https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=My_VVHLdQ08
Mr. Manuel Mr. Manuel Leader Why I am totally prepared. I know exactly what to do So that’s been this whole journey for everybody I think you know Yeah, I actually Have some insights, but they’re not really related to the text that we supposed to be preparing because What I what I did is I listened to it and it could not Capture me at all was all like yeah, I didn’t have a way to relate so Let’s Let’s make that my intention for today find a way to relate to this craziness To this craziness So yeah about about last time I Think I think we kind of went into a whole bunch of of topics That are gonna be a further export later on All these categories That that seemed to be introduced and I Chapter 3 is also a lot of Introductional framework Later gonna be appealed to so there’s The the trying to establish a grounding from from which to argue from So yeah, let’s see if I can tell how My week was was formed by our last doc I Did have a lot of thinking about How I should engage with with the reading or reading as such I Had I had a lot of insights around This idea of when When you relate to word right like it can open up a relationship it can open up a Connection to your phenomenal logical experience, and I have the example of mourning there and That That is in some sense not a natural reaction for me, but I also think that is true for modern man Where where we live in this discipline disconnected state One of the realizations was that even though I knew this And I can have that attitude or that thought while reading that that doesn’t resolve the issue so Yeah, I think I think that that was actually a really important insight that I have Yeah, so I Would invite Ethan to do his reflection and set his intentions for this week Well My intentions are To understand the world better and thus participate in it better I’d understand that can that might be frustrating because it’s very vague I guess but Yeah Understand the world better and that’s my participation in it My point at the next person oh I get to choose the next person Okay, let’s go with William If no William will go with Mark Maybe he’ll come back before Before I’m done Yeah, I mean Last last week I I’ve been noticing Will say the Misuse of What I Read called the Republic by many many people Apparently missed the point of book two entirely. I Don’t know if they skipped over the words or what’s going on, but very clear You could see people costing justice incorrectly even though it’s right in book two You can tell when people have read some of the book and not All of it or didn’t comprehend all of it So I’ve been noticing that Which is one of the reasons why I haven’t read the book up until now because I had a feeling that if I read it I would understand things and get angry at people And I would be like, oh my god, I’m not reading this book I read it I would understand things and get angry at people for not understanding things that are kind of right there in the text and My Intent going forward here is to get some sort of understanding for whether or not book three is merely about The reflection of a perfect Engagement Engagement or if there’s more going on within the Within that within that particular text Because it’s it’s not like book two, right? There’s some drastic changes from the attitude of book two So yeah, that’s my intent so Gared off William so it’s Danny’s turn Well From what Manuel said about how words open up relationships I have the opposite experience with book three in that I resonated very very strongly with very much of the content So maybe I hopefully I can compensate for Manuel’s lack of resonance, but I Feel that the concepts in book three were very were much closer to the primitives of life In lieu of missing the point of the book. I just had this idea like two seconds ago But I think that this is the chapter where you’re forced to confront final cause for the first time and so I kind of my relationship with the book was in reading the in reading book three kind of having a Having to think deeply about like what am I willing to go all in on and all in for that’s kind of That’s kind of where it led me I Think you know that the way that the poetry the music the art and the gymnastic and the relationship between all these Concepts they seem to be all Framed by the image of the gods and this this imitative and the medic You know if to me book three read as though it’s intended. It’s supposed when you have the top-down full-on tyranny thing It’s intended to lead to this absurd clown world Where you know, and I think I think you’re supposed to get this sense Which demonstrates the importance of the poetic right to me chapter three felt very strongly symbolic and and so like kind of basically how Feeling out like how do you ground out? What’s important in life? You know, how do you how do you actually you know? I mean, there’s a lot of discernment, you know a lot of discernment in chapter three or book three So it felt to me as though it was headed towards like final cause pointing in that direction So that’s where my Intentive in my tent and meditations I think are are primarily oriented towards just thinking about what are those things? And I mean I have you know, I have answers to that that’s very varying degrees of resolution, but I’ll leave my intent at that So Okay, point at your understanding of final cause and how it relates to well they get into this in book Four and I think eight Okay, that’s it’s a good question it’s a hard one I think it’s kind of pushing my limits to do so right now at least off top my head but um different different You know, they talk about how like different spirit like the spirit of ferocity is Necessary necessary for the soldier but maybe not so much for the musician, right? So like there you know different spirits are Are adequate for different roles and so thinking about like well, what is my role in this life? And what is what is my role in my life and and in my influence to other people? What role do I play to them? You know, what do I stand for what am I an image of? You know and if the gods if the image of the gods define the virtues of the state and Therefore provide justification for the action of humans Like that all starts with you have to start with the image of the gods, you know So that’s kind of what I mean. It’s like if the final cause could be one many, you know, but Not infinite not infinitely many but a closed set of many but It depends upon you know, it depends upon it just being aware of like your starting points Now I do have an answer I just I don’t want to really get into that especially not life More personal spin up, you know take of that Like I I mean I have I could give an example of the role that I think that I play in some people’s lives Right. So so this book kind of helps me to reason about that a little bit So the thing that I Think they’re really adamant about in the book is that you you can only have one role When when you do two roles like you’re you’re imitating Being able to do either and you’re doing non I Don’t know about that. I I I get I get that there’s this this master mastery that you can get to right and that You at a certain point you can get to this I don’t know this space that is unattainable to other people and I I Think they’re implying that there’s a necessity for that or something Okay, I go To to this idea of the Eastern thought right where they have these these hobbies or something where Like yourself in the hobby or whatever But I don’t I don’t even think they’re down extreme over there. So I just Your education is supposed to involve sports and music so like are we like I’m a little bit confused about the messaging that they’re giving in the book Mark Do you have to say about that? mixture of Yeah, it’s certainly I can see where people get the single identity thing out of this And and this is what I was saying earlier, right? Like are these merely Called Methods of reasoning for the sake of reasoning something through Because some of the statements are obviously absurd Right and they’re fighting with the poets For no good reason as near as I can tell right and their idea in here Is very much about The perfect image of X Would be corrupted by Y and therefore we can’t have Y that’s the formula throughout the book Right You know to the earlier point by way of the gods are perfect and therefore So the problem with all that is that the Greeks didn’t believe the gods were perfectly The myths zero starting to the gods gods are meant to exemplify the imperfection of man Not the other way around and so unlike we’ll say modern religious traditions where we use the ideal To contrast us they were using the super being to contrast the imperfection of humans That’s a different approach So why they’re taking the approach of the perfection of the gods while at the same time excoriating the poets is I mean That’s absurd like it. They only have access to the gods through the poets hmm You’re starting well, this is the the monotheism coming to light I wrote this down People will begin to execute their own evil acts when they believe that such things are being done by Relative would think they believe such things are being done by relatives of Zeus whose paternal altar is in the heavens and on the mount of Ida So there’s a weird thing going on. Yeah, like that’s what that’s what I was wondering last week or whenever it was like so they’re removing Removing something from the gods and putting them on on man the Morality or or or justice, I guess we could put it that way Which is what is weird though is how are they able to see that like how are they how are they able to remove this and put it on The man how do they see that? How are they able to see that the job the gods are unjust? Well, and I don’t think they’re trying to make that move this is very much A rhetorical Uh exploration And not a set of claims and I think that’s where