presupposition that the person has something of great interest to reveal.

[602] And that's a very useful thing to know too.

[603] because one of the things that's really cool about people, and you really learn this as a clinical psychologist, is that if you can get people talking, they're so damn interesting, you can hardly stand it.

[604] You know, because they have these idiosyncratic experiences that are only theirs, right?

[605] They're only theirs personally.

[606] No one else could tell the story, and that's the kind of stories that you want to hear.

[607] And when they tell you those stories, you learn something you didn't know.

[608] And so what that means is that you can treat the landscape of strangers as an endless vista of places to learn things you didn't know.

[609] And if you know enough so that you're satisfied with your life and everything has ceased to be a tragedy around you, well, then you can be comfortable in your circumscribed domain of totalitarian knowledge, let's say.

[610] But if your life is insufficient and you're suffering more than you want to and everything isn't what it should be, then you need to look where you haven't looked for what you don't have.

[611] and then you can look outside beyond you, and then you can make friends with what you don't understand.

[612] And that's a huge part of what this story is about.

[613] Because what happens is that Abraham welcomes the men, God, angels, and treats them very well, and reaps a tremendous benefit as a consequence.

[614] And then, well, then the story reverses, and we end up in Sodom and Gomorrah, where the same angels sojourned, and they're treated terribly, and all hell breaks loose.

[615] And so that's what the story.

[616] about.

[617] It's fundamental.

[618] Now, there's a sexual impropriety thing going on that I'm also going to delve into.

[619] But I don't think that's the critical issue in the story.

[620] The critical issue in the story is, how do you act in the face of the stranger?

[621] You know, there's a statement in the New Testament.

[622] Christ says something like, when you do something to the least of people, you do it to me, him, right?

[623] And that's a very, difficult statement to understand too, but it's something like, it's something reminiscent of the requirement to keep the idea of the transcendent reality of the person in mind at the same time you keep their proximal reality in mind, to have your mind in two places at the same time when you're talking to people.

[624] You know, I learned from a friend of mine in Montreal who is very socially sophisticated in some ways.

[625] Whenever he went into a store, I was like going shopping with him, and whenever he went into a store and he talked, and he had an interaction with a clerk, the first thing he would do is have an interaction with the clerk, you know, he wouldn't have an interaction with the role of the clerk.

[626] He'd like, look at the person, sort of take stock of the fact that they were there, and then ask them something genuine about their job or their store, how they were doing, like, go into a conversation right away.

[627] And he didn't get personal about it because that can be intrusive, right?

[628] You have to be very sophisticated to do this.

[629] But he did indicate to the person that he was there, at least in part, for the good that could be done between them.

[630] It's something like that.

[631] And then the person would be ridiculously helpful.

[632] You know, and so then, you know, if people mistreat you, you see this with antisocial kids.

[633] it's a very tragic thing to see because if you're an antisocial child by the time you're about four you're very hostile and distrustful to people and so you're like a growling puppy and if you're a growling puppy you tend not to get petted you're more likely to get kicked and if you're a growling puppy and you get kicked then you have even more reason to growl and that's sort of the story of anti -social kids if they're not well socialized by the time they're four and they're more on the aggressive side then they alienate themselves from the community and all they get his rejection.

[634] Well, and then they look at the rejection and they think, well, hell with humanity, you know?

[635] And no wonder they think that.

[636] But the part of the catastrophe is that they get what they evoke.

[637] And I'm not saying it's their fault precisely, but it doesn't matter.

[638] That's still what happens.

[639] And so you might ask yourself, if you're not getting from people what you need, there is some possibility that you're not approaching, especially if this happens to you repeatedly, across people.

[640] And this is a virtual certainty.

[641] If it happens to you repeatedly across people, especially if you have the same bad experience with people, it's not them, it's you.

[642] I would say three is the limit.

[643] If something happens to you once, you write it off.

[644] If it happens to you twice, it's like you open your eyes, but you write it off.

[645] But if it happens to you three times, it's probably you.

[646] Or it's the rest of the world.

[647] Better it's you.

[648] Because you're not going to change the rest of the world.

[649] And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by heaven.

[650] And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed himself to the ground and said, My lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away.

[651] I pray thee from thy servant.

[652] Let a little water, I pray you be fetched and wash your feet.

[653] Wash your feet.

[654] Take the dust from your feet.

[655] Extract yourself out from your journey, right?

[656] and sit and I'll fetch a morsel of bread and comfort ye your hearts and after that you can pass on for therefore are you come to your servant and they said so do as thou hast said and Abraham hastened unto the tent into the tent unto Sarah and said make ready quickly three measures of fine meal knead it and make cakes upon the hearth powerful call to hospitality here and Abraham ran onto the herd and fetched a calf tender and good and gave it to a young man and he hasted to dress it and he took butter and milk and the calf which he had dressed and said it before them.

[657] And he stood by them under the tree and they did eat.

[658] Some commentary from Hebrews 13, too.

[659] Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

[660] This is a commentary from Matthew Henry, who is a non -conformist minister and author.

[661] Cheerful and obliging manners in showing kindness are great ornaments to piety.

[662] Though our condescending Lord vouchsafest not personal visits to us.

[663] Yet still by his spirit, he stands at the door and knocks.

[664] When we're inclined to open, he gains to enter.

[665] And by his gracious consolations, he provides a rich feast of which we partake with him.

[666] This is from Revelations 3 .20.

[667] Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. Well, the hyperlinked nature of those quotes is quite obvious.

[668] there's 10 or 15 things being said at the same time, right?

[669] One is a reference to the idea that if you ask for something, it will be given to you, right?

[670] It was a very strange idea, but I like that idea a lot, and I believe, in my experience, that has been true if it was that I wanted what I was asking for, because that's the real issue, right?

[671] Because the question is, if you want something, what does it mean to want it?

[672] And what it means is to sacrifice whatever is necessary to get it.

[673] because otherwise you don't want it.

[674] And so there's an equation here, and I'm not claiming its ultimate accuracy, but the equation is something like you don't want it unless you're willing to sacrifice for it.

[675] And if you don't want it, you're not going to get it because you're scattered.

[676] But if you do want it and you make the proper sacrifices, then God only knows what might happen.

[677] And that's a...

[678] See, one of the things I really like about the existential philosophers is their emphasis on personal responsibility.

[679] You know, many of them had an emphasis on the role that people had in shaping their own destiny.

[680] For the existentialists, and I think this was a consequence of the religious substructure of philosophical thinking, it was self -evident that life was tragic and bitter.

[681] And fair enough, but that isn't where it ended.

[682] The next issue was, well, there are better in ways, better.

[683] better and worse ways of dealing with that, and the better way of dealing with the fact that life is tragic and better is to posit the self you could be and live authentically in relationship to that.

[684] And then the next issue, and this is something Kierkegaard talked about, particularly when he talked about the necessity of being a knight of faith, is that the thing is, and this is, I think, part of the part of life that's the intractable adventure.

[685] No one can take the adventure of life, away from you.

[686] That's, they can't do it with good advice, for example.

[687] Because no one can demonstrate to you that if you straighten yourself out and aim at what you want and make the proper sacrifices, that your life will turn out in the manner that you might want it to turn out.

[688] It isn't in anyone else's purview to make that judgment.

[689] The only person that can possibly figure that out is you.

[690] It's something that can't be stolen from you.

[691] I would say it's your destiny.

[692] It's a destiny that cannot be stolen from you.

[693] And you can forego it, you can say, well, I'm not willing to put in the effort, because what if I fail?

[694] Well, first of all, if you don't put in the effort, you will fail, because life is hard, and it takes everything out of you to do it properly.

[695] So you will fail.

[696] And if you make the proper sacrifices, you might fail.

[697] That's why I like the ambiguity in the story of Cain enabled, because we're never really told why God rejects Cain's offerings.

[698] There's hints that Cain maybe isn't doing as good a job as he should, and he's He certainly gets bitter about it, but there's no smoking pistol.

[699] It doesn't say, well, Kane is a bad guy, and he made terrible sacrifices, so God rejected him.

[700] You never know.

[701] Kane might have been working pretty damn hard, and things still didn't work out for him.

[702] And I think that ambiguity is appropriate in the story, because that ambiguity is in life.

[703] You'd be a fool to say that everything always works out for everyone if they just do things right.

[704] I mean, I think that's a very careless thing to say, given how much tragedy and, catastrophe there is in the world and how much of it seems to be undeserved.

[705] But that still has very little bearing, I think, on your own individual adventure and the necessity for the necessity for opening the door to who you could be.

[706] And the necessity to do that seriously.

