https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=tOhS9Gm_a5I
Yeah, it reminds you of what is real like and what is not real the online world is really in some ways like the Chattering of demons like it’s a tanak these an anonymous troll type people, you know You also know that the not all of them, but a lot of people that’s not their whole personality Anyways, it’s almost like I’m gonna go online and I can play this like role You know, and then they go back and they they like live their lives almost like a little like a little video game It’s a first-person shooter video game, right? I’m going online. I’m gonna own the libs. I’m going online I’m gonna dismantle MAGA people. Yeah, and that’s my way. I’m virtuous. I’m playing a game and I’m doing it This is Jonathan So Hello everyone, I am here again with Greg Hurwitz those of you that follow my channel will have seen him on my channel He is a best-selling author is written or for next and several other series including Batman of which I’m a big fan But he was also part of the Exodus group that met to talk about Exodus for like 32 hours And the the videos of Exodus have been doing it’s crazy The first episode is more than 2 million views on YouTube and they’ve also had, you know similar types of success on the Daily where our daily wire platform and so I thought it’d be great with Greg to talk about our experience there you know kind of where it led him in his thought and in my thinking and and Hopefully, yeah start from there. So maybe Greg if you want to start us off you were in some ways the You were like the the strangest character in the group in the sense that From like, you know, you came from a more secular world, you know, you’re you’re writing novels You’re more it you’re not like someone who would spend that much time in the Bible in your life And so for you is like a discoveries. I’d like to know a little bit what your experience was in in talking about this with us hmm, I Mean the first thing that I thought about that, you know As you know, I moved between a lot of different communities and groups and it’s one of the great things For me about being a novelist as I get to just explore. I’m fascinated by how people think I’m I’m nearly impossible to offend. I don’t share a lot of the kind of hard partisan ideological lines And have lots of different discussions. I mean the first thing that struck me was You know just it was really an honor to be around a table with that many people Who have that level of expertise in something? It’s really It was humbling It’s really interesting. It’s my favorite form of engagement I like doing things from time to time where I’m the kind of neophyte or the one who’s Who isn’t the expert right? So there’s certain areas and perspectives I had talking about narrative I have you know, I have read the Bible I have taken courses but like you you put me next to you or You know Prager or James or or Oz Guinness and you know, it’s like a it’s like a third grader playing basketball with Michael Jordan Now that said, you know One of the things that’s amazing when talking about something is as you know Epic and essential and enduring as Exodus is it’s like every view is welcome and valued too, right so it’s not like there was a Bar that we were having conversations about historical references We’re finding a way in towards meaning and I thought that everybody was very Welcoming towards me and it’s what a great way to To engage with everybody’s best part in a way, you know, it’s funny It was it was a different deal for me probably than anybody else who was in that Steminar in that there’s certain people from certain communities who I’m from who have very strong opinions about other members of the group in certain arenas Particularly when they gets in a partisanship, but it’s like, you know, that’s also part of the problem is that we’ve made Politics the sort of apex thing that shines the light on top of everything and the whole point of having community and having intellectual discussions and having Fellowship is that you meet people around Common ground and territory right where they have Grace and wisdom and generosity and I thought that was very much on display But you know in terms of how it changed my thinking it was pretty revolutionary for me on a bunch of fronts. Hmm Yeah, I know that one of the things that you brought up in the during the seminar but also in conversation was this vision in Exodus that they have about the relationship between the center and the margin between Kind of identity in the fringe. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about what? Let’s say how that if how that surprised you or how that affected your thinking in terms of what’s in the Bible Well, there’s a line in it. I forget where we were talking about the fringe and one of the things is is I Like the fringe being the fringe You know and we were saying I was saying, you know We were talking about this with like gender and presentation and artists and I think there’s one point where I said look having one Prince the artist the artist formerly known as Prince is amazing If you walk in and there’s 50 you kind of don’t know what to do with yourself You know, so it’s sort of this interesting notion that that in a lot of ways I think maybe maybe certain secular thinkers have this notion that when people talk about the center of the center holding it’s to the exclusion of the fringe But I think that in part that actually can be a relationship of the fringe in the center are arranged properly That nourishes and protects and holds the fringe in its meaningful place Right, whatever the fringe is. I’m not I’m not labeling that specifically But you know my understanding like from where I come from my personal beliefs the fact that I’m a writer Based on my you know, what what are the things big five personality traits, right? I’m super high in openness like I have I have traits that map on to a more liberal worldview You know, I’ve talked about at length the necessity for both liberal and conservative thinking to navigate complex change, right? the liberals are the brakes and the liberals are the gas and the conserves are the brakes and If you stop on the brakes, you don’t go anywhere And if you step on the gas you go off a cliff or run into a wall And so the negotiation between those sides is essential but you know, I had this sort of reawakening that I really like The fringe being the fringe when I’m visiting it on the fringe to have a more open liberal Artistic community or sub community, right and even I grew up south Oh, you know in the San Francisco Bay Area a lot of the politics in that region are gonna be more liberal Some of them now tend left in a way that I’m not a particular fan of I’m much more of a liberal than I am A lefty. I mean, I’m not a lefty at all But also this awareness that like that’s a beautiful thing about San Francisco, but it should be San Francisco It shouldn’t also be Iowa and the whole Midwest in the south and Oz said something When we talked a little bit about Miriam, I think we might have discussed this previously but you know two things that really struck me was, you know Miriam coming in and having her sort of excessively pure remark when Moses wanted to have a Ethiopian wife and then you know the the joke of God coming down and turning her like, you know Leprosy snow white and she had to be excluded from the camp before allowed back in you know, the warnings against excessive purity Which makes the center? Unwelcoming right and ossified And so it was very interesting for me how that was like built in with a ton of care and consideration, you know likewise the fact that you know Caleb and it’s Jacob. Yeah, we’re the only one center the promise and Caleb are the Joshua I mean the only man from Santa and that Caleb was from the mixed multitude, right? He was not necessarily like, you know that that that that these different different people Outsiders were welcomed in and integrated in certain ways, but there’s also certain Rules and structures that have to be in place in order to accommodate that So for me it was very eye-opening to see the sort of Care and thought morally and strategically and spiritually and psychologically and lovingly About how these different parts play and you told the story which I don’t want to share It was a personal story about in the church and how you’ve managed to have certain members who felt more fringe Almost literally in terms of where they positioned in the church and how the church welcomed them So that part was key and the other the other thing for me Osgyn has had a remark to me at one point and it was it was this funny moment Sometimes you have a remark where you feel like you cross a threshold and do a different understanding And it’s something that’s really obvious, but you know one of things he was talking about when we talked about globalism You know I come from a