https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=YEbBrfrupgU
This is Jonathan Pagel, welcome to the Symbolic World. I guess the two things I wanted to discuss were the idea of a city and the idea that a city has a kind of intelligence or consciousness. And that is the first kind of thing I wanted to discuss. And the second thing I wanted to discuss is the nature of church and how that relates to, I guess, our own spiritual journey. I think those two things are the things that stand out for me personally, listening to a lot of your YouTube material. Those are the two interesting ideas to me, like the idea of a city as something maybe conscious and the idea that we can’t kind of go it alone in this life and the kind of individualistic attempts to do that has a limit and the place of community in that journey. So I guess the main thing with the city is you’ve said before that a city is something we can pray to, that we can communicate with in a way that’s analogous to a person. So I can ask my friend the question and that friend can choose to respond to that question or not. But that’s a kind of prayer there or entreaty to my friend, like, oh, what do you think of this or that? And in a similar way, I can do that in a city or something that’s not as obviously a person as my friend in the sense that they don’t have a physical, fleshy body. A city doesn’t necessarily have that. So I guess I’m trying to think of how to formulate the question. Maybe I can help you if you want, because I understand how it’s difficult to think about it that way. So the first thing to understand is that a city definitely has a body. A city has a body. It does have a fleshy physical body. It’s just that it’s not a body that we can perceive at a glance the way that we perceive a person at a glance. So you encounter a person, there he is, like he’s contained in space, I can go around them. And the city is also like that, but just bigger. It’s just bigger. And the space between the parts that they are bigger than the space between your parts. But you also have space between your parts, too. Right. There’s massive amounts of space between your molecules and between your different parts. It’s just that at the human level, we don’t necessarily interact with them. That’s the first thing that’s important. The second thing that’s important to really understand is that all the things you encounter of the city are always parts of the city. And so they don’t contain the intelligence of the city. They only manifest it at their level. That’s really important, because when I say something… That’s all we can ever encounter. So is that as me in Bristol, for example, I can only encounter the expressions of the identity of Bristol in its particular ways in which that participates in my story. Is that what you’re saying? Exactly. But not only that, but it’s actually similar to even the way you encounter a person. When you encounter a person, you’re encountering their body and you’re encountering the sounds that they make or you have all these experiences. And then behind that, you can perceive the intelligence. But the intelligence is not limited to the fleshy stuff and the stuff I hear. Right. And so that’s why sometimes when people say… When I say something like, say, a city has being, the city has intelligence, then people, for some reason, they still have to exist within this weird material world where the intelligence behind it. So you can even imagine yourself, not only even your physical parts, but let’s say even your mental parts. Your mental parts are multiple for different situations, but they all embody something like your spirit, which is completely invisible and beyond the parts. So if I ask you to show me how to cook, right, or if I ask you to… I don’t know, like I ask you a deeply personal questions, it’s not the same part of you that will engage me. There’ll be different parts of you that will engage me. Depending on your prayer. Not exactly depending on your prayer. And so you could imagine that, like, let’s say your spirit will send emissaries, those emissaries will manifest different aspects of you, depending on what is needed. So if I come at you with a knife, then you’re not going to answer me with the same emissary as if I come to you with flowers, right? It’s going to be a different… You’re going to send a different part of you. And so you can understand that the city is the same, where, you know, you write… Like if you need something, let’s say there’s a pothole in your street, right? And so now you want to get rid of the pothole. So you obviously won’t write to the, like, let’s say the people that take care of the parks, let’s say, you’ll write to the people that take care of this of the street. So you’ll write to the person at the city garage or whatever, whatever highway structure in your city, and then you’ll write them and you’ll ask them to come fix your pothole, right? And so those people, they’re bound by the rules of the city, but they’re not acting just as Joe and Jane, because they’re supposed to act according to the budget, according to the general projects, according to the way in which these roads are built. So they’re supposed to embody the will of the city. So it strikes me as well that, like, there’s an interesting connection between human beings as conscious and the city. So when you say the city has a body, one of the ways to think about that is that, like, every member, every human member that makes it up comprises that body. And so I guess what I know of a question that comes to mind is, like, is it… So, like, I recognize there is a kind of consciousness and intelligence to the city. Is that consciousness or intelligence kind of in our image? If you know what I’m saying, like, in the sense of the words consciousness and intelligence, personally, I can only really have a sense of what that means in terms of, like, this living life, like the phenomenology, like my experience, I guess. And the… And I guess there’s theological traditions that talk about the nature of the human soul and the human person. And so… And like, humans kind of have to establish cities. Like, a city couldn’t be intelligent