[707] And I do believe, and I think that's why this most impossible of verses, you know, knock and the door will open, why that's believable is that I have never met.

[708] anyone who couldn't hypothesize a better them in some manner all they had to is ask it's like well how could you be better think well here's three ways it's like it's no problem right you can think about that no time flat maybe it's small ways but you can almost always at least think of something stupid that you're doing that you could quit and so that means that you do have this it's a strange thing in people that we have this built -in capacity to posit a higher self and then to move towards it.

[709] And maybe that's part of where the religious instinct really came from.

[710] Speaking like really reductionistically, like as a materialist, as an evolutionary psychologist, we have this notion of the transcendent ideal, right, that seems to be pervasive across cultures.

[711] Well, maybe that's the ultimate manifestation of the human proclivity to be able to posit an ideal at all.

[712] And to move forward.

[713] You posit an ideal.

[714] Okay.

[715] You need that to move forward.

[716] Well, if you can posit an ideal, why can't you posit the ultimate ideal?

[717] Well, if you can, then instantly, you've got a religious sensibility, instantly.

[718] And so maybe that's the, because I've puzzled, like, as a biologist, what the hell is the basis of the religious instinct?

[719] Because the idea that it's mere superstition, like, we can just dispense with that.

[720] That's wrong.

[721] It's a human universal.

[722] You can evoke religious experiences all sorts of ways.

[723] So we're not going to play that game.

[724] There's some reason that that instinct exists.

[725] And the first thing to do with it is to try to reduce it to something that's biological and leave it at that, not to mess with the metaphysics.

[726] But it certainly could be the case that it's the ultimate extension of our capacity to posit an ideal.

[727] And we also might say, well, that's good enough, because while the ideal moves you forward, it fills your life with meaning.

[728] There's no doubt about that, because it is in the movement towards your ideal that life's meaning is to be attained.

[729] And then the question is, well, how much meaning is there in moving forward to?

[730] towards an ultimate ideal.

[731] Well, more meaning, even though it's more difficult.

[732] How much?

[733] Well, that's the open question.

[734] Behold, I will stand at the door and knock.

[735] And if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. That's a pretty good deal.

[736] And the angel said unto him, where is Sarah thy wife?

[737] And Abraham said, behold, in the tent.

[738] And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life.

[739] And lo, Sarah, thy wife shall have a son.

[740] Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.

[741] Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age and it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.

[742] Therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying after I am waxed old shall I also have this pleasure my lord being old also well she's kind of skeptical about the whole angel, man, god having a child at a hundred thing and and well rightly so rightly so.

[743] And the Lord said unto Abraham, why did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I have a surity, bear a child, which I am old?

[744] Is anything too hard for the Lord?

[745] At the time appointed, I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.

[746] Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not, for she was afraid.

[747] And he said, nay, but thou didst laugh.

[748] And the men rose up from thence and looked towards Sodom.

[749] And Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

[750] I'm going to make a small detour and talk to you about this idea of potential again because it's really I've really thought about it a lot I think music speaks of potential like I think music speaks of potential bursting forward it's something it's something like that and that's why it's so deeply meaningful and it's this continual pattern revelation of of the next wonderful thing that might happen it's something like that so there's that and people find that deeply meaningful And then there's the idea that we all have potential that isn't realized, but that we regard that potential, even though it's not realized, as real, which I can't get my head around at all.

[751] It just doesn't make sense.

[752] And then, although everyone acts that way, and everyone believes it, because what you act reflects what you believe.

[753] And you make judgments about yourself and others based on those beliefs.

[754] And they're deep judgments.

[755] So the idea that you believe that there is such a thing as human potential, I think.

[756] I think it's undeniable if you act at all, if you expect things of people at all, then you're demonstrating your commitment to the idea of potential.

[757] But then I wonder if there's something even deeper going on, because we are very materialistic, modern people.

[758] And there's great power in that, obviously.

[759] We've obtained great control over the material world, for better or for worse.

[760] But we do have a tendency to think of the world purely as a material structure.

[761] And it isn't really obvious to me that the world is, exactly a material structure.

[762] It seems to be something more like constrained potential.

[763] You know, because everything is a certain way, but everything that is a certain way could be a multitude of other ways and almost an infinite multitude of other ways.

[764] And the degree to which something that is could be a multitude of other ways is dependent on a large part on how you interact with it.

[765] Right?

[766] Even with materials that we're very familiar with, we continue to discover new properties and put them to use.

[767] It's like things are compacted into their material form, but that doesn't exhaust what they are, especially not in relationship to other things.

[768] And so it seems to me, even if you can't replace the materialist perspective, with the perspective that it's better to construe the world, construe being as if it's made of possibility, rather than the world as if it's made of matter.

[769] It's at least useful to have that as an additional viewpoint is that, because you could say, well, the material philosophy is very useful, as a tool for obtaining certain sorts of benefits, which it clearly is.

[770] But then this more metaphysical perspective, which I think is more accurate in some ways, that the world is a place of potential, is also an extraordinarily useful way to approach the world.

[771] And it is practically useful.

[772] You know, we talked last week a little bit about doing something as simple as trying to organize a room.

[773] It's by no means obvious how much potential there is in a room.

[774] right there's a very large amount of potential in any given room tremendous amount of potential especially if it's connected with people and maybe an inexhaustible amount of potential and maybe there's an inexhaustible amount of potential everywhere and that we just don't know how to get access to it well that's certainly true I mean it's certainly true to some degree we don't know how to get access to all the potential of our children for example or ourselves or our loved ones or it or the people that we know so So, well, so I think this story is trying to hammer that idea home too, which is, don't be so sure that it's impossible, or maybe don't let the assumption that it's impossible stop you from going forth into the world.

[775] That would be, and that's a, what would you say, that's like an inoculation against nihilism.

[776] And I'm, for a long time, I understood nihilism very well.

[777] I could, I could understand its rationale.

[778] associated with the tragedy of life, associating with suffering and evil, associated with the observation of finitude and the arbitrary and unjust nature of the world.

[779] But the more I've thought about it, the less I've come to believe that there's any excuse for it whatsoever.

[780] And I think the reason for that is that it forestalls effort.

[781] It forestalls the ability to discover for yourself.

[782] Maybe there's no reason to be so goddamn hopeless except that it's easier to be useless.

[783] Now, and I'm not, believe me, I'm not making that case.

[784] I'm not saying that that's what's besetting people who are clinically depressed, for example.

[785] That's not my point.

[786] Clinical depression is a terrible thing.

[787] There's lots of reasons to be rendered, to be tossed into a catastrophic condition.

[788] That isn't what I mean.

[789] I mean that kind of cynical, arrogant, rational, hyper -intelligent nihilism that throws the world away as if it's of little use before it's been properly engaged with.

[790] Better to engage with it and see what happens.

[791] And better to make the assumption that if the world isn't returning to you what it is that you need, then either you're not doing it right or you've conceptualized what you need badly.

[792] Why not at least open yourself up to that possibility?

[793] Right?

[794] Because you could be wrong.

[795] Hopefully if you're suffering, this is a great thing to know.

[796] Hopefully if you're suffering, you're wrong.

[797] Because if you're suffering and you're right, then there's nowhere to go.

[798] So it's very useful to find out whatever errors you might be committing.

[799] Another thing that's really interesting about the Jews in the Old Testament.

[800] It's a remarkable thing.

[801] Every single time they get flattened by God, it's always their fault.

[802] They never say the world that God created was corrupt and God is evil.

[803] They never say that.

[804] No matter what happened.

[805] right?

[806] No matter what catastrophe occurs when they have every reason to at least put that hypothesis forward They don't they say we erred we walked off the path.

[807] It's our fault and That's hard you know because it it puts all the weight of human catastrophe on the human being.

[808] That's very hard But the upside is it gives you the control It opens up the door that it opens up the possibility that you could be the person that's could set it right, if you would just let go of what's in your way, whatever that is.

[809] And the men rose up from thence and looked towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

[810] And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham, that thing which I'm about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and that all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.

[811] I guess God is talking to himself here, or maybe he's talking to the angels, but I think he's trying to make a decision for I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham, that which he has spoken of him.

[812] And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done all together according to the cry of it, which has come to me and if not I will know well we don't know what's happened in Sodom and Gomorrah but we know that God's got wind of it and that that's not good and we know that sin means to miss the mark and so we know that whatever has happened in Sodom and Gomorrah means that something about the natural ethical order of things has been seriously violated and there's a strong intimation in the Old Testament which I think by the way is completely correct that if the problem order of being is violated, and that's something like the balance between chaos and order, say, if the proper balance of being is violated, then all hell will break loose.

