1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,760 Hey, thanks for listening to Reversing Climate Change. 2 00:00:02,920 --> 00:00:06,120 I'm your host, Ross Kenyon. Before we get going, I'd love to 3 00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:07,520 tell you a little bit about our sponsors. 4 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:10,120 They make the show possible. I would love it if you could 5 00:00:10,120 --> 00:00:13,480 listen for just a minute while I tell you about Phillip Lee LLP 6 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:16,200 and our Bonics. If you work in carbon removal, 7 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,080 you very well may have come across Phillip Lee LL PS work. 8 00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:22,760 I originally saw Phillip Lee give a presentation about some 9 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:25,840 of the common provisions within off Take agreements, and I was 10 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:28,400 impressed by the quality of their scholarship and their 11 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:31,600 work, and I'm happy that we're able to stay in touch and 12 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:34,080 finally do this together. I think the law is an 13 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:37,080 underrepresented part of what happens within carbon removal. 14 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,840 We assume it's the background, we assume it's the mechanics. 15 00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:43,280 It actually takes a very smart and creative person to be a good 16 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:44,760 lawyer. I think if you've ever had a bad 17 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,040 lawyer, you know that there's quite a big difference between a 18 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:49,360 good and a bad lawyer. And what's good about Philip 19 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,760 Lee, beyond the good experience that I've had personally, is 20 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:55,880 that they're also just the largest legal team dedicated to 21 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:58,480 the financing and development of carbon projects globally. 22 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:01,560 They actually were awarded Environmental Finances VCM Law 23 00:01:01,560 --> 00:01:04,720 Firm of the Year for each of the last two previous years. 24 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:07,320 They have offices in the US, Europe and the UK. 25 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:10,200 If you have business law needs around nature based carbon 26 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:14,040 projects or engineered ones if you're working with sustainable 27 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:17,280 aviation fuels and the integration with Corcia, 28 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:21,200 anything to do with the VCM generally, Article 6 of the 29 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:24,880 Paris Agreement, the CRCF that's coming out of the EU now. 30 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:28,240 Get in touch with Philip Lee. If you're working in this space, 31 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:31,480 you really do need a good eye to the law. 32 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:34,840 These projects need legal care. There's a lot of structuring 33 00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:37,680 that takes place. It's really not turn key at this 34 00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:39,520 point still. And there's a lot more 35 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:42,160 innovation and creativity that's going to be needed to make sure 36 00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:44,600 that the legal infrastructure that supports carbon removal is 37 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:47,200 there. So link is in the show notes. 38 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:50,760 Go check out Phillip Lee, our other sponsors, our Bionics. 39 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:52,840 Our bionics is great. They've been on the podcast 40 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:54,440 before. I did a show with Lizette the 41 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:57,200 week, which I'll link to in the show notes too if you want to go 42 00:01:57,200 --> 00:01:58,480 listen to that show I did with Lizette. 43 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:02,040 Our bionics is working on forestry in the Baltic states of 44 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:04,240 Europe. Europe used to be much more 45 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:07,240 heavily forced it. The great majority of forestry 46 00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:10,639 projects take place in the global S, which is generally a 47 00:02:10,639 --> 00:02:12,720 good thing. But we also do need forestry to 48 00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:15,720 take place in the EU and in Europe as well. 49 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:18,440 Our Bionics has put out some great research recently about 50 00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:21,480 the state of afore station projects, about the bottlenecks 51 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:24,840 in the industry, why the high quality credits are selling out 52 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,280 far ahead of issuance, what that means for people who want to be 53 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:31,680 buying carbon removal credits for forestry but cannot. 54 00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:34,400 It's a really important set of questions that our Bonics 55 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,040 addresses with Grace. I would recommend you checking 56 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:38,840 out their work and also just checking out our Bonics in 57 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:40,440 general. If you want to support Forestry, 58 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:44,480 give our Bonics a look. Link is in the show notes there. 59 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:48,040 Thanks for listening and now I will go into the show itself. 60 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:50,040 Thanks for your time. Here it is. 61 00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:00,760 Hey, thanks for listening. This is Ross Kenyon. 62 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:02,760 I'm the host of Reversing Climate Change. 63 00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:06,440 If I could ask you for a small favor, if you love this show, 64 00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,280 will you please open your podcast app right now and give 65 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:11,560 the show a great rating and review in Apple Podcast, 66 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:14,680 Spotify, whichever app that you're using that allows for 67 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:17,880 rating and reviews, It helps maybe more than you expect and 68 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:19,680 it would be greatly appreciated by me. 69 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:22,760 Secondarily, if you would like to become a paid subscriber of 70 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:27,160 the show, it's $5 a month, gets you ad free listening, helps you 71 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:30,080 support the show, and there's also the bonus content on 72 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:32,200 Spotify. The link is in the show notes if 73 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:36,000 you'd like to support the show. But in any case, I'm going to 74 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,520 begin talking now. I'm going to begin this show 75 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:42,120 now. This is a monologue show and 76 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:44,080 I've been working on it for so long. 77 00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:48,640 It's one of those shows that feels like it takes 20 years to 78 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:51,360 be an overnight success. I've been processing this 79 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:56,040 seemingly my entire life. One of the ways that I think 80 00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:58,680 through problems is that I like to think in terms of schools of 81 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:02,200 thought. As you may have heard me say, I 82 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,320 think that schools of thought, ways of thinking, have a 83 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:08,960 kaleidoscopic quality to them. They can illuminate some things 84 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:10,920 while they obscure other things. That's a spotlight. 85 00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:15,160 And if you look inside your own soul or intellect or both, I 86 00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:18,440 suspect there are schools of thought that are mutually 87 00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:21,000 contradictory, that somehow coexist. 