people get confused about the whole book The republic like they think there are claims in here, but that’s not what they’re doing at all explicitly, they’re they’re not unclear about this and the absurdity Of socrates especially in book three where he’s just making statements and getting agreement This is this is like people don’t act like that ever that never happens There’s always back and forth if you want to see back and forth, you can watch my live stream There’s tons of back and forth, right? There wasn’t this I’m gonna make a statement and the other person’s just gonna agree and I don’t see anything other than that There’s zero pushback from the other characters. It really is just an exultation of Socrates in his glorious method of Leading somebody to a particular place for a particular reason without any Presupposition or justification Right, there’s a lot of things there’s a lot of things taken for granted they’re starting like like Danny was saying like we’re starting to see final cause come which is goodness something that’s transcendent of all of these gods and Like well, we can’t have the gods do this because that’s evil and they’re like, yeah, it’s like Okay, we missed something like we missed something there it’s like how do you know that’s evil You know, how do you know that there’s a deprivation of goodness? Well, well, we didn’t miss it. It’s not here It’s in their religion. It’s great. Okay. This is the philosophy and Yeah, so so one of the channels I’ve been engaging with is called Esoterica and In there he starts talking about Here’s the philosophers. Oh, but by the way, here’s their tradition that we would call religious And so there is no philosophy without religion anywhere That’s just isn’t a thing and this is what we’re missing They’re not talking about the religious part because it’s taken for granted. It’s already assumed to be there We’re ignoring that fact, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but I’m gonna disagree. First of all, they’re referencing the myths a lot. All right, and then secondly They do give definitions right like we went over this the other day Where is there’s good in in a good life, right? Then there’s good within the social contact right and then there’s good in relationship to the gods And so there are three different goods and there in some translation I seem They don’t define they just say they exist. It’s like, okay sure. There’s three aspects of the good Right, right why cat it well, I don’t know if they don’t find them but at least not sufficiently But but yeah, they don’t get into it in book four. I like Some talk about the good Yeah, they’re making some interesting claims and we’ll hopefully debate those when we get to it but Also, I like I don’t I don’t think you need to know the good in order to call out evil like that’s I think that’s also a fallacy Well Do you do you um It’s an agreement. Yeah Where’s the disagree Can you expound how can you know how can you call evil without having a Having some understanding or disposition towards goodness Well, they go it they go into the head and book four as well Right where there’s well, they’re calling them opposites But I got oh, I don’t think good news and evil are necessarily opposites like they’re looking in different directions But so if you look at one direction you can say well this is This is in that direction and that direction is not good But that doesn’t mean that you know what what the good direction is like it just means that you know You can you have to sermon about the ratios that aren’t That’s that to me is a problem right this is the Sam Harris problem, it’s the direction problem I guess you can because It there’s always a way to look where there’s nothing but more evil And that’s that’s the problem I think that Ethan’s pointing to is that you still need a definition by which to judge Um So, okay this actually I think I think this book is actually about Making that definition because I think justice is Enacting the good If you see something in the world and it’s Telos is located within itself in that aspect You don’t need I mean you actually do have a concept of the good knowing that goodness is transcendent like like you do need that You can look anywhere and you can see if something’s telos is located within itself It’s just gonna consume the entire world and you can call that out evil Um, I get that like you don’t know what the good is But you actually do know what the good is a good is something transcendent that doesn’t point towards itself So anyways Look, I mean you can you can make a case for justice being linked to the good But you can’t reduce the good to justice in the same way you can’t reduce politics to justice Which is what people seem to have done with this book somehow Is a much smaller bucket and they there’s no politics in the Republic if that’s what you read you misread the book You need to go back and figure it out because you’ve missed a bunch of framing or words or both I I don’t know. It’s not there though pages whole whole Just get book two I don’t They’re explicit about what they’re doing. So it’s puzzling that people would say they’re doing this when they explicitly say we’re not doing that We are doing this right? They’re not trying to solve the grand problem of the best city they’re only trying to solve the problem of what is justice and justice is only one aspect of Politics like in the US in particular everybody should know this the justice system is one of three branches So you can’t reduce the government to the courts doesn’t make any sense So I’m kind of jumping to the end of the book but I guess though one of the reasons I like the book is because they It’s pretty primitive in that they talk about how the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous So they have some of these themes like temperance and what was the other one? I don’t remember but but like, you know, basically how like if you have too much Jim you become too hard If you have too much music you become too effeminate and how the way to kind of navigate whether you’re doing well in your role is Dependent upon like your aim. I think maybe And like the judge like for example the the good physician Maybe he doesn’t need to have that he needs to actually like be sickly himself So maybe maybe the best physician needs to have first-hand experience with his art But maybe the judge you don’t want to have first-hand experience because then he doesn’t have a pattern of honesty and there You know, so that’s what kind of what I found was interesting. Is that thinking about justice or is justice enacting the good? I don’t know. That’s complicated. I don’t know if I’m smart enough to figure that out But I can maybe feel into whether something is harmonious or not With respect to some spirit like if this spirit’s excellent or not, like I think that I can tell I can sense I can discern whether or not this is a Integrate can integrate it and with the rest of life You know, yeah, and I don’t I don’t need to be concerned with with this other abstraction personally Exactly, Danny. That’s what that’s right. You don’t need to know It’s not required you can feel your way into goodness It’s not required that you know things to get to the good the more things You know the less likely you are to be able to get to the good because it’s gonna be too muddled All right, there’s too much information in your way and I think that the purpose of book three is to Set up the rhetorical framework that demonstrates that this mode of This is perfection Here’s how it’s not met and therefore we have to delete these things Can’t work in the world. It’s not a way that we can live. It’s not an option that’s available to us We have to deal with the ambiguity. We have to deal with the conflict. We have to deal with the fact that There isn’t a perfect standard and if there was a perfect standard We couldn’t have any of the richness of life that we require In other words perfection kills life and I think that I mean that’s in the scientific literature to incidentally No, you can’t see God’s face and live Uh-huh, that’s that’s not the only place it is then the scientific literature too, but but that’s the key is that These Seeming conflicts Are the thing that we need to be able to Balance out in some sense except in some other sense and when we’re not thinking about that when we’re not able to engage with that correctly then we have a different set of problems and and that set of problems is Unresolvable and That I think is what In these two setting up in book three to you know to highlight is that life ain’t easy these things don’t have simple answers and Trying to make them simple destroys everything and And that means you don’t need to know these things. So there’s a wonderful movie called the doctor with William Hurt and And It’s very much about being a doctor and the guys are jerk she’s a total jerk in the beginning of the movie and then he gets sick and now he has to people take care of it and They don’t do a great job because he was a jerk and Then he comes out of that with bedside manner and becomes a decent human And and why is that though? Right? That is because he’s following this pattern of knowledge first You go to med school get all You know, you can be efficient, right? Knowledge is great You can be efficient with knowledge be really efficient with knowledge, right? But you lose all the flavor of the emotional engagement of life Right the caring the kindness, right that those things all get thrown out the window. They’re inefficient They are inefficient. You can’t make them efficient. They aren’t part of efficiency right and That’s very much what book three is talking about it’s like well can’t allow the poets because We can’t allow this aspect of poetry and that aspect of poetry and and we have to get rid of the poets There’s no ultimately what would your life be without poetry? Come on Right. So it’s setting up that whole thing