[813] And one of the things I can tell you from reading a very, from reading a very comprehensive set of myths from around the world is that that's a conclusion that human beings have come to everywhere.

[814] stay on the goddamn path and be careful because if you start to mess around and you deviate especially if you know that you're deviating things are not going to go well for you and that idea is everywhere and I think it's right I think the idea is right because there aren't that many ways of doing things right and there's a lot of ways of doing things wrong and if you do things wrong the consequences of doing them wrong can be truly catastrophic you know one of the things I learned from reading Victor Frankl first, but then Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who I think did a deeper job, was that, and Vaclav Havel thought the same thing, that these people were very much trying to understand what happened in places like Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union.

[815] Solzhenitsyns school like Archipelago is a particularly good analysis of what happened in the Soviet Union.

[816] And his conclusion, and it's a 2100 -page conclusion, and it's like hammered home with a hammer, It's a book that everyone should read, you know, assuming that you can read a 2 ,100 -page scream, because that's basically what it is.

[817] You know, first of all, what he does is document just how terrible things were in the Soviet Union between 1919 and 1959.

[818] And no matter how terrible you think they were, unless you know the stories, they were a lot more terrible than that.

[819] And they were terrible personally, because everyone lied.

[820] They were terrible in families because two out of five people were government informers.

[821] They were terrible among friends because no one could tell each other the truth.

[822] They were terrible socially because the whole system was corrupt and ran on slave labor.

[823] And they were terrible philosophically because the doctrine of man upon which the state was founded was hopeless and nihilistic.

[824] And they were murderous, destructive, and genocidal.

[825] It's like they got it wrong at every single level of analysis simultaneously.

[826] And the question is, why?

[827] And Solzhenitsyn's answer, and to some degree Victor Frankl's answer as well, and Vaclav Havel, and I would say also Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.

[828] They all ended up in the same conceptual sphere.

[829] And the answer was because individual people lived crooked lives.

[830] Because individual people swallowed lies and spoke them and didn't stand up for the truth.

[831] And the corruption that spread from each individual pulled the entire state mechanism into that corruption and made everything into hell.

[832] You know, there are other theories, obedience, right?

[833] That's kind of the Milgram idea from...

[834] That it's easy to make human beings obedient to people in authority.

[835] And I've explored that idea quite a bit with regards to what happens, happen, for example, in the Nazi concentration camps.

[836] Yes, you can set circumstances up so that people are likely to be obedient to orders that are pathological.

[837] There's no doubt about that.

[838] And yes, sometimes that's indicative of the weakness of their character.

[839] that's not the issue.

[840] And the idea that what happened in Nazi Germany was because a population of good people listened to a tiny minority of bad people, that's a really, that's really not a good theory.

[841] The Nazi ethos was there at every single level of the social organization, right?

[842] Right from the personal, right from the personal, right from the familial all the way up to the leadership.

[843] It was the same thing all the way up.

[844] And all the way up.

[845] And all the way down.

[846] And the same thing in the Soviet Union.

[847] And so, well, so, if you miss the mark, which is apparently what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did, their sin was grievous, then they risked destruction.

[848] And I just cannot see how, after the 20th century, anybody with any sense could possibly not see that as true.

[849] And I think that there's a line in the Old Testament, you know, that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

[850] And I can tell you one of the things that frighten me badly was the realization from reading Solzhenits and then a variety of other things that I was reading at the same time that Dostoevsky as well, because he makes the same point.

[851] He said that a human being is not only responsible for everything they do, but for everything that everyone else does.

[852] Now, you know, that's crazy, and he was an epileptic and a mystic, and that's a crazy thing to say.

[853] But it's also, there's something about it that's true, because if you were better, the people around you would be less worse than they are.

[854] And if you were good enough, you don't know how much better the people around you would be.

[855] And so, there's this idea, too, you know, that Christ took the sins of the world unto himself.

[856] That's a complicated idea, man. I wrestled with that one for a very long time, but I think I figured out, at least in part, what it means.

[857] It meant that it's something like the realization of complete humanity.

[858] You see, to take the sins of the world onto yourself is to realize that is to understand the Nazi concentration camp guard because that person is human and so are you.

[859] And so if you can't see you in that, then you don't know who you are.

[860] And if you can see you in that, well, then you've started to take the sins of the world onto yourself because you've actually started to take responsibility for those terrible things.

[861] You know, I think it's the motif of the motto of the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

[862] We must never forget.

[863] That's close.

[864] And I think, well, you can't forget.

[865] You can't remember what you don't understand.

[866] You will forget what you don't understand.

[867] And the question is, well, what are you supposed to remember about the Holocaust?

[868] It was a historical event that 6 million people died.

[869] That's not what's to remember.

[870] what's to remember is that's what people can do and you're one of them and if you don't understand that you could do that then you don't know who you are so God's making a case here he's making a case that that people of Sodom and Gomorra have sinned and it's making a large racket that even God is heard about that's a very common mythological motif by the way that the sins and and what would you call The sins and noise of humanity can reach such a clamor that even the gods here and are forced to intervene.

[871] That comes all the way from the Mesopotamian creation story.

[872] So anyways, it's logical.

[873] Yeah, they're sinning.

[874] Okay, well, so what?

[875] Well, no, not so what.

[876] It means that God's offended and that everything is at risk.

[877] That's what it means.

[878] It's like, that's something worth taking seriously.

[879] And the men turned their faces from thence and went towards Sodom.

[880] But Abraham stood yet before the Lord, and Abraham drew near.

[881] and said, will thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

[882] This is a very interesting part of the story.

[883] A friend of mine took me to task the other day when I was writing about portraying the Old Testament God is pretty harsh and judgmental, and the New Testament God is sort of all loving, which he isn't because there's the whole book of Revelations thing.

[884] But I got that partly from reading Northrop Fry, but going through the Old Testament in more detail, I realized that that is too low resolution interpretation, and that God, who's dispensing a fair bit of harsh justice in the Old Testament, is also someone who can be negotiated with, weirdly enough, and that's what happens here.

[885] You know, Abraham has just been told that whatever's going on in Sodom and Gomorrah is seriously not good, and that God's going to do something about it, and he takes it upon himself, this is an act of mercy, to ask God to be a bit more judicious, right?

[886] It's like, okay, you're going to wipe out this.

[887] the city, well, bad things are happening there, but, you know, there's probably a few people in the damn city that aren't completely corrupted by what's going on there.

[888] Of course, that's an open question.

[889] You know, because it's an open question, for example, how many people there were in Nazi Germany who weren't completely corrupted by what was going on in Nazi Germany.

[890] And the same thing could be said about Maoist China, and the same thing could be said about the Soviet Union.

[891] It's like, well, perhaps there was a person somewhere who didn't understand at some level what was happening.

[892] but, you know, the whole issue of willful blindness certainly springs to mind if nothing else.

[893] Anyways, Abraham decides to intercede with God on behalf of these people who are going to be destroyed.

[894] He says, will thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

[895] Perhaps there be 50 righteous people within the city.

[896] Will you also destroy and not spare the place for the 50 righteous that are there?

[897] That be far from thee to do after this manner.

[898] He's kind of reminding God that he's a good God.

[899] as far as I can tell, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee, should not the judge of the earth do right?

[900] And the Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50, right?

[901] He seems a bit taken aback here to me. If I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, then I will spare the place for their sakes.

[902] And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak upon the Lord, unto the Lord, which, but I am but dust and ashes.

[903] possibly there shall lack five of the 50 righteous will thou destroy all the city for lack of five and he said he said God said if I find there 45 I will not destroy it and Abraham spoke unto him yet again and said he's kind of sneaking up on God here her adventure there shall be 40 found there and he said I will not do it for 40's sake and he said unto him oh let the Lord not be angry and I will speak.

[904] Possibly there shall be 30 found there.

[905] And God said, I won't do it if I find 30 there.

[906] And Abraham, who seems really to be pushing his luck by this point, says, behold, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord.

[907] Possibly there shall be 20 found there.

[908] And God said, I won't destroy it for 20's sake.

[909] And he said, oh, let the Lord not be angry.

[910] And I will speak yet, but this once, perhaps 10 shall be.

[911] found there and he said, I will not destroy it for 10's sake.

[912] And the Lord went his way and as soon as he had left communing with Abraham and Abraham returned unto his place.

[913] Well, there's two ways you can read that part of the story.

[914] One is that three, let's say, you can bargain with God, even if you're kind of annoying about it, so that's kind of interesting.

[915] The second is that even if there's a minority of good in a place that isn't good, it won't be slated for destruction.

[916] That's kind of good thing.

[917] And the third is a minority of good in a place can keep it from being destroyed.