perspective a more liberal perspective of like globalism is great, right? It’s we have better trade. We have cheaper goods. We’ve lifted half the world out of Poverty right there’s all this positivity And os just in a in a private conversation with me just had this little reframing to be like but imagine a global morality That goes with it Right where everybody it’s some at some higher level determines what’s better down to the locality, right? of every different choice and what a horrifying vision that is right, that’s like a a vision of Such an authoritarian the amount of force and bureaucratic might and authoritarian might to lock that in a place like in a china let’s say and in combination with the conversation we had about exodus about The distribution of power across and vertically It just really struck me and then I started to think about everything in that regard to it kind of cracked open for me An understanding of some of the criticisms of you know carbon edicts handed down from brussels that need to pertain to canadian farmers right or notions of trans rights they get farmed out through social media so that a You know a a community With no elective body and no spokespeople All of a sudden they’re going to have a mob mentality or an online mob made up of people that nobody even knows who they are Half of them could be foreign players right from a st. Petersburg troll farm screaming about how Values have to be affected in every sort of community all at once And then also just about the efficiency of moving resources Up and down and the more that they’re moved up at a higher level There’s more sort of codified corruption and rotting the system which i’d understood already a good amount But just thinking more and more about the necessity for for local Kind of governance and value setting once a baseline has been established. Here’s baseline american values, right? Around dignity and freedom But to allow variance within the sub communities because there’s no other way to do it and for a long time i’ve been thinking about you know, america right now is in a standoff and What is not going to happen is that one side prevails and dominates and rules over the other side? That’s not going to be an outcome. That is a world anyone wants to live in There’s got to be some sort of partnership and there has to be a return to Value sets and relationships that are differentiated at a local level so I’ve been thinking really differently since those conversations and then also started to understand much more, you know denis talked about You know, one of the beautiful things in exodus is it’s the law but it’s wrapped in the sacred Right, and if you don’t have the wrapping of law in something transcendent right then it will Become overgrown and cancerous and turn into Hr departments or endless countless regulations, right or like, you know endless school administrator bureaucratic states within educational Environments where they start to eat the primary point of education. Yeah so I’ve been chewing on a lot of this and it’s been Altering a lot my thinking about how to balance and integrate the best of what liberalism needs to offer Which is sort of watering and nourishing the culture with new ideas and people so it doesn’t stagnate and the essential nature of how you hold Center. Yeah No, I think that’s that’s great And I and I think that that also in some ways I think was the most striking thing for me doing the exodus seminar That that was able to come out That that structure like that kind of subsidiary structure where You know, even the 12 tribes exist independently, right? They all have their own identity But they nonetheless, you know all look towards the tabernacle They all worship the same god and that and they have some aspects like moses and aron and the priestly caste that act as an overarching structure Interestingly enough in in exodus that overarching structure like the priestly caste they don’t have land And so there’s like this trade-off situation where you don’t want to have them And have land and have power but then also be an overarching structure on others like you kind of say, okay You’ll have this but you take this there’s this very beautiful way in which They’re able to to have something which which is over all of them, but then remain keeping their crunchy You know, uh, they’re crunchy characteristics, you know And that that is that’s been even with arc like people were talking about arc and you’re going to be there as well in arc That’s one of the things that we’re trying to help people see is this need to to understand identity that way, right identity as layers of participation and not just The state and the individual the way that we kind of tend to look at it in the modern world And I think your image of america in some ways that is the best vision of what america could be which is It kind of decentralized cultures that that coexist that recognize each other’s value And that understand they also that they don’t necessarily agree with each other in all the way in all their alignment But have enough in common so that they They can exist together Uh, and nor should they and nor is that the goal the goal is not that we all agree That is not an american goal. Yeah, and that’s not what’s best for america Yeah, yeah And so Yeah, I I really that was really for me one of the biggest the biggest takeaways from exodus 2 is is that that vision Came out so clearly and even rereading the text, you know, sometimes You know i’d read it. I reread it occasionally but rereading it for that seminar And then in the discussion I was like wow, there’s more about this than I than I even thought like there’s just more of this this there’s even this idea in some ways that Gets taken up in some ways that gets taken back up in jesus in the new testament, which is that It’s as if all the laws Have to be contained in their allegiance to god and jesus says right love your god and love your neighbor It’s like that’s what the law is for if you don’t have that then the all these regulations and laws you could Keep making them more and more explicit and that’s what happens right if we lose trust within each other then we The more as the more society lose normal trust between people the longer our contracts become right and the more like Like this and that because yes account for every single possible behavior Whereas before let’s say or or in a family or in a in a relationship of trust like the handshake It’s like that’s what it’s based in like there’s an Implicit laws are there but we don’t have to spell them out because we know that we act in trust and in love towards each other One of the things I that’s that’s Yes, that’s beautifully stated You know one of the things I was thinking a lot about for me having come up, you know in a secular world But that said my parents sent me to jesuit high school, you know, I had very I Great relationships with jesuit priests in high school. We studied we read this the first time I read the old testament I was in bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, but nor were my parents nor were my grandparents I mean, so i’m from a long line of sort of more secular jews but really, you know a lot of my The embrace and attention that’s been paid on the old testament of my identity has been from non-jews It was jesuits the first year we read the old testament, you know, I have a lot of friends who were Uh, you know long time friends who were christian who were very interested in that, you know this exodus summer I was invited in but I mean I knew you jordan and blackwell were were my three people I knew I wasn’t invited in by um, you know prager and shapiro, so it’s this really funny thing that a lot of the Sourcing of my identity or connecting with that all the way back to high school Was from christians, you know, so that’s it’s also an interesting point but one of the things I was thinking about a little bit since then is As we’re discussing all these primary values Is that for me growing up? I had this amazing Ben made a ben made a comment that kind of blew my mind. Um He had two comments that were that kind of blew my mind but one of them was he said something in uh, The sort of critical fast-talking ben You know machine gun fire voice But he said look a lot of these institutions are going on the fume are on the are on the fumes of the value sets and structures That they had in place from let’s just say some religious foundation. I forget what his exact phrasing was But I was thinking about that I was thinking about when I went through and I had the benefit of going through some really fine schools like this jesuit high school Colleges where the structures were very very intact. It didn’t feel there was ideology creeping in at the edges, but it was not predominant But a lot of what I felt was holy Was were the poets, right? were Simph it was bethoven. It was mozart. It was shakespeare. It was