88 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:25,000 And whenever I've been made aware of this in the past, I 89 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,520 often come back to what Whitman's immortal lines from 90 00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:31,640 Song of Myself, from Leaves of Grass, where he says, Do I 91 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:34,560 contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict 92 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:36,880 myself. I am large, I contain 93 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:40,040 multitudes, and that's how I feel today. 94 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:44,720 I also contain multitudes. Two of these broad schools of 95 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:47,280 thought that I've been influenced by or still think 96 00:04:47,280 --> 00:04:53,080 about on a regular basis are about as far apart as one could 97 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:57,280 conceivably be. The two schools of thought are 98 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:01,200 strategic realism and Christian pacifism. 99 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:07,360 Both of these ways of seeing the world and their subsequent 100 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:11,240 ethical dictates have impacts for climate change and for 101 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:16,280 carbon removal. The more that I read, the more 102 00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:18,320 that I think the more shows that I make. 103 00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:25,480 Somehow it just comes back to what kind of being do I want to 104 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:29,640 be in the world. When I Co founded Nori, I think 105 00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:33,760 I was much closer to a form of strategic realism. 106 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:39,000 Realism assumes defection and the prisoner's dilemma. 107 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:42,200 Realism assumes that people are mostly self interested. 108 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:44,600 They are not altruistically inclined. 109 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:47,320 They're not going to cooperate unless they have to. 110 00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:51,080 They're looking out for #1 and we should design systems that 111 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:54,920 assume for defection. So in Co founding Nori, some of 112 00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:57,760 the early writing and podcast and things that I was thinking 113 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:04,120 about was what do we do given that we want ecological outcomes 114 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:09,080 in a world where most people are self interested, profit 115 00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:13,160 motivated, making rational choices under constraints, not 116 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:17,360 really thinking about large spiritual transcendence. 117 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:21,600 The idea of building a business around people having a spiritual 118 00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:27,120 awakening around the Gaia hypothesis or some sort of 119 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:30,440 thorough going Christian or really any spiritual tradition 120 00:06:30,840 --> 00:06:34,760 seemed very unlikely and it seems safer just to bet on 121 00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:38,360 continued microcosmic self-interest. 122 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:43,440 Geopolitical strategic realism is that same set. 123 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:45,640 I'm sure people listening could take issue with this if you're a 124 00:06:45,640 --> 00:06:48,880 scholar of either of these things, but strategic realism 125 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:52,080 within a geopolitical context carries on some of those 126 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:56,800 microeconomic insights to the state level of saying that 127 00:06:56,800 --> 00:07:00,640 countries are self interested. They might dress up what they're 128 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:04,840 doing with a bunch of rhetoric they might drape on themselves, 129 00:07:04,840 --> 00:07:08,520 Marxism or the Liberal Democratic order. 130 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:12,960 But mostly they're trying to increase their own security, to 131 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:17,760 increase their own economic standing, their own status, and 132 00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:20,880 to make sure that the decisions that they make have implications 133 00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:23,440 for those who may not agree with them but are forced to go along 134 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:25,920 with them. If there's a war, countries want 135 00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:28,920 to win it. In the absence of war, they're 136 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:33,120 aiming to win the peace. Cooperation is useful so long as 137 00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:37,240 it furthers national interest. And you can see this coming out 138 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:40,360 much more lately. On another show I did on Anti 139 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:43,320 Heroes, I was talking about how presidential rhetoric recently 140 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:45,960 has felt much more realist in inclination. 141 00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:49,280 You can argue whether or not the US was ever actually a 142 00:07:49,280 --> 00:07:52,680 strategically liberal country, which is often contrasted with 143 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:57,000 realism, or whether it's liberal tendencies were more a tactical 144 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,920 decision that was superficial layered on top of an underlying 145 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,520 realist orientation and rhetoric. 146 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:07,200 You're hearing lately from the Trump administration of being 147 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:10,200 that and immortal words of Eddie Murphy. 148 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:12,080 What have you done for me lately? 149 00:08:13,040 --> 00:08:18,320 It's not about EU s s responsibility to maintain a Pax 150 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:22,720 Americana, to maintain global trade, to protect the weak, to 151 00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:27,080 chastise the strong. That's not the job of the US. 152 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:30,840 Rhetorically, to what extent it ever was, that is an open 153 00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:34,280 question and people argue about it and will continue to argue 154 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:36,120 about it for a very, very long time. 155 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:39,200 It has a logic that is very attractive. 156 00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:43,080 When I think about the relationship between strategic 157 00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:47,440 realism and liberalism, I'm looking at it from the lens of 158 00:08:47,440 --> 00:08:51,600 being an American, and so long as there is conflict between the 159 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:55,600 US and regional powers or the US and other great powers, I want 160 00:08:55,600 --> 00:08:58,640 to make sure that my country is successful. 161 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:02,880 If there's a war, I certainly don't want my country to lose 162 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:05,480 it. That's probably true of most 163 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:10,320 people listening that in general we would prefer the country of 164 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:12,560 which you are a citizen does not lose a war. 165 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:16,440 That is 1's preference. And once you accept some of 166 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:20,440 those premises or intuitions, or maybe you've never even 167 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:24,760 considered that thought, maybe now's the first time it becomes 168 00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:26,920 pretty obvious that that's the default. 169 00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:29,880 Which by the way, is a fascinating thing because that 170 00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:33,640 was not always the case. In fact, it's often pointed out 171 00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:36,240 that the birth of the modern nation state, you know, it's not 172 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:39,920 just from Westfalia, but it's also more considered to be after 173 00:09:40,240 --> 00:09:43,520 the French Revolution. The people that are considered 174 00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:47,640 to be a nation have a state, their nation state. 