without human intelligence is kind of what it seems to me. And if that’s so, are they… There’s a way in which we could think that therefore we’re kind of projecting a kind of, I have a kind of consciousness and therefore I recognize something similar in the city. But I don’t want to go that far because I do hear what you’re saying. Like, there is a genuine kind of autonomy kind of coming back at me from the city side. Like, it is acting like a city. But… So think about it, I mean, think about it in terms of your parts. It’s the best way to understand. If you want to help you understand it, you need to be able to try to find the analogies of your parts, right? So you could say that you have processes, let’s say, in your mind or in your experience. So you have certain processes that manage different aspects of your reality. You have processes that manage or express your emotions. You have processes that will calculate. You have different processes. And it’s not like you don’t even have to be able to fully identify them, let’s say. You could say that those processes, your singular existence, your soul, your spirit, is an image of those smaller processes. You could do it the same. The manner in which the processes unify a certain aspect of reality. So let’s say you have a certain process which unifies different things together and kind of manifests. Then in the same way, you, the top part, do you do the same to all the processes? So to say, for example, that one is the image of the other, it’s not super useful. It could be useful. It’s not as useful as you think, maybe. So it’s genuinely fractal, I guess, is self-similar. It’s fractal all the way down because those processes will have sub-processes and there’s an indefinite amount of sub-levels where each sub-level will have the same structure as the higher level. So we, but then we, that scales up, that scales up too from the person into communions of persons. And so, but you can also, if you want to understand at least, let’s say, like how the, how the being of a city works, you can understand it. Let’s say if you’ve ever found yourself as the leader of a team, you can experience the higher consciousness of a city. When you’re a leader, you can actually experience it because all of a sudden, you have a bigger body. But it’s not you because obviously if it was just you, people wouldn’t follow you. It’s because you’re the leader of the team doing something in common. But you can nonetheless participate in that experience where it’s like, you know, you’re, you’re sitting at a table and then people tell you their opinions and then you decide and you say, we’re going to do this. And then all of a sudden, all the different agents align themselves in front of what you decided. And now they act as an extension of your body. Well, I guess, and so then that kind of brings the idea of authority to mind because they do that. They do that if you have authority, right? Because if you don’t, and maybe that’s like doing it in the name of something. So like in the name of, in the name of this end, we’re going to do this. So do we all want to foresee this end? And then that’s like, just kind of, a just kind of pattern, right? That’s exactly the way it works. So you can understand it. So, for example, if you want to understand a society, you could understand, let’s say a medieval structure of society where they had, they had almost like a caste system. There’s those that pray, those that fight, those that work, and they’re embedded into each other. That is that, let’s say you do business, but if you’re, if when you do business, you’re not serving a higher goal, then at some point it’s going to become self devouring, and it’s not going to sustain reality. That’s when you get, you get parasitical, parasitic patterns, you get idolatry is a good way to understand it. So imagine someone in city services becomes a little tyrant and decides to do things for themselves. And so, so they become corrupt. Does that mean to be, to be like, to name, it’s kind of like there’s a self naming in that, right? Like you follow me. Right. Why do we do this? Because me. Like, it goes in my name, instead of like, in a higher name. Yeah, that’s what idolatry is. That’s why the idea that the gods required worship, like this whole thing that they’re talking about in Lord of Spirits, the idea that the gods took worship for themselves. And in doing that, they castrate the father right that they cut themselves away from the seed of that which is above them. And when they do that, then they open, they open the door for corruption underneath them. It’s like they’re basically opening the door for revolution and breakdown. So when you so so you can see it like you can see it in the city when the city becomes corrupt and then the people in the city start to act on their own accord, and they don’t act towards the communion of the city, the higher goal of it, then you get social breakdown and And it manifests itself all the way down, but the money doesn’t get to the projects, the streets aren’t fixed, the buildings start to fall apart, the police doesn’t police properly, everything starts to fragment, because the different principalities aren’t aligned towards the higher identity. So, so I guess this kind of connects to the second thing I wanted to talk about with with church, like the word like Ecclesia kind of brings this connotation of like community. So there’s. So a city breaks down. If it’s not structured according to the right authority I guess I’m wondering like what, how do me and you as members of our cities. Or like what kind of agency do we have in that process and I think that’s connected to to prayer, or like even more like generally culture things like music things like street art or like just the ways the city kind of manifests. I thought about this idea of a city and then just the electronic music producer I really love has written music that kind of seems to me to like capture the soul of London and like there’s is just when I was meditating on this idea that you’ve mentioned the city as a being and So, so my point is is that as members where we seem to be kind of, do I want to say co creating or