https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=_OB_77qlUuQ
Welcome everybody again to book 10! We’re almost there. Yeah, so let’s rehash our intentions from last week. Mine was trying to get pragmatic with Plato. I have no clue if I did that or didn’t do that. My brain isn’t capable of reflecting right now, but I was definitely pragmatic. Mark wanted to inspect Plato’s attitude in poetry, which we didn’t really get into because we skimmed on book 10. And Danny wanted to explore intimacy. So I think book 10 has ways of relating towards intimacy or becoming intimate with things or having a relationship, maybe that’s a better word. And how does gun corrupt? So, yeah, let’s see what that brings to us because Danny has a whole lot to talk about this. So why don’t you go first, Danny? Okay, so well, I had a very extremely busy week and made some difficult decisions. But so I didn’t actually do much meditation on gratitude itself. But I there was I did watch one video of Douglas Murray talking to Jordan Peterson where they mentioned that gratitude is a practice, which I really liked. I think last week I said something along the lines of like it’s a feeling or something like that. I don’t think that’s right. So when you when you consider gratitude being a practice, that kind of puts it in a spiritual practice. It puts it in the realm of faith. And as we were talking about last week, faith is sort of the thing that you use to correct a spirit that you’re in. And that to me, I’ve been for months actually basically been trying to cultivate forms of positive emotion. I made a decision to make it my primary priority to go back to work, which means I had to quit a bunch of things that I enjoy doing for a variety of reasons. And I think where the end of Book 10 goes, part of the reason Plato is attacking imitative poets or is the idea that if you meditate too much on tragedy, it’s like rehearsing the wrong way to die. Where he kind of I think goes at the end of Book 10 with his myth. One of the implications is when your body is or your circumstances are terrible, your soul can remain intact. That’s kind of one of the I’m not going to jump. I’m not going to jump way too far ahead. But I think that is kind of one of the big takeaways of the Republic itself and certainly the end of Book 10, which is kind of a fuel that I resonate with and run on very well. I mean, I can, you know, so I didn’t do too much in meditating on intimacy itself. But I think that that piece of the puzzle and where my life is sort of headed right now is somewhat relevant. I haven’t really thought about an intention for today, though. I think everybody’s kind of beat up here. I think we’re all tired and stuff. So let me come back around when I’ll let Mark go. Well, let me intercede a little bit because I wrote something on intention because I’m rewriting a practice and it might be valuable to read that. When you participate in practice, in the practice, it’s important to set an intention. An intention is something that guides through the practice, directing your attention in a way that sheds light on things you find important. When choosing an intention, it’s important that you’re able to execute it. The reading and imagining are going to be taxing on your attention. So pick something simple that is part of what you’re already doing but needs improvement. So that’s kind of where I went with it. And the reason that I went there is like it’s really hard to honor it, like setting an intention to actually honor it. So it has to be like a meditative thing where you can get back to like a restful state and reengage from there. So the other thing that I wrote down is that we should take like a note and place it somewhere visible so that we can look at our intention and then maybe get like a special place. A special place where you just every time you do something, you put your intention there and then you can go back to it. So yeah, I wanted to leave us with that. Mark, you? I think just a quick response to that. I think, I mean, it’s been on my mind every day, multiple times a day. I think part of the thing is I had a false conception of what I was even after and I think I realized that. So, you know, I made some decisions to basically fall back into old. Like I have these thought habit patterns and physical habit patterns that are very deeply ingrained into me, like my nervous system, my mind, everything. And I’ve been based. I went on a long experiment trying to disrupt some of those things. And I think in some ways, I’ve, you know, I’ve learned a lot of lessons that I can extract out of what I’ve been doing the last like two plus months. But I’ve made a conscious decision to basically go back and put back on my old habit patterns, which is, you know, so part of it is basically making a decision. Part of it is basically making some decisions about what’s what’s really important. And, you know, using using using the old tools that I know I that I’m most proficient in using. So what I’m doing with my life in terms of intentionality is I’m reducing the scope of my involvement in certain things in order to prioritize other things. So, I mean, as far as intention, that’s what I’m doing with my life. As far as intention goes for guiding attention into play, though, I think I think where his I think what I’m doing with my life seems to be in alignment with my interpretation of where he goes at the end of Book 10. I just don’t know exactly how to put that into words for an intention for reading, though. Reducing scope of participation or attention. Yeah, or OK, rather what it is is maximizing a vitality. That’s really what it’s that’s what I’m actually doing, you know, by putting these old habits on. So that’s that’s something. Mark. All right. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my intent is just to set up for a lot of the book. All right. The last chapter leads into the next or the last book leads into the next book. So you can see what’s coming to some to some large degree. This is obviously deliberate on on Plato’s part. And so just prepping for what do I what am I going to look for? What do people say about we’ll say that Plato’s battle against the artists and things like that. And so that that that that’s really all I’ve been, you know, all I’ve been after. But it seems to be highly successful. So so far so good. Yes, sir. For me, I came out to so the convivium talks all about poetics. All the convivium talks are about that. So that that that’s playing into this whole idea right here. Important to know. Yeah. And the thing that stood out to me when reading and I think I’m going to make that my intention. And also when I’m going to reread Plato, I’m going to reread it in Dutch is to really look at it as a play and see how that changes the way that it comes at me. Like, just imagine seeing these people speak that out in front of an audience. Right. And then the audience has a response. Right. Because there was there was again, I don’t think I took a note on it, but there was again something like, yeah. And everybody would obviously agree or something right. Or like stuff like that. And it’s when you take the audience in mind. Yeah, that’s like a challenge to the audience. Right. It’s like, oh, yeah, I dare you to disagree. And it’s it’s like an invitation for for discussion or disruption. So, yeah, it’s I think that’s going to be my intention. What was that exactly? I didn’t quite understand. We regard the text as a play, right. See how that changes the feel of it. Book 10, the rejection of imitative poetry, the radical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hero. And this problem can only be solved by knowledge of their true nature. Are we going to discuss that? So I think we do. Yeah, that’s not in the text. He doesn’t say anything bad about poetry and art and imitative. He states them as factually different, but he doesn’t make a judgment call at all. I’m fairly certain that that was in the text. Nope, it’s not in the text. Says they’re different. And he and he states at one point, it’s weird that they’re twice removed and yet they move people. And then he drops it and moves on. OK, fair. Art moves people more than you would be able to calculate under normal circumstances. Can confirm. Like, I don’t. Here, but I do not mind saying to you that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the heroes and that the knowledge of them, the knowledge of their true nature is only the only antidote to them. That’s 95 B. OK, I don’t I don’t know why that’s bad. In other words, you have to know that you’re engaging with poetry or with art. OK, I agree. No, I don’t know. I actually think. And it’s ruinous to you. I also agree. Like if you don’t know you’re looking at an affectation, that affectation will eat you. Yeah, but I think I think it’s it’s a little bit deeper. I think in some sense, he says you want to put it in different language. You need to have had the revelation so that you are not subjected to what you’re watching. And like probably. But that’s not a function of the artist. That’s a function of the person