175 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:51,680 The people identify with that state, and therefore when the 176 00:09:51,680 --> 00:09:56,560 state goes to war, people give themselves over in a much more 177 00:09:56,560 --> 00:09:58,800 thoroughgoing capacity than they did in the past. 178 00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:03,320 If the people control the state, or even are the state, if you're 179 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:06,640 feeling especially poetic about it, Total War becomes possible. 180 00:10:06,640 --> 00:10:09,480 Total mobilization of the populace and the economy becomes 181 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:13,120 possible in a way that was really not possible when the 182 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:17,680 king was seen as the state and almost as a separate entity from 183 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:20,360 the hoi polloi that are just, you know, farming and trying to 184 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:25,200 stay alive and trying to minimize their interactions with 185 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:27,920 the levers of power. Essentially, wars look 186 00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:29,760 different. They were smaller back then. 187 00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:32,000 They were something that kings got themselves into. 188 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:36,240 But once we had a sort of quasi Liberal Democratic order, and 189 00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:39,920 we're going that way after the French Revolution, that starts 190 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:45,520 to change in a really big way. Once you accept that there's 191 00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:48,200 going to be conflict and you'd like your country to win it, 192 00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:51,200 then the ethical decisions that you have to make are pretty far 193 00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:55,480 downstream. OK, well, does a hyper 194 00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:59,240 aggressive posture in this particular case, further 195 00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:02,680 national interest or not? Does it make us safer or not? 196 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:07,280 There's a logic to that. It leads to some dark places, 197 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:10,440 though, obviously, if you look at the legacy of someone like 198 00:11:10,440 --> 00:11:14,560 Henry Kissinger, who's very famously A geopolitical realist. 199 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:20,440 Robert Kaplan is an interesting conservative who thinks that the 200 00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:23,760 US has pretended for a long time not to be an empire, but 201 00:11:23,760 --> 00:11:28,560 actually owning up to the imperial ambitions that the 202 00:11:28,560 --> 00:11:31,480 country supposes it does not have. 203 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:35,800 What in effect does have what actually make us safer, more 204 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:38,120 honest? We'll be able to understand who 205 00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:41,840 the US is in the world in a much more clear kind of way. 206 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:45,400 And in fact, this could be, on net, a positive thing that 207 00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:49,840 decreases instability, that increases predictability and 208 00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:55,000 trade and makes it clear that there is a world leader that is 209 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,880 willing to fight to maintain the existing order. 210 00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,160 Obviously, if you're listening, you can think of cases where 211 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:02,640 maintaining the existing order is not just. 212 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:05,040 You can't just take a snapshot of how things are at any one 213 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:09,280 moment and say perfect justice exists and we're done and that's 214 00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:12,720 it. But if you accept those sort of 215 00:12:12,720 --> 00:12:18,000 core ideas, the rest broadly falls out, in my opinion. 216 00:12:19,040 --> 00:12:22,320 On the other hand, it's a big hand too. 217 00:12:23,480 --> 00:12:26,680 Several years ago I read the Bible cover to cover for the 218 00:12:26,680 --> 00:12:29,560 first time. I reread the New Testament. 219 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:34,200 I read loads and loads of secondary sources which are 220 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,200 necessary, can make sense of any. 221 00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:41,200 Any book sufficiently old and dense just requires it. 222 00:12:42,360 --> 00:12:46,000 But perhaps the first thing I did that really knocked my socks 223 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:52,760 off is reading the Gospels. You don't have to be religiously 224 00:12:52,760 --> 00:12:58,960 inclined to do this, obviously, but I think it's one of those 225 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,360 things that everyone should do. I mean, the Bible's without a 226 00:13:01,360 --> 00:13:03,840 doubt the most. I mean, it's the book, the 227 00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:07,120 Bible, without a doubt the most impactful book that's ever 228 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:10,120 existed on the planet. It's the most cited, the most 229 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:13,680 well known for world historical reasons, for literary reasons 230 00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:17,440 one should know. And reading the Gospels, 231 00:13:17,560 --> 00:13:21,720 especially Matthew, chapters 5 and six of the Sermon on the 232 00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:29,680 Mount, just blew me away. Just really, really wowed me. 233 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:34,880 And one of the the senses of, of wonder that I had in reading 234 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:38,640 these books was that the difference between the 235 00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:44,000 Christianity of the Gospels, what Jesus is teaching in there 236 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:47,360 versus what you see in the world is so remarkably disappointing. 237 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:52,360 To the extent that I think if you saw much of what passes for 238 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:55,560 Christianity in the world and you were an alien and you had 239 00:13:55,560 --> 00:13:58,840 just read the Bible, you would be flabbergasted. 240 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,880 You'd be like, what is the connection between this book and 241 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:07,320 what I see in the world? Mostly because what I 242 00:14:07,320 --> 00:14:12,760 experienced in reading the gospel in particular is how 243 00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:20,560 wildly impractical it is. It is not a practical philosophy 244 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:24,520 seemingly at all. It is extremely rigorous. 245 00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:27,560 It is very much not of this world, in my opinion. 246 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:32,160 It's also one of the reasons why some of the earliest works that 247 00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:37,120 I read after I read the Bible was Leo Tolstoy's religious 248 00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:40,480 writings. Books like My Religion or The 249 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:45,880 Kingdom of God is Within You really struck me because it 250 00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:48,920 points to this in such a loud and clear way. 251 00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:51,960 In fact, if you do read the New Testament, one of the things 252 00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:56,000 that will likely strike you is that the gospel is extremely 253 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:57,680 clear. Granted, it's cryptic. 254 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:02,760 Jesus often works in parables. Some of the ethical lessons are 255 00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:06,560 extremely counterintuitive. In particular, things like 256 00:15:07,480 --> 00:15:10,800 parable of the talents, The prodigal son is probably the 257 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,440 story that often causes the most consternation among people that 258 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:18,200 I I know. It's sense of justice is very 259 00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:21,480 much out of step with what we would expect to happen in the 260 00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:23,880 world. But Tolstoy, as you probably 261 00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:26,680 know, is a very well known pacifist. 262 00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:32,360 And just look at Jesus's extremely plain words. 263 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:35,640 How many times should we forgive someone who sins against us? 264 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:41,680 Not 7 times, but 70 * 7 times, which as far as I know is a 265 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:44,760 Bronze Age way of saying infinite times. 