you know, um plato for me it was a lot of the like the the um The poets, uh, you know byron keats and shelley And so I was constantly reading and engaging with this stuff that felt like it was sacred Um, and in a way as I was reflecting on our conversation one of the things that that of course it’s it’s it’s Spectacularly obvious to you but less so for me Is that when you’re having a discussion that’s specifically about the bible what we’re talking about is the thing itself You’re talking about here are the seven virtues, right? Here’s the seven deadly sins and it’s not proxy by a poem or by Something else or by a play or for me reading shakespeare for me hearing schumann, right or hearing bethoven’s ninth and there’s something that’s very interesting in the space between it because I think in a lot of my upbringing I would see that sort of the sacred light shown through let’s say the genius of creation or a brilliant thinker, right even if it’s a Scientific thinker, you know, my proclivity was more towards the arts and towards opera, but you know Pick your genius pick your physicist, you know Ramanujan like where you see people are connected with an order That is greater than them But it’s interesting because in a way even if you’re offset just that much of admiring the people in the works that are a reflection of the primary values There is a tendency to move towards Well, do we value hard work do we value brilliance do we value the beauty primarily rather than Always knowing that there’s the foundational core value of you know, like what is true humility really mean? It’s not like feigned humility And so I started to read c.s. Lewis um more c.s. Lewis and what’s so interesting is he has a remark in um Shoot, I forget where I think it’s in screw tape letters where he says that That the sort of aim of a of a of true humility is not claiming You don’t have the skills that you want or like fishing for compliments But if you’re an architect and you build the most beautiful structure in the world and you glory in that structure But you’re just as happy In it existing if you creating it as if somebody else created it and it just existed It’s like it’s such an interesting way of looking at it as opposed to me I was coming up with sort of like the cult of frank lorde wright I mean he was so bombastic and brilliant and my favorite stories with him Are like, you know when if somebody had one of his houses and they put up a fence he’d get mad Years later and just send a bulldozer to knock off the fence because he still considered his house So he’s in court all the time And one time he was you know, they asked him he was on the stand and they said are you the greatest architect who ever lived? And he said yes, I am and he was walking out It was like a courthouse scrum and I think his second wife was next to him. She said frank dear Did you really did you really have to say that he said I did dear I was under oath That’s hilarious You know, so it’s like but the studying of of this Is is for me of architecture? I thought of it more through the brilliance of what he accomplished and the dance between space and psychology and having that it’s such a simple notion with c.s. Lewis of like You know enjoy and embrace your uniqueness and whatever gifts you’re blessed with right? Don’t eschew them with false shows of humility But the humility is your appreciation that it can even exist and that you’re there to observe it And so that that staking of primary values i’ve been trying to think about that comment that ben made about how some of these secular Societies are on the fumes so you get past let’s say my dad’s generation and he didn’t fight in world war two, right? There are a generation past a shared Nationally shared crisis where everybody suffered and learned equally that hasn’t happened in america since world war two So you have one generation i’m in the next generation, but by the time it comes to our kids it’s almost like that gap between the core values and the geniuses and implementers and innovators It sort of widens in your understanding of how to bring them together without a foundational Education, let’s say whatever that means whether that’s formal or not that brings together Intellectual venture and artistic venture with a spiritual foundation, right? That’s you know greek latin The biblical text, you know different holy and sacred texts And then also what these fields of endeavor are and then the integration of the two and how they’re foundationally tied to the real world And that’s another essential thing as opposed to just sort of floating unattached Up here to be like, oh well, i’ve published 18 different scholarly articles on you know You know the yongi and shadow and shakespearean tragedy And it’s not fully connected and integrated all the way and the process of education is trying to get all of those pieces together And if you have them, I think you build obviously stronger relationships stronger sub communities And you have yourself organized with the communities across time with different codes and values and communities up and down mount Sianai and I love that the that exodus, you know Is so unabashed the jews are always so unabashed and also showing the reality of like, you know Moses is like i’m gonna be right back. I’m just gonna go talk to god like erin just don’t do anything done Okay, i’ll be back in like just give me like a day and i’ll come back and it’d be really good if there wasn’t like A golden calf and a bunch of orgies. So just you know, hold the tent So it’s very open-eyed about the fact that there’s all sorts of problems But if that’s the structure that you’re constantly and imperfectly navigating up and down you can imperfectly and humanly move forward in a structure that works that is That’s reconstituting itself from tyranny and that little loop of fleeing tyranny into the disintegrated unknown of the desert And then reorienting in a way that’s embodied and solid to move forward towards the promised land That we won’t reach in our own time or way It’s this mini cycle, right? It’s everything with psychology. I’m going to give up the tyranny of You know my victimhood about something i’m going to give up the tyranny of Thinking that I have to rely on alcohol. I’m going to give up the tyranny of An abuse story that is keeping me in a way where i’m powerless and anytime you give up tyranny obvious or not obvious you know what comes isn’t Joy in the liberation but the dizzying terror of freedom of like Now it’s me. It’s it’s me and God, I hope in a new understanding and who where are my people? How do I do this? And so that that loop is like it’s it’s fractal like everything we talk about, you know, it can be A choice you make it can be an emotional state. It can be the orientation of your whole life But the need to build these things solidly that all the pieces hold together is pretty staggering in some ways one of the things that also in the exodus seminar that came out for me I was surprised it came out so strongly but to me was important because it’s something that I Been trying to help people understand. It’s is that in exodus. There’s a sense in which the center is worship like And that that it’s hard for secular people and that’s why that’s why i’m asking It’s hard for secular people because it’s like oh man, that’s a tough one, right? That’s a that’s a tough level but it seems like in exodus you can understand it. It’s that You have to keep your most precious and highest attention To the highest thing and it’s like if you if you so if you give your praise and attention because You’re going to do it anyways, right? You’re going to worship all kinds of things. You’re going to you’re going to celebrate all kinds of things But if you celebrate the highest And it’s not just like a mental exercise at least in exodus. It’s like you have to do it You have to get together, you know, there’s things you do you you kill the animals We don’t do that anymore. But like you sacrifice things you sing songs you do all this stuff um, and so and so i’m wondering how that if that has Messed with you or how would you how do you see that for for yourself? Like that that that part of exodus kind of came out like you have to You have to in so much you have to pray you have to worship you have to you have to give up pray to the highest ah, it’s it’s It’s it’s been it’s been quite intense man. I mean I have my own rituals that like, you know Jordan and you and anyone could rightly make fun of me, you know from being a fruity california, you know, it’s like You know, so it’s like I do I do this meditative yoga at 115 degrees often, right? And one of the things I learn when I go there That’s one of the ways that i’m the most I feel the most connected I try and do it every night when i’m in town. I do it sometimes during the day, but it’s a It’s You know one of the things that i’ve discovered and we talked about this a