of the person engaging. But, you know, again, it’s fine. Like I’m. Yeah, I agree. I mean, no freaking literally no beef. Absolutely a billion percent true. Not a bad thing either. Like just true. I think the vast majority of what we do as humans is largely imitative. I think the important part is when it says it’s it’s ruinous to the understanding of the heroes, I think about, well, for what purpose? And in five ninety six, he says, whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have a corresponding idea or form. So and then again, forgive me for jumping ahead later in six. So one he talks about how the excellence of the flute is dependent upon its intended use by the maker. And so bringing up the concept of a name or shared purpose, I mean, that’s its own. We could probably unpack that. I know we’ve talked about this many times, but like the power of a name or identity is I mean, poetry is the thing that helps you navigate the things, the space that doesn’t have identity. And so I think that’s yeah, I mean, we could we could really get in here, but I’ll I’ll I’ll give it back to Manuel before we get too far ahead. Well, I think the idea of a name right is was different in the past. I think the name was literally identical or or like matched to the emanation or whatever, right? That that it represent. And nowadays we’re thinking completely different about names, right? We’re just like, oh, I see something and it kind of looks like that. So I give it that name. Like I was listening to a podcast today about abortion and the way that what was related to abortion and how the definition shifted. And in the end, I was listening, right? And then they’re like, well, then they included this in the definition. And I’m like, yeah, but it was already there. Right. And then she started promoting this idea, right? Because we should we should rename it because there’s an implicit judgment in the term abortion. Right. And if you if you name it differently, then you’re going to have to change the definition. And then she started promoting this idea. Right. Because we should we should rename it because there’s an implicit judgment in the term abortion. Right. And if you if you name it differently, then we wouldn’t have this moral judgment about it. And I’m like, yeah, right. Right. And so they’re playing with this naming. Right. And like I’ve been thinking about this moral judgment aspect. She didn’t she didn’t explicitly say it that way. But basically, that’s what we’re doing. We’re demoralizing the language. When when you have a name, right, I think that name is in the ancient times connected to talents. Right. Like it. And it’s connected by which you can recognize how something manifests. If you start using names differently, then you get into a crazy place. I think the thing about forms or in order for this cup here to be a cup, I need a frame for cupness. And so the cupness comes from need. My need for coffee in this case, it comes from, you know, you know, which living out of purpose, identity isn’t something that you can just say about yourself. Like this is this is this is, you know, a common flaw. Like Peterson talks about this. Like I’m not a professor just because I think I’m a professor. Like I’m not. It’s true because I backed it up with action. I’m a programmer because I actually have a track record of doing the real thing in the real world. And so I think as we get into this idea of like you have this form of a bed and then you have one bed and then two beds and then a third bed, you know, then then that begs the question is what what allows the creation? What creates the frames? I mean, I think that’s really more at the crux of this concept of imitation. Because meaning is a consequence of a relationship. And like we’ve talked about this before, like the name of Jesus only has authority with if you have a relationship with what that means. And so if you’re going to know something or be informed by or conform to something, you have to have a form in order to have a relationship to because Jesus sorts the hierarchy that’s below him. He’s the source of all the relevance. I’ll just go through my notes and then we’ll see. Okay. If you can get it back later, then we can discuss it later. So he’s professing his love for Homer. A man standing in place of the truth. And then he’s making a really interesting comment. The dollar I often see something sooner than the keener. This has to do with I guess specialization right or reciprocal narrowing where you have the capacity to zoom in on a quality. But that disconnects you from from other things right when and when you’re not zoomed in right or caught up in the spirit. You have the capacity to better discernment in some sense. One thing is, as I think that’s important, just to keep in mind this as we move forward into this whole entire thing about forms is that this is all a response to 595 C, the explicit question. What is imitation? I think they ask the question explicitly. What is this imitation that we’re talking about? And I mean, I have my own opinion of the answer to that. I think imitativeness is a problem with the form of something and not the content of the thing. Because we’re going to talk about, you know, we’re going to give models. And I think part of the problem is like, anyway, I’ll leave it at that for now, because this theme will definitely reemerge. Well, I think he talks about it, right? Like it’s twice or tries removed. Right. And so it’s it’s like a game of telephone. Right. And that’s where the danger is. But also it moves people. Like fact that that is true is irrelevant to the fact that it moves people. Art moves people. That’s what he says. Seems to be correct as near as I can tell. So you have a common name and then that’s a common idea of form. Ideas themselves cannot be made. There’s another maker of Earth and Heaven. And it takes in Heaven and Earth. Maker of the gods. Artists can only make images. It’s interesting that he’s introducing God again. This time making a somewhat rational argument for him. Which I have seen made by other philosophers like Puskal, I think. Well, I think what’s important. One thing he I checked Blum and Jolette in 596C when he says there’s one one who’s maker of all the works of all the other workmen. What an extraordinary man. He’s able to make not only the best of all kinds of plants, animals, themselves, all things, blah, blah, blah. And it goes on. And the things which are in heaven or under the earth, he also he makes the gods also small G. So I thought about that. And I think so part of part of when I was my ears were perked up about the concept of imitation. I’m thinking about the Greek gods as being like the spirits of lust or spirits of whatever anger, et cetera. Right. And because later the word God came up with the big G. And so I think there’s something important there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s something fundamentally important in that there’s the craftsmen, there’s the people that use the craftsman stuff. And then there’s these people who talk about abstracts, which are called artists, poets, and they move things, but not in the way that a craftsman moves things. They know things, but not in a way the craftsman knows things. That’s not that’s not bad. He doesn’t make a value judgment on it. He just says this is the way it is. And because of that, you need to be careful. Okay, I agree. I don’t think this is not a like I don’t understand where the animosity comes from. Plato is not is not dating that art is bad or poets are. It’s not in the text. I’m sorry. It’s just not there. Like if that’s what you read, then you hallucinated something. It’s he just states very matter of factly these relationships and that there’s three of them, by the way. And I think that’s what the important part is. There’s three relationships, right? And I have a video on one, two and three and navigating patterns. I’m just saying it’s really important that there’s three ways to relate and that the one that does the moving right is the artistic way or the poetic way. I think at one point, I think he uses in my trends in the Bloom translation, he uses poetic. I was like, yes, that is correct. The terminology we have been using when I got to five ninety six e when they’re talking about how, you know, appearances and stuff and they’re like, oh, yeah, I can. You know, depiction, the artist is the one who only has a depiction of the thing. It’s like, oh, well, there’s a simpler way I can I can take a mirror and spin it around and I can depict everything like God does. I just thought like like because how I just thought like, man, how how can you not read that and laugh and then go on to say, oh, the point that Plato is saying is that artists are bad because they can deceive you. It’s like it’s so preposterous. And, you know, yeah, it’s pretty silly. Well, you had a comment earlier, Danny, about someone who you saw on YouTube talking about this, right? I pulled up just I watched a couple of different YouTube videos, probably like six or so three different college level professors that are basically