266 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:48,040 Can can people multiply that in those days? 267 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:53,160 I don't know, probably not. And of turning the other cheek 268 00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:58,400 and resist not evil and ethical dictates like this that are very 269 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:02,960 clearly meant to discourage the use of force to solve problems. 270 00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:06,480 This is an inappropriate way for people who aim to live a 271 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:08,640 spiritual life to be solving problems. 272 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,280 It's OK, you read that. There's not a lot of caveatting, 273 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:15,400 you know, there's no footnotes that you you read and say, oh, 274 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:18,400 wow, there's all these exceptions for war or if someone 275 00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:22,520 does something really mean, it's just stated, this is the way 276 00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:25,200 that it is. Then you wonder, like, why is it 277 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:28,560 just the Amish and Mennonites and Quakers or the Catholic 278 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:32,440 Worker movement or like a couple of Christian organizations that 279 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:35,280 have made pacifism such an important part of their 280 00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:36,600 religious feeling and their beliefs. 281 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:41,320 It's really not that common. And then if you keep going 282 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:45,000 though, and you get through the epistles and especially the 283 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:51,440 Apostle Paul, so much of the epistles is Christianity going 284 00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:58,640 from this weird, as far as I can tell, anti organizational, very 285 00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:04,880 flat, potentially anarchistic, pacifistic set of believers into 286 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:07,200 something that needs administration. 287 00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:11,200 And so as Paul has these churches throughout Asia Minor 288 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:15,880 and Greece, there's all these letters of him trying to just 289 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:19,960 like solve disputes and trying to organize people to live 290 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,000 together. And The thing is, they're not 291 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,640 living like the desert fathers who are living as monks in the 292 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:26,720 desert. This comes later. 293 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:30,840 Or groups like the Shakers and upstate New York where, you 294 00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:33,520 know, they're not really supposed to have families. 295 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:37,920 These are people who are trying to live normal ish lives, as far 296 00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:41,280 as I can tell, but also adopt Christian principles. 297 00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:45,760 And so he's weighing in on all sorts of matters. 298 00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:48,080 Potentially the most famous or or one of the most famous 299 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:53,440 epistles is Galatians, where Paul is talking to the 300 00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:57,880 Galatians, as a matter of fact, about how Christianity is not 301 00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:01,120 merely for ethnic Jews. And you don't actually have to 302 00:18:01,120 --> 00:18:04,280 be Jewish to become a Christian. You don't need to keep some of 303 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:06,560 the Old Testament rules like circumcision. 304 00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:09,200 Galatians is famous for. You can be circumcised of the 305 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:12,960 heart, but not of the body. Christianity can be seen as a 306 00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:16,840 way of universalizing Judaism beyond its ethnic bounds. 307 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:19,520 That's one way to potentially conceive of this world 308 00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:22,280 historical movement. The point of this, though, is 309 00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:27,760 that Paul's work is really difficult and he has to make 310 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:31,320 rulings about whether or not women can speak in church in 311 00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:33,400 Timothy. How should divorce work? 312 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:35,200 And can you remarry? And like, what if someone 313 00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:38,840 remarries multiple times but their spouses keep dying when 314 00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:41,520 they get to heaven? Who's actually their spouse? 315 00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:46,680 Questions that are, I don't know if there's like a sense I have 316 00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:50,680 in me that if you are Christian or you're even willing to like 317 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:52,520 give Jesus the benefit of the doubt here. 318 00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:56,160 If it was important, Jesus probably should have covered it. 319 00:18:56,200 --> 00:19:01,560 If he is the Son of God and it was not covered, you don't need 320 00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:03,880 to spend a huge amount of time worrying about it. 321 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:06,240 The important stuff he got out if you believe in that. 322 00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:10,000 But Paul just has all of this hassle trying to 323 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,360 institutionalized what I think is an anti institutional 324 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:16,520 religion. One of my favorite stories. 325 00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:18,840 I don't even know where I got this, but I've been obsessed 326 00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:20,320 with it. I've told it on a couple shows. 327 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:23,840 So forgive me if you've heard it before, but many of the monastic 328 00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:27,600 orders are considered centabetic, which is a crazy 329 00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:29,840 word that I'm I'm happy to know and throw into casual 330 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:33,000 conversation on a regular basis. But centabetic means that they 331 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,120 live together. So monastic orders often times 332 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:39,920 live in a community of other monks who have taken their holy 333 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:44,080 orders. And in some cases, monasteries 334 00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:47,600 were extremely prosperous. They had businesses, they've 335 00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:52,160 been brewing, you know, they, they would function in some 336 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:54,800 cases kind of like normal society. 337 00:19:55,680 --> 00:19:57,200 It depends. There's many different orders 338 00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:59,720 and at different times in history, different orders were 339 00:19:59,920 --> 00:20:02,920 more or less strict. And that's beyond the scope of 340 00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,360 this. But one of my favorite stories 341 00:20:05,360 --> 00:20:08,440 is that. The people who've become Saints 342 00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:12,600 are not always very good at behaving cinematically. 343 00:20:13,120 --> 00:20:18,560 Saints are often times those who are extremely hard to keep 344 00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:23,040 inside of institutional bounds. And the story that I love is 345 00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:25,720 that a future St. And I wish. 346 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,480 If you know who I'm talking about and where I got this from, 347 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:31,400 please let me know. But someone who later achieved 348 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:34,440 sainthood, or was at least, you know, on the road to sainthood 349 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:40,440 for the purposes of this story, was a monk, but kept going out 350 00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:44,000 into the world and giving away his cloak. 