little bit is that some of the poses that you have Right. A lot of them are like heart opening, but they’re positions that are not dissimilar from prayer positions That you’re taking and i’ve thought a lot about how the physiology within our body You know if you stand in the rocky pose your self-esteem actually rises, right? Like there’s different poses we have I mean, that’s jordan’s, you know infamous essay on the infamous and famous essay on the lobster, right about But it’s so interesting for me moving through this which is it, you know a different ancient tradition but a lot of the postures are like, you know prostrating yourself for Prayer like that’s what they look like and you hold it in heat right for you know in 115 degrees sometimes for five minutes and you’re and the necessity of ritual Has always been essential to me, right? I don’t just write when I feel like writing I don’t just sort of exercise when I feel like it or you know, i’ve had a lot of different Skills or disciplines that have required ritualizing them, right? What you have to do with writing what you have to do with carving is just decide that it’s sacrosanct, right? Because if you don’t place it above everything else Everything’s more important than that acutely, right? That you know, you could go to a movie You can pick up your dry cleaning. You could do whatever we have to make these choices around ritual and what we elevate But one of the things I started to notice is that’s a space that I did a lot of really deep meditation and reflection Around stuff and if I don’t if I fall out of that for two three days all of a sudden other parts of my life start to get Disorganized and so after exodus. I’ve started to view that time In a very different light and started to view and start my mornings even in different ways And then as i’ve done that there’s been more Rituals I don’t say demands but Understanding of different ways to have threshold moments Of reorienting myself that feel different from just like a cog b Right way of resetting like take five breaths and then go into whatever It’s not about just the psychology in the nervous system It’s really about taking time to try and reintegrate and orient to The highest version of something and to ask to ask for that It’s very interesting in orphan x when he answers the phone He answers the phone the same way every time he says do you need my help? And I never thought about that right? He’s an assassin who helps people who are in in desperate need But of course, that’s the first question because if somebody doesn’t ask for help, they’re not in a position that you can help them Right. I never thought of it that way But in a way that would be a good way to do it Right, I never thought of it that way But in a way that reflection towards the higher good Is also an expression of humility that you’re open to what will come like you’re leaving space for other solutions and answers Which means I don’t have them. I don’t have them to go out into the roar of a new day To control and shape the day, you know, another thing cs lewis talks about is he says the greatest Trick that the enemy Or that they can foist on other people sorry to protect them from the enemy and screw tape letters, of course The enemy is god, right and the father is satan But he says is the belief that their time is their own If you can convince a man that his time is his own Everything’s an imposition Everything’s cause for aggravation. Yeah, right anything that comes off their schedule any aggravation anything like if you can convince him of that Like your gold that’s a key thing And so there’s so many reflections like that and for me a lot of what was been really meaningful in cs lewis is You know clearly he’s a spirit he’s intellectual spiritual genius, right it’s uh but The acuteness of psychology is so amazing to me And so I think a lot of the way that that I came to into understandings of sort of archetypes and spirituality And the way that actually they move in the world in concrete ways and move the world and move you for me was through Young right? Which which makes sense. It’s coming from my background, right? So I studied young a great deal, right and did a lot of work on young and you get to the bottom and you start to realize Oh this there’s this amazing overlap like with my friends who are born again christian where all of a sudden it’s like oh if I Convert some of these phrases and engage with this in this way. I understand people who are speaking jesus, right because It’s it’s a way in to start to understand and go. Oh when you say You know, it’s you know Leave room for god That’s like youngian synchronicity, right? There’s all these terms that are just different slices and ways into it Or into reaching a deeper reservoir of understanding Um And so cs lewis that is like the acuteness of insight He’s so perspicacious about like how our mind how our minds work And the connection of those to a spiritual frame for me was was pretty spectacular Yeah, and it’s like look divorce, right? You I read the great divorce and that was here’s what you thought about the great divorce because it That’s one of my favorite csl’s books. I think it’s one of the best representation of Heaven and hell like the the the idea of heaven and hell that that has ever been put together So, I don’t know what you thought about that Oh and how like all the ways he just lays bare that we get in the way of our own of the gifts being offered Yeah, exactly every which way it’s like here’s here’s every way that you could show up and be offered everything you want and deny it due to your own You know blindness or your your lack of cultivated humility. Yeah, it was amazing Right. And so you always think about that woman who’d rather have Her boy in hell with her so she could continue to provide endless care and empathy and Right, like devouring mother witch and hansel and gretelness, right? But she’d rather have that child devoured and taken down Than to open and release You know, there’s different value sets old testament new testament in a lot of ways. I mean the the old testament There’s this like talmudic reasoning, right and there’s so much about work and discipline and law and code and I think a lot of the virtues of the new testament are around like Surrender right like there’s I mean they’re through both of them. Of course. This is an oversimplification You know forgiveness grace. There’s so much It’s such a different Value set and so watching this bus ride You know up to heaven and person after person I mean the other thing that was really interesting to me is there’s someone who came who is uh in the great divorce who’s a you know, great Expert in religion. I forget what their role. Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s a great scene Yeah, the theologian who like couldn’t join heaven or or stay because you know, he needs to be able to Have arguments and differences and it has to be cerebral and he has to retain his own Like, you know sense of intellectual curiosity and disagreement like, you know I never would yield and how much we’re lost in our prefrontal cortex is all the time um Yeah, so he’s he’s amazing. I mean it was that’s been a pretty spectacular Process and I think about that a lot in relation to people who we see who are And in ourselves primarily in ourselves first all the ways we self-handicapped, right? All the ways we create obstacles based on our own Ego or vanity, right or pride? and you see it reflected in those ways, but it also gives room for um Allowing more space and freedom for others to sort of have to flower in their own time right Because you can’t I mean that’s another aspect of freedom is anything that’s that’s coerced this is back to the discussion about the sort of Global or let’s just say outsourced to like the insane roar of the internet bob mentality to dictate Like our moral governance, which is it’s so insane. It’s almost hard to figure out that we’re in america in canada In these in these countries that are that where free speech is foundational That we’ve allowed a state of affairs that random mobs online on social media apps Can bathe for blood And we have no idea who they are how they’re constituted how much foreign negative influences in them How many psychopaths what the constitution is and public figures will come out like to a town square And apologize in a way that often is disingenuous Just to be left alone to be allowed to continue their lives without massive financial And reputational damage like we’ve allowed that to happen. Someone’s not been convicted of a crime Someone hasn’t been fired from a job But just a random mob can constitute itself and make that demand it’s insane it is insane and it feels like Yeah, it reminds you of what is real like and what is not real the online world is really In some ways like the chattering of demons like because it’s a people It’s satanic the people who