like you can be a better doctor by being less efficient and more caring Right. You can have a better society by accepting Some of these other components that if they had to be perfect you couldn’t have Should we right now we’re kind of talking about the whole chapter kind of in a broad brush should we maybe Try to maybe walk through it a little bit No, somebody have notes Yeah, I have some they’re not they’re not great but I guess the my from my also I was weakest on the early part too, but I’ll just maybe I’ll do a quick breadth first overview from my perspective and they talk first about poetry and the gods and then they talk about music and gymnastic and art and gymnastics and then they kind of start to maybe kind of combine that some of the things at the end, but So starting off with poetry I guess from my take Socrates portrays the gods as capricious cruel and petty Like Mark said and therefore we have to cut a bunch of stuff out but one of the first things that they do downstream from like for example, they give they give the example of Odysseus meeting Achilles in the underworld and Achilles tells Odysseus On the land of the poor then rule over all the dead and Socrates argues that This will cultivate fear of death in the minds of the young men who read who read the Odyssey So what what this society wants people who will choose death and battle Rather than defeat and slavery. And so if that’s what we want, you know that kind of informs the type of poetry that we want to allow So they kind of first start off on this this topic of imitation or the mimetic arts If you have the gods that you know, how exemplify a certain set of virtues then you know then you’re gonna you’re gonna create people with habit habit patterns That you may or may not like then so that’s Kind of that was kind of my high-level take of the first topic of poetry and then that kind of leads into the topic of music Which I found interesting The So the thing that I got out of that piece and that’s almost everything I actually read and then listen to Was that they’re pursuing truth So so they’re talking about this imitation stuff or mimicry or whatever, right? Which which is a distortion of truth, right? Like you’re giving a false signal to people So I think what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to purify Do Everything effectively right they’re trying to trying to get a purity right like okay Like does this allow you to be a right relationship? but if it does then it’s okay, but if it doesn’t we should get rid of it and then they’re fairly ambiguous about How to supplant it and also ambiguous about how to deal with the emergence and I Yeah, I think this was from the text that are that are That such things are or not to be said about man is a question We cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is. I said this is in contrast to talking about the gods and how naturally Advantages the to the possessor whether he seems to be just or not so so he’s saying I can make statements about the gods right because they’re Supposed to have perfection, but I cannot make statements about man Because man don’t follow the rules of the gods Yeah What I got from this is that the cautioning with Or mimetic anything is what it comes back to this identifying against type of thing or even if you’re identifying for The thing is is your your what we need what we need to identify in is a spirit or a higher ideal Not in the instantiation of a spirit because and it’s it’s distorted right so you have the first principle The Principle goes straight to the source and so I think that’s what they’re doing is they’re kind of removing this intermediary thing and trying to get people to Don’t look at the effects. Don’t look at the appearance look at the source. That’s where you need to look to So they’re removing the removing appearance Plato’s removing So if you remember the 33 types of goods, there’s the goods in and of themselves the goods because of their appearance and the the goods that are good for both and Right now we’re we’re trying to concentrate on goodness despite its appearance Trying to remove all of the appearances of of goodness actually brings them back at the end But the reason that you so I was talking to mark about this a couple weeks ago or something But like we talked about the right thing to do like oh I’m doing this right thing thing a because if I don’t do right thing a Right thing all of these other bad consequences will happen but actually in reality the reason you do the right thing is not Quintus you do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do So like there’s something calling you to justice that you actually can’t rationalize or or justify from the consequences like okay, I’m Maybe you can think of an example but Okay, whatever like say I’m gonna go to church this Sunday I’m not gonna go to church this Sunday because I’ll feel better afterwards or You know, I’m gonna commune with the community. I’ll get to talk to my friends or I’m gonna whatever have this said effect afterwards I’m going to church on Sunday because that’s the right thing to do because I’m participating in goodness I’m participate and being a just human being so when they don’t want people to they’re they’re cautious of with the poets of people identifying in the effects of of a higher a higher ethic and they don’t want They’re not wanting children to get confused with these second-order effects or consequences and I start identifying in them That way they want to remove that intermediary thing Um, oh on the sorry, I’ll be brief on this so with the whole fear of death thing that that’s really interesting there So I Will say that so I was an eighth I self identified as an atheist for like ten years or whatever because I thought that really a coping mechanism for mortality and it wasn’t till I it wasn’t till I Started seeing things differently like oh this not like worrying about afterlife or anything like that I Reading the stories of Jesus and the Saints and stuff like that it had a profoundly more Effect on me because it’s like oh, this is all about now like We’re not taking consequences of after death where everything has meaning right now in this life. So You’re not doing something out of fear something after you die you do it out of fear something that will happen right now or You’re doing something because of the effects right now or or you have immediate access to The goodness right now, it’s not something that you’ll experience Sometime after you die so anyways, I I really resonated with that what they’re doing with removing fear of death or something like that or pull there It’s bringing the titles back in again So I don’t know if they’re saying this with the like with respect to teleology or they did mention that like the simple musician and the simple like athlete The very exercises and tolls which they undergo are intended to stimulate the spirited element of their nature so I don’t know if that’s Another way of saying People live out what they are And if I don’t know if that’s the same thing as saying I’m gonna do good because it’s the good thing to do Right I Mean this is there a difference of just saying But you know because I’m because I’m a man, let’s say I’m going to Do the right thing Or yeah, I don’t I don’t know I don’t know Because like that’s more of a bottom-up Approach at behavior. Yeah, but that I think that’s the distinction between honor culture Relating to the trans tantrum right so all the honor culture is like the culture is requiring a certain role of you right and and then you are granted your identity by Society and then who you are is in some sense how good you can live up to your role Which is actually something that that they’re playing around in the Republic with but well When you get your identity granted down from above right like to recalling It’s it’s different Because What what what what is the enforcement well the enforcement in one Tie is is dishonor right like that’s why it’s called an honor culture like you you lose the honor And maybe you own a little of your family or whatever right and Oh yeah, we talked about all of the other time right and The materialization of the spirit right so so there’s there’s a material material Framing in relation to the spirit that that is The enforcement right you can also just have the spiritual be its own enforcement right and then decouple it from From society and and its oppression and and I think Dealing this this idea with that right like like I never liked that argument like but in in order to Be free and it’s actually interesting that The guardians are there to maintain the freedom of the state right so there’s there’s this there’s this call to be free and If you’re identified against dying right because you’re scared You are not free to act right like you you’re enslaved to that fear right and so there there is a need to Transcend that fear right and like You can say well. I identify with my family’s honor or something right and then if if I If I tamed my family’s owner down like I need to remove myself in order for for this higher Entity to to possess right you can also say well. There are these principles or There’s this divine Being that I participate It is it is more important to stay true to that than To lose my life because I will lose my life if I’m not true to that and I think I think there They are flirting with that idea right like But under this is a book for but but they’re basically saying when When you’re not just Your Spiritually ill like like just isn’t is in some sense the health of your spirit Yeah like and that means that you’re dead right because like like or you’re dying because that’s what Being ill or being diseased is like you’re dying. You’re not functioning properly You’re moving away from life Yeah, I like that So Instead of justice being the thermostat. I guess the from the question that I have in my mind is whether the honor culture and And coupling