351 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,400 And we just end up naked because he would give his cloak to 352 00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:48,920 someone who was colder than he was. 353 00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:54,360 And the Abbott who governed the monastery kept having to come 354 00:20:54,360 --> 00:20:59,320 back to this future St. be like, Hey, I can't keep paying for you 355 00:20:59,360 --> 00:21:02,520 to get new cloaks all the time. Every time we get you a new 356 00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:05,040 cloak, you just go and give it to someone else. 357 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:09,200 And the Saint would say, well, I'm I'm supposed to give 358 00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:12,920 everything I have to the poor and follow Jesus. 359 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:16,320 And I would be like, no, not like that. 360 00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:19,400 Like no, you're supposed to. It's better for Jesus if you 361 00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:23,400 just stay within the the monastery, you know, do your 362 00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:25,680 gardening. Maybe you can brew some 363 00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:28,240 chartreuse and we can sell it, whatever, but you're not 364 00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:30,360 supposed to just keep giving your stuff away. 365 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:33,600 And the saying is just like what the Jesus just says, you're 366 00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:35,000 supposed to give all your stuff away. 367 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,320 You're that's what I'm trying to do here and just just driving 368 00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:42,880 the Abbot up a tree. And that's a lot of how I see 369 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,080 the relationship between the Gospels and the epistles that 370 00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,000 Paul is trying to institutionalized this force. 371 00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,320 But a lot of what I I see is the the goodness of Christianity. 372 00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:54,960 And this is true whether or not you are a Christian or you're 373 00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:57,240 just trying to understand what is the importance of this 374 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:02,880 philosophy for the world is an anti institutional, irrational, 375 00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:05,320 exuberant force of love and forgiveness. 376 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:08,360 You're supposed to love without bound. 377 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:11,560 You're supposed to be extremely forgiving to the point where 378 00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:15,000 it's enabling a bad behavior. In some cases, it's actually 379 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:20,920 really hard to forgive 70 * 7 times if you've ever had any 380 00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:25,400 interaction with someone who is an addict or someone who has 381 00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:28,320 problems. This amount of forgiveness can 382 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:31,880 cause serious problems. People will occasionally take 383 00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:37,320 advantage of the goodness of this bountiful availability of 384 00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:41,520 forgiveness. It requires meekness in cases 385 00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:48,160 where to stand up for someone is potentially the ethical choice 386 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:51,120 to make. I actually just reread. 387 00:22:51,120 --> 00:22:52,760 I hadn't read it in probably a decade. 388 00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,320 Books sometimes just find you at exactly the right time and I was 389 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,600 really happy for this. But I just reread The 390 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,320 Autobiography of Malcolm X, which is a fascinating book for 391 00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:03,560 a bunch of reasons and you should totally read it if you 392 00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:07,280 haven't read it before. Malcolm X's and the Nation of 393 00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:11,240 Islam's criticisms of Christianity are pretty much all 394 00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:14,320 all on this front, that Christianity was weaponized 395 00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:17,320 against the enslaved peoples of Africa who are brought to 396 00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,000 America. And they were taught that, you 397 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:23,720 know, you get your pie in the sky after you die, and your job 398 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:27,360 is to be meek on earth and to obey the slave master and resist 399 00:23:27,360 --> 00:23:29,200 not evil. And that means do whatever 400 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:33,000 people tell you to, and your reward for meekness is coming 401 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,560 later. It's hard to listen to someone 402 00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,040 like Malcolm X talk about this and how it was used against 403 00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:42,000 them, and to not understand the anger at Christianity and the 404 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:46,760 desire for a less forgiving, a more defensive spiritual 405 00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,720 posture. One of my favorite movies and 406 00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,360 potentially the best Christian film. 407 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:55,120 It's a tough, tough call, but it's up there. 408 00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,080 If you haven't seen Terrence Malick's A Hidden Life, Not only 409 00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,400 is it just beautiful, the man loves grass. 410 00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:03,200 He's always got wind blowing through grass. 411 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:08,960 It's a great story about an Austrian Catholic farmer during 412 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:13,520 World War Two who refuses to take a loyalty oath to Hitler 413 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:19,280 and basically everyone in his life, including his wife and 414 00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,040 everyone in the community and his lawyer. 415 00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:24,200 Sorry, there's there's spoilers here. 416 00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,240 But also it's it's like written into the synopsis of the film. 417 00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:30,800 He's on the road to sainthood. You know, you know, if you're on 418 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:32,720 the road to sainthood, you probably something not so nice 419 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,320 probably happened. But basically everyone is trying 420 00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:41,040 to convince him that, OK, if you just swear the oath, they're 421 00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:43,640 going to give you hospital duty. You won't actually have to pick 422 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:49,800 up arms and fight for the Third Reich if you just go along and 423 00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,120 swear the oath. It'll be OK for you. 424 00:24:52,120 --> 00:24:54,600 But if you don't swear it, they're literally going to put 425 00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:56,360 you to death. Like you will die for this. 426 00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:02,240 And it is sort of just known if you're watching the film that 427 00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,800 this person is on the road to martyrdom for this. 428 00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,720 And for whatever reason, I suspect it's also from the 429 00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:12,000 Sermon on the Mount of let your yay mean yay and your nay mean 430 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:13,360 nay. Do not swear oaths. 431 00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,920 I'm pretty sure that's what started it, but it's also 432 00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:18,920 broader than that. He just does not think the Nazi 433 00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:22,680 order is worthy of his Christian support and so refuses to swear 434 00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,320 the oath and is put to death for it. 435 00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:30,720 And there's a sense that you can watch a hidden life and think 436 00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:35,880 this person is is a lunatic. You abandoned your wife and your 437 00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:40,800 children to make some point that did not stop the war. 438 00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:46,440 All you did was inconvenience and cause grief to those you 439 00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:51,440 care most about. There is also a sense in which 440 00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,920 what he did was amazingly courageous that sets an example 441 00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:00,800 for all of us that this is what is required of those who alleged 442 00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,680 themselves To be Christian is to be this kind of stick in the 443 00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:09,600 mud, to believe in what you're doing and to not make 444 00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:15,160 compromises with what 1 believes is actively evil in this way and 445 00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,120 to be willing to go like a lamb to the slaughter for it. 446 00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,400 It's a beautiful film. It's one of those films that 447 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,040 I've seen a couple of times and I come back to, I'm just like, 448 00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,040 how do I feel about this? Because I'm, I'm a family man 449 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,240 too. What, what does that mean for 450 00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:33,080 someone like me? What, what does faith require? 