https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=jD9wXXJhqio
You mentioned the modern age and it strikes me that like, that’s kind of the whole problem is like our relationship to authority and our like and maybe it’s something to do with adolescence and growing and like trying to become someone independent of our parents. I don’t know but there’s a kind of modern resistance to authority and that seems to be connected to a whole host of problems. Yeah but the thing is the secret is that it’s actually not, it’s both. The kind of obsession with let’s say removing authority, like this kind of obsession with like being your own man and acting in authority and everything, isn’t it funny that that way of thinking comes about at the same time as the state is acquiring absolute power over your life? That it’s actually those extremes will just, real traditional authority is more fractal and is more organic and is this kind of negotiation discussion between the levels. Whereas our world is rock and roll rebel, you know rock and roll rebel, taking drugs, do whatever I want dude, I’m totally free and I can’t build like a, I can’t put like a porch on my house without getting a permit from the city and I have to do it with like so many feet and so much thing and everything and it’s like that’s the modern world. The modern world is those two extremes at the same time. It’s like an extreme of like ultimate absolute power that completely permeates your existence and at the same time this kind of weird anarchist rebellion. The internet is a perfect example of that. The internet exemplifies that extreme in such a sublime way that it’s almost, you know, the promise of like doing, of being anything you want, of saying anything you want, of you want metaverse, you could be whatever you want, there’s no limit. You could become, you could be a lobster centaur if you want and in metaverse there’s no limit but really interesting. It’s like they’ll be controlling every word you say at the same time so it’s like it’s an interesting extreme that the modern world is. Yeah which is I guess just authority creeping back in right, it’s like the authorities that either way. But it’s like an extreme authority based on an extreme freedom and it’s not a normal negotiated fractal authority because it’s like in a normal world, think of a parent and a child, like a normal parent. So the parent says do this and then they have to be attentive to the child even if they don’t know they are because I could say I want you to do this, like I want you to clean your room and it’s like the child’s like okay I’ll obey my parents, I’ll clean my room. Then the parent could say I want you to clean your room, I want you to clean the house, I want you to paint the house and then of a sudden it’s like the child will just not do it. They won’t and it’s the same child that was willing to do the clean the room at the outset. Then they won’t and so it’s like normal relationships between authority and people under authority is a constant like observing negotiation and then the child has to perceive that they get something from that relationship too. There’s like a fittedness, that’s really interesting and that is constraining excess. Exactly. Is that connected to the encounter of persons? Is that because of relationship that I’m fitting myself to my parent or to my authority and trying to come into the proper relationship? Yeah there is something very like living and organic about that and so you’re saying that I guess the internet or maybe technology generally but let’s say the internet is not living in that same way. It just tends towards extremes, just tends towards extremes. Think about in your person right so it’s like man I want to be free from all these authorities, I want to be free, I want to be free, it’s like I want to be free to do whatever I want and then the guy starts drinking and drinking or whatever and then becomes an alcoholic and now all of a sudden is a slave to that god, like an absolute slave and all their reality now becomes negotiated for that one thing that has now enslaved them. So that’s the irony, the irony of wanting to break down the structures of normal structures of authority end up creating tyrannical structures of authority that will just completely control you. It’s actually in the process itself it just happens, it’s not a yeah, I don’t know if that makes sense. Yeah I mean yeah it makes some sense, I guess it’s this submission thing because like in the sports thing you mentioned or like the military might be another good example. There’s a very military particularly like there’s this emphasis on like submission like it’s like you can’t actually be a part of the body without submission right? Like if you’re not submitting to your local authority and you’re not in that right relation as you’re saying you’re like out of the body, like it cannot kind of exist if that’s the case. Yeah you have to submit and in the military especially like in a normal kind of military world there’ll be a fittedness, of course there’ll be fittedness, because it’s like if the commander can tell you okay now run 10k it’s like that’s something but he’s not going to say run 100k. Yeah. Like if he says that his troop is going to is going to disband, it’s going to cease to exist or they’re going to die. Why do you think that is? He’s just asking too much of them. Yeah it’s just not fit, it’s just not fitted, but you could get them to run 100k but you would need a concentration camp where the people are prisoners and now you say you do that or I kill you and then they will run 100k. Right that’s what I mean. It’s like the extremes that it’s those extremes that show break down the pattern. It’s like you’re saying there’s a kind of organic or intrinsic justice to the authority. Like if I’m if someone is submitted to me there’s almost like an inherent justice is probably the word I want to use to the demands I can actually make on those below. I guess for practical reasons as well. Yeah it’s just inevitable. Like it’s just really reality playing itself out if you’re not attentive to the needs of so you could say so for example like you could say that the French Revolution is a was a result of a breakdown in the normal relationship of authority that should exist in a society and so it’s like I can disagree with the peasants killing the king but I can understand it. I can understand why as the aristocracy separated itself from its people and then stopped actually engaging and just wanted to get taxes from their land but weren’t there like making sure the kids were going to school, you know making sure his his serfs were receiving medical treatment or whatever it is that a lord should do then at some point it doesn’t hold like that system doesn’t hold and it’s like that for all normal authority systems. I mean it’s something that people today have such difficulty understanding but it’s like the idea for example that like Jordan Peterson jokes about that joke but mentioned that a lot like the idea that like women have been oppressed for 10,000 years by men and that like the characteristic of relationship between men and women has been like masculine dominance and oppression is just