with a role is necessary because they talk about the harmonious souls being Temperate and courageous and the in harmonious would be cowardly and boorish So in my mind that’s more of a grounding out in the individual experience like that like to me that’s a way to gauge the temperature of Like, you know if you’re if you’re if your soul isn’t is not is in harmonious You’re gonna have problems, right? It’s just not gonna work like functionally or something Practically and I don’t know if that’s dependent upon the tyranny of the state So why are you making that connection Now what I didn’t follow that connection at all so Manuel was saying that if you take if if if if your aims are dependent upon Like it are informed by an honor culture Then that means your aims are gonna be I guess It’s very directed by some kind of top-down force Or something like that. I guess I guess for what I see is the chapter 3 There’s some kind of macrocosm the state is a macrocosm and then the individuals like a microcosm of similar Of Yeah, but that’s the scaling issue that I was talking about before right well But you sets up the scaling problem You can’t understand justice from the perspective of one or more people you have to look at it from a city down Okay, I so you can’t you can’t start you can’t start from You you can’t so the can you does that mean that? Are you limited in your ability to discern as an individual? Yes, absolutely. That’s that’s what book two says clearly. That’s the scaling problem It says you can’t take the scale of an individual looking across the landscape and say this person that person these people and understand justice Totally make sense In the sum total of all the people being just it has to be which means you’re down here Here you can’t be down here and understand the thing up here. It’s that simple You have to realize that later was separating society into groups right He’s making three groups right like he’s making Plabs and then he’s having the guardians right and then he’s having the ruling class within the guardian right so These these three groups what what are they based upon? But they’re based upon the capacity for discernment Right like all the plaques they they don’t have the soul that is required to be a guardian like this That is required to be a guardian like this guardians have this crazy quality What what is this quality related to and actually? I Think I think there was a qualifier about book three because it was only in relation to the education of the guardians that that they’re talking So so we have to keep that in mind right, but so so so what but There’s there’s the spiritual attunement right that that these guardians have Apparently Plato things that that allows them This different relationship right like that either was talking about to the ideal right and I think it’s important to realize that That’s not everybody like that’s literally not meant for everybody Yeah, how they’re gonna do this or that’s a separate problem, but it’s an interesting point Yeah, I think that is that that is the Right they keep thinking that well the whole book is about politics obviously obviously false Stated out front and then you can look at book three and say okay We have to throw out all the poets But book three is only talking about throwing out the poets for the education of the guardians not for everybody And and then and then the problem is gonna come in at the end I suspect although I haven’t read ahead That now you have to integrate all that so now you have a different set of problems Even though you fixed them in each little area Now you have a different set of problem because It’s not like you’re gonna prevent the guardians from running into the poets if they’re there for other purposes And this is where I think people get confused Because in here for example. He’s not making a good case against poetry as such If that were the kid like oh city can’t have poets in it. That’s not the case in book three at all And if it were it’s it he does a terrible job There actually is a part where he says if we encounter if somebody visits our city. That’s a Good poet celebrate him. You know as being something something wonderful wonderful I am will will will nicely ask him to leave Right right. We’ll get him the hell out right Yeah, I thought that was funny I I’m not sure if I can connect these dots, but so I the the thing that I they mentioned when in temperance and disease multiply in a state that basically increases demand for roles like doctors and lawyers and Then they talk about how like if you’re like the law nerd like I’m top lawyer I pride myself in litigiousness and they then they say in all for what in order to gain small points not worth mentioning and not know he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a Napping judge is far higher and nobler sort of thing. So that’s like a scathing criticism of let’s say like This is a man who maybe at one level could be say like oh, I I’m occupying a an honorable high office Like I’m I’m I’m I’m decorating myself with achievement or something like that, right? But but then he kind of What Socrates does he he kicks the leg out under that by saying oh well, it’s all for nothing, you know You’re it’s actually a waste, you know, so that’s kind of why I say like I’m not sure if honors good like binding Glue oh no, but it’s but but honors not binding glue in it honor culture honors a measure Right. That’s that’s what honor culture is. It’s measuring honor as the way to understand people But but the point that Socrates is making and this I think is where everybody’s confused, right? He’s saying If the lawyer points at litigiousness as their goal, I want to be a good lawyer Then law will be destroyed by that lawyer automatically Interesting thing like if you have a class of lawyer Like if you start I think maybe this ties back into the temperance if you have a whole class of lawyers It’s going to destroy things like if you have a whole class of doctors They’re going to start it’s almost like they’re going to start inventing diseases for them to cure because of their purposes Right, but it’s not even required to have a whole class. It’s only required that They start pointing at what they’re doing Instead of the thing that gives them the reason for what they’re doing or the final right, right exactly Like if a lawyer points at justice all all litigiousness will be just When they point at litigiousness all litigiousness will be litigious It’s that self-referencing problem and that’s that’s what he’s pointing to he’s not pointing to anything else Everybody who’s reading into this is just reading into it Yeah, something that has an inner t tiliology something that’s pointing like we’re talking about earlier if it’s pointed inwards You can just immediately see that it’s not no good can come from it so is that what he’s saying is he’s like Temperance like we don’t want to have too many doctors or too many But it’s not I don’t I don’t think it’s about the amount of doctors because what he says is He’s saying that there’s two vices right like one is luxury and The other one is what is it poorness? I don’t know what the word is Anyway so so he’s saying you can have either too much and if you have too much you have to deal Excess right because the excess is gonna introduce a corruption, right if you have too little You’re gonna have to deal with the consequence of the lack because like now people are gonna enforce their own Means because they have their needs not met right And so you can’t have either and that’s what temperance is Well, yeah, how are you gonna do that like I don’t know It’s interesting the the the Hebrews in their tradition, which is our tradition as well They have they actually opt for excess and they have a means of dealing with excess With the number seven Sabbath The way that you deal with excess oh Yeah, yeah, yeah And I think that’s what book 3 is all about is setting up this rhetorical framing not to make a point as Such but to set up the methodology of the point that it’s gonna be making There’s another interesting thing this remind me of what you said it a couple you said a couple weeks ago regarding affluence if you have if you have an increased amount of affluence people are going to Essentially you have a bunch of retired people doing nothing and You know, I think that’s a good thing to do is to set up a methodology To They’re essentially you can have a bunch of retired people doing nothing and Falling out of their roles and then then they’d be Serious whatever has intemperant and so they you know, they start chasing things that are not justice, which If you could identify some of these things in Western culture and art, you know when they started pursuing things that were like I think we talked about this a little bit last night, but like the art starts to be removed from a higher good or Beauty you talk about this a lot like you say well beauty won’t save the world. I’ll say something like well beauty starts becoming separated from it’s the thing that it’s subordinated to Right when you when you when you start pointing at beauty alone Right or anything, but you will just use beauty because you brought it up What happens is you start to make beautiful things for the sake of beauty Yeah, and then now you you’re you’re unmoored from The truth of beauty and the goodness of beauty right because it’s pointing at itself and and that is the problem of luxury and the problem of not having Props not just roles. It’s proper roles and and this is why You know when somebody says oh, I have this stupid job They have a point. It’s just not a good one It’s like well, yeah Everybody has a stupid job though by your definition and that’s what happens when you dig into these definite. They’re all jobs are pointless Yep, they are and and either in their implementation or in their aim and Vanity about the Republic And you’re Christian Easter well No, but do you see the access is