451 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:40,600 I spent so much of my life as a type of jaded idealist 452 00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,880 essentially. I talked about this on the Anti 453 00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:45,800 Heroes podcast I did not long ago. 454 00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,360 And if you haven't heard that, I'll put a link in the Spotify 455 00:26:49,360 --> 00:26:51,360 section and then the show notes so you can go check it out. 456 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,880 On TV trips. It's called default to good. 457 00:26:56,040 --> 00:27:00,840 There's a lot of protagonists who find themselves that when 458 00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,960 they were younger they believed in something really beautiful 459 00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:09,800 and then they got stuck into reality, quote UN quote 460 00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:13,720 maturity. And in this maturity there's 461 00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:20,640 trade-offs and hard decisions and you know, knock on effects, 462 00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,400 2nd order effects, 3rd order effects that need to be 463 00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:28,440 considered. And I think a lot of smart 464 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:35,640 people end up in this space where I made a meme recently. 465 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,360 I'll actually, I think I'm going to make it as the landscape 466 00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:43,240 image for the show. So if you look at it on Spotify, 467 00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,400 you'll see it. But there's an IQ bell curve 468 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:50,680 where the low IQ and the high IQ person are saying the same thing 469 00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:52,600 and then the person in the middle is screaming about 470 00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,280 something. I recently read John Green's 471 00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:59,000 book Everything is Tuberculosis. A friend of mine really like 472 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,440 this tuberculosis book and I read it and it's a cool history. 473 00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,480 There's some great stories in there, but there's not a lot of 474 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,880 numbers. The book is pretty simple, which 475 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,840 is just no one should die of a preventable illness. 476 00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,360 And I think that's a low and the high end of that meme I was just 477 00:28:19,360 --> 00:28:21,000 talking about. There's no one should die of a 478 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:22,840 preventable illness. And then the people in the 479 00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,400 middle of the IQ distribution are saying, no, we have to make 480 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,320 sure that pharmaceutical companies maintain their profit 481 00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,600 margins, that they continue to develop new drugs and blah, 482 00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,000 blah, blah. And I think for a long time, I 483 00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,840 ended up in the strategic realist position, which is very 484 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,800 much located in the middle of that distribution where I am 485 00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:48,800 thinking about like, OK, but no, big pharmaceutical companies 486 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,120 aren't making a lot of money, then they're not going to invest 487 00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,120 in new drugs. And that will be on that bad and 488 00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,920 maybe more people will die and, and and so on. 489 00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:01,760 And I feel that to be very much akin to the realist position on 490 00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:06,000 the global balance of power and how I want to make sure that 491 00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,280 we're on the winning side, that the US remains the world hegemon 492 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:13,120 and things of that nature, which is to say that there's some 493 00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,400 serious truth to that position. Like it is not that it is not 494 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,240 true. There is a logic to it that is 495 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:23,640 extremely tight. But I also want to default to 496 00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,080 good. The characters that I admire in 497 00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,240 films that have done this are people like I think Rick from 498 00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,840 Casablanca is probably the most well known one I could cite 499 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,560 here. Where, you know, when Rick was 500 00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:40,120 young he was involved in the French Resistance and believed 501 00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:44,120 in fighting fascism in Europe. And then he gave up on it, his 502 00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:48,080 heart broken. Start some gin bar in 503 00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:51,680 Casablanca. And by the end of the film, 504 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,120 rejoins the resistance and believe in something again. 505 00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,840 And I think this valley of despair, this middle ground 506 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:04,760 where you're focused on tactical trade off type decisions, loses 507 00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,040 sight of the fact that no one should die from a preventable 508 00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,360 illness. That fascism is not 509 00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:16,640 inappropriate political opinion, that children should not be 510 00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:21,240 dying for want of food. I took a graduate seminar in the 511 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,520 Israeli Arab conflict is what the the course was called and I 512 00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,440 learned a lot. It was a great course on on 513 00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:32,120 history and politics and I ended up coming out of there almost 514 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,680 like more confused or having less moral clarity than I went 515 00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:35,320 into it. Credit. 516 00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:39,880 This is, I don't even know, 15 years ago at this point, maybe 517 00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:44,280 longer. But at this point, I think the 518 00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,840 bigger political concerns, like I don't necessarily need to have 519 00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,040 all of the tactical decisions worked out of the mechanics of 520 00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,400 how peace should work or how things should happen. 521 00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:59,560 My position is basically that if children are dying in 522 00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,240 particular, that it needs to stop. 523 00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:08,960 We've made some kind of wrong turn into tactical decisions 524 00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:10,880 that take away from the fact that children are dying. 525 00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,120 And I find out to be the same about the tuberculosis case that 526 00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,840 I mentioned. Or in any sort of conflict where 527 00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,400 what we can all agree on are innocence are being harmed. 