[918] And that's a really good thing too, and I believe that as well.

[919] I think that good is more powerful than evil.

[920] Naivity isn't, but I think that good is.

[921] And I think that in a place that's corrupt, a minority of people who stand forth against the corruption can prevail.

[922] Now, you know, I think one of the best examples of that, again, was Alexander Solzhenzhen, because he was in the terrible work camps when he wrote his book, he memorized most of it, which is not an easy thing to do when it's 2100 pages long and set in very tiny font, and he memorized most of it, and then he wrote it.

[923] And it was one of the things that brought down the Soviet Union.

[924] You know, it was published in the 1970s, first of all, in the West.

[925] And the first thing that happened, at least initially, was that the communism as an ethical system lost absolutely all credibility whatsoever among anyone who is even vaguely educated immediately upon the publication of the Gulag Archipelago.

[926] He pulled the moral slots out from underneath it.

[927] And the book was definitely one of the reasons.

[928] There were many, but was definitely one of the reasons why the rotten system crumbled and fell without a war.

[929] And that's a great example of how one person can take on a tyranny and prevail.

[930] So, and he's not the only person who did that sort of thing because, well, Gandhi did the same thing.

[931] I mean, I don't think the English were the Russians, but, you know, things were not so good in India.

[932] And what Gandhi did in India, under the influence, by the way, of Leo Tolstoy, was also a remarkable example of a single person intervening in a catastrophe and setting it far more right than it could be.

[933] So, and there came two angels to Sodom at evening.

[934] And Lott, remember Lott is Abraham's nephew, sat in the gate of Sodom, and Lott seeing them rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground.

[935] And he said, Behold, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and you shall rise up early and go on your ways.

[936] Oh, he's Abraham's nephew and Kinsman, and acting in exactly the manner that Abraham does.

[937] He shows hospitality to these people.

[938] And they said, no, no, we'll stay in the street all night.

[939] And he insisted, he pressed upon them greatly, and they turned in unto him and entered into his house.

[940] And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they did eat.

[941] But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter.

[942] And they called unto Lot and said unto him, where are the man which came into thee this night?

[943] Bring them out to us that we may know them.

[944] Well, that's the part of the story that's been used.

[945] as a diatribe, let's say, against homosexuality, because to know is to engage in sexual intercourse, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were willing to tear the strangers out of Lott's house and use and abuse them as they saw fit, right?

[946] And so what are they doing?

[947] Well, they're violating the principles, the principles that govern appropriate conduct with the stranger.

[948] And maybe the stranger is something you shouldn't mess with, because you don't know who you're messing with.

[949] So that's like warning number one.

[950] Well, and they're violating the essential principles of hospitality.

[951] And then there's the sexual thing here, I think, is, isn't, the sexual thing here is something more like the absolute danger of immediate gratification, sexual included, outside the constraints of any civilized structure whatsoever, right?

[952] Because that's as uncivilized behavior as you could possibly hope for.

[953] Right.

[954] Strangers come into your city.

[955] They're in the house of someone who's part of your city.

[956] They're being shown hospitality.

[957] A mob shows up and says, fork them over, man. We're going to do whatever the hell we want to them.

[958] And it's not going to be good.

[959] And if you get in the way, things are going to go even worse for you.

[960] So that's what it seems to me to be.

[961] It's completely disregulated behavior.

[962] It's behavior that's outside the confines of any civilized structure whatsoever.

[963] It's an indication that the social structure of the entire society has collapsed so that there's nothing left for the inhabitants to do except to engage in the most brutal of immediate gratification and destruction.

[964] Well, so what does Lot do?

[965] I pray thee, brethren, do not do so wickedly.

[966] Behold now, I have two daughters.

[967] which have not yet known man. Let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and you do to them as is good in your eyes, only unto these men do nothing.

[968] And therefore, for therefore came thee under the shadow of my roof.

[969] Well, it's hard to know what to make of that, you know.

[970] I mean, it doesn't exactly seem like the advisable thing for a lot to do.

[971] But I think at least what it is is an indication of the degree to which he took the solemn vow of hospitality seriously and I think that's the idea that the story is trying to promote and the angel said stand back oh and the men said stand back and they said again this one fellow came into sojourn to talk to us and he will need to be a judge now we'll deal worse with him than with them and they press sore upon the man even Lott and came near to break the door maybe what Lott thought was something like well we're done like we're all done with this mob and perhaps I can spare some of us and they pressed sore upon the man even Lott and came near to break the door but the men this is the angels put forth their hand and pulled Lott into the house to them and shut the door and they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness both small and great so that they wearied themselves to find the door so they were so corrupt that they were blind and could not see now even to find the door.

[972] And the man then said unto Lot, has thou here any besides, any family members, son -in -law and thy sons and thy daughters, and whoever thou hast in this city, get them out of the place, for we will destroy this place, because of the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.

[973] And Lot went out and spake unto his sons -in -law, which married his daughters, and said, up, you get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.

[974] But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons -in -law.

[975] And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened, lot, saying, arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters, which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

[976] And while he lingered, lingered, the man laid hold upon his hands and upon the hand of his wife and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and they brought him forth and set him without the city.

[977] So, He's still, this is an indication of the danger of not acting with appropriate haste when the time has come.

[978] I mean, Lott's already seen what happened.

[979] He saw that the men came to his door.

[980] He saw that they were murderous rapists.

[981] He saw that the angels took them out.

[982] And he's still hesitant to leave that place.

[983] And so I guess one of the things that this story requires people to ask themselves is, are you in a place that's so bad that you should leave or when are you in a place that's so bad that you should leave and if you are in a place that's so bad that you should leave then the time to leave is now because there's no time to waste and it came to pass when they had brought them forth abroad that he said escape for thy life look not behind you neither stay thou in all the plain escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed and lot said to them oh not not so my lord behold now thy servant hath found grace in thy sight and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast showed me into saving my life but I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take me and I die Behold now there's a city nearer to flee unto and it's a little one which means maybe it's not big and corrupt like Sodom and Gomorrah Oh let me escape thither Is it not a little one and my soul shall live Matthew Henry said Lott lingered he trifled Thus many who are under convictions about their spiritual state and the necessity of a change, defer that needful work.

[984] And he said unto him, see, I've accepted thee, the angel.

[985] And he said unto him, see, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou haste thee, escape thither, for I cannot do anything till thou be gone hither.

[986] Therefore, the name of the city was Zor.

[987] That's where Lott went.

[988] The sun was risen upon the earth when Lott entered into Zor.

[989] Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and upon Gomorah, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.

[990] And he overthrew the cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities And that which grew upon the ground But his wife looked back from behind him And she became a pillar of salt No nostalgia for catastrophe I think that's what that means is that When you leave what's not good You wash the dust off your feet And you don't look back And that's a very harsh lesson This is echoed a bit in the New Testament the idea of the necessity for immediate action.

[991] These are some of the harsher words that Christ said.

[992] This is from Matthew 8.

[993] Christ is addressing a multitude and asking people to follow him.

[994] And a disciple comes up to him and says, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

[995] Seems like a perfectly reasonable request.

[996] But Jesus said unto him, follow me and let the dead bury their dead.

[997] This is from Matthew 12.

[998] well he yet talked to the people behold his mother and his brethren stood without desiring to speak with him then one said to him behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee but Jesus answered the one who is telling him and said who is my mother and who is my brothers for whosoever shall do the will of my father which is in heaven the same as my brother and sister and mother well what does all that mean it means that there's no excuses whatsoever for not getting up and getting at it.

[999] That's what it means.

[1000] And it means that it even means that when people are beset with a catastrophe, like let's say the death of their father, that they are prone to use that as an excuse for not going about the business that they should be going about.

[1001] Because they can say to themselves, well, I would accept.

[1002] And accept, there's always good reasons.

[1003] I mean, believe me, there's always good reasons for not doing what you should.

[1004] That's for sure.

[1005] the reasons pile up day after day to not do what you should, especially because you're aiming at things in the future.

[1006] You can put them off indefinitely, right, because of the demands of the day.

[1007] But these stories, they say a variety of things, you know, especially in combination.

[1008] They say, when you leave somewhere terrible, do not look back.

[1009] There's no nostalgia.

[1010] That's the letting the dead parts of yourself go.

[1011] And then if you're going to follow the good, there's no excuse not to do it.

[1012] And it means no excuse whatsoever, under any circumstances.

[1013] And then it's taken even farther with regards to familiar relationships.

[1014] It is, you can't even let them stand in your way.

[1015] And I think that's all true.

[1016] And I think I've seen virtually all of that in my clinical practice.