in the ability to pursue something for its own Tree is I can pursue eating for the sake of eating I can pursue Going out on my boat for the sake of enjoying going out on my boat rather than Working working working and then going oh, I’m working too hard. I need to go out of my boat Because now you’re not You’re not pursuing the one thing Luxury allows you to pursue one thing to the exclusion of the other things and then we get into this Oh, you know what? I want I want more beauty. I just want more right there’s Narrowing right and so you end up narrowing on a transcendental Luxury allows us to do The succubus is actually Also because it’s another narrowing well, then that’s the thing it’s not it’s not just is it parasitic That’s a good one, right? Does it narrow or does it broaden? Right, because if if it narrows It will become parasitic eventually right or or you can narrow on beauty and be lost in beauty forever So since we’re talking about the Transcendentals I actually think I can map that on chapter 3 Because I was I was talking about truth, right? Like oh, yeah, he’s talking about the gods and making things true Then then we go to music which is about beauty And then the last part is Is about physicality goodness, right and they kind of define goodness as as perfection or Right, like being able to fulfill your function or whatever So I think it’s pretty fair to map these three on on to the chapter and say well In order to have a proper person like they need to develop Their relationship with these transcendentals and then they have three aspects effectively religion Arts and sports How are you mapping those to truth goodness and beauty well religion is dealing with truth Being true. Oh Well, that’s the way that they’re doing it in this chapter Where are you making that connection Well, like they’re they’re they’re they’re talking about all of this Imitation, right? I’m not like like the way I read the imitation is lying, right? So we’re talking I Imitation and truth could be linked. I mean, I think it’s bad translation at that point, but I get the point of what you’re saying How are you? How are you? linking Well, because it because they’re they’re stating it in relation to the nature of the gods, right like like In True in the world, we need to have a true understanding of the gods which are the source of our our acting in the world I’m convinced that’s fair Like the only thing that I’m skeptical about but like I’m skeptical about the use of goodness in the whole book So like that’s not new is that they’re connecting goodness with with I guess embodied practice, right? Which is yeah, like Mate like well, I guess the ethics. Oh, yeah, right like like there’s an athlete I think that’s right. Yeah, cuz being is good Yeah, I guess So I can’t argue with that one either no you convinced me that sounds like a good mapping I didn’t I didn’t see any of that I Know Okay, so this was the thing that came up for me so I’m listening to book four Right. And so they’re taking it back to the person right from from the city back to the person and I’m like Yeah, but like this doesn’t fit for me like like I feel like it’s infuriated like you wanted to get to a certain outcome in the person and Therefore you framed the city in a certain way like I like I even the natural sequence of The argument like I just I just don’t see it. But that will talk about them or later Well, I would argue that all of book three is an unnatural sequence full of Ridiculous and absurd Perfection standards and incorrect statements like some of this stuff is absurd Like like I said before like this is this is absolutely Crazy talk at some point the way they’re discussing this right and I understand a lot of that is the framing Right. No, this is for the Guardians. This is a specific case But they do say things like well We have to expel them from the city like we can’t It’s like well, it seems a little heavy-handed if you’re just talking about one group Yeah, well They’re not talking about one group, right because they were also talking about myths for the whole people right, but like they were they were just tearing the level of myths and level of understanding required on each tier and I don’t know if it’s in this book, but they’re gonna talk about this philosopher king, right? I’m this philosopher king is is like the only person who’s Supposed to have true knowledge. All right, like everybody else is supposed to live in a delusion Yeah, oh only the one person is supposed to not live in a delusion Imperfection which is a different a delusion is a lie Which is a different a delusion is a lie and imperfection is just an incomplete Yeah, well, yeah anyway It’s interesting that there’s an inversion there because there’s the the philosophy king is not allowed to have physical Relations, right? Like so he’s not allowed to have money or like that’s supposed to be all taken care of So there’s this this shifting of of groundedness in the spiritual versus groundedness And I think that’s that’s what the other things are supposed to Supposed to be right like a king I think that this is this is again. This is the deep confusion. That’s right here in book three He’s not making statements about how things should be That’s not here He’s making statements about the problems you’d run into with ideals This is a you’re an idealist a here’s all the problems with idealism. That’s So far what the books been about it’s been you these solutions you think our solutions are not solutions because everything’s connected and so He look I I’ve told people this for years You keep talking about Philosopher Kings without realizing that Plato himself proved Philosopher Kings aren’t useful like he’s he’s explicit about it He’s so explicit about it me who didn’t read the damn book knows this and I’ve asked many people about it and they’re like Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s right in the book that it doesn’t work. You could have one once ever and Because even the person who was that Good couldn’t pick a successor. That’s like the whole thing He’s basically saying here’s the ideal ultimate solution to the problem. It’s already impractical It’s already absurd and then he’s saying and that doesn’t work because that person won’t necessarily have the skill of discernment Because they’re up here Yes Right. In other words, you can’t fix these things This is not a manual of how to run a society It’s a manual of what’s wrong with running a society. Those are two different things They are like I’m I’m watching all of these series about games and stuff and it’s like everything that goes wrong is or not everything that most things that go wrong are because the king is Involved in the political games and the political power struggles of the lesser level not on the level of the king so I think having having a Gap there so When you put the gap in now the king can’t govern That’s part of Plato’s point is that you can put the gap there But now the king can’t govern but in other words, you can’t get out of the connectedness of everything That’s really all this is saying which should be obvious to absolutely everybody who ever lived but apparently Is just being ignored by everybody in recent times. We’ll say Need an errand What do we have for notes next in Well before we move past music I guess one thing that struck me is how strongly many of your appeals are dependent upon taste So they say things like certain harmonies express the spirit of sorrow and we don’t want certain types of people to be too sorrowful Therefore we have certain types of music You know that that that uh create like courageousness in times of war or what was the other thing? Uh, I lost track of my notes, right? But they they talk about how like there’s kind of an effect of Certain types of musics and harmonies have certain types of effects um, but what I found interesting is that You know, they’re supposedly having this like rational frame. It’s sort of like what ethan was saying about um In terms of the monotheism thing. How did how do they know to make this objection? In a similar manner. I I found it. Why is it that so much of their so supposedly rational framing is dependent upon Like saying if we want to educate people with the right taste Therefore right and it kind of goes under the radar But that’s not irrational. This is the problem with rationality Rationality doesn’t solve that problem and cannot solve that problem. This is why Vervicki wants to extend rationality, right? Oh, look at all the problems rationality has no chance of ever addressing But I like rationality so we need to make it address all these things. It’s like no, that’s not how that works The the the rationale For something is in the framing and if you want to see that in action, I can recommend last night’s live stream Where I basically demonstrated this to solve Religion by using law And so they’re there trying to You know make statements about what is good and what is better and why society needs Certain set of laws, right? And I was saying where are you getting your discernment from? Which it was perfect for the topic of the stream, right and they couldn’t provide it So they were saying this is perfectly rational and I said great show me the rationale like let’s step through the rationale And they couldn’t like actually could you could just watch it? You could watch them and not be able to do it and not even try And I said no, that’s a tautology And that’s because you can’t do without tautology. The question is what tautology do you pick? And I would say you and I said this on last night’s stream Being is good. It’s not that hard. And then when you start there a bunch of things make more sense in this book Right. So chapter two Is talking about You can’t get at justice by talking about People or groups of people you need to talk about the city. Why because groups of people are not a city A city is something one layer up from mere groups of people That’s