528 00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,720 And whoever at the time is doing that is the person that I'm 529 00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,360 going to be asking to stop. And recovering this kind of 530 00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:35,320 moral clarity is something that I've been recovering over time. 531 00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,120 That's one of the reasons why that radical vision of 532 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:41,840 Christianity is so appealing to me, because there are also cases 533 00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:47,600 where this type of forgiveness, this type of pacifism will not 534 00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,560 lead necessarily to the most expedient outcome. 535 00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,520 It might not even lead to the most immediately just outcome. 536 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:59,720 But I believe in that sort of romantic vision that is 537 00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:05,880 extremely demanding, extremely peace oriented, and I want to 538 00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:07,240 believe that. I don't want to get sucked back 539 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:11,120 into this realist orientation. I only have one life to live 540 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,280 here. I want to make sure that I spend 541 00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,680 my time believing in things that may even run the risk of being 542 00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:21,480 naive, and I am more OK with running the risk of being naive 543 00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:25,160 at this point. I don't think there's any other 544 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,760 great way to live life at this point, and now is the time for 545 00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:30,880 big visions of what has gone wrong. 546 00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:34,600 A lot of the ways of thinking incrementally and realistically 547 00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,960 about the world have led us essentially to where we are now. 548 00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,440 That's one of the reasons why, if you've listened to the shows 549 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:45,120 recently, you will hear Les Miserables brought up over and 550 00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:49,960 over again, because I love the capital R romantic vision of 551 00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,120 society and the individual. Someone like John Valjean, I 552 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,400 think, is a wonderful character even in the absence of great 553 00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,000 complexity because he has so much to say for the kind of 554 00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,600 world that we actually do want to create and spend time 555 00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,200 creating. We should be practicing 556 00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:11,000 forgiveness and we should be trying to make amends for who we 557 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:12,600 were before we got to this moment. 558 00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,880 But what the world especially needs is not more realism. 559 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,600 What I believe it needs more of is more mercy, more love, more 560 00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:26,040 forgiveness. And I think a lot of that power 561 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:31,600 can come from the sort of non Pauline version of Christianity, 562 00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:37,440 which is just read the gospel if you have it within you to bring 563 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,400 some of that radical forgiveness and love into the world. 564 00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,520 That's something that you can hold your head up high about. 565 00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,240 There are cases where it will be irrational, but I have more 566 00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,120 respect for being irrational and erring on the side of love than 567 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,840 not. And if you're large and contain 568 00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,440 multitudes here, that's OK. I do too. 569 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:09,280 I love military history. I, I, I read a lot of foreign 570 00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:14,800 affairs, military affairs, diplomatic history, the history 571 00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,280 of wars and geopolitical jockeying. 572 00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,719 I love that sort of thing. I think I'm probably among the 573 00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:26,480 people who have re read and re watched shows like the Pacific 574 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,960 and Band of Brothers. Probably as much as close. 575 00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,719 I'm like within the top percentile almost without a 576 00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:33,920 doubt. Definitely for the Pacific and 577 00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,280 books like ENW told Pacific War Trilogy, which he's done on the 578 00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:39,960 podcast. And I think it's just an 579 00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,040 amazing, amazing story. And I'm, I'm endlessly 580 00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:49,719 fascinated by especially the war in the Pacific, but in military 581 00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,719 matters in general. And that exists alongside my 582 00:34:53,719 --> 00:35:00,720 desire to be a member of the chaotic good orientation that I 583 00:35:00,720 --> 00:35:02,920 think is Christianity's natural tendency. 584 00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:08,880 We've attempted to put guardrails around it in a way 585 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,120 that I don't I don't think serves it at all. 586 00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,960 I think domesticated Christianity is really confusing 587 00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,560 because it does demand us to give no thought for the Morrow 588 00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:21,880 and sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 589 00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,320 And you know, give away your your stuff. 590 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:27,280 And there's all these stories about, I don't know, I'm just 591 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,280 going to quote a bunch of things that you, but you know, let the 592 00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,000 dead bury the dead people who want to follow Jesus, but they 593 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,440 have to go to a funeral first. Or they keep all of the 594 00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:37,720 commandments and all of the teachings of Jesus, except they 595 00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:40,080 have a lot of money. And Jesus says to, well, give 596 00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:41,960 away all that money, pick up your cross and follow me. 597 00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,840 And they go, not so sure about that. 598 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,480 I'm not, I'm not going to, that's a little inconvenient for 599 00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:52,080 me. And I think quite a lot of the 600 00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,120 reason why Christianity feels so disappointing in in the world at 601 00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,080 large is that we tried to domesticate it. 602 00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,640 We tried to make it so that you can live a normal family life 603 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,040 and be a radically loving anti material force. 604 00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:07,400 I just don't think it makes that much sense. 605 00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,840 I think it makes way more sense to take the words at face value 606 00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:19,480 that Christianity endorses a celibate anti material spiritual 607 00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:21,920 orientation. Lay up not your riches here on 608 00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:23,560 earth. Mods are going to eat that 609 00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,240 stuff. Invest your time into the things 610 00:36:26,240 --> 00:36:28,000 that will keep forever of the soul. 611 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:30,560 If I can only leave you with one thing here. 612 00:36:30,720 --> 00:36:34,480 Just like go read the book of Matthew, you can skip over the 613 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:37,120 1st chapter. That's all genealogy like. 614 00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:38,440 Especially the Sermon on the mount. 