saying, yeah, the point that Plato is making in Book 10 is that artists are bad and you should throw them out. So anyway, I just I don’t know. I just started making me kind of upset. My my interpretation of this is one of a heavy, heavy irony. I think that he’s using a lot of irony to say that to point to the absurdity of I mean, just for the problem of there’s a thousand problems with this, but just the problems of relevance realization alone. You can’t do calculus like, yeah, so he’s saying you need to elevate conscious rationality and calculation, but you have to do relevance realization. I mean, that’s that there just sinks that the problem of science with the question of do you believe what science tells you? I mean, this is a right. These are classic classic discussions that go back thousands of years. Well, and Plato makes absurd assertions like, well, Homer was never in a military. So what does he know? But he’s like one. He may be the greatest poet, but he’s like one poet among many and many poets were in the military. So, I don’t know, contextually, the ancient Greeks might see that statement for the absurdity that it is right. Which and again, like it there’s no these these guys are bad guys. The only treaty in there is for the person engaging to be aware of what they’re engaging in. And like if that isn’t good advice at all times, like I don’t know what to tell you. Like, is that a bad thing that and it happened to be said about the poets? OK, it could be said about the craftsmen, too, though. So I don’t get why is this bad? It sounds like a universal good to me and generally good advice for the person engaging. It says nothing about the person doing the work. Nothing. It just is you just have to know this came from a poet. And it’s not that poets are mere imitators. Because the craftsman imitates, too. It’s that it’s a phantom of an imitation, at least in my translation, the Bloom translation talks about is the imitation, because the imitation is the imitation of the form. And then he talks about is the phantom of the imitation, which is what the poet does, creates a phantom of a couch. Doesn’t doesn’t create an imitation of a couch. The imitation of the couch is what the craftsman does, which is again, that’s fine. He’s one layer of abstraction out. Right. If the forms or the non abstract things or what we might in recent times call reality. OK, sure. Then the craftsman’s imitation of something is his implementation of the form. That’s an imitation. Fair. That’s why there can be more than one, because it can only be one true thing. Everything else is an imitation of the one true thing. Sounds perfectly rational to me. Right. And then what does the poet do? Right. Or the artist. The artist is doing a painting of a flower. Right. Or a painting of something a craftsman built. Those are phantoms of the imitation, because the flower is not the true flower either. Right. The flower is just nature’s imitation of the form of the flower. OK, I’m cool with all that. Nothing about that is negative. Nothing. Just no negativity there whatsoever. I didn’t write a single negative word in the text with respect to poetry, poems, artists, paintings, any of it. But I mean, if you can find it, let me know. Well, there’s a thing there, right? I think a different way to do it is there’s an embodiment of the ideal or the idea. And then there’s a description of that embodiment. And he goes into that later where he’s talking about the perspectives that you can take on the couch. And they highlight, well, you would say frames, right, like in language that we’re using. And the frames, they highlight different aspects. And I think the deceiving element is in the focus that the frame puts on the description. Right. So you can still have true descriptions, right? You can be a true artist, but still have to have this weird relationship. And I think that’s what’s being pointed at. One of the things that jumped out to me in 597E when he says, And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he’s thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The word king kind of jumped out at me because that’s sort of as we were talking about in Pre-Jewel Book 9, starting from the aristocracy and going from there. I mean, that’s very much the emphasis is on virtue. I mean, that’s very much the point that he’s making with all this stuff is and he brings up Homer. When he attacks Homer, his primary criticism is basically like, did Homer actually create virtue? Like, did the effect that he had was the effect that he had on people virtuous? And I think that’s really at the crux of where he’s trying to direct your attention. On that note, too, since you asked the question, Mark, when he brings up Homer, this is down in 600. So I’ll try to only say this one thing about it is Plato’s really cherry picking his examples when he says, Did Homer ask ask Homer which battle he won? What does he know about courage? He didn’t actually fight any battles. He’s just talking about it. There were plenty of poets that were generals like Sophocles. And so the audience is supposed to know that he’s kind of using a straw man argument by bringing up Homer and not referring to any of the other poets that were actually generals. So that that reinforced my ironic interpretation of, again, the whole book. You can also flip it, right? Because you could say that these other generals, right, they know what they’re talking about. And like Homer writing about similar stuff has a different relationship to it. I look so I think book is absurd and ironic. The whole thing, every part of every bit of the book, every part. So what this one part’s an exception. No, it’s definitely like, of course, he’s doing this on purpose this way. Well, I think what he’s pointing to is rewinding back to 598 D is when he’s making fun of the one who has a bunch of knowledge. On the nature of imitation, I think that the key thing is he’s saying like the imitative person is the person who lacks the appropriate knowledge. And so like Homer doesn’t actually have the knowledge, the real knowledge of courage. Like that’s why he’s, I think, casting him in that way. Like the right kind of knowledge is, I think, one of the fingerprints of whether, you know, how imitative somebody is on that spectrum of user maker depiction. That seems to be good. I think there’s a distinction between the expert and the professional made there. And I think I think that’s what he’s trying to classify. There’s someone who’s trying to know about things. And there’s someone who knows things. And I think he’s trying to focus on that gap. The kind of image that it’s not expertise. It’s poet, it’s poetics. He doesn’t mention expertise. He mentions poets, craftsmen, but that’s kind of what you’re capturing. If you don’t have the embodied knowledge, right? No, I would disagree. Experts don’t exist. Period. Like this idea of expertise is absurd. Either you’ve done it or you know nothing about it. And that’s what he’s saying. And actually what he’s saying is be careful who you listen to if they’re not a craftsman. Because if you have the wrong relationship to them, let’s just let’s pick a random English word to talk about the wrong relationship to an artist. Expert. Problem solved. Don’t listen to experts. And that is why. Because an expert is necessarily somebody who does not have the experience of the craft crafting of the thing they are talking about. Now, we can we can revivify the idea of craftsman being the highest order in terms of engagement. And we can still save the artist by saying, well, if they’re an artist and they’re supposed to move you and you’re aware of that, which is the only thing Plato is saying here, then the problem is solved. And this. It sort of accidentally validates me saying don’t listen to experts over and over again. And now now I have to insist that Plato agrees, which, you know, I’m okay with that. I like I like that Plato got there first. I’m okay with that. And I got there independently. Don’t listen to experts. Well, I think that’s what Manuel is saying when he says the importance is on the embodied action. Like that’s where the validation of whether you have the action comes from. The thing that came to mind when he brings up Homer is in saying like Homer can’t statically just encapsulate all virtue and vice. The thing that the image that kind of came to mind is somebody who pairs something they don’t understand is like the kind of person who just says correlation doesn’t equal causation. It’s like, yes, that’s a valuable lesson to learn from statistics class. But if that’s the only thing that you learn from a statistics class, you’re probably missing the essence of the statistics lessons. And it’s the error in talking to the kind of person who says, oh, correlation is they’re probably defending themselves. It’s an error of form of the conversations because conversations have a point. And I can say that line skeptically, which is like it’s similar to the fallacy of identifying against. But it’s better if I can make a point that actually advances the essence of the conversation