these anonymous troll type people, you know You also know that the not all of them, but a lot of people that’s not their whole personality anyways It’s almost like i’m gonna go online and I can play this like role Uh, you know, and then they go back and they they like live their life. It’s almost like a little like a little It’s a video game. It’s a first person shooter video game, right? I’m going online. I’m gonna own the libs i’m going online I’m gonna dismantle maga people. Yeah, and that’s my way. I’m virtuous. I’m playing a game and i’m doing it But it’s crazy that that level of like really like we had a pretty good common law system We have pretty good courts we did This is what we’re going to decide to do that anyone at any time or any member of one group Can make a claim of being offended by any member of another group and if they get enough pitchforks and torches That other group has to answer to them. Yeah, that’s right It’s it’s it’s really crazy If you think about it if we transported ourselves forward from the 80s and said This is what it is now. It doesn’t matter if you’re a movie star a senator a ceo an athlete Uh, uh, you know an iron worker a coal miner a musician anything you do at any time a random mob can appear And just in a virtual world and make you have to come You you either have be in the fight of your life to stand up for your principles Or like falsely apologize like you’re being marched through the streets in game of thrones, that’s wild Yeah, and I mean obviously that’s that’s in some part what’s going on with jordan right now but I I just want to come back to the the cs lewis thing just because When we saw each other last time you reminded me of a scene in portrait of the artist As the young man by james joist and i’d read that into my early early 20s and I had forgotten about some of the parts I reread it And in that book, there’s a description of hell which goes on for quite a long time And it’s interesting because that description of hell is this like really punitive thing, right? It’s like horrible punitive Thing, uh, that’s going to last forever and it’s like, you know Imagine a bird taking a seed of a mountain of seeds for you know And it’s like it’s it’s like that’s just one second in eternity and and it and what I what I just found fascinating was because I also Re-read the great divorce. I knew you had read it you had read it So i’m like i’ll reread that a few times in my life Uh, and I thought just how powerful the difference is between the visions like on the one hand Joyce, you know and you can understand when someone did let him away from the church if he really experienced something like that Where it’s just this this this all arbitrary almost in a horrible, uh in position of uh Of a standard that you can’t follow until you end up in this this tortured forever whereas c.s. Lewis has this amazing capacity to show How the suffering of hell like the suffering of hell is out of your own desire that it actually is born out of something You want for yourself ultimately without maybe admitting it to yourself But that you you want that that image that he has of hell of people who have everything they want So because they have everything they want they they they get annoyed at everybody’s little differences So they said they keep moving away from the neighborhood and building houses further and further away from each other And so all of a sudden they’re like alone in these giant mansions But they’re so they’re they’re like a million miles from each other and they can’t even fathom to be with another person. I’m like Wow, that’s a powerful image of of suffering that born out of our own desires It’s amazing it’s also and I say this with great love for catholics and the jesuits who partially raised me I mean in some ways it’s like a catholic christian Division there in some ways and joys has like the most Hellfire and brimstone of anything so that I think it’s the third chapter of portrait of the artist is Just it’s worth just going into because it’s so kind of gloriously hideous So first he goes through every single one of our senses and talks about how awful it is in hell Like your ears hear the screams and your skin is on fire So as they’re teaching him, you know when he’s young in his his catholic school or he’s in in church You’re taught all of the ways that your senses are in a state of unbelievable inquisitional Horror right and pain and excruciating but then he says like you said Imagine there’s a mountain that’s a million miles high and a million miles wide And every million years a bird flies and picks up one grain of sand and flies a million miles and drops it somewhere else When those mountains have risen and fallen a million times. That’s not even an instant in hell. Yeah, I know Oh, and so you can see why one of the things joy said was to be an artist He had to be free from family Country and religion those were the three nets that were thrown to constrain an artist Right and he had to be free of them to be his own sort of um Brilliant embodied creative self And cs lewis said so much kinder. I mean it’s you know, hell is locked from the inside and you have the key Yeah, and it’s just right there and The the notion of god is is it’s so much more patient and graceful. It’s sort of like Hey, we’re here. You can take the bus back next year if you want It’s all right here. But you know if you want to still maintain your own theological distinctions and that’s important to you It’s okay. You can go back to your house. That’s You know in this gray town that’s you know, a thousand miles from the nearest home Where you’re separated from an overarching narrative and from each other Which by the way, I think is is where ai’s heading we’ve talked about this right? Like oh I can get my own I can push a button and design my own book like I want a faulkner book that’s Dialed to my iq that’s 107 with vocab words. That’s half the length using inside jokes from my social media. Boom I have what I want. It’s like pornography, right? I have everything that I want what what are all my tastes and preferences and all of a sudden you’re just floating away in your own little bubble of a world You know Like, you know when they die from the feast with the meat of the last Like gorging still stuck in their teeth. It says with the the the yeah the flesh meat of the Yeah, that’s right. Oh wait, I have everything I want and it’s like online. I can do that. I can cultivate my own world. I can Move people I can unfriend people. I don’t like I can put filters on everything It’s like wow So what you’re doing is is you’re removed from an overarching story and from everybody else in reality Like why does that sound familiar? Yeah, and so the see but the but the depiction in the great divorce is amazing You know, so one of the other things i’ve been thinking about a lot since exodus is this notion like one of the biggest The biggest fury in a lot of ways that I see of our stalemate in politics There’s two things I want to talk to you about the biggest one I see is hypocrisy right, so You know and it’s it’s abundant on both sides We don’t even get into specific examples because like then the comments just blow up and there’s a thousand things But people are outraged with the hypocrisy of of why is this prosecuted this way? Not this way? Why are you saying it’s state rights, but it’s not state rights here and the church, you know, one of the things that’s the most Typical thing to be said in a secular World these words are so useless but you know We’re using these as imperfect proxies what we’re talking about is the hypocrisy of the church is the hypocrisy of church leaders, right? There’s ways that like shockingly the churches haven’t You know as all the institutions have allowed in corruption and capture, right? Academia and the media and hollywood some of that’s also true in in in church in religious institutions Also that that has been allowed but it’s this very interesting thing where there’s this notion of like well you say you’re a christian But you had an affair or you say you’re a christian, but you stole money or you say you’re a christian But you didn’t show grace and humility of christ, you know or whatever And it’s so interesting to me like, you know having lifelong Close friends. I mean, it’s such an it’s such an amusing and callow disregard of it It’s like okay because I say that i’m orienting myself towards a certain belief structure I’m supposed to exemplify the highest exemplar of that in the history of the world all the time where i’m a hypocrite It’s like that’s the way that i’m aiming as an individual if you’re a christian It’s like of course you’re gonna people in that community are gonna gamble and have affairs and do all this stuff That’s like saying oh you secularists you have all these laws But people are still committing murder and people are still stealing things like what hypocrites