[1017] Like, there's no excuse whatsoever for not getting at what it is that you should be doing.

[1018] And I think there's something else that's going on here, especially in the New Testament stories, which is even maybe worse, which is, it's absolutely reprehensible to justify your inaction with a catastrophe that extracts mercy from other people.

[1019] Right?

[1020] There's a tricky, tricky game that's going, well, of course I can't do that.

[1021] Look at the terrible thing that's just happened to me and say, yeah, okay, I understand.

[1022] You're absolved of any necessity to move forward because of your current catastrophe.

[1023] It's like, well, actually, you're not.

[1024] And it's rather rude of you to use it as an excuse.

[1025] and it's certainly counterproductive.

[1026] And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord, and he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and toward the land of the plain, and behold, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

[1027] And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

[1028] And Lot went out of Zor and dwelt in the mountain and his two daughters with him, for he feared to dwell in Zor, and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

[1029] And the firstborn said unto the younger, our father is old, and there's not a man in the earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth.

[1030] Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him that we may preserve the seed of our father.

[1031] And they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

[1032] And it came to pass on the morrow that the firstborn said unto the year, younger.

[1033] Behold, I lay yesternight with my father.

[1034] Let us make him drink wine this night also, and go thou in and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

[1035] And they made their father drink wine that night also.

[1036] And the younger arose and lay with him, and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

[1037] Thus were both the daughters of lot with child by their father.

[1038] Well, it's like the story, you know, the stories outlined, the catastrophe of Sodom and essentially, the ethical catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah, the dissolution of the civilized constraints that should regulate all behavior.

[1039] And then the city is destroyed, but there's an echo of it afterwards, right?

[1040] Because Lot had lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, and what happens to him, even after he escapes, is that he gets tangled into an incestuous web.

[1041] And so I think that that's a...

[1042] It's not foreshadowing.

[1043] It's post -shadowing, if there's such a thing.

[1044] It's an echo and a reminder of how terrible whatever it was that was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah was, that even after escaping, the iniquity still remained.

[1045] Well, that's a pretty good place to stop.

[1046] We got through two of three stories, so that's not too bad.

[1047] Next week, I'll talk about the sacrifices.

[1048] of Isaac and see if I can get into the next stories as well.

[1049] And next week is the last lecture except I talked to the theater people and it looks like I'll be able to rent the theater once a month at least for the next four months.

[1050] So I'm going to do that and I'll announce when I'm going to do that and I'll continue doing this probably as long as you'll continue to come and listen.

[1051] I could tell you something cool that happened too if you want.

[1052] So So, some of you may know that there was a memo linked at Google.

[1053] How many of you know about that?

[1054] Oh, wow.

[1055] A lot of you.

[1056] So a colleague of the man who released the memo got a hold of me yesterday and said that the man who wrote the memo wanted to talk to me. So I interviewed him today.

[1057] I made a YouTube video out of it.

[1058] We went over his memo, which was scientifically accurate in my estimation, and so I'm going to release that, hopefully, tonight.

[1059] So we'll see how that goes.

[1060] He got fired last night, eh?

[1061] He got fired for perpetuating gender stereotypes.

[1062] He told me today that his last performance review, he had been given superb, which is the top few percentiles of the employee distribution at Google, right?

[1063] perpetuating gender stereotypes.

[1064] I went through his document.

[1065] I don't think he said a single thing that wasn't substantiated by a fairly dense scientific literature.

[1066] Not to say that the scientific literature is necessarily 100 % correct, because it never is, but certainly to say that he was not merely spouting out a misogynistic and ethnically biased opinion, quite the contrary.

[1067] So we had a nice discussion about that today, and hopefully the discussion will continue.

[1068] So, all right, questions.

[1069] Hello.

[1070] Well, it's great.

[1071] I mean, look, a couple of things about that.

[1072] I mean, my daughter has had a catastrophic life in many ways.

[1073] A lot of things went wrong with her physically, really bad things, and this went perfectly.

[1074] So, like, thank God for that.

[1075] So then, and then the other thing is, I love kids, you know.

[1076] Now, infants, well, you know, it's not that I, it's not, infants are cool and interesting, but I'm not sure exactly what to do with them, you know, but once they're about six months old and then from then on, like, I love having kids around.

[1077] So I'm thrilled about the fact that this has happened.

[1078] So, hooray, you know, hooray.

[1079] So thanks for.

[1080] Yeah.

[1081] So more as an aside, but what you said about not pushing aside, the things of the day kind of made me think of Mikey's motto, just do it.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] I thought cool.

[1084] But my question was that when you were talking about circumcision being a contractual relationship between sacrifice and compared it to a girl having a period that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but also it seems to me that it being a sacrifice requires some form of willingness, basically, from the one having circumcision.

[1085] I don't necessarily want to put forward what you didn't.

[1086] You said you specifically didn't want to address that to infants not having any choice in the matter, but more in the context of it being a sacrifice, how does that...

[1087] I think that's how a modern person would see it.

[1088] And I think that there's some, I think there's some utility in that.

[1089] But it's an incomplete, it's incomplete to some degree.

[1090] Because one of the things that happens with God and Abraham is that God tells Abraham that he has to take care of his family, his children.

[1091] Now, the question is, exactly, how do you take care of your children?

[1092] And the answer is, sometimes you make decisions for them.

[1093] Now, you might say, well, it would be better if they could make the decisions for themselves, and that's actually the case.

[1094] So you might say, well, I won't bring my kids to church, because it'd be better if they could make the decision for themselves.

[1095] And that's what I did with my kids, you know?

[1096] But I'm not so sure that was a good idea.

[1097] And the reason I'm not so sure it was a good idea was because there are a bunch of things they didn't learn.

[1098] Now, the degree to which a parent should exercise control over his or her child is indeterminate.

[1099] But I guess the hope is that you exercise the minimum amount of control necessary to maximize the child's probability of success.

[1100] And that certainly requires adopting responsibility for making decisions as well, because the child can't make decisions.

[1101] You know, you can't just let the child lay there and make decisions, right?

[1102] That's just not going to happen.

[1103] And so you might say, well, Abraham has no right to impose something like circumcision on his children.

[1104] And because it's a sacrifice, it's something that they should be doing themselves.

[1105] But the problem with that is that Abraham also has no right to abdicate his responsibility to his children in the name of some hypothetical mercifulness.

[1106] and those two things have to be balanced.

[1107] Well, according to the story, Abraham got the balance right because, of course, he's made this covenant with God.

[1108] Now, exactly what that means in people's day -to -day lives.

[1109] Well, that's a harder issue.

[1110] But I would say, I think in the modern world, people err on the side of, I don't know, I think they're more likely to err on the side of taking insufficient responsibility for their children, letting them be free in ways that aren't productive.

[1111] That's how it looks to me, often because they're afraid of their children.

[1112] So that's about the best I can do with that.

[1113] Dr. Peterson.

[1114] I've recently started reading maps of meaning, and there was something in the introduction to that story that I found particularly, the introduction that you wrote before you went and told that I found particularly compelling, I guess.

[1115] the part, when you're talking about the split that developed in your psyche when you were, you know, all your, yeah, I think you talked about it in one of the earlier lectures.

[1116] Yeah, I talked about it a little bit today.

[1117] Yeah, a little bit today as well.

[1118] Yeah.

[1119] You said something in that paragraph there that, uh, what you said was you have to earn the right to identify with an idea.

[1120] Yeah, certain ideas for sure.

[1121] With certain ideas for sure.

[1122] Um, so basically my question is, how should a young person such as myself, who doesn't have a whole lot of life experience?

[1123] like be able to read literature and psychology and interact with, you know, the wisdom of culture and then incorporate it into a structure that's still authentically their own.

[1124] Well, look, I think the way you asked that question means that you're actually doing a pretty good job of that.

[1125] Well, I mean that because that was a very carefully formulated question, and it was obvious that you were actually looking for an answer instead of trying to tell the audience a bunch of things that you knew, which often happens with questions, right?

[1126] And it's often, it's very annoying for the audience to be subject to questions like that, right?

[1127] Because it's a form of, because it's a form of manipulation.

[1128] It's like, well, I'll cap this off with the question, but actually it's a speech.

[1129] So, so I would say you probably already know the answer to that.

[1130] And, but then I could elaborate in that a little bit.

[1131] It's like, there are a lot of books that people have historically regarded as great.

[1132] You might as well start by assuming that they're at least greater than you.

[1133] right?

[1134] And then, and to approach them with that frame of mind.

[1135] Because even if there's much in them that perhaps is no longer relevant, often less than people assume, there's much in them that will be of extreme benefit to you.