rather than defending, you know, whatever whatever position I’m holding by saying correlation only equals causation. Like, there’s a time and place for that. But oftentimes that phrase is applied in the midway way. Well, and that’s and that’s his point. His point is you as the person engaging in the thing needs to distinguish between the three types of relationships, the type where you’re the user of the thing. Right. You’re trying to relate to the essence of the form. Right. The I.D.A.S. the kind where you’re interfacing with an expert. So you’ll notice all knowledge is with craftsmen. All knowledge. There’s no second class of person called an expert that has knowledge that also doesn’t do the thing like that. It’s a that’s a that’s an artist. Right. But that’s when you relate to the artist as the person who who is a craftsman instead of an artist. Like you have to know that an artist is using a phantom of an imitation. OK, there’s a phantom of an imitation relationship. That’s how you relate to artists because they can move you. And so the and the caution is on you. It’s not bad on artists for being artists. Nowhere does it even imply such a thing. Right. And and and again, that’s that’s the thing. Right. That the idea of each implementation that one craftsman makes couches and another chairs that we use is similarly for other things. Right. Right. The craftsman doesn’t fabricate the idea. Right. He’s copying the form because he’s directly connected. And so he has knowledge of the thing. Yeah. And I think well, the knowledge of the thing. Absolutely no one. Right. And I think, oh, I think the way you know that that thing is true and this is a five ninety eight D or five ninety sorry five. Yeah. Five ninety eight E or D. And when he’s kind of taking his first hit piece on Homer, who is at their head, knows all the arts and of the tragic imitative types of knows all the arts and all things human virtue as well as vice and divine things, too. So the way that you know that is like we talked about we’ve talked about the dialectical nature of things. And I think this is the point of the cave is that you can’t justify justice to unjust people because they’ll kill you. And in the same way, at the end of Book Nine, when we’re talking about the carnal pleasures or the lower pleasures, it’s like if you have to ask the question of of the intrinsic value of the higher things, you don’t get it. And so that’s I think I think the way that you know, like you can’t just parrot what you heard Homer say and have the same type of knowledge because Homer doesn’t hold the knowledge in that way. I think that’s really what he’s you know, the one of the primary points that he’s trying to make here. Well, and that particular section, yes, he on the D and E. He’s basically saying, here’s an extreme example, because again, everything is absurdity in this book. It’s absolutely gorgeous. He says, if you encounter somebody that claims to know everything, then he’s a wizard and you shouldn’t be deceived by it. Okay, fair. Right. So he’s making a claim of what we might call expertise and all experts are wrong. So don’t listen to them and just throw that out because they don’t have the craftsmanship, which means they don’t have the knowledge of what they’re claiming. Somebody could claim I make couches and therefore I’m knowledgeable about couches. Okay. But somebody could also make a claim. I, you know, I’m knowledgeable about couches, but then they’ve never made a couch. Okay, that’s dangerous. Right. But the thing is, the deception is in the viewer. Right. And so he’s at no point even blaming the person that does this. He’s just saying people do this and you need to watch out for that. So this is one of those cases where he’s basically taking the individualist frame, if you will. Right. And saying it’s on you to pay attention. It’s not on them to not be people that do things. And, you know, back to the cave, Danny, you’re like, this is the same point that you’re making. You’re making a claim. You’re making a claim. And, you know, back to the cave, Danny, you’re like, this is the same point that’s made in the parable of the cave. Right. Which is because he himself is unable to put knowledge and lack of knowledge and imitation to the test. So those are three different things. That man seemed all wise to him. Okay. If you don’t have the ability to put knowledge, lack of knowledge and imitation to the test, somebody is going to seem wise to you. In other words, your stupidity makes other people seem smarter or your ignorance makes other people seem smarter. Fair. So just because someone seems smart doesn’t mean they’re not that they’re smart. It might mean that they’re deceiving you and you’re just not quick enough to catch it. Right. And that’s what he’s saying there. And that’s the same statement when you, quote, you know, drag people down back into the cave, which isn’t at all what happens. Right. But something similar happens where you try to tell the people at the lower level of the city, oh, you’re doing this all wrong. That’s like, okay, yeah, we don’t believe you. But you still have to do it. That’s the other thing. You still have to do it. There’s a sacrifice implied in that. So, man, I lost my thought. But I think there’s a couple of things I want to point out. So he says if two ideals existed, a third would appear that contains them, which basically says there can only be one. Like, it doesn’t make sense to have a separation in the ideal. And then they’re created by God. Right. So there’s these three levels made by God, which is equal to existing in nature. And that could be where the philosopher relates to. And then that which is made by a craft, which is an expression of that. And then that which is made by the artist, which is an expression of the expression. Right. So there’s no direct relationship to the ideal itself. Painting relates to an appearance, not an essence. So he’s not only making the relationship to ideals. He’s also relating it to the essence and that which is visual. He’s in some sense universalizing this pattern, manifested in different realms of relationships. They’re kind of, I don’t know if it’s complicated or what. When I read, you know, you have two, you have one bed and then you have two beds, which is like, OK, well, the instances can be many. And then when he’s like, OK, well, now you have a third bed, I thought like, OK, he’s sort of pointing to like computational explosion of beds. And then you’re going to very quickly get into the realm of where the categories are blurred. Like, it’s not a spoon, it’s not a fork, it’s a spork. Or it’s not a bed, it’s not a chair. It’s some weird thing in between the two. And when he talks about the excellence of the flute later down, I think in 601 or something like that, when he says that there’s a relationship between the user and the maker of the flute and that like the maker of the flute has to have confidence in the player of the flute about what the best flute is. And I think that relationship is probably reciprocal because probably you can have the evolution of instruments like then you then you have now you have the invention of the saxophone like they didn’t have that, you know, in his time. You know, and so I think the virtues and vices can’t be held in the forms in like, OK, here’s right. And it just kind of gets to the also the mathematical like math nerds argue, you know, is there such thing as a perfect circle? And, you know, so maybe there’s some of that going on. Maybe he’s commenting on some Pythagorean cult stuff. I don’t know. But that’s another theme that came to mind. Oh, so I think I think I know it again. So what is implicit in all of this is, is that the good that you can only do the good. And like, that’s where I have the problem. Like, there’s some something else right that that that is not accounted for like, like destruction or failure. Right. Like you can make a flute and you’re not a perfect craftsman. You’re you’re you have a sinful nature as you’re going to like scratch something or whatever. You’re never going to make the perfect flute. So, you know, you’re not going to make a perfect imitation. And also, like all of these all of these poets that he’s talking about, right, like they’re implicitly guided by by the ideal. Like they’re trying to describe the ideal. Like he’s not talking about people who trying to do something else. Right. I think that’s kind of where where I have a problem with. I think he brings that up. And again, this is a little bit jumping ahead and 602D. He talks he brings up the concept of confusion. But rewinding back to Homer, it seems like the whether or not Homer is influencing the world in a virtuous way, it seems to be his biggest concern. And so there’s in terms of we’re talking about this appearances and like what things convey, there’s something about confusion that he talks about how like artists give light, like color to things with light and shadow. And that brought to mind like like, OK, well, OK, yeah, I get that. But like you have to discern what is virtuous. Like Christ says, I’m the light of