you are to think that you have A legal system you want to pay attention to when people don’t abide it Yeah, and so this this is the sort of plank in the eye approach of like we’re so scrambling between these worlds of the of the religious spiritual Symbolic and the secular, you know aridly intellectual To to cast these aspersions On the other side, but but you know, the one thing I think that I will say is a base setting That I have found increasingly useful since My I had some pretty deep forays into the political space in hopes of doing some good and moving parties towards moderation and discussion and negotiation Right, like I think in a lot of ways Like I I hope to be a sort of bridge builder because as a novelist I The primary thing that I like to do is to really embody other people in perspectives But you know that that sort of anger at the lack of embodied perfection one of the things that I find really Wonderful in my friends and community who are more Spiritual religious or have a belief structure as part of that structure is we’re all flawed. We’re all flawed We all have a long way to go right and And Without that recognition there’s not a lot to go, you know If you have a view where you’re like look I figured it out. Here’s my politics, you know from either side Here’s my politics. Here’s my structure. Here’s my community. Here’s my values Here’s all the ways that I fulfill those I have codes in my life and I fulfill them perfectly It’s like oh, I don’t know how to talk to you. Like if you really think that Like you’re just not looking you’re just not pulling the curtain back on your mind. That’s right There’s so many ways to do everything better all the time and in some ways it has to do with this question of idolatry that that’s interesting to think about that way because What the surprise that we find is that you know, if we remove the absolute transcendence Like if we just like no, we don’t need this. We just have the state We just have the we just have the the the social sphere Then what will happen is exactly what you said, which is that we’ll treat we’ll do it unconsciously We’ll treat others as if they should be god And therefore as soon as we find one little fault in someone then we will want to tear them down and destroy them If you look at the way that the medievals for example saw so like history Uh, there was a tradition that’s called the nine worthies and the the nine worthies were were nine social leaders three jews three like old school like hellenistic or romans and then three christians and What the way they would do it is we say like julius caesar, right? They say julius caesar was a great man Here’s the reasons why we admire him and hear all the horrible things that he did And then it’s alexander alexander was what was great Here is how alexander was great and the great things he did and here are his sins Here are the things that he lacked and there was a sense in which they knew they of course these people had Faults, right? Of course They had just like moses in this in the in the scripture hits the rock and aron builds the golden calf and you know king david has an affair and like we know that humans are Are weak and and so there’s a sense in which we can still say david was a great king But and know that he did these horrible things. Yeah so in a way It calls to mind two things. I mean one of them is the vatican has the devil’s advocate as a formal position right christopher hitchens who I miss more than maybe anybody Just to know what he would say in this moment. He was so singular, right? I mean, I would love to hear what christopher hitchens would say about everything But he tells the story that he was a big critic of mother therese in a bunch of ways And he describes the interview so they got him on like news I forget what ms mbc or fox or something as her caskets being born lovingly through like the slums of calcutta And he said here he is with the ill-advised goatee Like saying why she was not worthy But the vatican actually contacted him to be the devil’s advocate to make the case against her for sainthood Yeah, there’s a formal position to do that But so we take what you’re saying right now about this about Did we find one little flaw and then we we move into a world where literally we have given up by ourselves All of our not all of many of us have intensely given up a ton of our freedom and a ton of our privacy And so I had a friend yesterday was talking about a lawsuit and they contacted somebody and they’re going to subpoena the tax So my friend was like, how can they subpoena the tax and it’s like do you ever read? the 60 page Things that are the contract agreements, let alone parse it through a team of lawyers. You don’t own that we don’t own anything We’ve taken this and gone let me give everything away And by the way, also i’m going to go on social media and post things and make jokes and come from one small culture Community and make a joke in another That’s happened. You know, one of our dear friends has been caught out in that a number of times colliding with my various timelines And basically what we’re discovering is is that nobody nobody on the planet is perfect And so if you want to put a target on tim scott or nicki haley or nancy pelosi or ozzy osborne or You know oliver anthony who’s the guy who just sung that anthem or you or me? It’s there you can interpret anybody through a frame and find something that’s offensive Online probably because it’s impossible with the it’s impossible to maintain the image like fdr when he was president You know was suffering from he had um polio as a kid Uh and was in a wheelchair and no one ever knew the press like very respectfully never shot him in his wheelchair They’d shoot him by the desk. They’d shoot him standing. We don’t have any of that anymore So it’s like you think you’re going to pry into any human and so this game were like Hyenas, right like something gets turned up somebody reaches a certain level of ascendancy in the culture Jk rowling, where do we find something anything even if it makes no sense and ripper shreds? Yeah, it’s it’s just it’s just horrible and you know in a way, I think part of the solution is A recognition instead of an apology when being caught out to go This is this is where I am. This is who I am. I’m not going to purport to be perfect under every which way It’s it’s not having a react, but we’ve turned people who? Want to engage on a more? On a wider stage like the amount of hatred even you and I which is a much lesser level than if we talk about you know Jordan or if we talk about you know other people in our orbit on both sides of the fence, you know Dean phillips is a is a close Friend of mine who’s a congressman who just made some statements that we might want some more diversity in the presidential race behind besides biden You know when people are at a high level The amount of just like vitriol that’s directed at them is incredible, right? And then people get bellicose some reaction. It’s this horrible blood sport that we’ve kind of allowed and entertained And it’s weird people forget like guys and you see it even from the christian Perspective it’s like if we forget the words of christ, you know To say judge not let you be judged and it’s not and and I really do believe though that that That statement doesn’t mean that you should never judge anything anybody does but it’s rather to Always keep that eye inside first like always make sure that that you are aware that you’re a hypocrite that you have fault that you you know, and and keep that as the as a as a bear something that balances out how you pour out your criticism towards the outside world because like you said One of the problems with criticizing the outside world constantly is that it makes us feel virtuous And it’s almost like it can be a little addiction right it’s like it because it gives you a little kick of A virtue to to spew out everything that’s wrong about everybody Uh in everything all the time and ultimately our eyes should be on ourselves first. That’s for sure That’s right. That’s right. And that that discussion I was talking about with oz of kind of like Lifting and lowering my gaze simultaneously right away from sort of A a globalist or a farmed out a centralized morality was the part where I was like, oh Right. I see this differently in a certain way But it’s also you know careful what we ask of people, you know, you want someone who’s a genius a big out-of-the-box thinker Who like moves fast and has thoughts and shatters things and moves the world forward lurchingly like a Galileo or You know the accidents and mishaps that lead to solutions like how penicillin was discovered, you know picasso Beethoven mozart, you know byron keith shelley like these people who were just touched with fire were brilliant To start to judge and constrict all the sides of it. It’s like no we just want all the genius We just want