https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=v0aU9BuhmgI
I completely share your sense of dismay, and particularly from artists, you know, I think… Yes. The world of academia is rather more careerist, I think, and so, although I think it’s just as unforgivable, it’s more understandable. I think to be an artist, you have to be the kind of person whose sole fealty is to your muse. It has to be that. Otherwise, you’re not really an artist in any serious sense at all. You have to be creating what it is you are personally impelled to create. Whatever drives you. And, you know, there are some people who have done that in history. William Blake is a good example. William Blake was poor throughout his life, died in poverty, and he could see all these mediocre people playing the game and becoming rich, but he couldn’t do it. He was too much of an authentic artist. He wasn’t able to do that. And I wish all artists could have that. But the other thing about that is actually very few people are great artists. Most people are sort of peddlers of popular culture or, you know, kind of functional hacks that people can produce the entertainment that actually we do really need and require. I’m not trying to denigrate popular culture. I think it’s really, really important. But it’s not the same as great art, right? So pop music, I really enjoy pop music, but I don’t pretend to myself that it’s Brahms. We have those hierarchies, hierarchies, by the way, which the woke would like to tear down and say that’s all about the implementation of power again and the implementation of privilege. They will say there’s no difference between a… There’s no such thing as quality. No, no, no, exactly, exactly, because it’s all about subjective feeling. And they would say that there’s no difference between an Elton John song and a Beethoven symphony. They’ll say there’s no difference there. It’s just about, you know, and to pretend that there is a problem in and of itself. And that’s why I think there are two things. The way that artists could really be supported in this partly comes from academia, partly comes from literary theorists and people who, by the way, I think have completely lost the plot. But they need to retain the primacy of the canon, of the Western canon. They need to say, actually, there are certain works of art that are greater than others. They need to be able to be bold enough to say that rather than stripping away Chaucer or Shakespeare or Marlowe or whatever from the canon to make way for mediocre writers who happen to represent a marginalized group identity. Here you can dive into an extensive library of Bible reading plans accompanied by insightful reflections and audio guided meditations. Whether you’re a seasoned Bible reader or just starting your journey, Hallow provides a platform for you to engage with scripture like never before. Studying the Bible’s literary brilliance has influenced countless writers, poets, and artists throughout history. By studying the Bible yourself, you’ll gain a deeper appreciation for the power of storytelling, symbolism, and metaphor, enriching your understanding of literature across different genres. The Hallow app also helps you connect with a community of like-minded individuals sharing experiences, insights, and encouragement along the path to spiritual growth. Download the app for free at Hallow.com slash Jordan. You can set reminders and track your progress along the way. Enrich your education and nurture your mind and soul today. Download the Hallow app at Hallow.com slash Jordan. That’s Hallow.com slash Jordan. For an exclusive three-month free trial of all 10,000 plus prayers and meditations. Well, I see in that again this re-emergence of the spirit of Cain because Cain, imagine you’re a mediocre artist wannabe and part of the reason for that maybe isn’t so much that you’re talentless, although that might have something to do with it, but that you’re unwilling to say a true word or to paint a true brushstroke. You’re too cowardly. You’re not going anywhere. Okay, so you’re getting irritated and resentful because your sacrifices aren’t being appreciated by God. And so what do you do? Well, if you’re Cain, you destroy your own ideal, right? Because that’s what Cain says to God, my punishment is more than I can bear. Now that’s a very ambiguous phrase because you can’t tell exactly what it refers to. But as far as I can tell, what he means is, well, I’ve really spent my whole life miserable and jealous because I’m not able and I want to be more than anything else. And now I’ve gone and killed my own ideal. And so how can I live? I’ve killed my own ideal. Well, that’s what these bloody woke artists wannabe types are doing. It’s not just even the woke. This predates the woke. Harold Bloom, the great literary theorist, used to write about the critical theorists, the identitarian theorists of the 90s as being the theorists of resentment. That’s what he called them. I think that’s exactly right. It started way back in the 60s with feminist writers trying to problematize writers such as D.H. Lawrence or Norman Mailer or whoever it might be, Ernest Hemingway, whatever, saying that