the world. But Satan is also an angel of light, too. Like they’re competing for dominion. You know, so when you when you talk about testing like, OK, well, you have to be able to test the thing out. I mean, the Christian talk about testing the spirits of things. You still have the problem of like, OK, well, what is a valid test case? And I think that’s fundamentally a dialectical process. You can’t figure that out by yourself. That’s because I think he goes into that later, actually, how to do that. But yeah, here he’s making a statement. If you can make the real thing and an imitation, would you ever choose the imitation? And I’m like, I think there’s plenty of people who choose the imitation. Right. And then making artists praising the original. I’ve been thinking about all of these crazy words like giving praise and giving honor and giving thanks. And it’s like like what are you actually doing? Right. Worshipping. Like this, like I think in worship, there’s an imitative quality like you’re trying to take over something from that, which which you worship. Right. And like praises is more you’re professing the goodness of what you’re praising to other people. Right. And then honoring is is more in the social realm where you’re you’re you’re you’re socially or collectively lifting something. Up to a certain status within life. Yeah. Like if you if you don’t have good conceptions of those things, these words, they become really fuzzy, which is something I’ve been trying to resolve. Manuel, I remember a long time ago you were talking about the concept of glory. Like, what does it mean to give glory to something? I was thinking in my mind, I’ve been playing with this idea that glory is like light. It’s the thing that it’s like the thing that it’s like a I don’t know. It’s the thing that puts emphasis on on on on a thing. Is that what do you think about that? No, I think I think the light is produced by the glory. Like it’s the source of the light. And and and and and so what is glorious is lighting you up. Right. Like it’s it’s bringing things to light. It’s like, yeah, the glory is that it’s like light emanating from a source. Right. Right. Yeah. OK. That’s sounds like I’m on similar wavelengths to you with that concept. Because when they talk about confusion and they talk about, you know, the artist and light and color. And so I think that the artist has the power to put light into it. He’s a reflection of whatever spirit that’s inhabiting him. So it’s I don’t know if this was in the thing, but like so making artists praising the original. And I wrote down, what does this say about lifting up arts and entertainment? And I think that was a comment on our current culture. Like this, if we are lifting up this twice or the twice removed thing, right, like like like what are we calibrating? We’re calibrating on on something that isn’t grounded, I guess. Right. Like it’s and that’s that’s how we get into the subjectivism problem. Because that that’s why you have to end up if you’re not grounding the thing that you’re lifting up. Like the image that comes to mind for me is I think Ethan brought up like that are our models in our culture are at best experts and at worst, like actors or, you know, TikTok influencers or whatever. And an actor is embodying the knowledge of acting like not doc, not not being a doctor. I just I just play a doctor, you know. And so, yeah, they are they are removed from the knowledge of what it takes to be a real doctor. Well, and exactly right. And so what it means to play a doctor, right, doesn’t necessarily have much to do with being a doctor. Right. Like because playing a doctor is highlighting something archetypal, right. Like, oh, look at being with my status scope. Right. And then I need to place the status scope on your heart in order to make the connection with you that you’re my patient. Right. Like that would be me playing the doctor. Right. And that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with with the illness that that the other person is playing or whatever. Right. Like this, there’s this way of representation that privileges to communication over a representation of the ideal of doctor. This is a little bit of a stretch of that analogy, but the image of the Star Trek, there’s a Star Trek episode where something’s going wrong and the doctor, they ask the doctor to do something and he goes, for God’s sake, I’m a doctor, not a physicist. And so, like the idea is that I’m specialized in one practice and not the other. As we bring up this concept of rationality or calculation intelligence. And I have a note here in my notes, the soul summons calculation and intelligence to separate between one and two. Dividing is a separation, a calculated decision to separate. So that’s one of the things that comes to mind when we’re talking about being further from farther down the line. I mean, it’s a teleology thing. And a lot of this is just definitional. I mean, a lot of this is just ontology, I guess. So I want to go back over to Homer’s part. So if Homer was second removed from virtue, where are his fruits? Right. So he’s basically calling for the proof of Homer’s virtue. And then if people really have the capacity to manifest the good, would they have been allowed to wander? Right. So he’s making it basically a claim that if the goodness is manifesting in someone’s life, other people will lay claim to that person and they can’t do the things that Homer did, for example. And if he wasn’t willing to stay, his disciples would have followed him, which also seems to be a reference or a prophecy about Christ. And then pictures only work for those who know less than their creator. That says something over the deceptive element or whatever, right? Like a picture only works if it replaces reality. But if you know the true form, like the pictures loses its… Like it can only be like an icon, I guess, towards the form at most. But it’s no longer something in itself. What appearance do the tales of Poet make when stripped from their enchantment and are recited as prose? Mark’s favorite thing about the circling thing, right? The guy read the manuscript and the manuscript was just horrible. And then when you see it in action with all the fancy enchantment, it sounds nice. And this kind of was like the podcast I was listening to, right? It’s like there’s something wrong. There’s just this sliding and there’s sliding and there’s just all the stuff that gets smuggled in and it’s not justified. Yeah, it’s just horrible at a certain point. So one thing, since you brought up Homer and whether Homer is popular, he’s not saying that popularity, I think, is… It’s true that I think having an effect in the world is important, but that’s not the only thing to evaluate on. One thing that came to mind was that the imitative guy, if you think back to the previous chapters about the tyrant and the people who were… They want to be the theme of the work because of honor and profit. Their motivations are not to actually produce the works intrinsically or out in the world for their own sake. I think that’s another thing that he’s pointing to, is that the imitative guy is pointed… And another theme, too, in Book 9 was that at the end, when he closed out the end of Book 9, he’s saying, we’re all being piloted on the same ship. It’s what captain that you’re submitted to, I think, is another thing that I saw here in terms of… I don’t know if he’s saying that Homer is oriented in the wrong way, but that seems to be a theme that is related to the testing of whether something’s virtuous or not. Well, I think he’s questioning whether you can be rightly oriented, right? Because if you take the game of telephone, right? What’s the chance that if you’re having a shadow of an image that you’re actually true to the image? You might be true in the representation of the image, but are you actually true to the image? Because you’re reducing the dimensionality, right? You’re flattening it out into an expression, right? Into words, for example. And can you still capture the essence in this lesser medium? And the question is, no. Relating to the lesser medium is idolatry, right? And there was a comment made that they’re focusing on the blooming instead of beauty, the abstract beauty, right? Which is the same as novelty, right? Blooming is to coming into being, right? It’s the drawing you in, but it’s not the transcendent itself. Craftsmen and painters don’t know the right form because it gets determined by the user, right? This is the part that you were talking about by the flute, right? And yeah, I think that’s an inherent limitation when you want to communicate anything, right? Like whatever you want to give to someone else, right? Like someone else is going to receive it and do with it what they want, what they need to do. And so you can’t, you can only craft the right thing if you do it by the wishes of the one who’s going to use it. And I think we can put that also in the bringing heaven to it, right? Or I think, can we do it in the four causes? Like I think we can also place it in the four causes where the expression gets