kind of like our, the way in which we use our logo or so the way in which we pray and ask different questions of the city, kind of is connected to the fate of the city. Isn’t it, and yeah, what would you make. Would you make of that, and I guess. Sorry it’s a bit of a rambling one. Yeah, but so. So the first thing you need to understand the first thing also you need to understand is that the city itself is not the top of the hierarchy of being right and so it’s like the city will only be alive, if it’s ultimately aligned towards higher goods, besides just the, besides just the city itself, it has to be. It has to be attached to God ultimately you could say, you know, in order for things to lay themselves out properly and so of course it’s hard because things that never tend to not rarely be completely aligned under God, you could say, but so a way in which a way in which, for example, you’re in a city and you see the city fall apart. It’s falling apart. Now, the one of the ways to stop the city from doing that is to attach yourself to a higher good. So you can think of it like, so think of it, so an easy way would be something like an easy way to understand it would be that if you’re writing the city is that you’re writing the city because the pothole is falling so you’re sending a letter to the, to the, to the municipal garage or whatever, and you’re not doing it. So at some point you’re going to write a letter to your counselor city counselor. Right. And then but then it’s not happening. And then at some point you’re going to write a letter to write to the mayor or whatever you’re going to escalate the hierarchy in It’s like I’m going to be the exception. I’m going to make cookies for my neighbor or whatever it is you decide to do to to restructure your immediate surrounding according to a higher good. And the amount of transformation you can you can create is really surprising, actually. I’m very surprised at how much transformation you can bring about by doing that. We tend to tend to neglect the neglect the capacity for people because what you’re sending out ripples and you’re actually creating new models, because one of the people model themselves on each other. That’s how we work right. And so, if there are no models around us then we we tend to degenerate. Now if we, if someone just sets themselves up as a model, people will start to imitate it, especially if it’s a model that is that is bringing about a greater good, or they’ll hate you. It could be either one. They can either model or they can hate you and then they will still transform them even though you just transformed them even though they hate you right. That’s like one of the, what’s one of the revelations of the Christian mystery let’s say is that sometimes when you do that, they hate you, and they kill you or whatever they inject you but then it’s still, it still does it, it still does the trick, even though it’s not it’s not fun for you. Yeah, yeah. So, like, does the pattern of, you said, you know the self eating idea, like that seems almost like logically. Well, it’s the use the word self defeating so it’s like, is there a way when it’s that patterns kind of, I don’t know metaphysically broken, and the, the true authority kind of idea we were talking about like Yeah, you can imagine it like there, there are several ways out of the, out of the chaos one is to restore to remember right I use those terms a lot in my videos. Remember, remember that which binds us remember that which connects us and so in remembering, you’re protecting yourself and your, you know, but the other ways is also the way down is works too. But it’s just that it’s, it’s not as fun right it’s like if things totally if everything breaks down and total chaos reigns, then, you know, whatever seed is there is going to grow in that chaos, but it can be painful. Right. Yeah, no thanks. Thanks for thanks for exploring that with me. I guess the the other kind of thing was, was the bit is that yeah it’s a bit of a different topic so it’s like, how can I say, so I guess what I learned personally this last year is the how my own prayer. It’s like the, how impotent my own prayer is or something like that or like at least my own efforts and my own self reliance, how I guess in terms of mine spiritual life like being aimed in the wrong direction, sinning there’s lots of ways in which I’m doing that myself and like I want to stop doing that and kind of repent and turn and aim in a different direction. And I guess I’ve made as earnest an effort as I can to do that this year. I failed. Yeah. Yeah, it was like being asked the meaning of humility I guess is like very broad low in that kind of thing. And then, and so I guess the reason I’m mentioning it is because one of the things that really struck me in your work is this kind of call to church and, and as community or as kind of something higher than just my own self reliance, and I just, it strikes me as intuitively true you saying that I’m just personally figuring out. I guess what the ideal structure of prayer is or like do others need to be praying around me in the same direction, these kind of questions like, is me trying to ask the right questions alone, going to be enough because it doesn’t seem to be it seems like we all kind of need to pray together kind of thing. And so I’ve seen that as a big theme in your work. Do you think it’s like necessary to join communities, communities or higher bodies to fully to live a spiritual life to like aim properly and to repent of sin, can we do it on our own like what is the place of community etc. Yeah, but I definitely think that it’s better. It’s definitely better because you’re also inserting yourself into a hierarchy like a functional hierarchy. The difficulty with a lot of spiritual work let’s say is that we often get deluded. We just, we, we think we’re acting towards our own good but we’re all we’re actually just imbibing our own passions we don’t even realize it. And so it’s good to have people around you to be able to point that out to you, or be able to kind of burst your bubble of illusion. So I think that that’s definitely, it’s better to be part of an actual community. And