not to say that groups of people aren’t one layer up from individual person or one layer up from family Whatever. It’s to say in order to even start to talk about justice We need to go one layer up and then in book three All right. Well given the constraints we’ve already have Would you say right because this is all about your personal opinion this is another trick I suspect that socrates is about to Play right that’s going to unfold in the in the course of the book Uh, if I know my man and I think I kind of do What he’s going to do is he’s going to pull the rug out from under your personal opinion But right now he’s just appealing personal opinion. Would you agree that would you say that don’t you think that right? it’s all about getting the opponent to Acquiesce to something that is within the range of the point that socrates is trying to make right and it’s Look, it’s a fun case. I’ve played it many times um But that’s the that’s the key is that he’s not trying to make Plains of objective truth beauty goodness justice, etc. He’s not he’s not in that game He’s actually in what I would call the scientific game or the philosophic game is probably more accurate, right? Which is to say The intersubjective agreement that allows us to cooperate Dictates what the city should look like which is Necessarily true right and and but he’s gonna Cast that as a bunch of perfect systems and then show you why they’re not perfect Ending with the philosopher king, right or maybe that’s not how it ends. I haven’t I haven’t read ahead yet uh, so The trick that’s that’s the whole course of the socratic method like in a in a box. That’s the whole thing Right and so the intersubjective agreement Is if that’s important We tend to fly by things that are like, uh in the in the music section they talk about Affinity to wantiveness is bad Intemperance is bad and then and then that leads you to love and beauty and like usually Again, usually even talking with in the modern day There’s like people just don’t ever push back on those terms You know when you’re in a rationalist frame then people get to the what do you mean by that and type of stuff? um But in our egalitarian culture, I think a lot of the times if you know, there’s not there’s not much talk on aesthetics love taste um I don’t know how to open that Because you can’t like this is the whole this is the whole point that paul vanderkley makes left right and center so he he ripped apart the talk between jordan peterson and laurence cross Right and he said listen to what laurence cross is saying he’s using these words that aren’t rational words They’re not logical. They’re not reasoned words, right? They’re feeling words. They’re emotion words And then he’s building his physics or his scientific argument on top of that. Okay And what vanderkley is trying to explain to hopefully everybody is that That’s what everyone does Purely scientific argument that doesn’t exist You can’t rationalize your way into truth beauty and goodness or to love or to any Doesn’t have the ability to do Anything in that space? Those tools are useless useless for the most important aspects Of life and so what people are doing is you start from axioms and then you proceed with your Rational behavior or your rationality or whatever You have to you don’t have a choice The problem is that first move is religion always like that. You can’t avoid that problem You have to have a highest value to pursue a rational frame It doesn’t work otherwise The rationality just breaks down and again if you want to see that last night’s live stream was a good example They were trying to rationalize their way into something that they didn’t have a frame for and when you don’t have a frame you can’t Invoke rationality and they tried and tried and tried and they couldn’t do it like they just couldn’t even Go there. It was kind of hysterical. I mean, I thought it was hysterical, but then I have weird tastes I The music section always kind of just gloss over it because I get like It’s hard for me to understand like I can’t like It’s a part of their culture that we just don’t have like I don’t Take well, we need this mode we don’t need this mode. Yeah, I guess you get the point that you know, we’re they’re speaking to Um Did you call it tastes? I don’t know if I would use that word but um higher ideals like we want to direct They’re talking about spirits, right? They’re saying when you do music you summon a spirit and you only want to summon certain spirits That’s The way to look at this in modern times is the pushback against pop music It’s it’s literally the case. He’s making yeah, he’s saying there’s certain types of music that are dangerous And I mean, i’m a big fan of good pop music, but like most pop music is total garbage and should be expunged from the planet. So Like i’m right there with soccer. Jesus. Yeah, it’s actually kind of terrifying Did a recording with bruce this week and i’m going to release it on monday Um, like we talked about that and he was like, yeah, um, maybe i’m Not fully upholding my christian values when I engage with these things Yeah, that was inside he had It’s actually kind of terrifying because you know when you think you live in a dead objective world There’s like of course everything’s just dead material. It’s like of course this kind of music isn’t gonna Summon any spirits, you know, it’s like there’s no such thing as summoning bad spirits and then um Okay, so last week, you know, I went to the symphony And the the symphony is actually nicknamed tragic and um, I was the program notes how um moller’s wife this moller six symphony was Being this music And there were themes of of death of children, right? And she was like you she was critical of him doing that. It’s like you can’t you can’t write music about that you know and um A couple years later one of his children actually ended up dying and uh, um His his response was is like well composers are so and composers have what they’re doing is they actually have a a deep connection to to the world and it was more or less a prophecy than an invocation which is an interesting thing to say but um Yeah, um, hopefully when my wife’s pregnant so um Maybe definitely heard it and she said he was active the whole time. So I don’t know if I if I I don’t it’s kind of frightening. So For better or for worse, we’ll see well, maybe we won’t see it’s not something you can measure but Yeah Yeah, well and and and that is it like there is a spirit And that’s what this is pointing to is that people can’t take it over by these spirits Of music in particular, right? That’s the most obvious to say like it’s hard for people to deny that humans are Possessed by music in some by some definition of possession like i’d like to see somebody Make the counter argument there. Uh, I don’t think you can think of like, um the punk rock culture, right? I mean The punk rock culture, right? I mean Music is definitely linked to a particular kind of that’s probably not a good word. It’s definitely linked to us a kind of Don’t see them having tea time Well, that’s what that’s what that’s what different musical genres are supposed to represent Is the spirit that they’re invoking, right? And so speed metal invokes a certain spirit Uh spirit I happen to like But you know, there’s a spirit there for sure right there’s a it’s high tempo high speed music Right. I used to use it to get work done and I would get a crap ton of work done when I was listening to metallica or tool or something, right and You know Eventually, maybe you can’t do that anymore. You shouldn’t do that anymore, right? You should try to move at that pace, right and And Or as opposed to you know, bethoven 6 which is obviously the best piece of music ever but um in any genre so That’s not a different spirit, right? That’s totally weird. Um It just reminded me a couple weeks ago. I was listening to motzart actually in the garage and I was trying to get work done I couldn’t I like it It it crippled me I could get work done but when I was listening to the mauler I just was zipped through everything Yeah, right really weird. Well, it well, there’s this there’s an alignment like there’s certain things I almost never do this but there are certain things I can do while I listen to bethoven 6 But usually when i’m listening to bethoven 6 i’m in a bath of water or I’m driving somewhere, you know that I know I can listen to the whole thing And i’m on straight roads or something i’m not like a highway I’m listening to it to relax. I’m almost never listening to it to work. There are there are times when I do that but Is important and yeah, the composer is a prophet who’s Talking about these spirits now if you prophesy something does it come true or are you prophesying things so they don’t come true? Or is prophecy something else in time? Like I got nothing right but but there’s a point to the spirit of the music that is being talked about in in book three where Well, yeah, we have to ban this because of the danger of it possessing people And I think if you watch the anadromist, uh youtube channel burn powers one of burn powers youtube channels The how we got here series is all about that He’s following the spirit of music and how it leaks in or impacts the culture. However, you want to think about it? And these cycles the roughly 10 year cycles Uh that that that happened, right? And so there’s something to that. I mean it’s here in book three it’s also and how we got here by the anadromist like Everybody’s seeing it throughout time you can pick any point in time and they’ll talk about the dangerous new music Right, they’ll talk about the right music Or no music if they’re aesthetics This is a perennial issue So another thing that I found interesting is that The the concept of a style and introduces a temporal element because they mentioned that there’s a correspondence between Uh music and a style but styles change over time, which is why we we can’t just snapshot bethoven 