determined by the material at hand, right? And like, so you’re going to be constrained by where and how it’s manifested in order to have a right or a true implementation of the idea. Part of what I was thinking about when I was reading this section was that it seems that Plato or Socrates was saying that it’s the virtue that’s the target of the popularity when he’s criticizing Homer. And the Homer and questioning, did Homer actually have skin in the game? And so that kind of brings the topic of art gives us a necessity. It gives us the reasons to exist, right? And so in terms of whether the maker of an art piece may have a perspective on how he sees something and represents it in a certain way, and then the consumer may have a way of consuming it that is he may have certain idiosyncrasies and what it means to him. And one example that I have here is I’m a fan of making my environment beautiful. This is a painting that I used to put in my office. It’s a painting, I believe, of Kai Green losing the 2008 Mr. Olympia. And there’s details in this painting, which I’m not going to get into this too much. But like one of the details, for example, is his fist is clenched. And like, I don’t know exactly how to what degree the particularity of the way that his fist is clenched was premeditated by the author. But there are reasons by which it has meaning to me. And there’s a thousand details I could get into on that. So the point the point that I just wanted to bring up there was just on the reciprocal relationship between the makers of things and the class of people that depicts things. Yes. So what I wrote down, excellence, beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended for them. Imitation is a kind of play. That’s, I think, personal note. One thing that I like that you mentioned up in terms of the intended use is that excellence or beauty of a thing is relative to its intended use. You know, so I think that’s I remember one time this is kind of neither here nor there, but I was at the Fine Arts Museum in Houston, looking at the statue of David. And I was saying, like, once upon a time, like, people thought this was like an ideal of the body. And I was like, this guy, like, wouldn’t even make it onto like an amateur bodybuilding stage, though, because we know so much more about how to make bigger and better athletes these days. I’m like, I my my physique is far better than the statue. Like, I’m a better Greek statue than this guy. I mean, I, you know, part of you, I have access to steak and all kinds of reasons for that. But so then we were talking about the concept of excellence. And and so this kind of brings up the I think really if the idea of art is to prepare you for death and meditating on the in scape of death, I think that that’s that’s one of the valuable meditations I’ve been kind of going through for the last month or two is what is excellence in your life look like? Yeah, that brings in tell us right. Right. The nature relative to the use for which nature, or the artist has intended for them. Right. So the use is your tell us where you’re calling right like that’s, that’s what you’re going to be used for. Why do you think that people have a hard time answering that question? What is what is your purpose? What is it? What is the cause that’s worthy for your best efforts? Individualism. But it’s also manifesting while you you ride out your life right like it’s not that you know the end. Right. Right, because we’re, I mean, we’re getting into 602 D, just this idea of confusion, you know, and into the meaning crisis thing is, I think a lot of people. A lot of people don’t ever maybe maybe don’t ever find a cause that they can put all their energy into. I mean, one of the things that the way that I navigate my life is, I pay a lot of attention to how I feel. I mean, I’ll just leave it at that. I could without getting off into a big lecture of of body. But I think everything that you know starts with senses. I mean, Descartes, I think, therefore, I am I’m a skeptic. Oh, wait a minute. There has to be an eye for me to be skeptical. Kind of an obvious observation like one that was made 2000 years BC by the Vedic traditions, by the way, who were very emphatic on on on the importance of knowing things physically. But but also just in terms of teleology, like even if you want to be, you know, not like nonphysical thing like an engineer or whatever, like being a part of a body is the way that you sense make, you know. And so I mean, it’s a general question of this kind of the question of why do people struggle to find a purpose in life is also maybe related to like, why is it that people have a hard time finding a body that is significant? Or why is it that we that people don’t have a tribe or something like that to be a part of? Yeah, well, they’re not looking up. It’s that simple. Well, there is also something that I’ve been talking about with Bill in the latest video published and Sally also kind of mentioned it right like Sally was talking about how. You just go out as a family and then you do the things that need to be done right to the relationship to what you’re doing right like is informed by basically being in a way right and then the idea of a head guiding you is where the head of the family has has has a really different meaning than. If if dad goes to a nine to five job right and then mom goes to the sewing circle and stuff like that like it’s it’s just different and like what we’ve been doing. This is what I was talking about with Bill writers like how Bill wants to start a brewery right and then like he has to get letters of intents from his future buyers right like that’s the that’s the relationship that he has to have with his future. This calling that he has right like in the past like he would have just like maybe we would have been the son of a brewer or like an innkeeper more likely right and then he would be brewing beer right and then the neighboring in also needed beer right and then you just expand your capacity and then you’re like well maybe we can go to the next village right thinking they can also get maybe and that’s how you get your brewery but knowing you need to do like all of these investments and. So like like how can you get called to something like that right like how do you have faith in an activity like that like it there’s there’s a dissociation between what you’re doing in your your daily activity and. And this thing that you’re going to manifest so I like I think I think the distance just has gravely increased because of bureaucracy and and just city as such right like the last if you’re not bonded within your environment. Then it’s not gonna pull you somewhere right like the bond has to pull you somewhere and if you don’t if you’re not bound right like that’s the individualism then you can’t be pulled. What’s interesting like that idea of the idea of like having a right out of business plan. Like it the things that that capture my attention most strongly or that I’m most passionate about oftentimes start off small and usually like hedonistically like with bodybuilding that was the case like I basically got high on the old school pre workouts that were really good and I was like man this is awesome. I lifted weights for forever before and then I was like oh I first it was like oh I just want to I want to feel this high and then as I started to do it rigorously I was like oh man like you actually have to be in a certain state that. That accepts into other areas of life that kind of and then later it kind of became the focus it’s just it’s like embodiment one of the things that has occurred to me I think over time is that the body is implicitly contextualizing. So that’s one of the reasons why I like to trust some of the lower lower things because if meaning comes from relationships like there’s no way that you can you’re always going to relate through the body and so there’s a there’s a pre existing context that you’re born into. And so it seems it seems to me like it’s something that can be trusted in some ways. Well actually in church we just made a circle today and we actively identified as one as one body right and that was also like a binding right like and then it’s like okay right like if I take that seriously, which which you should which actually was also part of the ritual. Like anybody who’s not not here to to manifest the body and to corrupt it let it be known right like that was called out so if you take that perspective right and that’s a perspective you need to cultivate right like that’s basically binding yourself you need to get this new perspective and. And get the ability to to see what’s required of you right like like in what way are you well is there a need and in what way do you fit into that need right and in order to do that like you you first need to be someone right like like like you you you are gifted. And the elders in your community to supposed to recognize that I think Plato also went went into that right like what’s your nature and we have to recognize people’s nature and then when these things get recognized then you can get