for sure it’s like a like a church for example like a traditional church what’s what’s great about that is that you’re also involved in a hierarchy of authority. And so, right if your buddy like let’s say your buddy is comes up to you and says you know what you should lay off the sauce you drink too much or whatever. You know I mean maybe like maybe it will have an effect on you or maybe not right it’s difficult because it’s not like they have an authority over you. They’re not allowed to tell you what to do. And so, putting yourself in a situation where you have someone who’s actually allowed to tell you what to do. It can be sometimes be useful because when someone tells you what to do. Like this is like the secret that the entire modern world hates. They don’t realize it but when someone tells you what to do. They are also inviting you, especially if they have authority over you, they’re also inviting you to draw your capacity to do it in them. Because it’s like you’re you’re you’re actually you’re you’re drawing your attention, you’re drawing your capacity to do whatever you need to do in them, and they also bear some responsibility on whether or not you succeed. Right. Yeah, right. They so imagine a parent with a child right. It’s like a parent tells the child what to do. The child doesn’t do it, the child is naughty, but the fact that the child doesn’t do it actually reflects on the parent. And so, the parent actually has a has some responsibility for the fact that the child doesn’t do it and so in a spiritual relationship with a with a with a spiritual father with a priest that’s what’s also what happens is that they are when they tell you what to do they are also somewhat making themselves responsible for the consequence of that, to a certain extent, not completely, it’s yours, but it’s also theirs as well. And so, so that that’s actually like if you’ve ever experienced someone. Let’s say you’re you’re in a sports team is a good way to experience it. It’s actually pretty simple right it’s like a coach tells you what to do. And it’s like he could have said many things but he says this this is the play this is what we’re going to do. And he’s like it’s going to work, the church or the team captain is going to work this is going to be our, our play. And so you’re like yeah all right. And so you draw in what that person tells you to do the energy to do it. And then you do it. And if it fails it’s not just your fault, it’s his fault too. Yeah, you can call you out and say I saw you didn’t put all your juice into the play like I saw you kind of skimped out on us you didn’t totally put yourself into it there’ll be a negotiation between whose responsibility is but it’s not going to just be yours. So there’s a there’s an advantage to community, which is that it that’s a great advantage. Do you think that’s a do you think that’s necessary and essential like, because it because 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 it that seems to be connected to a whole host of problems. Yeah, but the thing is the secret is that it’s, it’s actually not, it’s both. It’s 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, isn’t it funny that that way of thinking came 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 to do it I’m totally free and I can’t build like, 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 that’s the modern world, the modern world is those two extremes at the same time. It’s like an extreme of, of like ultimate absolute power that completely permeates your existence. And at the same time, this kind of weird anarchist anarchist rebellion. The internet is a perfect example of that internet exemplify that that extreme in the such a sublime way that it’s almost, you know, it’s the promise of like doing of being anything you want of saying anything you want of saying anything you want metaverse you could be whatever you want there’s no limit, you could become, you could be a lobster center or if you want, and 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. Which is I guess just authority creeping back in right is like the authorities that either way. It’s like an it’s like an extreme authority based on an extreme freedom, and it’s not a normal. Not a normal negotiated fractal authority, because it’s like in a normal world like think of a parent and a child right like a normal parent right so the parent says, do this right. 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, clean my room, then the parent could say I want you to clean your room, I want you to clean the house, want you to paint the house, I want you and it’s like, just, and then all of a sudden, it’s like the child will just not do it. And then they won’t. And the same child that was willing to do the clean the room at the outset, then they won’t. And so it’s like relationship normal relationship between authority and, and people under authority is it is a constant, like, observing negotiation and, and, and it’s like, and then the child has to perceive that they get something from that relationship to. That’s really interesting and that, and that is constraining excess. And is that connected to the encounter of persons like, like there’s a. Yeah, 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 and 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 and the extreme, the extreme, it’s the extreme so. So think about, 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 they’re all their reality now becomes negotiated for that one thing that has now enslaved them. So that’s the that’s the irony, the irony of wanting to break down the structures of of normal structures of authority, end up creating tyrannical structures of authority that that will just completely control. It’s actually in the in the process itself it just happens it’s not a. Yeah. I don’t know if that makes sense. I mean, yeah, it makes some sense. I guess. I guess them. Yeah, I guess the main thing I, the way I’m thinking about it is like it. It’s just is this submission thing because like in the in the sports thing you mentioned or like the military might be another good example. There’s a military particular as 