6 And say freeze it for forever and say I mean, I think it’s you know, I think it’s amazing and great but you know over time you do have to adapt to You know the modern, you know your your your context And that changes over time So we we can’t just we can’t even take we can’t even take their frame of saying well We need to censor the following harmonies and like maybe we only want to have the figurian mode patterns and adorian mode patterns for our society You can’t even do that because of the concept of style Like it changes over time. I don’t I i’ve never heard bethoven 6 Beethoven was dead when I was here I’m not that old Right. I’ve never heard bethoven 6 ever No one has Not anyone alive Right. So what have I heard? Well, you know, look i’ll i’ll fight for the blue label all day long right, and I and I actually despise Most of the other renditions of bethoven 6 i’m super picky because i’m detail oriented So the tempo has to be right everything has to be spot on or i’m just not I’m not down with it and a lot of people speed up the beginning And right so there’s all these little nuances so yeah, and that is the but what is that I would argue That’s the revivification that jordan peterson talks about You have to revivify these things right and so the style has to be revivified in some sense Presentation uh because things are moving And and that that is going to end up being the key problem and everything is that things are always moving solid answer So I I want to drag it into something else because the thing that I ended up talking about with bruce is He said I I segregate when I listen to the music And I don’t listen to the text and the thing that I have to say is like well, but like Do you think that’s good like like? segregated right like See so there’s stuff where I can deal with that I don’t think that’s the question. I’m like, yeah deal with things but Like that is the question if we’re Pointing at ideal or like like what is the relationship I should have? What is the relationship that I can have? And I think that’s kind of what what what they’re exploring. I like like what is that the relationship that you should have Right, and then yeah, it’s like well, yeah, if you’re gonna do all these things Then you’re gonna end up with a messy situation when you start implementing because like you obviously can’t and I think That’s that’s the issue right like you you start pushing on this side of the equation and then something else on the other side pops off Yeah, you were you were kind of choppy there for a while manual bad bad bandwidth Um, and now your camera looks better too, so maybe your bandwidth is back online. Yeah, I I How do you address this can we summarize what you just said because he robot it heavily um, yeah, okay, I I’ll i’ll do it again. Am I good now? Yep Okay, so so there’s this idea that you’re You’re when you separate things friends like like i’m not watching at this this aspect of reality For example in a song like i’m listening not listening to the text. I’m just here to swing on the rhythm over there right, but now you’re you’re you’re you’re changing yourself into a person that is tuning out the text and Like that’s not good like you’re not supposed to be that person Can you even do that? Yeah, like like you you can you think you can do that? But like like what is what is this spirit? But like is this spirit only relating to To the things that you’re aware of or or is this actually something that’s resonating? Inside of you and you can just look away from what it’s resonating with and still have the effects of the resonance Well, and and also are you sure that you can filter the unconscious signals? Coming from the music in the form of the speech And when I for example nowadays listen to music from way back or whatever i’m like Oh I didn’t Understand at the time how significant these lyrics were so if if you want the meaning crisis For example, you can go listen to some of the rock operas From back in the day Synthetics Uh, mr. Roboto and you can hear it right in that song, right? full albums like that because It’s the same the same thing right? They’re talking about the same thing Uh throughout because it’s an opera. It’s an actual opera um And and that’s the issue is it can you really filter that out or do you feel that? Irrespective of how consciously I would argue that the unconscious Signaling is way more significant. It sways you way more than anything conscious can by definition If it’s conscious you can rationalize it. And so you you have that yoke of rationality on it with unconscious things There’s no rationality the unconscious by definition. Those things are moving you period end of statement um Maybe your emotions mitigates them But you don’t have the extra tool of your rationality to mitigate them Um That actually makes me think about this idea that I think in orthodox christianity your house needs to be blessed every year Right. So there’s there’s this sanctification of your space right where Effectively you’re casting away this evil spirit, right? And I was like, well, yeah like If if there is this place right which has in the history or whatever Like like how much are you affected by that history? right and like What what is required? for you to be able to to live there without Succumbing to that influence. Yeah, that’s some really interesting questions, but like like are these That that live there right or or or are grounded in in a physicality? just When when you go into a holy site or like you i’m now thinking of the temple of amritsar, right? Like omen temple of the seeks, right? And then everybody walks in in a circle around it right and there’s this lake. There’s there’s definitely a specific Spirit that that is there right and then and not far away from that There’s this place where the british soldiers like shot like a bunch of indian protesters I think that was during gandhi’s thing and that like escalated the whole interaction between the british and the indians and so but that that place also has a spirit like and it’s really distinct from from the spirit, which is only like like half a mile away And and and they’re both there, right? And And in some sense people want to keep it there right like they actually spent effort to To to maintain that spirit in that location And and I guess I guess that’s that’s what making it sacred is right like like the one the one part is is made sacred because it has religious context and the other one is made sacred because it has A somewhat political but also historical significance Yeah, did you did you the music Sorry, you roboted. Did I what the music? Did you follow the point about the music? Did I follow the point about the music? Um I mean the there’s I mean it’s music is a way for us to train faculties That’s very clear. I think in the text um But I don’t think that’s a secret. I don’t know if that’s the main point Um, no, I mean they were they were excluding music on certain grounds Right. This bothers the musician for some reason who would have seen that coming Oh I mean it’s clear that you can’t do that on on on grounds that this is all I mean This is all a rhetorical exploration. You know, we’re not arguing for any one point So, I mean, yeah, you can’t you can’t I mean, but that’s that’s that that’s without Doesn’t even need to be said um To me this the whole the whole the whole thing about the music section is kind of like we started with the poetry thing and then it’s you know, we’re leading into music which is ironic because it’s like it’s saying like the only way to explore this is Like by doing it or like by I don’t know. I don’t know how to put it into words exactly. Um It’s like it’s I don’t know I don’t know how to respond to that question I guess no I guess the answer is no I think I think there’s a deliberate structure to the book The poetry and then the music and then right there’s there’s progression here that seems rather Does not a piece of uh prose in the in the classic sense. It’s more of a What can we learn about justice textbook? uh done in narrative form I mean I see patterns and my eyes are mostly looking towards the excellence of the Towards the excellence of the soul and toward that i’m mostly concerned with the individual And I see patterns in the ordering of the way that they want to of the the their process of education Like you start with an image of god and then That informs a bunch of stuff downstream And you can’t you can’t really start with rationality and get anywhere useful That that all that frame is very clear Um now the reason there’s a ton of stuff that I love in this text that resonates with me at a personal level Which I haven’t really mentioned any of right, so those are kind of more of the details of especially when they have these like scathing comments about like Say having a career in law or you know over and over indexing on the gym or being too, uh, too much music, right? A lot of that like I relate to on a on a personal level on all kinds of stuff, um But I don’t know. I don’t know that they’re trying to make a point about music. It’s just it seems to be an intertwined necessary part of life Like well, it’s not a it’s not a point about music Like they’re making the same set of points about everything if you want a book about patterns Yeah Some patterns everywhere like you’re just trying to exemplify the same problem over and over again by putting it in different contexts. That’s So far, I mean, maybe that’ll change but yeah, but I yeah, but yeah, but I think it’s also pointing at a different nature, right? So We’re getting to the harmony and and and tune right so it’s it’s also Building a metaphor To talk about things right? So I think I think the harmony part Is Is related to to temperance like I think I think the temperance isn’t so so And and the truth part is Is is related to wisdom Because i’m i’m using a framing that will come in a nice chapter. So they’re talking about uh the four virtues