[1136] And then with regards to making them yours, the kind of wisdom that you get from great books is practical wisdom.

[1137] And you act it out.

[1138] And so then what you do is you try to incorporate what you learn into your life, into your practices.

[1139] And then if you incorporate it into your life and your practices, you build a bridge between you and the great idea, right?

[1140] Because you figured out how to manifest itself in the conditions of your own life.

[1141] That's something like making the archetypal personal, which is the right thing to do, right?

[1142] It's the proper thing to do, because that expands your life upward and outward and ennobles you and brings you up as well.

[1143] but so humility is part of it it's like approach these books as if they have something to teach you and then it's humility again in the second place is don't take the ideas to yourself until you live them there'll be lots of time for that and besides you know even as a young person it's not like you have nothing to say but the only things that you have to say are your things to say and it's not necessarily that easy to figure out what they But as I said, you did a fine job of that when you asked the question.

[1144] So I think as far as I can tell, you already know what to do.

[1145] So good.

[1146] Do it.

[1147] Read everything great.

[1148] You can get your damn hands on.

[1149] Hello, Dr. Peterson.

[1150] So a lot of your work, a lot of your lectures, recommend the audience tackle life with a lot of attention and intention.

[1151] And, you know, my kind of personal gateway drug to philosophy has been more Eastern philosophy and like the Bhagavad Gita and the work of Alan Watts and Taoism.

[1152] And what I noticed, I may be wrong, but this is a common theme in Eastern philosophy, which is more passive, non -action, don't make.

[1153] as many plans.

[1154] I wonder how you reconcile that and how you are reconciling that, because you mentioned earlier in previous lectures that you've read the Tao Te Ching.

[1155] How do you reconcile those two different views?

[1156] Well, I think first that the Tao Te Ching in particular isn't about inaction.

[1157] It's about minimal proper action.

[1158] And it's also about minimal proper action after a tremendous.

[1159] amount of sacrifice, right?

[1160] So the sage that's speaking forth in the Dao Te Ching has already let go of almost everything that he needs to let go of.

[1161] And a tremendous amount of what you're reading in the Eastern philosophies is predicated, I think, at least in part on the idea of sacrifice.

[1162] There's lots of things that you're grabbing onto, like the monkey, you know, with the jar, that's actually causing your misery.

[1163] And so sometimes letting go is the right way of moving ahead.

[1164] But to me, that ties into this idea of sacrifice.

[1165] So, now, whether there's more than that, whether there's more intentionality in Western philosophy and less intentionality in Eastern philosophy, I'm not exactly sure.

[1166] One way of mediating between those two was formulated, at least in part, by Carl Jung.

[1167] He pointed out that the archetypal figure for the West died at 32.

[1168] And so, to some degree, the outgoing extroverted, let's say, nature of the West is a consequence of its youthfulness in some sense.

[1169] It's useful ethos.

[1170] And that the East, I mean, Buddha died at a fairly ripe old age, and even in the Hindu practices, if I remember correctly, in many Hindu temples, there's a lot of erotic sculptures.

[1171] an idea is something like if you can't get past the damn erotic sculptures it's not time to go into the temple but it's more than that it might also be that if you're young it's not time to get past the erotic sculptures so maybe there's a moving forward into life in youth and a letting go in the latter part of life and that's well that was Jung's way of mediating between those two traditions I think they're tightly aligned with regards to the importance of sacrifice.

[1172] It frequently is the case that it's your desire, Maya, let's say, your desire that's causing your suffering.

[1173] Right?

[1174] And so there's an emphasis in Buddhism, even more than in Taoism, I would say, on letting go, letting go of what's making you miserable.

[1175] And, but you remember, the thing about Buddha is that he got enlightened under the bow tree, right?

[1176] He basically stepped into the city of God.

[1177] He stepped into Nirvana.

[1178] And he could have stayed there.

[1179] But he chose to come back because he decided that he had a responsibility to rectify suffering in the rest of the world.

[1180] That it was not sufficient for him to be enlightened while everything else was left in a state of insufficiency and suffering.

[1181] And so I wouldn't call that inaction.

[1182] You know?

[1183] It's, I've made the mistake myself.

[1184] It's inaction versus non -action.

[1185] I actually had to look up non -action.

[1186] Yes, that's good.

[1187] That's, well, that's, to really, the Dow Te Ching does a very good job of distinguishing between those two because non -action is the minimal necessary action to keep the balance between order and chaos proper, right?

[1188] The yin and the yang.

[1189] And the Tao Te Ching is very very emphatic about this.

[1190] You detach and you watch.

[1191] And when it's time to intervene, you intervene minimally without a lot of arrogant self -propagandization.

[1192] And you tap.

[1193] And if you do that properly, you hardly have to do it at all.

[1194] And it's as if you're doing nothing.

[1195] And there's great wisdom in that book.

[1196] I really like the Tao Te Ching.

[1197] It's It's a remarkable document.

[1198] And I've seen managers who were like that, who were really good at running their company, who did nothing.

[1199] Well, and what they did.

[1200] Well, but first of all, they set up people to replace them.

[1201] Because their idea was, well, if I'm a really good manager, then this place could run without me. There's a real humility in that.

[1202] And then they just kind of wandered around the place talking to people.

[1203] And if there was a bit of a problem, then they just, you know, turned a knob.

[1204] a tenth of a degree, and the place ran smoothly, and it was as if they were doing nothing.

[1205] And what they were doing was detaching, so they weren't being buried by their current concerns.

[1206] They were watching to see what was going on, and then they were minimally interacting, and that worked like a charm.

[1207] So I think that the...

[1208] I don't like the idea that all religious traditions are the same, because that just makes them into like a gray mass, but I don't see that there's any difference there that can't be bridged.

[1209] I think as you look into the details, the bridges become more clear.

[1210] I'll get you to speak into the microphone, especially when you're saying self -deprecating things.

[1211] Let everybody hear you.

[1212] Okay.

[1213] It's my pleasure.

[1214] What's happened?

[1215] What's happened to you as a consequence?

[1216] Yeah.

[1217] Yeah, well, or of you seeing it that way anyways.

[1218] Well, mainly, I've had whatever you say, right, is something I've thought but not have been able to articulate, right?

[1219] So it's been very helpful in that regards and kind of saves me a lot of time, no?

[1220] Yep, good, good, good.

[1221] My main question is actually something you said a couple lectures ago.

[1222] It was something along the lines of family, um, sorry, I don't know.

[1223] Like, that's the history of your family, kind of like the sins of your family, something like that.

[1224] You're facing it all the time.

[1225] Yeah.

[1226] What's, can you expand on that more?

[1227] Well, there's this idea in the Old Testament that your sins might be visited unto your family seven generations down.

[1228] Seems kind of harsh.

[1229] But, you know, when you're confronting, maybe your father's tyrannical.

[1230] Yeah, but, you know, maybe his father's, you know, maybe his father.

[1231] beat the hell out of him.

[1232] And maybe his father's father was a vicious alcoholic.

[1233] And you just bloody well don't know how far back that goes.

[1234] And that means also you don't exactly know what you're dealing with.

[1235] Right?

[1236] To some degree you're dealing with your father, but only partly what you're dealing with is the pathological paternal spirit, something like that.

[1237] And it's better to think about that way because it becomes an existential issue at that point.

[1238] You know, so you could say that, well, the father has two components.

[1239] And I mean this psychologically speaking, there's the great father that's beneficial and protective and that organizes society and teaches you how to speak and has produced all these wonderful things.

[1240] And then there's the tyrannical, oppressive part of the father.

[1241] Just like there's the terrible part of Mother Nature that's destructive and the benevolent part of Mother Nature that's wonderful and productive.

[1242] And you're stuck with that, right?

[1243] You're stuck with having to mediate between those opposing forces, just like you're stuck with the adversarial part of yourself and the heroic part of yourself.

[1244] And it's up to you to set those things right.

[1245] Otherwise, they propagate into the future.

[1246] And it isn't a straightforward thing to say how to set them right.

[1247] There's quite a good movie about that.

[1248] Oh, no, I won't be.

[1249] Magnolia, which I really love.

[1250] It's by Paul Anderson, if I remember correctly.

[1251] I hope that's right.

[1252] It's a beautiful movie.

[1253] And it's about this, part of it's about this kid whose father's really pushing him to be a superstar at a quiz show, right?

[1254] He's a genius kid, hey?

[1255] And the kid studies this guy named Charles Fort.

[1256] You don't understand this movie if you don't know this, because you've got to know about Charles Fort to understand Magnolia.