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 the 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 come 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, because he says that he’s just his, his, his troop is going to is going to disband is going to cease to exist. Or they’re going to die. And what do you think that is he’s just asking too much. Yeah, it’s just not fit. It’s just not fitted. But you could get them to run 100, 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, it’s like that. There’s a, let’s say that the extremes that it’s those extremes that 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 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, just inevitable like it’s 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 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 cannot, I can disagree with the peasants killing the king but I can understand it. I can understand why, as the as the say the, the aristocracy separated itself from its people and then stop 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 serves were were receiving legal treatment or whatever it is that a Lord should do, then at some point. It doesn’t hold like it that that that system doesn’t hold and it’s like that for all normal authority systems. I mean, 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 of the idea that like women have been oppressed for 10,000 years by men, and that like the characteristic relationship between men and women has been like masculine dominance and oppression is just, it’s just absolute bull, bullshit like you could never, it could never be sustainable. There would always have to be a negotiation between between 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, too little on the other side, but you can’t really, you can’t hold it in the extreme all the 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, create something it seems intuitively it feels like that’s connected to use the word organic. It just feels like the computer is not organic, and that there’s something there, like, there’s something like quantitative and logarithmic or algebraic or, you know, about that whole system that isn’t like my relationship to my mother or my boss or the different human Yeah, but it’s, it’s extension of power, it’s always an extension of human power. And so, 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, 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. Yeah, 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 spying if I have a system of, of controlling your turning off your bank account if I have power 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, 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, let’s see how long you survive, my friend. You know, it’s like, but we only do that. You 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. So all of these things end up being correlated. I see. I guess, yeah, the final, I guess, comes was wrapping up, it would be like the, I’m curious about the relationship between them. Like, why don’t we accept authority, like I think there’s a kind of, I guess one of my intuitions was around the adolescent rebellion idea but also like, I think there’s a connection between I think about Christianity and kind of reflected on my own life like humility or being brought low and and submission. And, yeah, I just I wonder what you think about why we don’t accept authority and what how we might how viewers or how we might come into a proper relationship. I think 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 will 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 they’re diluted, they think they are 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. Yeah, I need to follow it but I also need to, 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, let’s say, enforce your authority will be through brute force. Total brute force. Now, brute force is exhausting. It’s tiring. Yeah, it takes your energy takes up energy and so it’s a it’s a simple. It’s like it’s a kind of a simple system and you can see it like, you can see it like it’s a modern classrooms like modern classrooms are great because the teacher doesn’t have real authority like doesn’t have normal authority. And it’s recognized that in a way, the children, the teacher isn’t an authority figure. Right and that’s in the culture. And so the kids, they they they’ll flip between being screamed at by like a hysterical 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, their teachers but they think authority is bad you know it’s like, you know, that’s, that’s not going to work. And so they end up like going between extremes. But normally what you would have is that the, 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, and 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. And so it is, 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 are, I don’t know tyrants but like, teachers who would go around and say like, you know, tuck your shirt, tuck your shirt in, 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. And 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 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. And 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 if someone 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 what make a pretty good teacher. Totally. Thanks for that, Jennifer. And I thought that yeah that particular note there is like, might be a nice place to end it. I think that’s, that’s a really, yeah, like the merciful and the just, the strict, the love and the discipline as well. Yeah, and I love that I love the stuff about fittedness and relationship and authority because I’ve never necessarily made that connection before. I’m happy that it was it was useful. Yeah. Good conversation. I enjoyed it for sure. Cool. Me too. As you know the symbolic world is not just a bunch of videos on YouTube. We are also a podcast which you can find on your usual podcast platform, but we also have a website with a blog and several very interesting articles by very intelligent people that have been thinking about symbolism on all kinds of subjects. 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