slaughtered in right like you you can you can get assigned your class effectively right. Right like if you don’t do these things right or you do these things to school whatever that means is like at the end of school. At least that’s how it happened for me right I got this class and I don’t know like maybe it was like twice like two hours or something right and basically I got this list of studies with professions related to them and salaries and then I had had to. Spend hours looking at them and then I’d have to pick my future right like. Like how is how can that call to you right like the only thing that’s relatable is the salary right. And maybe a direction that maybe. Yeah I mean I spent basically 14 years on a career that basically means nothing to me you know it’s like it because it’s pretty much a way to make money I mean I love computer science and solving puzzles and stuff but. But like I went to this my jazz concert last night Rock City Jazz Orchestra you know and when you just look at these old a bunch of old guys engineers in you know Rock City USA are all are all engineers but like when you see these old guys like having fun playing a playing a jazz concert your Christmas concert that’s why I’m wearing the shirt by the way going to go to another one tonight. I’m like you know I look at them I’m like man everybody’s having such a good time this is such a great time like how how is this not better than whatever all their careers are like the way I’ve navigated my life you know is I’ve always considered passions to be important and I think like Plato I think is saying like. Appetites have to be controlled and and the rationality or calculation is has to be subject to purposes I my interpretation of where he’s going in book 10 is literally the opposite of all the lectures that I’m watching on YouTube which are boring and like depressing like Plato saying get rid of the artists and like just be a stoic you know rationalist like I don’t know that’s just that’s that’s not that’s not the way that I approach knowing things in the world for myself. Now I’ll be the first to admit that like I generally start hedonistically initially but almost always that that impulse it moves in some other direction into some higher think whether it’s playing in a band or being part of a soccer team or whatever. But that’s part of the fundamental problem Danny is that part of the point of the Republic is to emphasize rather explicitly that there aren’t single things everything is three aspects everything your career is not supposed to be fun. Your career is not supposed to be a jazz concert it’s supposed to enable you to do that later it’s the third aspect of your life that you do whether you like it or not because it is the right thing to do so that you can do it. It’s supposed to enable you to do that later it’s the third aspect of your life that you do whether you like it or not because it is the right thing to do so that you can do the other things and enjoy them in other words in Plato’s explicit about this. If you don’t have contrast you’re not going to enjoy it so if your life were putting on jazz jazz jazz concerts all the time you wouldn’t enjoy it because it wouldn’t have the same flavor because it’s not unusual it’s not novel it’s not interesting it’s same thing every day. And I was you know I went to convivium and on the way back I listened to this Anthony Bourdain in the weeds autobiography rather by as one of his producers his last producer and it was fascinating because one of the things the guy was pointing out was they had the best job in the world. Everybody told them that to listen to what he’s going through doesn’t sound very good to me it sounded like a horrible job. Now Anthony Bourdain may have gotten a good deal because everybody else is doing the work with the producers and the people working on the show they were not having fun. It’s not to say they didn’t have like one or two days where they got to kick back and enjoy the destination but by and large they’re just working the whole time and doing impossible things and solving impossible which is great right that’s that type two fun we were talking about. It’s not fun when you’re doing it but it’s looking back you go that was fun right you go you go for a hike up a mountain and you’re like sucks I don’t like hiking is hard it’s physically demanding right but then at the end you’re like oh that’s not fun. Right but then at the end you’re like that was fun it’s like wasn’t fun at the time and that’s what careers are for careers are to provide you with contrast something boring or rote or easy or whatever that you do or maybe super challenging right but then it enables you to enjoy a jazz concert. And, and, yeah, play dough is very much exemplifying that at least that spirit in this text, like he’s definitely definitely talking about that here. There’s no question about it. I mean, everything about this is sort of mentioning some aspect of, yeah, things are not just one thing. Things are complicated, right, they’re complex. And you can’t just look at them one way, you can’t just pay attention to the craftsman can’t just pay attention to the artist. Right, and you, you can’t just use stuff. You need all three. You need all three, and that’s, I get it really hard for people to understand, like, super hard for, you know, whatever, whatever reason like I don’t know why it’s hard for people to understand it seems pretty clear to me but people are struggling with it, and we can, you know, fair enough like it’s not an easy concept, but it is part of book 10. And I would say it is, you know, part of what people are missing, we’ll say about book 10, for sure. I think that’s a fair way to think about it. I didn’t finish it but I got the sense that he was making a bunch of binaries right like good, good and evil, for example, and he was trying to materialize them, we’ll get to that. So he’s distinguishing the measuring part of the mind versus the poetic which sounds a lot like what something other people have done. One faculty cannot have contradicting opinions right so this is again a definitional issue, I guess right like, and this goes into proper naming again as well like like, because if, if, if it doesn’t have one function then it’s probably not named correctly right like like it’s like like Danny said definitionally true in some profound sense. Opinions can agree and disagree with a measure. Imitation is relating to a principle divorced from reason. You don’t have a true or healthy aim. So, this is where I am starting to have problems right, because maybe that’s just a translation but I don’t I don’t think the word principle is is appropriate here. At a certain point he also calls, yeah, the rational and irrational are two competing principles. I don’t know. Not liking that framing. And then he’s making a point about not relying on an analogy to extend to a different domain, you have to re-explore it. That’s, that’s like, maybe this is what he’s talking about with taking on the classes and putting it back on. Man, he’s talking about the process of imitation so that’s the action of man leading to a result, and then there’s an emotional response to that trajectory. That’s what imitation does. And he starts talking about a good man will moderate his emotional response as a consequence of bad faith. So he’s basically saying that that that’s what people want to do. I guess I got to that. Social pressure will constrain the relationship of people to sorrows. And then he proceeds giving the example where you basically will act differently because there’s expectations around you that want you to behave some way, right. So, for example, you’re not falling into tears because that would be shameful. Well, you’d be tempted to do that when you’re alone. Well, I think this is like different than collective sense making, right. It’s like a collective virtue raising or something. So he uses the word that you don’t like there in that statement. He says there’s a principle of law and reason in him which bids him to resist his, you know, his trying, right. You mentioned you didn’t like the word principle. No, no, no, no, that’s correct. That’s a correct usage of principle. Okay. So I like he’s using it for the identification against two, right. So you have irrational, which only exists by virtue of the rational, right. So it’s not a valid category. And I don’t know if that’s also in the Greek. But like I just have a problem with the irrational being a principle. Like it’s not. I see. I agree with you actually. Yeah. Principles battling emotion. Division within you implies two principles. And I think this is where he gets it from, right. So it’s like if there’s one thing pointing one way and then one thing pointing another way, then there’s two things that are pointing. So I’m not liking this part of the republic, actually. We have to be patient because we cannot discern good from evil, right. So basically he’s saying that we have to go through this process of recognizing what’s good and what’s evil. And we can only do that through being patient. No human thing is of