right and so the wisdom temperance What was the other one? justice, um Courage courage, right? And and so courage is going to come with with the physicality, right? Like so courage is is I had a definition that here is Courageous knowledge of what really is That that was a definition that I I got from a comment on on the text right, so so there’s There’s There’s the way that you’re affected right like okay like There and and this this goes into stoicism right there’s this idea that When when things happen, right? Like either you can affect them or they’re just happening and I think I think that’s What what they’re talking about when when there’s like what what is really is but like what? What are the things that you have agency over and what are the things that you don’t have agency over? and that allows you to Go in straight and ignore the fact that you’re going to die for example, right? Because you’re you’re already fated to die And then you can choose the way that you die instead of Whether you have to choose whether whether you’re going to die or not, right? And and I think that’s that’s the thing The basis for courage, right? So so So I think what they’re also setting up is they’re setting up these three virtues which are apparently in my mind relating to these three transcendentals and then they they’re effectively saying that justice is Is something That is outside or above these three virtues And or or within them or whatever so so there’s Justice is the thing that connects the other virtues and puts them in right relationship But i’m i’m getting ahead of it But I guess i’m i’m starting to see what what book three is about Well, that’s that’s great victory Yeah, I think I think you know this I like your charm danny over it and you pay attention to just the one thing whether it’s the gym or the legal system or Your your role Right. It doesn’t matter That’s where the corruption is Which is not a treaty against expertise. It’s just to say you can’t pay attention to the one thing So what do you want? You want a well-rounded lawyer? You know you want one that knows how to sail or uh, you know, it goes to the symphony Right or both Right, and and it’s that well roundedness Even though the availability for the law will be less, right? Because he’s spending some of his time out of the boat and some of his time at the symphony instead of working on the cases It’s better for justice It may not be better for him. It may not be better for you, but it’s better for justice It’s like oh, so there’s all these trade-offs and sacrifices that we have to make to Engage with things like justice Of the nature of justice might be the best better way to say it Yeah, and so I I kind of have well couple problems there, right because They keep they keep saying well, you’re supposed to be the best lawyer, right? And like I I agree that in order to be a good lawyer, you need to have this broad grounding um So that there seems to be an inherent contradiction because like now you have this problem with like how much do you open up? I but I don’t I don’t no, I don’t The whole point of saying if Your goal is to be a good litigator. You will destroy the law Is that point? It’s the same point. Yeah, you can’t focus on only litigation To make a good lawyer, you can’t do it. It won’t work. It will corrupt instantaneously Yeah, but it doesn’t give you a path forward quite like no it’s not supposed that’s the whole point. Okay. Yeah, but that That is that is that is a problem And now that we go to the problem. He’s exemplifying the problems. He’s not This is what people are confused about This book is not about solving any problems it’s not it’s about re-enchanting the world and saying look how hard it is Let’s just take something simple like justice that everybody when they hear it. I know what justice is right away I know what’s just okay. Maybe I don’t know what justice is, but I know what’s just in every situation Do you do you because you don’t? You don’t It’s hard. It’s way too hard for you And and that’s why you have to deal with things that seem in just to you because a they might not be because what the hell Do you know and b it doesn’t matter because you can’t implement perfect justice So now you you have to accept those facts. It’s not Trying to resolve the problem of justice in the same way that people mistake it for resolving the problem of politics It’s not resolving any problems and it’s certainly not talking about politics You Awakening to as opposed to awakening from type of deal exactly. It’s not it’s not a awakening To justice right? It’s an awakening from justice Yeah, I don’t know like this I I I just have this Problem with this people your logical profession whatever danny you I think you want to take us to the To the part where we do the physical stuff Uh, so I guess we got to go through art I guess art first Um, okay. Yeah, so I think after the music piece they get into the art piece Um, let’s see. What do I have there? Um, oh I they’ll I only have one note there which is a quote. Maybe it’s just something I found idiosyncratically interesting I guess i’ll just read it because I don’t even know what my notes say We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity. This is an interpretate my interpretation That was a quote now because that’ll corrupt our soul basically Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful Then will our youth dwell in the land of health amid far sights and sounds and receive the good and everything and beauty the The effluence of fair works shall flow into the eye and ear like a health-giving breeze from a purer region And insensibly draw the soul from earnest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason I guess the rest of that was just kind of a poetic flowery picture of You know, um, I mean it was artistic, you know You know, I you know, it’s just kind of painting this picture but I guess I get you know, but basically, you know that they’re talking about how they they want to censor Uh the more like images of moral deformity Um, so that it doesn’t corrupt the soul of their youth And so that kind of is related to this the idea images it introduces the concept of images Um as well as imitation um Because we can pause there I don’t know if we want to get into that. What do you guys think? Um, i’ve got to i’ve got to prepare for My next book club here soon, so I might have to leave a little early. Okay, it is 10 50. Um If we want we can maybe kind of start to wind down the next 15 minutes um Sure Yeah, I I think the pattern is established in all three of these Formulas, right that he’s laying out, right? so the The physical is the only one that Uh that we didn’t really talk about at all, but I i’m not sure the pattern is any different from music and art Yeah, I guess that’s I I don’t know either if there’s a difference between sight and sound right that that was the only I mean that was the only you know question that I had is Is there a difference between the sound and or an image? um in in terms of how they’re using the illustration and I I don’t know I I think they’re both pointing Right, um, I think that’s what you have to look at. Okay, like there’s ways that we manifest beauty Manifesting beauty like poetry is manifesting truth um And there’s all these other arts that manifest beauty and Um in some sense right like Because what was it? Yeah, like you have your artisans, right like like this Doing your job. Well, right or your craft. Well is also an art. All right, so like that in some sense the beauty aspect is Is necessarily in The perfection or your your your Following of one calling Like you will necessarily end up in beauty Um Yeah, I think I think we can wind down I think i wanna next week We’re also talking a little bit about narrative narration because I think we kind of skipped over the way though It was used. Yeah, he does he does touch on that. I found that interesting Um, yeah, so let’s just call it um Have A reflection on the things that were salient to you during the talk and how they’re You know apply to your week Yeah, and I hope to see everybody again next week So So So So So So So I was I was thinking about this sequence right where it’s like truth is like the grounding Um And then the beauty is like creating affordances or Impuging you with spirit And then you have the participation where you You find the expression you find Yourself within that like I think that’s the path That is implied I’d put goodness at the grounding Truth is motion To so it can’t be grounding But if you ground in being as good then a lot of problems go away just saying The beauty is the affordance Oh interesting I mean Yeah, I well maybe it’s just This is what education is supposed to be and then at a certain point Well, if you But if you focus on truth as an object then you’re going to corrupt everything on the scene This is the whole modern problem like oh No, but the truth is the patterns which the myth provides right This truth is the problem. Okay, it’s not truth. It’s the true It’s an action it’s how close you are to the thing It’s it’s the arrow. It’s not the target Truth is a target True is not a target True friendship is not a goal that like I’ve got a true friendship. Yay No That’s where the problem is we keep objectifying things actually and screwing up the world Yeah, but if you don’t have the Category of friendship. I don’t think you can live that out properly Yeah, you can have the category without truth or true Right, you could but you have to be true to a friendship or you don’t have a friendship So you can’t put truth because truth is static And friendship is not static It is this calcifying of of the true into truth That is it’s absolutely detrimental to everything. I want to have the truth. I want the truth of the there’s no truth in the situation It doesn’t exist You could be true to the spirit of your friendship All right, guys, thank you. All right As always see you great