these writers are sexist. I mean, when I was studying as an undergraduate for English literature, you basically got the highest marks if you problematize texts. If you went through a play and teased out the homophobic elements or the racist elements, almost like you were kind of a kind of moral detective. And I think it all started there. It goes way back. Well, so then I would say that’s part of the prideful hubris of the intellect. So you have these second-rate creative wannabes in English departments, let’s say, and instead of worshipping the spirit of Shakespeare, which is what they should properly be doing and transmitting that to students, they elevate their critical capacity over and above the creative capacity of the artist, lay moral claim to the integrity of their arguments, and then propagandize to the students who pay $50,000 a year for the privilege. Which is why I go back to humility, because I think the only sensible or intelligent approach to Shakespeare is humility. Similarly, when we saw recently the publishing house, which publishing house was it that decided to rewrite P.G. Woodhouse’s novels? P.G. Woodhouse is the greatest comic prose stylist in the English language. The idea that a group of 20-something activists in a publishing house think that they can write better than Woodhouse, think that they can improve his work by this horrendous, bolderized version. Especially morally. Of course, morally. It’s all based on morals. So it’s so infuriating. I mean, it makes me very, very angry because it’s the arrogance of that that I find absolutely stunning. But similarly with productions of Shakespeare. So there’s some… I just saw a review the other day for a production of Julius Caesar by the Royal Shakespeare Company. By all accounts, it’s just an identitarian mess. It’s taking the play and just reshaping it to promote vogue-ish ideas that are in fashion at the moment about group identity and the primacy of group identity and power structures, etc. And therefore, they’re missing the entire play. And as an audience member, this is why I think it’s better to read Shakespeare at this point. Because as an audience member, you are subject to whatever interpretation the director wants to impose on it. And if that director is really a preacher in disguise, then you’re just going to get a sermon, not a play. That seems to me what’s happening over and over again. I saw today actually, there was an article about Macbeth. Trigger warning. It’s a trigger warning on Macbeth at the university in Belfast, Queen’s University in Belfast, right? Because people are studying a module on Shakespeare. And it’s actually even a secondary module. They already have a decent knowledge of the subject. This is like an advanced module where they are to really get into the weeds with this great writer. And to put a trigger warning on that is to say that the way that we need to perceive these great texts is through our particularly obsessive, moralistic, identitarian lens, and that we have to see them as morally dangerous texts, potentially dangerous texts. Maybe they’re exactly right on that front, because if you are a woke propagandist, there is nothing more dangerous to you than the spirit of Shakespeare. Sure. And there is something dangerous actually, particularly about Macbeth, I think, because in Macbeth, I mean, I think Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. And I think one of the reasons why I always found it disturbing, even as a child, even though I didn’t really know why I found it disturbing as a child, because it’s one of those that gets on school texts because it’s such a short one. But actually, when you watch it, it isn’t like you’re… Shakespeare created so many sort of great embodiments of evil. People like Iago in Othello or Edmund in King Lear or Aaron in Titus Andronicus. These figures, but Macbeth is different because with Macbeth, you go along with Macbeth knowing that it could be you. I think it’s the closest to what… When you write about Solzhenitsyn talking about the line of good and evil cutting through the heart of every man, that to me is Macbeth, because Macbeth is like this incredible study into representation of what if we lived in a world where we didn’t have free will? Macbeth knows everything he’s doing is wrong and cannot stop it from happening. And it’s like when you’re watching it, if you’re watching a good production of Macbeth, you are Macbeth, right? And you’re falling into this vortex. That’s why I think… That’s actually like a definition of great literature, you know? I think literature almost always portrays something like a romantic adventure and then something like the battle of good against evil, depending on how that’s laid out, right? A romantic battle of good against evil. Okay, but the great literary authors place that battle in the soul of a single individual, right? So that each character contains the entire landscape of the cosmic battle, instead of there being some characters parsed out as good and other characters parsed out as villainous. And so then when you sit in the audience and you experience that, you’re experiencing the divine drama in your own soul.