615 00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:42,080 Matthew 5 through 7. Just read the Sermon on the 616 00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:48,040 Mount and then think about how plainly spoken it is and how 617 00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:49,920 different that is from what what you see in the world. 618 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,080 One of my favorite stories on mercy that I'll interject here. 619 00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,440 It comes from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 620 00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:03,000 Grushenka tells a story about how she had heard from a peasant 621 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,520 woman in her girlhood or, or something like that, that there 622 00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:13,200 is a a woman who is sinful, real, unlikable person that had 623 00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:18,640 never done a single good deed in her life as far as anyone could 624 00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,480 tell, which is bad from start to finish. 625 00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,120 And so when this person dies, they, they go to hell. 626 00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:27,120 This woman who never did anything good is in hell. 627 00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,920 And so when this this woman dies, her guardian angels 628 00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:36,480 intercede for her and go to God and say there has to be some 629 00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:40,120 good deed here. There has to be something that I 630 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,640 can offer that will redeem her from hell. 631 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,960 And God says, OK, if you can, if you can find something, then 632 00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,120 then let me know. So the guardian Angel goes and 633 00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,040 audit this this woman's entire life and finds out that there's 634 00:37:55,040 --> 00:38:00,800 one single thing and that's that once she gave away an onion to a 635 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,120 beggar and that was her single good deed. 636 00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:09,160 So the Angel tells God and God says OK, lower the onion into 637 00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,520 the lake of fire and try to pull her up. 638 00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,360 The woman grabs hold of it and it looks like it's working. 639 00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,480 The onion is being pulled up by the guardian Angel. 640 00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:22,240 The woman is getting up, but as people start to see that she's 641 00:38:22,240 --> 00:38:25,200 being pulled out of the lake of fire, they start holding onto 642 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,280 her legs in the hopes that they might be able to be brought up, 643 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,480 too. And she starts kicking them 644 00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,600 away, kicks them in the face and says, God, this is my onion. 645 00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,040 I did this, not you. And then at that point, the 646 00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,400 onion breaks and she falls, and everyone falls back into the 647 00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:41,320 lake of fire. And that's a beautiful story, 648 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,720 but it has that mean, ironic twist where this woman could 649 00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:48,320 have been redeemed. But even in this last moment, 650 00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:52,960 Stole was so oriented to herself that she could not be redeemed. 651 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,720 And it was her choice that isolated her from this 652 00:38:55,720 --> 00:38:59,800 forgiveness. I like a version of this story, 653 00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:05,800 though, that is that she accepted with grace, or in fact, 654 00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,560 everyone there is able to be pulled up by her and be forgiven 655 00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:14,520 by proxy and just sort of all come along into forgiveness like 656 00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,040 this. That's the vision that I broadly 657 00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:21,960 have of Christian forgiveness. I want it to be that huge. 658 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,440 I want it to be that big. I think there's room in the 659 00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:28,720 world for more of it, even if we want to cut back against me and 660 00:39:28,720 --> 00:39:32,520 say like at some point some things are just unforgivable and 661 00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:34,600 we shouldn't tolerate this at all. 662 00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,960 I dialed it up to 10, and you want to turn it down to 8? 663 00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,280 OK. But right now we're at like A2. 664 00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,160 I'd like to see a lot more forgiveness in the world. 665 00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,080 And I find that onion store, I come back to it all the time 666 00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,000 whenever I'm struggling to forgive someone, whenever I'm 667 00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,600 stuck on. Can I enact mercy at this micro 668 00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,440 level within my own life? I'm thinking about that onion. 669 00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,000 I'm like, can I find the onion for this person that I can lower 670 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,480 down to them that will help me redeem them, at least in my own 671 00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:04,400 mind? I really love that about mercy. 672 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,320 I think the world does need so much more mercy and it's it's 673 00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:12,520 often so absent. I hope you enjoyed this show. 674 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,920 It's unusual. It's not like many other 675 00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,800 podcasts within the show's Canon, I don't think. 676 00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,440 I care about these ideas. I think about them a lot. 677 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,000 They get referenced sometimes, but maybe not to the degree to 678 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:35,320 which I might like them to be. I'd just like to pull all of you 679 00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:41,680 a little farther away from focusing so, so hard on the very 680 00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:46,320 seductive strategic realist orientation. 681 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:51,160 And if you've grown jaded over time, and once again I'm telling 682 00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:53,920 you it's OK to believe again, you can come back. 683 00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:58,080 You don't have to be so practical. 684 00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,560 You can believe in things again that are even foolish to say 685 00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,960 aloud. I'll go first so I can be the 686 00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,040 fool who takes all of the arrows ahead of you. 687 00:41:08,720 --> 00:41:14,000 But I think it's important to be simple in this way, be merciful 688 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:20,360 in this way, and allow yourself to be maybe a little bit of a 689 00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:27,080 fool, A fool for something that is big. 690 00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,560 I think we need big ideas, big beliefs, big hearts. 691 00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:38,440 And I don't want to be so guarded and so focused on what 692 00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,520 if everyone in the world is selfish and we need to adapt to 693 00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,840 their selfishness so that we can solve this problem. 694 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,000 I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that. 695 00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,960 If you made it this far, maybe you feel a little bit like me 696 00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:55,880 and also don't want to be that or feel that. 697 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,480 Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this show. 698 00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,240 Thanks for letting me be real with you. 699 00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,480 Not everyone's going to love a show like this, but if you stuck 700 00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:09,440 it out with me, I appreciate you. 701 00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:13,000 You could be somewhere else. As I said earlier, you're not. 702 00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:18,000 You hung in there with me. Thanks for listening.