[1257] Charles Fort was this weird old guy who got rich with an inheritance when he was like 20 and spent the rest of his life in libraries looking up impossible things and documenting them.

[1258] Impossible things that couldn't happen from a scientific perspective that were well attested to by multiple observers, and he produced this news paper called The Fortean Times, which still runs.

[1259] Anyways, in Magnolia, Magnolia begins with this guy who falls out of a building and then is shot by a woman who misses her husband with a rifle as he falls, and I think she's charged with murder, and the street names have something to do with the deaths and his fall, and all of that happened.

[1260] And then in the movie, there's a rain of frogs, and there are rains of frogs from time to time sometimes they're frozen sometimes there are rains of fish sometimes they're frozen it's like what the hell how does that happen happens quite frequently as it turns out there's a rain of frogs in the movie magnolia and this little kid see what happened to him is that he's on stage and he ends up peeing his pants because of the pressure basically and humiliates himself and then there's this rain of frogs which he kind of takes as a sign from God, and then he goes to his father, even he's like eight years old, this kid, and he says, you have to stop doing this to me, and he's dead serious about it, very careful, not being, you know, what would you call it, insubordinate, nothing like that.

[1261] He decides that that's coming to an end right now.

[1262] And you have to make those decisions in your family, because otherwise things propagate down the generations, right?

[1263] And every family is rife with pathologies of one form or another.

[1264] And you can learn from that and refuse to push it forward.

[1265] And that's part of, I think, what you do when you, when you, when you shoulder your existential burden, because everyone is the beneficiary and the victim of the tyrannical father.

[1266] Just like everyone is the beneficiary and the victim of Mother Nature and of themselves.

[1267] And so you lock horns with that and straighten it out one way or another.

[1268] And you don't move it forward to the next generation.

[1269] So, and maybe you detach it a bit from your parents, too, because God only knows what combination of catastrophes culminated in their particular forms of pathology.

[1270] So, good enough.

[1271] So this week we've had the Google thing.

[1272] There was the YouTube thing that happened last week.

[1273] What's going on with censorship and what should people do about it?

[1274] If you're in a workplace and pathological things are happening, This is easy.

[1275] I can tell you how you know if pathological things are happening at your workplace Or they're happening with you one of the two, but you can straighten that out If you're being required to do things that make you weak and ashamed Then stop.

[1276] Don't do them.

[1277] Like one of the things I learned from Solzhenitsyn and Frankel was that systems go terribly under out of control, when people don't stop them when they're going mildly out of control.

[1278] You know, and you might say, I should just keep my goddamn head down and shut up.

[1279] It's like, maybe you should.

[1280] Like, that's not bad advice.

[1281] You know, you don't want to make unnecessary enemies, and you don't need any more trouble than you need.

[1282] But you've got to ask yourself on a day -to -day basis, what makes you think you're not selling your soul?

[1283] You know, and there's so much foolishness going on in the mid -level bureaucratic world.

[1284] now, that's where all the tyranny seems to be focused.

[1285] And the reason that it multiplies is because sensible people say nothing when they should say something.

[1286] And what's so strange about that is that there are way more sensible people than people who aren't sensible.

[1287] They're just not as noisy.

[1288] So what you'll turn out if, like, you know, so let's say something's bugging the hell out of you at work.

[1289] Well, then you have to prepare to find another job.

[1290] That's the first thing you have to do.

[1291] I don't think that you should find another job But you should prepare to find another job And if possible, you should prepare to find a better job Because if you can't tell someone to go to hell Then you can't negotiate with them And if they've got you over a barrel Then you can't say anything So you've got to set yourself up so you've got some mobility And actually that's a really good principle in your life period You should set yourself up So that you have a lateral move at hand And then you should find out well, are there things at work that are disturbing my soul?

[1292] You know, and you find that out, first of all, you ask yourself, okay, I'm disturbed at work.

[1293] Okay, I'm probably weak and deceitful and useless and lazy.

[1294] You might as well start with that.

[1295] And then you talk to some people, like your wife, your friends, your co -workers, and find out, are you stupid, deceitful, and lazy?

[1296] Or is there something not so good going on at work?

[1297] And so if you can then eliminate your own personal pathology as a cause of your dissatisfaction, then maybe there's something rotten in the state of Denmark and maybe you should say something about it before the whole goddamn thing collapses because that can happen.

[1298] It can happen in companies a lot faster than people ever think.

[1299] You know, and you may find that, well, first of all, you may find if you say something, well, first of all, that's an adventure, that's for sure, that's a bloody adventure.

[1300] And you have to do it carefully.

[1301] And you have to be prepared for it.

[1302] But it might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

[1303] And the other thing is if you're careful about it, you get your words right, Like, and this is a, this is strategic battle, right?

[1304] It's not something you wander into carelessly.

[1305] Then you may find that there's lots of people who feel exactly the same way you do and that you've actually cottoned on to something.

[1306] You're a canary in a coal mine and not just some like psychopathic mouthpiece.

[1307] So you got to ask yourself when you go and do what you do.

[1308] Like, is this making you stronger?

[1309] Is this making you weaker?

[1310] And if it's making you weaker, then you've got to ask yourself, do you really want to be weaker?

[1311] Because the weaker you get, the more you're tyrannized.

[1312] And then worse than that, like the weaker you get, the more bitter you get.

[1313] And the more you'll work towards terrible things, the more you'll snap at your wife, the more you'll kick your kids, you know?

[1314] Like, it's no joke to be tyrannized at work.

[1315] And so I would say you have an ethical responsibility as a citizen to forthrightly confront creeping tyranny no matter where it occurs.

[1316] And part of what we're learning, I would say, from these stories, if we're learning anything at all, is that if you're aimed at the good, which is a question, you really got to ask yourself, you know, if you're genuinely aimed at the good, then take heart, because you're a lot stronger than you think.

[1317] So, I have a follow -up question.

[1318] Okay.

[1319] So I'm speaking to, there's lots of people who are in this situation.

[1320] Like, you know, people at universities and corporations all over the place.

[1321] You know, Google is not the only company that is, No, and probably not the worst.

[1322] Repressive freedom of speech, denying workplace codes.

[1323] And everybody feels alone, right?

[1324] They're all like, why should I stand up, be a martyr, get fired.

[1325] This guy at Google got fired.

[1326] Yeah.

[1327] What's the point?

[1328] Like, I'm asking rhetorical.

[1329] No, no. It's a good question.

[1330] And how do you convince people that there's a point to standing up when it appears to be futile?

[1331] Well, the first thing, I think, is you convince them that it's not futile.

[1332] It might be difficult, but it's not futile.

[1333] If you get your words right, you have something to say, there'll be an impact of those words.

[1334] It might not be the impact that you would choose.

[1335] But the other thing you've got to tell people is, pick your poison.

[1336] You may be in a situation where you don't have a cake walk to the Garden of Paradise.

[1337] You got tyranny or famine.

[1338] Those are your choices.

[1339] But you get to pick which one you have.

[1340] And I would say if you're being oppressed, and I mean in your soul, by what you're required to swallow at work, well, you think you're not paying a price for that?

[1341] You've got no self -respect, and rightly so.

[1342] But worse than that, you're an agent of your own destruction.

[1343] You're destroying your own ideal.

[1344] And you're letting people who are, weak and corrupt win.

[1345] And if you stood up and stood up properly, but you have to put yourself in order to do this, at least to some degree, right?

[1346] You can't do it casually.

[1347] You have to do it from some position of preparedness and strength.

[1348] Then what makes you think you couldn't scare them back into the corners?

[1349] And that would be a good thing.

[1350] And, you know, the alternative, personally, is bad because there's a psychological degeneration that goes along with it.

[1351] I've seen this with many, many of the people that I've worked with who have been tyrannized in the workplace to the absolute detriment of their psychological and physical health, right?

[1352] To the point of collapse, confronting these crazy, crazy things when they were sensible people.

[1353] That's a terrible price to pay, man. Like, it's a bad price.

[1354] And then if the foolishness isn't dealt with at the local level, when it's still relatively trivial, then it will multiply until it's dealt with at the social level.

[1355] And we're seeing signs of that already.

[1356] Antifa is a good sign of that.

[1357] You know, and problems that aren't solved multiply, and soon people fight.

[1358] And you know, better to argue than to fight, unless you want to fight.

[1359] And some people want to fight.

[1360] And I can understand why, but I wouldn't recommend it, because that doesn't lead good places.

[1361] It really doesn't lead good places.

[1362] So I'd say you have a duty.

[1363] Maybe that's where you stand.

[1364] It's because you have a goddamn duty to stand up and say, just say what you have to say.

[1365] You don't even have to be trying to make a point exactly or trying to get something done.