all the brilliance. We don’t want the messiness of it We don’t want the messiness of it and we don’t want We want to make sure that everything’s aligned and articulated perfectly And so I thought about this a lot since our our conversation that we have with jordan For instance, you know one of the things that really struck me and you and I laughed about this afterwards was You know, we’re there we were sort of discussing with jordan how to tamp down some of the stuff on twitter Which I still think he should do in a way, but he’s also you know It’s Look, he’s figuring that out. He’s figuring out a lot of things Yeah, you know part of what we were talking about was like look like have a more tempered Or a wider view one of things that really struck me was And jordan’s talked to me about saying look when you get up for a fight with half the world Like you get up ahead of steam You know if you know, you’re gonna speak some truth that people are gonna crash in and when you get up ahead of steam There’s slop there’s mess there’s force And one of the things I thought that was so funny is we got to the end of that interview and I thought I’d comported myself pretty well and went back and watched it and I was like I was way too Like coming in hot on stuff And I needed in edit like literally to take down some of the ways that I was You know like jordan would see to point and I’d like hit him again with it like in some ways I was like wait I need I need some grace shown to me for how i’m you know Coming into a conversation about having more of a steady Even cadence and discussing issues as i’m giving that advice right to somebody else doing it and it was kind of it was a great thing to go through because you know, that was a Stressful set of circumstances for me just coming in to do that not bad stressful, you know But it challenging challenging is a better word like there’s a lot of people who could be upset with me from basically every angle with it Yeah, and so to notice and see yeah, well when that happens people feel that way all the time sometimes Right, and I think that in your case it was a tribute to you as well that you were able to See that in yourself too to see like oh, wait a minute It’s like oh, I also need to take my own advice in this case to some extent like in this context Uh, and I thought you’re reliant on the grace of others. Yes, right. It was like hey, I don’t want to be You know, look jordan I go jordan I can have a bare knuckle Discussion that’s super loving and great like as you’ve seen many a time But when it’s in front of of of something that’s like that, it’s like it’s it’s really difficult I’ve been thinking a lot about this you know my participation in exodus had different ramifications in certain communities that i’m a part of like some people were you know very upset with me for staring sharing a stage with certain people who were there or upset that i’d participate or You know didn’t understand when I came back and was talking about things in ways that they didn’t that weren’t Usual to them and some people just recoiled like I have some people I haven’t talked to since almost and I was put in mind of A couple things first reaction. I felt more I felt grievancy more immediately This is kind of an interesting thing that happened since we’re talking about exodus But first I was like, oh you just want all my input and insight about how to talk to and engage with the other side and all the persuasion stuff from my deep dives in with with these bigger personalities and brains that I do with um You know respect and trying to learn without any swamp. That’s what you want You want me to come to you and say hey, here’s a whole framework of how to talk to people without my brain ever getting stretched or stretched out of shape or my language being imperfect or the mess of my processing and Swinging here and coming back to here and refiguring and it’s like I don’t know how to do that Like I can’t i’m not going to come and give you a spit out set of widgets about How we start to engage with different people without there being Like room for problems and some people just simply don’t want that. Here’s the precepts. Here’s the ideology Here’s the ways you need to speak. Here’s the language that’s acceptable if you’re confusing any way there You’ve been infected and captured Yeah, like you went on and you’re not who you are and I don’t trust you and your excise It’s kind of wild like what the range is That people are demanding of something and I started to think about that a lot with people like, you know, it’s not like um Elon musk or joe rogan for instance are like far right conservative characters by any stretch of the imagination But if if they’re if they’re doing this these sort of bigger ventures and roaring around and and and and smashing their way to truth in ways that are imperfect and trying to accomplish things And making mistakes if if part of the predominant culture is oh, you can’t say that you can’t do that Please don’t do this. Please just get us to the moon and build tunnels But like don’t do this piece or don’t do that piece. Of course. Look, it’s a free marketplace, right? Everybody can have corrections on people no matter how powerful or brilliant and we should but if it starts to become that it every every bold venture gets you know Swarmed with mosquitoes and people are you know Or like blood sucked a millimeter at a time and an endless swarm you start to understand why people start to disengage, right? from from Work that might be more Obviously unity based and that’s a lot of what we’re trying to do with arc I think is to figure out how to have sets of values and make sure that we’re not That we’re Bearing them forward in ways that are building bridges. Yeah, it’s unbelievably hard to do Yeah, and you see like I obviously i’ve had that issue with arc myself where people Are good. I mean some people criticizing me saying well, here’s jonathan, you know, he’s going to build the new wf He’s participating in this new globalist initiative. He’s and and it’s like, okay so So so so so what so you’re just allowed to complain I guess right? You’re just allowed to complain that you see these great like globalist authoritarian things coming towards you but if you in any way try to start a discussion with people on how to find some alternative or how to See differently than you’re then you’re doing the same. It’s like well, i’m not like I can’t imagine I can’t imagine just like bitching and not not not trying to it’s the same with like the story the question, right? It’s like, you know, i’ve been watching people that I that I respect, you know And i’ve been doing it myself for the past five years complain about some of the story trope that are coming out of Apocalypse, right? Yeah, and i’ve been and i’ve been doing it actively. I’m like this. I think this is not good This is leading us towards towards towards kind of ideology and it’s bad storytelling and everything But at some point I also have to tell if i’m not going to start trying to tell better stories then At some point I have to shut up like I have to stop whining because that’s right. Then what are we doing? You know, that’s right. Well, there’s another line in screw tape letters Uh, bruce c.s. Lewis is talking about like a man in the house with his with his mom Is he’s living with his mother and saying, you know start to be annoyed with every way She says stuff right or like her tone or how she does this little thing Like if you can get somebody in a state of mind, right because we’re we’re working for Our father now. He’s the devil if you can get somebody where they’re annoyed by every little thing that somebody does Well, assuming that none of that’s true for you and that every tone they have with hidden meaning You can be offended by but all of your hidden Meanings and energy is them being crazy And he says something like we want them forever concerned with the state of her soul, but never her like rheumatoid arthritis Right, like if we can remove people to just only be outraged By the abstract right then you can constantly be annoyed In the details and in reality and you have your perfect moral equation is is in place And so i’ve been thinking about that a lot also with arc but also this insane notion that like Who you sit down with and learn from and discuss and what you participate in? Means that you’re fully endorsing everything that can come of it like what a weird notion that I would want to go to this exodus seminar and sit down with Dennis prager and ben shapiro and In doing so that I agree with every single thing that they think and every post that they’ve made an argument They’ve made and them with me that somehow Association means not that you’re learning Right. I could take There’s a couple things that ben said that were You know enormously eye-opening for me. That’s true irrelevant if he tweets a bunch of stuff that I don’t