serious importance, which is also a bold claim. But I guess he’s pointing out that everything that’s human is not relating to the eternal, right, to the forms. We are required to take counsel and after the fact use reason to put things in order. And so this is, I think, where you might have a good picture of what reason is. So reason only applies when the dust has settled and you’ve got to reorganize your place in the world, right. And then you can say, well, I’m going to process all of this and I’ll give reasons for my actions. In fact, but he’s in my mind at least stating that you shouldn’t do that on the fly. Like that’s inappropriate. On the fly, you deal with the thing. And that’s the point where you cannot discern good from evil, right. Like that’s because you’re in it, right. You don’t have sufficient distance to look at what happens, right. It’s not finished. And only when it’s finished, then you can have a way of placing it somewhere, right. It can fit into reason, I guess that’s the better word. And then he’s talking about this idea that there’s a cure for the hurt and we should strive to remove the hurt through the cure and not to wallow in the pain. So basically look past where you’re in and relate to the solution as opposed to what the situation invites you to passions. And now we come at the rational and irrational are two competing principles. Right. And so making an opposition that’s asymmetrical and binary and equating them. So he praises the correcting of sorrows, but doesn’t I mean, it seems to me that implicitly there is the one who actually suffered is capable more virtue in that. Like because somebody actually experienced something difficult that actually qualify like that’s the track. Like it seems to me as though the tragedy is necessary to create a hero. Otherwise, you know, if you’re just drinking margaritas on a beach, like where’s the virtue there? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What are you referencing to? 606 B. Yeah. Well, I was really I was also since you said you didn’t like this idea of the inferior principles soul, which also comes up 605 B. I’ve just been sort of thinking about that as you were talking. So that’s what came to mind. I mean, again, I’m just trying to point to it seems a contradiction in the false interpretation of book 10 of people who say he’s saying to throw the tragic poets out and in order. And then he puts emphasis on where it seems like he’s going in book 10 is saying that the soul is the soul is this is immortality. I think he’s trying to build a case for immortality. I think that’s kind of what he’s doing in this book, but I haven’t gotten to the end of it yet. So right. Yeah. He’s also placing the value in the suffering. That’s what it seems like to me. Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with that. That’s between 605 B and 606 B. Where he starts talking about this. All right. And yeah, I mean, you know, he he says he says stuff like the greatest accusation against imitation. But again, it’s absurd. And he’s not actually making a claim that imitation is bad. Like that’s not in here. Don’t know where people are getting that from. It’s just not here. He’s saying imitation is insufficient. Saying tragedy is the thing, right? Like doing the thing is the thing. OK, I agree. But that doesn’t say artists are bad. That doesn’t say anything of the kind. And again, he does say like art moves people. Right. And he does say as the person being moved, it is incumbent upon you your responsibility to be careful about that and and be aware of it. Otherwise, you’ll be moved by like an expert instead of an artist. You move by artists, not experts. That’s a little bit ahead of where I was. But yeah, I think he’s I don’t I don’t know if we want to cultivate these things. I don’t I don’t know if he’s making a case for that. He’s not. Again, this is the non-optionality of the world. These things are here. You have to deal with them. Period. End of statement. It’s not about cultivation. It’s about cultivating yourself to be aware of the things that are there. Like reality is that which objects to your subjective experience. Like these things are there. Right. There are heroes in the world. There are artists in the world. There are craftsmen in the world. There are people who are neither. Right. Like they just don’t fall in that category. And you have to know that those differences exist and you have to deal with them. There are people that are stuck in the cave. Yes, there are people that are showing the people stuck in the cave. Things on the wall. Yes. None of that is optional. You’re not changing any of it. And if you try, you’ll be jeered and yelled at. And you still have to try. Yes. Still, yes. Big yes. Doesn’t that suck? But also too bad. Plato’s pretty clear. You’re not getting around any of it. Perennial patterns, not problems to be solved. Perennial patterns. I think this is the case that people are making against the art or think Plato is making against the artist. The rebellious principle is ripe for imitation. The good principle is hidden because it’s not creating contrast and drowned out by strong signals. And in order to become famous, the artist is drawn to imitate the passion of principle. If you believe in objective material reality, then what he just described is a catastrophe. Which is the TikTok algorithm. Plato doesn’t believe in that. He’s pretty clear. This is going to happen. He doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with it. He says your engagement with it can be wrong. And not just your engagement, the artist can also become corrupt. He’s basically saying when you’re dealing with a second order abstraction, your audience can, if your audience doesn’t realize that, it can become corrupt. Thanks. Okay. I agree. Right. And also because you’re dealing with the second order abstraction, you can become corrupt. Okay. I think I agree. Does that make them bad? No, it does not. Are they bad if they stray and get corrupt? By definition, things that are corrupt are bad. I don’t think this isn’t rocket science at some point. If we had to choose a different language to say inferior part of the soul, what might that language be? Is it praising? Is it death worship? Is it the one who pursues death? Would that be better? I don’t know. You have inferior parts of your soul. It’s the irrational part. No. No? That’s not the inferior part of your soul? Because I’m pretty certain that… No, it’s the thing that’s corrupted by the imitation, which may or may not be irrational. I mean, you get moved either way. You can cast it as irrational after the fact, maybe. Maybe. But that’s… Right? This book, this text, it’s a treatise against rationality. If nothing else, it’s just rationalities. I think it is the irrational part of the soul, but it’s not just because it’s irrational and therefore it’s bad. It’s nuanced. And in the city, when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature, which has no discernment of greater and less. Blah, blah, blah, and he goes on. So, I mean, I think it’s there, but… Yeah. Yeah, but it’s not… I mean, you’re subconscious and all the irrational parts of you are part of your passions. So, I don’t think he’s condemning irrationality as such. I think it goes back to, you know, what’s the spirit or what’s the pilot that’s driving it? Right. Which is the opposite. It’s revivifying rationality and saying, irrationality is inevitable and therefore you need to apply rationality so that these things that happen with or without irrationality don’t happen to you. I’m looking at the time and thinking like we should wrap things up, too. Yeah, but to finish this up, I have that irrational nature has no discernment of greater or less, but is driven by a local motivation, right? So, it’s directionless. It’s not directed. And then the second sentence that I’m going to have to look at this back up, but is poetry also does harm the good. Like, that’s the actual statement in the book. Where is that? Around… 6.05 C and D, in between the D, C and D. The power which poetry has of harming even the good. I mean, it does have the power to do that. It has the power to do it. It doesn’t do that. Those are different things. This is where all the confusion is coming in. Yeah, poetry can do bad things. No kidding. Couches can do bad things, too. What do we say? In a certain part, we’re not saying anything. But yeah, we get to this strange definition of good, which I don’t know if I like. Yeah, that’s also why I didn’t want to go much past this point because now we’re really into it. But also, we’re at the last few pages. Yeah. Yeah, we’re at least halfway through. Good. Oh, wait. So just before we end, does your book use evil, Mark, in contrasting good? Oh, yeah. Because I don’t know if I like that either. Yeah. Okay. Every word. Evil, evil, tough word. Yeah. So yeah, Danny, your intention was maximizing fritality, whatever that means to you. I was trying to figure out how to regard it as a play, which I did not succeed in at all. Mark wanted to find out what play there was after, so it’s time for a reflection.