[1366] It's like, this is how it looks to me. That's what that guy at Google did.

[1367] He wrote this memo and he said, I talked to him today.

[1368] He said, well, he went to a diversity training seminar and he thought, no, I don't agree with that.

[1369] And so then they asked for feedback.

[1370] So we wrote this document a month ago.

[1371] This was written a month ago.

[1372] go.

[1373] Got no real response to it.

[1374] Well, it bounced around inside Google until a lot of people, you know, got interested in, and then it escaped into the outside world.

[1375] But all he was doing was he was told a bunch of things he didn't think were true.

[1376] He wrote down a bunch of things he thought were probably true.

[1377] He launched that out and said, well, I think these things are probably true.

[1378] It's like, well, probably they're true.

[1379] Well, so he paid a price for it, but maybe we'll see what sort of price he paid for it.

[1380] Man, he's going to be a lot tougher in two years than he was two years ago.

[1381] So...

[1382] So they actually answered his feedback?

[1383] No. No, they didn't answer his feedback.

[1384] No. No. But, well, you can watch the video.

[1385] The story's there, but that's kind of the outline of it.

[1386] So sorry to monopolize this.

[1387] I have one other question about this, and I think it's important.

[1388] Aside from Google just being a workplace, right, it also controls the own YouTube, right?

[1389] which is imposed a new censorship scheme.

[1390] And it controls a huge amount of the information that people get.

[1391] This is true.

[1392] And so what happens to society when companies such as Google, which control our information, start to censor not just themselves and maybe the information that's coming out to the rest of the world, how much is this already happening and how much what happens in the future?

[1393] How about if we refuse to find out?

[1394] That would be good.

[1395] You know, like I reviewed this guy's document.

[1396] I did that yesterday.

[1397] And everything he said was validated by the scientific literature.

[1398] So what has happened is that someone has been fired publicly by a major corporation for stating well -grounded scientific truths.

[1399] Right.

[1400] They're exactly the sorts of things that I say in my classes, for example, and the reason that I say them is because I read the literature.

[1401] It's not because I'm personally happy about the facts.

[1402] I think IQ research particularly is so dismal that you can't possibly read it without being seriously disheartened.

[1403] If I could reconstruct the world so that IQ, the IQ research wasn't true?

[1404] Well, it sure be tempting, you know?

[1405] But that's not how science works.

[1406] Science doesn't tell you what you want to hear.

[1407] It just tells you the way it bloody well is.

[1408] And he got pilloried for, he got pilloried for revealing a good fraction of current scientific knowledge about gender differences.

[1409] Okay, that's not good.

[1410] And as you said, that's a big company and it controls our communication.

[1411] It's how about we do what we can to ensure that these large communication companies don't get to impose a factually false ideological structure on the rest of the planet.

[1412] Well, you can think about supporting this guy who blew the whistle.

[1413] There's a fundraiser for him online.

[1414] He could use some money.

[1415] He wants to sue Google.

[1416] Yeah!

[1417] You know, maybe we could let them know that hiring a human resources director who's also concerned with equity is probably not a good idea.

[1418] for a capitalist company.

[1419] Why in the world would you hire your own enemies?

[1420] I don't understand that.

[1421] So, well, we'll see how the dialogue continues.

[1422] But back to the personal.

[1423] Like, you need to say what you think, because that's where you come from, right?

[1424] And if you don't say what you think, then you kill your unborn self.

[1425] That's what you do.

[1426] That's what Kane did when he killed Abel.

[1427] And that's why his punishment was unbearable.

[1428] You know, you have things in you that are struggling to come to the light.

[1429] That's the truth you need to utter, and you need to utter that truth, because without that truth, you cannot live in the world, because the world's real, and you need truth to live in the world.

[1430] And if you stifle your truth, well, how can that be anything but something that brings about hell?

[1431] How could it be any other way?

[1432] So you think, well, why should you speak up?

[1433] That's easy, because the consequences of not speaking up, although delayed, are far worse.

[1434] That's the reason.

[1435] That's the reason.

[1436] If it can't be courage, it could at least be prudence.

[1437] So, yeah.

[1438] One more.

[1439] Hi, Dr. Peterson.

[1440] First of all, kudos for mentioning Magnolias.

[1441] One of my favorite movies.

[1442] It's a great movie, man. So a few months ago, I had a dream, and when I told someone this dream, they suggested that I read the book of revelations.

[1443] Oh, yeah, that's a bad dream, that.

[1444] There's a lot of interesting stuff in that book.

[1445] The thing that I found really interesting right off the bat was the state is represented in two instances as female, positively and negatively.

[1446] And I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that in the context of, like in maps of meaning, you often talk about the same.

[1447] state just as male or as masculine.

[1448] Okay, first of all, I'm going to comment on your t -shirt.

[1449] That's a lobster hierarchy with Horace at the top, isn't it?

[1450] It's even better, it's the eye of a lobster.

[1451] It's the best one that we found.

[1452] Yeah, yeah.

[1453] That's a good one.

[1454] That's a good one.

[1455] That one really cracked me up when I saw it.

[1456] I really thought that was funny, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1457] When my graduate students used to meet when I first talked about, about this lobster stuff, we'd meet for breakfast day.

[1458] And they were a very combative, snappy group of graduate students, and they were always trying to one up each other with jokes.

[1459] And whenever one really pulled a good joke on another, they'd stand up and, like, it was really funny.

[1460] It was really funny.

[1461] Okay, let's see.

[1462] Can I answer that question?

[1463] You know how if you're looking at a...

[1464] If you look at a room, every color that you see is dependent on every other color in the room.

[1465] right?

[1466] Your eyes adjust to that.

[1467] So, for example, if you're in a room bathed with red light, your eyes will, in some sense, remove the red so you can still see the colors.

[1468] Okay.

[1469] So your perception is to some degree dependent on context.

[1470] And that's one of the things that makes the symbolic interpretations tricky.

[1471] Because to see how something is represented symbolically, you actually have to look at the broader narrative context, within which the symbols are embedded.

[1472] So, for example, let me see if I can get this right.

[1473] If the story has an island and an ocean, then the ocean is often symbolically feminine and the island is symbolically masculine.

[1474] But if the story is the island and the sky, then the island often becomes symbolically masculine and feminine, and the sky is symbolically masculine.

[1475] And you might think, well, how can the island be masculine and feminine at the same time?

[1476] And the answer is, well, it depends on what, what it's being contrasted with and why.

[1477] And so that's part of the key to the change in symbolism in the book of Revelation.

[1478] And so it isn't inevitably the case that culture is represented with the patriarchal symbolism, but it's most commonly the case.

[1479] So, you know, there is Mother Russia, for example.

[1480] I guess it would depend to some degree, too, on what your metaphor is for the state, because the state can be an all -providing mother.

[1481] or it can be a judgmental father.

[1482] And it seems that we tilt more towards the father with regards to terminology relating to the state.

[1483] And I think the reason for that is because I think human hierarchies, like chimp hierarchies, are fundamentally masculine.

[1484] The fundamental hierarchy is masculine.

[1485] Even with chimps, there's a female hierarchy, but it's like the female hierarchy is nested within the male hierarchy.

[1486] hierarchy.

[1487] It's not the case with Bonobos exactly, but I think it is the case with human beings.

[1488] And so I think we have a strong proclivity to masculinize the state.

[1489] But that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions.

[1490] And symbolic representations are very slippery that way, because you can't stamp an entity with a symbol, because that would be the same as just giving it a name, right?

[1491] And you can't have a dictionary of symbols where you say, well, you know, a house always means the psyche.

[1492] It's like, no, sometimes the house means the psyche, but it depends on the story.

[1493] And so, you have to take the entire structure of the narrative into account to determine why those particular symbolic representations are being used.

[1494] What I offered in Maps of Meaning was kind of a shorthand, you know, generally speaking, there's nature, positive and negative, usually feminine.

[1495] Generally speaking, there's culture, positive and negative, usually masculine.

[1496] And generally speaking, there's the individual.

[1497] good and evil, right?

[1498] Heroic and adversarial, often typically represented as masculine, especially in adventure stories.

[1499] But it's a schema, and it's an interpretive guide and not a set of hard and fast rules.

[1500] Because you're in the domain of metaphor, and it's a slippery domain.

[1501] So, do you have any luck figuring out your dream?

[1502] Sorry?

[1503] Did you have any luck figuring out your dream?

[1504] At least in some part.

[1505] I think there's different levels of analysis.

[1506] I mean, one was pretty obvious.

[1507] Yeah.

[1508] All right.

[1509] All right.

[1510] Well, thank you very much, everyone.