agree with for Reasons the same. I mean same as with jordan. There’s a totality of a human being and all the things that they do and The engagement and the dance with that and ideas like what an utterly bizarre notion that we Should be that that represents. Um platforming them or contributing to their Wealth or stature it’s so bizarre. It’s like oh, yeah Well, we could we de platform donald trump all the way to the most powerful human being on the planet Like how did that work out this de platforming notion? Let’s de platform Joe rogan. It’s like joe rogan doesn’t need that there’s if there’s engagement And you know for me a lot of the work that I do There’s these sort of quotations from desmond tutu that that that book end a lot of my thinking He always says if you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies And another thing he said is an enemy is a friend we didn’t be made And this notion that more separate is good Um less tendrils if somebody’s infected corrupt captured judged in any way Sever all tend to sever all tendrils of connection from them Sever all bridges and attack them in full It’s like well, what are they going to do? They’re gonna move and distant and fortify and come back Oh, well, they’re doing that. Anyways, I hear this I hear the exact same mirror argument Both directions I can have a conversation with conservative friends And the claims I can pick them right up and put them down when i’m talking to to more liberal friends over here It’s the exact same argument the hypocrisy divorce from reality only believing your own experts um mind control Um, and it’s it’s it’s like there’s these these parallel structures of discussion and the arguments follow the exact same course There’s like eight steps above that you can walk through Um, yeah, but that that that’s so I mean, I don’t understand. I mean, I i’ve always struggled too to understand I don’t know like i’m trying I struggle to get into psychology of someone Who like let’s say post a picture of a good example in my like from the more right-leaning type people is like They’ll post a picture of some with epstein And they’ll say like this and they’ll say like that’s it. It’s like this person now is like basically non-human Because there’s this picture that exists of them with someone who’s a horrible human it’s like that’s crazy like that’s a frightening thing because Can you imagine really seriously thinking that that just because you met someone in some Conference or in some context and there’s a picture that’s taken of you that all of a sudden We could compromise you forever because of because of that. That’s a that’s wild Well as a novelist, it’s like i’ve interviewed outlaw bikers. I’ve interviewed murderers. I mean i’ve interviewed like You know heist guys it that’s all fine. I can go conduct any interview to understand to To focus to do deep dives on people Terrorists, that’s all acceptable. But if somebody has a different opinion about Don’t talk to benchfero, right? It’s done And the thing that’s also so weird is like let’s say even that one of these people is is proves to be uniformly evil Like that that’s also like an assumption you make when you cancel somebody they’re so irredeemable It’s also such an amazing notion that it’s not that everybody’s where they are on their own journey of life And that there’s always hope for um Grace or learning or movement? It’s like no it’s it’s done. It’s locked right now like they’re permanently awful And so you think okay, let’s say that’s True even let’s say that we take that leap that that philosophical leap Don’t you want to engage with them to comprehend how they think and where? The vulnerabilities are and where the weak spots are and where the points are for Even joining or contending are there any ways you can align your resources? Are there any ways you can understand the playbook better? Are there ways that you want to deal with and wrestle with an adversary like just in a straight sun sue? No, like even even seeing them as an adversary You should want to engage with them to some extent because then right you don’t know your enemy Then you’ll be taken out without without you know, you’ll be taken out and you won’t know why because you haven’t let Let alone if they’re people with you know giant, you know sets of I mean You know spheres of influence and relationships. I always think of it as like if you’re conducting a battle between good and evil You know, it’s like oh well this person over here who you’ve decided is cancelled has like a battalion of tanks, right? But oh they’re bad. We just let’s talk to them. We’re not gonna talk Yeah, we don’t we don’t want those tanks. Let’s insult those tanks till they come for us. It’s like what are you talking about? right like this is This is it’s it’s time. I feel like it’s time that we have to you know, i’ve talked about Pluralistic ignorance, right? It’s in cults. It’s one of the ways that cults operate I mean, there’s a bunch of ways cults operate like our current culture is operating You know, one of them is is they want to cut off? access to outside information They divide people from your family and they do it in a way that’s flattering because they’re like, oh you’re so amazing Yeah, so your family’s always just wanted to hold you back like you’re finally you’re full of self who we see So you sever people right all the and we think about all these people i haven’t talked to my My crazy sisters, you know A liberal lefty who’s lost my uncle’s a maga guy You sever everybody so that you can’t see the humanity in them. So that’s number one Access, you know limit outside information then there’s privacy deprivation If you’re up at a cult setting, let’s say you have a part you go Someone goes with you to the bathroom. Someone’s with you first when you wake up in the morning to when you go to bed at night And everywhere you go They’re they’re dealing with jonathan cult jonathan not jonathan jonathan. Yeah, then so privacy deprivation is this now There’s nowhere we go that this can’t come and reach Is it dinnertime in most households? Doesn’t matter. Are you in class? Doesn’t matter. Are you at home in your dorm room at the end of a day? You’re at the end of a work day doesn’t matter. It’s with us everywhere And the other is pluralistic ignorance that everybody is sort of individually Miserable or unfulfilled or far from a truth they want to speak But they can’t share it because everywhere they look There’s these themes of hyenas waiting to just descend on them and tear them to shreds So you’re not safe to speak out and that’s social. I went undercover into a cult man I went to a thing outside lax. I was researching a book I wrote a book that took place in in mind control cults I was in a horseshoe big like ballroom where they have weddings in one of those big airport hotels 250 people and they shape it like a horseshoe so you can see everybody and when they say everyone ready for growth stand up and you sit And 249 people are standing and they all look at you That’s powerful Yeah, it’s powerful cults want people who are healthy who were responsive to healthy reactions like Social embarrassment, right? They don’t want someone who’s a delusional schizophrenic. They don’t care so these pressures that are happening where people are like, I don’t know like I I believe in the You know that people are allowed dignity and private choices and rights But I don’t quite want to celebrate everything around that all the time But if I say that i’ll get killed Let me just be quiet If 80% of people think that but they’re frozen in a state where they can’t communicate is that’s pluralistic ignorance and so much of what I increasingly see as The task that I want to help or the way that I want to help is to try to shatter that through conversations Rather than well if we elect this group of people here and this group of people there And they do these things and pass this legislation. That will be good. It’s like it’s about Innovationally rebuilding like Like we discussed for 32 hours in exodus How are we going to how are we going to orient a space in a world in which the center holds? Right and the fringe holds and has its place and that place will flourish and feed the center And the center can hold and protect um And provide structure and I think a lot of that is having the kinds of conversations people don’t want There’s so many truths that they’re just so foundational that people just won’t speak that are just obvious beyond compare Yeah. Yeah Listen greg, I think I think we should end it there. That was a great that was a great finish and so I I appreciate your time and i’m looking forward to seeing you at arc and then uh, possibly at another Yeah, I will discussion possibly we will see it’s still it’s still being discussed But that is something that might happen. So that would be great Yeah, it’s always fun talking here, man. All right. It’s good to see you