it’s just absolute bullshit like it could never be sustainable. There would always have to be a negotiation between the relationship between the man and the woman and sometimes it might go a little too much on one side sometimes it might go a little too little on the other side but you can’t really you can’t hold it in the extreme for a long time unless you supplement it with technology. If you supplement it with technology then you can go really far in one direction or the other so you can create. I think that’s something it seems intuitively it feels like that’s connected to use the word organic it just feels like the computer’s not organic and that there’s something there like there’s something like quantitative and logarithmic or algebraical you know about that whole system that isn’t like my relationship to my mother or my boss or the different human persons I encounter. Yeah but it’s extension of power it’s always an extension of human power and so let’s say in a normal like in a normal relationship let’s say in a normal in a normal power relationship right there’s a leader and there’s someone following them and there’s the leader asks something of the person following them and that person kind of follows maybe they use a little bit of coercion at some point there’s a limit at some point it’s like at some point it’s just going to break but if I have a gun I have way more power over you to make you do whatever the hell I want. I see right if I have a if I have a military then I can make then I can push that further if I have a system of of of spying if I have a system of of controlling your of turning off your bank account if I have power or if I have material power then I can go further in the extreme and the same even for like in terms of the anarchy it’s like anarchy is only possible in a very controlled you know a system that has a lot of resources because in a normal system without a lot of power it doesn’t hold it just you die you just die really fast like I want nothing to do with these people I don’t want to participate in their society you know I’m a rebel yeah okay yeah let’s see how long you survive my friend you know it’s like but we only do that we can only do be that way in a world that is so completely padded with with a kind of technocratic society that we don’t we don’t see it like it’s yeah so all of these things end up being correlated yeah I just I wonder what you think about why we don’t accept total authority and what how we might how viewers or how we might look to come into a proper relationship I mean the best way is to understand I think the best way for us to understand is that it’s inevitable right that authority is inevitable that we actually we follow authority all the time you know every time you stop at a stop sign every time you drive on the right side of the road you’re obeying authority we obey authority all the time and so I think that at least becoming aware of that can help us understand the inevitability of this like like I said a lot of people who think that they’re being rebels and and is they’re deluded they think they are and they they they maybe act that way on some vectors but they are not like it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a little bit of an illusion which is based on this padding that we talked about so I think that that’s probably a good idea is to just realize that it’s inevitable and then also understand the negotiation part or understand that authority isn’t always just top down it’s just very rarely so especially in normal authority relationships because I need to have a lot I need to follow your command for it to be authority right then yeah I need to follow it but I also need to um how can I say this it’s like I need to get something from authority there’s absolutely if I don’t get something from authority the only way you will be able to uh let’s say enforce your authority will be through brute force total brute force now and brute force is is is exhausting it’s tiring yeah it takes your energy it takes up energy and so it’s it’s a it’s a simple it’s like it’s a kind of a simple system and you can see it like um you can see it like it’s in modern classrooms like modern classrooms are great because the teacher doesn’t have real authority like doesn’t have normal authority and they it’s recognized that in a way the children the the teacher isn’t an authority figure right and that’s in the culture so the kids they they they’ll flip between being screamed at by like a hysterical uh person to doing whatever they want and not listening to what the teacher says and it’s like there isn’t because they don’t understand authority they can’t they don’t even the teacher doesn’t understand authority because the teacher is part of this weird weird world where they they also think that some they’re teachers but they think authority is bad you know it’s like you know that’s that’s not going to work um so they end up like going between extremes but normally what you would have is that the right the students know that if they obey authority things are going to go better for them and for everybody else and if it doesn’t then at some point it’s also might they might not continue to to obey like it’s just gonna it’s gonna break down people will go somewhere else yeah it’s it’s interesting thinking about my experience at school because i agree i think there were there were on one extreme teachers who abdicated authority entirely but also just tyrants who were i don’t know tyrants but like uh teachers who would go around say like you know tuck your like wear tuck your shirt and do your tie up like you know keep that aesthetic proper and you know that teacher was obviously perceived as a bit of a bad like just annoyance or tyrant in our school you know always kind of known for that but then i guess it relates to i don’t know i think i want to say justice like whether the authority is justified like do i understand why should i tuck my shirt in yeah and what like why and i think that’s kind of the what you’re putting out there with this with the way in which schools aren’t kind of like connected to uh so think of your best teachers like think of your best teachers usually most people like maybe i’m wrong but most people you ask them who their best teachers were they usually identify something like a teacher was who was very strict but very involved i guess a teacher that was quite strict the way that they ran their classroom was actually quite demanding in terms of what they asked of the students but were completely dedicated and would give you the time would take the time to help you understand if you were wanting to understand they would write comments in your papers they would they would you know like they would they would care and so it’s like you’re strict but you care so that’s a that’s a really amazing thing you know and so it’s like we tend to not be able to realize that that exists we tend to think if someone’s strict it’s because they’re tyrants and they don’t care and because and if someone is is just lets things go then it’s because they care but they’re not strict it’s like no actually those two things together are usually would make a pretty good teacher.